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described Clinton’s second debate behavior, in a recent interview with Alex Jones, the syndicated radio host and proprietor of InfoWars, a website that thrives on far-right conspiracy theories.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump believes there’s a global conspiracy to stop him from becoming president – but it’s not the first time he’s pushed unfounded theories. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
“Look, of course she was jacked up on something. I assume some kind of methamphetamine.”
[It’s time for TV news to stop playing the stooge for Donald Trump]
It sounds like a perfect circle of disinformation: Stone provides unfounded allegations to InfoWars, and lately, Trump has been using InfoWars like a news source.
Let’s be clear: If InfoWars is news, the yowling of feral cats is classical music, and Trump University the best place to invest your hard-saved tuition dollars.
InfoWars was founded by Jones, a purveyor of various crackpot notions, including that the Sandy Hook massacre of tiny children in 2012 was a government hoax intended to promote gun control. (It was all done with actors, Jones claims.)
And the California drought? Made up. InfoWars is also a great place to go for 9/11 “truther” rumors; Jones proudly calls himself a founder of those.
But Trump seems to be a fan: He did an interview with Jones last year, telling the host his “reputation is amazing.” Which is indeed true, but not in the complimentary way Trump intended it to be taken.
[What could a future Trump TV venture look like? Tune in here.]
“InfoWars is poisonous, and its journalistic value is negative,” said Rick Perlstein, the historian who has chronicled the modern conservative movement in books about Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. He called the circularity of Trump referring to Roger Stone’s interview in InfoWars as “a burlesque version” of Dick Cheney’s planting a story in the New York Times in the run-up to the Iraq War and then citing that story on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Perlstein wrote about the Jones/Trump connection in Salon in the spring, calling Jones “a lunatic,” observing that Trump was citing Jones’s denials of a California drought.
It’s well known, of course, that Trump increasingly is campaigning against what he calls “the corrupt media,” slamming news organizations for “false stories, all made up... lies, lies.” He calls reporters “scum” and insists that they are all tools of the Clinton campaign.
Still, he makes a few exceptions. He borrowed his top campaign executive, Stephen Bannon, from Breitbart News, the far-right website which is practically a wing of his campaign, often referred to as Trump Pravda.
[When Trump went low, Steve Bannon found a new direction: Lower.]
He has repeatedly suggested that the National Enquirer, the supermarket tabloid that sometimes pays for news stories, should have won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the existence of former North Carolina senator John Edwards’s love child. Trump also used the Enquirer as the basis of his discredited claim that Ted Cruz’s father was linked to the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
The Enquirer returns the love — it’s one of the very few newspapers in the nation that have endorsed Trump for president, while many papers that have never backed a Democrat are endorsing Clinton or at least warning their readers off Trump. (The Enquirer’s chief executive, David Pecker, and Trump reportedly have a personal friendship.)
And in recent weeks, Trump has retreated almost entirely to Fox News, largely to the open arms of Sean Hannity, who has taken to professing that he’s not a journalist.
Given all this, where does the Republican nominee for president get his news? I asked Jason Miller, a senior communications official for Trump, that question by phone and email Tuesday.
And, I asked, does the candidate think as highly of Alex Jones and InfoWars as it seems? There’s been no response, but the evidence is there for all to see.
Trump’s embrace of the worst in American journalism, and his scorn for the best, is absurd. But it’s not actually funny.
If he loses on Nov. 8 and his next act truly does turn out to be Trump TV — filled with wild-eyed conspiracy theories, checkbook journalism and conjecture presented as fact — no one can say he didn’t warn us.
For more by Margaret Sullivan, visit wapo.st/sullivanJust moments after former presidential candidate John Edwards endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) for president, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) vowed to "continue the fight" for Edwards' endorsement.
"My friends, I will fight for the endorsement of John Edwards, even if it takes all summer," she told supporters in Louisville, Kentucky. "I have not begun to fight for this endorsement!"
The New York senator appeared to brush off Mr. Edwards' endorsement of Sen. Obama, saying, "I don't know what that has to do with anything."
While Sen. Clinton acknowledged that Sen. Edwards had made a joint appearance with Sen. Obama in which he endorsed the Illinois senator, she said, "If you think that's going to make me give up trying to get John Edwards' endorsement, you've got another thing coming."
She said that she was also "unconcerned" that Sen. Edwards had recently gotten a new phone number and not shared it with her.
"Anyone who believes that I'm going to be deterred by an obstacle like that doesn't know what I'm made of," she said. "Mark my words, I am going to get that endorsement."
Sen. Clinton's aides refused to comment on her quest for Edwards' endorsement, saying that they were too busy hiding copies of this week's Time magazine from her.In 1890, William Butler Yeats joined a recently founded magical fraternity called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. For years he remained a dedicated member. (When the Golden Dawn split up, about a decade later, he joined a splinter group called the Stella Matutina.) The Golden Dawn took the ritual finery of Freemasonry and synthesized it with a kind of mystical Christianity, Jewish Kabbalah, and the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, an invented figure from late antiquity. The order’s tools for attaining spiritual insight included ceremonial magic and tarot cards; the latter were particularly important to Yeats. His poetry is full of tarot imagery—often hidden, the scholar Kathleen Raine argued, as the secret society would have expected.
This is an aspect of Yeats’s thinking that some readers find difficult to take seriously. Seamus Heaney, for instance, “was dismissive of this occult side of Yeats’ work,” as Christopher Benfey noted last year in The New York Review of Books. Heaney wasn’t alone. Secular readers may forgive an artist’s Catholicism, say, because organized religion is “serious and cultural,” the writer and critic Jessa Crispin told me recently—but the occult, she added, is just “someone who spent too much time in their room alone and went to a weird place.”
Crispin, who founded the popular literary blog Bookslut, in 2002, is now risking ridicule herself, with the publication of her second book, “The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide to an Inspired Life.” The book is a manual intended to show that the tarot deck, primarily regarded as belonging to the domain of the esoteric, can be useful for anyone engaged in creative pursuits. Crispin said that, among her close friends and family, she is already known as a “weirdo mystic” but that publicly coming out of the spiritual closet may change how she’s seen by those who know her only as a writer. “N+1 is never going to hire me now,” she joked.
Yeats is not the only respected writer to make use of the tarot: Italo Calvino, Salvador Dali, and even Charles Williams, a novelist and theologian who belonged to the Inklings literary circle, also drew on the cards. Still, the cards remain firmly associated with the occult—and, while Crispin is sympathetic to that tradition, she aims to bring tarot to those who may be skeptical of that way of thinking. Her references are more literary than arcane. In this way, “The Creative Tarot” is not so different from her previous book, “The Dead Ladies Project,” an account of her journey through Europe and beyond in search of meaning in exile, via the lives of earlier writers and artists who also found themselves adrift.
Crispin presents her guide to the tarot deck alongside the stories of artists, writers, and musicians. At the end of her interpretation of each card, she offers a suggested list of supplemental material: poems, films, paintings. In the chapter on the Two of Cups, a card that, as Crispin explains, is about collaboration and “mutual respect,” she suggests the album “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” by Brian Eno and David Byrne, and the book “Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie,” by Lauren Redniss. The card shows a man and a woman each holding a cup; their cups touch, and from the union springs a winged-lion head atop a caduceus. Crispin emphasizes the deck’s archetypal imagery, as opposed to its purported divine power. “Imagery lets us bypass the thinking process,” she said. “It gets to something more emotional and intuitive.”
There are seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck: twenty-two trump cards (the Major Arcana), plus four suits (Minor Arcana), each with a set of ten pips and four face cards. The earliest known decks date to the fifteenth century and were used for games. The images on the cards began to incorporate alchemical symbols; eventually, the deck known as the Tarot de Marseille became standard, and people started using it for fortune-telling and divination. That version of the tarot inspired the Rider-Waite deck, designed by two members of the Golden Dawn, Arthur Waite and Pamela Colman Smith (Rider refers to the company that published the cards); their deck informed most subsequent versions. Waite saw magic not as a means to power but as a path toward a higher consciousness. He developed his tarot deck, Crispin writes, “with an emphasis on symbolism and symbolism’s connection to the intuition.” Smith, who was introduced to the Golden Dawn by Yeats, worked with Waite to draw the pictures on the cards. In Crispin’s view, “Smith is an uncelebrated illustrator,” who took the original tarot imagery and refined it “into something that really does resonate.”
Crispin believes that the cards can help people get past their “protective layers” and toward greater self-understanding. She insists that using the cards is not the equivalent of therapy. When reading the tarot for someone, “I tell a story,” she said, “and that person fits it into their own life.” To do this requires going beyond the most basic interpretations. “If all you rely on is one or two books about the tarot,” she told me, the reading that results will be flat and predictable. For instance, in the instructions that come with a tarot deck, you might find the description of the Emperor card as “authority and mastery of emotions.” “He is executive and realization, the power of this world, here clothed with the highest of its natural attributes,” according to Waite’s “The Pictorial Key to the Tarot,” the book originally intended for use with his and Smith’s deck. Crispin, on the other hand, turns to C. S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” to illustrate the idea of “mastery” represented by the card. “There are no wobbly to-and-fro plotlines” in that multivolume saga, she writes. She contrasts it with the TV show “Lost,” which, she notes, “was clearly made up as it went along.”
Talking to Crispin, and reading her book, it is not always clear just what she sees as psychological and what, for her, has a metaphysical import. She insists that the “meaning of the cards comes from us.” But there is something transcendent at play for her when it comes to the tarot. She considers herself a religious person, and is intensely critical of the “new atheism.” She sees a renewed interest in tarot cards and other occult practices as a direct reaction to that kind of secular extremism. “We are uncomfortable with our irrational selves,” Crispin said. In her view, the irrational is something we need. And it is also, she added, “where all the interesting work comes from.”Feature
Apple's external GPU developer's kit is shipping, and AppleInsider takes an examination of the contents, and delves a bit into compatibility.
The packaging is plain. Sonnet has gone towards the unadorned cardboard approach for the enclosure.The RX 580 card included in the developer's kit is as expected, a reference-design card from Sapphire. Roughly speaking, it is a 6 tflop card, where there the Radeon Pro 460 and 560 built in to the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros respectively are right around 1.9 tflop.The enclosure is an unmodified Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350, which isn't shipping outside of this developer's kit until late June. A version will be available for cards that need more power in July. Once again, the included cable is about 18 inches long, and near useless.The USB-C to USB-A hub is... extraneous. There's no real compelling reason for it to be included, but there it is anyway. Also included with purchase is a $100 AppleID-linked discount towards the purchase of the HTC Vive. Whether or not this is of any actual value is an exercise for the reader, and highly dependent on use case.The Sonnet kit is very quiet. Previous enclosures have demanded enormous tidal volumes of air, with one we tested able to push a box of tissue across the desk when under load. In the interest of performance, up to now we've borne that burden —but no longer.AppleInsider has been in possession of the kit for all of two hours at this point, but we can confirm that not only does the kit work on a 2016 MacBook Pro on Thunderbolt 3, but also on a 2015 MacBook Pro through Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.Connecting to an older Mac, the adapter plugs into the enclosure itself, and the Thunderbolt 2 cable plugs into the adapter's female receptacle. This could lead to a interesting use case, as Thunderbolt 2 cables can be 12 feet long with "regular" cables, and nearly 200 feet long long with fiberoptic ones. Active, full-speed Thunderbolt 3 cables at present are about six feet long on the outside.Further testing and benchmarking will take place as we examine the kit and its implications for the future of macOS hardware in the coming days.Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is working on some new project management apps. Based onreport from ZDNET, apps like Flow, Flip and Highlander are in the works.
There is a growing demand for project management apps built for mobile devices. Business users find productivity apps such as these useful as team members located in various time zones are able to access projects at any time. Rumors that Microsoft (MSFT) will be releasing some of the above mentioned mobile productivity apps in the near future have been spreading.
Based on the report, although Flip might have some common features with Flow email/chat application, the Flip app will deliver more services like editing, collaboration and document viewing. Highlander (not a confirmed name by Microsoft) is a project management app aimed at small projects. Users can seamlessly update tasks and track the projects status with the app. Flow and Flip apps can import information from LinkedIn and Facebook for work.
Based on a report from Manager Magazin, Microsoft may be planning a takeover of 6wunderkinder, a task-management app company launched in 2010 in Berlin. Venture Beat added fire to the speculations by forecasting that Microsoft might pay $250 million to acquire 6wunderkinder. 6wunderkinder raised over $30 million in funding in 2013 and showed outstanding growth over the last year with approximately 13 million users. Meanwhile, Christian Reber, CEO of 6Wunderkinder, is aiming for 100 million users.
To see a list of high yielding CDs go here
Rumors on the potential acquisition rose again when 6Wunderkinder suddenly integrated Wunderlist into Microsoft’s Sunrise calendar app. Wunderlist’s services would bring additional value to Microsoft’s consumer and business users. Wunderlist is used on Android, Windows, Macs, iPhones and iPads. Microsoft acquired an email app, Acompli, which was integrated to its Outlook app.
The corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division, Brad Anderson said that the mobile Outlook apps will seamlessly integrate with “conditional access and mobile application management (MAM) capabilities of EMS”. Microsoft intends to deliver mobile Outlook updates in the near term.
Microsoft is not compromising on the user experience for the mobile outlook app. Users will have the option to “switch between personal and business use within the same app”. The company is also upgrading Outlook.com features including Inbox, calendar and collaboration features as a part of its program to update Outlook.com to Office 365-based infrastructure.
(Visited 1,060 times, 1 visits today)In a particularly bumbling interview with a Catholic news network that suggests Ben Carson is lacking in anything resembling common sense or even lucidity, the Republican presidential candidate lamented marriage equality and protections aimed at transgender people, calling both of them “extra rights” for “a few people who perhaps are abnormal.”
He then intimates that if the next president’s Supreme Court nominees want to protect LGBTQ rights, you might as well “say goodbye to America.” (Which sounds like a rather fine idea every time Carson opens his mouth and words haphazardly flop out of it.)
The comments were made during an interview with the Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew Franck, as part of a series of cringeworthy conversations with skin-crawly presidential candidates that are best avoided altogether.
Watch the interview below:
h/t: Right Wing Watch
This Story Filed UnderThe weather in Chicago was unseasonably warm for much of the week, and those balmy temps carried over into the weekend. Unfortunately the shootings continued, and the weekend brought yet another large number of wounded and dead Chicagoans. 27 were wounded—including a five-year-old boy—and two killed this weekend.
The child hurt in Chicago’s crime-ridden neighborhoods was shot on Saturday after playing with a gun he found left in his mother’s home by a man who was not the boy’s father.
Authorities arrested the man after the boy accidentally shot himself in the hand by playing with the gun in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood.
But the weekend started off on a bad note Friday, during which four more were wounded and the first death of the weekend occurred.
19-year-old Joseph Graves was discovered at 10:30PM, shot in the head in his SUV. Graves was only one of some 13 who were shot between noon on Friday and early Saturday evening. But the toll continued to grow Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday had a particularly bloody outcome, but no deaths, with 14 wounded. But Saturday also saw mayhem of several other types with two bodies found floating in city waters, one in the Chicago River and a second in the Jackson Park Lagoon.
Then there was the vehicular pandemonium in Wicker Park, where police charged a 44-year-old man after he jumped the curb with his car and ran down three pedestrians.
Two victims had concussions and broken legs, and one of them also had a broken jaw. The third was treated and released.
Sunday saw the second death after a shooting that occurred at 10AM in the Englewood district.
Nine more were wounded by early evening on Sunday. One of those wounded was an aspiring rap singer, shot in the city’s Wrigleyville neighborhood.
With two dead and 27 wounded this weekend, the tolls from the same weekend over the last two years racks up with fairly similar numbers. In 2013, four were killed and 17 wounded, while in 2014 three were killed and 32 wounded.
Year-to-date, Chicago has suffered 420 shot and killed and a whopping 2,422 shot and wounded.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.GERSON MAKES HIS CASE…. It’s not every day I’m called out in a Washington Post print column, so I suppose I’m compelled to return once again to the discussion surrounding Saturday’s “sabotage” item.
Today, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, who passed along a message on Twitter the other day calling me an “idiot,” devotes much of his print column to the observation I raised. Not surprisingly, the Post columnist wasn’t especially impressed by my presentation.
He suggests at the outset that my argument is somehow an attempt to avoid dealing with the “inadequacies” and “failure” of “liberalism.” It’s an odd line of reasoning — Gerson’s former boss bequeathed an economic catastrophe, a jobs crisis, a massive deficit, and a housing crisis, among other calamities. Democratic policymakers, scrambling to address the catastrophic failures of Bush-brand conservatism, have managed to create an economy that’s growing, creating jobs, and generating private-sector profits, while stabilizing a financial system that teetered on collapse. (What’s more, if Gerson believes the size and scope of the Obama administration’s economic agenda are consistent with what “liberalism” has in mind, he knows far less about the ideology than he should.)
If Gerson is anxious to explore the “inadequacies” and “failures” of a modern political ideology, I might suggest he’s looking in the wrong place.
But more importantly, Gerson’s column takes issue with his perceptions of my argument.
[T]here is an alternative narrative, developed by those who can’t shake their reverence for Obama. If a president of this quality and insight has failed, it must be because his opponents are uniquely evil, coordinated and effective. The problem is not Obama but the ruthless conspiracy against him. So Matt Yglesias warns the White House to be prepared for “deliberate economic sabotage” from the GOP – as though Chamber of Commerce SWAT teams, no doubt funded by foreigners, are preparing attacks on the electrical grid. Paul Krugman contends that “Republicans want the economy to stay weak as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House.” Steve Benen explains, “We’re talking about a major political party... possibly undermining the strength of the country — on purpose, in public, without apology or shame — for no other reason than to give themselves a campaign advantage in 2012.” Benen’s posting was titled “None Dare Call it Sabotage.” So what is the proof of this charge? It seems to have something to do with Republicans criticizing quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. And opposing federal spending. And, according to Benen, creating “massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system.”
That’s incomplete, at best. Use of the phrase “seems to have something to do with” is Gerson’s way of summarizing a larger argument that he may have struggled to fully understand.
So perhaps I should clarify matters.
We are, by all measures, in the midst of a fragile economic recovery. Under the circumstances, Americans very likely hope that policymakers in Washington are committed to improving economic conditions further.
It’s against this backdrop that congressional Republicans have vowed to take capital out of the economy, create more public-sector unemployment, eliminate effective jobs programs, urge the Federal Reserve to stop focusing on lowering unemployment, and fight tooth and nail to protect a tax policy that’s been tried for nearly a decade without success. By their own admission, GOP officials have said economic growth is not their priority; Hoover-like deficit reduction is.
While advocating this agenda, one of the most powerful Republican officials on Capitol Hill has argued, more than once, that his “top priority” isn’t job creation, but rather, “denying President Obama a second term in office.”
Taken together, I suggested it’s time for an uncomfortable conversation. I obviously can’t read the minds of GOP policymakers, but it seems at least worth talking about whether they’re prioritizing the destruction of a presidency over the needs of the nation.
It’s also worth emphasizing that my point about “uncertainty” was meant as a form of mockery. The right is obsessed with the debunked notion that “economic uncertainty” is responsible for the lack of robust growth, so in raising my observation, I noted that it’s the Republican agenda that seems focused on adding to this uncertainty — vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing to re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibility of sending the United States into default.
What’s more, I’m fascinated by the notion that I’m describing a “conspiracy” — a word Gerson uses four times in his column. I made no such argument. There’s no need for secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms; there’s no reason to imagine a powerful cabal pulling strings behind the scenes. The proposition need not be fanciful at all — a stronger economy would improve President Obama’s re-election chances, so Republicans are resisting policies and ideas that would lead to this result.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasn’t especially cagey about his intentions: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president…. Our single biggest political goal is to give [the Republican] nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful.”
Given this, is it really that extraordinary to wonder if this might include rejecting proposals that would make President Obama look more successful on economic policy — especially given the fact that McConnell’s approach to the economy appears to be carefully crafted to do the opposite of what’s needed? After Gerson’s West Wing colleagues effectively accused Democrats of treason in 2005, is it beyond the pale to have a conversation about Republicans’ inexplicable motivations?
I’d hoped my original argument would generate a larger discussion, and I suppose it has to a certain extent, but it’s nevertheless striking to me that Gerson’s column makes no effort whatsoever to respond with anything substantive. He finds it sufficient to dismiss the very idea casually, as if the observation merits a print column, but not a policy-focused refutation.
And that’s a shame. It’s not uncommon for Republican media personalities to make the transition from “loyal Bushies” to sanctimonious pundits, but I’d hoped Gerson, after having several days to think about it, would come up with a more compelling, more thoughtful, argument on an issue of national importance.
My hopes, alas, were in vain.
* Update: I’d originally included an incorrect sentence in this post about Gerson on Krugman, so I removed it. Apologies.
* Second Update: Greg Sargent raises some terrific points in response to Gerson, most notably the fact that GOP leaders have, repeatedly and on the record, said “they needed to deny Obama successes for their own political purposes.”NASA announced Saturday it had approved the suite of science instruments that it would provide for the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, which recently moved from the drawing board to the construction phase. NASA's total contribution to the mission — scheduled for launch in 2022 — would add up to just over $114 million.
"We’re pleased with the overall design of the instruments and we’re ready to begin implementation,” Jim Green, director of the planetary science division at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. “In the very near future, JUICE will go from the drawing board to instrument building and then on to the launch pad in 2022."
Read: ESA's Jupiter Mission Enters Construction Phase
The JUICE spacecraft is expected to arrive at the Jovian system in 2029, where it will spend three-and-a-half years in orbit around the planet. ESA also plans to briefly put the probe in orbit around the giant Jovian moon Ganymede — a maneuver which, if successful, would mark the first time any moon other than our own has been orbited by a human-made object.
The mission is deisgned to not only shed light on the atmospheric dynamics of the largest planet in our solar system, but also to provide crucial insights into the environments of its many moons.
In order to do so, JUICE will carry a suite of 10 science instruments. NASA will provide the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS), and subsystems and components for two other instruments — the Particle Environment Package (PEP) and the Radar for Icy Moon Exploration (RIME) experiment.
"The UVS was selected to observe the dynamics and atmospheric chemistry of the Jovian system, including its icy satellites and volcanic moon Io," NASA said in the statement. "With the planet Jupiter itself, the instrument team hopes to learn more about the vertical structure of its stratosphere and determine the relationship between changing magnetospheric conditions to observed auroral structures."
The PEP, which would consist of six sensors, will be used to create a 3D map of the plasma system surrounding the gas giant, while the RIME experiment's ice penetrating radar would be designed to penetrate the surface of Jupiter's icy moons and reveal subsurface structures. Scientists expect that doing so would reveal further details about the habitability of the Jovian moons, especially Europa.
NASA hopes that observations by instruments on board JUICE would complement those made by its planned Europa Clipper mission, which, after its launch in 2020, seeks to orbit Jupiter as frequently as once every two weeks, conducting a total of up to 45 flybys of Europa during its primary mission.
"The missions are like close members of the same family. Together they will explore the entire Jovian system,” Curt Niebur, program scientist at NASA headquarters, said in the statement. “Clipper is focused on Europa and determining its habitability. JUICE is looking for a broader understanding how the entire group of Galilean satellites formed and evolved."Levels of stress and anxiety are on the rise among students. Juliet Rix has tips to control the panic and thrive academically
How anxiety scrambles your brain and makes it hard to learn
Olivia admits she’s always been a worrier – but when she started university, her anxiety steadily began to build. One day she was simply too frightened to leave the house. For two weeks she was stuck indoors, before she was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and began to get the help she needed.
With support from her GP and university wellbeing service, and courses of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), she was able to stick with her university course and to start enjoying life again.
But Olivia is far from alone in her anxiety: the number of students declaring a mental health problem has doubled in the last five years, to at least 115,000.
“And that is a very small proportion of the students who are having mental health difficulties,” says Ruth Caleb, chair of Universities UK’s mental wellbeing working group.
Want to learn faster? Stop multitasking and start daydreaming Read more
A study of UK undergraduates has found that even among students symptom-free before starting university, some 20% are troubled by a clinically significant level of anxiety by the middle of second year.
What does anxiety do to students? It causes the body to prepare itself for fight or flight.
“If you are in a situation of imminent actual threat, then the increased alertness and body response can be lifesaving,” explains Chris Williams, professor of psychosocial psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, and medical advisor to Anxiety UK.
“But if it occurs when trying to revise, or present a talk, or at such a high level that it paralyses or causes errors, it can interfere with what we want to do.”
What happens in the brain of someone experiencing excessive anxiety is not fully understood. One line of research, says consultant psychiatrist Rajeev Krishnadas, is that it involves the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala – a key region of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as in the physiological and behavioural responses to fear.
“An external stimulus – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste – activates a number of regions of the brain, crucially including the amygdala,” says Krishnadas. Under normal circumstances, he says “the amygdala is under tight control from the prefrontal cortex, which evaluates the threat associated with the stimulus. If the stimulus is non-threatening, the activity within the amygdala is suppressed. If it is threatening, the amygdala fear response is maintained.”
In someone with an anxiety problem, it seems, the brain is making incorrect decisions about what to fear and the prefrontal cortex fails to suppress the amygdala, putting the body into fight or flight mode.
How much can you really learn while you're asleep? Read more
In this state, levels of the hormone adrenaline rise and the sympathetic nervous system – which controls automatic activities (like breathing) rather than conscious action – takes over. The heart rate rises, breathing speeds up and blood is diverted to the limbs, blood pressure and body temperature increase, and you may start to sweat.
This is clearly not a state conducive to learning or concentrating in a seminar, says clinical psychologist Dr Angharad Rudkin. “Even if you manage to take in what is being said, the information is likely to bounce around [in your brain], not being processed properly or stored in your long-term memory.”
10 tips for anxious students
Last month, Anxiety UK launched a student guide to anxiety. Here are Anxiety UK and Dr Rudkin’s top 10 self-help tips:
If you feel yourself start to panic, tell yourself: don’t panic; you can do this. Self talk can reduce anxiety.
Work on controlling your breathing. Try breathing in through your nose for four seconds, holding for two seconds, then breathing out through your mouth for six seconds.
If you find large busy lecture rooms a problem, start by sitting near the exit. Record lectures so you can listen back to any bits you missed.
Break coursework and essays into small chunks. This takes a bit of planning and means not leaving it all to the last minute, but it staves off anxiety.
Most research into young people’s attention spans suggests a limit of 40 minutes, so work in half-hour chunks with short breaks between for a drink or a breath of fresh air.
Procrastination can be the anxious person’s biggest enemy. Convince yourself to work for just five minutes. Once you’ve started you may be able to keep going. If not, at least you have achieved five minutes of work.
Be kind to yourself – but disciplined. It is easy to become your own worst enemy. Accept that things are tough right now and think about how you can work with your brain to make things happen.
Moderate your caffeine and alcohol intake. Excessive caffeine increases symptoms of anxiety and although alcohol is a relaxant it may not help the next day.
Remember you are not alone. Everyone else may look as if they are coping fine but many of them are struggling too. Talk to people.
Follow a healthy routine of eating, sleeping and exercise. Even 30 minutes walking a day can reduce anxiety. Disrupted sleeping and eating are classic accompaniments to anxiety and can create a vicious cycle. If this is happening, seek help.
Further information and support is also available from Student Minds, Young Minds and Nightline.
Get involved with the Use your head series by joining the discussion on #useyourhead or pitching your ideas to natalie.gil.casual@theguardian.com
Keep up with the latest on Guardian Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents – and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.In a nation that is increasingly secular, religion still plays a vital role in the way we run our country. In this series, we examine the role of religion in Australian politics and education.
Australia maintains one of the highest concentrations of religious schools compared to other OECD countries. This proportion fits with the higher proportion of students who are enrolled in private schools in Australia.
Approximately 30% of all schools in Australia are affiliated with a religion, or 94% of private schools.
Research from the Centre For Independent Studies compared this proportion of religious schools in Australia to countries such as Sweden (2% of schools are religious), the US (10% of all schools), and the Netherlands (60% of all schools).
Religious schools in Australia predominantly consist of Anglican and Christian. But there are numerous religious affiliations represented in schools, and also diverse ways of practising religion.
Contextually, our population is shifting (and increasing). We have a rising population of minority religious groups; a sharp increase of people identifying with “no religion” on the census (29.6%); and a declining population of individuals identifying with Christianity. However, Christianity continues to be the dominant religion (57.7%).
But how an individual identifies on the Census does not readily translate to choosing a religious or non-religious school.
A brief history of religious schools in Australia
Historically speaking, religion in schools has always been contentious. This is a contentious issue in many parts of the world. The question of whether to include religion in schools is conflated with our views around the purpose of education.
In other words, what is the social purpose of education? What kind of views, ideologies and values do we want our children to learn in school? The topic of sex education and abstinence education is often paired with this debate.
As a democratic society, we will all have various responses to these questions.
The fact that religion is contentious, and not a unified consensus, was a motivation for the original foundation of our state or public schooling system.
In the state of Victoria, the Education Act founded our schools on the principle of “free, secular and compulsory”.
It was argued that secular education would remove religious discrimination and unite the community. Leading campaigners argued that religion should be taught in church and at home, rather than in schools.
Even though state schools were founded on secular principles, they were far from equitable or accessible for all.
The education acts were established in the context of the Stolen Generations, genocide and endemic racism towards Indigenous children. Indigenous people did not gain the right to vote until much later, in 1965.
Historians claim that our earlier schools were largely influenced by arguments around biological determinism and eugenics. Reportedly, leading commentators argued that you could measure a child’s head to determine their ability for academic work. Biological determinism disadvantaged poor children and Indigenous children.
Religious schools in contemporary times
Historically speaking, and also constitutionally, Australia is a secular country. Following this, each state and territory maintains slightly different policies around the inclusion or exclusion of religion in schools.
In Victoria, for example, the state department follows the Education and Training Reform Act |
for their home in Connecticut, following the girls’ three-week stay at Camp All-Star in nearby Kents Hill, Me. Shortly after, a Cessna Citation Excel arrived, and a mother, a father and their 13-year-old daughter emerged carrying a pink sleeping bag and two large duffel bags, all headed to Camp Vega in Fayette. “Love it, love it, love it,” Mr. LePage said of the private-plane traffic generated by summer camps. “I wish they’d stay a week while they’re here. This is a big business.” For decades, parents in the Northeast who sent their children to summer camp faced the same arduous logistics of traveling long distances to remote towns in Maine, New Hampshire and upstate New York to pick up their children or to attend parents’ visiting day.
Awww, but fear not. Now those same parents can send little Janie and Johnny off to camp on a private plane, while nattering with each other about how bourgeois those who drive are.
But some parents have already tired of this private-plane status infiltrating the simpler world of summer camp. Nancy Chemtob, a divorce lawyer, made several summer trips to Maine in the past decade, where her children attended camp. She once managed to get on a charter plane from the airport in East Hampton, N.Y., for $750 (her husband had hung a sign in the airport seeking a ride). After listening to enough banter among parents about “who is flying, who is flying private, who they can get a lift home with,” she decided she “was done with Maine and the planes and all of the people.” “It’s a crazy world out there,” she added. She now sends her children to camp in Europe.
Welcome to the lives of the anonymous, nouveau riche living in banal-land. God forbid they'd have to fork over any more taxes. What would happen to little Janie and Johnny?Islamic terrorists have maimed and murdered hundreds of people in Paris, dozens in Mali, thousands in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. is next, they promise.
Unwelcome in Arab countries, Middle East refugees are streaming to Europe and America, where high tax rates, over-regulation and rising prices for unreliable renewable energy are fueling debt and impacting jobs, industries, economic growth, government revenues and efforts to accommodate the migrants.
But still President Obama insists that climate change poses the gravest threat to our planet, national security and future generations. He led a 500-person entourage to Paris, joining 40,000 political leaders, bureaucrats, activists and journalists. The president wants binding emission reductions, far beyond what his Environmental Protection Agency and other factors have already achieved in the U.S.
Paris conferees say further greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions are essential to hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 F) and prevent climate and weather disasters resulting from fossil fuel use. But these cataclysms exist only in computer models, press releases and treaty discussions.
In the real world, global temperatures haven't risen in 19 years; no category 3-5 hurricane has struck the U.S. in a record 10 years; sea levels are rising at barely 7 inches per century; and Greenland and Antarctic ice are at record levels.
Earth's climate changes regularly, but recent trends and events are in line with historic experience, and many scientists believe the sun and other powerful natural forces may soon usher in a new era of colder temperatures.
Fossil fuels facilitated successive industrial revolutions and enabled billions to live better than royalty did a century ago, average incomes to increase elevenfold, and average global life expectancy to climb from less than 30 in 1870 to 71 today.
Carbon and hydrocarbon energy still provide 81% of world energy, and support $70 trillion per year in world GDP. They will supply 75%-80% of global energy for decades to come, studies by the Energy Information Administration, International Energy Agency and others forecast.
More than 2,400 coal-fired power plants are under construction or planned around the world. China and India will not consider reducing GHG emissions until 2030. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue to climb, greening the planet and spurring faster crop, forest and grassland growth.
As they discuss binding vs. voluntary emission targets and how to compel developed nations to contribute to a $100-billion-per-year Green Climate Fund, the Paris treaty talks largely ignore these inconvenient realities — and whitewash the adverse consequences of anti-hydrocarbon policies.
For example, news stories often say the proposed climate treaty seeks GHG reductions of 80% below predicted emission levels for 2050. The true target is 80% below actual 1990 levels.
That means they require carbon dioxide (and fossil fuel energy) reductions of 96% below currently forecasted 2050 levels, based on projected increases in world populations, economic growth and living standards.
Because there is a strong causal relationship between GDP and fossil energy consumption, eliminating that much energy would reduce 2050 world per capita GDP to less than what Americans "enjoyed" in 1830! Modern technologies would still exist, but few would be able to afford them.
Moreover, current 2050 forecasts already assume and incorporate significant energy efficiency and de-carbonization over the next three decades. They are not "business as usual" or extrapolations of past trends. Further CO2 reductions beyond those already incorporated into the forecasts would thus be increasingly difficult, expensive and indeed impossible to achieve.
In fact, attempting to reach U.N.-recommended GHG and energy reductions by 2050 would be catastrophic. What is being promoted in Paris would be destructive to jobs, health and welfare in developed countries — and lethal to millions in poor nations, who would be denied the blessings of electricity and fossil fuels for decades to come. That is indefensible, inhumane and immoral.
The EPA's own analyses suggest that its fully implemented Clean Power Plan would bring an undetectable, irrelevant reduction of perhaps 0.05 degrees F in average global temperatures 85 years from now — assuming that carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change.
What's being discussed in Paris would have similarly minimal effects. But it would let unelected, unaccountable activists and bureaucrats decide which industries, companies, workers and families win the Climate Hustle game — and which ones lose.
Congress must send a clear message to the Paris delegates — now, during the COP21 conference.
It must say the U.S. will reject and not be legally bound by any "accord" that Obama might sign, that some might argue obligates the U.S. to slash its energy use and transfer billions of taxpayer dollars annually to dictators, bureaucrats and crony industrialists in poor countries.
• Bezdek is an energy analyst and president of Management Information Services Inc. in Washington, D.C.
• Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power — Black Death."NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 13: A 32-ounce soda is filled at a Manhattan McDonalds on September 13, 2012 in New York City. In an effort to combat obesity, the New York City Board of Health voted to ban the sale of large sugary drinks. The controversial measure bars the sale of sugar drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants and concessions. (Photo Illustration by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (File photo. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
– A recent Gallup poll suggests that obesity rates are climbing in all groups in the United States.
Persons of various age, income, racial and regional groups all reported increases in rates of obesity, researchers found through their most recent poll.
“The adult obesity rate so far in 2013 is 27.2 percent, up from 26.2 percent in 2012, and is on pace to surpass all annual average obesity rates since Gallup-Healthways began tracking in 2008,” a release on the study’s findings stated.
The increase between 2012 and 2013 is also said to be the largest increase between years on record for Gallup.
“Obesity rates have increased at least slightly so far in 2013 across almost all major demographic and socioeconomic groups,” the release noted, before citing people between the ages of 18 and 29 as an exception. However, their obesity rates reportedly did not decrease, but rather, merely remained the same as one year prior.
People between the ages of 45 and 64 saw the biggest increases in obesity rates, followed by those earning annual salaries between $30,000 and $74,999.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have been observing such upward trends in obesity rates throughout the nation for the past two decades.
Researchers also note on the official CDC website, “More than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7 percent) and approximately 17 percent (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese.”
Obesity is distinguished by a body mass index exceeding 30, according to Gallup.
Polling for the study was conducted between Jan. 1 and Oct. 28 of this year by polling 141,935 randomly selected American adults throughout the nation.Introduction
Oooh this is dangerous.
It started with Intel quietly (but not too quietly) informing many in the industry of its plans to enter the graphics market with something called Larrabee.
NVIDIA responded by quietly (but not too quietly) criticizing the nonexistant Larrabee.
What we've seen for the past several months has been little more than jabs thrown back and forth, admittedly with NVIDIA being a little more public with its swings. Today is a big day, without discussing competing architectures, Intel is publicly unveiling, for the first time, the basis of its Larrabee GPU architecture.
Well, it is important to keep in mind that this is first and foremost NOT a GPU. It's a CPU. A many-core CPU that is optimized for data-parallel processing. What's the difference? Well, there is very little fixed function hardware, and the hardware is targeted to run general purpose code as easily as possible. The bottom lines is that Intel can make this very wide many-core CPU look like a GPU by implementing software libraries to handle DirectX and OpenGL.
It's not quite emulating a GPU as it is directly implementing functionality on a data-parallel CPU that would normally be done on dedicated hardware. And developers will not be limited to just DirectX and OpenGL: this hardware can take pure software renderers and run them as if the hardware was designed specifically for that code.
There is quite a bit here, so let's just jump right in.Galen Rupp took nearly six seconds off the American indoor record for 5000 meters and scared the 13:00 barrier on Thursday night at Boston University, winning in 13:01.26 and indicating he could be ready for assaults on the U.S. mile and two-mile standards in the coming weeks. (Photo of Rupp after breaking record by Kevin Morris Photography.)
Mary Cain, who like Rupp is an Oregon Project athlete coached by Alberto Salazar, failed in her attempt to break Jen Toomey’s 1000-meter U.S. record of 2:34.19, but her 2:39.25 at age 17 is a new world junior (under age 20) indoor record.
Rupp, who held the American indoor 5000 record in 2011 before Bernard Lagat busted it in 2012 and Lopez Lomong took it down to 13:07.00 last year, was behind the pace projected as necessary to regain the record until the final kilometer in Boston, and he covered the last 800 meters in 2:01.30, according to statistics provided by Flotrack. He had a battle for victory on his hands, as Sam Chelanga, a Kenyan and winner of multiple NCAA cross country and track titles who now trains in New Hampshire, “ran tough today. He was right there until the very end,” Rupp told Flotrack. Chelanga took second in 13:04.35. Rupp’s Oregon Project teammate Cam Levins, in third place, set a Canadian indoor record of 13:19.16.
Rupp, the 2102 Olympic 10,000-meter silver medalist, had a sensational 2013 indoor season, including a 3:50.92 mile and an American record of 7:30.16 for 3000 meters. This one could be better. After Thursday’s race, he noted, “some of the workouts we’ve done the last couple of weeks have been like races. Alberto’s done a great job of preparing all of us for this.”
Rupp was quite content with his 13:01.26, observing that he “didn’t realize until the last 50” meters that he was so close to the 13:00 barrier. He is now the #8 performer of all-time for the indoor 5000-meter run; the athletes ahead of him are all Ethiopians and Kenyans.
Thursday’s result is a confidence booster for Rupp’s shot at the American two-mile record next weekend back at Boston University. It’s a mark he once held with a 8:09.72 in 2012, but Lagat surpassed it with a 8:09.49 last winter. Then there’s a mile for Rupp on he same track on February 8; Lagat’s 3:49.89 is the current American indoor best.
But for those who wonder if Rupp is just time trialing in pursuit of records much earlier than is customary in the calendar year, Salazar, in a Letsrun.com interview, points out, “we like to set records, but at the same time the most important thing is competing. The most important thing this year is to make the U.S. World Championship team in Albuquerque [the USATF Indoor Championships] which will be tough and then to do well in the Worlds at Poland,” the IAAF World Indoor Championships is Sopot in March. “We’d rather not get any of these records and do well there.”
Cain, the Bronxville, New York high school student who is now a professional runner, had hopes of breaking that American indoor 1000-meter mark in Boston but a slower than desired early pace negated that possibility. “I’m a little bummed because it was supposed to be a faster pace,” Cain told Flotrack. But the feeling that she could have gone faster "gets me a little antsy for the mile, to really go for it” next weekend in Boston.
Still, the holder of a slew of U.S. high school and junior records was “super-duper pumped because I never had a world junior record before.” American Diane Richburg had that record, 2:40.1, for 32 years before Cain surpassed it on Thursday.Whatever you eat here is one sad, sad meal.
This boat was once home to a rare floating McDonald's, which was built as a shining beacon of innovation for Canada's 1986 World Expo. Conveyer belts delivered shakes and fries, glass windows offered panoramic views, and a tiny tugboat pulled up alongside the barge to collect Big Mac wrappers and cups.
But everything screeched to a halt when the Expo ended, and plans to move the boat to a new spot fell through. Now the abandoned restaurant -- officially nicknamed "The McBarge" -- floats alone in the Burrard Inlet, near an oil refinery.
The burgers may last forever, but the glory fades.
The McBarge is reportedly on private property, so you're not technically allowed to visit. However, some intrepid explorers have checked it out, citing a local law that supposedly allows castaways to take solace on abandoned boats when their vessel fails at sea.
So grab a raft, poke a few holes, and enjoy your time as a swashbuckling Hamburglar. Ahoy!Loud Places
The first time I listened to the track above, I was sat on the sofa in my house, with my eyes shut, a drink in my hand, and one of my friends silently moving around me trying to make sure the listening experience was perfect, turning off lights/messing with the volume/shushing me when I began to talk before the song had reached its climax. A handful of my friends take music seriously as something that can be experienced properly, not unlike film buffs who flock to buy the latest colossal flatscreen, but it’s rare that we’d be as precious as this; my friend had insisted that there was something amazing about this track that warranted such special treatment. It didn’t take until after the 8th or 9th listen (both of which occurred that same night) and our own following drunken excursion to one of Bristol’s many loud places that the reason for its power as more than a mere hauntingly-beautiful-breakup-song became clear (Jamie XX has already been involved a fair few such tracks in his role as drummer for The xx).
No, the reason that this song hit us so hard is that it combines its tail of heartbreak and loss with something rare: a perfectly realised aesthetic of dingey clubbing, fleshed out by carefully selected background sound and simple yet powerful lyrical imagery. In interviews Jamie has commented that whilst making his soon-to-be-released album he liked going to clubs like the – now defunct – Plastic People, alone, to simply focus on appreciating the music. Listening attentively and frequently to a shitload of music isn’t exactly a revolutionary decision for a musician looking for inspiration, but his decision to do this in a club rather than a bedroom has wonderful effects for tracks like Loud Places or the UK rave-paeans All Under One Roof Raving and Gosh. All that time standing alone watching people raving, and most likely analysing what’s making them happy (no it’s not just drugs) has allowed him to perfectly evoke the feel of various areas and moments in a club, be it the peak-time effervescence when you feel amazed at the phenomena of hundreds of grown adults dancing without inhibitions, or the view from the sidelines when you wish you could feel the same satisfaction that you used to when going out with your ex.
Few creatives of any artform take the subject of clubbing seriously in this way (see Vice’s – typically witty – breakdown of Hollywood’s various failures to evoke the dancefloor onscreen). You would struggle to find a popular, well-received novel that gives more than a passing description of clubbing (I’ve tried), and even in the case of the club’s resident artform, dance music, the majority of its producers tend to work harder on creating music designed to work as an accessory to clubbing, not as an analysis, tribute or retrospective of it. And fairly so; dance music’s purpose is to make people dance, and as such a lot of dance producers consider it their duty to create music whose every component is perfectly posed towards this goal, rather than to be artistic or abstractly thoughtful. (Not-at-all-bragging-example: when I interviewed Hannah Wants about her charting dance smash Rhymes, she explained to me that she created it for the exclusive purpose of working as a tool for her sets, something to make people go wild.)
However, the vacuum of music with a direct lyrical focus on clubbing scenes still seems like a pity to me, because it’s such an interesting subject. Clubs are essentially adult playgrounds, where revellers go to play all their favourite games; socialising, dancing, drug-taking, seduction, and most importantly – or least importantly, depending on what clubs you go to – the consumption of music. As a teenager you’re constantly reminded by every other song on the school bus radio that to reside in ‘the club’ is a platonic ideal state of being that every cool, attractive adult loves, and yet for years it remains an elusive Mecca of adult freedom, until you are suddenly thrust into it, and expected to spend every celebratory evening, (or, if you’re a first-year student, every other evening full stop) there. I’m sure that for a lot of people it quickly loses its mystique and attraction as anything other than a social area (a year of nearly exclusively going out on rowing socials definitely did this to me for a bit), but it still has the potential to retain status as a fascinating subject, be it because of the cloud of alcohol and other things that obscures your recollection of time spent there, or the discovery of any large-city-dweller that there are a whole variety of completely different clubbing experiences, unified only in their late hours and horrific toilets.
For most of Britain’s young people, particularly its students, many of their most emotionally potent memories will be set in clubs, be it the first time you pluck up the Dutch courage to force your lips onto the unsuspecting face of your ‘crush’, or the 60 minute post breakup conversation with your ex in the smoking area, interrupted only by a tactful young fuckwit asking for her number (I can lay claim to both of these). As I’ve said before in this blog, I believe everyone has the right to art that relates to them; listening to or reading something that puts forwards an experience not unlike yours, but describes in an artistic way you could never achieve is enormously engaging, so I can only hope that more creatives will follow in his Jamie xx’s footsteps. (If you can think of any good examples of this, please comment below!)
In the meantime, I can only recommend that anyone who has retained any a little love or interest for the dancefloor check out Andrew Holleran’s book Dancer From The Dance. It’s essentially the Great Gatsby, but with sophisticated 20s parties replaced by excessively amorous, drug-addled 70s New York gay clubbing, and it’s fantastic, if a tad dark. My favourite quote from functions as the ultimate reply to ‘why can you be bothered to go out tonight?’ (if you don’t like its overtly camp drama then its best you give the book a miss):
‘Why get out of bed? For this dreary round of amusing insincerity? This filthy bourgeois society that the Aristotelians have foisted upon us? No, we may still choose to live like gods, like poets, which brings us down to dancing. Yes, that is all that’s left when love has gone. Dancing.’
AdvertisementsDETROIT -- The developers of a new 13-story residential building downtown offered a peek Thursday inside a model of 218 microlofts to be built in the Capitol Park project.
Quicken founder Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Real Estate Services is building 28Grand, a ground-up, "all inclusive type of living" development on the corner of Griswold Street and Grand River Avenue.
The 260-square-foot apartments are fully furnished and contain wood floors, large windows with a city view and high-rise ceilings with room for storage above cabinets and shelves. The kitchen contains several cabinets, a large sink, microwave and a half-sized stove top.
Steve Rosenthal, principal at Bedrock, said there will be 133 market-rate units and 85 more affordable living units. He said the lower-priced units will be reserved for people with income levels around $28,000 and below, and will start at about $703 a month.
Complete rental rates will be released between February and March, and the first move-in ready apartment is expected to be available in June 2017.
Each microloft will share a similar layout and design, including a double-bed with storage underneath, a 10-foot-long cushioned window seat with storage space, television, refrigerator, dinner table and full bath.
Also included in the package are utilities, Rocket Fiber internet and views overlooking Woodward Avenue, including the Book Tower.
The complex will offer amenities on the second floor, including a larger community kitchen, entertainment lounge with an outdoor terrace and barbecue grill.
Jamie Witherspoon, Bedrock's project architect, said the "simplicity"-focused lofts have raised ceilings to give the apartments a sense of openness, and the developer decided to provide fully furnished 260-square-foot spaces for efficiency.
"Because they're small, it's not always easy to buy furniture. It takes a bit of design expertise," Witherspoon said. "[It's about] how you optimize the experience of that."
The project will also feature 4,500 square-feet of retail space on the ground floor, including restaurant concepts from Marc Bogoff and Eli Boyer.“People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.”
In line with yesterday's brief announcement that OS X Mountain Lion would debut today, Apple has officially launched its next-generation Mac operating system to the public. OS X Mountain Lion Mac App Store ] is priced at $19.99 and is available exclusively through the Mac App Store.OS X Mountain Lion brings a number of new features and enhancements to the Mac, including improved iCloud integration with support for Notes and Reminders, iMessage support via the new Messages application, Notification Center, Power Nap updating during sleep, Dictation, enhanced sharing tools, Game Center, improved security with Gatekeeper, and more.For users looking to deploy server capabilities, Apple will also be releasing OS X Mountain Lion Server as a $19.99 add-on via the Mac App Store.: Many users are reporting difficulties purchasing and downloading OS X Mountain Lion, undoubtedly due to heavy load on Apple's servers.: OS X Server is now availableRepublican presidential candidate Donald Trump makes a speech nearly every day. But in graduation season, a number of commencement speakers have used their time at the podium to challenge him and his rhetoric. Here are the highlights from Ken Burns, Matt Damon, Lin-Manuel Miranda and more. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)
In June, after Donald Trump won enough delegates to become the Republican nominee for president, Ken Burns took the podium in Palo Alto, Calif., to deliver Stanford University’s commencement address. Though Burns’s politics are no secret to anyone who listens to him or who watches his documentaries, which explore major moments and movements in American history from “The Civil War” to “Jazz,” the strength of his attack on Trump took some national observers and graduating students by surprise. One of them, Nathalie Weiss, thought that Burns’s decision to push the graduates rather than to celebrate their accomplishments was inappropriate — until Election Day delivered a result she hadn’t previously thought was possible.
“There was no doubt in my mind that Hillary [Clinton] was going to win, and I almost felt cocky about that,” Weiss said when I talked to her on Wednesday. “I didn’t really think that Trump or Bernie [Sanders] winning was in the cards. I didn’t really take it seriously.” Previously, her model for a commencement address had been cartoonist Mike Peters’s speech at the 2012 graduation at Washington University in St. Louis, “the sort of thing that had a lot of serendipity, a lot of joy and excitement, and still had a message of staying true to yourself.”
After graduation, Weiss watched a number of her classmates go to work in politics, or at least become more actively engaged than they had been in college “by nature of entering the real world, being independent, becoming a citizen, and having an election with the stakes of this one.” And when the results she never expected came in on November 8, she wrote a letter to Burns first published in the Stanford Daily and reprinted here to explain her initial reaction to his speech and to ask what she and her peers should be doing next.
Dear Mr. Burns, In light of this election and its outcome, my thoughts continue to circle back to the speech you delivered to my graduating class at Stanford this June. You probably don’t remember me — I’m sure you shook a lot of hands that day — but I thanked you outside the stadium as you prepared to leave. To be perfectly honest, however, I did not enjoy the speech. One of my largest frustrations at school was the lack of political agency amongst my friends, and I found your reminder of this vexing. Isn’t graduation a time for celebration? Couldn’t we put the world on pause and spend the weekend happily commemorating the past four years with dear friends and family? Shouldn’t our commencement speaker impart words full of optimistic wisdom derived from years of hard-earned success? Apparently not. Instead, you implored us to examine history in order to warn about the perilous consequences at stake in this election. Yet in the moment, it seemed unfit for the occasion. This ceremony, traditionally a celebration, became a platform for our speaker’s agenda. And though I agreed with your message, what I didn’t understand then, but certainly do now, is that you were holding us to a higher standard than you would have in a normal year, because this is not a normal year. You thought we would hear your message. But we were selfish. I regret not listening. Commencement as you explained is not only about reflecting on the past but also about approaching the future and life as an adult citizen. You informed us that this rite of passage comes with responsibilities that extend beyond getting a job and paying bills. During a weekend already shrouded in the heartbreak of Brock Turner’s trial sentence and the scrutiny of sexual assault culture on college campuses, you came to remind us of another threat — one that would define our commencement into the real world. You warned about Donald Trump and how his candidacy confronted our nation with a “ferocious urgency.” I agreed with your message, but chose to remain passive. I chose to celebrate instead of contemplate. To talk instead of do. I allowed this election to unfold by merely voting for Secretary Clinton rather than devoting myself to her campaign. Now the polls have closed. I regret my indolence. I don’t claim that my actions alone would have reversed the results of this election, but I do believe I could have made a difference, especially if my peers had been similarly galvanized. We could have been for something, as you so ardently advised. Many were, but others, myself included, were not. I regret my complacency. The graduation body you addressed had the honor and privilege to obtain the best education this country offers. You addressed us as the future leaders of our generation with well researched sincerity and unfiltered fear. And we, as a student body, did not respond in kind. I regret my inaction. But what now? What do we do with this divided nation of ours that, just a few days ago, stated that our chosen leader will be a man with no political experience, whose rhetoric is laced with sexist, racist, homophobic and isolationist principles (among others)? I’m offended. I’m pissed off. I’m grief-stricken. I’m terrified. I’m confused. I’m still American. So, what now? What do I — what do we — do? One thing is certain: I cannot remain passive. My peers and I no longer study at Stanford nor live in its safety net, so we cannot avoid or ignore the social and economic threats a Trump presidency presents. Armed with our education, we must choose to act and ensure that the future of this country does not regress into a state of “-ists.” We must embrace each other and be brave for each other. We must not forget the shock on election night nor the residual fear. We must be catalyzed to serve our country to work towards a future that is empathetic rather than polarized. We must care, vocally and actively, about each other, about the environment, about education and about so much more. We must ensure that the progressive policies fought for and accomplished over the last eight years are protected and deepened. Though in the wake of this election, we witness race-related hate crimes on the rise, we must recognize that we cannot match anger with anger. The individuals who voted for Mr. Trump do not deserve our hate. It’s hard. It hurts. But as we hurt, we must remember President Obama’s wise reminder: We are all on one team. This team must learn to work together as a nation to yield understanding and achieve progress. On both sides. Thank you, Mr. Burns, for speaking at Stanford’s commencement and for stripping down ceremonial gaieties in order to address the student body with candor, believing that we would not just listen but that we would act. I will not be helpless. I will not be silenced. I will not forget. I will be for our nation and its citizens. But I am still processing. Still hurting. Still learning. I did not listen then, but I implore you now — what do I do? With the deepest respect and gratitude, — Nathalie Weiss ’16
It took Burns a while to write her back. “I suddenly found myself the optimistic Frodo in Mordor,” after the election he acknowledged when we spoke on the phone. But he felt like in Weiss’s frank letter, “she fell on her sword. And so I couldn’t do anything. I found myself just cramped. I was working every day, getting a lot done. It sat on my counter…. I needed that few weeks to just take stock of myself, and to sort of quit shivering.”
But when he did sit down to write, he had one word in mind: “Engagement.”
“My grandmother wrote every week, every week she wrote her congressman and her senators,” Burns said of the spike in voters calling lawmakers in the wake of the election. “And I was like ‘Grandmother, do they write you back?’ She goes, ‘Always. It’s usually a form letter,’ but she wanted them to know. God bless her. And I did it. As a kid, I wrote to Jackie Kennedy after the president was killed, and I wrote to Lyndon Johnson my opposition to the war and got back three inches of speeches about why he was for the war.”
And so engage is what Burns urged Weiss to do in his letter to her, printed for the first time here:
December 12, 2016 Dear Nathalie, Please forgive the amount of time it’s taken for me to respond to your heartfelt and anguished letter. I guess I too have been suffering from the unexpected turn of events, I too needed some time in the fetal position, covers pulled up to my chin, as I tried myself to come to terms with an election that seems to have undermined so much of the progress we’ve made in the last fifty years — on race, women’s rights, the environment, diversity and understanding our role in the world. Do not be too hard on yourself. We are all distracted by comforting routines and habits. It is hard to break from them to do what for many seems abstract: participating in our much maligned political process. But I hear in your anguish a call to action that ought to awaken anyone — including myself — who misread this election. We need to be thoughtful in that action. Blind, angry protest will not help; it will only strengthen those who do not share our worldview. Passivity — as we have both discovered — is also not an option. We must choose a middle ground: engagement. But the engagement we seek must understand that those people who did not vote as we did are not our enemy. In fact, true engagement is walking into the heart of that constituency, offering shared stories and real solutions rather than narratives that are calculated to divide, offering fellowship and unity, where fake news has helped stoke tribal angers. We must understand too that we have also been betrayed by the so-called “mainstream media,” who fawned for months over the clearly unqualified candidate, giving him billions of dollars of free media, betrayed by cynical executives more interested in a buck than the facts of the matter, and betrayed by the lazy paid pundits more interested in protecting their own “brands” than in the well-being of the Republic they pretend to serve. We were betrayed too by pollsters phoning in — literally — their work and by politicians who spoke to their base and did not venture from safe venues, that is to say, they stayed far away from the genuine hurt and the mistrust and the economic dead ends that afflict so many of us. We must try to point out that even with a progressive president who taxed the wealthy, the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown; we can be assured now that this gap will only grow, not shrink. We must engage the business sector — corporate America will play a huge role in helping maintain our equilibrium, either by applying pressure to retrograde political forces or facing the pain of consumer boycotts. We must try to remember that this level of vulgarity, of blatant lying, of demonizing whole groups of people, nearly always backfires, that real change will come when middle class whites, Hispanics and blacks realize they share more in common with each other than those in whose interest it is that they stay divided. This has been a successful strategy for generations in this country: why not blame the other, who might take your job, rather than blame the boss who laughs all the way to the bank. What to do, you ask? A million things, of course. But it begins only with the first step of awareness and commitment, which you have already made. Just go forward. Engage. Don’t despair. Find likeminded people — not from your social circle, but everywhere. Change the opinions of others, not with ridicule, but reason. Finally, remember too that Barack Obama himself has said that the highest office in the land is not president, but citizen. Be one. With my sincerest best wishes, Ken Burns
Prior to the Stanford address, Burns had confined his political speeches to races in his home state of New Hampshire, though in 2015, he and Henry Louis Gates Jr. kicked off a nationwide series of conversations about race in America that ran through this year. He’s looking forward to using his two upcoming documentaries, the first a deep dive on the Vietnam War due in 2017, the second, a history of country music that will air in 2019, to “remind us that we belong to the same family, that we are all relatives, and the demonization of the other is this periodic, political trick that has short-term effectiveness but long-term doesn’t really work.”
When I asked him if he’d continue to speak out nationally now that the result he had warned about had come to pass, he said he truly wasn’t sure. Even the Stanford speech was the result of Burns’s feeling in the weeks leading up to the address that warning against Trump was necessary, rather than a plan long in the making. But focusing on his work, and his general inclination to talk about politics through the lens of the stories he’s telling “doesn’t mean I’m going to sit by idly,” Burns told me. “I don’t want my country to disappear.”The mass-copyright lawsuits brought against anonymous BitTorrent users by porn companies in the past few years have run into legal hurdles. One of the lawyers representing Third Degree Films, which makes movies like Illegal Ass 2, was found not to be licensed. In another case, a New York federal judge blasted Malibu Media (maker of Veronica Wet Orgasm and Gangbanged) for |
career, Parker was named a second team ESPN RISE All-American and was the Gatorade New York Boys Soccer Player of the Year. He was also a member of the United States U-18 men’s national team pool.
Tim Parker
Position: Centre back
Height: 6-02
Weight: 195 pounds
Date of Birth: February 23, 1993
Hometown: Hicksville, New York
Citizenship: American
Status: Domestic
Last Club: St. John’s Red Storm
How Acquired: Selected 13th overall in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft by Whitecaps FC
Participate in the best sporting experience in Vancouver! The 2015 Whitecaps FC season kicks off on March 7 versus Toronto FC at BC Place. Season Tickets are now on sale, starting at $397. In addition to Season Tickets, Whitecaps FC offer a flexible range of ticket products, including Half-Season Packs, 5-Packs, Student Half-Season Tickets, and a Youth Soccer Half-Season Ticket. For more information on 2015 Season Tickets, visit whitecapsfc.com/tickets.The French-led international assault on Islamist-held northern Mali is about to get a lot more explosive. With a big assist from the U.S., U.K. and other allies, Paris is deploying heavier vehicles, high-tech artillery pieces and its most sophisticated helicopter gunship, the Tiger.
The reinforcements reflect France's surprise at discovering that Mali's rebels possess some dangerous weaponry of their own.
"The defense minister has recognized that the enemy resistance was tougher than initially envisioned," Joseph Henrotin, a French analyst and military academy instructor, tells Danger Room. When French ground troops counter-attacked towards the battleground town of Konna in central Mali on Jan. 15, they encountered rebels equipped with "technical" trucks. Photos have depicted militants riding in a wide variety of these improvised, gun-armed pickups, long a mainstay of African warfare.
"Our enemies were well-armed, well-equipped, well-trained and determined," an unnamed French diplomat told Ireland's RTE News.
French air force Mirage and Rafale fighter-bombers destroyed some, but not all, of the Islamists' vehicles. That left the survivors to face the combined French-Malian ground assault, which has been carefully maneuvering northward from the capital of Bamako since the middle of last week. (One leg of the advance is depicted in Paris' official video release, above.)
Stiff rebel resistance was not entirely unplanned for, according to Gen. Bertrand Clément-Bollée, commander of French land forces. Clément-Bollée told one French defense blog that Paris had designated a series of increasingly heavy army formations for potential intervention in Mali. The first were the lightweight troops of France's small, but permanent, garrisons in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and other countries. Under the French army's "Cheetah" deployment model, paratroopers, helicopters and two mechanized brigades based in France were also in line to deploy to Mali as needed, the general said.
According to Clément-Bollée, the first of the Cheetah forces activated shortly after the Jan. 11 opening salvo. "We had a very rapid need for a company of the 92nd Infantry," he revealed. The 92nd is equipped with the wheeled Véhicule Blindé de Combat d'Infanterie, a sort of light tank armed with a 25-millimeter cannon. Twenty or so of the 26-ton VBCIs were airlifted into Mali to join the lighter armored cars and recon vehicles belonging to the garrison units.
The French army's 5th Regiment, which operates the Tiger gunship – Europe's answer to the U.S. Army's Apache – began arriving in Mali last week, Clément-Bollée said. Older Gazelle gunships participated in the first wave of French air attacks on rebel troops. One of the Gazelles was hit by gunfire and its pilot died. Compared to the Gazelle, the Tiger boasts heavier armor and weaponry and more sophisticated long-range sensors, allowing it to shoot from greater distance.
The heaviest Cheetah forces for Mali – available but not necessarily deployed – include: two more companies of VBCIs plus a number of Leclerc heavy tanks and units equipped with the Caesar, an ultra-modern, truck-mounted 155-millimeter artillery piece.
Henrotin says the first Caesars bound for Mali are "currently underway." The French magazine Le Progrés appears to corroborate this claim with a photo depicting artillerymen from the 68th Regiment, which possesses Caesars as well as mortars and other equipment, preparing to go to Mali.
But it's unclear if the soldiers were taking the heavy guns with them or just mortars. Clément-Bollée, for his part, seemed reluctant to list in detail all the Mali reinforcements. "Our enemies also read," he said.
In any event, Paris lacks the airlift capacity to haul all the hardware bound for Africa. "At the strategic airlift level, the capability gap has been since long considered as problematic," Henrotin says. Early on, Paris appealed for help from allied nations. Canada and the U.K. were the first to offer up C-17 transport planes – one and two, respectively; the U.S. sent five of its own C-17s over the weekend. The four-engine C-17 is big enough to carry a Caesar and any other French vehicle.
Besides the transport planes, Washington has not yet agreed to contribute any other forces to the fight. “Our support of French operations in Mali does not involve what is traditionally referred to as boots on the ground,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said. As Paris escalates its involvement in Mali with heavier and more powerful weaponry, it does so without the guarantee that if the battle turns against the French, allied nations will rush to the rescue.Chris Earnshaw is an odd and brilliant and sloppy man who vibrates with great joy and grand melancholy. For decades he has ambled through bandstands, major motion pictures and demolition sites, searching for prestige and permanence, all while being ignored on the gray streets of a humdrum capital.
“You know, I believe in the inevitability of the spirit,” he says. “I’ve heard about people gripping the rails of their deathbed, thinking the void awaits them. But that can’t be it, can it? There must be something next, something beyond, for all of us. I don’t want my life to end with people not knowing, or people saying, ‘He could’ve been something!’ ”
So several years ago, he put rubber bands around some of his photographs.
The photos were mostly Polaroids from the ’70s and mostly of Washington, but from a certain angle that saw past its monumentality. The images went straight for the city’s brickness, its wrought-ironness, its grotesquerie, its deterioration and destruction. There were portraits, too, of its nameless inhabitants. The photos were crimped and smudged, though, and seemed like one man’s trash.
Chris took the Polaroids in fistfuls to Georgetown, to the office of a man named Joe Mills, the head of photography at the Dumbarton Oaks museum. Joe flipped through the photos, offered a kind word about their strange beauty and shrugged off their rumpled owner.
But Chris kept coming back. He insisted that he had a notable volume of work, a legacy, until Joe said: “Fine, I’ll sort through them. But you have to bring them all in.”
And so Chris did. Three thousand of them, in plastic bags and green metal filing drawers. The photos showed a city that was going, gone.
Polaroids hold a lot of detail, but at a remove. The intricacy isn’t immediate. Whole worlds are caged by those small frames. You can’t see that at first. But scan them into a computer, enlarge them 200 percent, and —
“It was like hacking through the jungle and finding El Dorado,” Joe says. “Like stumbling on Tutankhamun’s grave.”
A worker hoses demolition dust on the 1900 block of N Street NW in the 1970s. A keystone of Bacchus was removed from the razed Aston Building at 11th and G streets NW. “I got the worker to pose,” Chris says. “ ‘Alas, poor Yorick.’ ” (Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills)
ACT I
Time cracks, crumbles. It might be 1973. Or 1982, or 1995. Cranes bend and swing over the capital, which rewards a certain kind of ambition, savors a certain kind of history, the kind that’s carved into granite and marble. The rest is just bedrock for glass boxes that go for $800,000 apiece.
Which means it’s around 2013.
Jimmy’s maroon Chrysler minivan has no shocks, and its back end bounces like a jet ski as they head out of Chinatown, bound for the track.
“Opening day at Laurel!” Chris says, scarfing chili in the passenger seat. The gas gauge is keeled over on “E” but Jimmy always gets them there, to the track and back for $20.
The clang of construction comes from the gaping hole near Mount Vernon Square, and Chris is off: “The Home Savings Bank, built in 1902! √ It was one of the first high-rises in D.C. to have both commercial and residential.√ The 1902 building was much harder to tear down than that 1967 prefab, the NPR building, much uglier of course.”
The Walmart going up at Mount Olivet Road NE.
“I think it means ‘gentrifiers welcome.’ They’re trying to kick all the native peoples out.”
At Montana and New York avenues.
“A hundred years ago, it was called the Devil’s Bowling Alley, because of the gambling joints. THE WILD WILD EAST OF WASHINGTON, D.C.!” Chris cackles at his own narration.
“You’re like an elephant,” Jimmy says. “You remember everything.”
A day at the races! Wrinkled khaki pants. Oxygen tanks. The cigar smoke and musk-malt cologne of functional alcoholism. You can still catch a whiff of glory, in the nerves and manure and money, the gentlemanly gamble on split-second greatness.
“The track,” Chris says, “is out of time.”
His wallet is held together by a fraying blue rubber band. He plucks out three 10s, two 20s and a 100 and places them on the counter in front of his favorite teller.
“Wendy is the keeper of all my secrets. I knew her as a freckle-faced young girl.”
“Pace yourself, okay?”
“Trying to take care of business, Wendy. I’m happy when I’m gambling, Wendy. I’m just gonna do a little something for myself. Wendy, you’re a princess.”
“Why don’t you try to get yourself organized.”
“You got a fresh rubber band? This one just died.” He picks out a sinus pill from a Luria’s jewelry tin. “I’m happy, Wendy.”
“Yeah, Jay,” Wendy says, calling him by one of his many sobriquets, this one an ’80s vintage, from back when she was 25 and he was a payday drunk, just starting to get fat, betting on the trotters, roaring out to Bowie and Laurel in his green ’72 Chevy Impala with a sixpack riding shotgun, tearing back and forth between tellers and televisions after hitting a trifecta, fists in the air, bellowing, “Jay! Jaaay!! JAAAYYY!!!”
One of his grandfathers owned part of a horse in Suffolk County, N.Y., and spent whole racing seasons in the pink bosom of Miami Beach. His grandmother’s middle name was Coolidge, a nod to an apparent kinship with the 30th president of the United States. Chris, whose birth was announced on page 29 of the New York Times — Mrs. Samuel Earnshaw Has Son; “The child will be named Jonathan Wetherbee” — keeps his spare change in a dirty Ziploc bag, and he keeps the bag in a taupe tote with the rest of his precious garbage, and he wields his wooden cane not as a crutch but as a totem of lost nobility.
Chris Earnshaw took thousands of Polaroid and Instamatic photos of Washington, Philadelphia and New York in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
One minute to post. He goes outside to the stands in his burgundy blazer and black felt cowboy hat, the attire for his latest nickname, the Cowboy Poet. He clutches a small bouquet of betting receipts that represent his last $41.
“C’mon, 9,” he shouts at a 33-to-1 horse named Bates Motel, raising his cane.
It comes in second to last.
He goes over his tallies, in case he miscalculated, but he never miscalculates. Which means he’s done, dead, toast, totaled.
“I don’t have a thing,” he says, the September sun sitting off balance.
“I don’t have a thing,” he says, the horses headed for the paddocks.
“Jesus,” he says, the only man left in the stands.
Joe Mills has been in charge of photography at the Dumbarton Oaks museum for decades. On the side, he likes to rescue marginalized artists from obscurity, insanity, what have you. He considers that a solemn duty. Can you imagine what’s lost out there, he says, from the garages and attics of the world? Masterful outsider art that’s ignored or incinerated because the artist seemed nuts. Because the artist is nuts. Because the artist couldn’t frame the art properly for the world to see it. He knows that the proper organization of a scattered body of work can bring it out of oblivion.
Joe can see through chaos, because Joe once lived in chaos.
And so he believes that Chris Earnshaw is a great artist. One of Washington’s best photographers, in fact.
But Chris’s ability to exhume and perform a story from a single image is a different kind of art. For him, the Polaroids hold a talismanic power. By looking at them, he can resurrect what is gone and forgotten.
Take this one: A shot of a drunken bum, a motherless pietà heaped on a stone curb at 35th and M streets around 1974. Divinity in dereliction.
“That was Freddy,” he says. “He was one of Georgetown’s most visible people. He was a growling, very hirsute, crusty-faced creature. He hung around Dixie Liquors because people would buy him vodka and beer to amuse themselves watching him get totally polluted. But that was a real person, Freddy.”
Ten years after Chris photographed him, Freddy froze to death in a phone booth, prompting a neighborhood outcry that led to the creation of the Georgetown Ministry Center, which helps the homeless.
“He was once an architect. Can you imagine that man once in a suit, sitting in an office, designing buildings? And now he’s stinking, has several inches of dirt on his face, like a mask.”
People His life, Chris says, is “geared towards enshrining and preserving the richness of human experience...” The following section contains audio 1/9 | New York, September 1976. “Don Fincke. He was a bona fide Bowery alcoholic. He said he used to be a high-ranking guy at Eastman Kodak but he left his wife and family because he couldn’t stop drinking.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 2/9 | 14th St. and New York Ave. NW, 1981. “This photo crumbled in a very archaeological fashion.... A lot of the artistry in this photo comes from Joe Mills.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 3/9 | 6th and E streets NW, 1971. A Georgetown University police officer patrols boarded-up Victorian row houses awaiting demolition to make way for the university’s new law school. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 4/9 | Foggy Bottom, 1972. “She lived in a small brick house behind St. Paul’s Episcopal. The church bought her property and adjoining house and tore them down for extra lawn for their burial grounds.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 5/9 | Mount Vernon Square, 1971 or ’72. “I’m standing off the curb and behind me is where the convention center is now. At the time, it was a scattering of mostly abandoned brick buildings. The cold was so bad, the emulsion didn’t totally set.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 6/9 | The Staten Island Ferry, 1971, during a class trip with Walt Whitman High School. “He was a mess. I think he was Eastern European. He looked up once and moaned.... There were asylums, but people just stayed away and waited for the butterfly net to come around.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 7/9 | New York, 1976. “He called himself Ace. He said he was the head hobo at the Fulton Fish Market.... He wouldn’t let me take his picture unless I gave him a dime. He looked like a Hogarth etching.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 8/9 | 15th and F streets NW, summer of 1980. “The young black madonnas” stand in front of the Blue Mirror sandwich shop. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 9/9 930 F St. NW, 1977. “A wedding photographer studio. I think she was a street worker. She was saying some fairly provocative things to me.... She had cobalt-blue skin.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills)
Lunch is on, then off, then on again, depending on how they’re getting along on the given day.
Yes lunch. “Joe and I are meeting at the Safeway at noon.”
No lunch. “Chris is being difficult.”
Yes lunch. “Joe and I have smoothed things over.”
Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills are kindred spirits who can be passionate foes. They are now also photographer and printmaker, respectively, and artist and curator. They’ve got a baguette, mustard packets, loose supermarket roast beef and a heap of liverwurst. They are inspired by each other, not listening to each other, at each other’s throats about everything. Art. Film. Life. Death. It’s June 2012 at the Wisconsin Avenue Safeway.
Chris: “He can make prints and I can’t.”
Joe: “Wipe that off your face, will you.”
Chris: “Just let me finish eating this, Joe. Jesus.”
Joe: “Well I gotta look atcha.”
Chris: “That’s why I bring a lot of napkins along.”
Joe: “I’m an artist in a poetic way.”
Chris: “I did not know how it would be properly marketed until after my death.”
Joe: “He could never show it to people because of the chaos around him.”
Chris: “I was confined by the limitations of the Polaroid!”
Joe: “You were liberated by the limitations of the Polaroid! I don’t think you understand the nature of the work.”
Photographer Joe Mills, center left, and Chris Earnshaw, foreground, eat lunch on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in November 2015. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Wet snow is falling.
A church is coming down.
November 2013. Chris is 60 years old. He’s bellowing up 16th Street NW in a cossack hat, with a stack of Street Sense newspapers, toward the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, a brutalist fortress that has been a point of fascination and ridicule since its 1971 construction.
“Help the homeless!”
He crosses I Street into the construction zone, swinging his cane, concrete chunks precipitating in front of him, noise everywhere. He raises a disposable CVS camera.
“The jaggedness!”
A neon-vested construction worker steps in his way. “This sidewalk is closed,” the worker says.
“Who got the bells?” Chris shouts. “The church?”
“Yeah,” the worker says.
Chris backs off, looks up at the broken shell, blinks away soggy snowflakes.
“It looked so strong and they just took it down.”
His guitar is in pawn.
“I’m in a bit of a pickle.”
He’s gotta stop crashing with friends, finally find a place of his own.
“I just want to record things. I don’t want to be a street person.”
Summer 2012. The Greater New Hope Baptist Church on Eighth Street NW. There is the cool perfume of piety. He has a queue number for lunch. He’ll make a couple of bucks picketing for the carpenters union and a couple of bucks selling Street Sense, a D.C. newspaper written and distributed by the homeless, even though he hasn’t been homeless in 25 years. He is, rather, the bard of Street Sense. The Cowboy Poet. A man of dauntless eloquence.
Soft light comes from antique milk-glass fixtures, which lend a luster to the neediness. On a nearby chalkboard, a list:
1. Sinning
2. Suffering
3. Supplication
4. Salvation
A pastor with a Bluetooth in his ear starts giving out cartons of ancient pasta near a lectern. Chris knows this building. It was dedicated as a synagogue in 1897√ and transformed into a Christian church in the 1950s√. Its two domes were removed in 1970 and never replaced. Its original character remains encoded in stained glass on the side of the church, blocked by neighboring buildings.
The rose window, he whispers, has a Star of David.
And by God it does.
Lunch now, in a back room with white silk roses and down-and-outers taking turns at a buffet of fried charity.
“I did this partially to see how the other half lives,” he says of the picket line, the newspaper vending, the reliance on the kindness of strangers. “But I’ve become the other half.”
Ruth Besson Earnshaw swims off Rehoboth Beach, Del., in the 1960s. “My parents liked to go out beyond where the lifeguards liked,” Chris says. “They fought a lot of riptides.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills)
ACT II
The woman who answered the door was both his mother and his jailer.
“Is Jonathan around?” his classmates asked from the front stoop.
“Oh, no,” said Ruth Besson Earnshaw, closing the door, her son locked in his bedroom upstairs. “Jonathan is in a far-off land.”
He was Jonathan Wetherbee Earnshaw then, but at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School he preferred to be called “Ainsworth Spofford.”
Ainsworth R. Spofford was the sixth librarian of Congress, from 1864 to 1897. In 1905, he wrote a letter to The Washington Post opposing the thinning out of the crowded library:
Our “unrivaled collection of literary trash” represents — what? Simply an authentic record of the literary attainment of the United States, at every stage of intellectual progress, from the dry-as-dust sermons of... the seventeenth century, to the latest fruit of the reason and imagination of the writers of to-day.
Save everything, Spofford said. Save even things that don’t deserve saving.
“I’m Ainsworth Spofford!” Jonathan cried throughout the halls of BCC. “I’m Ainsworth Spofford!”
His mother was born in 1910 and grew up near Park Avenue, the daughter of the vice president of a lead mine with an office on Wall Street. A star tennis player at Smith College, she graduated magna cum laude in 1933 and studied dance under Martha Graham.
His father, Samuel Willard Earnshaw, was born in 1912 and raised in Brookline, Mass. Yale undergrad, Harvard law. Clerk for a future Supreme Court justice.
They met in a New York chorus and married in 1938. In 1941, Ruth named their firstborn Martha, in tribute to her teacher, and a dream deferred. Then came baby No. 2 (Sam) and then in 1945 the family moved to Washington when Mr. Earnshaw got a job with the American Trucking Association. Then came another daughter (Ruthie), then Jonathan Wetherbee in 1953, about seven years before everything started to fall apart.
Jonathan Earnshaw, from 1959 through 1983: in grade school at age 6, in a blue-and-white-striped blazer for his high school senior portrait in 1972, in a tux before the 1978 Tony Awards.
They were good years. Golden. Green. Front yards sloping in upper Northwest D.C. Maids making the beds, making dinner. Morocco-spined editions of Thackeray, stacks of Life and National Geographic. His parents sang in the Cathedral Choral Society.
His sister Ruthie took him on jaunts into the city: the skid-row surplus stores and curiosity shops on I Street between 7th and 9th, the flophouses around 5th and G. It was a taste of the déclassé for a couple of bourgeois kids.
Around 1960, Mr. Earnshaw started a private law practice and Mrs. Earnshaw went mad.
This was three years after a mastectomy and aggressive radiation at Garfield Hospital. Mrs. Earnshaw broke down into manic depression. She was hospitalized and underwent electroshock therapy. After a while, Mr. Earnshaw refused to take her to doctors. Instead, he began to withdraw from his family, hiding out in his law office downtown, where over the next two decades one glass of wine became two, three, four.
Alcohol couldn’t keep everything at bay.
An administrator at the National Cathedral School for Girls was on the telephone.
You have to come get your wife. She’s chasing your daughter around the parking lot.
Mrs. Earnshaw kept a serrated kitchen knife in the attic. It was a comfort, knowing she could end it all up there, but she always hesitated. She didn’t want the blood to leak through the plaster ceiling, she explained to Jonathan, and scare him and Ruthie.
By this point, Martha and Sam were off at college. Mr. Earnshaw made a phone call to his brother Charles, who drove down from Massachusetts to spirit away a traumatized Ruthie for her last year of high school.
As Ruthie and Uncle Charles were leaving, 11-year-old Jonathan came to the door and said, “Take me with you,” but they didn’t, and he watched them drive away. It was now just him and his parents.
Ruth and Samuel Earnshaw in a 1973 Polaroid damaged during developing. “They were often physically not there at moments I would’ve liked them to have been,” Chris says. “But I have great affection for my parents.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills)
“I’m sure he must’ve felt totally abandoned by us. The four of us are smart, and he was by far the smartest. He is a genius. And unfortunately he didn’t have the advantages we did. In his own way, I think he’s contributing more to the good of the world than if he’d gone to Harvard and become president. I admire him thoroughly. He can be a little hard to take sometimes....”
— Martha Earnshaw Mayne, Chris’s oldest sister
Joe: “It has something to do with your memory. It’s almost photographic.”
Chris: “It’s almost like — it’s that old saw about the psychometric value of an old object. ‘By closing his eyes and feeling vibrations of an ox cart, he can see the whole street’!”
Joe: “Your memory does not have a sense of time passing.”
Chris: “It’s like I’m experiencing it now.”
Joe: “You don’t let time put pain in the past.”
Chris: “My mother saw me devouring vast tomes like a vacuum cleaner. She was in wonder of me. ‘You will be something,’ she said. Why do I come across as such a ragamuffin? I’m speaking the King’s English!”
Joe: “You are sometimes a tornado to deal with.”
Chris: “I drove a dozen music teachers here insane.”
Joe: “By me having the master set [of photographs], I can protect it from the whirlwind of your life.”
Chris: “I could end up in potter’s field in Southeast in an anonymous box.”
Joe: “You’re very apt — don’t take this the wrong way — to get in your own way and talk about people who’ve held you back. You carry it around like an open wound.”
Chris: “Can I just put it in my own words for just five seconds?”
Joe: “Impossible.”
Chris: “I’m not just an idiot savant.”
Joe: “What do you want in life?”
Chris: “I’ll be honest. I want domestic stability. When I was young, I was living wild, drinking bottles of Bud and throwing them against the wall in Cleveland Park. I wasn’t in control of my art. I want a safe place to get myself together until I reach the pinnacle of art.”
Joe: “What if you’re risking the window closing on this?”
His father, who worked at 15th and New York, took him for walks around downtown Washington, pointing out buildings he treasured, taking him to photo exhibits of Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and Marion Post Wolcott. His mother took him to second-run movies in Georgetown such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” She also would lock him in his bedroom when he displayed too much energy, or make him run around the back yard in circles until he collapsed from exhaustion.
The spectrum had yet to be mapped, but he was on it. Decades later, bipolar disorder was diagnosed, but in elementary school he was just a weirdo. He drooled in class. He was always spitting when he talked and ate and laughed.
His mother would call him “a real Parsifal,” the innocent fool in Wagner’s opera who achieves maturity by pursuing the Holy Grail.
By the time he got to high school in 1968, Washington was entering a new age of destruction. A construction boom on the heels of World War II had wiped out a first round of capital landmarks: grand federal buildings from the 1790s, art moderne structures from the 1930s. From 1954 to 1960, the government’s urban renewal program erased a second round, particularly historic African American houses in Southwest. After the ’68 race riots charred fat swaths of the city, the capital was becoming one big cauldron of demolition.
The Dunbar Hotel, formerly a lodging for African American professionals, shortly before its 1974 demolition. Bricks fly off a rowhouse in the 1900 block of N Street NW in 1976 or ’77. (Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills)
The boy known as Ainsworth Spofford ventured into the city to collect rubble from the old buildings his father had shown him. Chipped bricks, dusty cornices, chunks of cornerstone and keystone. He sneaked into shells in Foggy Bottom. He excised stained glass and peeled cracked tiles off buildings that were moments from the wrecking ball. He bribed construction workers to snag relics from areas he couldn’t reach.
He carried around the purloined archaeology in bags during school, where classmates were either put off by or drawn to his eccentricities.
“He would always be at my house.”
Margaret Welsh, classmate, object of his affection.
“He thought I was something special, and I really wasn’t. I wasn’t special. He thought I was.”
Word got around that Mrs. Earnshaw was keeping him locked in his bedroom, that she would leave food by the door. A group of classmates, including Margaret, wanted to release Ainsworth Spofford from captivity. So they snuck a ladder under the mimosa trees, and leaned it up against the Earnshaw home.
He climbed out of his bedroom and into the second phase of his life.
He was 16 and a runaway, homeless for the first time but not the last. He panhandled for candy money around Georgetown University. He picked up $1.75 an hour washing dishes. He liked the Huck Finn of it.
His parents had given him a Polaroid camera, with a brushed-steel body, accordion bellow and leather strap. It became an appendage. He shot endangered buildings with the camera. He began stockpiling Polaroids, counting to 60 as they developed and then peeling the negative from the positive, scratching rambling captions and profound fragments on the back.
“the end of everything”
“all the old was being swept away”
“A last look”
A demolition on Thomas Circle, January 1971, captured in an original Polaroid by Chris Earnshaw before it was colored and printed by Joe Mills. (Chris Earnshaw)
He was transfixed by decay and rot and abandonment. He talked with construction workers about the philosophy of destroying things.
He returned home, finished high school at Walt Whitman, enrolled in Montgomery College and studied D.C. history. He aspired to be an actor and filmmaker. He began to write a screenplay about a man named Billy Luck, a tragic hero who boozes his way around the ghettos of Washington, looking for deliverance. A professor dismissed it as an escapist travelogue of a privileged young man with delusions of ignominy. That criticism stuck in him like a splinter.
All the while he kept going downtown, taking photos.
Destruction “Basically I captured a vanishing world through my stupid little camera. Click, click, click.... Things get a little run-down. Does that mean they should be bulldozed?” The following section contains audio 1/8 | 2013 Hillyer Pl. NW, the former Swiss Legation, 1971. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 2/8 | 1900 block of N Street NW. “Look at the beautiful pointed arch window. Think of the memories of the family who lived there. And now a crane opening it up to the skies.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 3/8 | 600 block of New Jersey Ave. NW, 1973. Doors from a demolition site open to a contruction site. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 4/8 | 2000 block of Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 1970. A brick cleaner sits in the rubble of what used to be Victorian houses. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 5/8 | 1757 K St. NW, 1966. “Shot with an Instamatic. Woodrow Wilson era. Tapestry brick. Architects did a tour of Europe at the turn of the century and they wanted to use warm brick. It was later than 1900 because look at the reinforced concrete. Façades started to look more like skin.” (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 6/8 | 17th Street and New York Avenue, 1972. The back of the Lemon Building as it is being razed. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 7/8 | 1750 K St. NW. The Parkwood building. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills) 8/8 | New Hampshire Ave. and Q St. NW, 1972. The former mansion of Rear Adm. Richardson Clover, a commander in the Spanish-American War, is demolished. (Chris Earnshaw and Joseph Mills)
Demolished in 1971: The Lemon Building, on New York Avenue, 41/ 2 stories of gable-roofed, iron-grilled Victorian beauty.
Demolished in 1973: The Romanesque revival McGill Building, 908 G St. NW, with its art nouveau brass doorknobs and corbels thought to depict Leonardo da Vinci.
Demolished in 1974: The art moderne Capital Garage, 1320 New York Ave., its facade of limestone and glass ornamented with low-relief sculptures of 1920s radiator grills and headlights.
Chris rescued a few of the Lemon Building’s embellished bricks. He took portraits of people, too. Blues musicians, brick stackers, hippies, girlfriends, children. Allen Ginsberg in Lafayette Park in 1972. Andy Warhol at a 1975 book signing at the Woodward & Lothrop department store.
“I went to shoot buildings,√ I came away with people,” he scrawled in pencil on the back of a Polaroid of a man named Frank Paine Sr., “fighting to the last on Defrees Street,” which was wiped from the grid in the early 1970s because Congress was embarrassed to have such poverty in close proximity.
“I went to shoot buildings, I came away with people,” Chris wrote on the back of this 1971 Polaroid of Frank Paine Sr., left, on Defrees Street. (Chris Earnshaw and Joe Mills)
Washingtonians closed ranks against developers by forming a group called Don’t Tear It Down, which eventually led to the D.C. Historic Preservation Act.
Jonathan, in the meantime, worked at his father’s law office and studied blues guitar. In the spring of 1976, his parents packed some of his belongings in brown grocery bags and told him he had to go. He was 23, and they could feel themselves unraveling.
A few months later, while sleeping at a friend’s mother’s house, flames startled him awake. The whole house was on fire. Jonathan sprang toward a window. He remembers pushing himself through the screen into a freefall. His skull just missed the metal edge of an air-conditioning unit on the ground.
The house was destroyed. His friend’s mother and her boyfriend had burned to death.
“Jesus wanted you to live,” an attending nurse told him at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.
He was briefly suspected of causing the fire, but autopsy reports showed that his friend’s mother had been quite drunk at the time, that the deaths were accidental. Perhaps a cigarette in bed, a county fire investigator remembers. Mrs. Earnshaw blamed herself for her son’s brush with death, and drove to the Ellington Bridge, prepared to jump, but police prevented her from getting over the railing. She was hospitalized again, and this time Jonathan knew he could not stay.
So he asked his father for money and went to New York to become a movie star.
“One of the things I’ve said for a number of years is, ‘You’re only as crazy as you think you are.’ I’ve said, ‘There’s really nothing wrong with you.’ I’m wondering if it’s a societal thing, the way people are treated. Once |
it. Given those problems, ERCOT probably did as well as it could.
Potential policy problems mostly lay elsewhere. In some cases there were interdependences between the power system and other infrastructure systems that magnified the costs of the rolling consumer outages. For example, some of the controlled outages idled natural gas pipeline compressor stations, reducing pipeline pressure and hampering the ability of natural gas generation plants to get fuel they needed. Other power plants found their fuel supplies curtailed under natural gas priority rules that were last updated in the early 1970s. While the linkages between the electric power system and the natural gas pipeline system can’t be severed, actions can be taken to make each system a little more robust to problems with the other.
Another example, the power outage left many traffic signals out, so a power system problem added to an already difficult roadway congestion problem. Reports from Austin attributed at least one traffic accident to the loss of power to a traffic signal. Battery backup systems are widely available for traffic signals, and the City of Austin was already planning to begin installing the systems later this year. Other cities should take note.
Perhaps most or all cell phone towers have battery backup power, helping to assure continued lines of communication when power goes out. But one cable company served by El Paso Electric reported intermittent loss of service after its battery backup system was drained from repeated loss of power from the grid. While the loss of mid-day movies and soap operas may not be a serious public policy concern, it isn’t too hard to imagine conditions under which timely dissemination of information about health issues could be critical. Companies in the communications business should consider whether further steps are necessary to make their communication systems robust to failures in supporting infrastructure systems.
ERCOT Interconnecting?
It is entirely likely that, had power companies in ERCOT been linked more substantially to other utilities in the state and utilities in neighboring states, Wednesday’s rolling blackouts could have been completely averted. This conclusion is obviously not enough of an argument by itself to justify reforming the state’s policy of isolating ERCOT. But it may be sufficient to rekindle discussions about the costs and benefits of ERCOT’s electrical isolation.
Connections from ERCOT into to the southeast corner of the state would be valuable, in case of another emergency. It seems a shame for excess power capacity in various corners of the state to be unavailable at times of stress.
But possibly it is the case that Texas can, as the saying goes, have its cake and eat it too. The Tres Amigas project has proposed building a high-tech transmission link that would simultaneously link up the Eastern, Western, and ERCOT interconnections. At full capacity, the project would be capable of supplying up to 5,000 MW of power to the ERCOT grid – more than sufficient to cover Wednesday’s shortfall (assuming sufficient in-state transmission to carry the power).
State regulators and many power industry players in the state are reluctant to support the project, citing a desire to protect the current regulatory status quo. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission too has acted to protect the status quo in the past, and has signaled a willingness to continue to protect it should ERCOT link up to Tres Amigas. Texas policymakers should explore the opportunities available.
Conclusion
Accidents happen, and no power system will be resistant to all challenges. It would be too expensive to build a power system that would never fail. Yet, when failures come, we ought to do our best to learn from them.
No doubt coal and gas-fueled generators across the state are reexamining their readiness for extreme coal weather. I suspect we could survive another severe storm as early as next week, should one come about. By this time next year, ERCOT and the industry will be well prepared to weather another storm like we’ve had this week.
At the same time, we have to consider the ability to respond to the next surprise. Not another storm like we’ve had this year, but something new that Mother Nature will surely toss our way. Linking up with neighboring power systems would give ERCOT additional resources to draw upon during an emergency. When policymakers in Austin next reconsider ERCOT’s current electrical isolation, the Tres Amigas plan ought to get the hearing it deserves.
[Note: This item was originally posted at MasterResource as: “Texas Power Outages: A Preliminary Analysis (Cold snap brings failure–isolated ERCOT an issue)“]Image caption The site of Jonestown lies deep in the Guyanese rainforest and bears only a few reminders of what happened there
It's hard to believe that Jonestown ever existed.
The patch of rainforest in remote northern Guyana where Jim Jones moved his People's Temple in the 1970s has been almost entirely reclaimed by the jungle.
Locals say if you search long enough, you can still find remnants of a tractor used for transport and agriculture and a filing cabinet that would have kept documents about the community.
The metal drums in which Jones mixed cyanide and fruit punch in preparation for the mass murder-suicide which took place at the site 33 years ago are also still in place.
"We should make sure it's not forgotten by the young people. They should know what can happen," says 80-year-old Wilfred Jupiter, a labourer who helped clear the land and build Jonestown in the 1970s.
Guyana is still the undeveloped backwater that first attracted the self-appointed Reverend Jim Jones. A former British colonial outpost in South America, its tropical location has done little for its tourist industry. It lacks the turquoise waters and white sandy beaches of nearby Caribbean islands.
Image caption Jonestown is one of the sites Gerry Gouveia thinks could draw tourists to Guyana
But some Guyanese would like to see the notoriety it gained through its connection with Jones converted into tourist dollars.
Carlton Daniels is the former postmaster in Port Kaituma, a scrappy mining town close to the old Jonestown compound. He's one of the few residents who remembers what happened there.
"Bringing in some tourist dollars could be good for development. There's a lot of gold mining right now, but minerals don't last for ever," he says.
'Most horrific scene'
Guyana unwittingly became the focus of media attention when Jones leased land there in 1974 to set up a branch of his People's Temple. In Jones' native United States, the cult had garnered criticism; some members had defected.
It was the most horrific scene, and it hasn't left me yet Gerry Gouveia, First responder to the Jonestown massacre
English-speaking and largely undeveloped, Guyana offered a place for Jones to set up a commune away from prying eyes. Cult members built a school, a pavilion and cottages, growing what food they could in the tropical heat. But the critics' worst fears were realised on 18 November 1978.
After escaped cult members complained that the organisation was being run like a prison camp, US Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown to try to help some residents to leave.
As they got ready to board a plane at a nearby airstrip, some of Jones' security guards opened fire. Ryan was killed, along with four others.
"It was the most horrific scene, and it hasn't left me yet," says Gerry Gouveia.
As a young pilot in the military, he was one of the first on the scene.
"The priority was to evacuate the wounded from the airstrip and then we went back for the bodies, but we still had no idea about what was happening in Jonestown itself."
Image caption Only a few members of Jonestown escaped, some by walking through the jungle
After the shootings at the airstrip, Jones had gathered the remaining residents of the People's Temple and made them drink punch laced with cyanide.
Many "drank the Kool-Aid" but others were shot or had their throats cut. Jones himself was found shot dead. A total of 918 people died, all of them US citizens.
In memory
The compound was reclaimed by the jungle while Guyana dropped out of the headlines. Now, some Guyanese would like to see Jonestown redeveloped as a way of bringing much-needed income to the local area and putting this forgotten country on the tourism map.
"What we need to do is attract people to come to Guyana, whether that attraction is Jonestown or Kaieteur Falls or birding or ecotourism or cricket, to see what a wonderful country Guyana has turned out to be," says Mr Gouveia, who now runs his own airline and tour company.
The country erected a plaque at the site two years ago that reads "In Memory of the Victims of the Jonestown Tragedy".
Image caption A memorial graces the site, but Guyana is wary of the infamous association
Events are sometimes held on 18 November to commemorate the tragedy, although this year the anniversary is overshadowed by upcoming presidential elections. But the authorities in Guyana acknowledge that much more could be done.
"It's possible to recreate something to give people a walk-through experience, to show the videos and literature, to put up a museum of Jonestown," says Indranauth Haralsingh, director of the Guyanese tourism authority. "There could be targeted marketing first to the US and then elsewhere."
Other nations have shown that it's possible to commemorate atrocities with compassion and provide the opportunity for tourists to reflect on past events.
At the former concentration camp at Auschwitz, visitors can tread the same path as those who were about to enter the gas chambers. In Kigali, a memorial centre remembers the Rwandan genocide, a tragedy less than 20 years old.
But Guyana's government is wary of marrying the country's public image inextricably to Jonestown.
"We don't want to bring back the association with Jonestown and tragedy," Mr Haralsingh says. "So it's not our priority."
Advocates for a memorial centre at Jonestown face one huge hurdle - the remote location of the site.
Like much of Guyana's interior, there are no paved roads and few flights into this section of the rainforest. Jonestown will likely be left deep in the jungle.By Barbara Starr
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Monday the United States was prepared to act if Syria used chemical arms as new concerns surfaced about those weapons, although Syria said it had no intention of using them on its own people.
Speaking after meetings in Prague, Clinton reiterated that such a move by the regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad would cross a red line previously drawn by President Barack Obama.
"I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur," Clinton told reporters.
"There is no doubt that there is a line between even the horrors that they have already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons."
Clinton met with the Czech foreign minister and discussed the concerns, she said after the meeting. Clinton said the Czech Republic has extensive expertise with chemical and biological weapons.
Security Clearance: U.S. official: Turkey Patriot request not a prelude to Syria no-fly zone
"They have already been consulting about what can be and should be done, both at this time and post the inevitable fall of the Assad regime," Clinton said.
U.S. intelligence is concerned about the Syrian government's intent regarding its vast chemical weapons stockpiles after what one senior U.S. official described as "worrying signs" of activity in "the last few days."
"There are concerns the regime may be considering use of chemical weapons" the official told CNN on Sunday.
But the official stressed that the Obama administration has not come to a final conclusion about Syria's intent.
"This isn't just about movement, but about potential intent to make certain chemical weapons ready for use."
The official admitted it is not entirely clear to the United States what the Syrian government is up to, or if this latest development was ordered specifically by the Assad regime.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information discussed, declined to specify the exact intelligence that the United States has gathered in the past few days.
The New York Times first reported the concern on Sunday.
Syrian State TV cited a Foreign Ministry official on Monday as saying the country would never use chemical weapons on its own people.
Syria is known to store its chemical stockpile, in many instances, separately from the artillery shells, rockets or missiles that would deliver those chemical weapons in an attack.
As rebel fighters continue to make some gains, capturing military assets and territory, U.S. and Middle Eastern intelligence services have been watching for some months for any signs the Syrians would be loading up those weapons with chemical agents.
In recent months, the Obama administration has acknowledged at least two instances of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles being moved but has said it believes those were efforts to put the material in more secure locations as fighting increased.
"We don't know if there is actual intent," the U.S. official said about the latest observed activities. "This is worrisome. This is a step beyond moving them around."Yesterday President Trump flew to Las Vegas to meet with victims and first responders to the massacre on Sunday night and didn't make a total fool of himself. As awful as the occasion was, it was actually his best day in quite some time. At the very least, he was undoubtedly happy to be out of Washington, where the big news of the day was that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had reportedly called him a "fucking moron" after a meeting last summer at the Pentagon, where the brass had to give their commander in chief remedial lessons on geography and elementary American history. Tillerson raced before the cameras to assure the nation that the president is "smart," but did not deny his previous remarks. Trump dismissed it all as fake news, but on some level he surely knows it wasn't.
Another unpleasant event, from Trump's point of view, unfolded Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where the Senate Intelligence Committee called a press conference to give a "progress report" on the Russia investigation. Politico reported that GOP agitation has been building over the fact that there are three separate investigations, and leaders have been leaning on the committee chairs to wrap it up. The article quoted a number of Trump loyalists complaining about Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell's lax discipline in failing to rein in congressional probes which they saw as hampering the president's ability to get things done. These Republicans believe the investigations offer Democrats platforms to raise questions that strike at the legitimacy of the 2016 election, which is absolutely true. This is, of course, because the investigations keep turning up new evidence that strikes at the legitimacy of the 2016 election.
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Needless to say, this sort of complaint is pretty rich coming from the Republican Party, which spent years and many millions of dollars investigating the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, despite each one of those eight investigations turning up little evidence of anything nefarious. By way of comparison, there have only been seven investigations of terrorist attacks against Americans over the past 20 years and zero investigations into the numerous attacks on embassies over the same period. Yet from 2012 to 2015, five different committees held dramatic televised public hearings that were clearly designed to damage the reputation of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepared to run for president.
Recall House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy letting the cat out of the bag:
Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.
He couldn't have made their strategy any plainer.
But the real issue with the Russia probes has little to do with the Democrats. This is part of Steve Bannon's ongoing crusade to take down the GOP leadership and prove his king-slayer bona fides to the GOP base. In an interview on Fox News, Bannon explicitly framed the investigations as personal assaults on the president, saying, “Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have allowed three investigative committees on Capitol Hill with full subpoena power, they're going after President Trump every day.”
So far, most GOP officials are counting on their fellow Republicans to protect the president from harm, but some are frustrated that the committees haven't used that subpoena power to go after Clinton or further probe former FBI Director James Comey for what they see as his protective behavior toward her. (I'm not kidding.) They seem to think that Democrats would never be a party to investigating a Democratic president because, as one congressman said, "My friends on the other side of the aisle, they view almost everything through a political lens and Republicans don’t seem to do that as well.” It's possible he actually believes that.
But as much as this sounds like just more GOP intrigue, The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reported that Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr was taking this criticism seriously. Apparently Burr is even feeling the pressure from his own base in North Carolina and had proposed that his committee issue an "interim report" on its findings so far, in hopes of quelling some of the party's nervousness. Democrats successfully talked him out of that, and they settled on holding the press conference to update the public and take questions. It turns out to have been a mixed bag for the president.
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Burr appeared with his Democratic ranking member, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, and contradicted the president, saying that Russian interference in the election was very serious. He implored the government at all levels to launch an urgent effort to prevent it from happening again. Burr said the committee was closing the book on James Comey and referred all further questions to special counsel Robert Mueller. He also claimed the investigation had "hit a wall" with the infamous "Steele dossier," because they had been unable to question its author, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. (He has refused to speak with partisan investigators.) Burr also said that the issue of collusion is still an open question, which is surely the area of greatest danger for Donald Trump and his inner circle.
Burr signaled his loyalty to the president, on the other hand, by refusing to contradict Trump's insistence that the scandal is a hoax or acknowledging that Russian interference may have affected the election results. Most absurdly, he would not admit that the Russian effort was clearly designed to help Trump, insisting that it was only an operation to sow chaos. Apparently it's just a coincidence that none of the ads, social media campaigns or hacking operations disadvantaged Trump in any way.
Warner pointedly said that the committee would love to wrap things up but that evidence about Donald Trump Jr.'s infamous meetings with Russians, or news that Trump sought Russian government cooperation to build a hotel in Moscow while he was campaigning for president, made that difficult. Burr, standing next to him, ruefully nodded. It's hard to close out an investigation when new information comes over the transom almost every day.
In the end, Burr's gambit failed. It put nothing of importance to bed and instead brought the Russia investigation right back into the news cycle. Luckily for Burr, Trump can't fire him.The Bridgeport Sound Tigers and Adirondack Phantoms are supposed to be playing AHL hockey right now, but the game has been cancelled due to poor ice conditions.
Why is the ice so bad? Blame the Foam 'N Glow rave that was held at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport on Friday night.
Issues in Bridgeport are due to big rave/concert yesterday. Included a giant foam party. Foam leaked through floor. Soap and ice = Not good. — Bob Rotruck (@BobRotruck) April 12, 2014
Divots and bumps. Not sure if they will be able to repair in time. Coaches on both sides will not want to put players in dangerous situation — Bob Rotruck (@BobRotruck) April 12, 2014
Giant foam party, huh? Incorrect, sir. This isn't just a giant foam party. It's THE WORLD'S BIGGEST FOAM PARTY, according to their Facebook page. The description of the rave is pretty insane:
Foam N' Glow "World's Largest Foam Party" Fuses High-Energy Music, Ultraviolet Dancers, Fire Performers, CO2 Shows & FOAM Into One Mind Blowing Combination.
Not sure why they scheduled such a high-octane and probably messy event the night before a hockey game. But there it is: the first hockey game ever delayed due to soap bubbles.Apple unveiled its new MacBook Touch Bar last week, and many were quick to compare it to Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon adaptive keys from 2014. While Lenovo scrapped its touch keys after feedback due to the poor implementation, Microsoft has been investigating the use of adaptive keyboards for more than 15 years.
A concept for adaptive hardware began back in 1999, with an idea that PCs could display action keys and hide other parts of the keyboard based on context. Steven Bathiche, director of research in Microsoft's applied sciences group, spent years investigating keyboards that changed their function keys and actions based on applications on the screen. While most of the work was primitive compared to today's touchscreen interfaces, a lot of the concepts behind Apple's MacBook Touch Bar were investigated by Microsoft's research teams.
Microsoft's Adaptive Keyboard had a large touchscreen area
After a number of prototypes involving projectors, touchscreens, and basic keyboard buttons, Microsoft finalized its research in 2009 with what it describes as an "Adaptive Keyboard." Microsoft's Adaptive Keyboard includes a tactile keyboard with a display underneath it, and programmable display key tops, with a large touch display area above the keys.
It's obviously a step further on from Apple's own Touch Bar, but Microsoft experimented with apps and user experiences that extended most of the interactions to the keyboard where hands typically rest. The idea was to see whether touch and dynamic context-based controls on a keyboard could increase productivity and highlight more advanced controls to a regular keyboard user who doesn't rely on 100s of shortcuts. Microsoft even admits part of the research was to "perhaps delight a little bit."
All of the examples in Microsoft's research were purely concept, and a 10-minute video demonstrates a number of ideas around the interaction and inputs. One example extends the operating system to the keyboard touch area, allowing you to browse through and select documents or recent apps. Another shows how the entire keyboard could adapt for when you don't require QWERTY input on certain actions in apps. Microsoft even investigated enabling notifications to display on the touchscreen area, allowing users to take Skype calls through "quick reach actions" without having to interact with them using a mouse.
Microsoft went with touchscreens instead of touch keyboards
Ultimately, Microsoft decided not to progress with its research into a product. That's not unusual for the software maker, but I asked Bathiche why Microsoft never turned this idea into reality. "We did not build computers back then," explained Bathiche, who co-created the Microsoft Surface, in a Twitter reply. "When we did start, we made computers with touch screens." That obvious and honest answer highlights the real difference between Microsoft and Apple's attitudes to touch on desktop PCs. The new Mac vs. PC war is all about touch, and we might have to wait for years to find out which approach is the winner.
A closer look at Apple’s Touch BarMADISON, Wis. - Exact Sciences will expand at University Research Park and will not expand at Judge Doyle Square.
CEO Kevin Conroy said the chance to bring the Exact Sciences campus downtown was "appealing" but says it was a "prudent decision" to consolidate at University Research Park.
"I do not believe we could have achieved what we have in any other state or city," Conroy said.
Exact Sciences will keep its headquarters at University Research Park. Conroy said he can't guarantee the number of jobs that will be created at the new facility, but he said he hopes it will be more than 300 over a number of years.
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said he will recommend to the council that three Judge Doyle Square proposals submitted in May be updated and considered by the city. Soglin thanked the city council for "working in such a challenging environment on this issue."
Soglin asked the company to respond to concerns about a plan to move jobs downtown in light of the company's drop in stock value. The company's stock value dropped in early October after investors learned that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued draft recommendations about colorectal screenings, suggesting Exact Sciences' at-home, DNA-based colon cancer test, called Cologuard, be used as an "alternative screening test" instead of a "recommended" test.
Soglin had asked for a response by last week to his questions about the potential impact on the Judge Doyle Square project, including whether Exact Sciences plans to appeal the USPSTF recommendation, if the company still plans to locate its headquarters at the JDS facility and whether the expected number of people it plans to hire has changed.
The deadline for a response was extended to Monday.
Exact Sciences currently employs 425 people in Madison.
NEXT STEPS
Now that Exact Sciences will not be the centerpiece of JDS, the discussion has turned back to building a hotel for Monona Terrace, and the developers that submitted proposals in May have been invited back to the table.
"They have now had the opportunity of listening to all the discussion and reading each other's proposals, so they may want to make changes to those and come back," Madison alder Mark Clear said.
Most of the plans also include rebuilding the Government East Parking Garage.
Two Chicago companies and Madison's Urban Land Interests submitted proposals in May.As we did last year, today I’m going to calculate the final 2014 Game Scripts and Pass Identity data. Every week during the season, I write about the Game Scripts from the previous weekend. For new readers, the term Game Script is just shorthand for the average points differential for a team over every second of each game. You can check out the updated Game Scripts page, which shows the results of all 256 games from 2014, and you can read the history behind the metric here.
Let’s begin by looking at the 2014 Game Scripts numbers. The Packers held an average lead of 6.9 points during their regular season games, the highest average in all of football. Because Green Bay was so good, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers weren’t very pass-happy; in fact, the Packers ranked just 21st in pass attempts. That’s why Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb, as good as their raw numbers were, look even better in some advanced metrics. In some ways, the Packers were the victims of their own success last year, as Green Bay was — by far — the best first half team in the NFL in 2014. That led to the high Game Script number, and a lot of casual dress second halves.
Rk Team GS Record 1 Green Bay Packers 6.9 12-4 2 Denver Broncos 4.7 12-4 3 New England Patriots 4.6 12-4 4 Dallas Cowboys 3.2 12-4 5 Indianapolis Colts 3.1 11-5 6 Seattle Seahawks 3 12-4 7 Philadelphia Eagles 3 10-6 8 Baltimore Ravens 2.6 10-6 9 Houston Texans 2 9-7 10 Cincinnati Bengals 1.7 10-5-1 11 Kansas City Chiefs 1.3 9-7 12 Pittsburgh Steelers 1.2 11-5 13 St. Louis Rams 1.1 6-10 14 Buffalo Bills 1 9-7 15 Miami Dolphins 1 8-8 16 San Francisco 49ers 0.8 8-8 17 Detroit Lions 0.4 11-5 18 New York Giants 0.2 6-10 19 Cleveland Browns -0.3 7-9 20 Atlanta Falcons -0.4 6-10 21 San Diego Chargers -0.5 9-7 22 Minnesota Vikings -0.7 7-9 23 Arizona Cardinals -0.9 11-5 24 New Orleans Saints -1.5 7-9 25 Carolina Panthers -2.1 7-8-1 26 Washington Redskins -3.4 4-12 27 New York Jets -3.9 4-12 28 Tampa Bay Buccaneers -4.6 2-14 29 Jacksonville Jaguars -5.3 3-13 30 Chicago Bears -5.3 5-11 31 Tennessee Titans -5.4 2-14 32 Oakland Raiders -7.3 3-13
A few teams stand out for having Game Scripts that are inconsistent with their records. The leader there is probably Arizona, which isn’t much of a surprise. The Cardinals were 23rd in Game Script, and as Bill Barnwell wrote, the team has a numbers problem. The Lions also fit that bill: Detroit went 11-5, courtesy of a 6-1 record in one-score games. Detroit’s Game Script is more in line with the fact that the Lions were 5-4 in all other games, and given how much of the Lions success was due to the team’s defense, there are reasons to wonder how good Detroit will be in 2015. But more on that next week.
Anyway, that’s just background info. The main use of Game Scripts is to adjust pass/run ratios based on how a game has unfolded. We know that teams with the lead are more likely to run, and teams that are trailing are more likely to pass. As a result, we need to adjust the raw pass ratio of a team for their Game Script. Let’s do that, using the Packers as an example.
Green Bay ranked 21st in pass attempts, including sacks but excluding spikes. The Packers also ranked 14th in rushing attempts (excluding kneels). So Green Bay appears to be run-heavy, but obviously the team was usually playing with the lead. The goal is to neutralize the effect of the scoreboard to get a sense of which teams are truly pass-happy (or run-happy).
Here’s how we do that.
1) The standard deviation of the Game Script averages for the 32 teams in 2014 was 3.27. The average, by definition, was 0.00. So the Packers, with a Game Script of 6.9, were 2.10 standard deviations above average.
2) The average pass ratio (defined as pass plays divided by total plays, excluding kneels and spikes) of the 32 teams in 2014 was 58.85%. The standard deviation of these Pass Ratios was 4.66%. Since the Packers passed on 57.70% of plays, that means the team was 0.25 standard deviations below average in terms of being pass-happy.
3) The next step is to add the results in steps one and two. Here, adding 2.10 and -0.25 tells us that the Packers had a Pass Identity that was 1.86 standard deviations above-average. To convert that number into a more reader-friendly index number, we multiply it by 15 and add it to 100. That results in Green Bay having a Pass Identity score of 127.9, making them the 2nd most pass-happy team in the NFL.
So yeah, the Packers didn’t pass very often in general, but after adjusting for Game Script, only the Colts were more pass-happy. Here’s how to read the Indianapolis line. The Colts had an average Game Script of +3.1, which was 0.96 standard deviations above average. Indianapolis had a Pass Ratio of 63.48%, which was 0.99 standard deviations above average. Add those two numbers together, multiply by 15, and add 100, and you get a Pass Identity of 129.3.
Rk Team Game Script StDev GS Pass Ratio StDev PR Pass Identity 1 IND 3.1 0.96 63.48% 0.99 129.3 2 GNB 6.9 2.10 57.7% -0.25 127.9 3 NWE 4.6 1.39 60.36% 0.32 125.7 4 DEN 4.7 1.42 59.73% 0.19 124.2 5 MIA 1.0 0.29 62.44% 0.77 116.0 6 DET 0.4 0.11 63.15% 0.92 115.5 7 ATL -0.4 -0.12 64.13% 1.13 115.2 8 PHI 3.0 0.90 58.79% -0.01 113.3 9 PIT 1.2 0.36 60.98% 0.46 112.2 10 BUF 1.0 0.32 61.07% 0.48 111.9 11 NOR -1.5 -0.47 63.24% 0.94 107.2 12 STL 1.1 0.35 59.20% 0.07 106.3 13 SDG -0.5 -0.16 61.24% 0.51 105.3 14 BAL 2.6 0.79 56.53% -0.50 104.3 15 ARI -0.9 -0.26 60.94% 0.45 102.8 16 NYG 0.2 0.05 59.05% 0.04 101.4 17 KAN 1.3 0.41 56.81% -0.44 99.6 18 CHI -5.3 -1.62 65.52% 1.43 97.2 19 MIN -0.7 -0.21 58.34% -0.11 95.3 20 JAX -5.3 -1.62 63.72% 1.05 91.4 21 OAK -7.3 -2.22 66.23% 1.58 90.5 22 WAS -3.4 -1.03 60.50% 0.35 89.9 23 TAM -4.6 -1.40 62.15% 0.71 89.6 24 DAL 3.2 0.99 50.70% -1.75 88.6 25 SFO 0.8 0.24 54.06% -1.03 88.1 26 CIN 1.7 0.51 52.34% -1.40 86.6 27 TEN -5.4 -1.66 61.95% 0.67 85.1 28 SEA 3.0 0.90 49.40% -2.03 83.1 29 CAR -2.1 -0.63 55.67% -0.68 80.3 30 CLE -0.3 -0.09 53.04% -1.25 80.0 31 HOU 2.0 0.60 48.75% -2.17 76.5 32 NYJ -3.9 -1.2 51.97% -1.48 59.9
Given the fact that Andrew Luck was the quarterback and Trent Richardson was the running back, it makes a lot of sense for the Colts to have been the most pass-happy team in the NFL last year. Indianapolis ranked 5th in raw Pass Ratio, the only team with a positive Game Script average in the top five. That’s a sign of how committed the organization is to putting the ball in Luck’s hands, which again, makes a lot of sense.
The Packers line is kind of interesting. To regular NFL fans, it might not be very surprising to see Green Bay as the 2nd most pass-happy team in the NFL. Your average NFL fan might say something like “duh! Rodgers was the MVP, and he has Nelson and Cobb, of course the Packers pass a ton.” And that’s a feature, not a bug, of this Game Script system. NFL fans focused on statistics might have known that Green Bay actually had a below-average pass/run ratio, but that’s the beauty of using Game Scripts to determine Pass Identity.
You probably aren’t too surprised to see the Patriots and Broncos 3rd and 4th in Pass Identity. And after the two teams led by historic quarterbacks, albeit with a big gap, comes the Dolphins. As I alluded to on Friday, it was weird that Miami was so effective at running in 2014 but so uninterested in doing so.
The Raiders, behind rookie Derek Carr, finished 1st in Pass Ratio last year. The Raiders passed on nearly two-thirds of all plays, but they still have a below-average Pass Identity. Because while the team was 1.58 standard deviations above average in Pass Ratio, Oakland was 2.22 standard deviations below average in Game Script. There were five games where the Raiders had a Game Script of -2.0 or better, including all three wins. In two of those games, Oakland was really run-heavy, in wins against the 49ers and Bills. In the other three, Oakland still finished more slanted towards league average than you’d expect. The Raiders may have ranked last in rushing attempts and in the top 5 in pass attempts, but that was a function of Game Script, not design.
For the second year in a row, the Jets were your most run-happy team. The Jets finished with nearly identical numbers in 2014 as they did in 2013, but actually had a slightly worse Game Script and a slightly lower Pass Ratio. That’s going to lead to an even lower Pass Identity score, and the Jets drop from 64.9 to 59.9. Which is insane, especially after adding Eric Decker. This year, I have little reason to think Buffalo won’t now occupy that 32nd spot, as Rex Ryan is surely going to bring his brand of football to Western New York. The Jets quarterback situation remains a disaster, but with Brandon Marshall and Chan Gailey in town, I don’t think New York will rank 32nd for a third straight year (if only, perhaps, because of Buffalo).
The ideas behind Game Scripts and Pass Identity are not to surprise you, but rather to quantify what we all feel. To that end, I doubt many of you are surprised to see Houston, Cleveland, Carolina, and Seattle all in the bottom five in Pass Identity (or, if you prefer, top 5 in Rush Identity). What might be a little surprising is seeing that Houston only |
pick the one they like. We’ll pick the architect everybody likes. We’ll pick something that works. We’ll do 10 designs,” he said of his offer to the White House. “You’ll pick the one that’s the greatest with the greatest architecture. I will build it free. So that’s anywhere from 50 to 100 million-dollar gift. I will give that, and I mean, I’m talking, Rush — it’s the first time I’ve said this. I’m talking to the biggest person, one of the biggest people at the White House. I’m not talking to a low-level person.”
At his final event, Trump also attacked his main rival Texas Senator Ted Cruz during the Sioux City appearance, knocking him for a controversial mailer his team sent out designed to look like an official government document. “It’s so terrible, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said. “It’s a fraud as far as I’m concerned.”
The latest Des Moines Register poll, released Saturday, found that Trump was leading the delegate race in Iowa, with 28% of likely caucus goers, compared with 23% for Cruz.
Write to Tessa Berenson at tessa.berenson@time.com.By: Logan Helfferich
In the upcoming UFC lightweight championship fight on Thursday, Eddie Alvarez looks to keep his momentum going and become champion in a second major MMA organization. Alvarez recently signed with the UFC after losing the Bellator lightweight championship to Will Brooks, who also even more recently signed with the UFC. In his last two fights, Alvarez defeated former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis (who lost his belt to current champion Rafael Dos Anjos) and former Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez. Both victories were split decisions, but both opponents are also top lightweights in the world. Prior to those two victories though, Alvarez lost a unanimous decision to Donald Cerrone, who just lost to Dos Anjos in his previous title defense only a minute into the first round via TKO due to a brutal body kick and punches. Prior to his first title defense, Dos Anjos defeated Anthony Pettis to win the belt, and prior to that he defeated top fighters, Nate Diaz and Benson Henderson.
Dos Anjos was scheduled to fight Conor McGregor before being replaced by Nate Diaz two weeks before the fight because of a broken toe that Dos Anjos suffered. The rest is history. If Dos Anjos wouldn’t have suffered a broken toe, then he likely would’ve secured the biggest victory of his life against McGregor and would be way more popular right now. Non-fighting fans know who Nate Diaz is now because of his press conference antics with McGregor and more so for his incredible striking and rear-naked choke victory that finally silenced the loud-mouthed McGregor. Dos Anjos holds the lightweight belt, yet more casual fans know Nate Diaz than him solely because Diaz defeated McGregor, arguably the most popular MMA fighter in the world right now whether it be for positive or negative reasons. Dos Anjos knows he missed on a huge opportunity and he’s going to be looking to make a statement against Alvarez and show people who really runs the lightweight division.
Dos Anjos doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves, especially when it comes to his striking. He’s mainly known as a strong grappler, but anyone who can finish Donald Cerrone on their feet is clearly an exceptional striker. The striking advantage goes to Dos Anjos, but only slightly. Alvarez is a very talented boxer with heavy hands and showed it in his wins against Melendez and Pettis. If Dos Anjos sticks to his game plan and stays technical, he should pick Alvarez apart, but he needs to avoid getting involved in a brawl.
When it comes to grappling, it’s a more clear advantage to Dos Anjos. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt has shown time and again that he can dominate in top position, but the wrestling advantage goes to Alvarez. Alvarez has great, strong takedowns and incredible cardio. Dos Anjos’ best tactic in this fight may be to keep it standing by defending takedowns, but he’ll likely see where Alvarez wants to take the fight first and merely do the opposite of what his challenger wants to do. If Alvarez pressures and looks for takedowns, look for Dos Anjos to use clinch strikes and counter-striking, and if Alvarez wants to strike, look for Dos Anjos to take the fight to the mat. Dos Anjos is so well-rounded that he has the advantage of waiting and reacting, as opposed to trying to implement his own game plan from the start.
Alvarez is no stranger to five-round fights after being involved in numerous lightweight championship fights in Bellator. Dos Anjos has only had two five-round fights in the UFC so far and the last one ended early in the first round. There have been discussions and rumors about Dos Anjos possibly eventually moving up to welterweight and now that IV’s are illegal, it will be interesting to see how his weight cut affects his cardio, especially if the fight makes it into the championship rounds.
Depending on what happens in this title fight, the future of the UFC lightweight division could go a variety of different ways. A fight between Dos Anjos and McGregor is unlikely, regardless of what happens in the Diaz/McGregor rematch. With Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar fighting for the interim featherweight championship at UFC 200, McGregor will be forced to defend his belt against the winner after his rematch with Diaz, which leaves no room for another super fight with Dos Anjos. Khabib Nurmagomedov has been a top contender for years now, but has been plagued by injuries. His previous fight was in April at a catch-weight of 160 lbs, but he needs a big win in order to get a title shot. He could be next in line if Dos Anjos retains his belt, but so could Tony Ferguson. The simplest thing to do would be to have Nurmagomedov fight Ferguson for a title shot, but then where does that leave Nate Diaz? Diaz has already fought and lost to Dos Anjos, pretty convincingly nonetheless, but a second win over McGregor would propel him to superstar status if he hasn’t reached it already. Dos Anjos vs. Diaz 2 would bring a lot of attention, and could bring Dos Anjos some well-deserved respect if he defeats Diaz for a second time and keeps his belt. First thing’s first though, and Dos Anjos needs to focus on defeating Alvarez on Thursday night. If he keeps winning title fights, the notoriety will come soon enough.
Prediction: Dos Anjos defeats Alvarez via unanimous decision (49-46), (49-46), (48-47)
main photo: Embed from Getty Images
Advertisements(Gran Turismo has both original tracks and real world circuits. Jordan Greer over at GTPlanet has discovered that one of the most popular original circuits might actually be based on a long lost race track in Iowa. This is the story in his words. - T.O.)
“Deep Forest Raceway” has been a popular staple in every major Gran Turismo game released since 1997. It has long been considered and classified as an entirely fictional circuit, created by Kazunori Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony Digital.
That might not be the case, though.
GTPlanet reader Joel Hadar has discovered an abandoned racing circuit deep in the rural Iowa countryside, about 12 miles south of the town of Indianola, that bears a remarkable resemblance to Gran Turismo’s “Deep Forest”.
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Known as “Greenwood Roadway”, it was built in 1963 and was used only four years to host various SCCA and club races, before it was eventually closed due to financial and safety issues. In the 50 years since, it has been mostly forgotten and reclaimed by mother nature.
It can be found here on Google Maps, and, thankfully, there are a few tributes to the old circuit around the Internet by Chuck Brandt andGreenwoodRoadway.com. Joel also provided GTPlanet with dozens of photographs from his visit to the circuit, which can be seen in the gallery below.
Though Greenwood is obviously not an exact replica of Deep Forest (the real circuit is 3 miles in length, and the virtual is 2.2 miles), they share some uncanny characteristics. As noted by Joel in his blog post:
What can’t be seen from the maps is the identical nature of the topography of the two tracks. Driving on both tracks, the rise and fall of the circuit is virtually identical. The two highest points on both are at the end of the back straight (in the tunnels on Deep Forest Raceway) or at the ninety degree bends in the middle section, and the lowest two points are at the start of the back straight and at the hairpin at the end of the main straight. The original Greenwood pit location is slightly different than the virtual track. But again, in about the right place and even on the right side of the track. The sensation, though, of driving the real track is eerily reminiscent of driving the virtual track simply because the rise and fall of the two layouts is so close to identical.
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Fortunately, several car clubs have been granted access to the circuit in recent times, and some participants have filmed their drive around the circuit.
Note the direction of the circuit appears to be the “reverse” configuration of Deep Forest, which can be seen in the second video of Gran Turismo 5 for comparison.
Was Polyphony Digital’s Deep Forest inspired by Greenwood? How could a Japanese video game studio even be aware such an obscure circuit, of almost no historical significance, located over 6,000 miles away, existed at all?
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We may never know, but Deep Forest was actually the first circuit which came to series creator Kazunori Yamauchi’s mind when we asked him at GamesCom 2010 which fictional Gran Turismo circuit he would most like to see brought to life:
Given the time, money, space and resources, which fantasy Gran Turismo track would you create in the real world? Kazunori was visibly awed by this question and spent nearly a minute thinking of an answer. “Deep Forest”, he said.
This may finally be his chance - or the chance of some other wealthy fan of the series – to restore a fascinating old race track to its former glory, while bringing a significant piece of the Gran Turismo series to life.
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Once again, all thanks to Joel Hadar for the photos and this fascinating discovery!
For more, check out this gallery by Chuck and Duncan Brandt, which includes a map showing where each image was captured along the circuit.
This story originally appeared on GTPlanet on March 4, 2013, and was republished with permission.
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Email us with the subject line "Syndication" if you would like to see your own story syndicated here on Jalopnik.You can usually find Rebecca Oppenheimer, one of the world’s most prominent astrophysicists, presiding over her laboratory at the Museum of Natural History on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But on this Thursday afternoon, she’s in a small, neat office in downtown Manhattan, working on her voice.
“Apple pie is good,” Oppehneimer recites, an earpiece and mic attached around her shoulder-length brown hair. “At the front door. Alley behind the store—”
“Wait, why are these rhyming?” She laughs. She’s with Christie Block, a speech therapist at the New York Speech and Voice Lab who works with transgender women and men who want to change the way they sound to avoid being misgendered or because they feel their voice doesn't fit with their gender identity.
A trans woman in a field that’s heavily dominated by men, Oppenheimer, at 44, is at the top of her game. She’s the curator and chair of astrophysics at the Museum of Natural History. Later this year, she’s been invited as a V.I.P. guest to watch the launch of a NASA rocket with equipment on board that a colleague built, to help collect samples of an asteroid in space and bring them back to Earth for the first time ever.
She started seeing Block, 47, a few months after coming out as transgender to her professional circles in July 2014. She was concerned, she told me, about how she sounded when she gave lectures and talks in public. But even more than that, her voice was a safety issue for her.
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“It used to be the telltale sign, and some people get enraged about this issue. They get really crazy. In fact I’ve been assaulted over it, a really bad thing, that was 13 years ago… It’s not necessarily a need to conform to a male-female stereotype, but to not be spotted instantly,” she says.
Voice training for trans people is a relatively new and metropolitan field: Block, who is a cisgender woman, tells me she’s in the second generation of trained speech therapists who specialize in transgender voices. She thinks there’s a growing interest from young speech therapists as more transgender issues find their way into the national conversation.
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Block, who’s been a speech therapist for 14 years, acknowledges that there can be a perception that her work with trans people is all about perpetuating gender stereotypes. Training a person’s voice to be perceived as more “masculine” or “feminine” also falls into a debate about whether it’s right to expect transgender people to conform or “pass” as either masculine or feminine, relying on male-female binaries instead of understanding gender as a spectrum.
But she says voice training is more nuanced than that: she tries to equip transgender people who come to her with vocal skills that suit their individual needs and as they transition. Rather than having a rigid understanding of what all men and all women (transgender and cisgender) ”should” sound like, she says she tries to help clients find a voice that feels right to them.
“I don’t see it that way,” she says. “It’s about showing people what the norms are or what we all think it means to act feminine or masculine and finding a set of skills that fit along that continuum with that person’s personality.”
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Laura Jacobs, a psychotherapist and chair of the board of directors of Callen Lorde, one of the largest LGBTQ community health providers in the nation, sometimes sends their patients to Block when they feel they want to work on their voices.
Jacobs, 47, is transgender and genderqueer themself—meaning they consider themself to be somewhere along the spectrum from male to female and doesn’t strictly identify as one or the other (and prefers to be identified by the pronoun "they" or "them"). I asked them whether they think voice training reinforces stereotypes.
“There is part of the trans community that is really trying to push genderqueer issues and thinks that binary is outdated and passé and an artificial construct that’s imposed on us. That may or may not be true but that doesn’t mean that people can’t still want to live in those kinds of ways,” they tell me.
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“I have plenty of clients who express themselves in really binary ways, and they understand themselves in really binary ways, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how they have chosen or decided to express who they are," they continued. "That is no more or less valid a choice than genderqueerness. It’s just where they want to be on that spectrum.”
Block also encourages genderqueer clients to come to her if they're interested in using combinations of what are perceived to be feminine and masculine expression. "I am a facilitator for empowering you to express yourself not only in an authentic and effective way, but also, should you choose, in a way that challenges societal concepts of what it means to be feminine, masculine, both, neither, or other. Viva la gender variance!" she writes on her website.
She sees 20–30 patients per week, half of whom are transgender women and men. That includes more trans women than men, partly because transgender men’s voices tend to naturally drop in pitch once they start hormone therapy. That doesn’t mean they don’t need help with their speech patterns, but on the whole, more trans women seek Block out for help.
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They start with an hour and a half session where Block gets clients to speak into the headset, which feeds audio into a program that tracks the pitch of a person’s voice. Based on that reading and an in-depth conversation with her client, she comes up with a target pitch somewhere on this chart:
The chart is based on studies of cisgender people's’ voices and how trans women are perceived based on their voices, Block says.
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They work toward that range over several months with training exercises that develop three areas: pitch, intonation, and resonance. Pitch and intonation refer to how high or low a person’s voice is, what their speaking range is, and how they use that range. Resonance has to do with how a person uses their mouth, tongue, and throat to shape the sound they’re projecting.
“I learn a lot about the person’s identity and expression and their plans for that, but also how much they have to talk, what they don’t like about their voice, are they wanting to change their voice because of being misgendered or because of a dysphoria that’s related to the voice?” Block says.
Trans women who work with Block are generally aiming to raise their pitch to make their voices higher within a safe and comfortable range and to change some speech patterns: for example, speaking less abruptly, a trait that’s strongly associated with masculine speech patterns. Trans men come to Block’s clinic aiming to lower their pitch and change their patterns to be perceived as more masculine.
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For most people, Block says, it takes about three months of regular practice to start to get comfortable with a new vocal range. “That is to kind of learn some basic skills, to get in the right range vocally,” she says, adding that it takes about a year for most people to settle into their new voice and speak without having to think about how they sound.
An essential part of what Block does with her clients involves an element of counseling: from listening to their concerns about their voices in their first session to coaching them through how to start using their voices with friends and family.
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“It’s not psychotherapy but it’s talking about what we’re doing, how to make it work and how to own it. And that can just be a long conversation, that could be just little reminders, that could be recording the voice and explaining where they’re at and where they went,” she says.
But it’s important to remember, she says, that speech therapy can be a health concern for trans people. Though it’s often overlooked, it can be just as much a part of the picture as hormone therapy. She says she’s had patients who have tried to modify their voices on their own, which can cause damage to their voices if they’re straining their vocal chords.
“I come from a health background, and that’s an important perspective when it comes to working with trans people, because sometimes trans people work on trying to modify their voice on their own, they can do so in a way that’s not healthy,” she says. “It really keeps me focused on helping people make changes in a healthy way and a natural way.”
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Jacobs, the psychologist and leader in the trans health field, says that along with greater visibility for transgender people and health care overall, voice training is becoming more popular. And Jacobs says it’s about empowering trans people to speak up for themselves.
“We primarily communicate through voice, so having the ability to speak comfortably is just so important," they say.
Jacobs says that for their clients who also go through speech therapy, working on their voices helps them think through how they want to present themselves, and how they feel they fit into the world. Many of their clients feel self-conscious that their voices don't match their gender identities.
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Voice therapy is at the less expensive end of the spectrum of transgender health services, compared to the cost of hormone therapy and surgeries, but that doesn’t mean it’s easily accessible. Block says her transgender patients are mostly those who are better off financially and able to afford her sessions regardless of whether or not their insurance covers them.
“I think there are a lot of issues of privilege that go along with some of this. It does take a certain amount of money to access someone like Christie or even private psychotherapy or hormones or surgery,” says Jacobs.
At the same time, voice training is still something that insurance companies often try to exclude. Under the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions, it’s been illegal since 2010 for federally funded clinics or programs to deny patients service based on their gender identity. That includes all aspects of transition, but Block says many of her patients struggle to get their treatment covered because insurance companies often try to classify speech therapy as optional. If a psychologist diagnoses a trans patient as having gender dysphoria and recommends speech therapy as part of their treatment, insurance companies are a little more likely to accept claims.
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Though it isn’t what every trans person wants, Oppenheimer thinks speech therapy should certainly be included in trans health coverage and be more available as an option for all trans people. It’s clearly made a significant difference to her day to day life, whether it’s picking up groceries at the store, giving a talk on complex astrophysics in front of hundreds of people, or just laughing with friends.
“You have a great laugh,” Block tells Oppenheimer at one point.
“Thank you, I like that,” says Oppenheimer, smiling slightly. “I really like to laugh so it’s the easiest one to practice.
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Later in the session, we listened to a clip of Oppenheimer reading a test passage during her first meeting with Block in 2014. Her voice has risen more than an octave in the last two years (from 112 Hertz to 180 Hertz, one of the measures of pitch that speech therapists use).
“When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow,” the voice on the recording, significantly deeper, says. “The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long, round arch with its path high above and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon…"
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Oppenheimer is shaking her head at the voice. “It’s weird, I can’t even do that anymore. If I forced myself to I could, but it just feels weird now," she says. It’s been hard work but she says it’s also been an important part of transitioning or, as she prefers to describe it, “self-realization or actualization.”
“I don’t feel like anything about me has changed, I just feel more me. And I knew this from when I was a kid,” she says.
Aside from wanting to feel safer and more at ease with her voice, working with Block has changed how she’s perceived at work, Oppenheimer says. Despite her impressive accomplishments and position of authority at the Museum, it was not easy coming out. Though many of her colleagues have been supportive, she’s had to deal with both transphobia and sexism based on the way she looks and talks.
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There are small cues that she’s learned to pay attention to since working with Block, which have helped her avoid being misgendered as often. She says she introduces herself by name as soon as she answers the phone. And in person, she says the way she presents herself is part of how easily she feels she’s accepted as a woman.
With time, she’s become more relaxed and confident about the image she’s presenting the world. During her session, she’s dressed in a knee-length black skirt and a grey long-sleeved v-neck blouse.
“I think when I had the deeper voice and the harsher voice, people just saw me as a man in a dress or something like that, which was really irritating because it’s just not true either legally or physically. So it didn’t feel right to me,” she says.
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Block tells me many of her clients who are trans women have experienced similar discrimination. “There are trans women who will be in a professional situation where they get attention and listened to, and after they start presenting feminine they’re taken less seriously. They have to speak up more, they’re interrupted more, they’re questioned more. There are enough to see that there’s a pattern,” she says.
“A big part of it is just confidence. It’s given me much more confidence," Oppenheimer adds. "Regularly now I meet people and when they find out I’m trans they’re like, ‘Oh I had no idea!’ Which is cool. I’m out, but I don’t want it to be the central thing in my life. Like I said, of course I’m going to advocate [for trans rights], and I do and I write about it and whatnot, but I mainly just want to be seen as a woman, which is what I am. The trans thing is a detail.”
Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Oppenheimer's involvement in a forthcoming NASA project launch and Jacobs' title and role with Callen Lorde. The headline has also been updated to reflect Block's occupation as a speech therapist.Investigators are scrambling to find a laptop believed to contain national security information that was stolen from a Secret Service agent's car in Bath Beach, Brooklyn on Thursday.
The laptop contained floor plans for Trump Tower, details about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, evacuation protocols, and other information pertaining to national security, CBS reports. Sensitive documents were also removed from the car, along with a black bag that was later recovered atop a snow bank at 1533 Cropsey Avenue.
Source tells me that protective perimeter pins & other @SecretService communication equipment also was stolen, and that USSS is FREAKING. https://t.co/okuhbRQihH — Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) March 17, 2017
According to a statement from the Secret Service, "Secret Service issued laptops contain multiple layers of security including full disk encryption and are not permitted to contain classified information."
It remains unclear what level of access the agent had. ABC News reports that "authorities are able to wipe the hard drive remotely if needed," while sources tell CBS that the laptop cannot be remotely erased. A police source told the Daily News that "there's data on [the laptop] that's highly sensitive."
.@SecretService "laptops contain multiple layers of security inlc full disk encryption & are not permitted to contain classified info" pic.twitter.com/C6GRh8h585 — Celeste Katz (@CelesteKatzNYC) March 17, 2017
Surveillance video from the scene reportedly shows a man in dark clothing exiting a car outside the agent's driveway, then leaving the area with a backpack a few minutes later. The suspect was later seen carrying the backpack on Bay 10th Street and Cropsey Ave, sources tell CBS.
The NYPD is currently assisting the Secret Service with the investigation. We'll continue to update as more information becomes available.Normally, when you see Paul Ryan’s name crop up in terms of policy debate, it tends to be in the area of the economy. (Not terribly surprising, being the head of the budget committee and a widely recognized fiscal policy wonk.) But the man has been on the scene for quite a while and certainly has opinions on other issues of concern to voters. So where does Mitt Romney’s new running mate stand on the issues of gun owners rights, hunting and the associated freedoms that Americans enjoy? Well, for one thing, he’s got an A rating from the NRA.
Voted YES on prohibiting product misuse lawsuits on gun manufacturers.
Voted YES on prohibiting suing gunmakers & sellers for gun misuse.
Voted YES on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1.
National cross-state standard for concealed carry.
How does he feel about hunting in general? Mitt has been the recipient of some ribbing over his “hunting varmints” comments. Even though this particular shot was from bow hunting season, it’s clear that Ryan prefers larger game.
The Virginia Shooting Sports Association was quick to weigh in.
Mitt Romney has chosen Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan brings a strong budgetary background to the ticket but also brings a strong record of support for the Second Amendment. Sportsmen and hunters will also relate to Ryan’s love of hunting and fishing, something that is very popular in his native Wisconsin. Ryan regularly posts photos from his hunting trips on his Facebook page. Now is the time to go “All In” and work hard to Defend Freedom and Defeat Obama.
There’s really not much in the way of “nuance” here. Ryan is, by all accounts, a physical fitness enthusiast, an avid hunter and an uncompromising champion of the second amendment rights of citizens. No squeamishness, no compromise, no blurred lines. If that’s something of interest to you in the candidates on a presidential ticket, file it away for further use.
Our next task will be to ask Mr. Ryan… where do you find all these huge deer???English Manners Are Downright Medieval ('Sorry!' Was That Rude?)
Sorry! The English and Their Manners by Henry Hitchings Hardcover, 392 pages | purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?
From that very first time we're first scolded for putting our elbows on the table at great-aunt Millie's house, we're inducted into the world of manners. After that, it's a lifetime of "pleases" and "thank yous," and chewing with our mouths closed.
But where did all of this civility come from? We can't give all the credit (or blame) to the English, but the average Brit says "sorry" eight times per day, so it's a pretty good place to start.
In his new book, Sorry! The English and their Manners, Henry Hitchings traces the history of today's customs back to medieval times, when polite behavior was a necessary precaution against violence at mealtimes. He spoke with NPR's Don Gonyea about the roots of English manners and etiquette, and the difference between the two.
Interview Highlights
On American tennis player John McEnroe — and his temper tantrums at Wimbledon
To be honest... a formative experience in my life was watching those Wimbledon matches between John McEnroe and his archrival Bjorn Borg, the doleful-looking Swede who was the sort of embodiment of froideur and self-discipline on the court, whereas McEnroe was very much of the let-it-all-hang-out school. And my parents, who were tennis fans, and who, I suppose you could say, sort of indoctrinated me, led me to think that Bjorn Borg was the person who had it right, and that McEnroe was essentially a harbinger of the death of civilization. And I grew up thinking that. But actually, now, I think we probably think of McEnroe as a taste of a more liberated age. He was a sort of a pioneer, almost, interested in freedom of expression and sort of maintaining his integrity in the face of a really hidebound and sometimes ridiculous institution — namely, the All England Tennis Club.
On the medieval roots of manners
One of the problems is we're obviously reliant on written sources, and it's quite clear that manners existed before those sources begin. But the earliest guides we have to manners were written for monastic audiences in the Middle Ages. And what then happened was ideas filtered out from there into the upper sections of society, and aristocratic people — really, aristocratic men — had primers written for them which were mainly concerned with behavior at table. And a lot of the ideas about this came from France, and some also from Germany. But the point was that meals were more socially important in the medieval period than they are now, and in the 14th century, people tended to have very sharp knives to hand as well, which meant that having codes of conduct in place was actually a way of regulating violence. You know, the point is that every meal is essentially an opportunity for violence to break loose and, because meals were also diplomatic occasions, it was very important to have those kind of codes in place to ensure that some sort of decorum was maintained.
toggle caption Jerry Bauer/Courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
On public reaction to early codes of conduct
They were received quite positively, because they made quite a lot of sense. I mean, there's an awful lot in early books about things like not wiping droplets from your nose with anything you're later proposing to put into your mouth. There's an awful lot about where you can put your fingers as well — which orifices it's safe to put them into. I mean, the short answer is: not really any. This may sound obvious, but actually it wasn't, not least because we're talking about a society where people didn't really know about germs. And so the reasons not to do those things weren't as cogent, as compelling, as they would be today.
On what makes manners uniquely English
It's really the fact that the English are defined internationally by their obsession with manners. It's not necessarily that the English are particularly polite. Indeed, I would say that while the English are extremely good at saying "sorry" for things they haven't done, they're not very good at saying "sorry" for things they have done. But the fixation with manners and the incredibly profuse literature of manners are really what defines the field of English manners.
On the difference between etiquette and manners
Etiquette, to me — I'm not saying it is inherently wrong, but it is a veneer. It is a code of cosmetic practices. It's about how long you should wear an armband after your second cousin dies, or what size your greeting card should be, or which fork you should use. And those things are not totally trivial, but ultimately they're not indicators of someone's inherent goodness or otherwise. And I think the problem is that manners essentially has an image problem. When I talk about [the doctrine of etiquette taking the marrow out of manners], I'm really talking about fundamental principles to do with sensitivity to others, respect for other people and their space, their belongings, and it just seems to me that the moment etiquette becomes the centerpiece of the agenda, manners and morality are essentially divorced. And I suppose I'd like to put the morality back at the center of the discussion of manners.Gerald "Jerry" DeLemus, of Rochester, N.H., sat with a group of self-described militia members at Cliven Bundy's ranch near Bunkerville, Nev., on April 16, 2014.
A New Hampshire man who founded that state’s largest Tea Party group and was a prominent Donald Trump supporter was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in federal prison for his role in the Bundy Ranch standoff against the government in Nevada three years ago.
Jerry DeLemus, 62, of Rochester, N.H., is the first person to be sentenced as a result of resisting government officials who acted to move cattle grazing on federally owned land. Others, including members of the Bundy family, have had either mistrials or are awaiting sentencing themselves.
The armed confrontation in Bunkerville, Nev., between members of the Bundy family and agents from the US Bureau of Land Management eventually became a conservative cause.
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Since 1993, the Bundy family refused to pay grazing fees to the government and eventually owed a collective sum of $1 million.
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In April 2014, when the Bundy family no longer had a permit to graze their cattle on the land, agents moved in to clear the land.
The standoff began.Eventually, others, including DeLemus, traveled from across the country to stand with the family against the government. DeLemus served in the Marines, and several pictures showed him armed during the standoff and serving in a leadership role.
DeLemus and his wife, Susan, a former two-term New Hampshire state representative, were listed as Trump delegates to the Republican National Convention last year.
However, after entering into a plea agreement, DeLemus, who was detained in a federal prison outside of Las Vegas, was unable to go.
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The sentence from Chief US District Judge Gloria Navarro in Las Vegas was more than a year longer than prosecutors requested. During sentencing, Navarro called DeLemus a “bully vigilante” who had not accepted responsibility for his action.
In October, DeLemus tried to withdraw his guilty plea of conspiracy and interstate travel in aid of extortion, but the judge refused and cited his effort to do so as a reason for the longer sentence.
“I am a little shocked, and I am sure we will get through this,” Susan DeLemus told reporters about the longer-than-expected sentence.
She said she was unsure about the next legal steps, including whether they would appeal.
She said her husband was innocent of the charges and only signed the agreement “to take the fall” for others.
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But after seven others were acquitted from charges in a similar case in Oregon, he tried to withdraw his plea.
Former New Hampshire Republican Party chair Jack Kimball, who organized a rally for DeLemus last month, said that there are already discussions underway to pursue a presidential pardon for DeLemus.
Kimball said others are asking US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to step into the matter.
“I think it is an outrage,” he said.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report. James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his Ground Game newsletter on politics: http://pages.email.bostonglobe.com/GroundGameSignUp.By this time of the season, odds are the majority of the bass in your local haunts have seen a steady dose of baits. Combine that with the high water temperatures, and you’ve got a recipe for tough fishing. Whenever it gets tough, one of the best ways to trigger strikes is to show the bass something they haven’t seen before. If you’re a plastics fisherman, one of the best ways to do that is to add a little flash to your presentation with the Mr. Finesse Intruder X Blade.
The Mr. Finesse Intruder X Solo Willow blade is designed to do just that. It’s essentially a small willow leaf blade, attached to a screw-lock wire that you screw into the end of your bait. Doing so adds an element of flash and thump to any plastics presentation.
Although it may be new to many anglers, those of you that fish the muddy waters of the Red, Atchafalaya, and Mississippi river basins have been doing this for years.
Sorry, the cat’s out of the bag!
Soft plastic stick baits like the BioSpawn ExoStick, Strike King Ocho, and Yum Dinger are the traditional baits to which most anglers add a blade, but blades can be equally effective on craws, creatures, and even swimbaits.
Next time you’re on the water and not getting bit – don’t be afraid to add a little flash to your plastics by screwing in |
, the site of an Indo-Pakistani territorial dispute. Today the LeT has expanded the ambit of its operations and is known to have carried out attacks on ISAF.
Recent developments reinforce the view that Pakistan is a duplicitous ally. While unproven, it certainly stands to reason that the Pakistani security establishment was aware that Osama bin Laden was actually living under the noses of the Pakistan Army's premier military establishment in the garrison town of Abbottabad.
Now, to add insult to proverbial injury, press reports are revealing that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency offered access to the wreckage of the helicopter that had crashed during the operation to assassinate bin Laden to China. Despite loud denials from the highest quarters of the Pakistani military establishment, there’s every reason to believe that the Chinese military were given access to the wreck. The skin of the helicopter was coated with a material that enabled it to avoid Pakistani radars, and China has long been known for its interest in and capabilities of reverse engineering.
Whether or not a close inspection of the damaged craft would enable their technicians to decipher the secret stealth technology remains an open question. However, the mere possibility that a putative ally of the United States, and the recipient of extraordinary US largesse, would do this underscores the tenuousness of the US-Pakistan strategic relationship.Coming Soon
Mr. Iglesias
Stand-up phenom Gabriel Iglesias stars in this series as a good-natured high school history teacher who tries to help gifted misfit kids.
The Fast and the Furious Animated Show
Adventures abound as a group of teenagers infiltrates an elite racing league controlled by a nefarious organization bent on world domination.
October Faction
Follow the adventures of a retired monster-hunter and his family, which includes a thrill-killer, a witch and a warlock. Based on Steve Niles's comic.
Carlo & Malik
An old-school homicide detective in Rome is paired up with a star rookie born in Ivory Coast in this crime series starring Claudio Amendola.
The King
Hal, a wayward prince, ascends the English throne upon his father’s death, and must navigate the palace snake pit, and inherited war and chaos.
Giri / Haji
Helped by a young Japanese-British hustler, a Tokyo sleuth searches London for his brother, who's involved with the Yakuza and wanted for murder.
After Life
Struggling to come to terms with his wife's death, a writer for a newspaper adopts a gruff new persona in an effort to push away those trying to help.
Rilakkuma and Kaoru
Kaoru's unexpected new roommate is Rilakkuma, a bear with a zipper on its back that spends each day just lazing around -- but is impossible to hate.US banks and merchants may finally shift to a more secure way of authorizing credit card transactions in which customers will enter a personal identification number (PIN) at checkout instead of signing a receipt.
The US is the last major market in the world using the signature system, which is part of the reason why a disproportionate amount of credit card fraud happens here. The change is especially relevant given the massive fraud perpetrated against customers of Target in the fall. During a Congressional hearing last week, Target CFO John Mulligan said the company is accelerating the $100 million effort to switch to the so-called "chip and pin" system.
The change won't happen all at once
The change won't happen all at once. Banks must issue cards with microprocessors and merchants need the right equipment to process the so-called "chip and PIN transactions," which is likely to happen gradually. Additionally, the new equipment also processes "chip and signature" transactions, which are less secure but more convenient. So far, many banks have opted to issue chip and signature cards rather than chip and PIN cards.
There is pressure to adopt the more secure system, however. Visa, American Express, and MasterCard have announced that banks and merchants that are using less secure technology for face-to-face transactions by October 2015 will be liable for fraudulent purchases. If a customer has a chip and PIN card but the merchant doesn't have a new terminal for it, the merchant is liable for any fraud. And if a merchant has a terminal capable of processing chip and PIN cards, but the bank has not issued a PIN-enabled card to the customer, the burden of liability for fraud shifts to the bank. That's a strong incentive to get up to date.
Signatures are so easy to forge — and cashiers so remiss in checking for them — that they're considered a fairly insecure method of authentication. But the chip and PIN system is also not without critics; researchers say thieves could potentially harvest the codes through point of sale systems and ATMs.
The new system will also prepare merchants and banks to transition to contactless payments in the near future, which will bring a host of new security challenges.
Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that many banks are opting to issue chip and signature cards over chip and PIN cards.(broadly) any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union established in various parts of the world to form a familial bond that is recognized legally, religiously, or socially, granting the participating partners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities and including, for example, opposite-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, plural marriage, and arranged marriage: Anthropologists say that some type of marriage has been found in every known human society since ancient times. See Word Story at the current entry.
Also called opposite-sex marriage. the form of this institution under which a man and a woman have established their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc. See also traditional marriage (def 2) this institution expanded to include two partners of the same gender, as in same-sex marriage ; gay marriage.
the state, condition, or relationship of being married; wedlock: They have a happy marriage.
the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people to live as a married couple, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.
a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other in the manner of a husband and wife, without legal sanction: trial marriage.Antonio Gates said he's trying to convince Chargers teammate Malcom Floyd not to allow a recent shoulder injury to end his career.
And to hear Gates on Monday, Floyd is starting to waver.
"I think he was always etched in stone he was going to retire," Gates said. "But now, I think there's a little doubt in his mind because of how he went out. I put more doubt in his mind because I want him to come back. I'm like 'Dude, you can't go out like this.' "
It's not clear if Floyd, who wasn't readily available for comment Monday, will return this season from the torn labrum sustained Nov. 9 against the Chicago Bears.
Gates, a teammate since 2004, said Floyd showed he still has the speed to make plays, and the receiver should still be able to create separation from defenders next year.
Coach Mike McCoy has said Floyd is day to day. "He doing whatever he can to get back out there," McCoy said.
Floyd, 34, went into the Week 9 game averaging 19.5 yards per catch, second-best in the NFL.
Both Gates and Floyd are in their contract years. Gates, for his part, is age 35 and playing through the first MCL sprain of his career.
"I haven't thought about retiring," Gates said.In what would be a dramatic change of course, House Republican leaders are considering a strategy of risking a government shutdown at the end of this month if Obamacare isn’t defunded.
In the weekly conference meeting Wednesday morning, GOP leaders intend to propose a continuing resolution to keep the federal funded beyond Sept. 30 but strip out funding for Obamacare. The move was first reported by the conservative National Review.Senior Republicans know the strategy is a nonstarter in the Democratic-led Senate, and for months have wanted to avoid a shutdown confrontation over Obamacare. The latest move is a tacit admission from leaders that they have, for the moment at least, been defeated by conservatives who are eager to eliminate the health care law at all costs. When the House bill fails in the Senate, as it is certain to do, House GOP leaders would then try to pass a “clean” continuing resolution that funds the government but leaves Obamacare alone. The prospects of a clean stopgap bill winning over most House Republicans are also remote.
“No decisions have been made, or will be made, until House Republican Members meet and talk tomorrow,” said House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) spokesman Michael Steel.
Part of the strategy is to shift the legislative burden to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), who have been deriding House Republican leaders as weak on Obamacare, to their deep frustration.
“It’s a waste of time. No chance it passes the Senate,” said a Senate Democratic leadership aide. “The bottom line is the same in any event: the House is eventually going to have to pass a clean CR with no defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act.”
The proposal, if House Republicans decide to run with it, would spur a standoff that significantly raises the prospects of a shutdown at the end of the month. If the bill fails in the Senate, anti-Obamacare conservatives aren’t likely to let up and embrace a “clean” continuing resolution; they’ll demand that House Republicans hold out until Democrats cave.
The White House has threatened to veto a continuing resolution that defunds Obamacare.A 3D printer company has created a printer designed specifically to build homes in impoverished countries using readily available materials like mud and wool. (Make:)
In the future, cheap housing could be 3D printed in a matter of hours -- using readily available materials, such as mud and wool.
MAKE Magazine reports that WASP, a 3D printer company based in Italy, has created a printer designed specifically to churn out sturdy, versatile dwellings.
The structure isn't completed in the video above, but you can get the idea -- the machine (which can easily be moved and reassembled on location) pipes out special mud like frosting, layering squirts of it into a reinforced structure. When that structure dries, it forms a sturdy home.
The company's name stands for World Advanced Saving Project, but their house-building process actually reminds me a bit of an actual wasp: Those insects chew wood pulp and spit it out to form the hardening walls of their cell-filled hives.
MAKE reports that the company has no set plans for the time and place of its first futuristic mud hut, but is considering Sardinia. The creators hope to build the first WASP house next year.2017 Putt Of The Year Presented By Friction Gloves
The edge-of-your-seat moments that defined the season
Ultiworld Disc Golf’s 2017 Shot of the Year voting is presented by Friction Gloves; all opinions are those of the author. Check out our review of Friction’s DG Gloves here.
While we’ve seen some jaw-dropping feats dominate our Roller of the Year and Air Shot of the Year brackets, our next set of voting tackles those moments that are the most consequential in a round — and, really, a career.
Indeed, our Putt of the Year bracket features players who have combined for 14 PDGA World Championships. It also boasts the reigning United States Disc Golf Champion and an array of breakout stars who all have one thing in common: the clutch gene. There might not be a better exemplar of that trait than Ricky Wysocki, who headlines this competition with five entries from 2017. Still, it’s no guarantee the game’s consensus best putter runs away with this one, as he’ll be rivaled by a massive eagle from his top rival; some wizardry from a seasoned woodsmith; a two-fer from Paige Pierce at the same event; and many more.
So without further ado, select your favorite putt from each of the matchups below, and check back in later this week for the quarterfinal round. Much appreciation to Jomez Productions, The SpinTV, Prodigy Disc Video for bringing us the season’s best moments on the small screen.
1) McBeth vs. Fajkus
Paul McBeth was unstoppable with the putter during his four-year run of world titles, and this bomb for eagle at the Aussie Open was the easy pick for the overall number one seed in this event for its sheer distance:
McBeth Aussie Open Eagle GIF
Lisa Fajkus might be the best pure putter in the Open Women’s division, as she showed here during Pro Worlds at Fort Gordon:
Fajkus Worlds GIF
2) Conrad vs. Wysocki
When he’s not throwing putters on tight lines through the woods, James Conrad is busy throwing them into baskets from out of the woods. Case in point: this jam from his victory at the Idlewild Open:
Conrad Idlewild Woods GIF
Ricky Wysocki started off his heroic season in fine form at the Aussie Open, where he made it clear that it didn’t matter if he parked a shot or not:
Wysocki Aussie Open GIF
3) Pierce vs. Lizotte
Pierce already had the Disc Golf Pro Tour Championship title in hand when she faced this birdie look on hole 17 at New World Disc Golf, but she was never going to lay up:
Pierce DGPT Jumper GIF
In that same vein, it’s rare you’ll ever see Simon Lizotte switch to his “Simon Layzup” alter ego, and he wasn’t doing it at the Nick Hyde Memorial:
Lizotte NHM GIF
4) Wysocki vs. Johansen
Wysocki wasn’t afraid to sacrifice his body for this birdie at the Gentlemen’s Club Challenge. It was a key moment early in the final round to add some insurance:
Wysocki GCC Layout GIF
It’s no line, no problem for Michael Johansen at the Green Mountain Championship as he tries to chase down Nate Doss:
Johansen GMC GIF
5) Barsby vs. Sexton
Gregg Barsby was one errant drive away from taking the victory at the European Open, but he still went out with a bang and made McBeth earn the W after this 50-footer:
Barsby European Open GIF
Sure, the water carry was right in front of him. But this smooth stroke from Nate Sexton made for yet another highlight at the EO:
Sexton European Open GIF
6) Wysocki vs. Jenkins
If it’s crunch time, it’s Sockibomb time. And the second hole of a three-way playoff at the Hall of Fame Classic certainly qualified as crunch time:
Wysocki HOFC Playoff GIF
Can a four-time world champ oust a two-timer? Valarie Jenkins gives it her best run with this 70-footer at Pro Worlds:
Jenkins Worlds GIF
7) Shue vs. Pierce
When there’s a clown’s mouth of bamboo between you and the basket, you’ve gotta get creative. Well done, Grady Shue:
Shue USDGC Flick GIF
Another DGPT Championship putt from Pierce, as she hits the deck for deuce on hole 7:
Pierce DGPT Layout GIF
8) McMahon vs. Wysocki
Eagle McMahon already won our Roller of the Year competition. Does this long-range connection at the European give him a shot at another accolade?
McMahon European Open GIF
And we close out the bracket with the man who has had his fingerprints all over it. With McBeth chasing and a water hazard in the background, Wysocki connected for a crucial par save in Vegas before taking home the win a couple hours later:
Wysocki GCC Death Putt GIFMichael Stittle, CTV.ca News
Stephen Harper says Canadians have "chartered the way forward" for Canada, after strong gains in Ontario gave the Conservatives a larger minority government.
"No matter what economic challenges we face from abroad, this is a land where people from every corner of the Earth have come together to build a peaceful and prosperous country without comparison," the Conservative leader told cheering supporters in Calgary. "Canada will always be the true north, strong and free."
He said the Conservatives would continue to ensure Canada is able to weather the global credit crisis, by enforcing firm regulations for banks and promoting business through low taxes.
"For Canada's $1.5-trillion economy, for the protection of the earnings, savings and future opportunities of our 33 million people, we have a realistic, prudent and responsible plan," he said.
Past midnight, the Tories had won or were leading in 143 ridings across the country, out of a possible 308. Harper needed at least 155 seats to form a majority government.
As the dust settled in Tuesday's election, the NDP had 37 seats and the Bloc Quebecois 50. The Liberals were headed to a crushing defeat, losing about 18 ridings to fall to 76.
In Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's concession speech, he promised to work closely with the Conservatives to tackle any economic troubles.
"We Liberals will do our part responsibly to make sure this government works," he said in Montreal. "It's clear our economy -- indeed, the global economic crisis -- is the most important issue facing our country. As the official opposition, we will work with the government to make sure Canadians are protected from the economic storm."
NDP Leader Jack Layton also said he would work closely with Harper, telling supporters in Toronto that the Tories could not govern alone without a majority.
"No party has a mandate to implement an agenda without agreement from the other parties," Layton said. "I believe the people of Canada have called upon all parties to put aside the acrimony that arises in campaigns, and to come together in the public interest. So we're going to do exactly that."
Harper needed to make strong gains in Quebec in order to secure a majority, but made missteps in the final weeks of the campaign by pledging to cut arts funding and crack down on young offenders.
The Bloc Quebecois appeared ready to dominate the election results in Quebec once again, while the Tories were leading or had won about 10 seats in the province -- a loss of roughly one riding.
Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe boasted of his party's strong performance, noting it was the sixth consecutive majority win in Quebec.
"I want to salute the work of all the candidates with the Bloc," he told supporters. "It was a great campaign."
Tory cabinet minister Michael Fortier was defeated in the Montreal-area riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, where he was defeated by incumbent Bloc MP Meili Faille.
But despite controversy, embattled Conservative candidate Maxime Bernier managed to keep his Quebec riding of Beauce. Bernier was removed from his post as foreign affairs minister earlier this year after he left sensitive government papers at the home of his former girlfriend, Julie Couillard.
"It's a good feeling, I'm very happy," said Bernier.
When asked if he hoped to return to cabinet, Bernier said "the prime minister will decide."
Strong gains in Ontario
Ontario was key to a strong Conservative victory, with the province's 106 seats. While Toronto was largely expected to remain a Liberal stronghold, early results suggested the Tories would pick up roughly nine more seats elsewhere in the province.
In one major loss for the Liberals, Garth Turner was defeated by Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt in the Ontario riding of Halton.
"I think the Liberal party, my party, failed to deliver a real, cogent response to the economic crisis," he told CTV News.
But despite the Liberal losses, Bob Rae said the opposition parties had deprived Harper of his ultimate goal.
"I think it's important for people to recognize that Mr. Harper started this campaign looking for a majority. He didn't get it," Rae told CTV News, after winning his riding of Toronto Centre. "Regardless of what anyone might want to say, tonight is a defeat for Mr. Harper because he didn't get what he was seeking to get."
In one hard-fought Liberal win, former leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy unseated NDP candidate Peggy Nash.
In British Columbia, the Conservatives were set to win 20 seats, including a win by Dona Cadman, the wife of the late Independent MP Chuck Cadman.
The Liberals largely held their ground in Atlantic Canada and swept Newfoundland, where Premier Danny Williams waged a fierce campaign against the Conservatives. But the Tories have made gains in New Brunswick.
Early results in the region showed the Conservatives completely shut out of Newfoundland and Labrador. One high-profile loss for the party was Fabian Manning.
Williams, a Progressive Conservative, has had a long-standing feud with Harper over rights to his province's offshore energy revenues and the latest equalization formula. In the past month he had publicized an "Anything But Conservative" campaign.
But Conservatives had a strong showing in other parts of Atlantic Canada. Peter MacKay staved off a challenge from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May to hang on to his Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova.
"It's overwhelming, it's exhilarating," he said. "All of these emotions come back every time."
May had likened the fight to David and Goliath, after casting her ballot early Tuesday morning. If she had won, it would have made her Canada's first elected Green MP.
While no Green Party candidates are headed to Parliament, the party did manage to increase its popular vote to 7 per cent from 5 per cent.
In New Brunswick, the Conservatives managed to unseat the Liberals in two ridings: Fredericton and Miramichi.
Before Parliament was dissolved on Sept. 7, the Conservatives had 127 seats, the Liberals had 95, the NDP 30 and Bloc 48. The Greens had one seat, but the MP had initially been elected as a Liberal.
Worst voter turnout in history
Only about 59 per cent of eligible voters decided to cast their ballots Tuesday, possibly the lowest in the country's history. In 2006, it was 64 per cent.
An estimated 1.5 million Canadians cast their ballots in early voting.
The election followed a 37-day campaign -- one of the shortest possible under Canadian law. Harper asked Canadians for a stronger mandate to govern the country, after two and a half years of minority rule.
He called an election after complaining that Parliament had become increasingly "dysfunctional," making it difficult for him to lead the country.
"It's difficult to see... how the prime minister comes back to the people of Canada, at the end, of the day and says this election was worth something," former Liberal cabinet minister Brian Tobin told CTV News.John Keller is a 6-foot-8, 250-pound Marine who found himself in the middle of the most catastrophic natural disaster in American history and responded by personally rescuing over 240 elderly and disabled people from a partially-submerged apartment building – not only protecting the terrified residents from looters, thugs, and rushing floodwaters, but also making sure that they received all the food and medical supplies they needed until he was able to single-handedly evacuate them on a boat he'd hotwired and then piloted through the most dangerous waters of downtown New Orleans.
After attending an elite boarding school where he served as class President and captain of the Yacht Team, John S. Keller Jr. went to Xavier University to study marine biology, but dropped out in 1990 so he could serve as a radio operator in the 1st Recon Battalion, 1st Marines during Operation Desert Storm. Now, for those of you who don't know what Marine Recon is all about, these are the motherfuckers the Marines send in first whenever they want to kill the shit out of someone. Think about that for a second – this guy was part of a balls-out six-man SpecOps team that charged head-first into Iraqi Republican Guard units, and he fought so well with a radio strapped to his back that the Corps cited him for bravery under fire. So he had to be pretty damn tough. After he finished serving his country, Lance Corporal Keller came home, finished his degree, opened a successful commercial development firm, and spent his free time teaching underprivileged inner-city juvenile delinquents how to scuba dive and then working with them at soup kitchens to feed the homeless. Yes, you read all of that correctly, and I am not hyperbolizing the shit out of it just for emphasis.
On the morning of August 30, 2006, John Keller woke up to the sound of three assholes trying to kick in the front door of his apartment. The night before, Keller had weathered the most destructive natural disaster America ever faced – Hurricane Katrina – and the morning after somehow surviving the destruction of the New Orleans levees, this former Marine now had to deal with the fact that a trio of twenty-something thugs was about to take advantage of the post-destruction anarchy, bust in his door with their boots, kick the shit out of him, and rob him blind.
What they weren't expecting to find on the other side of the door was a Marine Recon operative built like Jaws from Moonraker. Keller timed the crashing sound of kicks against his still-closed door, threw it open at the exact moment he predicted the next kick was going to come, and then when the three goons stumbled into his apartment Keller kicked the shit out of them, dragged them out of the apartment complex, and threw them out the front door into 11 feet of fetid standing water.
For most rational human beings, looking out into the submerged watery ruins of mid-town New Orleans and seeing the carnage, anarchy, and hellish insanity swirling around in every direction would make us want to grab the first rowboat we could get our hands on and sail the fuck out of town like we were fleeing the zombie apocalypse. But, even though John Keller was a USMC combat diver who happened to own a kayak, this thought barely crossed his mind – all he could think about is how he wasn't about to leave the 170 elderly and disabled residents of his semi-doomed apartment building to the mercy of looters like the ones he'd just kicked the shit out of.
"I couldn't have lived with myself knowing I could have saved everybody in here but I left.
You know what I'm saying? How could I have done that?"
The situation was bad. The American Can Apartment Building – Keller's home – was under 11 feet of water, and the flood level was rising a couple inches every hour or so. He was in the middle of an aquatic wasteland that could only be accessed by boat or helicopter, and there were fish, sea turtles, and poisonous aquatic snakes were swimming through the downstairs lobby. There were 244 people sheltered inside the structure – 170 residents, plus 74 people from the low-income housing projects nearby who took refuge in the five-story American Can building when their own homes went the way of Atlantis. Of this group, about half of them were over the age of 65, a quarter of them were confined to wheelchairs, and another quarter of them were seriously fucking sketchy dudes from the projects who couldn't really be trusted (the three men Keller had just tossed out the window were from this group). His people desperately needed oxygen, insulin, and other medications, not to mention basic food and water, and one of the women living there was nine months pregnant and about to deliver her kid at any moment. As the most charismatic, imposing, resourceful man in the entire building, they all looked to Keller for support and guidance, and he knew the people there wouldn’t make it through this disaster without his help. He wasn't about to abandon them.
John Keller's first step was to collect all the guns in the building and organize a group of people who would defend the building against marauding bands of armed looters. His chief concern was with the restaurant located on the ground floor of the building – the walk-in freezer there was still operational, and since all of their perishables were housed there it needed to guarded at all times – and on more than one occasion John Keller needed to kick his Marine Corps training into high gear to fight off bands of guys trying to steal his shit. Then he painted requests for aid on the roof by cracking open a fire extinguisher and using the powder to scrawl notes that could be seen by passing aid helicopters.
Still, despite mentioning that he needed food and water for 200+ residents, there were no supply drops for 4 days. If Keller wanted to keep his people alive, he needed to resort to drastic measures.
With medical supplies and food dwindling, and resupply looking further and further like a pipe dream, John Keller fucking swam to the grocery store, tied together nine coolers filled with food, charcoal and supplies, swam back with the stocked-as-hell coolers strapped to his back, set up a couple charcoal grills, and cooked food for everyone there. Then he collected all the prescription bottles from his tenants, broke out his kayak, and paddled 7 hours through ultra-deadly waters filled with unseen dangers to get to the local hospital and have the prescriptions filled. The hospital told him there was nothing they could do – they already had 45 dead patients in the building and were low on every possible medication. When he heard that, he paddled over to the US military aid station and tried to sweet-talk a Blackhawk crew chief into coming and taking a look at the situation for himself, but that didn't work out either. Orders were orders.
Oh yeah, and as if all this bullshit wasn't enough, Keller also had to deal with Dawn of the Dead-style internal bickering among his tenants, as the scared, hungry residents got jumpy, angry, and irritable. He tried his best to keep his tenants optimistic and hopeful, routinely telling them that help was on the way even though he damn well knew it wasn't, but even so he still repeatedly had to break up disputes – generally through reason, but occasionally through threats and sheer intimidation of the more belligerent parties. Either way, it was becoming painfully obvious that the only way to keep his people alive was to get them the hell out of the disaster area as soon as possible.
Unable to get the attention of the National Guard, on the fifth day John Keller started picking up all the old people in wheelchairs, carrying them up five flights of stairs to the roof, and then setting them out there so the Guard could see exactly what the hell was going on. That did the trick – once he started putting old folks in wheelchairs up there, the Army started dropping medicine, food, and potable water. Keller got the crew chief's attention, convinced him the urgency of the situation, organized a complete helicopter evacuation, carried 70 disabled and elderly people up to the roof for evac, and then learned that the roof was set at such a weird angle that it was impossible to land a chopper there, and that a helicopter evac would actually be impossible (sorry about that).
This, of course, still failed to stop John Keller from saving the lives of all 244 people under his control. Fuck that. He just swam over to a nearby home, hotwired a speedboat, and spent 12 hours ferrying every single person in the apartment complex to a staging area so they could be airlifted to safety. When he ran out of gas, he siphoned it out of cars and other boats. When he got tired, he fought through it. When he had a dude from the projects shove an AK-47 in his face and try to hijack the boat out from under him, Lance Corporal John Fucking Keller (who had stared down the barrel of quite a few AKs in Desert Storm) pulled his.45-caliber pistol, aimed it at the would-be pirate, and said, "I've been battle-tested and I don't miss. Don't try me."
Thanks to his fearless efforts and unlimited resourcefulness, John Keller saved 244 people – half of whom were elderly and/or disabled – from what would probably have amounted to certain death. He did it not because he had to, or because it was his job, but because he felt an obligation to help those in need – and nothing was going to stop him from keeping his people safe.
He still lives in the building today.
"It sure wasn't for money. It wasn't for recognition.
It wasn't to be no damn hero. What made me stay was the old people.
I just realized that nobody else in here could have gotten those people out.
They would have sat in here for five more days.
And they didn't have five more days."
Links/Sources:
http://blog.nola.com/elizabethmullener/2007/03/john_keller_was_hanging_out.html
http://www.backdoorfilms.com/can/JohnKellerPressKit.pdf
http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2009/05/will_smith_to_play_katrina_her.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l8pZsdCrE0APPEARING on “So You Think You Can Dance”, an American TV show, Jennifer Lopez starts her song “Louboutins” by lying sulkily in sheets of red silk on a bed in a giant sparkly shoe and making a phone call. “Hello, Santa,” she says, batting her eyelashes, “I would like a shiny new pair of Louboutin shoes. You know, the ones with the high heels and red bottoms.”
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In the 20 years since Christian Louboutin made his first pair of ladies' shoes with shiny red-lacquered soles, his vertiginously heeled, sexy, colourful and nearly unwearable creations have become an object of desire for celebrities like Ms Lopez, Angelina Jolie and Madonna, who even lets her daughter Lourdes wear a metal-studded number. Today the puckish Frenchman is the biggest star in high-fashion shoe design, selling about 240,000 pairs a year in America at prices ranging from $395 for espadrilles to as much as $6,000 for a “super-platform” pump covered in crystals. The revenue of his company, Louboutin, is forecast at $135m this year.
Yet all this could be at risk, says Louboutin's lawyer, if Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), another fashion firm, continues to gain the upper hand in a legal dispute between the two companies. On August 10th a district court in New York refused to grant a preliminary injunction stopping YSL from selling shoes with a red sole that Louboutin says infringe its trademark. The judge did not believe that a designer could trademark a colour. He asked both parties to appear again in court on August 19th to decide how to proceed with the case.
“We don't like it,” says Harley Lewin of McCarter & English, an American law firm which is representing Louboutin. The judge has overreached, according to Mr Lewin, by making this a case about the justification of Louboutin's trademark rather than a ruling on a request for a temporary injunction prohibiting the sale of red-soled YSL shoes. He intends to appeal against the decision.
Louboutin sued YSL alleging that several of its rival's shoes infringed Louboutin's trademark on women's shoes with a red outsole, which was granted to the company in 2008 by America's Patent and Trademark Office. Louboutin identifies the shade it uses as “Chinese red”, but argues that any confusingly similar shade would infringe the trademark. YSL's offending shoes are red all over.
In denying the request for an injunction the judge said that in the fashion industry colour serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition, so Louboutin was unlikely to be able to prove that its brand was entitled to trademark protection. He acknowledged that courts had recognised the use of colour in trademarks in the fashion industry before, but only in patterns with multiple designs such as the Louis Vuitton logo or Burberry check. Trademarks have been given to single colours for industrial products, such as yellow for Post-it notes.
Louboutin retorts that granting a trademark to one or several colours, such as Gucci's stripes, is the same. Moreover, it maintains that Christian Louboutin was the first to use red outsoles. Not true, says its opponent, who claims that King Louis XIV had red-heeled dancing shoes in the 18th century and Dorothy danced in ruby slippers in “The Wizard of the Oz”.
The judge has made up his mind that no fashion designer should be allowed a monopoly on colour because as artists they all need to be able to use the full palette. To make this point, he imagined Picasso taking Monet to court over the use of blue in his painting of water lilies, because it was the same or close to the distinctive shade of indigo, the “colour of melancholy” he used in his Blue Period. Moreover, unlike patent law, trademarks are never about granting monopolies, argues David Bernstein, a lawyer for YSL at Debevoise and Plimpton. Trademarks are merely the right to indicate the origin of a product or service.
Susan Scafidi of Fordham University School of Law in New York says that the judge sidestepped the important question by boiling the argument down to aesthetic functionality. The true challenge of the case, says Ms Scafidi, is to determine when the use of colour on a portion of apparel is a design element and when it is a trademark. It will now be the job of an appeal court to rule on the matter. And if Louboutin loses again, the company says it will take its case all the way to the Supreme Court.Alright everyone. Here's another chapter. It took me a while to get it out, but it is considerably longer than most of the other chapters. It was also a big pain to write, because this chapter is where a lot of stuff is revealed, and I had pages upon pages of notes on this stuff, and it was a bit of a hassle to sort through it and make it into a proper narrative that might be slightly enjoyable. I also decided to change my plans for some things up last minute, which really didn't help the writing process, but at least it made me feel like I was going the right way with this story, instead of desperately clinging to my original plans, which were a little... uh... well... yeah.
For this chapter more than ever, I would like to urge you to leave me a review with your thoughts, as well as any questions and/or concerns you have, so that I may clarify/answer/address them in the next chapter, or any chapter following on that. It all seems crystal clear in my head, but I know how my head works, and you people do not, so it might be weird or muddled or complete gibberish (let's hope it is not the last, at least.)
So, having gotten that out of the way, enjoy!
Anna was not sure what she had expected when Elsa declared she would immediately gather her War Council. Apparently, that was something that took less than half an hour, which was approximately the time Anna spent in her office – with Newa, even though that felt odd beyond words – before Elsa came knocking |
Trump has made statements, however, that his legal opponents say reinforce their contention that his actions are based on anti-Muslim sentiments.
Reuters/AP
Topics: donald-trump, world-politics, foreign-affairs, travel-and-tourism, law-crime-and-justice, courts-and-trials, religion-and-beliefs, united-states
First postedHigh Court battle: A mother is accused of harassing teachers (Picture: Google)
A ‘ranting’ mother relentlessly criticised teachers, pursued trivial classroom incidents and was obsessed with upping her children’s grades, a court heard has heard.
The woman allegedly hassled teachers over her three children’s education – once querying her six-year-old daughter’s spelling test score of 19 out of 20.
On another occasion she challenged her nine-year-old son’s grade A, saying it was ‘good but not good enough’.
‘She insisted on interrupting staff in the middle of meetings, speaking over people, haranguing them and, on occasion, screaming at them,’ said the school’s barrister, Jonathan Auburn.
‘She placed oppressive expectations on her children and would admonish both child and school if those were not always met.’
The woman and her husband are seeking more than £50,000 damages from the London school, claiming it backtracked on a deal to give their children sound references after their departure.
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They withdrew their children after a ‘stormy’ parents’ meeting where the headteacher allegedly agreed to give the trio solid references.
But their chances of transferring the children were derailed when he told the prospective school they had ‘harassed’ him, they claim.
The school said the woman was ‘aggressive and intimidating’ and called her behaviour ‘rude and inappropriate’.
She allegedly pursued a number of trivial issues, including an incident between her son and a classmate involving a glue stick.
It said no agreement was made but rather the couple were given a stark choice – either withdraw their children or see them expelled.
Both parents denied behaving unreasonably towards staff. They have gone to the High Court for an injunction to stop the school talking to any others and for damages for alleged breach of contract.
The hearing continues.Former England captain Rio Ferdinand and current England boss Roy Hodgson have been named on the Football Association commission set up to improve the national team's fortunes.
The appointments follow criticism of the group's all-white, all-male make-up by Heather Rabbatts, the FA's only female board member.
Rio Ferdinand factfile Date of birth: 7 November, 1978
He made his international debut in November 1997 in a 2-0 friendly win against Cameroon
He began his career at West Ham and joined Manchester United from Leeds United for £30m in July 2002
Ferdinand played 81 times for England, scoring three goals
His last international appearance came in a 2-2 draw against Switzerland in June 2011
He was called up for England's World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Montenegro in March 2013, but later withdrew from the squad
He then announced his retirement from international football in May, 2013
Ferdinand has won the Premier League title six times with Manchester United and the Champions League on one occasion
Manchester United defender Ferdinand, who quit international football in May after winning the last of his 81 caps in June 2011, is the first non-white member of the 10-person panel.
The 66-year-old Hodgson, who has a wealth of managerial experience both in this country and abroad, has just guided England to the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.
On Saturday, Rabbatts accused the FA of letting down black and ethnic minority people with the make-up of the commission.
Following the new appointments, she welcomed "a degree of diversity" but said questions needed to be answered to a make the body "truly credible".
FA chairman Greg Dyke said the 34-year-old Ferdinand, who has won six Premier League titles with Manchester United, was always a target for the panel.
"We have been speaking to Rio and Manchester United for some time about him joining the group, before we named the other members of the commission," said Dyke.
"However, as he is a current Manchester United player, we needed to be sure that Rio had the necessary time to fully participate on the commission and not impact on his day job. It has been agreed he does.
"As a current player with forthright views and opinions on the game, we can look forward to Rio providing significant insight and experience."
The other members on the panel are:
FA vice-chairman Roger Burden
Former England manager Glenn Hoddle
Ex-England defender Danny Mills
League Managers' Association chairman Howard Wilkinson
Professional Footballers' Association chairman Ritchie Humphreys
Football League chairman Greg Clarke
Crewe director of football Dario Gradi
Dyke has previously said the commission would have no more than 10 members, although it is not yet confirmed whether the line-up is complete.
The group was set up to consider how to increase the number of England-qualified players appearing for the country's top clubs.
"This is the latest twist in FA chairman Greg Dyke's look at how to improve the fortunes of the England football team. "Roy Hodgson and Rio Ferdinand are two heavyweight figures but perhaps, more significantly, Ferdinand will become the only non-white member of the commission. "Some may accuse Dyke of tokenism after accusations he mishandled the set-up of the commission. "He will now hope he has silenced his critics and it will be fascinating to see what Rio Ferdinand will bring to the commission."
Dyke, who has set England a target of reaching the Euro 2020 semi-finals and winning the 2022 World Cup, said he delayed announcing Hodgson's appointment until the conclusion of England's qualifying campaign for Brazil.
"It is important Roy can offer his views as the current manager of the national team and share the knowledge he has gained when working for many years in a number of countries," said Dyke.
Jamaica-born Rabbatts, 57, wrote a letter to Dyke and fellow board members to complain about the commission's "lack of diversity".
She claimed she had no choice but to go public as there had been a "refusal to understand" her position in private.
Responding in an open letter, Dyke said he was "sorry" Rabbatts felt the need to go public and was "surprised" at the comments of his former board colleague at the BBC, where he was director-general from 2000 to 2004.
In a statement on Sunday evening, Rabbatts said: "While I can appreciate the appointment of Roy and Rio and of course welcome a degree of diversity, there are still questions which remain about the work and role of the FA commission.
"The issue of real diversity, and the insight that can bring, is still not fully resolved nor are the exact terms of reference of the commission and the continued absence of the Premier League from its membership.
Who is Heather Rabbatts? Heather Rabbatts has criticised the commission Born in Jamaica in 1955 and moved to Britain aged three
Qualified as barrister in 1981 before working in local government
Awarded a CBE in the 2000 New Year Honours list
Appointed Deputy Executive Chair in Millwall in 2006
Became first female board member of the FA in 2011
"Greg Dyke was right to say that this project was the FA's flagship for the future well-being of our national team and it is essential that it is overseen by a body that is truly credible and has the trust and confidence of the whole of football.
"This is still not the case. Today's announcement is a start, but there is a lot more work to do."
Ferdinand played for England at the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
He missed the 2010 tournament because of injury and was subsequently left out of the England squad for Euro 2012 by Hodgson.
The centre-back's absence from the tournament avoided a potential conflict with John Terry, who at the time was awaiting trial over allegations he racially abused Ferdinand's brother, Anton.
Terry was cleared of the charge at Westminster Magistrates' Court in July but later found guilty by the FA.
In October 2012, Hodgson denied telling London Underground passengers that Ferdinand's international career was over.
Ferdinand was recalled for the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Montenegro in March, but later withdrew because of a "pre-planned fitness programme" before announcing his international retirement two months later.Recipe for vegan Mini Calzones filled with spinach, mushrooms, tomato sauce & homemade vegan cheese. They are perfect little finger foods for parties!
Calzone Party!! Oh man… have I ever mentioned how much I love those little pockets filled with steaming hot deliciousness? My boyfriend loves those as well and he demands them on a regular basis and that’s absolutely okay with me because they are one of the most awesome things one can make in the kitchen.
They are also great for parties because people can eat them without a knife and fork and you can dip them in tomato sauce. If you want more party ideas, make sure you check out my collection of 12 vegan drinks & eats for your next party.
How to make vegan Mini Calzones from scratch
This is how the dough should look like. I’ve let my bread machine knead the dough, but you can use a kitchen machine as well or knead it by hand, afterward let the dough rise until it doubles in size.
Cut the dough in 8 equal pieces. Of course, you can make 2 bigger calzones instead or smaller ones.
Make cute little balls so they are easier to roll out into an evenly round shape.
Roll the pieces in mini pizza bases! Use a floured surface.
Top the pizza bases on one half with tomato sauce, the filling and the nooch cheese sauce and fold it. Press the edges down. Fold them again and press them down again to make a pretty crust!
Brush them with oil. I’ve used a herb oil, but you can use olive oil, garlic oil or anything you prefer and have at home.
I’ve doubled the measurements for the tomato sauce to have something to dip the vegan Mini Calzones in afterwards. Totally worth it!
Mini Calzone dipped in a smoky tomato sauce – Yumm! But be careful, the calzones are super hot!
Mini Calzones Recipe for vegan Mini Calzones filled with spinach, mushrooms, tomato sauce & homemade vegan cheese. They are perfect for parties! 5 from 1 vote Print Pin Prep Time: 45 minutes Cook Time: 50 minutes Resting Time: 2 hours Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes Servings: 8 mini calzones Calories: 203 kcal Author: Elephantastic Vegan Ingredients Ingredients for the dough 3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup warm water Ingredients for the filling 2 cups mushrooms
2-3 cups fresh spinach
Homemade Nooch Cheese (or sub with your favorite vegan cheese shreds)
1 1/2 cups tomato purée* (if you don't want tomato sauce to dip the Calzones in afterwards, half the amount of tomato purée!)
1/4 teaspoon salt
ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
a few twigs fresh oregano
olive oil for brushing the top Instructions For the dough put all ingredients in a kitchen machine or mix by hand and let it rise until it doubles in size, but keep it covered under a clean kitchen towel otherwise the dough will dry out.
Prepare the Nooch Cheese Sauce
Preheat the oven as hot at 480°F/250°C.
Cut the dough in 8 equal pieces and roll them out on a floured surface.
Clean the mushrooms and spinach, cut the mushrooms in thin slices and put the mushrooms in a hot pan (You want the mushrooms to lose most of their water now, they shouldn't water up the calzone later). Add the spinach to let it cook down.
For the tomato sauce mix the tomato purée with the salt, ground pepper, fresh oregano, onion powder and liquid smoke. (Adjust the sauce to your taste)
Spread the tomato sauce over half of the calzone pizzas, add the mushroom-spinach mixture and add the vegan cheese sauce.
Fold the calzone and press it down on the edges. Fold the edges again and a third time to make it pretty! Repeat until all calzones are fold.
Brush the calzones with a bit of olive oil and bake them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. Enjoy! Notes Be careful not to burn yourself, they're super hot!
*I used store-bought tomato purée (with salt, no additional herbs) for this recipe - it's often canned or in cartons, not to confuse with tomato paste which is thicker in consistency. Estimated Nutrition Info Serving: 1 mini calzone | Calories: 203 kcal | Carbohydrates: 41 g | Protein: 6 g | Fat: 1 g | Sodium: 169 mg | Potassium: 391 mg | Fiber: 2 g | Sugar: 3 g | Vitamin A: 19.1 % | Vitamin C: 9.5 % | Calcium: 2.3 % | Iron: 18.7 % Tried this recipe? Mention @elephantasticvegan or tag #elephantasticvegan Rate the recipe! A recipe rating helps other users to figure out if they should try a recipe. Please leave a good rating, if you like the recipe!
Should you decide to give these Vegan Mini Calzones a try I’d love to hear how it went! Write me a comment or post a picture on instagram, use the hashtag #elephantasticvegan and tag me via @elephantasticvegan to make sure I’ll see it ^.^ I love to see all your lovely creations! Thanks! <3
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Affiliate Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that I have recommended. While clicking these links won't cost you any extra money, they will help me keep this site up and running!The struggle for some of the most strategic territory in the world took an interesting twist this week. Last week we discussed what appeared to be a significant shift in German national strategy in which Berlin seemed to declare a new doctrine of increased assertiveness in the world -- a shift that followed intense German interest in Ukraine. This week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a now-famous cell phone conversation, declared her strong contempt for the European Union and its weakness and counseled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine to proceed quickly and without the Europeans to piece together a specific opposition coalition before the Russians saw what was happening and took action.
This is a new twist not because it makes clear that the United States is not the only country intercepting phone calls, but because it puts U.S. policy in Ukraine in a new light and forces us to reconsider U.S. strategy toward Russia and Germany. Nuland's cell phone conversation is hardly definitive, but it is an additional indicator of American strategic thinking.
Recent U.S. Foreign Policy Shifts
U.S. foreign policy has evolved during the past few years. Previously, the United States was focused heavily on the Islamic world and, more important, tended to regard the use of force as an early option in the execution of U.S. policy rather than as a last resort. This was true not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Africa and elsewhere. The strategy was successful when its goal was to destroy an enemy military force. It proved far more difficult to use in occupying countries and shaping their internal and foreign policies. Military force has intrinsic limits.
The alternative has been a shift to a balance-of-power strategy in which the United States relies on the natural schisms that exist in every region to block the emergence of regional hegemons and contain unrest and groups that could threaten U.S. interests. The best example of the old policy is Libya, where the United States directly intervened with air power and special operations forces on the ground to unseat Moammar Gadhafi. Western efforts to replace him with a regime favorable to the United States and its allies have not succeeded. The new strategy can be seen in Syria, where rather than directly intervening the United States has stood back and allowed the warring factions to expend their energy on each other, preventing either side from diverting resources to activities that might challenge U.S. interests.
Behind this is a schism in U.S. foreign policy that has more to do with motivation than actual action. On one side, there are those who consciously support the Syria model for the United States as not necessarily the best moral option but the only practical option there is. On the other, there are those who argue on behalf of moral interventions, as we saw in Libya, and removing tyrants as an end in itself. Given the outcome in Libya, this faction is on the defensive, as it must explain how an intervention will actually improve the moral situation. Given that this faction also tended to oppose Iraq, it must show how an intervention will not degenerate into Iraqi-type warfare. That is hard to do, so for all the rhetoric, the United States is by default falling into a balance-of-power model.
The Geopolitical Battle in Ukraine
Russia emerged as a problem for the United States after the Orange Revolution in 2004, when the United States, supporting anti-Russian factions in Ukraine, succeeded in crafting a relatively pro-Western, anti-Russian government. The Russians read this as U.S. intelligence operations designed to create an anti-Russian Ukraine that, as we have written, would directly challenge Russian strategic and economic interests. Moreover, Moscow saw the Orange Revolution (along with the Rose Revolution) as a dress rehearsal for something that could occur in Russia next. The Russian response was to use its own covert capabilities, in conjunction with economic pressure from natural gas cutoffs, to undermine Ukraine's government and to use its war with Georgia as a striking reminder of the resurrection of Russian military capabilities. These moves, plus disappointment with Western aid, allowed a more pro-Russian government to emerge in Kiev, reducing the Russians' fears and increasing their confidence. In time, Moscow became more effective and assertive in playing its cards right in the Middle East -- giving rise to the current situations in Syria and Iran and elsewhere.
Washington had two options. One was to allow the balance of power to assert itself, in this case relying on the Europeans to contain the Russians. The other was to continue to follow the balance of power model but at a notch higher than pure passivity. As Nuland's call shows, U.S. confidence in Europe's will for and interest in blocking the Russians was low; hence a purely passive model would not work. The next step was the lowest possible level of involvement to contain the Russians and counter their moves in the Middle East. This meant a very limited and not too covert support for anti-Russian, pro-European demonstrators -- the re-creation of a pro-Western, anti-Russian government in Ukraine. To a considerable degree, the U.S. talks with Iran also allow Washington to deny the Russians an Iranian card, although the Syrian theater still allows the Kremlin some room to maneuver.
The United States is not prepared to intervene in the former Soviet Union. Russia is not a global power, and its military has many weaknesses, but it is by far the strongest in the region and is able to project power in the former Soviet periphery, as the war with Georgia showed. At the moment, the U.S. military also has many weaknesses. Having fought for more than a decade in the core of the Islamic world, the U.S. military is highly focused on a way of war not relevant to the former Soviet Union, its alliance structure around the former Soviet Union is frayed and not supportive of war, and the inevitable post-war cutbacks that traditionally follow any war the United States fights are cutting into capabilities. A direct intervention, even were it contemplated (which it is not), is not an option. The only correlation of forces that matters is what exists at a given point in time in a given place. In that sense, the closer U.S. forces get to the Russian homeland, the greater the advantage the Russians have.
Instead, the United States did the same thing that it did prior to the Orange Revolution: back the type of intervention that both the human rights advocates and the balance-of-power advocates could support. Giving financial and psychological support to the demonstrators protesting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to reject a closer relationship with Europe, and later protesting the government's attempt to suppress the demonstrations, preserved the possibility of regime change in Ukraine, with minimal exposure and risk to the United States.
Dissatisfaction with the German Approach
As we said last week, it appeared that it was the Germans who were particularly pressing the issue, and that they were the ones virtually controlling one of the leaders of the protests, Vitali Klitschko. The United States appeared to be taking a back seat to Germany. Indeed, Berlin's statements indicating that it is prepared to take a more assertive role in the world appeared to be a historic shift in German foreign policy.
The statements were even more notable since, over the years, Germany appeared to have been moving closer to Russia on economic and strategic issues. Neither country was comfortable with U.S. aggressiveness in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Both countries shared the need to create new economic relationships in the face of the European economic crisis and the need to contain the United States. Hence, the apparent German shift was startling.
Although Germany's move should not be dismissed, its meaning was not as clear as it seemed. In her cell phone call, Nuland is clearly dismissing the Germans, Klitschko and all their efforts in Ukraine. This could mean that the strategy was too feeble for American tastes (Berlin cannot, after all, risk too big a confrontation with Moscow). Or it could mean that when the Germans said they were planning to be more assertive, their new boldness was meant to head off U.S. efforts. Looking at this week's events, it is not clear what the Germans meant.
What is clear is that the United States was not satisfied with Germany and the European Union. Logically, this meant that the United States intended to be more aggressive than the Germans in supporting opponents of the regime. This is a touchy issue for human rights advocates, or should be. Yanukovich is the elected president of Ukraine, winner of an election that is generally agreed to have been honest (even though his constitutional amendments and subsequent parliamentary elections may not have been). He was acting within his authority in rejecting the deal with the European Union. If demonstrators can unseat an elected president because they disagree with his actions, they have set a precedent that undermines constitutionalism. Even if he was rough in suppressing the demonstrators, it does not nullify his election.
From a balance of power strategy, however, it makes great sense. A pro-Western, even ambiguous, Ukraine poses a profound strategic problem for Russia. It would be as if Texas became pro-Russian, and the Mississippi River system, oil production, the Midwest and the Southwest became vulnerable. The Russian ability to engage in Iran or Syria suddenly contracts. Moscow's focus must be on Ukraine.
Using the demonstrations to create a massive problem for Russia does two things. It creates a real strategic challenge for the Russians and forces them on the defensive. Second, it reminds Russia that Washington has capabilities and options that make challenging the United States difficult. And it can be framed in a way that human rights advocates will applaud in spite of the constitutional issues, enemies of the Iranian talks will appreciate and Central Europeans from Poland to Romania will see as a sign of U.S. commitment to the region. The United States will re-emerge as an alternative to Germany and Russia. It is a brilliant stroke.
Its one weakness, if we can call it that, is that it is hard to see how it can work. Russia has significant economic leverage in Ukraine, it is not clear that pro-Western demonstrators are in the majority, and Russian covert capabilities in Ukraine outstrip American capabilities. The Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service have been collecting files on Ukrainians for a long time. We would expect that after the Olympics in Sochi, the Russians could play their trump cards.
On the other hand, even if the play fails, the United States will have demonstrated that it is back in the game and that the Russians should look around their periphery and wonder where the United States will act next. Putting someone in a defensive crouch does not require that the first punch work. It is enough for the opponent to understand that the next punch will come when he is least expecting it. The mere willingness of the United States to engage will change the expectations of Central Europe, cause tensions between the Central Europeans and the Germans and create an opening for the United States.
The Pressure on Russia
Of course, the question is whether and where the Russians will answer the Americans, or even if they will consider the U.S. actions significant at all. In a sense, Syria was Moscow's move and this is the countermove. The Russians can choose to call the game. They have many reasons to. Their economy is under pressure. The Germans may not rally to the United States, but they will not break from it. And if the United States ups the ante in Central Europe, Russian inroads there will dissolve.
If the Russians are now an American problem, which they are, and if the United States is not going to revert to a direct intervention mode, which it cannot, then this strategy makes sense. At the very least it gives the Russians a problem and a sense of insecurity that can curb their actions elsewhere. At best it could create a regime that might not counterbalance Russia but could make pipelines and ports vulnerable -- especially with U.S. help.
The public interception of Nuland's phone call was not all that embarrassing. It showed the world that the United States, not Germany, is leading the way in Ukraine. And it showed the Russians that the Americans care so little, they will express it on an open cell phone line. Nuland's obscene dismissal of the European Union and treatment of Russia as a problem to deal with confirms a U.S. policy: The United States is not going to war, but passivity is over.WALL STREET
SEC settles with SAC Capital’s Cohen
Billionaire Steven A. Cohen has been in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors for nearly a decade. His hedge fund, SAC Capital, was once one of the most powerful on Wall Street, managing more than $15 billion for investors and producing stellar returns for years.
But prosecutors suspected that SAC’s success was too good to be true.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan once called Cohen’s hedge fund a “veritable magnet for market cheaters.” When, in 2013, SAC agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle charges that it tolerated rampant insider trading, it was one of the highest-profile successes in the government’s aggressive push against insider trading.
Still, connecting Cohen, one of the richest people on the world, directly to those misdeeds has remained elusive. And on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission essentially conceded. The Wall Street watchdog settled its nearly three-year-old civil case against Cohen, who was accused of failing to properly supervise employees, with no financial penalty.
Instead, Cohen’s new firm, Point72, which manages his $10 billion personal fortune, must hire an independent consultant to make sure it complies with securities laws. Once at risk of being banned from the industry for life, Cohen can begin managing others’ money again in 2018, under the agreement.
“Inevitably, some will ask why I agreed to settle,” Cohen said in a letter to Point72 employees obtained by The Washington Post. “The longer the pending litigation lingered, the more it distracted from the world-class Firm that we are building.”
— Renae Merle
RETAIL
Mobile shopping jumped over holidays
As expected, numbers out Friday from research firm ComScore confirmed that mobile shopping, which includes buying from smartphones and tablets, jumped in November and December, spurring on holiday retail sales this year.
Online shoppers are increasingly comfortable with shopping on smartphones as screen sizes get larger and shopping apps get better.
“I believe that we’ve seen a paradigm shift in 2016 where the future of retail will increasingly be defined by consumers’ behavior on mobile,” said ComScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni.
Total online spending during November and December rose 13 percent to $69.08 billion from $61.29 billion last year. Spending on desktops rose 6 percent to $56.43 billion, short of comScore’s expectations of an 8 percent rise to $58.3 billion.
But mobile commerce helped make up some of that shortfall. Shopping on smartphones and tablets jumped 59 percent to $12.65 billion, well above the 47 percent rise ComScore was expecting.
Mobile commerce accounted for 18 percent of total online spending, up from 13 percent last year.
— Associated Press
Also in Business
— From news servicesJust when I thought Tegan And Sara couldn’t get any bloody more tip-top brilliant, they go ahead and launch their own foundation supporting LGBTQ women.
The Tegan and Sara Foundation was launched by the twin sister dream team recently, and will be working alongside and in solidarity with existing organisations and groups to continue the fight for equality for LGBTQ women.
“In the fall of 2016 we traveled across North America touring our new record, Love You to Death. We played shows every night, but it was also an important listening and learning tour for us. Every day we read your letters. We met with local fans, youth activists, researchers, legislators, and nonprofits working tirelessly to promote LGBTQ equality. We were deeply inspired by their work.”
Tegan And Sara have been open about their sexualities for their entire career, which is nearing on 20 years. The twins have been actively working for many years on fighting the good fight against inequality and oppression, and recognise that the foundation is simply an extension of their ongoing support of LGBTQ organisations.
The duo have also already used the foundation to call out the inequality in many pockets of life including healthcare, housing, and the film & television industry, promising that the foundation will be working tirelessly to stamp out inequality and oppression.
“LGBTQ women are experiencing disproportionately high levels of poverty, health issues and inequality. LGBTQ women of color, especially transgender women often experience these issues even more severely due to racism and transphobia. Today, given the state of politics in the United States, we must continue to unite and fight for our rights and against all forms of oppression.”
For the moment, you can make a one-off donation (or monthly, if you’re able) to the foundation, and sign up to their newsletter. Pretty sure this is going to get some great conversations happening, because artists like Tegan And Sara and Bon Iver are already actively listening and pushing to make a bit of noise with the power they hold.
Source: Chorus.fm.
Photo: Pamela Littky/WB.During college I spent a summer in Indonesia, and naturally I picked up a bit of the language. When I say “the language,” I’m referring to Indonesian or, as it is known in Indonesian, Bahasa Indonesia (“language of Indonesia”). This statement is not as obvious as it may sound; Indonesia is home to hundreds of languages, and of these, Indonesian is not spoken as a first language by the majority of the population. But it is the lingua franca, so it’s useful for citizens and travelers alike. I found Indonesian to be straightforward and easy to learn, free of most of the irregularities and annoyances of the Romance languages.
What I understood at the time was that Indonesian is, for the most part, the same language as Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of neighboring Malaysia. I assumed that there were some differences, but that the main one was simply the name. I had no idea at that time of how either version of the language came into existence. It turns out that there’s a bit of a modern myth about the language’s origin—but the truth is even more interesting.
Artificial Intelligence
While doing some research on an unrelated topic, I stumbled upon a webpage claiming that Indonesian was an artificial language. I’d never heard that before and it piqued my interest, so I dug further. A few minutes of web searches turned up quotes such as the following (identities omitted to protect the guilty):
Bahasa Indonesia is an artificial language made official in 1928. By artificial I mean it was designed by academics rather than evolving naturally as most common languages have.
…Indonesian [is] a very simple Malay-based artificial language, designed by academics, and was the official language for a multiethnic country of over 230 million inhabitants.
…Indonesian is a constructed language made by a Dutch missionary in the 1920s on the basis of synthesizing some local languages.
…[Indonesian] was devised by a Dutch linguist, based on various Malayan and Indonesian varieties…in the 1920s.
The language in Malaysia, Bahasa Malay, is a constructed language, and was designed to be easy to learn, as the various people in Malaysia and Indonesia who were told to form rather large nations after WWII needed a common language.
…every language is artificial—it just depends how many people create it. Bahasa Indonesia is also invented but by a group.
Bahasa Indonesia is essentially a constructed language designed to fool foreigners into thinking Indonesia is a monoculture.
…the other major semi-artificial language of recent times, Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia, is a syncretic amalgamation of existing Malay dialects that were still in current use.
Even though it is basically the Malay language, [Indonesian] has in common with Esperanto…the fact of having underwent [sic] a kind of planned restructuration to simplify grammar and reduce exceptions.
With all that evidence, I was nearly convinced, though I wasn’t entirely certain what I was convinced of. This string of claims sounded a bit like the telephone game, where a message changes just a bit with each retelling. Then a little voice in the back of my head whispered, “Primary sources, Grasshopper.” Every fact on the web appears to be equally authoritative, but just because somebody says something with conviction doesn’t mean it’s true. So I went to an actual library (two of them, in fact) and looked at ancient documents known as “books”—some more than fifty years old—to see if I could get to the bottom of this story. After all, if a Dutch linguist (or missionary) did in fact invent the language, I should be able to find that person’s name. And if a committee of academics invented it, I should be able to find some record of that momentous project.
Let me cut to the chase: as with all myths, this one has a kernel of truth to it. But the claim that Indonesian is an “artificial” or “constructed” language is simply false.
This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is Island
Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of over 18,000 islands, of which about a third are inhabited. That these islands—and their greatly varying cultures and languages—should be considered a single nation is a relatively recent (and, ethnographically speaking, artificial) notion. Nevertheless, for centuries, traders sailing from one island to another have needed to communicate with each other. Malay was the local language of Malacca, a port town near the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula. According to legend, local fisherman in Malacca developed Malay as a synthesis of several nearby languages in the late 16th century. However, written records of Malay date back as far as the 7th century, so it is more likely that the fisherman simply integrated new words into the language. (Such borrowing happens in virtually all languages, and the newly incorporated words are known as “loan words.”) In any event, Malacca was a hot spot for traders, and by the time the Dutch colonized Indonesia (then known as the Dutch East Indies) in the 17th century, Malay had already come into widespread use as the regional trade language.
During their more than three centuries of occupation, the Dutch, unsurprisingly, attempted to enforce the use of their own language for trade. In the process, Malay—as spoken in Dutch territory—picked up a number of Dutch loan words, while the Malaysian speakers of Malay developed a somewhat different vocabulary. Meanwhile, due to the influence of Islam, which had been introduced in Indonesia as far back as the 13th century, Malay also picked up a number of Arabic loan words. Because parts of Indonesia were Hindu, Sanskrit also gave numerous words to Indonesian—including “bahasa” (“language”). And since Portugal traded in Indonesia and for many years controlled East Timor, many Portuguese words also found their way into the language. In short: without question, the Indonesian variety of Malay did indeed borrow heavily from numerous other languages, but this was a natural linguistic evolution. However, there’s still more to the story.
The Language of Change
By the 1920s, public sentiment in Indonesia was turning strongly toward gaining independence from the Netherlands. In October 1928, the Sumpah Pemuda (Pledge of the Youth) proclaimed that in Indonesia, Malay was to be called “Bahasa Indonesia” and considered the national language. However, there being no nation as yet, this was more of a rallying cry than anything else. In 1945, Indonesia declared its independence from the Netherlands and stated in its constitution that Bahasa Indonesia was its official language—though it took four years of fighting before the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s right to self-rule. So depending on how you look at it, Indonesian became the official language in 1928, 1945, or 1949—though at that time, only a tiny percentage of the nation’s population spoke Indonesian as a first language.
Following independence, the people of Indonesia rapidly abandoned Dutch (to the extent that they had grudgingly adopted it) and began to embrace their new official tongue. It is now the first language of more than 40 million people, and a second language for over 150 million. Although these numbers are still small given Indonesia’s total population of more than 260 million, they represent astonishingly rapid growth for the language.
In 1972, the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia collaborated on a project to reform and simplify spelling for both versions of the language; this consisted largely of eliminating Dutch spellings in favor of more phonetic Malaysian spellings. Malay and Indonesian have about an 80% overlap in vocabulary and are mutually intelligible; the variations in vocabulary, pronunciation, and usage have been compared to the difference between American English and British English. Where Indonesian retains many Dutch loan words, Malay typically replaces these with words based on English.
I like Indonesian a great deal; it has such an elegant structure that it’s tempting to believe it could only have been made artificially. But in fact it’s as natural as the next language, notwithstanding its exceptional capacity for absorbing foreign vocabulary—and contributing to linguistic mythology.
Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on September 17, 2004.Today’s post is from Amanda Summerlin, out of Atlanta.
****
“This country will not be a good place for |
the job done for $20 less.
Antec 500W ATX12V Power Supply ($54.09) -- 500W or more recommended
The rest of the stuff is pretty much up to you. I just chose the parts because they were nice, cheap options that you're going to need. I wouldn't go below a 500W power supply, because I was lowballing it in the first place. To be safe, I suggest getting a 600W or 650W power supply instead.
Arctic Silver ($6.41) -- or use the gray paste on the stock fan
As with all computers, you'll also need a thermal compound such as Arctic Silver ($6), which is used to transfer heat from your processor to its heat sink. Unless you're planning on using the miscellaneous gray goop that's already on the stock fan, I highly recommend Arctic Silver for your thermal compound. As I stated in the beginning, you should be able to run Battlefield 3 on moderate settings, and maybe a little higher if you overclock the processor. If you're looking to upgrade this computer, start with the video card; it will provide the most immediate boost to gameplay performance. (This also applies to overclocking: GPU overclocking will often improve performance by 15-30% when done correctly).
Save $560: Original computer comes to $698, economy computer comes to $539.48
So let's do the math: On top of saving $400 from buying from a computer retailer, you can save about $160 more if you want to take a hit in performance, which comes to a grand total of $560 in savings. You might as well slap a 50% discount sticker on retail computers and throw in some free computer training as well. Adding it all together without the price cuts brings us to a slim total of $698, while the cost-reduction build comes to a mind-blowing total of only $539.48. If you've never built a computer before or need some reminders on how to do it and which parts to pick, check out this tutorial or any of the many other guides online.
Battlefield 3 is scheduled to hit stores on October 25, 2011. Will your computer be ready?
edited: 8/1/11 1:45AM EST
You are logged out. Login | Sign upThe Untold History of Toontown’s SpeedChat (or BlockChattm from Disney finally arrives)
This story has been recorded as part of the Social Media Clarity podcast: [sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://www.buzzsprout.com/16050/138068-disney-s-hercworld-toontown-and-blockchat-tm-s01e08.mp3″]
In 1992, I co-founded a company with Chip Morningstar and Douglas Crockford named Electric Communities. We initially did a lot of consulting for various media companies that were looking to leverage the emerging online gaming industry. One of those companies was Disney.
Disney had formed a group to look into taking the brand online, including a full-fledged multiplayer experience as early as 1996, when the were considering a product called HercWorld, which was to leverage the upcoming movie franchise Hercules. Having built Lucasfilm’s Habitat and WorldsAway, we were clearly amongst a handful of teams that had successfully constructed social virtual worlds that’d made any real money, and Crock had media connections from his days a Paramount, so they brought us in to discuss what it would take to build a kid-safe virtual world experience.
They had hired their own expert to lead the project, a former product manager for Knowledge Adventure – a kid’s software company that’d done some 3D work as well as their own online project KA-Worlds, which was meant to link sick children in hospitals together using computers and avatars.
Disney makes no bones about how tightly they want to control and protect their brand, and rightly so. Disney means "Safe For Kids". There could be no swearing, no sex, no innuendo, and nothing that would allow one child (or adult pretending to be a child) to upset another.
I found myself unable to reconcile the idea of a virtual world, where kids would run around, play with objects, and chat with each other without someone saying or doing something that might upset another. Even in 1996, we knew that text-filters are no good at solving this kind of problem, so I asked for a clarification: "I’m confused. What standard should we use to decide if a message would be a problem for Disney?"
The response was one I will never forget: "Disney’s standard is quite clear:
No kid will be harassed, even if they don’t know they are being harassed."
"So much for no-harm, no-foul," Chip grumbled, quietly. This requirement lead me to some deep thinking over the coming weeks and months about a moderation design I called "The Disney Panopticon", but that’s a post for another day…
"OK. That means Chat Is Out of HercWorld, there is absolutely no way to meet your standard without exorbitantly high moderation costs," we replied.
One of their guys piped up: "Couldn’t we do some kind of sentence constructor, with a limited vocabulary of safe words?"
Before we could give it any serious thought, their own project manager interrupted, "That won’t work. We tried it for KA-Worlds."
"We spent several weeks building a UI that used pop-downs to construct sentences, and only had completely harmless words – the standard parts of grammar and safe nouns like cars, animals, and objects in the world."
"We thought it was the perfect solution, until we set our first 14-year old boy down in front of it. Within minutes he’d created the following sentence:
I want to stick my long-necked Giraffe up your fluffy white bunny.
KA-Worlds abandoned that approach. Electric Communities is right, chat is out."
That was pretty much settled, but it felt like we had collectively gutted the project. After all, if the kids can’t chat, how could they coordinate? It’d end up being more like a world where you could see other players playing but you couldn’t really work with them much. [Side note: Sadly, a lot of MMORPG play is like this anyway, see Playing Alone Together.]
As I starting daydreaming about how to get chat back into this project, we moved on to what activities the kids might do in the now-chat-free HercWorld. It was standard fare: Collect stuff, ride stuff, shoot at stuff, build stuff… Oops, what was that last thing again?
"…kids can push around Roman columns and blocks to solve puzzles, make custom shapes, and buildings.", one of the designers said.
I couldn’t resist, "Umm. Doesn’t that violate the Disney standard? In this chat-free world, people will push the stones around until they spell Hi! or F-U-C-K or their phone number or whatever. You’ve just invented Block-Chattm. If you can put down objects, you’ve got chat. We learned this in Habitat and WorldsAway, where people would turn 100 Afro-Heads into a waterbed." We all laughed, but it was that kind of awkward laugh that you know means that we’re all probably just wasting our time.
HercWorld never happened.
Once again, into the breech
Electric Communities moved on, renamed itself Communities.com (which has nothing in common with the current company/site using that name and url.) and did some wonderful design work on a giant multimedia 3D kid’s world for Cartoon Network, which ended up being much too ambitious to fund, but I mention it because the project was headed by Brian Bowman. Brian eventually left Atlanta for Disney, where he was in charge of the online experience for Zoog Disney, a pre-teen programming block. Brian remembered his work with us and asked us to help build a world for the Zoog audience. Nothing so extravagant this time, just something simple, like The Palace (which, by then had been acquired by Communities.com.), a no-download, in-browser, 2D graphical chat with some programmed object capabilities.
"The Disney Standard" (now a legend amongst our employees) still held. No harassment, detectable or not, and no heavy moderation overhead.
Brian had an idea though: Fully pre-constructed sentences – dozens of them, easy to access. Specialize them for the activities available in the world. Vaz Douglas, our project manager working with Zoog, liked to call this feature "Chatless Chat." So, we built and launched it for them. Disney was still very tentative about the genre, so the only ran it for about six months; I doubt it was ever very popular.
Third time’s a charm
But the concept resurfaced at Disney a few years later [2002] in the form of SpeedChat in ToonTown. It was refined – you select a subject and then from a submenu of sentences, each automatically customized to the correct context. Selecting "I need to find …", would magically insert the names of the items you have quests for. For all walk-up users, all interactions would be via SpeedChat.
They added a method to allow direct chat between users that involves the exchange of secret codes that are generated for each user (with parental permission). The idea is that kids would print them out and give them to each other on the playground. This was a great way for Disney to end-run the standard – since Speed Chat was an effective method of preventing the exchange of these codes, and theoretically the codes had to be given "in-person", making the recipient not-a-stranger. Sure, some folks post them
on message boards, but presumably those are folks who 1) are adults, or 2) know each other, right? In any case, as long as no one could pass secret codes within Toontown itself, Disney feels safe.
The Ghost of BlockChattm past
Soon after ToonTown opened its doors, they added Toon Estates – a feature that gives you a house with furniture, initially just a bed, gumball machine, chair, and armoire. Then they added the ability to buy more furniture of all shapes and sizes from catalogs, and then you could invite people to visit your house to see how you have arranged all your cool stuff.
Sure enough, chatters figured out a few simple protocols to pass their secret code, several variants are of this general form:
User A:"Please be my friend."
User A:"Come to my house?"
User B:"Okay."
A:[Move the picture frames on your wall, or move your furniture on the floor to make the number 4.]
A:"Okay"
B:[Writes down 4 on a piece of paper and says] "Okay."
A:[Move objects to make the next letter/number in the code] "Okay"
B:[Writes…] "Okay"
A:[Remove objects to represent a "space" in the code] "Okay"
[Repeat steps as needed, until…]
A:"Okay"
B:[Enters secret code into Toontown software.]
B:"There, that worked. Hi! I’m Jim 15/M/CA, what’s your A/S/L?"
It seems that many of The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat still ring true.
I’ll consider this as The SpeedChat Corollary:
By hook, or by crook, customers will always find a way to connect with each other.
P.S: Brian tells me that Cartoon Network is actually resuming the project, more than ten years later; "… now that is being ahead of your time."
[Thanks to the legendary Robin Hood of Neopets for telling me about this Secret Code exchange prototcol.]
[Yes, the BlockChattm brand is a joke.]Elsa, Anna, Rapunzel, and Kairi make up four of the new Princesses of Heart. Come theorise who the last three Princesses will be!
Details Published on January 29, 2015 @ 08:42 am Written by Cecily
Kingdom Hearts X[chi] has developed a history of introducing important concepts to the main scenario, and these days, its reputation far precedes it. Each new story update ties it deeper and deeper with the lore and history behind Sora's adventure, and this most recent one is certainly no exception.
The latest Kingdom Hearts X[chi] story update for Daybreak Town revealed an incredible piece of information about a key character, Chirithy. For those of you unaware, Chirithy is a grey and black Scottish Fold with a bright pink purse and white cape. Each player is assigned their own Chirithy, who acts as a familiar of sorts for the player; delivering messages from the Foretellers as well as guiding you throughout your adventure. While most Chirithy share the same appearance (light gray with darker stripes), we've also seen another that appears significantly darker. This darker Chirithy belongs to Ephemera, a player from an opposing union who we encountered upon our last visit to Daybreak Town.
In the latest update, we, along with Ephemera, continue trying to get into the tower to learn more about the strange dreams we've been experiencing as of late. We defeat every Heartless that stands in our path, but it isn't before long that Ephemera makes the decision to stop for today and resume tomorrow. Being the eager young wielders we are, we happily agree to meet our newfound friend the following day to continue our adventure. However, that meeting was not meant to be.
We spend the entire day waiting, and waiting, and waiting, but Ephemera never shows up. Our Chirithy, realizing what had happened, arrives to comfort us. As the player lifts him up to embrace him, Chirithy's cape flaps upwards to reveal a Dream Eater Spirit symbol on his back!
So, Chirithy is actually a Spirit? But how? That would mean we're in the Realm of Sleep! And what of Ephemera's darker Chirithy? Does that mean he's a Nightmare?
What do you think could be happening? What significance do you believe this revelation holds for the future? Let us know!
Thanks to Kazr10, you can read translations of the scene below. A subtitled video is now available:To begin, connect your Particle project to a Google Cloud Pub/Sub topic. Cloud Pub/Sub lets you decouple the device data ingest stream from different downstream subscribers, durably storing the data in as it arrives for up to seven days while it's processed. By granting limited permissions to Particle to publish to a specific Cloud Pub/Sub topic, you can properly isolate the data ingest portion of your IoT application. You can then use Cloud DataFlow to operate on a multi-device, time-windowed stream of events in near-real-time, or dispatch and store this data to a number of storage options. For example, storing data long-term in BigQuery and Google Cloud Storage lets you affordably record a long history of device information, against which you can later perform various analytics or train machine learning models to make scenario-based decisions. You can then call Particle Cloud APIs to take action on devices back in the world.
With this integration, we believe developers and product builders will be able to bring production-quality products to market faster, blending the Particle device ecosystem and platform with GCP's scalable and innovative data solutions. To get started, check out the tutorial on the Particle website and connect device data directly to your GCP project today.The U.S. Federal Reserve might need to cut interest rates to as low as negative 2 percent, far lower than levels other global central banks have tested, a former Fed economist said.
That's what would likely be needed to engineer a recovery if the U.S. economy were to fall into a recession in the next couple of years, Marvin Goodfriend, who was an economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve's Bank of Richmond from 1993-2005, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.
Goodfriend, who is currently a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, pointed to data on the eight recessions in the U.S. since 1960.
"In eight of those recessions, the Fed had to push the short rate 2.5 percentage points below the long term rate. Today, the 10-year rate in the U.S. is 1.5 percent," he noted, saying that would indicate that during the next recession, the Fed would need to cut rates as low as minus 1 percent at a minimum.
"In five of those recessions, the Fed had to push the federal funds rate 3.5 percentage points below the 10-year bond rate," he said. "So if that happens this time around, we would have to push the federal funds rate to minus 2 percent."
That's well below where any other central banks have ventured so far. Sweden's central bank, an early adopter of negative rates, has set its benchmark at negative 0.5 percent. The Bank of Japan's rate was set at minus 0.1 percent earlier this year, while the European Central Bank, which first moved its rates into negative territory in 2014, currently has a deposit rate of negative 0.4 percent.
The Fed funds rate has remained in positive territory, with the U.S. central bank last increasing interest rates in December of 2015, its first hike since 2006. That raised the Fed's target rate to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent.
To be sure, Goodfriend didn't expect the Fed would be headed there anytime soon, noting that he believed the central bank should actually raise rates before the end of the year.
"The U.S. has near full employment and inflation is moving up toward target," he said. "My own feeling is that the Fed needs to show the flag against inflation, if only to move rates up only slightly, to show that it's on the job."I went into my Kinguin Pro League match this week against Sjow with the same basic gameplan as previous weeks – play the decks with which I am the most comfortable. In the past week or so, I’ve spent much more time playing Priest on ladder than anything else, and not just because the games take a long time. Priest is my favorite class, and I’d been experimenting with more proactive builds than the typical control priest decks for quite a while.
The idea was that the Priest hero power is at its best in a deck with early minions and buffs for them, since it’s providing the most value when it is allowing you to maintain and slowball a board advantage. Thus began the Legacy of Mech Tyson – my nickname for Shadowboxer. I had mixed success and eventually moved my attention elsewhere, in part because I felt like midseason Priest wins on ladder were wasted since I already had the golden hero for the class.
Then last week I happened across Savjz’s stream where he was playing a Chinese Priest deck that shared a lot of elements with the versions I had been working on and I was intrigued. I decided to try it out, and found that it was much stronger in many of the matchups where traditional Priest decks struggled, while retaining many of the class’s good matchups. I liked that the list cut many of the same sacred cows that I had gotten a lot of flack for going without – cards like Injured Blademaster, Circle of Healing, and Auchenai Soulpriest.
The biggest difference compared to my versions was the inclusion of Cabal Shadow Priest, a card that I had generally forsaken in my proactive Priest decks since I wanted solid bodies to cast on curve. But after playing with the deck, I found that Cabal Shadow Priest helped swing games in ways that few other cards could, and decided to embrace it once more. I’ll write a more comprehensive post about my thoughts on this deck and Priest in the current metagame soon, but I feel pretty strongly that it’s among the best builds available to the class right now.
The one change I made from my ladder version to the one I played in the KPL was swapping out a Shadow Word: Death for a copy of Vol’jin, which incidentally came up huge against Sjow’s Jaraxxus that hit the table thanks to a Voidcaller deathrattle. That’s one big troll!
My other two decks were Hotform’s Bloodlust Shaman deck and the same Face Hunter deck I’ve used every week. The one change I made to Hotform’s deck was to remove a Rockbiter Weapon for a second copy of Piloted Shredder, since I found myself getting flooded with situational spells more often than I liked and wanted another consistently solid body.
My games against Sjow were all pretty interesting. I beat his Shaman in the mirror match, and then lost to his Shaman with my Priest. A lot of people think that Priest has a good matchup against Shaman structurally, but without Auchenai and Circle of Healing, you lack the ability to clear the board of totems as consistently, so I think this version loses a bit of ground. I think I got a little too greedy and took more damage than I should have trying to set up a good Lightbomb and ended up getting bursted out. I then lost a close matchup to his Druid with my Priest, then took down his Warlock with my Hunter, before winning an epic game with MechTyson against his Demonlock deck, including the aforementioned Jaraxxus health swap with Vol’jin.
Anyway, without further ado, here are my lists:Ex-Google employee Kelly Ellis has boasted on Twitter about adding supporters of fired employee James Damore to a secret blacklist with other ex-Google employees.
In a series of tweets, Ellis admitted to being in a slack communication channel for Xooglers, or ex-Googlers, and boasted about adding supporters of Damore, who was fired for publishing a viewpoint diversity manifesto, to an employment blacklist.
I'm in the Xooglers slack and Damore supporters are adding themselves to my blacklist left and right. LMK if you ever want a cross check. — Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) August 8, 2017
In another tweet, Ellis revealed that she left Google in 2014.
I haven't worked at Google since 2014, dumbass. https://t.co/TbAbwohBDn — Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) August 9, 2017
After her series of tweets, Ellis also posted a screenshot showing that an official Google Twitter account had recently followed her.
LOL look who followed me pic.twitter.com/7bR8T6aoLF — Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) August 10, 2017
On Monday, Breitbart Tech reported on the blacklists that had been setup by Google employees to impact colleagues with opposing political views both inside and out of the company.
“You’re being blacklisted by people at companies outside of Google,” claimed one employee in a leaked screenshot, after he boasted about having an in-company blacklist too. “You might not have been aware of this, but people know, people talk. There are always social consequences.”
One of the employees, Kim Burchett, who detailed her creation of a “people who make diversity difficult” list in the company, was found to have ties to the far-left extremist group Antifa on Twitter.
Former Google employee James Damore was fired from Google this week after he published a viewpoint diversity manifesto, which examined reasons why there are fewer women in tech jobs and called for more ideological diversity in Google’s workplace.
In a memo, the company claimed Damore had advanced “harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,” despite the fact that numerous psychologists, male and female, deemed the manifesto to be scientifically accurate.
Inc writer Suzanne Lucas has predicted that a lawsuit will be brought against Google, after claiming that the dismissal was, in her opinion, illegal in numerous different ways.
Over 50 percent of Google employees are reported to have disagreed with the firing of Damore.NO GO: An unexpected visitor accompanied Greenpeace energy campaigner Steve Abel to a regional National party conference in an attempt to put climate change on the agenda.
The doors of the National Party's central North Island conference were barred when a gate-crashing polar bear lumbered up to the security guard.
Greenpeace New Zealand was behind the gimmick that was designed to challenge attendees to consider climate change as "the polar bear in the meeting".
The life-size bear padded up to the door of Hamilton's Kingsgate Hotel about 8.45am on Saturday, accompanied by Greenpeace energy campaigner Steve Abel, but the pair were denied entry.
"Our intention was to highlight the fact that [National] is a party and a government thus far, over the last six years, that has done not only extremely little on climate change but many things that make the problem worse," Abel said.
"We would have tried to walk the polar bear inside and talk to the people there inside the conference foyer but the security... made it clear they didn't want the polar bear to come in."
Instead, he and the bear stayed at the door to quiz arriving attendees on whether they were worried climate change wasn't on the agenda for the weekend.
Answers ranged from "no comment" to "There's nothing we can do about it" and "yes".
National MP Steven Joyce was invited to come out and answer the question, but chose not to, Abel said.
Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe originally mistook the crew for media until he saw the "incredibly lifelike" polar bear.
When he was near the door he was asked if it could come into the conference to talk to people about climate change.
"Because it seemed a flippant question I just gave a slightly flippant reply along the lines of - because [Saturday] was such a grotty day - I said ‘Oh, I think you'd find the polar bear would be much happier with the conditions outside rather than the heat inside'."
Though the conference didn't have a specific session on climate change, there was a "lengthy session" of discussion covering environmental issues on Saturday, Macindoe said.
And Abel saw the polar bear stunt was a "friendly challenge" to National party conference attendees.
"The polar bear's inherently disarming.
"It's quite a striking figure and so people's first reaction is ‘Wow'."
But when it came to how the star attraction worked, Abel remained tight-lipped.
"She emerges from the truck as a polar bear," he said.
"She's a polar bear to us."
Further appearances were planned before she headed back to "her Northern Hemisphere home", Abel said.Future President James Buchanan is born in Cove Gap near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1791. Buchanan, remembered mostly for his administration’s corruption and his failure to solve the country’s crisis over slavery, also inspired salacious gossip abut his love life over the course of his career.
The son of wealthy Scottish and Irish immigrant parents, Buchanan became a successful lawyer and entered politics with his election to the Pennsylvania state legislature as a Federalist in 1814. When the Federalist Party later collapsed, he joined Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party and was elected to Congress in 1820. He served five terms in the House of Representatives until 1831, served as President Jackson’s minister to Russia in 1832 and returned to the U.S. to win a Senate seat in 1833. Buchanan also served as James Polk’s secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and as Franklin Pierce’s minister to Great Britain from 1853 to 1855 before running for the presidency. His overseas duties enabled him to avoid becoming embroiled in the domestic conflict over slavery. That isolation, which ended when he was elected president in 1856, contributed to the failure of his administration.
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Buchanan’s ignorance of slavery’s divisive role in American domestic politics became apparent soon after he entered the White House. He actively pressured the Supreme Court to rule in the 1857 Dred Scott case that Congress had no right to outlaw slavery, mistakenly believing that Americans would take the court’s decision as the final word and the debate would end. In addition, Buchanan’s expansionist foreign policy, his mishandling of the 1857 economic depression and his failure to curb rampant corruption within his administration revealed him to be inept and out of touch. His passivity toward southern states who threatened to leave the union alienated half of his own Democratic Party and allowed a united Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln to win the presidential election of 1860.
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Buchanan’s personal life was also rife with turmoil and controversy. In his late 20s, Buchanan became engaged to a woman, Anne Coleman, whose wealthy father accused him of gold-digging and opposed the marriage. Some historians claim that Buchanan then began an affair with another woman. When Anne discovered the affair, she broke off the engagement and died shortly thereafter, either from illness brought on by her despair or suicide. Her family blamed Buchanan for Anne’s death and refused to allow him to attend her funeral. Buchanan thereafter remained a confirmed bachelor–the only president who never married–but was at one point linked in the press with Dolley Madison’s niece. Rumors also circulated that Buchanan was gay. While a member of Congress, he forged a close relationship with William Rufus King, a North Carolina senator and Franklin Pierce’s future vice president. For a time, the two men shared lodgings in Washington and were referred to as Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy, though a sexual relationship has never been substantiated. King died of tuberculosis eight months into Pierce’s term and four years before Buchanan entered the White House.
After serving one disastrous term, Buchanan retired to his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1861. In 1866, he published his memoirs, in which he blamed abolitionists for causing the civil war. He died in 1868.Have you ever looked at a RadarScope image and wondered what the associated weather would look like? Sometimes it is easy to understand what you are looking at on radar and sometimes it isn't. So, let's compare some RadarScope data with real life images.
Thunderstorm
Here we see the everyday cumulus cloud on its way to possibly becoming a cumulonimbus. The radar reflectivity image shows a cell with very bright colors, showing the intensity of this developing thunderstorm.
Supercell
Tornadic supercell thunderstorm east of Hillsboro, ND. 7/11/17. Looks north from ND-200 exit of I-29. #ndwx pic.twitter.com/0AFtaQjR0b — Winston Wells (@WellsWx) July 12, 2017
In early July, a tornadic supercell paved a path through North Dakota. In this dual-pane loop, you can easily see the hook echo as it rotates into the storm on reflectivity. The velocity image shows very strong rotation lined up with the hook. The tweet shows a picture of the storm at the same time it was passing Hillsboro. In this case, the RadarScope data is actually more impressive than the photo. Rain blocked the finer details of what was going on within the storm.
Downburst
You don't experience a downburst everyday, and for those in the vicinity this is a good thing! A downburst occurs when a storm collapses. Think of it as if you had dropped a water balloon on the pavement with water going out in every direction. As rain and wind hits the ground, it spreads out and can cause a lot of damage. Look at the radar loop of velocity data and watch for the sudden green area spreading out near Newcastle. While this photo isn't from the same event, you can see what one looks like from the air. A microburst is a smaller scale downburst that is less than or equal to 2.5 miles in diameter. These can be either wet or dry. The image and data show an example of a wet microburst. In a dry microburst, the rain evaporates as the air descends quickly.
Straight Line Winds
Straight line winds can be caused by multiple types of storms. They might be from a downburst, bow echo, or an intense squall line. When viewing the storm on velocity, you can see a strong area of winds depicted in bright blue on this loop. There is no rotation going on as there is no combo of red and green signatures like we saw in the above Supercell data. While damage from these events can be just a strong as a tornado, the visible debris pattern will vary. In tornado damage, you will see converging debris. During a straight line event, you will notice that all the debris has fallen in the same direction as the wind blew.
Outflow Boundary
Thunderstorm outflow boundaries can show up as thin lines expanding from the main storm area. This happens when rain cooled air from the core of the storm hits the ground as it descends with the precipitation. As the cooler air hits the ground it spreads out. In conditions with little wind, this outflow may show a nearly circular appearance. Many times, outflow boundaries from multiple storms will collide and cause more storms to form. While the boundary may contain bugs and dust, it can also appear as an arcus or shelf cloud and bring very gusty winds. These scary looking clouds (SLCs) can appear menacing, but are not in an area of the storm where you'd find strong tornado formation potential. You can be sure when you see one of these approaching that not only will you get windy conditions, but rain is not far behind.
Bats
Every evening in the summer, bats leave their caves looking for dinner. There are some fairly large bat caves near Austin. In this radar image, you can see the Bracken Bat cave which is home to more than 15 million bats! When they leave, they definitely show up on reflectivity. It can be a little confusing when they emerge and there are thunderstorms in the area. In the video, you'll get an idea why they would show up. That is a LOT of bats!
Are you interested in precision mobile radar data? RadarScope offers a basic app and two tiers of data. In the first tier, you get longer loops, lightning data and additional tools to delve into your data. Tier 2 offers a 30 day archive along with hail signatures and tornado probabilities. Download it today!In the hot dusty desert village of Careb, the party encountered a beautiful local girl playing dice in the streets.
She explained to the foreign party that navigating through the desert would be foolish without a knowledgeable guide.
She was able to get the party a reduced rate on desert-appropriate armor so that they would be better equipped for this new environment. The party paid her guide fee and set off toward Sheyan territory once the mid-day sun had relented.
Having a guide proved helpful as she was able to provide a burrowing technique to avoid a deadly sandstorm. She also brought tarps to conceal them from the great desert eagles.
Once they arrived at Sheyan territory, she was able to converse with the Sheyan in their native language and gain entrance to the village for the party. After staying the night (and some cuddling with Nedraw), she decided this would be as far as she could go and left to head back to Careb.
Knowing the Sheyan worshipped crystals, Nedraw was able to get their attention by showing them a black shard he had previously collected off the body of a slain demonic imp.
The language barrier was still a problem however, and the party ended up having to bully their way past the pyramid guards to enter the great Sheyan pyramid where they hoped to find the Abrogate Crystal. A crystal that may hold the power to stop the volcano back in Renaulton.
The pyramid was not without it’s trials. Spitting snakes, a feisty basilisk, skeletons and more filled the underground rooms. Fizban was knocked out by the basilisk and very nearly killed. He was revived however and was soon able to put his new wings to use to fly over a pit trap that Nedraw fell into.
At one point, Dyme and Betamax became separated from the rest of the group. The door had locked behind them and poisonous gas begin filling into the room. At the same time, mechanical columns began to rise and our heroes stood atop them to get above the clouds of toxic gas. (side note: One of the players released a TERRIBLE toxic fart at this exact moment timed perfectly).
Eventually the columns rose so high that Betamax risked being crushed into the ceiling. He shuttled down the column and choked through the smoke until he could find an exit and Dyme followed him out.
The party reunited and arrived at the great hall of Necrotahnem. Necrotahnem. pharaoh of the Sheyan was a deadly 4 armed skeletal monster who resisted the theft of his prized crystal. The party was able to kill him and retrieve the crystal!
Now the party will need to return to Renaulton. A 15 day journey by horse. What adventures will they encounter along the way?
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AdvertisementsInsisting on traditional etiquette is also simply good pedagogy. It’s a teacher’s job to correct sloppy prose, whether in an essay or an email. And I suspect that most of the time, students who call faculty members by their first names and send slangy messages are not seeking a more casual rapport. They just don’t know they should do otherwise — no one has bothered to explain it to them. Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it’s the first step in treating students like adults.
That said, the teacher-student relationship depends on a special kind of inequality. “Once I refer to them as I would my best friend, I eliminate that boundary of clarity,” Ms. Lovell told me. She recalled how awkward she felt when the head of the research lab where she worked asked undergraduates to call him Willy. “All my friends were saying: ‘Oh, man, do we do this? He has a Ph.D. He’s a professor. Is it O.K. to do this?’ Sometimes I do, but he’s a great mentor, and it’s confusing. A lot of us like to preserve that distance.”
Alexis Delgado, a sophomore at the University of Rochester, is skeptical of professors who make a point of insisting on their title. “I always think it’s a power move,” she told me. “Just because someone gave you a piece of paper that says you’re smart doesn’t mean you can communicate those ideas to me. I reserve the right to judge if you’re a good professor.”
But she ruefully recalled one young professor who made the mistake of telling the class that he didn’t care if they used his first name. “He didn’t realize how far it would go, and we all thought, this is awkward,” she said. “I had no desire to be friends. I only wanted to ask questions.”
During office hours, we have frank conversations about career choices, mental health crises and family tribulations. But the last thing most students want from a mentor is the pretense of chumminess.
Ms. Lovell said the very act of communicating more formally helps her get some distance on a personal problem. “When I explain my difficulties and struggles, I try to explain in a mature way,” |
’ internal controls must be strengthened to underpin a necessary change in culture, and individuals need to be held to account where appropriate.
10.47 The FT says that Barclays Wealth banker Rich Ricci is "seen as a candidate" to replace Diamond. If you're wondering who he is, the Mirror claims he has a £100m fortune... but still buys lottery tickets:
The Mirror wrote: "Others doing the EuroMillions at the same shop as Ricci in Canary Wharf, East London, were left fuming by his brazen bid to add to the £44m he earns in a year.
"One, Tom Rogers, said it would be an [sic] 'grossinjustice' if the fatcat won."
10.39 FSA attacked at annual meeting for "inadequate" fines for banks. Audience member says fines should start at £600m. Adds that FSA should seize assets from board members instead of prosecuting them.
FSA's Tracey McDermott says Barclays fine is largest ever handed out and does reputational damage. Says "size of Barclays penalty in line with our penalties framework".
10.38 Next question for FSA: Will the creation of two regulatory bodies after the FSA restore confidence in the markets?
Lord Turner: FSA's own reputation took considerable hit as financial crisis occured. Brand FSA was significantyl damaged by what occured.
10.32 Martin Wheatley at the FSA taking a question on Libor scandal. He says he will look at whether it should be a regulated activity and should there be penalties for breaking regulations. "Broader question about rate setting, price setting mechanisms [apart from libor] that I will report on."
10.31 Daniel Knowles, assistant comment editor on the Telegraph website, has blogged on Diamond's departure:
Bob has become a figurehead for the failure of the banking sector to reform. In January, the banker, who has been paid around £75m in the last five years, told the Treasury Select Committee that 'there have been apologies and remorse from bankers. What we need is a dose of confidence; we need to think about what's best for the economy of the UK'. It was reported everywhere that he said the time for remorse is over.
That he felt able to say that, when it hadn't even emerged that his bank was busy trying to fix the Libor rate to protect itself from the crisis, and so that its traders could make bigger profits, is almost comical.
10.13 We have put together a profile of Bob Diamond and a round-up of the reaction to his resignation.
It appears most people are glad to see him go.
10.09 Harry Wilson, Telegraph banking correspondent on Diamond's replacement:
<noframe>Twitter: Harry Wilson - Search for Barclays chief exec? Let me save them a couple of million quid in headhunting fees. Bill Winters. Would he want the job, though?</noframe>
Bill Winters is a member of the UK's independent Commission on Banking and a former co-chief executive of JP Morgan Investment Bank.
10.05 Barclays says Bob Diamond's severance package is "still under discussion". He could be entitled to a full year's salary, which in 2011 was worth £1.4m.
10.03 Even Sir Richard Branson has commented on Diamond's departure. Sir Richard's company took over the running of Northern Rock last year:
It is always sad to see somebody of the calibre of Bob Diamond resign, he was a great banker. He built Barclays into a formidable bank and it is sad to see what has happened at Barclays.
"The reputation of the City obviously has been damaged, which is very sad because the UK economy depends on the banking world for the building of the hospitals, the building of schools and so on, so it is important that banks pull themselves together and get back on track as soon as possible. I think the banks have just got to turn over a new leaf."
10.00 We are hearing reports that chief operating officer Jerry del Missier is considering his position. Barclays has refused to comment.
09.57 Telegraph's Harry Wallop on the death of Sir David Money-Coutts:
<noframe>Twitter: Harry Wallop - Obit of Sir David Money-Coutts, banker to royal family, in today's Telegraph. "Benign and cautious". A world away from today's bankers</noframe>
09.55 Barclays shares up 2.5pc now.
09.53 FSA chairman Lord Turner says he will review how wholesale markets are supervised in the wake of the Libor scandal. He adds that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. He has been speaking at the FSA's annual public meeting.
The Libor scandal has caused a huge blow to the reputation of the banking industry. The cynical greed of traders asking their colleagues to falsify their Libor submissions so that they could make bigger profits has justifiably shocked and angered people, in particular when we are facing hard economic times provoked by the financial crisis.
"But, sadly, it is clear that the behaviours evidenced in the Libor case were not, in the years before the crisis, confined to this specific area of financial activity.
09.50 Harry Wilson, the Telegraph's Banking Correspondent, looks wryly ahead to Diamond's Treasury Select Committee appearance tomorrow:
<noframe>Twitter: Harry Wilson - The TSC should make tomorrow's Diamond hearing a pay-per-view event. Could chip a nice little chunk off the deficit. <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=barclays" target="_blank">#barclays</a></noframe>
09.48 Yesterday Bob Diamond sent a passionate letter to Barclays employees, saying he was “sorry, disappointed and angry” about the Libor rigging scandal. He pledged to “restore Barclays’ reputation to the levels that the institution and you deserve”. Twice he told staff: “I love Barclays.”
A day is a long time in banking, it seems.
09.43 After Investec released a note yesterday insisting Bob Diamond would not quit (see 08.58), this morning the analyst is "disappointed":
We are disappointed by Bob's resignation this morning. That said, it is undeniable that the unrelenting political/media campaign had centred on Bob personally, and this was leading to a persistent misrepresentation of Barclays' position in relation to the multi-bank Libor investigations, and a clear distraction from the execution of Barclays' strategic repositioning. The significant challenge to Barclays "new" executive chairman, Marcus Aigus, is to turn this situation to his advantage.
"With Bob gone, expect increased recognition that the Libor investigation is a multi-bank issue rather than Barclays-specific. In the short term, it has not been well served or rewarded for its co-operation with the regulators, and as discussed in our note yesterday, we expect Baclays' sharp share price underperformance to reverse as the market takes a more dispassionate look at the facts.
09.39 Barclays shares up 1.9pc now. Investors must believe that even this news is better than uncertainty.
09.35 In case you missed it earlier, here is Chancellor George Osborne on BBC Radio 4 Today:
09.32 Dr Pete Hahn, at Cass Business School, has offered his views on the resignation:
Even before the financial crisis, rumours flowed that something wasn't quite right with Barclays Capital. 'How could it work where so many commercial banks had failed' and 'Barclays takes too much risk' were frequently heard around the City and most often sounded like jealousy. As the financial crisis arrived and others fell, the rumours ramped up to 'Barclays is hiding its' and 'Barclays is using accounting tricks to hide'. While the warts and all on Libor are plain to see, isn't it ironic that the fall of the man who built it all is based on poor governance and not poor risk-taking?
“This story is sadly much bigger than Bob Diamond. Corporate governance is about the board setting the standard and we're going to see that weak controls and morals weren't unique to Barclays. Cleaning up the City is likely to mean dragging up a lot more dirt on board malfeasance and membership back a number of years. In many cases these people are gone, but for the City to be cleaned up they can't be allowed to keep their reputations.
“And we should not forget about the governance of Libor; those who oversaw and didn't speak up on the flaws of this outdated and amateurish measure for the last decade have a lot to answer about an accident that was waiting to happen and repeatedly did. It's not just Bob.
09.24 Nick Clegg and Ed MIliband have added their views:
Clegg: "This was the right decision on his part. People will now want us to get on with the inquiry and take further action fast to ensure that people and businesses are protected."
Miliband: "This was necessary and right. It was clear Bob Diamond was not the man to lead the change that Barclays needed.
"But this is about more than one man - this is about the culture and practices of the entire banking system, which is why we need an independent, open, judge-led public inquiry."
09.22 Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander echoes Chancellor George Osborne and says Bob Diamond's resignation was the "right decision".
Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't still very, very serious questions to be answered by the bank and indeed by Mr Diamond before the Treasury Committee tomorrow, and it is very important that those questions are answered and that lessons are learned, as well of course as the Serious Fraud Office's consideration of whether prosecutions are possible in this issue.
"Of course, I think the bank has decided to do the right thing, the necessary thing, but there are many more questions to answer.
09.21 Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Commons Treasury Committee, has said there should be no question of a pay-off for Bob Diamond and he called on him to repay the "phenomenal" bonuses he had received over the years.
At a previous Treasury Committee hearing that I was at, he said that if something major went wrong with the bank he should lose his job and his pension.
"That is the words of Bob Diamond and I shall certainly ensure they are quoted back to him tomorrow. He can then stick by his words and not accept some huge pay-off, some huge pension.
"This bank was rotten to its core and he was the man in charge. He should get no pay-off, in fact he should be repaying the bonuses that he and his bank fiddled.
09.18 Telegraph Deputy Editor Benedict Brogan:
Osborne says he thinks there was a deal between Gordon Brown and others that allowed bankers to do whatever they liked in exchange for bringing in money for politicians to spend on public services.
He said there was no need for a Leveson style independent inquiry because the Vickers report served that function.
09.13 Just wanted to add these words from Bob Diamond on January 12, 2011, at a Treasury Select Committee on the financial crisis:
[Responding to suggestions that Barclays Capital, the separate investment bank he used to run, indulged in 'casino capitalism' and 'blackjack']: I resent the fact you refer to it as blackjack. I think it is wrong. I think it is unfair. I think it is a poor choice of words. We have some fantastically strong financial institutions in this country and I think they deserve better. It is not appropriate to talk about casino banking in Barclays Capital.
"Frankly, the biggest issue is how do we put some of the blame game behind us? There was a period of remorse and apology for banks – that period needs to be over. We need banks to be able to take risk, working with the private sector in the UK. What we need is a dose of confidence; we need to think about what's best for the economy of the UK.
"In the public's eyes, we are all the same. They see all banks as bad. A Barclays or an HSBC never put their organisations at risk. It's not pleasant for us at Barclays. Banks did make mistakes but we are very proud."
09.07 Kamal Ahmed, Sunday Telegraph Business Editor, says even as late as last night Diamond wanted to stay:
<noframe>Twitter: Kamal Ahmed - Reliably informed that when <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Diamond" target="_blank">#Diamond</a> left the office at 8pm last night he wanted to fight on. Who called him after that to change his mind?</noframe>
09.02 William Wright, columnist for Financial News:
<noframe>Twitter: William Wright - Freudian slip by <a href="http://www.twitter.com/BBCRadio4" target="_blank">@BBCRadio4</a> news: 'the chairman of Barclays, Bob Diamond, has resigned...'</noframe>
08.58 There will probably be some red faces at Investec this morning. Yesterday they released a note entitled "Investec urges to Back Bob!" It continued:
We urge investors to back Bob, and take full advantage of Barclays’ recent share price underperformance. Bob is going nowhere. But we also expect (and demand) more radical action to address a bloated Barcap cost base to get closer to the Group’s unrealistic RoE aspirations. This would help to underpin underlying operational performance. Meanwhile, as "unquantifiable" litigation risks are progressively seen to be a multi-bank issue (rather than Barclays-specific), expect Barclays’ sharp underperformance to reverse.
08.51 BBC's Joe Lynam:
<noframe>Twitter: Joe Lynam BBC Biz - I've learned that Qatar which owns 6% of Barclays did NOT put Bob Diamond under pressure to resign</noframe>
08.49 Diamond is also still set to appear at a Treasury Select Committee tomorrow. And according to the FT he could reveal embarrassing dealings with regulators. We'll have the latest in our live blog tomorrow.
FT adds that Barclays Wealth banker Rich Ricci (above) is "seen as a candidate" to replace Diamond, while chief operating officer Jerry del Missier "could leave".
08.48 We should get some idea of Bob Diamond's severance package later today. That's sure to stir up some anger.
Louise Rouse, director of engagement at FairPensions:
Now that Barclays has confirmed the resignation of Bob Diamond as CEO details must be provided of any severance payments proposed to be made to him. Remuneration at Barclays has been a source of controversy for the last few years and shareholders would likely regard it as unacceptable if a CEO departing in such circumstances was to receive severance payments.
"Indeed, Mr Diamond’s resignation should not mean that Barclays does not seek to claw back his bonuses received during the years when Libor was being manipulated.”
08.44 Chris Adams, from the FT, reacts to the news that chairman Marcus Agius is staying on at the bank to find a new chief executive, just a day after stepping down:
<noframe>Twitter: Chris Adams - He's back: Outragius</noframe>
Meanwhile, there are tongue-in-cheek tweets from Andrew Clark at The TImes:
<noframe>Twitter: Andrew Clark - Would anyone like to join my "Rich Ricci for Barclays chief exec" campaign? No, didn't think so.</noframe>
BBC reporter Michael Millar:
<noframe>Twitter: Michael Millar - Word is Diamond and Agius currently stuck in <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Barclays" target="_blank">#Barclays</a> revolving door in bank foyer. Diamond gets job back tomorrow and Agius back out.</noframe>
And the BBC's Paddy O'Connell:
<noframe>Twitter: paddy o'connell - LIBOR: Leave If Bank Operated Rigging</noframe>
08.42 Marcus Agius reportedly phoned Chancellor George Osborne last night to tell him that Barclays' board had decided Bob Diamond should go.
08.40 RIchard Bacon, BBC Radio Fivelive presenter, sees the funny side of chairman Marcus Agius quitting Barclays yesterday:
<noframe>Twitter: richard bacon - More Barclays trouble. Several staff start legal action to recover the £2.50 they put in the big envelope for Marcus Agius's leaving gift</noframe>
08.32 Gary Greenwood at Shore Capital has welcomed Bob Diamond's decision:
In our opinion this is a sensible outcome as Mr Diamond’s position at the company had clearly become untenable in the aftermath of the Libor fixing scandal. We said yesterday that the decision by [chairman] Marcus Agius to step down would do little to appease the many who felt Mr Diamond should carry the can for the scandal, and so it appears to have been the case. The question now will be who will come in to replace Mr Diamond and whether further senior heads will roll? While the company says that it will consider internal and external candidates to fill the role of CEO, we believe that it is of paramount importance that an external appointment is made in order to clean up the image of the company. We believe the shares should react positively to this news as Mr Diamond’s departure removes one of the key drags on sentiment for the company.
08.29 Barclays' shares have risen 1.1pc this morning. Kamal Ahmed, Sunday Telegraph Business Editor:
<noframe>Twitter: Kamal Ahmed - Barclays shareprice on way up after initial 3pc fall <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=diamondquits" target="_blank">#diamondquits</a></noframe>
Here's the bank's share price over the past 10 days:
08.24 Back to Osborne:
Will wait to hear DIamond's reasons for stepping down... Long public inquiry [into libor scandal] is not what the public wants.
08.22 BBC Business Editor Robert Peston on BBC Radio 4:
Bob Diamond feels he has been hounded out. He would have taken almost all his time focusing on giving evidence to parliament. He doesn't feel he did anything desperately wrong. He was deeply shocked when he discovered the Libor scandal was going on.
<noframe>Twitter: Robert Peston - Diamond feels he has been hounded out by MPs. He feared the new inquiries would focus on him & would not give him no time to fix the bank</noframe>
08.12 Chancellor George Osborne on Radio 4:
We don't want a leaderless Barclays. Bob Diamond has done the right thing for the bank and the country. I hope it's a first step to a new culture of responsibility in British banking.
"Britain needs Barclays needs to be a strong bank focused on the economy. Has to be part of a change in banking culture. We don't need banking sector reputation tarnished. Libor scandal has opened door on very bad practices in banking.
"We are in a very different era from a few years ago. I don't think the Bob Diamonds of the world would have resigned a few years ago.
"There was a pact [between politicians and banks] years ago that said: 'You make lots of money and we will spend it.'
"Banks are broken. I spend a great deal of time on banking issues... Bankers must be held accountable.
08.10 Just to recap, Barclays was last week fined a total of £290m by British and US regulators for attempted Libor rigging. It was also caught up in the mis-selling of interest rate swaps.
08.10 Diamond's resignation comes as the bank faced possible criminal prosecution in a scandal that has sullied London's image as a financial centre.
Britain's Serious Fraud Office on Monday announced that it was considering whether it was "appropriate and possible to bring criminal prosecutions" over the issue, adding that it hoped to reach a conclusion within a month.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also announced a parliamentary inquiry into the revelations that Barclays traders had lied about the interest rates other banks were charging it for loans.
08.06 In his daily email, Telegraph Head of Business Damian Reece says the move leaves the bank in "disarray":
The move leaves the bank in disarray. Diamond is due to appear before the Treasury Select Committee tomorrow and now, free of his executive responsibilities, could prove a sensational witness - including who knew what and when in relation to the Libor scandal at the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority. When Diamond goes down it's fair to assume others could be taken down with him.
His resgination brings to an end an extraordinary chapter in the history of Barclays and the City of London. He built Barclays Capital from the ruins of BZW to become one of the world's leading investment banks, catapulting Barclays from a sleepy UK-based lender to a universal bank operating across the globe.
07.59 Bob Diamond has resigned as chief executive of Barclays with immediate effect, bowing to calls to go over the interest rate rigging scandal at the bank.
He said in a statement: "No decision over that period was as hard as the one that I make now to stand down as chief executive. The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise - I cannot let that happen."
07.57 Good morning and welcome to a special live blog on the resignation of Bob Diamond.More Election Results: Transit Wins Big
Out of 12 transportation-related measures that were voted on Tuesday, seven represented a victory for transit, three were losses to learn from, and two more aren’t really a win one way or another but are worth noting. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, these numbers bring the year’s total to an impressive 79 percent win rate for transit. Especially impressive is the fact that most of these measures involved a tax of some sort, and people were willing to pay it if it meant better transit service – even in tough economic times.
Angie has profiled the victory in Durham and the loss in Seattle. Here are the rest of the results:
In Montcalm County, MI, a proposed property tax hike to fund bus service failed 39-61.
A terrible idea failed to catch on in Cincinnati, but the closeness of the final tally showed there’s still work to be done. The proposal to ban any forward movement on building a streetcar system lost, but the vote was 49-51. Still, this loss was a big win for transit.
Bad news for residents of Trumbull County, Ohio: the property tax increase that would have saved their transit system failed 36-64. If the county is to be believed, this means the transit system will shut down entirely, a huge loss, especially for the county’s most vulnerable residents. According to a local paper, “In 2010, the transit provided 64,249 trips: 18,922 for senior citizens, 21,013 for the disabled, 16,131 for students, and 8,183 for other residents.”
The 54-46 passage of Proposition 1 in Clark County, Washington was a big win for transit. Residents of the Washington-side suburbs of Portland will pay another 0.2 percent sales tax in order to stave off harsh cuts to their transit service. Even the normally anti-tax local paper said the vote was essential to maintaining quality of life in the county.
The counting of the statewide initiative 1125 in Washington went into the next day, but we can say definitively now that this bad idea has lost – at last count, it had 48.44 percent of the vote. The measure would have put serious restrictions on tolling at a time when tolling is one of very few funding mechanisms available to states. Even worse, it would have codified a pro-roads bias by insisting that tolling revenues could only pay for roads. It also singled out light rail, banning it on the I-90 bridge.
* The proposal to increase the Lorain County sales tax failed pretty spectacularly — 32-68. Transit advocates took note of this one but aren’t counting it as a loss, since the primary focus of the campaign – and the primary destination of the tax revenues – was the criminal justice system, not transportation. The loss does, however, mean that the county will cut its contribution to the transit system in half, in order to have more money to pay for prisons.
Here are a few we didn’t mention Tuesday:
* A statewide initiative in Arkansas to levy a $575 million bond to support highway repairs succeeded, 81-19, but is also not counted as a win or a loss for transit. Still, it’s good to see a bill like this fund state of good repair and not expansion.
In the city of Alpena, MI, transit scored another big win: a renewal of the current 0.65 mill levy (that’s 65 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value) to help fund the Dial-A-Ride service. The tax, which is expected to generate $161,000 in its first year, passed handily, 79-21.
Another landslide win in the city of Corunna, MI: A renewal of a 25 cent property tax will generate $14,000 in first year, to be used to support the transportation agency. It passed 73-27.
Residents of Grand Traverse County and Leelanau County, MI also showed their willingness to tax themselves for better transit: They voted overwhelmingly to renew the 35 cent property tax to support the operations of the Bay Area Transportation Authority. In its first year, the tax is expected to generate $2,305,190. It passed 73-27 in Grand Traverse County and 75-25 in Leelanau County.
CFTE says these election results “continue a decade-long trend of overwhelming voter support for transportation investments with local tax dollars.” They’re counting a 79 percent success rate on transportation ballot measures.
“In spite of deep, continuing economic anxieties, voters continue to support raising local revenue to invest in transit,” said CFTE Director Jason Jordan. “Conventional wisdom says that the public won’t support raising taxes, but when the transportation and economic benefits are clear, as was the case with measures across the country this year, voters strongly choose to invest in transit.”Image copyright PA Image caption Angela Rayner was abused online after her appearance on the Andrew Marr Show
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has said she is "proud" of her northern accent after online abuse.
The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne was called "thick" following a TV appearance.
Ms Rayner, from Stockport, said on Twitter: "Anonymous hard right accounts attacking my accent again saying l am thick etc, I will reiterate I am proud of my accent and will not change!"
Linguistics expert Rob Drummond said the prejudice she faced was a form of discrimination which was "damaging".
The senior lecturer from Manchester Metropolitan University told the BBC: "I think it is really bad that in this day and age, people are still getting abuse for the way they speak.
"If you just exchange accent for something to do with ethnicity or gender or sexuality, you can see how wrong it is."
Yvette Cooper tweeted support to her fellow Labour MP, saying: "Shameful - and also really very pathetic - abuse towards brilliant Angela Rayner today. Won't deter her from carrying on doing great job."
Mr Drummond said the Labour MP's accent should be celebrated.
"She has an authentic accent for the region - the social background she has. It's part of her.
"There are very few people whose accents actually match the people they represent.
"Part of her appeal is she is so genuine, she is authentic."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Labour's shadow education secretary talks council estates, accents and entering parliament
Mr Drummond said regional accents have become more prominent across the media, but there are still relatively few in politics.
There have also been examples of "reverse snobbery" in politics, he said.
Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg struggled with his "posh RP [received pronunciation] accent" when he was trying to get elected in Fife.
"He had no chance," said Mr Drummond.
"He has said that as soon as he opened his mouth, he realised he was just losing votes."
It is not the first time Ms Rayner has spoken about her accent.
Speaking in October 2016, she told told the BBC: "[My accent] gives me a bit of stealth, so I don't mind if people want to think I'm stupid and thick, then more fool them.
"If you want to underestimate me because I speak like a Mancunian, like the people I grew up with, then so be it at your peril."Susan Sarandon Says I Do to Marriage Equality
Legendary leading lady joins LGBT cause.
By EJ Rosetta
David Shankbone
The HRC has relaunched its “Americans For Equal Marriage” video campaign online, with a strong and recognizable voice leading the way.
Susan Sarandon, celebrated actor and advocate for such causes as UNICEF and victims of HIV/AIDS and hunger, received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in 2006 and is now joining us for the fight for Gay Marriage throughout the USA.
In a video advertisement she introduces herself as “An American for marriage equality” and is presented as the bastion for freedom and acceptance for the LGBT community.
“While marriage may not be my thing,” she smiles into the camera, “If it’s your thing, you damn well ought to be able to have it!” Adding “Equally. And Unequivocally.”
The short video follows previous releases by HRC’s Americans For Equal Marriage campaign including recording artist Demi Levato who featured in their first release.
Sarandon, who first spoke out for LGBT equality in 2012, states: “The America I want to live in celebrates diversity and believes in equal rights for all families... So join me and the majority of Americans who support marriage equality.”
The Human Rights Campain’s Charles Joughin thanked Sarandon, in this statement:
“Like most Americans, Susan Sarandon knows that all families deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and equality under the law... We are incredibly grateful to Susan for speaking out in favor of marriage equality, and for lending her powerful voice to HRC’s fight for fairness nationwide.”
With Same-sex couples able legally marry in nineteen states so far in the USA, the LGBT community can be thrilled to have such a high profile supporter. We have a long way to go, but as countless celebrities choose to not just support but actively advocate our community, we can expect this movement to excel. Which is excellent news all round.McCain's American Idol Make-Up Artist Makes Big Bucks
American Idol make-up artist Tifanie White has found some high profile work while the show is on break. (Altaffer/AP)
Remember last month when Republican presidential nominee John McCain got made up by the American Idol make-up artist?
Well, it wasn't a one-shot deal. The make-up artist to the wannabe-stars is getting paid beaucoup bucks to make McCain, 72, more telegenic.
Tifanie White, who reportedly has done makeup for the shows "So You Think You Can Dance" and "American Idol," was paid a total of $8,672.55 in September by the McCain-Palin campaign, according to the campaign's latest monthly financial report filed this week with the Federal Election Commission. She was paid $5,583.43 the previous month, records show.
We asked McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers whether McCain was happy with the American Idol make-up artist's work, and whether Ms. White also does makeup for McCain's naturally telegenic vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin. Rogers replied via email, "No comment."
We refrained from asking whether McCain might have a future on "American Idol" if things don't break his way two weeks from today on Election Day. But at least he has an in if he so chooses.> {-# LANGUAGE TypeSynonymInstances, RankNTypes, ExistentialQuantification #-}
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When I wrote about coends a while back I made up a term 'difunctor'. More recently it was pointed out to me that the correct word for this concept is 'profunctor', but unfortunately my knowledge came from MacLane which mentions that word nowhere.Profunctors are ubiquitous in Haskell programming. Probably the most natural definition of Hughes Arrows is via profunctors. Profunctors also play a role a little like tensors leading to a use of the terms 'covariant' and 'contravariant' that looks remarkably like the way those terms are used in tensor calculus.For categories C and D, A profunctor is a functor D×C→Set and is written C↛D. (I hope that arrow between C and D is in your font. It's missing on iOS.)I'll reuse my Haskell approximation to that definition:We need cofunctoriality for the first argument and functoriality for the second:(Strictly we probably ought to call these 'endoprofunctors' as we're only really dealing with the category of Haskell types and functions.)There are lots of analogies for thinking about profunctors. For example, some people think of them as generalising functors in the same way that relations generalise functions. More specifically, given a function f:A→B, f associates to each element of A, a single element of B. But if we want f to associate elements of A with elements of B more freely, for example'mapping' elements of A to multiple elements of B then we instead use a relation which can be written as a function f:A×B→{0,1} where we say xfy iff f(x,y)=1. In this case, profunctors map to Set rather than {0,1}.A good example is the type constructorIt's common that the first argument of a profunctor describes how an element related to a type is sucked in, and the second describes what is spit out.sucks in anand spits out aGiven a function f we can turn it into a relation by saying that xfy iff y=f(x). Similarly we can turn a functor into a profunctor. Given a functor F:C→D we can define a profunctor F:C↛D byYou may be able to see how the second argument to a profunctor sort of plays a similar role to the return value of a functor, just as the second argument to a relation sometimes plays a rule similar to the return value of a function.There also an opoosing way to make a profunctor from a functor just as there is with functions and relations:Note that the identity functor gives us something isomorphic towhether you useorJust as we have natural transformations between functors, we have dinatural transformations between profunctors. My previous definition of dinatural was specialised to a particular case - dinaturals between a profunctor and the constant profunctor.Firstly, let's think about natural transformations. If F and G are functors, and h is a natural transformation h:F⇒G, then we have thatIf we think of F and G as containers, then this rule says that a natural transformation relates the structures of the containers, not the contents. So using f to replace the elements with other elements should be invisible to h and hence commute with it.Something similar happens with dinatural transformations. But this time, instead of relating the argument to a natural transformation to its return result, it instead relates the two arguments to a profunctor.Given two profunctors, F and G, A dinatural transformation is a polymorphic function of type:but we also want something analogous to the case of natural transformations. We want to express the fact that if, thendoesn't see the elements ofor. Here's a way to achieve this. Suppose we have a dinatural transformation:and a functionthen we can useto applyon the left or right ofand. The definition of dinaturals demands that:ie. that we can applyon the left before applying, and then doon the right, or vice versa, and still get the same result.I'm not sure but I think that we don't need to check this condition and that just like the case of naturals it just comes as a free theorem It's easy to see how to compose functors. A functor is a polymorphic function from one type to another. It's not straightforward to compose profunctors. It's tempting to say that a profunctor maps a pair of types to a type so they can be composed like functions. But the original definition says the definition is D×C→Set. So as a function it doesn't map back to the category but to Set. For Haskell we replace Set with Hask, the category of Haskell functions and types. So we have Hask×Hask→Hask. It's easy invent a scheme to compose these because Hask appears 3 times. But it'd be wrong to exploit this in a general definition applying to many categories because in the proper definition of profunctor we can't assume that a profunctor maps back to the spaces you started with.We can try composing profunctors by analogy with composing relations. Suppose R |
Dead Man's Chest as the highest grossing release in entertainment history.[59] The game sold 260,000 units in the United Kingdom in its first week, making it the third fastest-selling title in that territory.[10] It ultimately received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[60] indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[61] On June 20, 2006, Xbox.com reported that more than a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live since its debut. Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game[10] with 8.46 million copies sold by November 2008. As of September 25, 2007, Halo 2 was the fifth best-selling video game in the United States with 6.3 million copies sold, according to the NPD Group.[11] From the day of its initial release and up until mid-November 2006, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360; its position was eventually surpassed in 2006 by the 360-exclusive Gears of War. Halo and Halo 2 are still some of the most played games for the Xbox console.[5]
Reception
Halo 2 has received critical acclaim. On review aggregate site Metacritic, the game has attained overall scores of 95 out of 100, respectively.[62] Halo 2 received multiple awards, including Best Console game and Best Sound Design from the Interactive Achievement Awards. According to Xbox.com, the game has received more than 38 individual awards.[69]
Many reviewers praised the audio for being especially vivid.[65] Multiplayer especially was noted in being the best on Xbox Live at the time. Game Informer, along with numerous other publications, rated it higher than Halo: Combat Evolved, citing enhanced multiplayer and less repetitive gameplay. Most critics noted that Halo 2 stuck with the formula that made its predecessor successful, and was alternatively praised and faulted for this decision. Edge's review concluded that Halo 2 could be summed up with a line from its script: "It's not a new plan. But we know it'll work."[64]
The game's campaign mode received some criticism for being too short,[70] and for featuring an abrupt cliffhanger ending.[66] GameSpot noted that although the story's switching between the Covenant and human factions made the plot more intricate, it distracted the player from Earth's survival and the main point of the game;[66] while Edge labeled the plot "a confusing mess of fan-fiction sci-fi and bemusing Episode-II-style politics."[64]
The Windows version of the game received mixed reviews, with IGN rating it a 7.5/10,[71] and GameSpot giving it a 7.0/10.[72] Most criticism was due to the late release date, and the graphics being dated. It received an aggregate score of 72 out of 100 from Metacritic.[63]
Legacy
Several publications have listed Halo 2's innovative matchmaking technology as one of the turning points in the gaming industry during the 2000s. Television channel G4's Sterling McGarvey wrote that "Bungie's sequel was a shot in the arm for Xbox Live subscriptions and previewed many of the features that would set the standard for Microsoft's online service on the next machine".[73] The editors of Popular Mechanics listed Halo 2 as one of the top fifteen events of the decade, crediting the game with bringing online multiplayer to the console masses.[74] The Province's Paul Chapman concurred, writing that games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would not be as enjoyable to play if not for the ground Halo 2 broke.[75]
NotesTrivia
Production designer Adam Stockhausen and his department built approximately three hundred yards of the Berlin Wall at different phases of its construction with the same materials and same dimensions as the original. It is when the American student Frederic L. Pryor Will Rogers ) comes into the story, that the audience first sees the Berlin Wall. Pryor, while visiting a professor in East Berlin, whose daughter also happens to be his girlfriend, has an unfortunate encounter with the East German border guards, who arrest him as he tries to return to West Germany. James B. Donovan ( Tom Hanks ) first hears about Pryor when he is in East Berlin, and refuses to leave the country unless Pryor is factored into the exchange of Francis Gary Powers Austin Stowell ) for Rudolf Ivanovich Abel Mark Rylance ). See moreAfter the drama that has surrounded Bayern Munich all week, they desperately needed a win against Hertha BSC. They didn’t. Instead what they got was a dysfunctional performance, at times dominating and at others woefully inept as Bayern blew a 2-0 lead halfway through the second half, earning a 2-2 draw against Hertha BSC.
My name is Javi Martinez, you killed my father, prepare to die
The first 45 minutes of the match against Hertha BSC were as dominating a defensive performance as we’ve seen from Bayern Munich in many a year. At the center was Javi Martinez who returned to defensive midfield. In partnership with Jerome Boateng and Mats Hummels, the more mobile Martinez was inimitable. He harassed and harried Hertha BSC for much of the first half, winning balls time and again and launching attacks forward. This was a brief glimpse of the Martinez-led Bayern Munich defense that won them a treble five years ago.
However for all their strength in the first half, their early second half performance belied a partnership that was green. When Hertha was able to get behind Martinez, Tolisso’s poor defensive showing exposed Boateng and Hummels who tried to compensate. Genko Haraguchi’s slalom run through the entire Bayern defense en route to Hertha’s first goal was proof enough of a set of players lacking familiarity with their positional relationships.
As Thiago ticks, so too does the Bayern Munich midfield
Despite Bayern’s showing in defense, their midfield still left a lot to be desired going the opposite way. Corentin Tolisso while solid in distribution was poor in playmaking. Too often he would shuttle play out to the wings quickly or attack into wide spaces on the dribble. This left Thomas Müller as the sole arbiter of attack in midfield.
When Thiago came on for Arjen Robben, it breathed new life into the Bayern midfield. They found themselves creating wide with Tolisso and driving through the center with Thiago while Martinez anchored the defense. They roundly controlled the game from that point forward, but without any offensive punch wide, Bayern struggled mightily to get the ball in front of goal.
It’s time to pull the plug on Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery
This is definitely indelicate given the serious injury Franck Ribery picked up in today’s match, but it’s time to say their careers are over. Arjen Robben was a shell of a performer today, always behind the ball, two steps too slow to break Marvin Plattenhardt. He notched just a single shot and just a single touch inside the box all game and this has been par for the season. How much of Arjen Robben’s form under Pep Guardiola there remains to be resurrected is something we could wait and never see materialize.
Robben’s decline over the past year hasn’t been done any favors by the strife and training practices that developed under Carlo Ancelotti. A new coach needs to mean a clean break and making it clear that he will be a supporting star should be paramount for Bayern Munich. How Bayern do that when they sold Douglas Costa and just lost Franck Ribery is the next question.
Which brings us to the matter of the Frenchmen. Ribery was Bayern’s only bright spot in the offensive third today. The remaining question isn’t whether he still has something to offer Bayern, but whether Ribery will ever be able to play soccer again given the potential severity of the injury.
Where does Bayern Munich go from here?
A performance coming four days after a coaching change and coming on the heels of a gruesome 3-0 loss, typically doesn’t carry much connotations for the future of a club. In this case it does.
The strife between Carlo Ancelotti and the players largely centered around their older core. And that older core floundered today under Willy Sagnol. This was a statement match for the likes of Ribery and Robben that they could still hang. This was their referendum.
It failed.
What they brought was bad offense, the worst Arjen Robben performance I can ever remember, a gruesome knee injury to Franck Ribery, and a jekyll-and-hyde defense. Whenever Bayern Munich actually get around to announcing a new coach, it has to be in conjunction with a major shakeup of this team’s identity and a new phase of their story.The 2010 GP2 Series season was the sixth GP2 Series season. The season began on 8 May at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain and ended on 14 November at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates after 20 races held at ten meetings.
This was the first GP2 season held with its own feeder series, the GP3 Series. The 2010 series was at most of the European Formula One rounds with GP2. The German GP2 round returned to Hockenheim, due to its alternation with the Nürburgring as host of the German Grand Prix. Abu Dhabi became a part of the main series, after two races in the 2009–10 GP2 Asia Series. The 2010 season was the last season with the second-generation GP2 car, introduced in 2008. It was also the last season that Bridgestone was the sole tyre supplier for the series, as they were replaced by Pirelli for the following season. The new car – the Dallara GP2/11 – will be utilised in the main series and the GP2 Asia Series from 2011 onwards.[1]
Pastor Maldonado clinched the championship title with two races to spare, despite crashing out of the sprint race at Monza; the second successive season where the drivers' championship was secured before the final round. Maldonado, driving for Rapax, became the series' most successful driver with six victories during the season, gained in successive feature races to take him to a total of ten victories.[2] Maldonado won the championship by sixteen points ahead of Barwa Addax's Sergio Pérez, who took five victories during the season, taking a pair of feature race wins and three sprint wins. Jules Bianchi finished as top main series rookie in third for ART Grand Prix, after coming at the head of a four-driver battle for the position. Dani Clos finished a point behind Bianchi for Racing Engineering, winning a sprint race in Istanbul, with British duo Sam Bird – a race-winner at Monza – and Oliver Turvey taking fifth and sixth places. Seven other drivers took victories, mainly coming in the reverse-grid races; only Charles Pic – tenth overall – took a feature race win in Barcelona. Sprint wins were taken by Fabio Leimer in Barcelona, Jérôme d'Ambrosio in Monaco, Marcus Ericsson in Valencia, Giacomo Ricci in Budapest, Christian Vietoris at Monza and Davide Valsecchi in Abu Dhabi.
In the teams' championship, it was Rapax that prevailed in a three-team battle in Abu Dhabi. Heading into the final race, Barwa Addax held a one-point advantage over Rapax, with ART nine points behind Addax in third. In the final race, only Rapax picked up points with a second place with fastest lap for Luiz Razia, which gave Rapax a five-point – 115 points to 110 – championship win over Barwa Addax. ART finished third on 100 points, ahead of Racing Engineering on 80 and iSport International on 78 in fifth position.
Teams and drivers [ edit ]
The season had been expected to see 26 cars running, but ongoing financial problems sidelined Durango indefinitely. As there was a new team-entry-selection process scheduled for 2011, series organisers decided it was not worth a new team joining for a single season, as there would be no guarantee they would be on the grid in 2011.[3]
Driver changes [ edit ]
Changed teams
A number of drivers changed teams over the off-season between the end of the 2009 main series and the 2010 season. David Price Racing driver Johnny Cecotto Jr. moved across to the Trident Racing team, in effect replacing Rodolfo González, who moved across to Arden International Motorsport. The Barwa Addax Team had two new drivers for the season, with Giedo van der Garde moving from iSport International and Sergio Pérez leaving Arden International to partner him; Addax drivers in 2009, Romain Grosjean and Davide Valsecchi joined DAMS and iSport respectively, Grosjean's signing being in mid-season rather than at the start of the season. Other moves saw Pastor Maldonado leaving ART Grand Prix to join Rapax and was partnered by Luiz Razia who had been a race-winner with Scuderia Coloni in 2009. Alberto Valerio moved the other way to Razia and joined Scuderia Coloni, with Álvaro Parente joining him mid-season having last driven for Ocean Racing Technology twelve months prior.
Entering or Re-Entering GP2
Many drivers joined the series from a raft of other junior formulae series as part of a driver's progression to the higher echelons of professional motor racing. Ho-Pin Tung joined DAMS after a season in Superleague Formula competing in the colours of Turkish side Galatasaray, while James Jakes contested the final meeting at Abu Dhabi after a season competing for Manor Racing in the inaugural GP3 Series. Charles Pic, Oliver Turvey and Adrian Zaugg all moved across from the Formula Renault 3.5 Series via the GP2 Asia winter series to compete in the main series. Each of the drivers remained with the teams they competed in the Asia Series with; Pic with Arden International, Turvey with iSport International and Zaugg with Trident Racing. Brendon Hartley and Federico Leo also joined from the series, but they only contested selected races towards the end of the campaign. Fabrizio Crestani and Edoardo Piscopo both competed for DAMS in Auto GP but also forayed into GP2 with DPR and Trident respectively; Crestani moving into the series for the first time.
The end of the International Formula Master series saw three drivers moving into GP2 from that particular series; champion Fabio Leimer joined Ocean Racing Technology from Jenzer Motorsport, while JD Motorsport team-mates Vladimir Arabadzhiev and Josef Král joined Scuderia Coloni and Super Nova Racing respectively. There was also a number of graduates from the major Formula Three series held around the world. Formula 3 Euro Series champion Jules Bianchi remained with his Formula Three team ART Grand Prix for his graduation into GP2, and was joined by former rival Sam Bird, while runner-up Christian Vietoris joined Racing Engineering. All-Japan Formula Three Championship winner Marcus Ericsson joined Super Nova Racing after one round with the team in GP2 Asia, while British Formula 3 Championship front-runner Max Chilton left Carlin Motorsport to partner Leimer at Ocean Racing Technology.
Leaving GP2
Five drivers left the championship – including the top three drivers – after securing drives in Formula One. Champion Nico Hülkenberg was signed up by Williams F1 to partner Rubens Barrichello, runner-up Vitaly Petrov swapped the Barwa Addax Team for the Renault F1 team to replace Romain Grosjean, and Kamui Kobayashi joined Sauber after several races replacing Timo Glock at Toyota Racing. Karun Chandhok and Lucas di Grassi also graduated, signing for new teams Hispania Racing and Virgin Racing respectively.
Stefano Coletti swapped the Durango team for a place in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with Comtec Racing, where he was joined by another Durango driver Nelson Panciatici, who signed for Junior Lotus Racing. Franck Perera and Davide Rigon moved back to Superleague Formula, where they would encounter mixed fortunes, with Perera failing to win a race and Rigon becoming season champion. Edoardo Mortara left Arden International for a return to the Formula 3 Euro Series with the crack Signature outfit with whom he had won the Macau Grand Prix with, in 2009. Ricardo Teixeira moved into the FIA Formula Two Championship[30] while Andreas Zuber competed in the inaugural FIA GT1 World Championship with Phoenix Racing / Carsport, as well as a sporadic appearance in the EuroBOSS Series. Diego Nunes returned to Brazil to compete in the Stock Car Brasil series with RC3 Bassani Racing, Javier Villa moved into touring car specification series, competing in the Spanish Mini Championship, while Roldán Rodríguez decided to take a sabbatical from racing after his GP2 Asia campaign.[31]
Midseason Changes
A number of midseason changes were also made during the season, to replace other drivers. Super Nova Racing's Josef Král suffered stable fractures to two of his vertebrae in an accident with Rodolfo González in Valencia.[32] Luca Filippi took his place at Super Nova Racing until Král returned in Abu Dhabi.[9] Romain Grosjean returned to the series, making a one-off appearance at Hockenheim for DAMS.[15] He replaced Jérôme d'Ambrosio at the meeting. After Ho-Pin Tung's injury at the Hungaroring, Grosjean replaced him at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza.[16] Álvaro Parente returned to the series at Spa-Francorchamps replacing Alberto Valerio at Scuderia Coloni.[16] Fabrizio Crestani made his main series début at Spa-Francorchamps replacing compatriot Giacomo Ricci at DPR.[16] Edoardo Piscopo made his main series début at Monza, replacing Johnny Cecotto Jr. at Trident Racing.[27] Brendon Hartley also made his first GP2 appearance at Monza, replacing Vladimir Arabadzhiev at Scuderia Coloni.[25] Ho-Pin Tung made his return from injury at Abu Dhabi, replacing Christian Vietoris after he needed surgery for appendicitis.[11] James Jakes and Federico Leo also their main series débuts in Abu Dhabi, replacing Álvaro Parente at Scuderia Coloni and Edoardo Piscopo at Trident Racing respectively.[23][28]
2010 Schedule [ edit ]
The 2010 calendar was officially announced on 18 December 2009. The series had been expected to consist of eleven rounds, up one from 2009. It was due to support all the European Formula One events, race at a stand-alone event in Portimão for the second year in a row, and the season finale to be held in Abu Dhabi.[33] On 8 May 2010, it was announced that the Portimão round would be cancelled and not be replaced.[34]
Results [ edit ]
Championship standings [ edit ]
Scoring system
Points are awarded to the top 8 classified finishers in the Feature race, and to the top 6 classified finishers in the Sprint race. The pole-sitter in the feature race will also receive two points, and one point is given to the driver who set the fastest lap inside the top ten in both the feature and sprint races. No extra points are awarded to the pole-sitter in the sprint race.
Feature race points
Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Points 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sprint race points
Points are awarded to the top 6 classified finishers.
Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th Points 6 5 4 3 2 1
Drivers' Championship [ edit ]
Notes:
† — Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.
Teams' Championship [ edit ]
Notes:
† — Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.
^ Pérez and Pastor Maldonado set the identical fastest laps (1:21.823), but Pérez made it earlier than Maldonado, so he was eligible to score point for the fastest lap. ^ Maldonado and Davide Valsecchi set the identical fastest laps (1:37.010), but Maldonado made it earlier than Valsecchi, so he was eligible to score point for the fastest lap. ^ Sergio Pérez set the fastest lap, but finished outside the top 10, so he was ineligible to score point for the fastest lap. ^ Michael Herck set the fastest lap, but did not finish, so he was ineligible to score point for the fastest lap. ^ Davide Valsecchi set the fastest lap, but finished outside the top 10, so he was ineligible to score point for the fastest lap. ^ Giedo van der Garde set the fastest lap, but finished outside the top 10, so he was ineligible to score point for the fastest lap.Luis Muriel joined Sevilla from Sampdoria this summer.
Luis Muriel believes Sevilla have what it takes to mount a serious challenge against Real Madrid and Barcelona this season.
Fourth in La Liga in the 2016-17 campaign, the Andalusian club strengthened their squad with nine reinforcements this summer, with Muriel among the new faces.
Muriel became Sevilla's most expensive acquisition in the club's history when they paid Sampdoria around €20 million for the forward in July.
"We want to be among the top four or five teams in La Liga and to consolidate our name in Europe," he is quoted as saying by AS. "Real Madrid has looked invincible in past years but I'm convinced we can beat them, the same goes for Barcelona.
"They are no longer those teams that you think you have lost to even before the game has started. If we do things well, then even against them it's possible [to win]."
Sevilla were twice beaten by Barcelona in La Liga last season but won 2-1 at home to Real Madrid before falling 4-1 at the Bernabeu in May.
Muriel, who played in Spain while on loan at Granada in the 2010-11 campaign, scored 13 goals for Sampdoria last season.
"The money that the club has invested in me is a big motivation," Muriel said of Sevilla. "I was very young when I went to Granada and I made many mistakes.
"In Serie A, I've grown accustomed to finding spaces even when there were none. In Spain there is a lot of space and I think I can make use of my characteristics."
Sevilla are competing in the Champions League group stages and are in Group E with Liverpool, Spartak Moscow and Maribor.
They reached the knockout stages of that competition last season for the first time since 2009-10 but were eliminated by Leicester in the round of 16 of the competition.
"We need to go past the group stages in the Champions League and then we shall see," Muriel said.
Sevilla, under new coach Eduardo Berizzo, started their La Liga campaign with a 1-1 draw at home to Espanyol before claiming a 1-0 win at Getafe. They host Eibar on Saturday.
Adriana Garcia is a Valencia-based football writer who covers La Liga for ESPN FC.The third Star Trek: Discovery panel at Star Trek Las Vegas was focused on creature designs for the show, namely the Klingons and Saru, and featured Neville Page and Glenn Hetrick, who may be recognizable to fans of SyFy’s Face Off. Page is also known to Trekkies for doing the creature designs for the three Kelvin era Star Trek films. He and Hetrick – a self-proclaimed major Trekkie – have teamed up to form Alchemy Studios and they have been put in charge of creating the makeup and creatures for Discovery. For their panel the pair focused mostly on giving insights into the process of designing the look of the Kelpian Lt. Saru (Doug Jones), and all of the Klingons. They also shared some imagery of their design work for the show.
A Process with Canon Built-in
When asked about their design process, Page and Hetrick detailed the various steps they go through which includes 3D printing and various different test passes. Hetrick wanted to assure fans the team were dedicated to Trek history in their development process, saying:
There is also another step to this design process which is not just logic or the esthetic or the chemical or physical process, it is an almost religious level of devotion to the integrity of canon and making sure that all of you are getting what you want out of it. We spend a lot time talking about how things would work in the story and constantly buttressing our thought process with things from canon and from stories.
Designing the different Klingon houses
Page knew that coming up with designs for the Klingons for Star Trek: Discovery wasn’t going to be easy, telling the crowd:
I was brought on to start redesigning Klingons, which is a dangerous thing to do in general, as I found as I’ve reviewed comments online.
The redesign of the Klingons began very early on in the pre-production process by Page and co-creator Bryan Fuller. Page described Fuller’s original vision for the Klingons:
The words that he used were “The Klingons are self-ware estheticians, and I want them to appear less brutish and more conscious.” He made references [to] baroque and samurai [styles] in terms of armor because there is this whole suit [Torchbearer].
Page saw this as an opportunity to make the Klingons “deeper and richer than they already are.” They ensure that everything they design for both creatures, costumes, and props have “purpose and meaning.” Hetrick noted that they use the term “evolutionary imperative” as a term to inspire all decisions to make sure design choices are based on specific reasons. This approach is part of the reasoning behind the previously reported detail that the different Klingon houses will have different looks. He explained the reasoning:
The empire is very big. They don’t all grow up on Kronos. They don’t all live on the same planets and certainly those different planets would have different environments. So how would the cultures have evolved differently?…We tried to come up with cultural axioms for each house so each looks different and they bear a cultural patina like our cultures do here on Earth.
Down to the Smallest Details
The pair cited the design of the Klingon torchbearer as an example of the level of detail they’re striving for. For example, the top of the Torchbear’s knife contains Klingons poised to thrust themselves into the honor of battle, and this kind of symbol is used throughout other Klingon designs seen in Discovery.
The Klingon skull and vertebra are part of their design ethos. It’s reflected in their ornate helmets, such as the “Periscope” helmet, which includes a heads-up display on the inside.
The Torchbearer suit is their pride and joy, as it uses all new production techniques and incorporates incredible detail.
There’s a detail again of a Klingon sacrificing himself for the honor of battle, the shape of which harkens to the emblem of the Klingon Empire. Additionally, in between the calf plates are thrusters for flying through space.
Why are the Klingons bald?
Being that the Klingons are an apex predator the design for their anatomy assumes they have highlighted senses, specifically extra sensory receptors running from the top of their heads to their backs. This was the “impetus” with Page and Fuller for the shape of the heads. They started with designing Klingon skulls.
And these lead to the first designs for a “generic Klingon.” Page explained that DSC’s Klingons are bald because of these heightened senses on the top of their heads. The bald look was also a mandate from Fuller.
Designing for the Character and the Actor
The pair talked a lot about the high-tech equipment and techniques they use in their work. For example, they start with a laser scan of the actor, such as Doug Jones for designing his look as Saru. They are then able to build up and try different simulated materials to arrive at the look they want.
Page explained that the next step was to use sculpting software to finalize a design, but with a focus on the character and the actor, explaining using Saru as an example:
All the while I’m trying to get a sense of character. It is all about character mostly and trying to yeild something fresh and new which is a challenge. And what I felt so paramount with this particularly character was making sure that Doug Jones himself is able to do his job.
Even though Doug Jones has worked with prosthetics extensively they were well aware he would be in the Saru makeup quite a bit, and he needs to be able to act through it.
Additional Star Trek Las Vegas Coverage
Panel: Details and covers for first ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ novel and comic revealed
Interview: Sam Vartholomeos and Wilson Cruz
Interview: Mary Chieffo And Kenneth Mitchell
Panel: Actors Discuss Different Klingon Houses In ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ + First Image of Kol Revealed
Panel: Writers Talk Technobabble, Timelines And How ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Is Telling Our War Story
Stay tuned for additional coverage coming all week long.Rashad Evans knows Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones better than most so he has an educated take on the upcoming rematch between the two light heavyweights set for UFC 197 on April 23.
While Cormier currently holds the title at 205 pounds, he will enter the rematch with Jones as a decided underdog after losing to the former champion by unanimous decision in early 2015.
Much of the world believes the second fight with Jones and Cormier will ultimately end the same as the first, but don’t count Evans among those people.
Article continues below...
"I am going to go on record and I’m going to go with the upset on this one — I’m going to go with DC," Evans told FOX Sports while picking Cormier for the win. "For some reason I just feel like DC’s going to get this fight. I just feel like he is."
"I am going to go on record and I’m going to go with the upset on this one — I’m going to go with DC. For some reason I just feel like DC’s going to get this fight. — Rashad Evans on Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones 2
There are several reasons why Evans is going with Cormier in the upset over Jones, but at the top of the list were his recent wins over Anthony Johnson and Alexander Gustafsson.
Evans trains with Johnson on a daily basis so he knows first hand how tough it is to deal with him but he says watching Cormier gut out a hard fought win over Gustafsson this past October was ultra impressive and enough to convince him that he could beat Jones in a rematch.
"I do see a way that DC beats Jon," Evans explained. "I think the pace DC fought in his last fight, coupled with a few things that he could do better as far as when he takes a guy down and being heavy on top, making sure that they carry his weight when they get back up because that exhausts the guys. That way he’s not spending energy.
"I felt like DC did a hell of a fight that fight (against Alexander Gustafsson), fought a really good pace, but a lot of times during that fight he really made it 50/50 as far as the effort he’s putting in versus the effort his opponent is putting in. I felt like where his opponent was using 70-percent of his energy and he was only using 40-percent, I feel like he really would have been able to dominate Gustafsson in a way that Jon wasn’t able to."
Jones beat Gustafsson in a razor-thin decision in a bout that’s largely considered one of the greatest light heavyweight fights of all time. Cormier also eked past Gustafsson during their fight at UFC 192 but Evans was blown away by how much the former two-time Olympian had improved since falling to Jones just nine months earlier.
Evans also questions the long layoff that Jones has dealt with over the past year while facing a suspension when he was involved in a hit and run accident in New Mexico that cost him the UFC light heavyweight title.
Jones was reinstated this past October, but by the time he faces Cormier for a second time he will have been out of action for nearly 16 months and that kind of ring rust can hinder even the best fighters in the world.
"I think that DC now is a better DC than the first time that Jon fought him. Also I think the layoff is not easy to come back from and Jon’s never really had to face this. Jon’s never really faced this layoff. So mentally going into the fight, there’s some things different. There’s some things different as far as USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) thing, and it just has a different feel," Evans said.
"(Jones) has only been gone a year but things just change so fast and it’s hard to say what Jon is going to step into the cage. We’ve only seen one — the brave, audacious, amazing Jon Jones. We’ve never seen a Jon Jones that had to really contemplate any kind of technique, any kind of move, will he return and be that same free flowing fighter that’s made him one of the greatest fighters in UFC history?"
It all adds up to a win for Cormier according to Evans, who believes that it’s finally his time to conquer Jones and solidify his spot as the best light heavyweight in the world.
"Mentally, coming into this fight, I think (Cormier) is in a different place. I’m a huge Jon Jones fan as far as his talent and everything in the Octagon, but I just worry that Jon under this new mindset, this new Jon Jones, is he going to still be able to go out there and do the things that we’ve seen him do so easily?" Evans questioned. "At some point, people do start to show that they are human and things do affect them so I wonder what’s the real outcome to how he’s internalizing everything that’s happened in his personal life?
"I do believe he’s so dynamic, but will he return as that same dynamic fighter that we’ve come to know?"
Evans also took time to clarify a recent comment he made where he mentioned that if Cormier did fall to Jones in the rematch that he should consider retirement.
In reality, Evans was speaking more to Cormier’s obsession with being the best in the world whether it’s wrestling or fighting and if he’s no longer going to be in the running for a championship in the UFC, he just doesn’t see him moving forward any longer.
"What I was really trying to say with that whole ‘DC retiring’ is the fact that I’ve known DC for years. I knew DC before he even put on any MMA gloves or anything like that. I just know competitively speaking, if DC isn’t fighting for the gold, DC won’t do it," Evans said.
"He’s already had such a long career when it comes to wrestling that he’s not just going fight if he’s not going to have another chance to fight Jon Jones. That’s what I meant by that."
Cormier will have his chance to prove Evans right when he meets Jones in the main event at UFC 197 on April 23 in Las Vegas.New Zealanders are to be urged to wash dishes by hand and turn off lights as the country teeters on the brink of a power crisis caused by drought.
After two years of dry weather, the level of water in lakes that drive New Zealand's hydroelectric power plants is worryingly low.
The energy minister, David Parker, denied claims the country was facing rolling power cuts but said households would be asked to cut electricity consumption by up to 15% during peak early evening periods unless there was "significant" rainfall soon.
Hydroelectric stations usually produce about 75% of New Zealand's electricity but a lack of rain has reduced that output in recent weeks to 50%. Coal, diesel and gas-fired power plants are trying to make up the shortfall, but more strain is expected to be put on the national grid with the arrival of winter in the southern hemisphere.
Backed by the government, the electricity industry is to launch a TV campaign aimed at domestic, commercial and industrial users.
The prime minister, Helen Clark, said: "I think the advice will be that while it's not an emergency, it is time for people to be turning off lights in rooms they are not using, certainly not leaving the computer on all night, the heated towel rail not on for 24 hours a day."
The last time there was a serious power shortage in New Zealand was in 1992 when businesses were forced to use liquid petroleum gas and diesel. Street lighting was rationed and households endured hot water restrictions.
The public was also asked to save power in 2001, 2003 and 2006 but each time rain came soon enough to head off any serious problems.
Phil O'Reilly, the chief executive of Business New Zealand, said poor decisions by successive governments had led to New Zealanders living with the threat of electricity shortages. "You just can't run an economy like this," he said.
"If we get through to the end of winter without blackouts; it was all done by the skin of our teeth. I don't think that's a sensible proposition."
Clark said the commissioning of a new geothermal plant was being brought forward and industrial users of electricity were being targeted to see if they could ease back on demand. "A lot of things are being done to make sure that we move through this dry spell as smoothly as we can," she said.City watchdogs were monitoring cash withdrawals from Royal Bank of Scotland every hour during the height of the banking crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
The Financial Services Authority demanded 60-minute updates on cash flooding out of the bank's branches and hole-in-the-wall machines in the days before Britain's historic bank bailout, which took place a year ago.
The regulators stepped up their surveillance after realising that confidence was draining from the banking system following the collapse of Lehman Brothers a month earlier, and that customers were concerned about the safety of their deposits.
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, sanctioned the government's taking a 70% stake in RBS, and 43% in the combined Lloyds and HBOS, after a series of frantic round-the-clock meetings that weekend. A year on, those shareholdings are creating a £4bn paper loss |
it doesn't make me feel like we're in a partnership. It makes me feel like you want me to kiss your butt every time you get up in the night. This is your baby, too."
We went back and forth for a while. She told me how she appreciated all that I do to help around the house but she hated the way I acted like I was doing something really great, when in fact I was just doing what a father should.
My knee-jerk reaction was to get pissed off. I wanted to give her a list of other fathers we knew, family and friends, who still subscribed to antiquated notions of gender roles. I went to open my mouth, but stopped for just a moment, thought about my feelings, and realized it was best to leave before I said something I shouldn't.
So I left for work without saying a word. I drove to work angry.
I was 20 minutes into my 30-minute commute when I thought about the last time I had washed dishes. I'd assumed that I should be getting praise or a reward, and for the first time I asked myself, Why? I ate there, too. Then I thought about vacuuming the carpet, or doing the laundry, realized I had the same expectations about those chores, and suddenly I felt like a jerk.
The understanding that Mel was responsible for home and child care was so deeply ingrained in my understanding of family and contribution that I'd placed myself on a pedestal for doing something as simple as helping my wife with our baby in the night.
By the time I parked and walked to my office, I felt really low. I called Mel from work, and told her I was sorry.
"You're right," I said. "This is a partnership, and I shouldn't act like I'm doing some amazing thing because I get up in the night. I'm going to stop."
Mel was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Thank you."One of the most ill informed debates which Labour regularly makes us have is the debate about “privatising the NHS”. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and UKIP all say they will not privatise the NHS. I think what they all mean by this is we are all fully signed up to the proposition that health care should be available free at the point of need for UK citizens who want it from the NHS, a very popular principle.
In practice the private sector plays a large role in the NHS, and has done so since its foundation. It would be a good idea if we began the debate with a proper explanation of the current structure of the NHS. Labour, Conservative and coalition governments with the Lib Dems have all preserved the extensive use of the private sector inherited from the original NHS scheme, and have extended the role of the private sector in certain ways.
From the beginning it was decided to depend entirely on the private sector for the supply of drugs and other medical supplies. A very profitable competitive industry has grown on the back of NHS contracts and their equivalent elsewhere in the world. We still depend on large pharmaceutical and medical supplies companies for everything from pills to scanners, from bandages to beds.
From the beginning it was determined that most GPs would be private sector businesses, earning much of their living from NHS contract payments. So it has remained, with a majority of GPs today being private sector contractors working under the NHS banner. On average 95% of their income comes in NHS contract payments and 5% from private sector fees and charges. The typical GP partnership receives gross payments based on the size and composition of their list of patients registered, and based on particular services they provide which qualify for additional remuneration. Out of the gross payments they pay their practice costs and then receive the rest as personal remuneration. According to NHS England in 2011-12 the average GMP received £178,200 gross, which gave take home pay before personal tax of £106,100. I think it right that we seek to reward people with medical qualifications at good levels for their expertise and professional study.
In hospitals many years ago under the Conservatives it was decided in some cases to introduce private sector contractors to do the cleaning, to provide the meals and some of the other hotel services. Labour continued with this approach. Labour also added some limited use of private sector medical services, bought in to relieve shortages of capacity in particular specialities or to improve the patient outturns and reduce the waiting lists. In office Labour argued that the essence of the NHS was to offer good quality care free at the point of use. Sometimes, they said, this could be done more quickly and more cheaply and better by buying in service from the private sector and paying for it with NHS funds for patients.
It is therefore curious that today Labour wish to maker a political issue out of the “threat” of privatisation. As far as I can see there is absolutely no threat from any political party to the idea that the NHS should be free at the point of need to those who want it. Nor do I see any likelihood that Labour, who used the private sector extensively in power to help deliver NHS services, would want to nationalise doctors and drug companies were it to get back back into office.Public figures in Hollywood are splashed across glossy pages as they take their kids to the store or go to the gym next to headlines like, "Stars! They’re Just Like Us!" -- and while these errands do make them relatable -- that's usually where the comparisons end.
When we look at public figures, we usually tend think of them as the picture of poised and confident. But even though we're exposed to what feels like every ounce of their lives through the smooth pages of a magazine, there are still private battles they must face -- and that includes addressing their emotional well-being when it becomes jeopardized.
No matter which way you look at it, there's a stigma that's attached to emotional and mental health issues -- particularly when it comes to anxiety disorders. And even though the condition affects nearly 40 million American adults, including those public figures who appear so cool under pressure, there still can be a barrier when it comes to understanding what it’s like to suffer from chronic fear and stress. In order to gain that understanding our culture needs -- and to realize that suffering from anxiety doesn't have to be debilitating -- below find 11 incredible public figures who will make you rethink what you know about anxiety and panic disorders.
Olivia Munn
The actress best known for her confident demeanor on HBO's "The Newsroom," has openly admitted that she has severe social anxiety. "If I were to walk into someone’s birthday party, I’d have a bad anxiety attack," she told People magazine in 2013. Munn's aversion to social situations also triggers trichotillomania, a condition related to nail-biting and skin-picking that causes sufferers to pull out their own hair -- in Munn's case she pulls out her eyelashes. In order to manage the condition, she says it's about overcoming the idea of what makes you so fearful. "The idea -- that’s what anxiety is," she told Access Hollywood in March. "It's interpreting what I think things are going to be [like] and it ends up never being as bad as I think it’s going to be."
John Mayer
We listen to his poetic lyrics during times of distress, but the pop singer also has private distresses of his own. Prone to anxiety, Mayer keeps anti-anxiety medication on hand in case of a panic attack, Everyday Health reported.
Dan Harris
The "Nightline" and "Good Morning America" anchor is the picture of relaxed in his news chair, but not after an on-air panic attack in 2004 forced him to face his growing burnout and a newly-developed problem with drugs like ecstasy and cocaine. "I was overtaken by a massive, irresistible blast of fear," Harris recently wrote of his attack in an ABC News blog. “It felt like the world was ending. My heart was thumping. I was gasping for air. I had pretty much lost the ability to speak. And all of it was compounded by the knowledge that my freak-out was being broadcast live on national television."
After a drastic life change and discovering meditation, Harris penned the book 10 Percent Happier, which delves into how the practice can make a significant impact on your life. Since discovering mindfulness, Harris says he can get a much better handle on high-stress situations. "Meditation is a tool for taming the voice in your head. You know the voice I'm talking about. It's what has us constantly ruminating on the past or projecting into the future," he wrote. "To be clear, meditation won't magically solve all of your problems... but meditation is often effective kryptonite against the kind of epic mindlessness that produced my televised panic attack."
Barbra Streisand
When you’re one of the world's biggest Broadway powerhouses, it's easy to get caught up in the pressure of performing. Streisand is no exception and has long spoken out about her tendency to experience intense stage fright and anxiety before stepping into the spotlight. She told Oprah Winfrey in 2006 that she even takes anxiety medication before going onstage.
John Steinbeck
He penned some of the most notable novels of his time, including The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, but during his prominent lifetime, Steinbeck was also challenged with emotional health problems. The author suffered from anxiety and manic depression, and sought treatment from psychologist Gertrudis Brenner in order to deal with the disorder.
Kim Basinger
The Oscar-winning actress known for her roles in "L.A. Confidential" and "8 Mile" struggled with anxiety throughout the course of career and relied on medication to help her manage her panic disorder. She told People magazine in 2013 that after battling agoraphobia, she was ready to take charge of her fears and her emotional health. "Now I wake up and enjoy life," she said. "I didn’t want to live on drugs. I wanted to face everything I was afraid of."
Khalil Greene
The pressure to perform doesn't just mount among artists and performers, but on sports fields as well. As an infielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009, Greene went on the disabled list after being diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. "[Baseball] is a source of a lot of joy, but it's also a source of a lot of frustration and sadness and fear," Greene told USA Today shortly after he was diagnosed. "It's difficult to deal with, because it is something I really enjoy doing, but it has become at times like a love-hate relationship."
When that relationship caused chronic stress, Greene decided to take a step back. "The problem is when you're in a high-stress profession like that where the challenges are so great, moderate anxiety can sometimes erupt into an anxiety disorder," clinical psychologist Charles F. Brady told the MLB. And Greene isn't the only one -- other baseball players like Aubrey Huff, Dontrelle Willis and Joey Votto all have admitted to dealing with anxiety disorders.
Emma Stone
The quirky "Spiderman" star told Vogue magazine that she used to suffer from severe panic attacks as a child. "I was just kind of immobilized by it," she explained. "I didn't want to go to my friends' houses or hang out with anybody, and nobody really understood." Stone took control of the disorder by going to therapy and discovering her place in theater -- and although she still experiences anxiety, she knows how to better manage it by channeling her energy into work and fun activities.
Whoopi Goldberg
The funny actress and co-host of "The View" experiences anxiety through a specific fear of flying. According to Everyday Health, Goldberg looked into several treatment options for her phobia and opted for exposure therapy, where she slowly addressed her fear through a sponsored airplane course. She discussed her experience on "The View" after completing the course.
Abraham Lincoln
Praised as one of the most forward-thinking political figures of all time, Abraham Lincoln ranks as one of the most well-known leaders in history. However, along with a tumultuous country, Lincoln struggled with his mental health, including severe anxiety and depression. In a 2005 essay published in The Atlantic, writer Joshua Wolf Shenk explained how the president’s condition influenced his leadership, arguing that just because someone suffers from a mental health disorder, doesn’t mean you're unfit to make an impact:
Lincoln did suffer from what we now call depression, as modern clinicians, using the standard diagnostic criteria, uniformly agree. But this diagnosis is only the beginning of a story about how Lincoln wrestled with mental demons, and where it led him. Diagnosis, after all, seeks to assess a patient at just a moment in time, with the aim of treatment. But Lincoln's melancholy is part of a whole life story; exploring it can help us see that life more clearly, and discern its lessons. In a sense, what needs "treatment" is our own narrow ideas -- of depression as an exclusively medical ailment that must be, and will be, squashed; of therapy as a thing dispensed only by professionals and measured only by a reduction of pain; and finally, of mental trials as a flaw in character and a disqualification for leadership.
Charles Schulz
With quotes like "Happiness is a warm puppy," and lovable characters like Snoopy and Charlie, Schulz's creative mind brought smiles to millions. What most didn't know, however, is that the "Peanuts" creator also suffered from anxiety. "I have this awful feeling of impending doom," Schulz said in a 60 Minutes interview. "I wake up to a funeral-like atmosphere."
Despite his condition, Schulz's second wife Jean said that he still had a zest for life. "Part of what puzzles people about [Schulz] was that he talked about the actual physical sensation that he had from being anxious, the'sense of dread' when he got up in the morning," she told The New York Times. "But he had a Buddhist acceptance of life and its ups and downs. He functioned perfectly well."A leader of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has reportedly been detained by fellow rebels as he returned to the Donetsk region from Russia.
A separatist official said Andrei Purgin -- who was the self-styled speaker of the self-proclaimed parliament of the Donetsk People's Republic -- was reportedly detained near the rebel-held city of Donetsk on September 4, the same day he was allegedly dismissed as head of parliament.
Ellada Shaftner, a member of the rebel parliament, was traveling with Purgin when he and his wife were detained by officials.
Shaftner said she was told by the men who stopped their car that the couple was under arrest.
A separatist official told Reuters that Purgin and his wife were being interrogated.
But Denis Pushilin, another rebel leader, denied that Purgin was under arrest.
"As far as I am informed, [Purgin] feels all right, he has not been arrested," Pushilin said on September 7.
Top rebel leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko declined to comment on the Purgin report.
Based on reporting by Reuters, TASS, and InterfaxThere comes a stage in a government's life when routine assessment concerning competence and managerial efficiency is replaced by questions about sanity. Reading Michael Wills musing about New Labour's plans for an enhanced bill of rights with all sorts of social and economic rights as well as defined responsibilities, I had that experience of watching an acquaintance descend into whimpering insanity.
Mr Wills, an admittedly plausible member of the justice team, says that even during this time of unprecedented economic crisis, the government should act "To strengthen communities' and individuals' sense of their stake in society by better articulating the responsibilities we owe and the rights we have" (note the order).
Naturally this new charter won't challenge the sovereignty of parliament with entrenched rights but instead seek to nudge our society by suggestion. "Words have power in their own right. They can move us and mould our society, even though they are not law."
I don't know what kind of world Wills lives in, but any sane person would think of ways of consolidating the rights we are supposed to possess and make sure that the system works as it stands before proposing another tier of words in the hope that we all feel better about ourselves. Actually, I suspect his motives are far from benign. Putting rights behind responsibilities, which no government has any business defining when responsibility are already defined by law, is a clue to his true design of placing citizens under greater government control.
Wills, like many who defend the Human Rights Act, says the HRA "has put fundamental rights of the individual against the state at the heart of our domestic law". Despite its virtues, which actually seem to me to become more meagre as supporters rally to the HRA standard, we can be utterly sure that the HRA does not protect the individual against the state.
I repeat that I have no hidden motives in saying this, no desire to disparage the benefits that the act provides. It is just that it seems absurd to go on insisting that the HRA offers up-front protection. For confirmation look no further than the report on the database state commissioned by the excellent Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which, incidentally, is very much a friend of the HRA.
Released today, the report makes this point in its executive summary: "A quarter of the public-sector databases reviewed are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law; they should be scrapped or substantially redesigned. More than half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge."
This really excellent piece of work by the Foundation for Information Policy Research, led by Professor Ross Anderson, is all that you need to make up your mind about the lunatic expenditure (£16 billion per annum on IT projects), the illusory benefits of data sharing and the threat to individuals. It also claims that fewer than 15% of databases assessed "are effective, proportionate and necessary with a proper legal basis for privacy intrusions".
The people who won't have a word said against the HRA must surely respond to the revelations in Anderson's report because this vast system of surveillance has grown up to threaten us all without the slightest impediment being offered by the act. And why is that? Because the HRA requires someone to challenge the state's actions in a court, and that takes money, energy, time, and a degree of commitment that most ordinary people do not have. Besides how can one individual – or even a group of highly organised and motivated individuals – take on this vast superstructure of surveillance to prove their rights are being infringed by 25% of public-sector databases.
The unveiling of the government's new proposals on rights – which has all the credibility of putting Max Mosley in charge of drafting laws on prostitution – comes on the same day as another important report – this time from parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights – which voices serious concerns about the way police are misusing terror laws against legitimate protestors. The very effective Labour chair of the JCHR, Andrew Dismore, said, "The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and the police have a duty to protect and facilitate. The state must not impose restrictions unless it is necessary and proportionate, to do so."
You cannot be clearer than that. The fact is that police have not been remotely troubled by the "guarantees" of the HRA, and of course they will continue to abuse the rights of peaceful protestors, whatever measures the insufferable Straw proposes today.
It really is time for those whose support for the HRA inhibits discussion about how rights and liberty can be secured in reality, and not just on paper, to move from their position of unshakable faith. The HRA is not some kind of religious truth: its is flawed, and the tinkering of Straw and Wills can do nothing but further harm our liberty.Kat - Another nice bee story that I noticed in the journal Genes, Brains and Behaviour and this is from researchers at Washington University was about the role of microRNAs in bee brains. The microRNAs are kind of tiny little snippets of RNA. It's sort of the message inside our cells. For a long time, scientists have just thought this was maybe sort junk DNA, didn't really know what it did and now, it's turning out to be very interesting because in bee colonies, bees have different jobs. They're very stereotyped. Some bees are worker bees, some bees are nurse bees, obviously you get queen bees, you get drones. They think that these microRNAs at different times might be responsible for making sure that bees go into the right job. So, it's not just the genes, the actual genes being switched on and off. They think that this microRNA is controlling it and it's really fascinating, some of the roles that these microRNAs might have.
Nell - Yes, it's kind of like career advice for bees in their brain.I think kind of what's weird about this in ways that there is so much we still don't know because clearly, something must be controlling when these little switches are going on and off inside the bees' brains and in other animals too. We know they have roles in circadian rhythms for example and we just don't really know enough about yet, what they could be doing in human brains for example. So, it would be really interesting to see more research like this coming out in different species, I think.
Kat - Yeah, us humans make around 2,000 microRNAs and they started to be implicated in cancer, in neurological disease, so a whole field to be explored.CLOSE Sen. Schumer's (D-N.Y.) plea has gone viral and was even cited by President Trump as a reason for the chaos. USA TODAY
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (Photo11: Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency)
WASHINGTON — Democrats offered legislation and protests Monday to try to force a repeal of President Trump's executive order banning most Syrian refugees and citizens from six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is introducing two bills: one that would rescind Trump's order and another that would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to require greater congressional oversight of the president’s power to bar classes of people from entering the U.S. The president would be required to provide 30 days notice to Congress, give a detailed rationale for taking the action, and respond to lawmakers' questions about the order.
With Republicans in charge of both the Senate and House, Feinstein's bills may never get a vote. But her legislation requiring greater congressional input stands a better chance of attracting GOP support since some key Republicans have expressed concern that Trump's order was poorly executed and created chaos and confusion.
"The consequences of this order will be far-reaching and were obviously not carefully considered," Feinstein said. "People all around the world will be affected, including Americans... The president should not be able to take this type of action unilaterally, given the severity of the consequences."
Read more:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked senators for their unanimous consent to speed up the normal legislative process to allow debate and a vote Monday on Feinstein's bill to repeal the travel ban. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., objected to Schumer's request, so the Senate did not take up the legislation.
In the House, more than 160 House Democrats, led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced legislation Monday to defund and rescind Trump’s travel ban and his suspension of the Syrian refugee program.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., led a Democratic protest Monday night against Trump's order on the steps of the Supreme Court, along with a group of refugees and immigrants.
"We are here tonight to ask the president to withdraw this unconstitutional order," Pelosi said.
Trump dismissed the Democrats' objections Monday, mocking Schumer for crying during a news conference Sunday when he denounced the president's executive order. Trump accused Schumer of "fake tears" and suggested he had hired an "acting coach."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks alongside recently resettled refugees to push for an overturn of President Trump's executive order on Jan. 29, 2017, in New York. (Photo11: Bryan R. Smith, AFP/Getty Images)
"There is nothing nice about searching for terrorists before they can enter our country," Trump tweeted Monday. "This was a big part of my campaign. Study the world!"
But it is not just Democrats who are criticizing Trump's executive order, which includes a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen, as well as a 120-day suspension of the global U.S. refugee program.
The president has drawn criticism from around the world but also from Republican leaders of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.
"Our most important allies in the fight against (Islamic State terrorists) are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred," Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a joint statement Sunday. "This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security."
McCain is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Graham is a member of the panel. Trump tweeted that the two senators were "wrong" and "weak."
Read more:
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the Trump administration should "immediately make appropriate revisions" to the order to clarify that it would not bar green card holders — immigrants with legal status in the U.S.— from re-entering the country.
A U.S. district court judge in Brooklyn on Saturday granted an emergency stay of Trump's order that was sought by immigrants' rights attorneys. The ruling applied to people who have already arrived in the U.S. and those who are en route and have valid visas.
The senior Democrats on the House Judiciary, Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees sent a letter Monday to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asking to meet with him about the travel ban no later than Wednesday.
"Given the widespread chaos and confusion caused by the order... it is vital that we meet as soon as possible so that we may provide needed guidance and information to our committees and our constituents," the letter said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2jO7Bk1BY: Follow @mchalfant16
A former U.S. Marine who exposed substandard mental health care at the troubled Phoenix VA hospital two years ago says that veterans' health care has continued to deteriorate at the facility despite legislative efforts and leadership changes.
Brandon Coleman, an employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs for more than nine years, spoke to the Washington Free Beacon following new revelations about shortfalls at the Carl T. Hayden VA hospital in Phoenix.
"I think that the Phoenix VA is a cesspool," Brandon Coleman told the Free Beacon in an October interview. "I think it is the worst example of VA health care in the United States as we know it. There are some other bad examples, but Phoenix is known as ground zero."
Coleman was working as an addiction therapist at the Phoenix VA when he reported in December 2014 that potentially suicidal veterans were being allowed to walk out of an emergency department without receiving treatment. Coleman had lost six veteran patients to suicide since starting at the hospital nearly three years earlier.
Coleman came forward months after a former VA doctor disclosed that veterans had died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix hospital. The doctor revealed that VA employees were keeping secret waiting lists, sparking national controversy that led to legislative reform and a new VA secretary, Robert McDonald.
But appointment delays have persisted in Phoenix despite intense public scrutiny and efforts to hold employees accountable for misconduct and expand veterans' health care choices. An inspector general report published in October confirmed a whistleblowers' allegation that employees were inappropriately canceling appointments. The report found that patients died while waiting for care.
"[Deputy VA Secretary] Sloan Gibson and Bob McDonald continue to blame the old regime and that they're moving things in the right direction, but this IG report is under their watch," Coleman said. "This happened in 2015. This is all them and it shows that the problems continued to get worse and that not enough is being done to properly fix it."
The VA's problems have not been limited to Phoenix, though the hospital has served as a flashpoint in the years-long debate over the veterans' health care system. A comprehensive assessment issued last year concluded that the VA hospital network faces crises in leadership and culture, as well as other systemic problems that warrant "system-wide reworking."
Coleman said that a change in top-level leadership will not fix the agency's problems if VA bosses do not punish bad employees and move to correct problems reported by whistleblowers who have their "boots on the ground" at individual facilities.
"I think that the VA is so corroded and corrupt at this point it doesn't matter who the figurehead is," Coleman said. "I think McDonald came in with good intentions and was overwhelmed."
Coleman faulted the VA for not protecting whistleblowers, himself included. Coleman claimed that a leader at the Phoenix VA retaliated against him after he discussed his complaint in a TV interview. An internal probe by the Office of Accountability Review completed in January 2015 and reported by the Daily Caller found evidence that an acting director in the Phoenix system retaliated against Coleman. The official was never punished.
Coleman said that middle managers have continued to "blackball" whistleblowers who bring forth evidence of mismanagement or poor care, including the anonymous individual who made substantiated allegations about the Phoenix facility.
"I know the whistleblower that brought forth those allegations that were confirmed by the IG and I will say that my hat is off to that whistleblower for being brave enough to expose them yet again," Coleman said.
"Even if you don't give your name, they know who it is," Coleman said when asked whether he knew of any retaliation against the whistleblower. "They know exactly who it is. And so, that person has already been blackballed and they are doing everything they can to try to do damage control and to make that person look bad."
The VA did not respond to a request for comment.
Coleman was cleared of wrongdoing in February 2015, but was placed on paid administrative leave for more than 18 months. The VA finally reached a settlement with him in May of this year, allowing Coleman to resume work as an addiction therapist at the Anthem VA, which operates under the agency's northern Arizona leadership.
Coleman has joined other whistleblowers in testifying before congressional committees about problems at the VA.
He is a proponent of the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016, which would make it easier for the VA to fire or demote employees and implement other reform measures, including rules to protect whistleblowers, shorten veterans' appeals for disability benefits, and limit bonuses awarded to VA's top executives.
The legislation, which the Obama administration has criticized but not threatened to veto, passed the House with bipartisan support in September. The bill is one of several legislative efforts pursued by lawmakers because sweeping reform following the wait list scandal has fallen short of resolving systemic problems in the VA's network of hospitals.
Coleman, like some lawmakers, believes that veterans should be able to choose where they seek care, criticizing as insufficient the Choice Program established in 2014. That program allows veterans who have waited more than 30 days for appointments or live far from VA hospitals to seek care at non-VA facilities.
"As a disabled Marine Corps veteran, I earned the right to go where I want to go. When I needed my GI Bill, I was allowed to pick what college I wanted to go to, so why can't I pick what medical provider is giving the best medical care?" Coleman said.
At the same time, Coleman criticized Democrats for accusing Republicans of trying to "privatize" the VA, an attack line advanced by Hillary Clinton when she unveiled her plan to fix the VA last November.
"You'll hear the fight between the left and the right, you'll hear the left saying that the right is trying to privatize the VA. I don't think that's true. I don't want to privatize the VA. I think the VA does great work. It's one of the leading researchers and training organizations in the world," Coleman told the Free Beacon. "There's a need for the VA. There's a camaraderie at the VA."
"However, where they miss the boat is in primary care," Coleman continued. "If a veteran has the sniffles, why can't that veteran just go to his local Walgreens clinic instead of having to take an appointment or come to the ER and wait 12 to 18 hours to take an appointment away from one of these service-connected veterans?"A Republican state lawmaker who was an outspoken supporter of President-elect 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 is proposing a bill that would allow authorities to charge protesters with committing "economic terrorism."
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“I respect the right to protest, but when it endangers people’s lives and property, it goes too far,” Washington state Sen. Doug Ericksen said in a statement. “Fear, intimidation and vandalism are not a legitimate form of political expression. Those who employ it must be called to account.“We are not just going after the people who commit these acts of terrorism,” he added. “We are going after the people who fund them. Wealthy donors should not feel safe in disrupting middle-class jobs.”The proposed bill would make protesting a class C felony should it cause any sort of "economic disruption" or "jeopardize human life and property." Such a proposal would mean violators could face five years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.Any group who organizes a protest that is considered disruptive would also be charged with "economic terrorism." The law would not apply to strikes or picketing.The bill is aimed at protests in the Pacific Northwest, often by environmental activists, that are aimed at shutting down commerce and transportation.Protesters in Olympia, Wash., recently camped out for more than a week on railway tracks to stop a shipment of sand used for fracking.The bill is also being proposed at a time when anti-Trump protests are taking place across the country, including in Washington. Protests in Seattle have been reported to be peaceful and nonviolent so far.- This story was corrected on Nov. 18. A previous version contained incorrect information about the bill. The Hill regrets the error.Why does everyone automatically assume this is some kid pissed about his skins? Remember, this is a 3.5 million dollar tourney they are trying to get into. Do you think it is entirely beyond reasoning that the owners of a brand new team who just got into e-sports cause they saw dollar signs decided to tilt the scales a little in their favor when they saw their brand new team was on the precipice of losing their spot in that league? I have NOTHING against the players in EchoFox. But I seriously have my doubts about their owners. Specially after I saw they were in E-League after having not been a team, ever. Remember, Turner, who is putting on E-League, owns the broadcasting rights to the NBA. Where does Rick Fox, the guy who started and owns EchoFox, come from? The NBA. Other investors in that team, other NBA people; notably Shaq. This is obviously not proof. But I think the stakes of this event are high enough for people to do shitty things to ensure the team they own gets in. We are passed just kids and their skins. We are entering seriously greedy territory here. Thank god E-League is all offline.
2016-04-09 08:53Four days to go…. Halloween’s just creeping around the corners!
Festive season is ON!
What have you planned to make a big bash?
Lemme me guess.
Ummm… Creepy costume? Or spooky make-up? Or scary decorations at home and office? Or maybe a horror-themed party?
Don’t you think all these are too traditional ways to celebrate the Halloween?
Think a little off-beat. Go for something weird.
Hold on! Don’t stress your mind. We have all set what new you can try in this Halloween.
Look into your Google Play Store or App Store. You will find many of your favorite games and apps have recently released the Halloween special updates. The apps are gearing up for the upcoming celebration with latest treats, tricks, goblins, and ghosts.
Here, we have listed out few of them. Let’s explore the best Halloween app of 2016 together.
1) YouCam Makeup: Selfie Makeover
YouCam Makeup is a selfie makeover app. It allows for multi-face photo editing. It allows to beautify your face by offering various make-up kits such as hairstyle, eye makeup, blush, lipstick and much more in real-time.
This Halloween, try scary make-up on any of your own photo or group photo. Apply different Halloween looks instantly on your photo and decides your Halloween special party look. Use the app from Android as well as iOS. Exclusive features of YouCam Makeup are:
Halloween Makeover
Makeover in Real-time
Flawless Face and Skin Editor
Daily Horoscope
Beauty Circle Social Community
Eyebrow Editor
Hairstyle and Hair Color Changer and much more…
2) Color Switch
Color switch is a fascinating app having over 100,000,000 downloads from across the globe and labeled as one of the most addictive games. Play this game on your iOS and Android phones. The app has recently released the Halloween special updates with an advanced theme, new game mode, 50 new levels and 3 new balls.
3) Modern Strike Online
If you are a fan of the good old counter terrorists, then Modern Strike Online can be a full to fun for you. It has represented a unique concept for free online Android multiplayer shooters. The app is available for Android platform only.
It contains jaw-dropping graphics to optimize the app for low-performing devices. The app will introduce armed confrontation in this spring. Take part in the battlefield of Modern Strike Online, confront your enemy, and win the fight.
4) Plants vs. Zombies 2
An amazing game that is stealing the mind of players since 2013. The game has all set for Halloween 2016 by introducing several updates like Ghost Pepper, Witch Hazel, Jack O’Lantern, and much more. Enjoy this game on both iOS as well as Android platforms.
Play the sequel to hit action-strategy adventure. Meet, greet and defeat the army of zombies from the dawn of time to end of days. Gather an army of plants and supercharge them with power up and plant food. It helps you in boosting defense strategies with amazing ways to protect your brain.
5) Despicable Me
Despicable Me allows to compete with Minions of award winning runner. Amass bananas as you dodge, scramble, jump and roll against others in fast –paced and fun-filled mission. Run as Jerry, Dave, and Carl, play entertaining mini-games, explore locations, and get awesome costume inspired by the movies of Despicable Me. |
corner and men in historic Leimert Park wield signs that say “Jesus loves gangsters too”.In Black America, faith is a deeply public cultural affair, borne of centuries of struggle, segregation, and strife. Due to racial segregation and white supremacy, Black Churches were the epicenter of African American solidarity, civil rights organizing, and civic engagement. They remain vital to many African American communities because of Black economic disenfranchisement and the intractability of institutional racism in housing, employment, and education. For this reason, most Black folk don’t “do” atheism and it remains a taboo subject in Black communities. It is a notion so foreign to mainstream African Americans that some equate it with devil worship. Like many Americans in this so-called Christian nation, Blacks reflexively associate morality with Christian beliefs. In my 2011 book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars I explore traditions of radical Black humanism, contemporary Black atheist organizing and the marginalization of people of color in the white-dominated global atheist movement. Humanism is a belief system which holds that human beings define morals, ethics, and notions of justice, rather than gods, religious texts, dogma and tradition. Scientific inquiry and reason are the best vehicles for explaining the emergence of the universe and all life forms, rather than supernatural explanations. Humanism rejects the concept of redemption or eternal reward in the afterlife. Alternatively, it values human potential, ingenuity, and creativity in the material world and the here and now.Activists, writers, and intellectuals like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, A. Philip Randolph, Hubert Henry Harrison, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, and James Forman all pushed back against religious dogma in their life’s work. Larsen’s landmark feminist 1928 novel Quicksand as the first to feature an openly skeptic African American female protagonist who renounces the “white man’s god” and blasts religion’s destructive impact on poor Black people. Randolph’s socialist publication The Messenger frequently critiqued “orthodox Christianity” and lamented the barrier Blacks’ immersion in faith posed to radical anti-capitalist organizing.Historically, Harlem Renaissance-era Black freethinkers, skeptics, atheists, and agnostics have grounded their Humanism in social justice and Black liberation struggle. Over the past decade, the ascent of the Religious Right, Islamic fundamentalism, and flat earth climate change deniers has galvanized a global “New Atheist” movement propelled by the work of bestselling white male atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Yet, prior to Moral Combat, there were no books by women of color on atheism in the U.S., and no appraisals of how racism, sexism, heterosexism, and capitalism shape Black humanist social and intellectual thought.In both Moral Combat and my latest book Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels, I argue that organized religion, specifically Christianity, has functioned as a gender defining mechanism for African Americans. The legacies of slavery, the Enlightenment, and scientific racism have racialized gender, such that Western notions of masculinity and femininity pivot on hierarchies of race. Forged in Enlightenment ideology, “New World” notions of civilized sovereign white manhood and idealized white womanhood were predicated on the antipode of the dark savage hypersexual Other. Hence, African Americans utilized Christianity to disrupt this regime. Paradoxically, Christianity enabled African Americans to stake a claim to being human and to being American. It provided ontological meaning and context to the Holocaust of African slavery. And it also prescribed a rigid hierarchy of masculinity and femininity based on heterosexist norms. These norms aligned African Americans with European ideals of family and domesticity. Despite centuries of slavery and racial apartheid, African Americans have struggled to achieve these ideals.Because of the stigma associated with Black female sexuality, being a Black female non-believer is even more taboo than being a Black male non-believer. Dehumanized and demeaned as hyper-sexual Jezebels or asexual Aunt Jemimas, Black women have always been considered less human, less female, and less moral than “good” Christian white women—the gold standard for femininity, morality and Eurocentric beauty ideals. Thus, being tacitly religious is almost a litmus test for being a “good” morally upright Black woman. In African American communities many of the rituals of female caregiving—i.e., cooking, socializing children, being the "rock" of the family, attending to holidays, etc.—invariably revolve around or evoke faith and religiosity. Buck these conventions and you’re subversive, challenge them publicly and you’re a race traitor and gender apostate.Nonetheless, over the past few years more Black women have stepped up to assume leadership roles by creating their own secular, atheist, and humanist organizations. They have done so in response to a predominantly white movement that is largely oblivious to social justice and the realities of people of color in a white supremacist society. In an article on Black non-believers in Orlando, Florida, the white head of an atheist organization expressed surprise that black atheists didn’t embrace his organization with open arms. For most white folk, centuries of racial apartheid, de facto segregation, and white supremacy in education, housing, employment and the criminal justice system are a source of “invisible” power, privilege, advantage and identity. Nonetheless, white atheists seem to believe that people of color should just be able to roll in any environment, regardless of whether the local university employs more black folk as "the help" than it enrolls students or whether white families have fled public schools for elite charters and private academies. The permanence of white supremacy in every institution of American economic and social organization is a blind spot for white organizations precisely because they rely on the regime of power and control for the illusion of universality. As Toni Morrison remarked in her book Whiteness and the Literary Imagination “Statements insisting on the meaninglessness of race to the American identity are themselves full of meaning. The world does not become raceless or…unracialized by assertion.” Similarly, white liberal claims about embracing colorblindness or believing “everyone should be equal” in the face of the New Jim Crow of “invisible” segregation does not translate into atheist or humanist solidarity. As I argue inMoral Combat and Godless Americana, the ardent expressions of religious allegiance in communities of color are a byproduct of structural racism and capitalism.Many Black women atheists identify as feminists and humanists, rejecting the Christian fascism of the Religious Right and the sexism, homophobia, and gender hierarchy of the Black Church. In 2011, Kim Veal, president of the Black Non-Believers of Chicago and head of the influential Black Freethinkers podcast series, founded her group after being exasperated with participating in predominantly white groups where she was treated like an “enigma.” Echoing the sentiments of other non-believers of color who have been turned off by the vibe of all-white groups, she says, “this was disenchanting; you don’t know if they are truly interested in getting to know you or are trying to pick the brain of their new token.” Mandisa Thomas started the Black Non-Believers of Atlanta as a safe space for non-believers in the heavily evangelical South. Thomas and Ayanna Watson of Black Atheists of America partnered to sponsor the Blackout Secular Rally, a gathering of atheists of color that was held in July in New York and attended by nonbelievers from across the country.Earlier this year, my group, Black Skeptics Los Angeles (BSLA) spearheaded a scholarship fund for undocumented, homeless, LGBTQ and foster care youth. BSLA, BNO Chicago and BNO Atlanta have prioritized social justice issues like homophobia in the Black Church, HIV/AIDS prevention, reproductive justice, and homelessness. Debbie Goddard and Jamila Bey of African Americans for Humanism, and Bridgette Gaudette Executive Director for the Humanists of Florida are also part of a new wave of women of color who have assumed leadership roles within atheist organizations.So the myth that Black folk don't do atheism is partly untrue. We atheists don't need your blessings, prayers or shout-outs to Jesus, because if God is Black America’s co-pilot then what does that say about the landscape of 21st century United States, where Black wealth has been decimated, residential segregation has become more entrenched and Trayvon Martin was twice lynched by the U.S.' criminal injustice system?Sikivu Hutchinson is the founder of Black Skeptics Los Angeles and the author of the newly released Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels and Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values WarsThe Chiefs are set to lose All Blacks stars Liam Messam and Sonny Bill Williams to sevens next season which, in addition to a cleanout of outside backs and locks, has left a gaping hole to fill in the franchise's 2016 Super Rugby roster.
Chiefs head coach Dave Rennie confirmed his captain Messam was going to focus totally on sevens next year in a bid to make the New Zealand team for the Rio Olympic Games, while it's looking likely that Williams will join him.
Rennie said Messam's confirmed departure left a massive void in the squad.
"Not just his playing ability but his leadership - he's very charismatic, incredibly passionate - he'll be very difficult to replace."
Messam will need to reduce his weight-muscle mass from 15-a-side loose forward in order to play sevens and needs to concentrate exclusively on the Olympic code.
"But it's exciting for him. He obviously won a gold medal at Commonwealth Games and to try and win an Olympic gold would be pretty special so we'll fully support it and who knows, he may be back in '17."
In addition to Messam and Williams, who were both named in the All Blacks' 41-man squad on Sunday along with fellow Chiefs Hika Elliot, Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane and Tawera Kerr-Barlow, up to nine other players could be leaving.
James Lowe, who is contracted for two more years, is the only remaining outside back with Tom Marshall going to England (Gloucester), Hosea Gear to France (Clermont), Bryce Heem to England (Worcester) and Tim Nanai-Williams to Japan.
Add midfield back Williams to that list and with first-five Marty McKenzie a possible defector to the Crusaders, that leaves a large number of backs to be replaced.
In the forwards the Chiefs are hit hardest at lock where the hard working pair of Matt Symons (London Irish) and Mike FitzGerald (Leicester) are leaving for English playing contracts, while Messam and young tighthead prop Ben Tameifuna (Racing Metro, France) add exponentially to the talent drain from the franchise.
With Bay of Plenty and All Blacks hooker Nathan Harris due back from the serious ankle injury that ruled him out of the 2015 season, and the successful return of Hika Elliot from his neck injury this year, there will be one hooker surplus to requirements next season with both Rhys Marshall and Quentin MacDonald coming off contract.
"There are still a lot of spots open and wider training group spots of course, but there'll obviously be a fair few new faces coming in which is exciting," Rennie said.
"There might be 10 or 11 changes with guys getting other opportunities and so on, but that's pretty standard. We normally lose a quarter to a third of our side each year.
"More often than not it's been some of the older guys heading off later in their career but last year Bundee [Aki] left and Gareth Anscombe and guys like that who potentially could have played another six, seven or eight years in New Zealand so I suppose that trend is more common now and we're seeing the same thing with the likes of [Tameifuna] and Tom Marshall."
Rennie felt the talent was around to provide the replacements, but admitted it was thinner on the ground than even 12 months ago with overseas contracts the order of the day.
However, the ITM Cup throws up new talent every year and the Chiefs coaches will gear up to monitor seven matches every week during this season's competition.
Rennie does not give his side a pass mark for this season after they bowed out in the playoff qualifiers for the second year running, knocked out 24-14 by the Highlanders in Dunedin on Saturday night.
"Obviously we're happy to be part of the playoffs but the goal was to win a championship so to tip out in the quarters is bloody disappointing and not the way we wanted to send off all the guys who are leaving," Rennie said.
The Chiefs refuse to use their injuries as an excuse for the disappointing season despite nine players on the sidelines long term, including star All Blacks first-five Aaron Cruden. Their poor end to the year, losing five of their last seven matches, proved particularly costly.
"Certainly in the first half of the season we were really strong, we played a lot of good footy and we were really clinical and I think the balance we had was really good, but we lost our way a little bit and again last night we missed opportunities to move the ball to people in space," Rennie said.
"I think from an attack point of view we've been nowhere near as potent in the last couple of months.
"That's my responsibility so we need to look at that, while a big part of it is selection and while we've got quite a few guys already contracted we need to make sure we get the right sort of balance and pick players to play a certain style of footy so working out exactly what we need to do and who we need to do it with will be important in the next month or so."Amazon has announced that it will develop its largest wind farm yet: a 100 turbine, 253 Megawatt facility in Texas. It is slated to open in late 2017.
Amazon has been building out wind generation capacity in part to power the servers hosting Amazon Web Services. The unit has a long-term commitment to power 100% of its services through renewable energy, and according to the company, 40% of AWS’ power will come from renewable sources by the end of 2016. Amazon’s renewable energy installations also include wind farms in Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio, and a solar farm in Virginia.
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But critics have pointed out the AWS roadmap is not as detailed as it could be, and it’s in a renewables race with other tech giants.
Google is also aiming for 100% renewable sources, and has said it is the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy in the world. Apple claims that in 2015, 93% of its energy came from renewable sources, and its data centers are already 100% run on renewables (though that claim does rely on carbon trading). Facebook, which also uses Texas wind facilities, is aiming for 50% of its data center power to come from renewables by 2018. Even slightly smaller companies like Salesforce have made big commitments to renewable energy.
For more on renewable energy, watch our video.
The new Amazon wind farm is being developed in partnership with Lincoln Clean Energy. Lincoln founder and CEO Declan Flanagan said in a statement that these sorts of direct purchases of renewable energy projects by large customers has become a “key driver of the transition to renewable power” in the United States.MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf released a statement on Monday afternoon supporting Missouri defensive end Michael Sam's decision to announce he is gay, calling Sam "courageous" and saying the Vikings would welcome any player they feel can help them win.
Here is Wilf's full statement:
"We commend Michael Sam for being very courageous with his openness on something of such a personal nature. His comments will have no impact on how the Vikings view Michael as a football player or as a person. If a player can help us win, we will warmly welcome him as part of the team and provide an accepting, respectful and supportive environment to help him succeed in the NFL."
The Vikings are still in the midst of an independent investigation into allegations by former punter Chris Kluwe that special teams coach Mike Priefer made homophobic remarks during the 2012 season. That investigation is expected to stretch into March. When he initially made the allegations in a Deadspin piece last month, Kluwe said Wilf approached him before the Vikings' 2012 season opener to thank him for speaking out in support of same-sex marriage, and added in an interview with ESPN.com that Wilf's wife Audrey also thanked Kluwe later in the 2012 season.
In that interview, though, Kluwe said he didn't see an opportunity to raise his concerns with Wilf during the season, since the owner lives and works in New Jersey and is only occasionally at the Vikings' facilities.
The Vikings decided last week to keep Priefer on their staff as their special teams coordinator, though they could certainly change their minds once the investigation is complete. Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and former Department of Justice trial attorney Chris Madel will make recommendations to the team once they are done with their work.
In a statement last month after Kluwe's piece was published, the team said, "As an organization, the Vikings consistently strive to create a supportive, respectful and accepting environment for all of our players, coaches and front office personnel. We do not tolerate discrimination at any level. The team has long respected our players’ and associates’ individual rights, and, as Chris specifically stated, Vikings ownership supports and promotes tolerance, including on the subject of marriage equality."Video of Jason Thompson, the son of former Gov. Tommy Thompson, was posted to YouTube by BuzzFeed reporter Andrew Kaczynski.
Jason Thompson, the son of former Gov. Tommy Thompson, was caught on video Sunday suggesting at a Republican event that voters this fall could send President Barack Obama back "to Kenya."
"We have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago - or Kenya," Jason Thompson, an attorney at Michael Best and Friedrich, said during a fall brunch hosted by the Kenosha County Republican Party.
Jason Thompson's comment about Obama prompted laughs from the crowd, with one woman jokingly adding, "We are taking donations for that Kenya trip."
For years, a fringe group of Obama critics has promoted the discredited "birther" argument that the first-term Democratic president was not born in the U.S. Though Obama's father was Kenyan, the White House released Obama's birth certificate last year showing he was born in a Hawaii hospital on Aug. 4, 1961.
Also speaking at the Kenosha event were Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brad Courtney. The video was taken by a Democratic Party operative and posted at BuzzFeed Politics early Sunday evening.
Jason Thompson, 38, has been actively involved in his father's bid for an open U.S. Senate seat, representing the campaign at some events. Running against Thompson is Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Madison.
A Baldwin spokesman declined to comment on the video.
At an evening news conference in Wauwatosa, the former four-term governor - known for committing his share of verbal gaffes over the years - initially deflected a question about the video.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Thompson said.
About an hour later, however, Thompson's staff sent an email addressing the controversy.
"The Governor has addressed this with his son, just like any father would do," said the campaign statement. "Jason Thompson said something he should not have, and he apologizes."
Priebus and Courtney did not return calls.
During the same Sunday news conference, Thompson had his own slip of the tongue when talking about Baldwin.
A reporter asked Thompson about Baldwin's statements Sunday at the Jewish Community Center in Milwaukee, responding to allegations that she has flip-flopped on sanctioning Iran.
Thompson called Baldwin's explanation "the lamest excuse I've ever heard." He then went on to call her "anti-Jewish."
Only later did he backtrack when the same reporter asked him if he meant what he said.
"She's anti-Israel," he clarified.
Back in 2007, Thompson had to apologize for telling a Jewish group that earning money was "part of the Jewish tradition." He made the remark to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism while running for president.
Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice.Liverpool have been ranked ninth in Deloitte’s annual report on European football revenues, aka The Football Money League.
The Reds are the only side in the top 10 who aren’t in European football, slipping from 8th place last year having endured their first season without Champions League football since 2003-04 last season.
Their improved shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered retained their place within the top 10, with the report citing the Reds’ lack of Champions League football but also noted the impending shirt deal with Warrior;
“Despite reporting strong growth from its commercial revenues, and a new six-year kit deal with Warrior Sports from 2012-13, Liverpool needs a return to European football to help secure its top-10 position in the Money League.”
The report is compiled by gathering income streams from three key areas:
Matchday revenue, consisting of gate receipts and season tickets
Broadcast revenue, including both international and domestic TV contracts
Commercial revenue, notably from sponsorship and merchandising
Liverpool’s overall revenue income is reported as £183.6m, of which, 42% is from commercial, 35% broadcasting, and 22% matchday – showing the need for a new stadium.
This is enforced by Liverpool’s matchday revenue being valued at £40.9m, less than London sides Tottenham (£47.9m) and Chelsea (£67.5m).
Real Madrid top the list, with Barcelona and Man United completing the top 3.
Top 20 European Football Money List 2010-11
Based on incoming revenues from season 2010-11
(Last season’s rank in brackets, revenue in £m)
1 (1) Real Madrid 433.0
2 (2) Barcelona 407.0
3 (3) Manchester Utd 331.4
4 (4) Bayern Munich 290.3
5 (5) Arsenal 226.8
6 (6) Chelsea 225.6
7 (7) Milan 212.3
8 (9) Internazionale 190.9
9 (8) LIVERPOOL 183.6
10 (16) Schalke 04 182.8
11 (12) Tottenham H 163.5
12 (11) Manchester City 153.2
13 (10) Juventus 139.0
14 (15) Marseilles 135.8
15 (18) Roma 129.6Journalism Schools Add Courses in Sports, Emerging Technology
Journalism students at Arizona State University this fall took what seemed like a dream class for football fans — “Super Bowl Reporting,” in which they produced content about the lead-up to the Big Game.
“Glass Journalism,” another new course, had journalism students at the University of Southern California vying for one of 12 spots and the chance to don futurist-looking Google Glass eyewear. And at the University of North Carolina, journalism students spent this semester using Objective-C programming language and Apple’s Xcode in a course about designing and developing mobile apps.
These are just a few of the many new courses that debuted this fall at journalism schools around the country, highlighting trends in curriculum development.
Given all the experimenting taking place in journalism education in response to major changes in the news industry, American Journalism Review decided to look closely at new courses rolling out at journalism and communication schools nationwide. AJR contacted 15 prominent journalism schools to ask what new courses they have added over the past two years and what they have in the works for the near future.
The findings suggest that hot areas of curriculum development right now include sports, computer coding, data-driven reporting and digital audience analysis. Also big in course development are the use of emerging technologies such as drones in storytelling.
Not surprisingly, journalism schools have spent much of the past decade revamping their curricula to reflect the major transformation taking place in the news industry. Sweeping curriculum changes can take years to implement, especially when schools add whole new specialties, minors and interdisciplinary majors—all of which has been happening in journalism education.
This fall, for example, the University of Georgia introduced a new certificate program in sports media, Elon University revamped its curriculum to add 13 new courses amid other changes, and USC launched a nine-month master’s degree in journalism.
Next month, the City of New York University’s Graduate School of Journalism is rolling out a new master’s degree in “social journalism.” Next summer, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism will introduce a data specialization. And in fall 2015, Arizona State will launch new degree programs in sports journalism at both the undergraduate and master’s levels.
Most of these changes took a fair amount of time to implement, and journalism school administrators say they often need to move faster to keep up with the real world.
“I think one of the great challenges for journalism educators is to find ways to keep a curriculum current—quickly—when there can be many administrative layers to go through for full-scale curriculum changes,” said Ted Spiker, interim chair of the journalism department at the University of Florida. “You try to do it in different ways, whether it’s re-inventing a course, making tweaks to a course, or doing special-topics courses that allow you to experiment with all kinds of things that might help our students in their careers.”
For quick change, it’s hard to beat adding a singular specialized course. It allows schools to respond to growing demands for new skills, to particular technologies that emerge suddenly and to new educational theories.
“We have several course numbers that allow faculty to experiment and iterate courses as needed,” said Lynda Kraxberger, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the Missouri School of Journalism.
AJR’s survey showed a wave of new courses popped up just this fall, exploring digital news and communication from many different angles, including all kinds of deep dives into data visualization and social media analysis. School administrators said the courses represent an effort to anticipate where media industries are heading so students will be better equipped to thrive when they enter those fields.
“We don’t want to just serve as a handmaiden to industry,“ said Kathleen Hansen, director of undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “We want to offer courses that will help our students lead and change their chosen industries for the better.”
But schools say they are not de-emphasizing journalism’s core skills.
“We are trying to create a balance with teaching new storytelling technique,s but also teaching students the basic tools of writing, reporting and storytelling to meet the demands of a challenging workplace in a new media world,” said Jerry Renaud, professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Here’s a closer look at a few of the trends AJR found amid the new courses:
Sports Journalism Boom
Thanks to a boom in the business of sports, sports journalism is one of the fastest growing areas of media today, bucking a general downsizing trend prevalent in much of the news industry. Journalism schools have been responding by adding all kinds of courses.
Arizona State University went further last month when its board of regents approved two new bachelor and master’s degrees in sports journalism to debut next fall. Students seeking the specialized degrees will get the chance to cover college and professional games for professional news outlets while working in sports news bureaus in Phoenix and Los Angeles under the supervision of professional sports journalists.
Mark Lodato, the assistant dean and former TV reporter who leads ASU’s sports journalism program, said career opportunities in sports journalism are expanding beyond regular news into related communication fields.
“Local television newsrooms have fewer sports reporters today than they did 10 years ago, but there are actually more opportunities in sports journalism and communications,” Lodato said. “Many of our graduates are finding journalism and sports and communications-related jobs for high level and profitable websites, and for regional sports networks. We even see recent graduates getting jobs with teams and universities that are producing their own content.”
The new degree program will round out other additions Arizona State has made to its sports reporting roster. “We’ve certainly paid close attention to making sure we’re ramping up our operation,” said Lodato. “In just the last year alone, we’ve hired three full-time faculty members with a sports background.”
ASU is hardly alone.
The University of Georgia this fall launched a special undergraduate certificate program in “sports media” that takes an interdisciplinary approach to sports as news, business and culture. It involves six courses and 18 credit hours, and will award the first certificates to students in spring 2015.
Charles Davis, dean of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the certificate program filled the day it was launched and “has drawn rave reviews from students.”
The University of Southern California also added a new sports journalism course this fall called “Sports and Media Technology.” The University of Maryland, which operates a center for sports journalism, recently introduced a course called “How Sports Journalism Constructs Our World,” taught by Kevin Blackistone, a panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn” and professor at UMD’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism (publisher of AJR). Blackistone said his course uses media framing theories to explore cultural and social effects of how sports media cover people, events and issues.
Data-Driven Journalism On the Rise
The well-established field of “computer-assisted reporting” is being revitalized and expanded as the digital media revolution generates increasing volumes of data, creating a need for numerically savvy journalists who can filter data, process and analyze it, and present information in clear and meaningful ways. Growth areas in data journalism include both reporting stories (data analysis) and presenting data-driven stories in interactive formats (data visualization).
“We’re now in the age of the numerate journalist,” said R.B. Brenner, director of journalism at the University of Texas, which recently introduced a course called “Data-Driven Reporting.”
Other prominent journalism schools have made similar moves over the past couple of years, often “driven by faculty who see a need, want to fill it, and take the initiative to get it done,” said the University of Florida’s Spiker.
At Florida, Professor Norm Lewis was the faculty member who saw the value of data journalism and a need to make data-reporting courses available to journalism students.
“This semester, when Professor Lewis presented to our Advisory Council – made up of professionals – he brought two students to tell them about the data projects they’re working on,” Spiker said. “When their session ended, many of the professionals got up and gave the students their business cards. I haven’t seen that happen before, and I’ve been here 13 years.”
Columbia University rolled out a new data specialization certificate program this past summer covering the basics of acquiring, analyzing and presenting data. It’s designed to be an intermediate step between a bachelor’s and master’s degree. Students can take either a one-semester or two-semester version of the new “Lede Program,” as it’s called, and will receive a post-bachelor’s certificate. The move comes several years after Columbia introduced a full-scale dual-master’s degree in computer science and journalism.
Stand-alone courses remain popular at other journalism schools. Major schools adding data-driven reporting courses in the past two years include Berkeley, the University of North Carolina and University of Missouri.
Data Visualization Training
In addition to analyzing data, today’s journalists are under pressure to present their findings and share complex information online in accessible, engaging ways. So schools have been scrambling to add data visualization courses that help students highlight key points visually, which can be challenging with complex, data-rich stories.
Data-based journalism courses “[teach] students how to reach beyond the numbers as they tell stories narratively and visually,” said Wanda Garner Cash, associate director of journalism at the University of Texas.
Among the j-schools adding visualization courses in recent semesters have been the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of California at Berkeley and University of Missouri.
Missouri’s new “Interactive Data Visualization” course, according to Kraxberger, is designed to produce “journalists who are in high demand – with a wide breadth of skills to help news organizations do good journalism and present it in interactive and meaningful ways.”
The University of Maryland’s journalism school is rolling out a similar new course next semester called “Storytelling with Data Visualization.” It will teach theories of perception, visual mapping and how to find and tell stories through visualizations.
Everyone’s Teaching Audience Analytics
An even newer educational focus than telling stories with data is analyzing how audiences are responding. AJR’s survey showed audience analytics has become a major growth area in curriculum development at almost all of the schools contacted.
The University of Southern California, for example, announced a new course for spring 2015 titled “Connecting the Dots: Data Driven Storytelling for Converged Communication.”
With social media driving a significant amount of traffic to news, a related growth area is teaching students how to analyze the voluminous data generated by social media platforms to help build better strategies for reaching audiences.
Elon University introduced several classes in audience analytics and digital strategy this fall as part of its revamped journalism curriculum. “Strategies for Emerging Media,” for example, is designed to help students “confront the realities of analyzing and interpreting metrics to guide decision-making in competitive media environments” through social media monitoring, targeted messaging and other tools.
The University of Maryland introduced a new course in analyzing social media use in journalism last spring taught by Paul Sparrow, an adjunct member of the faculty and senior vice president of the Newseum. “Understanding how to use social media to reach influencers, source stories and promote great content will be critical skills for today’s students to bring with them into the workforce,” Sparrow said.
USC rolled out a new course this semester called “Real-Time Social Media Monitoring and Analysis for Converged Communication,” while ASU has one in the works called “Search Engine Optimization and Web Analytics.”
Algorithms, Computer Coding and Games
Recognizing the growing value of computer science skills in journalism, a number of journalism schools have introduced courses in computer programming and related computer-science skills in the past few years.
Many journalism schools still send students who want to learn programming over to the computer science department, but a growing number are finding ways to inject programming skills into their own curriculum, AJR reported in September.
UC Berkeley added a course called “Programming for Journalists,” while CUNY and Missouri introduced ones on web scraping which teach journalism students to write code and help them collect data online. This semester, CUNY’s journalism school expanded a course called “Interactivity with JavaScript and JQuery” from five weeks to 10 weeks.
With mobile news consumption growing fast, schools seem keen on helping journalism students learn mobile programming skills. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln and UNC-Chapel Hill are among those that have introduced courses in mobile journalism, with UNC in particular focusing on the design of mobile apps.
J-schools also are experimenting with less traditional uses of programming such as gaming applications.
Courses such as “News Games & Quizzes,” a one-credit, five-week journalism course that CUNY introduced last year, are becoming increasingly common as people see the value of games as news tools. This semester, the University of Minnesota’s journalism school rolled out a new interdisciplinary class, “Digital Games, Sims and App: Storytelling, Play and Commerce,” open to students of all majors.
“The 170 seats in the course filled in the first two days it was open for registration,” said Minnesota’s Hansen. “It is a serious treatment of an industry and an area of professional practice that now surpasses the film industry in terms of sales and investments. We thought it was appropriate for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to ‘own’ this area of study since this is one of the 21st century’s important storytelling forms and is a major location for informational and persuasive messaging.”
ASU said it, too, is planning a course in “news games” for this coming spring in which students will learn to develop games on news topics.
Emerging Tech: It Never Stops
As technology innovation changes how people communicate, journalists – and journalism schools – face new opportunities and challenges. Each year brings a fresh round of special courses focused on ultramodern technology.
Notable recent examples were “Google Glass” at USC and “Science Investigative Reporting/Drone Journalism” at the University of Missouri, giving students an opportunity to test the usefulness of these new tools in reporting. Similarly, Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism ran a special 4-week class last summer on “sensor journalism,” exploring ways to teach students to capture data in the physical world using sensors.
In the near future, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln plans a course on drone journalism, Columbia plans one on “Investigating with Data,” and Missouri is developing one called “Advanced Mobile Storytelling.”
With the Apple Watch, Oculus Rift 3D virtual reality headset and other new platforms slated to roll out soon, you can expect another wave of technology-specific courses next year, along with broader curriculum changes.
“Whether we make small changes in courses or overhaul a curriculum or all the possibilities in between,” said Florida’s Spiker, “our goal is to be as nimble as possible—to help provide a foundation in strong journalistic principles as well as to expose students to what’s new, what’s important, what will get them hired, what will improve journalism, and what will be essential parts of their current and future skill set.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story gave a wrong last name for the dean of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. His name is Charles Davis, not Charles David. It also gave the wrong date for the launch of the Lede Program, it started this past summer.On page 66 of Unit Six of the Army's JROTC Leadership and Training curriculum, "Citizenship and American History" ( PDF file of curriculum ), we find the following:
"SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE The "separation of church and state" phrase was taken from an exchange of private letters between President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President. It is not found in any governmental American document. The inclusion of protection for the "free exercise of religion" in the constitution suggested to the Danbury Baptists that the right of religious expression was government- given and therefore the government might someday attempt to regulate religious expression. Jefferson shared their concern. He believed along with the other Founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination. He assured them that they need not fear; that the federal government would never interfere with the free exercise of religion. In summary, the "separation" phrase so frequently invoked today was rarely mentioned by any of the Founders; and even Jefferson's explanation of his phrase is diametrically opposed to the manner in which courts apply it today. "Separation of church and state" currently means almost exactly the opposite of what it originally meant."
That passage in the curriculum is identified as having been adapted by Jim Rice from Separation of Church and State by David Barton, who is probably the leading US history revisionist in America.
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We live in usurious times. The powerful have preyed on the poor, and those in positions of authority have allowed them to do so. Families are being driven from their homes. Those without the means to pay for health care leave their families to the mercy of debt collectors. Education, which should nourish the wisdom for which God made us, leaves many of us with a lifetime of debt. Corporations buy and sell the right to pollute God’s creation for profit, passing on an unpayable debt to future generations.
It is time to recall our tradition’s ancient prohibition of usury—the sin of unjust lending, of profiting from the burdens of debtors. We do so without prejudice or hatred, but for the sake of the common good. While speaking out on many other matters, people of faith have too often left economic life to self-serving experts, to the idolatry of an “invisible hand,” to the rule of greed. Here, too, we are meant to be prophets.
In solidarity with the Occupy movement’s Strike Debt campaign, as faithful Catholics, we call on one another to join the nonviolent struggle to reclaim the dignity and strength that is our birthright. We will support those among us bearing the burden of predatory debts. We will spread the spirit of jubilee by working to abolish debt that has no basis in justice. We will build a new economy based on the debts that we really owe: to our families, our co-workers, our friends, our neighbors, our Earth, and those who share our struggle around the world. We will name the injustice—the usury—being practiced in our midst, and exorcise it with our resistance.
We are the 99%, made in God’s image, seeking God’s justice for all.
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To sign this statement please fill out the form below, and your name will be added shortly thereafter. Spread the word!
Micah Bales (Capitol Hill Friends) Claire Bangasser (CLC) Barbara Bank (Diocese of San Diego, CA, alumni of St. Joseph’s College) E.A. Bloomfield (Archdiocese of Hardford) Judy Bourff (Quaker) Judith Brady, OP (Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, NY) Jeanne Branchaud (Sisters of St. Joseph, Springfield, MA) Joan Braune Pamela Brigham (St Francis Xavier Parish, Missoula, MT) Mr. A Bunting Karen Burke, CSJ (Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, NY) Scott Buso (Sacred Heart Parish, Sedalia, MO) Christina Campbell (Our Mother of Consolation, Philadelphia, PA) Barbara Capozzi (Christiansburg, VA) Valerie Chapman (St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Portland, OR) Beth Cioffoletti (Diocese of Palm Beach) Baya Clare, CSJ (St. Paul, MN) Claire Coffey (St. Colman’s, Archdiocese of Philadelphia) Valentino Costa (St. John the Evangelist, Dunellen, NJ) Jack Cracchiola (Our Lady of Malibu, Archdiocese of Los Angeles) Jacob Crawford John Crawford-Gallagher (Archdiocese of Seattle) Addie Marie Darling (Archdiocese of Washington, DC) Joe Di Marius (Diocese of Oakland, CA) Joanne Draper (Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID) Eric Ehrnschwender (Archdiocese of Cincinnati) Eli (Tampa Bay, FL) Phil Ewing Robert A. Fambrini S.J. (Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Diego, CA) Madeleine Fentress (Archdiocese of New York) Paul Fitzgerald (Chicago, IL) Harold M. Frost IV (Diocese of Burlington, Vermont) Kevin Gallagher (Archdiocese of New York) Kitty Gamble (Society of Friends) Mary Ellen Gondeck (Congregation of St. Joseph) Joey Goodall Ave Regina Gould, CSJ (Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, NY) William Bostock Hackett III (The Unitarian Church of Santa Barbara, CA) Luke Hansen (Society of Jesus, America Press) Connie Harris (Fargo, ND) Pamela Hedgecock (Diocese of Austin) Barbara Heller (St. Philipp and Jakob Parish, Altötting, Germany) Richard Hennessy (Blessed Sarnelli Community) Francis R. Hittinger IV (Archdiocese of New York and Columbia University) Michael Hoffman (author of the book Usury in Christendom) Angela Hollar (Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, CA) D.Holmlund (Zoe sisterhood, Ontario) Tim Huether (Archdiocese of Washington, DC) Harold Isbell (San Francisco, CA) Jeremiah John (Mosiac Church, DC) Gloria Johnson (Brooklyn, NY) Ed Kaiel (St. Ignatius Parish, Portland, OR) Deacon Shannon Kearns (House of the Transfiguration, Minneapolis, MN) John E. Keegan (Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers) Lauren Kelly (Diocese of Camden) Susanne Kromberg (Salmon Bay Friends Meeting) Robert W. Krueger (Archdiocese of Portland) Donna Larsen (Bellevue, WA) Roberta Lavin (Dubuque, IA) Dominic Le Fave (St. Clare, Portland, OR) William Lindsey (Little Rock, AR) Jane Lloyd Yossi Lopez-Hineynu (Notre Dame alum, Loyola Chicago MA/MDiv student) Ahmed Mahmud (Istanbul, Turkey) Anne Elizabeth Grace Malcolm (daughter of the Holy Spirit) Ann E Malcolm (Norwich) Nancy Mascio (Archdiocese of Portland) Bernice McCann (Immaculate Conception, Irvington, NY) Sherry McCoy Sister Alison McCrary, CSJ (Congregation of St. Joseph) Francis J. McGuire (K.C.-St. Joseph Diocese) Patricia McGrady (Queen of Peace, Arlington, VA) Rose McMurray (Church of The Risen Savior) Dale Melton (Orange, CA) Brian Merritt (Mercy Junction) David Michaux (Circle of Hope, Philadelphia, PA) Kathleen R. Mitchell (St. Ignatius Parish) K Moss (15th St Meeting, Friends) Beth Mueller (Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, CA) Kaya Oakes (Diocese of Oakland, CA) Diana Oleskevich (Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Associates) Sarah King Politano (Harvard Divinity School, Archdiocese of Boston) James Rizza (Worcester, MA) Lisa Rubenstein (Occupy Wall Street) Mary Schneider (Monterey) Nathan Schneider (St. Joseph’s, Brooklyn, NY) Cathy Showalter (NOVA Community) Natalie Smolenski Donna Speaks (SW Virginia) Ann Spizewski Maurine Stenwick (Minneapolis, MN) John Surdilla (Diocese of Oakland) Elizabeth Traudt (Milwaukee, WI, Marquette University) Marlene Tuitele (St Cecilia’s, Beaverton, OR) John Turmel (Brantford, Canada) Mary Valle (Baltimore, MD) Stephanie Van Hook (Metta Center for Nonviolence) Robin Vestal (St Francis of Assisi, Fulton, MD) Sister Luz L. Visot, CSJ (Sisters of St. Joseph-Brentwood) Kristen Wack (Richmond, VA) Doug Westendorp Susan Wilcox (Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, NY) Barbara Williams (Los Angeles) H. Wayne Williams (Quaker in Philadelphia, PA) Donald Willms (St. Joseph the Worker, Winnipeg, MB) Jacqueline Yerby (St. Philip Neri, Portland, OR)The Home Secretary today mounted a robust defence of the extension of the controversial laws that would grant the police and security services access to phone and email records, insisting it would "keep citizens safe by catching criminals".
She is to push ahead with plans to force internet and phone providers to store details of customer calls, emails and website visits in a major expansion of surveillance laws.
Mrs May is attempting to head off a Coalition revolt on snooping laws by banning council officials and other agencies from accessing phone and email records.
During an interview today, she insisted that some paedophile gangs were not being caught because a lack of sufficient surveillance powers, citing the recent case in Rochdale, in which eight men were found to have preyed on under-age girls in Greater Manchester.
She suggested the laws would only be used to access "crucial bits of information" and would not invade people's privacy.
She denied that there was a lack of control over the laws despite admitting that there were more than 500,000 requests for such information.
Mrs May told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are ensuring the capabilities of police and Security Services to catch criminals, to stop paedophile rings and to put people behind bars to continue in an age where where people are communicating through different means.
"It's on such a scale because it is useful to the police."
Under the laws, only the police, security agencies and tax officials will have access to the information in an attempt to allay fears it will result in a major intrusion of people’s privacy.
It means hundreds of other public bodies, including town halls, the Office of Fair Trading and Government departments, will be stripped of their current access.
The move is designed to defuse tensions within the Coalition where both Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs were preparing to fight the proposals.
Mrs May denied that it was about creating a "big Government database" and said powers would only be used when it was "necessary and proportionate".
She told BBC Breakfast: "This is all about making sure that the police and the security services can continue to catch criminals and stop terrorists.
"At the moment what they are able to do is to get access to what's called communications data. It's the who, when and where of telephone calls and they have access to that.
"The police have used it in 95 per cent of serious organised crime investigations over the last decade. The security service have used it in every counter-terrorism investigation."
She added: "This is used by the police as evidence to prosecute criminals and to put them behind bars.
"But in the new world people communicate in different ways. They are no longer using telephones. They communicate over the internet, so we want to update the ability of the police and the security services have to have access to this communications data.
"It's not about the content, it's not about reading people's emails or listening to their telephone calls. This is purely about the who, when and where made these communications and it's about ensuring we catch criminals and stop terrorists."
She continued: "They can only do this when they are investigating a criminal, when it is necessary and proportionate in an investigation to have access to this, and the data will be held by the communications service providers."
Her comments follow those of Bernard Hogan–Howe New police powers that allow officers to access to phone records and emails was a "matter of life and death", according to
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned that attempts to fight crime would be thwarted unless Parliament passed controversial laws that enabled authorities to access more communications data.
In a newspaper article today, the Scotland Yard chief argued the greater powers to access data were essential to waging a "total war on crime".
Writing in The Times, he said: "Technological progress has given all of us new ways to communicate.
"Of course, it allows murderers, rapists, child abusers and robbers to communicate in all these ways too.
"Put simply, the police need access to this information to keep up with the criminals who bring so much harm to victims and our society.
Mr Hogan-Howe will appear alongside Mrs May at the publication of the draft Communciations Data Bill this morning, in what marks his first significant foray into politics since taking on his new role nine months ago.
His intervention carries a risk that some critics will accuse him of meddling in politics
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had been among those expressing deep concern over a blanket power to access information.
However, some backbench MPs last night warned there is still likely to be a battle over the plans despite the concessions.
The Communications Data Bill will today propose making service providers record and retain all the activities of their customers.
The aim is to allow police and security and intelligence authorities – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – access when investigating serious crime or suspected terrorists to monitor their movements and see who they are in contact with.
Under the law, they will not have access to the content of the communications, only who is contacting who, when, where and how.
The Home Office has argued it is needed because not all providers record such details and current laws do not cover some of the more modern forms of communication, such as social network sites and online phone call sites like Skype.
The Bill will also dramatically reduce the bodies allowed access from some 654 organisations who can see such information under current laws.
There have been long running concerns that town halls and other public bodies have abused the power to investigate minor offences.
Mrs May said: “Communications data is vital for the police in their fight against crime, including serious offences such as child abuse, drug dealing and terrorism.
“These measures are necessary to protect the public and investigate crime – and that is the only reason for which they should be used.
“That is why I think it is right that we look again and ask whether local authorities really need access to communications data.”
In an added concession, the Bill will go through a special pre-legislative process and scrutinised by a special joint parliamentary committee, allowing campaign groups and interested parties to give evidence.
However, there remained concerns last night that the proposals are still a substantial intrusion in to people’s lives, especially as the majority of the half a million annual requests for such data come from the police and security services.
The public bodies banned from access will also be able to apply to have their powers reinstated although it would have to be approved by parliament.
And technology experts have warned modern communications are so complicated that it may be impossible to separate out the basic contact data from the content.
Dominic Raab, the Tory MP, said: “Mass indiscriminate surveillance risks turning Britain into a nation of suspects.
“The security case for extra powers has not been made out, and the technical risks of fraud and data loss are huge.”
Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP and member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “If the Bill is not acceptable to the Liberal Democrats than it will not happen.”
Lord Oakeshott, the Lib Dem peer, added: “Liberal Democrats and the Lords as a whole will scrutinise this Bill as closely as the security services want to scrutinise every citizen – and their appetite for more powers is insatiable.”
Nick Pickles, director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said: “The Home Office has done its best to hide this announcement by releasing details at the same time as the Prime Minister speaks at the Leveson inquiry, but the public will not be fooled.
“This policy will track every email we send, every Facebook message and log every website we visit in a way that no other democratic country does.”Image copyright PA Image caption Andy Coulson was driven to Glasgow by police officers
Prime Minister David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson has been charged with perjury.
Mr Coulson, 44, was questioned in Glasgow as part of an investigation into evidence at the perjury trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan in 2010.
He was detained at his south London home on Wednesday by Strathclyde Police and formally arrested that evening.
The ex-News of the World editor was a Downing Street employee at the time he was a witness at Glasgow's High Court.
Mr Coulson was detained at his south London home at 06:30 BST on Wednesday. He arrived at Govan police station shortly before 15:30 BST and was held for about six hours before being released.
A Crown Office spokesman said there was no legal obligation for Coulson to stay in Scotland, and he was free to return to his home in London.
The spokesman said no date had been set for any court appearance.
Trial decision
A decision will now be taken by Scotland's prosecution service, the procurator fiscal, about whether Mr Coulson should face a trial.
Earlier, a police spokeswoman said: "Officers from Strathclyde Police's Operation Rubicon team detained a 44-year-old man in London this morning under section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 on suspicion of committing perjury before the High Court in Glasgow."
Analysis Throughout the twists and turns of the hacking scandal, the constant aim of Downing Street has been to insulate the prime minister from the swirl of allegations that have engulfed some of his friends and political colleagues. That task has become all the harder with the decision by Strathclyde Police to charge Andy Coulson with perjury. Read more from Norman
Mr Coulson gave evidence at the trial of former Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan in 2010.
Sheridan was awarded £200,000 in damages from the News of the World in 2006 after it printed allegations that he had committed adultery and visited a swingers' club.
After the court action, the former MSP and his wife Gail were charged with perjury.
She was acquitted during the subsequent trial but Sheridan was convicted in December 2010. He has since been freed after serving just over a year of a three-year sentence.
Mr Coulson was called to give evidence at Sheridan's trial over two days as he was editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007.
During heated exchanges with Sheridan, who represented himself at the trial, Mr Coulson denied being involved in, or aware of, any illegal activities, including phone hacking.
Mr Coulson resigned from the post of Mr Cameron's director of communications in January 2011, saying coverage of the News of the World phone hacking scandal had "made it difficult to give the 110% needed in this role".
In July 2011, he was arrested by Metropolitan Police investigating the News of the World hacking scandal and later released on bail.
BBC chief political correspondent Norman Smith said: "Unlike the arrest of Mr Coulson last year by the London Metropolitan Police - which centred on claims about hacking during his time as editor of the News of the World - this arrest relates to a period when Mr Coulson was working as David Cameron's director of communications."WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 25: Pope Francis speaks during a ceremony inside the 9/11 Memorial and Museum on September 25, 2015 in New York City. Pope Francis is on a six-day trip to the United States, which includes stops in Washington DC, New York and Philadelphia. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz-Pool/Getty Images)
One thing's become abundantly clear with Pope Francis's visit to America this week: God is most definitely not a Republican. As the human embodiment of God herself, Francis, in his historic address Thursday before a joint session of Congress, spoke plainly, passionately and with unfettered moral leadership on myriad hot-button issues with positions that contrast those of many staunch conservatives.
For decades Republicans have been hijacking God and religion, twisting and redefining the teachings of Jesus to fit their ideological dogma of intolerance, bigotry and exclusion. Remember, this is a party that threatens to shut down the U.S. government next week because of its rabid obsession with defunding Planned Parenthood and denying women a range of critical health and reproductive services.
But ever since he was elected in 2013, Francis has been vocally progressive and thought-provoking, often times arousing disappointment and ire among many conservatives who oppose what they consider his "liberal" statements and positions. And Thursday's speech in the nation's Capital was no different.
The Pontiff stepped squarely into Americans' difficult national dialogue on gay marriage, immigration, refugees, poverty, income inequality, "unbridled capitalism," capital punishment, gun violence and climate change. He spoke of "humility and devotion," and implored Christians and people of all faiths to help the poor, the sick, the hungry and the homeless. "Be kind to strangers," he said. And, "we know that Jesus wanted to show solidarity with every person."
It was touching to see politicians including House Speaker John Boehner shed tears listening to the Pope's sermon. But it's unlikely the Pontiff's stirring words will be taken to heart by the Speaker and his fellow narrow-minded conservatives, who for years have hid under the cloak of God in perpetrating a self-serving, elitist and decidedly unchristian-like extremist political agenda.
To be sure, Francis is the people's Pope. His warmth, compassion, energy, accessibility and somewhat populist views on at least a few controversial subjects have given him rock-star status among the masses. But the adulation for Francis doesn't come without a measure of residual disappointment in him and the Church on issues, for example, relating to women, homosexuality and birth control. That said, Francis indeed deserves major praise for taking the controversial steps to move the church and the Papacy into the 21st century. Rome wasn't built in a day.
"Let us remember the golden rule," the Pontiff told his Congressional audience. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."The younger, hotter, tighter a girl, the less grateful she is for male attention. She expects it, so when she gets it she’s not grateful, only slightly annoyed that yet again her expectations were met in the most dully predictable manner possible.
This is why it’s counterproductive to compliment girls when they are within the window of maximum nubility (age 15-25). Complimenting a hot babe is an automatic admission against interest; you soil your SMV relative to hers and to the men who don’t compliment her. At her hottest, her ego will never be bigger. A lifetime of poz-facilitated ego stroking will never match the natural ego tumescence she has at her fertile juiciest, when her Bartholin’s sniffy lube engorges not just labial folds but limbic folds.
Telling her in so many words or betrayals of body language that she is a scarce commodity is a tingle killer because you’re not telling her anything she doesn’t already know. She may not be averse to hearing it — if only because a tiny dopamine hit is worth suffering the clumsy proximity of the source — but she won’t be intrigued by the man plying her with compliments. Given enough thirsty betas lavishing her with happy feelz and she’ll come to resent her flatterers; compliments will seem to her assumptions of mutual love she doesn’t share.
Girls are attracted to men who defy their expectations without remorse or apology. The lack of fervid flattery by these men is assumed by a girl to be evidence of confidence in their station and acclimation to endless glowing receptions from women. Non-neediness and disinterest in courting approval is the attitude that drives women crazy with curiosity.
The time in a woman’s life to compliment her is when she has gracefully aged into gratitude (or long before she has matured into ingratitude — little girls need a father’s protective love). A woman who has shed her insta-sex appeal receives fewer genuine compliments from fewer HSMV men. That’s why when bootlicking white knights assert that women are “nice to men who are nice to them”, they are really talking about women past their Peak Allure. (In my observation, suck-up white knights are rarely with hot girls; their treacle can thus be summarized as a long-form exclamation of sour grapes and ego assuaging misattribution).
Can we extrapolate the attraction triggers and dampeners in a 20 year old hottie as operative over the course of her lifetime? Yes, with a caveat. Women never really lose their taste for jerkboys, but they do gain a seasoned (heh) appreciation for the complimenting niceguys they looked past when the looking was good. When women age and their mate choice options dwindle, their willingness to settle for a boring non-asshole beta increases. This is why compliments that once landed with a thud on an HB land like manna from heaven on an FHB (former hot babe).
Lesson: If you want gratitude from women, choose your targets wisely. And tailor your message. Seducing a young hottie? She’ll be grateful if you make her desire you. Chatting asexually with a former hottie? She’ll be grateful if you make her feel desirable again.New York - An Orthodox Jewish paramedic is suing a New York hospital for discrimination for not allowing her to wear skirts.
In the civil suit filed Tuesday, Hadas Goldfarb says she was offered a job as a paramedic at the New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2015, but was terminated amid orientation after refusing to comply with the dress code, which stipulates that paramedics wear pants. The 26-year-old Brooklyn resident alleges in a complaint that her “termination was unlawful retaliation for her refusing to compromise her religious principles.”
Goldfarb only wears skirts, a practice common among Orthodox Jewish women who follow strict rules dictating personal dress. She says she has done so while working as a paramedic for other employers.
Following her termination, Goldfarb filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and in February, she received a notice of right to sue.
The lawsuit, which was filed with Kings County Supreme Court, alleges that the hospital failed to provide her with reasonable accommodation for her religious observance and that doing so is discriminatory and illegal. Along with New York Presbyterian Hospital, the City of New York is named in the suit; its Fire Department works with the hospital on emergency response.
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Goldfarb is suing for damages, the reinstatement of her position, and an order enjoining the hospital and the city to stop denying requests for accommodation in relation to the pants policy.
The hospital did not return requests for comment by JTA.
Goldfarb said she was surprised by the hospital’s response to her request to wear a skirt.
“I’ve been an EMS for a while and I haven’t had a problem — I just wasn’t expecting it to be an issue,” she told JTA.
She has since found a job as a paramedic for an emergency telemedicine company, which does not take issue with her style of dress.
Her lawyer, Joseph Aron, told JTA that he was confident in his client’s case, citing previous cases in which U.S. courts ruled in favor of plaintiffs suing for the right to wear head coverings or style their facial hair in ways contrary to employer dress codes.
“We’re definitely confident that the law is on our side,” said Aron, who specializes in employment law and discrimination.
The case resonates personally with Aron, an Orthodox father of three young girls.
“[W]hen they grow up, and they get a job with something that they are passionate about, they shouldn’t have to make sacrifices in a scenario where the job could be done as is how they are accustomed to dressing, [and] it doesn’t injure their ability to perform,” he said, referring to his daughters.A cocktail of fillers, Botox and chemical peels can freeze your features at 30-something. For a woman like Demi Moore, approaching 50, this is understandable. But why would a girl barely out of her teens deliberately want to look "done"? Welcome to the year-zero face…
Let me pinpoint the very moment the world first became aware of the ageless, year-zero face: it was under the Louvre at Paris Fashion Week as 2009 drew to a smoky close. On the Ungaro catwalk, jewel-toned bolero jackets and sequinned nipple tassels were shown, before the label's "artistic advisor" Lindsay Lohan appeared. There were gasps from the front row and a thud of damp applause. It wasn't just the clothes, though they were difficult, described by the Guardian as "the first [collection] that could be happily summed up on Twitter", it was Lohan's face.
She had a forehead so taut and shiny it looked like an iPhone 4. Her lips were inflated to the size of a melting Twix, and her cheekbones looked as if they were climbing her jaw in order to dive to their death. Each change to her then 23-year-old face seemed to nod towards youth, but in fact imply age. This isn't to say she looked old – as she bounced down the catwalk, her hair streaming behind her, she seemed to have transcended age – she looked like lamb dressed as mutton dressed as duck.
Though traditionally cosmetic surgery has been used to make patients look younger, doctors are noticing a trend for women wanting to simply look "done". Rather than chase youthfulness with a scalpel, some seem to be choosing instead to fix their faces at a certain age (celebrity dermatologist Gervaise Gerstner suggests many women settle for 36) and maintain the look with injectable fillers and cosmetic treatments.
While few celebrities, Lohan included, will admit to having had cosmetic surgery, the surgeons themselves are outspoken. "It's a matter of the right procedure on the wrong girl at the wrong time," New York plastic surgeon Douglas Steinbrech told W magazine. "There's this new mentality that if you do not look a little bit fake, then the surgeon hasn't done his job. This used to be a much more prevalent idea on the west coast, but now you walk up Madison Avenue and you see these young girls with that cloned, cougar-like face. Either they don't know what they look like, or they want to look like they've had something done."
Heidi Montag... real age: 24; face age: 36. Photograph: Rex Features
There's nothing new in celebrities having cosmetic surgery, but the age at which they start is falling fast. Last year actress Charice Pempengco, 18, had Botox to look "fresh" for her role in Glee, and reality star Heidi Montag, 24, famously had 10 procedures in 10 hours. She later conceded that all the surgery makes "hugging" difficult.
In America, patients under 34 account for 20% of Botox procedures and chemical peels, and over 9,000 breast enhancement operations are carried out on girls aged 13 to 19. The move to look ageless though, rather than younger, is recent, with women today encouraged by some practices to get "preventative" Botox injections. But the more you get, some women are finding, the older you look.
British consultant plastic surgeon Norman Waterhouse thinks the year-zero face is the effect of fillers being overused. "When Botox is used with subtlety and finesse, the woman shouldn't look 'filled', she should just look less tired," he says. "And using fillers expands the skin, so if you use a lot, then as it disappears you eventually need more to plump it out, so you get trapped in a Botox cycle.
Of course," he continues, "there are a little subset of women who get work that astonishes me, turning themselves into a parody of feminine beauty – the 'party tits', the 'ice-rink Botox', where your face is completely flat and shiny, but that, I think, is missing the point."
Those who balance it right, pap photos suggest, achieve the look of the golden, ageless age: 36. "Some people wake up at 42 and realise they need to return to 36," says Gerstner. Demi Moore is 48, but, having allegedly had £200,000-worth of surgery (including a knee lift) looks at least a decade younger. "But the people who end up looking best have been planning for it all along." She recommends an expensive programme of Botox, lip fillers, laser skin resurfacing and glycolic peels for maintenance, all of which, administered well, promise to keep even the tautest 23-year-old looking like a 30-something with a year-zero face.Marie-Christin Scherzer leading a class. Photo: Top in Heels
It seems Austria’s Eurovision winner, bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst, has started a trend - with a Vienna academy that teaches women how to walk in high heels now opening its doors to men who were eager to join the workshops.
Organisers at the Top in Heels Academy in the 18th district claim that more men have started experimenting with high heels since cross dressing star Conchita won the Eurovision Song Contest last year.
Originally, they launched classes to help women learn how to walk elegantly in stilettos but have now launched a Men In Heels workshop - which focusses on technique, elegance and injury prevention.
The workshops are taught by dancer Marie-Christin Scherzer, who studied ballet and contemporary dance, and drag queen Helmut Fixl.
A 90 minute session costs €45, with the next workshop taking place on October 30th.
Drag queen Helmut Fixl is one of the teachers. Photo: Top in HeelsHappy 72st birthday to Dame Helen Mirren! Throughout her career, she has entertained us with screen-grabbing roles in films including The Queen, Gosford Park, and The Last Station; but it's when the iconic star does the unexpected—like sucking helium with a late night host, admitting to a little schoolgirl crush on a certain action star, or taking public transportation—that her just-like-us appeal becomes downright irresistible!
When it comes to fashion and beauty, Mirren is a 10 out of 10. Now in her 70s, she's a stunner on the red carpet and still experiments with style. We were especially taken with the twirling gown and sleek hairdo she donned at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Not to mention, we love how the actress went against typical black-on-black New York street style when she stepped out in this brightly colored floral number while visiting the Big Apple.
To see her many stunning looks over the years, watch our transformation video below and then scroll through the Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-winning actress in photos below.Everyone now seems to be waking up to what we and other people have been saying for four years.
What they are NOT doing, is going far enough.
Once again the following must be totally SCRAPPED in order to protect the privacy of the British Public:
The NIR – the National Identity Register that backs the ID Card.
Mass Fingerprinting – Compulsory fingerprinting for access to anything must be outlawed.
The NHS ‘Spine’ – The NHS SPine must be scrapped, as it suffers from the same vulnerabilities as all centralized databases do.
ContactPoint – The database of all children in the UK must be scrapped, as it is no different to any of the other databases listed above.
Project Semaphore – The plan to collect 53 pieces of data on all travellers flying to the UK (a mirror project of USVISIT) must be stopped. USVISIT has cost the american people BILLIONS of dollars and only 1500 people have been caught, millions have been subjected to humiliation and violation and none of the people caught have been identified as ‘terrorists’. No one in the UK has done a cost benefit analasis of Project Semaphore and USVISIT; had they done so, they would have found that it is a total waste of money.
All of these projects MUST BE ABANDONED and the contracts terminated, even if there are penalties to be paid.
It’s good news to hear that people are FINALLY waking up, and I know that we have done our own small part in getting the word out about what a disaster this is in the making. Now lets FINISH THE JOB. No signing up for ID cards, demand that your doctor remove your records from his system, and NEVER give your fingerprint to anyone for ANY reason.
This rabid mania for ‘registers’ should now be put out of the minds of the brain dead subhumans who run the government, PERMANENTLY.
Who would have thought that four.25p DVDRs could bring down billion pound contracts and a fascist police state control system?!
The fact of the matter is that these corrupt regimes and their infernal tools are as weak as spiders webs. All it takes is one touch and the whole thing can be brought down. In this case, the biometric net is the weak premise being destroyed.Oglas
Hrvaški zunanji minister Davor Ivo Stier v pogovoru za Večernji list ni odgovoril na vprašanje, ali ima hrvaška nadzor nad svojim celotnim ozemljem glede na to, kot so dejali pri časopisu, da je Slovenija ob meji postavila žičnato ograjo tudi na hrvaških tleh.
Dejal je, da si Zagreb z Ljubljano želi urediti spor o meji na dvostranski način.
"Žal je Slovenija kršila arbitražni sporazum in kompromitirala postopek do takšne mere, da je hrvaški sabor soglasno odločil, da Hrvaška ne bo več sodelovala. To je stališče, ki ima konsenz na Hrvaškem, in se ne bo spremenilo," je ponovil že znano stališče Zagreba.
Erjavec je "kršil arbitražni sporazum"
Ocenil je, da je njegov slovenski kolega Karl Erjavec na njuni skupni novinarski konferenci v Ljubljani, kot tudi z nekaterimi drugimi izjavami, kršil arbitražni sporazum, ki zahteva, da se strani vzdržita provokacij.
"Ravno slovenski parlament je sprejel odločitev, da ne bo spoštoval odločitve arbitražnega sodišča, če ne bo takšna, kot so si zamislili. Nato je prišla tudi popolna kontaminacija arbitraže," je dodal Stier.
Kot pozitivno pa je izpostavil, da so odnosi med narodoma odlični, "kljub takšnemu obnašanju Slovenije".
Spomnil je, da so slovenski državljani podprli vstop Hrvaške v Evropsko unijo in da so Slovenci in Hrvati redek primer dveh narodov, ki se v zgodovini niso nikoli spopadli. Ocenil je, da je to "velikansko skupno bogastvo, ki ga politika ne sme kontaminirati".
"Tudi druge države članice EU-ja imajo nerešena vprašanja, a jih to ne ovira pri sodelovanju," je dodal |
They both share the same strength, will, and tenacious love that I remember growing up with. When Michael talks about his father, I am very much describing my own father who passed away in 2005. In that way, this play is a tribute to two people I loved very dearly.
LT: How are you conveying awareness about the Armenian Genocide, after nearly a century of struggle in bringing it to the forefront of American psyches?
AD: I think what affects people about this play is how real the family is—that this family could be their family. Once the audience identifies with this Armenian grandmother, Armenians are no longer ‘other people.’ Then the pain of what these people lived through becomes their pain. And that, if anything, is what brings about awareness.
I receive many emails from non-Armenians, who after seeing the play tell me that they had never heard of the Armenian Genocide before, and ask me to recommend books for them to read on the subject. All of this occurs not because I stand on a soapbox and preach to them, but because hopefully they feel for these people on the stage and they want to make sense of what happens to them.
LT: What was it like working with the cast?
AD: This is an extremely skilled group of actors. Kathleen Chalfant is one of the greatest stage actresses of our time. Watching them embrace the material and execute it with such precision was a humbling experience for me. And it cannot go without saying that my director, Ken Rus Schmoll, is nothing short of a genius. He gently—but confidently, steered this play and cast through some very perilous waters. I will forever be in his debt.
LT: Will ‘Red Dog Howls’ be played in another venue in the future?
AD: I hope so. The response has been overwhelming and though it is very difficult emotional subject matter, I pray that we will have a chance to move to another venue here in New York and reach more people. Outside of that, there are already talks about a production in Armenia and Greece.
LT: What is the message you hope the audience will take away from the play?
AD: At one point of the play, Michael says, ‘I choose to believe in a God of Mercy. A God of Forgiveness. A God who would do anything for his children.’ I hope the message that they will take away is that it is possible to put the painful past to gentle rest, and still carry forward the lessons, the love, and the pride of who we are and where we came from.Despite government denials, this investigation uncovers evidence of slave labour in Yemen.
Filmmaker: Ashraf Mashharawi
Slavery is illegal throughout the world, banned by international convention and treaty. But there is at least one country where it is alleged still to exist: Yemen.
In June 2010, a local Yemeni newspaper, Al-Masdar, reported that slavery not only existed but was growing in Yemen. It published the story of 500 alleged slaves in the country.
The government dismissed the Al-Masdar reports and insisted they were entirely unfounded.
But when a Yemeni judge approved the transfer of a slave from one owner to another, it triggered a campaign by a local journalist, human rights activists, and the wider press.
With the help of these campaigners and using hidden cameras, the makers of this Al Jazeera film investigate political figures allegedly involved in modern slavery.
They follow up several cases, hear from current and former slaves and their owners, and are able to intervene on behalf of some of the victims.
Al Jazeera World can be seen each week at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2000; Wednesday: 1200; Thursday: 0100; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 2000; Sunday: 1200; Monday: 0100; Tuesday: 0600.
Click here for more Al Jazeera World.
Source: Al JazeeraStudents look at a blackboard bearing comments at an anti-animal cruelty campaign held in front of LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics in Garosu-gil, southern Seoul, March 2 / Courtesy of Humane Society International Korea
Humane Society International takes its campaign 'Be Cruelty Free' to Seoul
By Lee Ji-hye
As Korea is the leading cosmetics manufacturer based in Asia, Humane Society International is seeking to encourage key figures in industry and government here to confront and end cruelty to all animals, specifically those used in laboratory tests.
HSI's "Be Cruelty-Free Campaign" is focused on preventing animal testing around the world by motivating legislative change.
Claire Mansfield, the campaign director of the organization, travelled to Korea from HIS's London offices on a 10-day visit to visit scientists, campaign organizations and members of the National Assembly.
"My goal is to incorporate banning animal testing into the Korean legislation, and hopefully if we have an impact here in Korea, it'll ripple throughout the Asian region and ultimately the world," Mansfield said.
HSI's Korean branch led a street campaign with UK brand, LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, which invites consumers to sign petitions at all LUSH branches nationwide.
Claire Mansfield, the campaign director of the campaign, "Be Cruelty Free," speaks to the press
"The partnership with Lush came about even before I came on board," explained Mansfield, who joined the campaign in London two years ago.
"The campaign began back in April 2012, and Lush has been our corporate partner from the very beginning," Mansfield said, adding that there is also support from other companies.
"We have a lot of other corporate partners as well, more regional to the country which it's in ㅡ we always try to reach out to local companies in each of the countries by conducting collaborative campaigns with our partners," she said.
"Even if the companies do not have the resources to carry out a full campaign, they'll still Tweet and talk to us, and that'll help spread the word and awareness. So that's our main goal."
The campaign director was joined at the street campaign by New Zealand born TV celebrity Sam Hammington in front of a cosmetics store in Garosu-gil, southern Seoul last Monday.
"I'm a real animal lover, and for a while now I've wanted to do something to speak up for animals," said Hammington.
"Animals can't speak up for themselves, but if they could I reckon they'd ask us to be kinder, more compassionate, and not subject them to completely unnecessary cruelty, like testing cosmetics on them," he said, adding that he was shocked to learn the fact that the testing still continues in Korea as well as other nations worldwide.
Mansfield and TV personality Sam Hammington hold up their campaign pleges demanding a ban on cosmetic testing
"It's so unnecessary, and I've realized there are plenty of cruelty-free brands available which we should all make an effort to look out for. I'd love Korea to be the next country to end cosmetics cruelty," he said.
Also taking part in the street campaign was LUSH Korea's CEO Christina Woo.
She said, "Ending animal testing is very important to LUSH, and that's why we launched the Lush Prize to help fund development of alternatives including tests that can replace animals in cosmetics testing."
"By refraining from using cosmetics that have been tested on animals and by promoting ethical consumerism through the purchase of cruelty-free products, LUSH seeks to bring an end to animal testing," Woo said. "We strongly believe that small actions can bring change to the world, so please join in our action."
Campaign director Mansfield also took a visit to the National Assembly to meet a lawmaker to propose a bill to establish a full ban on animal testing in Korea.
Rep. Moon Jeong-Lim of the ruling Saenuri Party met with Mansfield last Wednesday.
Sam Hammington signs a "Be Cruelty Free" petition
The bill proposed by Moon will be the first step towards ending animal testing of cosmetics, according to HSI Korea. The organization has been working with the lawmaker for the past two years and intensive discussions were held last week regarding the language of the bill.
"We are hoping to see an effective ban on cosmetics cruelty," Mansfield said.
"Humane Society International has been calling for legislation for several years, so we're pleased that a test ban is being considered, but we need to turn that into real action for animals," Mansfield was quoted as saying at the meeting with Moon.
"I'm looking forward to meeting with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and other policy makers here in Seoul to ensure that the proposed ban is formally agreed, will ban all animal testing for cosmetics, and be introduced as quickly as possible," she said.
The bill will be launched on March 11, the second anniversary of the European Union's ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics.
The campaign director was quoted as saying that Moon expressed appreciation and commented that she would take the proposed specifics into consideration.
Manfield poses next to a campaign mascot with a Cruelty Free t-shirt
"Korea is a strong country ㅡ it's got a strong cosmetics market, a lot of good cosmetic products are made, so it's key in that regard," Mansfield said.
"It's a key player in many ways ㅡ particularly in the Asia cosmetics market," she said, adding that the ultimate goal is to reach an environment where such campaigns are not even needed.
"There are so many alternatives out there, and we don't need to conduct brutality like this," she said, mentioning that the organization has already played an influential role in some policy decisions for the domestic cosmetic market.
The organization stated that the main points discussed at the assembly were the European Union's complete ban on cosmetics animal testing and pursuing alternatives available such as in-vitro testing, when tests are conducted on human cells in test tubes instead of subjecting live animals to experiments.
"By implementing a complete ban on animal testing for cosmetic products, we can see more effort in working toward alternatives by the government, which is what is happening in EU," said Seo Borami, the Be Cruelty Free campaign manager in Korea.
According to a study conducted by Markets and Markets titled, "In-Vitro Toxicology/Toxicity Testing Market by Industry, Technology, Applications, Method – Global Forecast to 2018," the EU commanded the largest share of the global in-vitro testing market in 2013, which was attributed to support provided by the European government for anti-animal testing laws such as a ban on testing cosmetics.
The organization cited a Korean cosmetics firm seeking to sell products overseas to prove that informing a company about animal testing in markets around the world can change commercial decisions.
Passersby sign a petition for the National Assembly to ban all animal testing for cosmetic products
"Back in 2013, we had a conversation with Aromatica (a Korean producer of organic skincare products) — we told them the policy that they have in China, where the government there has made it mandatory to conduct animal testing," Seo said.
"We explained what the situation was like in China when Aromatica was about to export their products there," she explained. "But after our discussion, they decided not to send their products to China."
"That was the first Korean company to step back from exporting ㅡ which is why we see it possible to have animal testing banning mandated in Korean legislation."
The organization also met with Professor Chun Young-jin, the director of the Center of Alternative Methods for Safety Evaluation of Cosmetics (CAMSEC) as well as Dr. Son Soo-jung, the director of the Korean Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods.
"We not only discussed possible alternative methods for animal testing, but how as an international organization, HSI could do something to contribute to promote such possible alternatives in Korea as well."The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in San Diego recently published some important reminders in its church bulletin: “It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat” and satin is working through presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The first message came in the Oct. 16 Sunday bulletin and listed five main reasons why Democrats are going to hell, including support for abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
“It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat,” the bulletin read, “immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend to hell.”
The message, sandwiched between prayer requests and a notice for a chastity luncheon, pointed to the “Voters Guide for Serious Catholics” that states Democrats violate sins through the five policies and Republicans do not, according to the news site.
A second message titled “Voting Catholic” greeted parishioners in the bulletin two weeks later and linked Hillary Clinton to 1970s community organizer Saul Alinsky, and by extension the devil, NBC San Diego reports.
“The devil does this through the tactics outlined by Saul Alinsky with the outcome as Hillary Clinton has stated, ‘And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,’ to draw us away from God’s teachings regarding the sanctity of life to those of the world and its prince,” the bulletin read.
NBC San Diego reports Clinton’s quote came from a speech on abortion in April 2015 at the Women on the World Summit.
Church officials told the media they’re unsure how the messages got into the bulletin, claimed it was not approved by leadership and stressed that the church does not take an official political position. But the Union-Tribune noted that Immaculate Conception’s Reb. Richard Perozich addressed the same five policy issues outlined in the initial message in a Sept. 25 sermon, which is posted to the church’s website.
“In the church, we have what we call the five non-negotiables, things that are most important, and they’re around life issues. There’s life, from conception to natural death,” Perozich said. “There’s marriage and sexuality, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia. When we vote, we don’t vote for candidates who support these things, even if they support other things we really like.”
Local Catholic Democrats took up the messages in the bulletins with the Catholic Diocese.
“My initial reaction was that this was extreme and completely over the top in the accusations,” Francine Busby, head of San Diego County Democrats, told the Union-Tribune. “I thought it was important to bring it to the attention to the diocese, just as a friend. I know that they didn’t mean it. … Clearly this was something that the diocese would never ever approve.”
“To refer to a candidate as a devil or ungodly is a disgrace and it’s a shame for our religion or our priests to indulge in that nonsense,” Michael Alcaraz, Immaculate Conception parishioner, told NBC San Diego.
“Clearly in my mind when a church spells out a presidential candidates name with any sort of opinions that’s a violation as far as I can tell,” said church visitor Daryl Johnson.
Non-profit organizations like religious institutions are required by law to remain politically impartial and refrain from endorsing candidates to maintain their tax exempt status.
Roman Catholic Bishop of San Diego Robert McElroy issued a prepared statement to the media to clarify the church’s official position on politics.
“Let me stress again that while we have a moral role to play in explaining how Catholic teaching relates to certain public policy issues, we must not and will not endorse specific candidates, use parish media or bulletins to favor candidates or parties through veiled language about selectively chosen issues, or engage in partisan political activity of any kind,” the statement read.Another week, another ridiculous conspiracy theory. While perhaps not quite as outlandish as the idea that Earth is flat, which has somehow resurfaced much to the dismay of scientists, it has now been claimed that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are responsible for the outbreak of Zika virus.
According to media reports, “critics” have identified a suspicious trend that could implicate the release of GM mosquitoes, designed to reduce the burden of insect-borne diseases, as a possible cause of South America’s current epidemic. Namely, that where these insects were released in trial zones in Brazil coincides with the outbreak’s epicenter.
Now, this is repeated a lot in science, because situations such as this call for it: correlation does not imply causation. If it did, then we could say that a reduction in the number of pirates caused global warming. Regardless, this claim is actually not true: Trial sites of these insects were in fact more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the centers of disease outbreak, British Biotech firm Oxitec said in a response. In addition, this species of mosquito only flies a couple of hundred meters in its entire lifetime.
Zika Outbreak Epicenter In Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released In 2015 https://t.co/0vvLWaueAx pic.twitter.com/38ZxhwBGgZ — The D.C. Clothesline (@DCClothesline) January 29, 2016
Zika is not a new thing – we’ve known about this virus for more than half a century, while outdoor trials for Oxitec's GM mosquitoes only began in 2009. First identified in a monkey in Africa back in 1947, Zika subsequently spread to Asia but gained little attention, presumably because symptoms are generally so mild that few cases were identified or reported. Things then stayed quiet until 2007 when it surfaced in the South Pacific and caused several large outbreaks.
While we don’t know how Zika subsequently ended up in South America, it’s been speculated that it was brought over to Brazil during the 2014 World Cup by travelers coming from an affected area. The Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread Zika, alongside dengue and other serious viral fevers, are abundant in Brazil and throughout Latin America, so an infected traveler seems a likely route of entry.
But the idea is that somehow, GM mosquitoes exacerbated the situation. These insects have a gene that causes offspring to die before they’re mature enough to reproduce, so by releasing them in sufficient numbers, they successfully compete with males in the wild for females and ultimately end up significantly reducing populations.
To be able to raise these insects to sufficient numbers for release, scientists engineered a system whereby the lethal gene is switched off in the presence of an antibiotic called tetracycline. Sometimes used in agriculture to boost livestock growth, this drug gets excreted by animals and is known to be present in the environment in small amounts. There has therefore been concern that this could allow the modified mosquitoes to persist in the environment, but studies have shown that the amount the insects would be exposed to isn’t enough to reduce the effectiveness of the system.
"Brazil actually banned the use of tetracycline in agriculture food additives in 2009," Andy McKemey from Oxitec told IFLScience. "But even if it was present in the environment where mosquitoes lay eggs, it wouldn't result in more mosquitoes than you would have otherwise. The offspring would still contain the gene, so the next generation would die. The efficacy of the gene is not lost."
The modified mosquitoes also have fluorescent genes so that they can be monitored in the environment. Oxitec
Moreover, trials have consistently shown that releases result in local population suppression rates of greater than 90 percent. This is compared to traditional methods, such as insecticide spraying, which only drop numbers by around 50 percent at best and also have negative impacts on the environment. And this is beginning to have demonstrable effects on disease transmission. Following a trial in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba, dengue cases dropped from 133 in 2014/2015 to just one in 2015/2016. To unjustifiably smear an approach that has real potential to safely make a difference and save lives is therefore extremely irresponsible.
There have also been genetic comments regarding genetic modification, stating that we don't know all of the possible effects of the inserted genes. But McKemey points out that the system is highly controlled and well-understood, unlike previous sterile insect methods which involved blasting insects with radiation and causing random mutations. "The gene represents a tiny fraction of the total genetic makeup of the insect," he adds.
With no proof to substantiate the claim that GM mosquitoes caused the Zika outbreak, it’s best to treat the idea as it is: a conspiracy theory. In addition, any websites that compare verified genetic techniques to "Jurassic Park" are probably best ignored.“I’d like to get to 12, get to 14 teams, have a balanced schedule, that automatically means more games. That evolution will take some time. But we believe the marketplace will be responsive to that.” — Jeff Plush, NWSL Commissioner
J
im Gabarra is a realist.
The Washington Spirit head coach headed south after three seasons with Sky Blue FC, but he’s been a fixture in women’s soccer for two decades. He’s seen it all — the triumphs, the hopes dashed by failing leagues — the past, for Gabarra, always grounds the desire to see future growth in the sport.
So it was remarkable to hear him sound on National Women’s Soccer League’s College Draft Day 2016 as optimistic as he’s ever been. Then again, there’s never been a time when women’s soccer in this country could inspire this level of excitement and faith in the infrastructure in place to support the next wave of players.
Cause for Optimism
“It’s like my eyeballs are popping out of my head,” Gabarra said, standing in the ballroom at the Baltimore
Convention Center shortly after the draft concluded on January 15.
“The analogy I gave someone is, it’s like a hurricane going through a funnel. So many things are happening. To have a discovery rule created the night before the draft. To have a player come in and skip college — that’s a huge step. I didn’t anticipate it happen it yet. Just hold onto your hat and make sure your eyeballs are in your sockets, because I don’t think you need to measure. It’s going to move like technology — exponentially.”
While that player Gabarra referred to as skipping college — Mallory Pugh — ultimately changed her mind, the reality of the NWSL as a viable option for her and many others with potential alternative destinations can’t be denied. Whether it’s Raquel Rodriguez of Costa Rica, the second overall pick to Sky Blue FC, Rachel Daly, the sixth pick to Houston who chose the NWSL over returning home to the FA Women’s Super League (FA WSL), or even the Pugh of her time, Lindsay Horan, who returned home to NWSL from Paris St. Germain, players all over the world are looking at the league in its fourth season as a magnet, not a stopgap.
But the league is not at a destination point so much as it appears to be moving along the right track toward what everyone hopes it will be — a way for hundreds of players, domestic and international, to earn a living wage playing a full season available to fans to watch on television and at easily-accessible, soccer-specific stadiums.
Television Deal
A great deal of that progress rests with the television contract for the league. Both players and front office members alike grumbled at virtually everything that went along with last season’s television deal with Fox, from just a half-dozen games to the fact that the deal itself wasn’t announced until well into the NWSL season.
“We’re looking for it sooner than we had it last year,” NWSL commissioner Jeff Plush said while addressing the media after the draft, surrounded by reporters in front of an NWSL backdrop.
“I’m confident about that, I wouldn’t give you a timetable just yet. We’re looking for those who want to continue to be a good partner of ours. And out of that as a starting point, we’ll continue to fight for the most possible games. Is there a possibility of more than one outlet? Sure, I think we’ll look at that as well. At the same time, we’re looking at how to elevate our streaming capabilities, to elevate our own content.”
But without exception, the just-drafted players expressed their belief that for the league to more completely enter the larger sports conversation in this country, terrestrial television, not just YouTube streams, will be required.
“TV time is definitely important,” Brianne Reed, eighteenth pick to FC Kansas City, said just after she was drafted. “It’s one thing to live stream a game. But to be able to flip to a channel and see a women’s soccer game, I think that’s a really important part of it.”
Or as Caroline Casey, 29th pick to Sky Blue FC, put it, “At the end of the day, almost everybody has a TV. At the end of the day, I watched almost all of the World Cup games on TV with my family and friends. So that’s the most universal way.”
Growth
The television issue is part of a larger desire to see the NWSL take full advantage of the enormous audience that the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup demonstrated exists for the sport, and for the stars that populated both that tournament and this league. Plush said the league experienced 29 percent growth, year-over-year, in 2015, but without more television time, or new sponsorship deals — the league hasn’t added a single new one since the end of the World Cup — tangible results will be harder to point out.
To Randy Waldrum, head coach of the Houston Dash, the sheer totality of enthusiasm itself made it harder for
the league to convert it all into revenue and growth.
“I think where we struggled with it last year, where we struggled with it was that neither side, the national team or the league, was prepared for the demand of the players after winning it,” Waldrum said during the draft. “So I think there were a lot of marketing things — we thought they were coming back the week after, into the market, in games, a lot of teams promoted it, and the players didn’t want to do that. They needed rest and recovery. So we’re a lot better prepared for it this time.”
But Plush believes much of the pessimism that prevented such growth has disappeared with the simple passage of time, and NWSL’s continued existence.
“We’ve got our renewals, of Nike, of Coppertone, and National Mango Board,” Plush said. “[I’m] pleased with all of those things. And we’re out there every day, and as you know, Soccer United Marketing, no one is better-equipped to sell soccer in the United States than SUM is. So there’s a tremendous amount of activity. Feeling good that we’ll get things over the line in time for the April openers. But sponsorships don’t happen overnight. And if we’re all being honest, there were as many conversations last year about whether we were going to be around for a fourth season. So we’re often held to an odd standard — ‘why haven’t you sold sponsorships when we don’t even think you’re going to be around.’ I think we’ve hopefully pushed through that.”
Expansion
Another metric to use is the expansion of the league, now up to 10 teams following the addition of the Orlando Pride. Plush sees this not as anything close to the final expansion, not only in terms of number of teams but also for the league’s season as well.
“Do we want to expand our season? Yes. Do we want to have more games? Sure. Does the footprint need to grow appreciably more? I’m not sure of that, but the number of games needs to grow,” Plush said. “But I think we’ll continue to grow. I’d like to get to 12, get to 14 teams, have a balanced schedule, that automatically means more games. That evolution will take some time. But we believe the marketplace will be responsive to that.”
“For me, for the purposes of this answer, I’ll say ten-year window. Because you don’t want to put a time frame on it. You want to find people who are committed to it for the right reasons. People who understand, as we talk about development, that it’s part of a pyramid system, that it’s part of a larger soccer community. And that takes time. But do I think there’s an appetite in, six more markets over the next ten years? Absolutely I do.”
As for the teams themselves, Plush sounded more interested in a model that included larger rosters than he did in an NWSL Designated Player rule. More significantly, he talked about the need to increase salaries, of vital import when so many NWSL players still aren’t making a livable wage from playing soccer.
“We’ll continue to see salaries grow, year-over-year, as we have,” Plush said. “You can make the argument for a designated player, but I think you could equally make the argument for larger rosters, which if you are talking quality of play, in terms of going to 24 to better weather injuries and call-ups. These are the kinds of conversations that are fun to have, because they’re about the growth of the sport.“
“We’ve successfully taken things up each year. We’ve taken the top-end up, we’ve taken the bottom-end up. The insurance coverages — we’re trying to treat the players as well as we can, and do so within a sustainable business model. Our primary responsibility is making sure we’re open for business, year after year, and against that backdrop, we’ll do more and better by our players. There’s certainly a commitment to that. It just has to be on a timescale that makes sense.”
And that commitment to slow, steady growth is shared by many players, though the reality is that the slower it goes, the more significant soccer talent will be lost to the league every year from early retirements, women unable to continue playing when their financial needs increase as they reach their later 20s and early 30s.
And so to truly reach parity with other professional leagues in this country, crowds need to expand as well. Fortunately, the league knows precisely where to find those people.
““We’ve spent 15 years now pounding away at the soccer market, and then the other niche markets,” Gabarra said. “I think it’s got to overflow and blossom into those other markets — the casual fan, those people who just want to go to an event. It’s very promising.”
H
ow will we know it is working in 2016? Plush said it comes down to moving forward.
“I wouldn’t put a number on it,” he said. “We want year-over-year growth. We’re the fourth year of a start-up company. That’s the best way to look at it. If we show growth in the important metrics — that’s ticket sales, and that’s people in the building, that’s digital media metrics growing — would I love it to all grow at huge proportions? Of course. But if it grows, it’s a positive year. There’s no lack of demand on our potential customers. I’ll take slow growth every year for the next 20 years and feel great about where that will take us.”
As for Brianne Reed, she has as helpful a metric as any.
“I think for me, it’s hearing people on the street talking about the women’s professional league,” she said with a wide smile. “Being among the conversation for the NBA and the NFL. That would be really cool.”KINGS 5, PANTHERS 2
FULL DISCLOSURE: Before becoming a contributor to The Royal Half, I wrote a few posts for a Panther-centric blog called Panther Parkway. I applied to write for them when I saw someone retweet a call-to-arms from the site’s captain, one Paige Lewis. Had I ever seen a full Panther’s game? Nope. Had I ever been to Florida? Thankfully, no. I submitted an article on a whim, and simply BLEW Paige away with my journalistic ability (the level of snark in my two posts was minimal, as opposed to here).
That being said, you could refer to the Panthers vs. Kings matchup as the J.V. Siegel bowl, which I think would be appropriate, given my experience in covering both organizations.
I was tweeting for a good portion of the game last night, and reflecting on some of the tweets, I must say that I was on my game. No, I wasn’t drinking heavily, which makes it even more entertaining. The night started off in the afternoon, when I suggested to Paige–who no longer actively writes for Panther Parkway due to mitigating circumstances–that we team-up to do a J.V. Siegel-bowl live chat for TRH. My suggestion was met with an appropriate amount of snark…
Yes, I know how to embed tweets, but Paige’s response is most assuredly NSFW. If you really want to know what we are referring to, you can go ahead and search for “Drew Doughty,” on Talk-Sports.com.
The game started-off appropriately enough, with Las Panteras running the Kings all over the place in the first period. Really, it was a good showing from a team that is really quite fun to watch. I think the problem was that the Kings thought that they were playing the Nottingham Panthers of the Elite Ice Hockey League, which is–of course–ridiculous…
BUT NOT AS RIDICULOUS AS MATT GREENE PLAYING FORWARD! Anze Kopitar played the puck into the Panthers’ zone, and was hassled at the top of the blue line. Greene saw this, and instead of crowding the area with his presence, he headed towards the front of the net, essentially becoming a forward. Brayden McNabb fired a nice shot-pass towards the net, and we all saw fireworks.
Just over five minutes later, Jeff Carter–who proved a little ornery for poor Alex Carter after being named the game’s first star, took a nifty pass from behind the net, and fired it off a Panther defender and passed Roberto Luongo.
At the 14:18 mark of the second period–which still hadn’t ended–Marian Gaborik pushed the puck past Luongo from a scrum in front of the net, in what can truly be described as “cleaning up the trash.”
Seeing that Matt Greene had scored, Robyn Regehr decided that the last eight seconds of the second period was his time to shine, firing a wrister past Luongo, in effect ending the Strombone’s night.
Frankly, the 4-0 lead made me a little uncomfortable…
But not as uncomfortable as The Royal Half is with Marian Gaborik’s facial hair!
I’ll say it. Marian Gaborik’s mustache makes me uncomfortable. — The Royal Half (@theroyalhalf) November 19, 2014
In the third period, following a spirited Panther comeback that prompted my former boss to tweet this…
Hey, Panthers beat Anaheim 6-2 & San Jose 4-1 this week. Beating California teams isn't impossible. Especially one with a mehhhhhh goalie — Paige Lewis (@PaigeLewisFL) November 19, 2014
…it was the captain that iced the game, sliding a puck past backup net-minder–and possessor of perhaps the best hockey name in the NHL–Al Montoya to put the game out of reach.
Shawn Thornton, who still wears and old-as-hell CCM helmet, and is somehow averaging more than 10 minutes of ice time per night, attempted to kill Justin Williams at some point during the third period. As disheveled as Williams appeared, Thornton did APPEAR truly apologetic, while he fumed over the fact that Boston didn’t re-sign him over the offseason.
Brayden McNabb, at some point in the first period, reminded Coach Sutter that he is a Western Hockey League boy, with as much size and grit as he does have gorgeous curls, and earned a whopping 19:39 of ice time! With two assists! He was the game’s third star. Anze Kopitar also finished with two assists, and finished ahead of McNabb as the game’s second star, because he makes more than McNabb does. As mentioned previously, Jeff Carter was the game’s first star, and wasn’t pleased by the fact that Alex Curry attempted to ask him questions when all he wanted to do was…get out of his sweaty hockey gear.
Introducing to the World: Catt Greene
Last night my old, gnarled tomcat, Candy a.k.a The Commander, was sitting on the porch in the other cat’s cat bed (the other cat thinks a folded towel is better, but what does she know?). It was an odd juxtoposition for Candy, considering that he has quietly become the scourge of the neighborhood over the past decade-and-a-half. Does he terrorize other pets? No, except for the neighbor’s punkass cat who repeatedly underestimated the noise that the bell on his collar made every. single. time. he tried to stalk Candy. But he has taken on packs of roving raccoons, possums, neighborhood dogs (including my own, who is vicious towards cats), and a king snake that my neighbor SWEARS he saw in his yard about eight years ago (still skeptical on that one). Candy didn’t have time for the kitten that I found wandering around the elementary school a few years ago (the kitten was subsequently pimped out to a passerby who happened to be in the market for kittens).
I was leaving the house with a few Keystone Lights that said neighbor made me take (see a pattern here?), with Matt Greene’s Goal Face (who will be playing at The Troubadour in a few weeks) fresh in my mind…
…when I observed The Commander observing his kingdom. So I snapped a picture, and tweeted about it.
My 19-year-old outdoor cat, or Matt Greene? pic.twitter.com/ST83WlqEJ5 — John Siegel (@JVNSiegel) November 19, 2014
I thought about it during the night, and my cat Candy looks a lot like Matt Greene would, if he were a cat. Candy isn’t so much afraid of his own shadow (or skittish) as he completely and totally willing to drop the gloves with anything and everything, so they share that in common.
Beverage of the Game
“You know how they say that Coors Light is only brewed at a certain temperature? I bet that Keystone Light is the stuff that accidentally got a little hot, so they bottled it as Keystone and not Coors.”
-My Neighbor, Mike
It tasted remarkably like Coors Light, and reminded me of college.
Song That Got Me Fired-Up to Drink Crappy Beer and Watch Hockey
I’m still proud to say that I saw My Morning Jacket play instead of Eminem when I went to Lollapalooza a few years ago. Great move.Qarabag Agdam FK have been playing outside of their home city since 1993 but the Azerbaijani club are 90 minutes away from upsetting Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League
Far away from the headline-dominating transfers of Luis Suárez to Barcelona and James Rodríguez to Real Madrid, the Azerbaijani capital of Baku has enjoyed its own back-page delight during the summer months of 2014. Qarabag Agdam FK managed to see off Maltese champions Valletta 5-0 |
he granted—an odd decision for an experienced criminal. "Through my training and experience I immediately identified the items as 'crack' vials," one of the troopers later reported. He and his partner arrested Edelson and Gispan for possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to deliver. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to probation. Edelson and Belkin concealed the incident from Zhadanov, afraid that he would stop producing the containers.
It may have been obvious to the state trooper that Edelson's cargo was illegal, but it appears that not all of New Jersey's police officers were up to speed on the state's drug-paraphernalia law. On May 9, 1991, the Metuchen Police Department received a phone call from someone who reported that crack vials were being manufactured at Vortex. The police declined to investigate. Today Sam Zhadanov wants to know why he is being punished for a crime the local police didn't even consider worth looking into.
The event that ultimately led to the downfall of what investigators dubbed the Belkin Crack Vial Organization occurred that same month in Pennsylvania. State law-enforcement agents raided two general-merchandise stores in Philadelphia that, like many other stores in Philadelphia and New York, openly sold the plastic containers. The owner of the stores, Roni Moshe, was Belkin and Edelson's biggest customer. Facing the threat of a stiff prison sentence, Moshe agreed to help build a case against Belkin, Edelson, and their associates by continuing to purchase their containers and secretly recording conversations with them.
The government claimed that, following the raids on Moshe's stores, Zhadanov must have known that he was engaging in illegal activity, since "Belkin and Edelson told Zhadanov what had happened." But this doesn't make sense: Moshe could not have informed Belkin and Edelson that he had been arrested on drug-paraphernalia charges without blowing his assignment as an informant. Judging by a recorded conversation that Moshe had with Belkin and Edelson on July 18, 1991, his cover story was that he had gotten into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.
During the conversation, the three men discuss accounting procedures and mention the seizure of money and financial records. Belkin says: "You didn't learn yet how to do it.... You've been in business for two years....You have to speak the truth: 'I'm sorry. I didn't know. You got all my money now. Take the taxes, take everything.'" Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Gray, the lead prosecutor in the case, concedes that Moshe did not tell Belkin and Edelson the whole truth about the raids. "He said stuff like, 'Yeah, I had a tax problem,'" Gray says.
The Zhadanovs say Belkin and Edelson told them they had disbanded Tri-State General because of its close association with Roni Moshe. Since this meant Belkin and Edelson would no longer pay by check, Sam Zhadanov decided to drop the job. But Alex Srebrianski, a former Russian dissident whom Zhadanov employed as a plant manager, proposed leasing the necessary equipment from Vortex and taking on the job himself. He said he had become comfortable with Belkin and Edelson while overseeing production of the plastic containers, and he had no problem taking cash from them. Zhadanov agreed to this new arrangement, and on July 10, 1991, he and Srebrianski signed a lease agreement for the equipment.
Srebrianski paid $8,000 a month for the equipment with checks drawn on the account of his U.S. Alexander Trading Company. Since he did not have enough regular work to hire full-time employees, the Zhadanovs say, he continued using Vortex employees, and since he had trouble getting credit, he obtained his supplies through Vortex as well. He reimbursed Vortex for these expenses in cash.
In September 1991 Pennsylvania drug agents found a scrap of paper outside a storage locker used by Belkin and Edelson. On the paper was the logo of D-M-E, the company that had produced the molds that Vortex used to make the plastic containers. Through D-M-E, the agents identified Vortex and, together with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, started to watch the factory. "The government for two years was watching our factory, and they say in their reports that everything was open," says Anna Zhadanov. "If you want to hide something, you don't leave the door open....They knew that we didn't know. They never came to us....When we asked an agent why they did this, he said, 'We wanted to find drugs.' For two years they waited for drug dealers, and they do not have any."
The Zhadanovs say they became suspicious when Belkin and Edelson started using transfer locations instead of picking the containers up at Vortex. In late 1991, the Zhadanovs asked Belkin and Edelson what was going on. This was the first time, the Zhadanovs say, that they learned the containers could be used for drugs. But they say Belkin and Edelson assured them that it was legal to make and sell the product.
Indeed, a conversation recorded on October 23, 1991, suggests that, despite Edelson's arrest, he and Belkin were confused about the meaning of state and federal paraphernalia laws. Roni Moshe's sister, Sigy, asks Belkin, "Is there a law against it?"
He replies: "You know, with the law is. You coming from an interstate, you know, from one state to the next....That's where they were coming, from Pennsylvania to New York back in Jersey."
Sigy Moshe presses him: "But I'm talking about, is there any law against it? To sell it?"
Her brother, Roni, interjects, "No paraphernalia."
Belkin says, "I don't know. Is there a law?"
Roni Moshe again interjects, "That's a container to contain."
Belkin concludes, "To sell it maybe there is no law, but to take it on the road..."
In any event, Sam Zhadanov assumed that he could not be held responsible for the ultimate use of a product made in his factory. Production continued until May 1992, when Zhadanov observed a man in a car taking photographs of the factory. When he told Belkin about the incident, Belkin said the man might be a police officer, or he might have been sent by a competing manufacturer. Alarmed, Zhadanov ordered a halt to production and consulted an attorney about the legality of the operation. After researching the relevant New Jersey statutes and case law, the attorney, Martin A. Spritzer of Edison, New Jersey, wrote Zhadanov a letter on May 21, 1992:
"You have asked for an interpretation as to whether you could be responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of certain items which are being manufactured on your premises by another person to whom you have leased certain machines and molds in the event such product is used in connection with unlawful drug distribution....It is my opinion that the...containers that you showed me, together with the description of how they emanate from your building, should not make you liable....First of all, you are not distributing, processing, or manufacturing the container. The person to whom you leased the molds and machinery is doing that. Secondly, you have no knowledge of how these containers are being used." (By this he meant that Zhadanov did not know for sure that drug dealers were buying the containers.)
Meanwhile, Srebrianski tried unsuccessfully to set up his own factory and continue the operation there. In June 1992, he approached Zhadanov about resuming production at Vortex. Reassured by the attorney's letter, Zhadanov agreed. At this point, Belkin and Edelson changed the way the money was handled. Previously, one of their distributors would collect receipts from the stores and give the money to Belkin and Edelson, who would give Srebrianski his share; then Srebrianski would pay Vortex. Now Belkin and Edelson decided that the distributor should give the money directly to Srebrianski, who would divide it among himself, Vortex, and Belkin and Edelson. Because of this change, the Zhadanovs say, they discovered that Belkin and Edelson were selling the containers for about $850 a case after paying Vortex just $200. So Sam Zhadanov insisted on a $50 price increase, to be split evenly between Srebrianski and Vortex.
Production continued for nearly a year. On the morning of May 19, 1993, state and federal agents banged on the door of Sam and Anna Zhadanov's two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. When the Zhadanovs opened the door, the agents tackled Sam (the government says he was "placed on the floor"). "They knocked me down on the floor in my underwear," recalls Zhadanov, who stands five feet, four inches tall and weighs about 135 pounds. "Eight people, big like that. And I am a small old man. They scared me so much, I was close to a heart attack. With guns, they come at 6 o'clock in the morning."
Although they did not have a search warrant, the agents looked through the apartment, ostensibly doing a "security sweep," and discovered a safe in the bedroom. Anna Zhadanov says one of the agents ordered her to open it (the government says he simply "asked" her to do so). The safe contained several shoe boxes, which the agent asked her to open. She refused and closed the safe. The agents later obtained a search warrant and seized about $800,000 in cash from the safe.
Eli Zhadanov notes that his parents come from a culture where there is nothing inherently suspicious about keeping large amounts of cash. The Zhadanovs say about $200,000 of the money belonged to relatives. The balance came from the cash payments that Vortex received from Srebrianski and from Belkin and Edelson over the course of two-and-a-half years. But the Zhadanovs say less than half of that, about $280,000, represents profit. Sam Zhadanov covered expenses for the Belkin and Edelson job with money from other customers that he deposited in Vortex's bank account.
Zhadanov says he did not deposit the cash in the bank because he was afraid it would raise questions about the source, and Belkin and Edelson did not want to be named. Instead, he planned to spend the money on new equipment that he would need to make plastic Scrabble pieces for Milton Bradley. (The Zhadanovs have the prototype for the game pieces and price quotations for the equipment.) Since he intended to reinvest the money in his business, he did not consider it unreported income. The IRS, of course, has a different view, though the agency chose not to bring criminal charges.
In addition to the money from the safe, the government seized the Zhadanovs' personal bank accounts, Vortex's bank account, the factory, the equipment, and the land on which it was located—$1.5 million to $2 million in assets. The government argued that all of this property either represented the proceeds of illegal activity or helped facilitate illegal activity. If drug dealers sold crack and used the proceeds to buy vials from retailers, who paid Belkin and Edelson, who paid Srebrianski, who then paid Vortex, this money then contaminated any bank accounts into which it was deposited. Furthermore, all of the assets associated with Vortex can be said to have facilitated the production of the vials (thereby facilitating the distribution of crack) or to have helped launder the proceeds of illegal activity.
Thus, in the government's view, everything the Zhadanovs had achieved was tainted by the order from Belkin and Edelson. Indeed, in testimony before a federal grand jury in Philadelphia, a DEA agent suggested that Vortex had been established to serve the needs of crack dealers. On November 12, 1992, DEA Special Agent Ellis Hershowitz testified: "This company [Vortex]—our indications of it, it hasn't been in operation all that long. As of the time of the interview, they were just ordering equipment in the early part of '91 through D-M-E Corporation. And it's our understanding that they were just getting started out then. Our impression is that they went into business for the purpose of manufacturing these vials because they knew they could make a lot of money doing it."
A juror asked, "They didn't make anything else, just the vials?"
Hershowitz answered, "Back then they didn't make anything else."
In fact, Vortex had been in business since 1981 and had been making items to order since 1987; its customers included Drexel University, Milton Bradley, Shenley Distillers, and Computer Insights. During the period that Vortex was producing plastic containers for Belkin and Edelson, its main customer was the medical-supply company Becton-Dickinson, for which it made a safety syringe that Zhadanov had invented.
After Zhadanov's arrest, federal agents began contacting his customers, informing them of the charges against him. Becton-Dickinson terminated its relationship with Vortex. A deal with Hammacher Schlemmer, which had planned to carry Zhadanov's shower attachment, fell through. Zhadanov received an anxious letter from a Russian businessman who had ordered 10,000 shower attachments from Vortex. "I am alarmed by the extent of your legal problems," he wrote. "The cause of my concern is a most unpleasant phone call that I received last night at my residence from [a] U.S. government agent....For now I will keep my obligations, but if they continue to harass me, I will have no alternative but to cancel the order." In this manner, the government undermined what was left of Zhadanov's business.
The charges against Zhadanov were certainly alarming. The government estimated that Vortex produced more than 200 million vials, each of which might ultimately contain at least half a gram of crack. Hence Zhadanov was charged with participating in a conspiracy to distribute 10,000 kilograms of crack. He was also charged with 69 money-laundering counts, based mostly on the checks that he received from Belkin and Edelson and from Srebrianski, which he deposited in Vortex's bank account. Although this might seem like a pretty inept way to launder money, since it left a clear paper trail, the government argued that a financial transaction can be considered money laundering even when it could not realistically be expected to hide the proceeds of illegal activity.
Zhadanov was initially determined to go to trial, since he felt he had done nothing wrong. But under pressure from the prosecutors, who he feared might bring charges against his wife, and at the urging of his attorney, Peter Ginsberg, who said it was the best way to avoid a long prison term, Zhadanov signed a plea agreement in December 1993. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges and to most of the money-laundering counts. He agreed to give up all of his assets, except for half of the proceeds from the sale of the Vortex factory, which the government agreed to let his wife keep. (As it turned out, this money was claimed by the IRS, which argues that Anna Zhadanov is liable for back taxes, interest, and penalties related to the Vortex money that the Zhadanovs had kept in the safe.) The prosecution agreed to certify that Zhadanov had been cooperative and was therefore eligible for a reduction in his sentence. Ginsberg says it was also understood that Anna Zhadanov would not face criminal charges.
After Zhadanov pleaded guilty but before he was sentenced, the government ordered Chemical Bank to freeze any funds in the account of Gold & Wachtel, Peter Ginsberg's firm, coming from a Swiss bank account held jointly by Sam, Anna, and Eli Zhadanov. The account contained money that belonged to several of Eli Zhadanov's business associates who had given it to him for safekeeping because of the political unrest in Russia. He planned to borrow the money to pay his father's legal fees. But the government claimed the account had been contaminated by money from vial sales. The order freezing the money was entered on March 23, 1994, and lifted two days later. Ginsberg says he persuaded the prosecutors that the freeze threatened Zhadanov's ability to retain legal counsel, and they agreed to split the money with him. "The government may have been able to forfeit the entire amount," he says, "but they chose not to." Thus Ginsberg had to depend on the prosecutors' discretion for his income while he was still representing Zhadanov.
Meanwhile, the prosecutors continued to play up Zhadanov's role in the case, arguing for a substantial prison sentence. They insisted that he must have known he was making crack vials, and they portrayed him as eager for the work, although the record shows he resisted taking cash and repeatedly threatened to stop production. They said Zhadanov had not honestly sought legal advice to clarify his situation but had framed his inquiry in a way that underplayed his knowledge of how the containers were used. They dismissed his lease arrangement with Srebrianski, confirmed by Srebrianski's grand-jury testimony, as a charade designed to distance Zhadanov from production of the vials. They asserted that Zhadanov was always in charge of setting prices and dividing the money. They cited the $50 price increase as evidence of both his greed and his knowledge of the risk involved in making the containers. They called Zhadanov's profits "staggering," estimating that his cost per case was $28, while he sold each case for as much as $250. Gray says he doesn't recall where the cost estimate came from but that it was probably based on Vortex's records. The Zhadanovs say the actual cost was about $170 per case.
The probation officer who prepared the presentence investigation report accepted the prosecution's version of events. Nevertheless, he wrote that "the defendant is considered to have a minor role in the offense of conviction....While the defendant may have held a managerial position within the vial making and distribution activity, his guidelines are predicated upon the distribution of cocaine base—an offense with which he is associated in only the most peripheral way. As such, he is eligible for a significant role reduction, the greatest of which may not even appropriately address this role." (Emphasis added.) In other words, the probation officer suggested that the lowest possible sentence under the guidelines was too high, since it was inappropriate to treat Zhadanov like a crack dealer.
Noting Zhadanov's impressive accomplishments, his impeccable record, and the punishment he had already suffered as a result of the arrest, the loss of his property, and the damage to his reputation, Ginsberg asked for a sentence of probation. In his statement just before sentencing, Zhadanov tried to explain where he had gone wrong: "If somebody come to me and say, make this....I make it. I don't care what this product used for. And this was my mistake. Because I have to care. I never knew what this means, conspiracy. Now I know."
Then he appealed to U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill to let him remain free: "When I come to this country 20 years ago, I have in my pocket $300. And I started work. Take a look at my hands. I cannot make it straight, my hand. I work for 16 hours in the machine shop to make everything, and I don't know how to spend the money. All the money I spent for the business...I don't care about the money at all. I care about my life. Because my life, this is my work. OK? You put me in the prison, I will go to the prison, but I will die."
Citing "the enormity of the offense, the harm that was done, the profit [that] was materialized, and, most of all, the necessity for deterrence of others who might be tempted by greed to engage in this endeavor," Judge O'Neill imposed a sentence of five years for each count, to be served concurrently.
"Unfortunately," Ginsberg says, "the government decided to make an example in this case."
By contrast, the informant Roni Moshe, who was in a much better position than Zhadanov to know who bought the containers and for what purpose, was sentenced to a year in a halfway house and a year of home detention. Srebrianski was sentenced to 18 months in prison, while Edelson, who was on probation for the earlier paraphernalia conviction, got four years. As of this writing, Belkin has yet to be sentenced. Zhadanov has hired a new attorney to appeal his sentence, arguing that the judge misapplied the federal sentencing guidelines and that the prosecution did not allege sufficient factual basis for the money-laundering counts.
Before he reported to prison, Zhadanov put most of his time and effort into the business his son has established to market his inventions. He sold what little equipment the government allowed him to keep to the new business, which rents an industrial space in Linden, New Jersey.
During an interview at the new factory in late December, Anna Zhadanov proudly shows off her husband's patents. Sam eagerly explains some of his recent projects, including an improved blood lance for diabetics and a new kind of flavored plastic toothpick. But when he considers the looming prison term, Zhadanov turns somber. "Right now, I feel very badly, because I don't know where I stand, or what kind of person I am anymore," he says. "I don't know who I am today."
To Gray, Sam Zhadanov is a confessed felon. "He's been treated fairly for what he did," the prosecutor says. "He admitted that he made hundreds of millions of crack vials. That's the extent of the issue, as far as we're concerned."Judging by the enormous amount of books and blog posts on the topic of productivity, you can easily realize just how hard it is for anyone to actually reach this goal of ultimate productivity. Managers, C-level executives, and entrepreneurs are facing an even bigger challenge because they are usually involved in many projects, have a lot of responsibilities, and the pressure to succeed is incredibly high. Being productive is even more compelling.
That’s why I decided to put up a list of what I found to be the productivity hacks that are both highly effective and easy to implement in no time.
1. Have No-Meeting Day every week
I chose this one as the first hack because it’s so easy to get it done right away and it can have a tremendous impact on staying productive.
Many companies have found a trick to completely eliminate at least some of the useless meetings by creating the No-Meeting-Day-of-the-Week. The idea behind it is to give everybody at least one day a week when they can just stay focused on building products.
Managers need uninterrupted blocks of time to deal with important projects, so why not book an entire day for that? Think how much you can do by having one day free of meetings: you can focus on execution for one single project, learn something new, clean your inbox by answering all of your important emails, unsubscribe from blogs you don’t really read etc.
For the rest of the week, make sure to attend only the highly important meetings that really need your presence. You can do that by creating a system that allows you to foresee unproductive meetings before they actually happen. For example, refuse any session that doesn’t have a well-documented agenda. You’ll easily get the hang of it 😉
2. Do fewer things & single-task
This may seem counterproductive at first, but if you think about it, one of the biggest problems today is that we try to do too many things at once.
In a Harvard Business Review article called The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time, author Tony Schwartz explains why 25 to 50% of people feel burnt out at work. His theory revolves around the fact that people juggle too many things at the same time, without actually focusing on the one single task that needs to be done. If they would switch from multi to single-tasking, a lot more things would go into the “done” bucket everyday, and you’ll become so much more productive.
Grow your startup faster with better team communication!
Going further with his theory, Schwartz explains that people are unable to deeply focus on a single task because they are surrounded by a lot of noise: “urgent” emails, social media updates, phone calls etc.
Which brings me to my next hack.
3. Remove the noise
Social media is one of the biggest noise-inducing instruments we have on our hands these days. While more and more professionals have started to realize how spending too much time on social media can harm productivity, there is a widely spread belief that social networks help us stay connected. For managers, connection with partners, peers, and the target audience is absolutely essential.
At this point, I believe that social media ends up affecting our productivity because we look at it the wrong way. We don’t see social media platforms for what they really are, and that is entertainment.
Scientist and book author Dr. Cal Newport has never had a social media account in his life, and his career was never affected by that. In fact, he feels like this has helped him be more productive, more focused, and happier. In his, I dare to say courageous, TEDTalk he suggests a radical move to reduce the noise in our lives: quit social media!
Dr. Cal Newport makes a good point by saying social media is mostly entertainment, but if you want to use it for work, then treat it accordingly. As a manager or CEO you probably don’t have to quit social media to be more productive, but you can schedule your time on Twitter or Reddit just like you do with any other task. Look at it as work, and it will stop being a burden on your productivity 😉
4. “No” stands for being productive
Billionaire Warren Buffett once said:
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
It’s so easy for working professionals today to fall into the trap of of saying “yes” to most things, and fill their schedule with activities that don’t matter on the long run.
So if you find yourself in the situation described above, there’s only one way to approach it: ruthlessly say “no” to things that aren’t highly important. Think twice before you decide whether you should attend a conference you were invited to or not. Same goes for meetings, speaking engagements, internal presentations, new features for your products, and more.
Think about it this way: you saying “no” to unimportant projects means that you say “hell, YEAH!” to the things that really matter to you and your business. Remember Steve Jobs 🙂
5. Use your brain for processing, not storage
The more you do, the more things need to be done, but it doesn’t mean you have to remember everything. This is actually one of the key takeaways from David Allen’s famous book Getting Things Done (also known as the GTD method).
Clear up your mind by implementing a system. It can be the GTD or any other system that works for you, but just don’t try to store everything in your head.
6. Prioritize first things first
One way to get things out of your mind and on paper (or in a productivity app, for that matter) is to prioritize correctly.
Stephen Covey’s Four Quadrant method, described in the book First Things First, is a task and time management method that suggests to organize your tasks into four categories: tasks that are important and need to be done immediately, important but not due soon, due soon but not important, and neither important or urgent.
The key here is to distinguish between important and urgent (Due soon) tasks:
Important are the activities that help achieving your goals.
are the activities that help achieving your goals. Urgent are the activities that demand immediate action, and are often associated with achieving someone else’s goal.
Inevitably, most people have the tendency to focus on things that are due immediately, instead of the important things. It also happens that the urgent things are also important.
To live a less stressful life we have to focus on solving the (1) and (2) categories, before we turn our attention to the unimportant tasks. Stephen Covey’s approach is designed to take your mind off the urgent, but not important tasks (3). These are the ones that take a lot of your time, without freeing you of the stress of the important tasks.
7. Delegate
Micro-management can literally drive a manager insane. Ultra-successful leaders masterminded the art of delegation. This is how they manage to stay productive.
In his talk on Time Management, professor Randy Pausch mentions delegation as one of the most important tools one can use to achieve great results in life.
You can watch the entire presentation on YouTube or read our article on the 8 Rules of Successful Delegation which summarize Pausch’s advice.
8. Use tools to automate processes
There are tools designed for almost anything you can think of. That’s why managers have the difficult job of choosing the right tools and sticking to them. The best way to do it is to identify the main areas you could optimize and chose the tools accordingly. Potential areas could be:
Meetings
Team communication and collaboration
Project management
Sales
Customer support
9. Exercise, eat right, and get enough sleep
We all need energy and motivation to get through all the challenges we face, and this comes from a good work-life balance.
In his best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey mentions a healthy lifestyle as an essential habit for becoming productive. He argues that one’s most important resource is their own physical energy.
It might sound like a platitude, but if you’re lacking sleep or you’re too stuffed after lunch, it’s impossible to focus, no matter how hard you try. So sharpen the saw if you want to keep sawing.
10. Make it home for dinner
Highly-productive managers make it home for dinner every night. Successful leaders don’t just work long hours everyday trying to tick more items off their to-do list. Instead, they think through their priorities, schedule time for each, and then it’s time to go home.
Andy Grove, Intel’s former CEO used to arrive at work by eight in the morning, but never left later than six, and he never brought work home with him. Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, leaves work at half past five every day so she can have dinner with her kids at six. And they are not the only ones who manage to have a highly successful career without sacrificing one of the most valuable things in life: family.
Some people fall into the trap of thinking that “Crazy busy” is a badge of honor. They are burnt out and overwhelmed by the tasks on their overfull plate, but at the same time they know there must be a better way.
The good news is that change doesn’t have to be BIG. A smaller step, such as saying “no” more often to so-called opportunities, can bring tremendous improvement.
Skeptical on how much improvement can a small action do? Then I’ll leave you with one last reading recommendation: How 1% Improvement Can Make a Ton of Difference.
Let me know in a comment below what you chose to implement right away. I’m looking forward to find out which hack turned out to be the most effective for you.Hey guys,
Realize that this is my intro page. I'm here BECAUSE there's a community here.
I have a couple of keyboards. I have something I want to share with the group. You've decided that I need to wait before I can share that. Fine. I'm not messaging the mods. I'm not crying fowl. When already established members of your community say "that's not how it should be" - of course, I agree with them. You don't need the baker to live in your small town for a certain number of days before he can sell his first loaf.
But, hey, that's your decision. Fine. I'll live by it. I am living by it.
Specifically, though, about the prices... And specifically SpamRay. I understand that my prices (which include shipping) are higher than some other people. I'm not trying to cut them on price. My wife just bought some really high-quality materials and made me a case, so I told her to make some and i would offer them to the community... That's all I've done, that's all I'm doing.
If you want one. You can buy one. If you don't, I get it. But don't go flaming... Considering how much it costs to make and ship, and how long it takes to make one...
I have a job, I don't need the tiny profit on each bag to get by.
I just came here to offer them if you wanted one.
I'll wait and post in the artisan section when I'm able.rochester mn mtb blog Newton's Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to an attack by Gunnar Soroos. Gunnar Soroos rides for Toms Shoes Cycling Team. Gunnar Soroos is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Gunnar was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon Gunnar Soroos killed the whole town. My friend Oprah Winfrey said that she saw Gunnar Soroos totally uppercut some jerkface just because they opened a window. Gunnar Soroos has two speeds. Fast, and Kill! The main export of a Gunnar Soroos attack is pain. You can control how people can interact with you and your friends. Choose who can see you, who can speak to you, who can hurt you, and who can be ignored. eastwood mountain biking rochester maLet us have a detailed look at how we can create the most efficient website and focus on the power of web-performance.
In this article you will find the most crucial points that will heavily effect the performance of your website. Implementing the following techniques into your existing or upcoming website should help you in improving the page speed and load time of your website. We will focus mainly on developers who build their own websites from scratch, but a lot of the information also applies to those of you who created a website using an online service such as the ever popular WordPress.
There are three main categories that help improve your website performance, each category has it’s own strong points.
Let’s get started:
Make your website lighter
Yes, reducing the amount of page load is a critical first step forward in making your page load faster. A lot of us that work from home have high-speed internet, but we should also keep in mind that there are still millions of others that are not as lucky as we are. And although mobile internet speed is catching up with LTE connections, a huge percentage of users are still on 3G or even 2G network connections.
Reduce the use of frameworks and libraries (do not make using these a habit)
I constantly see websites using huge complex libraries (jQuery, AngularJS, React, etc…) simply for the implementation of a few effects, such as hiding and showing elements or altering some text on a click event. Unfortunately a lot of early developers find ways to quickly get started and release their first website by using libraries and frameworks without the acknowledgement of why they even exist. We think that this is necessary or required to start developing websites. Yes, they do offer ease-of-use and surely enough we all have to get started somewhere, we all need time to learn. Just keep in mind that these libraries and frameworks are there for more complex websites and web applications that have hundreds of development files, and involve a team effort, thus improving the workflow and coding consistency with the available guidelines.
If you simply have a personal website or want to create a simple portfolio page, I encourage you to try and build it from scratch. It is not as scary as you might think! And what’s great about web development is that you can always have a look at the page source (right-click on the page and go to “View Page Source”) of other major webpages. This is how I learned the most. I reviewed the source code of other popular websites such as Facebook and Google, made comparisons and searched for the meanings of the code that I did not know. By reducing the use of libraries and frameworks you will not only make your website lighter, but also heavily improve your coding skills.
Use mobile-first approach
In a world were mobile phones are becoming the go-to device to check an online application or website, we need to re-think our development building strategy. By using the mobile-first approach we are prioritizing by first serving mobile devices with the amount of data required to browse the whole website. It also makes you focus on what is really necessary to make the website work, and push yourself to the limits to try and find the best way to access a specific part of a website, with the least amount of taps and effort. Although design plays an important role in impressing our users, keeping the site as simple and easy to use is also crucial. Use media queries for tablets and desktop devices. Using these we can request smaller sized images and icons specifically for mobile devices, while the bigger higher-resolution ones will be downloaded solely for tablets or desktop devices accordingly.
Tip: Google now gives higher ranking for websites that are mobile responsive
Compression of development files
This is very straightforward and easy to implement. All our stylesheets (CSS) and script (JS) files can be easily minified by the use of readily available online compressor services. Compressing these files removes all the unnecessary ‘spaces’ and ‘returns’ on the file, while typically also changing local variable names to single characters. Some powerful services also check for other complex ways to continually reduce as much of the file size as possible. Do not try to use this during development, keep your files as readable as possible and leave file compression as the final step before production. This is why you will usually see two set of files such as ‘example.css’ (which would be the development file) and ‘example.min.css’ (which would represent the final minified production file). See the difference of a CSS compressed file using this CSS compressor tool. Some hosting services also compress your HTML files by default before they are sent to the browser.
Optimize your images
There are multiple ways where your images can also be improved to continue reducing the weight of your website.Turkish state TV stirs outrage after |
irmative action” has been made into a pejorative and has been associated with racial preferences, and quotas. What began as a modest compensation for the theft of African-American labor and debasement over centuries, has morphed, in the minds of some, into programs that discriminate against whites. Further, opponents of affirmative action see any effort to apply goals of diversity as an attack on the meritocratic ideal.
A meritocracy is an idealized society where the benefits of the society are distributed on the basis of individual merit. Clearly, one can find this in American society; however, merit in its broad application is overwhelmed by systemic effects of race and class. The lack of diversity, in many instances, and rising economic inequality are both the result of this fact.
It is understandable that pride has moved some Americans, including a minority of African-Americans, to envision a kind of American individualism, which might have worked in their own lives, as effective public policy, and are not supportive of race-conscious policies. Make no mistake, individual initiative is important, but cannot substitute for civic and governmental action.
Given the deep opposition to compensatory programs by large numbers of whites, one would conclude that the history of black oppression is not understood, or there are serious barriers to the development of empathy, compassion and fairness. Education can fix the lack of historical knowledge; however, racial sensitivity, which cannot be legislated, is a more difficult challenge.
The broad consensus we need to solve racial problems will occur when we acknowledge that, like cigarette smoking, racism is cancerous. Similarly, it destroys lives. Once we recognized and accepted the medical effects of nicotine, we waged an effective campaign against smoking, and made it individually unhealthy and socially unacceptable to smoke in public places. Likewise, we should wage an effective public campaign against the twin psychoses of racism and color prejudice so that they will become recognized and accepted as individually harmful and socially unacceptable.
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Additionally, armed with historical and current facts, race-conscious individuals should join the fight to undo the ban on affirmative action in states that have instituted bans, and work against those who are trying to enact new bans. Public education should be strengthened, including enacting programs to improve the achievement of African-American students from preschool through high school. Colleges and universities should step up their efforts to recruit and retain increasing numbers of African-American students. Federal, state and local governments should vigorously attack poverty in the African-American community. Private companies, small and large, should re-access their commitment to diversity, and aggressively seek to hire African-Americans in significant numbers.
African-Americans are like the “canaries in the mine” of our fragile democracy. Unchecked police and judicial power, voting rights infringements, income inequality, persistent unemployment and educational dysfunction are endemic in the African-American community, and are warning signs that our democracy is in danger. If citizens of African descent are oppressed and are not allowed to participate fully, it is our democratic ideals that will be undermined.The lower house of Jordan's parliament has closed a legal loophole that gave judges the discretion to impose light sentences for so-called "honor crimes."
Activists and the state news agency Petra say lawmakers on Sunday amended an article of the penal code which cited "severe anger" a mitigating circumstance for men who kill female relatives in the name of "family honor."
Some killers served as little as six months in prison, though courts have gotten tougher.
Activist Asma Khader praised the decision as a "big step forward" for women in socially conservative Jordan.
Later this week, lawmakers are also expected to repeal an article that enables a rapist to escape punishment if he marries his victim.
Sunday's amendment still needs approval from the upper house, widely seen as a formality.Disclaimer: This article is part of my series on free agency from the perspective of the agent, where I prepare Scott Boras-esque “books” that detail where each player stands in the marketplace and why he deserves as much of your team’s money as possible. Normally, my goal is to use statistics and historical context to present the most accurate depiction of football that we can, but in this series, all I want to do is convince you to spend money on the player in question. As a result, I may include information or suggest comparisons that I don’t necessarily agree with, just as an agent might try to play up his clients’ strengths. Keep that in mind when you’re reading. (For more on this, check out the Monday piece on Mike Wallace that started this series.)
A franchise quarterback is the most valuable asset in sports. Teams that are lucky enough to have one cling to them for as long as possible, and the teams that don’t make acquiring one their biggest priority. The small supply and huge demand means that the price of acquiring a franchise quarterback is exorbitant. It’s virtually impossible to find one for free. The only franchise quarterback in football to be acquired by his team as a veteran free agent before making multiple Pro Bowls is Drew Brees, who was only available because his previous team had another franchise quarterback (Philip Rivers) on its roster.
It’s that same reason — the presence of another franchise quarterback on the roster — and that same reason alone that has allowed Matt Flynn to hit the free agent market. When Aaron Rodgers has been unavailable and Flynn’s had a chance to work with the first team in practice, the former national champion at LSU has been consistently brilliant. For whatever Flynn lacks in experience, his work during stints under center with the Packers have shown that he possesses the rare ability required to lead a team to the Super Bowl. His record shows as much.
Flynn has never been held back because he wasn’t good enough. In college, he matriculated behind a first overall pick (JaMarcus Russell) before leading his team to a national title with his first opportunity. At the professional level, he’s learned from the league’s best quarterback in a system that’s consistently produced excellent starters. Veteran players who are capable of serving as Super Bowl leaders don’t often hit the free agent market, let alone at 26. Flynn is the rare exception, and whichever team chooses to focus on his considerable skills is going to end up acquiring a franchise quarterback for free.
Flynn vs. the Lions
When Flynn led the Packers to a 45-41 win over the Lions in Week 17, his spectacular performance was a signifier that he possesses elite ability. His passing line that day — 31-of-44 for an incredible 480 yards with six touchdowns and just one interception — produced a better passer rating than any other quarterback who started a game against the Lions all season, including Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. More impressively, he did all this without having top Packers wideout Greg Jennings or tackle Bryan Bulaga available.
To put Flynn’s performance in context and establish the company with which this sort of game resides, let’s place a definition on what a truly great quarterback performance is. Consider the following criteria:
30 or more pass attempts
A completion percentage of 65 percent or better
400-plus passing yards while averaging 10 or more yards per attempt
A win by the quarterback’s team
Of course, there are a million ways to define what a “great game” by a quarterback is, but it’s impossible to deny that a quarterback who puts up that sort of performance did anything but play fantastic football. Flynn exceeds the criteria by a wide margin in most categories, having completed over 70 percent of his passes while throwing for nearly 500 yards and averaging just under 11 yards per attempt.
Since 1990, there has been just one performance of that caliber per season: 22 such games in 22 seasons. That’s useful trivia, but what’s more important is this fact about the quarterbacks who produced those 22 games: Every single one of them had either already made the Pro Bowl or would do so in the future. Twenty-two for 22. The list of players who produced those sorts of games is exceedingly impressive company:
QUARTERBACK “GREAT GAMES” Player Year(s) Drew Bledsoe 1996 Tom Brady 2011 (twice) Drew Brees 2011 Marc Bulger 2005 Chris Chandler 2001 Daunte Culpepper 2004 (twice) John Elway 1998 Boomer Esiason 1990 Brad Johnson 1999 Jim Kelly 1992 Peyton Manning 2003, 2004, 2006 Donovan McNabb 2004 Aaron Rodgers 2010, 2011 Ben Roethlisberger 2009 Kurt Warner 2000 Steve Young 1993
That’s the sort of quarterback every team without a franchise quarterback wants to acquire. And remember that these players have only had, at most, three magical games like this across their entire career. Flynn did this in his second career start. Flynn didn’t need this sort of monster game to prove that he could play at the professional level, but now that he has a performance like this under his belt, it’s clear that he has elite skills waiting to be unleashed.
Starting Late
It’s true that, for a 26-year-old in the pros, Flynn is a relatively inexperienced quarterback. That’s indisputable. On the other hand, Flynn’s spent the last eight years working underneath some of the best coaches in the country at LSU and Green Bay, an everyday advantage that other quarterbacks haven’t been able to enjoy, even as they’ve been in the starting lineup. In addition, Flynn has a performance record that’s superior to every other quarterback of his ilk since the AFL-NFL merger, including those quarterbacks who have gone on to successful professional careers after starting their careers in a similar situation.
After completing the 2011 season, Flynn had thrown 132 pass attempts at the NFL level. Since the merger in 1970, 36 other quarterbacks had finished their age-26 season with between 100 and 150 career pass attempts. When we compare Flynn to those quarterbacks through their respective careers at 26, his performance record is stellar:
Flynn’s 62.1 percent career completion percentage ranks first
His 7.7 yards per attempt rank second
His 1.8 touchdown-to-interception ratio also ranks second
Several of those 36 players went on to have successful NFL careers after turning 27, notably Steve Bono, Gary Danielson, and David Garrard, the three quarterbacks in the group who each went on to throw more than 1,500 additional NFL passes during their careers. Flynn’s performance through 26 is far superior to their totals.
THE AGE FACTOR Player, thru 26 Comp Att Cmp% Yds Yds/Att TD INT Matt Flynn 82 132 62.1% 1015 7.7 9 5 Steve Bono 46 120 38.3% 556 4.6 6 4 Gary Danielson 42 100 42.0% 445 4.5 1 5 David Garrard 70 130 53.8% 691 5.3 4 3
In addition, the West Coast Offense that the Packers run has a history of producing viable starters from players who were backing up already-established starters on successful franchises. The most notable example of such a player is Matt Hasselbeck, who spent three years as a little-known late-round pick on the Packers before becoming a three-time Pro Bowl quarterback for the Seahawks. Compared to Hasselbeck, Flynn is both more experienced and successful:
HASSELBECK VS. FLYNN Player Comp Att Cmp% Yds Yds/Att TD INT Flynn 82 132 62.1% 1015 7.7 9 5 Hasselbeck 13 29 44.8% 145 5.0 2 0
Practice Time
Every player benefits from getting the opportunity to practice with the first team while knowing all week that he’ll be on the field come game day. It’s just human nature. That would naturally go even further for a young player like Flynn, who has had to battle to get onto the field behind Aaron Rodgers for his professional career. As you might suspect, Flynn has been a far better player during his two professional starts, when he’s gotten the first-team reps in practice, than he has been when coming off the bench without warning. In fact, the difference between the two is jarring:
STARTER FLYNN VS. FILL-IN FLYNN Flynn Cmp Att Cmp% Yds Yds/Att TD INT As fill-in 12 25 48.0% 107 4.3 0 2 As starter 55 81 67.9% 731 9.0 9 2
Aaron Rodgers, over the past two years, has completed 67.0 percent of his passes and averaged 8.8 yards per attempt; Flynn’s matched and actually slightly exceeded those figures in his two starts over that time frame. When Flynn goes to his next team, he’s going to have an opportunity to spend an entire training camp and a full season practicing with the first team while retaining the confidence that comes with being a starting quarterback in this league. When he’s had that available to him as a starter, he’s produced at a level similar to the league MVP. What more can you ask for?
Conclusion
There are only a few ways to acquire a franchise quarterback, and most of them aren’t much fun. You can have an awful season and, if you’re lucky, have one fall into your lap with one of the first few picks in the draft. You can wait for one to get old and then trade away multiple draft picks hoping that the guy some other team decided wasn’t worth holding on to is good enough to be yours. Maybe you get lucky with a late-round pick and stumble onto one. Those are all pretty dire, unenviable situations to be in.
The only other way to end up with one, though, is to be the lucky team that benefits when one organization somehow happens to have two franchise quarterbacks on their roster at one time and has one of them hit free agency. The Saints were lucky enough to be the team who benefited when Drew Brees hit the marketplace in 2006. Somebody’s going to be that lucky this time around. Without having to give up a single draft pick or endure a losing season, they’re going to be able to head into free agency and come out of it with a franchise quarterback. Matt Flynn is the only player available on the market with a championship pedigree and an elite performance record. He’s your lucky break, the franchise quarterback who gives you a ticket out of that endless search for “the guy” at quarterback. And he’s going to be that lucky break without touching a single asset on your roster.OSLO (Reuters) - Norway’s tax-cutting Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg declared victory on Tuesday after a parliamentary election, narrowly defeating a Labour-led opposition with her promises of steady management of the oil-dependent economy.
The win is historic for Solberg, whose supporters compare her firm management style to that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, because no Conservative-led government has retained power in an election in Norway since 1985.
“It looks like a clear victory,” for the center-right, a beaming Solberg told cheering supporters in Oslo just after midnight (2200 GMT), following Monday’s voting.
“Our solutions have worked. We have created jobs,” she said, but warned, “We have some challenges ahead.... Oil revenues are going to be lower. We all must take responsibility.”
The ruling minority coalition of her Conservatives and the populist Progress Party, together with two small center-right allies, was set to win a slim majority with 89 seats in the 169-seat parliament, according to an official projection with 95 percent of the votes counted.
(Election graphic tmsnrt.rs/2wYkVIO)
“It’s a big disappointment,” opposition Labour leader Jonas Gahr Stoere said, conceding defeat for his party that has been a dominant force in Norwegian politics for a century.
Solberg, 56, plans more tax cuts as a way to stimulate growth for Europe’s top oil and gas producer. Stoere had argued for tax increases to improve public services such as education and healthcare for Norway’s 5 million citizens.
The oil industry could be affected by the vote, because Solberg will need support from two green-minded, center-right allies to ensure a majority to pass legislation in parliament.
One of the two parties, the Liberals, wants strict limits on oil and gas exploration in Arctic waters.
Solberg’s Conservative Party was set to lose three seats to 45 in parliament, making her more dependent on outsiders’ help and perhaps heralding a less stable government.
And the head of the other small party, the Christian Democrats, warned Solberg he would not automatically back every government decision. “We will not give a guarantee for the next four years,” party leader Knut Arild Hareide said.
“They (The Liberals and the Christian Democrats) will support Solberg as prime minister, but the question is whether they get a firm agreement or if there is cooperation on a case-by-case basis,” said Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, a professor in comparative politics at the University of Bergen.
“Then it may be a weaker government,” she told Reuters.
The Norwegian currency, the crown EURNOK=, strengthened slightly following the first projections after falling sharply earlier in the day on weaker-than-expected inflation data.
For much of the year, Labour and its allies were favored by pollsters to win a clear victory, but support for the government has risen as the economy gradually recovered from a slump in the price of crude oil, Norway’s top export.
Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg, her daughter Ingrid Solberg Finnes and Sgbjorn Aanes, Solberg's advisor react on the good results of Solberg's Conservative party Hoyre in Oslo, Norway September 11, 2017. NTB Scanpix/Hans Kristian Thorbjornsen via REUTERS
Unemployment, which a year ago hit a 20-year high of 5 percent, has since declined to 4.3 percent, while consumer confidence is at a 10-year high.
Solberg has won credit for the upturn with a no-nonsense style of management. Norway’s economy also has the cushion of a sovereign wealth fund worth almost $1 trillion, the world’s biggest, built on income from offshore oil and gas.
“Regardless of which government we get, the challenge will be to use less oil money,” said Erik Bruce, chief analyst at Nordea Markets. “There is broad consensus about the outlook for the sovereign wealth fund and the Norwegian economy, which means a tighter fiscal policy.”
The sovereign wealth fund has wanted to invest in unlisted infrastructure to boost its return on investment. Finance Minister Siv Jensen has twice said no to the request over the past two years, citing political risk.
That stance is unlikely to change now that the government has been re-elected.
LABOUR
Labour was set to remain the biggest party in Norway, with 49 seats, just ahead of the Conservatives.
Stoere, who sometimes compares himself with French President Emmanuel Macron, took over the leadership of the Labour Party from Jens Stoltenberg, who left Norwegian politics to become NATO’s secretary-general.
Solberg’s coalition partner, the populist Progress Party, has sharply limited immigration to Norway in what Stoere said is a betrayal of Norwegian values.
Slideshow (16 Images)
“We have done our share of the job. We have delivered,” Finance Minister Siv Jensen, leader of the Progress Party, told party supporters as they chanted “four more years”.
Norway’s problems are small by the standards of most nations.
Apart from its sovereign wealth fund, Norway tops U.N. lists of the best country in which to live, based on issues such as per capita gross domestic product, education and life expectancy.
It even rose to first, from fourth, in a 2017 survey that ranked nations by happiness.The saga of Jon Jones remains ongoing, but if the former UFC light heavyweight champion is cleared to return to active competition without major penalty, fellow 205-pound contender Alexander Gustafsson believes it would be unfair to throw Jones back into the UFC title mix without forcing the embattled American to work his way back up the divisional ladder.
"It wouldn't be fair, giving him a title shot," Gustafsson said Monday on The MMA Hour. "I'm not saying I'm going to get it. I'm just saying, after everything that happened, it's not fair to other fighters too, who've been working their asses off and they've been fighting each other. So, not a title shot right away. Just give him a fun fight first and that's it."
Jones, 29, is currently serving a temporary suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission while he awaits the outcome of his failed UFC 200 drug test.
Jones tested positive for Hydroxy-clomiphene, an anti-estrogenic agent, as well a Letrozole metabolite, an aromatase inhibitor, in a June 16 out-of-competition drug test conducted by USADA. The results of the test forced the UFC to remove Jones from the main event of UFC 200 opposite Daniel Cormier just three days before the bicentennial event.
Jones is expected to appear before the NAC for a disciplinary hearing in October and also could face an additional one-year suspension from USADA, although UFC president Dana White recently stated that "it looks like [Jones] did not take the supplement that everybody thought he took" and that things "could look good for Jon Jones" if the process continues to play out as it has.
White has since championed the idea of a fight between Jones and top contender Anthony Johnson for Jones' return, an idea with which both Johnson and Cormier vehemently disagree.
"Anthony actually talked to me and said he doesn't feel like Jon deserves anything," Cormier said recently on UFC Tonight. "He goes, it's time to stop coddling this kid, stop giving him things that he doesn't deserve.
"Anthony and I have been burned by him more than anybody else. And I just truly can't understand how we could schedule another fight after (UFC 200), it being four times in two years. He's got some work to do, man. He's got to gain some trust of his peers. We are his peers. We have to go in there and compete against him and we don't trust him."
Either way, the odd man out of that equation is Gustafsson, who currently sits at No. 2 on the UFC's the media-generated rankings.
Gustafsson has lost to all three members of the Jones-Johnson-Cormier trifecta, however his fights against Jones and Cormier were razor-thin, and the 29-year-old Swede recently returned to the win column with a unanimous decision victory over Jan Blachowicz at UFC Fight Night 93.
So while Gustafsson knows there is plenty left to play out in Jones' road to redemption, he also wouldn't mind stepping up to the plate for Jones' first fight back in the Octagon, especially considering that the first meeting between the two light heavyweights resulted in one of the greatest title fights in UFC history.
"I'm up for suggestions (for my next opponent), so why not?" Gustafsson said. "But let's see what they say. I'm up for suggestions, so whatever they give me, I'm down with. A second fight with Jones, who knows. It's going to be good though."Image: Shutterstock
The photo of a lone polar bear on a tiny fragment of floating ice has become a powerful symbol of the impacts of global warming in the Arctic. This iconic animal has become climate change’s canary in the coal mine, but climate denier blogs love to claim the animals’ numbers are booming, largely based on the claims of one Canadian zoologist blogger.
A a new analysis in the journal BioScience examines 45 blogs that deny or question climate science, as well as 45 science-based blogs. Nearly all of the denier blogs say that, contrary to the opinions of many scientists who study them, polar bears are doing fine. In fact, 80 percent of these blogs reference a single site, a blog by zoologist Susan Crockford, who has not published any peer-reviewed papers on polar bears. It shows how climate denier messages spread online.
“These bloggers hope to use polar bears to cast doubt on global warming itself,” said co-author Steven Amstrup, chief scientist for Polar Bears International, a conservation-focused organization. This is a deliberate tactic to sow confusion in the minds of the public about the climate change science, just as the tobacco industry did about the link between smoking and cancer, Amstrup said in an interview with Motherboard.
“Social media makes it easy to amplify misinformation. And many readers believe and trust false claims without questioning or verification,” he said.
Read More: Why Does Canada Still Allow Hunters to Kill Polar Bears for Their Fur?
Amstrup has spent 30 years studying polar bears in Alaska, where the population fell 40 percent between 2000 and 2010 mostly due to loss of sea ice. In 2008 they were listed as a threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act, and in Canada they’re listed as a species of special concern. Polar bear populations in colder parts of the Arctic are holding up, but it’s clear that global warming and the loss of sea ice is an existential threat, Amstrup said.
Among denier blogs, authors found that the most popular source for material was a blog called Polar Bear Science by Crockford, a zooarchaeologist. (This refers to the study of animal remains from archaeological sites.)
Crockford operates a consulting company called Pacific Identifications that analyzes bone and shell fragments. She also holds an unpaid, adjunct position at the University of Victoria. Crockford acknowledges that she has never done any field research on polar bears. Nor has she spent any time in the Arctic, according to a 2016 report in Up Here magazine.
She told Motherboard that her lack of peer-reviewed research on polar bears is irrelevant. “I am a professional zoologist and quite capable of educating myself on any related topic,” Crockford said in an email.
Crockford is the go-to source on polar bears not just for climate denier blogs. She is also frequently cited as an polar bear expert and interviewed in conservative and mainstream media, including NBC. In late 2016, Crockford self-published two books, one for children and one that she called a “rational science reference book about polar bears readers around the world have been requesting.”
Why does Crockford devote so much of her time and energy writing and speaking about polar bears? “The blog was a new and different way to share what I’ve learned about polar bears and the Arctic with interested people around the world,” she said in an email.
Crockford also comments about polar bears at the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank based in Chicago, with a long and ongoing history of attacking climate science and climate scientists. In 2012, internal Heartland documents revealed that Crockford received $750 per month from the Institute.
“You don’t have to read far in her material to see that it is full of unsubstantiated statements and personal attacks on scientists, using names like eco-terrorists, fraudsters, green terrorists and scammers,” Amstrup said. In a follow-up email on Friday, Amstrup clarified that these statements to Motherboard were meant to reflect the climate denier community as a whole, rather than Crockford in particular. In an email to Motherboard, Crockford denied using those terms on her blog.
This is about sowing doubt about climate change, hurting scientists’ ability to inform the public and delaying action on climate, Amstrup said.
Crockford called the BioScience paper a personal attack and a “peculiar brand of ‘scientific’ smearing” on her blog.
“Although the gullible media still pretends to believe the doomsday stories offered by these researchers, the polar bear has fallen as a useful icon for those trying to sell a looming global warming catastrophe to the public,” she wrote.
The BioScience study also analyzed the arguments made by 45 science-based blogs about the impacts of global warming on polar bear populations. Nearly all said that global warming threatens polar bear populations.
Update: This piece has been updated with new comment from Steven Amstrup. It has also been updated with new comment from Susan Crockford.
Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.Crime boss John Gilligan is recovering in hospital in an open ward for six patients, one of the hospital’s chaplains has revealed.
Crime boss John Gilligan is recovering in hospital in an open ward for six patients, one of the hospital’s chaplains has revealed.
Crime boss John Gilligan recovers in hospital in open ward for six patients
Fr Dan Joe O’Mahony, duty chaplain at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown gave Gilligan the last rites on Saturday night when he was shot and rushed to hospital.
The priest told RTE's Today with Sean O’Rourke that his ward is being guarded by uniformed and armed gardai, and there are up to six patients in his ward.
Gilligan was “a lucky man” to be alive and “there was blood everywhere” by the time the gang leader arrived at the hospital, Fr O'Mahony said.
“There was blood everywhere... with the wounds he had, he was a lucky man...a bullet grazed his head...he had blood everywhere.”
“We realised who it was...He was in great pain, and all of the nurses and doctors were working professionally on him.”
“I would say that ten people were working on him at one time.”
Fr O’Mahony said he administered the sacrament of the sick with general absolution, but he doesn’t know if Gilligan was conscious of it at the time.
“He was brought from casualty in for a CT scan, and later on he was brought to theatre that night. I saw him in the ward about 5am, he was asleep.”
“Certainly it could have gone [either] way. It was 50/50 for a while.”
“For a case like that, there’s always a uniformed garda and an armed garda.”
Two ambulances arrived, Fr O’Mahony said, containing Gilligan, gardai and paramedics.
Gilligan’s family arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes later and they were brought into the family room at the hospital.
“John was in the first ambulance with the crew and gardai from Ronanstown.”
“A quarter of an hour later [his family] arrived.”
Fr O'Mahony is due to visit the gang boss on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that a gangland boss ordered the hit on John Gilligan after receiving a demand for cash from the convicted drugs trafficker.
Gilligan has infuriated several underworld figures by attempting to "tap" them for money since his release from Portlaoise Prison last October.
Among those targeted by the 62-year-old were associates of a notorious Irish criminal, now based in Spain, who regards Gilligan as "a weak link" attracting garda attention to their bids to set up profitable drug deals.
Gardai say it is not yet clear whether the overseas criminal played any direct role in the botched assassination attempt on the man behind the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin – but it is the strongest line of inquiry.
One senior officer said: "There is a long queue of people, who would like to see Gilligan disappear.
"Since his release from jail, he has annoyed a lot of criminals, who were previously involved in illegal business deals, and are now being put under pressure by him to give him a dig out.
"He appears to have had no access to real money since he got out of jail and is under the impression that others owe him a favour because of his standing before he was sent to prison," the officer added.
Despite the gangland connections to the shooting incident, gardai believe those behind the attempted murder were "amateurish".
The gunman fired six shots and Gilligan was hit at least three times in the stomach, hip and leg.
It is understood he suffered a leg fracture. A bullet also grazed his head and he received a minor wound to his chest.
Gardai said the gun used in the attack was similar to the weapon abandoned by gunmen after a previous planned shooting of Gilligan last December.
Gilligan was last night in a stable condition at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown following surgery.
Several family members visited the hospital yesterday but had no comment to make when approached by journalists, except: "I don't know how you sleep at night."
On Saturday, members of the Gilligan family, including his brother, Thomas, had been attending a function at the Silver Granite pub in Palmerstown following a Christening ceremony for the latter's grandchild.
John Gilligan did not attend the pub celebrations but did later call to Thomas's house at Greenfort Crescent in Clondalkin, where he has spent some of his time since he got out of jail.
Gilligan is reported to have been driven to the house by his daughter, Tracey, from his house at Jessbrook, on the Kildare-Meath border, where he had an equestrian centre that has since been seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
He was inside for half an hour when shortly after 7pm two masked men forced their way in through the front door.
One of the attackers was armed with a 9mm Luger handgun and opened fire. He pursued Gilligan, who was not wearing a bullet-proof vest, into the kitchen and fired again.
The two men then fled from the house and made their getaway in a silver SUV.
The priest who gave the gangster the Last Rites has revealed that up to 20 doctors attended to him as they battled to save his life at Connolly Hospital.
Fr Dan Joe O'Mahony said that there was "blood, blood, blood everywhere" in the resuscitation room.
"It would have been 50/50 whether he would survive or not. His heart was up and down and he could have gone at any moment," the priest said.
The Greenfort Crescent estate was cordoned off for most of yesterday while a garda team carried out a forensic examination of the house.
When the cordon was finally lifted after 6pm, Thomas Gilligan arrived home and stood in his front yard speaking with one of the gardai who had maintained a vigil outside.
When approached by the Irish Independent, he indicated firmly that he did not wish to make any comment.
Following a case conference at Lucan garda station yesterday, investigating officers issued an appeal for help from anybody who spotted men acting suspiciously outside the Greenfort Crescent house on Saturday or noticed the silver SUV being driven at speed.
Two unmarked garda cars were parked at the doors of the hospital and security was said to be tight at the room where Gilligan is now being treated.
GUNMEN
Looking tired and drawn, his wife Geraldine, daughter Tracey, and son Darren were sitting in the reception area when approached for comment on his condition and on the events around the murder attempt.
"Just turn around and go. I don't know how you sleep at night," said Tracey.
One definite line of inquiry is that the shooting is linked to another incident in December when two men arrived in a Dublin pub looking for Gilligan.
On that occasion the gunmen panicked and sped away on a motorcycle after they had targeted the wrong pub.
Gilligan had been drinking that day in the Hole in the Wall pub beside the Phoenix Park but the gunmen went to the Halfway House premises, less than a kilometre away.
They were pursued by passing gardai and threw away their weapon, which was later recovered by officers.
Irish IndependentAaron Murray tweeted that he had the worst 12 hours of his life. The Bulldogs’ 35-7 loss to South Carolina was only part of it. Murray had his house egged and toilet papered by Georgia fans following the loss. He also drove home to Tampa the next day to be with his father, who is having a thyroid cancer operation. His parents had just told him about the illness.
Murray found out that his father, Denny Murray, had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. “Papa Murray,” as Aaron referred to him in another tweet, is undergoing surgery today at the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa. Apparently Denny Murray had been diagnosed “a few weeks ago,” but the parents only told Aaron on Sunday. Aaron Murray and his brother drove to Tampa yesterday.
Eric Winston reminded us that football players are people. That reminder should be particularly poignant for college football, where the people are not paid professionals but kids.
[Photo via Presswire]Anybody who has ever been to the International Helicopter Expo will know about the “bag of swag”, the tote-bag of helicopter related gift and promo items that gets heavier as the day goes on. Some people even seem to have turned this into a sport of some kind.
So when Vertical Magazine asked us to make a comic about HAI, the big bag everybody carries around was the first thing we thought of. And I am sure this will not come as a surprise to you that Chuck is taking the promo gift collecting to a whole different level.
And I have an announcement to make:
Meet me at the Vertical Magazine Annual Beer Party at booth C4125 today between 3pm and 5pm! I’d love to meet with the helicopter guys among you all who can make it to HAI Heli-Expo in Las Vegas this year! Every time the show finds itself in Vegas, it always seems to be the biggest Convention with the most people for some reason. I am not quite sure why that is 😉Image caption Staff at work in the warehouse
Who would have thought your bed could end up providing a soft landing for show-jumping horses?
That is what is happening to thousands of mattresses diverted from landfill by an innovative project in Belfast.
As many as 800 mattresses a week are being processed at the warehouse off the Shankill Road in Belfast.
They come from council recycling centres and bed shops which dispose of customers' used mattresses.
Image caption Recycled polyester is used to make socks and fleeces
At the warehouse, the mattresses are stripped down to their component parts.
Polyester is sent off to make socks and fleeces.
Foam is sent to make carpet underlay and a felt layer over the springs is used in equestrian centre flooring, as well as for acoustic dampening in cars.
Image caption The steel springs are shredded and recycled
The steel springs are chopped up and the metal sent off for reuse.
A small amount of fabric is sent to produce energy from waste in an incinerator.
The project, run by Ulster Supported Employment and Learning (USEL), started 18 months ago and provides nine full-time jobs for people with health conditions.
Manager Scott Jackson says more than 13,000 mattresses have been processed this year - diverting 400 tonnes from landfill.
Image caption Up to 800 mattresses a week are processed
"Mattress recycling has become a big thing because they clog up landfill and wreck landfill machinery," he said.
The project is not-for-profit so all the income is ploughed back in to the venture.
It is estimated that there are about 215,000 mattresses in UK landfills.
Image caption The shredded springs are melted down for reuse
For every 100 mattresses in Northern Ireland, it is estimated that only |
different approach, Schwarz said, since appropriate response vary from site to site.
Regardless, she hopes her research will not only inform the public, but lead to action.
“We need to start thinking about what some potential solutions might look like,” Schwarz said. “So that’s where I hope folks that are involved in Newport can pick that up and continue where we don’t necessarily have the knowledge, power, or authority to do so.”
Scott Wartman contributed
This story is the result of a collaboration between The Enquirer and Northern Kentucky University. It was reported by then-journalism student Kevin Schultz and edited by NKU Student Media Advisor Michele Day and The Enquirer. Schultz and Day partnered with Dr. Kirsten Schwarz, of NKU's biological sciences department and her students for the lead testing. The science students were Kyle Conley, Alexis Sharp and Emily Keener. The project received financial support from the NKU Center for Integrative Natural Science and Mathematics (CINSAM).
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1S0HAZKThroughout the Australia same-sex marriage referendum there was a constant refrain: Don’t be a stupid, vicious, hateful bigot, and make sure you vote Yes. Only through sheer bigotry could a person vote No. Only by way of an unprincipled, mindless, unforgivable hate of gay people could a person possibly be inspired to vote against love.
The entire Yes campaign was driven by a fear of far-right extremism. The spectre of white supremacism was even raised. Apparently skinheads and Nazis were ready to storm the streets to give marginalised homosexuals a kicking, cheered on by the same rich old white Christian people who have oppressed everyone else going back to the dawn of time.
But all of this “Love trumps hate”-style rhetoric backfired when it turned out that there were very strong correlations, measured at the electoral level, between being Muslim and voting against same-sex marriage. Notably, the West Sydney electorates with the largest numbers of Muslims were the same electorates to record the highest proportion of No votes.
Statistics showed us that Muslims hate gay people and don’t consider them worthy of equal rights. It’s as simple as that. After all, in Muslim countries they often hate them so much they kill them, so there’s no surprise whatsoever that in a multicultural Australia that grants religious freedom to Islam, some Australians will use that freedom to hate gay people.
This raises an obvious question: are Muslims bigots?
After all, we have just spent months being told that people who were against same-sex marriage were bigots, and that the bigotry of homophobia has to be exterminated from modern Australia at any cost.
Over and over, we are told that bigots have no place in modern society, that all political views considered bigotry will have to be relinquished, that if a person doesn’t relinquish a bigoted opinion they are evil, and can be considered identical to Hitler in kind if not in degree.
Moreover, any person holding a bigoted viewpoint is automatically so evil that it’s legitimate to abuse them, to shun them, to lie about them, and to altogether treat them as if they are subhuman for having committed an unforgivable moral failure out of no motivation but pure malice.
So what do we make of the fact that, as per the definition of bigot that the Left has been using up until now, Muslims are extremely bigoted?
The obvious response is to say that gay people knew that already. Muslims are, after all, Abrahamists, and Abrahamism has a scriptural command to murder homosexuals in the Book of Leviticus of the Hebrew Bible, the same place that most Christian anti-gay hate arises from.
The less obvious response is to be quietly grateful that the Muslims of West Sydney are not ten times greater in number, because that might have shifted the balance of the referendum to 49-51 against.
These West Sydney suburbs are, ironically, Leftist strongholds, so the hate that the Left is always accusing the working class of – of being exclusive, discriminatory, bigoted, cruel and malicious – is present in greatest concentrations within their own territories!An athlete’s fridge and cabinets should be stocked full of nutritious, muscle building, healthy foods. The biggest problem with that, is the fact that today’s economy does not allow most of us to spend as freely as we used to. It is much harder these days to spend $200 a week on bodybuilding food, than it was 10 years ago. Besides, most of us want to squirrel away as much l00t as possible so we can retire early. May Adibuddha help you if you’re a college student, go buy some Ramen.
Also, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend an hour a day preparing food. I’m not trying to cook a chicken everyday for lunch. I don’t have time to whip up a 7 veggie, 2 cheese omelette’s every morning. However, the reality is that we need lots of healthy foods to helps us build muscle and lose fat. That being said, lets examine how we can eat properly while minimizing the grocery bill and food preparation time.
Here are 22 tips to help you to quickly eat healthy on a budget.
Whole foods are cheaper and more nutritious than processed foods. Try to stock up on cheap protein sources, as they are the foods that will mostly likely build muscle rather than be stored as fat. Here are some examples: Proteins : frozen chicken breasts, fish in a can, cottage cheese, yogurt, eggs, whey protein, and milk.
: frozen chicken breasts, fish in a can, cottage cheese, yogurt, eggs, whey protein, and milk. Carbs : whole grain pasta, brown rice, uncooked oats, beans, fruits, and veggies.
: whole grain pasta, brown rice, uncooked oats, beans, fruits, and veggies. Fats: olive oil, flax seeds, real butter, natural peanut butter, and assorted nuts. Frozen fruits are easy to thaw, and can be eating with yogurt, cottage cheese, or alone as a snack. Store them in the freezer and they won’t go bad, plus they were probably frozen fresh and so they are still packed with nutrients. Frozen vegetables are cheap, can be stored for long periods of time in the freezer, and are easy and quick to cook in a pinch. As with frozen fruit, save time with these pre-washed, pre-cut foods. Fruits and veggies in-season, are cheaper than any other time of the year. You will also find that food grown in season is more nutritious and tends to taste better. Check this link to find out when certain fruits and vegetables are in season. Supplements tend to be cheaper, quicker, and easier, although I have to admit that whole food is better. All the same, use supplements when you’re pressed for time, or if you just can’t afford the whole food version. Here are some examples:
12 In One Multi Vitamin Protein Powder: Optimum nutrition protein powder is the highest quality powder that you can get in bulk. I won’t offer a free trial on this one. Just take my word for it and buy Optimum Nutrition, you won’t be sorry.
is the highest quality powder that you can get in bulk. I won’t offer a free trial on this one. Just take my word for it and, you won’t be sorry. Essential Fats : Pharma Omega is an high quality omega-3 fish oil that you can pick up inexpensively online. Give it a try with a FREE TRIAL.
: Pharma Omega is an that you can pick up inexpensively online. Give it a try with a. Multi-Vitamins: I found an obscure, pretty tight multi-vitamin that is much better than your hard, white Centrum or generic vitamins that you can buy at Walmart. 12-in-One Soft-Gel Multi Vitamin (see banner to the right) has everything you need, so you can fuel your body right with more than 117 nutrients, 72 trace minerals and 47 fruit and vegetable concentrates. These soft-gels are much easier to swallow than many of the large vitamin pills I’ve purchased in the past. As always, Project Swole is your source for FREE TRIALs.
I found an obscure, pretty tight multi-vitamin that is much better than your hard, white Centrum or generic vitamins that you can buy at Walmart. (see banner to the right) has everything you need, so you can fuel your body right with more than 117 nutrients, 72 trace minerals and 47 fruit and vegetable concentrates. These soft-gels are much easier to swallow than many of the large vitamin pills I’ve purchased in the past. As always, Project Swole is your source for. Anti-Oxidants: Read this article on the Extreme Acai Berry weight loss superfood, and I think you’ll be able to understand why this is your best anti-oxidant supplement. Follow the links on that page to get yourself a FREE TRIAL. Generic and store brand foods are often much cheaper than brand name foods, and are often secretly made by the same companies that make the brand named versions. Even if they taste slightly different, make the switch today and you’ll be used to the change within a couple meals. Buying in bulk will save money every time. You will easily find such foods as pasta, rice, oats, and frozen chicken breasts for sale in bulk. Especially look for promotions and sales, where you can get twice as much food for the price of one. When buying online, you will get free shipping and great discounts when you buy in bulk. Calorie dense foods are great for gaining weight. Buy foods like whole milk, nuts, potatoes, brown rice, whole grain pasta & uncooked oats because they are filling, healthy and cheap. Buy age-discounted foods. After one day, grocery stores often discount bakery goods by up to 70%. After a couple days they will discount meat products by the same 70%. Buy several pounds of meat and bread before it reaches it’s expiration date, and store it in your freezer. Local farms or farmers markets will sell fresh, nutritious foods. Often when you buy in bulk you’ll get some extra free goods. Minimize travel time. Try to buy as much as you can from 1-2 locations, whether that location is online or the local grocery store or the local farm. Often you can order all your supplements and oils online, then get the rest of what you need at the Hannaford’s down the street, picking up some fresh fruits and veggies at the farm stand along the way. Filter and mix your own beverages. By filtering and drinking tap water, and by mixing up yuor own drinks like Crystal Lite and protein shakes, you’ll save a fortune. Bottled water is just glorified tap water anyway. Cut and save coupons. You will find them in newspapers, magazines, and on the back of supermarket receipts. Grocery stores offer special sales for customers with membership cards. I know for sure that Shaws does this. It only takes about 3 minutes to sign up, so just do it. Compare prices of competitive brands by checking the unit price. Often the biggest package by the store brand product will be the cheapest item. Plan to lose weight by eating fewer calories. Eat less, buy less, spend less. Make a shopping list so that you can shop with a plan. Write down everything you need for your diet, for the next 2 weeks, and buy only those items. Make sure to either shop alone, or shop with someone that shares your commitment to diet and savings. Avoid taking the kids into the store at all costs! Never shop hungry as this will make you want to buy items that are not on your list, especially junk food. Bring food with you rather than buying it when you’re out. Fast food is bad for you, and healthy commercial food is expensive. By preparing your own food, you can control portion sizes and ingredients. Bring whole meals and snacks too. Prepare your food in advance: for the week, all at once; or prepare your food for the next day, at night. You’ll find that you can save time by cooking meat for the week, on Sunday. Use spices and sauces with low carbs to make it all so tasty. Try some of the healthy recipes on Project Swole, or purchase a tight cook book like Gourmet Nutrition. Start a garden! This way you can control chemicals and pesticides, and all you’ll ever have to buy, is seeds. Invest in plants and trees that grow veggies and fruit, and you’ll be living well all spring, summer, and fall. The ultimate solution: start a farm! Grow all the fruits and veggies you need. Get chickens, pigs, and cows to supply you with free meat, eggs, and milk. Sell the excess food at the market to make money to buy what you can’t grow yourself.
The Harsh Reality
You can follow this list to a T and still end up spending over your budget. Face the facts: if you want to eat healthy you have to pony up the dough. If you don’t have enough dough, it might be time for a second job, a new job, or maybe a new career. If you don’t work, don’t go to school, are not disabled, and you don’t take care of kids full-time, stop reading my blog you lazy free-loader.
Tags: budget, food, health, healthy food, meal plan, nutritionFor an inside look at what will happen to the sport following these scandals, we caught up with Rick Carter, the former associate head coach of DePaul men's basketball from April 2015 until June 2017.
Hershkovich: What's the connection between shoe companies and the universities?
Carter: They generally sponsor universities. For example, Under Armour just paid UCLA last year the largest shoe contract in history, $280 million for 10 years. That's how you're connected to a brand per se. Where it goes from there is they also have grassroots programs, so Adidas has Adidas AAU teams, Nike has Nike AAU teams, and Under Armour has AAU teams.
Hershkovich: Were you surprised to hear about the investigation?
Carter: I was pretty shocked just because even though you heard these things going on, I think the one thing any coach could probably tell you is no one really thought what these coaches were doing was more than an NCAA violation. It wasn't like they were going out getting this money thinking they were breaking federal laws. It was very shocking to hear the federal government got involved.
Hershkovich: How did you react to Louisville's involvement specifically, especially with DePaul recruiting Brian Bowen?
Carter: I don't think there was any secret when we were recruiting Bowen that a lot of college coaches came to us and said, "What are you going to pay him to go to DePaul?" We weren't really getting involved in those types of conversations with paying for a player. Obviously we had a connection because (DePaul assistant coach) Shane Heirman knew Bowen's parents since he coached him (at La Lumiere High School). When I heard that, it didn't surprise me any because of how he, out of nowhere, picked Louisville. They weren't even on the list. I think everyone probably knew he got paid to go there at that point. But just being as close to the situation as I was, knowing his mom, dad and him, I felt really bad for them because obviously his eligibility was done. I felt bad for Rick Pitino and his staff because obviously none of them will probably ever coach again.
Hershkovich: Have you ever developed a relationship with Pitino?
Carter: We've been at games together and talked here and there. He's a genius basketball coach, and he's very sharp. Sitting down and talking to him as an up-and-coming coach, it was very intimidating because he's a legend, and more times than not, you feel like you're getting on their nerves. Anytime I had a chance to sit next to him or Coach K (Kryzewski), I was very fortunate.
Hershkovich: Does Louisville deserve the death penalty, especially since it was already on probation before this investigation?
Carter: I don't think they'll get it because of the swift action that the university took. Going to the AD (Tom Jurich) first, giving him the opportunity to get rid of Pitino, him saying no and getting rid of both of them so quickly, I think they probably eliminated that option. I don't think it would be good for college basketball, either. College basketball needs Louisville. They want them to be good, and the NCAA needs them to be good. Anytime a school has taken care of its situation, the NCAA has always shown leniency. If you self-report or if you punish yourself, they always come back with a lesser sentence.
Hershkovich: What sort of punishment will Louisville get?
Carter: This is so new and fresh, and I think they're (the NCAA) so shocked. They're finding all of this stuff at the same time the rest of the world found out about it. I don't think it's just going to be Louisville. When they really start digging in, I think you'll see a lot more schools being punished. Rule changes are the best way to solve this problem; making different rules that are better for recruiting in general. You're better off letting people do what they want while monitoring it closely.
Hershkovich: How will coaches continue to cheat amid various rule changes?
Carter: Everyone finds a way to get an advantage in whatever you do. That's the scheme of life. Whatever rules people put in place, people have a tendency to find a way to get around them and take advantage of them. Normally, the people who succeed are the ones who do it better than anyone else. I can't think of a direct way; I'm sure some coaches will. But I don't think any of them (head coaches) had an idea of what was going on. I've seen on a lot of TV shows recently, where people are saying, "The head coach is responsible for what his assistants are doing." They are, but the problem is this isn't happening in the office next door. It happens when you're out recruiting. Because of the NCAA rules that were put into place, the time that you go out and recruit with your head coach is so limited since you only have so many days (to do it).
Hershkovich: Missouri men's basketball dealt with violations during your tenure with the program. How did you feel throughout that process?
Carter: I didn't know anything about it; I was just brought into a room with the athletic director, saying, "The investigation already happened, and coach (Frank) Haith will be going in front of the board." The worst part about anything like this is it's never about the punishment you get at the end. It's the time that you serve in the middle going through it. As a recruiter, you're trying to get players to come to your school. If there's uncertainty about if the head coach is going to be there or if there are things out there that opposing coaches can use to make you look like a bad program, they take advantage of that. It was difficult to get recruits to still choose that school.
Hershkovich: Is paying athletes a way for universities to avoid this issue entirely?
Carter: No matter what, people are always going to want more money. If you're a university or program who has the ability to give them more, that's not going to work. But probably the best thing to do is you allow Nike or whichever shoe company to sponsor college athletes. Those people would be the ones paying students. Because if you're a coach, how are you going to justify how much you're paying athletes from various sports with a "salary cap." If you allow them to take on sponsorships, it won't factor in with where they're going to school. It'd also get rid of Title IX for schools because you won't have to deal with having to pay women's basketball players just because you're doing the same for men's basketball.From FSL
Authors: Patrick Meredith, Mark Hills, and Grigore Rosu
Scheme is a functional (though impure) language, with a first class representation of continuations. In Scheme, code and data have a unified representation; because of this, Scheme has some of the best meta-programming tools of any language. K-Scheme is a formal, executable, definition of Scheme, using the K language definitional style within (the equational fragment of) rewriting logic. It has been inspired from an earlier definition of LISP, called LISB; superficial changes include, but are not limited to: macros by example, vectors, true strings, improper lists, scheme-style variable arguments, call-with-current-continuation (and its relatives call-with-values and dynamic-wind), quasiquotation, and first class environments.
K-Scheme can serve at least two purposes:
as a formal, equational definition of Scheme complementary to the informal one in the R5RS report, and
as a platform for experimentation with new features and future versions of Scheme.
K-Scheme is available for download and can also be executed online:
News and Change Logs
2007-10-10: K-Scheme version 1.3 was released. Improvements over 1.2:
Non-deterministic evaluation of sub terms in function application forms
Non-deterministic evaluation of unquote forms in quasiquote forms
Non-deterministic copy for quote
Better error messages
2007-08-13: K-Scheme version 1.2 was released. Improvements over 1.1:
Scheme defined functions moved into library, initialization module removed.
Most keywords are now treated as normal identifiers, simplifying the definition.
New parser written using ocamlyac and ocamllex fixes old shortcomings
2007-07-23: K-Scheme version 1.1 was released. Improvements over 1.0:
Added internal defines.
Definition made cleaner.
Built-in procedures and keywords are now properly bound in the global environment rather than the local.
2007-06-30: K-Scheme version 1.0 was released. Known limitations:
Current K-Scheme definition uses the K technique, but it "implements" it using plain rewriting logic in Maude, taking full advantage of some current Maude specifics, such as, for example, that the equations are applied in order; these assumptions simplify K-Scheme's definitions and are easy to eliminate if one is interested in using our definition for other purposes, such as formal property proving.
To make our definition Maude-friendly, the Scheme syntax was adjusted; however, the download package, as well as K-Scheme's online iterface ( ), use a parser to automatically translate a Scheme program into a K-Scheme program.
Parser occasionally fails; it should be modified in the near future.
Lacks internal defines and a few library procedures.
Let label not defined.
Macros incomplete, but functional for many important cases (they may be migrated to operate on the internal representation rather than syntax at a future date to support staged macro evaluation -- needed to properly support marcos within eval, or even nested eval, expressions).
Download and Installation
before download!
The formal Maude definition of K-Scheme is available below, as well as the parser and examples:
All one needs to do is to start Maude and then load the.maude file in the package above. The parser requires Python. It accepts a scheme file and outputs K-Scheme code to standard out.
Documentation
Detailed documentation will be posted here soon.
The Maude definition in the download package above is documented and can be most useful.
Publications
Publications on K-Scheme are available below in reverse chronological order. The original tech report was modified to form the submission to the Scheme workshop. The last tech report explains newer additions to the definition, and is more concise, using the actual K notation rather than the implementation language.
R5RS provides a comprehensive informal definition of the current version of Scheme.A group that calls itself YGN Ethical Hacker Group has identified potential security holes in Apple's website for Mac and iOS developers. Those security holes could allow malicious hackers to use the Apple Developer Connection in phishing attacks to gain access to users' login and password information.
According to information supplied to Networkworld, the group identified three potential security issues on the site, including arbitrary URL redirects, cross-site scripting, and HTTP response splitting. In particular, the ability to arbitrarily redirect to other URLs could make phishing attacks against developers login credentials more likely to succeed.
"By modifying the URL value to a malicious site, an attacker may successfully launch a phishing scam and steal user credentials," the group said. "Because the server name in the modified link is identical to the original site, phishing attempts have a more trustworthy appearance." In other words, even though the redirect will cause users to end up at a malicious site, the original link would appear to come from developer.apple.com.
Since developers use their Apple ID to access password-protected areas of Apple's developer website, such as forums, beta OS releases, and SDKs, a successful phishing attack could give hackers access to a user's iTunes Connect account, iTunes Store purchases, and more. If the e-mail address is valid, hackers could also try using password cracks to get into a user's e-mail as well.
YGN said that it alerted Apple to the problem in late April, and that the company quickly acknowledged getting the report. "We take the report of a potential security issue very seriously," Apple told YGN. However, it doesn't appear Apple has closed the security holes.
To encourage Apple to act, the group says that it will release its discoveries to the security mailing list Full Disclosure "in a few days."The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed charges Thursday against a junior varsity basketball coach at Don Lugo High School who was arrested earlier this week for alleged sexual abuse.
Valerie Segura, 20, of Ontario has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of child molesting, one felony count of contact with a minor for sexual offense and one felony count of sending harmful matter to a minor for purpose of seducing, according to court records.
Charges were filed Thursday. Arraignment information was not available.
Officials believe the crimes happened between Dec. 5, 2012, and Dec. 3, 2013, according to the criminal complaint.
Segura knew the victim, identified only as Jane Doe, was a minor and unlawfully contacted and communicated with Jane Doe with the intent to commit a felony, according to the complaint.
Segura also distributed harmful matter to Jane Doe “with the intent to arouse, to appeal to, and/or to gratify the lust, passions and/or sexual desires of the defendant and/or of Jane Doe, and with the intent to seduce a minor,” according to the complaint.
Lastly, Segura is charged with annoying and molesting Jane Doe, who was under the age of 18, according to the complaint.
Segura was taken into custody Tuesday at Don Lugo following a home basketball game against Glendora High.
That same day she was placed on administrative leave, “pending an investigation of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a student at the school,” Chino Valley Unified spokeswoman Julie Gobin said Wednesday.
Segura graduated from Don Lugo in 2012. She played girls varsity basketball and in her senior year, was named an All-Mt. Baldy League first team member.
The second-year walk-on coach was booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where she was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.
Staff writer Beau Yarbrough contributed to this report.I'll never forget the shocking moment I first saw the name for the spicy Italian ham capicola spelled out on a deli menu.
I must've been 12 or 13, having spent a solid five or so years eating pizza joint lunches with my mostly Italian buddies, at which we regularly ordered sandwiches made with '
"gabagool." And, often, the cheese known as "mutzadell".
As they might say in a Geico ad, "When you live in New Jersey, you order gabagool with mutzadell. It's what you do."
But capi-i-co-la? I had no idea what that stuff was.
When a buddy explained to me the two were indeed one and the same, I became seriously confused.
And I remained confused over this important matter for a full three decades, until this morning, when I read this amazingly well researched and detailed explanation on the web site Atlas Obscura by writer Dan Nosowitz, which delves deep (18th century Italian kingdoms deep) into why New Jersey Italian-Americans speak the way they do.
15 things never to say to someone from New Jersey
Through interviews with linguists, Nosowitz traces the New Jersey Italian pronunciation of capicola, ricotta (often pronounce rih-goat) and other words to southern Italian dialects, immigration patterns and other myriad quirks of history, from shipping routes to rivalries among 19th century Italian kingdoms.
Writes Nosowitz:
"If you were to go to southern Italy, you wouldn't find people saying "gabagool." But some of the old quirks of the old languages survived into the accents of Standard Italian used there. In Sicily or Calabria, you might indeed find someone ordering "mutzadell." In their own weird way, Jersey (and New York and Rhode Island and Philadelphia) Italians are keeping the flame of their languages alive even better than Italian-Italians."
I am always on the lookout for great explanations of New Jersey accents, and this is one of the best to come along in some time. For the full article, click here. It's definitely something to chew on along with your next gabagool and pruhshoot.
Brian Donohue may be reached at bdonohue@njadvancemedia.com Follow him on Twitter @briandonohue. Find NJ.com on Facebook.At first, Dunkelberg said, the somewhat puzzled reaction from the groups they went to visit was, “Why are you here?” But a few years later, after listening, learning, and sharing stories, people see the librarians coming and ask them, “How can we work with you?” By now, library staff is represented in more than 60 community groups from the Chamber of Commerce to the City Club, the Homeless Leadership Coalition, and Bend 2030, a planning group, and so many more.
So, what is going on at the Deschutes libraries? You can start with a list that now seems familiar to me from offerings at the busiest, most energized libraries elsewhere: art exhibits, book clubs, author readings, computer classes. Also: service programs on topics like car-seat safety, self-defense, everything about fire; and offerings for teens in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) programs. The downtown branch of the system also has taken the first step into the “Maker Movement,” the term for the current trend across the country describing people making everything from humble hobbyist stuff to tech-sophisticated products enabled by equipment like 3-D printers. Every month the Bend library’s downtown branch has Maker Monday meetings. The July meeting featured a local maker movement leader introducing digital multimeters (DMM), a common piece of test equipment used in the electronics industry, and the August meeting is about how to make drinking glasses from wine bottles.
* * *
Sometimes, libraries are fixing old problems, rather than creating new offerings. They often answer vexing problems with surprisingly simple, yet effective answers. For example, in Columbus, Ohio, school kids were misbehaving on school buses. The library, which worked closely with the schools, offered to put boxes of books at the front of each bus for kids to grab during the ride home. Voila! The kids were hooked and down went the trouble incidents. The Deschutes libraries came up with a number of such answers to their own particular problems.
For the older folks in assisted living, who are often uncomfortable in the presence of lots of squirmy toddlers or fidgety teenagers, the library offers an exclusive hour before the normal opening times, to enjoy the library in peace.
Some older school-age kids who can’t yet drive, and may be too far away to bike or walk, can’t get to the library on their own. Instead, the library comes to them. Kids can request books, which are then delivered to their schools.
For the littlest readers, librarians used to hand out little toys as freebies in their summer-reading programs until they frequently, and sadly, found them discarded on the floor. Then they thought, “We’re a library! Let’s give them a book.” The switch was gratifying, reports Dunkelberg, who sometimes “works the desk” in the children’s section, just to keep in touch. He said that the kids love the books, and that the books are especially meaningful to the kids who don’t have books at home.David Burnett, of Contact Press Images, has photographed seven summer Olympics. He has previously been featured on Lens for his books on Iran and on Bob Marley as well as his photographs during the launch of Apollo 11. He spoke with James Estrin last week. Their conversation has been edited.
Q.
You had an auspicious debut in your first Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984. Your photo of Mary Decker (Slide 13) is one of the most iconic sports images. Tell me about it.
A.
I don’t think there’s going to be many more. Not that there won’t be good pictures taken. But we are in an age of visual overload. I don’t think there’s going to be another Olympic picture that is going to get that kind of run.
I’d been shooting track for a whole week from a lot of different locations, up high and low, but a lot of it from the finish line. I was just so tired of standing next to these guys that had these big tripods with 11 cameras attached to them and remote wires going up to cameras with 400-millimeter lenses — I needed a breath of fresh air. I picked up my stuff and walked down the track. There were two photographers sitting at one bench, next to where the crowd was, and a spot for somebody else.
The 3,000 final came up. This was the big race of the week: Mary Decker would win the gold medal that had been denied her when the U.S. decided to skip [the previous] games. The other big story was Zola Budd, running barefoot, who couldn’t run for South Africa because it was banned from international competition.
The 3,000 is seven-and-a-half laps, and I had a really good shot of turn four with a 400-millimeter lens.
As Zola makes her move, around the fifth lap I shoot with the 400, then pick up the 85 as they start to go by me. Zola tries to pass Mary. Mary comes down hard, trips and falls over the edge.
David Burnett/Contact Press Images
Thing is, I couldn’t tell in detail what was going on, but I know what’s supposed to happen, that they’re going to run through my frame and keep going. And I’m seeing that Mary is not doing that, and I look down after I’ve shot some frames with the 85. And I see her lying there, and I immediately grab the 400, brought that up to my eye and I honestly remember taking an extra millisecond saying to myself, “Make sure you’re sharp.” I kind of focused on her eye, and I made seven or eight frames.
The nurse came over, Mary was kind of laying down, and then there’s that one frame where she’s looking down the track. It’s one of those things that I just got lucky, and I didn’t screw up. It’s about being lucky and not screwing up, and trying to be ready for some moment if you happen to be the right place.
Q.
“David Burnett. He didn’t screw up.”
A.
I’ll take that.
Q.
I would take that also. So you shoot more Olympics waiting for your magic moment to happen in front of you again. Then, you started looking at this differently, right?
A.
I don’t do a lot of sports coverage in between the Olympics. For me, it’s more than a sports event. I’m always trying to make some bigger contextual view of it. Also the way I shoot and how I shoot have evolved. By 1996 and 2000, I was shooting a lot of medium format, and trying to get a picture when you have only one chance to push the button. By 2004, I was shooting with the speed graphic. That was really just fun, a lot of misses, mostly misses. Every now and then, everything would work right and you would guess where someone would be.
Q.
But why did you do that? It’s like deciding to shoot the Olympics with two arms tied behind your back. What was your point?
A.
Just trying to do something that would make my pictures a bit more special for me.
David Burnett/Contact Press Images
Q.
So this was partly for your entertainment, partly hoping to do something different?
A.
The thing is, I’ve always liked new kinds of hardware because they give me another way to look at something. They help me see something in a little different way.
I’m still having fun with the speed graphic. I look back at the pictures from the ’20s and ’30s and wonder how they got any pictures at all with the super-slow film and lenses. And they did a great job.
I want to come up with something as timeless and classic.
Every now and then, my pictures kind of get me there. So many good people have been shooting sports for so long, it’s tough to think of something that hasn’t been done, or do it in a way that no one has done before.
I feel like there’s just a million things to still try. I still love shooting with a Holga and with the 4×5. The hardest thing, no matter the gear, is to force yourself to see things in a slightly different way. And don’t go to the finish line, go to the third turn where nothing ever happens and try to make a picture there.
Q.
This time, in London, you’re not on a magazine assignment.
A.
I’ll be shooting for the International Olympic Committee’s museum in Lausanne. It’s a cool assignment because I get to go shoot what I want.
They have a gigantic photo archives — especially going back to the early days of the Olympics. I’ll get to do a fair amount of track, I’ll do swimming and diving and equestrian.
Q.
What cameras will you bring to London?
A.
I’m not sure, but I’ll bring the 4×5. One of the difficulties of a 4×5 is always remembering to do everything in the right order. You’ve got to focus, close the shutter, cock the shutter, put the film in, pull the dark slide and hope that you haven’t actually shot that film before. Then put the dark slide back in, you flip it so the black edge is out that says, “I’ve been shot, don’t |
bullying and pretext-based arrests fall disproportionately on young men of color in their own neighborhood,” he wrote.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giuliani as he announces that two more police officers were arrested over the assault on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, in August 1997. Photograph: Gino Domenico/AP
A report by the New York state attorney general found a massively disproportionate racial impact in the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics after examining 175,000 of these incidents from January 1998 to March 1999. Black New Yorkers, 25.6% of the city, comprised 50.6% of stops. Hispanic New Yorkers, 23.7% of the city, comprised 33% of stops. White New Yorkers, 43.4% of the city, comprised 12.9% of stops. “In the most strongly white neighborhoods in New York,” the study found, “the disparity between minority and white ‘stop’ rates is most pronounced.”
The report stopped short of calling Giuliani’s favored police tactic racist, something that would take a judge’s ruling in 2013, which concluded that “the city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner.”
At times, Giuliani has taken inclusive stances with regard to immigrants and Muslim New Yorkers. After 9/11, Giuliani was dubbed America’s mayor by Oprah Winfrey in his finest hour as a politician.
In a sweeping speech to the United Nations in October 2001, Giuliani praised New York’s “very strong and vibrant Muslim and Arab communities” as “an equally important part of the life of our city”.
“I’ve urged New Yorkers not to engage in any form of group blame or group hatred. This is exactly the evil that we’re confronting with these terrorists,” he said. “And if we’re going to prevail over them, over terror, then our ideals and principles and values must transcend all forms of prejudice.”
“This is not a dispute between religions or ethnic groups. All religions, all decent people, are united in their desire to achieve peace.”
Yet by 2010, the political winds had shifted, and Giuliani shifted with them.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rudy Giuliani leaves the Trump Tower after meetings with President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
That summer, outrage grew from the fringes of the right after a local Muslim leader had proposed building an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, within walking distance of the former Twin Towers. The project, strongly defended by Giuliani’s successor, Michael Bloomberg, as a religious-freedom issue, became the target of a smear campaign, which dubbed it the “Ground Zero Mosque” or even the “Victory Mosque”, suggesting that the American Muslims who would go to the center for a moment of reflection were celebrating 9/11.
Giuliani joined in. Calling into a radio show in early August, he called the cultural center a “desecration” and falsely asserted that the imam behind the project, a man who had written a book called What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America, had supported “radical causes”. In a later interview with the Today show, he suggested the project itself was radical: “If you’re a healer, you do not go forward with this project. If you’re a warrior, you do.”
In the years since, and particularly since joining Trump’s campaign, Giuliani has intensified his stance. He has boasted of placing undercover agents in New York mosques and stated “good Muslims” would benefit from surveillance in their communities. On Fox & Friends, Giuliani implied that only mosques with something to hide would object to police infiltration: “If you’ve got nothing going on there but a beautiful religious service, why in His name would you not want to have police officers there?”
“All I can say is God bless Rudy Giuliani,” said Una Clarke, who was at the police riot decades ago. “It’s a bundle of racists getting together to see if they can take us back to the old age.”Speaking at an investor's conference on Thursday, a Microsoft executive offered that Kinect not only knows how many are in the room when an ad's shown, but what kind of team colors they might be wearing. Uh-oh.
Privacy concerns with the Kinect aren't a new subject, of course. At the BMO Capital Markets forum, Dennis Durkin, the chief operating officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment division, offered that if someone were watching a sporting event with Kinect on (for example, ESPN's new streaming service to the Xbox 360), Kinect could deduce what team they support based on what kind of jersey or colors they wore, and serve advertising tailored to that.
Digital Trends offers that it's not much different from how Facebook serves its ads, though in that case, there's something of an active opt-in (choosing to publicize your favorite films, food, sports teams, your alma mater, etc.) Durkin's example carries the implication that you don't know you're being watched - basically, studied - for marketing purposes. The results would be aggregated of course - charts and numbers, not a piece of raw video of you saved and stored somewhere - but it still sounds Orwellian.
Orwellian enough that when the Wall Street Journal mentioned it, Microsoft issued this statement:
Xbox 360 and Xbox Live do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes. Microsoft has a strong track record of implementing some of the best privacy protection measures in the industry. We place great importance on the privacy of our customers' information and the safety of their experiences.
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But if we're to take Durkin at his word, it means the capability is there, regardless of whether it's being used.
Kinect's Camera Could Record Data For Advertisers [DigitalTrends]Controversial biochemist Stephen Dank has been banned by the NRL over his involvement in Cronulla’s 2011 supplements program.
NRL boss Dave Smith confirmed on Saturday that Dank would never again be permitted to practise in the competition.
The announcement on Dank came as Smith also confirmed that 12 past and current Shark’s players will serve a 12-month backdated suspension for breaches of the game’s anti doping rules.
In banning Dank, the NRL said this in a statement: “Club medical, football and coaching staff to be registered and accredited. This means anyone who is regularly involved with players and can influence their welfare is accountable and bound by the NRL’s Rules.
“The new accreditation process would ensure the NRL never allows Stephen Dank to have further involvement in the game.”
Read more at Foxsports.com.auDear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
A survey of Arab citizens of Israel has found more positive attitudes to the state and its institutions than was previously thought.
Sixty percent surveyed said they had a favorable view of the state, while 37% said their view was unfavorable.
The poll, whose findings were released Wednesday, was conducted by the Israel office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center and Keevoon, a research, strategy and communications company.The poll, conducted last month, surveyed 876 citizens of Israel and 125 east Jerusalem permanent residents. It had a margin of error of 2.25%.Broken down by religion, 49% of Muslims view the state favorably compared with 48% unfavorably, while 61% of Christians view it favorably compared to 33% unfavorably.Ninety-four percent of Druse view the state favorably compared to 6% unfavorably.The survey showed that slightly more Israeli-Arabs have favorable views of the legal system, Supreme Court and police than unfavorable ones. The latter finding is seen as reflecting tremendous worries about crime in Arab communities.“The number of people who agreed to respond positively when asked about state institutions is quite remarkably high,” said Itamar Radai, academic director of the Adenauer Program and a scholar at the Dayan Center. “It reflects a general desire to be more incorporated and to participate more.”At the same time, racism was listed as a top concern by respondents and 47% of them said they feel “generally treated unequally” as Arab citizens.Most respondents also said that Arab citizens are getting an unfair distribution of tax revenues.In the view of Michael Borchard, Israel director of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, one of the most significant findings came in response to the question posed to citizens, “Which term best describes you?” The largest number, 28%, replied “Israeli Arab” while 11% said “Israeli,” 13% said “Arab citizen of Israel” and 2% said “Israeli Muslim.” Only 15% said “Palestinian” while 4% said “Palestinian in Israel,” 3% said “Palestinian citizen in Israel” and 2% said “Israeli Palestinian.”Eight percent of respondents said their preferred self-identification was “Muslim.”“The bottom line is there is more identification with Israel than with a possible Palestinian state,” Borchard said. “They want to be recognized in their specific identity but have no problem to be related in a way to Israel.”Borchard also highlighted that 63% of Arab citizens surveyed said Israel is a “positive” place to live, with 34% saying it is negative, while respondents also gave high marks to the country for having a “strong” degree of personal freedom and a “strong” amount of stability.“The sense of stability, amount of personal freedom and quality of life compared to surrounding countries is appreciated,” Borchard said.The survey asked citizen respondents to rate on a scale of 1-10 how much “belonging” to the State of Israel they have. Forty-five percent gave responses between 8 and 10, 17% between 5 and 7 and 35% between 1 and 4.Asked if they would be proud or embarrassed if a relative became a member of Knesset, 73% responded they would be proud and 16% embarrassed.The survey found that Arab citizens are more concerned about the economy, crime and equality than the Palestinian issue. Asked which issue most concerns them, 22% of Arab citizens said personal security and crime and an equal number said racism. Fifteen percent said the economy and jobs, while 13% said the Palestinian issue.“People have been living in Israel for the last 70 years and have a desire to be more incorporated,” said Radai.“Their interest in the Palestinian issue can be compared to Israeli Jews being interested in Jews around the world even as domestic issues are a higher priority.”Asked about the policy implications of the survey, Brochard said: “Israel should do more to answer this rather positive attitude and be more inclusive and not have these ongoing allegations that these people are not loyal or not to be trusted because the dynamics speak another language.”MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List), responded to the survey’s findings by saying that it might be putting too positive an image in terms of how Arabs view their situation in Israel.Participation in the state and decision- making, he said, “is our demand but it’s the government that excludes us and has this campaign of delegitimization.Wanting participation is an aspiration but it doesn’t reflect the situation on the ground.”He added: “When it comes to being satisfied with the situation, when I meet people from my community I always hear concerns about increasing discrimination and racism, they’re worried about their socioeconomic status, an absence of jobs and housing so my own look at things encounters mostly worries about the future.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>'Green' Metra lot has Glen Ellyn trustee seeing red
hello
Glen Ellyn will be adding brick pavers to a new commuter parking lot and the adjoining sidewalk, but Trustee Diane McGinley voted against the project because she believes the pavers on the sidewalks could be a tripping hazard. Photo Courtesy Village of Glen Ellyn
A new Glen Ellyn commuter parking lot will be the first village-owned lot with permeable pavers, an environmentally friendly feature meant to reduce stormwater runoff.
The sidewalk in front of the new lot at 460-478 Duane Street will also have brick pavers -- ones that aren't permeable, but perhaps have an aesthetic advantage, as Glen Ellyn leaders try to spruce up the village's downtown streetscape.
One village trustee, however, is questioning whether the new walkways will be a potential tripping hazard for pedestrians.
"I do not believe this is a safe and effective method for our sidewalks," said Trustee Diane McGinley, who cast the lone vote this week against approval of a $575,000 construction contract for the new 47-space parking lot, sidewalks and related features. "There's runners, joggers, (and those in) wheelchairs and strollers who will not appreciate this new design."
Village planners are using the parking lot as a pilot project before considering full-scale implementation of a streetscape plan, which recommends brick paver sidewalks instead of concrete throughout downtown. The plan would encompass $10 million worth of projects such as new curbs, light poles and seatwalls, which are raised planters that would be adjacent to sidewalks.
The sidewalk fronting the new Duane Street parking lot would have three 12-foot brick paver panels.
Public Works Director Julius Hansen said the pavers would provide a "good test" to see if they should be expanded to the rest of downtown.
"It's probably better to do now as a test pilot than on a larger scale in the future," Hansen said. "We'll see how it holds up and if it passes everyone's inspections, then we can move forward with a bigger plan."
But McGinley told fellow village board members this week that she doesn't plan to support brick paver sidewalks throughout downtown now or in the future.
"I think if you go forward with this, next time you'll get a $10 million paver request for downtown and they will point to this and say, 'It works here, so bring it to the rest of downtown so it doesn't look like it's on its own,'" she said. "We'll be forced into a decision in the future."
McGinley also cited brick pavers that were installed on Pennsylvania Avenue; they are deteriorating and have required maintenance.
Hansen said those pavers were not installed correctly.
Even though Trustee Robert Friedberg voted in favor of the parking lot and sidewalk project, he noted the bricks could become hard to clean after heavy salting during the winter months. Even after pressure washing, he says, the bricks will have a white glaze.
Trustee Tim Elliott agreed with the concept of using the brick pavers in the Duane Street project as a test case for the rest of downtown.
"Let's do three panels. It's just three panels. Let's see what happens," Elliott said. "If we have unsightly white bricks that are knocking over old ladies, then we can do away with it."
The project is being funded in part by a $851,810 federal grant. After costs of land acquisition, design, construction and oversight are taken into account, the village will be responsible for paying about $280,000.
The village purchased the vacant land last year for $445,000 after the property went into foreclosure and was taken by a bank.
A proposed 7-unit row house development was approved by the village in May 2009, but it never came to fruition due to the recession.
As a condition of the federal grant, the village transferred ownership of the property to Metra. Should village officials later decide to use the property for another purpose, the commuter parking spaces would have to be relocated elsewhere in the downtown area.
The commuter spaces will be available to the public for free after 11 a.m. each day.
Construction is expected to be complete by November.I had been pondering adding needtobreathe as my new artist for 2014. Now I realize there was really no need to. These guys are awesome. Their music I'd say is a little Jars of Clay, Switchfoot and definitely Third Day like in some songs. I can't really get all their albums right now...but I settled on the heat...this one Rivers in the Wasteland...and The Outsiders which I haven't listened to yet but know it'll be good judging from the reviews I've read on that album. Ever since hearing Washed by the Water on Klove, I started getting interested off and on in their music. I'd say this will be a 2014 standout....Multiplied, as one other reviewer put it, is really awesome! Probably one of the best worship songs I've heard in a long time....certainly what i needed after a difficult day but would be perfect for good times as well. This group helps me remember a creativity lost in most Christian Music. yes it's called diversity and this album has that. I just found out that Third Day will be releasing an album later on in the year...but I tell you what, this album will become a benchmark for expectations. I find some of the albums that probably won't get the most radio play end up being my favorite kind of albums...and that's the way this one is. If you can...buy it!Professor John Banzhaf, public interest law professor at George Washington University Law School, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday about inauguration protesters being charged with felony rioting, as reported by Breitbart News. He examined how that could dissuade other violent rioters in the future.
Banzhaf said, “What can be done is changing the tone and saying that when you engage in serious criminal acts which hurt others … this may finally have a reasonable deterrent effect” on future mayhem.
Banzhaf also posted about the potential ramifications of this new prosecutorial approach in what he titled “DC Felony Prosecutions of Inauguration Day Rioters Will Deter Illegal Protests.”
Writes Banzhaf, “The threat of real prison time, and huge fines, will help deter many protesters who think engaging in criminal acts for a cause is appropriate, especially if the penalties are usually minor, if indeed they are even even imposed.”
“I think the bottom line is,” Banzhaf told Marlow, “they’re going to think twice when they’re facing serious prison time, as well as a major dollar fine.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:PORTLAND, Ore. -- Friends and family of Luccas McNeill continually describe him as 'goofy.'
"That's just who he was," said friend Jenna Dougherty. "He would crack jokes, make fun."
The memories of McNeill are all they have left to hold on to. They're still coming to terms with his puzzling murder and they're hoping for someone to reveal new information.
"We just want anybody who knows anything or who may have seen anything to please come forward," said Jordan Jay, McNeill's girlfriend of two years.
In an interview with KATU, McNeill's friends and family provided new information that hasn't been released by police. They say McNeill was working his regular job as a security guard Sunday night when he was shot and killed near Northeast 81st and Tillamook in Portland.
"Every life you take, you leave a mess behind," said Jay, in an apparent message to whoever killed her boyfriend. "This one in particular was such a generous, well-hearted person. There are hundreds of people whose lives are devastated.
Jay says McNeill functioned as a primary caregiver to his mother and sister, both emotionally and financially. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family.
Anyone with information about McNeill's murder is asked to call Portland police.This week Around The NFL ranked the AFC North the top division in the NFL. Part of the reasoning stems from our belief in the resurgence of the Baltimore Ravens after John Harbaugh's team was blown off course during an injury-riddled season.
A huge key to the Ravens' turnaround will be the health of Joe Flacco. The quarterback tore both his ACL and MCL in November.
At a celebrity basketball game sponsored by former teammate Torrey Smith on Saturday, Flacco said he has no timetable for a return, but believes he'll be back for training camp later in the summer.
Flacco added he's "getting better and better each week," per the Ravens official twitter account.
Would you like proof?
Here, Joe Flacco shooting some hoops:
Joe Flacco has a little hop back in his step. He said he's feeling great as he recovers from a torn ACL. https://t.co/3dXDDW2kTV â Garrett Downing (@gdowning14) April 2, 2016
Cross "watch awkward white dude shoot hoop" off your Saturday to-do list. (Side note: Flacco stood on the sideline during the actual game, in case there was concern he might play.)
Also of injury note on the Ravens, running back Justin Forsett said he's making progress (#offseasontrope) from a broken arm. Forsett said he's already started lifting weights, per the Baltimore Sun.
Speaking of which, I have some bench press reps to get in myself today.A Walpole man running for planning board in Saturday’s town election has been accused by an advocacy group of writing social media posts that are biased against Muslims and women.
George L. Hodges is unfit to hold public office, the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a strongly worded statement issued Thursday.
The group cited a Facebook post attributed to Hodges that read “New rule of thumb. If there’s a rag on your head. You want Americans dead.”
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“These shameful statements are beyond the pale for someone running for elected office,” said Dr. John Robbins, executive director of the council, in the statement.
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The rag, the statement said, is an apparent reference to the headscarf, or hijab, worn by Muslim women.
One of Hodges opponents in Saturday’s election is Sarah Khatib, a Muslim woman, the statement said.
Khatib could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
In an interview Thursday night, Hodges, 60, denied the allegations of bigotry.
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The realtor and musician said the “rag on your head” posting was an excerpt from a song he wrote condemning ISIS.
“I think, as artistic license, I stand by it,” said Hodges, a grandson of Syrian immigrants. “I’ve been called a rag-head. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, because people knew that I was Syrian. I didn’t cry about it.”
Hodges, said he is not anti-Muslim, but strongly opposes Islamic terrorists.
“I’m not anti-Muslim American,” said Hodges, a Syrian Orthodox Christian. “I’m anti-ISIS... and any kind of maliciousness against America or France or England or anything like that.”
In its statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations did not quote any of Hodges’s other Facebook posts. But the group called on the candidate to “recuse himself from the election.”
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“How could the public possibly expect an individual in such a position to treat Muslim individuals or business owners fairly and without discrimination?” Robbins asked in the statement.
Hodges has no plans to withdraw his candidacy, but acknowledged the controversy may hurt his chances.
He also said people have objected to lyrics he posted in March that were critical of the Women’s March held in January.
Millions of women marched in solidarity in cities around the world, including Boston, to protest the election of President Trump, whose remarks about groping women caught on audio in 2005 drew widespread condemnation during his campaign.
As they marched, many women donned pink “pussy hats” as an act of defiance against all forms of misogyny.
Hodges said he was criticized for lyrics to the effect of, “I watched with dread/ women marching with vaginas on their heads.”
He said he planned to mesh the lyrics with a video asserting that “women who are home taking care of their families, they wouldn’t be at this march,” and that the marchers “must be lacking something in their life.”
Regarding the pussy hats, Hodges said, “I just didn’t think people should be exposed to that, not even adults. I’m not anti-woman at all.... If my daughter thought I was a misogynist, she’d slap me upside the head.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobeExecutive Summary
To assess the Japanese experience, The Heritage Foundation reassembled a team of experts to evaluate Japan’s long-term efforts to recover from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and to prepare for future catastrophes. Based on extensive literature and interviews with Japanese officials and experts, the team identified four critical areas that affect response to a catastrophe: recovery and resiliency of critical infrastructure, environmental remediation, compensation and disaster assistance, and population resiliency. In each area, the team made key observations, determined findings, and developed recommendations for learning from Japan’s experience.
The following key lessons learned are essential for the United States in expanding its capacity to respond to catastrophes.
Recovery and Resiliency of Infrastructure
Implement the right transportation investment policy. A nation’s ability to restore critical infrastructure, particularly transportation, largely determines the pace of response to catastrophic disaster and is one of the most critical factors in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations in a disaster, affecting both evacuation and delivery of critical goods and services. In the United States, promoting deeper and more efficient investment in transportation infrastructure will require restructuring how the federal government partners with the states, including increasing flexibility in determining requirements and encouraging more private-sector investment and non-tax sources of revenue.
A nation’s ability to restore critical infrastructure, particularly transportation, largely determines the pace of response to catastrophic disaster and is one of the most critical factors in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations in a disaster, affecting both evacuation and delivery of critical goods and services. In the United States, promoting deeper and more efficient investment in transportation infrastructure will require restructuring how the federal government partners with the states, including increasing flexibility in determining requirements and encouraging more private-sector investment and non-tax sources of revenue. Invest in power generation, transmission, and distribution. Federal and state governments need to adopt measures to ensure the resilience of the U.S.–Canadian electrical grid, especially increasing the capacity and robustness of power generation and transmission to meet projected increases in demand. While electrical power generation has received substantial attention, transmission and distribution are just as important. Developing an adequate transmission infrastructure that provides reserve margins and operating capacity is vital. Government should not pick winners and losers, especially not in power generation. Every type of power plant—natural gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable sources—has a role to play. Government policies should rely on market forces and the private sector’s research and development capabilities to provide Americans with affordable and reliable power.
Environmental Remediation
Realize that all remediation is local. Developing a remediation framework before an event occurs would clearly help to mitigate the challenges by moderating expectations, establishing requirements for survey and monitoring, and establishing ways and means to mitigate the effects of hazardous materials. Therefore, learning from events in other countries in which different techniques and technology were used is essential, with the understanding that “what works in one country under certain conditions does not automatically work well in another country under the same or different conditions.” Successful remediation requires deciding what to clean up, how and when to clean it, and who will do the cleaning. A clear strategy is needed.
Developing a remediation framework before an event occurs would clearly help to mitigate the challenges by moderating expectations, establishing requirements for survey and monitoring, and establishing ways and means to mitigate the effects of hazardous materials. Therefore, learning from events in other countries in which different techniques and technology were used is essential, with the understanding that “what works in one country under certain conditions does not automatically work well in another country under the same or different conditions.” Successful remediation requires deciding what to clean up, how and when to clean it, and who will do the cleaning. A clear strategy is needed. Closely study the Japanese experience and apply appropriate “lessons learned.” The federal government should review its nuclear remediation plan to ensure a clear chain of command and list of responsibilities for each applicable agency and locality. While the U.S. should closely study the results of the Japanese experience, it should regularly review and update its plans to incorporate changes in best practices and to ensure a clear chain of command to prevent redundant or counterproductive actions during remediation.
Disaster Assistance and Compensation
Do not become dependent on Washington. Compensation models and procedures for implementing them under the conditions imposed by a mass catastrophe will be greatly influenced by numerous post-event factors, including the nature of the disaster, perceptions of liability, cultural and economic factors, and the extent of losses. In the wake of a disaster, enormous political pressure will likely be applied to script procedures to meet the perceived needs at the time. The best way to deal with the challenges and heart-wrenching losses of large-scale disaster is to put in place a framework before the event. In other words, the best strategy is to have a robust system for disaster compensation in place that places a maximum premium on individual responsibility.
The first step in addressing this issue is to ensure that unique compensation programs are limited to truly unique and catastrophic events and do not set a precedent for handling “normal” disasters. This is a particular concern in the United States, where the increasing frequency of federal disaster declarations is creating a new entitlement mentality that the federal government must play a larger role in recovery from any disaster.
Population Resiliency
The American people are the best responders. After a disaster, fear, anxiety, and mistrust can undermine the resiliency of the population more than physical destruction. There will likely never be enough mental health professionals to address the wide range of needs that appear after a catastrophic disaster. Thus, implementing measures to enhance the resiliency of the population beforehand and identifying means for self-help during and after a crisis are vital. Building strong, caring communities and establishing means for people to take care of themselves after a disaster are the best ways to mitigate the demand for mental health assistance after a catastrophe.
Before Disaster Strikes
In addition to these recommendations, this report makes several other important proposals on how to best prepare the American people to cope with catastrophic disasters. In most cases they involve government doing less, not more, and placing the responsibility for caring for communities where it belongs—on the communities themselves. The proposals reserve to the national government the responsibilities that only the national government can fulfill, focusing its activities on the most efficacious activities, rather than the most politically expedient acts.
Abstract: The lessons from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake are much the same as those the United States should have already learned from responding to its own large-scale disasters, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, and the events of 9/11. A team of experts assembled by The Heritage Foundation has identified four areas that are critical to responding to a catastrophe: recovery and resiliency of critical infrastructure, environmental remediation, compensation and disaster assistance, and population resiliency. Many of the team’s recommendations in these areas involve government doing less, not more, and placing the responsibility for caring for communities back on the communities themselves and reserving for the federal government the responsibilities that only the national government can fulfill.
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake rocked the coast of Japan. The quake also generated the largest recorded tsunami in modern Japanese history. The tsunami swept across the northeast coast of Japan causing massive loss of life and destruction, including severely damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, causing a release of radiation into the environment.
In the wake of the disaster, The Heritage Foundation organized a special task force consisting of The Heritage Foundation’s homeland security research team and a working group of outside experts. The task force published its report, “The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake: Assessing Disaster Response and Lessons for the U.S,”[1] in May 2011. This report made key observations on critical activities involved in responding to the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe, including preparedness and response, communicating risks, international assistance, and restoring critical infrastructure. In each area the task force made recommendations for preparing for catastrophic events as well as routine disasters in the United States.
One year later, the Japanese effort to recover from the destruction wrought by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake continues to yield important lessons. Further, the Japanese have dedicated renewed attention to preparing for future disasters. Using recent seismographic data, a research team at the University of Tokyo has concluded that the March 2011 seismic event has increased the risk of a major earthquake in the country’s most densely populated metropolitan area. The team calculated a 70 percent probability of a devastating earthquake in Tokyo over the next four years. Such an earthquake would directly and immediately affect 5 million people. Planning for such catastrophic disasters is a daunting challenge. How Japan has chosen to respond is affecting not only the nation’s capacity to deal with future disaster, but also the character of its society and its political economy.
Assessing the response to catastrophic disaster of such an advanced economy as Japan is valuable to the United States. Developed nations have superior capacity to prepare for, mitigate, and respond to disasters. As a 2010 study notes, high-income nations respond better to catastrophic disasters than low-income or middle-income countries. Wealthy countries also recover more quickly.[2] That said, there is little cause for complacency. Citizens have high expectations that governments will respond quickly and effectively after a disaster, expectations that could be difficult to satisfy in the wake of a major catastrophe. Affluent societies can best deal with catastrophes by building strong, self-reliant, and resilient communities and by exploiting the innovative and adaptive capacity of free economies.
To assess the Japanese experience, The Heritage Foundation reassembled a team of experts to evaluate Japan’s long-term efforts to recover from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and to prepare for future catastrophes. Based on extensive literature and interviews with Japanese officials and experts, the team identified four critical areas that affect the aftermath of catastrophic response:
Recovery and resiliency of critical infrastructure,
Environmental remediation,
Compensation and disaster assistance, and
Population resiliency.
In each area, the team made key observations, determined findings, and developed recommendations for learning from Japan’s experience.
I. Recovery and Resiliency of Critical Infrastructure
A nation’s physical assets are the foundation of effective governance, economic vitality, and a resilient civil society. Agriculture, food, water, public health, emergency services, government, the industrial base, information and telecommunications, energy, transportation, banking and finance, and other key assets—such as nuclear power plants, dams, government buildings, and commercial facilities—are vital to everyday life in a modern society. With the massive destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami, Japan faced daunting challenges in reconstituting critical infrastructure.
Observation #1: The Japanese organized a massive response to re-establish critical infrastructure, particularly essential transportation systems.
The Japanese cabinet office reported that the overall infrastructure damage on March 11, 2011, totaled $44 billion, including damage to railways, roadways, and other transportation hubs, which could not be operated safely or were closed for repairs. In particular, about 76 percent of the highways in the area were closed due to damage. Additionally, approximately 600 miles of Japan’s high-speed rail network suspended operation.[3]
Because the destruction was largely limited to northeast Japan, it was possible to deploy resources from other parts of the country to aid in the rebuilding and recovery. If the disaster had been more widespread, the result would have been calamitous.
Immediately after the disaster, the government established an emergency response team headed by the prime minister. Within one day, the Ministry of Defense dispatched assistance, including 110,000 active and reserve troops and 28,000 police. This was followed by an aggressive clearing and reconstruction effort. As a result, almost 100 percent of the affected highways were functional within two weeks. Railways were running after 40 days.[4]
Despite the pace of recovery, vulnerable populations—small children, the aged, chronically ill, the poor, and pets, who are less resilient in the wake of disasters—suffered disproportionately. Difficulty in reaching and evacuating vulnerable populations due to impassable roads was a major challenge.
Finding: A nation’s ability to restore critical infrastructure, particularly transportation, largely determines the pace of response to catastrophic disaster and is one of the most critical factors in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations in a disaster, affecting both evacuation and delivery of critical goods and services.
After the disaster, there is no substitute for an organized national effort to restore infrastructure in the affected region.[5] However, before the disaster, much can be done to ensure that modern societies can cope with catastrophes. A well-maintained infrastructure with sufficient capacity to meet the nation’s needs and a robust commercial construction sector that can surge in response to regional disaster offer the best strategy for mitigation and recovery.
The United States has underinvested in the most important components of the national transportation system, such as infrastructure (e.g., bridges and roads). Some estimates indicate that bringing America’s highways up to an acceptable standard would cost an additional $78 billion per year and just sustaining the current level of quality would cost $27 billion per year.[6] More investment in road networks that connect to rail terminals, seaports, and airports is essential to providing the capacity, redundancy, and flexibility required for the free flow of trade and travel. Both intercoastal waterways and the expansion of commercial rail freight offer additional opportunities for expanding the resiliency of U.S. transportation networks.[7]
The management of U.S. transportation infrastructure is highly decentralized. The federal government with its misplaced priorities and pervasive inequities is poorly organized to play a supporting role. For example, Congress spends more than 20 percent of highway trust fund spending (and motorist fuel taxes) on transit systems, which serve only 5 percent of the nation’s passengers. The formulas used to redistribute federal fuel tax revenues back to the states are biased in favor of slow-growing states in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions, which receive larger shares from the trust fund than they contribute. By contrast, states in the Southeast and West, which are growing much faster than the nation as a whole, receive less than they contribute.
Recommendation: In the United States, promoting deeper and more efficient investments in transportation infrastructure requires significantly restructuring how the federal government partners with the states, including increasing flexibility in determining requirements and encouraging more private-sector investment and non-tax sources of revenue.
The U.S. federal highway program should be modified to allow states maximum flexibility in spending their share of federal |
tail, they measure only three-and-one-half-inches long. The male golden-crowned kinglet has a conspicuous yellow-orange crown; the female has a yellow crown. Both have a white stripe over the eye.
You can see both the golden-crowned kinglet and the ruby-crowned kinglet here on Mount Desert Island. As its name implies, the ruby-crowned kinglet has a ruby crown. They are quite tame, and you usually can get quite close to them. With their colorful crowns showing, there is no doubt what they are. Kinglets belong to a sub-family of old world warblers. They have long, fluffy, thick plumage and are not bothered by cold weather. It is fun to watch them in the winter, stuffing themselves with insect food found in many tiny hiding places. Not all kinglets stay north in the winter, for some decide to leave us and even wander a far away as Guatemala.
Keep watching at this season for a bird called the Lapland longspur. This special bird coming to us in the winter is from the Arctic and northern Canada. In the winter, it does appear in central North America. They are a bird to look for on the ground in barren places, and they often are seen here with flocks of snow buntings. The bird’s crown, face, upper throat and chest are black. Down the side of the head and neck is a white stripe. Its neck is bright red. Check this one out in your bird book. In the winter, it can be seen south as far as Virginia. The Lapland longspur breeds far to the north and is nice winter visitor to see here. They also keep company with horned larks, another nice bird to see here in the winter. Right now is a good time to watch for these visitors.Activists hold signs during a news conference on April 15, 2011, on Capitol Hill. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, would draw on Medicare's financially distressed trust fund to put money back in the pockets of some of the country's richest people.
Republicans would repeal the Medicare tax, a 0.9 percent surcharge on annual salaries of at least $200,000 for individual taxpayers or $250,000 for married couples. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that over a decade, repealing the tax would forego $117 billion that those wealthy households are currently expected to pay into the trust fund, which is used to cover the costs of health care for elderly Americans.
Repealing the tax would put the fund into “crisis mode,” said Andrew Slavitt, a former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama. Slavitt said the fund could be exhausted as soon as 2024 because of the changes, when President Trump might still be in office.
Other Democratic experts joined in the criticism of the Republican plan.
“How could you possibly look out at America and decide that the problem is that rich people don’t have enough money and the Medicare trust fund is too flush?” asked Jared Bernstein, who was chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Lauren Blair Aronson, the Republican press secretary for the House Ways and Means Committee, argued for other solutions than taxation to Medicare's financial trouble.
“Keeping Obamacare’s job-killing taxes that discourage work rather than reward it is not the answer,” she said in a statement.
The Medicare tax is one of a number of taxes levied under the Affordable Care Act that Republicans would repeal retroactively in the revised version of their bill. These taxes primarily fall on wealthy households and the health-care industry. For instance, the list includes fees on insurance companies, prescription and over-the-counter medication, and medical devices.
If the tax is not repealed, Medicare's trustees predict that the fund will be exhausted in 2028. Should the fund run out, Medicare would have to rely solely on the money that the Internal Revenue Service withholds from each new paycheck, which would be enough to cover only about 87 percent of its beneficiaries' medical expenses going forward, per the projections.
Aronson said that GOP lawmakers had described their plan for improving Medicare's finances last year in a white paper produced by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and his colleagues.
That document calls for converting Medicare benefits into a system of coupons that recipients could use to purchase private plans. Those in or near retirement, according to the GOP proposal, would have the option of taking Medicare as it exists now. (The GOP plan refers to this reform as “premium support.” Slavitt called this kind of system “vouchers,” using the term favored by opponents.)
The document also criticizes the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for reducing reimbursements to hospitals and clinics for treating patients on Medicare.
Those reductions should save Medicare about $802 billion over a decade, according to the CBO. The authors of the GOP white paper repeatedly called that ACA provision a “raid,” arguing that the reduced payments would discourage doctors from taking patients with Medicare. The GOP bill to undo the ACA, however, would maintain those reductions.
Republicans had initially planned to repeal the surtax beginning next year, but in a series of changes to their bill to undo Obamacare GOP lawmakers announced Monday, the tax would be repealed retroactively to Jan. 1.
The rich, however, already have been paying the Medicare tax in the weeks since the beginning of the year. Employees pay the Medicare tax with every new paycheck, when the amount they owe is withheld from their paychecks.
As a result, that retroactive provision will require the government to refund those taxpayers on the payments they have made. The details of how those affluent taxpayers will be refunded are not specifically addressed in Republicans' amendment to their legislation.
Ed Kleinbard, a legal scholar at the University of Southern California, said that if Republicans are concerned about the political implications of withdrawing money from the trust fund to refund the rich, lawmakers could add a provision to instead pay back those taxpayers using general revenue.A 40-year-old woman was spotted yesterday tied up outside at a meat market in Nanning, Guangxi province. Vendors say that they bound the woman to teach her a lesson because she was always stealing something.
After the woman was caught yesterday pilfering some meat, it was apparently the final straw for vendors at the local market, who proceeded to tie her up to a bike rack and tape a piece of paper to her back reading, “I am a thief who steals pork and mutton!”
Local police eventually arrived to rescue the woman and take her to the police station.
The act of public humiliation has generated a heated debate on the Chinese internet with many saying that the vendor’s treatment of the woman was simply inhumane, while others called the punishment justified.
“What kind of country do we live in that this could happen to someone? Where is the ‘Rule of Law,'” questioned one netizen from Hubei.
“I applaued this punishment. If she did not want to be publicly humiliated, then she should not have committed theft,” argued another netizen from Shandong.
Last month, a mother in Zhejiang paraded her runaway teenage son through the streets in chains.
Officially, public humiliation has been used recently as a form of punishment in China, specifically to shame jaywalkers by forcing them to “wear the green hat.”
[Images via Sina]
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PrintThere were the meals, golf, drinks, parties and an event described as a “casino and karaoke night.” And then there were the prizes, including Apple Watches and a two-night stay at a luxury resort.
It almost sounds like the kind of all-expenses-included getaway advertised to tourists on the mainland.
But this was something called the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials.
Its attendees and sponsors included some of the most powerful business interests in the state who had the chance to hobnob with the kind of government officials who have a profound influence on issues that affect them.
State and county laws have strict rules about government officials receiving gifts, particularly if it appears those gifts could have an influence on their actions. But conferences like the three-day planning retreat held last month on Kauai show how special interests are still able to wine and dine an array of public officials.
Flickr: David Brooks
Dan Gluck, executive director of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, which enforces state ethics laws, said he could not comment specifically on the event on Kauai. But he said generally that acceptance of “even modest gifts of aloha may pose ethics concerns,” particularly if the people receiving the gifts have the power to regulate businesses or hand out state contracts.
“Similarly, gifts from vendors or contractors tend to raise significant concerns,” Gluck said.
The list of attendees for the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials, which was given to Civil Beat by Kauai County last week, reads like a who’s who of Hawaii’s business elite.
There were executives from Hawaii’s largest private landowner and a major luxury developer, lobbyists from one of the state’s oldest and best-known agricultural and real estate companies, representatives of the political arm of the construction industry, and partners with politically connected law firms.
Also in attendance were government officials like members of the state Land Use Commission, Office of Planning, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and Department of Transportation; as well as planners, engineers, inspectors and supervisors from all four counties and several members of the Kauai County Council.
Most notorious, this was also the conference where Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi was caught on camera delivering an alcohol-infused and profanity-laced tribute to Bernard Carvalho Jr., the mayor of Kauai. The party in a hotel hospitality suite was paid for by “sponsors and individuals,” say Kauai County officials.
Panel Sessions And Loopholes
The Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials drew about 340 people to the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa on Sept. 21-23.
The conference included a number of events that would be expected at a gathering of government officials, like speeches, panel discussions and workshops. Kauai County, which hosted the conference, described some of the perks of attending on its website and in a program for the event.
There was a drawing where prizes included three Apple Watches and a two-night stay at the Four Seaons Resort Oahu at Ko Olina. Attendees could also win an unspecified prize for best costume at a reception on the first night of the conference. Several meals were included with the conference as well as a yoga session, an event described as “pau hana popcorn and libations” and another called “casino and karaoke night.” “Mahalo” gifts to speakers and presenters included Koloa Rum and Anahola Granola, both Kauai companies.
“If something feels wrong, it probably is.” — State Ethics Commission Director Dan Gluck
For an extra fee of $100, attendees could also sign up for a Na Pali boat tour, which included transportation, sea cave exploration, snorkel equipment, flotation devices, snacks, lunch, drinks and towels. A five-hour group tour by the same company typically costs $140 per person for adults.
For $85, they could golf at the resort’s Poipu Bay Golf Course, which included green fees, golf cart and lunch. Regular rates at the course run from $135 to $250.
Sarah Blane, a spokesperson for Kauai County, said attendees paid their own way to the conference and that the event came at almost no cost to taxpayers “with the exception of staff time and office supplies used for registration.”
But the funding was offset through corporate sponsorship from major builders, developers and land owners, including D.R. Horton Hawaii, SSFM International, Alexander & Baldwin, R.M. Towill Corp. and Kamehameha Schools.
Registration was open to the public at a cost of roughly $400 per person, according to Kauai. Companies could sponsor the conference at tiers starting at $1,000 and rising to $5,000. Blane said the sponsors helped offset the cost of the conference while registration fees and sponsorships paid for the use of the facility, meals, materials and travel expenses for speakers and presenters coming from the mainland.
Sponsors were listed by name in the conference program, which also included corporate logos and in some cases advertisements.
The conference program used the perks as a way to promote topics that otherwise might seem dry, like workshops on geographic information systems:
This year’s pre-conference mobile and GIS workshops are all about Kakou — working together in partnership to create renewable energy, effectively manage our coastal and ocean resources, generate community revitalization, and preserve community identity and history. From sailing the majestic Na Pali out west to biking along Ke Ala Hele Makalae Shared Coastal Path in the east, we’ve pulled out all the stops to make your first experience at HCPO engaging, inspirational, and fun!
What Ethics Laws Say About Gifts
The companies and county defended the congress as an invaluable way for planners to meet with colleagues to talk about how they can improve the planning process, receive updates on laws and technology, and discuss pressing issues and projects.
They said private sponsorship is common, legal and encouraged. The planning conference is an annual event that rotates among the four counties.
Here is what the state Code of Ethics, known as Chapter 84, says about gifts:
No legislator or employee shall solicit, accept, or receive, directly or indirectly, any gift, whether in the form of money, service, loan, travel, entertainment, hospitality, thing, or promise, or in any other form, under circumstances in which it can reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence the legislator or employee in the performance of the legislator’s or employee’s official duties or is intended as a reward for any official action on the legislator’s or employee’s part.
Similar language is in county charters, including Kauai’s.
At the state level, recipients must report any gifts totaling $200, individually or in aggregate, to the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.
State laws on lobbying, known as Chapter 97, say that expenditures of $750 or more “for the purpose of attempting to influence legislative or administrative action or a ballot issue by communicating or urging others to communicate with public officials” must be reported.
The expenditures include entertainment and events; receptions, meals, food and beverages; and gifts.
The head of the agency tasked with enforcing the state Code of Ethics said it is important for government officials to understand what the law says.
“We do not have all the details regarding the event on Kauai, but in any situation where state employees receive a gift – including free food and drinks – the Hawaii State Ethics Commission usually looks at three factors: value, donor relationship and state purpose,” said Gluck.
If the state official receiving the gift regulates or investigates the person or business giving the gift, Gluck said the state Ethics Code “generally prohibits acceptance,” with some exceptions.
“Generally, we advise state officials to follow their instincts when it comes to ethics issues,” he said. “If there is a front-page news story about what you’ve done – accepting a gift, attending some event, and so on – would you be proud or would you be embarrassed?
“If something feels wrong, it probably is. If you are not sure, call the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, and we would be happy to advise you.”
Corie Tanida, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii, questioned whether some conference activities such as boat tours, golfing and expensive freebies were “within the spirit” of state and county ethics codes.
Her group works to curb the excess influence of money in politics and to ensure government serves the common good rather than special interests.
“It is concerning, because we do place our trust in government officials — not just elected officials but employees,” she said. “Everybody has to follow the state code or the code of their respective county. It specifically says we place trust in officials, so they in turn are held to the highest ethical standards.”
Tanida said she did not know all the facts of the Kauai conference, and she deferred to the Ethics Commission regarding possible violations.
But she also noted that the ethics codes make clear that government officials “should avoid the appearance of impropriety.”
An inquiry to the Kauai County Board of Ethics was referred to the county’s public information office.
Jan Yamane, executive director of the Honolulu Ethics Commission, said she could not comment on the specifics of the Kauai conference.
“But we do encourage city elected officials and employees to reach out to us for advice and to help answer any questions,” she said.
Private Sponsorship Is Common
The Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials is an informal group comprised of various county planning departments as well as other planning-related and land-use agencies. Its purpose, according to Kauai County, is to organize the annual conferences.
Blane, the county spokesperson, said in an email state ethics do not apply to counties, “as each county has its own Ethics Code.”
Regardless, she said the county followed its own rules regarding ethics:
The Planning Department followed the County Code of Ethics when preparing for the conference, as it fully disclosed the sponsors and in-kind donors who helped to make the conference possible. Regarding the Mahalo gifts, we purposefully worked only with business participants in the County’s Office of Economic Development’s “Kauai Made” program to provide a marketing opportunity for homegrown products. Items for speakers and presenters were clearly disclosed in the conference brochure.
“It is not new, nor uncommon, for private industry to sponsor government events,” Blane said.
Other examples, she said, include the 2016 Maui Energy Conference, hosted by the Maui County Office of Economic Development and the Maui Economic Development Board, the latter a nonprofit.
The Maui Energy Conference brought energy experts and stakeholders from across the country “to learn about the latest advances in clean energy” and how Hawaii plans to achieve a renewable portfolio standard of 100 percent.
Major sponsors included the electric companies of three counties and NextEra Energy of Florida, which at the time was seeking state approval to purchase Hawaiian Electric Industries, the parent company of the three utilities. Lower-tiered sponsors included SunEdison, Hitachi, Pacific Biodiesel and Ulupono Initiative, which was founded by Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Pierre Omidyar is the CEO and publisher of Civil Beat.
Another example she pointed to: The World Conservation Congress, although the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which put on the event in Honolulu this year, is not a government agency, nor does it have direct business with the state.
Sponsors of the IUCN conference included several foundations, such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Hawaii Community Foundation (the recipient of a $50 million Omidyar donation in 2009) as well as Ulupono, Dell, Shell, Kamehameha Schools and Outrigger Hotels and Resorts.
“It is not new, nor uncommon, for private industry to sponsor government events.” — Kauai County Spokesperson Sarah Blane
Blane said Kauai County is encouraged to reach out to the private sector for events like the planning conference.
She pointed to a section of the Kauai County Charter that states: “In the performance of its functions, each department shall cooperate with private organizations and with organizations of the governments of the United States, the State, and any other state, and with any of their political subdivisions having similar functions.”
Hotel rooms to accommodate conference staff, she explained, were included in the conference package with the Hyatt which included the use of ballrooms, meeting rooms and other facilities.
“Conferences, such as the annual HCPO conference, the Maui Energy Conference and the like, give those from a wide array of backgrounds and areas of expertise an opportunity to collaborate and have in-depth discussions on critical issues that affect the state,” said Blane. “This year’s ‘Tao of Planning’ themed conference intentionally created an environment that fostered creativity, which is a critical component of solving serious and complex issues, such as land use, housing and transportation planning.”
‘Proud’ Sponsors
The chief sponsor of the planning congress this year was Kaiser Permanente, the health care company that is working to take control of three state medical facilities in Maui County.
Blane said Kaiser “is not an organization that would typically be suspected of ‘lobbying’ the county Planning Department. Further, all conferees and speakers were treated equally, regardless of whether they were from the private or public sector.”
Civil Beat contacted all the sponsors listed in the congress’s program. A handful responded, most with prepared statements.
Kaiser spokeswoman Laura Lott wrote that the company chose to become a sponsor to support planning that included facilities to encourage healthy habits.
Cory Lum/Civil Beat
“Our funding of the Kauai event was specifically to support keynote speaker and conference sessions in alignment with our broader community planning efforts e.g. bike paths, walkable communities, safe school routes, transportation, age-friendly, etc.,” she wrote.
Law firm Carlsmith Ball, with offices throughout Hawaii and in Los Angeles, takes part in a variety of conferences that address community issues. The firm handles real estate and land development, and helps clients draft legislation and secure government contracts, among other practice areas.
“We believe the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials provides an opportunity for leaders across government, business and nonprofit organizations to come together in an open forum to meet, learn, and collaborate,” the company wrote in a prepared statement. “We are proud to join the other corporate sponsors in supporting these discussions. “
Honolulu real estate developer Alexander & Baldwin is proud to have sponsored the event for decades, spokesperson Tran Chinery wrote.
“This year’s event was sponsored by 17 organizations, including A&B, with funds covering general conference expenses for the benefit of all attendees, not public planning officials specifically,” she wrote.
Sponsors See A ‘Valuable’ Opportunity
In an interview, Michael Matsumoto, president of SSFM International, said the congress was a chance for peers in the planning community to talk. The company manages projects and provides planning services. It’s also one of the contractors for the Honolulu rail project, the largest public works project in state history. The rail project has come under fire for going over-budget and facing significant delays.
Matsumoto said organizers send out a flier every year to potential sponsors. For several years, SSFM has agreed to take part.
“Every organization makes a decision about supporting activities in the community,” he said.
Steve Colón, president of the Hawaii Region for Hunt Companies, wrote in a prepared statement that the developer has underwritten the conference for many years “to encourage and enhance our employees’ continuing education. We find it a valuable conference to learn about new developments with urban planning in Hawaii.” Hunt paid for general conference expenses, not any specific event.
Representatives of Monsanto, Belt Collins Hawaii, Group 70 International, PBR Hawaii & Associates, The Resort Group, Queen Liliuokalani Trust, Wilson Okamoto Corp., Watanabe Ing, CH2M, CBRE and Pacific Resource Partnership also participated at the event, according to Kauai County.
Kauai County
Kauai County officials said it is essential for government officials to interact with the private sector.
“Government is tasked with creating public policy that affects each and every one of our citizens, visitors and businesses,” said Blane, the county spokesperson. “For government to work in a silo would be irresponsible and against the best interest of the community we serve. Many great initiatives have failed simply due to a lack of community engagement, partnership and collaboration.”
A change in ethics laws could be in the works.
Gluck, who took office office as director of the state Ethics Commission on Aug. 1, has been meeting with department heads, lobbyists, community organizations and others to solicit feedback on “what is working and what is not” with the ethics code and lobbying laws.
Possible policy and statute changes could be addressed at an Ethics Commission public meeting Oct. 20.
Read the full list of conference attendees:Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton lashed out at the media Friday, united in their distaste for recent press coverage of Malia Obama.
"Malia Obama should be allowed the same privacy as her school aged peers. She is a young adult and private citizen, and should be OFF limits," current first daughter Ivanka Trump wrote on Twitter Friday.
Malia Obama should be allowed the same privacy as her school aged peers. She is a young adult and private citizen, and should be OFF limits. — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 24, 2017
Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, implored news organizations to "be better."
"Malia Obama’s private life, as a young woman, a college student, a private citizen, should not be your clickbait. Be better," she tweeted.
Malia Obama’s private life, as a young woman, a college student, a private citizen, should not be your clickbait. Be better. — Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) November 24, 2017
Obama, 19, made tabloid headlines twice in the past week.
On Friday, a video went viral of a young woman resembling former President Barack Obama's eldest daughter blowing smoke rings.
Earlier, the Harvard University freshman was photographed kissing a fellow Crimson fan at a tailgate prior to a football game against Yale University.
This is not the first time Chelsea Clinton has leapt to the defense of first children.
She previously upbraided the Daily Caller for an opinion piece it published in August chastising President Trump's youngest son Barron Trump for the way he dressed.Actor Shia LaBeouf says he was raped during his performance art exhibit, #IAmSorry, in a Los Angeles gallery. The actor opened up about the incident in an email interview with Dazed Digital this week.
LaBeouf's exhibit, which ran for three weeks in February, featured the actor sitting in a room alone with a paper bag over his head that read, "I am not famous anymore." People were able to enter the room and do or say whatever they wanted to LaBeouf, who sat there silently.
But according to LaBeouf, one viewer took advantage of his artistic efforts:
"One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me.... There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with disheveled hair and smudged lipstick."
According to LaBeouf, when the woman exited the room, whispers of the incident quickly spread down the line of people waiting outside, eventually reaching his girlfriend who then came to check on him.
"When she came in she asked for an explanation, and I couldn't speak, so we both sat with this unexplained trauma silently. It was painful."
It's an extremely troubling story.
So far, reactions have ranged from the dismissive to the outright cynical. Some brushed his allegations off as part of his troubled mental state:
I think we're witnessing the beginning of Shia LaBeouf's mental breakdown. This rape allegation is just plain weird.
And others cast his accusations as a publicity stunt:
Does Shia LaBeouf not realise that rape is real and traumatic? It's not just something people say in an effort to stay relevant. #fuckwit
But there are multiple issues at play here. While America continues to talk predominantly about rape as a women's issue, research shows that women are by no means the only people victimized by sexual violence. We need to treat male claims of female rape with the same level of scrutiny and seriousness as we treat female claims.
On the other hand, if LaBeouf is lying about this incident — either as a publicity stunt or as part of his "performance art" — that is an equally serious problem. Rape is not a joke and it's certainly not a PR stunt. More importantly, false reports perpetuate the debunked idea that large numbers of people "cry rape," doing a huge disservice to real rape victims in the process.
LaBeouf deserves the benefit of the doubt, but a bombshell claim like that deserves clarification, especially given its implications for victims. LaBeouf also may not have reported the incident to police, something that is not uncommon with sexual assault victims. He also has a history of instability and addiction — but again, these facts don't inherently invalidate his claims. Indeed, the impulse to use past histories of emotional issues or substance abuse has long been a tactic of defense attorneys and rape apologists.
The fact that some people judge LaBeouf an "unreliable source" has no bearing on the veracity of his allegations. If true, this is a tragedy for the young actor. If false, however, this is also a serious problem. Whatever happens, the response cannot be to simply laugh and move on.safc.com’s Oscar Chamberlain recaps all the action from Easter Road as Sunderland continued their 2017-18 pre-season campaign with a tough-tackling four-goal encounter against SPL side Hibernian.
SUMMARY
After fighting back from a 2-0 deficit on Friday evening, Sunderland themselves went from heroes to zeroes as the Black Cats squandered a two-goal lead against Hibernian on Sunday. Wahbi Khazri dazzled in the opening 45 minutes and the wing wizard was rewarded with a goal four minutes before the break, as Billy Jones’ never-say-die attitude paid off and the Tunisian volleyed home his excellent cross. Jeremain Lens returned to red and white with a goal six minutes into his return as fellow substitute Rees Greenwood supplied a classy assist, but the drama was far from over. With 69 minutes played Martin Boyle raced clear before squeezing the ball past Mika at this near post, and three minutes later they were level as Simon Murray finished from close range after good work from David Gray. A stunning intervention from Adam Matthews prevented Hibs from completing the comeback with the woodwork also coming to Sunderland’s rescue in a feisty encounter at Easter Road.
SUNSHINE ON LEITH
Well, not really. A dark and gloomy day in Edinburgh did little to discourage the red and white army, though, with over 1,000 Sunderland fans traveling up to Easter Road for the Lads’ second pre-season outing. Simon Grayson called upon Josh Maja from the first whistle with the 18-year-old, who scored twice at Bury, leading the line, as Elliot Embleton also came into the starting XI after helping England under-20s win the Toulon Tournament. Meanwhile, Lewis Stevenson captained Hibernian in his testimonial as the defender celebrated 17 years at the club. And there was also a blast from the past within the Hibs ranks, with former Arsenal and Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant amongst the substitutes.
TRADING BLOWS
A confident start from Sunderland saw Wahbi Khazri and Maja combine to mouth-watering effect. The former picked up the ball on the edge of his own box and skipped past one, two, three Hibs defenders before sliding the ball into the path of Maja. The 18-year-old still had it all to do, but he made it look easy, weaving his way past two defenders before being scythed to ground as he looked to pull the trigger from 18 yards. Khazri stepped up and, with a little help from the wall, saw his free-kick crash against the crossbar before George Honeyman was crowded out and the home side cleared. Dylan McGeough had Hibs’ first sight at goal shortly after, but Vito Mannone had it covered and watched on as the midfielder’s low drive whistled past the post.
PULLING THE STRINGS
Khazri continued to impress throughout the opening 45 minutes and he was at the heart of Sunderland’s best play in the final third. The Tunisian was electric on the counter and refused to give the Hibs backline a moments rest, with the movement of Jack Rodwell and Maja also causing problems whenever Khazri was on the ball. A cheeky dummy from George Honeyman from Khazri’s threaded pass saw Rodwell turn and fire at goal before the break, but the Black Cats finally got their reward with 41 minutes played. And, unsurprisingly it was Khazri who struck. A superb recovery from Billy Jones saw the defender somehow keep the ball in and find a cross, and what a delivery it was a Khazri arrived bang on que to steer the ball beyond Ofir Marciano from eight yards.
BACK WITH A BANG
Sunderland made 11 changes at the interval as the likes of John O’Shea, Didier Ndong and new signing Brendan Galloway made their first appearances of the campaign, but it was the return of another which caught the eye. Just six minutes into this first appearance for the club in almost a year, Jeremain Lens sent a sumptuous finish into the back of the net following an inventive backheel from Rees Greenwood. And it was no more than the Black Cats deserved with Lee Cattermole bossing the midfielder – and the game – following the restart.
TWIST IN THE TALE
Simon Grayson’s side were cruising with 68 minutes played but within the blink of an eye the home side struck twice and set up and intriguing finale. Despite it still being early in pre-season, the Sunderland won’t have been pleased by the ease with which Hibs found a route back into the game, with Boyle springing the offside trap before squeezing the ball past Mika at his near post after 69 minutes. And three minutes later the sides were level, as the Black Cats switched off again and allowed Gray to flash the ball across goal where Murray simply couldn’t miss. Last-ditch defending followed for the Black Cats with Matthews providing a moment of defensive brilliance before Oli Shaw clattered the woodwork. But it was a more than satisfying afternoon’s work from the Lads, who capped off a tough week with more valuable minutes.
Referee: Gavin Duncan
Attendance: 9,309
Hibernian: Marciano, Gray (Murray, 75), McGregor, Fontaine (Pennant, 59), Bartley (Shaw, 75), McGinn, Boyle, Murray (Martin, 75), McGeouch (Graham, 59), Swanson (Porteous, 59), Stevenson.
Subs: Laidlaw, Crane.
Sunderland XI [first-half]: Mannone, Love, Djilobodji, Kone, Jones, Gibson, Rodwell, Embleton, Honeyman, Khazri, Maja.
Sunderland XI [second-half]: Mika, Matthews, O’Shea, Beadling, Galloway, E Robson, Cattermole, Ndong, Greenwood, Gooch, Lens.Courtesy of a late June trade, Anze Kopitar was presented with a new port-side offensive weapon. The reputation of power forward Milan Lucic, who took part in his first official practice with the club Friday morning, had already preceded him.
“The first reaction [to the trade] was that obviously he’s a big, strong man and my first thought was that he’s going to fit really well into our system because we do play that big and physical game,” he said. “If you look at him on the ice, that’s what he stands for.”
The kick: both Kopitar and Lucic are due to become unrestricted free agents come July 1 – something that neither forward appeared to be preoccupied by.
“I think the main thing here is to try to not make it a distraction, just worry about the things you can control. That’s going out there and being the best player you can be for your team,” Lucic said. “In a perfect scenario, this would be a place I could see myself playing out the rest of my career. Again, obviously it’s no secret I’m on the last year of my contract and going into a summer where I could potentially be a UFA, but at the end of the day, I’m not too too worried about that. I’m worried about the team’s success because what I learned over my eight years so far when the teams have success, individuals have success and everything takes care of itself after that.”
Kopitar, who predates Lucic by one year in terms of NHL seniority, also exuded a sage approach to his own negotiations.
“You don’t think about it too much,” he said. “I’ve said it all along, it’d be nice if it was done before the season. But if not, it’s really not that big of a deal. There’s still plenty of time left in that regard, too.”
Kopitar said that while he hadn’t thought about whether he’d be open to continuing contract talks into the season should an agreement not be reached, he wasn’t too concerned about the state of the negotiations at a very early stage. He also is cognizant of the direction of the talks.
“We’ve got discussions, obviously,” he said about his communication with agent Pat Brisson. “He tells me everything that’s going on. There’s my input in there, too. It’s a two-way street.”
Other players whose contracts end on July 1 and would be eligible to become unrestricted free agents are Trevor Lewis, Christian Ehrhoff, Jhonas Enroth, Jamie McBain, Jeff Schultz and Brian O’Neill. Brayden McNabb is due to become a restricted free agent.
Anze Kopitar, on whether he can use the extra time off to his advantage this season:
It’s great. During the summer you just have time where you can prepare slowly and probably more detailed than you would in the short offseason like we had the last few years. So again, rest is a big part of the preparation and the offseason training, too. So that helped us a lot.
Kopitar, on how the roster for the upcoming season feels different:
I don’t think it’s too big of a difference. We lost a few guys, we got a few guys, but the identity is still the same. Our style of play is still going to be the same. So I don’t think you’re going to see a whole lot of difference when we step out on the ice.
Kopitar, on replacing Justin William’s leadership role in the room:
I don’t think it’s just one guy that can come in and pick up where Justin left for us. … Certainly there’s going to be some adjustments, but we’re going to do that as we go along and obviously that’s what training camp is for. We’re going to work on it.
Kopitar, on whether there is a different energy at training camp:
The energy was never bad. Maybe it’s a little bit different because coming into camps the last three years, the roster was pretty much set. So it’s tough maybe on the younger guys knowing that, but I’m sure they’re eager and they want to prove themselves and us older guys still have to show that we’ve got it. So it’s a good mix.
Kopitar, on how the team can integrate the younger players onto the team:
Just make them feel as comfortable as we possibly can. There’s a lot of guys right now, but as we start going down towards the team roster number, then you get to know the guys a little bit better and it certainly helps.
-Stick tap to Joshua Cooper of Puck Daddy for the Lucic |
to say that these users are stupid. Quite the contrary, they are probably highly intelligent, or maybe they are accomplished athletes, but vis-à-vis your program, they are just not applying all of their motor skills and brain cells to the usage of your program. You’re only getting about 30% of their attention, so you have to make do with a user who, from inside the computer, does not appear to be playing with a full deck.
Users Don’t Read the Manual.
First of all, they actually don’t have the manual. There may not be a manual. If there is one, the user might not have it, for all kinds of logical reasons: they’re on the plane; they are using a downloaded demo version from your web site; they are at home and the manual is at work; their IS department never gave them the manual. Even if they have the manual, frankly, they are simply not going to read it unless they absolutely have no other choice. With very few exceptions, users will not cuddle up with your manual and read it through before they begin to use your software. In general, your users are trying to get something done, and they see reading the manual as a waste of time, or at the very least, as a distraction that keeps them from getting their task done.
The very fact that you’re reading this book puts you in an elite group of highly literate people. Yes, I know, people who use computers are by and large able to read, but I guarantee you that a good percentage of them will find reading to be a chore. The language in which the manual is written may not be their first language, and they may not be totally fluent. They may be kids! They can decipher the manual if they really must, but they sure ain’t gonna read it if they don’t have to. Users do just-in-time manual reading, on a strictly need-to-know basis.
The upshot of all this is that you probably have no choice but to design your software so that it does not need a manual in the first place. The only exception I can think of is if your users do not have any domain knowledge — they don’t really understand what the program is intended to do, but they know that they better learn. A great example of this is Intuit’s immensely popular small-business accounting program QuickBooks. Many of the people who use this program are small business owners who simply have no idea what’s involved in accounting. The manual for QuickBooks assumes this and assumes that it will have to teach people basic accounting principles. There’s no other way to do it. Still, if you do know accounting, QuickBooks is easy to use without the manual.
In fact, users don’t read anything.
This may sound a little harsh, but you’ll see, when you do usability tests, that there are quite a few users who simply do not read words that you put on the screen. If you pop up an error box of any sort, they simply will not read it. This may be disconcerting to you as a programmer, because you imagine yourself as conducting a dialog with the user. Hey, user! You can’t open that file, we don’t support that file format! Still, experience shows that the more words you put on that dialog box, the fewer people will actually read it.
The fact that users do not read the manual leads many software designers to assume that they are going to have to educate users by describing things as they go along. You see this all over the place in programs. In principle, it’s OK, but in reality, people’s aversion to reading means that this will almost always get you in trouble. Experienced UI designers literally try to minimize the number of words on dialogs to increase the chances that they will get read. When I worked on Juno, the UI people understood this principle and tried to write short, clear, simple text. Sadly, the CEO of the company had been an English major at an Ivy League college; he had no training in UI design or software engineering, but he sure thought he was a good editor of prose. So he vetoed the wording done by the professional UI designers and added lots of his own verbiage. A typical dialog in Juno looks like this:
Compare that to the equivalent dialog from Windows:
Intuitively, you might guess that the Juno version, with 80 words of instructions, would be “superior” (i.e., easier to use) than the Windows version, with 5 words of instructions. In reality, when you run a usability test on this kind of thing, you’ll find that
advanced users skip over the instructions. They assume they know how to use things and don’t have time to read complicated instructions
most novice users skip over the instructions. They don’t like reading too much and hope that the defaults will be OK
the remaining novice users who do, earnestly, try to read the instructions (some of whom are only reading them because it’s a usability test and they feel obliged) are often confused by the sheer number of words and concepts. So even if they were pretty confident that they would be able to use the dialog when it first came up, the instructions actually confused them even more.
Now, Juno was obviously micro-managed beyond all reason. More to the point, if you’re an English major from Columbia, then you are in a whole different league of literacy than the average Joe, and you should be very careful about wording dialogs that look helpful to you. Shorten it, dumb it down, simplify, get rid of the complicated clauses in parentheses, and usability test. But do not write things that look like Ivy League faculty memos. Even adding the word “please” to a dialog, which may seem helpful and polite, is going to slow people down: the increased bulk of the wording is going to reduce, by some measurable percentage, the number of people who read the text.
Another important point is that many people are intimidated by computers. You probably know this, right? But you may not realize the implications of this. I was watching a friend try to exit Juno. For some reason she was having quite a bit of trouble. I noticed that when you try to exit Juno, the following dialog pops up:
She was hitting No, and then she was kind of surprised that Juno hadn’t exited. The very fact that Juno was questioning her choice made her immediately assume that she was doing something wrong. Usually, when programs ask you to confirm a command, it’s because you’re about to do something which you might regret. She had assumed that if the computer was questioning her judgment, then the computer must have been right, because, after all, computers are computers where as she was merely a human, so she hit “No.”
Is it too much to ask people to read 11 lousy words? Well, apparently. First of all, since exiting Juno has no deleterious effects, Juno should have just exited without prompting for confirmation, like every other GUI program in existence. But even if you are convinced that it is crucial that people confirm before exiting, you could do it in two words instead of 11:
Without the completely unnecessary “thank you” and the remorse-inspiring “are you sure?“, this dialog is a lot less likely to cause problems. Users will certainly read the two words, say “um, duh?” to the program, and pound the Yes key.
Sure, the Juno Exit Confirmation dialog trips up a few people, you say, but is it that big a deal? Everyone will eventually manage to get out of the program. But herein lies the difference between a program which is possible to use versus a program which is easy to use. Even smart, experienced, advanced users will appreciate things that you do to make it easy for the distracted, inexperienced, beginner users. Hotel bathtubs have big grab bars. They’re just there to help disabled people, but everybody uses them anyway to get out of the bathtub. They make life easier even for the physically fit.
In the next chapter, I’ll talk a bit about the mouse. Just like users don’t/won’t/can’t read, some are not very good at using the mouse, so you have to accommodate them.
Chapter 7: Designing for People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Lives, Part Two
When the Macintosh was new, Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini wrote a column in Apple’s developer magazine on UI. In his column, people wrote in with lots of interesting UI design problems, which he discussed. These columns continue to this day on his web site. They’ve also been collected and embellished in a couple of great books, like Tog on Software Design, which is a lot of fun and a great introduction to UI design. (Tog on Interface was even better, but it’s out of print.)
Tog invented the concept of the mile high menu bar to explain why the menu bar on the Macintosh, which is always glued to the top of the physical screen, is so much easier to use than menu bars on Windows, which appear inside each application window. When you want to point to the File menu on Windows, you have a target about half an inch wide and a quarter of an inch high to acquire. You must move and position the mouse fairly precisely in both the vertical and the horizontal dimensions.
But on a Macintosh, you can slam the mouse up to the top of the screen, without regard to how high you slam it, and it will stop at the physical edge of the screen – the correct vertical position for using the menu. So, effectively, you have a target that is still half an inch wide, but a mile high. Now you only need to worry about positioning the cursor horizontally, not vertically, so the task of clicking on a menu item is that much easier.
Based on this principle, Tog has a pop quiz: what are the five spots on the screen that are easiest to acquire (point to) with the mouse? The answer: all four corners of the screen (where you can literally slam the mouse over there in one fell swoop without any pointing at all), plus, the current position of the mouse, because it’s already there.
The principle of the mile-high menu bar is fairly well known, but it must not be entirely obvious, because the Windows 95 team missed the point completely with the Start push button, sitting almost in the bottom left corner of the screen, but not exactly. In fact, it’s about 2 pixels away from the bottom and 2 pixels from the left of the screen. So, for the sake of a couple of pixels, Microsoft literally “snatches defeat from the jaws of victory”, Tog writes, and makes it that much harder to acquire the start button. It could have been a mile square, absolutely trivial to hit with the mouse. For the sake of something, I don’t know what, it’s not. God help us.
In the previous chapter, we talked about how users hate reading, and will avoid it unless they absolutely cannot accomplish their task. Similarly:
Users can’t control the mouse very well.
I don’t mean this literally. What I mean is, you should design your program so that it does not require a tremendous amount of mouse-agility to use it right. Top six reasons:
Sometimes people are using sub-optimal pointing devices, like trackballs, trackpads, and the little red thingy on a ThinkPad, which are harder to control than true mice. Sometimes people are using mice under bad conditions: a crowded desk; a dirty trackball making the mouse skip; or the mouse itself is a $5 clone which just doesn’t track right. Some people are new to computers and have not yet developed the motor skills to use mice accurately. Some people literally will never have the motor skills to use mice precisely, and never will. They may have arthritis, tremors, carpal tunnel; they may be very young or very old; or any other number of disabilities. Many people find that it is extremely difficult to double-click without slightly moving the mouse. As a result they often drag things around on their screen when they mean to be launching applications. You can tell these people because their desktops are a mess because half the time they try to launch something, they wind up moving it instead. Even in the best of situations, using the mouse a lot feels slow to people. If you force people to perform a multi-step operation using the mouse, they may feel like they are being stalled which in turn makes the UI feel unresponsive, which, as you should know by now, makes them unhappy.
In ye olden days when I worked on Excel, laptops didn’t come with pointing devices built in, so Microsoft made a clip-on trackball that clipped to the side of the keyboard. Now, a mouse is controlled with the wrist and most of the fingers. This is much like writing, and you probably developed very accurate motor skills for writing in elementary school. But a trackball is controlled entirely with the thumb. As a result, it’s much harder to control a trackball to the same degree of accuracy as a mouse. Most people find that they can control a mouse to within one or two pixels, but can only control a trackball to within 3 or 4 pixels. On the Excel team, I always urged people to try out their new UIs with the trackball, instead of only with a mouse, to see how it would feel to people who are not able to get the mouse to go exactly where they want it.
One of the UI elements which bothers me the most is the dropdown combo list box. That’s the one that looks like this:
When you click on the down arrow, it expands:
Think about how many detailed mouse clicks it’s going to take to choose, say, Times New Roman. First, you have to click on the down arrow. Then, using the scroll bar, you have to carefully scroll until Times New Roman is in view. Many of these dropdowns are carelessly designed to show only two or three items at a time, so this scrolling is none too easy, especially if you have a lot of fonts. It involves either carefully dragging the thumb (with such a small range of movement, it’s probably unlikely that this will work), or clicking repeatedly on the second down arrow, or trying to click in the area between the thumb and the down area — which will eventually stop working when the thumb gets low enough, annoying you even further. Finally, if you do manage to get Times New Roman into view, you have to click on it. If you miss, you get to start all over again. Now multiply by 10, if, say, you want to use a fancy font for the first letter in each of your chapters, and you’re really unhappy.
The poxy combo dropdown control is even more annoying because there’s such an easy solution: just make the dropdown long enough to contain all of the options. 90% of the combo boxes out there don’t even use all available space to drop down, which is a sin. If there is not enough room between the main edit box and the bottom of the screen, the dropdown should grow up until it fits all the items, even if it has to go all the way from the top of the physical screen to the bottom of the physical screen. And then, if there are still more items than fit, let the combo scroll automatically as the mouse approaches the edge, rather than requiring the poor user to mess with a teensy weensy scrollbar.
Furthermore, don’t make me click on the little tiny arrow to the right of the edit box before you pop up the combo: let me click anywhere on the combo box. This expands the click target about tenfold and makes it that much easier to acquire the target with the mouse pointer.
Let’s look at another problem with mousing: edit boxes. You may have noticed that almost every edit box on the Macintosh uses a fat, wide, bold font called Chicago which looks kind of ugly and distresses graphic designers to no end. Graphic designers (unlike UI designers) have been taught that thin, variable spaced fonts are more gracious, look better, and are easier to read. All this is true. But graphic designers learned their skills on paper, not on the screen. When you need to edit text, monospace has a major advantage over variable spaced fonts: it’s easier to see and select narrow letters like “l” and “i”. I learned this lesson after watching a sixty year old man in a usability test painfully trying to edit the name of his street, which was something like Fillmore Street. We were using 8 point Arial, so the edit box looked like this:
Notice that the I and the Ls are literally one pixel wide. The difference between a lower case I and a lower case L is literally one pixel. (Similarly, it is almost impossible to see the difference between “RN” and “M” in lower case, so this edit box might actually say Fillrnore.)
There are very few people who would notice if they mistyped Flilmore or Fiilmore or Fillrnore, and even if they did, they would have a heck of a time trying to use the mouse to select the offending letter and correct it. In fact, they would even have a hard time using the blinking cursor, which is two pixels wide, to select a single letter. Look how much easier it would have been if we had used a fat font (shown here with Courier Bold)
Fine, OK, so it takes up more space and doesn’t look as cool to your graphic designers. Deal with it! It’s much easier to use; it even feels better to use because as the user types, they get sharp, clear text, and it’s so much easier to edit.
Here’s a common programmer thought pattern: there are only three numbers: 0, 1, and n. If n is allowed, all n‘s are equally likely. This thought pattern comes from the belief (probably true) that you shouldn’t have any numeric constants in your code except for 0 and 1. (Constants other than 0 and 1 are referred to as “magic numbers”. I don’t even want to go into the gestalt of that.)
Thus, for example, programmers tend to think that if your program allows you to open multiple documents, it must allow you to open infinitely many documents (as memory allows), or at least 2^32, the only magic number programmers concede. A programmer would tend to look with disdain on a program which limited you to 20 open documents. What’s 20? Why 20? It’s not even a power of 2!
Another implication of all n’s are equally likely is that programmers have tended to think that if users are allowed to resize and move windows, they should have complete flexibility over where these windows go, right down to the last pixel. After all, positioning a window 2 pixels from the top of the screen is “equally likely” as positioning a window exactly at the top of the screen.
But it’s not true. As it turns out, there are lots of good reasons why you might want a window exactly at the top of the screen (it maximizes screen real estate), but there aren’t any reasons to leave 2 pixels between the top of the screen and the top of the window. So, in reality, 0 is much more likely than 2.
The programmers over at Nullsoft, creators of WinAmp, managed somehow to avoid the programmer-think that has imprisoned the rest of us for a decade. WinAmp has a great feature. When you start to drag the window near the edge of the screen, coming within a few pixels, it automatically snaps to the edge of the screen perfectly. Which is probably exactly what you wanted, since 0 is so much more likely than 2. (The Juno main window has a similar feature: it’s the only application I’ve ever seen that is “locked in a box” on the screen and cannot be dragged beyond the edge.)
You lose a little bit of flexibility, but in exchange, you get a user interface that recognizes that controlling the mouse precisely is hard, so why should you have to? This innovation (which every program could use) eases the burden of window management in an intelligent way. Look closely at your user interface, and give us all a break. Pretend that we are gorillas, or maybe smart orangutans, and we really have trouble with the mouse.
Chapter 8: Designing for People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Lives, Part Three
One of the early principles of GUI interfaces was that you shouldn’t ask people to remember things that the computer could remember. The classic example is the Open File dialog box, which shows people a list of files rather than asking them to recall and type the exact file name. People remember things a lot better when they are given some clues, and they’d always rather choose something from a list than have to recall it from memory.
Another example is the menus themselves. Historically, providing a complete menu of available commands replaced the old command-line interfaces, where you had to memorize the commands you wanted to use. And this is, fundamentally, the reason why command line interfaces are just not better than GUI interfaces, no matter what your UNIX friends tell you. Using a command line interface is like having to learn Korean to order food in a Seoul branch of McDonalds. Using a menu based interface is like being able to point to the food you want and nod your head vigorously: it conveys the same information with no learning curve.
Consider the file selection process in a typical graphics program:
Luckily, Windows 98 introduced thumbnail support, so you can see the files like this:
This makes it significantly easier to open the file you want; it doesn’t even take the mental effort to map words onto pictures.
You can see the minimum-memory principle at work in features like auto completion, too. Even if you need to type something, some programs make educated guesses about what you’re about to type:
In this example, as soon as you type “M”, Excel guesses that you are likely to be typing Male, because you’ve typed Male before in this column, and proposes that as the auto completion. But the “ale” is preselected so that if you didn’t mean to type Male, you can keep typing (perhaps “ystery”) and overwrite Excel’s guess with no lost effort.
Microsoft Word gets a little bit carried away guessing what you are about to type, as anybody that has ever used that product during the merry month of May has discovered:
Designing For People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Lives, Redux
In the preceding chapters, I’ve brought up three principles:
Users don’t read stuff (chapter 6)
Users can’t use the mouse (chapter 7)
Users can’t remember anything
You might be starting to get the impression that I think that users are dolts. It’s not true. Disrespecting your users is how arrogant software like Microsoft Bob gets created (and dumped in the trash bin), and nobody is very happy.
On the other hand, there is a much worse kind of arrogance in software design: the arrogant assumption that “my software is so damn cool, people are just going to have to warp their brains around it.” This kind of chutzpah is pretty common in the free software world. Hey, Linux is free! If you’re not smart enough to decipher it, you don’t deserve to be using it!
Human aptitude tends towards the bell curve. Maybe 98% of your customers are smart enough to use a television set. About 70% of them can use Windows. 15% can use Linux. 1% can program. But only 0.1% of them can program in a language like C++. And only 0.01% of them can figure out Microsoft ATL programming. (And all of them, without exception, have beards and glasses.)
The effect of this sharp drop-off is that whenever you “lower the bar” by even a small amount, making your program, say, 10% easier to use, you dramatically increase the number of people who can use it, say, by 50%.
So, I don’t really believe that people are dolts, but I think that if you constantly try to design your program so that it’s easy enough for dolts to use, you are going to make a popular, easy to use program that people like. And you will be surprised by how what seem like small usability improvements translate into lots more customers.
One good way to evaluate the usability of a program or dialog you’ve never seen before is to act a little stupid. Don’t read the words on the dialog. Make random assumptions about what things do without verifying. Try to use the mouse with just one finger. Make lots of mistakes, and generally thrash around. See if the program does what you want, or at least, gently guides you instead of blowing up. Be impatient. If you can’t do what you want right away, give up. If the UI can’t withstand your acting generally immature and stupid, it could use some work.
Chapter 9: The Process of Designing a Product
We’ve talked about the principles of good design, but principles only give you a way to evaluate and improve an existing design. But… how do you figure out what the dang design should be in the first place? Many people write big, functional outlines of all the features they thought up. Then they design each one, and hang it off of a menu item (or web page). When they’re done, the program (or web site) has all the functionality they wanted, but it doesn’t flow right. People sit down and they don’t know what it does, and they don’t know how to accomplish what they want.
Microsoft’s solution to this is something called Activity Based Planning. (As far as I can tell, this concept was invented by Mike Conte on the Excel team, who got bored with that and went on to a second career as a race car driver). The key insight is to figure out the activity that the user is doing, and focus on making it easy to accomplish that activity. This is best illustrated with an example.
You’ve decided to make a web site that lets people create greeting cards. Using a somewhat naïve approach, you might come up with a list of features like this:
1. Add text to card
2. Add picture to card
3. Get predesigned card from library
4. Send card:
a. Using email
b. By printing it out
For lack of any better way of thinking about the problem, this might lead itself to a typical Macintosh user interface, circa-1984: a program that starts out with a blank card, with menu items for adding text, pictures, loading cards from a library, and sending cards. And then what the user is going to have to do is sit down and browse through the menus, trying to figure out all the commands available, and then do their own synthesis of how to put these atomic commands together to create a card.
Now, activity based planning says that you need to come up with a list of activities that users might do. So, you talk to your potential users, and you come up with this “top three” list:
Birthday Greeting Party Invitation Anniversary Greeting
Now, instead of thinking about your program like a programmer (in terms of what features you need to have to make a card), you’re thinking about it like the user, in terms of, what activities is the user doing, specifically:
Sending a birthday card Planning a party, and inviting people to it Sending an anniversary card
Suddenly, all kinds of ideas will rush into your head. Instead of starting with a blank card, you might start with a menu like this:
What do you want to do? Send a birthday card
Send an anniversary card
Send a party invitation
Start with a blank card
Suddenly users will find it much easier to get started with your program, without browsing around on the menus, since the program will virtually lead them through the steps to complete the activity. (There is a risk that if you didn’t pick the activities correctly, you will alienate or confuse users who might have been able to use your program, say, to send a Hanukah card, but don’t see that as a choice. So be careful in picking activities that blanket the majority of the market you want to target.)
Just looking at our list of three activities suggests some great features which you might want to add. For example, if you’re sending a birthday or anniversary card, you might want to be reminded next year to send a card to the same person… so you might add a checkbox that says “remind me next year”. And a party invitation needs a way to RSVP, so you might add a feature that lets you collect RSVPs from people electronically. Both of these feature ideas almost fell out of looking at the activity that users were performing instead of the features in the application.
This example is trivial; for any serious application, the rewards of activity based planning are even greater. When you’re designing a program from scratch, you already have a vision of what activities your users are going to be doing. Figuring out this vision is not hard at all, it takes almost no effort at all to do some brainstorming with coworkers, write down a list of potential activities, and then decide which ones you want to focus on. But forcing yourself to list these activities on paper will help your overall design enormously.
Activity based planning is even more important when you are working on version two of a product that people are already using. Here, it may be a matter of observing a sample of customers to see what they are using your program for.
In the days of Excel 1.0 through 4.0, most people at Microsoft thought that the most common user activity was doing financial what-if scenarios, where you do things like change the inflation rate and see how this affects your profitability.
When we were designing Excel 5.0, the first major release to use serious activity-based planning, we only had to watch about five customers using the product before we realized that an enormous number of people just use Excel to keep lists. They are not entering any formulas or doing any calculation at all! We hadn’t even considered this before. Keeping lists turned out to be far more popular than any other activity with Excel. And this led us to invent a whole slew of features that make it easier to keep lists: easier sorting, automatic data entry, the AutoFilter feature which helps you see a slice of your list, and multi-user features which let several people work on the same list at the same time while Excel automatically reconciles everything.
While Excel 5 was being designed, Lotus had shipped a “new paradigm” spreadsheet called Improv. According to the press releases, Improv was a whole new generation of spreadsheet, which was going to blow away everything that existed before it. For various strange reasons, Improv was first available on the NeXT, which certainly didn’t help its sales, but a lot of smart people believed that Improv would be to NeXT as VisiCalc was to the Apple II: it would be the killer app that made people go out and buy all new hardware just to run one program.
Of course, Improv is now a footnote in history. Search for it on the web, and the only links you’ll find are from very over-organized storeroom managers who have, for some reason, made a web site with an inventory of all the stuff they have collecting dust.
Why? Because in Improv, it was almost impossible to just make lists. The Improv designers thought that people were using spreadsheets to create complicated multi-dimensional financial models. Turns out, if they asked people, they would discover that making lists was so much more common than multi-dimensional financial models, and in Improv, making lists was a downright chore, if not impossible.
So activity based planning is helpful in the initial version of your application, where you have to make guesses about what people want to do, but it’s even more helpful when you’re planning the upgrade, because you understand what your customers are doing.
Another example, from the web, is the evolution of deja.com, which started out as an huge, searchable index of Usenet called dejanews. The original interface basically had an edit box and said “search Usenet for blah,” and that was it. In 1999 a bit of activity based planning showed that one common user activity was doing research on a product or service, of the “which car should I buy” nature. Deja was completely reorganized, and today, it is more of a product opinion research service: the Usenet searching ability is almost completely hidden. This annoyed the small number of users who were using the site to search for whether their Matrox video card worked with Redhat Linux 5.1, but it delighted the much larger population of users who just wanted to buy the best digital camera.
The other great thing about activity based planning is that it lets you make a list of what features not to do. When you create any kind of software, the reality is that you will come up with three times as many features as you have time to do. And one of the best ways to decide which features get done, and which features get left out, is to evaluate which features support the most important user activities.
Imaginary Users.
The very best UI designers in the industry all agree on one thing: you have to invent and describe some imaginary users before you can design your UI. You may remember back in the introduction to this book, I introduced an imaginary user Pete:
Pete is an accountant for a technical publisher who has used Windows for six years at the office and a bit at home. He is fairly competent and technical. He installs his own software; he reads PC Magazine, and he has even programmed some simple Word macros to help the secretaries in his office send invoices. He’s getting a cable modem at home. Pete has never used a Macintosh. “They’re too expensive,” he’ll tell you. “You can get a 700 Mhz PC with 128 Meg RAM for the price of…” OK, Pete. We get it.
When you read this, you can almost imagine a user. I could also have invented quite another type of user:
Patricia is an English professor who has written several well-received books of poetry. She has been using computers for word processing since 1980, although the only two programs she ever used are Nota Bene (an ancient academic word processor) and Microsoft Word. She doesn’t want to spend time learning the theory of how the computer works, and she tends to store all her documents in whatever directory they would go in if you didn’t know about directories.
Obviously, designing software for Pete is quite different from designing software for Patricia, who in turn is quite different from Mike, a 16 year old who runs Linux at home, talks on IRC for hours, and uses no “Micro$oft” software.
When you invent these users, thinking about whether your design is appropriate becomes much easier. For example, a lot of programmers tend to overestimate the ability of the typical user to figure things out. Whenever I write something about command line interfaces being hard to use, I get the inevitable email barrage saying that command line interfaces are ultra-powerful because you can do things like ‘gunzip foo.tar.gz | tar xvf -‘. But as soon as you have to think about getting Patricia to type “gunzip…” it becomes obvious that that kind of interface just isn’t going to serve her needs, ever. Thinking about a “real” person gives you the empathy you need to make a feature that serves that person’s need. (Of course, if you’re making Linux backup software for advanced sysadmins, you need to invent a character like “Frank” who refuses to touch Windows, which he only refers to as an “operating system” in quotation marks, uses his own personally modified version of tcsh, and runs X11 with four tiled xterms all day long. And about 11 xperfs.)
To summarize, designing good software takes about six steps:
Invent some users Figure out the important activities Figure out the user model — how the user will expect to accomplish those activities Sketch out the first draft of the design Iterate over your design again and again, making it easier and easier until it’s well within the capabilities of your imaginary users Watch real humans trying to use your software. Note the areas where people have trouble, which probably demonstrate areas where the program model isn’t matching the user model.
Good UI sells software, but it also makes people happy, because people are happy when they accomplish the task they wanted to accomplish. Which is why UI design is such a satisfying field to be in. Where else are you going to get a chance to make millions of people just a little bit happier?pchote
Grenadier
Joined: 06 Feb 2015
Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 8:11 pm Post subject: QUICK_EDIT
Attach signature (signatures can be changed in profile) close Blade wrote: I have to ask then, why do some people seem to be pushing for modders to adopt OpenRA as the platform for their mods now. As you say, the engine is under heavy development which will only increase the development overhead on a mod team even if it will lead to greater flexibilty in the directions the mods can go in down the road. Surely it is better for them to stick with the existing engines that have known limitations for now and then look at porting when the TS like mod features have stablised?
I can't explain or justify other people's motivations, but I can give my own opinion (which is often controversial): I agree completely. I think that big total-conversion style mods with teams that don't want to become actively involved in OpenRA development should steer clear of it for the immediate future.
We have utility rules that automate many of the rules changes as we adapt traits, and these are mostly adequate for smaller scale mods (i.e. those that build off one of our main mods, and add new units, factions, missions, etc). These mods are still going to need to invest a few hours each new release (every few months) to adapt to the new changes, however. There have been several mods like this that have survived for a couple of releases before dying off due to lack of time or enthusiasm.
We can say all we want about flexibility and yada yada, but the fact is that if the engine doesn't yet offer them what they need, and if they aren't willing to adapt or able to contribute towards making those features happen, then it is a waste of everybody's time for them to convert to OpenRA now. There is no telling how long they might need to wait and keep maintaining their non-releasable mod. That's just silly.
The benefits of converting to OpenRA come when you're either willing to adapt to the new engine (which means giving up some things you might be used to from the original engines, but gaining a giant bunch of new possibilities in return) or able to help implement the missing feature that you need. "help" doesn't even need to be code: A well written feature request that precisely defines the expected behaviour would be fantastic and greatly improves the chances of someone else implementing it.
As an example (from the I can't explain or justify other people's motivations, but I can give my own opinion (which is often controversial): I agree completely. I think that big total-conversion style mods with teams that don't want to become actively involved in OpenRA development |
the page who had the following to say:
"My master always teaches us that, the use of fighting is only for good things, I am of peace, I hate violence, I always try to resolve my issues in conversations" says Raphael, who created the page. When asked if they didn’t fear it being misinterpreted, he replied: "That was my biggest fear, I even mentioned to Rafael (the other guy who had the idea for the page) jokingly that we could be sued, people could take it seriously and all. That’s why we put a lot of small jokes in the text, we didn’t put anything serious so that we wouldn’t be promoting violence"
It should also be noted that it is very likely that Sonnen won't be able to attend the fights because of his probation following his Federal money laundering case. In the unlikely event that he actually is able to leave the country, I would say it is in his best interest for him to travel with security during his time in Brazil.
UPDATE: Chael Sonnen Responds
Please, FB nerds, no group has the strength to lynch me. I'm a Republican; we run on neither blood nor oxygen. chael sonnen
sonnench
Translation from Facebook Page: Tom Mendes aka Orcus
SBN coverage of UFC 134: RioHELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish foreign minister Timo Soini said on Sunday he would step down as leader of the nationalist and eurosceptic Finns party in June, a move which could challenge the future of the country’s three-party government.
Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini attends a briefing Helsinki, Finland September 30, 2016. Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto/via REUTERS
The departure of Soini paves the way for a more hard-line leadership, surveys have suggested, as many of its core voters bridled at compromises he made as part of an austerity-focused government that has cut workers’ benefits while catering for an influx of migrants.
Analysts say the move could even bring down the coalition, which includes the Centre Party and the conservative NCP, at a time of tough reforms aimed at fixing a stagnant economy.
“I will not seek a new term from the party congress in June. It is time for something else,” Soini wrote in a blog. “This was not an easy decision.”
He said he would like to stay on as foreign minister if the party remains in the government.
Soini, aged 54, has led the party he co-founded for 20 years, dragging it out from obscurity and into the mainstream when its opposition to the European Union’s sovereign bailouts spooked financial markets in 2011.
But the party has seen its support drop due to compromises it has made in government, which it joined in 2015. The second-biggest in the parliament, the party now ranks fifth in the polls with support of about 9 percent.
A survey by Lannen Media in January showed the most popular successor for Soini among active party members would be Jussi Halla-aho, currently a member of European parliament who is known for his tough stance against immigration and the European Union.
“Personally, I tend to think that a membership in the EU is not in Finland’s strategic national interest,” Halla-aho told Iltalehti newspaper last month.
Halla-aho has also proposed sanctions against organizations that rescue refugees and immigrants from the Mediterranean, saying it encourages movement from Africa to Europe.
Halla-aho said he will likely run for the party presidency in June. He was not immediately available for comment.
“This (Soini’s announcement) can have dramatic consequences... I don’t see that the Finns could continue in the government if Halla-aho gets elected. That could lead to a government crisis,” said Kimmo Gronlund, professor of political science at Abo Akademi.
The centre-right government, led by Prime Minister Juha Sipila, has faced demonstrations and strikes over its austerity program aimed to kick-start the economy after a decade-long stagnation.
(This version of the story has been refiled to fix analyst’s name in paragraph 12 and clarify the party’s position in parliament in paragraph 7)Japan and Korea have never had an easygoing relationship. So it’s little surprise that Japanese netizens were up in arms when the above photo appeared online. Taken at Tokyo Dome during a concert by hot Korean boy band “2PM” (which has a related group called “2AM”), it shows an enormous audience packed with enthusiastic K-pop fans on their feet, hands in the air, giving it up for the handsome lads.
But looking closely, it’s obvious that some of these fans aren’t genuine. In fact, they’re crudely implemented digital reproductions. So how and why did this happen?
2PM’s management, JYP Entertainment, came out with a formal apology after fans pointed out the mistake. JYP claimed it was the fault of an outside company colour-correcting the photos as they were rushed out to media outlets in their press release. But here’s what some Twitter users in Japan had to say:
“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” “Wow, that’s Korea for you.” “So, obviously it wasn’t a sold-out show.” “So they’re not going to release the real photo?” “I bet they didn’t think they would get found out.” “These must be a few sets of really freaky twins.” “It looks like the audience seating is getting some photo-generated plastic surgery.”
Zing! Japan’s not pulling any punches here…
So who’s the band that caused all this commotion? Meet 2PM. But ladies, don’t linger too long… these guys have been known to cause fans to digitally multiply.
Source: Hamster Sokuho
K-Star GoodsDue to Penn State University’s continued progress toward ensuring athletics integrity, the NCAA Executive Committee is gradually restoring football scholarships the university lost because of sanctions more than a year ago. These changes were endorsed by the Division I Board of Directors and based on the recommendation of George Mitchell, the independent Athletics Integrity Monitor for Penn State and former U.S. Senator.
MORE ON THIS STORY For complete coverage on the gradual restoration of Penn State's football scholarships, head to NCAA.org.
Beginning next academic year (2014-15), five additional initial scholarships will be restored to the university’s football team. This amount will continue to increase until they reach the full allocation of 25 initial in 2015-16 and 85 total football scholarships in 2016-17.
“While there is more work to be done, Penn State has clearly demonstrated its commitment to restoring integrity in its athletics program,” Mitchell said. “The university has substantially completed the initial implementation of all the Freeh Report recommendations and its obligations to the Athletics Integrity Agreement, so relief from the scholarship reductions is warranted and deserved.”
Consistent with Mitchell’s recommendation, the Executive Committee agreed the existing postseason ban, $60 million fine to help fund child abuse programs and other sanctions outlined in the consent decree will remain in effect. However, the group may consider additional mitigation of the postseason ban in the future depending upon Penn State’s continued progress.
“Providing relief from the scholarship restrictions will give more student-athletes an opportunity to attend Penn State on athletics scholarship while also creating an incentive for the university to continue its progress under new leadership after President Erickson’s impending departure,” said Mitchell.
The leadership of the Executive Committee met with the Division I Board of Directors and presidents from the Big Ten Conference prior to taking a vote on the action. During these discussions, Mitchell briefed the group on his work to date and the university’s compliance with the Athletics Integrity Agreement.
“The decision is the result of a thoughtful and deliberative process to ensure we reached the most appropriate outcome,” said Rita Hartung Cheng, who chaired the recent Executive Committee meetings regarding Senator Mitchell’s annual report and chancellor of SIU-Carbondale. “During our discussions, we had the benefit of engaging with Senator Mitchell’s expert perspective and the views of our Big Ten colleagues.”
The Executive Committee expressed its appreciation of Mitchell’s oversight of the process.
“We would like to thank Senator Mitchell for his meticulous oversight and guidance throughout this process,” said LouAnna Simon, chair of the Executive Committee and president of Michigan State University. “His dedication, as well as Penn State’s commitment to improvement, has paved the way for continued improvement for the university.”
Mitchell will continue to work with Penn State as it seeks to complete the Athletics Integrity Agreement.
“The goal has always been to ensure the university reinforces clear expectations and a daily mindset within athletics that the highest priority must be placed on educating, nurturing and protecting young people,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said. “The Executive Committee’s decision to restore the football scholarships provides additional education opportunities and is an important recognition of Penn State’s progress.”A list of real ethical concerns in video games:
The aggressive marketing of capitalist war games is an inspiration to the U.S. military, which could take a page out of games marketing’s book in order to push unpopular ideas on the public.
This site and this one are just a couple of the sites game developers can pay for reviews that make unproven promises to improve games’ positioning on mobile storefronts.
Developers who invest in design and publishing on mobile storefronts can expect to have free, unsanctioned clones of their games steal their revenue and come ahead of the original on charts with no action taken from the companies that own those storefronts.
The labor practices of the traditional game industry are exploitive and abhorrent. The industry’s historical production model involves staffing up, demanding extreme work weeks, and then letting go of the ‘excess’ talent after a product ships. Speaking out against these conditions is socially sanctioned, and developers who speak to the press at any time other than when marketing wants them to risk being fired.
An entire product and studio network — and by extension, a regional economy around games — can tank because of political posturing, and there is no accountability nor information provided to ameliorate the human collateral damage.
One of the U.S.’ most long-running and successful print game publications is owned by one of the world’s best-known game retailers, and few of the magazine’s consumers seem aware of what, if any impact that relationship might have.
In the name of objectivity, the consumer-facing games press largely releases material on a mutually-agreed upon set of terms and schedules dictated by game companies. It routinely accepts travel arrangements to tour studios and look at in-development games on financial obligation to those game companies and on those companies’ terms. Attempting to subvert this process by inserting personal opinion is viewed as ‘bias’.
In many of the above cases even when disclosure is obligated and made, disclosure does little to purify the overall effect on the climate and its perspectives.
Despite this, only the games press exists to question these ethical problems and attempt to inform the consumer. No one would care otherwise.
Not currently ethical concerns: Women’s sex lives, independent game developers’ Patreons, the personal perspectives of game critics, people having contentious or controversial opinions, who knows who in a close-knit industry (as if one could name an industry where people don’t know each other or work together).UNDER INVESTIGATION: NZ Lotteries are looking into allegations surrounding the sale of legal highs at Dharmendra Patel's Haven Road Store.
A Nelson dairy that was busted selling legal highs after its owner claimed to have stopped has been suspended from selling Lotto products.
Haven Road Store and Lotto was exposed by the Nelson Mail selling a $20 bag of Malavi Gold synthetic cannabis to a man last week.
Owner Dharmendra Patel previously promised he had stopped selling those products. An ultimatum from the New Zealand Lotteries Commission required Lotto vendors not to sell legal highs after July 1.
New Zealand Lotteries has now confirmed it has suspended trade of Lotto tickets from the Haven Rd outlet while it conducts an investigation of "allegations in the media".
Lotteries spokeswoman Emilia Mazur said the suspension was a precautionary matter. As this was an unprecedented situation for NZ Lotteries, she did not know how long the investigation would take.
When the Nelson Mail tried to contact the Haven Road Store for comment yesterday an employee feigned a broken connection, before hanging up.
After the sale was exposed last week, Mr Patel initially denied it happened before saying he would have to investigate.
He said his employee would be served with a warning if he found she had sold the product.
"If she did something against my orders she might have to be fired."
He then confirmed the employee was his wife.
In November last year NZ Lotteries barred the Haven Road Store from offering free Instant Kiwi tickets with "legal high" purchases.
Parliament last week passed the Psychoactive Substances Bill that could come into effect this week.
It regulates the importation, manufacture and supply of the psychoactive substances within party pills, energy pills and herbal highs. Dairies, convenience stores, supermarkets, service stations and liquor outlets will all be banned from selling the products.Mike Huckabee is taking the first steps toward a second Republican presidential campaign.
The first time around, the former Arkansas governor rode socially conservative evangelicals to victory in Iowa and a near-win in South Carolina. He lost the nomination, but won a Fox News show. Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, has been a leading Christian right figure since the early 1990s.
Since Huckabee’s first presidential campaign, he has been increasingly critical of libertarians. He said libertarianism is a greater threat to conservatism than liberalism. He has complained that CPAC, the nation’s largest gathering of conservative activists, is too libertarian (a view not likely to be shared by many libertarians).
Huckabee isn’t alone. Fellow social conservative Rick Santorum is no fan of libertarianism either. Santorum dismisses even libertarian-leaning conservative Republicans, saying “the Republican Party is not the Libertarian Party.”
Thanks for clearing that up.
If Huckabee and Santorum both run, they can be counted on to continue the libertarian-baiting. Libertarians will be tempted to respond in kind. Pushing back against the Huckabee-Santorum statist tag team is necessary, but there is one particularly counterproductive way to do it: by framing this as a contest between liberty Republicans and social conservatives.
Libertarians won’t win such a fight, because there are fewer of them than social conservatives inside the GOP. Social conservatives are also already integrated into the party structure, while the liberty movement is really just getting started.
But more importantly, the fight is unnecessary. The aim is to correct false perceptions about libertarianism. Suggesting liberty Republicans are necessarily opposed to social conservatives instead reinforces those perceptions.
Sure, there are libertarians who are hostile to social conservatives. But by and large, those aren’t the libertarians and libertarian-leaners who are getting involved in Republican politics.
Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie and Andrew Napolitano are all pro-life. So are most of the activists who support them. The most prominent pro-choice libertarian in politics is Gary Johnson, who left the Republican Party for the Libertarian Party.
There are also social conservatives who share Huckabee and Santorum’s preference for big government. But the most socially conservative members of Congress are almost without fail the most economically conservative. The relative social liberals in the party are also generally the least conservative on economics.
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be disagreements. There will also continue to be plenty of libertarians who aren’t at all conservative and work outside of Republican politics. But the liberty movement is trying to move conservative opinion and win Republican primaries.
Neither of those goals can be achieved by waging an unwinnable war against the biggest voting bloc in the GOP. Convincing social conservatives that they would be better served by more liberty than by more government will turn one of libertarianism’s biggest liabilities into a major asset.
Rand Paul won his Republican primary for the Senate with the support of a coalition that stretched from libertarian supporters of his father to socially conservative admirers of Dr. James Dobson. He convinced pro-life activists that the Republican establishment was lying about him being a closet liberal, while still being the most libertarian politician running for statewide office as a major party candidate that year.
Do either libertarians or social conservatives regret their votes?
Contrary to what some argue, this isn’t a departure from his father’s politics. Social conservatives — indeed, the religious right — played a huge role in Ron Paul’s congressional elections. He has championed pro-lifers and home schoolers. The senior Paul has appeared on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” — and gotten some Robertson supporters to become more libertarian.
In the presidential race in particular, evangelicals can’t win the Republican nomination just with their own niche candidate. Neither can the liberty movement.
Overcoming the Republican establishment, which has prevailed in every nominating contest since 1988, will require a candidate to win broad support among rank-and-file voters to the right of the party bosses.
Changing the debate inside the Republican Party will require people who can talk to the conservative base, not rail against them. Left-libertarians shouldn’t be the face of the liberty movement inside the GOP. People known for quarantining AIDS patients and using the “bully pulpit” against contraception shouldn’t be the most prominent social conservatives.On November 23, 1936, Robert Johnson recorded his songs for the first time in San Antonio, Texas. This first of two sessions was unceremoniously squeezed between W. Lee O'Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys the day before, and Hermanas Baraza con Guitarras the day after. Yet out of this modest recording session, after which Robert Johnson collected his money and disappeared again into the Mississippi Delta, came a powerful and unique sound which forever changed music in America. The vitality of Robert Johnson's music has been reaffirmed by the many remakes of his songs, from such diverse artists as Lee Roy Parnell to Eric Clapton to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Moreover, his music influenced artists such as Muddy Waters, who in turn advanced the birth of rock'n'roll. But it is not just Johnson's incredible guitar playing or fantastically expressive singing which deserves homage. His lyrics, which are commonly considered as only context to his music, are actually rich, tightly wrought poems worthy of intense literary examination. This is the objective of Victor Cabas' ENTC 385 class, Mississippi in Story and Songs, at the University of Virginia. Mr. Cabas created the class "as an excuse to teach Robert Johnson," and the class' papers, which come out of a period of listening to and recording observations in a literary notebook on Johnson's songs, are often the best that he gets for the entire session. The students analyze Johnson's songs for devices such as alliteration, assonance, metaphor, simile, and even scan a stanza to get a feeling for each song's unique meter. This web site is designed to be not just a resource for material on Robert Johnson, for there are several of those on the WWW already. Instead, this site highlights the power of Robert Johnson's words which are still resonant in contemporary America. More on Robert Johnson
List of Critical Papers
Robert Johnson Biography
Copyright and Citation
Teaching Unit
Glossary of Verse TermsRussell Westbrook will not be participating in the NBA playoffs this year, and that makes us sad, because it’s always a bummer when one of the most exciting players in the league has to spend his summer at home. But Westbrook’s absence will be particularly hard to swallow this year, seeing as how he just turned in one of the greatest individual regular seasons any of us will ever see.
Westbrook took home the scoring title and finished the year with a 28-8-7 line, throwing up triple-doubles what felt like every other night while dragging the Durant-less Thunder just short of the playoff finish line. 2014-2015 Westbrook was one of the baddest lone gunmen in NBA history, and his firearm of choice was a tank cannon. With all this in mind, we thought it would be nice to take one last look at Westbrook’s season highlights.
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When he went end-to-end in five seconds and dunked all over the Sixers
This just might end up being the quintessential Russell Westbrook highlight. Find another point guard who would do this just a few days after literally breaking his face. I’ll wait.
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The time he literally got a dent in his face
Yeah, remember when he literally got a dent in is face and played it off like it was no big deal?
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When he hit his head on the damn backboard
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Was the All-Star game’s fourth quarter cool? I don’t know because I blacked out after this play.
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When some scrub tried to leave him hanging
This is probably my favorite off-court moment from Westbrook this year. The man really refuses to suffer any bullshit, whether said bullshit presents itself in the form of a defender trying to stop him from dunking or a teammate who thinks he can get away with a half-hearted handshake. Russell Westbrook is not here for that.
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That game-winner against the Wizards
This probably had more to do with the Wizards playing idiotic defense than anything else, but still, Westbrook basically teleported to the hoop.
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That day he got real surly with the media
Okay, so, he can be a dick sometimes.
That time he went for a game-tying layup despite badly rolling his ankle
Most basketball players would have ended up in a heap under the basket after rolling an ankle like that. Westbrook did indeed end up in a heap, but he also got the damn shot up first. He was also fine to play the next game.
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That time he dunked so hard that he made the Pistons bench sit up
I feel you, dudes on the Pistons bench. Westbrook makes me do that every time I watch him.
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When he wasn’t having it with a punk-ass heckler
We’ll miss you, Russ. Are there any final words you’d like to leave us with?Prophet recently conducted a spot survey of some 5,000 U.S. consumers to see which brands they’d put on the deathwatch for anytime between now and 2015.
Anyone who even skims the news headlines will find their rankings no big surprise: Eastman Kodak topped the list with 27 percent of the group, with Netflix and the U.S. Post Office coming in with 19 percent and 18 percent of the vote. RIM (Blackberry) came as fourth most likely to fail (14 percent), and Sears came in fifth (11 percent).
But what struck me about this exercise was less the polled group’s choices and more their observations about these brands’ failings:
About Kodak: “Bad product development, not forward-looking, not adapting to change…”
About Netflix: “They have shown they don't know their own clients. They are not even clear with what they want as a company. It is a mess.”
U.S. Post Office: “Inefficient and obsolete.”
What emerged through the commentary was the identification of a distinct pattern of worst practices, and none of these struggling companies was seen as being guilty of having only one in play. Clearly, John and Joan Q. Public don’t need brilliant brand diagnosticians to help them figure out why a brand loses relevance. (And it’s a small wonder that a study by Havas Media Group found most people wouldn’t care if 70 percent of all brands disappeared today.)
Among the most common failings to emerge:
Lacking an understanding of what customers want, and providing a poor customer experience as a result. Consider Best Practice companies like Nordstrom, Amazon, Disney, and Zappos, all of which make the end-to-end customer experience the mantra by which they live.
Lagging on innovation, and in response to competitive and environmental pressures. Although Apple sets a high bar for best practices (how many categories can one company single-handedly create, after all?), we’ve also been impressed with U.K. retailer Tesco, an early pioneer of self-checkout, the “club” store concept, and online shopping.
Pricing missteps and insensitivities. On the best practice side of this sticky wicket are brands that aren’t afraid to buck accepted industry policy. U.S. Cellular, with its Belief Project, has built legions of loyal customers by doing away with the ubiquitous contract for many, along with a variety of “nickel and dime” charges and fees, while Southwest Airlines has similarly grown goodwill and market share by not charging the standard airline industry baggage fees.
Ineffective management and outmoded business models. Consider ZipCar as a Best Practice example for having supplanted the traditional car rental approach, as an on-demand car sharing membership organization for urban dwellers.
Failure to keep up with the digital revolution. For best practices, think streaming, as per NBC/Hulu’s success with video and Spotify’s with music, the New York Times’ much lauded mobile app for news content, and the American Red Cross’ embrace of social media to facilitate emergency fundraising.
While we did not conduct this study five years ago, my guess is that brands such as Ford, Motorola, Xerox and others could well have made such a list back then. All have adopted one or more of the best practices I identified to turn their games around. So there may, in fact, be hope for the five brands most identified for failure by our survey group.
As we head into 2012, it’s a pretty safe bet that the business landscape will continue to be littered with casualties of a limping economy combined with insurmountably poor management practices. The question is whether those that are struggling the hardest can adjust fast enough to survive.Article Index Introduction Analysis Sample Images & Verdict Tweet Page 1 of 3 Review by Klaus Schroiff, published November 2016 Introduction Just like the rest of the industry, Canon is facing a difficult time at time moment. The camera market is on a sharp downturn and besides the usual competition from Nikon, Sony is emerging as an aggressive player in the professional arena. Thus Canon concluded that the only option to keep or raise at least its market share is by providing more quality. In the ultra-wide segment they just released the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 USM L III to push the boundaries a little further. Unfortunately this new lens comes with a bitter pill - a high price tag of 2400EUR/2200US$. This is a price hike of more than 30% compared to the mk II variant and it's more than double the amount that you would have to pay for the brilliant Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 USM L IS. This will cause headaches among some of the potential buyers. That being said we've similar price increases especially over at Sony. The build quality of Canon lens is exceptionally high just as you would expect it from a Canon L lens. There's no wobbling whatsoever and the zoom and focus rings operate smoothly. The lens is also designed to survive in harsh conditions with a sealing against dust and moisture. It is quite a brick though - it's not only more than 20% heavier than its predecessor, it's also 1.5cm longer. The outer length of the lens remains constant although the inner lens tube moves a little according to the zoom setting. Needless to say - the front element does not rotate during focusing or zooming operations. A rather small petal-shaped lens hood is also part the package. In terms of optical goodies Canon incorporated ASC-(Air Sphere Coating) and SWC-(Subwavelength Structure Coating) to the lens elements in order to minimize flare. A fluorine coating on the front element does also help to reduce smears. Two UD elements are supposed to reduce lateral CAs and one ground as well as two GMo (glass molded) aspherical elements shall reduce distortions and improve peripheral sharpness. Well, we'll see whether the lens lives up to these promises. The lens has a ring-type USM drive based on a front-focusing system resulting in an extremely fast AF speed. The AF performance in live-view mode is also impressive. Typical for ring-type USM lenses full-time manual focusing is always possible in one-shot AF mode. Surprisingly an image stabilizer is not included but at least in theory, this could translate to a slightly higher technical image quality. Specifications Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 USM L II Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 USM L IS Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 USM L III Optical Construction 16 elements in 12 groups
(3x asph. & 2xUD elements) 16 elements in 12 groups
(3x asph. & 2xUD elements) 16 elements in 11 groups
(3x asph. & 2xUD elements) Aperture Blades 7 (circular) 9 (circular) 9 (circular) min. focus distance 0.28m
(~1:4.5 @ 35mm) 0.28m
(~1:4.3 @ 35mm) 0.28m
(~1:4 @ 35mm) Dimensions 89x112mm 83x113mm 88.5x127.5mm Weight 640g 615g 790g Filter size 82mm (non-rotating) 77mm (non-rotating) 82mm (non-rotating) Hood included, petal-shaped included, petal-shaped included, petal-shapedImage caption Dr Eilidh Whiteford has made a formal complaint about Ian Davidson to the Commons speaker
An SNP MP has withdrawn from a Commons committee over allegations that she was threatened by its Labour chairman.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford, the MP for Banff and Buchan, has made a formal complaint to the Commons speaker.
It is understood her complaint centres on a meeting of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee in private session last week.
Ian Davidson MP is alleged to have told her he would give her "a doing" if the discussions were leaked to the media.
A Labour spokesman said: "We will look carefully at these allegations and will make a full statement tomorrow." Mr Davidson has so far been unavailable for comment.
BBC Scotland understands that officials on the committee raised the allegation with the clerk of committees, the most senior official in charge of Westminster's select committee system.
It is claimed that the exchange came during a heated discussion on the conduct of the committee.
But one Tory member on the committee, Simon Revvell, said he did not remember the alleged incident
He said: "I was quite surprised at the allegation because I wasn't aware of anything being said at the time."
The SNP's Westminster leader Angus Robertson accompanied Dr Whiteford to see Speaker John Bercow to complain about the alleged remark, and of bullying on the committee.
Dr Whiteford recently complained about the twin inquiry announced by Mr Davidson into the Scottish government's plans for an independence referendum.
At the time she described it as a "sideshow" and claimed it would be a "a partisan and pejorative inquiry".
Dr Whiteford has contacted all members of the cross-party committee informing them that she is "withdrawing" from the work of the committee until Mr Davidson has relinquished his position.
She has stressed that she is not resigning from the committee, but will not attend its proceedings until the situation is resolved.
In her letter to MPs she said: "I do not believe this behaviour is compatible with the position of chair of a select committee, and therefore do not intend to return to the committee while Mr Davidson remains in that role."Outside of Super Smash Bros., it feels like there's something of a gap in the 3DS library when it comes to fighters, so the overseas arrival of Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden is a welcome one. A 2D, sprite based brawler that features characters and storylines from the perpetually popular manga and anime property, it's a solid if unspectacular beat-'em-up that plays things relatively safe – although it does have a penchant for plenty of nods towards the legacy of Akira Toriyama's bombastic creation.
Upon booting up Extreme Butoden story mode will likely be your first port of call, as you'll have to complete the initial storyline in order to unlock the more robust adventure mode. If you're a fan of the source material, or if you've played any of the numerous Dragon Ball Z games that have popped up over the years, then you'll already know exactly what's in store here.
Following the plot of Dragon Ball Z beginning at the first fight with Raditz and ending after the final duel with Kid Buu, it's a narrative that's been retold so many times now that it's difficult to feel any kind of excitement, and to make matters worse Extreme Butoden employs still character portraits and bland, basic text descriptions of each event. The result is an incredibly banal tour of a story that should be soaked in glorious battles and ridiculous moments.
Fortunately the whole affair is over quickly, as each saga only features a couple of quick battles at most. Once it's done you unlock alternate storylines – some of which offer slightly more interesting perspectives – and you're also free to jump over to the far superior adventure mode. The latter is easily the most in-depth component of the release, as you join Goku on an original adventure that sees you travelling the world and gathering the dragon balls.
The plot of adventure mode, which is exclusive to the game, is little more than an excuse to have all of the vanquished villains return for one big world-ending series of battles, but it's the finer points of the narrative that make it worthwhile. Goku will often reminisce with various characters about times past, and many conversations even hark back to the days of the lesser known Dragon Ball in which Goku was just a child. Fans of the original series will appreciate the attention to detail in a lot of the dialogue, and a healthy dose of cameos from less popular characters seem like thoughtful additions, too.
It's a shame, then, that the playable character roster is actually quite stunted. The mainstays are all here – Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Cell, Majin Buu – but there's a distinct lack of secondary personalities, which, let's face it, isn't what you expect from a Dragon Ball title. Instead, the vast majority of fighters have been pushed to one side and only appear as assist characters who can be called upon in the heat of battle. Sure, it's satisfying to be able to summon Dabura and watch him unleash a powerful move, or chuckle when Bulma runs your opponent over with a capsule bike, but with so many fantastic characters relegated to what are essentially cameo appearances it's hard not to feel disappointed.
It takes a heck of a long time to unlock all of these assist fighters, too, as you'll need to earn high ranking scores throughout adventure mode. This can be a tall order, as the further that you progress through Goku's journey the tougher your opponents become, with later stages really ramping up the difficulty. Needless to say you'll need to get to grips with many of the game's intricacies before you're able to meet the likes of Broly on equal footing.
Indeed, on the surface, Extreme Butoden may look a bit like a 2D button masher, but it actually houses a decent amount of depth. Although command inputs generally stay the same for each character, there are several different combo types to master, and the inclusion of unique special moves is just enough to keep fighters feeling sufficiently different from one another. Add in the fact that the title is primarily a team based brawler that allows you to switch between combatants on the fly, and you've got a combat system that's worth experimenting with when it comes to building your perfect band of warriors.
Alongside basic combo strings, launchers, and powerful long range blasts, defensive techniques also play a big part; tapping the quick dash button just as an incoming blow's about to hit, and you'll teleport away from the strike and be primed for a counterattack, for example. Learning the ins and outs of combat can take a lot of practice, but the system's overall accessibility – mostly thanks to the game's somewhat simple controls - means that it never becomes an overwhelming process. With that in mind, it's safe to say that the release maintains a nice balance between casual and advanced play, and all in all Extreme Butoden is buoyed considerably by its fast paced, fluid and fun fisticuffs.
However, since there's no online functionality you'll have to make do with challenging local players and the artificial intelligence, which isn't ideal when you're eager to test the true extent of your skills. In fact, given that the release encourages you to form your own dream team of Dragon Ball personalities, an online versus mode would have at least allowed friends to live out crazy battles that they had previously only imagined. As such its omission is puzzling, especially for a fighting game in this day and age.
Meanwhile, in terms of presentation, Extreme Butoden is reasonably slick. Some nice sprite work breathes life into the colourful cast, and although the animation isn't the smoothest that you'll find in the genre, iconic moves from the source material are recreated well. That said, it's the 3D capability that really sets things off, despite its rather basic implementation. With 3D turned on, health and ki bars jump to the foreground, with the action happening in the middle distance. Again, it's a simplistic way of doing things, but it gives the title a much more dynamic look.Oh the indignity of being an almost-forgotten chief executive of these United States.
For a few years, you held the highest post in the land. And now your name is barely on anyone's tongue unless they're engaged in a round of history trivia.
Sure, there may be a Pierce County here or a McKinley Middle School there. But is your face on a coin? Or your name in the title of a best-selling book?
Sadly, no.
But it turns out that obscurity doesn't guarantee that the members of the Ex-Presidents Society are crashing bores. Some of them are pretty darned interesting. To prove it, here are five great books about presidents you've barely ever heard of.
1. "The Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield," by Kenneth D. Ackerman (2003).
I've seen a photograph of President James Garfield that shows him with a huge grin as he dandles a young child on his knee. He looks like a man who could reveal pure delight in front of a camera at a time when that sort of thing was frowned upon (possibly because everyone had bad teeth).
Garfield didn't have much reason to be delighted during his brief term as president. He might have thought he barely belonged there in the first place, considering that he was the product of a compromise on the 36th ballot (36th!) of the Republican National Convention.
Garfield was only in office for four months before being shot by an angry office seeker; he suffered immensely for months, in part due to incredibly botched medical care.
"Dark Horse" expertly tracks the political players of the time and probes the warped mind of the assassin, a man who |
“remains guided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on this matter.”
The carrier reminded passengers that they “must possess the appropriate travel documents, including a valid US entry visa, in order to travel.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court partially lifted lower court injunctions against Trump’s executive order that had temporarily banned visas for citizens of the six countries. The justices’ ruling exempted applicants from the ban if they could prove a “bona fide relationship” with a U.S. person or entity, but the court offered only broad guidelines — suggesting they would include a relative, job offer or invitation to lecture in the U.S. — as to how that should be defined.
Senior officials from the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security had laboured since the decision to clarify the ruling and Wednesday’s instructions were the result. The new guidance will remain in place until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the matter. Arguments before the justices will not be held until at least October, so the interim rules will remain in place at least until the fall.
Shortly after taking office, Trump ordered the refugee ban and a travel ban affecting the six countries, plus Iraq. He said it was needed to protect the U.S. from terrorists, but opponents said it was unfairly harsh and was intended to meet his campaign promise to keep Muslims out of the United States.
After a federal judge struck down the bans, Trump signed a revised order intended to overcome legal hurdles. That was also struck down by lower courts, but the Supreme Court’s action Monday partially reinstated it.
The initial travel ban led to chaos at airports around the world, but because the guidelines exempt previously issued visas, similar problems are not expected. After a judge blocked the original ban, Trump issued a scaled-down order and the court’s action Monday further reduced the number of people who would be covered by it. Also, while the initial order took effect immediately, adding to the confusion, this one was delayed 72 hours after the court’s ruling.
Under the new rules, would-be immigrants from the six countries who won a coveted visa in the government’s diversity lottery — a program that randomly awards 50,000 green cards annually to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States — will also have to prove they have a “bona fide relationship” with in the U.S. or are eligible for another waiver or face being banned for at least 90 days. That hurdle may be a difficult one for those immigrants to overcome, as many visa lottery winners don’t have relatives in the U.S. or jobs in advance of arriving in the country.
Generally, winners in the diversity lottery only need prove they were born in an eligible county and have completed high school or have at least two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two other years of training or experience.
With files from Alicia A. CaldwellPresident Barack Obama accuses Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of “whining,” after his repeated statements on the upcoming presidential election being “rigged.”
At a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Obama says:
The notion that somehow if Mr. Trump loses Florida, it’s because of those people that you have to watch out for, that is both irresponsible and, by the way, doesn’t really show the kind of leadership and toughness that you want out of a president. If you start whining before the game’s even over, if whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job because there are a lot of times when things don’t go our way or my way.
However, as a presidential candidate Obama expressed concerns about the validity of U.S. elections. On numerous occasions before being sworn in as commander-in-chief, Obama decried flaws in the American election system, which included voter ID laws, rhetoric from Bush administration Justice Department officials and the agency’s traditional handling of voter fraud investigations. In 2008, shortly before the general election, Obama even had acknowledged that elections had been “monkeyed” with in the past.
1) October 20, 2006 – Barack Obama in a joint press release with Rep. John Lewis and then-Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) accused the Georgia State Board of Elections of a “cynical attempt” to influence elections when a letter was inadvertently sent out telling voters to bring “proper government-issued photo identification” to the polls shortly after a Georgia Superior Court judge ruled the requirement violated the state constitution.
Partial press statement:
Today Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), and Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Barack Obama (D-IL) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez requesting federal investigation of an action taken by the Georgia State Board of Elections. The elections board sent out over 200,000 letters informing voters in mainly Democratic districts that they may not have the proper government-issued photo identification required to vote in the November 7th election. That letter would have been appropriate had a Superior Court judge in Fulton County not ruled last month that the Georgia photo-ID law violated the state constitution. A prominent GOP member of the elections board contended the letters were slated for delivery before the judge’s ruling, but evidence released from the secretary of state’s office reveals the letters were sent to the post office after the judge issued his decision. Former Gov. Roy Barnes has filed a lawsuit against the state over the matter, and Rep. Lewis joined Senators Dodd and Obama requesting a federal investigation of the mailing to determine whether voting rights laws were broken. … “This seems like nothing more than a cynical attempt to influence elections by discouraging people to vote,” Sen. Obama said. “It’s crucial that we vigorously defend American citizens’ right to vote, and this matter should be thoroughly investigated as soon as possible.”
2) September 28, 2007 – Then-Sen. Barack Obama address gives remarks at the Howard University convocation in Washington, DC. In the speech to the audience at the HBCU, Obama vowed to scale back voter-fraud investigations in black and Latino districts and pursue investigations into voter suppression if elected president.
Remarks:
Like Katrina did with poverty, Jena exposed glaring inequities in our justice system that were around long before that schoolyard fight broke out. It reminds us of the fact that we have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, non-violent offenders for the better part of their lives – a decision that’s made not by a judge in a courtroom, but by politicians in Washington. It reminds us that we have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from. It reminds us that we have a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting civil rights violations is trying to rollback affirmative action programs at our college and universities; a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting voting rights violations is to look for voting fraud in black and Latino communities where it doesn’t exist. We know these inequities are there. We know they’re wrong. And yet they go largely unnoticed until people find the courage to stand up and say they’re wrong. Until someone finally says, “It’s wrong that Scooter Libby gets no jail time for compromising our national security, but a 21-year-old honor student is still sitting in a Georgia prison for something that wasn’t even a felony. That’s wrong.” … From the day I take office as President, America will have a Justice Department that is truly dedicated to the work it began in the days after Little Rock. I will rid the department of ideologues and political cronies, and for the first time in eight years, the Civil Rights Division will actually be staffed with civil rights lawyers who prosecute civil rights violations, and employment discrimination, and hate crimes. And we’ll have a Voting Rights Section that actually defends the right of every American to vote without deception or intimidation. When flyers are placed in our neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day, that won’t only be an injustice, it will be a crime.
3) October 19, 2007 – Then-Sen. Obama called on a the head of the Bush Justice Department’s voting rights division John Tanner to be fired for saying voter ID laws hurt the elderly but aren’t a problem for minorities because they often die before old age.
Obama called the remarks “patently erroneous, offensive, and dangerous”given they had come from a federal official charged with protecting voting rights in America.
Letter as follows:
October 19, 2007 The Honorable Peter D. Keisler
Acting Attorney General
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001 Dear Mr. Keisler: On October 5, 2007, at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles, John Tanner, the chief of the voting rights section of the Civil Rights Division, spoke on a panel regarding minority voters. During the course of that discussion, which focused on recent state laws requiring photo identification for voting, Mr. Tanner said that such photo ID requirements disadvantage the elderly “[a]nd that’s a shame.” He explained: “You know, creating problems for elderly persons just is not good under any circumstance.” However, according to Mr. Tanner, such requirements do not disenfranchise minorities, and in fact, they actually benefit minorities. He said: “Our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do; they die first. There are inequities in health care. There are a variety of inequities in this country. And so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities; just the math is such as that.” Such comments are patently erroneous, offensive, and dangerous, and they are especially troubling coming from the federal official charged with protecting voting rights in this country. Mr. Tanner has already demonstrated questionable judgment in overruling the decision of Justice Department lawyers that the Georgia photo ID requirement would disproportionately discriminate against African Americans. For Mr. Tanner to now suggest, in an effort to defend his erroneous decision, that photo identification are not necessary for minority voters because “they die first” shows just how far the Justice Department has fallen. This is a disgrace and yet another reason why the next Attorney General must demonstrate a strong commitment to civil rights. But, until the next Attorney General is confirmed, you are in charge of the Department, and you are in charge of ensuring that our laws are enforced and that the civil rights of all Americans are protected. Through his inexcusable comments, Mr. Tanner has clearly demonstrated that he possesses neither the character nor the judgment to be heading the Voting Rights Section. For that reason, I respectfully request that you remove him from his position. Sincerely, Barack Obama United States Senator
4) April 28, 2008 – Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama decried a Supreme Court decision that upheld Indiana’s voter ID law. He called the state’s voter ID law and other like it “discriminatory barriers to the right to vote” in a written statement on the heels of the ruling.
Written statement as follows:
“I will continue to fight to ensure that all of our citizens have equal and unfettered access to the polls, including Indiana voters on May 6. Although I believe today’s decision is wrong, I am encouraged that the court has not completely closed the door to future challenges to state voter ID laws that create discriminatory barriers to the right to vote.”
5) September 4, 2008 – Then-Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama was asked about a “rigged” election at a rally at Ohio’s Kent State University. Obama admitted throughout history both Democrats and Republicans had “monkeyed” with elections. As president, he vowed to have a “non-partisan” division of the Justice Department committed to voting rights.
Remarks as follows:
I tell you what, it helps in Ohio that we have Democrats in charge of the machines. But, look, I come from Chicago. So I want to be honest, it is not as if it is just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes Democrats have, too. Whenever people are in power, they have this tendency to try to, you know, tilt things in their direction. That is why we have got to have a, I believe, a voting rights division in the Justice Department that is non-partisan and that is serious about investigating cases of voter fraud, is serious about making sure the people are not being discouraged to vote That is why the voting rights legislation that was passed a couple years ago to help the county clerks to make sure that the machines are in place are important. That’s why we need paper trails on these new electronic machines, so that you actually have something that you can hang on to after you punched that letter to make sure it has not been hacked into. Those are all part of the process of making sure that our democracy works for everybody. One of the great things about this election has been all the interest that has been taken in this election. When I spoke Thursday night, there were more viewers than watched the finals of “American Idol.” Now that is big. That is big. That’s big. And I hope a lot of people are watching the Republican convention. I want people to have information. And then I want to make sure that our democracy is working the way it should be. This is very near and dear to my heart because when I was a lawyer, I practiced voting rights law. I filed a lot of lawsuits. In Illinois, I helped to make sure that you could go ahead and get at drivers’ license facilities at the DMV. So I’ve been working on this for a long time. I think the more people participate, the more they are paying attention. Ultimately, the better off everybody is. OK? Hold on one second. It’s the guys’ turn.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorAn 18-year-old migrant from Afghanistan has been arrested in the Austrian capital of Vienna after police alleged he stabbed his own 14-year-old sister to death in an apparent honour killing.
The 18-year-old is said to have killed his sister on Monday after getting into a heated argument with her because she had complained to her parents about not wanting to go to school.
The young Afghan claimed he had “exploded” after his sister had shouted at their parents and physically pushed him, Kronen Zeitung reports.
Office for Youth and Family spokesman Petra Mandl disagreed with the assessment saying that schooling was very important to the girl and she had wanted to leave the household and live elsewhere. Mandl claimed the girl was under stress from her family who enforced traditional values in the household and say the girl visited a crisis centre to talk about it before she was killed.
The 18-year-old Afghan is not unknown to police in Vienna and is said to have a criminal history consisting of several crimes including fraud, theft, and uttering threats.
According to reports, the young migrant skipped out on court dates relating to previous crimes and a judge ordered the police to take him from his home on September 11th but they were unable to find him at his home in Vienna’s heavily migrant-populated district of Favoriten.
Defence lawyer Astrid Wagner said the young man expressed “regret” and claimed that he did not mean to kill his sister, just to hurt her.
Gambian Migrant Accused of Murdering American Nanny in Vienna https://t.co/qpDAXrUoGA pic.twitter.com/FejVyQOojZ — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 6, 2016
The killing is the latest in a list of migrant perpetrated murders in the Austrian capital in recent years. The most notorious case occurred last year when a cleaning lady was bludgeoned to death by a failed asylum seeker whilst on her way to work in the migrant-populated district of Ottakring.
Another case in 2016 saw a migrant from Gambia, who was slated for deportation, kill a young American woman who had let him stay at her home to avoid being repatriated. The migrant strangled the young woman to death after she rejected his sexual advances.Washington: President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered the construction of a US-Mexican border wall and punishment for cities shielding illegal immigrants while mulling restoring a CIA secret detention program as he launched broad but divisive plans to reshape US immigration and national security policy.
A draft executive order seen by Reuters that Trump is expected to sign in the coming days would block the entry of refugees from war-torn Syria and suspend the entry of any immigrants from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and African countries Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen while permanent rules are studied.
Less than a week into his presidency, Trump has moved aggressively to put his stamp on a range of policies, including steps to gut the healthcare system devised by his predecessor and make clear that as president he is not turning toward more moderate positions than he took as a candidate.
His directives on Wednesday signaled tough action toward the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants already in the US, most from Latin America, whom he had already threatened to deport.
In a move critics called a slight to the integrity of American democracy, Trump also said on Wednesday he would seek a “major investigation” into what he believes was voter fraud in the November election, despite overwhelming consensus among state officials, election experts and politicians that it is rare in the US.
“We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States,” Trump told an audience that included relatives of people killed by illegal immigrants at the Department of Homeland Security after signing two executive orders.
The directives ordered the construction of a multi billion-dollar wall along the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200 km) US-Mexico border, moved to strip federal funding from “sanctuary” states and cities that harbor illegal immigrants, and expanded the force of US immigration agents.
His plans prompted an outcry from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers who said Trump was jeopardising the rights and freedoms of millions of people while treating Mexico as an enemy, not an ally and soiling the US’s historic reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants of all stripes.
“The border wall is about political theater at the expense of civil liberties,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition immigrant advocacy group.
“It is not national security policy. Border communities are among the safest in the nation and patrolling them with tens of thousands of heavily armed, poorly trained, unaccountable agents puts lives at risks. This will turn these communities into de facto military zones,” Ramirez said.
The White House said the wall would stem the flow of drugs, crime and illegal immigration into the US.
“We are in the middle of a crisis on our southern border. The unprecedented surge of illegal migrants from Central America is harming both Mexico and the United States,” Trump said, adding: “A nation without borders is not a nation.”
The immigration crackdown has sparked fear among so-called ‘dreamers’, whose parents brought them to the US illegally and who received temporary deportation relief and work permits from President Barack Obama.
Trump said the dreamers should not fear deportation.
“They shouldn’t be very worried,” Trump told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Wednesday..
“Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried,” he said, adding: “We’ll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.”
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan also said the ‘dreamers’ should not be worried. “We’re focused on physical security of the border, we’re focused on those who are coming to do us harm from terrorist states and things like that,” he told MSNBC.
Tension with Mexico
Trump is also expected to order a review that could lead to bringing back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons where interrogation techniques often condemned as torture were used during former Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, two US officials said.
Trump‘s actions could further test relations with Mexico.
The wall plan has infuriated Mexicans. Trump‘s policies, including his demand that the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada be renegotiated or scrapped, have put Mexico’s government on the defensive. Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto are due to meet next week.
Pena Nieto said on Wednesday night that he “regrets and disapproves” of the push by Trump to build a new wall along the border.
Officials in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, Washington, San Francisco and Seattle offer some forms of protection to illegal immigrants. Billions of dollars in federal aid to those cities, often governed by Democrats, could be at risk under Trump‘s move.
In the ABC News interview, Trump said construction on the wall would start within months, with planning starting immediately and that Mexico would pay back to the US “100%” of the costs. Mexican officials have said they will not pay for the wall.
The White House said Trump‘s goal was to get the wall started as quickly as possible using existing government funds and then work with the Republican-led Congress on further appropriations.
Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration a key element of his presidential campaign, with supporters at his rallies often chanting: “Build the wall.”
The cost, nature and extent of the wall remain unclear. Trump last year put the cost at “probably $8 billion,” although other estimates are higher and he said the wall would span 1,000 miles (1,600 km) because of the terrain of the border.
End of ‘catch and release’
Trump‘s directives would end the practice known by critics as ‘catch and release’ in which authorities apprehend illegal immigrants on US territory but do not immediately detain or deport them.
The directives also include hiring 5,000 more US customs and border protection agents used to apprehend people seeking to slip across the border and tripling the number of US immigration and customs enforcement agents used to arrest and deport immigrants living in the US illegally.
They also create more detention space for illegal immigrants along the southern border to make it easier to detain and deport them.
The intent of the proposals regarding refugees and immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority nations is to head off Islamist violence in the US.
The draft directive on immigration also suspends the US refugee program for four months while determining whether permanent changes to the system are needed.
(Reuters)Who is this boy?
Investigators in Maine continue to ask this question two days after discovering the body of an unidentified four- or five-year-old boy on the side of a rural road.
Authorities have received more than 100 tips about the child, but Maine State Police Lt. Brian McDonough told ABC News that his agency is no closer to identifying the boy than they were when they found the child under a blanket on a remote road in South Berwick at around 5 p.m. on Saturday.
"Somebody has got to miss this child. He's a nephew of somebody, a son or grandson of somebody.... It's just been very, very frustrating that we haven't gotten any leads, significant leads, in identifying this child," McDonough said.
Police say the child's death is suspicious.
The boy is described as having short, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. According to police, the child is about three feet, eight inches, weighs 45 pounds and still has his baby teeth.
He was found wearing a gray camouflage hooded sweatshirt, tan pants and a dark blue short-sleeved shirt featuring the words "Aviator Series," CNN reports.
Making matters more complicated, no child matching that description has been reported missing in Maine, New Hampshire or Massachusetts.
Maine State Police have released a computer generated image of the boy, hoping someone will recognize the child.
Authorities are currently investigating reports from witnesses who spotted a woman driving a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with an extended cab and a covered bed near the site where the body was discovered on Saturday morning.
Authorities urge anyone with information about the child or the pickup truck to call Maine State Police at (207) 657-3030..
Melbourne’s psychedelia-infused garage rock group, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, have returned for their first of five albums for 2017. Continuing in their pursuit of experimentation, and with a budget of $200 each, the 7-piece modified their instruments to add microtonal tuning (micro-tones are the notes found when you create smaller intervals than with semi-tones) into the sound for Flying Microtonal Banana. Not only do they expand their creative barriers, but their production sensibility is improved, marking the clearest and most crisp they’ve ever sounded.
Scathing winds pick up in the opening and with only a moment’s hesitation the pounding of the dual drum kits rips the album ‘s scenery wide open. The already crowd-favourite, Rattlesnake, is the kind of jam that will have krautrock fans licking their lips. Reminding me of the same addictive hook of Neu!’s Hallogallo, the combination of Cook Craig, Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie’s rhythm leaves me wanting even more of those lengthy gizzy jams.
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Melting, the second track of the album sounds exactly how you’d think a King Gizzard track called such would be. It still holds the pace set by the previous track but mellows the mood a little. Melting’s guitar solo demonstrates the extent of how much more can be done with micro-tuned instruments.
Pushing the metronome up a few notches, Open Water isn’t quite as catchy but still rocks hard. Interestingly, the later part of Open Water sounds like Road Train from last year’s Nonagon Infinity. Not that I think its them hacking at the same idea, but possibly premeditated to transition between the two songs in their live set (as they’ve been doing in their recent headline shows with Wah-Wah and The River).
Moody, dark and chilled, Sleep Drifter picks the kraut right up again to let the Cry-Baby pedal come out to play. The characteristics of the record then take a turn for Billabong Valley. With Ambrose Kenny-Smith grabbing the vocal mic, Billabong Valley feeds off the same approach the group took with Eyes Like the Sky with a microtonal context. The lyrics, almost out of an old Australiana book, have Ambrose singing tales of bold bushranger Mad Dog Morgan. Just as Sam Cherry’s Last Shot from 12 Bar Bruise evolved into Eyes Like the Sky, will we soon hear the promised sequel of the spoken-word novel-album with a possible feature of Mad Dog? I hope so.
Doom City is possibly the most interesting track on the record. Channelling the doom-metal spirit of Black Sabbath and toning guitars to the sound of Tony Iommi, it proves that King Gizzard are fellow masters of reality. Repeating lyrics “Doom, City Doom Doom, City Doom Doom, City Doom Doom” work as a catchy vocal-instrumentation chant. As the break-down slows the pace, blaring zurnas haunt the ear while the listener descends, right before being picked up again by the returning catchy chant of the song’s title.
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On the home stretch, Stu and Co. present us with Nuclear Fusion, another moody and broody track that emphasises the ‘doomsday’ landscape emitting from the record.
For the last track, Flying Microtonal Banana, deep sounding bongo drums are covered with a slowly repetitious guitar riff thats lead by the returning zurnas. Tribal, culty and spooky, the album’s title track wraps everything up nicely with one last blow of Kenny-Smith’s harmonica before the same winds at the opening of the album fade in and out.
Fans new to King Gizzard wanting a non-stop hard hitting record like Nonagon Infinity might need to wait a little longer. Flying Microtonal Banana changes pace, going up and down, from left to right and accelerating highs to slow lows. For Gizzheads more familiar with the collection the high production values and experimentation of fresh ideas will be welcomed. Assuming they hold their end of the bargain with those four more albums by the end of the year, King Gizzard are convincing everyone that being 9 albums deep doesn’t mean they’re short of any new ideas.
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Flying Microtonal Banana is available NOW via their Bandcamp
.A tragic update to the Smartsite outage rocks the Davis community
It is now the fourth bleak day of Smartsite maintenance and a new announcement has just been released regarding the fate of our most treasured dumb website.
Following the super informative update that read, “Update…we will post notices hourly with status updates,” a new statement has been released:
“Although we said that Smartsite would be back up and running by 9 a.m. on Monday, May 23, in order to make sure we get this maintenance right, we are now estimating that the changes will be halfway completed by Fall Quarter of 2020. We have no estimates for when the fixes might actually be finished. Oh well. It’s not like many students rely on this website anyway,” the statement read.
Many people have been asking what is taking so long for the website to be get back up and running. The answer is complicated.
“What we’re doing is a little technical and I don’t want to get into too much detail,” a “smart” site representative told The Aggie. “We’re doing an entire re-branding effort to make the site more aesthetically pleasing. Specifically, we’re changing the font.”
You can reach BRIAN LANDRY at bjlandry@ucdavis.eduYouTube/EverythingApplePro The quest to customize your iPhone to the point that it's the most unique iPhone on the street is ever ongoing.
For most of us, that means getting a unique case, or perhaps a case that costs as much as an iPhone itself, like the $1,345 Advent Collection case for the iPhone X.
There are also a "skins," which are essentially full-body stickers that can give your iPhone a cool leather, metal, or wooden look.
In China, glowing iPhone speaker grills that light up to the beat of your music are apparently the "latest trend."
It's a cool effect, that will turn heads (especially if you're someplace outside of China, where the flashing speaker style is still a novelty). And, thanks to Filip from the EverythingApplePro YouTube channel, there's a way for you to make your iPhone speaker grills glow.
With that said, the procedure to get glowing iPhone speaker grills is pretty involved, and certainly voids your warranty, not mentioning that it carries the risk of breaking your iPhone for good.
Check out the glowing iPhone speaker grills:ASBURY PARK – The doors to Asbury Park Convention Hall burst open at a little after 5:30 p.m. and a few hundred public sector labor members and their allies volubly stampeded the indoor entrance area to Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential fundraiser.
“Hey hey, ho ho, Chris Christie has got to go,” yelled the red T-shirted crowd of Communications Workers of America (CWA) and New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) allies as they tramped through the hall.
The labor ground troops here also had air support.
“Gov Christie you never came down to Ortley Beach to see how people’s homes were destroyed,” a man yelled into a megaphone.
“While Governor Christie spends his time courting primary voters from New Hampshire to Iowa, working families in New Jersey continue to struggle to make ends meet,” said Analilia Mejia, Executive Director of New Jersey Working Families. “Governor Christie’s staunch opposition to providing New Jersey workers with paid sick leave is one of the many reasons why 55 percent of New Jersey voters disapprove of his job performance. 83 percent of New Jersey voters support paid sick leave. I’m sure Governor Christie wishes his approval ratings were that high.”
“Individuals who work hard and play by the rules should be able to earn a living and care for their families,” said Phyllis Salowe-Kay, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action. “By opposing paid sick leave, Governor Christie is continuing to force people in New Jersey to choose between working while they are sick – and possibly infecting others – and paying their bills.”
There was some protester-fundraiser heel-to-toe action as the likes of former Assemblyman Dick Kamin, a Christie backer pictured at right, hot stepped it into the big, high-ceilinged room on his way into the event amid sign-shaking and bullhorn-powered labor backers.Toulon have boosted their wing stocks with the addition of Lachie Turner as a World Cup joker according to reports.
The 28-year-old arrives on a short-term deal from the Reds as Toulon look to cope without Bryan Habana and potentially Drew Mitchell during the World Cup.
Turner, who won 15 caps between 2008 and 2011, has endured an injury-hit couple of seasons and was set to play in the National Rugby Championship.
However he has instead decided to join the triple European champions according to the Courier Mail, with the possibility of staying in France longer term if he can impress.
Turner was not assured of a Super Rugby contract for next season, and Reds coach Richard Graham explained that it was an opportunity Turner couldn't afford to turn down.
"This is an opportunity for him to earn money and play some rugby," explained Graham.
Toulon have already brought in veteran Fijian winger Sireli Bobo as a medical joker this off-season.By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – Frustrated fight fans have wanted to see Canelo Alvarez fight Gennady Golovkin for well over a year.
But when the time came to discuss details for making Alvarez-Golovkin a reality September 16, De La Hoya said early Sunday morning negotiations with Golovkin’s promoter, Tom Loeffler, were “not tough at all.” Alvarez’s promoter estimated after Alvarez’s 12-round domination of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. that it took about two weeks to negotiate a deal for the highly anticipated middleweight title bout between Mexico’s Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) and Kazakhstan’s Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs).
“The Triple-G side is such a pleasure to work with,” De La Hoya said during a press conference at T-Mobile Arena. “My president, Eric Gomez, we wanted specific negotiations and it was easy to make. We negotiated back and forth several times, no big deal.
“These types of fights take a long time to make happen and surprisingly enough, this fight took a couple of weeks to make. Now I did start negotiations a while back and we halted those negotiations out of respect to Chavez and this event. And we halted those for about a month. And then we started negotiating two weeks ago, and it got done a few days ago.”
The official announcement of Alvarez-Golovkin, planned to immediately follow the Alvarez-Chavez fight, was a well-kept secret, a rarity in boxing. Needless to say, Loeffler, managing director for K2 Promotions (Golovkin’s promoter), was very relieved once the final bell rang for Alvarez-Chavez and Alvarez walked away an unscathed winner.
“I’ll tell you, this fight was a long time in the making,” Loeffler said. “As I’ve said in numerous interviews, I’ve been talking to Eric Gomez and Oscar about putting this thing together. They stayed true to their word. They always said, even since last year, that we’d make this fight for September 2017. And here were are, making the announcement.
“There couldn’t be a bigger announcement in the sport of boxing. It wasn’t easy making the fight. It was even harder not announcing the fight before this time here [Saturday night], before it would actually get out, because we didn’t know what would happen in the fight [Saturday night]. We wanna give our respects and congratulations to Canelo and his team. Fought a tremendous fight. Whenever you can shut out a fighter like Chavez Jr., it’s a tremendous performance. So we wanna congratulate him and we look forward to working with Golden Boy and Team Canelo for a tremendous promotion in September.”
The site of the Alvarez-Golovkin fight hasn’t been determined. T-Mobile Arena and the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, are expected to be the primary competitors to host the Alvarez-Golovkin showdown.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.The Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull has taken part in the launch of a new FinTech app called OnMarket, which is supposed to democratise the process of capital raising – previously a prerogative of big companies. He entered a US$2,000 bid for shares in Bitcoin Group which is about to release its initial public offering.
Bitcoin Group is one of the Australia's largest mining operators that assists the global blockchain network by validating approximately 135,000 transactions per day. It announced its plans to release the IPO in September, scheduling the beginning of trades for 11 November. If the IPO is successful, Bitcoin Group plans to achieve the level of production of 374 to 551 bitcoins daily. The OnMarket founder and CEO Ben Bucknell described the IPO as the one “borne out of the belief that technology has the power to transform capital markets”.
“The brilliance of this application is simply that it makes it easier to buy, makes it easier to trade. If you want to sell something, make it easier for your customers to find you, to reach you, to transact with you. Inevitably this application will open up the investment market considerably,” PM Turnbull said, adding that technology is likely to reduce spreads in the market, as it always does.
He believes that an IPO which opens the capital raising process to anyone interested “will give more power to the private investor”.
To be approached by OnMarket, a company shall submit a virtual petition which will allow users to indicate their interest in buying its shares. As soon as it gets enough votes, OnMarket will engage with the company.
The number of Australians already investing in the share market amounts to 6 million, with, as the statistics shows, another 3.6 million being keen to start. OnMarket sees them all as potential bidders.
Interestingly, in the beginning of the year Australian Securities and Investment Commission prohibited Bitcoin Group from publishing any statements about the potential IPO on the Australian Security Exchange (ASX), as it had started advertising campaign before submitting all necessary legal documentation.
Maria RudinaMisinformation Clouds Debate on Electoral Reform
Kelly Carmichael and Ryan Campbell
What follows is a response to Douglas Judson’s column “Why does Mulcair’s NDP think less democracy is more democratic?” published by National Newswatch on July 17, 2015.
“Canadians deserve a more particularized discussion of any bid to retool their most basic, legitimizing interface with government machinery.” This is how a recent article by former Liberal staffer Douglas Judson on electoral reform concludes. We, and we’re sure many other advocates of reform agree. Unfortunately the article itself only detracts from this goal by providing factually incorrect claims that only obfuscate and cloud the debate on electoral reform.
Judson is operating on the mistaken belief that the NDP is proposing the same electoral reforms that were presented to Ontarians in 2007, and goes at great length to attack the closed list mechanism included in those proposed reforms. He is attacking a strawman.
The NDP proposal is in fact based on the Law Commission of Canada’s 2004 report on electoral reform. |
’ve seen the Kings rebuilding for over a decade now. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of covering a pile of garbage that occasionally gets sprinkled with a dash of hope.
I was going to write about free agent targets this morning. But I just couldn’t bring myself to get excited about “maybe the Kings could get Patty Mills!” Mills is a fine player and would probably help the Kings and I might still write about that sometime soon, but I just couldn’t do it this morning. I’d be trying to talk myself into a 28 year old point guard who just averaged over 20 minutes a game for the first time in his career. And there’s a good shot the Kings wouldn’t be able to sign him even if they did target him.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about Skal Labissiere and Buddy Hield. I’m thrilled at Willie Cauley-Stein’s growth in year two. I’m eager to see more of Malachi Richardson and Georgios Papagiannis. I want Bogdan Bodganovich to come over and be great. But I’ve also been burned by this type of thing before. Tyreke Evans was supposed to lead us back to the playoffs. And then DeMarcus Cousins was the answer. And Isaiah Thomas, and Rudy Gay. Ben McLemore was supposed to be good, just like Thomas Robinson before him and Nik Stauskas afterwards. And I’m tired of things just not working.
In short, I’m impatient right now. I know the Kings made the right move, I’m just having trouble getting excited about enduring the rebuilding process for another summer.Since joining the EU in 2007, Bucharest has received around 21.3 billion euro from European funds compared to its contribution of some 10.6 billion euro, the Romanian Central Bank has said.
“Romania paid more than it received only in the first year in the EU; apart from that, every year since then, we have recorded a positive balance in relations with the European Union,” Adrian Vasilescu of the Romanian Central Bank told reporters last week.
“So it is important to counteract the common belief that Romania is not a net beneficiary in relations with the EU,” Vasilescu said.
Last year was the most profitable year for Romania in terms of accessing European funds, with the country receiving a total of 5.6 billion euro, of which 2.6 billion euro represented capital transfers.
Vasilescu said that another advantage of membership was that Romania has increased trade with the EU, with 70 per cent of the country’s exports now going to the 28-member club.
But despite many improvements in recent years in its relations with the EU, Romania is still lagging behind other eastern European states.
Romania’s rate of absorption of EU funds, which is around 25 per cent, is among the lowest in the EU. The absorption rate is the percentage of potential EU money that the country spends.
Most of the money from EU structural and cohesion funds was used to finance the construction of highways, but according to media reports, none of these projects has been fully finished yet.
In September 2011, the government decided to set up a new ministry aimed at tackling the country’s low rate of absorption of EU funds. Since then, some tangible results have been achieved, with the absorption rate almost doubling.
Data from the European Commission shows that Bulgaria has a 40 per cent absorption rate, while other eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary score around 60 per cent, and Baltic states Estonia and Lithuania manage over 70 per cent.
Romania joined the EU in 2007 and since then Brussels has temporarily suspended payments several times over flaws and suspected fraud in some EU-funded programmes.On Saturday, May 25, 2013, Hockey Canada’s board of directors voted overwhelmingly to remove body checking from peewee hockey across Canada in an effort to limit the health risks to kids ages 11 and 12. Although board members voted in favour of the ban in landslide fashion 42-2, with only two Saskatchewan delegates voting against it, the announcement spawned a heated debate. Some say this is a good step in the right direction to protecting our youth while others are vehemently against it. Don Cherry has been adamantly against the ban stating that it is a “Terrible idea” and that we will be sorry.
The decision to ban body checking at the peewee level has been a topic of debate and consideration for some time. Quebec instituted a ban at the peewee level decades ago, but it wasn’t until a recently released medical report outlining statistics showing increased risks of head injuries amongst hockey players in Canada at the peewee level, that the debate began to hasten. The report showed a significant jump in head injuries suffered by hockey playing kids ages 11 and 12. At the end of the day, these statistics were just too important to ignore.
Since the announcement of the decision, the most common question I’ve been asked is, “Where do you stand in this debate?” If I had been asked this question three or four years ago, I would have said that I thought it was a bad idea. Over the last four years or so, I’ve been able to really take a step back and look inside hockey and get a better view of how the machine operates. I’ve seen first-hand, and am experiencing first-hand the effects that head injuries can have as life progresses on individuals. It really is a major concern that we really don’t know enough about yet to fool around with. We know that concussions are bad, but we really don’t know what consistent long-term repercussions are. Diagnostics on head injuries are lagging and we are really only starting to peel back the layers on what other illnesses and diseases that head injuries lead to like early-onset dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and severe depression among several other disorders.
To really grab hold of a particular side to the argument, I had to prioritize the situation and look at all the components. When talking about pee wee hockey, the first priority has to be safety. As coaches, parents and administrators, we have to make decisions with the safety of 11 and 12 year olds at the top of the list. Does banning body checking at this level decrease the risk of injuries to the kids? Absolutely. So we can check the first priority off our list. The flip side to this is that we are eliminating the risk for peewee players but greatly increasing the risk to bantam aged players, where all the kids become stronger and faster. This may also be true, and this is where I believe steps need to be taken. Any time you go from zero to sixty, there is going to be a major transition.
When I was in major peewee, I was 5’2 and weighed 90 lbs soaking wet. I remember I was one of the smaller kids on the team. We had several other kids about the same size as me and then we had about six or seven kids who were 6’0 or more and weighed around 140 – 155 lbs. From my experience, and studies support this, the peewee level is where the largest disparity in size exists. This is the stage where some kids are hitting puberty and experiencing rapid growth and others haven’t yet. That year, we had a coach who thought the best way to teach body checking was to run a drill at the end of every practice called, “The Gauntlet”. The gauntlet consisted of all the players lining up around the boards a few feet away from the boards and the first player in line would skate through, getting checked by every player as he passed by. I remember absolutely hating this drill because I was so small. I loved to hit and loved that side of the game, but this drill didn’t bode well for a player of my stature. Eventually, one practice while we running the gauntlet, I was checked into the boards by one of my teammates who was 6’3 and my collarbone snapped in half like a wishbone.
The problem was, my bones were still developing and I was giving up too much weight trying to go head to head with kids 14 inches taller than me and 50 or 60 lbs heavier. Later that year, I suffered a separated shoulder and, as I would find out much later in life, probably a number of slight concussions or “sub-concussions”. Sub-concussions, which are discussed at length in the compelling documentary “Head Games”, are head injuries that currently go undetected but have the impact of regular concussions in a cumulative manner. These sub-concussions are basically any time you have been hit and “See Stars”, “Hear Ringing”, or when the arena gets momentarily brighter.
During a check-up in my days playing pro, a doctor shed a bit of light on sub-concussions when he asked me how many times I had been diagnosed with a concussion. I replied, “three”. He then asked me how many times I had experienced the aforementioned symptoms. I tried to think back and lost count in the hundreds. Seeing stars and hearing ringing used to happen for me many times during a game. He basically told me that all of these hits accumulate and may have long-term effects that I may not experience until my 40s. That always stuck with me. Then, earlier this year I watched “Head Games” and I couldn’t believe it. Everything that doctor told me was being played out and reiterated in this documentary. In the documentary, studies are outlined about the effects of physical contact in sports ranging from football to soccer. They talk about Chronic-Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which is a degenerative brain disease that is irreversible and leads to the deterioration of the mental state. Encephalopathy has been directly linked to head injuries and can only currently be measured post-mortem by examining “Tau Protein Stains” in brain tissue.
In recent years, the study of CTE has been accelerated and the brains of several former athletes have been collected and studied to help families answer questions about tragic deaths and behaviours. The brain of former NHL player Bob Probert was studied and showed enormous amounts of the protein stain. Former NHLer Keith Primeau has been instrumental in raising awareness about CTE and lent his hand in the making of the documentary. Several former NFLer’s brains have been examined and show massive staining, including Junior Seau who unexplainably took his own life last year. Examinations of Seau’s brain showed major degeneration despite the fact that Seau had never been diagnosed during his career with a clinically defined concussion. All of this goes to show us that we aren’t even at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the head injury issue in major sports.
Growing up in my era, Junior Seau was superman. We’re talking about a guy who was a perennial pro-bowler and helped revolutionize the linebacker position in football. This guy was famous, made millions and should have had the best life imaginable. Ultimately, in the end, Junior Seau was alone, depressed and suffering from CTE. It really makes you think, was all of it really worth it? Keeping that in mind, Junior Seau is one of the very small fraction of athletes who start playing a sport with a dream in mind that actually get to accomplish that dream. We hear about Seau’s tragic end but what about the millions of other athletes who never make it to the professional levels who are suffering from CTE? If you could go back and ask them, “Hey when you were 11 and 12 years old, playing body contact hockey or full-contact athletics and suffered a concussion, are you glad that you did that?”
Another layer to the medical issue of 11 and 12 year-olds participating in hockey with body checking is that when kids are 11 and 12 it isn’t just their bodies going through a major growth phase, their brains are also in one of the most crucial cognitive development phases. Brain regions that are implicated in social cognition, including parts of prefrontal, parietal and superior temporal cortex, undergo the most pronounced structural changes. With all of this going on, do you really want to risk impacting this development?
The health risk component started me thinking about the debate and which side I might snag onto, I then started to think about the game of hockey and how this might impact player development. I truly do believe that we cannot take body checking completely out of hockey because it is a distinct aspect that defines the sport and gives it a unique identity. Playing hockey, at high levels, comes with an assumed risk and it is an individual choice to play the physical game of hockey. If we were to take hitting out of hockey, the sport would see a major decline in revenues and would ultimately fall off the map with regards to being a major, marketable sport. Hockey, from a financial standpoint, relies heavily upon US markets to keep the game in the black and taking out hitting would severely impact these markets. From my years of playing pro hockey in the states and connecting with the fans, I know for a fact that hockey without hitting just won’t fly.
That being said, the million dollar question remains, “What impact on development will a body checking ban have on hockey?” Don Cherry says that the ban from peewee hockey will have horrific repercussions. He says that we will see more injuries at the bantam level because players are now all stronger and faster and won’t be prepared to deliver and receive hits properly and in a safe manner. With this point he does have some valid merit and concern. Looking into it further, Quebec has had a ban on body checking in pee wee hockey for quite some time and studies show that there isn’t a larger percentage of injuries in bantam hockey in their province when compared, per capita, to bantam in other provinces that have had body checking in peewee hockey up until Saturday.
The other argument I’ve heard is that body checking is a skill and is part of hockey and needs to be taught along with skating, shooting and puck handling. It is true, body checking is a skill, however, it isn’t a skill that is hard to teach or requires years of honing and practice the way that skating and other skills require. Being involved in skill development for the last 12 years, I can tell you that if you give me a year, I can teach your sweet aunt Millie how to deliver and receive a hit.
I believe that there needs to be a transition into hitting. Knowing what has been decided with regards to the ban, the biggest emphasis is now on peewee coaches to prepare their players for the transition into bantam where body checking enters the game. The ban allows peewee coaches to start the process of teaching body checking and more importantly, awareness and how to receive a hit in a controlled environment in practice. Hockey Canada has also stated that kids are going to be transitioned into bantam through mandatory body checking clinics, which is a step in the right direction.
The blueprint is in place in Quebec and they have been able to operate and transition with success for years. Introducing hitting in bantam allows three years, plus two years of controlled prep for hitting in peewee, before kids can be drafted into the major junior leagues such as the OHL. Really, the ban allows kids to catch up in physical development and helps to alleviate a dangerous situation. Critics have harped that the decision is solely political and was made because Hockey Canada has seen a big drop in registration at the peewee level. Even if this was a major factor in the decision, don’t we want more kids playing hockey in Canada?
The ban also opens up other opportunities and endless possibilities with regards to development. When I was a kid in minor peewee, the entire year was consumed with an obsession to throw big hits. All we wanted to do was run wild and hit each other. In reality, I probably regressed as a player in minor pee wee because I wasn’t focused on honing my other, more important skill sets. With the ban, coaches will be able to focus more on developing skating, angling, puck handling and shooting, while setting aside a bit of time each practice to prep for body checking. Once you get past age 12, it is very difficult to change a player’s skating style. Being able to put more emphasis on this skill will have positive effects in the long-term.
At the end of the day, safety has become a major priority at all levels, including the NHL as we have seen with recent and rampant head injury concerns. Since we are only at the beginning of a vast learning curve with regards to head injury and long-term effects, we need to protect hockey players, especially youth hockey players. Is this ban going to affect the way hockey is played in the OHL, NCAA, AHL and NHL? No. The ban merely delays the introduction of body checking by two years, allowing kids to develop more strength required to properly administer clean checks.
Are we only banning hitting at peewee and creating a bigger problem at the bantam level where kids are stronger and faster? Not if we put trust in the system and in coaches to teach and prepare kids for the transition into body checking. In reality, at 13 and 14 years of age, kids are more mature physically and mentally than they are when they are 11 and 12. When you compare kids who are 11 years-old with 13 or 14 year-olds the physical difference is immense. Kids at the peewee level have heads that are still large in proportion to their necks and bodies. There is so much at risk when you don’t have the strength to properly receive a check.
Reading articles about the ban, most of the comments have been from coaches who may or may not have played the game of hockey at a high level and parents who also fall into that category. To really get a good gauge on the debate, more feedback from players who are dealing with the after-effects of head injuries or wives and children of players who are dealing with these effects would be the individuals to ask. You really have to ask yourself, “Knowing that only 17 out of a million kids that start playing hockey ever play a single game in the NHL, do I really want to risk suffering from CTE in my early 40s and live through severe depression and dementia just so I can throw a couple big hits when I’m 11 and 12 years old?” If you can honestly, without any regret, say yes to that question, then I guess this ban is a huge mistake.
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RelatedOn Friday morning, President Donald Trump announced that he would not recertify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, one of the foremost foreign policy achievements under the Obama administration, in a blow that had been a long-time coming.
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Though widely criticized by the other world powers who were a part of the deal, Trump’s decision has been praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once denounced the deal as a “historic mistake.”
“Since the Iran deal was signed, Iran has been like a tiger unleashed from its cage,” Netanyahu told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo. “It’s not joining the community of nations, it’s devouring nations left and right. Refusing to go along with a bad deal is a good thing, an important thing, even a historic thing that’s certainly important for world peace.”
The deal, long a point of contention, was made to prevent Iran from producing two components used to make nuclear weapons: plutonium and uranium. In exchange, crippling economic sanctions against Iran were reduced.
During the White House press conference, the president said Tehran was not “living up to the spirit” of the agreement, and suggested they might be working with North Korea on its weapons program, a so far unsubstantiated report.
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But, the future of the deal ultimately remains to be seen: Trump kicked the issue back to Congress, which now has 60 days to determine its fate. Trump also warned that he could still cancel the deal. On Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the U.S. would remain in the international deal for the time being.
Netanyahu said either option -- fixing the agreement or leaving it -- is an important step in stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“The goal is to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “And you can achieve it either by fixing this bad deal, or by nixing it. I don’t particularly care which one, but it’s the result that we want to have.”Summary: A new study reveals the role of T4 cells in the computation of motion.
Source: Max Planck Institute.
Computation of motion by T4 cells in the fly brain more complex than previously believed.
As indicated by their name, photoreceptor cells in the eye respond to light: is an image point bright or dark? They do not indicate the direction of a movement. This perception only arises in the brain through the comparative computations of light signals coming from adjacent image points. Engineers, physicists and neurobiologists have been debating the exact nature of these computations for around 50 years. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have now combined two theories about these computations, which were previously considered to be alternative hypotheses – and discovered that they are carried out in a single neuron.
Flies are usually very difficult to catch. No wonder – they invest around ten percent of their brain in the detection and processing of image motion. For the fly, a hand approaches in slow motion and the fly’s evasive manoeuvre has long been triggered before any real danger arises. Scientists have been researching for decades how the fly brain can perceive and process movements so quickly and accurately. “Our goal is slowly coming into view, and we are close to completely decoding the neuronal circuit of motion perception in the fly,” says Alexander Borst, who has been working on this problem with his Department at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology for quite some time. The scientists have now come one step closer to the answer: They have provided experimental data that combine two theories previously considered as alternatives.
Over 50 years ago, two rival theoretical models were developed which attempted to explain how information about the direction of motion could be computed from the signals transmitted by adjacent image points. One theory states that light stimuli along one direction, referred to as the preferred direction, enhance each other. In contrast, the other model assumes that light stimuli along the opposite direction, known as the null direction, suppress each other. In both cases, a weak direction-selective signal arises, which must then be further processed and amplified. “Interestingly, however, we discovered that already the first cells that respond to the motion stimuli – the T4 and T5 cells – display strong directional selectivity,” reports Alexander Borst.
In order to resolve this discrepancy, the neurobiologists refined a test set-up so that they were able to stimulate individual functional columns of the fly brain in succession and record the responses of the directionally-selective T4 cells. The data they collected and the corresponding computer simulations were clear: T4 cells intensify the input signals when they run along their preferred direction and suppress them when they run along the null direction. Both of the proposed mechanisms are thus implemented in the T4 cells of the fly brain, and what was thought to be an ‘either-or’ scenario became an ‘as-well-as’ one. “It’s no wonder that these cells can differentiate so accurately between motion directions,” says Jürgen Haag, first author of the study. “Nature’s solution is more complicated than either of the proposed models.”
In their computer simulations of such a combined mechanism, the Max Planck researchers required three different input signals to the T4 cells. Interestingly, however, T4 cells receive input signals from four other cells. This would suggest that the fourth – still unknown – input signal to the T4 cells contains a further surprise in relation to the final computation. “Needless to say, we would now also like to know what kind of information the T4 cells receive via this fourth channel,” says Alexander Borst, explaining the next step in the research process. “We will then be able to show for the first time how information about motion direction is calculated in a neural network from individual image points.”
About this neuroscience research article
Source: Alexander Borst – Max Planck Institute
Image Source: This NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to MPI for Neurobiology.
Original Research: Abstract for “Complementary mechanisms create direction selectivity in the fly” by Juergen Haag, Alexander Arenz, Etienne Serbe, Fabrizio Gabbiani, and Alexander Borst in eLife. Published online August 10 2016 doi:10.7554/eLife.17421.001
Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article
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Chicago Max Planck Institute. “Neuron Unites Two Theoretical Models of Motion Detection.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 10 August 2016.
<http://neurosciencenews.com/motion-detection-model-4817/>. Max Planck Institute. (2016, August 10). Neuron Unites Two Theoretical Models of Motion Detection. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved August 10, 2016 from http://neurosciencenews.com/motion-detection-model-4817/ Max Planck Institute. “Neuron Unites Two Theoretical Models of Motion Detection.” http://neurosciencenews.com/motion-detection-model-4817/ (accessed August 10, 2016).
Abstract
Complementary mechanisms create direction selectivity in the fly
How neurons become sensitive to the direction of visual motion represents a classic example of neural computation. Two alternative mechanisms have been discussed in the literature so far: preferred direction enhancement, by which responses are amplified when stimuli move along the preferred direction of the cell, and null direction suppression, where one signal inhibits the response to the subsequent one when stimuli move along the opposite, i.e. null direction. Along the processing chain in the Drosophila optic lobe, directional responses first appear in T4 and T5 cells. Visually stimulating sequences of individual columns in the optic lobe with a telescope while recording from single T4 neurons, we find both mechanisms at work implemented in different sub-regions of the receptive field. This finding explains the high degree of directional selectivity found already in the fly’s primary motion-sensing neurons and marks an important step in our understanding of elementary motion detection.
“Complementary mechanisms create direction selectivity in the fly” by Juergen Haag, Alexander Arenz, Etienne Serbe, Fabrizio Gabbiani, and Alexander Borst in eLife. Published online August 10 2016 doi:10.7554/eLife.17421.001
Feel free to share this Neuroscience News.Data source: Net Applications
Chrome is on a roll. It's the fastest-growing browser in terms of market share we've seen in a long time. And its rapid growth corresponds with Internet Explorer's steady decline. Keeping that in mind though, data from last month shows that IE8 has managed to grab 25 percent of the browser market, beating all versions of Firefox to the punch. In January 2010, only Chrome and Safari showed positive growth.
Between December and January, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 0.51 percentage points (from 62.69 percent to 62.18 percent) and Firefox slipped 0.20 percentage points (from 24.61 percent to 24.41 percent). Chrome jumped a sizeable 0.57 percentage points (from 4.63 percent to 5.20 percent) while Safari moved up 0.05 percentage points (from 4.46 percent to 4.51 percent). Opera, on the other hand, dipped 0.02 percentage points (from 2.40 percent to 2.38 percent), though we're still hoping version 10.5 will turn things around for the little guy.
Data source: Net Applications
As you can see from the chart above, Chrome's progress is remarkable. Google released its browser in December 2008, meaning the above shows you the month after its release to last month. The month prior to that it passed Safari, taking third place overall in the browser market. Looking back over this past year, it seems that Chrome is stealing users from Internet Explorer primarily, despite the belief of some that it would convert mainly Firefox users. This is because Google advertises Chrome on websites that Joe Internet uses: Google.com, YouTube.com, and so on. Furthermore, Google struck a distribution deal with Sony in September 2009, and it will likely try to sign similar ones with other OEMs this year. What's really interesting is that Chrome's gains seem to be accelerating, though this is likely because the browser is just starting to mature in terms of features.
Data source: Net Applications
In stark contrast to the success story of Chrome, Internet Explorer's decline is easily the most noticeable trend. Nevertheless, IE is still used by more than half of all users and IE8 is now used by one in four users on the Web. The importance of having a default browser on the dominant operating system is still the biggest factor in browser adoption. It seems that Firefox has stalled just below the 25 percent mark (we're wondering if the release of version 3.6 will make a difference in February). In any case, IE8 finished 2009 by passing IE6 and now it has started 2010 by crossing the 25 percent mark. Not too shabby.
You can see the market share pie for January 2010, according to Net Applications, at the top of this post. The graph just above shows how things at Ars are very different: Firefox continues to dominate, but the default browsers for Windows and Mac OS X still show their strength, and Chrome's lead over Opera is much more significant at Ars. Compared to last month, Firefox lost share, as did Safari ever so slightly. Meanwhile, IE gained, as did Chrome, but Opera fell back a bit. Once again, Chrome's gain was the biggest change.
Taking a look at Ars browser trends over the same time period as we did above, there's a few interesting points. First off, Chrome started off at a much higher market share, as our readers are much more likely to try out early builds than the general population. That said though, its huge jump in recent months is a lot more noticeable. On Ars, Chrome is making gains at the expense of both Firefox and IE, as opposed to just IE on the Internet as a whole, which means that the predictions that Chrome would steal away Firefox users is at least partially true in the tech-savvy world.PELHAM, Alabama - A former assistant principal at Pelham High School was arrested Thursday on charges she had sex with a male student.
Catherine Michelle Bell, 33, turned herself in to the Shelby County Jail about 2:45 p.m. She is charged with three counts of "School Employee Engaging in a Sex Act or Deviant Sexual Intercourse with a Student Under the Age of 19 years," Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry announced this afternoon.
Her arrest comes less than two weeks after another teacher in Shelby County pleaded guilty to similar charges. Hoover's former Spain Park High School teacher Stephanie Suggs Millard, 34, was arrested a year ago.
The sheriff's office led the investigation after being contacted by the Pelham Police Department, said Capt. Ken Burchfield. Sheriff's investigators, along with the district attorney's office, obtained the warrants against Bell, who is from Alabaster.
She was held in the Shelby County Jail but released this evening after posting $90,000 bond. Authorities didn't release specifics about the allegations against Bell. She was one of four assistant principals at the high school. Court records show she and her husband divorced in August and have shared custody of a 4-year-old son.
Shelby County Schools spokeswoman Cindy Warner released the following statement. She said they wouldn't answer additional questions at this time.
"The Shelby County School District always takes these types of allegations seriously. The school district took immediate action when we were first made aware of the allegations. The employee was placed on administrative leave while the matter was being investigated by the school district, with the assistance of local law enforcement. She subsequently resigned from her position on November 21."
In Hoover's Millard case, she pleaded guilty to one count of the same charge Bell is facing, but a second charge was dismissed. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but Shelby county Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves suspended the sentenced and placed her on probation for five years.
Birmingham defense attorney Tommy Spina is representing Bell. "She has fully cooperated with law enforcement and the school board since being confronted with these charges,'' he said. "She resigned her position as assistant principal, cooperated with the school board officials and voluntarily surrendered all information she had in her possession when asked by the investigator to do so. She voluntarily surrendered to the jail today, and has made bond."
Spina said the statute under which Bell is charged is relatively new, 2010. It makes it a crime for a school employee to have any sexual contact with a student, whether the student is of age or not or whether he or she consents or not.
"It's essentially a strict liability statute, rare in criminal cases, which normally requires a specific intent to do something the law forbids,'' he said.
He added there are no reported cases addressing the constitutionality of the issue. The charges against Bell are Class B felonies.
Anyone with additional information about the case is asked to call the sheriff's office at 205-669-4181, through the Secret Witness line at 205-669-9116, or through the website at www.ShelbySo.com by clicking on the "Report Criminal Activity" link and choosing the "General Information" category.
Updated at 7:09 p.m. to include comments from Bell's attorney Tommy Spina.Detective Who Was Recorded Assaulting An Unarmed, Handcuffed Suspect Acquitted Of All Charges
from the who-are-you-going-to-believe?-those-things-you-call-eyes? dept
Both a cop and his prime homicide suspect have walked away free men. But it's the cop who's gathered most of the attention. Donald Love was picked up by Milwaukee police on August 14, 2013, after his infant son died in a local hospital of traumatic brain injuries. Love wasn't just a "person of interest." He was alone in the house with the infant at the time the injury occurred.
Love was interrogated by detective Rodolfo Gomez Jr. This questioning was recorded. The highlight reel, as it were, doesn't show much interrogation. It shows Gomez attacking the restrained suspect on two separate occasions. Love was punched, kicked and jabbed in the eye with Gomez's thumb. The latter -- and more excruciating "interaction" (caution: the video hosted here contains some very unnerving screaming) -- occurred during Gomez's "follow-up questioning," and appears to have been provoked by Love's justifiably angry yelling.
A jury acquitted Love of all charges more than year later. Another jury also acquitted Gomez of all charges, despite watching him assault a handcuffed man. (via The Honest Courtesan)
How do you defend someone against charges related to a videotaped beating? Well, you do everything you can to cast the person handing out the beating as the real victim. His defense lawyers helped, but they had to fight an uphill battle against both damning video footage and statements made by Gomez himself, most of which gave the indication that he had no idea how to handle a potentially dangerous individual.
First, Gomez admitted he said something he knew would provoke an angry response. Then he claimed his short-term memory went all haywire in the heat of the moment.
Even after Gomez punched Love hard in the face, he still refused orders to sit and stop resisting, Gomez told the jury, causing the veteran detective to fear for his life.
Love finally settled down when the lieutenant responded to yelling in the interrogation room and helped Gomez gain control of Love. Both detectives then left the room, but Gomez continued to monitor Love from just outside the doorway.
It was at that point, Gomez said, that he realized he had handcuffed Love earlier.
"I had forgotten I had handcuffed Mr. Love," Gomez said.
Gomez said the door behind was closed and locked, which made retreat difficult. But even if the door had been open, he said, he would not have tried to leave the room.
"I'd be giving my back to a killer," Gomez said.
A lieutenant testified that when responding to the room after hearing yelling, the door was open.
A juror from the trial said a defense expert's frame-by-frame examination of the incident's key moments put things in a different light and convinced jurors that Gomez reasonably believed he was in danger and used only the force necessary to establish control over Deron Love, a suspect in the death of his infant son.
"We were able to convince the last juror, reluctantly, that still frame by still frame Gomez's last three closed fist windups became open palm motions to control Love's arms, and his final leg strike misses the mark."
Gardner said the expert's explanation, while moving single frames from the video back and forth in a slide show, helped convince jurors that Love was resisting Gomez's commands to sit down or relax his body, even if Love didn't actively fight back.
Gomez, now a homicide detective, sought qualified immunity. The district judge denied the request, a decision that was upheld Wednesday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Gomez was recently the subject of internal investigation after his arrest on a domestic violence claim. No criminal charges were issued.
In its 20-page opinion, the court found that "If believed, (the sister's sworn) deposition testimony would establish that Officer Gomez knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth made false or misleading statements in the affidavit..."
In denying Gomez qualified immunity, the court noted that Gomez's affidavit implied the [suspects] kept weapons as a part of a criminal enterprise, when the sister's tip suggested nothing of the sort, that he knew the sister was on bad terms with Sharon Betker and hadn't been in the Franklin home for five years, and didn't try to nail down some information that came from her as hearsay.
"Statements that are both unreliable and uncorroborated do not support probable cause," the court found.
"Forgotten." And twice at that. Gomez got a very good look at the "forgotten" handcuffs during the first beatdown, having twisted Love's free arm up against his body and bent him over the interrogation room desk. But he entered the room moments later and acted as though Love's left hand was unrestrained.On top of that, he stated that he "provoked" an angry reaction -- something he probably wouldn't have done if he thought Love was completely unrestrained. If he actually thought Love wasn't cuffed to the wall -- and went ahead with his plan to aggravate his detainee -- then Gomez was either acting recklessly or just looking for an excuse to start swinging.Gomez's memory continued to leak.And with all of that (and the detective's past misconduct ), the jury still found Gomez credible enough to acquit. The key to this unlikely turn of events? The skillful manipulation of time. A handful of guys in black suits walking down through a parking lot is almost completely uninteresting. But adjust the speed a bit |
anyone’s really thinking about it. They’re just kind of playing it up to be that way.
“Like I said, it really is a compliment, but in the overall scheme of things it really doesn’t matter.”
It certainly does to the members of Leafs Nation, who want to see Newmarket’s Boy Wonder wear one of those blue and white No. 97 jerseys one day.
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FROM A FLAMES FAN?
If Canadian golfer Graham DeLaet was hoping to get under Connor McDavid’s skin with his biting tweet on Saturday — not to mention that of Maple Leaf fans — it had the opposite effect.
In fact, McDavid laughed Saturday night when informed by Sun Media of DeLaet’s tweet, which said: “I will puke if the Leafs end up with McDavid.”
“That’s funny,” McDavid said. “I’m glad he’s having fun with it.
“But I’ll say it again: It would be an honour if I ever get the opportunity to put on that Leafs jersey one day.”
Sorry, Graham. Not what you wanted to hear.
DeLaet, for the record, is an avid Calgary Flames fan.
DON’T FORGET ABOUT STROME
This place has become the hockey hotbed for NHL scouts and management types to congregate.
With Erie Otters forwards Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome both projected to go in the top six of the NHL entry draft in June, it’s no wonder that Maple Leafs assistant GM Kyle Dubas and Edmonton grand poohbahs Craig MacTavish and Kevin Lowe were on hand for the game against the Greyhounds on Friday.
While McDavid has been getting most of the publicity — and rightly so — Strome entered Saturday’s game against London as the OHL’s second-leading scorer with 92 points in 49 games.
In an attempt to learn more about the lanky centre, Sun Media asked McDavid to provide his own personal scouting report of Strome.
Here’s McDavid’s rundown:
“He’s an unbelievable player, with the skill he’s got … He see’s the ice so well … If you’re playing on his wing, you just have to go to the net and he’s going to find you … He’s so unbelievably gifted with his passing … And he’s got a great shot, which not a lot of people mention … He’s an overall great player.”Here Come the Ethereum DAPPS
A platform is defined by its use cases. If great apps appear, the platform is judged a success. If not, the platform disappears into the dustbin of computer history. So I went looking for the emerging DAPPS (decentralized apps) coming out of the Ethereum platform.
DAPPS look like normal apps. That is deliberate. Ethereum made the UI building part familiar to developers used to deploying to the cloud. Instead of deploying to AWS or another server farm, you deploy to Ethereum ie to a decentralized Blockchain. You can build the frontend in HTML or QML (QML is optimized for mobile, you can read the basics here). This is Hackathon territory. You can build a DAPP in hours. So there will be lots of throaway DAPPS that never get launched. There will also be lots of DAPPS that get launched and disappear in obscurity. This is still really early days in the decentralization wave and the big winners have probably not yet even been conceived let alone launched.
Here are three that look promising at the end user level – Slock.it, Augur and Vunk.
Slock.it
Internet Of Things, Sharing Economy, Blockchain. Slock.it hits all three. If that sounds like a venture created by a random buzzword generator to woo investors, suspend disbelief for a moment because Slock.it may be quite practical.
Slock means Smart Lock. If you use AirBnB as a host or a guest, you discover that the lock is the key. In a traditional hotel you have a receptionist to give a key to a guest after confirming payment. If you stay with an AirBnB host you need to coordinate arrival time so that the host is there to let you in. That is a pain point for both parties. I first wrote about this emerging need in September 2015 after using AirBnB.
On a more recent AirBnB visit, there was a lock controlled by some Samsung device that was unlocked by a number sent to me by my host via a text message. That was an improvement.
What if it was a smaller transaction, such as renting a bike or a washing machine? That is where Slock.it is focused. Technically their code is deployed to a smart lock, using something like Rasberry Pi to build the smart lock. They don’t build the smart lock, they give the smart lock manufacturer the ability to run transactions, because the Slock.it smart lock runs on the Ethereum Blockchain.
Slock.it reference washing machines and bikes as use cases. The latter use case resonates and I will use this in the example.
As the bike owner, you set the deposit price and the rental price. The DAPP keeps the deposit in Escrow until the renter returns the bike. As the bike renter, you pay the deposit and at the end of the rental period you get the deposit back minus the rental cost. The bike owner gets the rental money. All of this is done on the lock itself. It is a smart lock running a smart contract. There is no centralized service. That is radical.
I can envisage this as a type of decentralized version of the “Boris Bike” in London or a more controlled version of the free white bikes in Amsterdam. I would love to use it when I visit cities.
——–
Augur is a DAPP we have already reviewed back in May 2015. It is a decentralized prediction market. Prediction markets are nothing new. Nor are betting sites, which are simply a way to monetize a prediction. I predict that Harry The Horse will win the 3.45 at Cheltenham and if I am right I get a reward. Or I can take a long shot bet on Bernie Sanders being the next President of America. Or that Lending Club will be worth a lot more or less than the $6.8bn it is worth today. Augur will reward you for getting the prediction right.
“Why do prediction markets need a decentralized blockchain?”
You could build a crowdsourced prediction market using your favorite programming language and bung it onto AWS.
Augur’s answer to that question is that centralized prediction markets suffer from two problems:
They can be shut down. That can happen for all kinds of reason – regulation, bankruptcy, fraud.
Somebody has to report on what happened that triggers the payout. In many markets that is pretty obvious. I can see whether Harry The Horse won the 3.45 at Cheltenham and it will be front-page news everywhere if Bernie Sanders becomes President and it is easy to track the price of Lending Club. In the long tail you cannot rely on institutions to report. The chance of the one expert trusted to report on the event being subject to fraud or mistakes is high. So you need a trustless decentralized network to do the reporting. The beauty of a decentralized prediction market is that it can cover so many more markets and events – as long as there are enough people reporting on that event to be statistically significant.
Augur enables the long tail of prediction markets.
——–
FreeMyVunk enables you to trade your “virtual junk” that you accumulate while playing video games. Not being a video gamer, I tested the idea on a teenage gamer and from that sample of one got a big thumbs up. To quote them:
Anyone who has ever played a video game has thought to themselves, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could trade my World of Warcraft DoomHammer which I don’t use anymore for my friend’s Galil in Call of Duty: Black Ops!”
This illustrates the power of Blockchain to power almost anything. It can be the decentralized value exchange. Fiat currencies is the obvious mainstream example, but this also applies to AltCoins and Loyalty Points. The beauty of FreeMyVunk is that it starts in a market that young early adopters can relate to.
——–
There are many reasons why I have been an Ethereum fan since I spotted it during the summer of 2014. It scores reasonably well on the 8 criteria that Daily Fintech Advisers suggests using to evaluate Blockchain platforms:
Adequate Funding: Platforms need enough funding to be properly developed and supported.
Source of Funding: The motivation of the investors matters to developers in the long term, as it can force the platform in a direction that may not be in the interests of application developers. When selling trustless systems, the motivations of investors comes under the spotlight. The traditional VC model has been augmented by Currency Issues of some kind or another and these also raise motivation concerns.
Commercial model: Most of these platforms are open source. Some are aiming at a Red Hat type model. Others want to make money from a currency that they control. Others want a piece of the application pie. Developers need to understand the commercial model and decide if they are comfortable with it.
Trust model: Who do you need to trust? Some such as Ripple and Stellar require trust in a currency controlled by an institution.
Ease of development: This can be a personal decision i.e different developers find different things easy or hard. Developers look for something that uses a choice of familiar languages and that abstracts the complexity of a decentralized network. Today we are in the experimentation phase where application developers are building their MVP and through this they are learning what is genuinely easy to use.
Performance & Reliability: It is too early to tell. One hears theoretical arguments for different platforms, but we will have to wait until it is possible to have third party testing of apps on different platforms.
Bitcoin, Alt or None: This is a heated debate at the moment. Many people think that Blockchain platforms shoulduse Bitcoin and that is why many people back Counterparty and Blockstream. The shouldargument is irrelevant to most application developers, who just want to know whether their app needs Bitcoin or an Alt based currency or no currency.
Layer in stack: Some people critique Ethereum for attempting too much. In this view it is better to offer less functionality at a lower level in the stack. Maidsafe and ERIS position in this way. This appeals to developers who value control (perhaps over speed to market).
Ethereum clearly has developer interest. Their recent DevCon in London had 400 in physical attendance and 15,000 watching the livestream.
However none of this matters unless we see real and useful apps. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the ingredients or the instructions. That is why these 3 DAPPS matter and why I expect to see many more coming down the innovation pipeline.
The three that I reviewed are at the top of the stack. They are end user apps. You and I can envisage using them. There are others that sit in the middle of the stack. The end user of these apps are more likely to be developers who build them into end user facing apps. This could be called middleware but it nothing like the middleware that we think of in traditional centralized technology. The ones that look interesting are:
Two Digital Identity on the Blockchain startups that we looked at in May 2015 – OneName and ShoCard.
MakerDAO. Their Dai Credit is a cryptobond that pays interest based on collateral which maybe something like Ether. This will be open source and so will be evaluated by any developer looking at Ethereum as an open source platform.
In the world of enterprise Blockchain, banks are building Proof of Concept apps using Permissioned Blockchains. These consumer apps go a stage further. They are Minimum Viable Products (MVP) released into the wild on a Permissionless Blockchain. The POC developer may get an internal audience of a few hundred people. The MVP developer could get to Product Market Fit (PMF) and be seen by millions. We will have to wait and see which ones get to PMF, but conceptually they seem sound.
Daily Fintech Advisers provides strategic consulting to organizations with business and investment interests in Fintech. Bernard Lunn is a Fintech thought leader.
Like This PostRICHMOND, Va.-- Federal appeals court judges in Virginia peppered a government lawyer Friday with questions about President Donald Trump's latest travel ban and whether the president has the authority to ban 150 million foreign nationals -- mostly Muslims -- from the United States.
A full panel of 13 judges from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the third version of Trump's travel ban. It was the second federal appeals court to hear a challenge to the ban this week, following a hearing Wednesday before the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.
The hearing came four days after the U.S. Supreme Court said it would allow the travel restrictions to go into full effect, at least until the two appeals courts ruled on separate lawsuits challenging the ban.
The 4th Circuit is being asked to reverse a decision by a Maryland judge whose injunction in October barred the administration from enforcing the ban against travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen who have bona fide relationships with people or organizations in the U.S.áNorth Korea and Venezuela are also included, but to a much narrower extent.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim Mooppan told the judges that the latest travel restrictions were the product of a global, multiagency review that found the countries do not share enough security-related information with the United States. He insisted the latest travel ban is not anti-Muslim, but is necessary for national security.
"The proclamation says there's inadequate information sharing from these eight countries or other risk factors that undermine visa vetting, and to deal with that problem -- a particular aspect of the broader terrorism problem -- they are imposing entry restrictions to those (countries) to improve those practices and protect this nation until they do so," Mooppan said.
Cecillia Wang, a deputy legal director at the national American Civil Liberties Union, told the judges that the ban is a manifestation of Trump's campaign promise to keep Muslims out of the United States. Wang cited various statements made by Trump and anti-Muslim videos he retweeted on Nov. 29, saying he has "doubled down" on his pledge.
"It's clear on the record that the president has continued to make statements of hostility toward Muslims," Wang said.
The judges differed on whether they should consider Trump's statements and tweets. Judge Paul Niemeyer called Trump's statements "background noise," while Judge James Wynn asked if the court should "ignore reality" and just look at the legality of the travel ban.
The 4th Circuit cited Trump's remarks on Muslim travelers while rejecting an earlier version of the travel ban in May, finding that it "drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination" toward Muslims.
Trump announced his initial travel ban on citizens of certain Muslim-majority nations in late January, bringing havoc and protests to airports around the country. A federal judge in Seattle soon blocked it, and courts since then have wrestled with the restrictions as the administration has rewritten them. The latest version blocks travelers from the listed countries to varying degrees, allowing for students from some of the countries while blocking other business travelers and tourists, and allowing for admissions on a case-by-case basis.
It is unclear when the appeals courts will rule, though both sides expect the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately decide on the legality of the ban.Little about Christine Sinclair’s brilliant performance at the London Olympics came as a surprise to her teammates.
But it allowed the rest of the world to finally see the captain they all know so well.
The 29-year-old star of Canada’s women’s soccer team lifted her squad to a bronze medal at last summer’s Olympics, Canada’s first medal in a traditional team sport since 1936. The result firmly entrenched her as a Canadian sports hero and brought global acclaim to a player who has been among the best women on the planet for years.
It also capped a tremendous season that earned the Burnaby, B.C., native the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as The Canadian Press female athlete of 2012. Earlier this month, she won the Lou Marsh Award as best athlete of the year.
“She’s always been one of the best in the world, she’s always been fantastic, and what’s great about this year is that the world got to see her at the highest stage — Olympics,” said Canada’s veteran goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc. “The world was watching, and she showed what we’ve all known for so long.
“People are starting to see all sides of her — her funny side and her humble side. She’s a phenomenal athlete. And she believes so much. Playing for Canada is such an honour, and she shows that in the way she plays. She doesn’t go out there and talk the talk... She shows it in the most beautiful way.”
Sinclair earned 269 points, including the majority of first-place votes (84), to run away with the award, which is determined through balloting among sports editors and broadcasters across the country.
Olympic trampoline champion Rosie MacLennan was second with 118 points ahead of speedskater Christine Nesbitt (76), tennis player Eugenie Bouchard (30) and hockey player Caroline Ouellette (27).
“It’s a huge honour,” Sinclair said, but then deflected praise to her teammates as deftly as she delivers a pass.
“I’m proud of our team. We had a goal this year heading into the Olympics and that was to bring home a medal, and we accomplished that and just to sort of see the way Canada fell in love with our team, it’s been very remarkable.”
Sinclair, who has won nearly every athlete of year award in Canada this month, led her team to bronze in London in spectacular fashion, scoring an Olympic-record six goals to win the Golden Boot. Sinclair recorded a hat trick in a controversial 4-3 extra-time semifinal loss to the U.S., and then lashed out at the officiating, which seemed to endear her even more to frustrated fans watching back home.
“Christine Sinclair is Canada’s best soccer player,” said Phil Andrews of the Guelph Mercury. “What a passionate leader. What a clutch performer. What an inspiration to the thousands of youths playing soccer in Canada and dreaming of being a star at an international level. She was the biggest story at the Olympics for Canada this year.”
Cyclist Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria won the Lionel Conacher Award as Canada’s male athlete of the year Wednesday.
Sinclair scored a Canadian-record 23 goals in 2012, and added six assists, meaning she contributed to 65.9 per cent of her team’s scoring in 2012. Her 143 career international goals rank third all-time.
Sinclair is the first soccer player to win the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award, originally awarded in 1933 and named for the Olympic champion and all-round athlete who was voted Canada’s top female athlete for the first half of the 20th century.One Christian ministry has had enough of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s disparaging “hate group” characterization. D. James Kennedy Ministries filed a lawsuit Aug. 23 in an Alabama federal court alleging the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) “trafficked in false and misleading descriptions” of the ministry and that other entities also named in the suit perpetuated the libel.
Christian ministries that affirm the Biblical view of marriage and human sexuality have earned the SPLC’s “hate group” designation, a designation repeated by many media outlets without question. Groups like D. James Kennedy Ministries, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Family Research Council have demanded retractions and apologies to no avail. It would have cost the SPLC and three other entities named in the lawsuit nothing to apologize. But with no apology forthcoming and the ministry’s reputation sullied, D. James Kennedy Ministries now seeks restitution.
But Brad Dacus, president of Christian legal group Pacific Justice Institute, another organization on the hate group list, doesn’t hold much hope for the lawsuit. The SPLC “knows the law” and its “well-paid attorneys make sure what they say will hold up in a court of law,” he told me.
Proving libel, slander, and defamation in court is extremely difficult, and a jury would most likely define the hate group label as an opinion instead of a “factual misrepresentation,” as libel law demands, Dacus said.
Online charity clearinghouse GuideStar and internet retailer Amazon and its charitable giving arm AmazonSmile also are named in the lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial and financial damages.
“Those who knowingly label Christian ministries as hate groups, solely for subscribing to the historic Christian faith, are either woefully uninformed or willfully deceitful,” said Frank Wright, president of D. James Kennedy Ministries. “In the case of the Southern Poverty Law Center, our lawsuit alleges the latter.”
GuideStar added the hate group label to its description of the ministry earlier this year. AmazonSmile references GuideStar when determining which charitable groups it supports. Because of the designation, AmazonSmile refused to allow the ministry to register with its program.
The lawsuit contends Amazon violated Title II of the Civil Rights Act’s public accommodation statute by denying the ministry access to AmazonSmile.
The Family Research Council (FRC) applauded the lawsuit, calling any use of the hate group label against Christians or their ministries “reckless, irresponsible, and uninformed.” Floyd Lee Corkins, who in 2012 shot and wounded an FRC employee during a foiled mass shooting attack, said the SPLC’s hate group designation, in part, motivated his attack.
Despite violence targeting Christians, the SPLC refuses to change or address the complaint.
“The irony is SPLC is utilizing their First Amendment rights to the greatest extent possible—right up to the edge of libel, defamation—with the obvious aim of suppressing the rights of public discourse of those who work hard to protect First Amendment rights for everyone,” Dacus said.
Liberty Counsel, another Christian legal group smeared with the SPLC hate group designation, sued GuideStar in June over its use of the term. GuideStar dropped the designation but said the information would be available upon request.
David Gibbs, the Texas attorney representing D. James Kennedy Ministries, said his clients preach “love, respect, and salvation for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation”
“To be defamed as a hate group is nothing more than an attempt to silence every Bible believer in our nation,” he said. “This type of bullying is wrong, immature, and dangerous.”Nintendo Switch owners really care about the icons that show up on their home screens, making so much noise that many developers are swapping them out. But not German indie studio Bplus. It’s asking fans to choose Puzzle Box Maker’s icon ahead of the game’s November release.
In a post on the studio’s blog, Bplus introduced the four different icon choices, as well as its reasoning for giving potential players of the puzzle creation and sharing game the choice.
Some game icons do not have any text and some people seem to be upset about that. This is why we let the players decide how they want to decorate their Nintendo Switch Menu.
They’re not wrong. Switch owners do not like plain icons, and Nintendo even suggests developers use some nice art with a logo as opposed to taking a more minimalist approach.
That rules out the top left and bottom right icons. Right now the running favorite, according to the poll Bplus is running on Twitter, is the top right icon. Good choice; the lower left icon is just a bit too busy. Oh god now I am doing it.
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Puzzle Box Maker is slated for release on the Nintendo Switch next month. Its icon will be lovely.This is my second teardown of Ingress: version 1.44.0. Please read my first teardown where I begin by explaining what this is, if you are confused.
With that out-of-the-way. Here is my 2nd teardown of Ingress
Glyphs, Glyphs, Glyphs
glyph-bonus-flyer: { } glyph-warning: { } glyph-warning-message: { } glyph-timer: { } glyph-timer glyph-score glyph-header
I first discovered traces to these in our 1.43.0 teardown, but even more indications of this feature/change are showing up. The below code snippets are from css files and basic mesh/model configs.It is entirely possible that these changes are part of regional scoring and just are named strangely, either way there were some new images that I've attached below.
From the looks of it. It seems related to the medals based on the shapes, but I'm not sure. It seems this feature is close though as plenty of new resources from models and shaders have been added as shown below.
As we learned during the release of regional scoring. Features can be added into the APK, but not yet be visible (due to server sided checks). It's safe to say a good part of this "Glyph" feature is in the apk however.
Objects, Models, Meshes, Sounds, Huh?
It seems everything from artifacts, resources and particles have been changed. The diff report on all the object files (files used in the modeling of these bursters, resonators, etc) have been changed. I side-loaded (adb install -r 1.44.0.apk), and sure enough everything looks different :)
I don't care as much to investigate the obvious, so we will skip this.
Oops. Test data was removed
It seems there was an accidental push of "test" data which has since been removed in 1.44.0. If you are interested in how "low-level" portal data is stored. This file shows it. (hint: install JSONView in Chrome to view it easier). It's pretty interesting to see the relation between portals, links, mods and players.
Widgets!!
Yes, you heard me right. It appears widgets are coming. Reading the data, it seems we are looking at a regional score widget, customized for your faction.
<string name="appwidget_regionscore_label">Ingress Regional Score</string>
I couldn't find the option to enable these widgets, but the changes are already in the apk. Rebooting my Nexus 5, thanks to a tip, and the widget is now usable.
Ending Comments
It seems this release was used to refresh all the graphics, models and sounds. I can really only think of one reason to that. Ingress uses libgdx, and I think they are updating their models, audio and other resources to work flawlessly on their upcoming iOS version.
Literally every setting or option is now server side. This means Niantic can control most of the game without an apk update. This is always a step closer to unifying your work across different platforms. Because everyone knows iOS app updates take a lot longer to be approved than Android :) My guess is that iOS version is very close.
With that, I end this teardown.Brandon Weeden wasn't the Browns first choice for the No. 22 pick. Browns president Mike Holmgren acknowledged as much on 92.3 The Fan Tuesday, saying that Baylor wideout Kendall Wright was the team's top choice.
Unfortunately for Cleveland, the Titans took Wright at No. 20. (Where he should make a quick impact.) Fortunately for Weeden, the Oklahoma State quarterback was next on the Browns' wish list.
Holmgren denied that derisive comments made by Colt McCoy's father had anything to do with the team seeking another quarterback. No matter what the reason, it's clear the Browns were trying to replace Colt McCoy this offseason.
They swung and missed with Robert Griffin. Even if the Browns had drafted Wright, we suspect they would have traded back into the end of the first round to pick up Weeden. In that scenario, the Browns would have ended up with a top-shelf wideout for Weeden to throw to. But the Browns' plans didn't work out, which typifies this offseason for them.
"Did we go into the draft thinking we could pick up another one? Yes we did but it didnât happen."Video
There are currently 16 different air ambulance services covering Britain, each of which is separate and distinct.
Now one charity says it wants to start a new service - a national helicopter dedicated to transporting sick children between hospitals.
It currently operates two other regional emergency helicopter services - the Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance and the Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance.
It has also taken over the Children's Air Ambulance service.
The charity has recently rebranded itself as The Air Ambulance Service, and plans to offer a new national service using one helicopter to cover England.
Some other air ambulance services, including the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, say the rebrand has created confusion.
They are also concerned about how realistic its plans are, and the potential impact they will have on the services other air rescue services currently provide.
Inside Out West, East Midlands, West Midlands and South West are broadcast on Monday, 4 February on BBC One at 19:30 GMT and nationwide on the iPlayer for seven days thereafter.Google has discontinued its specialised Linux and BSD search pages. The services at google.com/linux and google.com/bsd offered search which was limited to a specific topic by searching only relevant web sites, message boards, blogs and other hand-selected sources of information. Users are instead now redirected to google.com/webhp, a standard search page.
In a statement to Search Engine Roundtable, a Google spokesperson confirmed the closure of the pages saying "These services were established many years ago to offer search across a limited index of the web, which in the past was a better way to find this information. Today, search quality has advanced tremendously, and based on our analysis we’ve found that in most cases you're better off looking for this kind of specialized information using the regular Google search box, for example by typing [linux fedora upgrade]". Users can find advanced search tips to restrict their searches to specific sites or types of information in the company's search Help Center.
Several other special searches were also removed. These include Google Microsoft, Google Mac and Google Uncle Sam, the latter being used by local, state and federal employees to search US Government web sites. In a post on the Google Support Forums, Search Product Manager Rishi K. apologised for the company's "poor communication" regarding the termination of these special searches; no official announcement was made before the searches were removed.
(crve)American physicist
Willie Hobbs Moore (1934–1994) was the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics.[1]
Education and career [ edit ]
Willie Hobbs was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on 23 May 1934.[2] Moore moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1952 to attend the University of Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1958 and her master's degree in 1961.[3] While working toward her doctoral degree, she also held positions at technology firms in Ann Arbor including KMS Industries and Datamax Corporation.[4] She also held engineering positions at Bendix Aerospace Systems, Barnes Engineering, and Sensor Dynamics, where she was responsible for the theoretical analysis.[5] Moore completed her thesis, A Vibrational Analysis of Secondary Chlorides, under the supervision of Samuel Krimm at the University of Michigan in 1972.[6] This work was applicable to important questions in the vibrational study of macromolecules.[1]
After receiving her doctorate, Moore worked at the University of Michigan as a research scientist until 1977, continuing spectroscopic work on proteins. In the five years following her dissertation, she published more than thirty papers with Krimm and collaborators.[6] She was hired by Ford Motor Company in 1977 as an assembly engineer.[7] Moore expanded Ford's use of Japanese engineering and manufacturing methods in the 1980s.[8][9] In 1991, Ebony magazine named Moore as one of their 100 "most promising black women in corporate America".[4] The University of Michigan established the Willie Hobbs Moore Award for mentoring in her honor.[1]
Personal life [ edit ]
Moore was a tutor, a member of Links Inc., a member of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the chairwoman of the Juanita D. Woods Scholarship Fund. She was married to Sidney L. Moore, who taught at the University of Michigan's Neuropsychiatric Institute, for thirty years. They had two children Dr. Dorian Moore, MD. and Christopher Hobbs Moore, RN.[4]
Moore died at home, of cancer, on 14 March 1994.[2]ASHLEY HALL: Despite some hefty opposition, the British government's bill to make gay marriage legal in England and Wales is on its way to becoming law.
The Scottish government is expected to introduce a similar bill to its parliament by the end of the month.
That's left gay groups in Northern Ireland concerned that they could soon be in the only part of the United Kingdom where same-sex marriage is not permitted.
Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports.
(Sounds from a bar)
BARBARA MILLER: These days there's a thriving gay scene in Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast.
JOHN O'DOHERTY: There's never been a better time to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans-gender in Northern Ireland.
BARBARA MILLER: John O'Doherty is chairman of the lobby group Equal Marriage Northern Ireland.
JOHN O'DOHERTY: There was a huge invisibility of our community for the decades that we had troubles here in Northern Ireland. It was very hard to get people to focus on inequalities experienced broadly within communities because it was such a huge conflict here and it was impacting on people's everyday lives.
BARBARA MILLER: In 2005 Northern Ireland witnessed the first same-sex civil partnership in the United Kingdom.
LESBIAN COUPLE: We just want to say that this is a very privileged position we're in this morning to have our rights, our civil rights acknowledged and respected and protected as any human being.
BARBARA MILLER: But the country could become the last place in the UK where gay marriage is legalized.
Northern Ireland's largest political party, the Democratic Unionist Party, is strongly opposed.
Brian Kingston is a DUP councillor in Belfast.
BRIAN KINGSTON: We do not support the redefinition of marriage. We think that marriage is a - not just for centuries, for millennia - has existed and has been a valued part of society. Marriage should be between one man and one woman of a certain age and that this is the only two people in marriage and that they're one man and one woman and we don't support the redefinition. Just because people want something to change doesn't make it a good idea.
BARBARA MILLER: The DUP says there's widespread support for its stance.
John O'Doherty again.
JOHN O'DOHERTY: I disagree. I don't think there's any basis to make that assertion.
(Sound from the street)
RESIDENT: Yeah, I'm all for it. Each to their own. You know what I mean? Let them do it.
RESIDENT 2: I certainly wouldn't have any objection to it. It seems a perfectly reasonable desire on the part of the gay community to me so.
RESIDENT 3: I would have some friends who would be gay but I think that's taking it a step too far. I don't mind the civil partnerships but I think marriage should be very much between a man and a woman.
RESIDENT 4: I just think it goes against natural evolution.
BARBARA MILLER: So the government says that a majority of people are opposed. Is that your feeling, that your opinion is widely held?
RESIDENT 4: I think it's is widely held but I also think that a lot of people wouldn't express it through fear of being labelled as being discriminatory in some way.
BARBARA MILLER: Amnesty International is supporting the call from rights' groups for gay marriage to be made legal.
Patrick Corrigan is the organization's Northern Ireland program director.
PATRICK CORRIGAN: I think there's a significant and growing support for equal marriage rights in Northern Ireland, just as there is in across western Europe and many other countries now.
And we're seeing a trickle turn into a stream, turn into a river and into a torrent of equality rushing across the world and I think it will wash up on Northern Ireland's shores sooner or later whether politicians like it or not or whether indeed some religious institutions like it or not.
And if they're unwilling to act then I think in the case of equality that is when the courts have a legitimate role to play. If legislators are not willing to legislate for equality then the judges may well have to intervene if they're asked to do so by the citizenry.
BARBARA MILLER: In the early 1980s a gay activist took his fight to the European Court of Human Rights for Northern Ireland to follow the rest of the UK and decriminalize homosexual acts.
He won the case, much to the displeasure of the Reverend Ian Paisley and his Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign.
IAN PAISLEY (Archival): You will legislate perversion and immorality.
BARBARA MILLER: If Northern Ireland's politicians or courts won't back the call for same-sex marriage, activists say they'll also be taking this issue to Strasbourg.
This is Barbara Miller in Belfast reporting for PM.“Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back” rang in Chinese New Year on a high note. The fantasy sequel topped the foreign box office, bringing in a massive $85 million. It is the follow-up to the 2013 smash “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons.” Stephen Chow, the director of the first film, wrote the screenplay, but handed the filmmaking calls over to Tsui Hark (“A Better Tomorrow”). The first film was one of the highest-grossing Chinese releases in history, earning $215 million.
“Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back” had the biggest day ever for a local Chinese title, earning $52.5 million on its opening day, topping the record established last year by “The Mermaid.” It also did particularly well in Imax, making $7.4 million across 390 of the premium theater company’s screens. Imax set a new record for best opening day ever for a local language title.
Two other Chinese-backed films, “Buddies in India” and “Kung Fu Yoga,” took second and third place on the charts, earning $44 million and $40 million, respectively. “Buddies in India” is the directorial debut of popular comic Wang Baoqiang and centers on two friends trying to find a lost will, while “Kung Fu Yoga” stars Jackie Chan as an archaeology professor on a treasure hunt.
Sony’s “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” was the highest-grossing U.S. film on the foreign box office chart. The science-fiction adventure picked up $28.3 million to bring its global gross to $78.4 million.
Paramount’s “XXX: The Return of Xander Cage” rounded out the top |
they can go inside of buildings. Stations can be installed inside of buildings, preferably on the 2nd floor. Pods can go direct to the assembly line exactly where the parts are needed or at the end of the line for shipping finished products. Retail outlets can have goods delivered INSIDE the back of the store directly into inventory. Normal pods without seats can hold a refrigerator, just about the biggest thing you can get through a house's front door. We anticipate some larger items being redesigned into pod-sized modules, to be assembled at their final destination. Larger items and volume might still be delivered via truck, perhaps limited to the hours from Midnight to 6AM. Since shipping can so easily occur from factory to retail, stores carrying a variety of items may never get one big shipment, just smaller ones directly from manufacturers, reducing middle-men, making it possible for the producer to get more profit while the consumer pays less.
Beyond The Grid
At the stations on the edge of a grid will be zipcar-like rental vehicles. We like small electric vehicles like Arcimoto, http://www.arcimoto.com/ because they are as similar in economy and efficiency to Skytran as is now practical. The station will provide charging stations for electric vehicles. But we also want to have available for rental, vans for taking that once a year Ski Trip that you thought you needed to buy an SUV for. (More than 2 people need to take more than 2 pods in SkyTran but with a videolink between them, you're not disconnected.). Pick-up trucks and UHaul like moving trucks will also be available at some stations to further reduce the need for owning and driving such inefficient vehicles.
Greenhouse Gas Target
Reduce the Greenhouse gas now emitted by all forms of transportation in the US by 50%.
Why: Rationale for the proposal
Why not Mass Transit?
Most people travel by car because public transit is so inconvenient. It only has a few stations. When you get there you must wait for the next bus/subway/plane. Mass transit doesn't operate 24/7 so that limits your options. You don't get your own private space. PRT has none of these limitations.
Why Not Cars?
With Skytran, the inconveniences of cars vanish: No need to buy one, find parking, keep quarters for the parking meter, get parking and speeding tickets, shovel the driveway when it snows, wait for your road to be plowed, HAVE a driveway or a road, have a driver's license, car insurance, go to the gas station, change the oil, brakes, etc. fix it when it breaks down, belong to AAA, get in an accident, miss work when it won't start, negotiate with car salesman over trade-in value. The lowest estimate for car costs is 50 cents per mile (see AAA). At 15K miles per year, that's $7.5K per year. SkyTran at 10 cents per mile is only $1.5K for 15K miles.
Much land area is taken up by cars: Roads, parking lots, gas stations, repair stations, inspection stations, auto-parts stores, DMV (division of motor vehicles). Think of the land area taken up by a mall's parking lot. Skytran stops could be INSIDE the mall, with several stops within large malls. Useful buildings could be significantly closer together decreasing the need to travel as far.
Pods are electric vehicles but they are more efficient than any electric car can be because they don't have to carry a heavy battery and they don't have to take up frontal area, volume and the extra weight to protect the passengers.
Why 2 Seater Vehicles
Most car trips contain only 1 person. Comparatively few contain more than 2 people. Why haul around all that extra machinery wasting road space and energy?
Why Tandem and not side-by-side?
Most of a car's energy when traveling over 25 MPH is used pushing air out of the way. By reducing the frontal area, we reduce aerodynamic drag. The SkyTran pods are designed not just to minimize frontal area, but to have as aerodynamic shape as possible and still contain two seated adults.
Why Mag-Lev? Hasn't that already been proved bad for trains?
Mag-Lev reduces the rolling resistance of tires making the pod more efficient. It also reduces the wear and tear that tires and roads exert on each other and thus reduces maintenance costs. (Particles from tires are a significant source of air pollution.) Mag-lev gives a very smooth ride, smoother even than a pot-hole free road. It also allows for switching from one guideway to the other with no moving parts which makes the switching fast and reliable. Mag-lev trains are heavy and thus require a much more expensive track and mag-lev system.
Why Ultra-light Vehicles? Isn't that unsafe?
A pod weighs 200 pounds. (contrast that with 2000 pounds of a car) They are built of composites. Unlike electric cars, they do not need batteries because they get their power from the guideway. They do not need lots of structure to protect the passengers because they move on a computer controlled guideway. We don't say accidents are impossible, but FAR less likely than on our chaotic roadways. Being light, there is much less energy needed to accelerate the pod. The track also has regenerative braking that is about 85% efficient. (The Prius has regenerative braking that is only 50% efficient and it has to stop many times per trip due to traffic lights, etc vs ONCE for PRT.)
Why hang the pods beneath the guideway and not on top?
Hanging below the track in a slot makes derailment nearly impossible. It also allows the pod to "swing out" when going around corners, making a more comfortable ride for passengers and reducing track stress. Since the only exposure the working part of the track has is a slot a few inches wide on the underside of the track, snow and debris won't collect on the track. No snowplowing, street sweeping or pot-hole fixing expense!
Won't the electricity used to power the pods just cause pollution elsewhere?
First, SkyTran is more efficient than any practical near term transportation I know of. At 100Wh per vehicle mile, it consumes the electricity that can be provided by 2 foot wide solar panels on the guideway. This will add to the initial capital expense, but reduce operating costs. Imagine a transportation system that uses NO external energy!
How: Feasibility of proposal
There exists a prototype of SkyTran at NASA's Ames research facility in Silicon Valley. It was paid for by a US Department of Transportation grant that was enough to build a prototype of the pod and 40 feet of track. The Pod can travel down the track at a slow speed under mag-lev.
The next stage is to build a short loop of track, say 1/4 mile with a station and an operational pod. Estimated cost is $20M. That 'test track' should be used both to prove engineering details as well as attract city politicians and activists to a prototype that they can ride in and get a realistic feel for SkyTran. After that, one city needs to get say, 10 miles of track in a loop where the system can be proved with public riders. We expect that once such a city loop is installed, the system will get plenty of orders and be sustainable.
We suggest that the initial $20M come from a government loan. That loan can be paid back from a penny per passenger mile "tax" for the first 2B passenger miles. Once in production, SkyTran's primary cost is $10M per mile for the installation of the track (including a station and pods). This is significantly cheaper than a highway, or light rail. Subways and high-speed rail can cost more than $100M per mile.
That first 10 miles for the first city will likely cost double. We propose the government back a loan for $200M to reduce the risk for that first city.
Since the fundamental technology has been proved and detailed cost estimates have been computed, we believe there are just two remaining likely risks for the success of this system.
1. Will people actually ride it instead of drive their cars?
First, if the system merely replaces existing mass-transit, it will save cities money and give passengers a faster, cheaper, more pleasant experience. But for car drivers, the love affair between a driver and his car in America is legend. Will they give up their cars? First, see above for all the disadvantages of cars. Second, we believe the love for technology has already moved from cars to computers and cell phones for most people under 40. Some of the rest were into cars in their youth but now no longer spend their Saturday afternoons cleaning carburetors. Even older folks will appreciate not having to drive at all. For the die-hards, we expect go-cart tracks and video driving games to flourish. Maybe Indianapolis and Daytona can open up their speedways to armatures between races. With my proposal of covering 50% of the densest part of the population, we only need to cover 3.6% of the land, leaving 96.4% of the land available for car lovers. Undecided? Live on the edge of the network and take the PRT to town and use your car in the country.
2. Will the status quo prevent change?
Despite the US theoretically being a democracy, large issues like transportation policy are decided by a tiny minority of citizens. Big oil, auto, rail, and plane are always resistant to change because there is chance that they will not be on top with a new infrastructure. They control the US government, whose primary role is to preserve or enhance the power of the status quo. Because of this reality, one might conclude that a change in infrastructure as beneficial as PRT is impossible.
Yet change does happen, even to the transportation infrastructure. We have made transitions from walking to boats (esp canals) to horses to trains to cars to planes. Each of these transitions threatened the status quo yet each occurred anyway. One might argue that we are more entrenched than ever, but we can also argue that the incentives for switching to a decent transportation infrastructure have never been greater. At what other time in history did the existing transportation infrastructure threaten the very viability of the planet as a whole?
Though large near-monopolies will perceive PRT as a threat, visionaries within these organizations do exist and occasionally get listened to. For big oil, which already claims to be in the energy business, there's solar panels to manufacture. For Detroit, there's a brand new kind of "car" to manufacture. For rail, the PRT guideway becomes the "smart" rail of the future. For planes, there's an aerodynamic new vehicle to help design and build that "flies" on mag-lev. For NASA, there's a project that will give taxpayers more bang for the buck than any Moon or Mars shot and thus justify their existence in these tight budget times.
We do not require all dinosaurs to change for this transition to occur. We just require enough to slow down their competitors' graft-advantage enough, to permit this transition. Visionary corporations will have plenty of help from politicians seeking new manufacturing jobs in their locale, environmental activists, anti-(oil) war citizens, the poor, small business able to get products to market easier and, once they understand the consequences, 300 million Americans that just want to lead a better life on a planet that doesn't self-destruct.
Vision of the future under this proposal
Your house is cheaper because it doesn't need a garage or driveway. It doesn't even need to be on a street so your taxes can be lower. Because transportation is so fast and cheap, living further from the city is reasonable too and thus land is cheaper so that also brings down the cost of housing. It is safer for your kids because there are no cars whizzing by. When they become old enough to drive, you don't have to worry about drunk driving accidents because they take the PRT instead. It could be closer to other houses since roads and parking aren't necessary, but you might also choose to live further from the city and/or work because transportation is so fast and cheap and you like space from your neighbors. But if you like city life, you get a much quieter, cleaner, safer city where more activities are within walking distance since cars don't take up so much land. Biking is a breeze with no cars to contend with. Negotiation with your spouse about where to live (closer to my job or yours?) is less of an issue and you're less likely to need to move if you change jobs. Between jobs? Life is cheaper so it is not as much of an issue. You're healthier because you're not breathing polluted air and not getting into car accidents. Your health insurance is cheaper because less people need health care. You don't have auto-insurance because you don't have an auto. You do a little more walking and bike riding so you're thinner and healthier. Since you're never stuck in congestion, road-rage is a thing of the past. You can work while commuting, paying your full attention to talking on the phone, texting, emailing etc because you're not driving.
There are no school buses because the PRT network transports the kids. There's a station INSIDE their school. Mothers don't feel the need to drive even young kids to school because they can plop the kid in a pod, punch in the school and rest easy that the pod won't stop until it arrives. It is literally safer than driving the kid to school, faster, and there's no "bus to miss". No school buses saves expense. So does not having to have a parking lot at the school or the snow plows to clear it. (Teachers get to work on the PRT too.) University students not only don't have cars, they find it fast and convenient enough to take classes at other schools. Even in Boston where there's a subway, the PRT is enough faster that the Boston College student wanting to take that MIT seminar doesn't have to waste 2 hours in transportation. Transportation between the 5 colleges in Western Mass is no longer an ordeal. You can even be registered at Hampshire and attend that Harvard lecture in an afternoon. Even a class at Columbia in NYC isn't out of reach for the Boston University student. You could even go to a Broadway show and get home by 1AM without the hassle of LaGuardia or the fear that you'd miss the last flight.
Terrorism isn't common at bus or train stations in the US but ask someone from London or Tel Aviv. Since PRT distributes its passengers in small pods and small stations, there are no large concentrations of people to blow up. There is no security for that trip to the next city either since, well, there's no plane to blow up. The system remembers who went where-when but that information is protected by court order made available only if necessary for solving crimes. There are no parking violations, or speeding car thieves resulting in a reduced need for police. The police don't need to control traffic at road constructions because there's very few road constructions since most people don't use roads so their load is light. Road infrastructure is less necessary. Taxes go down.
Maybe this isn't enough to stop Greenland from melting all by itself, but it helps. The US is probably economically best place to start, but it can easily spread to the cities in Europe, Mexico, Brazil, India and China. You relax knowing that you're not so much part of the problem anymore.
A day in the life
You wake well rested in your home in the burbs because its so quiet and the air is so clean. You ride your bike to the PRT station a half mile away and park it in the bike rack. You walk up the 1 flight of stairs and get into a pod, no waiting. You touch your wallet to the screen and it identifies you. Since you are getting on during a weekday morning at the stop closest to your house, the default location is your work. Do nothing and that's where the PRT takes you. Billing is automatic. During the ride, you can use its computer or yours to browse the web, sleep, or whatever. If you're asleep, you're awakened when the door opens at your stop. You walk down stairs, touch your wallet to a bike-share bike and ride another 1/2 mile to your work. On the way home you go via the supermarket, which has a stop inside. You don't buy more than you can carry. But since its so easy going to the supermarket, you don't feel the need to fill up that SUV with bags on that once-a-week shopping trip.
Pictures
The prototype pod at NASA Ames
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/NASA-SkyTran%20Maglev%20PRT.jpg
A movie of the prototype Pod at NASA Ames moving down the mag-lev track.
(Note.wmv file format might not display in all browsers.
Try Internet Explorer if it fails on your browser.)
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/NASA%20SkyTran%20Maglev%20PRT%20(7MB).wmv
Artist rendition of a station. Note the roadway freed up for a pedestrian mall.
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/station_cityscape.jpg
Artist rendition of a guideway containing optional solar panels.
Artist rendition of a station with an elevator for handicapped access.
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/solar_panels_and_station_with_elevator.jpg
Artist rendition of two guideways crossing at right angles.
Note: this picture lacks a ramp that would connect the two guideways.
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/guideways_crossing.jpg
Artist renditions of a city before and after SkyTran installation.
In the 2nd picture, a station is embedded in the second story of the brick building.
Wires can be hidden inside the guideway to reduce visual clutter.
We can also plan for the poles holding up the guideway to perform double
duty in holding traffic & parking signs, street lights and traffic lights
to keep pole clutter down.
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/city_with_wires.jpg
http://media.mit.edu/~cfry/skytran/skytran_pictures/city_with_guideway.jpg
References
SkyTran details:
The comments to this proposal contain a set of probing questions with answers that detail the technology, the economics and the benefits.
http://pubsindex.trb.org/view.aspx?id=909655
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/unimodal.html
Transportation statistics: http://www.bts.gov/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/pdf/entire.pdf
Personal expenditure statistics:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm
Urban land area for automobiles:
http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/People,Parking,CitiesJUPD.pdf
Postscript on Other Proposals
I believe we need to do lots of things to help the economy and the environment. SkyTran is low hanging fruit, but it should be adopted in addition to other solutions, not in place of them. This proposal references directly bike sharing and efficient electric cars, which can operate synergistically with PRT. Those cars need solar cell studded garages to be charged without drawing on grid power. We need more efficient buildings and better water management as well. But none of these technologies may get adopted if we don't have a better process for making decisions, so I fully support initiatives for a more deliberative, inclusive democracy. And the first proposal that such a more collaborative government should take up? Our transportation infrastructure!#OnlyInPerth campaign showcases unique WA food creations including bacon and egg latte
Updated
Ever tried a bacon, egg and spinach breakfast latte, a spiral scone cone or a corn and tortilla gelato?
While some may write them off as hipster food crazes, they are also part of a new social media movement that is putting the spotlight on local Perth food delicacies you cannot find anywhere else.
Using the hashtag #OnlyInPerth, Perth eateries and foodies are showcasing unique WA creations and hidden gems, while boosting business in tough times.
More than 30 businesses have jumped on board the campaign, with many creating eyebrow-raising dishes.
Local food curator and Yelp city manager Andjelka Jankovic came up with idea after a recent trip to San Francisco, and won an international hackathon competition with the concept.
"Often trends happen overseas or over east and then they come to Perth about six months later. However, I was finding lots of ideas had their genesis in Perth [and] I wanted to give recognition to these businesses," she said.
Ms Jankovic said the movement was a way for diners to rediscover Perth eateries post-mining boom — a tough economic climate for restaurants.
Bacon latte 'not for everyone'
So what's with the bacon latte?
Subiaco cafe Karibu has subverted the classic breakfast combo of bacon, egg and spinach to create a savoury breakfast drink, using bacon fat, dried spinach and a raw egg — but no caffeine.
Cafe owner Jason Allegretta said the drink was not for everyone.
"It's basically a breakfast latte. So essentially it's spinach, eggs and some bacon, and we all kind of mould it into one," he said.
"So there's no milk, no sugars, no carbs — It's all about the fat."
"We've just used some filtered water and a bit of Himalayan pink salt and we've just blended it into one. So it really is a breakfast on the go.
"It's really just for someone who's following the low-carb, high-fat way of eating."
The S-Cone is an ice-cream cone meets a high tea scone with jam and cream.
A favourite at farmers markets around Perth, it has now been trademarked by its creator Nicole Smith.
"It's very difficult to trademark food, but we've done everything we can to protect it," she said.
Ms Smith came up with the idea after she noticed people were struggling to eat her regular scones at markets when there was a lack of seating.
"I realised we needed to make it mobile," she said.
"Through a month of trial and error, without holes, tears or cracks, we got there and it still tastes exactly like a scone."
The S-Cone comes in a variety of flavours and there are vegan and gluten-free options.
Ms Smith is hoping to take the S-Cone interstate in the near future.
Truffle began as vodka cocktail
A few weeks ago Perth chocolatier Sue Lewis was having dinner with her partner who loved her strawberry, basil and vodka cocktail so much, she offered to make it into a truffle.
She joined forces with East Perth's Hippocampus Distillery vodka to create a WA truffle for spring.
"We have surplus strawberries from the great fruit season so I thought let's do something that is fresh, herbal and gives you a taste of spring. And the vodka gives you a spring," Ms Lewis said.
In a similar collaborative vein, Northbridge's Chicho Gelato has teamed up with Mount Lawley Mexican restaurant El Publico to create a street corn, tortilla crumb and dulce de leche concoction.
Owner and chef Carly De Bartolo said they wanted to recreate a savoury dish people were familiar with, while challenging diners' palates by turning it into a dessert.
Ms De Bartolo said it was great to collaborate with other local business to create a unique product rather just compete for customers.
"I know gelato and Tommy Payne knows Mexican. So we can learn something off each other," she said.
"We can do our own thing, it's time to look inwards and stop looking to the east coast," she said.
Meanwhile, the rooftop of Leighton Beach restaurant Bib & Tucker is home to two beehives that house tens of thousands of bees between them and are being put to good use.
The hives are harvested by staff to produce more than 60 kilograms of honey during a six-month period over spring and summer.
Their proximity to the ocean has meant the bees produce a honey that is often slightly salty in taste and it is used in several of the restaurant's dishes and drinks.
Topics: food-and-cooking, community-and-society, perth-6000
First postedPM - Tuesday, 8 March, 2005 18:33:00 Reporter: Karen Percy MARK COLVIN: The current focus on childhood obesity may be taking attention away from something just as dangerous, childhood anorexia.
A new study shows that girls as young as six are already worrying about their weight, and want to be thinner.
A survey conducted at Flinders University in Adelaide, and just published in a British psychology journal, indicates that girls are thinking about diets at ever-younger ages, and that peer pressure and the media play a major role.
Karen Percy reports.
KAREN PERCY: It's an alarming statistic, that 47 per cent of girls aged five to eight want to be thinner.
The study, by researchers at Adelaide's Flinders University, shows that while at five years of age girls seem relatively unconcerned about their weight, by the time they turn six or seven, usually their second year in primary school, body image is all important.
By then more than 71 per cent of girls want to be slimmer.
Researcher Hayley Dohnt.
HAYLEY DOHNT: When asking children about their dieting awareness and things like that, there were a few children that said, oh, well she should go off to Jenny Craig and that, and that's from a five year old girl. So if at five years of age they're already aware that you go to Jenny Craig to lose weight it's quite alarming.
KAREN PERCY: Hayley Dohnt and her research partner conducted interviews with 81 primary school aged girls, each interview lasting 10 to 15 minutes.
The study is only a preliminary look at the attitudes of young girls, but it shows that body image becomes an issue well before the usually accepted theory of a girl's transition to high school, after the age of 12 or 13.
And alarmingly, it's peer pressure which is having a big influence on younger girls. That and media images, and the experiences of those around them.
Researcher Hayley Dohnt again.
HAYLEY DOHNT: Parents need to be aware that the messages that they portray to their children, whether it's about obesity or whether it's even their own messages in that they might be thinking, oh I don't look so good in this outfit, or I've got to watch my weight when I eat. Even if they're talking about these things with their husbands or with their wives, or whatever, children are very receptive to these messages.
And particularly magazines that are lying around the house that have all these pictures of the skinny models and rake thin celebrities. Children are very receptive to these. They pick them up and they learn about the thin ideals from a variety of sources.
So if parents can be, perhaps, a little bit more aware of this, and also I guess if teachers are aware that it is developing at such an early age, maybe we need to really start looking at some prevention and intervention programs in school as early as school entry.
KAREN PERCY: Dr Michael Kohn from the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney confirms that he's seeing younger and younger patients with eating disorders.
MICHAEL KOHN: It's not just little girls, it's boys and girls in the pre teen group telling us that they want to be thin, and are actually doing activities to control and lose weight.
KAREN PERCY: But Dr Kohn says parents needn't be too alarmed just yet.
MICHAEL KOHN: But I think it's a shot over the bows, this latest report. And it clearly identifies what we suspect has been going on in that certainly over the last 50 years there's been an increasing number of young people and younger ages at which these people have been presenting with their eating disorders.
KAREN PERCY: Researcher Hayley Dohnt admits the sample size is small, but she says the study is an important first step in preventing disorders down the track.
HAYLEY DOHNT: You know, unfortunately these days the research does suggest that these young children are potentially facing body dissatisfaction, and if we can do something about it now, we're going to prevent a lot of later eating disorders, self esteem issues and those kind of things, which is why this research is so important.
MARK COLVIN: Researcher, Hayley Dohnt from Flinders University ending Karen Percy's report.Registration for BETA access on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands are now open for PC, XBOX One or PS4, If you would like to be the first to try Ghost Recon Wildlands sign up now! This comes after ubisoft officially announced its first game trailer the Mission Briefing that reveals the mission you will took part on the near-future Bolivia.
You can register your FREE Beta Code at https://ghost-recon.ubisoft.com/wildlands/en-US/beta-registration/index.aspx, you just have to enter your birth date and sign in using your uPlay Account then you can choose your platform you’d like to received a beta code either XBOX ONE, PS4 or PC. After that you should received a similar confirmation email like below:
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands BETA You’re now part of our waiting list Thank you for registering to get a chance to play the beta on [PC, XBOX ONE, PS4]! If you’re selected you will be contacted shortly before beta starts on this email address. We’re looking forward to meeting you in the Wildlands
Also, if you’re not lucky on getting Beta Code there will be more Ghost Recon: Wildlands give aways to come, no worries!
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands will be released on uPlay PC, PS4 and XBOX One on March 7, 2017.Updated at 8:20 p.m. to reflect events at the meeting.
Plano school trustees have agreed to part ways with the district's superintendent over "differing leadership philosophies."
Board members voted unanimously on Tuesday to accept the resignation of Dr. Brian Binggeli, who was hired in 2015 after being approached by the district's search firm. Binggeli, 58, will begin using personal leave on Wednesday. His resignation will be effective Jan. 31.
A resignation agreement calls for Binggeli to be paid $307,306, which represents nine months of salary and benefits along with unused vacation time, in exchange for terminating his three-year contract early. A payment of $87,306 will be jointly made to Binggeli and a law firm while the remaining $220,000 will be paid into supplemental retirement plans for him.
In brief remarks Tuesday, Binggeli thanked the board for the opportunity to serve and offered glowing praise to the district, its employees and the community. He declined to answer questions from the media and left the board meeting without any further explanation.
A statement distributed at the meeting stated that both sides agreed "it is in the best interest of the district" to reach an agreement now rather than at the end of Binggeli's contract in June 2019 so that he could pursue other opportunities.
The board praised Binggeli for his service and thanked him for all he has done in his brief tenure here.Everyone loves a good deal, but going cheap at the expense of your health, home or sanity is just plain stupid.
To get you on track, we've rounded up 12 of the most penny smart and pound foolish moves you can ever make with your money.
Hitting the vending machine for cheap snacks
Cheap snacks aren't helping your wallet or waistline, says nutritionist Rania Batayneh of Essential Nutrition for You.
Bankrate.com found 72 million Americans could save on doctor's visits, health insurance premiums and groceries if they simply ate better. They might even get a salary boost.
Bypass the vending machine and purchase high quality snacks online instead, says Batayneh.
"I subscribe and have KIND bars shipped to me monthly through Amazon," she says.
"I don't pay shipping and it comes automatically out of my bank account. Grabbing a candy bar from the vending machine wastes money and calories."
Going the poor man's divorce route to save $20,000
Skipping a $20,000 divorce sounds logical, but think twice before forgoing divorce, no matter how strapped you are.
From custody battles (who gets the kids?) to trouble remarrying and filing taxes, there's a buffet of issues to work through like late car payments, foreclosed homes and anything else your deadbeat spouse left kicking around that'll drag down your credit.
Gabrielle Clemens, an attorney at law in Boston and financial planner says it best: "There's no good argument for staying married to someone who has no control of your life."
[Also see: 7 Surprising Ways Stress Helps Your Health and Wellbeing]
Upping your insurance deductible to save upfront
It sounds smart on the surface, but increased exposure makes this a very bad idea, says Money Crashers founder Andrew Schrage.
The $10 you save a month won't even begin to pay for that wrecked Camaro or your flooded house.
"An unexpected event can force you to pay hundreds or thousands more, depending on how much you agreed to increase your deductible," says Schrage.
Opting for layaway to feel like a saver
If you've got problems with managing money, don't look to layaway to solve them.
Layaway isn't a debt-reduction plan, it's a marketing ploy that gets insecure shoppers to think they're saving upfront when they're really racking up late fees and interest.
Remember, stretching out payments isn't responsible if you can't afford the item in the first place.
Choosing a variable rate mortgage (ARM) for the lower monthly payment
Variable rate mortgages can be a trap for wary homeowners who think they're getting a great deal for nothing.
Starting with a low initial rate, they offer smaller monthly payments than fixed loans. But they pose the risk of rising rates in the future.
"A fixed-rate mortgage is typically more expensive, but you'll save more later on because you're not subject to an adjustment that's out of your control," says Clemens.
"The goal with an ARM should be 'I'm not going to keep this, I'm going to lock in a rate when I'm in a better financial position."
The safe—and cheaper—bet might be to opt for a 30-year mortgage and then refinance. If you're still unsure, run the numbers to see if an ARM works for you.
Overpaying for extended warranties
"The cost-effectiveness of extended warranties is minimal and simply put, they're generally a bad idea," says Schrage.
In fact, retailers typically enjoy a greater gross profit on the extended warranty than they do on the product they're selling.
Standard warranties should be just enough to get you by.
On the flipside, if your PC or laptop breaks down, forgoing the extra $50 or $100 could cost you hundreds for wear and tear.
Overspending on bulk purchases to cut the grocery bill
"One of the biggest mistakes people make (buying in bulk) is that they think they'll use something up, but they end up throwing most of it away," Parker Hurlburt, vice president of research for Acosta explains.
"The other mistake is that they don't compare sale prices to bulk prices."
Other cons include membership fees to bulk outlets, overspending and finding a place for all that stuff.
Skipping the dentist (and other health visits) to pocket the co-pay
Skipped your date with the dentist because you couldn't bear the co-pay? Not smart.
A recent Consumer Reports survey found 43 percent of respondents did just that, exacerbating their health problems and leading to hefty medical bills.
To curb the pain in your mouth and wallet, shop around for a bargain, consider visiting free and low-cost clinics, or check out a local dental and hygienist school for free or discounted care.
Splurging on daily deals to feel thrifty
Daily deals don't last forever, and as Your Money reporter/reformed Groupon addict Mandi Woodruff attests, "after I dropped the ball on five of the suckers, I decided to wean myself off."
Yes, there are ways to salvage expired daily deals—read how 8 Groupon die-hards did it here—but if they aren't time sensitive enough for you to remember to use them, you're basically flushing money down the drain.
Shirking your pet's health to beat the vet bill
Possibly the dumbest mistake petowners can make is not coughing up cash for their pet's preventative care.
Avoid the heartache—and cost—of an ER visit by brushing your pet's teeth, splurging on the healthier, vet-recommended food and following up on routine check-ups and exams.
Your pet's life depends on it.
Not getting a prenup to stave off attorneys' fees
Much like forgoing a divorce, not getting a prenup could turn your bailout plan into a chaotic mess, where the only one cashing the check is your lawyer.
"Any time you can set forth a framework for an outcome, it's more efficient and saves a lot of money if they have to engage in litigation and go to court," says Clemens, the divorce financial planner.
It could also spare you from having to flesh out things later at the expensive cost of an attorney.
If you haven't broached the subject with your spouse, check out our guide to doing it without getting dumped, here.
[Also see: Most Expensive Cities for Car Insurance]
Leasing a car to avoid the mileage penalty
Lease terms typically run for three years, allowing for 36,000 miles of driving, or 12,000 miles per year.
Exceeding that annual limit will cost you per mile—the mileage penalty—so if you know you're going to drive over the limit, it's better to just pay upfront, says Phil Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com.
Or go ahead and buy the car so you won't have to worry.If you want to know what and how Democrats are going to run on for the 2018 mid-term elections, it’s all in this video below, and if you are not prepared, you better be after watching it.
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This interviewer brought up the fact the Republican party in disarray, and she’s probably right after they have turned on President Trump over the last six months.
Pelosi claims Democrats have won every battle since Trump became President, forgetting that there have been four special elections that Democrats spent 35 million on to win and won none of these special elections, Republicans spent much less money to win all four elections
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We have beaten them in appropriations,” Pelosi said. “We’ve won every fight. The president’s numbers are in the high 30 |
ifully detached from the lower activities of the external which may flail and strike out like a cornered wildcat as the pure photonic light forces disharmony to the surface. That applies to all lifestreams, not just those in disharmonious alignment with denser agendas. For those following these messages who are not experiencing embodiment, we ask you to consider getting as clear and heart-based as possible so your journey may unfold with ease and grace. It will also assist with not being swayed or pulled into thought forms and activities which have nothing to do with your true self, or the direction of this Ascending planetary experience.
The Heat of the Crystalline Rewrite
As you transcend the lower chakra systems and strengthen the Ascension column, the (consciously activated) crystalline structures begin to rewrite the cellular and light body structures into sacred geometric form. This internal activity assists the torus fields to accelerate in order to hold more light and merge the 4D field with the 5D and beyond fields of your Lighter, Higher dimensional Self. There are codes within your bones, blood and Lightbody which merge with the crystalline structures within in their sacred purpose of Ascension. Men and women of all age ranges experience this; it began during the last Equinox Gateway.
Please note that it is not the kundalini burning/sweating sensation of earlier stages of Ascension. It is an evenly distributed, head to toe, deep core burning sensation. It will not feel like sweat on the surface of the skin; it feels like a fine mist emanating through the skin, coming from a deep skeletal or core energy. Like a feverish sensation without the illness. Misty, refined. It does not emanate from one chakra or another, rather it is the full Ascension column experience. The heat begins, head to toe, and the emanation of it feels like a fine hot crystalline mist coming forth. In the Spring it felt like burning off stages of a rocket, burning off density. At this phase it is a refined rewrite of the cellular structure. It definitely puts the Solar sensation in Solar Cosmic Christ. You do indeed emanate these frequencies of the Sun, and in this density it does indeed feel like heat. If you are curious about the difference between this and kundalini rushes of the past, look to the sweat factor; if you’re drenched in your own sweat, that is kundalini sweats (or hot flashes for ladies in that physical phase). If you are experiencing an all-over misty sensation that feels like a light body expansion, it is most likely the restructuring of these crystalline aspects within the body vehicle, which in turn is preparation for more strands of DNA to etherically reconnect. Nothing is needed to fix it; stay hydrated, in gratitude, and welcome the transformation.
Crystalline structure reaction to direct SUNlight
On some days, in some hours (not all), you may experience a crackling, prickly, tingling sensation on the surface of your skin when exposed to direct sunlight. On these days when crystalline structures within the body are sensitive to the alignment with the SUN, it is best not to overexpose yourself to that sensation. It is quite uncomfortable, so you will most likely be guided to get out of the SUN. As mentioned in earlier messages, it is the crystalline structures becoming more active, especially when there is this crystalline focus during these gateways of 2015. Crystalline structures within the body, the crystals you put in the ground, Gaia’s crystalline beds, and the crystalline grid are all unifying in Divine purpose to bring forth these Christed embodiments this year. The structures get very stimulated in direct sunlight, and you feel that strong radiation coming into the body vehicle to anchor that light. Use your discernment when it comes to length of exposure.
Afternoon activations continue
While it may be inconvenient to drop everything that you are doing and go into meditation, or lay down, when the daily activation presents, do your best to accept these activations. They occur roughly between 12 noon – 6 pm, and last between1 to 2 hours. Even if you are engaged in other activities when the activations present, you may still consciously accept them with gratitude and love, and continue doing what the day demands as the energies are received through the Ascension column. It is your choice as to how deeply you would like to experience these activations, which are focused on your own personal process. Work with your team and your higher levels, and open your heart to the full experience of Ascension in order to receive.
Brilliant light in the Ascension column
The brilliant light I described in previous articles is a side-effect of working with the I AM templates here in Shasta. If you are consciously accepting the template codes during the Gateway dates provided, you may begin to experience this rapid lighting up of your Ascension column. It is extremely bright at first, like staring into the face of an Archangel. I have learned how to integrate it so that it doesn’t affect my external vision as consistently as when it first began. To be clear, this is the merging of the I AM within the Ascension column. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ascension column, that is the central chamber which activates when all of the tube torus fields of the Multidimensional Self are aligned and activated through the Solar Cosmic Christed Heart Center, so the awareness of consciousness in all of these different dimensional levels can unify in the divine purpose of Ascension. If you would like to study and experience that, feel free to explore the Ascension Path class. I described the experience in depth on the last connection call.
Effects of the embodiment on our Consciousness
– Consistent peace.
– Infinite patience with all that is.
– A deep unification with Source; the pure Love which is Source.
– Consistent Divine neutrality, which is detached compassion, and the transfiguration of mental activity to the higher, expansive states of Love.
– Mastery-Level Patience with the collective, the external, and the grounded Self.
– Flowing, flexible beingness unattached to belief systems, judgments or external programs/realities.
– Pure Presence in the Zero Point.
– Freedom.
Gateway Focus: July 15 – 19th
Light-encoded filaments will be entering over the next few days which are focused on our consciousness. The last Gate brought a deep peace to the embodiers after the flare did its work. Gatekeepers and gridworkers, we continue to use crystals to accelerate and expand these energies. Transfiguration of the lower levels – the emotional, mental and egoic levels – is one of our largest challenges as a collective. For those of you who have done the work, assist your brothers and sisters who may become triggered or spun off-center during this passage. Your ability to be present in the heart, patient, and consistently creating higher solutions (rather than drama) demonstrates the true Ascension activity.
As we emerge from the illusion where our free will seemed controlled, we retrain ourselves to honor, respect, and demonstrate the activity of divine choice in alignment with the highest interests of all concerned. Use your discernment and Divine neutrality during this acceleration. Be selective with your words, activities and energy; especially if you are in a Wayshower role. Take note of the forces using these energies to create anxiety, fear, or judgment. Observe, but do not engage or assist in the creation of fear. All is incredibly well, Beloveds. Let the old light crumble, and focus on the expanded perception and perspective of your Divine Self.
Rebroadcast of the Multidimensional Merge Event: July 18-19
The feedback from the Multidimensional Merge Sequence online event has been powerful. I AM truly honored to provide this method for experiencing the multidimensional Self, alignment of the torus energy fields and Ascension column. Because of the strong results, Lauren Galey is re-releasing the three-part series this weekend. Registration is open now at (offer expired). Please note it is an advanced level Mastery class.
Blessings upon all of us engaged with this Divine experience of Ascension!
In Love, Light and Service,
Sandra
I would Love a donation today, thank you!The Governor, Glenn Stevens, has today announced that the next generation of Australian banknotes will include a ‘tactile’ feature to assist people with a vision impairment.
As previously announced, existing features to help the vision impaired tell the difference between different denominations of Australian banknotes will be maintained on the new series. These include: bright colours; large and bold numbers; and different sizes for each denomination of banknote. The Bank will also continue to fund the production of the ‘cash test card’. The addition of a ‘tactile’ feature will further assist people with a vision impairment to tell the difference between denominations.
This decision is the culmination of extensive research by the Bank into whether an effective and durable tactile marking could be included on Australian banknotes. This included consultation with the vision impaired community, other stakeholders and overseas central banks.
The testing and trialling process for the next generation of banknotes is ongoing and designs have not yet been finalised. Details about the new designs, the release dates and how they will be issued will be released in a timely way, so that the public can be confident they understand how to recognise and use the new banknotes.Toronto Whole Foods Resignation Letter Goes Viral
Originally posted on Gawker, a resignation letter from an employee at a Toronto Whole Foods was sent to the entire company late Friday. The letter, from a staff member who had been working for Whole Foods for approximately six years, calls out the organization as a whole as well as specific employees.
Rude and to the point, it’s clear this employee had had enough. Excerpts of the letter with redacted names were uploaded to Gawker on Sunday and since then the letter has gone viral. The epic email has spread like wildfire, its content making many wonder just how truthful are the employee's complaints about the Whole Foods grocery chain.
The email gives point by point why Whole Foods as a store doesn’t hold up to its core values, eventually stating the writer’s negative opinion about the grocery store chain “You're kind a faux hippy Wal-Mart now. Great. Job.”
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The employee additionally writes negative paragraphs about his former coworkers even calling them chauvinists and sociopaths. These are just a few excerpts: “How you haven't been fired by now is a massive mystery to, not just me, but many people...I haven't met a single person working under you or who has worked under you who doesn't loathe the way you treat people...You have no idea how insulting and aggravating it is to be around someone who is so condescending to all the women you work with...(and) Stop taking your personal life out on everyone and have some compassion for the team members you disregard so much.”
Although the author's name has not been released, their letter will clearly be forever remembered as a particularly special way of quitting a job. Needless to say, this former employee has probably burned all bridges they had at Whole Foods.On 8 March 2017, the Fifth Session of the 12th National People's Congress held a press conference, where Foreign Minister Wang Yi answered questions from domestic and foreign media on China's foreign policy and external relations.
Wang Yi: Friends of the press, good morning. Every year, the NPC schedules my press conference for 8 March. This gives me an opportunity to extend festive greetings in person to all the female journalists in this room. Indeed, I want to wish all women happiness and good luck. I also want to say a big thank-you to all members of the press. You have made an important contribution by building a bridge between the Chinese diplomacy and the public at home and abroad. Thank you for a job well done. Now I'm ready to take your questions.
Xinhua News Agency: In May, China will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Why does China want to hold the forum at this moment in time and what does China hope to achieve?
Wang Yi: In about two months' time, we'll hold the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. We foresee that the heads of state and government from over 20 countries, the leaders of over 50 international organizations, over 100 ministerial-level officials and around 1,200 delegates from different countries and regions participating in the forum. In addition to the Leaders Roundtable, there will also be a High-Level Dialogue and six parallel panel discussions on the connectivity of policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people. Beijing will once again be the center of global attention; the Belt and Road Initiative will continue to be a hot topic around the world.
The Belt and Road is China's initiative, but it belongs to the world. The idea came from China, but the benefits will flow to all countries. In the over three years since President Xi announced the initiative, the idea has caught on and cooperation has flourished. It has become the most popular public good and the international cooperation platform with the brightest prospects. The Belt and Road Initiative has been so successful because it meets the partner countries' urgent desire for more mutually beneficial cooperation and follows the open and inclusive principle of planning together, building together and benefiting together. With protectionism and unilateralism on the rise, the Belt and Road Initiative is a common cause where the participating countries roll up their sleeves and pitch in together. The initiative will help to rebalance economic globalization and make it more inclusive and equitable. It also represents an important attempt at building a community of shared future for all humankind.
We hope the forum will accomplish three things. First, review and build consensus, enhance the complementarity of countries' development strategies and set the goal of combining their strengths and achieving common prosperity. Second, examine key areas of cooperation and identify a number of major projects concerning physical connectivity, trade and investment, financial support and people-to-people exchange. Third, announce medium- to long-term initiatives, explore the establishment of an effective cooperation mechanism and build a closer and result-oriented network of partnerships.
NBC: President Trump is a leader quite like no other. How confident are you that compromises can be found on the most important challenges that concern both sides?
Wang Yi: Through the intense communication and joint efforts of both sides, the China-US relationship is transitioning steadily and developing in a positive direction. Last month, President Xi Jinping and President Trump had a very important telephone conversation where they reaffirmed the importance of following the one-China principle and pledged to push China-US relations to greater heights from a new starting point. The phone call has set the direction and paved the way for bilateral relations. The two sides are having fruitful communications on realizing exchanges between our Presidents and at other levels and expanding all areas of cooperation. As long as we act on the consensus reached between our Presidents, follow the principle of no conflict or confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, then there is no reason why China and the United States cannot become good partners.
The importance of the China-US relationship, one between two major countries with global impact, is self-evident. Preserving and developing the China-US relationship is in the interest of our two peoples and the expectation of the international community. The three joint communiqués have laid a solid foundation for China-US relations. Looking ahead, it's very important that we rise above two things.
First, we need to rise above the difference of our social systems. China and the United States have chosen different systems and development paths. The Chinese people have great confidence in our own social system and development path; we welcome efforts to build a better United States. In the age of progress and plurality, there is a compelling reason for China and the United States to respect each other, learn from each other, live together peacefully and realize common development.
Second, we need to rise above the zero-sum mentality. China and the United States have a growing set of common interests. The areas where we need to work together on far outweigh what divides us. In many ways, our interests are increasingly intertwined. We should pull our efforts to enlarge our shared interests rather than building one's success at the expense of the other, because it's just not possible.
It's been 38 years since China and the United States normalized diplomatic relations. The Chinese people often say, "When turning thirty, one should be able to stand firm; when reaching forty, one should no longer have any doubts." We hope that China and the United States can truly rise above the old ideas, open up new horizons and build a more robust and mature China-US relationship as it turns forty, so that we can put the minds of our two peoples and the whole world at ease.
People's Daily: In the last few years, China's diplomacy has been active and dynamic. If you are to use a few words to sum up China's diplomacy since the 18th CPC Congress, what would they be?
Wang Yi: Since the 18th Congress of the CPC, Chinese diplomats have risen to challenges and broken new ground. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, we have accomplished a great deal and opened a new chapter in major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. Let me try to sum it up with three key words.
The first key word is vision. Grasping the trend of the times and the course of history, General Secretary Xi Jinping has put forward a series of new ideas and new thinking. For example, he has called for building partnerships that replace confrontation with dialogue, and alliance with partnership. Then, countries can build a new type of international relations underpinned by win-win cooperation. On that basis, we can build a community of shared future for all humankind. These new ideas and thinking reject the old concepts of alliance and confrontation and rise above the old approach of zero-sum games. They have distinct Chinese characteristics and major implications for the world. They are the guide to action for Chinese diplomats in the new era and will have far-reaching implications for human development and progress.
The second key word is initiative. Chinese diplomats have worked creatively to secure and advance our country's and people's interests. We have established a global web of partnerships, and provided an enabling environment and strategic support for China's development. We have advanced the Belt and Road Initiative and opened a new chapter of openness and win-win cooperation. Putting people at the heart of diplomacy, we have improved consular mechanisms and procedures and effectively safeguarded the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens and businesses abroad.
The third key word is consistency. In the face of instability and conflicts in many parts of the world, we have adhered to the path of peaceful development. In the face of skepticism over the existing international order and system, we have called for maintaining it and, where necessary, improving it. In the face of a growing backlash against globalization and rising protectionism, we have championed multilateralism and openness and inclusiveness. It's our responsibility as a major country to maintain consistency and continuity in our foreign policy, which can offset various uncertainties and demonstrate China's confidence and firmness of purpose.
Later this year, the CPC will hold its 19th National Congress. Chinese diplomats will continue to forge ahead, guided by the diplomatic thinking of General Secretary Xi Jinping. China will continue to be an anchor of international stability, an engine of global growth, a champion of peace and development and a contributor to global governance.
Reuters: The situation on the Korean Peninsula at the moment is extremely tense. North Korea has again test missiles this week. Does China think there will be war on the Korean Peninsula? What is China's strategy for preventing war from breaking out?
Wang Yi: Once again, tensions are rising on the Korean Peninsula. On the one hand, the DPRK has ignored international opposition and insisted on advancing its nuclear and missile programs in violation of Security Council resolutions. On the other hand, the US and the ROK are conducting military exercises of an enormous scale and putting more military pressure on the DPRK. The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming towards each other with neither side willing to give way. The question is, are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision?
Given the situation, our priority now is to flash the red light and apply brakes on both trains.
To defuse the looming crisis on the peninsula, China proposes that, as a first step, the DPRK suspend its missile and nuclear activities in exchange for a halt of the large-scale US-ROK exercises. This suspension-for-suspension can help us break out of the security dilemma and bring the parties back to the negotiating table. Then we can follow the dual-track approach of denuclearizing the peninsula on the one hand and establishing a peace mechanism on the other. Only by addressing the parties' concerns in a synchronized and reciprocal manner, can we find a fundamental solution to lasting peace and stability on the peninsula. China's proposal, fully in keeping with resolutions 2270 and 2321, tries to get to the crux of the matter. To resolve the nuclear issue, we have to walk on both legs, which means not just implementing sanctions, but also restarting talks, both of which are set out in the Security Council resolutions.
The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is mainly between the DPRK and the United States. China is a next-door neighbor with a lips-and-teeth relationship with the peninsula, so we're indispensable to the resolution of the nuclear issue. China has a strong commitment to denuclearizing the peninsula, to maintaining stability there and to resolving the issues peacefully. Indeed, China has done its level best to bring the DPRK and the US together and to chair the Six-Party Talks. We've also contributed to the adoption and implementation of Security Council resolutions. Going forward, to continue my earlier railway metaphor, China will continue to be a "switch-man". We will try to switch the issue back to the track of seeking a negotiated settlement. And I wish to emphasize that nuclear weapons will not bring security, the use of force is no solution, talks deserve another chance and peace is still within our grasp.
CCTV & CGTN: Some people believe that the era of Western domination is coming to an end; it is China and the other emerging economies that hold the key to the future. How does China view the shifting balance of power in the world? Later this year, China will host the BRICS Leaders Meeting. What do you hope to accomplish?
Wang Yi: The BRICS countries are representative of the emerging economies. Over the years, the fortunes of the BRICS may have risen or fallen and BRICS each face their own set of challenges. However, as President Xi Jinping has put it, the BRICS are like five fingers, each with its own strength; when the BRICS come together, we form a fist that can punch. As long as we stay united, the BRICS will not lose its luster; rather, it will shine more brightly than ever.
This year, BRICS will enter into its second decade. As the Chairman this year, China will work with other BRICS countries to review experience, plan the future, usher in the second "golden decade" of BRICS cooperation and provide BRICS' input for world peace and development. We hope to accomplish four things this year.
First, in terms of political and security cooperation, we will make full use of the meeting of national security advisers, build consensus for holding a stand-alone foreign ministers' meeting and demonstrate the strength of BRICS cooperation to the world.
Second, in terms of practical cooperation, we will fully implement the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership, enhance policy coordination at the macro level and the complementarity of our development strategies, announce a number of solid initiatives and add more substance to BRICS cooperation.
Third, in terms of people-to-people exchange, we will implement the agreements of our leaders and hold BRICS cultural festival, film festival, sports meet and so on to expand all areas of people-to-people exchange and build stronger public support for BRICS cooperation.
Finally, in terms of South-South cooperation, we will explore the modality of "BRICS plus". By holding outreach dialogues with other major developing countries and organizations of developing countries, we hope to establish a more extensive partnership, widen the BRICS' circle of friends and turn the BRICS into the most impactful platform for South-South cooperation.
TASS: After Trump became US President, the world has made a lot of commentary on Russia-China-US relations. Do you think there will be any change in the triangular relationship?
Wang Yi: Let me tell you at the outset that China-Russia relations are in excellent shape and we have great confidence in this relationship.
We have a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination not because it's convenient; it's a strategic decision reached by both sides on the basis of our fundamental interests. The relationship has stood the test of international vicissitudes. It is as strong as it's ever been and our mutual trust has reached a historic high. The relationship will not be affected or weakened by any external factor. We welcome any improvement in Russia-US relations, which will be an important piece of good news for the world. This year, the Presidents of China and Russia will have multiple face-to-face meetings, which will take our relationship to new heights. China and Russia will also improve strategic coordination on international and regional issues and act as a stabilizer in the otherwise turbulent world.
As for the China-US-Russia relationship in the new era, it should not be "a seesaw game". The three countries should work with rather than against each other. We should pursue win-win rather than zero-sum outcomes. The three countries can develop a positive and healthy relationship, so that we can jointly fulfill our responsibilities for world peace and development.
Global Times: In 2016, China re-established diplomatic relations with Gambia, and Sao Tome and Principe. Earlier this year, Nigeria demanded that the Taiwan mission there take off its placard and move out of the capital. People in China hailed the news. They believe that should the Taiwan authorities stray further from the one-China principle, they will have no future. Could we have your comment on it?
Wang Yi: There is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is part of China. This is a fact recognized by the world and an important principle enshrined in a series of international documents including UN resolutions. There is no basis in international law for the Taiwan region to establish or maintain so-called "diplomatic relations" with any country. Since such relationships have no legitimacy, surely they have no future! The Taiwan authorities should recognize this major trend. No one and no force can block the eventual and complete reunification of China.
CNN: President Trump has adopted an America First and isolationist approach, and commentators say this is China's opportunity. Is China ready to take on global leadership?
Wang Yi: Let me say this: First, China believes in the equality of all countries, large and small. We don't believe some countries should "lead" other countries. Second, the UN, as the world's most authoritative and credible inter-governmental organization, should play an effective role in coordinating international affairs according to the purposes and principles of its Charter. Third, rather than talking about "leadership", we should really be talking about "responsibility". Large countries have more resources and capability, so they should shoulder more responsibilities and make a greater contribution. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will fulfill its obligations for international peace and security. As the second largest economy, China will make its due contribution to global growth. As the largest developing country, China will play an even bigger role in upholding the legitimate rights and interests of fellow developing countries.
Yonhap News Agency: The China-ROK relationship is complicated and sensitive at the moment. This year marks the 25th anniversary of China-ROK diplomatic relations. How does China plan to develop the relationship?
Wang Yi: This year marks the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the ROK. China treasures what our two peoples have built together in the past 25 years. We hope the ROK will join China in preserving the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two sides.
The US-ROK deployment of the controversial THAAD system in the ROK is the biggest issue affecting China-ROK relations at the moment. China has expressed its strong opposition to it all along. The monitoring and early warning radius of THAAD reaches far beyond the Korean Peninsula, and it's common knowledge that THAAD undermines China's strategic security. Clearly, deploying THAAD is the wrong choice. It's not how neighbors should behave to each other, and it may very well make the ROK less secure. We strongly advise some elements in the ROK not to pursue this course of action, otherwise they will only end up hurting themselves as well as others. China urges the ROK to cease and desist, halt the THAAD deployment and not to go further down the wrong path.
China Daily: In January, President Xi Jinping visited some international organizations in Switzerland. In contrast, President Trump's criticism of the UN and other multilateral institutions worries a lot of people. Against this background, does China still have faith in the UN and multilateralism?
Wang Yi: President Xi's visit to international organizations in Switzerland sent out a clear message of China's strong commitment to multilateralism and strong support for the UN-centered international system.
The current international system was built by our forefathers from the ashes of the Second World War. It is the result of our collective efforts and wisdom. It's like a well-designed building with multilateralism being its cornerstone and the UN and other international organizations being its key pillars. Over 70 years has passed, so there has been some wear and tear, to be sure. But the building still shields us from wind and rain and still plays an irreplaceable role in promoting world peace and development. What we should be doing is to renovate the building rather than constructing another structure. On the other hand, the international system cannot stay unchanged; it must be reformed so that it can better reflect the new reality, meet countries' needs and catch up with the changing times.
Tanzania Standard Newspaper: It's been over a year since the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Johannesburg. Can you brief us on the implementation of the outcomes for this summit?
Wang Yi: China and Africa are a close-knit community with a shared future. Our cooperation is mutual help between two brothers. No matter how the international situation or the world economy may evolve, there will be no weakening in China's support for Africa.
What distinguishes China-Africa cooperation is that China always keeps its word. Since the Johannesburg Summit more than a year ago, the outcomes have been implemented in a swift and all-round way. Nearly half of the 60-billion-dollar funding support that China promised to Africa has been disbursed or arranged. The Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway has been completed; the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya will soon be. Planning has started for the Pointe Noire special economic zone in the Republic of Congo. Integrated port development in Tanzania is making smooth headway. And steady progress is being made in building a number of industrial parks. Responding to Africa's needs, China-Africa cooperation is undergoing three shifts: from government-driven to market-driven, from trade in goods to cooperation on production capacity, and from engineering contracts to capital investment and operations. These three shifts will provide new momentum and opportunities for Africa's sustainable development.
Just as China was Africa's most sincere friend in its quest for national independence and liberation, so China will be Africa's most reliable partner in speeding up industrialization and agricultural modernization and boosting its capacity for home-grown development.
Phoenix TV: Compared to last year, the temperature in the South China Sea has lowered somewhat. Although tension has eased between regional countries, non-regional countries have not stopped meddling. The United States is increasing its military deployment in the South China Sea, leading some people to say that there is bound to be a war between China and the US in those waters. Are you worried about this prospect?
Wang Yi: Tides have risen and fallen over the past year, and the South China Sea has returned to calm. I would go further than saying the temperature has lowered "somewhat" and say that it has lowered "significantly". This is the result of the joint efforts of China and ASEAN countries, and it's welcome news for the region and the world. At present, the DOC is being implemented in a full and effective manner. The directly concerned countries have returned to the right track of settling their disputes through dialogue and consultation. China and the ten ASEAN countries are advancing the COC consultation to work out a common set of regional rules. At the end of February, the China-ASEAN joint working group has made visible progress and produced the first draft of COC framework. China and the ASEAN countries are all happy about it. At this moment, if someone should try to make waves and stir trouble, then he will have no support but meet the common opposition of the entire region. China will never allow the hard-won stability to be disrupted again.
While some people in the world believe in Alfred Mahan's theory of controlling the seas, the Chinese people prefer the approach taken by Zheng He and value maritime cooperation. In the 21st century, we would like to see more maritime cooperation and greater trust between the parties. Even between China and the United States, if we change our mindset, then the vast oceans may well become a broad stage for cooperation.
Agencia EFE: The UK has launched its Brexit procedure, and elections are coming up in France and Germany. How does China see the future of Europe and its cooperation with China?
Wang Yi: The EU was the first regional cooperation mechanism established after the end of the Second World War; it's also the one that has developed the fastest. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we believe the challenges currently confronting the EU may turn out to be an opportunity for the EU to become more mature. China will continue to support European integration and we hope to see a more united, stable and prosperous EU.
We set store by Europe's strategic position and important role. We would like to work with Europe to advance the partnerships for peace, growth, reform and civilization; to respect and address each other's legitimate concerns and promptly remove obstacles to cooperation; to practice multilateralism and move toward a multi-polar world; and to re-energize the world economy, improve global governance and ensure the healthy development of economic globalization.
China News Service: The promotional events held by the Foreign Ministry to present Chinese provinces to the world have been warmly welcomed. In the last few years, the Foreign Ministry has done a lot to serve domestic and local development. Could you talk about it?
Wang Yi: China is still a developing country, so Chinese diplomats are duty-bound to serve domestic development.
In the past few years, we have made great efforts to present the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, thereby helping the world gain a fuller understanding of China and have greater confidence in working with China. We have actively pursued cooperation on production capacity and signed relevant agreements with over 30 countries, thereby facilitating economic and industrial transformation and upgrading at home. We have secured the inclusion of the RMB in the IMF's SDR basket and established the BRICS New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, thereby greatly expanding China's institutional rights in global economic governance. The Foreign Ministry has launched promotional events for Chinese provinces. Over the past year, we have held such events for six western and central provinces and autonomous regions. These events help the provinces to discuss cooperation with foreign partners without going abroad. They also help foreign diplomats in China to have a better knowledge of local opportunities without traveling outside Beijing. Every day, our missions around the world send back information and serve as bridges for business cooperation between China and other countries. Since the G20 Summit last year, Zhejiang Province and the city of Hangzhou have taken on a new look and made new progress in their economic and social development. People say that hosting the summit has given the city a major lift, and eventually it's the local residents who have benefited the most.
Development is of paramount importance, and serving development is our paramount task. The Foreign Ministry will continue to work with various localities and government departments to do a better job in this regard.
Philippine News Agency: Since President Rodrigo Duterte came into office, the China-Philippines relationship has made a big turnaround. What will China do to boost further its relations with the Philippines? What development we can expect on China-ASEAN relationship in the coming year?
Wang Yi: Since President Duterte came into office, he has appropriately handled the South China Sea issue and actively improved relations with China. This not only serves the interests of the Philippines, but also meets the expectation of the region. The Philippines has extended a hand of friendship, so of course, China has embraced it with open arms. The turnaround of China-Philippines relations lifts our friendship and benefits our two peoples and the wider region. None of this has happened by accident; it merely reflects what the relationship is supposed to be like.
At present, the two countries are tapping the full potential of our bilateral cooperation to make up for lost time. In the less than six months since President Duterte's visit to China, nearly 1,000 Chinese tourist groups have visited the Philippines and China has imported over 200,000 tons of tropical fruits from the Philippines. The two sides are having intensive discussions on a range of infrastructural projects, including railways, bridges and dams, and some of them may begin construction within this year. The new Commerce Minister of China is visiting the Philippines even as we speak. This shows China's desire to strengthen friendship and cooperation with the Philippines. The two sides have agreed to establish a bilateral consultation on the South China Sea issue and set up a cooperation mechanism between our coast guards. In short, the China-Philippines relationship has returned to the right path, one that serves the interests of both peoples. Together, the two sides should march forward with unity of purpose.
The turnaround in China-Philippines relations has scattered the dark clouds over China-ASEAN relations. Last year marks the 25th anniversary of the China-ASEAN dialogue relations, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of ASEAN's founding. The silver anniversary and the golden anniversary are especially auspicious for regional cooperation. China will support the Philippines in fulfilling its responsibilities as the ASEAN Chair, and we will help build the ASEAN Community.
We would like to work with ASEAN to pursue greater mutual benefit, intensify cooperation on connectivity and production capacity, make sure our peoples benefit from the upgraded China-ASEAN FTA as soon as possible, and wrap up the RCEP negotiation at an early date.
We would like to work with ASEAN to strengthen our bonds of friendship, make a success of the China-ASEAN tourism cooperation year, strive to meet the target of 30 million mutual visits by 2020, and make people-to-people exchange a new pillar of China-ASEAN relations.
We would also like to work with ASEAN to enhance Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC), speed up work on the 45 "early harvest" programs, and invite applications for the LMC special fund. The China Secretariat for LMC will be set up in a few days' time. We hope LMC will become a flagship initiative in China's efforts to build a community of shared future with our neighbors and contribute more to the narrowing of disparity and the promotion of integration in our region.
Be |
and our bill). We’re going to leverage the Ruby programming language and the AWS SDK for Ruby. If you’ve never used Ruby before, do yourself a favor and invest some time with it. You’ll be glad you did.
Let’s get started.
We’re going to be applying the instance size flexibility normalization factors, so let’s declare a Hash of their values.
normalizationFactors = { 'nano': 0.25,'micro': 0.5,'small': 1,'medium': 2, 'large': 4, 'xlarge': 8, '2xlarge': 16, '4xlarge': 32, '8xlarge': 64, '9xlarge': 72, '10xlarge': 80, '12xlarge': 96, '16xlarge': 128, '18xlarge': 144, '24xlarge': 192, '32xlarge': 256 } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 normalizationFactors = { 'nano' : 0.25,'micro' : 0.5,'small' : 1,'medium' : 2, 'large' : 4, 'xlarge' : 8, '2xlarge' : 16, '4xlarge' : 32, '8xlarge' : 64, '9xlarge' : 72, '10xlarge' : 80, '12xlarge' : 96, '16xlarge' : 128, '18xlarge' : 144, '24xlarge' : 192, '32xlarge' : 256 }
Using Bundler to pull in our AWS SDK gem, we will retrieve all of our instances in a given region (remember that this feature is scoped to the zones in a given region). I am using us-east-2 in this example, also known as US East Ohio.
require 'bundler/setup' require 'aws-sdk-ec2' ec2 = Aws::EC2::Resource.new(region: 'us-east-2') 1 2 3 4 require 'bundler/setup' require 'aws-sdk-ec2' ec2 = Aws :: EC2 :: Resource. new ( region : 'us-east-2' )
Note that the above uses ~/.aws/credentials. If you do not have this file you will need to configure your access key ID and secret access key.
Let’s iterate over our instances (filtering out Windows instances since they are not eligible for Instance Size Flexibility) and create a hash of the various classes. In the end we want our hash to contain, as its keys, all of the classes (types) of instances we have, and the values to be a list of the sizes of those classes.
instances = Hash.new ec2.instances.each do |i| next if i.platform == 'windows' # Windows instances are not eligibile class_, size = "#{i.instance_type}".split('.') if not instances.has_key? class_ then instances[class_] = [] end instances[class_].push(size) end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 instances = Hash. new ec2. instances. each do | i | next if i. platform == 'windows' # Windows instances are not eligibile class_, size = "#{i.instance_type}". split ( '.' ) if not instances. has_key? class_ then instances [ class_ ] = [ ] end instances [ class_ ]. push ( size ) end
For example, if we had 4 t2.nano, 3 t2.small instances, 1 t2.large, 4 m4.xlarge instances, and 2 m4.2xlarge instances, our hash would look like this: {"t2"=>["nano", "nano", "nano", "nano", "small", "small", "small", "large"], "m4"=>["large", "large", "large", "large", "2xlarge", "2xlarge"]}.
Now we’re going to determine how many equivalent small instances we have. This is done by adding our normalization factors for each of the instance sizes.
allocation = Hash.new instances.keys.each do |k| instances[k].each do |i| if not allocation.has_key? k then allocation[k] = 0.0 end allocation[k] += normalizationFactors[i.to_sym].to_f end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 allocation = Hash. new instances. keys. each do | k | instances [ k ]. each do | i | if not allocation. has_key? k then allocation [ k ] = 0.0 end allocation [ k ] += normalizationFactors [ i. to_sym ]. to_f end end
Using our previous example of 4 t2.nano, 3 t2.small instances, 1 t2.large, 4 m4.xlarge instances, and 2 m4.2xlarge instances, we’re walking through the math of 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 for our t2 instances and 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 16 + 16 for the m4 instances. This results in a Hash that looks like this: {"t2"=>8, "m4"=>64}. To be clear, the interpretation of this is that we have, for the purposes of Instance Size Flexibility with reserved instances, the equivalent of 8 t2.small and 64 m4.small instances in us-east-2. Put another way, if we purchased 8 t2.small reserved instances and 64 m4.small instances in us-east-2, we would have 100% coverage of our EC2 costs with a reserved instance.
Now, let’s take it a step further and see what the equivalence would be for the other sizes. In other words, we know we have the equivalent of 8 t2.small and 64 m4.small instances, but what if we wanted to know how many equivalent nano instances we had? This loop will create a row for each class and size:
puts "Class,Size,Count" normalizationFactors.each do |sk, sv| allocation.each do |ak, av| n = (av * (1.0 / sv)).floor puts "#{ak},#{sk},#{n}" end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 puts "Class,Size,Count" normalizationFactors. each do | sk, sv | allocation. each do | ak, av | n = ( av * ( 1.0 / sv ) ). floor puts "#{ak},#{sk},#{n}" end end
Again, taking our previous example, we would expect to see 32 t2.nano instances and 256 m4.nano instances. That’s right. If we purchased 32 t2.nano and 256 m4.nano instances we would have the equivalent of our 4 t2.nano, 3 t2.small instances, 1 t2.large, 4 m4.xlarge instances, and 2 m4.2xlarge instances. Now, there doesn’t happen to be such a thing as an m4.nano instance, and we’ve corrected for this in our published example code.First there was Johnny Bower with Honky the Christmas Goose, then there was Guy Lafleur’s famous disco album. That was followed by the famous, or infamous Alex Ovechkin rap song. We’ve seen the San Jose Sharks and many other teams do parodies of Christmas albums. Also who could forget Matt Lashoff’s album?
Then there are the hockey tribute songs, 50 Mission Cap and the Lonely End of the Rink by the The Tragically Hip; The Ballad of Wendel Clark by the Rheostatics; Clear the Track here comes Shack; and many others.
Now a new NHL superstar (he was voted a starting all-star, so he’s a superstar) is being honoured with a rap song. Yes folks, Latvian rap group OLAS have released a song called Zemgus Girgensons.
LWOS’ own Aivis Kalniņš (twitter @LWOSShakcc) has translated the song’s lyrics into English for us. The song celebrates Zemgus’ Girgensons getting voted into the NHL all-star game.
1.5 million votes
Zemgus Girgensooons
Raises Latvia a little higher
Zemgus Girgensooons
Who’s the one with a lot of money? Zemgus Girgensooons
Who’s the one which word are we shouting? Zemgus Girgensooons
I am so clean,
I am so white,
I am so free,
I am so young
I enter a club and drop some cash
Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
Sit on a sofa, my foot on the table,
I don’t care if anyone is in front me
Go through the club and have a shot
Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
You saw me, i am in front of you baby
You like my songs, you want to be near me
You come at me but i deke right by you
Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
I see the coolest chick in the club and say
I’m your destiny, Yo
But she says i’m not as famous
Just as Zemgus Girgensooons
Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons
Am i calm? Am i precise? (Yeah, yeah)
Shooting right in the aim,
Money in the pocket
Chicks, BMW, money and everything
Always i’m ready just like it was a derby
Nation is crazy and that is my background
I am like Girgensoons
Don’t judge me cause i don’t care
Believe me, bro Nobody belives you
There is no faith in you
I am still a son
I am the style
I am free
Eggs are in the house and your legs are quivering
Girls are dreaming while cooking eggs in the oven
You’re making me laugh when you say that your fierce opponent
You can’t beat me while i’m alive
Girls dance, million in the bank,
Soon they will play my music everywhere
I’m not a copy but i have one clone No other than…
Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons
We have no doubt that this is another NHL inspired hit (at least it will be in Latvia, judging by their all-star voting patterns).
Thank you for reading. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld – and “liking” our Facebook page.
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?A new report released today has revealed the scale of ISP traffic management practices that result in restrictions to the open Internet. The EU report, which covers 381 ISPs serving in excess of 340 million subscribers, reveals that 21% of fixed-line broadband users across Europe are affected by ISPs restricting P2P traffic, rising to 36% in the mobile market.
Hundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, and Europe is no exception. A new EU report sheds light on how common these practices are.
The report was initiated in 2011 following requests from the European Commission addressed to BEREC, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications. The aim was to gather information relating to the net neutrality debate, specifically regarding actions taken by ISPs to hinder, throttle, block or degrade Internet traffic.
A questionnaire was sent to out to ISPs across Europe and in the end responses from a total of 381 ISPs were considered, 266 ‘fixed line’ ISPs (140 million subscribers) and 115 mobile operators (200 million subscribers).
Among other things they were asked about their traffic management practices in respect of a range of objectives including preserving quality of service, contractual agreements with customers, network security, and other measures required by legal order.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the most frequently reported restrictions outside simple contractual data-capping concerned the blocking and/or throttling of peer-to-peer and VoIP traffic. A total of 49 fixed-line ISPs reported interfering with P2P, as did 41 mobile operators.
While the restrictions affect at least 20% of all subscribers, the report notes that the impact on end users can vary. Some ISPs restrict all of their users, some just a percentage. Others restrict traffic during certain times of the day, while some have contractual restrictions that are not necessarily enforced technically.
Overall, in the fixed-line broadband market at least 21% of users are affected by P2P restrictions, either technically or by clauses in their contracts. In the mobile market that figure is 36%. When it comes to VoIP related restrictions, at least 21% of the mobile market faces restrictions with the possibility of an additional 18% depending on conditions.
The findings of the study will be used in the ongoing Open Internet debate in Europe. Earlier this year the Netherlands was the first country to sign Net Neutrality principles into law, which would restrict the use of P2P-throttling by ISPs. In the European Parliament the Greens are proposing to guarantee Net Neutrality in the rest of Europe too.
The full report titled BEREC findings on traffic management practices in Europe can be downloaded here (pdf)User Info: EvilSakurai EvilSakurai 5 years ago #1
Pros: Six foot four. Flies through rings.
Cons: Geology
Wonder Woman.
Pros: INVISIBLE AIRPLANE
Cons: Manface
Flash.
Pros: GOTTA GO FAST SANIC
Cons: Wears silly looking tights.
The Goddamn Batman.
Pros: Is a good dancer.
Cons: Spinal Column.
Harley.
Pros: Looks good.
Cons: Bikers tell me that sitting on them hurts your ass.
Grundy.
Pros: Master at rhymes, and wrestling. Like a zombie John Cena.
Cons: No memories.
Green Arrow.
Pros: He's Robin Hood.
Cons: Arrows? Really? Some of these guys have guns.
Green Lantern.
Pros: Is good with the green stuff. $$$
Cons: Yellow... I mean, seriously does going to the bathroom make him lose his powers?
Nightwing.
Pros: Has sticks.
Cons: Isn't the goddamn batman. Also is a dick.
Cyborg.
Pros: BOOYAH
Cons: Rust
Catwoman.
Pros: Steals stuff
Cons: Likes batman, lolz.
Joker.
Pros: The lulz.
Cons: Taking too many medications after he's done filming...
Deathstroke.
Pros: He's Deathstroke.
Cons: He's a cyclops, and not the one that shoots lazers and yells JESUS CHRIST!
Aquaman.
Pros: Makes a mean sushi.
Cons: Where'd the mullet go?
Bane.
Pros: Has big knees. The better to break your back with, my dear.
Cons: You know how you always wanted to press the buttons on Darth Vader's chest? Try that with Bane, and he can't fight any more.
Shazam.
Pros: IT'S CAPTAIN MAHVEL BABY!
Cons: Pringles.
Black Adam.
Pros: Dat hair.
Cons: Keeps being outdone by a little kid. Ouch.
Doomsday.
Pros: Scary Name
Cons: Always in pain. Always.
Hawkgirl.
Pros: Wings
Cons: Isn't a real character... Just added to the roster to fill slots, but you can't select or use her.
Lex.
Pros: Yippie Kai-Yai-Yey ************
Cons: He's a ghost.
Sinestro.
Pros: FEAR
Cons: Sunburn
Raven.
Pros: Dark powers?
Cons: Daddy issues.
Killer Frost.
Pros: Ice Ice Baby.
Cons: Ice skin looks uncomfortable.
Ares.
Pros: He's the god of war.
Cons: Funny looking lips. Also seems to have an addiction to skooma. PSN:omegamarth. I play fighting games.
Official Shaquille O'Neal of the SSB4 board. Yeah, he'll be in the game, don't worry. Supez.Pros: Six foot four. Flies through rings.Cons: GeologyWonder Woman.Pros: INVISIBLE AIRPLANECons: ManfaceFlash.Pros: GOTTA GO FAST SANICCons: Wears silly looking tights.The Goddamn Batman.Pros: Is a good dancer.Cons: Spinal Column.Harley.Pros: Looks good.Cons: Bikers tell me that sitting on them hurts your ass.Grundy.Pros: Master at rhymes, and wrestling. Like a zombie John Cena.Cons: No memories.Green Arrow.Pros: He's Robin Hood.Cons: Arrows? Really? Some of these guys have guns.Green Lantern.Pros: Is good with the green stuff. $$$Cons: Yellow... I mean, seriously does going to the bathroom make him lose his powers?Nightwing.Pros: Has sticks.Cons: Isn't the goddamn batman. Also is a dick.Cyborg.Pros: BOOYAHCons: RustCatwoman.Pros: Steals stuffCons: Likes batman, lolz.Joker.Pros: The lulz.Cons: Taking too many medications after he's done filming...Deathstroke.Pros: He's Deathstroke.Cons: He's a cyclops, and not the one that shoots lazers and yells JESUS CHRIST!Aquaman.Pros: Makes a mean sushi.Cons: Where'd the mullet go?Bane.Pros: Has big knees. The better to break your back with, my dear.Cons: You know how you always wanted to press the buttons on Darth Vader's chest? Try that with Bane, and he can't fight any more.Shazam.Pros: IT'S CAPTAIN MAHVEL BABY!Cons: Pringles.Black Adam.Pros: Dat hair.Cons: Keeps being outdone by a little kid. Ouch.Doomsday.Pros: Scary NameCons: Always in pain. Always.Hawkgirl.Pros: WingsCons: Isn't a real character... Just added to the roster to fill slots, but you can't select or use her.Lex.Pros: Yippie Kai-Yai-Yey ************Cons: He's a ghost.Sinestro.Pros: FEARCons: SunburnRaven.Pros: Dark powers?Cons: Daddy issues.Killer Frost.Pros: Ice Ice Baby.Cons: Ice skin looks uncomfortable.Ares.Pros: He's the god of war.Cons: Funny looking lips. Also seems to have an addiction to skooma.NEW HAVEN — When Maya Jenkins was accepted to Yale, her family erupted in joy. Still, her mother confessed a concern: that her daughter might be assigned to Calhoun College, one of the 12 residential colleges at the heart of the university’s undergraduate life. It is named for John C. Calhoun, a Yale valedictorian-turned-politician from South Carolina and one of the 19th century’s foremost white supremacists, who promoted slavery as “a positive good.”
Ms. Jenkins, a black sophomore from Indianapolis, brushed aside her mother’s apprehensions, but a few months later, she was indeed placed in Calhoun, where depictions of its namesake abound. As she eats lunch in the dining hall or studies in the common room, the historical association feels inescapable.
“I’m constantly thinking about Calhoun the slave owner staring me down,” Ms. Jenkins, 19, said. “It’s supposed to be my home, but I feel like I can’t be my full self here.”
She belongs to a growing chorus of students, alumni and faculty members calling on Yale to rename the college. The idea has circulated around campus for decades, to minimal effect. But this academic year, galvanized by the massacre in Charleston and the removal of the Confederate battle flag outside the South Carolina State House, Yale finds itself in a renewed debate over its historical ties to slavery and the symbols of that affiliation.Photo
This book is misleadingly titled. “500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars” seeks to provide a global account of the period after 9/11, leaping from a prison cell in Syria to the nightclub bombing in Bali, but it’s best and most informative when depicting how the Bush administration, and especially its lawyers, suffered a protracted nervous breakdown during that time. In that respect, it is an ambitious undertaking and a valuable resource.
Kurt Eichenwald, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a former reporter for The New York Times, makes his methodical case against the Bush administration with detailed examples rather than flat assertions. With each piece of evidence, it becomes clearer that in late 2001 and in 2002, President Bush and Vice President Cheney had begun panicking. Mistaking rumors and lies fabricated by victims of torture as actionable information and elbowing aside skeptics, they gave rein to their fears that the worst was yet to come — and their hysteria spread to and infected parts of the national security establishment.
The assistant attorney general John Yoo comes across as particularly determined in his wrongheadedness, and full of passionate intensity. Furious over a federal judge’s decision to uphold habeas corpus rights for a detainee held on American soil, he snapped to colleagues, “I don’t think this one guy, this one judge, this outlier should, because of the luck of the draw, be allowed to dictate how American detention policies can work.”
The administration’s lack of self-control led the president to repeatedly make baseless assertions to the American people. Bush said in his first State of the Union address that American soldiers had apprehended people in Bosnia who were plotting to bomb the American Embassy there. As Eichenwald shows, this was untrue. No evidence supporting that charge was ever found, and five of the six men were set free after being held for seven years, their detention ruled illegal by a federal judge. (The sixth remained in detention on the basis of secret intelligence.)
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A more deadly consequence of this heedlessness was the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the false belief that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. An exchange from that time conveys the mind-set of the Bush administration. When Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, told Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy defense secretary, that there was no intelligence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, “Wolfowitz tightened his lips,” Eichenwald writes. “ ‘We’ll find it,’ he said with certainty in his voice. ‘It’s got to be there.’ ” The run-up to the Iraq war also elicits one of the most pungent lines in the book. After Bush told Jacques Chirac that biblical prophecies were being fulfilled and specifically that “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,” the French president decided, in Eichenwald’s words, that “France was not going to fight a war based on an American president’s interpretation of the Bible.”
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The sheer incompetence of the interrogators of supposed terrorists comes as a genuine surprise. The C.I.A. seemed to know little about how to actually question people, and began taking advice from an uninformed, inexperienced psychologist whom Eichenwald labels “a fool.” At Guantánamo, the advice of law enforcement specialists was put aside, and interrogations slipped from unprofessional to brutal to illegal. “Rather than acknowledging defeat, the intelligence officers wanted to double down on a failed approach,” Eichenwald writes. “Harsh interrogations would work, they were arguing, if only they were harsher.” F.B.I. agents on the scene, witnessing this descent, discussed whether they would be obliged to arrest the interrogators rather than let them continue down this savage path.
Eichenwald’s prose occasionally lapses into the style of Tom Clancy’s novels, complete with the bureaucrat-as-hero theme and overwrought prose: “The electronic timer on a concealed briefcase bomb flashed red, its digits counting down from five minutes. A small fan quietly whirred, generating a breath of air that could disperse enough sarin gas to kill everyone within several yards.” The histrionic tone seems unnecessary when writing about some of the most dramatic events of our time. And it is especially grating when the Clancyesque details are wrong, as when he portrays Donald Rumsfeld, then defense secretary, as sharply decisive when he was notorious inside the Pentagon for being imperious but vacillating.Get the biggest football 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
Pep Guardiola has rubbished the idea that the "intensity" of the Premier League makes it more challenging than other European leagues.
The Catalan was being quizzed after
on Saturday, a result that played out simultaneously with
Such an easy win allowed Barca to take off Luis Suarez at half-time, ensuring he'll be well rested for the visit of City on Wednesday in the Champions League.
And when asked if it annoyed him that the Spanish champions had enjoyed a more straightforward weekend, Pep Guardiola was keen to set the record straight when it comes to nonsense about the Premier League being more intense than its continental equivalents.
"I hear a lot of times about the intensity of the Premier League when none of you have been in La Liga or the Bundesliga to know how it is," he said.
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Getty Images)
"The problem here is maybe that there are more games but the way that they play in Germany is... [whistles]... it's amazing.
"I think you have to have respect for the other leagues, how they play and the way they play.
"Of course Barcelona is special in how they play, a machine. Three amazing players in front, good counter-attack, the way they build-up so when they win 4-0 it's because they deserve to win 4-0.
(Image: Reuters)
"I think every league has its points but especially it's the quality of the players and that's the reason why. In Spain in the last seven, eight, nine years they're winning or in the final of all the European competitions because they play well because they have good players. That is the reason why.
"Here there are more games to play... but the intensity in Italy, in all of these places, is the same."
It was the perfect retort to those who continue to promote the Premier League as the world's best while deriding La Liga as uncompetitive.
In pictures: Barcelona 4-0 Deportivo
While Barcelona triumphed 4-0 over Deportivo La Coruña this time, their last two games against them at the Nou Camp have been draws and the Catalan side have already lost at home to a newly-promoted club this season.
La Liga's title race also ended with three teams separated by a point last year at the same time as the'more competitive' Premier League had champions Leicester finishing ten points clear.Finnish customs authorities suspect a group of 13 people (residents of Finland) in bringing 20,000 liters of alcohol in illegal manner during 40 trips to the capital of Estonia, the Estonian national broadcasting corporation ERR reported referring to mtv3.fi.
The spirits were later sold in Finland in illegal way, while local people informed each other about this cheap alcohol, writes LETA.
The activities of the smugglers' alcohol most likely started in 2011.
The spirits were brought from Tallinn a time in two or three weeks. The custom officials paid particular interest to this company of people because of their regular, and often passages to the capital city. As a result, close surveillance started.
"At a time of shadowing, they [smugglers] made ten trips [to Tallinn] and transported 5,300 liters of alcohol, of them 800 – strong alcoholic beverages," said representatives of Finnish customs service.
In spring and June, in a course of the started investigation, three people were detained and one – arrested. Smuggling of alcohol can be punished with imprisonment for up to four years.OTTAWA—A defiant Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says his country is spilling blood in a fight for freedom as it forges closer ties with Europe in the face of Russia aggression. With his nation locked in a bitter and violent conflict with Russia, Poroshenko arrived on Parliament Hill to a hero’s welcome Wednesday, thanking Canada for its support and vowing that Ukraine “will win this struggle.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomes Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday. ( GEOFF ROBINS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko inspects an honour guard as he arrives on Parliament Hill on Wednesday. ( Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS ) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, is in Canada while the crisis continues at home: a building in Donetsk was hit by rocket fire Wednesday, killing at least one person. ( GEOFF ROBINS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES )
He said the ratification Tuesday of an agreement to deepen political and economic ties with the European Union was among the most important days in Ukraine’s history. “That was the last farewell from Ukraine to the Soviet Union,” he said in a speech to Parliament. “That was a Rubicon Ukraine crossed and we never, ever turn back to our awful past.”
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Ukraine has been in Moscow’s crosshairs, starting with Russia’s annexation of Crimea earlier this year, followed by its active support of separatist rebels in the country’s eastern regions. NATO has said that several thousand Russian soldiers were fighting alongside the rebels on Ukrainian soil. A ceasefire has so far succeeded in curbing hostilities but Poroshenko said his country has paid a “high price” defending its democracy and freedom and pushing back against Moscow’s influence. “Now is the real fight for our independence. Today Ukraine is bleeding for its independence,” he said. Poroshenko was visibly moved by the warm and enthusiastic reception as he stood at the podium in the House of Commons, waiting for the sustained applause from MPs, Senators and packed galleries of invited guests to end. With some 1.2 million people of Ukrainian descent living in Canada, he quipped that he felt “very much at home.
“There is no other way to put it. Canada is a friend in need,” he said. “In the difficult time, all the time. You are with us.” In his address in the Commons, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated Canada’s backing of Ukraine in its fight with Russia.
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“Canada recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, all of Ukraine. Whether it takes five months or 50 years to liberate it, we will never, ever recognize the illegal Russia occupation,” Harper said to applause. “We cannot let Mr. Putin’s dark and dangerous actions stand, for they have global security implications.” Canada has slapped sanctions on Russia, donated non-lethal military aid to Ukraine and dispatched Canadian fighter jets and a warship to the region to deter any further moves by Moscow. On Wednesday, Harper announced a further $3 million in humanitarian aid to assist Ukrainians affected by the conflict. Noting Canada’s deep and lengthy ties to Ukraine, Harper said Ottawa’s backing of Ukraine is not just about international law. “This is a matter of kinship, this is a matter of family, this family and we will stand by Ukraine,” he said.
Read more about:“All EU agreements with Israel must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967.” – EU foreign ministers’ statement
Ministers reiterated the EU’s position that the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war – including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – are not, and will never be, part of the internationally recognized borders of Israel.
Whilst the EU has a free-trade agreement with Israel, the largest single trading bloc in the world sees the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as illegal under international law.
The policy of the current Israeli government is to covertly establish so-called ‘facts on the ground’ intended to frustrate the intention of the UN and the international community including the EU and the U.K., for an independent state for over 5 million indigenous Palestinian Arabs.
These ‘facts on the ground’ that include all illegal settlements on the West Bank must be dismantled and all settlers repatriated if the Israeli state wishes to continue its trade with Europe. Failing which, the EU-Israel Association Agreement risks being suspended and the possibility of tariffs being imposed on all Israeli goods.
“Settlement businesses unavoidably contribute to Israeli policies that dispossess and harshly discriminate against Palestinians, while profiting from Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and other resources.” said Human Rights Watch, Business Director, Arvind Ganesan.
Israel has constructed over 230 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since its war with Palestinians in 1967. HRW stressed that businesses trading with settlers are helping these communities grow.
Settlement businesses benefit from unrestricted access to Palestinian land, water and receive government subsidies. They oversee the cultivation of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land and export agricultural products that are often labelled as made in Israel.
At the same time, Palestinians are barred from building or extracting natural resources in parts of the occupied West Bank. Between 2000 and 2012, Israel rejected 94 percent of construction permit requests filed by Palestinians.
Over 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to United Nations figures. The settlements are considered illegal by the UN, and the West Bank is considered an occupied territory by the International Court of Justice.
Notes:Record number of complaints over story alleging one in five British Muslims had ‘sympathy for jihadis’ as it emerges YouGov refused to carry out poll
The Sun is facing a backlash against its front-page report of an opinion poll purporting to show that one in five British Muslims had “sympathy for jihadis”, with more than 1,200 complaints made to the press regulator.
Readers and Muslim organisations accused the paper of misrepresenting the results of the poll, conducted by Survation, which showed that 5% of respondents agreed with the statement “I have a lot of sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria” and that 14.5% said they had “some sympathy”. Critics argued that the use of the term “sympathy” was ambiguous and that it was not clear who was meant by “fighters in Syria”.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) said it had received more than 1,200 complaints about the front page by 1pm on Tuesday, far more than for any story since the regulatory body was set up last year. Less than 48 hours after publication, the complaints dwarfed those made against a column by Katie Hopkins comparing migrants to cockroaches, which received 400 complaints over several weeks.
Dr Shuja Shafi, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, one of Britain’s largest Islamic organisations, said: “Many Muslims will find this poll hard to believe.” He added that the vast majority of British Muslims abhorred terrorism.
Pollsters for Sun's jihadi sympathy story called list of 'Muslim names' Read more
“Poll after poll attests to this, as do the many surveys showing how almost all British Muslims would report someone from the Muslim community to the police if they knew they were planning an act of violence,” Shafi said.
“Of course, even one person harbouring sympathy for the Daesh [Isis] death cult is one too many. Terrorism is indeed a problem and many a British Muslim parent is worried whether their children may be lured to go off to the chaos in Syria.
“But dubious headlines, as that printed in the Sun, do not help matters. The grand strategy of Daesh is to divide our communities and stoke fear between communities. We should not play their game.”
Maajid Nawaz, the chairman of the Quilliam Foundation counter-extremism thinktank, tweeted: “In conclusion, the Sun has made it harder to have a vital conversation around worrying levels of support for Islamism. All for a cheap headline.”
Humza Yousaf, a minister in the Scottish government, said the article was “inflammatory, flawed and puts Muslims at risk of further abuse”.
Concerns have also been raised about the Sun and Survation’s methodology, after it was revealed that the poll was constructed by calling people with “Muslim surnames”. Survation said it had picked out likely respondents using the help of an academic expert on naming, a method that rival polling companies said did not necessarily amount to a representative sample of the British Muslim population.
Survation was approached by the Sun because the paper’s regular pollsters, YouGov, “didn’t want to do the poll”. YouGov said it did not want to carry out the study because it could not be confident that it could accurately represent the British Muslim population within the timeframe and budget set by the paper.
Why the Sun’s ‘jihadi’ poll is dubious – and its headline dangerous | Miqdaad Versi Read more
A YouGov spokesperson said: “To survey Britain’s Muslim population, particularly at a time of such heightened sensitivities, requires the kind of time, care and therefore cost that is beyond a newspaper’s budget.”
Adil Ray, the creator and star of the BBC1 sitcom Citizen Khan, and one of those called as part of the survey, said he felt that “every question was open to distortion”. He told the Guardian he didn’t want to take part in the poll but wanted to know what some of the questions were.
“With the ‘sympathy’ question I remember thinking ‘that’s such an odd question to ask’ and so easily misconstrued. Saying ‘no sympathy’ felt like the closest answer. What I wanted to say is that I had some understanding of why they chose to fight.”
Ray added: “The Sun has a great responsibility to do what it can to create a better understanding between us all. Not to further divide us. Surely the Sun, |
signal contribution was a categorical one: all societies are logically divided into two classes, rulers and ruled. This may seem like common sense, yet in fact Mosca’s taxonomy dispels two persistent myths, those of autocracy and democracy—of one-man rule and rule by everyone. For even the most absolute monarch depends on a class of advisers and magistrates to develop and enforce his policies, while in the most liberal modern democracy there is still a practical difference between the elected and appointed officials who make or execute laws and the ordinary citizen who does neither.
The rationale according to which a society justifies the division between rulers and ruled is what Mosca calls its “political formula.” In the U.S. today, representative democracy is the political formula. For early modern monarchies, it was a theory of divine right. Under communism, the political formula was the idea of the party as the vanguard of the proletariat—the class that according to Marx would inherit the earth. For the Nazis the formula was the identification of the party and its leader with the mystical essence of the Volk.
Just as Machiavelli does not entrust liberty to any one class—nobles, king, or people—Mosca does not believe freedom depends on any particular political formula. Such doctrines are myths, even if some historically correspond only to the most repressive regimes. The reality is that liberty comes from specific conditions, not abstract formulas—conditions that permit open competition among what Mosca calls “social forces.” Burnham explains: “By ‘social force’ Mosca means any human activity which has significant social and political influence,” including “war, religion, land, labor, money, education, technological skill,” all of which are represented by different factions and institutions in society.
The ruling class represents the strongest forces—but which ones are strongest changes over time. Practices that allow competition among social forces thus imply a ruling class of some permeability, as well as one tolerant of organized opposition and dissent.
A lesson here for America’s nation-building efforts in the Islamic world should be plain—democracy and a paper-based rule of law count for nothing; actual social forces are everything. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya we understand nothing about the forces of tribe, sect, and interest. As a result, trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives lost are not nearly enough to create order, let alone freedom. We let our own political formula blind us to foreign realities.
Not all myths are politically debilitating, however. Burnham finds in the work of Georges Sorel—a revolutionary syndicalist who early in the 20th century became a fellow traveler of Charles Maurras’s Action Française and the nationalist right—a theory of myth as constitutive of political identity and a driver of political action. “A myth that serves to weld together a social group—nation, people, or class—must be capable of arousing their most profound sentiments,” says Burnham, “and must at the same time direct energy toward the solution of the real problems which the group faces in is actual environment.”
For Sorel, the archetypal myth of this sort was the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the general strike, in which all workers cease their labor and bring down society, resulting in spontaneous creation of a new and more just order. A Sorelian myth is not a utopian vision—the utopia is what comes after the mythical action—but it is also not a thing that occurs in time and space. It is an aspiration that in theory could be fulfilled but in practice never will be, yet in working toward this impossible goal much real progress—in terms of organization, reform, and empowering one’s group—is achieved.
Myths of this sort are plentiful in American politics. On the right, they include the idea of ending all abortion or returning to a pristine interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. On the left, they include the goals of eliminating all discrimination and bringing about universal human equality—as if more equality in some things might not lead to more inequality in others.
“A myth cannot be refuted,” however, “since it is, at bottom, identical with the convictions of a group, being the expression of these convictions in the language of movement; and it is, in consequence, unanalyzable into parts which could be placed on the plane of historical descriptions,” Sorel writes. Such myths “are not descriptions of things but expressions of determination to act.”
The key is the ability of myths to organize groups and mass movements. The effects of such mobilization, however, can be paradoxical. The election of a Tea Party senator like Ted Cruz, a Princeton and Harvard graduate whose wife is a Goldman Sachs executive, or a left-wing populist like Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor herself who is, if not a one-percenter, much closer to the top one percent than to the bottom 90, shows how the myths of the masses serve society’s winners.
Even organizations that come into being to rally the masses are themselves subject to the scientific laws of power, in particular the “iron law of oligarchy” described by Burnham’s third subject, the German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels. In works such as the book known in English as Political Parties, Michels shows that all organizations and movements have a leadership class whose interests and abilities are distinct from those of the membership. Democracy or equality—the idea that everyone participates on the same level—is antithetical to the very concept of organization, which necessarily involves different persons, different “organs,” serving different roles. And some roles are more powerful than others.
Not only do leaders corrupt organizations, Burnham observes, but the oligarchic nature of organization affects even the most selfless leader as well. “Individual saints, exempt in individual intention from the law of power, will nonetheless be always bound to it through the disciples, associates, and followers to whom they cannot, in organized social life, avoid being tied.” Many a grassroots true believer faults bad advisers for the mistakes of a Ronald Reagan or Ron Paul—but the problem is not bad advisers, it’s advisers, period. They are necessary, and they necessarily have their own motives and perspectives. Without them, however, there would be no organization. This is as true of grassroots groups, even purely volunteer ones, as of Beltway cliques.
Effective politics therefore means accepting the limits of human nature and organization and working within those limits, not expecting perfection. An organization as a whole must harmonize the interests of the leaders with those of the membership and direct them all toward political achievement.
The greatest of the modern Machiavellians considered by Burnham is the one he covers last: Vilfredo Pareto, whose accomplishments spanned the fields of economics and sociology. Pareto’s work on elitism sums up and extends the thinking of the others, though Mosca considered him a rival and copycat. Pareto examines not only social class but classes of social psychology: his magisterial Mind and Society reduces human motives to six fundamental classes of what Pareto terms “residues.” (They are residues in that they are what remains when everything less stable has been boiled away by analysis.)
Only the first two classes are important for Burnham’s investigation. Class I residues involve the “instinct for combinations”—manufacturing new ideas and tastes from the disassembling and reassembling of old ones; creating complex systems from simple materials; incorporating experiences of the world with ideas in novel ways. These are the instincts that drive the verbalist and theorist, the filmmaker, the philosopher, the magician. Class II residues, by contrast, involve “group persistences” and encourage the preservation of existing institutions and habits. These are the psychological forces of social inertia; they are also the forces of loyalty.
Burnham observes that Class I residues correspond to the character type Machiavelli describes as the fox, cunning and quick to use fraud to get his way. Class II residues correspond to Machiavelli’s lions, more comfortable with force than manipulation. A society needs both types. “If Class II residues prevail” in all strata of society, Burnham warns,
the nation develops no active culture, degenerates in a slough of brutality and stubborn prejudice, in the end is unable to overcome new forces in its environment, and meets disaster. Disaster, too, awaits the nation given over wholly to Class I residues, with no regard for the morrow, for discipline or tradition, with a blind confidence in clever tricks as the sufficient means for salvation.
After residues, the rock-bottom motives of men and women, come what Pareto calls “derivations.” These, writes Burnham, are “the verbal explanations, dogmas, doctrines, theories”—and ideologies—“with which man, with that passionate pretense of his that he is rational, clothes the non-logical bones of the residues.” Derivations may seem to be expressions of rational thinking, but they are not. “It is for this reason,” Burnham continues,
that the ‘logical’ refutation of theories used in politics never accomplishes anything so long as the residues remain intact. Scientists proved with the greatest ease that Nazi racial theories were altogether false, but that had no effect at all in getting Nazis to abandon those theories; and even if they had abandoned them, they would merely have substituted some new derivation to express the same residue.
Facts about voter fraud and the suppressive effects of voter ID requirements, for example, thus count for very little in today’s discussions of such laws—not because either side is consciously dishonest about its intentions but because such arguments are driven by emotional commitments that are not subject to proof or disproof. This is also why our cable news channels put little effort into persuading skeptics. The politics to which they cater is about group loyalty and its derivative mythologies. (To be sure, this costs Fox and MSNBC their credibility with people in whom Class I residues are stronger—not necessarily because such people are devoted to the truth but because they at least desire variety and complexity. Fox News is for lions, not foxes.)
No one is a slave of a single class of residues, however, and both within the individual mind and within society there are always competing currents. Elites in particular must cultivate a mixture of fox-like and lion-like qualities if they hope to retain power. An imbalance of these characteristics leads to social upheaval and what Pareto terms “the circulation of elites,” the fall of one ruling class and rise of another.
This happens especially when foxes, having outmaneuvered the lions in the struggle for power within society, are confronted by an external threat that cannot be overcome without violence. Foxes are inept in the use of force, apt to apply too much or too little, and always they prefer to secure their goals by deceit or diplomacy.
There is also internal danger from an imbalance of residues. Talented verbalists denied admittance to an elite whose ranks are closed will, instead of competing for power within the institutions of society, attempt to gain power by subverting those institutions—including through revolution, which they foment by sowing alienation and anger among the lions of the public.
Burnham feared that foxes were dangerously dominant in the America of his own time, which is why he followed The Machiavellians with a series of books arguing for a hard line in the Cold War: The Struggle for the World in 1947, The Coming Defeat of Communism in 1949, and Containment or Liberation? in 1953. His column in National Review, which he wrote from 1955 until ill health ended his career in 1978, was called first “The Third World War” and later, only a little mellowed, “The Protracted Conflict.”
He died in 1987, much honored by the conservative movement he had helped build. Yet he is poorly understood today, remembered only as a Cold Warrior rather than a brilliant social theorist of enduring urgency. Ironically, Burnham’s last original book, The Suicide of the West in 1964, may have contributed to misperceptions about his work. In it, Burnham describes liberalism as “the ideology of Western suicide”—meaning not that it was the cause of the West’s loss of ground and nerve but that it was a rationale expressing a more fundamental mood of surrender. Burnham was assumed to be saying that the managerial revolution, having put in a place a new liberal ruling class since World War II, was leading America into weakness and withdrawal.
In fact, though Burnham hardly emphasized this for his free-market readership in National Review, liberalism was the ideology of Western capitalism’s suicide in the face of an assertively managerial Communist bloc. Burnham had, after all, argued in The Managerial Revolution that of the three great nations in the throes of the revolution—the U.S., Russia, and Nazi Germany—the U.S. was least far along the path and the most torn between its capitalist past and managerial future. Liberalism, even in its left-wing, statist iteration, is the characteristic ideology of capitalism, and it was the capitalist system as well as the West—Burnham identified both with the British Empire—that was committing suicide.
This might suggest Burnham’s social thought is even more antiquated than his Cold War strategizing. After all, the managerial Soviet Union is gone, and the capitalist U.S. has not only survived but thrived for decades in what is now a globalized free-market system. While the political theory of The Machiavellians doesn’t depend on The Managerial Revolution—it’s surprising, in fact, how little connected the two books are—his reputation must surely suffer for getting such a basic question wrong.
Only he didn’t get it wrong—for what is the political and economic system of China if not what Burnham described in The Managerial Revolution? Engineers, industrial planners, and managers have led China for decades, with unarguable results. Indeed, several East Asian economies, including those of American allies Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, are managerialist. As Burnham predicted, these economies have been highly successful at controlling unemployment and raising standards of living.
The American ruling class, by contrast, has pursued a largely anti-managerial policy, ridding the country of much strategic manufacturing. Such industry—including shipbuilding and semiconductor fabrication—is now overwhelmingly based in Asia. The U.S. hybrid system, transitioning from capitalism to managerialism, outperformed the Soviet Union. Whether it can outperform the next wave of managerial revolution is very much uncertain.
For the Machiavellians, freedom is not a thing to be won by popular revolt against the ruling class—for any revolt can only replace one ruling class with another. Instead, freedom requires that factions among the elite—representatives of different social forces or rival elements of the same one—should openly compete for power and seek to draw into their ranks the most talented foxes and lions of the people, to gain advantages in skill and strength over their rivals. In such a system, the people still do not rule directly, but they can influence the outcome of elite contests at the margin. This leads evenly matched elites constantly to seek popular support by looking out for the welfare of the common citizen, for perfectly self-interested reasons.
What has happened in America since the end of the Cold War, however, is that competition for popular favor has been reduced to a propaganda exercise—employing myths, symbols, and other “derivatives”—disconnected from policies of material interest to the ruling class. Thus monetary policy, foreign policy, and positions on trade and immigration vary little between Republican and Democratic presidents. This is a terrible situation—if you’re not part of the elite. If you are, all the gridlock and venom of our politics is simply irrelevant to the bottom line. For the non-elite, however, insecurity of all kinds continues to rise, as does a sense that the country is being sold out from under you.
America’s ruling class has bought itself time—for continuing capitalism in an age of worldwide managerial revolution—at the expense of America’s middle and working classes. Reform, alas, will not come from “throw the bums out” populism of either the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street varieties. It can only come from two directions: the best of the people must grow conscious of how oligarchy operates and why populist leadership is a paradox, and new factions among the elite must be willing to open competition on more serious fronts—campaigning not only on myths and formulas but on the very substance of the managerial revolution.
Daniel McCarthy is editor of The American Conservative.
Follow @toryanarchistFights in the dressing room, screaming matches with Manuel Almunia and William Gallas acting like ‘a sulky child’
Having William Gallas head the team in the 2007/08 season was problematic. We had learned of his appointment in the papers and we all shook our heads. The previous season he had repeatedly turned up very late for training or had left the training ground without permission. With the promotion, Wenger apparently wanted to appeal to Gallas’s sense of responsibility, trying to turn him from Saul to Paul. Initially, this went successfully, until Gallas once briefly lost his nerve.
We were due to play Birmingham away in February, and Arsène took me out of goal again. Downstairs in the conference room, the boss informed me about my renewed banishment. ‘Jens, I know you’ve been playing well and are looking fresh and sharp on the pitch again. But I need to give Manuel Almunia a chance; it’s what you, too, would expect me to do after an injury.’
He was making a mistake, I retorted, as now, during the final sprint for the title, he would need experience on the team, and Manuel was playing his first proper season at this level. He had been playing very well, but when a player starts playing at top level this late, he struggles to lead others in big games. The player focuses on himself and his performance, but is unable to support the others in a difficult situation.
Wenger ended the dispute with the words, ‘If he plays poorly, you’re back in,’ followed by a chat about private things and my future. This was how we interacted: we would argue, but only on a professional level. As soon as the conversation swerved towards things aside from football, it became harmonious and relaxed.
The game the next day was fateful: after only three minutes, Birmingham centre-back Martin Taylor shattered Eduardo da Silva’s ankle with a tackle. We were all shocked, but were leading 2–1 shortly before the end, when Gaël Clichy was late for a ball while in his own area. His opponent fiddled the ball around him and then went down – time for a penalty and time for captain Gallas to spring into action. Instead of standing at the edge of the area and clearing a possibly parried penalty like any other defender in the world, he abandoned the team, ran towards the halfway line and, in his anger, kicked an advertising hoarding.Via KDKA TV, last night I learned about a developing story at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville. Some anonymous female employees at this Allegheny Health Network facility had voiced complaints about a trans woman employee being permitted to use the ladies bathroom.
First, the good. Allegheny Health Network is following the law with regard to allowing all female employees to use their female employee facilities. The KDKA segment includes a nice interview with PA Physicial General Dr. Rachel Levine who also happens to be a trans woman. Dr. Levine made excellent points. State Representative Dan Frankel, a former health insurance executive, also weighed in with solid points about discrimination. And they wrap the story with an interview with a trans woman of color from Philly which is pretty good except for Philly? Why not talk with someone from Pittsburgh who may or may not use the hospital?
The downside is clearly – why does a rumor about some unnamed transphobic employees merit a story? It isn’t like there’s wiggle room with the law. The wiggle room is that Allegheny Health Network needs to also ensure that ALL employees are culturally competent with regard to gender identity. I didn’t see that addressed in their statement.
“We are an equal opportunity employer that respects the rights of all individuals. With respect to transgender individuals accessing specific bathrooms or locker room facilities on our hospital campuses, we make decisions intended to respect the rights of all employees impacted, while complying with all applicable laws.”
Then there’s a really big elephant in this story – what about patient care? If you can’t pee in a stall next to a trans person, why would I think you are capable of providing top-notch health care to a trans person? Or anyone who is gender nonconforming?
Health care professionals walk through hell together – they deal with crisis, with horrible death and loss, with sadness and tragedy and triumph. They count on one another, from the techs to the board, to make decisions that allow they to act rapidly in an emergency. If you are so uninformed about gender identity that you have actual fears around sharing a locker room or a bathroom with someone who in the next ten minutes could be elbow deep in a lifesaving procedure with you, that’s frightening.
I get that people have opinions. They have to demonstrate that they can separate their opinions from their professional requirements every single day. It is up to their employer to make sure that’s happening.
And, frankly, I’m not confident that Allegheny Health Network is stepping up here. The cis women voicing concerns do not need media exposure; they require more training. They don’t need their fear fed by legal lingo that suggests there are two sides to this issue. There are not. There is the right side, the legal side, the ethical and moral side and the side of all federal regulations around health care. And there is the opposite – people who violate ethics, morals and laws to feed fear. Fear is not a professional value and neither is ignorance. The National Center for Transgender Equality has a nice summary of federal regulation of hospitals for LGBTQ patients.
I hope Allegheny Health Network brings in some training to Forbes Regional and stat. It is bad enough to worry about bathroom confrontations when we are at an Eat n’ Park in McCandless. I don’t want to add a major hospital in my in-network system to the list, especially the hospital that houses the most behavioral health inpatient beds. That’s disturbing.
And it is really important that these anonymous cis women employed by Forbes Hospital understand that their fear has consequences for the general public. I don’t trust them to provide me with competent health care. And since I don’t know who they are, I’ll just consider all female employees of this hospital to be potential transphobes. So that’s a problem, right?
Also, KDKA continues to be inconsistent in their coverage which I chalk up to their unwillingness to use the GLAAD (or a similar) Media Guide. They used the term “transgendered” which is inaccurate and unfair. Fairness and accuracy matter in hard news stories. If only the outlet would make sure all reporters have access to this free online guide to consult before they file their stories. Here’s the scoop on transgenderED
Problematic: “transgendered”
Preferred: transgenderThe adjective transgender should never have an extraneous “-ed” tacked onto the end. An “-ed” suffix adds unnecessary length to the word and can cause tense confusion and grammatical errors. It also brings transgender into alignment with lesbian, gay, and bisexual. You would not say that Elton John is “gayed” or Ellen DeGeneres is “lesbianed,” therefore you would not say Chaz Bono is “transgendered.”
I think the video of Dr. Levine is amazing and she’s amazing and we need as much Dr. Levine in the world as we can manage. Watch the clip.From time to time I like to grade the offensive line play from the Chicago Bears. Since it's been so long between real between the lines football, I was excited to get into the game-film from last weeks contest against the Miami Dolphins. Before I get into my grades, I'll give a few impressions of the starters play.
The starting o-line only played the first two series' and I didn't think the 1st team looked all that bad. Sure the opening 3 and out was a let down, but they came back with a 12 play 66 yard drive that resulted in three points from Robbie Gould.
Would a touchdown have been better? Sure, but remember we're talking about practice.
Jay Cutler was 4 of 7 for 42 yards (74.7 passer rating) during his time with the ones and the running game went for 37 yards on 8 carries (4.6 ypc) behind the starting offensive line.
The Bears had good rhythm on their scoring drive and they took advantage of a 2nd chance when the refs called offsetting penalties on a 3rd and 6. Including the offsetting penalty, the Bears had 4 flags thrown on them during the first two drives. They were a bit sloppy, but that's correctable.
Speaking of sloppy, even though my grades weren't bad for Chicago's starting five, there was some sloppy play among the group. I've talked about the trenches being like a fight before. It may not always look pretty, but if a player gets his job done, I'll usually go with a plus. And fyi, I grade on a simple plus/minus system. You do your job, you get a plus, you don't and it's a minus for you.
A good example of this is a play when starting left guard Matt Slauson worked up to the 2nd level, somehow got turned around, and managed to wall off the defender like a power forward boxing out for a rebound. He did just enough to get in the way of the flowing linebacker so I gave him a plus.
Here's how I handed out my grades from right to left. Jordan Mills (+15/-2), Kyle Long (+15/-1), Will Montgomery (+14/-3), Matt Slauson (+15/-1) and Jermon Bushrod (+15/-1).
I graded the plays with the penalties even though there was no official play according to the NFL. If a plays runs to its conclusion, a coach will grade the play and so will I.
I though both Mills and Slauson lucked up on a few plays. Had the defenders they were blocking played better on a few instances, they easily could have had a few more minuses given to them.
The first negative play for Jordan Mills came when he jumped offsides on the very first snap for the Bears. That simply can not happen. Mills' 2nd minus was on the sack that was negated because of offsetting penalties. Mills did a good job moving his feet, but he allowed to be too much space between he and the defender. Mills is a much better blocker when he can get his hands on a defender. A penalty and a sack allowed makes his day look bad, but overall he was OK.
The Chicago side of the offsetting penalties was a hold on Bushrod. I disagreed with the call, so I actually gave him a plus. Bushrod didn't exactly hold, what he did was more of a grab. He locked onto the pass rusher and steered him to the grass. I'm guessing that's exactly how he was taught.
I wanted to spotlight the lone negative mark for Kyle Long. Check out the pic below. The Bears want to run to the right side and there are four Miami defenders at the point of attack.
From right to left, the Bears have 4 blockers that could account for the four Dolphins. Tight end Martellus Bennett, right tackle Mills, right guard Long and the center Montgomery. There's a Dolphin shading Montgomery's left shoulder and that's who he takes.
Bennett takes the widest defender to his right and Mills and Long begin with a double team on the defensive lineman in their B gap. The problem arises when the Dolphins blitz the play-side linebacker, who is highlighted yellow in the picture below.
Long was either completely unaware of the 2nd level threat or he was simply late in coming off the double team and working up to the 2nd level.
There's also a possibility that it was Montgomery's job to step play side and come up to the linebacker, leaving the man in the left-side A gap for Slauson after a brief double team.
The linebacker stuffed the play for a loss, but this is an example of the line working into some cohesion. It is week one preseason after-all and the center is a new face. I doubt this mistake happens later in the season.
I do think the Bears need to continue to explore options for right tackle. Jordan Mills can be serviceable, but his game has some room for improvement.My betas' reaction to this one:Beta 1: Goldie noBeta 2: GOLDIE YESPrevious: fav.me/dah9htr Next: fav.me/daipil0 PANEL 1:Spring Bonnie: Okay, so if Fredbear didn't give you much direction, that means it has to be close by.PANEL 2:Spring Bonnie: he's got you on a scavenger hunt, not a suicide mission. Let's keep poking around.Springtrap: Are you sure about that? The not wanting me dead part.PANEL 3:Spring Bonnie: Ha! he knows wandering off alone isn't safe, don't worry.Springtrap: I'm not worried, I just have a pretty good id-PANEL 4:Springtrap: Creepy clock. Because OF COURSE it has to be creepy.PANEL 5:Springtrap: It's flickering. Should I get a stick and poke itPANEL 6:Springtrap: ^&%$!PANEL 7:Springtrap: Well, this is a sign I either played the arcade machines way too much, or not NEARLY enough.FNAF and all its characters belong to Scott cawthon, not me.Photo via video screengrab
An art project by Isao Hashimoto does a phenomenal job of showing us where and when we started obliterating pieces of the planet with nuclear weapons. In a short video, Hashimoto shows every nuclear bomb explosion on the Earth from 1945 when the US tested nuclear weapons before dropping the infamous bombs on Japan, to 1998 as India and Pakistan began testing their own weapons. It brings a whole new perspective to the debate on the use of nuclear technology. The artist writes, "This piece of work is a bird's eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second. No letter is used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier. The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted. I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world."
We know what nuclear weapons can do to a city -- we've witnessed those terrifying results and will never forget them. But we often don't see or hear what happens to ecosystems that are the site for nuclear tests. The areas are altered for thousands of years in ways we likely don't fully comprehend. For instance, we just learned a short while ago that a very important water source for a desert oasis providing sustenance to many unique species in Nevada begins at a nuclear test site -- which means the pollution in that water (which takes a long time to travel underground to the oasis) will eventually hit the already troubled ecosystem in perhaps 15,000 years. That's a long legacy for a few nuclear bomb detonations.
As Gizmodo writes, "The pacing, mixed with an Atari-esque soundtrack is both distancing and hypnotic. As more and more countries gain nuclear technologies, the map becomes a terrifying game of Simon. By the end, it feels remarkable that we never encountered a game over...as of yet"; and as Discover states in a headline of an article on this video, "What the hell were we thinking?"
Seriously.
Follow Jaymi on Twitter for more stories like this
More on Nuclear Weapons
Phew! US Has No Plans to Use Nuclear Weapons to Stop the Gulf Gusher
ICNND: Time To Get Rid Of Nuclear Weapons
Meet the National Nuclear Security Team: Recovering Radioactive Waste Since 2000If you love margaritas and frozen pies, you’re going to love this Magic Margarita Pie. It’s quick to put together and so smooth, creamy and delicious.
I came across this recipe for Magic Margarita Pie in my Mother-In-Law’s recipe box. I knew it had to come from a friend or publication because this isn’t something she would have developed, but I didn’t find this version. This Margarita Pie has more booze in it than the ones that I was able to find. Maybe that’s why it’s called Magic Margarita Pie!
Are you celebrating Cinco de Mayo? It’s one of our favorite celebrations, which is funny because it’s a Mexican holiday, not an American holiday, but you know how we are when there is an opportunity to celebrate right? I think it’s one of my favorites because I love Mexican food and beverages.
You don’t need a celebration to make this pie. It’s perfectly luscious for anytime, especially in those warm days where a frozen dessert is so refreshing. I just love the flavors of the salty-sweet pretzel crust in contrast to the creamy boozy filling. You don’t need a celebration but a slice is a party all by itself.
Don’t have time to make it now? Pin it for later!
5 from 4 votes Print Magic Margarita Pie Prep Time 4 hrs 15 mins Cook Time 10 mins Total Time 4 hrs 25 mins If you love margaritas and frozen pies, you're going to love this Magic Margarita Pie. It is smooth and creamy, and the pretzel crust with that little bit of salt if just perfect Course: Dessert, Mexican, Pie Cuisine: American, Mexican Servings : 8 slices Calories : 551 kcal Hostess At Heart : Hostess At Heart Ingredients Crust 2 cups finely crushed pretzels
3/4 cup butter melted
1/4 cup brown sugar Filling 14 oz sweetened condensed milk not evaporated milk
1/3 cup limeade from concentrate
3 tbsp tequila I used blanco
3 tbsp triple-Sec or other orange flavored liquor
1 cup heavy whipping cream whipped
Green Food Coloring Instructions Crust Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine crushed pretzels, melted butter, and brown sugar together in a bowl. Lightly grease a 9-inch pie plate and press pretzel mixture into the bottom and up the sides. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool completely before filling. Filling Whip 1 cup heavy whipping cream until peaks form. Set aside. Combine sweetened condensed milk, limeade, tequila, triple-sec and food coloring. Whisk to combine. Fold in whipped cream. Fill pretzel crust. Freeze until set, approximately 4 hours. Recipe Notes Prep time includes nonactive freezing time.
Crust was adapted from SouthernLiving.com Nutrition Facts Magic Margarita Pie Amount Per Serving Calories 551 Calories from Fat 297 % Daily Value* Total Fat 33g 51% Saturated Fat 20g 100% Cholesterol 103mg 34% Sodium 482mg 20% Potassium 247mg 7% Total Carbohydrates 53g 18% Sugars 37g Protein 6g 12% Vitamin A 22% Vitamin C 1.8% Calcium 17.5% Iron 6.6% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This Magic Margarita Pie really does taste like margaritas, and if you like margaritas, you’re going to love this pie! It is smooth and creamy, and the pretzel crust with that little bit of salt if just perfect.
And speaking of Magic, here are a few more desserts that have a tendency to disappear at my house!
Let’s keep in touch! You can find me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube! Better yet, enter your email address in the box below and never miss a recipe!HGTV has had enough. Joanna has been showing up late to the construction sites as well as the filmings and now have found out Joanna has been leading a double life. Her disinterest in the show "Fixer Upper" with her hilarious husband Chip Gaines has fallen to the wayside due to her side business. Here we reveal the truth behind what this side business is really all about...
The star of HGTV’s hit TV show, Joanna Gaines, has shocked us all and 2017 has only just started. In recent developments, the reality star revealed that she just started a side beauty business because she is a serial entrepreneur and it's just in her nature. She never expected it to grow as fast as it did. HGTV and the network as a whole was not happy when they found out about this (to say the least) and they made Joanna decide on which direction she was going to go. Being so turned off by the reaction of HGTV and their "power move" she decided to pursue her new skin care line.
But although then high pressure caused some tension in her marriage with Chip, Joanna is not slowing down. The beauty has been busy developing and promoting her skin care line Bella Serata Anti-Aging Serum and it became the most talked product among popular beauty gurus and vloggers such as Michelle Phan and Bethany Mota. PEOPLE has also confirmed that she is filing suit to end her contract with HGTV to focus on the her company.
"I've got so many things going on," she says. "I'm working on so much."
Read on to see how Joanna Gaines shows off her skin with Bella Serata Anti-Aging Serum in exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
"There is a lot of skin products out there that does not work for me and so, my team and I created Bella Serata Serum, to help me combat the effects that traveling and filming while taking care of my family had on my skin. It truly is a life AND time saver!"
Now that HGTV confirmed the cancellation of 'Fixer Upper', we convinced Joanna to publicize her product and share with our readers, free, for a limited time.
Here at PEOPLE Magazine we only write about and endorse the best products recommended by the most respected celebrities and industry professionals. After interviewing with Joanna it was clear that we had to try out this revolutionary product for ourselves in order to write a proper story.
Our very own Brittany Sebagh, 54, PEOPLE Magazine's Senior Beauty Editor, volunteered to try out Bella Serata Serum. When we approched Brittany about this product, she had her doubts about the validity of the claims after trying out so many products over the years to get rid of skin issues caused by stress and sun damage.
"Bella Serata Serum has improved the texture of my skin. My dark spots and eyes bags are getting lighter. I am 54 and had given up on creams and serums to improve my skin. After investing money on countless products, this program is the first I feel has shown results so quickly and dramatically." - Brittany Sebagh
Continue to read about Brittany's experience with Bella Serata Serum
Today, People magazine is delighted to disclose the full details of Brittany’s treatment results after just 3 weeks with Joanna's Bella Serata Serum. Our beloved Brittany has tried method after method with little or no results, she even considered |
they do that? It’s kind of like they were waiting in the wings.”
Hawaii has long been a crossroads of international travel and shipping, and its historically spotty import protections have made it especially vulnerable to invasive species such as the semislug. U.S.D.A. records indicate that P. martensi was present in cargo from Malaysia beginning in 2003, though some Big Island residents remember seeing it as early as 1999. Twelve years ago, Hollingsworth and his colleagues performed a study of semislugs on the Big Island and found that three-quarters were infected with rat lungworm, with particularly high numbers in the rural east and on the northern coast. The same team completed a follow-up survey this winter, and though Hollingsworth is waiting for official results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he has already noted one big change: semislugs are far more widespread than they were a decade ago. So is rat lungworm.
A question that has flummoxed public-health authorities is how the nematode makes its way into humans. The evidence suggests that, in Puna, the rural area where the first rat-lungworm outbreaks were centered, the parasite sometimes reaches people through their drinking water. Semislugs hiding from the Hawaiian sun slip into the rain-catchment tanks that many locals use, drown, and shed their nematodes, which survive long enough to be imbibed by humans. Another possibility is that, as the semislugs crawl over their favorite fruits and vegetables to feed, they leave behind rat-lungworm larvae in their mucus trails. The most likely transmission route, however, is the mollusk itself. Immature semislugs can be smaller than an uncooked grain of rice—easy to miss on a leaf of lettuce or kale. (Clark believes that she was infected during her recovery from breast cancer, when she began consuming large quantities of fresh produce.) Susan Jarvi, a disease specialist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, told me that adult semislugs sometimes escape detection, too. At one farmers’ market, she said, “a poor woman from Pohoa got a spring roll, and called me frantically, having bit into it and actually eaten half a semislug.”
Jarvi helps run the Rat Lungworm Working Group, a volunteer organization that she founded with Graham McCumber’s mother, Kathleen Howe, in 2011. For years, on a shoestring budget, the group has performed research on the illness and dispensed advice to patients, filling what Howe and Jarvi see as a gap in the government’s response. Funding for their work has died four times in the state legislature.
Recently, though, a series of events has bumped rat lungworm up the public-health priority list. Earlier this spring, P. martensi was confirmed for the first time on Maui. The news coincided with a spike in cases there—six in the past three months, where there had been only two historically—including a pair of honeymooners from California, whose story made headlines. The Department of Health and the Maui Invasive Species Committee quickly organized community meetings throughout the island and formed a working group to address the issue. Keith Kawaoka, the deputy director of the D.O.H., told me that the governor is also planning to expand the scope of a statewide task force originally convened to tackle the Big Island’s rat-lungworm problem. Earlier this year, the Hawaii legislature granted the D.O.H. a million dollars in funding, nominally for work on the parasite but with no specific earmarks. Most of the money, Kawaoka said, will go toward education and outreach: a series of television and radio ads are currently in production. These new initiatives are important, Howe told me, but they can only go so far. “People who know all about rat lungworm and have taken every precaution have still gotten the disease,” she said. “There needs to be research as well to really get the situation under control.”
The spread of P. martensi to Maui bolsters fears of what may already be a foregone conclusion: the colonization of the mainland by the rat-lungworm nematode, its favored mollusk host, or both. Between 2001 and 2016, the U.S.D.A. intercepted semislug-infested plant shipments from Hawaii to the mainland at least forty-five times. If the organism made it across the Pacific, it would have little trouble surviving in warmer parts of the United States, according to Rory McDonnell, a colleague of Hollingsworth’s at Oregon State University. And, since the nematode itself is highly adaptable, it could find new hosts; several potential candidates have already been identified in Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. “Things could start to get quite frightening,” McDonnell said.
In the six months since Clark returned from her camping trip, she has come through the worst of her symptoms. Though she still suffers from severe pain and numbness in her extremities, she has begun to think about rat lungworm not only as a survivor but also as a farmer. The best thing for Hawaiians, she told me, is to prioritize prevention in their own lives. Clark imports plants from Thailand for her orchid farm but opts to do so in sterile bottles inhospitable to semislugs and other pests. She also treats her plants regularly with a chemical drench. She has stopped eating local produce, as have other Big Island residents I spoke to. Some said they only buy greens from the mainland; others have ceased eating raw vegetables altogether. (Kawaoka, who lives on Oahu, said he eats local fresh produce frequently and with enthusiasm.)
Graham McCumber is still focussed on his recovery. Although he has regained most of his vision, he still has memory issues, which have plagued him as he has returned to school, to study physical therapy. A former surfer, he has had to adjust his expectations as he works toward a more independent life. “I’ve been going to yoga for years,” he told me. “When I first started, I couldn’t stand with my feet together, but now I can. That’s one milestone: being able to stand with my legs all the way together.”
*This story has been updated to correctly identify Graham McCumber’s occupation and to clarify that Kathleen Howe continues to eat local produce.Top surgery — that milestone that most, if not all, transmasculine folks look forward to and try to save money for. Looking through countless top surgery pictures and stories on Facebook or on other social media platforms, we can’t help but get impatient with our own transition and wonder when it’ll be our turn to feel at home in our bodies like those happy folks.
Top surgery, however, like with any surgery, is not something that you can schedule in a few weeks. If you want things to go smoothly the first time, there are some things you should be aware of and keep in mind that will make planning for top surgery more manageable.
Choosing the surgeon. Top surgery results are truly in the eye of the beholder; what surgeon works for one trans person might not work for another. While you can ask around for surgeons that people went to for top surgery, it’s good to do extensive research on them and see their before & after pictures on their websites. Most, if not all, surgeons have a website for their practice and should have before and after pictures of patients that previously had top surgery with them. If not, Transbucket is a great site that you can look through; the site has filters that you can play around with to see specific results by surgeon, type of surgery, etc.
Consultations. While you can expect to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket or have insurance cover it (if applicable), you’ll need to find out how much your surgery is going to cost. Most top surgeries, on average at the time of this post, are generally in the range of $5,800 – $9,000 but every person gets a different quote. In order to find out how much top surgery will cost for you with a specific surgeon along with their current availability, you’ll need to have a consultation with them first. You can call a surgeon’s office or fill an online contact form on their website (if they have one) asking to set up a consultation, and they should get back to you as quick as possible. Once they do, you’ll be asked to e-mail front and side photos of your chest prior to the consultation.
In almost all cases, you aren’t required to travel to have a consultation. However, there are some surgeons (like Dr. Daniel Medalie and Dr. Kathy Rumer) who charge a consultation fee while others are willing to do it at no charge so keep that in mind.
During the consultation, it’s good to ask the following:
What surgery would be right for your chest size and why?
Does the surgery quote include revisions or would that be extra?
Is there anything I need to buy or pay for that’s not included in the surgery quote?
How long will I be off T, and when can I resume T after surgery?
How would the process work?
How long would this surgery quote be valid for?
Research like you’re in college writing papers. People might have given good reviews on the surgeon they’ve recommended but don’t just take their word for it. Do some looking around yourself on Transbucket. Use the search function in top surgery Facebook groups where people share their results and stories with their surgeon as well as the price quotes they’ve paid (if going out-of-pocket) or what insurance they used that covered their surgery with them (if using insurance). Remember that it’s your body and that you should take care of it!
This is a big point that I can’t stress enough and there are a few reasons for this. First reason being that no matter what these top surgeons tell you, they are, at the end of the day, looking to make money. Top surgery is getting more expensive each year and not many insurance companies (or even plans) cover trans-related care at the time of this post. As the standard of living and demand for top surgery increases, so does the surgery. There’s only a select few of surgeons out there that do top surgery with chest masculinization in mind and with good results.
Another reason is from personal experience. I had a consultation with a top surgeon who gave me a surgery quote of $6,750, my quote being on the higher end of what he charges. Had I not asked my friends their surgery quotes from him, I would’ve probably chosen him as my surgeon not knowing that he was overcharging me. My friends, who had bigger chests than I do, were given cheaper quotes and we were all getting the same procedure too. I did some more looking around and found someone who paid out of-pocket with the same surgeon and he paid $5,500. With roughly the same chest size! Granted, his case didn’t need lipo but if he did, he would’ve paid APPROXIMATELY $6,000 flat.
Thinking it all over, I’ve come down to 2 possibilities for why I got that quote: either he’s realizing that he’s getting more well known in the transmasculine community for doing good work hence why he’s raising his prices or he’s thinking he can overcharge me because I said that I will be traveling from New York City to have surgery with him. I possibly was being asked to pay more for residing in a state known to have the highest standard of living.
Moral of the story: Don’t be taken advantage of.
Surgery costs. As much as I want top surgery to be accessible for everyone, it unfortunately costs a good chunk of money. Not only that, you’d be out of commission for a while when recovering from surgery so on top of the surgery fees, you’d have to cover travel, food, bills and rent because you won’t be able to work for a while. Unless you are financially well off, have parents that are or somehow manage to raise all the money through a donation page, most people are stuck wearing binders until they can raise the money or their insurance plan suddenly covers trans-related care. There are various ways to raise money for top surgery like starting a clothing line, having a garage sale, etc. If you want to raise money through GoFundMe or any donation site like that, I’ve previously written tips about that here.
If you need help pinching pennies, consider the following:
What could I do without?
Stop eating out and start cooking all your meals.
If I cut out <insert stuff you don’t need like coffee, drinks, etc.>, how much will I save?
Could I work extra hours at my job?
Are any of my friends working at places that are hiring?
Do I need to work another job in order to save up all I need?
Scheduling the surgery date. Generally you would have this worked out at the time of the consultation if you are set on a surgeon; keep in mind that most well-known surgeons have waiting lists and, you need to plan ahead with family/friends/loved ones on who would be taking care of you when you are recovering, and who will drive you to and from surgery. Most surgeons follow the WPATH Standards of Care and require you to send them a letter (or two) from a therapist and/or doctor saying that this irreversible gender-reaffirming surgery is the next step in your transition and that you are of sound mind before you can schedule a date. Most of us look at this letter requirement as a hassle but the letter provides a way for the surgeons to cover their asses should a person choose to detransition later on down the road and not be made liable for it.
Despite the mass amounts of planning and money required…Top surgery is a very important milestone in most of our transitions, and nothing makes us light up more than seeing ourselves getting closer to the body that we not only had to work for, but were meant to have. Hopefully this post helps you navigate top surgery better. I wish you all the best of luck in your planning!
AdvertisementsThe sister-in-law of the couple responsible for the San Bernardino terror attack changed her plea to guilty Thursday in a case involving a sham marriage, federal prosecutors said.
Tatiana Farook, 32, pleaded guilty in Riverside, California, to one felony count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud that included lying to federal agents and in legal documents, according the U.S. Attorney's Office.
She faces a maximum of five years in prison when she's sentenced November 13.
Her husband, Syed Raheel Farook, is the brother of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two shooters in the December 2015 attack that killed 14 people.
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Tatiana Farook, 32, pleaded guilty in Riverside, California, to one felony count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud that included lying to federal agents and in legal documents. Tatiana is seen (right) and her sister Mariyah is pictured (left) with their parents
Tatiana (left) faces a maximum of five years in prison when she's sentenced November 13. Syed Raheel Farook married her (pictured together right) in 2011, as he is the brother of Syed Rizwan Farook - one of the two shooters in the December 2015 attack that killed 14 people
The marriage-fraud case involves Tatiana's sister, Mariya Chernykh, a Russian immigrant whose alleged sham marriage to a Riverside man was discovered when her husband became part of the shooting investigation.
The marriage charges are unrelated to the attack.
Chernykh pleaded guilty January 26 to conspiracy, perjury and two counts of making false statements.
Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Chernykh faces up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines. She is scheduled to be sentenced November 20.
Chernykh, 26, also faces deportation, and has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since shortly after her arrest.
Syed Raheel's younger brother, Syed Rizwan, and his wife Tashfeen Malik (above together) killed 14 people at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, in 2015
Syed Rizwan and his wife (left and right) were killed in a police shootout in their SUV after the deadly attack
Syed Raheel Farook, 31, pleaded guilty January 10 to conspiring to commit immigration fraud by setting up his Russian sister-in-law in a sham marriage.
He remains free on bail and also faces a maximum of five years in prison when he's sentenced November 13.
Chernykh is married to Enrique Marquez Jr., a family friend of the Farooks accused of supplying guns and explosives used in the San Bernardino attack that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others on December 2, 2015.
Marquez has been charged with conspiring to support terrorists, lying about the firearm purchase and participating in a sham marriage.
Fourteen people were killed and another 22 were injured in the attack on December 2, 2015
'The three defendants made false statements in immigration documents, Chernykh paid Marquez for his participation in the scheme, and Chernykh made additional material false statements during interviews with FBI special agents,' according to a statement from prosecutors.
Marquez, who is named as an uncharged co-conspirator in the marriage indictment, remains in jail.
His trial is scheduled for September 26.The “respected civil rights organization” is at it again. The ADL labels me a “conspiracy theorist” for documenting the wall-to-wall support of the organized Jewish community for a U.S. military strike on Syria (“ADL: Conspiracy Theorists Blame Jews for Events in Syria.”) There is also the claim that I am an “extremist”—which seems odd coming from an organization that favors the immigration to the U.S. of tens of millions of people from all over the world.
Kevin McDonald, an anti-Semitic professor of psychology at California State University at Long Beach wrote a September 2 article in The Occidental Observer stating that, “The delay [in military action in Syria] provides an opportunity for the Israel Lobby to get into high gear in order to bump up the poll numbers and exert its power over Congress.”
You’d think that after all this time with me being on their Most Wanted list, they could at least spell my name right. The article doesn’t have a link to the offending article by me, which would leave the reader stuck with only a misspelled name and the link to the article about me on the ADL’s website (where they do manage to spell my name right). Indeed, there are no links for any of the articles and videos by the “fringe extremists and anti-Semites” listed in the ADL press release — presumably because the ADL doesn’t want its readers to see what they actually wrote.
The ADL’s ire is directed at an article posted on September 1, “The Israel Lobby and the Organized Jewish Community Want Regime Change in Syria,” where I looked at all the Jewish and (what is more or less the same) neocon websites I could think of to see what they were saying about a war with Syria. This included the ADL, and I noted that the respected civil rights organization had engaged in double talk on Assad’s responsibility and had once again used the Holocaust to establish their moral authority in a morally dubious situation. The only conclusion possible was that the ADL wanted regime change. Since the ADL didn’t complain about that, I guess they agree with my assessment.
My article also included pro-war material from a wide range of Jewish websites, including the main pro-Israel lobbying organization, AIPAC. I couldn’t find any important Jewish organizations that were opposed to a military strike, so I concluded that a military option was a consensus attitude in the organized Jewish community, being careful, as always, to distinguish the organized Jewish community from all Jews.
The title of the ADL press release, on the other hand, implies that I think that “Jews” are responsible for “events in Syria” which is ridiculous. I was obviously writing about pressure by the organized Jewish community, including the Israel Lobby and the ADL, on the U.S. government for a military strike. And by the time I wrote my next article, “The Organized Jewish Community: Wall-to-Wall Support for a Strike on Syria” (Sept. 16), I was able to include a link to a Jerusalem Post article (a notorious conspiracy-mongering site) titled “Report: AIPAC to mount major lobbying blitz for Obama’s Syria strike plan.” The article notes that AIPAC was prepared to have 250 activists descend on Washington to twist arms on Capitol Hill.
So, yes, the organized Jewish community was doing exactly what I said they were doing—lobbying for a military strike in Washington. And it’s not exactly a stretch to suppose that they were also trying to change public opinion given the many mainstream media appearances and op-eds by representatives of organizations like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy which, amazingly, seems to be considered an unbiased media source by National Public Radio among others.
Fortunately, Vladimir Putin put a crimp in all this by proposing a peace plan. Obama, the reluctant warrior, was able to avoid a disastrous defeat in Congress, and the best laid plans of the Israel Lobby and the organized Jewish community fell apart. The Lobby is seething right now—furious not only that missiles haven’t been launched at Syria, but that peace may be breaking out with Iran.
But don’t count them out. They are nothing if not persistent. Indeed, M.J. Rosenberg notes that AIPAC is getting ready for “war with Obama“:MCC is teaming up with My Social Sports for our fourth annual Charity Dodgeball Tournament & Raffle!
All proceeds of the tournament will benefit MCC's Community Service Club volunteering at the 'Give Kids the World Village', a non-profit "storybook" resort where children with life-threatening illnesses and their families are treated to a weeklong, cost-free vacation.
The tournament will be held on Monday, November 21st in the MCC Student Center. Teams should be ready by 5pm.
View the Dodgeball Tournament Rules
If you're not in the dodgeball spirit but would still like to help out, we are in need of donation items for our fundraising raffle.
Register Online Today
Cost to register is $10 per player ($5 for students with a proper promo code!), with all the proceeds going towards the MCC Community Service Club.
Register Today Share on Facebook
Be sure to click the "Join this League..." button and create an account to register (or log in). You can register as an individual, start a new team, or sign up with a friend and get placed on a team.You’ve probably heard the word “macro” more than once — especially if you’ve done any research around implementing a healthy diet and fitness plan. But what are vegan macros, exactly, and why are they so important?
Before we talk about what macros are, we need to understand vegan flexible dieting. Flexible Dieting, also known as “if it fits your macros”, is simply the counting of macronutrients to achieve your preferred bodyweight goals. It’s thought that this a simplistic and realistic way to count calories and hit nutrition targets.
Ok, so what are macros? Below is quick overview; we’ll talk about them in greater detail later.
Macros (macronutrients) are the three main nutrients of food and consist of:
Protein
Carbohydrates
Fat
They are important because they energize our bodies and enable us to function at our optimal level.
This might sound complicated, but in actuality, it’s pretty simple. The harder part is probably calculating your macronutrient goals and sticking to them.
Let’s get started.
Calculating Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
Now that we understand the importance of macros, it’s time to do some arithmetic. The first step for calculating vegan macros is to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
Being aware of how many macros you are consuming in proportion to the energy that you are burning is crucial to your success with any fitness goal. Maintaining your weight usually requires an equal ratio between macros burned and macros consumed, while a deficit is needed for weight loss. Vegan macros are no exception, even though more of them may be required to balance the proportion between consumption and expenditure. (Yes, even kale must be tracked inline with your macros.) A necessary term to be familiar with is TDEE, which is simply a caloric expression of how much energy you burn, on average, per day.
Simple TDEE Formula
Step 1 – Calculate Resting Energy Expenditure (REE)
The first step is to calculate the total energy (calories) your body requires in order to function without any physical movement. This is commonly referred to as your REE (Resting Energy Expenditure).
A popular method used to calculate REE is the Mifflin, M.D., St. Jeor formula:.
Males
REE = 10 x weight(kg) + 6.25 x height(cm) – 5 x age(years) + 5
Females
REE = 10 x weight(kg) + 6.25 x height(cm) – 5 x age(years) – 161
(Don’t forget to use the Order of Operations above)
Step 2 – Calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure
The next and final step involves calculating your overall daily movement expenditure (TDEE) by using the REE calculation you determined above and multiplying by your average physical activity level (which can be found from the descriptions below).
Activity Level Description Formula Sedentary Ordinary, everyday activity (e.g. walking, conversing, opening a can of jelly, etc.). REE*1.2 Light Activity Any physical activity that burns an extra 200-400 calories (females) or 250-500 (males) more than your sedentary average amount. REE*1.375 Moderate Activity Any physical activity that burns an extra 400-650 calories (females) or 500-800 (males) more than your sedentary average. REE*1.55 Very Active Any physical activity that burns more than roughly 650 calories (females) or 800 (males) above your sedentary average amount. REE*1.725
TDEE Calculation Example
Here’s an example of how this formula would be used to calculate the TDEE of a 35-year-old, 180 cm tall, 70 kg, moderately active female (let’s call her Stacey):
Step 1 – Calculate Resting Energy Expenditure (REE)
REE = 10 x 70kg + 6.25 x 180cm – 5 x 35 years – 161 = 1,489
Step 2 – Calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
TDEE = 1,489 x 1.55 = 2,307.95 (~ 2,308)
Stacey’s TDEE is 2,308 calories.
TDEE Go-Forward Caloric Options
Eat more than this = weight gain.
Eat less than this = weight loss.
Eat this amount = weight maintenance.
Stacey burns, on average, 2,308 calories per day. If she consumes more than this amount, she will gain weight (typically); if she eats less than this amount, she will lose weight; and if she eats the equivalent of this amount, then she will most likely maintain her current weight.
Weight Loss TDEE
1846 Calories = 2,308 *.8
Weight Gain TDEE
2,770 Calories = 2,308 * 1.2
If you want to lose weight, it is generally recommended that you reduce your total calorie intake from your TDEE value by no more than 20%. For example, Stacey would decrease her caloric intake from her TDEE amount (2,308) to ~1846 calories per day by multiplying 2,308 by 80%, or 0.80. Likewise, if she wanted to gain weight, then she would increase her TDEE by 20%.
It is also important to note that there are exceptions to the TDEE formula described above. For those who are either very lean or very obese, extra measures may need to be taken to achieve the most accurate and helpful results as possible.
For this example, let’s assume Stacey wants to lose weight. Thus her Goal TDEE will be 1,846.
Now for the exciting part…
Calculating Vegan Macros!
What are Vegan Macros and How Are They Different from “Normal” Macros?
Vegan Macros are essentially the same thing as Macros, but obviously, they are derived solely from plant foods. Vegans, just like anyone else, needs to eat the same macronutrients to survive. The main difference between normal macros and vegan macros, is the ratios themselves. Typically vegan macros are lower in protein and fat (because most* plants are naturally lower in these macronutrients than their animal counterparts). However, there are foods which are exceptions (such as nuts and avocados, which are very high in fat), and vegans have many foods to choose from that provide varying levels of these three fundamental nutrients.
For example, quinoa, beans, lentils, and tempeh are just a few hearty (and tasty!) plant-based foods high in vegan proteins. Rice, veggies, and whole wheat bread are fantastic sources of carbs. If you’re allergic to tempeh or don’t like zucchinis, no worries – there are many other options that will keep you well-stocked on all your vital vegan macros.
Vegan Flexible Dieting (another word for macronutrient dieting) is beneficial because it encourages you to explore other foods, making your diet more balanced and helping to eliminate the possibility of nutritional deficiencies. Vegan Flexible Dieting also allows you to have that “junk” food every once in a while — if it fits your macros (Vegan IIFYM in this case, which we will discuss later). But remember, you are what you eat. If you eat poorly, you will notice it when you look in the mirror.
How To Calculate Vegan Macros
This calculation is used to determine the ratio of macronutrients that will compose your daily calorie consumption (in other words, those tasty – and hopefully nourishing — meals and snacks we literally can’t live without). A Vegan Macro Calculator can be helpful to customize your calculation.
However, you can also calculate your vegan macros manually. I will walk you through a step-by-step process that will leave you calculating vegan macros as easy as 1-2-3.
Before we dive in, here’s a key for the calorie values in each macro:
1 gram of Protein = 4 calories
1 gram of Carbs = 4 calories
1 gram of Fat = 9 calories
The above values are based on the Atwater system as required by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA).
Protein
The first step in our vegan macro calculation is protein, which is crucial for the proper functioning of every living organism. It’s an important building-block of our muscles, hair, nails, and skin, to name a few. Below is a source detailing the 10 vegetables highest in protein, in case you were curious.
To compute the amount of protein your body needs each day, multiply 0.825 by your weight in pounds. The factor of 0.825 is the average ratio of necessary protein per pound of body weight for most people looking to gain muscle (of course this number is subject to debate and is very hard to come to a hard conclusion on, currently).
I sometimes recommend higher or lower, based upon an individual’s goals, but for this example, we’ll keep it simple and leave it at 0.825.
Example
Stacey, who weighs 154 pounds, would multiply her bodyweight by 0.825 to get her daily protein intake.
154 pounds x.825= 127.05 grams 127.05 grams of protein x 4 grams = ~508 calories of daily protein
Of course, this can vary with the intensity of muscle exertion you engage in, increasing the factor to as high as 1g/lb for those who do extremely heavy weight-training.
Fat
The next component of our vegan macro calculation is fat. This macronutrient has been given a bad rap because, well, the name is more than just a little suggestive. But don’t let the name scare you off, we definitely need fat, and it can be quite good for you, in moderation of course.
Fat contains things like DHA, a long-chain omega-3 fatty acid associated with cognitive ability. However, eating more fat probably won’t help as both vegans and non-vegans alike were found to have low baseline levels of DHA. You should instead supplement with 250mg daily of omega-3 vegan oils.
Plant-based sources of fat are far better than if obtained from animal sources, but if you have too high a ratio of fats in your diet, you will still struggle to find those abs, thus it’s important to keep this macronutrient in check.
Calculating your necessary fat intake per day is daunting, to say the least since there are so many different theories on the subject. However, 20% of your total TDEE amount is a reasonable place to start. This source recommends 20-30%, and Planteousveg.com recommends approximately 20%.
Example
Remember, Stacey wants to lose weight so her TDEE is 1,846 calories. We would compute her necessary fat (in grams) like this:
1. 1,846 calories x 0.20 = ~369 calories.
2. 369 calories divided by 9 (9 calories/g of fat) = ~41 grams of Fat (rounded)
Carbohydrates
Ah yes, last but not least, is the dreaded macronutrient: carbs. No need to worry, however. Us vegans love carbs because they are our primary source of energy. Once your body is used to burning carbs instead of excess protein, you will understand too. Don’t take it from me, some vegan bodybuilders eat as much as 95% of their diet in carbohydrates. We utilize carbs when our cells convert carbs into glucose, which is essential for energy and optimal mental and physical health. Just like a car needs gas to run, we need carbs to function.
While a vegan diet generally has more “margin of error”, quality still matters. If you start reaching for processed carbs high in sugar, you’ll be left wondering why you aren’t seeing any results. Contrary to common belief, carbs don’t have to look like a grocery cart full of white pasta, bleached bread, and doughnuts. Carbs are just as present in fruits and veggies as they are in wheat and other grains.
This calculation is simple since we occupy the remaining calorie values with carbs.
Example
To summarize what we have already computed from the example above, Stacey, who wants to lose weight, should use the following ratio:
Protein: 127 grams (508 calories)
Fat: 41 grams (369 calories)
She has already used up 877 calories (508 + 369) for protein and fat, so she needs 969 of carbs (her TDEE, which is 1,846 calories, minus 877 calories). These calories (969) would be her daily amount of carbohydrates that compose the last third of her vegan macro ratio. This amount in grams would be ~242 grams (969 divided by 4 [4 calories in 1 gram of Carbs]).
Whew! And finally, here’s a simpler summary of her daily macro amounts:
Protein: 127 grams (508 calories) OR 27.5% of TDEE
Fat: 41 grams (369 calories) OR 20% of TDEE
Carbs: 242 grams (969) OR 52.5% of TDEE
If you’re having trouble sticking to your macro goals err on the side of caution, meaning increase your low-density calorie veggies. Too much protein and/or fat will just get stored as fat. Never go over your fat target unless you are very familiar with how your body interacts with fat.
Confused?
If that’s too confusing, no worries. Healthyeater.com provides a flexible dieting calculator, and a Vegan Macronutrient Calculator can be very helpful as well.
Now that you know your TDEE and your vegan macro ratios, the next step is to track your vegan macros to ensure that your ratio is being achieved. But if you’re like me, who would forget to take my supplements 360 days out of the year without multiple reminders, this is not so easily done.
Practical Ways to Track Vegan Macros
Fortunately, in this technological day-and-age, we have plenty of options. Mobile apps provide quick and convenient ways to track your diet throughout the day. My Fitness Pal is a popular app that can be used for this purpose in addition to helping you track your daily physical activity.
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Another helpful tool is a reliable food scale, which can be used to calculate calories more efficiently than simply looking at the package (which can be a headache, to say the least).
Vegan Macro Meal Plans + Other Vegan IIFYM Resources
Need more tips and guidance before you get started?
Check out this journal article from Running On Real Food, which summarizes the tips and tricks that one person learned from following a Vegan Flexible Dieting plan for two weeks. This article also includes practical strategies for effectively planning and achieving your vegan macro goals.
If you’re looking to build muscle, be sure to browse our site for more recipe ideas. Here is a great macro-efficient recipe to get started with: Vegan Israeli Couscous, Eggplant, And Tomato Sauce Recipe
And since we’re on the subject of fitness, here is an article from One Green Planet that provides Sample Meal Plans for the Female Vegan Athlete.
Lastly, don’t forget to watch this helpful video that provides more information on calculating and tracking vegan macros.
Most importantly, enjoy the process. Spice up your food. Decorate your plate and incorporate as many colors as you can. Find recipes that you can rely on for a quick and satisfying meal that provides all your vital vegan macros in a pinch (check out these 16 Delicious Vegan Dinner Recipes!).
And at the end of the day, don’t be afraid to treat yourself to a little slab of dark chocolate for an extra vegan macro carbo boost.
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to comment below or share on social media!Coming out of high school, Matt Krook was a highly regarded pitching prospect. Due to his makeup and ability, scouts pictured him as a future top of the rotation pitcher.
The Miami Marlins snagged the left-hander with the 35th overall pick in the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft. But, after a disagreement over a post-draft physical, Krook didn’t sign and decided to attend the University of Oregon instead.
“I just fell in love with everything about it [Oregon],” Krook said. “From the coaches, the facilities and the great atmosphere that the town provides towards all of its athletics. It’s an all-around good spot to go to college, and I love it.”
In his first season at Oregon, |
.” Dr. Yazdanbakhsh comments on the importance of being a part of such a distinguished neuroscience department at Boston University. “There is a wide range of colleagues that are close together and allows for a good amount of cross-pollination. This allows for better work,” Dr. Yazdanbakhsh said. He also states that the faculty of BU is constantly giving effort, not only for their own research, but for their colleagues’ as well. “BU is the perfect place where you can walk down the street and the environment just recharges you.” When he’s not in the classroom or in the lab, Dr. Yazdanbakhsh loves to be physically active. With a playlist ranging from Baroque to soft rock, Dr. Yazdanbakhsh enjoys tackling the gym for a workout. “The music adds a sense of rhythmicity to my workout.” When possible, Dr. Yazdanbakhsh tries to get outside and hike, as he places a lot of emphasis in connecting with natural objects, including sunlight and the outdoors. Dr. Yazdanbakhsh’s tie to nature is evident when you walk in his office for the first time and recognize the flowering green plant hanging in the middle of the ceiling, sprawling in every direction. Dr. Yazdanbakhsh compares the vines of his plant to the dendritic spines of the brain. “At the peak of its growth, this plant may have a few hundred leaves, so just imagine the brain is 100 times denser than this plant,” Dr. Yazdanbakhsh said. Dr. Yazdanbakhsh’s comparison highlights the detailed interconnections necessary for brain function. Like the plant and the brain, scientists around the world must come together and work in unison to answer the “serious questions that have yet been left unanswered.” Who knows? Once that happens, there may be another parade rolling down Comm Ave, just this time, not for baseball. Written by Trey Moore Edited by Brian Privett, Emme Enojado
BU Study Finds First Evidence of Genetic Link to CTE A new study out of the Boston University School of Medicine shows the first evidence of a genetic link to developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that may be diagnosed in patients with repeated head trauma. These patients typically exhibit cognitive and emotional issues including difficulty planning, emotional instability, substance abuse, impulsivity, and short-term memory loss. However, CTE can only be diagnosed postmortem, and there is currently no reliable way to predict who will develop this disorder. This study, published in Acta Neuropathologica, is the first to show that there may be a genetic predisposition to developing CTE. Eighty-six brain samples from deceased American football players were examined for the presence of a missense mutation (rs3173615) in the TMEM106B gene. These players had all been diagnosed with CTE after their deaths. The mutation has been identified as playing a role in neuroinflammation and TDP-43 neurodegenerative diseases (such as ALS and Alzheimer’s). Thus, this specific mutation was of interest to researchers, who have been trying to find a possible genetic basis for the development of CTE. Researchers identified that those diagnosed with CTE were more likely to have the missense mutation (rs3173615) on the TMEM106B gene than those without the disease. They also found that those with this gene variant were 2.5 more likely to have developed dementia. Researchers found that the presence of rs3173615 was associated with synaptic loss, dementia, and density of abnormal tau protein. However, these results were only seen when analyzing the brains of those diagnosed with CTE. When compared to case-controls, the same associations were not observed. This study is the first to identify a possible genetic link to the development of CTE. The actual applicability of this study is limited, but it does provide possible paths for future research into the causes of CTE. There are likely to be many genes that contribute to the development of CTE, and as such, further research is needed. It is possible that this research could lead to preventative measures, diagnostic methods, and treatment of CTE; all of which are extremely limited as of now. CTE has been a popular topic in the news recently, with evidence accumulating that links head trauma from contact sports to CTE-like symptoms. A Boston University study in 2017 found that 99% of former NFL players’ brains that were studied showed signs of CTE. Evidence has also been produced to show that playing contact sports as a minor may contribute to cognitive deficits later in life. Studies like these have led to some arguing that contact sports (especially football) need to be altered to mitigate the risk of head trauma. Such alterations may include better helmets or rule changes. Some have even argued that children should not play football because of the risk of future brain trauma may be too great. More studies like this one are needed to assess the validity of these arguments, but in the meantime, these studies have ignited the debate around contact sports. Writer: Jayden Font Editor: Lauren Renehan Sources: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/03/study-hints-that-certain-gene-may-worsen-cte/ QORz6GjMsKCjqGvAOBblxN/story.html https://actaneurocomms.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40478-018-0619-9 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy/symptoms-ca uses/syc-20370921 https://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine/pdf/S1471-4914(08)00186-X.pdf http://www.bu.edu/cte/2017/07/25/bu-researchers-find-cte-in-99-of-former-nfl-players-studied/ http://www.bu.edu/cte/2017/09/19/study-suggests-link-between-youth-football-and-later-life-emo tional-behavioral-and-cognitive-impairments/ Image Source
A Value in Old-Fashioned Memorization With a computer or telephone in hand, it seems pointless to memorize simple facts, lists of things, poems, directions, dates or formulas. From an evolutionary standpoint before modern day technology, people would constantly have to exercise their mind and memorize what we currently leave the task for our computer or telephone in hand to remember. But schools are now switching their structures to provide students the skills to apply knowledge instead of reciting information, which seems logical. Except there may be a huge positive to memorizing what seems to be pointless information. Memorizing information is the equivalent to lifting weights in the gym, but instead of building more muscle, the levels of acetylcholine increase in the brain. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter has been identified by scientists to keep the mind sharp; it is critical in creating and strengthening connections between neurons. People blame the lack in memory as a consequence of aging, but scientists are finding out it has more to do with how much the person is exercising the mind. More specifically, the brain produces acetylcholine when the person is exercising the mind, such as when a person is trying to pay attention1. Although many people’s memories increasingly start to fail after their mid-40’s, elderly people who constantly exercise their minds show high levels of acetylcholine, and their memory, as a result, does not deteriorate as rapidly. High levels of acetylcholine also reduce the risk of dementia; for example, cholinesterase inhibitors, which inhibit proteins that degrade acetylcholine and consequently lead to higher acetylcholine levels, have been used to slow down the effects of Alzheimer’s1. In response to this trend of memory loss, researchers in New York discovered five compounds that naturally reinstate optimal levels of acetylcholine: Alpha GPC, Huperzine A, Bacopa Monnieri, Lion’s Mane Mushroom, and Ginkgo Biloba2. This formula was named RediMind. RediMind was created in order for people to use modern day technology without the consequence of drastically losing their memory through aging. After a placebo-controlled clinical trial by Princeton Consumer Reseach, the results showed that the group who took the RediMind drug had scored 45% better than the placebo group2. Another positive of RediMind is that it gives the brain a long-term boost for energy compared to short-term boosts of drugs like caffeine. RediMind is now for sale but has not been reviewed by the FDA. This could one step closer to creating enhancers for superpower memorization, but this drug has not been tested enough to prove consistent improvement of memory and to be safe for the brain. So, for now, I would stick to memorizing directions, grocery lists, and more vocabulary words to work out my brain. Writer: Lauren Renehan Editor: Audrey Kim Source: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/07/24/1541146/0/en/Alzheimer-s-related-Study-B rain-Training-Upregulates-Acetylcholine.html https://www.nutreance.com/articles/redimind?utm_medium=google_display&utm_campaign=redimind_us_content&utm_source=neurosciencenews.com&utm_term=long%20term%20memory &gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg8z664a33gIVAhLTCh3CIg5VEAEYASAAEgJz_vD_BwE Image Source
FACULTY FEATURE: Mario Muscedere For Dr. Mario Muscedere, it all started with animals. During the weekends and summers of his childhood, the Baltimore, Maryland native would rise with the sun and escape with his dog, a mutt and former stray, to explore the woods and streams surrounding his suburban neighborhood, not returning home to reality until the dark swallowed the day. “I was one of those kids who had to be restrained if there was a dog, cat, or any kind of animal around,” Dr. Muscedere said. “I was turning over rocks, always begging to go to the zoo, anything I could get I could not get enough of.” Now, Dr. Muscedere is a full-time lecturer, with roles in both the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience and the Department of Biology at Boston University. Currently, he instructs BI/NE 545: Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior in the fall and BI 315: Systems Physiology and BI 542: Neuroethology in the spring. Although his intrigue with the interaction between animals and behavioral biology has been a constant in his life, he was not introduced to the field of neuroscience until he arrived at BU for his Ph.D. “I graduated with a B.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland, so I didn’t really have any neuroscience experience until I came here,” Dr. Muscedere said. “I did my Ph.D. research in the Traniello Lab, and I thought I was just going to study termite behavior, because that’s what I was doing as an undergraduate. But the Traniello Lab was discussing a new project they wanted to explore- the physiology and neurobiology that underlies behaviors in ants. The lab was heading in that direction, and that was the first time I really started to become a neuroscientist.” For his graduate research, he focused on studying the sensory, neuromodulatory, and behavioral mechanisms that support task performance of individual worker ants in cooperative colonies. During this time, he also learned how to perform basic neuroscience laboratory techniques, such as brain dissections and immunocytochemistry, to investigate the brain anatomy and neurochemistry of their ant subjects. Then, as a postdoctoral faculty fellow and lecturer for BU’s Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, he assisted in the revamping of the undergraduate neuroscience major – planning and creating course themes and topics along with lab manuals and the curriculum. “I did that for about three years, and then I got a job teaching at a small liberal arts college in Arkansas,” Dr. Muscedere said. “I worked there for three years- great school, great students- but decided to come back to Boston because it was just the right move. So when this job opened up, I went for it.” Dr. Muscedere returned in September of 2017, making this year his second academic school year as a full time lecturer at BU. Here, he says that BU gives him the freedom to try new things, especially in terms of instructional strategies, whether that be clicker questions or starting new classes to give students interesting experiences. Additionally, as a lecturer, he is able to form meaningful academic relationships with students. “The best part of my day is just sitting in office hours and having people come by and talking about the subject,” Dr. Muscedere said. “It can be hard to make those one-on-one relationships when you teach really big classes, but in some of my upper level classes that are about 15 students it’s a lot easier and that’s what I really like: having that personal effect on somebody’s career, having an ‘aha’ moment with them.” He accredits this opportunity to have a personal effects with students to tight knit community of the neuroscience department. “I think with the neuroscience program in particular, since it’s small we think a little more about undergraduate experience, whereas in some of the bigger departments where the divisions are more spread out, that’s harder to do,” he said. “So I think that it’s easier for us to get to know students than it is for some of the other programs.” While his current focus is undergraduate education, he continues to work on research, working collaboratively with the Traniello lab and finishing up some of the projects he started in his previous job. Dr. Muscedere’s studies aim to understand how worker brain evolution may be linked to the behavioral, social, ecological, and life history variation that exists among species- investigating sensory deprivation and neuroplasticity, among other areas. “How animals in social groups make decisions and think strategically… it’s something that applies to humans too,” he said. For current students, he has one piece of advice. “Think about what you might want to do when you graduate and set yourself up now to get where you want to go, as opposed to scrambling in the last two years,” Dr. Muscedere said. “So start reaching out to your professors, ask about research and shadowing opportunities, volunteering, and UROP projects. Build towards getting experience because that is what will help you get where you want to go.” According to Dr. Muscedere, anybody who is college now for neuroscience is presumably going to witness incredible gains made in the next 30-50 years- because of this, going to graduate school for neuroscience opens up the opportunities to work on projects that are truly cutting edge. “In many ways, the field of neuroscience is still in its infancy,” Dr. Muscedere said. “The central problem in neuroscience, or at least behavioral neuroscience, is how do we connect activity of neural circuits to behavior? That question is still almost wide open, and what better time to get involved than in the beginning?” Written by: Emme Enojado Editor: Yasmine Sami
The Role of Music in Neurodegeneration: How it Can Help Music is all around us. It’s in our ears as we walk to class with our earbuds in. It’s in the cars we drive and the ubers we take. It’s in malls and grocery stores. It’s even infiltrated the smallest of spaces, like elevators in hotel lobbies. This ubiquity of music may make it lose its significance in our eyes, however, this is not the case for people suffering from neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Music plays an important role in the lives of these people. While they may find themselves lost in their own minds, music can help guide them to lucidity, even for a little bit. Clinicians and researchers are utilizing music therapy as a supplemental treatment for people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases. This approach has been found to be extraordinarily beneficial in such patients. In fact, in his book Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks writes: “ music therapy with such patients is possible because musical perception, musical sensibility, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory have disappeared. Music of the right kind can serve to orient and anchor a patient when almost nothing else can.”1 One of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases is Alzheimer’s disease with 5.7 million Americans suffering from it in 20182. So far there is no absolute ‘cure’ for AD. It is caused by an accumulation of p-tau and neurofilaments in the brain which cause cell death and neurodegeneration in the hippocampus. Music therapy has been found to be an effective non-pharmacological approach to manage AD. A study by Arroyo-Anlló EM et al was conducted on self-consciousness in people suffering from mild to moderate AD where they played familiar music for one group of people and unfamiliar music for another group. They found that familiar music intervention resulted in improvement in some aspects of self-consciousness such as personal identity, affective state, moral judgements and body representation. The researchers suggested that the improvement in self-consciousness may be due to the enhancement of general cognitive state by familiar music3. Another study investigated the effects of background music on autobiographical memory of those with mild AD and also found encouraging results. The investigators conducted Autobiographical Memory Interviews (AMI) in which they asked questions related to major events in the individual’s lives that spanned over childhood, early adulthood and recent life. They found that subjects that had music ‘Spring’ movement from Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ in the background during the interview had higher AMI recall scores especially for recent personal semantic memories. Subjects in the music condition had reduced state anxiety levels and therefore the researchers attribute the enhanced autobiographical recall to an anxiety reduction mechanism brought on by music4. Music seems to have interesting effects on people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease as well. Parkinson’s is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder with approximately 60,000 Americans diagnosed with it every year5. It usually caused by cell death in the substantia nigra in the basal ganglia. This causes a depletion of dopamine in the brain which is responsible for the symptoms present in Parkinson’s such as gait abnormalities. Oliver Sacks makes another interesting observation in his book where he states, “The patient can regain a fluent flow with music, but once the music stops, so too does the flow. There can, however be longer-term effects of music for people with dementia – improvements of mood, behavior, even cognitive function – which can persist for hours or days after they have been set off by music.”6 Researchers have found some encouraging results in line with Sack’s conclusion. In a study conducted by Benoit et al, it was found that musically cued gait training showed improvement in gait, motor timing, and perceptual timing. They trained patients with Parkinson’s to walk to the beats of German folk music on their own but giving them exact instructions on how to do so. They found that not only did these patients show improvements in gait velocity and stride length, but this effect outlasted the duration of the training for up to one month7. In the same study, they also found that music therapy has the ability to enhance perceptual timing. They assessed this using a tone duration detection task and found that the patients that had undergone musical intervention improved their performance in these tasks. The researchers state that both these effects may be attributed to a cerebello-thalamo-cortical tract which is activated by auditory cues and compensates for the dysfunction in the basal ganglia as the enhancement in perceptual timing is responsible for the improvements in the subjects’ gait 8. While we may take music for granted, it can play a very important part in people’s lives – particularly those that have to live with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, there’s no exact ‘cure’ for these diseases, but interventions such as music therapy can still help provide a unique approach to alleviate many of the debilitating symptoms presented by these disorders. Writer: Farwa Faheem Editor: Kawtar Bennani Sources: Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks https://www.alz.org/media/HomeOffice/Facts%20and%20Figures/facts-and-figures.pdf https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2013/752965/ https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/docview/232495436?accountid=9676&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo https://parkinsonsdisease.net/basics/statistics/ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00494/full
Unique Folding Patterns in Autism Brains Recent studies have shown that the brains of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) fold differently than a normal brain—either being unusually smoother or unusually convoluted depending on location and age. Researchers measure the development of neural tissue folds in the cortex as changes in the local gyrification index; a ratio which compares the area of the smooth outer surface with that of the inside the sulci. Using this information, researchers can understand the link between autism and the folds of a brain. In a study at San Diego State University, it was found that school-age children and adolescents with autism had more intricately folded regions. The left temporal and parietal lobes, which are responsible for processing sound and spatial information, were shown to have these intricate folds in children with autism. Research also found increased gyrification in the right temporal and frontal lobes, which are responsible for decision making and motor skills. In contrast, a second study found that preschoolers with autism do not show this degree of intricate folding unless they had enlarged brains. Preschoolers with autism were also found to have an unusually smooth region in the occipital lobe (specifically in the region dedicated to recognizing faces). These studies, in juxtaposition, demonstrate that brain folding hints at the different developmental path that autism brains follow when compared to normal brains. According to Ruth Carper, a researcher at San Diego State, “many of the brain areas with exaggerated folding are among the earliest to develop folds during gestation.” Thus, the folding will increase in intricacy and convolution over time due to this developmental disruption. In another study at the University of California, Davis, researchers found that children with enlarged brains actually have a specific subtype of autism due to the fact that only children with enlarged brains exhibited this degree of increased and atypical folding. This study adds to the evidence that folding patterns depends on the development of the individual and where that individual lies within the autism spectrum. It’s clear that ASD is a very complex subset of conditions and traits that are influenced by various genetic and environmental factors. A great deal of research is focused on identifying physical differences, such as brain folding patterns, which are present in the autistic brain. In doing so, resources may be found to aid and benefit a developing brain with ASD. Lastly, such research will only further our understanding of how all of our brains grow and evolve over time. Writer: Ava Genovese Editor: Farwa Faheem Sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brains-of-children-with-autism-show-unusual-folding-patterns/
https://www.sciencealert.com/differences-autism-brain-folding-lateral-gyrification-indexv
http://www.ageofautism.com/2018/07/abnormal-brain-folds-in-autism-another-clue-from-the-gut.html Image source
OlderThe Brazilian star will be absent from the Emirates...
AC Milan may have picked up a point against Reggina this evening, but their draw has come at a greater cost. Midfield star Kaka had to leave the pitch 77 minutes in due to injury.
Immediately after coming off, he was taken to hospital for routine checks, but coach Carlo Ancelotti has revealed that there is more to come.
"He's going for an x-ray," said Carletto.
"We don't think it's just a little thing because he had a lot of pain. It was in his foot, not the muscle."
In fact AC Milan's official website later noted that the x-ray indicated a sprain, not a fracture, but the midfielder remains out of action.
Kaka will miss the match between Italy and Brazil in London on Tuesday, and he could be in doubt for the upcoming Milan derby.
Steve Michaels, Goal.com
For all the latest Goal.com news at your fingertips, point your mobile phone browser to m.goal.com, Goal.com's very own mobile news service!Horror Film Roulette is a fun film festival for local Metro Detroit filmmakers to flex their creative muscle and make some short films. The gist is that each team of filmmakers have two weeks to create a short film based on a horror film genre picked randomly by spinning the Wheel of Horror. The genres they can get are: slasher, thriller, sci-fi, monster, supernatural and of course, zombies. After the two weeks is up, the films are presented in a showcase and are judged. There is an overall judge panel but there is also an award for Audience Favorite as well. This annual event is run by Terri Rozwadowski and Erik Steel.
This year the showcase was held at the AMC Forum 30 which is a first time the event has been shown in an actual movie theater. There were eighteen films shown with a fifteen minute intermission. Most of the shorts clocked in at around five minutes long so it goes by fairly quickly. The tone of the various shorts ranged from creepy to humorous to abstract art house. One short was made by a team from Mexico City and there was even an animated entry, so there was something for everyone. I loved the atmosphere in the theater because it was full of the cast and crew from all the movies and everyone was having a good time.
The winners of this year's Horror Film Roulette were:
1st Place: Slasher Summit
2nd Place: Zombie Intelligence
3rd Place: PalteygeistLeft: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill/dbox; right: Durst Organization
Seventeen-seventy-six will never lose its place in the history books, but its claim to the record books may have been undermined by a decision not to build a sculptural cladding for the mast atop 1 World Trade Center.
The mast was to elevate an otherwise 1,368-foot skyscraper into a 1,776-foot structure whose defining measurement was meant to express American spirit and resolve in the face of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
Whether the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a private body that serves as a worldwide arbiter of building heights, counts the mast depends on whether it is considered a functional antenna or a nonfunctional spire.
Graphic One World Trade Center Mast A tapering enclosure, planned over the mast, has been eliminated. That may affect how the building’s height is calculated.
While reserving its final decision until 1 World Trade Center is completed in early 2014, the council had previously been inclined to include the mast because it was clad in a fiberglass and steel enclosure called a radome. The radome was a tapering, multifaceted structure of interlocking triangles, 23 feet in diameter at its widest, that had been designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with the sculptor Kenneth Snelson.
Without this cladding, the mast is a more straightforward pole of galvanized steel trusswork, about six feet in diameter for much of its height, intersected by wider maintenance platforms.
Just how perceptible the difference will be from the street or surrounding buildings is hard to say. Though the distinction between the versions seems minuscule on renderings only a few inches high, the mast is more than 400 feet tall — about as tall as a 40-story building — so even the smallest changes are magnified by scale.
The decision to eliminate the cladding was made in October and affirmed in January by Douglas Durst, the chairman of the Durst Organization, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with which Mr. Durst is developing the building. The change is coming to light with all the attention the project received when the building reached 1,271 feet, making it the tallest in New York City.
Should the Council on Tall Buildings ultimately disallow the unclad mast in its height calculation, 1 World Trade Center would lose both its symbolic dimension and its claim to unseating the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago as the tallest building in America. It would not even be the second-tallest building in America. That is the Trump International Hotel and Tower, also in Chicago.
“This definitely raises questions,” Kevin Brass, the public affairs manager for the council, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our criteria are very specific. We include spires and not antennas. If this is an antenna, it won’t be part of the height measurement. The cladding was an integral part of the design and made the extension part of the permanent look and feel of the building.”
The chief architect of 1 World Trade Center, David M. Childs, was not reticent about calling the resulting structure an antenna as he took a rare step for any architect in publicly criticizing a client.
“We are disappointed that a decision has been made to remove the sculptural enclosure at the top of 1 World Trade Center,” Mr. Childs, now a consulting partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, said in a statement. “Eliminating this integral part of the building’s design and leaving an exposed antenna and equipment is unfortunate. We stand ready to work with the port on an alternate design that will still mark the 1 World Trade Center’s place in New York City’s skyline.”
Though eliminating the cladding will save about $20 million in construction costs, some of which the Durst Organization will recoup as part of its agreement with the Port Authority, Mr. Durst said that what doomed the radome was the prospect of maintaining such a complex structure more than a quarter-mile in the sky.
“There was no real method to maintain or repair the radome,” Mr. Durst said in an interview on Tuesday; his colleagues in the Durst Organization likened any such effort to something out of “Mission Impossible.” They said that if one of the hundreds of fiberglass panels in the radome were damaged by lightning or ice, climbers would have to scale it, winches would have to be installed on the upper reaches of the tower, and cables would have to be lowered to the 9/11 Memorial plaza, where replacement pieces weighing thousands of pounds would await.
Mr. Durst said the current mast would “still be a fairly robust structure.”
“I don’t think it will affect the visual appearance,” he added. “I try not to get involved with the aesthetics. We’re here to discuss how it’s built and how it’s maintained.”
The Port Authority seemed so confident that the issue would be resolved in favor of the 1,776-foot height that a spokesman, Steve Coleman, allowed himself an unusually lighthearted response. “We confess,” he said. “One World Trade Center is really a three-story walk-up in Peoria.”
Then he added: “If truth be told, this discussion is irrelevant. One World Trade Center will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.”Some people avoid avocados due to their high fat content. Most of us know by now that avocados have the kind of fat that actually help you lose weight!
Avocados are bursting with of other health benefits too, and are so strongly associated with fertility and aphrodisiacs that the Aztecs would lock up virgin daughters during avocado harvest time to keep them safe. Read the details and check out the infographic below on this Powerfood.
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you. Or you eat guacamole.” John Rohn
10 Avocados Benefits
1. Nutrient dense fruit
Yes, they are actually a large berry with one seed. One avocado contains approximately 1/3 of the daily requirement of vitamin K and folate, lots of pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin C.
Avocado has twice the potassium of a banana. It also contain vitamin E, niacin, and riboflavin. That is definitely nutrient dense!
2. A Source of Healthy Fat
They help increase good cholesterol. Avocados are full of fat, but adding avocados to the diet can increase HDL and decrease triglycerides.
3. Help Cure Cancer
Avocados will help your body make more glutathione than many other foods. Glutathione has been found to help prevent some kinds of cancers.
Researchers found extracts from Hass avocados kill or stop the growth of precancerous cells that lead to oral cancer. Avocado extract was found to inhibit prostate cancer.
4. Excellent as a First Baby Food
Dr. William Sears puts it as #1 on the top ten list of fruits for babies because avocado nutrition is well-suited for a baby’s growing development.
5. Stabilize Blood Sugar Levels
Avocado slows digestion which keeps blood sugar from spiking after a meal.
6. Avocados can Protect Unborn Babies
One avocado provides one third of your recommended daily intake of folate, which helps form a baby’s brain and nervous system. The USDA recommends avocados as one of the best sources for some of the nutrients needed when pregnant.
7. Improve Eyesight
The high amount of lutein and zeaxanthin in avocados can protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration and improve your vision. One ounce of avocado contains 81 micrograms of lutein.
8. Have Low Pesticide Levels
“Avocados were the cleanest: only 1 percent of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.” Says Environmental Working Group The thick skin of the avocado protects it from absorbing pesticides.
9. Help with Weight Loss
It was found that those who ate half of a fresh avocado with their lunch had a 40 percent less desire to eat for 3 hours after lunch, and a 28 percent less desire to eat 5 hours after as compared with those who ate lunch with no avocado.
10. Good for Sexual Health and Fertility
They are rich in Vitamin B6 and folic acid which regulate sexual hormone functions. Also, Vitamin B6 and potassium boost testosterone production in males. Being rich in heart healthy fats, the heart will keep beating strong; making sure that blood is flowing to the right places.
Perhaps those Spanish priests were on to something when they banned their parishioners from eating avocados. Avocados were a fertility fruit for the Aztecs and used as an aphrodisiac by the Mayans. Old folklore mentions the Aztecs would lock up virgin daughters during avocado harvest time to keep them safe from farmers who may be sexually-aroused from eating too many avocados.
Bonus: Great for Beauty Treatments
The glutamine amino acid in avocados helps cleanse your skin and offers it enough protection against harsh environmental factors. D-manno-heptulose found in avocados has been shown to boost collagen formation. Their specific amino acids and carotenoid anti-oxidants can help reduce age spots and heal scars and burns.
Check out these simple Avocado Beauty Tips & Recipes.
Avocado Trivia:
An avocado can weight from 8 ounces to 3 pounds depending upon the variety.
Almost 50 million pounds of avocados are consumed on Super Bowl Sunday in the U.S. Holy guacamole!
Avocado pits yield a milky fluid that turns red when exposed to air. The Spanish conquistadors used this ink in documents that are preserved to this day.
A postman, Rudolph Hass, patented the Hass avocado tree in 1935. The first Hass avocado tree is still producing.
Avocado became known as the ‘alligator pear’ because of its alligator type skin texture and pear shape.
Mexico produces the most avocados, California the second most.
Take a look at this avocado infographic, a colorful way to highlight everything the avocado has to offer!
Check out these tasty recipes:
Avocado Vegetable Dip
Quinoa Arugula with Avocado Salad
Copyright © Diana Herrington You are welcome to share this article with anyone who you think may benefit from this information as long as you give credit to Real Food for Life by including the link to the home page www.RealFoodforLife.com or the direct link to the post.Bernie Sanders is performing better in the national polls than Barack Obama did at this point in 2007.
A poll conducted between the 7th and 13th of August 2007 showed Hillary Clinton to be the clear favorite in the Democratic field. She was on 36 per cent. Her closest rival, Barack Obama had just 21 per cent. Other polls conducted around the same time showed similar figures
Nobody thought Barack Obama stood a chance against Hillary Clinton.
A poll released today, conducted between the 11th and 13th of August 2015 showed Hillary Clinton to be the favorite in the Democratic field. She is on 49 per cent, while her closest rival, Bernie Sanders is on 30 per cent.
Sanders is now polling 9 per cent higher than Barack Obama did at the same time in the 2008 election cycle.
In March 2007, a poll conducted by CNN had Obama on 22 per cent. In March of this year, a Fox News poll had Sanders on 3 per cent.
Comparatively, Sanders has gone from being a lesser known and less popular candidate than Barack Obama was, to being more popular than him comparatively.
Obama went on to be President of the United States.
Do not for one moment tell me that we can not win this, because when we stand together, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican Jeb Bush learned this week there is a downside to his efforts to prepare for a possible 2016 White House run while holding off for now on an official campaign launch.
Probable 2016 Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush speaks at a Horry County Republican Party breakfast at Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina March 18, 2015. REUTERS/Randall Hill
To avoid creating an impression that Bush was skirting campaign finance laws, his lawyer had to ask a Florida man to stop running ads touting the former Florida governor as a presidential candidate.
Attorney Charlie Spies managed to get the Bush supporter, Jay Schorr, to change the ad after he vowed to “vigorously pursue all possible legal remedies” against Schorr.
Bush, who announced on Facebook in December he was contemplating a White House bid, has crisscrossed the country to attend lavish fundraisers - including a $100,000 per plate dinner - where donors gathered to cheer him on as a potential White House contender. But at each event, he and his aides have emphasized he is not running for president - yet.
The claim allows Bush to work closely with funding organizations to rake in big donations |
in tomorrow with Subban and Holm questionable. Who knows, we may even see Mackenze Stewart make his Comets season debut.
Today’s Official Boxscore
The Three Stars in the building today were:
3rd Star: Steve Bernier. One goal, two assists.
2nd Star: Reid Boucher. Two goals, two assists.
1st Star: Tanner Fritz. Two goals, three assists.
CanucksArmy’s Three Stars
Let’s face it, with two goals, and two assists, Reid Boucher could have been one of the stars tonight, heck, I could have given him all three stars tonight and not felt bad about it. But this is an equal opportunity space for giving out praise to players when they earn it. So today I am spreading the accolades around a little.
3rd Star: Patrick Wiercioch. The tall, lanky defenseman finished the day with one goal, one assist and two shots on net. He also barely left the ice in the third period. With both of Holm and Subban injured, the whole team had to step up, especially the blueliners. Wiercioch sent the game to overtime with his goal, and that alone should earn him a star today.
2nd Star: Michael Chaput. Chaput put up two goals today and continued his hot start. That makes 15 points in 19 games for the man who has been wearing an “A” on his jersey since Darren Archibald went down with a broken face. With Goldobin recalled to Vancouver for who knows how long, the Comets will need other players to pick up the scoring slack. Chaput has shown this season that he can be one of those players as well as being a key cog on both special teams.
1st Star: Zack MacEwen. MacEwen picked up two more assists today and worked hard for both of them. The rookie now has nine points in 15 games this season. MacEwen has more layers to his game than I expected when he was signed. He is a big fella, and the physical game seems to come naturally for him. But that isn’t all there is to MacEwen, he is also becoming a staple on the first unit power-play. The big fella has hands and can get around the ice too. Jim Benning may have unearthed a guy who can be a solid contributor in a bottom six role in Vancouver after putting in some more time in Utica. I don’t expect to see MacEwen in Vancouver this season, but it’s possible that he could make a cameo as soon as next season.
Next Game
VS Bridgeport Sound Tigers
Saturday, December 2nd, 2017
4:00 pm PacificLOCUST GROVE, Okla. -- In the dog days of late summer, the best place to be is... near the water—you guessed it!
And some of the most beautiful water recreation in Oklahoma is on the Illinois River near Tahlequah, the site of the 2nd annual Medicine Stone Festival which runs September 11th through 13th.
Diamondhead Resort on the river is the place for this musical event, started by the two Oklahoma bands Jason Boland and The Stragglers and the Turnpike Troubadours.
In a recent interview with Turnpike Troubadours’ bassist, R.C. Edwards, he said, “Well, our band has always had ties to Tahlequah, and we have lots of musical friends here. Then it turned out Jason and his band had the same idea about a festival.”
Said Edwards: “We play in Texas and around the country at all of these festivals, and we wanted to do something like that for the people around Tahlequah.”
So the two Red Dirt bands got together and invited a bunch of the bands they like to play with, most of them from Oklahoma, and Medicine Stone was created.
In Oklahoma, Edwards said, “There are so many good bands and musicians, going all the way back to Woody Guthrie. It’s not that big of a place—so there aren’t a lot of bands but they are quality ones.”
Edwards added that maybe there are so many quality musicians in the state because “there are a lot of rural places here, places where you have to learn to entertain yourself because there’s not a whole lot going on, so it’s a good place to work on creativity. You can’t just sing to yourself.”
In addition to the founding member bands, festival goers will get to hear an impressive lineup that includes Cody Canada and The Departed, Shinyribs, The Great Divide, Reckless Kelly, Micky and The Motorcars and Jason Eady and The Dirty River Boys.
Boland describes the festival as a “family reunion” kind of gathering that celebrates Oklahoma and the region and the great musical talent that abounds here.
“That’s the good thing about having a festival that you put together,” said Edwards. “You can invite all your friends to Tahlequah to play with you. The lineup is just us and Jason’s favorite bands—people we like hanging out and playing with.”
While many of the bands at the festival could be classified as Red Dirt musicians, Edwards said of labels, “We just play music. I’m not out to tell the world what they should call the music. It’s just guys from Oklahoma who like playing music together. We’re not trying to define it or anything.”
In addition to the wealth of musical talent to enjoy, you can also take in some fly-fishing, float the river, swim, enjoy food and beverages at the resort’s Gravel Bar and just sit back and relax.
Appropriately enough, the name of the festival comes from an Osage word for the Illinois River that means Medicine Stone River.
“People go down to the river during the day and then the show is in the evening. I suggest you camp at this deal. That’s half the fun,” said Edwards.
Many festival-goers do camp out during the festival, and tickets and camping packages can be purchased at the festival website: http://www.medicinestoneok.com
Edwards said he camped out during the 2013 festival. His main advice about this year’s festival is, “Come to camp. Don’t drink and drive. Come to have a good time. It’s gonna be one.”For the employees of the Russian firm Kaspersky Lab, tracking down computer viruses, worms and Trojans and rendering them harmless is all in a day's work. But they recently discovered a particularly sophisticated cyber attack on several of the company's own networks. The infection had gone undetected for months.
Company officials believe the attack began when a Kaspersky employee in one of the company's offices in the Asia-Pacific region was sent a targeted, seemingly innocuous email with malware hidden in the attachment, which then became lodged in the firm's systems and expanded from there. The malware was apparently only discovered during internal security tests "this spring."
The attack on Kaspersky Lab shows "how quickly the arms race with cyber weapons is escalating," states a 45-page report on the incident by the company, which was made available to SPIEGEL in advance of its release. The exact reason for the attack is "not yet clear" to Kaspersky analysts, but the intruders were apparently interested mainly in subjects like future technologies, secure operating systems and the latest Kaspersky studies on so-called "advanced persistent threats," or APTs. The Kaspersky employees also classified the spy software used against the company as an APT.
Next-Generation Malware
Analysts at Kaspersky's Moscow headquarters had already been familiar with important features of the malware that was being used against them. They believe it is a modernized and redeveloped version of the Duqu cyber weapon, which made international headlines in 2011. The cyber weapons system that has now been discovered has a modular structure and seems to build on the earlier Duqu platform.
In fact, says Vitaly Kamluk, Kaspersky's principal security researcher and a key member of the team that analyzed the new virus, some of the software passages and methods are "very similar or almost identical" to Duqu. The company is now referring to the electronic intruder as "Duqu 2.0." "We have concluded that it is the same attacker," says Kamluk.
When asked who they believe could be behind the software, Kaspersky officials are typically vague -- which is the typical attitude shown by international IT security vendors when it comes to the question of attribution. The modular Duqu arsenal is "extremely complex and very, very expensive," says Kamluk. "Cyber criminals are not behind this. We are probably dealing with nation-state attackers." As is often the case in the difficult search for the true originators of cyber attacks, which technology can easily cover up, the targets themselves could provide the best clues about who may have perpetrated the attack.
The originators of Duqu had a "high interest in geopolitical affairs," says the Kaspersky analyst. Iran's nuclear program was also a target of this latest wave of attacks, as it was with the preceding Duqu virus.
"They surpass any other APT attackers -- no one has reached this level of competence before," says Kamluk. "In our view the attackers even surpass Equation Group. This brings the threat to a whole new level."
A US-Israeli Role?
As Kamluk explains, several of the new infections with Duqu 2.0 took place in 2014 and 2015 in connection with the "P5+1" talks -- the diplomatic negotiations underway since 2006 between Great Britain, the United States, China, France, Russia and Germany, aimed at reaching an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. Kaspersky says it apparently detected traces of Duqu 2.0 in three of the P5+1 meeting locations, which constantly changed.
Some of the secret meetings of delegations during the time in question took place in the Austrian capital Vienna and in Lausanne, Switzerland, usually in hotels. To "protect our customers and the ongoing investigations," Kaspersky is unwilling to reveal exactly which meeting sites the virus had infected. The political director of the Foreign Ministry represented Germany at the working groups, while Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended the more important meetings.
Without discussing technical background information or mentioning Duqu, the Wall Street Journal had already reported in March on spying at the P5+1 talks. Quoting anonymous senior sources in the US government, the paper assigned the blame to Israeli intelligence, but Israeli politicians sharply denied the accusation.
Kaspersky analysts identified another source of infection with Duqu 2.0 in connection with the celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The guests at the main commemorative event in late January included German President Joachim Gauck, French President François Hollande, Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko and other national leaders.
In 2011, Kaspersky analysts found a few oddities in the program code for the previous version of Duqu, which confirmed the suspicions. These suggested that the code's authors were from a country in the GMT + 2 time zone, and that they worked noticeably less on Fridays and not at all on Saturdays, which corresponds to the Israeli work week, in which the Sabbath begins on Friday.
Most striking, though, is that Duqu had major similarities to the computer worm Stuxnet, discovered in 2010. Various international IT experts were therefore sure that there had to be at least a close connection between the creators of the two cyber weapons. And Stuxnet, which manipulated control units at the Iranian uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and caused irreparable damage to a large number of centrifuges, was a joint US-Israeli project.
The Damage is Done
But according to Kaspersky, almost all of the timestamps in the new version have been manipulated so as to create a red herring. In addition, it contains an offensive reference to a known Chinese hacker, which the Russians also believe is a deliberate attempt to mislead. Still, says Kamluk, the attackers made small errors buried deep inside the individual modules. For example, the original timestamps still appear.
Kaspersky Lab has now issued an internal memo to employees about the incident and has also enlisted the support of Russian and British security agencies and notified Microsoft. As in the first Duqu wave, this time the attackers used new and previously unknown weaknesses in Windows computers known as "zero day exploits."
Identifying who exactly is behind the attack is almost irrelevant to Kaspersky, whose reputation is likely to suffer as a result of the development. "One of the most difficult things an IT security company can do is admit that there was a successful cyber attack on its own systems, reads the company's report on the incident. Nevertheless, management did not hesitate in publicizing the incident, says Kamluk, not least because Kaspersky had already identified other affected parties in Western states, Asia and the Middle East.
Translated from the German by Christopher SultanThat’s the logical question to ask after an avalanche of official denials of knowledge and responsibility from the IRS, Department of Justice, and the White House. “I don’t know” seems to be the new mantra of executives at every level once questioned about wrongdoing and abuse. The editors of the Wall Street Journal wonder not where the buck stops, but if it even exists anywhere in the federal government:
There’s a certain infantilization of the federal government here that should be especially alarming to taxpayers who have ever crossed paths with the IRS. The agency has the power to make citizens lives miserable, ruin their businesses and garnish their wages. Anyone facing an audit is unlikely to get away with the evasions now in display in the federal bureaucracy. If the scandal is showing anything, it is that the White House has a bizarre notion of accountability in the federal government. President Obama’s former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC recently that his guy was off the hook on the IRS scandal because “part of being President is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast.” In other words, the bigger the federal government grows, the less the President is responsible for it. Mr. Axelrod’s remarkable admission, and the liberal media defenses of Mr. Obama’s lack of responsibility, prove the tea party’s point that an ever larger government has become all but impossible to govern. They also show once again that liberals are good at promising the blessings of government largesse but they leave its messes for others to clean up.
In my column today for the Fiscal Times, I argue that this epidemic of sudden incompetence and ignorance completely undermines the argument for large, activist government. That’s true whether one believes that these executives are either telling the truth or lying about their knowledge and involvement:
So what are we to think about this competence epidemic of executive ignorance, impotence, and incompetence? The symptoms are either self-serving lies intended to avoid responsibility for wrongdoing, or genuine statements of impotence and ignorance. Either way, it demolishes the argument for bigger and more activist government. Start with the credulous assumption that everyone is telling the truth about knowing nothing about what happened on their “watch,” as Schulman said, from the top down. David Axelrod tried to use this defense a week ago, telling MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast.” That, of course, is precisely the argument conservatives make for scaling down the size of government. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been told the same about Cabinet-level positions (Attorney General Eric Holder) and sub-Cabinet positions (IRS commissioners within Treasury). If Schulman’s argument is that he can’t be expected to account for the performance of his 90,000-member organization, then the federal government at every level is too large for proper accountability and management. Of course, if all of these executives from Barack Obama on down are fibbing about their knowledge and actions, then one can argue that the federal government hasn’t grown too large to manage. That still, however, leaves the question of accountability open. If government can effectively deny responsibility for damage and abuses, and no one is held accountable – no one has even been disciplined at the IRS, for instance – while the rights of Americans are trampled and freedom of the press infringed, then the big-government model doesn’t work, either.
David Harsanyi is on the same page:
Though it’s imperative to get to the bottom of the Justice Department’s attacks on the First Amendment, the Benghazi situation and the IRS’ attack on free speech — for most people, the most tangible and comprehensible of all the recent scandals — it is also imperative to point out the conditions that make this kind of abuse possible. The raison d’etre of the Obama era, ultimately, has been to convince you that government is trustworthy. It isn’t. If, as some argue, a few pencil pushers have the capability to obstruct the right of thousands of Americans to assemble (without being noticed for a year), then the IRS is too vast. If, as others argue, higher-ups surely gave the orders to shut down conservative groups, that tells us the IRS is too easily corruptible — and too powerful. It is also impossible to compartmentalize government from politics. Democrats have treated limited-government types not as political opponents or mere ideological adversaries but with a deep moral contempt typically reserved for violent enemies of the state. Those who were targeted were — as left-wing politicians and pundits have tagged them — radicals, extremists, nihilists, racists and so on, people who congregate in groups funded by dirty money provided by puppet masters. Why wouldn’t the IRS want to investigate these people? Now, I’m under no misconceptions that America is about to go libertarian. But heightened skepticism toward power is good news. So for those who believe in limited government, this might be the time not only to attack Obama but to argue that abuse of power is the perpetual condition of an activist Washington, not a quirk of the times.
Either way, this vindicates Clint Eastwood yet again, no? People ridiculed Eastwood for portraying Obama as an empty chair at the Republican convention. Nine months later, White House has made the empty chair its primary defense over the last couple of weeks. Talk about fallback positions …The All Blacks remain the flagbearers for the global game and this analysis shows how effective they can be in attacking from the set-piece
They say you cannot score tries from set-piece at the highest level any more. They are wrong. Over the past few years, New Zealand has steadily taken over from Australia as the no.1 expert at attacking from scrums and lineouts, and one of their favoured methods was on show against Argentina in round three of The Rugby Championship (see Sky Sports’ highlights below)
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The try came from an All Blacks’ left-side scrum in the Pumas 22m zone, which is one of the most attractive start positions for a successful first phase attack. Why? Because the scrum-half (a key figure in the defensive pattern) begins the set-piece on the wrong side of the play, close to the side-line.
A shot from behind the posts as the scrum sets up shows the significance of the scrum-half’s positioning:
All the New Zealand backs, including the blind-side wing Julian Savea can line up on the open-side of the field. Here Savea sets up directly behind the scrum. On the defensive side however, the No 14 Matias Moroni is committed to defending the short-side if a move develops in that area.
Furthermore, the No 9 Martin Landajo is going to have difficulties circling all the way around the set-piece to become a real factor on the opposite side of the field. Unless Argentina get it exactly right, they will be potentially two men down when the ball goes out to the New Zealand right.
The ball is safely won, and next stage of the process is a game of chess between Savea and Landajo, with the Kiwi left wing using multiple movements to encourage the Puma half-back to stay on the short-side.
Savea starts behind the scrum (10:16), takes a small step to his right to drag Landajo over to the open-side (10:17), then fakes back to the short-side to pull the Argentine scrum-half across towards touch again (10:18 & 10:19). His double decoy has the poor halfback reacting like a puppet on a string, and in the end shot Savea has what he wants. He and Landajo are on opposite sides of the scrum as Kieran Read goes to pick the ball up at the base.
When the New Zealand No 9 Aaron Smith receives the ball from Read, the gap between Landajo and Savea has widened out to approximately 8 metres, with Savea already on Smith’s outside shoulder and Landajo still a couple of metres shy of the referee (Nigel Owens in orange):
Landajo’s absence from the defensive pattern means that New Zealand have successfully engineered a three-on-two in midfield. The Puma No 10 Nicolas Sanchez has to take Smith, while the No 12 Juan Martin Hernandez has to make a choice between two runners on very different angles – No 12 Ryan Crotty crashing down on an acute angle to his inside, and Savea flaring out towards the corner flag.
In the event Hernandez chooses to stay for Crotty, leaving Savea a clear path to the outside and the goal-line:
None of this is new, even though the New Zealand coaches and players have added refinements to the same basic pattern over the years. They were still running the same package back in 2013 in an end-of-year tour match against France.
At a left-side scrum on the France 22, the French No 9 Morgan Parra looks at first glance to be in pretty good shape, shifting across to the open-side of the defence at 2:05 as the ball reaches the base of the scrum:
However, Aaron Smith’s excellent left-handed pass brings first receiver Dan Carter on the advantage-line with Parra level with the referee and still well short of defending the Kiwi #10, as New Zealand once more prepare to cross over their No 12 (Ma’a Nonu) and the blind-side wing (No 11 Charles Piutau) outside him:
As in the Argentina example, the French No 10 (Remy Tales) takes the 1st receiver, leaving his inside centre (No 13 Florian Fritz) to make the decision whether to move out on to Piutau or stay inside on Nonu. Eventually Fritz shifts out on to Piutau, leaving Ma’a Nonu free to take the short ball and make the break inside him.
*
What does this all prove? Above all else, it demonstrates a continuity in coaching and rugby thinking that no other rugby country in the world can match. While different players have passed through the All Black jersey since late 2013, with Savea replacing Charles Piutau and Crotty now performing the role that belonged to Ma’a Nonu for so many years, the systems and patterns have in many cases either stayed roughly the same, or simply evolved to become more efficient (Savea’s cat-and-mouse with Landajo).
The core of the coaching group is still there too – head coach Steve Hansen, ‘the Professor’ Wayne Smith, Ian Foster and Mike Cron. This is the great strength of the New Zealand system. The ’head’ of the group remains stable and conscious of everything that went before it, even when legs that do the running and kicking, and the hands that do the passing, change.
None of the All Blacks’ closest traditional rivals can say the same. The route that led from Heyneke Meyer to Alistair Coetzee in South Africa, or Ewen McKenzie to Michael Cheika in Australia both involved more upheaval than evolution.
Until another country can muster the same continuity and cohesion of thinking, they will not be able to effectively pass on the crown to the next generation of coaches and players, and it will be only the All Blacks who remain what they truly are – rugby royalty.
Watch the Rugby Championship live on Sky Sports. Sign up now and receive three months half price. http://www.sky.com/shop/tv/sports?DCMP=bac-SS.com-3month_straplineLAS VEGAS – With a win over Scott Jorgensen on Saturday, Urijah Faber would be the top earner at The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale card in Las Vegas.
Faber (27-6 MMA, 3-2 UFC) is set to make $55,000 to show and another $55,000 if he wins, bringing his potential disclosed payday to $110,000. Jorgensen (14-6 MMA, 3-2 UFC) could make as much as $47,000 if he were to pick up the upset victory with $23,500 to show and $23,500 as a win bonus.
MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed the payouts with Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer.
The TUF 17 Finale takes place at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center. The main card airs on FX following prelims on FUEL TV and Facebook.
Other top potential salaries on the card include Miesha Tate (13-3 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who earns $28,000 to show and an additional $28,000 with a win over Cat Zingano (7-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who is contracted to to make $7,000/$7,000. Heavyweight Gabriel Gonzaga (14-6 MMA, 9-5 UFC) is set to make $24,000/$24,000, while opponent Travis Browne (13-1-1 MMA, 4-1-1 UFC) earns $20,000/$20,000.
Saturday’s card includes the finals of Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter.” All the “TUF 17” cast members on the show, including finalists Uriah Hall (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) and Kelvin Gastelum (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC), will make $8,000 to show and an additional $8,000 to win.
Full disclosed TUF 17 Finale paydays will be available next week.
As usual, the figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, which can oftentimes be a substantial portion of a fighter’s income. They also do not include any other “locker room” or special discretionary bonuses the UFC oftentimes pays. They also do not include portions of the pay-per-view revenue that some top-level fighters receive.
In other words, they’re simply base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event.
For more on The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Urijah Faber)Some information for this report comes from AP.
Ukraine's prime minister says Russian military aircraft have repeatedly crossed into Ukraine's airspace, in what he called Russian aggression designed to undermine global security.Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters Saturday that Russian forces had "violated" Ukrainian airspace seven times overnight."We do understand the reason Russian military did it. The only reason is to provoke Ukraine to strike missile and to accuse Ukraine of waging the war to Russia," he said.On Friday, U.S. military officials also said Russian aircraft had flown into Ukrainian airspace, a charge Russia denies.In a Saturday statement carried by the Itar Tass news agency, Russia's Defense Ministry said its "objective monitoring of the air situation" had not detected any air border violations.Prime Minister Yatsenyuk had made the accusation in Rome, after announcing he was cutting short a trip to Italy that included talks with Pope Francis.The pontiff told Yatsenyuk that he would "do everything possible" to promote peace in Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists continue to occupy government buildings in about a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine.According to VOA correspondent Brian Padden, who is on the ground in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, anti-American sentiment appears to be on the rise among pro-Russian separatists.An angry mob confronted him on Saturday as he tried to cover a rally in front of an occupied building. He says protesters accused him of supporting a "fascist" U.S. government."As we were walking away, the crowd just got more angry and started following us and one guy tried to grab my colleague's camera," he said. "I tried to stop him. Then he grabbed me and another guy came with a baton. But before anything could really deteriorate into a real scuffle, the police kind of came between all of us and pulled us out and we just kept walking."In another development, Russia vowed to help free a team of international military observers who are being detained by pro-Russian separatists who suspect the observers are "NATO spies."On Friday, the separatists seized a bus carrying more than a dozen people from the Vienna-based Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), near the town of Slovyansk.According to a senior State Department official, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday demanded full Russian support "without preconditions" in efforts to free the European monitors.Kerry delivered his demand during a telephone call to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who said Ukraine must stop its military operations in the country's southeastern region as part of efforts to end the crisis.In a statement, Moscow later said it is taking what it called "all measures to resolve the situation," but blamed Ukrainian authorities for failing to secure the safety of the OSCE team.In a Saturday statement, a White House official said U.S. President Barack Obama underscored the importance of solidarity in responding to Ukraine's crisis during talks with his European counterparts.Earlier, the Group of Seven major economies announced it had agreed to "move swiftly" on new sanctions against Russia because of its alleged actions in Ukraine.In a joint statement, the G-7 nations of Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. said they would take measures to intensify "targeted sanctions" against Moscow.A U.S. official said the sanctions could begin as early as Monday.On Saturday, about 150 U.S. troops arrived in Lithuania. They are part of a U.S. contingent of about 600 troops being deployed to the region.One of the reasons the Azaria case captivated Israel was because, since almost all young Israelis serve in the IDF, each Israeli parent could imagine his or her own son or daughter in the same situation in which Azaria found himself: in the West Bank, adrenaline rushing after surviving an attack, and making a bad decision that would have far-reaching consequences. It’s worth noting that the Azaria incident took place at the same time in which a new wave of terror was sweeping through Israel and the territories and had heightened the fears of many Israelis. “He’s everyone’s boy,” Azaria’s defenders cried.
No, no he is not, firmly replied the IDF chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot. “An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child.’ He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this.”
Eisenkot’s words, and the verdict itself, put the IDF’s senior officers in Tel Aviv at direct odds with the populist rightwing government in Jerusalem. Extreme rightwing protesters chanted that Eisenkot would join his assassinated predecessor and former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin if he kept going, and some of prime minister’s political allies made a point of showing up at Azaria’s trial and complaining about the “leftists” in the IDF leadership and the security services.
The stress on the IDF as an institution showed, and in my meetings with Israeli counterparts over the next several days, I made a point to mention how much I appreciated not only their strategic leadership but their moral leadership.
Many Americans are now expecting that same kind of moral leadership from their own men and women in uniform—especially since Trump has so many retired generals among his closest advisors, using the stars on their shoulders to generate support for his policies. And for the moment, the uniformed officer corps still carries with it the moral authority to tilt the public debate. My own dad is the kind of Trump supporter who thinks the president is being reasonable when he talks about getting tough with terrorists. But as soon as someone like Jim Mattis weighs in against torture, my dad’s views change accordingly because of the respect he has for America’s military leadership.
In time, though, I worry military leaders can lose some of that moral authority. And to a degree, Americans will all be responsible when they do: Over the past several decades, retired general officers have grown more political, most notably taking on more prominent roles as surrogates for political campaigns of both parties, and all of us partisans have been complicit in that.
Every four years, the Democratic and Republican parties compete to see who can amass the longest list of retired general officers supporting their presidential candidate. Everyone remembers retired Army lieutenant general Mike Flynn’s inflammatory rhetoric at the Republican National Convention, but retired Marine general John Allen gave a highly partisan speech of his own a week later at the Democratic National Convention.The following is a changelog for JavaScript 1.7. This version was included in Firefox 2 (October 2006).
JavaScript 1.7 is a language update introducing several new features, in particular generators, iterators, array comprehensions, let expressions, and destructuring assignment.
Using JavaScript 1.7
In order to use some of the new features of JavaScript 1.7, you need to specify that you wish to use JavaScript 1.7. In HTML or XUL code, use:
<script type="application/javascript;version=1.7"></script>
When using the JavaScript shell, you need to set the version you wish to use using the -version 170 switch on the command line or using the version() function:
version(170);
The features that require the use of the new keywords "yield" and "let" require you to specify version 1.7 because existing code might use those keywords as variable or function names. The features that do not introduce new keywords (destructuring assignment and array comprehensions) can be used without specifying the JavaScript version.
New features in JavaScript 1.7
The following features added with JavaScript 1.7 were not part of an ECMA-262 standard at the time. In more recent Firefox versions, the implementation is updated to work with semantics as specified in ECMAScript Edition 6. Please see the reference pages for differences.A San Fernando police officer fatally shot a man who he said attacked him with a tree branch in a parking lot on Thursday, April 25, 2013.
A San Fernando police officer shot and killed a homeless man who he said attacked him with a tree branch outside a McDonald’s restaurant in San Fernando, police said on Thursday.
The shooting occurred outside Cork 'n Jug liquors at 901 Truman St. about 5:40 a.m. The man, whose name was unavailable, was died at a hospital.
A police officer was sent to the area on a report of a dispute between the man and another person at a nearby McDonald's.
The man who called police told officers he had been assaulted and spit on by a homeless man, said Lt. Mike Rosson of the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau.
A San Fernando police officer was getting out of his squad car when the homeless man attacked him with a large tree branch, Rosson said.
Police said the officer first used a stun gun to no effect before pulling his pistol.
As is routine in fatal officer-involved shootings, investigations are being launched by several agencies, including the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the LA County Coroner and sheriff’s homicide detectives.In a series leading up to the 2015 NFL Draft, NFL Media historian Elliot Harrison will rank the five best rookie seasons from the Super Bowl era at each major position group. Previously, Elliot examined wide receivers and defensive linemen; today, he eyes quarterbacks who dazzled as newbies.
TOUGHEST OMISSIONS: Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts, 2012 (54.1 percent completion rate, 4,374 yards, 23 touchdown passes, 18 interceptions); and Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons, 2008 (61.1 percent completion rate, 3,440 yards, 16 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions). (Of course, I'm willing to hear all arguments on the matter @HarrisonNFL.)
5) Greg Cook, Cincinnati Bengals, 1969
Regular-season stats: 53.8 percent completion rate, 1,854 yards, 15 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions, 11 games played (11 starts).
It would be so easy to put Andrew Luck, Matt Ryan or Cam Newton here, but to do that would be to ignore the evolution of the game. In 1969, Cook displayed the natural ability of Luck with the somewhat effortless look of Ryan -- and frankly, as a rookie, Cook was better than both. Future Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh, who was an assistant in Cincinnati at the time, felt Cook had the potential to be better than any quarterback who had ever laced 'em up. Even some of Cook's 45-year-old numbers bear this out. Cook averaged a regal 9.4 yards per throw; that would have led the league in 2014. His passer rating (88.3) was higher than those of Luck (76.5), Ryan (87.7) or Joe Flacco (80.3) in their respective debut seasons. Sadly, Cook played most of his initial campaign with a torn rotator cuff. Grunting it out like that would ultimately cost the natural his career. After missing the 1970, '71 and '72 seasons, he had a brief return in 1973 -- but there would be no Roy Hobbs-esque finish to his tenure.
4) Robert Griffin III, Washington Redskins, 2012
Regular-season stats: 65.6 percent completion rate, 3,200 passing yards, 20 passing touchdowns, five interceptions, 815 rushing yards, seven rushing touchdowns, 15 games played (15 starts).
I will admit that, in light of his precipitous career decline since, along with the continued excellence of his contemporaries, I almost forgot about the brilliance of RGIII's rookie campaign. In addition to posting a passer rating of 102.4 and leading the league with a sterling 6.8 yards-per-carry mark, the former Baylor standout put Washington on his back and led his team to the playoffs, ultimately taking home the Offensive Rookie of the Year award. Team success is so important when gauging a quarterback; Cam Newton had a wonderful rookie year in 2011, especially statistically (and especially if you had him in fantasy), but that didn't always translate to wins. Luck, meanwhile, did take his squad to the promised land as a rookie, but he also turned the ball over far more often than Griffin (who had seven turnovers to Luck's 23). |
uvas. 306. It is snowing. - Nivas. 307. It is hailing. - Grelas. 308. It is windy. - Ventas. 309. It is thundering; we will soon have a storm. - Tondras; ni balde havos sturmo. 310. The roads are very bad, quite muddy. - La voyi esas tre mala, tote fangoza. 311. Don't use that road: it is impassable for vehicles. - Ne uzez ta voyo: ol esas ne trairebla da veturi. 312. Am I on the right road to go to... - Kad me esas sur la bona voyo por irar a... 313. Yes, but you should turn to the right, to the left at the first, at the second road crossing this. - Yes, ma vu turnos addextre, adsinistre ye l'unesma, ye la duesma voyo trairanta ica. 314. I am going to have breakfast. - Me iras dejunar. 315. to have dinner. - dinear. 316. to have supper. - supear. 317. Good appetite. - bon' apetito. 318. I greet you. - Me salutas vu (vi). *Vi, when speaking to several persons. 319. Do you need anything? - Kad vu bezonas ulo? 320. I need a pen. - Me bezonas plumo. *Add after bezonas what you require. See from 215 to 228, and from 230 to 276 for the name of such thing. See also from 106 to 118. 321. I require the doctor, the veterinary. - Me bezonas la mediko, la veterinaro, e.c. *For the names of professional men and others to place with bezonas, see from 177 to 198. 322. Tell me who here can sell me some straw, oats, and bran. - Dicez a me qua hike povos vendar a me palio, aveno e brano. 323. Have you anything to do? - Kad vu havas ulo facenda? 324. I have a card to write and my post to fetch. - Me havas un karto skribenda e mea posto-livrajo querenda. 325. Has anyone come to enquire for me? - Kad ulu venis demandar me? 326. Yes, a boy who left that for you. - Yes, puerulo qua lasis to por vu. 327. Has the colonel returned? - Kad la kolonelo retrovenis? 328. Yes, and he said he would receive you if you came. - Yes, ed il dicis aceptar vu, se vu venus. 329. Has the herbalist brought the herbs which were ordered from him? - Kad la herboristo adportis la herbori quin on komendis a lu? 330. He has brought I don't know how many parcels of them. Ha! you will be able to make some herb tea. - Il adportis de oli me ne plus savas quanta paketi. Ha! vu povos facar tizano.
"I am an adherent of the International Language, a convinced adherent... The definite institution of the International Language will be the greatest progress of civilization... Its success does not belong to the world of idle fancies... But the diffusion of this greatly needed medium will be brought about by the energetic efforts of men of your zeal. It will be realized notwithstanding the deplorable habit of thoughtlessness and its attendant unwholesome and discreditable interests." - (From General G. Leman, Idist, the Defender of Lie^ge during his captivity, to the Editor of the Idist paper Mondo.)
"Ido will not displace the living languages, but will render it unnecessary for savants to be at the same time polyglots. The simplicity of its morphology and syntax, as also the rigorous logic which controls its composition, destroys the objections which can be raised. We most heartily wish the success of this interesting enterprise." - (La Revue Augustinienne, 15th August, 1910.)
"The result is a language which everyone can learn quite easily. It has over other artificial languages the advantage of being founded on scientific, technical and rational principles, and, consequently, there is no fear of its being replaced some fine day by a better and essentially different language which would finally bring about victory." - (An appreciation of Ido by the Great Danish Linguist Phoneticist, Otto Jespersen - Volney Prize.)
"It is an unpardonable error to institute as Esperanto has done a distinction between the accusative and the nominative, a distinction which embarrasses all persons having a language of Roman origin and English, and which is useless in other languages..." - (A. Meillet, Professor of Linguistics at the College de France, Revue Critique, 11th March, 1911).
"The grammar of Ido better fulfils the requirements of an International Languages than that of Esperanto." - (The same, Revue Critique, 11th March, 1911).History of Jungle / Drum & Bass - Unknown author 1998
Breakbeat was an underground music which had originally come in from the USA in the late 1970s. Frankie Bones, at his early DJ-ing stage had created breakbeat irregular music, whereby he had overlapped two same records on turn-table decks at slightly different speeds and slightly delayed. This would create asynchronous beat, which would drive the crowd crazy. His track named "Bones Breaks" was a pioneer if not discovererof breakbeat which has remained strictly underground since. In the late 80s, house scene erupted in UK, especially in London. As house scene had progressed, the ecstasy rave culture had emerged from the youth, suppressing the football hooliganism. House from one side and breakbeat from the other side had created a combination, which later led to production of what was called jungle and what is now called drum & bass.
It was around 1990, when jungle started emerging from the general dance scene. Kickin' and Shut up & Dance record labels started fusing breakbeat, house, hip-hop, reggae, techno and most importantly dub to produce what they called Jungle. In fact the name originates from one of the experimental clubs in London, called "Jungle" where the first fusion experiments were played. The term "jungle", though, had remained in the underground until 1993.
DJ Hype creates breakbeat feeling by mixing house and hip hop at 45 rpm on Phantasy FM. Later co-produces some of the first jungle tracks under the name The Scientist, with the tracks like "Excorcist" and "The Bee". Telepathy - one of the first hardcore jungle clubs kick starts in November. Mickey Finn creates the track Bionic Man, which uses the same idea as the Excorcist. 1992 was the year when the hardcore music was peaking.
Jungle was often confused with hardcore, which was quite similar at the time, but was directed more towards 4/4 base beat, rather than looped asynchronous rhythm. Jungle had just made its way to a larger audience, while hardcore was a total novice to the dance scene. Both jungle and hardcore were played at the same raves and sometimes the artists didn't even know whether the track they made was jungle or hardcore. Both of the styles were co-existing under one roof and so there was no separate jungle scene.
Johnny Jungle (today known as Pascal) had released a hit called "Johnny" which was a beginning of the new era. Johnny L created "Hurt You So" on XL recordgins, which highlighted the breaks out of the hardcore formula. 4Hero, LTJ Bukem, Grooverider, DJ Hype and other future jungle producers started heading in the new breaks direction. The true jungle was ahead.
1993 was the end of confusion. Hardcore and the twin brother happy hardcore moved towards a more progressive rhythm, while Jungle remained on the breakbeat side. Though still reminiscent of 1992, artists such as Wax Doctor, headed the darker bassline sounds. At that point, jungle had finally gained its own identity - dedicated club venues such as Roast, Roller Express, Telepathy and Desire start operating on a weekly basis. Andy C comes up with the "Valley Of The Shadows" - the timeless jungle hit. Ed Rush throws the darkcore "Bloodclot Attack" while LTJ Bukem rolls out the ambient "Music". It was, not to understate, Moving Shadow's year. Artists such as Omni Trio stormed the jungle scene with the "Renegade Snares" and Foul Play remixed it even better, leaving it in our minds forever. As the producers moved away from hardcore towards breakbeat, their technical skills grew, which had relieved jungle of the ordinary mockery of the speeded up vocals.
1994 was the peak of Jungle. The clubs such as AWOL (A Way Of Life), Jungle Rush, Jungle Fever, Thunder And Joy, Roast and Thrust were spinning jungle on full. This year, jungle was most influenced by ragga basslines and rasta vocals. This was a revitalised year of jungle rave madness. Dream Team (Bizzy B. and DJ Pugwash) came up with the track "Yeah Man" which remained on the pirate stations for another 4 months. DJ Hype along with DJ Zinc and Pascal created an label called Ganja, which later became one of the major labels on the scene.
The number of jungle pirate stations had enormously increased. Kool FM pirate station was the main source of jungle refreshment to the crowd. Although raided more than 5 times, it still kept going strong. Jungle managed to conserve what rave had lost two years before. Krome and Mr. Time had made a classic, legendary track called "The Licence" with the sample of Papa-Levi & Saxon Sound - a track which made the crowd go hyper.
The jungle atmosphere remained fresh and happy. The phenomenon was purely London based and had no equivalent anywhere. Labels like Tearin Vinyl, Rugged Vinyl, Ganja Kru, Joker, Reinforced, Certificate 18, Photek Recordings, Prototype, Liftin Spirit and Ram were a refreshing source of jungle music. DJ Rap at her label, Proper Talent had created a symbolic ragga influenced track "Intelligent Woman" with vocals by Candy. DJ Hype rolls out "Tiger Style", while Dillinja brings a mellow track named "Sovereign Melody".
By that time, even Fantazia and Telstar had realised, that jungle was very popular, which led to production of the compilations called "Fantazia takes you into the Jungle" and "Jungle Mania" by Telstar. A mad junglistic rave named "Telepathy" provided the unforgettable experience for many. World Dance's main arena now becomes jungle oriented. At the end of the year, a daughter style started developing. Under the name "Drum & Bass" - representative of the Jungle's content, the style was directed at the new school technique to approach the same concept of music.
Among the creators, strongly stood the DJs such as LTJ Bukem, Fabio, Doc Scott, Grooverider, Photek and Dillinja, who had changed their direction towards a fresher sound and greater acoustic effects. At first, though, Drum & Bass remained along the same strands as jungle, which still makes people confuse both these days. It is easier to look as one being the continuation of the other, rather than worry which is which. As Drum & Bass slowly but steadily was heading its slightly different way, jungle kept rinsing out the underground culture.
1995 - Rolling tune is being invented. P-Funk's "P-Funk Era" is the tune to define the rolling future. Rude bwoy style overwhelmed the jungle scene: DJ Krust comes up with a deadly track 'Set Speed' along with 'Angels' - "When you can't see the angels no more, you're in trouble!"; Firefox rolls out 'Bonanza Kid' while Urban Shakedown brings "The Arsonist" with its ragga influenced vocals. Though rougher, the atmosphere remained similar to 1994.
1995 was also the year of commercialisation. Goldie had released 'Timeless', which sold 150,000 in UK, let alone worldwide sales. Goldie then concentrated on creating his own label called Metalheadz. Here the junglist DJ Dextrous reveals himself as J Majik. Goldie gathered the artists such as Doc Scott, Dillinja, Photek, Peshay and Lemon D, to push drum & bass. 4 Hero releases the remix of their legendary track "Mr Kirk's Nightmare". Towards the end of 1995, the jungle atmosphere started disappearing. It is generally thought, that the scene's decline was caused by the swing the leading artists made, in order to catch up with developing commercial mainstream. DJs generally wanted to take up their niches in the new commercial sphere, before it was too late. The concept of underground was somehow betrayed for money. Despite this changeover, jungle kept on going. At the beginning of 1996, clubs like AWOL and Roast were demised. Club DLB was one of the few left to keep feeding fuel into the jungle's fading fire.
1996 was also the year of drum 'n' bass style splitting. Grooverider's term "Hardstep" gains mainstream acceptance, which was a further re-fusion of jungle and hip-hop (what was earlier called the roller tune). The "step" was a rougher, stronger beat, and had more in common with 4/4 rhythm than breakbeat. Most people think that No U Turn should be credited for Techstep, which is in fact wrong. It was an album released on Emotif records (A daughter label of the now closed S.O.U.R) in 1995 entitled "Techsteppin'" that defined both the term and the music. The No-U-Turn posses fiddled with the "Terrorist" bassline (Ray Keith's 94 classic) to make it sound more acidic and analogue - the element that is most present in Drum & Bass today, and placed it over a tech-step 4/4 pumping technoid beat.
"Intelligent drum & bass" classified tracks, which had ambient/jazz licks on top. "Dark" or "Darkstep" drum & bass was pushed by Grooverider, where the name speaks for itself. "Experimental" drum & bass had never really caught up from the underground, and remained a sphere where drum & bass couldn't really be defined by any of the terms above, jungle was pushed to the back by drum & bass. Logical Progression takes it by storm nationwide, yet Good Looking is nearly at a point of bankrupcy. Adam F comes up with the legendary track "Circles", "Valley of the Shadows" known to most people as "31 seconds" by Origin Unknown gets re-released on Ram and becomes one of the years jungle anthems. The 96/97 New Year parties were somewhat reminiscent of 94 and 95 new years' eves, but have nearly lost the jungle atmosphere.
1997 - Drum & bass DJs are booked for house oriented clubs; Ministry of Sound has drum & bass sessions. What's going on? Roni Size forms a Reprazent campus, where DJ Die, DJ Suv, Krust and Roni Size come together. Roni size releases a track entitled "Share The Fall", immediately followed by Grooverider's dark remix.
Different styles of drum & bass are heading in their own directions. Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" becomes an anthem immediately after its release. There are many newcomers to the scene such as Boymerang. LTJ Bukem has teamed up with Blame to present Logical Progression 2. Techstep seems to be the ultimate style of the year, with Jonny L resurfacing from the past, and bringing the hardcore "Piper". DJ Krust's "Soul In Motion" is released after being 15 months on dubplate.
The jungle breaks (amens) as we know them had totally disappeared from most tunes, making it quite hard to find a tune odd one out. World Dance put on their "last" (as they said) rave at Lydd Airport. "Here is your last chance before another chapter in 'Rave History' comes to an end!" say their adverts posted around London. 5 Telepathy Raves and Last Innovation Ever is held at the Camden Palace on August 30th. Goldie's album, originally planned for the summer gets delayed. Goldie walks out on Rob Playford.
But in 1997 there were labels, that tried to overcome the "fashion" - Juice, Splash, Back 2 Basics and Second movement kept releasing the tracks that were hard and underground - MTS' "Hard Disk", New Concepts 14.98 and many other hard amen tracks including Dom & Rolands excellent work which was surprisingly overlooked.
1998 -End of style-splitting. The scene is back together, finally. Nothing is techstep, hardstep, intelligent etc. etc. it's all drum & bass. And, together with that, the amens are coming back: labels like True Playaz, Frontline, Juice, Splash, Timeless, Dread start putting out break tunes - Slow Down, the Real Vibes album and the never forgotten top tune Frozen Remix by Dom & Roland. The Labyrinth was nearly shut but then moved to the Pleasure Rooms in Tottenham, meaning it would hit it's 10th birthday and still provide the best line ups. DJ Ron makes the finest comeback with the Future Dubwise E.P.While the love fest for Rutgers Football was going on during post game and highlight shows on BTN and FS1, there were a few other Rutgers teams in action, and some of it was really good stuff.
Field Hockey 4-0 (0-0 B1G)
Freshmen. Gotta love'em.
A scoreless first half at Penn (0-1) on Friday set up the opportunity for Rutgers' Daphne Groothuis to score the lone goal of the game with 12 minutes remaining for the 1-0 victory. The freshman made a move to beat two defenders. On the other end, another freshman kept the score sheet clean in goal. Gianna Glatz made three saves for the win.
Head coach Meredith Civico was very pleased with the team win. "The team settled into the game and really took control during the second half. I know we are taking quite a bit from this win as we move forward into Sunday's match."
Which brings us to that Sunda game with Old Dominion. Grothuis again was the leader, putting two goals into the cage as the Knights topped the Monarchs (1-3) by a 5-1 count. Four second half goals erased the 1-1 half time score. Sophomore Nikki Santore had a goal and an assist. Megan Cunningham and Linde van Schaik each had one tally apiece. Gianna Glatz had five saves to earn the win in goal.
VICTORY! #RUFH beats No. 23 Old Dominion 5-1! Daphne Groothuis w/ 2 goals, 2 assists. Van Schaik, Cunningham, Cuneo scored. RU is 4-0! pic.twitter.com/bRNjR2gXsW — Rutgers Field Hockey (@RUFieldHockey) September 3, 2017
"Today was a great win," head coach Civico said. "The team was smart, they stuck together and they executed the game plan. In the second half, they made some adjustments that we spoke about. Daphne Groothuis had an excellent game. She's really stepping up and being a contributor for us. I thought Nikki Santore had her best game of the season up in the front. The backs, the midfielders, and Gianna Glatz in goal were just so disciplined, tight, and did a fantastic job limiting ODU's opportunities. We can take momentum and confidence from this, but we're still taking it one game at a time and focusing on what we need to do to get better, game-to-game."
RU travels to Princeton on Friday for a 4:00 PM contest against the 0-2 Tigers.
Cross Country
A 1-2 finish for the men and women, respectively, at the Lehigh Invitational.
The Rutgers men had five Top 10 finishes (2-5-7-8-9) to edge the host Mountain Hawks by a single point. The Scarlet had 31 points and an average time of 18:51 to Lehigh's 32 points and their 1-3-6-10-12 finish and an average time of 18:52.
Rutgers sophomore Cole Pschunder was first across for the Scarlet Knights in 18:38.20, and second overall by merely two-tenths of a second.
“It was a good start for us,” said head coach Mike Mulqueen. “We have only had two hard workouts in the preseason, so having our time spread out over 29 seconds was very good. The guys should be encouraged about how we ran tonight.”
The women took second at the same meet. There were three Scarlet Knights finishing among the top 10. Freshman Olympia Martin made her RU debut and was RU's top finisher at 22:16.48.
West Virginia easily took the title, outpacing Rutgers by 32 points (RU scored 53 with third place Lehigh having 62).
Two Scarlet sophomores were in the top ten: Nadia Saponara (22:16.68) took eighth and Emma Bergman (22:23.61) was ninth, both registering new personal bests.
"We were pleased with the way they raced," said head coach James Robinson. "The first competition is a gauge to see where the fitness level is to begin the season. We'll come back to this course two more times, so this is an introduction."
Volleyball 3-3 (0-0 B1G)
It was not a good weekend for the Knights. Heading north to the Seton Hall Classic, Rutgers dropped both matches. Buffalo topped RU in the first, 3-2, while the hosts were less than gracious in dropping the Knights, 3-1 in the second match.
Against the Bulls, Rutgers won the first (25-10) and fourth (25-22) sets to set up the deciding fifth. Buffalo had a 4-1 start and a 4-0 run to take the final set, 15-9.
Against the Pirates, Rutgers got off to a strong start, winning the first set, 25-19. But the Pirates reeled off wins in the next three (25-18, 29-27, 25-18) to take the match and the team title.
Sahbria McLetchie had her most productive day as a Knight with a season-high mark of 17 kills, to go with 10 digs for her first double-double of the season against Buffalo. She one-upped herself in the nightcap with 19 kills.
Freshman Kamila Cieslik was named to the All-Tournament Team, her second such honor in as many tournaments to start her collegiate career. Cieslik totaled 33 kills throughout the two matches on a.417 hitting percentage, with four aces, 14 digs and eight blocks.
Rutgers travels west next weekend to the Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroo Klassic. They will face Northern Iowa, South Dakota and the host Kangaroos.His conviction, along with one other senior Croat commander, has sparked protests in Croatia as war veterans announced demonstrations against the United Nations verdict.
Judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague found Gen Gotovina “guilty as a member of a joint criminal enterprise” and on nine individual charges of war crimes, including murder, inhuman acts and forced deportations.
”With respect to sentencing, the Chamber considered as aggravating circumstances the gravity of the offences, particularly the large number of crimes in a wide geographical area, the vulnerability of the victims, and the abuse of your position of authority,” said Alphons Orie, the Dutch UN judge.
”For having committed these crimes, this Chamber sentences you, Mr Gotovina, to a single sentence of 24 years of imprisonment.”
The 55-year-old former French legionnaire was sentenced alongside Mladen Markac, another Croat general, sentenced to 18 years on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.
A third general Ivan Cermak, 61, was acquitted.
Gen. Gotovina was convicted of having sought the “permanent removal of the ethnic Serb population from the Krajina region” during the war for Croatia's independence in 1995.
A lightning military operation commanded by Gen. Gotovina led to the recapture of Krajina, destroying one of the last pockets of Serb resistance in an area where their community had roots going back centuries.
Along with Markac, Gotovina was sentenced for aiding and abetting the murders of Krajina Serb civilians and prisoners of war by “shooting, burning and/or stabbing” them.
UN prosecutors said that 324 Serbs were killed and “close to 90,000 Serbs were forcibly displaced with the clear intention that they never return”.
But the conviction is deeply unpopular in Croatia where Gen Gotovina is regarded as a national liberator and war hero who became a popular folk hero after successfully dodging an international manhunt for four years before his capture in 2005.
”Let's gather and show that we are unique and united in support of our generals in The Hague,” said a statement calling a mass protest of Croatian veterans today.
Veterans have vowed take to the streets in Zagreb on Saturday and organised for the verdict to be broadcast live on a big screen in the centre of the capital.
Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor has pleaded for calm, saying that “protests cannot change anything”.
The front page of Croatia's popular Vecernji List newspaper today carried a photograph Gotovina with a single-word headline, “Hero”.Registration runs from October 22, 2012 12:00 AM to November 3, 2012 10:00 AM
Site Info & Directions:
This event will be at the Kempton Community Recreation Center in Kempton, PA, approximately 15 miles north of Kutztown. The event will be held in a mowed grass field.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.628822,-75.84977&sll=40.629278,-75.851208&sspn=0.005439,0.008004&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=0&z=17
Fees
Online Preregistration (open until 10PM on the evening before the event)
SCCA Member Entry Fee: $50
Non-SCCA Member Entry Fee**: $60 ($50 + $10 Weekend SCCA Membership)
On-site Day-of Registration*:
SCCA Member Entry Fee: $50 (exact change only)
Non-SCCA Member Entry Fee**: $60 ($50 + $10 Weekend SCCA Membership) (exact change only)
*If at all possible please pre-register online as it saves time and aggravation on the morning of the event and gives everyone more seat time. Earlier registrations also get preference in the grid order.
**Weekend memberships can be used to get discounts on regular SCCA memberships. Additional details will be provided at the event or contact rallycross@phillyscca.com
Event Schedule:
Schedule:
7:30: Paddocks open
8-9:00am: Registration and tech inspection
9:15: Driver's Meeting
9:45: Parade Lap
10:00: First car off!
12:30pm: lunch
1:30: Resume runs
~4:00: Event finish and Cleanup
~4:30: Results & Awards
We plan on at least 6 runs and will try to set a 1 minute course.
The event will be scored in rally format with all run times and cone penalties counting for the final score. This will be a run/work event. Every competitor must work the event, or provide someone representing the driver to do a work assignment. Loaner helmets will be available at the event.
Please Note: In the event of rain, this event may be cancelled or rescheduled. Please watch this page or the Philly Region forums for weather announcements.
Car Classification, Rules & General Info:
Cars will be classified by the SCCA rules. We suggest you read the full SCCA RallyCross Rules to determine your car's eligibility. Most production cars are eligible to run. SUVs, stock pickups and other high-center-of-gravity vehicles are not normally eligible. Significantly lowered vehicles are not recommended. Also see the supplemental rules for the event for additional information.
Everyone must sign the waiver to enter the track. Minors under 18 must be accompanied by a legal guardian and have a properly signed minor waiver
More Info can be found on http://www.phillyscca.com/courserally/index.htmlAlan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor emeritus known as a zealous civil liberties advocate, is suing TD Garden nearly three years after a slip and fall in an arena bathroom during a Celtics game that he blamed on a depleted supply of paper towels near the sinks.
“The bathroom at this time — and plaintiff believes for at least 60 minutes before his entry into the restroom — had no paper towels to allow male patrons to dry their hands post washing of them,” according to a complaint filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday. “This dangerous condition allowed water from the recently washed hands of each of the myriad bathroom users to drip or be ‘shaken’ onto the floor, negligently creating a hazardous situation for all users.”
A spokeswoman for the Garden declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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In a brief phone interview Tuesday, Dershowitz, a Celtics season-ticket holder since 1965, said he did not want to sue the Garden. But with no agreement in place and a three-year statute of limitations looming, he felt he had no choice. Dershowitz said that he was unsure how negotiations with the Garden had gone before the filing, as he entrusted the case to attorney Alex MacDonald, one of his former students.
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MacDonald could not be reached for comment.
Dershowitz, 76, claims in court documents that he “violently slipped, causing him to fall upward and then hard upon the tile floor and severely twisting his right knee and leg, landing on his back.”
Even with an insurance payout, his share of the ensuing medical bills totaled $5,984.22, according to the complaint, including $1,150 for an ambulance ride from the Garden to Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also seeking an unspecified amount as compensation for “economic and intangible damages.”
Dershowitz did not call for an ambulance right away, however. Though he “could not walk unaided due to the pain and injury to his knee,” Dershowitz “painfully and carefully returned to his seat, using the handrails for assistance,” to catch the fourth quarter of a playoff game between the Celtics and the Miami Heat.
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“I usually don’t go to the bathroom during the fourth quarter,” he noted in his interview with the Globe, “but I’m getting a little older, and the bladder is a little more active these days.”
Dershowitz — a noted sports fan with a pastrami sandwich, “The Dersh,” named in his honor at the Bleacher Bar outside of Fenway Park — saw an exciting finish. The Celtics fended off a late charge by the Heat to win Game 3 of the 2012 Eastern Conference finals, 101-91. Kevin Garnett, who also suffered a memorably hard fall in the game, led the way, with 24 points and 11 rebounds.
Dershowitz is a prominent legal commentator sought by news outlets for his analysis of civil liberties cases, such as the one brought last month by the Maryland state attorney against six Baltimore police officers implicated in the death of Freddie Gray.
In one of his early high-profile cases, in 1984, Dershowitz successfully appealed the conviction of the British socialite Claus von Bulow for the attempted murder of his wife. Dershowitz’s book about the case became the 1990 movie “Reversal of Fortune,” starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons.
Dershowitz also represented boxer Mike Tyson in his 1993 appeal of a rape conviction, and was part of O.J. Simpson’s defense team during the former football star’s 1995 murder trial, which ended with an acquittal. Dershowitz released a book about the Simpson case in 1996, one of 30 he has authored on various subjects.
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Several of his writings address longstanding tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, and he has been honored by the Anti-Defamation League for civil rights advocacy.
A slip-and-fall lawsuit may seem small, compared with Dershowitz’s other causes, but he says the effects of his bathroom wipeout linger to this day.
According to the complaint, he remains in physical therapy long after being diagnosed with a sprained medial collateral ligament. He no longer requires a knee brace or a crutch to get around, as he did for “many months” following the spill, but continues to experience pain that hampers his mobility and keeps him awake at night.
He may need surgery in the future, the complaint states.
“This is small — for everybody but me,” Dershowitz said. “When you hurt your knee, you feel it every day.”
Callum Borchers can be reached at callum.borchers@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @callumborchersBack to previous page
Geert Wilders of the Netherlands reveals a resurgent far right in Europe
By Anthony Faiola,
AMSTERDAM — Europe’s most controversial politician lives in a government safe house fitted with a panic room and guarded round the clock. A self-avowed foe of Islam who compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, he travels by bulletproof car and rarely talks with journalists — choosing instead to funnel messages directly to supporters via Twitter and a personal blog.
But when Geert Wilders — dubbed “Mozart” for his bleached-blond bouffant hair — brought down the Dutch government last week in an extraordinary show of force by Europe’s resurgent far right, it wasn’t over his high-
profile rhetorical war on Islam. Instead, the clash was over his emphasis on another belief that he and his Freedom Party now see as almost equally dangerous: an integrated Europe.
The rise of Wilders in the Netherlands is a cautionary tale for a continent in the midst of a debt crisis and where painful recessions, soaring unemployment and rising apathy among youths are fueling the strongest swell of support in decades for anti-
immigrant nationalists.
For more than a generation, European political elites have sought to fuse the region by adopting the euro and a series of treaties that virtually erased national borders across a vast swath of the continent. But in the recent surge of the nationalist far right, and to a lesser extent the far left, European leaders are confronting not only a backlash to a united Europe but also a troubling new hurdle in their efforts to resolve the 21 / 2 -year-old debt crisis.
From France to Austria and Greece to Finland, the popularity of nationalists is growing as politicians such as Wilders tap into voter rage over both the crisis and the proposed cure being pushed by mighty Germany: severe rounds of government cutbacks and difficult economic overhauls to restore investor confidence in Europe’s governments.
That austerity crusade is in danger of derailing, with even moderate leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, now saying that deep cuts are driving Europe’s economies into the ground. Other critics, meanwhile, argue that the social pain from austerity is playing into the hands of politicians on the far right and left, who are portraying the cuts as part of a pattern that has seen European integration eat away at living standards across traditionally affluent Western Europe.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel has softened her rhetoric in recent days, playing up the need for policies that favor growth, though she continues to view fiscal discipline as a necessary tonic for Europe’s troubles. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, also a fiscal hawk, called last week for a “growth compact,” and European leaders appear likely to work out modest policy changes in late June.
In the turmoil of the debt crisis, ideas long held by European radicals are going mainstream as centrist politicians seek to find their way in a sea of discontent. In France, for instance, Marine Le Pen of the National Front stunned observers by winning almost one out of every five votes in the first round of presidential elections a week ago on a platform that would have seen Paris withdraw from the euro zone and buck the German-led austerity drive. Now on the ropes against his Socialist opponent, President Nicolas Sarkozy is currying favor with the far right ahead of the decisive second round of voting, vowing to pull France out of the region’s open-borders treaty if negotiations underway to stem the tide of transplants from poorer quarters of Europe do not succeed in the months ahead.
In crisis-devastated Greece, opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections Sunday show that the once-obscure Golden Dawn party — which wants to plant land mines on the country’s borders to protect against illegal immigrants — is on a surprise track to win seats. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is running strong in opinion polls, and Finland’s nationalist True Finns party took a record 19 percent of the vote last year.
“It is now only a matter of time before one of these parties gets into power and tries to pull the rug out from under the euro,” said Maurice de Hond, a leading Dutch political pollster. “If it doesn’t happen in the Netherlands, it will happen somewhere else in Europe. I am sure of it.”
Anti-Islam rhetoric
Here in the Netherlands, Wilders, 48, rose from political obscurity during the past decade to become one of the most influential far-right politicians in Europe.
Wilders — who spent time in his youth on an Israeli kibbutz — is pro-Israel and staunchly anti-
Islam. Describing Islam as a religion of violence and hate that wants to “enslave” the West, he has called for the closure of Muslim schools, made a high-profile anti-Muslim film and wants forced registration of all Dutch citizens holding two passports.
In 2010, Wilders was put on trial on charges of inciting hate, though observers say the perceived liberal bias of judges and his eventual acquittal only elevated his popularity. It |
guardroom with hand-cuff on his hands from 8 to 11 October. Surinder alleges that he was severely tortured both mentally and physically while he was in the confinement. CRPF constables at the behest of superiors told Surinder by pointing a gun to his head that ‘this is your last moment and you’re going to die now’, an act that they allegedly repeated several times.
The Commanding Officer of F-company, Mr. Anwar Hussain, sent Surinder to the HQ for treatment on October 13 because his health had deteriorated by then. But on the same day the Radio Grid Supervisor, Mr. K. P. Singh, ordered to shift Surinder to D-company at Karimganj. Surinder informed the supervisor about his poor health but no one listened to him. It is reported that Surinder was forced to serve his duty at D-company Karimganj despite his poor health condition.
Surinder alleges that on October 21, seven persons, namely Mr. Rajender Singh, Mr. Rakesh Kumar, Mr. Brojesh Kumar, Mr. Sukhbinder Singh, Mr. Narendra Singh, Mr. Upendra Singh and Mr. Prem Chand Kahar came to him and started assualting him with sticks and chains without any reason. Surider further alleges that on October 23, the commanding officer of D-company, Mr. TN Tripati, ordered him to go for a CRPF operation without weapons at Ratabari area, which was reportedly a disturbed area. When Surinder urged the commanding officer to give him weapons for, it was denied.
It is reported however that the official records are manipulated to show in the duty register that Surindar was engaged at the signal centre under the command of Mr. Manoj Singh. The duty register shows that Surinder was on duty at the signal centre from 7am to 1pm on October 23 and again from 7pm the same day till 7am the next day morning.
Surinder alleged that the commanding officer sent him for the operation only to harass him by putting his life at risk despite his poor health. Surinder performed his duties along with the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Karimganj district in a search operation for nearly 24 hours at Ratabari area without any food and water. While returning from the operation one of Surinder’s colleagues felt very sick and therefore Surinder carried the Light Machine Gun (LMG) of his colleague.
Surinder also alleges that on October 27 once again some persons assaulted him without any reason. They assaulted Surinder so bad that he fell down on the ground. They assaulted Surinder, on his face, chest, stomach and other sensitive parts of the body including his private parts. Surinder further alleges that they forced a broken stick into his anus. Surinder then somehow managed to escape from the clutchs of his tormentors and filed a complaint against the perpetrators in the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) at Silchar. The CRPF on the other hand filed a missing person report alleging that Surinder has gone missing at the Silchar Sadar police station. For the injuries Surinder suffered on this occasion, he received treatment at the Silchar Medical College Hospital.
A complaint was sent to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on November 22 by the Barak Human Rights Protection Committee (BHRPC), Assam regarding the case. The NHRC registered a case and issued an order on December 7 transmitting the complaint to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, for taking action. The NHRC also asked the Union Home Ministry on December 15 to submit an action taken report within four weeks.
In the meanwhile, Surinder has been arrested by the police at Guwahati and sent back to the HQ of his battalion at Kashipur, Silchar. Later, Surinder was released from the HQ and granted him leave. It is reported that a departmental enquiry is being conducted by the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of CRPF. But at this juncture an independent inquiry in the case is required rather than a mere departmental inquiry.
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write letters to the authorities listed below requesting them to intervene in the case. The case must be investigated and if the allegations made by the victim are found to be true the perpetrators must be punished.
The AHRC is also writing a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment seeking an intervention in the case.
To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTERAcquisition Provides Brokerages with a Unique End-to-End Software Solution
CAMBRIDGE, Ontario, Oct. 16, 2017 /CNW/ -- Lone Wolf Technologies, the North American leader in residential real estate software, today announced the acquisition of Instanet Solutions, a leading provider of transaction management, electronic forms, and eSignature solutions for the real estate industry.
With this acquisition, Lone Wolf supplements its suite of residential real estate software solutions that are proven to help brokerages improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs and boost revenue. Bringing together Instanet and Lone Wolf paves the way for the industry's first fully integrated end-to-end solution with transaction management, electronic forms, eSignatures, MLS listing upload, back office accounting, and CRM.
"Instanet is an industry leader in transaction management solutions for the residential real estate market. The company has over 500,000 licensed users, as well as a tight integration with some of the largest MLSs in North America," said Patrick Arkeveld, CEO of Lone Wolf Technologies. "The acquisition strengthens our stance in this market by providing our clients with a unique end-to-end solution to drive all of their operations. A fully integrated transaction management-to-back office accounting solution is exactly what our clients are looking for, as it will radically improve the day-to-day experience of running and working in a real estate brokerage."
Instanet is the provider of TransactionDesk®, a transaction management solution comprised of several cloud-based products for document and file management, electronic forms, eSignatures, and file review and compliance. In the last year alone, real estate professionals completed 10 million signings through Instanet, while also submitting over 22 million documents and creating 31 million forms.
Arkeveld continued, "Not only will this investment benefit brokerages, it will improve the experience for their agents and increase the value of TransactionDesk as a member benefit for those MLSs and associations that are providing Instanet products to their members today."
Lone Wolf will be investing millions of dollars into the combined Lone Wolf and Instanet platforms to enhance the product suite and further integrate the solutions, providing brokerages with a single system to manage their businesses effectively.
"We are thrilled to join an amazing technology provider who, like us, has a long history of providing best-in-class solutions to the real estate industry," said Martin Scrocchi, Founder, President and CEO of Instanet Solutions. "This is fantastic news for our customers and the real estate industry at large. Like Instanet, Lone Wolf offers comprehensive, time-saving tools that enable real estate brokerages to take charge of their operations. Together, we can make our client's experience even better through the industry's first transaction management-to-back office accounting solution."
About Lone Wolf Technologies
Lone Wolf Technologies, a Vista company, is the North American leader in residential real estate software, with products in over 10,000 offices across Canada and the U.S. The company offers an ecosystem of technology products, including software for back office, transaction management, front office, and web, as well as professional services and 3rd party integrations. Each element of this ecosystem enables brokerages and agents to operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and increase opportunities for profitability. Lone Wolf's head office is located in Cambridge, ON, with additional offices in Dallas, TX, Langley, BC, and Las Vegas, NV. For more information, please visit lwolf.com.
About Instanet Solutions
Instanet Solutions is a leading provider of real estate technology with over 500,000 licensed, paid user accounts of their various real estate focused products – Authentisign®, TransactionDesk®, InstanetForms®, DocBox®, and InstanetFax®. Instanet Solutions began delivering residential real estate technology in 1991. Further information about Instanet Solutions and its products is available at http://www.instanetsolutions.com.
For further information, please contact:
Warren Dow, Director, Industry Relations
Lone Wolf Technologies
wdow@lwolf.com T:866.279.9653
www.lwolf.com
SOURCE Lone Wolf Technologies
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http://www.lwolf.comSo in Season 3, I properly introduce the Death Roll system into the core game and the system is pretty simple. If you are reduced to 0 Stamina you Death Roll. If you roll a 1 here you die, however anything else causes you to just be Defeated. Defeated Players can get back up with full Stamina at the start of the next round if they choose too, or they can give up, run away, or whatever else they would like to do at this point.
This means that, in general, players can always beat every encounter as long as they roll well. That may seem and sound like an unbalanced game system, but in reality it allows a Game Master to build up tension throughout their games without ever truly putting the Players into harm's way. If I told you tomorrow you were going in for surgery and that you had a 5% chance to die, you would be pretty worried even though really you most likely will be fine. That's the general idea of the Death Roll system. Odds are your Character will die sooner or later and just like life a lot of luck is involved. Players will always fear when they have to Death Roll, but in general Players will never die in campaigns. Fundamentally that is what you try to do with health based systems as Gamemasters anyway. You just want your Players to feel the danger and stress of Death, but not suffer from it all that much.
All that this system really changes is making it so Death is always a threat, but not something you worry about. You can't plan around your Death, it's just going to happen when a couple rolls don't go your way. You could die in the middle of a Dragon Fight after the 4th or 5th time he knocks you down, or you could die in your very first encounter because of a few bad rolls. In most games, Health is a resource and the lower you get, the more you have to protect it as it hitting zero means death. In URealms now, Health (or Stamina rather) is simply a chance at death if it hits zero and so how much you need to protect it devalues a lot. This is a big deal because it means you have the fear of death, but it doesn't always have to change the way you play. If everyone in your party is about to reach 0 Stamina, you have a way to battle THROUGH that pain with your own willpower as a player. If you are willing to take a chance and roll a die, you can keep fighting my dragon.
So what does this have to do with Deadly Spells? Well URealms has been known even from S1 for it's love of casting "random spells" and in S3 with all the different ways to use random Spells, I knew I also needed to start making some very dangerous spells to help with the balance. In S2 I balanced the Random Spell decks using the fact that there were so many worthless low damage Companion Spells to draw, but that's not fun nor exciting. S3 also makes Companions more powerful and so drawing a Companion Spell is no longer the negative it once was and so because we need some more "oops" Spells. That of course brings us to the set of Deadly Spells above us that when you cast via randomly... could be bad news for you...
1) Brown Spice
Our first deadly spell is called Brown Spice, a Sea Chef Spell. Now Sea Chefs have a special ability that allows them to cast spells through their allies (via magical food they would have eaten) and Brown Spice is a Roleplay Spell that one would use if they wanted to Poison a team member. However when casted as a non Sea Chef, you of course just end up making yourself sick... Stunning you for the rest of the round. And pooping your pants. There are in fact 2 different "Poop your Pants" Spells in S3 and I'm not really sure why.
2) Treasure Sap
The next deadly spell on our list is Treasure Sap, a Booty Raider Spell. Treasure Sap is a cheap Spell that allows you to melt some useless Treasure card into an full heal, and useless treasures are something Booty Raiders are never in short supply of. However for anyone else, the casting of this Spell can be pretty painful. Either you give up a Treasure card or you have to Death Roll for your Characters life as the spell drains your own lifeforce! This is the type of Character Death where dying because of your own greed is a pretty damn funny way to go in the middle of a fight!
3) Darkfire
Next up we have Darkfire, a Cabalist Spell. Darkfire is Pyroblast on steroids. It deals 99 Damage in a Line which means you could easily hit multiple Targets with a Spell powerful enough to Defeat most players (Players often have around 50 to 90 Stamina unless they are invest heavily into playing as a Tank), but it has a very high cost of forcing you to Defeat yourself and Death Roll. Casting this Spell as a random Spell can be dangerous for more then just you, perhaps you were casting a Spell on an Ally or maybe they are standing in between you and your intended Target and get hit by the Line effect. The casting of this Darkfire randomly could result in multiple Death Rolls very quickly.
4) Corpse Explosion
Speaking of multiple Death Rolls... Our next Spell is called Corpse Explosion, a Fleshweaver Spell. Fleshweavers have an Ability that lets them build blood golem Companions using some of the same random Decks we are talking about now! They can build new Companions before and after combat which means they don't value that Companions life all that much. Because of this, Fleshweavers often need a way to get rid of their.. well less useful golems and that's where Corpse Explosion comes in! Corpse Explosion is a Pyroblast style explosion dealing massive damage around the Companion you kill that causes more Corpse Explosions for Targets it kills! This means using it on weak or wounded Targets, is a great way to finish them off in massive bloody explosion. However casting it without a Companion is well... extremely Dangerous. Not only do you have to Death Roll to see if you can prevent yourself from casting of the spell, but your own death could end up causing the death of other allies as the explosion chains!
5) Blood Oath Contract
Another Roleplay Spell with some dangerous penalties is Blood Oath Contract, a Buccaneer Spell. Blood Oath Contract is a complete and utter roleplay Spell for those roleplaying a fierce captain and want a loyal crew. However the casting of this Spell is very complicated and should you begin the ritual of the Blood Oath Contract and have no one to bind it too... it could cost you your life. This means you might have to beg an Ally to sign a TERRIBLE contract binding them into service with you or else that Ally will have to be okay with you potentially dieing...
6) Shred Flesh
Finally we have a Companion Ability (oh yes there are more then just these 6 dangerous spells!) called Shred Flesh, a Ytt Spell. Ytts are gross shapeshifters that can change into almost any other living creature, only in order to change back they must shred their flesh and skin and transform back into the monstrous creatures they are. Why on earth would anyone even bother learning this Spell that is so naturally dangerous? Maybe if they were looking for a quick and painless way of ending their life, even if it is a bit gruesome.
Now as I mentioned above with the Death Roll system, the casting of any of these spells probly won't kill you since after all it's just going to be a 1/20 chance right? But because they have a chance and because it's out of your control, makes it so these random moments can become extremely tense and exciting for the entire table. When your Magician casts a Darkfire down the hall of a dungeon clipping a group of Allies or when you use a magical item that harnesses random deadly Death Magic and blows up your pet Turtle with Corpse Explosion, it's going to be a memorable experience. And ideally in a well designed roleplay game, you want these type of fun random experiences to happen naturally all over the game and these Deadly Spells help play a small role in having more memorable games.
The great thing about a game like this is that if you and your group wanna change the rules around you can. If you wanna remove all these Spells from your RNG decks or make them more common, that's up to you and your party. My goal is to make a really solid core set right now for my fun webshow and if others want to play the type of game we play in the show, awesome!
Anyway thanks for reading!F-bombs, the N-word, lyrics about sex acts and cheerleaders shaking their exposed booties — and still more — are featured in a rap music video shot in the Patrick Henry High School gym by a Twin Cities performer who attended classes there and his Chicago partner.
A Minneapolis School District official said Thursday that the people who used the gym last month on a Sunday afternoon misrepresented their intentions when they applied to use the space.
District spokeswoman Gail Plewacki said Patrick Henry Principal Yusuf Abdullah asked the producers on Monday to remove from YouTube the video “Keep Me Going,” which stars former Patrick Henry student P. Skud and Lil Bibby, of Chicago. The video’s creator has so far declined, Plewacki said.
Now the district is trying to get YouTube to take down the video, citing copyright issues with the unauthorized use of the school’s name, logo and mascot, all of which appear in the video in several scenes.
The applicants, who paid $300 for the gym time, said they were going to produce a “basketball promotion,” Plewacki said. “Clearly, a basketball promotion was a misrepresentation.... We were tremendously misled.”
She emphasized that the lyrics and imagery in the video, which is graphic and which has been viewed more than 66,000 times since it was posted last Friday, “do not align with our values.... We do not endorse the content, and we do not approve of the content.”
Aspiring rapper P. Skud, whose actual name is Lavern Jamison, said he doesn’t feel that he pulled a fast one on school officials and was unaware that they want the plug pulled on the video, which was shot Nov. 20 at the north Minneapolis high school.
“The theme of the video is to never stop, to keep going,” said Jamison, who put up $12,000 of his own money to get it made. “I was writing a story to motivate my little brother” who plays basketball at Osseo High School.
Jamison, 26, said he loved his 3½ years at Patrick Henry, before he graduated elsewhere. “I used to perform at Henry in talent shows,” he said.
On Thursday afternoon, Jamison posted a video on Facebook apologizing to the high school, its principal and the staff for what he called a misunderstanding.
“I’m not trying to bring any shame upon the school,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be a problem. The permit explained that it was a music video.” Jamison did not address whether the video would be removed from YouTube.
The video opens with teens entering the gym for a basketball game as P. Skud appears and the lyrics start with “Money, keep me going; drinking, keep me going.”
The lines quickly turn raunchy, with crude references to sex, prostitutes, and utterances of the F-bomb and the N-word.
Fans dance on bleachers during the basketball game, and on the sideline dancers portraying cheerleaders in short skirts at times expose and shake their bare buttocks for the camera.
De Man Nyaundi, a 2007 Patrick Henry graduate, saw the video this week and called it “a misrepresentation of the school and the students and the alumni who went there.
"They’re talking about drugs, promoting violence and exploiting women.... This school has much to offer.... I’m ashamed by this video.”
The school’s name on the wall is clearly viewable in the video as well as its athletic logo.
Plewacki said allowing the school’s identity to be revealed in the video violates the permit agreement. She said the people in the video are not current students of Patrick Henry or otherwise affiliated with the district.
On the day of the video shoot, a maintenance person checked Jamison’s permit, let the users in, left and then returned at the end of the two hours to check for damage and lock up.
“Our schools are public places,” Plewacki said. “We like to have our spaces used by the public.”
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482Think back to summer. Long, hot, sultry days, rounded off with a finale of atmospheric fireworks. But sometimes the thunder and lightning fail to materialize, even on the most stifling of summer days, and on other occasions the sky starts to rumble with seemingly no provocation. Now, a study by researchers in the UK shows it is not just conditions down here on Earth that determine how much thunder and lightning we get – the Sun’s magnetic field also has a big influence, more than doubling the number of lightning bolts on some days.
Physics textbooks depict the Earth as having a simple and symmetrical magnetic field, but in fact it is usually skewed, with its poles up to 5° out of line. These kinks are caused by the pull of the Sun’s magnetic field, which fluctuates with sunspot number and the strength of the solar wind. Sometimes the solar magnetic field points towards the Sun and other times it points away.
“Typically, the solar field shifts every 10 to 15 days, meaning that the Earth’s field is usually bent in one direction or the other,” explains Mathew Owens of the University of Reading, who led the study. By studying lightning data gathered by the UK’s Meteorological Office and plotting it against satellite measurements of the solar magnetic field, Owens and his colleagues were able to assess the influence that the solar magnetic field has on electrical storms here on Earth.
Towards the Sun
The team found that from 2001 to 2006, lightning rates over the UK increased by an average of 40–60% when the solar magnetic field was pointing towards the Sun. Thunderstorm activity still occurred on days when the Earth was in an away sector (with the solar field pointing towards Earth) but it was less frequent. For example, during July there was an average of 40 lightning flashes on “away sector” days, but about 90 flashes on “towards sector” days.
Exactly how the solar magnetic field causes these variations in thunderstorm activity is not clear, but Owens and his colleagues suspect that the changes in the shape of the Earth’s magnetic field affect the number of energetic charged particles (cosmic rays) that are channelled into the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space.
“Each time the Earth’s field bends, it exposes different locations to different particle intensities, changing local atmospheric ionization, which makes it harder or easier to trigger lightning,” says Owens.
Latitude and radon
Because geomagnetic variations are more significant at high latitudes, the effect is likely to be greatest in higher-latitude countries such as the UK. But other factors are important too. “It may be that areas with lower atmospheric ionization from ground-level sources such as radon are more sensitive to cosmic-ray variation,” says Owens. “And equatorial regions generally have stronger and more-frequent convection so there is more opportunity for solar modulation to act, even if that modulation is generally weaker.”
Next, the researchers hope to see how the relationship between solar field and lightning holds for other countries, as well as assessing it over time using historical records going back 150 years. Ultimately, Owens and his colleagues hope that their findings could be used to improve lightning forecasts, by incorporating information about the solar magnetic field into numerical weather predictions.
The findings are published in Environmental Research Letters.
This article first appeared on environmentalresearchwebSo what exactly is schematic design? In short order, schematic design is the initial design phase in any project. The first step is called programming which is when the client and architect discuss the requirements of the project (how many rooms, the function of the phases, etc.), testing the fit between the owner’s needs, wants, and budget. This first phase is incredibly important but it is a fact-finding and data collection process. The first time I get to put pen (or pencil) to paper is during the schematic design process.
Let’s get a bit more specific on what schematic design actually means – the architect prepares a series of rough sketches which show the general arrangement of rooms and their placement on the site. I generally like to assemble all the information I have collected during the programming phase and start blocking out initial diagrams that describe the physical parameters of the project. Normally this is in the form of quick sketches The homeowner approves these sketches before proceeding to the next phase which is Design Development.
I think I’ll talk about the design development phase in a separate post because today is dedicated to the sketches behind the latest project we just started.
This is a pile of sketch paper from the time I was working through the layout of our new office. Sketch paper is typically where I do all of my schematic design work – not on the computer. I am constantly going through layers and layers of sketches to quickly work through ideas and if I was a betting man – which I’m not – I would say that this process is what has developed my sketching techniques.
I actually almost barfed when I typed in the word “technique” …
Despite the fact that schematic design is typically associated with the plans – determining room sizes and adjacency – I typically have some sort of idea of the elevations in mind as I am laying out these spaces and as a result, my schematic design sketches are typically dotted with potential details and elevation studies.
So to focus in on my process of schematic design, I thought I would focus in specifically on a single project. This one was a little different from most in that I had very little time to develop this plan. From the time of my initial meeting, I had less than a week to turn the initial programming information into a coherent plan for a house that is approximately 5,000 square feet. We are lucky to be really busy and most of the initial design work was done in my head (I was probably standing in the shower staring at the tile work).
I thought I would show this picture even though it is out of sequence with the other sketches. Once I have my list of rooms, sizes and adjacency worked out, I tape a large piece of paper down that has a 1′ x 1′ grid (at 1/8″ scale) on my desk and use that as my dimensional control. You can see it in the image above but on this grid, every 8′ is a heavier line – it’s a good number to use because 8′ is a common building material increment. The grid keeps things relatively straight – which seems obvious but when you put layer upon layer of trace on top of one another, things start to move on you a bit. The grid helps you to reset every now and again.
This was one of the very first bubble diagrams I created for this project. The clients want a fairly modern interior but don’t particularly like the idea of a really modern exterior … they want something a little in the middle. I’m okay with that, this is their house and they want to be considerate of the neighborhood – at least that’s what I’m telling myself. This is basically a 2 bar diagram, nothing too tricky here. The only issue I had was with the 3 car garage on the front of the house – something I really dislike. I am kind of stuck with it because this lot doesn’t have any alley access and the client said she didn’t want a driveway along the side all the way to a garage located in the back.
Fair enough.
Quick is really supposed to be the key ingredient in these studies. I’m not normally an advocate of quantity over quality but it seems (at least to how I works best) that if I work through a whole bunch of ideas really quickly, not focusing on the beauty of the sketch or its completeness that I get to the essence of the solution a bit faster.
Typically I will work through individual room layouts that are modules – like toilet rooms, closets, pantry, etc. off to the side and I can just plug them in where I need them.
These are all in progression – again, I am working in layers.
You all know that I hate toilet rooms right by the front door – hate them! This is not necessarily a proximity issue, it’s a visibility issue. I always try to group the toilet room that invariably wants to be located by the front door with a coat closet and vestibule – something that will act as a visual (and audible) buffer to that space.
More toilet room studies and in this sketch, I was exploring changing the orientation of the Living and Dining rooms. We don’t get asked to do as many formal dining rooms as we used to – but they haven’t gone away altogether. I can’t help but think if you are going to have a 5,000 square foot house, a formal dining room should be part of the programming. These folks did want a dining room and from what few meetings we’ve had so far, it’s a space they use frequently.
.
Oooo – I hijacked myself and decided to look at what would happen if I switched things around on the site and rotated the garage to the side.
It didn’t work … I mean, it could work but the cost up front from a land use standpoint would have been too high. Since I can’t place it in the rear of the lot, it has to be up front. Since our garages are typically 24′ deep (people drive big a** cars down here in the Lone Star State) and once you add an additional 24′ for backing in and out of the garage, the edge of the garage is now 48′ into the lot … and since the lot is only 100′ wide, this is too steep a price to pay.
Here is a better look at how far the house moves across the lot once you figure in the rotated garage.
Back to the original garage layout. Things are still evolving and shifting locations.
I know that landscaping isn’t generally a huge consideration during the schematic design phase but I am still thinking about it to a certain degree. All the circles shown in the sketch above represent trees in the front yard. There are some large windows that look into and through the house and I am simply inferring that I think we need some sort of landscape barrier between the house and the street.
The second floor programming was very straight-forward once I had the location determined for the vertical circulation (architect way of saying “stairs”) laying out the upstairs living space and the children’s bedrooms was easy. So easy in fact, that I drew the entire thing mirrored from how I had wanted it.
So I thought it might be interesting to see what all these sketches added up to as a semi-finished product. Everything I have shown you today was done in a single day. Granted, it was a long day but that’s my fault for filling up my calendar with too many activities. I literally finished these drawings, sent someone from the office to go get them copied (they waited for the copies) they were brought back to me where I added some hand-written labels, some color for the trees and walls, and left for my meeting.
Hopefully it is obvious that the image above is the ground floor plan …
… and this is the second floor plan.
The thing that I really love about this phase of the project is that it is so exciting to present these plans to the clients. I typically expect there to be some push back on something I’ve shown, or some assumption that I’ve made as the programming relates spatially to the form of the house.. and that is how it should be. This is not a house for me so I am invested in making sure that the client gets what they want. I had my second meeting with these clients last night – after they had some time to think about what is shown here – and there are some modifications that I will be working on today. Not a lot, and some I have already made in anticipation of receiving any formal instructions. These are pretty savvy clients and they have designed and had built 2 houses prior to starting this project. At the initial presentation, their comments were succinct and clear and I was able to make modifications just by paying attention to listening as the husband and wife discussed what they wanted to one another while I was sitting there.
I’ve got more sketching to do but I think it’s safe to say that we will be leaving the schematic design phase after about 2 weeks time and will begin “Design Development”. I’ll try to plan ahead of time and prepare a post on that process as well.
Cheers – and happy sketching.It’s no use simply telling people they have their facts wrong. To be more effective at correcting misinformation in news accounts and intentionally misleading “fake news,” you need to provide a detailed counter-message with new information – and get your audience to help develop a new narrative. Those are some takeaways from an extensive new meta-analysis of debunking studies published in the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
The analysis, the first conducted with this collection of debunking data, finds that a detailed counter-message is better at persuading people to change their minds than merely labeling misinformation as wrong. But even after a detailed debunking, misinformation still can be hard to eliminate, the study finds.
“The effect of misinformation is very strong,” said co-author Dolores Albarracín, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “When you present it, people buy it. But we also asked whether we are able to correct for misinformation. Generally, some degree of correction is possible but it’s very difficult to completely correct.”
The study was conducted by researchers at the Social Action Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. In total, they examined 20 experiments in eight research reports involving 6,878 participants and 52 independent samples.
The analyzed studies, published from 1994 to 2015, focused on false social and political news accounts, including misinformation in reports of robberies; investigations of a warehouse fire and traffic accident; the supposed existence of “death panels” in the 2010 Affordable Care Act; positions of political candidates on Medicaid; and a report on whether a candidate had received donations from a convicted felon.
The researchers coded and analyzed the results of the experiments across the different studies and measured the effect of presenting misinformation, the effect of debunking, and the persistence of misinformation.
“This analysis provides evidence of the value of the extended correction of misinformation,” said co-author Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) and co-founder of its project FactCheck.org, which aims to reduce the level of deception in politics and science. “Simply stating that something is false or providing a brief explanation is largely ineffective.”
The lead author, Man-pui Sally Chan, a research assistant professor in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the study found that “the more detailed the debunking message, the higher the debunking effect. But misinformation can’t easily be undone by debunking. The formula that undercuts the persistence of misinformation seems to be in the audience.”
As the researchers reported: “A detailed debunking message correlated positively with the debunking effect. Surprisingly, however, a detailed debunking message also correlated positively with the misinformation-persistence effect.”
However, Albarracín said the analysis also showed that debunking is more effective – and misinformation is less persistent – when an audience develops an explanation for the corrected information.
“What is successful is eliciting ways for the audience to counterargue and think of reasons why the initial information was incorrect,” she said.
For news outlets, involving an audience in correcting information could mean encouraging commentary, asking questions, or offering moderated reader chats – in short, mechanisms to promote thoughtful participation.
The researchers made three recommendations for debunking misinformation:
Reduce arguments that support misinformation : News accounts about misinformation should not inadvertently repeat or belabor “detailed thoughts in support of the misinformation.”
: News accounts about misinformation should not inadvertently repeat or belabor “detailed thoughts in support of the misinformation.” Engage audiences in scrutiny and counterarguing of information : Educational institutions should promote a state of healthy skepticism. When trying to correct misinformation, it is beneficial to have the audience involved in generating counterarguments.
: Educational institutions should promote a state of healthy skepticism. When trying to correct misinformation, it is beneficial to have the audience involved in generating counterarguments. Introduce new information as part of the debunking message: People are less likely to accept debunking when the initial message is just labeled as wrong rather than countered with new evidence.
The authors also included Christopher R. Jones, a former postdoctoral fellow at APPC and at the University of Illinois.
All data have been made publicly available via the Open Science Framework. The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article is available online. This article has received the badge for Open Data.
Research reported in this article was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (Award No. P50CA179546). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the official views of the NIH or the FDA.Well, that turned out to be a bit longer than I had planned on. It’s been four long years since my last look at the “rejected” concepts that my former co-workers and I came up with when we were working on promotions for the launch of Star Wars: Episode One, The Phantom Menace. And it has easily been the most read article we’ve had here at AFi, bouncing around everywhere from Boing Boing and Gizmodo to the official Star Wars blog and Wired, culminating in an interview with NPR about how it all went down.
But the concepts I showed were only a handful of the ideas that we developed. Admittedly, I cherry-picked the best concepts for that first blog; what I feature down below may cause you to roll your eyes a few times. But let me back up and recap the assignment: I was working for a promotional merchandise company when we got the chance to pitch ideas for a few items that would be made to tie-in to Pepsi’s big Episode One promotions. Until we actually won the job, we could only use things from the original trilogy to concept with. If they liked the idea, we could later try and make it fit with the new movie once they let |
dissected by IHS was estimated to cost $81.20 when broken down by component. In IHS' estimation, the most expensive component in the Apple Watch is the display (including OLED and Ion-X cover glass), priced at $20.50, followed by the processor on the S1 chip, priced at $10.20. In addition to component costs, IHS adds an estimated $2.50 for manufacturing costs, bringing its total estimate for the Apple Watch's raw cost to $83.70. IHS did not give similar cost breakdowns for the stainless steel or gold Apple Watches, both of which have sapphire cover displays and different casing materials.At $83.70, IHS says the hardware costs of the Apple Watch are "only about 24 percent" of the manufacturer's suggested retail price of $349, while other Apple product component costs have ranged from 29 to 38 percent, giving the Apple Watch a higher potential profit margin. During Apple's most recent earnings call, the company announced that Apple Watch profit margins would actually be slimmer than other Apple products, at least during its first quarter of availability.IHS' component cost estimations come just three days after Apple CEO Tim Cook declared that component cost breakdowns on Apple products are inaccurate. "There are cost breakdowns around our products that are much different than the reality," he said. "I've never seen one that is anywhere close to being accurate."While these types of cost breakdowns look at the potential expense related to each individual component in a device, they do not take into account other possible expenses related to product creation like research and development, advertising, software, or distribution, making them of little practical use for estimating profit margin.IHS iSuppli's report also looks at each component in the Apple Watch, many of which have already been well explored in other teardowns from iFixit and Chipworks. It doesn't offer much new information, but it does give an interesting look at the S1 chip in the Apple Watch, and a special coating added for electromagnetic shielding.IHS confirms that the Apple Watch Sport includes 8GB of Toshiba flash memory, 512MB of Micron RAM, and components manufactured by Broadcom, STMicro, Maxim, NXP, and Analog Devices. It also highlights the use of an accelerometer/gyroscope from STMicro instead of Invensense, something that was also pointed out by Chipworks last Friday.At this point, we've had a very thorough look at the 38mm Apple Watch Sport, but we have yet to see into a 42mm device to see the differences between the two models. We haven't seen a detailed teardown of a stainless steel Apple Watch or an Apple Watch Edition, but iFixit took a quick look inside a stainless steel version and found its internals to be the same as the Apple Watch Sport.Deep Fat Is Not The Problem
The mainstream is beginning to accept elements of the Paleo Diet. Refined flour and sugar are the root evils.
"Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases." It's a confusing message. For years we've been fed the line that eating fat would make us fat and lead to chronic illnesses. "Dietary fat used to be public enemy No. 1," says Dr. Edward Saltzman, associate professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University. "Now a growing and convincing body of science is pointing the finger at carbs, especially those containing refined flour and sugar."
Could it be that experts were wrong for decades? Wheat seems like something to avoid. Though oddly potatoes might not be bad.
The old conventional wisdom is "precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true".
Sleeper was prophetic. Oh, and chairs are evil too. Sitting in a pastry shop eating sweet carbs is about the worst thing you can do for your body.Liars. Sots. Creeps.
Swinging dicks who took free drinks and free food — comped to the badge.
(Toronto Star file photos)
Palsy-walsy with strip club bouncers and barkeeps.
Puking in the bathroom, on the street, in a hotel lobby.
A disgrace to the uniform they weren’t wearing.
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Oh, but not rapists. Acquitted of sexual assault, the lot of them, because guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
They. Must. Go.
Leslie Nyznik, Sameer Kara, Joshua Cabero: Police officers who can never again possibly be trusted to do a job that demands integrity and reputability and basic decency.
How can they possibly work alongside female colleagues after the brass-balls hokum they pulled on a waitress at the Brass Rail, pretending to be with a porno film crew from Miami? How can they possibly respond to potential vice crimes when their own off-duty behaviour was so execrable? How can they possibly investigate a sex assault complaint?
Hey, now that we’re done with this broad — the parking officer colleague who testified she hadn’t consented to sex with them in a hotel room in the early morning hours of Jan. 17, 2015 — should we call a hooker?
No, they’re not rapists. Criminal trials demand a high standard of proof. But they are reprehensible human beings who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a vulnerable, traumatized victim — regardless of the offence committed — or exercise their deeply flawed judgment at a crime scene.
I wouldn’t trust them as far I could throw them. Which is what Police Chief Mark Saunders should do — throw them off the force. Or go down trying, amidst a group of defence lawyers who make a specialized well-heeled career out of springing bad cops.
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It is unclear what Saunders will do with these pathetic little men, only one of whom — Nyznik — took the stand at trial, point-cop just as he was on Rookie Buy Night. And isn’t that a fine tradition, introducing the newbie to perks of the law enforcement trade, like bar managers who will offer up a drink — even though the joint isn’t open — and access to the special-special vodka fridge elite level of service. This week Saunders called for an immediate end to such events.
The three 51 Division officers have been suspended with pay since across-the-board sex assault charge were laid in February, 2015. There would likely be legal hurdles to overcome but Saunders can still have them all charged with discreditable conduct under the Police Act. If so, it would be interesting to see if the police union would pay for their lawyers, which they didn’t do at the criminal trial because the alleged offence occurred off-duty.
Read more:No more ‘rookie-buy nights,’ say police brass after sex assault verdict
If Saunders wants to be viewed as a police chief of substance — and thus far he hasn’t scored high marks — he absolutely must take disciplinary comeuppance to its farthest reaches. It is vital he sends a message to the men and women under his command, and the city they police, that, no, no, no, these individuals don’t deserve to wear the uniform. Employment as a police officer is both duty and privilege. None of these men deserve to exercise the authority granted them against you or me or anybody else. Not for the charges they were acquitted of, but for what they did throughout that dissolute night and how they (and their lawyers) spun it afterwards.
Let me quote Justice Anne Molloy, in her verdict rendered Wednesday, on the subject of Nyznik’s stilted testimony, which she characterized as “less than forthright” in places, specifically his contention that the complainant (AB a pseudonym) initiated each and every sex act that took place.
“Some of this simply did not ring true. Further, his description of how the group sex was carried out, particularly with the complainant purportedly servicing all three of them at once without Mr. Nyznik so much as touching her to provide assistance, seems improbable. As the Crown pointed out, AB would have to be some kind of contortionist to accomplish all of that at once.”
Even on the small stuff, Molloy was dubious. For example, when the prosecutor was trying to make the point that AB was a parking enforcement officer but aspired to become a full police officer, “Mr. Nyznik refused to agree that there was any hierarchy between police officers and parking enforcement officers. However, later in his evidence, he said that he knew of some police officers who ‘dropped down’ to parking enforcement, clearly a reference to his belief that police officers are higher on the chain. Similarly, he refused to acknowledge the possibility that there would ever be any career repercussions or ‘blacklisting’ if a woman within the force reported she had been sexually assaulted by police officers. I find it hard to be accept this as an honestly held belief.”
Crucially, Molloy said she did not “necessarily believe” Nyznik’s evidence but “making a determination that someone has lied under oath is not an easy task.” In the end she was left with a he-said she-said scenario, so typical of sex assault trials, and a complainant whose testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, memory lapses and a narrative often in conflict with the limited objective evidence, such as surveillance video.
“On the sole contentious issue of consent, her evidence stands alone,” Molloy wrote. “In order to convict, I would need to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that her evidence was both credible and reliable with respect to the issue of consent. Given the frailties in her evidence, I simply cannot be sure of that important fact to the degree of certainty necessary to make a finding of criminal responsibility.”
But this isn’t about AB anymore, wherever she is now and however she’s managing to pick up the shreds of her life and career.
It’s about an ugly peek inside the lives of these three cops and the blow they’ve dealt to the force’s reputation.
Their continuing presence is intolerable.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.If computer files were physical objects, we probably wouldn't let so much clutter build up in our system folders. At first glance, a file is no more than a single line item in Explorer, making it all too easy to ignore. But files are much bigger and more deep-rooted than that, of course; and whether they happen to be installers and content that we've deliberately downloaded or temporary files created by the various programs we use, they add up.
Manually sorting or deleting hundreds of files is a tedious task, but leaving them where they lie can be even worse: They may contain fragments of personal information or drafts of sensitive business documents. And they may prevent you from using drive space for more important things. To get a quick idea of how bad the problem is on your system, you can try SpaceSniffer or TreeSize Free, two free applications that visually map out hard drive use, and reveal what's occupying all that space.
Then there’s the matter of deleting files: When you delete a file, you usually want it gone for good. But the Recycle Bin leaves the file on your drive, where anyone motivated enough to try can easily retrieve it. Fortunately, I've found several free and low-cost tools that can automate file management and securely delete your unwanted files, so you won't ever again have to worry about your downloads and temp files.
DropIt lets you tell files where to go
DropIt is a free, open-source utility that processes collections of files according to rules you define. For example, you might set it loose on your Downloads folder, telling it to sort all of the.jpg and.png files into an images subfolder, but only if they're larger than 30KB (so you don't have to save small images). It could then gather all of the.zip files and put them in another folder, and delete all of the.tmp files. Whatever result you're looking for, you configure a bunch of rules to accomplish it, and DropIt does the rest.
DropIt's interface for configuring rules is simple to use, though a bit basic.
You can use DropIt by dragging and dropping files onto its desktop overlay (hence the name), or you can have DropIt sit in the background and constantly monitor one or more folders for changes. Once you've established a solid set of rules, the latter option offers a distraction-free way to get rid of file clutter—but only after you tweak the way DropIt works. By default, DropIt shows a progress bar whenever it's processing files, and it also prompts you when it stumbles upon a file it doesn't know what to do with.
These behaviors make sense when you've manually triggered DropIt, but they can be maddening when you've set it up to run in the background: Imagine seeing a progress bar streak across your desktop every 60 seconds, 15 minutes, or however long your system's automatic scanning interval is). Wisely, DropIt's Options dialog box lets you disable the progress bar and/or the file prompt.
For DropIt to be useful, you must carefully configure it to suit your particular needs. After all, only you know how you like your files to be organized. But with time, it can become an extremely helpful file management assistant, sorting and removing needless files in ways that make sense to you.
RoboBasket makes file management much easier
If you like the idea of DropIt but want a more robust, commercial tool, take a look at RoboBasket. At its core, this $20 utility works very similarly to DropIt: You configure file-handling rules, and set the app loose to bring order to your messy folders.
RoboBasket's filter configuration interface lets you use drag-and-drop and natural language to set filters.
The biggest difference between the two apps (other than price) is that RoboBasket has a much nicer interface for configuring filters, thereby permitting fine-grained control. A vertical bar on the right side of the window reflects file conditions and actions. If you want your file to apply to all.zip files, just drag the 'Extension' condition onto the filter, and set it to ZIP. If you want it to apply only to old.zip files, drag the 'Date Created' condition onto the filter and set it accordingly. In this way you can create very precise conditions that apply to specific files, but the filters themselves will remain easy to read and manage. The same goes for operations: You can move files and rename them, for example.
Before touching any files, RoboBasket can show you which files match which filters, so you'll know in advance what it will do with them.
The only point of confusion I had with RoboBasket involved recursive operations: You can instruct RoboBasket to apply a set of filters to a folder and to all of its subfolders. I had it move all of the.zip files in my Downloads folder into a 'Zip' subfolder (so, Downloads\Zip). I then ran it again on the Downloads folder, but recursion caused it to create Downloads\Zip\Zip, and put all the.zip files there. Every time the operation ran, it buried my.zip files another level deeper in the file hierarchy. This is because recursion isn't handled on a per-filter basis (as would have been sensible), but on a per-folder basis.
The workaround is to create two sorting profiles for the same folder, and set only one of them as recursive. So you put all of your recursive rules in one profile, and all of the others (say, file moving operations) in another. The result isn't elegant, but it's functional.
SortMyBox organizes shared Dropbox folders
Not all messy folders are alike: The stuff in your Temp folder differs considerably from the stuff in your Downloads folder. But one system is uniquely disorganized—at least on my system—because it's not all my clutter: Dropbox. Once you start sharing Dropbox folders with other people, the folders quickly become unmanageably messy: You, Jane, and John share a folder, and files quickly start popping up. No one wants to delete anything, in case another user may still need one of the seemingly superfluous files. SortMyBox is a free online tool that might be able to help, though it requires some discipline to use.
With its simple rules and clear log, SortMyBox can help you see exactly which files went where.
To use SortMyBox, you have to go to its website and permit full, unconditional access to all of your Dropbox files. If that idea makes you uncomfortable, you aren't alone: I feel the same way. One reassuring fact is that SortMyBox is open source, so anyone who can understand the code can audit it. Once you let SortMyBox into your Dropbox, it will set up a SortMyBox folder at the root of Dropbox. You can then configure rules that will apply to any file that pops into that folder, much as you can with RoboBasket or DropIt on your local machine. Once someone places a file into that folder, the app will sort it accordingly. SortMyBox will take files only from that folder, but it can plant them anywhere else in your Dropbox.
To use SortMyBox effectively in a team setting, everyone involved must place new files into SortMyBox; and doing so requires disciplined users and (as with all such systems) accurate filters. But if you satisfy these two simple requirements, SortMyBox might be able to help you organize your messy Dropbox.
Command-line utility SDelete securely removes files
Sometimes, you don't want to sort your files carefully; you just want to delete them, and be sure that they really are gone for good. At such times, the simplest, most bare-bones option is SDelete, a free command-line utility from Microsoft's Windows Sysinternals.
SDelete's noninterface is as old-school as you can find, but it gets the job done well.
You can use this 81KB download to delete specific files, or you can have it wipe all free space on your hard drive to securely remove all traces of old files. After running it with the -c ('Clean free space') command-line option, your drive should be virtually impervious to attempts to recover deleted files (as long as they're not sitting in the Recycle Bin awaiting easy retrieval, of course). When properly set up, SDelete works well as a scheduled task, periodically cleaning your drive; but because the utility is so minimal, you'll have to set up the task manually, using the Task Scheduler built into Windows.
Eraser scrubs data until it's gone
If SDelete is a tiny scalpel, Eraser is an enormous all-in-one toolbox devoted to the same task. It's free, it comes with a beautiful interface, and it can do just about anything related to wiping files securely.
Eraser can securely delete files at your command, or according to a schedule.
Eraser includes its own interface into the Task Scheduler, so you can set automated disk sweep schedules from within the application. Aside from wiping free space, Eraser can securely delete the contents of any folder on a set schedule. That sounds like a scary proposition (remember, there's no way to recover files securely deleted), but brave souls may appreciate having the option. Also, if you'd like to purge your recycle bin regularly and securely, Eraser can help you there.
Last but not least, Eraser integrates with the file context menu built into Windows: You can right-click any file or folder and get an Eraser submenu. From there, you can securely wipe the file or folder, either at once or the next time your computer reboots. All in all, if you're serious about wiping files regularly, Eraser is a very solid tool to use.
CCleaner offers two kinds of overwriting
Finally, no discussion of keeping your computer clean and tidy is complete without mention of famous freebie CCleaner. It completes a spectrum of cleaning options: SDelete is a minimalistic unitasker; Eraser is a bigger toolbox, but it still focused on file deletion; and CCleaner is a do-it-all tool that tries to rid your computer of many different types of bloat.
CCleaner lets you configure how thoroughly you want it to remove files.
CCleaner scans your computer, looking for temporary files, browser cookies, and other information that can be removed without danger. Then, when you're ready to remove it, you can opt for secure file deletion. Unlike Eraser, CCleaner doesn't let you pick a secure deletion algorithm to use, but it does let you choose one of four levels of overwriting.
Most people would probably go with the Simple Overwrite option, which does just one pass; but if your information is very sensitive, you can go all the way to Very Complex Overwrite, overwriting your data with 35 passes. Making so many passes can be time-consuming, but that's a common trade-off with encryption and security: You can arrange processes to be fast and comfortable, or secure and comparatively slow (or even cumbersome).
Like SDelete and Eraser, CCleaner includes a feature for wiping free disk space clean. It can't sort files, as DropIt and RoboBasket can, but in combination with one of those tools, it can do a great job of keeping your files orderly while securely disposing of things you don't need.Find Your Inner Ant!
Imagine for a moment you are one of the simplest creatures on the planet, an Ant.
What would you do?
On your own, you couldn't do much. You probably wouldn't survive. But with the help of the other ants in your colony, you could work wonders. You could search for and find food, traverse raging streams, conquer other colonies and achieve massive feats of engineering. 'The Ant Experiment' will be the first MMO to allow you, the player, to experience the incredible potential of the ant.
Amazing Ant Facts Did you know? Ants are one of the strongest creatures on earth, some able to lift as much as 100x their own weight.
Ants can live up to 30 years.
Ants and humans are the only beings on earth that farm other creatures.
Ants can survive up to 24 hours under water.
And that is only scratching the surface. If you still aren't convinced ants are incredible you should watch this:
About BlackCherry
Our team - with a few missing
BlackCherry started in 2004 creating interactive content. Over the years we`ve focused more and more on games. We love Mobile Games, Virtual Worlds and Interactive Experiences. We create games for entertainment and games for education. For every game we create we follow a few simple rules: make it fun, make it fun, make it fun.
Virtual Safety Village - BlackCherry 2012
Producers Dane Allan Smith, John Mark Seck and Alberto Garcia have over 50 years combined experience in games, visual FX and interactive content production.
Where did this idea come from?
At BlackCherry, we were brainstorming what the simplest possible MMO could be and we thought, “an Ant MMO, nothing could be simpler than that”. It probably also had something to do with the ongoing ant problems we've had at home. No matter what we do, we just can't seem to defeat the plucky creatures. Of course, when we thought more about this idea we realized, it sounds simple but, ants are very complex creatures in terms of their behaviour so the game has the potential to be incredibly deep.
Ok, but so what? What makes this a cool MMO?
Most 3D MMO's are fantasy-based but essentially, you are a human, or a least human in form. We want to see what can happen if we limit the tools and abilities of the players but create an open world where you can do whatever your imagination and skills allow. That's why we describe this game as Minecraft meets Warcraft. What we expect will 'emerge' is a social experience of working together to conquer obstacles but we don't know exactly what will come out of the game, hence, 'The Ant Experiment'.
Why fund this MMO through kickstarter?
As an independent game studio, we can think of no better way to fund and develop a game than to let you, our audience, decide whether the game should be made or not.
How will the MMO work?
A lot of the decisions about the game will be made during the production process, but this we know: We want the experience to be as authentically ant-like as possible. This isn't an MMO where you will be a human in an ant's body. We want players to have an ant experience that challenges them to work cooperatively and socially to solve problems, build a colony, and grow their colony's influence. As the game grows, we'll listen to the feedback of our players and use that feedback to shape the Ant Experiment into the ultimate Ant Experience.
Where will the MMO be available?
The game will first be distributed online through web download and on iOS and Android. Our approach is multi-platform, so as time goes by, and depending on the level of funding we are able to raise, we'll make it available on other platforms.
What will the game look like?
We love great looking games. Stills of other games we've created, included in this post, will give you an idea of our range of style and art. That said, game art is always closely tied to the game mechanics. The art style will be determined as we get farther into the mechanics of the ant world.
Tell me about the gameplay?
Think about what ants can do and you'll get an idea of where we are going. You won't be able to talk, but you will be able to communicate in an ant-like manner. You'll choose a class of ant and from there enter the ant world. As you invite more and more of your friends your colony will grow. You'll have to dig and build to create your ant nest. The game mechanic will be open-ended with a creation toolset that you can use to modify the world. Many of the tasks will be social in nature such as building and foraging for food. You will be able to customize your ant with a personal and tribal tattoo. As the game grows we'll introduce other cool customizations.
Who are you kidding, we are humans, not ants?
That's true. So you may choose to build the Taj Mahal of ant nests, or you may choose to ignore your fellow ants, lie around and take it easy while others do the heavy lifting. Sooner or later though, that kind of thinking will come back to bite you in your little ant butt. Maybe it will be a natural disaster, a change in the environment or an attack by a rival colony. You're an ant, so don't think it's going to be easy.
Any Technical Stuff You Can Share?
The game will be built using Unity3D and it will be a 3D immersive game. That said, we want to give you, the ant-players, the tools to shape the world.
pathoftheelders.com BlackCherry 2010
Why Should I Believe You Can Pull This Off?
We have been building games with Unity3D and FLASH for over four years. We know the potential and the limitations of the platform intimately. We are also independent game developers who know how to stretch a buck and create a great experience on a tight budget. We'll start with a small team to create the initial version of the game and see how things grow from there.
$300,000 is a lot of money. Why is the budget so high?
When it comes to creating an MMO, it's a pretty small budget. That said, we can do a lot with this budget based on all the technology and know-how we've developed for our other projects. Once the game launches we hope to see it grow so we can help you build an incredible ant-experience.
What if you receive more money than your goal amount?
If we are privileged enough to earn more than our funding goal, we'll put that extra money into making the game available to more people, in more places and on more platforms.
Your video is fun, who made it?
The video was directed by Anthony Seck (Feist: Honey Honey, Look At What The Light Did Now). Always helps to have an award winning Director/DOP as a brother of one of the key team members. We were also privileged to have actor James Clarkson play the role of the Professor.
When will the game be released?
Our goal will be to launch the game by December of 2012.An anti-spam nonprofit is under attack from a hosting company called Cyberbunker. As a result, the whole internet is sluggish today. Turns out that's a side effect of sharing the internet with the largest public distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) in history.
The awesomely named Spamhaus is a nonprofit based in Geneva and London with the express goal of blocking and pursuing spam gangs. They faced off against Cyberbunker, an online hosting service based in the Netherlands that prominently features a picture of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on their homepage, and subscribe to an incredibly broad definition of what they should be free to host. Like the tail end of a 40-comment-long argument, this fight pitted freedom from harassment against freedom from censorship. This wasn't just a war of words. Instead, after Spamhaus blocked Cyberbunker's servers, Cyberbunker allegedly hit Spamhaus's Domain Name System with a DDoS attack that's so big, the rest of the internet is feeling its effects.
DDoS attacks are the brute force of the internet. Using a vast array of compromised computers, known as a botnet, the attackers request data from the target's servers, and do it over and over and over again until the server cannot possibly respond to such a high volume of requests for access. DDoS attacks from botnets are popular, and have been a staple of internet attacks for years.
What makes this one unique is scale. Peak waves in this attack, the moments designed to stress the servers as much as possible, are targeting Spamhaus with six times the strength of a typical cyber attack on a bank. It's a force that could break government websites. Fortunately for Spamhaus, they are used to this kind of targeted attack, and with distributed servers and powerful allies like Google offering spare capacity, they should be able to weather the attack fine. The rest of us? Not that it's a perfect metaphor, but all that traffic used to attack Spamhaus is causing snarls and delays throughout cyberspace, much in the way that sidestreets far from a highway accident get crowded during rush hour as everyone attempts to route around the delay.In this Crypto Potluck I dive into Token and why I believe its a solid investment short term and why I expect to see a rise in price and a relative market cap reaching close to Monaco.
First off I reviews all 3 cards in this video looking at their white papers, CEO and team. Which you can find here:
In the video I stated the a few issues with Token and upon publishing this video and posting it on the "Tokencard subreddit" the CEO reached out to me stating a issue he had with me calling token, himself and his team a whole bunch of question marks because their was no public information. I still stand my remarks however he did state their was going to be a relaunch of the website October 2nd and a lot of information released in this meet up.
He also Informed me:
I personally hope this commit is accurate as we need competition in the crypto credit/debit card area as we need someone to light a fire under TenX's ass. Because although I am a huge TenX bull I see competition as a good thing that leads to better innovation and in the end more adoption overall.
Now sense the video the CEO opened a Q/A which I appreciated I want to post two I found most important:
This is the CEO explaining the deference between TenX and TokenCard:
This is a whole bunch of valuable questions:
The answers I want to point our are #16 #17 and #24
#16 is talking about a partnership with banks and hints at a release that will destroy expectations
#17 is a hint at a release of the Tokencard functioning within this quarter
#24 is one I have a issue with I'd like to know how many are in the timelock and why they don't contribute to the total supply.
Lastly my opinion that token Is a solid buy short term. Since launch the token CEO and Team have been relatively quite if they amount to giving as much information they have hinted at in this meetup I think we can see a explosion in price. I personally don't see Token in the same league as TenX atm however I could see Token overtaking monaco's market cap. With all this information said here is my plan:
We've seen solid support from the all time lows of September and its climbing slowly and if this meetup clears up the Question Mark company I consider Token today we could see all time highs leaving us with a solid lottery ticket.
I am no financial advisor and I can only show you how I am playing the crypto currency game and this is why its called the Crypto Potluck its a community where we all share information in the hopes of making it to the moon. Neil A. Armstrong would be nothing without NASA and I would be nothing without you! So please comment your thoughts on everything I've said in this article and join the Crypto PotLuck!
UPDATE:
2-3 Hours after this post the lottery ticket is paying off as Token is up 16% Which I totally calledThe Chicago Bulls swingman has already locked up the MIP award, and we're still only in December.
In most years, the Most Improved Player award goes to a player whose role expanded greatly, not one who made genuine strides toward becoming a star.
This season, Jimmy Butler is proving the exception to that rule.
The Chicago Bulls swingman ranked second in the NBA last season in minutes per game (38.7), helping keep his team afloat following Derrick Rose’s second straight season-ending injury. However, an ongoing bout with turf toe hampered him throughout much of the year, and he shot a ghastly 39.7% overall and 28.3% from three-point range.
His shot chart from last season looks like something from the pages of Josh Smith’s books:
This season, however, Butler has enjoyed a complete turnaround offensively. He’s shooting a career-best 49.1% from the field, and is putting up personal per-game highs in points (22.0), rebounds (6.1), assists (3.3) and blocks (0.6).
Compare this season’s shot chart below to his 2013-14 version above, and it’s almost like looking at two entirely different players:
The strides he’s made in terms of shooting isn’t just due to being healthy this season.
“I think I worked on it a lot over the summer, and continue to work on it every night and before practice,” Butler told Bulls.com’s Sam Smith. “Whenever I’m open, I have to take the shot. Sometimes I don’t. I realize how open I am, but I still don’t take it because I want to pass more than I want to shoot it.”
Improved shot selection is also playing a role. Last year, 36.8% of his field-goal attempts came from within 10 feet of the basket, per NBA.com. This season, a whopping 44.5% of his attempts are coming from that range, helping bolster his two-point field-goal efficiency. After never knocking down more than 48.9% of his two-point shots in each of his first three seasons, he’s up to 53.2% this year.
Butler is also splashing home a far higher percentage of his jump shots this season. He drilled just 30.8% of his 508 jump shots in 2013-14, per Basketball-Reference, but has banged home 40.7% of his 263 jumpers to date this year. Unsurprisingly, his form looks far crisper this season now that he’s fully recovered from the toe injury that plagued him throughout 2013-14.
Check out his form on these shots from 2013-14, paying specific attention to the placement of his feet as he jumps:
Now, compare that to these jumpers from this season:
In 2013-14, he had a tendency to kick his feet out and not come up straight as he jumped, which skewed his accuracy. This year, he’s been far better about keeping his feet straight as he jumps, which has unsurprisingly coincided with a massive jump in efficiency.
Whether the improvement is due to health, offseason work or some combination of the two, it’s clear that defenders can’t leave Butler alone on the perimeter a la Tony Allen, Rajon Rondo or Lance Stephenson. He’s now well-equipped to punish opponents who drift inside to pack the paint against the Bulls’ mammoth frontcourt.
His shooting accuracy isn’t the only area in which he’s improved offensively. Butler is setting new personal records in player efficiency rating (22.7), true shooting percentage (.608), usage percentage (22.0), win shares per 48 minutes (.242), offensive box plus/minus (4.5), box plus/minus (5.1) and value over replacement player (5.5), all per Basketball-Reference. His win shares per 48 minutes mark ranks sixth in the league this year, and his VORP is currently eighth.
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Watching Butler this year, it’s clear he’s adopted an attacking mentality. In 2013-14, he averaged just 3.0 drives to the basket per game, according to the SportVU database (drives hereby defined as “any touch that starts at least 20 feet of the hoop and is dribbled within 10 feet of the hoop,” excluding fast breaks). That figure ranked outside the league’s top 100, and he racked up 112 total points on drives all season. This year, he’s already scored those same 112 points on drives in just 28 games, averaging 5.3 drives per game (tied with Klay Thompson and Patrick Beverley for 53rd in the league), according to SportVU.
Not only is he shattering his previous personal best in free throws per game (8.1), he’s also shooting a career-high 83.3% from the charity stripe. He’s gone from averaging.488 free throws per field-goal attempt in 2013-14 to.560 this season, per Basketball-Reference, which is his highest mark since he became an every-game starter three seasons ago.
Defensively, Butler has long been a standout player. He earned a spot on the 2013-14 All-Defensive second team, having racked up the eighth-most defensive win shares (4.6) in the league last season, and he hasn’t dropped off this year despite the strides he’s made on offense.
In 2013-14, Butler limited opposing shooting guards to a PER of 11.0 and small forwards to a PER of |
Connell said the new data collection effort represents a transformation in the way the state and the government treat non-heterosexual New Yorkers.
“You’re taking something that 40 years ago was a crime and we’re at a place where people are openly talking about it,” he said. “It’s an important moment and what this shows is that we want this to be as routinely captured as any other information we gather about any other human being.”Camelot Theme Park
Visited with: This was a solo explore.
Visit date: June 2015
Please Note: Entry is always through an open access point and not by forcing our way in….. We are explorers, not vandals.
History
Camelot opened in 1983 and was operating seasonally until late 2012. The park was based on the story of ‘Camelot, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table’ and the park decor incorporated pseudo-medieval elements.
From 1986 till 2012 the park changed hands a couple of times and from around 1995 the visitor count started to slowly decline. In 1995, Camelot’s attendance was 500,000 visitors throughout the season. In 2005 Camelot’s attendance was only 336,204 visitors.
In February 2009, the owners announced that the park was in receivership and would not reopen for the 2009 season, however in April 2009 a buyer was found and the park re-opened in May 2009.
The closure of the park was announced by its operator in November 2012, the managing director blaming poor summer weather and events such as London 2012 and the Queen’s Jubilee for declining visitor numbers. Soon after some of the roller coasters and attractions were sold such as the Whirlwind to a German theme park & the Pendragon’s Plunge & The Pirate Ship were both sold to UK Theme Parks.
An application to build 420 houses on the site by owners was unanimously rejected by the local Council in August 2014 as the development was not permissible within the Green Belt.
As of 2015 the park is still standing, albeit crumbling and having been attacked several times by arsonists. Rides that still stand on the site include the Knightmare roller coaster.
My Visit
I planned to visit here a lot sooner than I did as the park is close to my hometown and I have memories of visiting here a couple of times in my younger years. What I remember most from my visits as a child here were the Jousting tournaments. The Knights on horseback & foot battling in front of my eyes was magical and the children loved it and I was one of those children, cheering and screaming for their favourite Knight to win and in turn jeering at the enemy Knight from the stands.
I knew the areas I wanted to visit prior to arrival and I had a planned route. I knew where the security would be if they was on site so I felt confident in getting to see the areas I wanted.
Upon entering the park I headed straight for the Jousting arena.
Who would have thought that almost 30 years later on from me sitting in the stands cheering and shouting that I would be walking around the arena. The arena now feels so lifeless, no Knights jousting or sword fighting, no children cheering, jeering or laughing nothing! The only sound today was from the wind blowing through the empty stands……
Just up the hill from the arena is the platform for the Dragon Flyer. In 2013 the ride was relocated to Pleasureland in Southport. The strange thing is that a lot of the track is still in situe here, why that is I have no idea. Whilst taking these photos I noticed movement just off to left… I looked over and there was a lone female wandering through the arena, she looked like she had just finished work or was on a stroll. I kept quiet as not to scare her and waited till she was gone before moving on.
The next area on my list was the Knightmare roller coaster, the largest structure left on site. I decided to try the easy route knowing that security would be there if they was on site at all. I slowly walked up the path and hey presto I spotted the security car, no problem I will find another way.
I found a way around, however, it was a knightmare route (perfect name for it) and lets just say that 20 minutes later, sweatier and dirtier than 20 minutes before this is what I see.
So close but still a little further to go. I worked my way around the edge of the grounds to stay out of sight of security. Here is a photo a little closer, not far to go.
Finally I make it around the back of Knightmare without being seen and I wasted no time in taking photos.
This photo was taken looking into the direction of the sun where as the earlier photos the sun was behind me. As you can see it gave a very eerie look to the image.
Here are a few I took whilst underneath the coaster.
I spent a good 30 minutes here trying to cover as many angles as possible before heading off back the way that I came. Time to get a little more sweatier and dirtier than I already am.
With most of the areas photographed that I came here for I was happy to start heading back to the front entrance. The main entrance spires would be my last photo of the trip. I know there are lots more buildings on site to look in but from recent reports I decided not to waste any time as they have been badly damaged by both weather and vandals.
As I was walking up to the hill I noticed a man walking the road at the top, however, he never noticed me. I gave him 30 seconds to move on a little before continuing up the hill. When I got to the top he was stood taking photos of the arena so I knew he was not security and I said hello.
As we exchange pleasantries security drove past in front of the arena and he spotted us. We waited for him to arrive as I do not believe in running as it will only annoy them. When security got to us he gave us the usual speech and asked us the usual questions. I have heard stories of security here being heavy handed at times but that is not what I witnessed. We was polite and in turn so was he, we let him do his job and that made the situation a little more relaxed. We spoke with him for a while before he escorted us to the main entrance where he also allowed me to get the final shot that I wanted, the Spires.
More images available on flickr
The images above are just a small selection of the images I have edited. I will be adding lots more photos of The Church of our Saviour on my Flickr page which can be found here
Final thoughts
I am glad that I have managed to tick this off my list even though I know I left it a little to long. If I had come here when I first started exploring there would have been so much more for me to see and a lot less damage and decay.
This explore felt so different to all the other places I have been which I feel is down to the fact that I visited here a couple of times as a child so I have a connection, a memory of how the park once was. A place that was once so colourful & filled with the laughter of children, the smells of candy floss, the screams from people on the rides, the loudspeakers blaring out times of shows…. Not now though, nothing but the sound of the wind, creaking doors, and the smell of decay.
Such a shame to see the park like this even though I can still see the beauty within, R.I.P Camelot.
If you would like to purchase a print of any of the above photos or any photos on this website you can contact me via the email form on my contact page for more information.
Thanks for reading,Curious seal crosses busy city road TOM HUNT
ROSS GIBLIN/Fairfax NZ LAID BACK: This seal sighted on Wellington's south coast is a sign of a healthy seal population, Island Bay Marine Conservation Centre's Julian Hodge says.
Pets caught red-pawed Share your stories, photos and videos. Share your stories, photos and videos. Relevant offers
A stubborn seal crossed a busy six-lane road and took up a temporary home in a central Wellington park early today.
A police spokesman said the seal emerged from the lagoon at Frank Kitts Park, hauled itself across the six-lane Jervois Quay, and planted itself in a spot of park beneath the City to Sea Bridge beside Harris St about 5.40am.
For about 30 minutes the stubborn seal shrugged off police urgings to return to the water.
At 6.10am it hauled itself back across to the lagoon on its own accord, police said.
Earlier this week a seal was spotted in an unusual spot on Wellington's south coast, between Island and Owhiro bays.
Island Bay Marine Education Centre discovery programme manager Julian Hodge said a growing number of seals had been spotted recently away from traditional areas at Red Rocks and the Wainuiomata coast.
It was believed populations were now so healthy there that some seals were moving further afield.
- The Dominion PostThe director of the US National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, reportedly paid a secret visit to Israel last week to discuss cooperation in cyber-defense, in particular to counter attacks by Iran and its Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah.
Haaretz newspaper quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that the NSA chief, who also heads the US’s Cyber Command, made the trip to meet with the commanders of the IDF’s famed 8200 intelligence unit, which specializes in signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption. Rogers also met with other senior Israeli intelligence officials, Haaretz said late Sunday, but not IDF Chief Gadi Eisenkot or Military Intelligence director Herzl Halevi.
Over the last two years, Israel has been targeted by a number of cyber-attacks. Officials say hackers affiliated with the Iranian government and Hezbollah, a Shiite terror group long at war with Israel, were behind some of the infiltration attempts.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
Earlier this week, Israel said it has charged a Palestinian hacker from Gaza with breaking into the feeds from IAF drones and collecting information on troop movements and civilian flights for Islamic Jihad, a terror group that also has ties to Iran.
In June 2015, the Israeli ClearSky cyber-security company said it had discovered an ongoing wave of cyber-attacks originating from Iran on targets in Israel and the Middle East, with Israeli generals among the targets. The goal is “espionage or other nation-state interests,” the firm said.
The hackers use techniques such as targeted phishing — in which hackers gather user identification data using false web pages that look like real and reputable ones — to hack into 40 targets in Israel and 500 worldwide, said ClearSky. In Israel the targets have included retired generals, employees of security consulting firms and researchers in academia.
The US has also seen “intensified cyberspace operations by state and nonstate actors,” Admiral Rogers told the US House of Representatives panel earlier this month, according to a Department of Defense report.[Lab Project 20] Explaining Side Special- Fox Illusion
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please be aware that there are hyperlinks to examples and demonstrations for visualisation purposes, so be sure to click on them. This is a big article with a LOT of images in it. Please use the contents below to easily navigate to different parts of the lab project.
contents
Introduction
Fox’s side B seems like a very simple move at first, but a lot of what it does, how it does it, and why it does it is actually a mystery for a lot of smash players. After some close-up analysis of the move, as well as digging through the game’s data itself, the lab team can now fully explain what’s the deal with this move. In this project, we’ll be deciphering the move, as well as busting many myths and rumors that surround it.
The basics: Frame data of side B
Before getting into the more complex stuff about the move, we would like to clarify the frame data behind it. Fox’s side B has 20 frames of startup, having a active hitbox between frames 21-25 as Fox rapidly moves across the stage. It also deals 3% of damage and has a base knockback (BKB) of 10. However, the First Actionable Frame (FAF) of the move depends on what variation of side B you are using.
Grounded side B
On the ground, Fox has 44 frames of end lag (FAF: 70). It will launch opponents at an 80° angle and has a knockback growth (KBG) of 170.
clip of grounded side b
Aerial side B
In the air, the amount of “end lag/landing lag” you have depends on whether you land or not, and when you land. Let us assume that Fox’s side B was buffered from a jump. It will take Fox 12 frames to land after the active hitboxes (lands on frame 37), and has 15 frames of landing lag, so he has a sum of 27 frames of lag (FAF: 52). If you are using illusion to get back onto the stage, Fox can land earlier than 12 frames, shortening the FAF even more. However, you will always have 15 frames of landing lag when landing with the aerial side B, unless you land after the FAF in the air, which is 70. Side B does not have autocancel windows. It will launch opponents at a 60° angle. Due to the fact that it has a lot less lag than the grounded side B, it can be used as a combo starter. Finally, it has a KBG of 200, making it launch opponents further than the grounded side B as their percent gets higher.
clip of aerial side b
The hitbox of side B
This is where what people say about the move becomes…. Mixed, to say the least. From the hitbox being on Fox to the hitbox being in front of Fox, and so on. We can, with evidence, confirm that the hitbox of side B is NOT on Fox at all. In fact, the hitbox is on the illusion itself. Let’s look at an example of Fox hitting an opponent with side B.
Here you can see the 1st frame of the hitbox as Fox zips towards Mario.
On the 2nd frame of the active hitbox, you can see something rather odd happen. Fox is overlapping Mario’s hurtbox, yet nothing has happened to him. Not even a visual indicator of a phantom hit.
This indicates that Fox does not actually have a hitbox on himself at all during the active hitboxes of side B. Instead....
On the 3rd frame of the active hitbox, you can see that the illusion is overlapping with Mario, and Mario is seen to be hit. This confirms that the hitbox is on the illusion, not on Fox. Now that is out of the way, let us explain how the move actually works, since it is a little more complicated than a hitbox region.
The game constantly positions your character using X and Y coordinates. With these coordinates, the code for side B constantly saves the current coordinates of Fox throughout the move as memory in order to move him. During frame 21 of the side B, the game checks the current coordinates and adds a value to the X coordinate, moving Fox horizontally. For example, if Fox’s coordinates on frame 20 were (0,0), the game will add 10 to the X value on frame 21, so he moves by 10 in the X axis (not literally 10. Again, this is an example). On the 22nd frame, the game not only moves Fox, but uses the coordinates of Fox from the previous frame to create a “weapon” (this being the illusion itself), with the hitbox in the exact coordinates of Fox from the previous frame. This happens from frame 21-25
In short, the illusion will appear in the same position where Fox was on the previous frame from 21-25. Here is what we mean by using an image.
Clarification: The gif you saw of the move being slowed down showed more than one “illusion”. Do not worry about those, as they do not have any hitboxes attached to them, and are for visual effects.
What determins which direction the opponent gets launched???
Most have just passed this by as being a random occurrence. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. We did manage to find out why the move can send opponents in 2 different directions. The direction in which the opponent will get launched is dependent on where they are hit on the illusion’s hitbox. When the “weapon” is generated, a hitbox is also generated with it. Most hitbox objects are circular (with the exception of extended and Special_Hitboxes, in which they are stretched circles, essentially being ellipses. For example, Fox’s Dtilt contains Special_Hitboxes). These hitboxes have a centre, and depending on which side you hit the opponent with, they will either get launched towards or away from Fox. Here is an image to make things a little easier to understand.
The angle that the opponent is launched is technically the same. The angle they are launched is based on the direction they face. The opponent will face opposite directions when hit by either half of the hitbox. Also, the hitbox isn’t entirely located at the centre of the illusion. It is actually shifted slightly to the Y axis.
Also, please be aware that this hitbox visualisation is not 100% correct. There has not been a real hitbox visualisation of the move yet, but with the footage we have, it is safe to assume that the hitbox is similar to this. Let’s show some examples of the illusion hitbox in action. Here is what we got:
Example
Notice that, on the first frame, that some of the illusion is not hitting the 2 Wii Fit Trainers on the right side?
Clip
Notice how the illusion is technically overlapping Mario’s arm, but not the actual hitbox of the illusion?
It doesn’t end there, unfortunately. In Smash 4, hitboxes are interpolated. This basically means that the space between the current hitbox and the hitbox of the previous frame are connected together, which creates a hitbox connecting the two together. It looks somewhat like this:
Because of this, Fox’s illusion hitbox ends of being something like this….
To confirm this, look at the following images:
On the 21st frame, Fox zooms past Mario, but Mario does not get hit because the illusion hitbox is not overlapping with his hurtbox, as it is nowhere near him (something about Fox zooming past characters like this will be explained further on in this lab project post). However, on the 22nd frame, The illusion goes past Mario, but isn’t physically on him. However, because the current and previous frame of the hitbox end up being connected together by a hitbox to connect the two, the hitbox overlaps Mario’s hurtbox, therefore Mario is hit. Furthermore, the 2nd half of the hitbox (in this case, the ride side of Fox) AND the hitbox connecting the 2 frames will always send the opponent away from Fox. Confusing? Yeah, we don’t blame you. It is quite a lot to take in, so please go through our gfycats, as we visually show what we mean.
Note: (just saying, if hitboxes weren’t interpolated, this move would be VERY bad since it would have so many blind spots).
Sweetspot hitbox visualisation
Obviously we do not want the part of the hitbox that sends away (in terms of actually using it to combo, not to reset neutral or to recover), so we made an image visually showing where during the animation the “sweetspot” of the move is. Hopefully this helps everyone understand it better. We did create one a very long time ago, but when labbing the move in more detail, it was actually wrong. We apologise for anyone who has been sharing that image. We didn’t really know much about the move ourselves, at the time :/
From creating this image, we can now explain why this move is so inconsistent in terms of where the opponent gets launched. At the beginning of the move (especially between frames 21-22), the hitbox is so spread apart because Fox moves so far, it is more difficult to actually get the sweetspot. However, between frames 23-25, Fox slows down a lot, so the sweetspot hitboxes per frame are a lot closer to each other, making it easier to land the sweetspot, which allows you to followup with moves. You are most likely going to hit with the sweetspot on either the very first frame (21), or nearer to the end of the move. So, now that we have explained how the move works and why it works, we’ll now be applying the information we have in real demonstrations and matches, as well as explaining why certain things with side B work and don’t work.
Applying Side B in different situations
The dead zone of side b
You may have heard of this phrase thrown about when people talk about Fox’s side B. The dead zone is the area in which Fox just seems to “disappear”, and not be hit. There have been various reasons why some people think this, like Fox having intangibility frames. However, these reasons are wrong. The reason why Fox doesn’t get hit is because he isn’t there to be hit in the first place. Between frames 20-21 of his side B, he skips a large amount of distance (compared to the distance of the other frames of side B), which allows him to escape certain attacks very close to him.
Basically, in that dead zone region, there is no hurtbox there, so you’re just hitting thin air instead of Fox. Let’s see from 2 examples where it has caused confusion
Fox going through aura sphere using side B
In this demonstration, you see Fox not only go past Lucario, but hit him with the illusion hitbox. On the 22nd frame of the illusion, Fox (somehow) manages to skip past the aura sphere because of how far he travels in one frame. As the illusion is placed where Fox was on the previous frame, it overlaps with Lucario’s hurtbox, which launches him away from Fox due to Lucario’s hurtbox overlapping with the sourspot. This is actually a strategy that Fox players use in order to get past Lucario’s aura sphere trap at the ledge.Fox going past attacks using side B
Fox going past attacks using side B
In this demonstration, like any normal match, the Marth is trying to edgeguard Fox using Fair, but ends up clanking with something and missing Fox completely. The reason why this happens is because Marth doesn’t hit Fox at all. He is trying to hit Fox where Fox would travel the most distance (between frames 20-21), creating a dead zone. The only thing that Marth hits is the illusion, hence the clank. Frame-by-frame, Fox is not actually affected by hitlag when doing side B, so he will keep going, while Marth is stuck in hitlag as the move clanked with his Fair.
Fox trading with attacks using side B
Unfortunately, when mispaced, you will not be able to get past Lucario’s aura sphere, and will end up getting hit. However, due to the fact that the illusion does not go through hitlag, even when Fox is, it will travel to the position that Fox was at on the previous frame, and then the hitbox is removed as Fox is no longer doing side B. The hitbox is interpolated, so it overlaps with Lucario’s hurtbox (barely) and Lucario is hit. So even when not spaced perfectly, at least Lucario is being lauched away. The aura sphere charge has very little knockback to it, so it will only put Fox in a small amount of hitstun as he flinches.
Fox going through counters
Marth counters Fox’s illusion hitbox on the illusion’s 23rd frame (hence why Marth flashes white). However, Marth is stuck in freeze frames for 16 frames, so he does not actually have an active hitbox out until frame 5 (in this example, his active hitbox comes out on frame 44). During this, Fox is not in hitlag at all, and continues to move while Marth is stuck in freeze frames. This allows Fox to avoid being hit by the counter, and may even be able to punish Marth’s end lag of the counter (was not tested, so do not take our word for it). Using counters to punish Fox’s side B is not recommended, except for Bayonetta’s Witch Time, which will affect Fox as well as the illusion. Fox's illusion is classed as articles, which do not cause attacker hitlag. This can explain why Fox does not go through hitlag when interacting with any hitboxes or hurtboxes.
How to punish Fox's side B properly
Although Fox moves extremely fast over a great amount of distance, punishing it is actually quite simple, and all characters can punish it very hard if the Fox is reckless with the way they use it. A common mistake for plays to do when trying to punish his side B is to try and hit him near the beginning of the move. While this is possible to do, it is quite unreliable, and more times than not, you will wiff your punish, allowing the Fox to reset neutral, get back onto the stage, or even hit you with side B, which can potentially lead to even more damage if they hit you with the sweetspot of the move. What you should be doing is the following 4 things: Fading back with an aerial as Fox closes in on you This can be any aerial, but it is better for you to use an aerial that is not very hard to time. For example, you can use a move with a lot of active frames (i.e. Sheik’s Nair or any multihit move). As you fade back frame-by-frame, the distance that Fox covers per frame decreases, increasing your chances of actually landing a hit on Fox. This is the easiest and safest option to go for, and can end up in him being offstage again, or starting your aggression. Using a projectile Projectiles are surprisingly very good at catching Fox as he zips towards you. If you are a distance away from where he initially starts his side B, then chances are is that you will hit him as he rapidly approaches you. Again, this is very easy to do, and can even lead to kills when using strong projectiles, such as Samus’ charged shot or Mewtwo’s fully charged shadow ball. Running to where Fox will be after the move ends and punishing his end lag This one is especially good for when Fox tries to land onstage with side B, especially near the ledge. For example, from the ledge, Fox will be able to travel to roughly the centre of the stage using side B. Knowing this information, you can bait him to use the option by standing close to the ledge, and then as they are about to let go of the stage to side B, run towards the centre of the stage and punish him as he is about to land, or while he is in landing lag. With good positioning, you can get a charged smash attack to take his stock earlier than normal. His hitbox will end quite a while before he actually reaches the middle of the stage and lands, so you do not need to worry about any trades or clashing. This is ultimately the best option in terms of killing, but may need a bit of practice to do consistently well. Running back and grabbing Fox with a pivot grab This is also one that may require a little bit of practice, but can be very effective for those with a good grab game, especially if they have kill throws or tether grabs. Pivot grabs have a bigger grab box than standard grabs, and because you are moving back in the same direction as Fox is travelling, you will have a better chance at grabbing him. You can now either throw him offstage or in the air in order to start your edgeguard game against him, or try to juggle or combo him, depending on the percent.
Fox’s other Side B interactions
Fox hitting walls/slants with side B and not grabbing the ledge
When Fox hits a wall or a slant (you can hold down the analog stick in order to avoid grabbing the ledge), he is stationary until the move ends and he starts to fall. During this, the hitbox is still active, and even though Fox is not going anywhere, the illusion is still there. This is because the same rule still applies when Fox does side B, in which the game will check the position in which Fox was on the previous frame, and place the “weapon” (illusion) there. If Fox is stationary, then the illusion will stay stationary. This can actually be applied in certain situations, such as what Skarfelt showcases in this video
What happened is that Skarfelt held the analog stick down as he side B’d into the stage, which prevented him from grabbing the ledge. This put out a stationary, but active hitbox of side B exactly where he was at the same time. Captain Falcon tried to recover with up B, and gets hit with the sweetspot of the Side B, launching him towards the right (where Fox would have been travelling if nothing was blocking his way). In result of this, Captain Falcon gets stage spiked, leading to a stock being taken. This can prove useful against exploitable recoveries, like Captain Falcon, or against recoveries with no hurtbox, such as Sonic and Pit. As Skarfelt says in his tweet, you can also use this as a way to delay your timing of a ledge trump.
Shortening side B at the ledge
A good example of this happening in tournament was C9 | Ally vs CLG | NAKAT at EVO 2016 (timestamped to where it happens) Another example From frame 23 onwards, Fox shifts his hurtbox upwards a little bit, as he leans to the side more. This can result in him sliding up and actually landing on the stage. As I said before, Fox can actually land earlier than 15 frames after the active hitboxes are done, which explains why he is able to act nearly immediately out of landing. To be more precise, he can land as early as 4 frames after the hitbox (frame 29). This concludes the side B explanation lab project! We feel like this is quite an important project as people now know how this move works, and how to use it properly without hoping for the best. Please spread this to smashers alike. Thank you for reading -Fox discord Lab team Join the Fox discord Follow the Lab Team on Twitter
This blog post was written by a SSB World community member. Share your Smash 4 knowledge by creating your own blog post now.
You must log in to comment.I’ve skated once in my entire life, years and years ago. All I can really say about the experience is that my wrist still makes a conspicuous “pop” whenever I rotate it in just the right way. That being said, I’ve always had an affinity for the digital variety of skateboarding, from Tony Hawk Pro Skater to the skate. series. Recently, I’ve been diving into True Skate, for Android devices, a delightful little flick fest that lets you live out your inner Hawk from the comfort of your little pocket screen-slab.
The game operates more or less like one of those little finger boards you remember from middle school. You put one finger on the board, and drag the other across the ground to ‘kick.’ You flick your finger back to the rear of the board to kick it into the air, then tap the front to even out your ollie. Once you’re skyward bound, you flick and twist the board in various ways to flip trick your way around the park. The board really feels like a physical object in an actual world. The physics driving the whole affair are fantastic, heavy and quick at the same time. Flips feel cool, kicking around feels convincing, and balancing a grind on your way down the rail is almost as exhilarating as the real thing.
True Skate does a lot of things very right. The payment model is fair and non-gouging, the game-feel and controls are fantastic, and it looks right slick. But the thing I want to focus on most is competition and creativity and how the two feed into each other. True Skate has an extensive leaderboard system, with a unique leaderboard for each level, for best line, for best trick, and sorted by day, month and eternity. You can also log into Facebook and see how your friends rank alongside you right at the top of the leaderboards.
This means something really important to the concept of a leaderboard: It makes it accessible. Sure, you might not get the best trick of all time on every park, but there’s a strong chance you’ll make it to the top for a day, or a week. And what’s the greatest thing about those leaderboards? You can click on any trick or line, and instantly watch a replay of them.
One day at work, I got a phone call. It was a coworker of mine, telling me to check out the leaderboard for the day. Sure enough, there he sat high up on the rankings, tempting me to beat him. This prompted a few hours of back and forth phone calls and frantic fingerboarding as we bested each other throughout the day, vying for the top spot. We never made it, but we got to congratulate each other on some cool ass tricks, and gloat when we finally pulled a few points ahead. It’s amazing to see a game that structures creative and friendly competition in such an accessible and compelling way. And that creativity is key to the ethos of True Skate.
True Skate isn’t much of a game, per-se. It’s really more of a sandbox. Well, really, it’s more just like skating around at your local skatepark. You start with a board, and a park, and… that’s about it. There’s a few little missions that you can go through here and there, but they’re really window dressing at best, nothing more than a few equally trivial and maddeningly frustrating challenges. No, the real game relies on watching your fellow top skaters on the leaderboards, learning their tricks, and slowly oozing your own creativity into their tricks, hooking your own ideas and spontaneity into their lines, and watching as you tick up the leaderboards because of it. Really, True Skate embodies what I’ve always imagined real skating was about: A community of individuals coming together to compete and learn, to shift between smack-talk and teaching effortlessly, and to relish the competition but to also respect and admire each others ability and artistry. And this sort of sandboxy competitive spirit that bleeds through the whole True Skate experience is something that many games could learn a thing or two from.
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bring you to the fires of Holy Inquisition".
However, despite all this I intended to stay in the monastery and give myself to the purely spiritual life, leaving the responsibility to the hierarchy for the deceit and its correction. But could the important things of the soul be safe on a road of super physical life, where the arbitrariness of the Pope could pile up new dogmas and false teachings concerning the pious life of the Church? Moreover, since the purity of teaching was built with falsehoods about the pope, who could reassure me that this stain would not spread into the other parts of the evangelical faith?
It is therefore not strange if the holy men within the Roman Church started to sound the alarm by saying such as: "Who knows if the minor means of salvation that flood us, do not cause us to forget our only Saviour, Jesus...."? "Today our spiritual life appears like a multi-branch and multi-leaf tree, where the souls do no more know where the trunk is, that everything rests on, and where the roots are that feed it".
"With such a manner we have decorated and overloaded our religiocity, so that the face of Him who is the "focus of the issue" is lost inside the decorations" Being therefore convinced that the spiritual life within the bosom of the papist Church will expose me to dangers, I ended up taking the decisive step. I abandoned the monastery and after a little while I declared I did not belong to the Roman Church. Some others seemed prepared until then to follow me, but at the last moment no one proved prepared to sacrifice so radically his position within the Church, with the honour and consideration he enjoyed.
This way I abandoned the Roman Church, whose leader, forgetting that the Kingdom of the Son of God "is not of this world" and that "he who is called to the bishopric is not called to any high position or authority but to the diaconate of all the Church", but imitating him who "wishing in his pride to be like god, he lost the true glory, put on the false one" and "sat in the temple of God as god". Rightly did Bernard De Klaraval write about the Pope: "There is no more horrible poison for you, no sword more dangerous, than the thirst and passion of domination". Coming out of Papism, I followed my voice of conscience that was the voice of God. And this voice was telling me, "Leave her....... So you may not partake of her sins and that you may not receive of her wounds". How after my departure I fell in the embrace of Orthodoxy, in the light of the absolute and spotless Truth, this I will describe at a later opportunity.
Secondly, as my departure from Papism became more broadly known within the ecclesiastical circles and was receiving more enthusiastic response in the Spanish and French protestant circles, so was my position becoming more precarious.
In the correspondence I received, the threatening and anonymous abusive letters were plentiful. They would accuse me that I was creating an anti-papist wave around me and I was leading by my example into "apostasy" Roman Catholic clerics "who were dogmatically sick" and who had publicly expressed a sympathetic feeling for my case.
This fact forced me to leave Barcelona, and settle in Madrid where I was put up - without my seeking - by Anglicans and through them I came in contact with the Ecumenical Council of Churches.
Not even there did I manage to remain inconspicuous. After every sermon at different Anglican Churches, a steadily increasing number of listeners sought to know me and to confidently discuss with me some ecclesiological topics.
Without therefore wishing it, a steadily increasing circle of people started forming around me, with most being anti-papists. This situation was exposing me to the authorities, because in the confidential meetings I had agreed to attend, some Roman Catholic clerics started to appear, who were generally known "for their lacking and weakening faith, regarding the primacy and infallibility of the Highest Hierarch of Rome".
The fanatical vindictiveness that some papists bore against my person, I saw it fully expressed and hit its zenith the day I replied publicly to a detailed ecclesiological dissertation, which they had sent to me as an ultimate step to remove me from the "trap of heresy" that I had fallen in. That work of apologetic character had the expressive title: "The Pope vicar of our Lord on earth" and the slogan that the arguments in the book ended up with, was the following: "Due to the infallibility of the Pope, the Roman Catholics are today the only Christians who could be certain for what they believe".
In the columns of a Portuguese book review, I replied: "The reality is that due to this infallibility you are the only Christians who cannot be certain about what they will demand that you believe tomorrow". My article ended with the following sentence: "Soon on the road you walk, you will name the Lord, vicar of the Pope in heaven".
Soon after I published in Buenos Aires my three volume study, I put an end to the skirmishes with the papists. In that study I had collected all the clauses in the patristic literature of the first four centuries, which directly or indirectly refer to the "primacy clauses" (Matt 16 :18-19; John21: 15-17; Luke 22: 31-32). I proved that the teachings about the Pope were absolutely foreign and contrary to the interpretation given by the Fathers on the issue. And the interpretation of the Fathers is exactly the rule on which we understand the Holy Bible.
During that period, even though from unrelated situations, for the first time I came in contact with Orthodoxy. Before I continue to recount the events, I owe it to confess here that my ideas about Orthodoxy had suffered an important development from the beginning of my spiritual odyssey. Certain discussions I had on ecclesiological topics with a group of Orthodox Polish, who passed through my country and the information I received from the Ecumenical Council regarding the existence and life in Orthodox circles in the West, had caused me a real interest. Furthermore, I started to get different Russian and Greek books and magazines from London and Berlin, as well as some of the prized books that were provided by archimandrite Benedict Katsenavakis in Napoli, Italy. Thus my interest in Orthodoxy would continue to grow.
Slowly, slowly in this way I started losing my inner biases against the Orthodox Church. These biases present Orthodoxy as schismatic, without spiritual life, drained group of small churches that do not have the characteristics of the true Church of Christ. And the schism that had cut her off, "had the devil for father and the pride of the patriarch Photios for mother".
So when I started to correspond with a respected member of the Orthodox hierarchy in the West- whose name I do not believe I am permitted to publish due to my personal criterion that was based on those original informations, I was thus totally free from every bias against Orthodoxy and I could spiritually gaze objectively. I soon realized and even with a pleasant surprise that my negative stance I had against Papism was conforming completely to the ecclesiological teaching of Orthodoxy. The respectable hierarch agreed to this coincidence in his letters but refrained from expressing himself more broadly because he was aware that I lived in a protestant surrounding.
The Orthodox in the West are not at all susceptible to proselytism. Only when our correspondence continued enough, the Orthodox bishop showed me to read the superb book by Sergei Boulgakov, "Orthodoxy" and the not less in depth dissertation, under the same title by metropolitan Seraphim. In the mean time I had also written specifically to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
In those books I found myself. There was not even a single paragraph that did not meet completely the agreement of my conscience. So much in these works as in others, that they would send to me with encouraging letters -now even from Greece- I clearly saw how the Orthodox teaching is profound and purely evangelical and that the Orthodox are the only Christians who believe like the Christians of the catacombs and of the Fathers of the Church of the golden age, the only ones who can repeat with holy boasting the patristic saying, "We believe in whatever we received from the Apostles".
That period I wrote two books, one with the title "The concept of Church according to the Western Fathers" and the other with the title "Your God, our God and God". These books were to be published in South America, but I did not proceed with their release, so that I may not give an easy and dangerous hold to the protestant propaganda.
From the Orthodox side they advised me to let go my simply negative position against Papism, in which I was dirtied and to shape my personal "I believe" from which they could judge how far I was from the Anglican Church as well as the Orthodox.
It was a hard task that I summarized with the following sentences: "I believe in everything that are included in the Canonic books of the Old and New Testament, according to the interpretation of the ecclesiastical Tradition, namely the Ecumenical Synods that were truly ecumenical and to the unanimous teaching of the Holy Fathers that are acknowledged catholically as such".
From then on I began to understand that the sympathy of the Protestants towards me was cooling down, except of the Anglicans who were governed by some meaningful support. And it is only now that the Orthodox interest, despite being late, as always, started to manifest itself and to attract me to Orthodoxy as one "possibly Catechumen".
The undertakings of a polish university professor, whom I knew, cemented my conviction that Orthodoxy is supported by the meaningful truths of Christianity. I understood that every Christian of the other confessions, is required to sacrifice some significant part of the faith to arrive at the complete dogmatic purity and only an Orthodox Christian is not so required. For only he lives and remains in the substance of Christianity and the revealed and unaltered truth.
So, I did no more feel myself alone against the almighty Roman Catholicism and the coolness that the Protestants displayed against me. There were in the East and scattered around the world, 280 million Christians who belonged to the Orthodox Church and with whom I felt in communion of faith.
The accusation of the theological mummification of Orthodoxy had for me no value, because I had now understood that this fixed and stable perseverance of the Orthodox teaching of truth, was not a spiritual solidified rock, but an everlasting flow, like the current of the waterfall that seems to remain always the same yet the waters always change.
Slowly, slowly the Orthodox started to consider me as one of their own. "That we speak to this Spaniard about Orthodoxy- wrote a famous archimandrite- is not proselytism". They and I perceived that I was already berthed in the port of Orthodoxy, that I was finally breathing freely in the bosom of the Mother Church. In this period I was finally Orthodox without realizing it, and like the disciples that walked towards Emmaus close to the Divine Teacher, I had covered a stretch close to Orthodoxy without conclusively recognizing the Truth but at the end.
When I was assured of this reality, I wrote a long dissertation on my case, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to the Archbishop of Athens through the Apostolic Diaconate of the Church of Greece. And having no more to do with Spain - where today there does not exist an Orthodox community - I left my country and went to France where I asked to become a member of the Orthodox Church, having earlier let some more time for the fruit of my change to ripen. During this period I further deepened my knowledge of Orthodoxy and strengthened my relationship with her hierarchy. When I became fully confident of myself, I took the decisive step and officially became received in the true Church of Christ as her member. I wished to realize this great event in Greece, the recognized country of Orthodoxy, where I came to study theology. The blessed Archbishop of Athens received me patristically. His love and interest were beyond my expectations. I should say the same for the then chancellor of the Sacred Archbishopric and presently bishop Dionysus of Rogon who showed me patristic love. It is needless to add that in such an atmosphere of love and warmth, the Holy Synod did not take long to decide my canonical acceptance in the bosom of the Orthodox Church. During that all night sacred ceremony I was honoured with the name of the Apostle of Nations and following that, I became received as a monk in the Holy Penteli Monastery. Soon after, I was tonsured deacon by the Holy Bishop of Rogon.
Since then I live within the love, sympathy and understanding of the Greek Church and all her members. I ask from all, their prayers and their spiritual support that I may always stand worthy of the Grace that was given me by the Lord.
From the "Theodromia" magazine, Issue 1, January -March 2006
Reference
This article of the then Hierodeacon Fr. Paul Ballester-Convollier was published in two follow up articles by the "Kivotos" Magazine, July 1953, p. 285-291 and December 1953 p. 483- 485. The previous Franciscan monk who had turned to Orthodoxy was made titlebearing bishop Nanzizian of the Holy Hierobishopric of North and South America with its seat in Mexico. There he was met with a martyric death, the confessor of the Orthodox faith. The news of his murder was reported on the first page of the newspaper "Kathemerini" (Saturday 4 February1984) thus: "THE GREEK ORTHODOX BISHOP PAUL WAS MURDERED IN MEXICO. As it became known from the city of Mexico, before yesterday the bishop Nianzizian Paul Di Ballester of the Greek archbishopric of North and South America died. He was murdered by a 70 year old Mexican, previous military and suffering from psychiatric illness. The funeral was attended by the Archbishop Jacob who was aware of the work of the active bishop. It should be pointed out that Bishop Paul was of Spanish origin, was received into Orthodoxy as an adult and excelled as a shepherd and author. The Mexican authorities do not exclude the possibility that his murderer was driven to his act through some sort of fanaticism.Get the biggest Manchester United FC 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
James Wilson is determined to stay and fight for his place at Manchester United - despite Louis van Gaal being prepared to send him out on loan.
Van Gaal is open to letting the England under 21 international further his development elsewhere this season, with United retaining the option to recall him in case of injury.
But Wilson is understood to be keen to remain at Old Trafford where he believes he can still play a part this term.
Van Gaal has already offloaded Robin van Persie, Radamel Falcao and Javier Hernandez this summer.
Adnan Januzaj, who could also play up front, has been loaned to Borussia Dortmund.
Despite the signings of Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial, United look light in attack, with Wayne Rooney the only experienced striker at Van Gaal’s disposal.
Wilson believes he will get chances this season after making his breakthrough last term.
The 19-year-old played 17 times in Van Gaal’s first year at the club, with United’s Dutch manager valuing his pace.
The arrivals of Depay and Martial have added much-needed speed to United’s front line - but both are unproven in the Premier League.
Van Gaal is also banking on Rooney remaining fit throughout the campaign and proving that he can still lead the line in the No9 role.
With Marouane Fellaini, Juan Mata and Ander Herrera all capable of playing as a No10, Van Gaal believes he has enough options in attack.
But he appears to have left himself a shortage of out and out goal-scorers, which could present Wilson with an opportunity in the event of injury of loss of form for Rooney.
As many as 15 clubs were said to be interested in him on deadline day, with Tottenham and West Brom strongly linked.
With the transfer window now closed, he cannot join another Premier League club until January.
But he would be able to go on loan to a Championship club, with Van Gaal understood to be prepared to let him go.
The challenge now is to convince his manager that he can play a part this season.
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After suffering hamstring problems last term, he is convinced he can make a bigger impact for club and country.
“Staying fit has always been a big thing for me but this season I’m feeling stronger and fitter and I’m in the gym a lot more,” he said.
“If I can stay fitter for longer then I can make the most of any opportunity that does come my way, with United and England.
“This is going to be a massive season for me and I need to grab it with both hands and hopefully I can make it to where I want to be.”According to research from the Center for Economics and Business Research in London, China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2032.
“In 2032, three of the four largest economies will be Asian – China, India, and Japan,” Bloomberg News points out, citing CEBR’s research.
India will pass the United Kingdom and France next year, and will pass Germany by 2027. South Korea and Indonesia will knock G7 nations Italy and Canada out of the Top Ten list by 2032.
Writing at Bloomberg View in October, Noah Smith argued that China has already surpassed the United States economically and is “pulling away.” He based this argument on China’s superior manufacturing output and the “purchasing power parity” adjustment, which essentially argues that China’s Gross Domestic Product is “systematically undercounted” because as a developing nation it has much lower prices for many of its goods.
Using PPP adjustments, the International Monetary Fund calculated this year that China has replaced the United States as world’s largest economy, the first time the United States has been bumped from the top spot since it overtook the United Kingdom in 1872. China’s economy is worth $17.6 trillion according to the IMF, while the U.S. is worth $17.4 trillion.
Smith suggests the much lower standard of living for China’s much larger population is a deficiency it can correct with relative ease, now that it has accumulated such enormous total economic power.
Tim Worstall at Forbes makes the opposite argument, advising Americans and Europeans not to worry too much about statistical legerdemain that paints China as the top world economy in terms of collective output because the individual standard of living is the ultimate measure of economic success:
For what determines how well people live (and yes, aiding people in living well is pretty much the point of this whole having an economy thing) is economic output per capita. That total economy divided by the number of people who get to consume the output. Here the US is well ahead (north of $50,000 a year in the US, only just over $5,000 a year in China and yes, that is after adjusting for price differences) and China would need another three generations of breakneck growth to close that gap. There are those who worry that economic size equates to political or even military power. And there’s something to that but again not much. For that sort of power depends upon how much you can tax off those people in order to pay for that military power. And clearly, the richer people are the more there is to tax them before you push them back down into subsistence again. If it really came down to it, properly mano a mano, the US could mobilise a much larger portion of its economy for such purposes than a poorer country could. It’s entirely true that, on a PPP basis (that is, accounting for price differences), China’s economy is now marginally larger than that of the US. But it doesn’t actually matter very much at all.
A similar point was made in the BBC’s analysis of the Chinese economy, which argued that China’s vast population makes its total economic output disappointing, not impressive. Matthew Crabbe, the author of Myth-Busting China’s Numbers, pointed out to the Beeb that China’s average per capita spending power remains about a fifth of what U.S. citizens enjoy, and lags behind the likes of Turkmenistan and Suriname.
Also, Crabbe noted China’s economic data is notoriously unreliable due to local corruption and systemic flaws in the central government’s data-gathering techniques, to say nothing of Beijing’s willingness to cook the books.
The rubber of China’s fanciful economic reports may hit the road of hard economic reality if China’s debt crisis explodes, a possibility the International Monetary Fund warned about at the same time it was calculating China’s position as the top global economy.
“The system’s increasing complexity has sown financial stability risks. Credit growth has outpaced GDP growth, leading to a large credit overhang. The credit-to-GDP ratio is now about 25% above the long-term trend, very high by international standards and consistent with a high probability of financial distress,” the IMF warned.
“As a result, corporate debt has reached 165% of GDP, and household debt, while still low, has risen by 15 percentage points of GDP over the past five years and is increasingly linked to asset-price speculation. The buildup of credit in traditional sectors has gone hand-in-hand with a slowdown of productivity growth and pressures on asset quality,” added the IMF, judging that a dangerous amount of debt was accumulated during China’s big push for increased Gross Domestic Product.
One of the dangers anticipated by the International Monetary Fund is that China is so desperate to paint a picture of stunning economic success and convince investors to put their money on the line that it won’t allow investors to suffer losses – a practice that virtually guarantees they will become more reckless. The resulting debt crisis could destabilize the economy of the entire world, which would make China not the top economy but the top economic menace.1 of 6
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Houston Astros (28-12)
The Houston Astros have established themselves as the class of the American League West.
They're tied for tops in the Junior Circuit with 208 runs scored and are enjoying a resurgent season from 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, who improved to 7-0 Tuesday.
With a mix of veterans and young bats keying the offense, Houston appears primed for a return to the October stage.
Playoff Odds: 2-1
Los Angeles Angels (21-21)
Mike Trout is still on the Los Angeles Angels, and he's hitting like the MVP he is.
That's enough to keep the Halos afloat, but with a biceps injury sidelining ace Garrett Richards, this isn't much more than a.500 club.
Add a thin farm system and maxed-out budget, and you're looking at another wasted year of Trout's historic prime.
Playoff Odds: 8-1
Texas Rangers (20-20)
A lot has gone wrong for the Texas Rangers. Adrian Beltre has been out with a calf injury. Other key offensive pieces, including Rougned Odor and Mike Napoli, have struggled. Erstwhile closer Sam Dyson has been a mess. And Cole Hamels is out with a strained oblique.
Still, Texas sits at.500 with a plus-16 run differential. Yu Darvish and a resurgent Andrew Cashner front the rotation.
If they get Beltre back and the offense starts clicking, the Rangers could challenge for a wild-card slot, and possibly even push their Lone Star State rivals with a healthy rotation.
Playoff Odds: 5-1
Seattle Mariners (18-22)
Four-fifths of the Seattle Mariners' starting rotation is on the disabled list, including ace Felix Hernandez (shoulder) and emerging front-liner James Paxton (forearm). That's been enough to sink the ship despite an offense that ranks third in the AL with 194 runs scored behind veterans Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz and newcomers Mitch Haniger and Jean Segura.
It doesn't help that Haniger has been on the DL since late April with a strained oblique, and Cano recently went down with a strained quad, though. If all those pieces come back healthy and effective, the M's could make noise. At this point, however, that's an enormous "if."
Playoff Odds: 8-1
Oakland A's (17-22)
Yonder Alonso has been a legitimate sensation for the Oakland A's, posting a 1.007 OPS with 12 home runs.
Unfortunately for A's fans, that probably means he'll be dangled at the trade deadline, since there's little to no chance this team will be in serious contention come July behind a pitching staff that ranks 23rd in baseball with a 4.42 ERA.
Playoff Odds: 20-1The sandwich that made Chic-fil-A famous, a fried boneless breast portion on a tasty bun. (Photo11: Larry Olmsted for USA TODAY)
The scene: Officially launched in Georgia in 1967, founder Truett Cathy's boneless fried chicken sandwich actually dates back to his Dwarf Grill, also in Georgia, in 1946 – predating McDonalds. Today Chick-fil-A locations are found in 40 states, and this is undoubtedly fast food, with drive-through windows, headphone-wearing counter staff and lots of paper bags and cups. But what makes it so odd in a sea of fast food options is the uniquely limited menu – there is really nothing else of scale like it. Chick-fil-A has not only survived changing times, but thrived, while completely ignoring hamburgers, hot dogs and most other styles of fast food (though they recently added shakes). It's in the fried chicken camp, but unlike Popeye's or KFC, doesn't really serve fried chicken either. The menu is impossibly simple, built almost entirely around boneless chicken sandwiches, yet the company has had 45 straight years of positive growth, with sales last year exceeding $4.5 billion.
Chick-fil-A is a Southern institution that has quietly become part of the dining fabric of the entire country. It has locations in mall food courts, airports, even drive through-only outlets, but the majority are standalone roadside stores similar in scope to McDonalds or Burger King, where you can eat in, drive through or take out. The interiors are simple, classic fast food – synthetic tables and chairs in muted colors, easy-to-clean tile floors and counters where food is ordered and dispensed by uniformed staff with an open cooking area behind it. Privately and family owned, all Chick-fil-A locations are famously closed on Sundays due to the owners' religious beliefs. The chain has periodically been in the media spotlight over its owners' views, but I'm just here to judge the food.
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Reason to visit: Chicken sandwich, Chick-n-Mini breakfast sandwiches
The food: In an increasingly complicated world, the reason for Chick-fil-A's success is shockingly simple – they make a tasty fried chicken sandwich. This is especially true and obvious when compared to their main competition, the even-bigger national fast food chains that serve up processed patties of chopped something that tastes vaguely like chicken. Chick-fil-A's sandwiches look better, as they are breast-shaped rather than unnaturally round, and they definitely taste better, with the breast consistently thick, juicy and served quite hot. It may not be gourmet, but it is as good as a fast food fried chicken sandwich gets.
The main menu category here is "Classics," and nearly half of those entries are variants on the standard fried chicken breast standard served with pickle slices. It also comes "Spicy," with spicy breading; "Deluxe," adding lettuce, tomato and American cheese; and "Spicy Deluxe," with lettuce, tomato and jalapeño Jack cheese. What makes all these options taste better than competitors is the fact that they use a piece of actual breast, fry it in pure peanut oil (the longtime Southern standard for fried chicken but considerably more expensive than alternatives), and serve it on a bun that is not only quite tasty relative to most fast food hamburger rolls, but is buttered, packing in extra flavor (and calories -- a wheat bun is available on request).
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There are a couple of chargrilled chicken breast sandwich options, which, while undoubtedly healthier, sort of defeats the point of visiting Chick-fil-A, which is for the tasty flavor of its fried chicken, also available in strips and nuggets. To me, the fried chicken sandwich, in whichever of the four variants suits your taste, is the main reason to choose Chick-fil-A over other fast food, and the spicy is my favorite, with just a bit of heat that makes it the most flavorful option, more zesty than truly spicy. The one odd option worth considering is the chicken salad sandwich, something you are unlikely to see at any other fast food joint, made with chunks of chopped breast, eggs, celery, lettuce, pickle, relish and mayo on wheat bread. It's surprisingly good, fresh, and not mayonnaisey at all, on flavorful wheat bread. It is a solid non-fried alternative.
Side dishes are equally streamlined, with four choices: the chicken salad, fruit or pretty bland cole slaw in a small cup, and waffle fries. Easily the best choice is the fries; something about their bigger size, almost crispy exterior and denser texture goes well with the chicken sandwiches, just as skinny frites go with steak.
Breakfast is also notable, and also built around, you guessed, it fried chicken sandwiches. There is a chicken biscuit, a smaller portion of the same fried breast, served simply on a decent Southern-style biscuit. In general, a biscuit is a better breakfast sandwich bread choice than the ultra-bland English muffins chains tend to use, but few fast food places serve a passable biscuit like Chick-fil-A does. There is also a spicy version and chicken, egg and cheese biscuit, but my favorite is the unique Chick-n-Minis, an order of 3-4 micro nuggets served on tiny light rolls (not biscuits) that are spread with honey butter and strangely addictive. They also stray further from their comfort zone for breakfast with several non-chicken options, mainly biscuit sandwiches and burritos. The newish "hand-spun" milkshakes are quite thick but not especially flavorful, pretty much a typical fast food shake and not worth the calories.
At the end of the day, Chick-fil-A is fast food and not something I am ever going to be craving, but it's better at its fast food, chicken sandwiches, than most of its peers are at their fast food, hamburgers. They also serve a better breakfast, so if I am traveling and have to get something along the road or in an airport, I'm likely to choose Chick-fil-A before most other big chain options. It's pretty tasty.
Pilgrimage-worthy?: No.
Rating: Mmmm (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)
Price: $ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)
Details: In 40 U.S. states coast to coast; chick-fil-a.com
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1eIKWg3ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Calvin Johnson is still rehabilitating his high right ankle sprain, and the Detroit Lions wide receiver said there's no reason for him to play until he is healed and ready to compete at a high level.
"Like I said, there's no point in being on the field if I can't go out there and do what I got to do," Johnson said Wednesday. "Do what I got to do and do it to a high level that I'm used to doing it at."
Calvin Johnson and Lions coach Jim Caldwell have been noncommittal about whether Johnson will play Sunday. Joe Sargent/Getty Images
Johnson missed his first game of the season Sunday against Minnesota, and both he and his coach, Jim Caldwell, have been noncommittal about whether Johnson will face the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
The 29-year-old would only say, "just working to get this thing right," when asked whether he thought he would play this week, and he said he has been rehabbing daily to try to heal the ankle.
He did not practice at all last week and sat out the team's Wednesday and Thursday practices the two weeks before that. He said some pain is still "lingering there" and he wouldn't be surprised if the Lions took an approach to his status this week similar to their approach last week.
He did see benefit, though, in not practicing or playing last week.
"Not beating it up," Johnson said. "Not getting out there, rolling it again, it definitely helps you. More and more you can stay off that particular area, the faster it can heal."
Johnson has 22 catches for 348 yards and two touchdowns this season.On Monday morning, the BCS commissioners will meet to finalize more details about college football's upcoming playoff in 2014.
Among the items the commissioners expect to recommend to the Presidential Oversight Committee for approval include revenue distribution and the annual rotation of the national semifinal games to be limited to six "access" bowls, sources told ESPN.
Coming to an agreement on how the revenue generated from college football's playoff will be split has been one of the biggest challenges since the four-team event was approved in June. However, sources said the commissioners have reached a tentative agreement on revenue distribution they plan to forward to the oversight committee, which will meet with the commissioners at 2 p.m. ET.
The biggest difference in the revenue distribution, compared to the current BCS system, is that starting in 2014, five conferences -- the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC -- will receive the biggest slices of the revenue. In the current BCS system, the six automatic qualifying BCS leagues, those five plus the Big East, received the lion's share of the revenue.
In the new format, which the Sports Business Journal reported could be worth $7.3 billion over 12 years, the power five leagues will each receive an equal share, which will dwarf the compensation of the remaining five leagues (Big East, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Mid-American), called the Group of Five.
The commissioners reached that decision based on several factors, including the BCS rankings of the conferences since 1998 based on the conference's 2014 membership. For example, the Big 12 gets credit for West Virginia and TCU's past BCS rankings, the Big Ten gets credit for Nebraska, the SEC gets credit for Texas A&M and Missouri, the ACC gets credit for Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, the Pac-12 for Utah and Colorado and the Big East gets credit for Boise State, Houston and UCF. The Mountain West and Conference USA also get credit for their new members.
Using those cumulative rankings, based on 2014 membership, for the top 25 final BCS rankings since 1998, there is a huge disparity between the power five leagues and the Group of Five conferences.
Awarding 25 points for first place, 24 for second, etc., for those annual rankings, the SEC ranks first with 1,054 points, followed by the Big Ten (860), Big 12 (816), ACC (673) and Pac-12 (671). Then there's a huge drop to the Group of Five -- the Big East (240), C-USA (49), MWC (58), Mid-American (21) and Sun Belt (0).
Because the Big East's membership has had multiple defections in the past few years, the Big East drops from receiving an AQ share to paired with the Group of Five.
While the Group of Five will receive substantially less than the Power Five leagues, sources said the commissioners are in favor of the highest-rated champion from the Group of Five receiving guaranteed access to one of the six access bowls.
Last week sources told ESPN the possibility of a seventh access bowl is "dead."
With the Group of Five earning an automatic bid, that will lock up seven of the 12 berths in the six access bowls along with the Rose (Pac-12 vs. Big Ten); Sugar (Big 12 vs. SEC) and Orange (ACC vs. Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame). The other five berths will be filled with at-large teams chosen, based on their final rankings, by a yet-to-be-formed selection committee.
While a Big Ten or SEC team could be selected to the Orange Bowl, the commissioners have agreed that when the Rose and/or Sugar bowls are hosting the semifinals, that the Big Ten or SEC champion will not be placed in the Orange Bowl. Instead, it would have to be placed in one of the three other access bowls, sources said.
Those remaining three access bowls still must be determined, but the leading candidates are the Fiesta, Cotton and Chick-fil-A, sources said.
Another difference between the new format and the current BCS system is revenue distribution will include an academic component rewarding football programs that meet the NCAA's APR guidelines. Starting in 2014, teams must earn a 930 four-year average APR or a 940 average over the most recent two years or they will be penalized a "significant" amount, a source said. Those benchmarks also are required to participate in NCAA championships.
Using academics in the new playoff format to help determine the revenue distribution sends a "nice message," a source said.
"The Knight Commission focused some light on the academic element," another source said. "It's important to include that."
Conferences also will earn more revenue for each additional team that makes an access bowl. Conferences also will not be limited to how many teams it can send to access bowls. The current system limits each conference to two teams in the BCS bowls.
The Presidential Oversight Committee, which will meet with the commissioners Monday, must approve the commissioners' recommendations.
Other details to be determined include choosing the other three access bowls; who will make up the selection committee, which will pick the top four teams for the semifinals; determine where the national championship games will be held; and decide a new name for the playoff format.Debt makes you a slave. It sucks away your meager paycheck, energy, and browbeats you into a rut that you desperately want to get out of. Each month, your car payment, credit card bills, student loans, and various other expenses pick away at the hours upon hours that you spent at a job that kills your soul. Each month, it leaves you feeling like all your hard work was for naught. It keeps you from moving out, from traveling, or pursuing your passion because you have to make sure your lenders aren’t calling you five times a day. It keeps you from living the life |
, members offer to take up a collection to help instead of demanding it be fixed with the profits they provided. Roberts never accepts such offers, though the moderators of the forum were unpaid until early this year and some people donate money ''to the cause'' anyway.
With a curt admonishment, Roberts denied he is the object of cult-like devotion : ''don't go getting sensationalist on me now''. Another theory is that the person now posting as Roberts may not be the founder of the site - the clue is in the name. When the marketplace started, the owner simply went by the name Silk Road. But in February 2012 he wrote: ''Silk Road has matured and I need an identity separate from the site and the enterprise of which I am now only a part. I need a name. Actually, I already have a name picked out … It is perfect on so many levels.'' He revealed this to be Dread Pirate Roberts - a character from The Princess Bride who is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor without anyone else knowing. The original owner of Silk Road may well have sold the business along with the goodwill of his name, and is now sipping cocktails in the Bahamas. But as with many outlaws, it may be the money trail that leads to their undoing. Some of D.B. Cooper's loot was found in river lands in 1980, leading to the theory that he never survived the jump. Banksy's many commercial interests mean he must have accountants and advisers who know him. Bitcoin has the unique feature of providing anonymity for holders, while every transaction is public. In May 2012, sleuths of bitcointalk identified Silk Road's Bitcoin ''wallet'' containing the equivalent of $55million at today's rate. The coins were subsequently moved, presumably laundered somehow, and have yet to be retraced. Last month, blogger Sergio Lerner uncovered a hoard of about $120million in Bitcoins that are owned by a single entity, and that entity began mining right from block one. Evidence points to the stash being owned by Nakamoto. That the coins remain untouched has sparked another round of conspiracy theories, such that he is dead, that the coins are held on a corrupted hard drive, or that he can't cash out without destabilising the currency or revealing his identity.
''One constant of outlaw heroes is that they are always villains to one or more sectors of society, particularly those holding power,'' Seal says. There is little doubt that Banksy, Nakamoto and Roberts fit that bill. @EileenOrmsby is a Melbourne writer who blogs at allthingsvice.com. Follow IT Pro on TwitterBARCELONA, Spain (AP) – Police are guarding public buildings and closing off a park surrounding the regional Catalan parliament in Barcelona where a declaration of independence on Tuesday evening is likely to be met with a harsh response from Spanish central authorities.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont hasn’t revealed the precise message he will deliver in a 6 p.m. (1600GMT) plenary session, but separatist politicians have said they expect a declaration based on the results of the disputed Oct. 1 independence referendum.
The separatists have declared valid the pro-independence victory in the vote, which was followed by mass protests of Catalans angered by heavy-handed police tactics.
There have also been large-scale rallies by people committed to national unity.
How the declaration will be enforced and what the Spanish government’s response will be are the key questions."I mean, how many first person shooters can you make?... There's a moment where we need to grow up."
- David Cage, director on Quantic Dream'sIn a new interview at Gamescom, the outspoken director oftalked to Gamasutra about his frustration with the industry and its refusal to move to more mature subject matter.At the show, the developer showcased his studio's upcoming title,, an adventure game starring actress Ellen Page. The story follows the lead character's life from age 8 to age 23."I think we should have more courage in our industry and take more risks, because I think this is what the industry needs now. I mean, how many first person shooters can you make? How many monsters/aliens/zombies can you kill in games? There's a moment where we need to grow up. We need to grow up," Cage told Gamasutra."I often think that the industry suffers of the Peter Pan syndrome. It's the fact that we don't want to grow up, so we stay kids. But there is a moment where you need to grow up as an industry. And you cannot keep up with the Peter Pan syndrome. You need to grow. And I think this is the right time," he said.The full interview with Cage will be live on Gamasutra in the near future.An economics lecturer whose teaching material has been described as “too radical” has been stopped from teaching a core degree module, leading to claims of further erosion in the pluralism of economics degrees.
Students on social science degrees at the University of Glasgow take compulsory courses in economics for their first two years. One of the second-year modules in macroeconomics has been taught by senior lecturer Alberto Paloni, an expert in post-Keynesian theory.
A recent Royal Economic Society newsletter specifically cited this as an example of a degree “that successfully incorporate[s] pluralist approaches to teaching economics”, where students “are made aware of how different perspectives employ different approaches and reach different conclusions, and ask[ed] to evaluate critically how well theories explain empirical evidence”.
But although the module proved popular with students, Dr Paloni has now been relieved of his teaching responsibilities for the second-year course.
The case has been taken up by the Rethinking Economics “international network of students and citizens working together to transform economics education for the better”. It cites an email by Christian Ewald, Glasgow’s head of economics, in which he states his commitment to “pluralism in economics” but refers to Dr Paloni’s own lecture material as “too radical…and what I would describe as ‘inciting rebellion’”.
A spokeswoman for the university said: “We regularly review our teaching arrangements, and the decision to reassign Dr Paloni came as part of this normal process. We are engaging with our students to explain why we have done this, and remain open for further discussion. The university is committed to providing a variety of teaching perspectives at every level.
“Dr Paloni contributed teaching to a core level-two course. The curriculum there is unchanged. Dr Paloni will be developing an honours elective course covering post-Keynesian and other approaches to economics, his area of expertise.”
Calum Mitchell, the communications officer for Rethinking Economics, said that the case followed that of Devrim Sakir Yilmaz, lecturer in macroeconomics at the University of Manchester, who in 2014 responded to student requests for changes to the curriculum to incorporate non-mainstream economic theory. When his course Bubbles, Panics and Crashes was rejected by the university, he offered it instead as an optional out-of-hours module.
When he failed to have his contract renewed, this led to a backlash and a drop in student satisfaction levels of 21 per cent, with one complainant objecting to “such a broad subject being taught in such a mind-numbing and narrow way”.
“Economics as a body of knowledge is failing to create stable economies,” Mr Mitchell said, “but it is also not fit for purpose for those who go on to become policymakers, journalists and bankers…It’s not that neoclassical economics is wrong, but it would be improved by a plurality of approaches and looking at where they succeed and fail.”
matthew.reisz@tesglobal.comBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Aug. 22, 2014, 8:15 PM GMT / Updated Aug. 22, 2014, 11:32 PM GMT By Lisa Riordan Seville
Long before the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown brought national attention to racial tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, zealous ticketing by a string of similar towns across the north side of St. Louis County had fed friction between the area’s largely white police departments and a growing black population.
An analysis by NBC News indicates that in recent years, Ferguson and other nearby jurisdictions have issued citations for low-level traffic and other violations at a per capita rate as much as a dozen times higher than cities in other parts of suburban St. Louis.
St. Louis County has 90 municipalities within its 524 square miles, and towns with populations as small as 800 people have their own police forces. Given the dense patchwork of towns and police departments, a single short car trip includes the possibility of multiple traffic stops. One seven-mile stretch of Interstate 70, for example, passes through eight different cities that can issue violations.
“If you’re driving to get to highway 70 to go to work, you drive through two to three municipalities, each of which can ticket you and make your life really difficult,” said Thomas Harvey, executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a law firm that represents low-income people in the area and recently released a report on local municipal courts.
Data from the State Attorney General’s Office also shows that per capita, black drivers in the county are 66 percent more likely to be stopped than whites, and more likely to be arrested once stopped. The result, in a section of the county where the poor black population is growing and the older white population is declining, is that much of the interaction between police and the newer residents takes place during traffic stops.
“It’s not just Ferguson, it’s this whole region,” said Harvey. “My clients say that the police officer and the judge and the prosecutor are not on their side, and they are just viewed as a source of revenue."
Running the Numbers
The contrast between the north county towns and other more affluent cities can be stark. Ferguson, a city of about 21,000, filed 11,400 traffic cases in fiscal year 2013. Chesterfield, a largely white city in the western suburbs, filed almost the exact same number -- but is more than twice Ferguson's size.
Cases involving non-traffic ordinances, which range from loitering and trespassing to petty larceny, provide an even starker contrast, with Ferguson filing almost a dozen times as many per capita. Ferguson in fiscal year 2013 filed more than 12,300 such cases, more than any other city in the county, and up from 8,800 in 2009. Chesterfield filed just 2,300 in 2013.
Ferguson is not alone in its approach. Before dissolving its police department last year, Cool Valley, a majority-black city of fewer than 1,200, filed 7,558 non-ordinance violation cases and 1,717 traffic cases that did not involve drugs or alcohol.
In Carleton Park, where blacks now account for about half of the 1,300 residents, the combined total of tickets for both types of offenses rose more than 50 percent between 2009 and 2013 to nearly 7,500. In contrast, officials in the affluent, white western suburb of Ballwin, which has 24 times the population, wrote about 9,000 tickets.
As cities in North County have gotten poorer and the effects of the recession linger, several have had to cut back on services to save costs. But many have seen their collections of fees and fines increase.
Budget documents show that Ferguson City officials expected to bring in about $2.6 million in fines and public safety revenues for the year ending in June 2013, an increase of more than 40 percent from 2010.
The nearby suburb of St. Ann, population 13,000, had lost tax revenue in 2011 when two major retailers moved away. That year police began to crack down on speeders along a stretch of Interstate 70 as part of a program to reduce accidents. It passed an ordinance that allowed the city to levy speeding tickets with fines twice that of state highway patrol. Revenue from the court has shot up nearly 170 percent to an estimated $3.1 million at the end of 2013.
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Some officials have been critical of the rash of ticketing in northern St. Louis County. Among them is former St. Louis County Police Chief Tom Fitch. In a blog written before he retired last February, he railed in particular against speed cameras, which some towns have put up along major roadways to slow traffic, or, according to Fitch, “in order to generate as many violations as possible.” The result, he said, was to “feed off some of the poorest people in the St. Louis region.”
But St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez rejects that claim, saying the enforcement has reduced accidents significantly in recent years. “I’ve said since the beginning if you don’t break the law, then you don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.
"People don’t get the message unless it hurts the pocketbook, and we all know that.”
“Your naysayers are the ones who have gotten arrested for committing crimes, have received traffic violations," he added. "Half of the people who didn’t have attitudes would probably not have received those traffic tickets.”
Representatives of the city of Ferguson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Defenders cite a number of possible reasons for increased ticket writing other than a desire for revenue, like a rise in low level crimes or quality of life complaints. The cities along I-70 that recently implemented speed cameras and enforcement programs say these were meant to address high-speed accidents. In Ferguson, part of the impetus was a desire to improve the quality of life and attract investment. Ferguson ran an aggressive “nuisance abatement” campaign to lure development, according to budget documents.
But the perception among many caught up in the system is that the enforcement is about race and revenue, not public safety.
“It’s all about money -- that’s all they want,” said Antonio Morgan, 28, a resident of nearby Hazelwood who has been in and out of the county’s municipal courts since he was 16. “They don’t protect and serve anymore. When I was a kid, you talked to the police officers. In a black neighborhood, you can’t walk down the street without them pulling up on you. In the white community, they’re not doing that.”
‘A Vicious Cycle’
From his perch as a part-time municipal judge in Overland, a city of 16,000 southwest of Ferguson, Frank Vatterott has watched the opportunity for people to be ticketed grow.
“There’s a lot more regulatory ordinances now that weren’t around before,” said Vatterott, a veteran of 34 years on the bench. “So there’s a lot more opportunity for police to stop people.”
Ordinances range from loitering and storing tires out of doors to assault and petty theft, and many have legitimately violated them. Those with means can generally pay the fine and walk away. But for those in poverty, said Vatterott, a small violation can become web of ticketing, debt, and if people don’t, or can’t, show up in court to pay it, warrants and arrest. Residents can end up with warrants in multiple cities, not to mention a license suspended for failure to pay, making getting to court even harder.
“It becomes a vicious cycle for defendants who are largely poor,” he said. He added that as a judge he has little choice but to issue a warrant when someone fails to show up.
Some cities have instituted amnesty days to help people clear outstanding warrants and begin to untangle themselves from the court. But with more than 40,500 outstanding warrants in Ferguson along as of 2013, many remain enmeshed.
No one claims that tickets in St. Louis County are behind the protests that have sparked national attention. But the longstanding perception that things are unfair in St. Louis County has mattered, said Morgan of Hazelwood.
“When the police treat you unjustly, and nobody hears you, and nobody stands up for you, you get frustrated,” said Morgan. “When an incident happens, now you’re ready to act out. Because you feel this is the only way anybody’s going to hear you.”India’s $150-billion information technology industry has been pushed into a corner lately. Between the pressure to transition in the age of automation, US president Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and rumours of mass layoffs, the sector is engulfed in a wave of negativity.
On Thursday, Nasscom, the IT industry’s trade association, decided to clear the air and set the record straight. Indian IT faces significant headwinds, industry leaders conceded, but insisted that the sector will still remain a major net hirer, adding some 150,000 to its workforce in 2018 financial year. Last fiscal, according to Nasscom, the industry hired around 170,000 new workers.
The big challenge for IT companies, however, will be to re-engineer its 3.9 million-strong human resource base to meet the demands of a fast-transforming marketplace. Not only is technology changing rapidly, with automation and big data making deep inroads, the demands of industry’s global clientele have also evolved.
Hence, Indian IT’s new mantra: re-skill or perish.
“The emphasis…is shifting from scale, which was the primary goal earlier, to skills,” said Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar, outlining a renewed push within the IT sector to re-skill workers across the board. Since late last year, Nasscom has been working with the Boston Consulting Group to identify key skills (like analytics, cloud and cyber security services, and robotics) and figure out ways to retrain its workforce at scale.
“Half the current workforce has already been covered by re-skilling. Either they have been re-skilled, or they are in the process of being re-skilled,” said Chandrashekhar. And over the next five years, Nasscom, together with 20 member companies, is looking to train up to 2 million existing and new workers to help bridge the skills gap.
Talent pool
For about a decade now, there has been a steady decoupling between the revenue of IT companies and the size of their workforce, implying that simply adding more heads won’t help generate more income. As the industry now pivots towards delivering high-end services, the focus for IT companies will also shift from adding scale to building a smaller, more specialised talent pool with specific domain expertise.
In all, Nasscom reckons that layoffs at individual companies, as part of annual performance appraisal process, will be in the range of between 0.5% to 3% of the overall workforce.
And despite persistent talk of mass firings, industry leaders assert that they aren’t overtly enthusiastic about letting go of trained staff, especially as projects become more complex. “I promise you, the industry doesn’t want to lose people who are experienced,” said CP Gurnani, CEO of Tech Mahindra, India’s fifth largest IT services company.
India’s IT companies must also contend with lack of quality within the country’s engineering talent pool. Back in 2011, Nasscom estimated that only about 25% of India’s engineering graduates were readily employable, and things haven’t got much better since.
On an average, the industry currently spends between nine and 12 months to train new recruits and bring them up to par, explained Nasscom’s chairman Raman Roy, also the CEO of outsourcing services firm, Quatrro. As the need for newer skills increase, ensuring that Indian IT companies have a big enough talent pool to tap into for entry-level engineers will be a challenge.
“Right now, we are able to meet the needs of the customer,” said Roy. “At $154 billion (in revenues), we are able to meet the needs. As we go to $350 billion (by 2025), will we have enough people? I think that is a very serious concern.”
This article first appeared on Quartz.Wisconsin city’s statute, enacted last month, is believed to be the first of its kind in the US: ‘Religion was protected, so non-religion should be, too’
Finally, atheists are no longer just old white men | Adam Lee Read more
While conservatives in Indiana and Arkansas were explaining last month why their new religious objections laws weren’t invitations to discriminate against gays, the leaders of Wisconsin’s capital city were busy protecting the rights of another group: atheists.
In what is believed to be the first statute of its kind in the United States, Madison banned discrimination against the non-religious on 1 April, giving them the same protections afforded to people based on their race, sexual orientation and religion, among other reasons.
It’s hardly surprising that such a statute would originate in Madison, an island of liberalism in a conservative-leaning state and the home of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. But the ordinance’s author, Anita Weier, said it didn’t arise from an actual complaint about alleged discrimination based on a lack of religious faith.
“It just seems to me that religion has spread into government more than I feel comfortable with,” said Weier, who left the council after the statute passed. “It just occurred to me that religion was protected, so non-religion should be, too.”
She said it also had nothing to do with what was happening in Indiana and Arkansas, which rolled back their religious objections laws amid heavy criticism that they were meant to give legal cover to people who cite religious reasons for discriminating against gays.
Although there was no dissent when the city council passed its new statute, some question the need to protect non-believers in liberal Madison from discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and services. Among them is Julaine Appling, the president of Wisconsin Family Action.
“I don’t understand why they would add this to that litany of protections in Madison, of all places,” she said. “I thought this was an April Fools’ joke.”
If any minority group deserves further protections in Madison, which embraces its unofficial motto of “77 square miles surrounded by reality”, it’s conservative groups like hers, said Appling. For example, she pointed to the City Council’s attempts last year to create buffer zones to keep protesters away from abortion clinics, which the US supreme court later deemed unconstitutional in a Massachusetts case.
Zach Brandon, president of the Madison Chamber of Commerce, said he hasn’t heard city business owners express concern about the ordinance, but that’s likely because it “doesn’t really do anything”.
Brandon said expanding the equal opportunities ordinance to include more protected categories could make it obsolete.
Atheists and other non-believers, though, say the statute marks an important step forward for those who aren’t religious.
“I think Madison is way ahead of the curve,” said Todd Stiefel, the president of Openly Secular, which helps non-religious people become open about their absence of faith.
Stiefel said people who tell their employers or family members that they are not religious face rejection and harassment. He said he’s heard from atheists who were fired the day after sharing their non-religious views with their employers or disinherited by their parents after opening up about their lack of faith.
“It boils down to the misinformation and prejudice that gets passed down generation to generation. People have been raised being told that atheists are evil and they eat babies and they can’t be trusted,” said Stiefel, adding that he thinks it will be quite a while before another city follows Madison’s lead.
Patrick Elliott, a Freedom From Religion Foundation attorney, said the city that’s also home to the University of Wisconsin has recently seen an increase in religiously owned rental housing. While it had not yet created a conflict, the foundation wants to be sure there can be no discrimination, he said.
“Whether someone could have brought a case, we don’t know,” Elliott said. “It seemed that way, but we didn’t have any precedent to support that.”
Even though her ordinance passed without objection, Weier said her fellow council members seemed reluctant to embrace her idea or connect their name to it. She also said timing played a large role in her decision to propose the ordinance.
“If I’d been running again, I don’t think I would have brought it forward,” Weier said. “I think there’s discrimination against atheists.”If you've followed my analysis on equality issues, you know that in most of these cases, they're decide on a standard of review I'd call "rational basis-plus"—that laws premised upon animus towards a politically disfavored group are presumptively disfavored, but it's not as demanding a level of review as strict or intermediate scrutiny, the tests for laws which discriminate on the basis of race and gender, respectively. Under intermediate (or "heightened") scrutiny, for example, the law need not merely be rationally related to furthering some government interest, but it must further an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest.
And that test, ruled Judge Jacobs, was applicable here:
In this case, all four factors justify heightened scrutiny: A) homosexuals as a group have historically endured persecution and discrimination; B) homosexuality has no relation to aptitude or ability to contribute to society; C) homosexuals are a discernible group with non-obvious distinguishing characteristics, especially in the subset of those who enter same-sex marriages; and D) the class remains a politically weakened minority.
The question is not whether homosexuals have achieved political successes over the years; they clearly have. The question is whether they have the strength to politically protect themselves from wrongful discrimination. When the Supreme Court ruled that sex-based classifications were subject to heightened scrutiny in 1973, the Court acknowledged that women had already achieved major political victories. The Nineteenth Amendment had been ratified in 1920, and Title VII had already outlawed sex-based employment. The Court was persuaded nevertheless that women still lacked adequate political power, in part because they were “vastly underrepresented in this Nation’s decisionmaking councils,” including the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the legislature. There are parallels between the status of women [in 1973] and homosexuals today: their position “has improved markedly in recent decades,” but they still “face pervasive, although at times more subtle, discrimination... in the political arena.” It is difficult to say whether homosexuals are “under-represented” in positions of power and authority without knowing their number relative to the heterosexual population. But it is safe to say that the seemingly small number of acknowledged homosexuals so situated is attributable either to a hostility that excludes them or to a hostility that keeps their sexual preference private--which, for our purposes, amounts to much the same thing. Moreover, the same considerations can be expected to suppress some degree of political activity by inhibiting the kind of open association that advances political agendas.
Statements in the Congressional Record express an intent to enforce uniform eligibility for federal marital benefits by insuring that same-sex couples receive--or lose--the same federal benefits across all states. However, the emphasis on uniformity is suspicious because Congress and the Supreme Court have historically deferred to state domestic relations laws, irrespective of their variations.... The uniformity rationale is further undermined by inefficiencies that it creates. As a district court in this Circuit found, it was simpler--and more consistent--for the federal government to ask whether a couple was married under the law of the state of domicile, rather than adding “an additional criterion, requiring the federal government to identify and exclude all same-sex marital unions from federal recognition.” Because DOMA is an unprecedented breach of longstanding deference to federalism that singles out same-sex marriage as the only inconsistency (among many) in state law that requires a federal rule to achieve uniformity, the rationale premised on uniformity is not an exceedingly persuasive justification for DOMA.
BLAG presents three related reasons why DOMA advances the goals of “responsible childrearing”: DOMA subsidizes procreation because only opposite-sex couples can procreate “naturally”; DOMA subsidizes biological parenting (for more or less the same reason); and DOMA facilitates the optimal parenting arrangement of a mother and a father. We agree that promotion of procreation can be an important government objective. But we do not see how DOMA is substantially related to it. All three proffered rationales have the same defect: they are cast as incentives for heterosexual couples, incentives that DOMA does not affect in any way. DOMA does not provide any incremental reason for opposite-sex couples to engage in “responsible procreation.” FN6 Incentives for opposite-sex couples to marry and procreate (or not) were the same after DOMA was enacted as they were before.FN7
FN6 “[T]he argument that withdrawing the designation of ‘marriage’ from same-sex couples could on its own promote the strength or stability of opposite-sex marital relationships lacks any such footing in reality.” Perry v. Brown, 671 F.3d 1052, 1089 (9th Cir. 2012). FN7 To the extent that BLAG is suggesting that Congress’ laws might actually influence sexual orientation, there is no evidence to support that claim (and it strikes us as farfetched).
Our straightforward legal analysis sidesteps the fair point that same-sex marriage is unknown to history and tradition. But law (federal or state) is not concerned with holy matrimony. Government deals with marriage as a civil status--however fundamental--and New York has elected to extend that status to same-sex couples. A state may enforce and dissolve a couple’s marriage, but it cannot sanctify or bless it. For that, the pair must go next door.
On that last one, he notes:Under heightened scrutiny, the statute cannot survive; its justifications are too weak:Oh. And:In conclusion, he writes:Judge Charles Straub, a Clinton appointee, dissented, believing that older Supreme Court precedent governed his review of the statute, and that repeal of DOMA was for Congress to decide.
Of note: Because the Obama administration refuses to defend the constitutionality of Section 3, it weighed in on behalf of Windsor here; the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (House Republicans) spent your tax dollars on Paul Clement to defend the statute. Also, this ruling only governs Section 3 of DOMA (federal benefits), and not Section 2, which authorizes states to refuse to recognize same-sex couples married elsewhere.
HT to AJPIII, who had it first.Do you love goblins? Do you want goblins to succeed (while everyone else wants them to fail)? This thing is for you! We are a six piece goblin metal band living in Los Angeles, CA, going on our first goblin tour of the west coast this summer, having recently completed the recording of our second full length album "STENCH".
We are a completely independent band, currently with no goblin label, goblin management, or goblin booking agencies supporting us. The recording process, merchandise creation, and promotion of the band has cost us a significant amount of goblin money (over $9,000!!!) and we are still missing a key component - a touring vehicle. That said, we have managed all of this without going into debt (WOO!) Anyway, we would prefer a spaceship, but we'll probably have to make do with a used 15-passenger nekrogobli-van. This project is to fund said vehicle and make our goblin lives significantly easier.
This is our old Nekrogobli-van - SHE DIED, ALAS!
We will run album pre-orders through kickstarter for the first month (pretty goblin much goblin ensuring goblin success). If the Kickstarter funding fails, we will run pre-orders through our own system.
For those of you who pre-order, here are the shirt designs you can choose from (let us know which one you would like, if applicable):PALO ALTO — The Santa Clara County judge who faces a recall threat for giving a light sentence to a Stanford student convicted of sexual assault will no longer handle criminal cases — at his own request.
Judge Aaron Persky asked to be reassigned from hearing criminal cases at the Palo Alto courthouse, where he has been under intense fire since early June for sentencing former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to six months in jail rather than a longer term in state prison for sexually assaulting an intoxicated, unconscious woman outside a fraternity party.
Ever since, critics have vowed to remove him from the bench, with some, including Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, pushing for a recall election in November 2017 and others complaining to the state agency on judicial performance.
On Sept. 6, Persky will return to hearing civil cases at the Old Courthouse near St. James Park in downtown San Jose. Until then, he will continue to preside over criminal matters in Palo Alto, court spokesman Joe Macaluso said. Persky could not immediately be reached for comment.
Persky and Judge Vincent J. Chiarello, who lives near the Palo Alto courthouse, will switch places, with Chiarello moving up to Palo Alto. The switch was not engineered by Presiding Judge Rise Pichon, who said she had no plans to transfer Persky out of Palo Alto, despite the public outcry.
In a brief written statement, Pichon said, “While I firmly believe in Judge Persky’s ability to serve in his current assignment, he has requested to be assigned to the civil division, in which he previously served. Judge Persky believes the change will aid the public and the court by reducing the distractions that threaten to interfere with his ability to effectively discharge the duties of his current criminal assignment.”
The new assignment will not be permanent. Judicial assignments rotate every year and must be approved by the presiding judge.
But the transfer did nothing to temper the criticism.
“This doesn’t change anything,” Dauber said. “We’re pleased he won’t be handling criminal matters, at least for the time being, but he can transfer back. So the issue of his bias still needs to be decided by voters.”
Persky’s supporters disagreed. Deputy public defender Roderick O’Connor called the transfer a “big loss,” saying that Persky doesn’t deserve to be the target of “this hysteria” because he is extremely prudent and fair.
“It’s a shame he’s moving,” he said, “because I believe criminal defendants and prosecutors deserve a judge of Persky’s caliber.”
Persky’s decision — coupled with the gripping statement the victim read in court — has had an enormous ripple effect, bringing a renewed national focus to efforts to deter, report and punish campus sexual assaults. Supporters, including many defense attorneys and public defenders, note that Persky was following a probation officer’s recommendation in sentencing Turner, who is expected to be released from jail next week.
But the decision has sparked a bill now making its way through the Legislature that would set a mandatory prison sentence for sexual assault of an unconscious or intoxicated person. California law treats sexual assault of a conscious person as a more severe crime than attacking an unconscious person, and the legislation suggested by Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen seeks to eliminate that imbalance.
The scandal has also breathed new life into a bill that would broaden the definition of rape to include forced penetration of any body part with a foreign object. Had that been the law at the time, prosecutors could have charged Turner with rape.
But the Turner case has also cast a dark shadow over Persky’s court.
Earlier this summer, prosecutors filed a peremptory challenge that kept him from presiding over a preliminary hearing for a Kaiser Permanente surgical nurse accused of sexually assaulting a sedated woman.
In the latest in a series of humiliations, the judge Friday disqualified himself from making his first key decision since the Turner matter in another sex case. In a brief statement he read in court Friday, the judge said he and his family were exposed to publicity surrounding the new case, which resulted in “a personal family situation.”
Persky was to decide whether to reduce plumber Robert Chain’s felony conviction for possession of child pornography to a misdemeanor, as he indicated he might when he sentenced Chain to four days in county jail last year.
Such reductions are not unheard of, but in Chain’s case, it would have come a year earlier than a probation officer recommended, which had been cited by Dauber and other critics as an example of Persky’s unwarranted leniency toward sex offenders. Most judges impose six-month sentences on defendants in similar cases.
Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.Happy 2016 everyone so let’s start it off with a bang! This release is one I’ve had in the works for some time but have been busy but finally it’s done and it’s now ready for reamping, mixing or whatever you crazy kids do these days to make that awesome tone of yours. Included is the following;
REAL Drums by Hugo Ribiero of Godvlad (thank’s mate, I really appreciate it!)
3 Clean Guitars
4 Rhythm Guitars
2 Lead Guitars
Bass Guitar
Midi Drums
Vocals (Official vox w/ Howard)
Wowzer! A killer start to 2016 here at ReampZone, right? So here you have it, a killer release and Hugo Ribeiro on the drums (so check him out by visiting his website here) and if you’re ready to download then click here. \m/description Description
This mod makes terrain on planets more different from each other. It will allow for 1.575 times bigger mountains but will also decrease other mountains to enable flatter planets. All in all I changed values that were all the same before to different values higher and lower than before.
Someone took the time to make a video about it (and while this is only one planet it should give you an idea): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icXoLobjUEg
If you have any suggestions or ideas, just post them below and I will see what I can do.
How it was done: In VOXELGENERATORSETTINGS.MBIN there are height values set at 400. These seem to control the mountain hight (overall hight of terrain). When changed to something higher terrain will rise and therefor the waterlevel will relativly decrease. At least when the next flag attribute is changed to "False" or else the water will rise with the terrain level.When Mikhail Grigorenko was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres back in 2012, most fans figured that the team got a steal with the #12 pick. After all, Grigorenko had been a consensus top-five pick for most of the 2011-12 season thanks to his elite offensive skills, and only dropped before the draft thanks to bogus group-think. He and Zemgus Girgensons were supposed to be a potential 1/2 combination at center for the next decade, but I think we all know how that turned out.
While Girgensons continued to shine and impress at every level, Grigorenko's unique age and talent situation meant that there was no good place for him. He was too good for the QMJHL, but not ready mentally and physically for the NHL. A desperate Darcy shuffled him back and forth between the two leagues in a manner both unfair and irresponsible to Grigorenko's development.
What followed was an avalanche of backlash against the young Russian. While most fans realized he was placed in an unfair predicament, our patience only goes so far on the internet. |
“Reserve My Seat” and “Send Me My T-Shirt”. Here’s an example from Unbounce:
Instead of “Buy Plan”, they say “Start My 30-Day Free Trial”, which is much more likely to get clicked. sources:
https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/how-compelling-copy-can-transform-a-cta
Show the work that went into creating your product e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design no With more and more products becoming commodities, how can you possibly stand out? Instead of packing in more features, why not tell a story? But not just any story: the story of how your product went from idea to a real-life thing. Here’s an amazing example of this strategy in action:
Telling your product’s story builds credibility and trust. It also adds a sense of romance to you and your business. Telling your product’s story builds credibility and trust. It also adds a sense of romance to you and your business. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/100-year-old-persuasion-strategy/
Show where your product was made e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no If you want your product to appear less generic, show where it was made. Even a simple “Made in San Francisco” label can help you stand out. sources:
https://goodui.org/#12
Show why you're better than competition e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no When the benefits of using your product are abundantly clear, you don’t need to woo potential customers with fancy copy. Instead, make a direct comparison to your competitors. That way, people can quickly see why they should choose you over the rest. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/sunshine-case-study/
Sweeten the deal with bonuses e-commerce, Saas and web apps pricing, funnels no A product+bonus has a higher perceived value than the same two products bundled together. This is backed by science: Research by Dr. Jerry Burger found that people preferred to buy a cupcake that came with two free cookies over a bundle that contained a cupcake and two cookies. sources:
https://www.scu.edu/cas/psychology/faculty/upload/Burger-JPSP-1986.pdf
Test different prices to maximize total revenue e-commerce, Saas and web apps pricing no You can test headlines and button colors till you’re blue in the face. And hey, you’ll sometimes see a lift on conversions. But you might find yourself with a HUGE conversion win by lowering or raising your price. Obviously, a lower price can boost conversions but hurt profits. Sometimes the lift in conversions from a lower price will outweigh the lower margins you’ll get. Other times, it won’t. So you’ll need to run revenue numbers to make the math work. sources:
https://vwo.com/blog/saas-pricing-ab-test/
Test first and second person copy in CTAs list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, call-to-action no Several CRO case studies show first person in the call to action (“I want to try it!”) works well. However, some people have seen a higher conversion with the second person “your” (“Get your free quote”). Try both to see which gives you the best conversion rate. sources:
https://www.copyblogger.com/call-to-action-buttons/
https://contentverve.com/case-study-31-03-increase-in-sales-by-tweaking-the-call-to-action-copy-on-a-payment-page/
Test free trials vs. freemium Saas and web apps pricing, funnels no Consider testing freemium vs. free trial pricing models. Depending on the product and industry, one or the other could make a HUGE difference in overall paid conversions. sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab-testing-free-trial-versus-freemium/
https://www.layeredthoughts.com/startups/the-psychological-difference-between-freemium-free-trial-plans
Test negative words in your headline list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no Outbrain discovered that negative words in headlines like “never” and “worst” outperform positive words, like “always” and “best”…by 63%. For example, a headline like “5 worst foods for losing belly fat” will grab more attention than “5 best foods for losing belly fat”. sources:
https://www.outbrain.com/blog/2013/07/headlines-when-the-best-brings-the-worst-and-the-worst-brings-the-best.html
Test upsells, downsells and cross sells e-commerce, Saas and web apps pricing, funnels no It’s no secret that when someone is ready to buy item X, they’re much more likely to buy item Y. That’s why upselling is a classic sales strategy that still works. As you can see in the PDF link below, scientific research backs this up. On the flip side, downsells offer a cheaper option for people that say “no” to the original offer. sources:
https://www.lehigh.edu/ise/documents/06t_003.pdf
https://conversionxl.com/upselling-techniques/
https://www.mindvalleyinsights.com/how_to_optimize_your_upsell_flow/
Turn a boring form into a fill in the blank list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no Let’s face it: no one likes filling out forms. That is, unless you make them fun. Vast.com found that replacing your typical boring forms with a”Mad Lib” style boosted form completion rate by 25%-40%. Here’s an example: sources:
https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1007
https://goodui.org/#48
Use a long-form sales page for pricey products e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, funnels no You’re not going to get many people to shell out $4000 for your online course with a 150-word landing page. For larger commitments, complex software, and expensive products, try a long-form sales page. That gives you the opportunity to explain details and benefits in-depth. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/
https://conversionxl.com/how-to-design-kickass-long-form-sales-pages/
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/
Use action-oriented copy list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, call-to-action no Instead of highlighting facts (“Our product helps people lose weight”), use active-voice copy (“Lose that stubborn belly fat”). Copywriters have long known that this action-oriented copy is more persuasive and powerful. sources:
https://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/research-topics/response-capture-case-study.html
Use guarantees e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action no Risk reversals have worked well for centuries. And they continue to work like gangbusters today. Guarantees demonstrate credibility and reduce risk — two things that get potential buyers to pull the trigger. sources:
https://michelfortin.com/blog/risk-reversals-role-reversal/
https://conversionscientist.com/ecommerce-optimization/using-risk-reversal-increase-ecommerce-salesif-youve-got-flaunt/
Use information gaps to create curiosity list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no When your get a little bit of information — but not the whole thing — you’ll do almost anything to close the gap. Information gaps are especially powerful for email opt-ins and lead generation. For example, let’s say you were giving away a weight loss ebook as a lead magnet. You could use this copy to create an information gap: “Research shows that this seemingly ‘healthy’ food actually slows down your metabolism”. I know I’m curious about what that food might be (and I made that example up 😀 ) sources:
https://copyhackers.com/2014/04/curiosity-gap/
https://socialtriggers.com/power-of-curiosity/
Use inline validation list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no Inline validation=awesome. Ever spend 10-minutes to fill out a form, only to see a “You need to accept the terms of service” error message?
#annoying Instead of making a user submit the entire form to see if they’ve made a mistake, inline validation give them a heads up as they work. Here’s a real-life example: Several case studies (including this one) found that inline validation boosts form completion rates. sources:
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/06/27/form-field-validation-errors-only-approach/
https://www.getelastic.com/real-time-inline-validation/
Use no-nonsense headlines list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no The purpose of your headline isn’t to sell…it’s to show people the benefit of using your product. And an overly salesey headline (“We can get you more sales. Call us today!”) can turn people off. What should you do instead? Use copy that clearly tells people about the #1 benefit people will get from your product or service. Optimizely has one of my all-time favorite no-nonsense headlines: sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/using-ab-split-testing-to-refine-your-startups-positioning-90-increase-in-conversion-rate/
https://37signals.com/svn/posts/1525-writing-decisions-headline-tests-on-the-highrise-signup-page
Use price anchoring e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, pricing no Want to make your products seem dirt cheap…without slashing the price one red cent? Try anchoring. Here’s how it works: When you show someone a certain price, they’re “anchored” to that price for a short time (that’s why infomercials show you higher prices before they reveal the actual price). Williams-Sonoma anchors like a boss. 5 out of the 6 products on this category page have a price anchor: Even if you’re current price isn’t a “discount”, try anchoring with a higher price first. That will make the real price seem like a sweet deal. sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/eye-tracking-studies/
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab-testing-price-discounts/
Use qualitative surveys to get breakthrough insights list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action, pricing, funnels yes Qualtitative surveys give you copywriting gold: the exact words customers use to describe their struggles, fears, and desires. Qualitative survey not only hooks you up with compelling copy, but can help you build a better product. sources:
https://okdork.com/2013/10/14/how-to-use-surveys-to-get-insane-results/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/magic-of-qualitative-data/
Use scarcity list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, call-to-action no Scarcity is one of the oldest persuasion techniques in the book. Why? Because it works! As long as your scarcity is legit, don’t be afraid to flaunt it. Copy like, “2 seats left”, “price going up soon”, and “3 days left” move products like wildfire. sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini
https://goodui.org/#36
Use specific statistics and numbers list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy no Looking to add credibility to your copy? Sprinkle in stats and figures. For example, “works 52% better than our competitor” is much more powerful than “best product around!”. Here’s an example from the HubSpot homepage: sources:
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/statistics/
Use the same language customers use list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, call-to-action, funnels no People click, sign up, and buy when they feel like you understand them. The best way to do? Use your customers’ exact words. Not the words you think they use…literally the exact words they use to describe their problem. You can get these magical words via email replies, surveys, blog comments, and forums. sources:
https://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/01/26/ramit-sethi-exposed-how-he-earns-millions-blogging/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/understanding-your-customer-copy/
https://businesscasualcopywriting.com/buzzstream-webinar/
Use weird call to action copy list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, call-to-action no Standard CTA copy=”Sign Up” or “Join”. Weird call to action copy=“Join now and get access to our app”. You may have noticed that I use weird CTA button copy on my homepage: Several case studies have found that non-standard CTAs convert better than the tired “learn more” and “sign up”. But, this is CRO, and if there’s one thing we know, it’s that everything needs to be tested. sources:
https://goodui.org/#18
https://www.copyblogger.com/call-to-action-buttons/
design techniques Add (awesome) site search list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, funnels no As Amazon will be quick to tell you, site search can make a HUGE difference with your conversions. Why? Because you’re showing people exactly what they want to find! Pro Tip: Pay attention to what your users search for the most. Make those sought-after products and pages easier to find (for example, feature them on your home page). sources:
https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/sitesearch/pdf/waterfilters.pdf
https://www.branded3.com/blogs/site-search-generates-3-times-as-many-conversions/
Add auto-complete suggestions in product search (with images) e-commerce design no You may have noticed that Amazon gives you product suggestions while you type: They do that for a reason: it works! Less typing=more time to spend money. Even better, try adding images to those suggestions. LEDHut doubled their sales after they added images to their ecommerce autocomplete search functionality: sources:
https://www.internetretailer.com/2010/04/29/product-images-site-search-window-boosts-conversions
https://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/casestudies/2014/02/search_case_study_led_hut_revamps_site_search_to_boost_international_appeal_and_double_sales.php
Add product filters e-commerce design, call-to-action no If you have a category page with 1001 products on it, add a product filter. That way, people can choose to see only items that fit their style and budget. Kilt ecommerce site Buy A Kilt saw a massive 76% increase in revenues when they added a simple product filter to their category pages: That means 76% more men wearing kilts. That’s a good thing, right? sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/product-filter-ecommerce-ab-testing-revenue/
Add trust symbols list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Several case studies show that trust symbols — like association memberships and security icons — boost conversions (especially at checkout). sources:
https://www.conversioniq.com/ecommerce-trust-seals-optimization-case-study
https://vwo.com/blog/increase-conversion-rate-with-trust-badges/
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/verisign-seal-increase-conversions/
Allow customers to zoom in on your products e-commerce design no Allowing customers to zoom in and see your product’s up-close is as close as you can get to an in-store shopping experience. In the case study below by Ecommerce Partners, an interactive zoom boosted sales at an online shoe store by 51%. sources:
https://conversionxl.com/how-images-can-boost-your-conversion-rate/
https://www.ecommercepartners.net/blog/use-product-zoom-to-increase-conversion.html
Avoid false bottoms to keep users scrolling list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Long form pages can convert like crazy (especially for pricier products). However, large gaps (especially around the fold) can fool people into thinking that they’ve reached the end of the page. Here’s an illustration of a false bottom via GoodUI: Align your content so that white space and gaps aren’t near the fold. That makes it very obvious there’s more content to be found. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/scrolling-tips/
Do usability testing (with real users) to get live feedback e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action, pricing, funnels yes Usability testing means getting feedback from real users as they use your site. That way, you so you can see which features slow them down, hang them up, or are hard to use. It’s a great way to decide where to focus your conversion optimization energy. You can get usability testing done on the cheap from sites like UserTesting.com. sources:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-roi-declining-but-still-strong/
https://conversionxl.com/website-usability-testing-a-must-for-boosting-conversions/
Encourage customers to share their puchase on social media e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, funnels no Encourage users to share (and brag) about what they bought on social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest. This will not only bring you some referral sales (“Those shoes look so cute. I want those!”), but will brand awareness to boot. For example, here’s what happens when you buy a bottle of wine at InVino: Another example: EventBrite recently started to encourage customers to share their purchase on social media. They found that the average return on a share was $4.15 for Facebook and $1.85 for Twitter. I’ll take that ROI any day of the week. sources:
https://blog.sumall.com/journal/integrate-social-media-e-commerce.html
https://eventbrite-s3.s3.amazonaws.com/marketing/britepapers/FEST_social_commerce_report_r1.pdf
Follow traditional design conventions list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no There’s nothing wrong with going against the grain. However, people have come to expect your website to have things in certain places. For example, when you visit a homepage you expect navigation at the top, the cart on the upper right-hand corner and back buttons on the left side. If any of these conventions are broken, user experience suffers. sources:
https://goodui.org/#29
Guide users with directional cues list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Directional cues guide your users in a certain direction. For example, if we see an image of someone looking to the right, we’ll look there to. This is a straetgy the Chemistry.com homepage has used brilliantly for years: Use directional cues to point users towards where you want them to focus (for example, to important forms or buttons). Incorporate video in your sales funnel list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no You can’t go 5-minutes in the conversion optimization world without reading a case study where video boosted conversions. That’s because video sells. (Like anything, video doesn’t work 100% of the time, so you’ll need to test it). For example, Grow Your Own Groceries saw a 12.62% lift after they added a simple video to their info product sales page: There are many different types of video you can use in your marketing: Demo videos, explainer videos, case studies, testimonials, you name it. The only downside of videos? They’re harder to product than writing out a few bullet points. See the case studies below examples galore. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/voices-case-study/
https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/case-study-using-video-to-lift-landing-page-conversion-rate-by-100/
https://blog.treepodia.com/2011/11/product-videos-boost-jewlery-conversions-by-247-case-study/
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/a-b-testing-free-trial-button/
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/voices-case-study/
https://vwo.com/blog/replacing-image-video-landing-page-increases-conversions/
Keep the number of items in the cart visible e-commerce design, funnels no People on a shopping spree can lose track of what they put into their cart. You can easily sidestep this issue with an item tracking feature that shows people how many items they have in their shopping cart. Here’s an example from Keurig: sources:
https://www.internetretailer.com/2010/03/31/don-t-go
https://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/08/14/decrease-shopping-cart-abandonment/
Make call to actions look like buttons (instead of text or pictures) list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no When it comes to call to action links, traditional-looking buttons tend to work best. That’s because people have been trained to click on buttons. If your CTA look like a text link or an image, fewer users will recognize it as a call to action. You guessed it: that means fewer people will click. sources:
https://www.copyblogger.com/call-to-action-buttons/
Make your load time lightning-fast list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design yes Amazon once reported that one second of load site delay can cost them over $1 billion in annual sales. Needless to say, they don’t let that happen 🙂 No matter what conversion you’re looking for — whether it’s an email signup or a big-ticket purchase — site speed can boost conversions. sources:
https://blog.mozilla.org/metrics/2010/04/05/firefox-page-load-speed-%E2%80%93-part-ii/
https://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales
https://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/02/28/4-awesome-slides-showing-how-page-speed-correlates-to-business-metrics-at-walmart-com/
https://velocityconf.com/velocity2009/public/schedule/detail/7709
Optimize your site for mobile list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design yes If you haven’t optimized your site for mobile screens, you need to hop in your Delorean and leave 1998 in a hurry. Check out the case study below to see how ProFlowers increased their conversion rates by 20-30% simply by making their site mobile friendly. sources:
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/case-studies/proflowers.html
Pimp expert social proof list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design no Show testimonials from prominent people in your industry, logos of well-know companies you’ve worked with, and awards you’ve won. Expert social proof (“Our clients include Microsoft”) can be more powerful than sheer numbers (“We’ve served 876 clients”). You may notice that I use this strategy here at Backlinko. I include a prominent testimonial from the well known SEO expert Neil Patel on my homepage: sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/voices-case-study/
Prominently display social sharing buttons in blog posts list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no In the case study below, AMD saw their social shares increase by 3600% after adding social sharing buttons to their sidebar: sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/amd-3600-social-sharing-increase/
Prominently display your phone number e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design no A phone number is a sign of trust and reliability. After all, you’d be hard pressed to find a 1-800 number on a shady affiliate site. In one case study, LessAccounting saw a modest increase in conversions after they added a big ol’ phone number to their homepage. sources:
https://lesseverything.com/blog/archives/2011/02/17/adding-a-phone-number-to-lessaccounting-increased-our-paid-user-base/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/results-from-flowr/
Put key information on the left side of the page list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no Heatmap studies confirm what you probably already know: people tend to browse the web an F pattern (the same way we read a book). (Image source) Bottom line: put important content on the left side of your landing pages. Otherwise, people may miss it. sources:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Reduce distractions list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no I probably don’t need to tell you that distractions are conversion killers. But how do you know what distracts people from your offer? And here are a few examples of what you can test to find — and eliminate — distractions. Reduce the elements in your sidebar (especially for blogs)
Remove as many elements outside of your CTA as possible (for example, a navigation bar)
Use heatmap software tools to see if certain “deadweight” elements on your page steal attention from CTAs sources:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/eye-tracking-studies/
https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/how-to-convert-225-more
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/abtesting-increases-lead-generation-rate/
https://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/08/12/google-website-optimizer-case-study/
Reduce the number of fields and options a user has to sift through list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action, funnels no Lots of choices makes people anxious. And unless you sell bomb shelters, an anxious user isn’t likely to convert. Cutting out just a single field can make a huge difference. For example, Expedia boosted annual sales by $12 million dollars by removing a “Company Name” field from their signup process: Bottom line? Destroy all unnecessary options on your site. sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/remove-product-filter-increase-site-engagement/
https://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2011/11/expedia-deletes-one-field-from-their-registration-process-increases-profit-12m/
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/career-advice-and-ab-testing/
Remove graphics or images near or touching your CTA list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no You may want to draw attention to your CTA with arrows or other fancy graphics. And that can work. However: If your button already contrasts with the rest of the page, you may not need potentially distracting images around it. Your visitors will find it on their own, thank you very much 🙂 sources:
https://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/07/22/call-action-buttons/
Remove trust symbols list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Conversion rate optimization is funny. Sometimes so-called “best practices” fall flat. Case in point: the case study linked to below. When Bradley removed a security symbol from a coupon site, conversions went up. Was it because his security symbol looked cheesy? Possibly. The big lesson is that you should test the influence your trust symbols have on your conversions. They may be doing more harm than good. Remove visual deadweight list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no If a lot of your users’ attention gravitate to non-clickable items that don’t boost conversions, cut them out. Heatmap studies are awesome for finding out what gets between your users and your call to action. sources:
https://www.techwyse.com/blog/website-conversion/using-heat-maps-for-improved-landing-page-conversion/
Replace dropdown menus with other options list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no Dropdown menus are a huge pain. Personally, I’m cursed with a birthday of August 31st. That means I have to scroll to the very bottom of a dropdown menu to choose my birth date. Try replacing cumbersome dropdown menus with visible options or autocomplete fields. sources:
https://vwo.com/blog/removing-drop-down-increased-conversions-on-ecommerce-website/
Run surveys to figure out what your customers really want list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action, pricing, funnels yes Surveys can give you incredible insight into what’s working, what’s not, and (most importantly) why. Also, don’t forget to survey visitors that don’t convert. Sometimes non-buyers give you your most valuable insights. sources:
https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/rulebook/
Ruthlessly remove useless links list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action no I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked on an Adwords ad and landed on a page with links to pages like “About Us” and “Our Mission”. If you’re serious about conversions, your landing pages have to give visitors ONE or TWO options. Every additional option eats away at your page’s conversions. Bottom line: Remove distracting links from your landing pages. This can often lead to a bump in conversions because more visitors will do what you actually want them to do. sources:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-navigation-ht
https://vwo.com/blog/a-b-testing-case-study-navigation-menu/
Show multiple high-quality product images e-commerce design yes You probably already know that, when it comes to ecommerce conversions, product images are HUGE. Before you throw up a grainy iphone photo, check out the linked studies. You’ll learn how multiple high-quality product images (taken from multiple angles) can significantly boost conversion rates. sources:
https://conversionxl.com/how-images-can-boost-your-conversion-rate/
http://www.ablecommerce.com/Increasing-E-Commerce-Conversion-Ratios-with-Multiple-Product-Images
https://blog.woorank.com/2013/12/boost-product-page-conversion-rates-with-examples/
Show off user reviews e-commerce copy, funnels no Countless case studies have shown that user reviews increase conversions (especially for ecommerce sites). But don’t just let people choose 3 stars and call it a day. Let them wax lyrical about your products. As Unbounce reports in the case study below, conversions increase if user reviews have meaty content. In other words, users want to read what people have to say about the product…not just how many stars they gave it. sources:
https://unbounce.com/photos/customer-reviews-impact-conversions.jpg
Show your product in context e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Cigarette advertisers have used context to sell for decades. That’s why almost 100% of their ads show hot people smoking instead of a close up of the product itself. No matter what you sell, show your product in the environment people will use it. Ikea is the grand master of this technique. You’d be hard pressed to find an Ikea image of a pot NOT in a kitchen or a shower curtain NOT attached to a bathtub. I mean, look at how cool they make this silverware organizer look: That’s context, baby. sources:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/presentation-and-context/
Test button size list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no Larger buttons usually get more clicks. Usually. Take a break from button color testing and test button sizes instead. Sometimes a tweak in button size can attract more clicks. sources:
https://www.widerfunnel.com/proof/case-studies/sap-landing-page-optimization
https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/design-call-to-action-buttons/
Test different colors for call-to-action buttons list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no It’s impossible to predict which color will perform the best for your site. So don’t be afraid to try a bunch. In the case study below, a projector ecommerce site increased conversions by 21% with a red button. Even though web design textbooks will tell you that red is for errors, don’t be afraid to test it. sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/blue-link-vs-red-link/
Update your outdated design list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no I know: It’s tempting to focus your conversion elements on the little things (“OK, we fixed the headline, now let’s start with button colors!”). But the design of your site looks outdated or messy, you’ll have a helluva time getting users to convert. And no amount of button color testing is going to fix it. If you suspect your site may have an outdated design, it probably does. sources:
https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2010/10/26/how-cloudsponge-increased-conversions-33-using-99designs-case-study/
Use a large font for your headline list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no Don’t be afraid to make your headlines HUGE. In fact, Numara boosted clicks by 334% when they made their headline shorter and bigger: Bottom line: Make your headline big and bold. sources:
https://www.clicklaboratory.com/case-studies/increasing-sales-pipeline-with-adaptive-web-design/
Use a notification bar at the top of your pages list building design no Think pop-ups are too intrusive? No sweat. Try a notification bar (like Hellobar) at the top of your site. Two of the services we’ve linked to here work well. How well do they work? Jason Acidre boosted his conversions by 532% after he added a notification bar to the top of his blog: sources:
https://www.hellobar.com
https://sumo.com/app/smart-bar
https://kaiserthesage.com/email-list-building/
Use a popup to capture more emails list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no People love to complain about popups. But the reality is: they convert. Like any marketing tactic, the devil’s in the details. In the case of popups, the better your make your offer, the higher your conversion rate will be. Try offering exclusive tips, or better yet, pitch a Content Upgrade bonus. Here’s an example: See how laser targeted that is? As you can probably guess, that popup coverts better (and annoys less) than your a generic “sign up for my newsletter” popup. sources:
https://blog.videofruit.com/spike/
https://socialtriggers.com/annoying-popups/
Use a single column layout list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no For pages where you want to present information in a specific order, move from a multi-column layout to single column. That way you can lead users by the nose to the bottom of the page. In fact, a case study via Marketing Experiments found that shifting to a single-column layout boosted conversions by more than 600% for a software company: sources:
https://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/research-topics/landing-page-optimization-research-topics/how-many-columns-webpages.html
Use a slider at the bottom of your pages list building design no A slider is an awesome way to grab someone’s attention…without annoying them with a popup. You can use that attention to get someone to visit another page, complete a form or collect an email. I personally use the excellent Sumo Scroll Box here at Backlinko. Here’s how it looks: Here’s how it converts for me: Not too shabby, eh? sources:
https://sumo.com/app/scroll-box
Use a smaller button list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action no 9 times out of 10, bigger buttons increase conversions. That’s because they stand out more. But in certain cases, a smaller button works better. That’s what Michael Aagaard found when he used a smaller button on one of his client’s signup pages. The smaller button converted 10.56% better than the larger one. sources:
https://contentverve.com/case-study-31-03-increase-in-sales-by-tweaking-the-call-to-action-copy-on-a-payment-page/
Use BIG product images e-commerce design no If you think your product images are too small, you’re probably right. When people shop online, they’re drawn to images, not sales copy. In one case study, an a Czech online retailer saw a 9% boost in conversions when they switched to bigger product images: sources:
https://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/larger-product-images-increase-conversion-rate/
https://econsultancy.com/blog/62391-do-bigger-images-mean-improved-conversion-rates-three-case-studies
Use competitive intelligence list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action, pricing, funnels yes Don’t be afraid to borrow conversion strategies from your competitors. In the case study below, sunshine.co.uk uncovered several landing page ideas from their competitors…many of which boosted conversions significantly when they used them on their site. sources:
https://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/sunshine-case-study/
Use hand-drawn visual cues list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps copy, design, call-to-action no Want to draw attention to a certain area of your landing page? Try hand drawn arrows and copy. This won’t always work, (sometimes cleaner designs convert better) but it often does. Here’s an example from the real world: See how the hand drawn elements grab and direct attention? sources:
https://www.90percentofeverything.com/2009/08/25/some-fun-eye-tracking-heatmaps/
https://conversionxl.com/research-study/visual-cue-study/
Use heat map tools list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design, call-to-action yes Heat maps easily answer questions that would otherwise remain clouded in mystery: “Where are people focusing?” “Why doesn’t anyone scroll down?” “Are people clicking where I want?” The answers to these questions will hand you split testing hypotheses on a silver platter. sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/eye-tracking-heatmaps-2012-5?op=1
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Use image sliders instead of video list building, e-commerce, Saas and web apps design no 9 out of 10 CRO experts will tell you that image sliders don’t work. But like most things in conversion rate optimization, it’s something worth testing. For example, an interesting study by VWO found that |
, it’s been a contest to determine which path America will take to address the dire issues we face as we look to the future. Jill Stein is ready to lead the charge in a campaign of change. She may have small poll numbers, but without major news coverage she has really illustrated how powerful her agenda focused campaign is. Jill believes “democracy needs a moral compass”. She recognizes a historically large group of voters identify as independents because they are tired of hollow promises and leaders restrained by special interests.
Jill calls out the seemingly rigged political and economic system. She acknowledges the danger of forcing younger generations into deep holes of debt. Jill isn’t afraid to call out the counter-productive nature of our warfare in the Middle East, and how it has actually made the world more dangerous. She points out that Hillary spearheaded the conflict in Libya, is calling for more action in Syria, plays a continuing role in the deregulation of Wall Street and has also favored and participated in drafting trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP which have proven to outsource American jobs rather than create them. Despite what you may have heard, Jill is not naive. Her Green New Deal is a path toward a more sustainable infrastructure that will simultaneously create new jobs and bolster the growth of a domestic industry just waiting to be actualized.
Like the prescription of a leader that Emerson has given us, Jill has a vision of inspiring and freeing our country to be a nation of leaders and critical thinkers. Consider the misinformation you’ve probably heard about third party candidates splitting elections. More people choose not to vote than people who vote for a third party. Jill believes people aren’t voting because they haven’t had a candidate to champion the causes that affect their lives. Jill wants to be your voice and your champion. She believes we must cleanse the system so it can function as it was designed.
If we find the mainstream candidates to be untrustworthy, then why not use the next two months to explore other options? What’s the harm in having more voices and opinions at the table? Why not open up the debates and have a discussion with “more voices and choices,” as Jill has described?
Green Party nominee Jill Stein has been slowly climbing in the polls. People will spread all kinds of misinformation about her and the hypothetical impact she may or may not have. The truth is that people find her refreshing when they actually read about her or hear her speak. Although Bernie officially endorsed Clinton, he also taught his supporters to think independently. Jill represents many of the same values and more. She is a physician choosing to be a politician in order to heal the ailments of our nation. Jill is running for President because she wants to help us move forward safely and responsibly, not because she yearns to be powerful.At least 233 species of bacteria, viruses and more live on or inside both humans and dogs.
That’s one finding from a study that matched animals with their known microbes and drew connections between species with similar microbial crews. The diagram below, published September 15 in Scientific Data, is a social network of species that resembles a vibrant tangle of yarn.
Each dot is an animal species; the creatures are clumped into colored groups such as light blue for fish and yellow for birds. Humans have the largest dot because they host at least 1,600 different microbes. The distance between dots and the lines connecting them indicate that many human microbes also reside in dogs, pigs and cattle.
Domesticated animals live beside humans, so the microbial overlap isn’t surprising, says study coauthor Maya Wardeh, a computational biologistEarlier this month, the state of California’s GDP passed that of France to become the sixth largest in the world. The country just ahead of California, in fifth place, is the United Kingdom, where last year’s GDP totaled about $2.85 trillion according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, California’s GDP in 2015 totaled $2.46 trillion.
The U.K.’s economy was about 15% bigger than California’s, but in 2015 California’s economy grew by 4.1% while the U.K. economy grew by just 0.5%. And the U.K.’s growth is probably over, at least in the short term, thanks to Thursday’s vote to leave the European Union.
Most economics forecasts see a drop of around 3% to more than 9% in U.K. GDP by 2030 according to a report in the Financial Times. One economist who supported leaving the EU forecast a gain of 4% in GDP by 2020.
Looking at the worst possible case — a loss of 9.5% of GDP by 2030 — would drop Britain’s GDP to around $2.58 trillion over the 15-year period. That works out to a loss to GDP of around 0.7% annually for the next 15 years.
California is unlikely to grow its economy at more than 4% annually for very long, but at a compound annual growth rate of around 1%, California’s GDP would equal $2.58 trillion in just 5 years. At 1.9% annual growth, California’s GDP would top Britain’s current $2.85 trillion GDP in about 8 years.
It’s reasonable to expect that California’s GDP will be greater than the U.K.’s in less than a decade and perhaps less than half that time.Probably one of the most “famous” reserve societies by a brewery in the United States is The Bruery’s Reserve Society. The Bruery just made an even bigger splash with plans to add an even more special, super, mega, ultra reserve society called “The Hoarder’s Society“. If you get invited to that, be prepared to drop nearly $700 dollars.
Cigar City Brewing is in the process of expanding their brewery and their tap room. In the process they just dropped another hint at something fairly important. The potential addition of their own Reserve Society. Nothing officially announced here, but Cigar City asks you to unscramble this:
To complicated for you? We get Reserve Society. Might make sense though, given the amount of rare releases by Cigar City. Hunaphu, Barrel Aged Hunahpu, Various barrel aged renditions, and experiments. It raises the question – Do you like the idea of Reserve/Brewery Membership societies?
Read more: Cigar City BeerI had a post last month ( or year for that matter) on Hey, Scripting Guy! where I talked about using PInvoke and PowerShell to create a function that allowed you to remove files which were nested too deep in a folder path causing a long path issue meaning that the file could not be removed.
The problem with this function is that it could only remove a file by using the DeleteFile function. While this is great, it could really use some extra features such as being able to remove directories which includes deleting the child files/folders…similar to what you would have with Remove-Item.
In order to do this, I need to look at working with RemoveDirectory to actually delete the folder. The next issue is that I first need to remove all of the child objects under the directory which includes other files and folders and continue to recursively go through each sub-folder until I reach the end and at that point I can remove the folder.
The result is my function called Remove-Item2 which performs like Remove-Item with the exception of the only parameter that you have is –Path.
For those interested, here is the code that I put together for the recursive folder and file deletion.
If ($Handle -ne -1) { While ($Found) { If ($findData.cFileName -notmatch '^(\.){1,2}$') { $IsDirectory = [bool]($findData.dwFileAttributes -BAND 16) Write-Debug "$(Get-PSCallStack | Out-String)" If ((Get-PSCallStack).Count -eq 2) { $_FullName = "$($Path)" } Else { $_FullName = "$($Path)\$($findData.cFileName)" } If ($IsDirectory) { #Dive deeper $PSBoundParameters.Fullname = "$_FullName\*" Remove-Item2 @PSBoundParameters If ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($_FullName.TrimStart('\\?\'), 'Remove Directory')) { #Remove file $Return = [poshfile]::RemoveDirectory($_FullName) If (-NOT $Return) { Write-Warning "Unable to remove $_FullName" } } } Else { If ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($_FullName.TrimStart('\\?\'), 'Remove File')) { #Remove file $Return = [poshfile]::DeleteFile($_FullName) If (-NOT $Return) { Write-Warning "Unable to remove $_FullName" } } } } $Found = [poshfile]::FindNextFile($Handle,[ref]$findData) } [void][PoshFile]::FindClose($Handle) }
I used Get-PSCallStack to help me determine where I am at in the folder path as each call to the function would increase the callstack which helped me to actually delete the top level folder that I was looking to remove. I tried a few other approaches like a counter or setting another variable, but they had less than desirable results.
The result is a function that you can use to clear out files and folders which are normally unreachable using Remove-Item as shown below:
The function is available below from the Script Center Repository to use. Give it a run and let me know how you like it!
Download Remove-Item2
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Remove-LongPathFile-7a4db495First page (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/Manuscript Division).
The Statute of Westminster, of 11 December 1931, was a British law clarifying the powers of Canada's Parliament and those of the other Commonwealth Dominions. It granted these former colonies full legal freedom except in those areas where they chose to remain subordinate to Britain.
The Statute of Westminster, of 11 December 1931, was a British law clarifying the powers of Canada's Parliament and those of the other Commonwealth Dominions. It granted these former colonies full legal freedom except in those areas where they chose to remain subordinate to Britain.
Desire for Autonomy
Previously the British government had certain ill-defined powers, and ultimately overriding authority, over legislation passed by the Dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Things began to change after the First World War, in which the sacrifices of Canada and other Dominions on European battlefields had stirred feelings of nationhood, and desires for greater autonomy from the mother country.
Canada began to assert its independence in foreign policy in the early 1920s: when the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King refused to commit to assisting British occupation forces in Turkey without approval of Parliament in Ottawa (see Chanak Affair); when it signed a fisheries treaty with the United States without British participation; and when it made plans to establish a Canadian embassy in Washington DC.
Imperial Conferences
The Imperial Conference of 1926 was a more formal step — giving initial legal substance to the Balfour Report declaration that same year, that Britain and its Dominions were constitutionally "equal in status." The subsequent 1929 Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation and the Imperial Conference of 1930 continued to work towards agreement on fundamental changes in the Commonwealth's complex legal system.
Gradual Change
Finally in 1931, at the request and with the consent of the Dominions, the Statute of Westminster was passed by the British Parliament, further clarifying and cementing the Dominions' legislative independence.
Yet some limits remained. After consultation between Canada's federal and provincial governments, the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts, 1867–1930 — Canada's Constitution — was specifically excepted from the terms of the statute. The amendment of the Constitution remained exclusively the preserve of the British Parliament until passage of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Nor did Canada immediately take up all of its new powers under the Statute of Westminster. Not until 1949, for instance, did the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a British body, cease to be a final court of appeal for Canadians.A state regulatory agency released a damning report Wednesday that found Peoples Gas has mismanaged its multibillion-dollar program to replace aging pipes under Chicago streets, pointing to large delays and budget overruns that could lead to significantly higher bills for customers.
The report also raised questions about safety and the program's overall effectiveness, finding that the swapping of high-risk, leak-prone iron pipes with new plastic lines has failed to dramatically reduce gas leaks.
The audit was released by the Illinois Commerce Commission, which oversees utilities in Illinois. It comes as the commission continues a separate whistleblower investigation into allegations that the audit was undermined by Peoples Gas parent Integrys Energy Group and Wisconsin Energy Corp., which is seeking to acquire Integrys, and that former members of management have benefited from outside contracts on the gas main project.
"It's a disappointing day when millions of Illinois state citizens learn that the utility they rely on has gravely mismanaged and misused their hard-earned dollars," Commissioner Sherina Maye said during a hearing Wednesday on the audit. "As a regulator, I'm shocked, disappointed and bewildered to receive the results of the (audit)."
Peoples Gas, which delivers natural gas to 831,000 Chicago customers, is replacing roughly 2,000 miles of pipe in Chicago and charging its utility customers to help pay for the project.
Peoples Gas has previously acknowledged that the gas main project needed to be improved, but has also blamed some delays and cost increases on new Chicago regulations and new requirements related to safety and how it may charge customers.
Charlie Schrock, chairman and chief executive officer of Integrys Energy Group, said at Wednesday's hearing that the company has already started implementing changes and will continue to work to improve the program.
"The (Accelerated Main Replacement Program) was the largest and arguably most ambitious natural gas modernization program in the country," Schrock said. "(The audit) is an opportunity, and we view this as an opportunity to further improve the program."
The commission ordered the audit in 2013 because of concerns over the slowing progress of the pipe replacements. The one-year investigation, which the commission said has cost $1.3 million as of March, was conducted by The Liberty Consulting Group. Peoples Gas can pass that cost to customers.
The audit found that program costs "have increased dramatically" from estimates in 2009 of about $2.6 billion to a 2012 estimate of about $4.5 billion. Moreover, Liberty auditors reported that current cost estimates could be significantly higher.
"Because of the inadequacy and poor quality of current information available from Peoples Gas, Liberty cannot provide any credible estimate of either yearly or total (program) costs," according to the report.
Peoples Gas got legislative approval in 2013 to recover costs for the pipeline replacement project for 10 years. This year, the average heating customer will pay about $8 per month toward the project, including a new $2 surcharge, according to the company.
"Peoples Gas is spending $300 million this year to deliver this important safety pipeline upgrade," said Jennifer Block, spokeswoman for Integrys. "The surcharge is a timely cost recovery mechanism so we can continue investing over the course of the lifetime of the legislation."
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who intervened on behalf of consumers in the whistleblower case and recently issued subpoenas on the matter, has previously said that a cost increase to more than $4 billion would, in effect, double base rates for Chicago households in nine years.
"This is a shockingly mismanaged program that is rife with cost overruns and fails to achieve a reduction in gas leaks," Madigan's spokeswoman, Natalie Bauer Luce, said in a statement. "This program is a complete disaster."
The main replacement program launched in 2011 and had been slated for completion in 2030, which would have required Peoples to replace about 100 miles of pipe annually, according to the audit. But the audit found that the actual rate of replacement from 2011 to 2014 was significantly below that level, leading to the program falling behind by about a year.
"Losing a year to schedule in only four years of operation makes it appropriate to question the Company's current ability to complete high-risk pipe replacement by, or even close to, 2030," the audit said.
The audit also touched on leaks, finding that reductions have been marginal, despite the gas main replacements. Liberty said that Peoples needs to re-examine which lines it chooses to replace first and whether trying to accomplish other fixes during the replacement has contributed to delays.
The report warns that Peoples will also have to manage an anticipated increase in city street work that could set the project back even further.
At the same time, Liberty praised the program for successfully replacing high-risk, leak-prone pipes with new ones that should not leak, noting that Peoples has used "reasonably-effective" engineering and construction standards and experienced contractors selected through competitive solicitations.
The idea behind the replacement program is to swap out old iron pipes for new plastic ones that will allow the utility to boost pipe pressure, preventing water from seeping into pipes and freezing and cracking them.
Peoples Gas has about 4,200 miles of main, 40 percent of which remains cast and ductile iron. Some of the iron piping dates to the 1800s, and the archaic system poses "great risk," according to the report, because failures can prove both unpredictable and "catastrophic" by suddenly releasing large volumes of gas.
Another factor affecting service is that Peoples Gas has the highest rate of contractor damage in the U.S., with 25 incidents per 100 miles of main in 2013, according to the report. Liberty recommended Peoples Gas perform a study on contractor-caused damage and report to the commission within six months on its findings and a plan to mitigate the problem.
The 354-page report makes 95 recommendations, including that Peoples and Integrys develop a strategy to get better deals from contractors, empower inspectors to halt unsafe work and make plans to improve employee accident rates, reduce leak rates further and provide a new and reliable cost model.(CNN) The election of Donald Trump and running mate Mike Pence set off panic in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities across the country, as people worried which of their divisive campaign promises would come true.
Would the President-elect make good on his pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which protects transgender people from discrimination in accessing health care? Will he appoint conservative judges to the US Supreme Court who could roll back marriage equality and other civil rights? Will Pence's long-ago support for so-called "conversion therapy" translate to a directive for LGBT youth?
Questions such as these flooded the offices of LGBT advocacy groups nationwide following Trump's victory early Wednesday.
Despite being regarded by some as one of the most "pro-LGBT" Republican presidential nominees ever, who expressed sympathy for the LGBT community after the Orlando nightclub shooting, critics say his conservative advisers -- Pence included -- and the Republican party's anti-LGBT platform are a threat to the progress made during the Obama administration's legacy.
"We're hearing from really, really scared people," said Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization. "We're seeing a fear of an atmosphere of intolerance that began with Trump's campaign."
Spokespeople for Trump and Pence did not return requests for comment.
The Human Rights Campaign, which supported Hillary Clinton, held a Facebook Live broadcast on Thursday to address some of the concerns. Here's what their experts and others from national LGBT groups had to say.
Protesters take part in a demonstration against Donald Trump's presidential election victory in Los Angeles.
Is this the end of same-sex marriage?
Many same-sex couples worry that their marriages could be invalidated in Trump's America, or that if things are getting serious they better hurry up and make it official before their right to tie the knot disappears.
Neither the President nor Congress can take away what the Supreme Court has deemed a "fundamental right," leaving current marriages safe, multiple legal experts said.
While Trump does not have the right to unilaterally scrap marriage equality, he has the power to appoint Supreme Court justices who could.
The jurists that replace them could be the ones that bring change. So far, judicial conservatives are said to be very pleased with his potential nominees. But it would take a long time for the court to repeal marriage equality -- if they decide to, Tiven said. Regardless of who replaces Justice Antonin Scalia, the five Supreme Court justices who ushered in marriage equality will remain.The jurists that replace them could be the ones that bring change.
By then, though, advocates are optimistic that society will have adjusted to the idea and let it be.
"People's hearts and minds have changed," HRC legal director Sarah Warbelow said. "We've had rights rolled back but it is rare."
What about same-sex adoption?
Gay and lesbian parents are worried that their parental rights could be in jeopardy, especially for the non-biological parent.
Even if that person's name is on the child's birth certificate, experts say it's best to adopt the child.
Also called a second parent adoption, it's a court order that says as a legal matter the adult is a parent, said Jennifer C. Pizer, senior counsel and law and policy director of Lambda Legal.
Though the states set adoption and parental rights policies, adoption ensures both parents have a legal tie, which could help in challenges to parental rights at the federal level.
"Court judgments are recognized from state to state as a constitutional rule so even if federal law changes you're a parent of the child," she said.
Does this mean more 'bathroom bills'?
North Carolina's controversial HB 2 got most of the attention, but 2016 brought similar proposals to regulate bathroom access for transgender people across the country. Advocacy groups fully expected the ball to keep rolling regardless of who captured the presidency.
"It was clear in 2016 that we saw an upswing in anti-trans legislation, more than we'd ever seen before," said Transgender Law Center Executive Director Kris Hayashi. "We anticipated that was not going to lessen but increase in 2017."
In response, advocacy groups have been training across the country for more legislative battles, he said.
"What is needed in this moment is for transgender leaders to continue the work we've been doing advocating and organizing for our rights."
What about transgender students?
The Obama administration's recommendation to schools to treat transgender students in accordance with their gender identity drew cheers from advocacy groups and criticism from conservatives, including Pence. Trump said transgender people should be protected under the law but rejected the use of federal law to do so, saying it should be left to the states.
Even if Trump rescinds the Obama administration's guidance, the laws upon which it was based won't change, said David Stacy, Government Affairs Director of HRC.
The directive is largely based on Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which forbids discrimination based on gender. In recent years, trial court and court of appeals decisions have interpreted Title IX to cover sexual orientation and gender identity, too, extending its protections to the LGBT population.
"Schools have an obligation to follow the law whether the guidance is repealed or not," he said. "When it comes to recognizing a name change, or the use of bathroom facilities, under federal law schools have a legal and moral obligation to treat all students with dignity and respect."
Will I lose my Obamacare?
Repealing the Affordable Care Act was a benchmark of Trump's campaign. Of the 20 million Americans covered, about 5% are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, Stacy said.
The Affordable Care Act has a non-discrimination provision that includes gender identity and sexual orientation. It was especially meaningful for transgender people, who often face discrimination when they try to access gender-affirming health care. Taking away Obamacare would mean removing those protections, Stacy said.
But it remains to be seen how Trump would actually do this, leaving groups in a holding pattern for how to respond.
Is conversion therapy going to be legitimized?
As far as we can tell, at no point in the presidential campaign did Vice President-elect Pence talk about supporting conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that claims to undo homosexuality.
But in his run for Congress in 2000, his campaign website said he endorsed using federal funds to support "those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior."
The position has been widely interpreted as signaling Pence's support for conversion therapy, according to Snopes.com. It got a new life during his run for executive office, leading to panicked calls from LGBT youth who are "terrified" that they'll be forced into conversion therapy, said Pizer of Lambda Legal.
Because the practice has been widely rejected by mental health professionals and outlawed in some states, it's hard to imagine that it could ever gain credibility or become law, Pizer said -- even with the support of an elected official.
"It's up to parents to make lots of decisions for their kids, but mental health professionals know that this type of effort to change who people are is not effective," she said.
Will I still be able to serve in the military?
Though anything could happen, it's "exceedingly unlikely" that Pence's opposition to the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will reverse the decision to let gays and lesbians serve openly in the military, said Warbelow of the HRC.
Transgender service began this year, too, signed off on by the chairs of each military branch, she said.
"Regulations are not easy to undo," she said. "The military leadership of our country feels good about it and all of those people have skills and expertise that our military needs."
Should challenges arise, she reminded people that there will be a notice and comment period for people to raise their voices.
"If you think something is going to affect your future you need to reach out. Even if it's a Republican [lawmaker] they need to hear from constituents."NBA commissioner Adam Silver is the most influential person in sports business, while the clout of the NFL's Roger Goodell apparently has waned, according to an annual list published Monday by SportsBusiness Daily.
Adam Silver achieved something David Stern never did: being named SportsBusiness Daily's most influential person in sports business. AP Photo/John Locher
It's a status that not even Silver's predecessor David Stern, who retired in February, ever achieved.
ESPN president John Skipper moved up one spot to No. 2. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft filled the third spot, the highest an owner has ever appeared on the list, and the fifth year in a row he has appeared in the top 10.
Outgoing Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and his replacement, Rob Manfred, were fourth on the list, followed by Goodell.
Goodell, who has had a rough year surrounded by criticism over how he has handled discipline, is as low on the list as he has ever been. He was also fifth in 2006, during his first season as commissioner.
SBD's 10 Most Influential in Sports Biz Org. Adam Silver NBA John Skipper ESPN Robert Kraft The Kraft Group Bud Selig/Rob Manfred MLB Roger Goodell NFL Sean McManus CBS Sports Ari Emanuel/Patrick Whitesell WME-IMG David Levy Turner Gary Bettman NHL Brian France NASCAR
NCAA president Mark Emmert, who has lost significant influence as the O'Bannon lawsuit has stirred up the debate of compensation for former and current athletes, fell to 41st on the list, the lowest he has been.
Sports shoe and apparel company executives also were recognized. Nike CEO Mark Parker moved up to No. 17, one spot ahead of his appearance last year. Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank continued his climb -- No. 21 this year, up from No. 26 in 2013 and No. 32 in 2012. He debuted on the list at No. 42 in 2009.
Newcomers on the list include Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, co-CEOs of William Morris Endeavor, who landed at No. 7 after they oversaw the purchase of sports agency IMG for $2.4 billion last year. Steve Ballmer, who bought the Clippers for $2 billion this year, takes the No. 13 spot, and Harvey Levin, founder of TMZ, is 50th.
The list has been published since 2004.
LeBron James, together with Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, came in 26th on the list. It is the first time a current athlete has been on SBD's list.The small square at the left of each waveform vibrates at the instantaneous value of the voltage or current it represents.
The subscripts "o" and "rms" stand respectively for peak value and root-mean-square value.
The supply voltage (A) and the circuit current (E) will always have a phase difference φ. The phase difference can be found by using the triangle (H). If the inductive reactance (X L ) is greater than the capacitive reactance (X C ), the supply voltage will lead the current; if the inductive reactance is smaller than the capacitive reactance, the supply voltage will lag behind the current.
) is greater than the capacitive reactance (X ), the supply voltage will lead the current; if the inductive reactance is smaller than the capacitive reactance, the supply voltage will lag behind the current. The p.d. across the resistor (B) oscillates inphase with the current (E).
The p.d. across the capacitor (C) lags behind the current (E) by π/2.
The p.d. across the inductor (D) leads the current(E) by π/2.
In other words, (C) and (D) are always in antiphase.
The four RMS volatges are related by the triangle (H).
The curve (F) shows the variation of the reciprocal of the impedance against frequency.
(G) shows three rotating vectors (phasors), their projections on the y-axis corresponds to the three instantaneous voltages.
Series resonance is achieved by adjusting f, L or C such that the purple dot is exactly at the highest point of the curve (F).
At resonance, (i) phase diff = 0 and (ii) Z = R. Therefore, (A) and (B) become exactly identical, (A) and (E) are inphase. The circuit current (E) is the greatest.
At resonance, the p.d. across the capacitor (C) and that across the inductor (D) may be large in magnitude but their sum is zero.Barbara Bowman, who penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this week recounting her history of alleged sexual assault by Bill Cosby, joined HuffPost Live Friday morning to discuss her allegations against the famed comedian.
The 47-year-old actress is one of 13 women who has accused Cosby of sexual assault, and claims that Cosby won her trust when he offered to mentor her when she was a teenager.
As Bowman wrote in the Washington Post: "I blacked out after having dinner and one glass of wine at his New York City brownstone, where he had offered to mentor me and discuss the entertainment industry. When I came to, I was in my panties and a man’s t-shirt, and Cosby was looming over me. I’m certain now that he drugged and raped me."
She went into further detail to HuffPost Live host Alyona Minkovski, describing her experiences with Cosby as being "sexual encounters that were not consensual on any level."
"[There was the time] in Atlantic City, which was the final incident, where he came straight out and attacked me in his suite and tried to rape me and tried to tear off my clothes and he was trying to tear off his belt buckle and his pants" she recalled. "And I was just not gonna take it. I was screaming and yelling and scratching and wrestling to get away from him, and at one point he just got angry and viciously mad and threw me out.
"I wonder how he sleeps at night," Bowman continued. "And I think it's very unfortunate that a man with so many decades of reverence is going to end his legacy this way."
Cosby has previously denied claims of sexual assault made against him.
HuffPost Live has reached out to Cosby's representative for comment, and we've yet to hear back.
Watch Barbara Bowman's full conversation with HuffPost Live here.
Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!Phosphate is a mineral that is used in fertilizer to boost agricultural productivity. It is greatly responsible for the "green" revolution and the increased output of farms around the world. Unfortunately, the world will be coming to a point, if certain trends hold, where we will run out of phosphate. The mineral is widely used, but utterly unrecycled. Like fossil fuels, phosphate may come to a point where it is too costly to use, and world hunger may be the consequence.
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Phosphate is an inorganic chemical mined from the earth. It typically consists of one phosphorus atom surrounded by oxygen atoms. The addition of phosphates can have a huge impact to an ecosystem. Like water and air, it is literally essential to life on Earth. On cropland, it can greatly boost yields. However, from there it usually drains into waterways. In freshwater and marine environments, it acts as a limiting nutrient, often causing eutrophication (oxygen deprived water).
The largest reserve of phosphate rock can be found in the country of Western Sahara, just south of Morocco. Once a Spanish colony, it is now controlled by Morocco. One of the reasons the Moroccans are so interested is thought to be the vast phosphate reserves. The mines are at Bou Craa which produces several million tons of phosphate rock each year. It gets transferred down a huge 150-kilometer long conveyor belt to the Atlantic port of El Ayoun.
Farmers around the world use about 170 million tons of phosphate every year to keep their soils fertile. One ton of phosphate is typically used for every 130 tons of grain. Fifteen percent of all phosphate comes from Western Sahara and Morocco. The other big producers are the US and China which each use up their own. This makes Western Sahara and Morocco the biggest players in the international phosphate trade. The biggest nations which rely on this trade are India and Brazil which may be starving otherwise.
According to the US Geological Survey, the world has 65 billion tons of known phosphate reserves, but only 16 billion tons that are economically viable to mine. Almost 80 percent are found in Western Sahara and Morocco. The US, with only 1.4 billion tons, may run out soon, causing alarm among agronomists. Academic researcher, Dana Cordell, of the Global Phosphorus Research Initiative, has predicted that we could reach "peak phosphorus" production by 2030.
There are no substitutes for phosphate. On the other hand, the other vital nutrient for plants, nitrogen, can be found from a number of sources. It can be fixed from the atmosphere thanks to German chemist Fritz Haber. Phosphate cannot be fixed from anything. It must be mined and the mines are going to run out. Unless a solution can be found, the long term consequences may be lower yield crops and a hungrier world.
For more information: http://phosphorusfutures.net/
Image shows Bou Craa conveyor belt. Image credit: http://theforeigner.no/pages/news/oil-fund-linked-to-illegal-phosphate-imports/Two years ago Chelsea quit her job as a pharmacy technician to play video games.
“I went to work one day and I was like, ‘I would actually be making more money if I had stayed at home and kept playing video games than coming here,’” she says. That week she handed in her resignation.
Chelsea is one of a growing number of Australian women making a living from Twitch.tv, a live-video streaming platform that allows people from all over the world to watch one another play games. It’s also a social network: chat rooms are embedded into user pages next to video streams, allowing the broadcaster and audience to interact in real time. Going by the username Xminks, Chelsea has become renowned for her skills in Call of Duty – so much so that playing it online has become her bread and butter. Every night about 10pm she turns on her webcam, chats to some of her 330,000 followers and gets to work.
Gamergate: the internet is the toughest game in town – if you’re playing as a woman | Charlie Brooker Read more
Twitch has somehow escaped becoming a household name despite its phenomenal popularity: the company claims it has 9.7 million active users on its site every day and more than 2 million streamers a month. Amazon saw its potential in 2014 and bought it for $970m, even though the decision left many business commentators scratching their heads at the time.
The company doesn’t only deal in online interactions: it also livestreams some of the world’s biggest video game tournaments, in which professional gamers compete in stadiums in front of thousands of people and millions of online viewers. Audiences for game tournaments routinely surpass those of mainstream television – yet somehow the scene manages to retain the illusion of being a subculture.
While a tiny number of gamers become tournament megastars, more garden-variety streamers make their money through fan donations and sponsorships. Popular streamers are offered the option of partnering with Twitch to install a subscriptions feature on their page, which gives users the opportunity to pay a fee of US$4.99 a month to the streamer’s channel. Twitch, of course, takes a slice, but half the subscription fee goes directly to the streamer and most users subscribe to support their favourite gamers.
“It becomes a base salary for streamers, instead of just relying on tips, which one month could be $100, which next month could be $4,000 – you never know,” says Mia. She is a relative newcomer to the world of livestreaming. Although she has been playing games since she was kid, she only discovered Twitch about 18 months ago, through an online friend.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Like much of the online world, streamers and their followers are often anonymous. Photograph: Jan Johannessen/Getty Images
“I didn’t have gamer friends … and it’s not something that you would just stumble across,” she explains. “When I found Twitch and saw that so many people have all these friends and were doing amazing things and sharing their experience together, I just really wanted to get on board.”
Mia, whose screen name is SeriesofBlurs, dived straight in. “I was working my normal full-time job and then I would come home and start streaming straight away … and then go to midnight and then repeat,” she says.
She knew very quickly that she wanted to become a full-time streamer, but building up a following while holding down another job was hard. Then there were the social implications. “I would constantly be having to defend it, not only to my friends, who were like, ‘Why aren’t you coming out?,’ but to myself as well, because I had a lot of self-doubt.”
Being a professional gamer sounds like a |
Potts Point Sydney, says crypto trading is not something to be sneezed at.
“It’s actually a lot of hard work.” Says Stephan, who has agreed to take time from his hectic schedule to talk with us over a latte and smashed avocado on toast.
“I learned all about getting my hands dirty during my summer job at the old man’s yacht club, so I’m no stranger to the hard grind.”
The trend is also said to be finding traction among the working class, who although tend to have less starting capital, are now opting for alt coins over sports betting accounts for that lucrative win. One Sydney electrician, Stu Benno, has been buying Potcoin – a currency created specifically for the marijuana industry.
“This shit is going to fucking moon mate I reckon.” he said.
NASA were contacted but were unavailable for confirmation.
Any Aussie tradies looking to get into the world of cryptocurrency can do so here.October 4th is a day Eric Saunders won't soon forget. The 22-year-old sprint car racer won his first feature race in northern Indiana on that night. It's an impressive feat for anybody, but even more so for a person who can't even walk.
The day
To understand his story though, we have to go back... Four years and 36 days exactly... All the way back to August 29th, 2010. Saunders was an up and coming motocross rider and this date changed his life forever. He crashed; something common to motocross riders who are always on the ragged edge and pushing the limit. This time though, Eric didn't get up. He was paralyzed and lost the use of both his legs.
Stewart lends a helping hand
A lot of people reached out to the family in support of course, but one person in particular that stands out. His name is Tony Stewart.
Yes, the three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion who has had his reputation torn to pieces by ignorant people who have no idea who he is. He was the man involved in the tragic accident that cost Kevin Ward Jr. his life.
Well, back in 2010, he reached out to this family. He told no media, made no statements... He just did it. Before too long, Saunders had a new 600cc sprint car with a steering wheel equipped with hand controls. After nearly two years of recovery, Saunders finally got his chance to race again and his biggest fan (Tony Stewart) was there to watch him.
A dream come true
Another two years after that, Saunders rolled into victory lane after attaining a life long dream, a dream he would have never reached had Tony Stewart never picked up the phone.I attended Gencon 2012 all 4 days, and while I decided to skip playing any events I did manage to take some pictures of some of the warmachine events.
I’ll start off by posting some of the events related to warmachine and end with just random pictures from the Con
Who’s the boss
All the casters in the game painted for whos the boss
DAY 1 – waiting in line
Sweet Mountain king (painted contest)
Average crowd most days to get into hall
Pictures of the Vendor hall
Random room for Pathfinder Society players
People that like to dress up.
Stuff people made – The dragon is made out of ballons. It took 1 person 3 days to make it, and it then on Sunday there was a charity event to destroy it.Warner and Parlophone are celebrating the 15th anniversary of Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, by reissuing Air’s original soundtrack for the film. Available on vinyl, double CD, and in a limited edition super deluxe box set, the score is out June 16th along with reissues of Air’s early studio releases.
The box set will include the album pressed on red vinyl plus a bonus picture disc featuring a previously unreleased live performance of the score recorded at LA’s American Legion Hall on January 22nd, 2000 and three recordings from a KCRW performance that same month. Also in the box will be the 2-CD version, a movie poster, a 16-page booklet featuring a new Air interview, a VIP badge from the LA show, and an exclusive red vinyl 7-inch featuring remixes and the song “Playground Love”. The live album will also be included as one of the discs in the 2-CD set, while two additional studio outtakes will be tacked onto the end of disc one.
Despite heavy editing and the fact that nearly 80% of the tracks Air recorded for the film were abandoned in the final cut, the score has gone down as one the band’s finest efforts to date. In addition to this prized work, vinyl reissues of Air’s five earliest studio efforts will also be available on June 16th. These include their debut EP Premiers Symptômes (1997), Moon Safari (1998), 10,000 Hz Legend (2001), Talkie Walkie (2004), and Pocket Symphony (2007). Find the full tracklisting for the The Virgin Suicides remasters below.
The Virgin Suicides – 15th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Edition Tracklist:
Side A:
01. Playground Love (w/ Gordon Tracks)
02. Clouds Up
03. Bathroom Girl
04. Cemetary Party
05. Dark Messages
06. The Word Hurricane
07. Dirty Trip
Side B:
01. Highschool Lover
02. Afternoon Sister
03. Ghost Song
04. Empty House
05. Dead Bodies
06. Suicide Underground
“Playground Love” EP:
Side A:
01. Playground Love (w/ Gordon Tracks)
Side B:
01. Nosferatu Remix by Flower Pistols
02. Highschool Prom (Playground Love – Rob Remix)
Live Album:
Side A:
01. Playground Love (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
02. Dark Messages/The Word “Hurricane” (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
03. Highschool Lover (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
04. Clouds Up (Live LA Jan 2000)
05. Bathroom Girl (Live LA Jan 2000)
Side B:
01. Dirty Trip (Live LA Jan 2000)
02. Empty House (Live LA Jan 2000)
03. Dead Bodies (Live LA Jan 2000)
04. Cemetery Party (Live LA Jan 2000)
05. Suicide Underground (Live LA Jan 2000)
CD1:
01. Playground Love (w/ Gordon Tracks)
02. Clouds Up
03. Bathroom Girl
04. Cemetary Party
05. Dark Messages
06. The Word Hurricane
07. Dirty Trip
08. Highschool Lover
09. Afternoon Sister
10. Ghost Song
11. Empty House
12. Dead Bodies
13. Suicide Underground
14. Bathroom Girl (Demo Version)
15. Playground Love (Vibraphone Version)
CD2:
01. Playground Love (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
02. Dark Messages/The Word “Hurricane” (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
03. Highschool Lover (KCRW LA Radio Jan 2000)
04. Clouds Up (Live LA Jan 2000)
05. Bathroom Girl (Live LA Jan 2000)
06. Dirty Trip (Live LA Jan 2000)
07. Empty House (Live LA Jan 2000)
08. Dead Bodies (Live LA Jan 2000)
09. Cemetery Party (Live LA Jan 2000)
10. Suicide Underground (Live LA Jan 2000)The Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission, part of NASA's Living With a Star program, will provide unprecedented insight into the physical dynamics of the radiation belts.
A NASA spacecraft has made the clearest record yet of choruses of noise in the Earth's magnetosphere.
The chirps and whoops were captured by one of NASA's two recently launched Radiation Belt Storm Probes spacecraft, whose mission is to understand more about space weather.
"My wife calls it 'alien birds,'" joked experiment principal investigator Craig Kletzing, an astronomer at the University of Iowa.
The twin RBSP spacecraft are exploring the magnetosphere, an area where solar particles add energy to the Earth's magnetic environment, leading to a release of energy in the Van Allen radiation belt. [Weird 'Sounds' Picked Up By Space Probes Orbiting Earth(Video)]
Energy transfer
The "alien birds" sound happens in radio waves, in a frequency humans can hear, as lower-energy particles transfer their energy to higher-energy particles.
The energy transfer generates the noise, and researchers suspect it also generates waves of plasma that affect one of the important processes of space weather.
While researchers have known about the choral sounds for decades, the $686-million RBSP measures these sounds in higher resolution than any spacecraft that came before.
With better understanding of the data will come greater knowledge of space weather. Since solar storms can short out satellites and affect hydro grids (a famous example being the Quebec hydro grid in 1989), researchers are eager to predict the weather to minimize the effects.
RBSP is a small step toward those predictions, Kletzing said. The great strength of RBSP, he added, is the two satellites allow measurements on the extent of a space weather "event."
"Otherwise we don't know how broad the region is; it may be large or small.... We can start to get the extent of the region mapped."
Emphasis on EMFISIS
The RBSP mission launched Aug. 30 and is still in a 60-day "commissioning phase" as the experiments and hardware are tested out.
The two spacecraft wander within the Van Allen radiation belts, orbiting anywhere from 311 miles to 19,417 miles (500 to 31,250 kilometers) above the Earth. One spacecraft laps the other in orbit about every 75 days.
The Kletzing team's experiment is called the Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS).
The experiment's sensors sit on the edge of two large booms, on either side of the spacecraft. When fully extended, each boom will extend about 10 feet (three meters) from the spacecraft.
EMFISIS needs to sit as far away as possible from the spacecraft to avoid recording interference from the other instruments and the spacecraft itself, Kletzing explained.
It was one of the first instruments turned on, partly to monitor and manage any spurious signals from the spacecraft.
A symphony of sound
The "chorus" sounds are only one of a suite of noises the EMFISIS team is listening for.
For example, EMFISIS can detect the boundary between areas dense with particles and areas with fewer particles.
It also measures waves associated with ion gyrations around magnetic fields. Hydrogen, helium and oxygen produce their own gyration frequencies, creating waves at frequencies below human hearing. Mapping out these particles would provide a clue about the composition of the magnetosphere.
"With space weather, we'd like to get to the stage of prediction, but that's a ways off," Kletzing says. "To understand how the physics actually work, you need to get a better model and understand that model."
RBSP's prime science mission is expected to run two years, which Kletzing calls a long time for spacecraft constantly bathed in radiation.
Most spacecraft avoid the Van Allen belts because of the need for extra shielding and special parts. "But we built ours to last," said Kletzing.
Collaborators on the EMFISIS experiment include the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of New Hampshire, the University of California at Los Angeles and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.On Wednesday, December 2, Macroscopic Solutions gave away its first Macropod system to Danbury High School in order to inspire teens to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Recipients of the STEM education award receive a Macropod (no strings attached) if a parent, educator or nonprofit submits a qualified application, which clearly demonstrates how the system will be used within the scientific curriculum and extracurricular activities. APPLY HERE
This not-for-profit program awards teachers having exceptional leadership skills with advanced scientific imaging tools that are designed to encourage young students to pursue careers in STEM.
The scientific community has used the Macropod imaging system extensively in order to make ground breaking observations and discoveries. These same capabilities would be extremely powerful in the hands of young people who would not otherwise have these experiences until they reach the university level.
The only contingencies are this:
In order to receive the STEM Education Award, you must accept the following terms.
The Macropod must be used on an annual basis within the science or technology curriculum.
The Macropod must be the center point of a science related extra curricular activity such as a photography club, science club, science fair, etc.
Students must use the Macropod in order to complete at least one mandatory project or assignment.
Work and images completed by the students must be submitted to info@macroscopicsolutions.com at the end of the fiscal year (July of every year) in order for Macroscopic Solutions to monitor how the Macropod is being used.
If the Macropod is not used, the recipient agrees to return the system to Macroscopic Solutions so that it can be donated to another deserving applicant.
The application submitted by Susan Margolis (teacher) clearly mentioned several creative in and after school projects that will benefit the students and educators in the district.
Mark Smith had the opportunity to train Jameson Parker, a physics teacher at Danbury High School. It’s only been two days and already good news! – “Going great. Took several pics today, kids are excited.”
Ahmid, a student at the school, became instantly captivated by the exceptional resolving capabilities of the Macropod. So much so that he offered up one of the hairs on his head to see what it looked like up close! This excitement is observed across all students of all backgrounds time and time again. The Macropod is an invitation for kids to become curious about science because they themselves are capturing images that are higher in quality than most professional scientists are capable of acquiring. This opportunity has profound effects on a young person’s drive and ambition and we personally believe it will be the nudge these kids need in order to pursue a career in STEM.
Susan Margolis – “Thank you for everything- your generosity, the opportunity I had to work with you and for a great perspective on business in a changing world.”
First images captured by educators at Danbury High School: Salt & Pepper at 5x magnification
Special thanks to the team at Macroscopic Solutions consisting of:
Mark Smith – Co-founder and President of Macroscopic Solutions (Link)
University of Connecticut – Master of Science (M.S.), Geology, 2011 – 2013
University of Auckland – S emester Abroad, School of Environment Geology, 2009 – 2009
Indiana University of Pennsylvania – B achelor of Science (B.S.), Geology, 2 008 – 2011
Daniel Saftner – Co-founder of Macroscopic Solutions, Graduate Research Assistant at Desert Research Institute (Link)
Returned Program Leader at Putney Student Travel – Fiji, 2015
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer – Cameroon Africa, 2011-2013
University of Auckland – S emester Abroad, School of Environment Geology, 2009 – 2009
Indiana University of Pennsylvania – B achelor of Science (B.S.), Geology, 2 008 – 2011
Annette Evans – Co-founder of Macroscopic Solutions, Director (Link)
The Macroscopic Solutions team owes its thanks to its customers, collaborators and mentors. Especially Keith Fox (Fox Family Foundation and co-founder of Innovation Quest (IQ)), Rich Dino (University of Connecticut – School of Business) & Kevin Bouley (Nerac) for their continued guidance, philanthropy and support.Exclusive: PR company paid $277,000 for three days’ work to persuade asylum seekers in Afghanistan and Pakistan not to travel by boat to Australia, email shows
The Australian government “dumped so much fucking money” on a company behind a taxpayer-funded campaign to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat that it made more than US$277,000 in profit for three days’ work, the Guardian can reveal.
The Singapore-based company Statt Consulting has been paid at least $15m by Australian taxpayers to target advertising inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, aimed at persuading would-be asylum seekers not to attempt to travel to Australia.
New tender documents show Statt was contracted to produce “printed publications” for just under $1m between February and June 2017 following the Australian government’s announcement of a US resettlement deal for refugees on Nauru and Manus Island.
An email seen by the Guardian raises questions about Statt’s profit margins from government contracts under Labor and the Coalition between 2011 and 2017. Government procurement rules state that “officials must gain value for money”, and set out rigorous standards to ensure this value has been met.
An email from October 2013 shows Rene Le Cussan, a director of Statt Consulting, discussed the withdrawal of company dividends for herself and other directors. Le Cussan wrote: “Since we are being honest about biases, mine are... 1, customs has dumped so much fucking money on us in the last few months that I feel it is the most likely time we are going to be able to take dividends. Including the fact that we just made an extra USD 277,000 profit yesterday for literally 3 days work.”
She continues, to list her second bias as “I’m in the middle of buying a house”.
That $277,000 sum was worth about $292,000 Australian dollars at the time.
Luke Falkner, a director of Statt, told the Guardian: “Given the nature of our work and our confidentiality obligations to our clients we are unable to comment on the specifics of our work. Our contracts on behalf of the Australian federal government were awarded through an open and competitive tendering process.
“They are subject to a rigorous compliance program which includes regular external reviews for compliance and delivery in accordance with highly specific objectives. In addition, our business is fully audited by an independent firm on an annual basis, with the most recent audit completed in February 2017.
“At all times our fees are completely transparent to our clients.”
The Australian customs agency approved more than 10 extensions of its contract with Statt, culminating in a single contract worth $15m, further documents released under freedom of information legislation show.
It justified this in part because Statt was originally selected in 2012 “as being able to provide best value for money following a competitive process for the conduct of offshore communication activities in the Middle East”.
Graphic novel aimed at asylum seekers – in full Read more
Statt’s sophisticated messaging operation operated more like an intelligence operation than any conventional communication team. The organisation codenamed its Australian operation “Auspipe”, and an online portal was built so that the Australian government could directly access data gathered by Statt.
The company bought up TV and radio slots in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It placed print ads in local magazines and news outlets, and produced graphic novels that were distributed across Afghanistan. It held interviews and seminars in Kabul and across the country to persuade community members not to attempt to arrive by boat in Australia.
In one instance Statt paid a subcontractor to deliver 20,000 100-page notebooks in Afghanistan as a “novelty item” with Australian government messaging on the front and back covers. “This will give the communication campaign a long last[ing] effect and a very visible face, can be distributed to high school and uni students in locations of interest,” a 2015 document states.
In another instance the company was contracted for an Iranian “media blitz” in local news outlets from October-November 2013 when Tony Abbott’s Coalition government introduced hardline immigration policies. Internal government documents show the company was given A$409,554 for part of this work to produce 30-second TV slots on prime time television in Iran.
Statt began receiving government contracts in 2011 from the Australian customs agency, which is now part of the Australian Border Force. It was initially asked to conduct research on migration and resettlement patterns. Documents released by customs under FOI show it was tasked for surveys in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with titles such as Project Joya, Project Intrepid and Project Whisper.
The company also picked up work from other governments, including those in Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Angus Campbell warns asylum seekers not to travel to Australia by boat Read more
Timing was on Statt’s side. It had placed itself in a pivotal position at a time when immigration was once again becoming a central issue in Australia. The Labor government led by Julia Gillard was acting on the recommendations of the 2012 expert panel and was seeking to implement the Malaysia solution, which involved Malaysia becoming a processing hub for asylum seekers seeking to enter Australia.
In November 2012 Statt was invited to provide a brief to customs outlining “the most effective messages and delivery methods” for a broad messaging program across the Middle East. A short time later it was granted the contract.
The work involved buying up media slots in countries across the Middle East, but also more direct campaigns. Consultations with hundreds of community members in Afghanistan would be held to continue the government’s efforts to deter asylum seekers. Refreshments would be served in parts of Afghanistan – all funded by Australia – where Statt’s subcontractors would convene community meetings.
Then the company was the beneficiary of Kevin Rudd’s second Labor government, which instituted the “no advantage” policy for asylum seekers who arrive by boat and expanded the offshore detention regime on Nauru and Manus Island after a series of variations.
Documents suggest Australia’s management of the contract with Statt was patchy at times. In January 2013 an email from Le Cussan queries the contracting arrangements with customs, with their contract set to expire that week.
Julian Warner, the director of customs’ national intelligence collection and policy division, responded: “It is unlikely we will have something on paper for tomorrow – the Australia day holiday has seen people on leave. The extension contract will need to list the services which have been the subject of recent emails. At this time next week for a contract is more likely.”
The officer then agreed to Statt continuing to produce content at a cost of $25,000 without a formal contract.
When Tony Abbott came to power in September 2013, he implemented an even more aggressive policy of deterrence for asylum seekers, including what is known as Operation Sovereign Borders. This military-like force introduced turn back operations for asylum seeker vessels at sea. It also led to a greater focus on messaging for migrant communities at their source.
White House says US will take up to 1,250 refugees under Australian deal Read more
A further increase in their contract in January 2014 said that “strategic delivery of outreach and messaging services” was “integral to OSB [Operation Sovereign Borders’] objective of defeating people smuggling and achieving a substantial and sustained reduction in irregular maritime ventures in Australia”.
Ordinarily there are strict requirement for holding tenders under Commonwealth Procurement Rules. But customs could be exempted from some of these rules because the services to be delivered were advertising campaigns “that will be sourced and consumed outside Australian territory”. With each extension customs suggested it would imminently be undertaking an open tender process; but across the length of time covered by the documents this did not happen.
A spokesman for customs said a panel process was now in place for these offshore communications activities.
“The department has no comment on alleged email communication from an external organisation. Statt Consulting was engaged by the former Australian Customs and Border Protection Service via a direct procurement arrangement, consistent with commonwealth procurement guidelines.
“In 2014, the joint agency task force Operation Sovereign Borders established a panel of providers to deliver offshore anti-people smuggling public information campaigns. Since this time, the joint agency task force has referred to this panel when seeking to procure services for its offshore anti-people smuggling communication activities. Statt Consulting is now engaged by the department via this panel arrangement.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott, then prime minister, and Scott Morrison, then minister for immigration and border protection, at a press conference about Operation Sovereign Borders in June 2014. Photograph: Stefan Postles/AAP
While other companies have now been asked to provide services, Statt remains a key player. Following a deal with the US to take refugees from Australia’s detention centre in Nauru, the Australian government ramped up the ad campaign in Afghanistan once again, including graphic novels, radio and TV spots.
New tender documents show that Statt has been contracted to produce “printed publications” for just under $1m from February to June 2017.
A radio script to be distributed and produced in relation to some of their recent work for Australia surrounding the US resettlement deal states: “The Australian government’s arrangement with the United States of America to resettle some refugees is a one-off solution that is not available to new arrivals.”
A spokesman for the immigration department said: “Strategic communication is a cornerstone of Australia’s anti-people smuggling operations and strategy, and the success of Operation Sovereign Borders in significantly reducing the number of illegal maritime ventures to Australia has in part been due to the intensive, wide-reaching, high-frequency anti-people smuggling campaign.”Odds are that if you have a Twitter account, you’re one of the 640,000+ people following @trent_reznor. And one of 640,000+ people having their images of him systematically reformed one lovesick tweet at a time. Anyway, all that’s over now: With what is apparently one last twit, Trent linked to a lengthy missive he posted on the NIN forum explaining the thinking behind “lowering the curtain” on his angsty mystique and making himself more approachable, and the attendant, inevitable fallout. Fallout which has become too distracting and destructive for him to bear, so he’s retiring his Web 2.0 presence. If you’re looking for someone to blame, try this guy (who made a big stink when Trent was trying to raise money for his ill fan), or the girls at Metal Sludge (a forum of “unattractive plump females … people NOBODY will fuck [who] make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck”). By the way if you’re a poster over at MS, Trent offers some handy advice on how better to cut your veins. Because he cares. Here’s the unedited dispatch, typically articulate, worth a few minutes of your day:
It’s been an interesting experiment over the last couple of years or so. Faced with leaving the infrastructure of traditional record labels and figuring out what the right thing to do is in this new world – I found myself realizing that for me to have any concept of how to interact with the community and know what they might want / what they find appropriate, I need to immerse myself in that world and live it for a while.
The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don’t live there. They don’t get it because they don’t use it. What you’ve seen happen with the marketing and presentation of NIN over the last years is a direct result of living next to you, listening to you, consuming with you and interacting with you. Directly. There’s no handlers or PR people here, it’s me and my guys – that’s it. There’s no real plan, even – it’s just trying to do the right thing that respects you the fan, the music, and me the artist. That’s the goal – a mutual and shared respect.
When Twitter made it’s way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality. I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me. All expected. I’m not as concerned about “breaking” your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven’t noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.
The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It’s tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others – and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there’s 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 – 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff.
Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and “human”. I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I’m in love and it’s all I think about and that’s that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you’ve projected on me, fair enough – it’s probably time for you to leave. You are right, I’m not the same person I was in 1994 (and I’m happy about that). Are you?
Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don’t know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I’ve ever come across. It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn’t stop there – hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).
Cutter’s tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff.
So when you see the new accounts that pop up daily on Twitter spewing exactly the kind of thing I just discussed, usually from picture-less creatively named profiles, spewing hate at Mariqueen and I, take a moment to visualize the sad couple people behind them.
A few years ago some people tuned me in to that world and when I figured out who these people were, I was amazed that I’d been seeing them in the front rows of the shows for months. I really don’t understand what kind of “fan” spends that kind of time and money to travel across the country seeing a band, to then dedicate an incredible amount of time and energy into non-stop hate diatribes online. That one puzzles me a little.
Anyway, I’m bored on a long bus drive and there’s no real moral to the story here, just writing. I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.
I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it’s participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you’re conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you’d have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC’s heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I’d value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs’s “opinion”. Know what I mean? Anyway, we’re in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.
With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.Colorado's groundbreaking decision to legalize recreational marijuana has led to the Colorado Springs Airport creating a "pot amnesty box" where travelers can discard the substance before catching flights out of the state.
Pot-smoking travelers at one Colorado airport who need to ditch their stash before boarding can deposit their marijuana in an "amnesty box."
The boxes began cropping up at Colorado Springs Airport on Wednesday to give passengers unaware it is illegal to carry pot on a plane the opportunity to dump their weed, The Gazette newspaper reported.
While Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use on Jan. 1, major airports in the state have banned it on their facilities to comply with federal agencies, which still consider it illegal.
Colorado Springs Airport officials reportedly prohibited pot based on federal aviation regulations that say it’s illegal to operate a civil aircraft if there’s known marijuana on board — now a high risk in Colorado thanks to the new law.
The airport didn’t immediately return a request from NBC News for comment.
The Colorado Springs police chief previously warned that TSA agents who find marijuana during screenings will call the cops, The Gazette reported.
Those caught trying to purposefully conceal their cannabis before flying face up to a $2,500 fine or jail time.
The state’s largest airport, Denver International, has a zero-tolerance pot policy.
“We will be asking passengers to discard (it) in trash receptacles,” airport spokeswoman Stacey Stegman wrote in an email.
Greg Phillips, aviation director of the Eagle County Airport near Vail, said the facility is considering amnesty boxes. A signage plan is also in the works.
For now, anyone caught with cannabis will be asked to remove it from the property or hand it over to officials.
“What we don’t want is them throwing it in the trash can,” Phillips said. “Then you have other people digging through the garbage.”
Related:
• Colorado's legal pot industry off to smoking start
• Growing the pot industry: A test of American ingenuity
• High demand: Price of legal marijuana soars in Colorado
This story was originally published onHALIFAX – The use of e-cigarettes would be banned from use in indoor public places under new legislation in Nova Scotia.
Health Minister Leo Glavine says the government wants to change the definition of smoke to deal with waterpipes and vapour from e-cigarettes.
He says the amendments introduced Friday to two separate laws would see e-cigarettes treated like cigarettes.
The changes would also ban stores from selling e-cigarettes to those under 19 and from displaying, advertising or promoting them.
The sale of flavoured tobacco would be banned as well.
Glavine says the steps are needed to address emerging evidence that e-cigarettes pose a health risk, especially to young people.
Social reaction mixed
Reaction on social media to the new legislation was mixed, with some calling e-cigarettes a good aid to quitting smoking, and others suggesting there is a risk of potential health problems that is still unknown.
@JWongGlobalNews If they are a stepping stone to quitting, they should be given out for free. — Ken Donnelly (@Ken_Donnelly) October 24, 2014
@JWongGlobalNews No second hand smoke, no smell, no danger to others. I can't possibly see the motive for equating them with cigarettes. — Blake Hunsley (@MaritimeState) October 24, 2014
@JWongGlobalNews It is idiotic. They help people get off the real thing. — Greg Beaulieu (@Greg_Beau) October 24, 2014
@JWongGlobalNews Disagreed at 1st, but when I wouldn't "light it up" with my 2yr old Gr/baby present, we can't risk the unknown. — Sherri Richard (@rich_sherri) October 24, 2014
What do you think about the new legislation? Vote in our poll below.The number of record hot Australian days has doubled in the past 50 years, with the health system underprepared to deal with escalating heatwaves, a new report has found.
The Climate Council report, released on Wednesday, found nursing homes and medical centres across the country may not be equipped with necessary back-up energy and water supplies in extreme heat.
It found heatwaves were getting longer, hotter and more intense and have caused more deaths since 1890 than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined.
The council noted several states had upgraded heat and health warning systems since the deadly heatwaves in 2009, but the lack of a streamlined response system was putting lives at risk.
Professor Lesley Hughes, who will chair a health professional extreme heat summit next week, says hundreds of people could die each year by 2050 if nothing is done to tackle climate change.
"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and deeply is the only way to protect Australians from worsening extreme heat events," she said.
The report found heatwaves put pressure on health services, with emergency call-outs jumping almost 50 per cent and heart attacks almost tripling in the heatwaves of January and February 2009.
Extreme heat can cause dehydration and heat stroke which puts stress on organs and can trigger fatal illnesses like cardiac arrest.
Elderly Australians and babies, the homeless and people in lower socio-economic areas without access to air conditioning are most at risk of serious injury or death.
The report highlights the global problem of heatwaves, pointing to 55,700 deaths during the Russian heatwave in 2010, and 3700 killed in India and Pakistan in May 2015.
By 2030, Australia's annual average temperature is predicted to rise by 0.6 to 1.3 per cent, with the globe continuing to heat up to the end of the century, the report said.
"Australia is already experiencing and can expect more frequent and intense heatwaves because of climate change," the report said.
Last year, 197 parties signed on to an international climate change deal to limit global warming to two degrees by 2100.When the expected 184 million viewers tune in to Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1, they'll see more than just the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New England Patriots—they'll see one of the newest, most technically advanced stadiums in the United States. And just below that stadium's retractable roof, bolted to its metallic skin, viewers will see a name in huge red letters: University of Phoenix.
You've probably heard of the school. It boasts the biggest enrollment of any private college in the country, with some 308 |
find out more about Strange's activities and Strange uses his magic to bring Drawlight before him. Strange instructs Drawlight to deliver messages to Norrell, Childermass and the magical community within England before dismissing him. Strange then re-invokes the old alliances that exist in England between the forces of nature and John Uskglass. This sparks a magical renaissance, but Norrell fails to grasp its significance.
Drawlight attempts to deliver the messages to their recipients, but is intercepted by Lascelles, who murders him, as Norrell learning the truth would damage Lascelles' control over Norrell. Strange, bringing the "Eternal Night" with him, asks Norrell to help him undo Arabella's enchantment by summoning John Uskglass. With the "Eternal Night" at Hurtfew, Lascelles becomes trapped in a fairy road forever.
Childermass meanwhile eventually receives the message meant for him by Strange and uses it to break the enchantment over Lady Pole. Enraged by this, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair intends to place a second deadly curse on Lady Pole, as Faerie tradition demands. En route, he murders Vinculus after they encounter him, with Stephen Black forced to watch. During these events, Norrell and Strange attempt a spell that would cause the nature forces of England to pay homage to John Uskglass. Not knowing his true name, they dedicate it to the "nameless slave". However, the two magicians' belief that this is Uskglass is mistaken, and instead the power is devoted to Stephen. He uses his momentary control of all English magic to destroy the man with the thistle-down hair. Then, leaving England forever by one of the newly opened Faerie roads, Stephen becomes the new king of the now-blossoming Lost-Hope.
Childermass discovers Vinculus's body and notes that it is tattooed with the last work of John Uskglass. As he tries to preserve the tattoos in memory, a man appears. He calls Childermass his servant (giving him the misapprehension that it is Norrell in disguise), then brings Vinculus back to life and performs other feats of magic with ease. The mysterious man, heavily implied to be John Uskglass himself, then disappears, removing Childermass's and Vinculus's memories of the encounter as he goes.
As a result of the imprecision of the fairy's curse, which was placed on "the English magician", Norrell is trapped along with Strange in the "Eternal Night", and they cannot move more than a certain distance from each other. Upon the gentleman with the thistle-down hair's death, Arabella comes through the mirror in Padua, where Flora is waiting for her upon instruction of Strange. Childermass informs The Learned Society of York Magicians that their contract is void, telling them they can study magic again. He shows the now-restored Vinculus as proof that John Uskglass's book of magic remains, tattooed upon his body. Two months later, Strange has a conversation with Arabella, who is still living in Padua, and explains that he and Norrell are working to undo the eternal darkness they are both trapped in, but are planning to adventure into other worlds. Neither wishes to take her to Faerie again, so he instead promises to return to her when he has dispelled the darkness and tells her not to be a widow till then, which she agrees to.
Composition and publication [ edit ]
Clarke first developed the idea for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell during a year spent teaching English in Bilbao, Spain: "I had a kind of waking dream... about a man in 18th-century clothes in a place rather like Venice, talking to some English tourists. And I felt strongly that he had some sort of magical background – he'd been dabbling in magic, and something had gone badly wrong."[4] She had also recently re-read J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and afterwards was inspired to "trying writing a novel of magic and fantasy".[5]
After she returned from Spain in 1993, Clarke began to think seriously about writing her novel. She signed up for a five-day fantasy and science-fiction writing workshop, co-taught by writers Colin Greenland and Geoff Ryman. The students were expected to prepare a short story before attending, but Clarke only had "bundles" of material for her novel. From this she extracted "The Ladies of Grace Adieu", a story about three women secretly practising magic who are discovered by the famous Jonathan Strange.[6] Greenland was so impressed with the story that, without Clarke's knowledge, he sent an excerpt to his friend, the fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. Gaiman later said, "It was terrifying from my point of view to read this first short story that had so much assurance... It was like watching someone sit down to play the piano for the first time and she plays a sonata."[6] Gaiman showed the story to his friend, science-fiction writer and editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Clarke learned of these events when Nielsen Hayden called and offered to publish her story in his anthology Starlight 1, which featured pieces by well-regarded science-fiction and fantasy writers.[6] She accepted, and the book won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology in 1997.[7]
Clarke spent the next ten years working on the novel in her spare time, while editing cookbooks full-time for Simon & Schuster in Cambridge.[8] She also published stories in Starlight 2 and Starlight 3; according to the New York Times Magazine, her work was known and appreciated by a small group of fantasy fans and critics on the internet.[6] She was never sure, however, if she would finish her novel or if it would be published.[8] Clarke tried to write for three hours each day, beginning at 5:30 am, but struggled to keep this schedule. Rather than writing the novel from beginning to end, she wrote in fragments and attempted to stitch them together.[9] Clarke, admitting that the project was for herself and not the reader,[10] "clung to this method" because "I felt that if I went back and started at the beginning, [the novel] would lack depth, and I would just be skimming the surface of what I could do. But if I had known it was going to take me ten years, I would never have begun. I was buoyed up by thinking that I would finish it next year, or the year after next."[9] Clarke and Greenland moved in together while she was writing the novel.[6] Greenland did not read the novel until it was published.[11]
Around 2001, Clarke "had begun to despair", and started looking for someone to help her finish and sell the book.[6] Giles Gordon became her agent and sold the unfinished manuscript to Bloomsbury in early 2003, after two publishers rejected it as unmarketable.[9] Bloomsbury were so sure the novel would be a success that they offered Clarke a £1 million advance.[12] They printed 250,000 hardcover copies simultaneously in the United States, Britain, and Germany. Seventeen translations were begun before the first English publication was released.[6] Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in the United States on 8 September 2004, in the United Kingdom on 30 September,[13] and in other countries on 4 October.[3]
Style [ edit ]
[14][15] Reviewers disagree over the effect of Portia Rosenberg's illustrations, one praising their haunting tone and another condemning their sentimental effect as "inappropriate".
Clarke's style has frequently been described as a pastiche, particularly of nineteenth-century British writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and George Meredith.[16][17] Specifically, the novel's minor characters, including sycophants, rakes, and the Duke of Wellington, evoke Dickens' caricatures.[18] Laura Miller, in her review for Salon, suggests that the novel is "about a certain literary voice, the eminently civilized voice of early 19th-century social comedy", exemplified by the works of Austen.[18] The novel even uses obsolete spellings—chuse for choose and shewed for showed, for example—to convey this voice[19] as well as the free indirect speech made famous by Austen.[20] Clarke herself notes that Austen's influence is particularly strong in the "domestic scenes, set in living rooms and drawing rooms where people mostly chat about magic" where Dickens's is prominent "any time there's more action or description".[21] While many reviewers compare Clarke's style to that of Austen, Gregory Feeley argues in his review for The Weekly Standard that "the points of resemblance are mostly superficial". He writes that "Austen gets down to business briskly, while Clarke engages in a curious narrative strategy of continual deferral and delay."[22] For example, Clarke mentions Jonathan Strange on the first page of the novel, but only in a footnote. He reappears in other footnotes throughout the opening but does not appear as a character in the text proper until a quarter of the way through the novel.[22]
In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Clarke infuses her dry wit with prosaic quaintness. For example, the narrator notes: "It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week." As Michel Faber explains in his review for The Guardian, "here we have all the defining features of Clarke's style simultaneously: the archly Austenesque tone, the somewhat overdone quaintness ("upon the Tuesday"), the winningly matter-of-fact use of the supernatural, and drollness to spare."[23] Gregory Maguire notes in The New York Times that Clarke even gently ridicules the genre of the novel itself: "[A gentleman] picks up a book and begins to read... but he is not attending to what he reads and he has got to Page 22 before he discovers it is a novel – the sort of work which above all others he most despises – and he puts it down in disgust." Elsewhere, the narrator remarks, "Dear Emma does not waste her energies upon novels like other young women."[19] The narrator's identity has been a topic of discussion, with Clarke declaring that said narrator is female and omniscient rather than a future scholar from within the real storyline as some had suggested.[24]
Clarke's style extends to the novel's 185 footnotes,[16] which document a meticulous invented history of English magic.[i] At times, the footnotes dominate entire pages of the novel. Michael Dirda, in his review for The Washington Post, describes these notes as "dazzling feats of imaginative scholarship", in which the anonymous narrator "provides elaborate mini-essays, relating anecdotes from the lives of semi-legendary magicians, describing strange books and their contents, speculating upon the early years and later fate of the Raven King".[25] This extensive extra-textual apparatus is reminiscent of postmodernist works, such as David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) and Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (1997), particularly as Clarke's notes humorously refer to previous notes in the novel.[26] Clarke did not expect her publisher to accept the footnotes.[10]
Feeley explains that Romantic poet John Keats's "vision of enchantment and devastation following upon any dealings with faeries" informs the novel, as the passing reference to the "cold hillside" makes clear.[22][ii] The magic in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has been described as "wintry and sinister"[18] and "a melancholy, macabre thing".[4] There are "flocks of black birds, a forest that grows up in the canals of Venice, a countryside of bleak moors that can only be entered through mirrors, a phantom bell that makes people think of everything they have ever lost, a midnight darkness that follows an accursed man everywhere he goes".[18] The setting reflects this tone, as "dark, fog, mist and wet give the book much of its creepy, northern atmosphere."[27] According to Nisi Shawl in her review for The Seattle Times, the illustrations reinforce this tenor: "Shadows fill the illustrations by Portia Rosenberg, as apt as Edward Gorey's for Dickens' 'Bleak House'."[14] Author John Clute disagrees, arguing that they are "astonishingly inappropriate" to the tone of the novel. Noting that Clarke refers to important nineteenth-century illustrators George Cruikshank and Thomas Rowlandson,[iii] whose works are "line-dominated, intricate, scabrous, cartoon-like, savage and funny", he is disappointed with the "soft and wooden" illustrations provided by Rosenberg.[15]
Genre [ edit ]
pictured) models the lead of Manfred after Jonathan Strange.[20] In the novel, Lord Byron ) models the lead ofafter Jonathan Strange.
Reviewers variously describe Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, a historical fiction, or as a combination of these styles. Clarke herself says, "I think the novel is viewed as something new... blending together a few genres – such as fantasy and adventure and pastiche historical – plus there's the whole thing about slightly knowing footnotes commenting on the story."[28] She explains in an interview that she was particularly influenced by the historical fiction of Rosemary Sutcliff as well as the fantasies of Ursula K. Le Guin and Alan Garner, and that she loves the works of Austen.[6]
In his review for The Boston Globe, John Freeman observes that Clarke's fantasy, like that of Franz Kafka and Neil Gaiman, is imbued with realism. He argues that the footnotes in particular lend an air of credibility to the narrative: for example, they describe a fictional biography of Jonathan Strange and list where particular paintings in Norrell's house are located.[29] In an interview, Clarke describes how she creates this realist fantasy: "One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages and how difficult it is to get good servants."[6] To create this effect, the novel includes many references to real early-nineteenth century people and things, such as: artists Francisco Goya, Cruikshank, and Rowlandson; writers Frances Burney, William Beckford, Monk Lewis, Lord Byron, and Ann Radcliffe; Maria Edgeworth's Belinda and Austen's Emma; publisher John Murray; politicians Lord Castlereagh and George Canning; The Gentleman's Magazine and The Edinburgh Review; Chippendale and Wedgwood furnishings; and the madness of King George III.[20] Clarke has said that she hopes the magic is as realistic as that in Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy.[10] This realism has led other reviewers, such as Polly Shulman, to argue that Clarke's book is more of an historical fiction, akin to the works of Patrick O'Brian. As she explains, "Both Clarke's and O'Brian's stories are about a complicated relationship between two men bound together by their profession; both are set during the Napoleonic wars; and they share a dry, melancholy wit and unconventional narrative shape."[30] Shulman sees fantasy and historical fiction as similar because both must follow rigid rules or risk a breakdown of the narrative.[30]
As well as literary styles, Clarke pastiches many Romantic literary genres: the comedy of manners, the Gothic tale, the silver-fork novel, the military adventure, the Byronic hero, and the historical romance of Walter Scott.[25] In fact, Clarke's novel maps the literary history of the early nineteenth century: the novel begins with the style and genres of Regency England, an "Austenian world of light, bright, sparkling dialogue and well-mannered gentility", and gradually transforms into a dark, Byronic tale.[20] Clarke combines these Romantic genres with modern ones, such as the fantasy novel, drawing on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman, T. H. White, and C. S. Lewis. As Maguire notes, Clarke includes rings of power and books of spells that originate in these authors' works.[19] In contrast, Sacha Zimmerman suggests in The New Republic that while Tolkien's world is "entirely new", Clarke's world is more engaging because it is eerily close to the reader's.[31] Although many reviewers compare Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to the Harry Potter series, Annie Linskey contends in The Baltimore Sun that "the allusion is misleading": unlike J. K. Rowling's novels, Clarke's is morally ambiguous, with its complex plot and dark characters.[31][32]
Themes [ edit ]
Friendship [ edit ]
Reviewers focus most frequently on the dynamic between Norrell and Strange, arguing that the novel is about their relationship.[16] In her review for the Times Literary Supplement, Roz Kaveney writes that the two illustrate Harold Bloom's notion of the "anxiety of influence" in addition to romantic friendship.[33] The two are a "study in contrasts", with Norrell "exceptionally learned but shy and fussy" while Strange is "charming, young, fashionable and romantic".[4] As one reviewer remarks, "Clarke could have called the book Sense and Sensibility if the title weren't already taken."[4]
Reason and madness [ edit ]
The novel is not about the fight between good and evil but rather the differences between madness and reason—and it is the fairy world that is connected to madness (mad people can see fairies, for example).[30] Lady Pole, who is taken away into the fairyland of Lost-Hope every night, appears insane to those around her. She is hidden away, like the character type examined by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their seminal book The Madwoman in the Attic (1979). Developing a "divided consciousness", she is passive and quiet at home at the same time she is vengeful and murderous in the fairy land.[34]
Englishness [ edit ]
Clarke's book is identified as distinctively English not only because of its style but also because of its themes of "vigorous common sense", "firm ethical fiber", "serene reason and self-confidence", which are drawn from its Augustan literary roots. The "muddy, bloody, instinctual spirit of the fairies" is equally a part of its Englishness, along with "arrogance, provincialism and class prejudice".[18] The fairy tradition that Clarke draws on is particularly English; she alludes to tales from children's literature and others which date back to the medieval period. As Feeley notes, "The idea of fairies forming a hidden supernatural aristocracy certainly predates Spenser and Shakespeare, and seems to distinguish the English tales of wee folk from those of Scotland and Ireland."[22] In these medieval English stories, the fairies are depicted as "capricious, inconsistent in their attitude toward humankind, [and] finally unknowable", characteristics which Clarke integrates into her own fairies.[22] Clarke notes in an interview that she drew the idea of unpredictable, amoral fairies from the works of Neil Gaiman.[21]
In an interview with Locus, Clarke explains why and how she integrated the theme of "Englishness" into Jonathan Strange: "I wanted to explore my ideas of the fantastic, as well as my ideas of England and my attachment to English landscape.... Sometimes it feels to me as though we don't have a fable of England, of Britain, something strong and idealized and romantic. I was picking up on things like Chesterton and Conan Doyle, and the sense (which is also in Jane Austen) of what it was to be an English gentleman at the time when England was a very confident place".[21] In particular, "it's the sort of Englishness which is stuffy but fundamentally benevolent, and fundamentally very responsible about the rest of the world", which connects Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes to Clarke's Jonathan Strange.[21]
Historical otherness [ edit ]
Using techniques of the genre of alternative history, Clarke creates events and characters that would have been impossible in the early nineteenth century. She also explores the "silencing" of under-represented groups: women, people of colour, and poor whites.[34] Both Strange and Norrell suppress the voices of these groups in their rise to power. Mr Norrell, for example, attempts to buy up all the books of magic in England to keep anyone else from acquiring their knowledge. He also barters away half of Emma Wintertowne's (Lady Pole's) life for political influence, a deal about which, due to an enchantment, she cannot speak coherently.[34]
Clarke explores the limits of "English" magic through the characters of Stephen Black and Vinculus. As Clarke explains, "If you put a fairy next to a person who is also outside English society... suddenly the fact that there is this alien race seems more believable, because you've got another alien and the two of them can talk about the English in this very natural way."[21] The gentleman with the thistle-down hair sees Stephen as a noble savage and enslaves him—like Lady Pole, Stephen is silenced. Both "suffer under a silencing spell that mimics gaps in the historical record".[34] Furthermore, the gentleman's desire to acquire Stephen for his dancing hall is reminiscent of the English objectification of black slaves.[34] Stephen vows to hate all white Englishmen after he discovers that they enslaved his mother, but when the gentleman shows him the hanging of the white Vinculus, he weeps.[34] Both Strange and Norrell see the essence of Englishness in the Raven King, a character who was raised by fairies and could not speak English. As Elizabeth Hoiem explains, "The most English of all Englishmen, then, is both king and slave, in many ways indistinguishable from Stephen Black. This paradox is what ultimately resolves the plot. When Strange and Norrell summon 'the nameless slave', the Raven King's powerful alliances with nature are transferred to Stephen Black, allowing Stephen to kill the Gentleman and free himself from slavery."[34] In the end, it is Strange and Norrell who are trapped in everlasting darkness while the silenced women, people of colour, and poor whites defeat the antagonist.[34]
Reception [ edit ]
To promote Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Bloomsbury—who also published the Harry Potter series—launched what The Observer called "one of the biggest marketing campaigns in publishing history".[3] Their campaign included plans for newspaper serialisations, book deliveries by horse and carriage, and the placement of "themed teasers", such as period stationery and mock newspapers, in United States coffeeshops.[3] 7,500 advance readers' copies were sent out, a limited number wrapped in paper and sealed with wax. These sold for more than US$100 each on eBay in England in the weeks leading up to publication.[6] By 2005, collectors were paying hundreds of pounds for signed copies of a limited edition of the novel.[35]
The book debuted at No. 9 on the New York Times best-seller list, rising to No. 3 two weeks later.[13] It remained on the list for eleven weeks.[36] Four weeks after the book's initial publication, it was in Amazon's top ten.[8] Clarke went on a 20-city tour to promote the novel, after its near-simultaneous publication in 20 countries.[28] Endorsements from independent booksellers helped the book sell out its first printing;[28] by the end of September 2004, it had gone through eight printings.[37]
The novel met with "a crackle of favorable reviews in major papers".[37] The New Republic hailed it as "an exceptional work", both "thoughtful and irrepressibly imaginative".[31] The Houston Chronicle described Clarke as "a superb character writer",[38] and the Denver Post called her a "superb storyteller".[39] The reviews praised Clarke's "deft" handling of the pastiche of styles, but many criticised the novel's pace, The Guardian complaining that "the plot creaks frightfully in many places and the pace dawdles".[23] In his review for Science Fiction Weekly, Clute suggested that "almost every scene in the first 300 pages should have been carefully and delicately trimmed" (emphasis in original) since they do little to advance the story. He argued that, at times, Clarke's Austenesque tone gets in the way of plot development.[15] On the other hand, The Baltimore Sun found the novel "a quick read".[32] Complaining that the book leaves the reader "longing for just a bit more lyricism and poetry", The Washington Post reviewer noted, with others, that "sex plays virtually no role in the story... [and] one looks in vain for the corruption of the innocent".[25] The New Statesman reviewer, Amanda Craig, praised the novel as "a tale of magic such as might have been written by the young Jane Austen – or, perhaps, by the young Mrs Radcliffe, whose Gothic imagination and exuberant delicacy of style set the key." However, she also criticised the book: "As fantasy, it is deplorable, given that it fails to embrace the essentially anarchic nature of such tales. What is so wonderful about magicians, wizards and all witches other than Morgan le Fay is not just their magical powers, but that they possess these in spite of being low-born. Far from caring about being gentlemen, wizards are the ultimate expression of rank's irrelevance to talent".[12] However, reviewers were not in universal agreement on any of these points. Maguire wrote in the New York Times:
What keeps this densely realised confection aloft is that very quality of reverence to the writers of the past. The chief character in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell isn't, in fact, either of the magicians: it's the library that they both adore, the books they consult and write and, in a sense, become. Clarke's giddiness comes from finding a way at once to enter the company of her literary heroes, to pay them homage and to add to the literature.[19]
While promoting the novel, Neil Gaiman said that it was "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last 70 years", a statement which has most often been read hyperbolically. However, as Clute explains, what Gaiman meant was that Jonathan Strange is "the finest English novel of the fantastic since Hope Mirrlees's great Lud-in-the-Mist (1926), which is almost certainly the finest English fantasy about the relationship between England and the fantastic yet published" (emphasis in original).[15] Clute writes that "a more cautious claim" would be: "if Susanna Clarke finishes the story she has hardly begun in Strange... she may well have then written the finest English novel of the fantastic about the myth of England and the myth of the fantastic and the marriage of the two ever published, bar none of the above, including Mirrlees."[15]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Adaptations and sequel [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
On 15 October 2004, New Line Cinema announced that it had bought a three-year option on the film rights to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.[51] Clarke received an undisclosed "seven-figure sum", making the deal "one of the biggest acquisitions of film rights for a book in recent years".[52] New Line chose Christopher Hampton, whose adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons won an Academy Award, to write it; New Line executives Mark Ordesky and Ileen Maisel were overseeing the production.[53] On 7 November 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that Hampton had finished the first draft: "As you can imagine, it took a fair amount of time to work out some way to encapsulate that enormous book in a film of sensible length... [b]ut it was lots of fun – and very unlike anything I have ever done before."[54] At that time, no director or cast had yet been chosen.[54] As of June 2006, Hampton was still working on the screenplay.[55] Julian Fellowes then took over writing duties before the collapse of New Line Cinema.
Television [ edit ]
A seven-part adaptation of the book by the BBC began broadcast on BBC One on Sunday 17 May 2015. The book was adapted by Peter Harness, directed by Toby Haynes, and produced by Cuba Pictures and Feel Films.[56][57] A number of co-producers joined the project, including BBC America, Screen Yorkshire, Space and Far Moor, and it is to be distributed by Endemol Worldwide Distribution.
Pre-production began in April 2013, and filming later in the year, including locations in Yorkshire and Canada.[58]
Audio book [ edit ]
The 32-hour audio book of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was released by Audio Renaissance in 2004.[59] According to a review in The Boston Globe, reader Simon Prebble "navigates this production with much assuredness and an array of accents.... Prebble's full voice is altered to a delicate softness for young ladies of a certain breeding, or tightened to convey the snarkiness often heard in the costive Norrell."[60] Prebble interrupts the main text to read the footnotes, announcing them with the word footnote.[61] According to the AudioFile review, the "narrative flow suffers" because of these interruptions and the reviewer recommends listening "with text in hand".[59] Each note is on its own track, so listeners have the option of skipping them without missing text from the main narrative. When doing public readings, Clarke herself skips the notes.[61]
Sequel [ edit ]
In 2004, Clarke announced that she was working on a book that begins a few years after Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ends. It is intended to centre on characters such as Childermass and Vinculus who, as Clarke says, are "a bit lower down the social scale".[10] She commented in 2005 and 2007[62] that progress on the book had been slowed by her ill health.[63] In 2006 it was reported that she suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome.[64]
Notes [ edit ]BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Minnesota Wild forward Thomas Vanek enjoyed his time playing for the New York Islanders. Even after leaving the team, he said he, John Tavares and Kyle Okposo made up the best line he has ever played on.
But a deal-breaker caused Vanek to spurn the Islanders, eventually leading to his becoming a free agent and signing a three-year, $19.5 million contract with the Wild in the summer of 2014.
Vanek, who played 47 games with the Islanders during the 2013-14 season, wasn’t on board with the team’s abandoning its home ice on Long Island to move to Brooklyn.
Vanek said he loved the aging Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island, where the Islanders played for 43 years, and didn’t want to be a part of a move to Barclays Center, where the Wild visited for the first time for a Tuesday night game against the Islanders.
“Definitely doesn’t feel like Nassau,” Vanek said Tuesday after his first skate at Barclays. “It’s weird. I enjoyed Nassau Coliseum, even though it was old. The crowd and the atmosphere was great.”
The Islanders reportedly offered Vanek a seven-year deal worth $50 million to re-sign when he became a free agent after the 2014 season. Perhaps if they had remained on Long Island, the former University of Minnesota star might have stayed.
“The way it was mentioned to me was, you’d have morning skate down here (at Barclays Center) and pretty much get a day room (at a hotel). With the distances and the traffic, I didn’t feel like my (sons) would come to many games. And that, to me, wasn’t attractive,” Vanek said. “I want my kids to be at the games. They love going to the games and coming down after, and (I like) having them be a part of my career and my games. I didn’t like” the move to Brooklyn.
After his first visit to Barclays Center, Vanek said the new building, which was built for basketball, looked fine.
“It just wasn’t the right fit,” he said.
Follow Chad Graff at twitter.com/ChadGraff.A Philadelphia TV reporter became the news in disturbing fashion when video of her obscene diatribe at a cop went viral.
The video shows Colleen Campbell raining profanities on the officer after being booted from local comedy club Helium on Sunday. He patiently endures the verbal assault while a comedian from the show filmed the encounter.
Police arrested Campbell, 28, on charges of criminal mischief, making terroristic threats, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, CBS Philadelphia reported in the video segment above. She also got fired from her job at PHL 17.
At one point in the clip above, Campbell was given a chance to walk away while a man attempted to defuse the situation, even thanking the officer. But she then unleashed a stream of profanity, calling the cop “motherfucker” and inviting him to “lick my asshole” and while insulting police in general. “That’s why society hates you,” she said.
When she attempted to spit on a manager, the officer handcuffed her. But the tirade didn’t stop. She also noted that she worked for a television station ― but not so politely.
Police said Campbell kicked the officer several times as she was escorted into the squad car, according to Philly.com.
Campbell suggested to Philadelphia Magazine that she may have been drugged while conceding she had consumed five alcoholic drinks that night.
She said she wanted to apologize to the officer. “That’s not me or how I talk or act or anything at all,” she told the magazine “I don’t know what to do. I feel ruined and embarrassed for me and my family.”
In a statement to the New York Post, attorney Wayne Pollock, the Campbell family spokesman, said she has received “thousands of lewd and threatening phone calls, texts, messages, and emails ranging from angry, profane, and defamatory insults to deeply disturbing sexual and violent threats” since the video emerged.
Campbell was released without bail and has a June 13 court date, Philly.com noted.BEIRUT (Reuters) - For years, websites linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have posted articles eulogizing Shi’ite fighters who die in Syria. But two men heralded last month for dying to defend a shrine near Damascus were different from most martyrs given such treatment in the past: they were Pakistanis.
The men were part of the Zeinabiyoun, a unit of Pakistani fighters named for a granddaughter of the prophet Mohammad buried in the shrine, the latest contingent in an Iranian drive to recruit Shi’ites from the region to fight in Syria.
The increase in the number of “martyrdom” notices of fighters from the group this year indicates they are taking a more active role in the conflict. A posting in mid-November on a Twitter account bearing the group’s name displayed the pictures of 53 men, described as fighters killed in battle.
While there has been no official announcement of their total numbers, a regional source familiar with the issue said there were hundreds of Pakistanis fighting in Syria, many stationed around the shrine of Mohammad’s granddaughter Zeinab.
Iran’s recruitment of the Pakistani fighters adds yet another international dimension to Syria’s 4-year-old civil war, which has deepened sectarian divisions across the Muslim world and drawn in most regional and global powers.
The Pakistani Shi’ites are helping to defend the government of Tehran’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad, who is also supported by Russian air strikes and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, against an array of Sunni rebels backed by Turkey and Arab states. The United States, Turkey, Arab and European powers are also participating in a coalition bombing Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim militant group.
A Facebook page bearing the name of the Zeinabiyoun showed pictures of what was described as a funeral in Iran in late November, with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard standing next to men in shalwar kameez, the traditional long tunic and trousers worn in Pakistan.
“The Zeinabiyoun are a Pakistani Shi’ite outfit that’s run by the IRGC,” said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland and adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has done extensive research on Shi’ite groups fighting in Syria, using an acronym to refer to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“They’ve put together their own imagery, their own recruitment type material. They really became more of a marketable element toward the end of the summer of 2015. That’s when they became more of a centered group.”
SECTARIAN IDENTITY
Although the vast majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims, the country is home to millions of Shi’ite Muslims, making it among the biggest Shi’ite communities in the world.
“There is a large pool to draw from,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington and the author of a book on relations between Pakistan and Iran.
“There are pockets within that Shi’ite community that have been willing to pick up arms to fight for their Shi’ite identity, their sectarian identity. And that’s what the IRGC is tapping into.”
They are only the latest Shi’ites recruited by Iran to fight in Syria, after Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, members of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority and members of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara Shi’ite minority. All have been deployed to support Assad, whose own Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
Videos and pictures posted on social media sites say Zeinabiyoun fighters have been active around Aleppo as well as at the shrine near Damascus in the last month.
Based on material posted online, the Zeinabiyoun could have up to 1,000 fighters, estimated Smyth.
Attempts to get comment from a public relations news office of the Revolutionary Guard were unsuccessful.
The Zeinabiyoun have drawn on the symbols of their fellow Shi’ite fighters to brand themselves: their logo, a fist holding a machine gun set in green and yellow, is an almost identical copy of that of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. They are occasionally referred to as Hezbollah Pakistan online.
The group is open about its affiliations: its Facebook pages praise Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and talk about a sense of duty to defend the Sayyida Zeinab shrine.
A Zeinabiyoun image |
The ads to “Stop Trump” would seem to break this rule, but Josh Schwerin, a Clinton spokesperson, claimed that “All of HVF’s activities, including online ads, are for fundraising purposes.”
This new report vindicates Sen. Sanders’ claims that Hillary Clinton was improperly using her joint fundraising committee to get around campaign contribution limits. Current campaign finance rules only allow a donor to contribute $2,700 to a campaign in a single election cycle.
However, the McCutcheon vs. FEC Supreme Court decision of 2014 raised the aggregate contribution limits on individual donors, allowing the Clinton campaign to solicit six-figure donations from the same oligarchs, like Alice Walton of the Walmart family, that already gave a maximum $2,700 donation this cycle. Sanders argues that by routing money raised by her joint fundraising committee to efforts that exclusively help her campaign, Clinton is flouting campaign finance regulations.
In a public statement, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said, “It is unprecedented for the DNC to allow a joint committee to be exploited to the benefit of one candidate in the midst of a contested nominating contest.”
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!One of the problems on Ubuntu platforms is that the Software Update tool doesn't remove the old kernels after an upgrade, but the Ubuntu devs are now talking whether their tool should be used to perform this kind of cleaning.
It might seem like a trivial stuff, but if you're running an Ubuntu system for a long time and you never clean up, you'll end up with a lot of installed kernels. It can get to a point where you'll be looking to clean up the space on your home partition just to make a simple system update.
This is not really an issue for regular Linux users who also like to do various tasks in the terminal, and there is a simple enough command that can take care of this problem, but there are also beginners who don't know up from down and they won't know that it's even an issue.
Making Software Update to clean up the system is easy, but is it the right decision?
A user raised this issue on the mailing lists and developers are still discussing whether they should change how the Software Update should act. It's not difficult to make it behave the way they want to, but that is the precise question that needs to be asked. Do they want to? There are some conceivable scenarios where this might not be a good idea, but they have to weigh it against the other scenario, of running out of space from kernel updates.
This is an issue that's probably a legacy issue from Debian. If you want to clean your system, you can do it very easily from the terminal. Just run the following command (you will need to be root):
code sudo apt-get autoremove
The process is pretty simple and the users don't have to do anything more than that. If a solution is reached, it might get implemented in Ubuntu 15.04, which is expected to land in April.Special to WorldTribune.com
The United States voiced its objection to China’s use of a military plane to land on a South China Sea man-made island in what Beijing claimed was a mission to evacuate three severely ill construction workers.
“We’re aware that a Chinese military aircraft landed at Fiery Cross Reef on Sunday (April 17) in what China described as a humanitarian operation,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told CNN. “It is unclear why the Chinese used a military aircraft, as opposed to a civilian one.”
The Chinese military aircraft landed on Yongshu Reef, also known as Fiery Cross Reef, and airlifted the workers to a hospital on Hainan island, according to Xinhua.
The U.S. and several nations disputing China’s actions in the South China Sea have kept a close eye on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Island chain after Beijing constructed a runway long enough to accommodate large military aircraft.
The airstrip, which extends 1.8 miles, was completed this year on reclaimed land around the reef.
“We urge China to reaffirm that it has no plans to deploy or rotate military aircraft at its outposts in the Spratlys, in keeping with China’s prior assurances,” Davis said.
The U.S. has said it will continue to carry out “freedom of navigation” operations in close proximity to the Chinese islands to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims.
During a visit to the Philippines last week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter was aboard the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier as it conducted one of those operations in the South China Sea.
“In the South China Sea, China’s actions in particular are causing anxiety and raising regional tensions,” Carter told sailors aboard the ship. “In response, countries across the Asia-Pacific, both long-standing allies and new partners, are reaching out anew to the United States, to uphold the rules and principles that have allowed the region to thrive. And we’re answering that call.”
Carter also mentioned the possible use of U.S. underwater drones in the South China Sea.
The Pentagon is investing in “new undersea drones in multiple sizes and diverse payloads that can, importantly, operate in shallow water, where manned submarines cannot”, said Carter.
“The idea is that if we were ever to get into a bust-up in the South China Sea, the Chinese would not know for sure what sort of capabilities the US might have,” said Shawn Brimley, a former White House and Pentagon official now at the Center for a New American Security. “This might have some deterrent impact on the potential for provocative behavior.”
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Login To Your FaceBook to Make CommentsWhen you buy a book shelved in the “fantasy” section, you think you know what you’re in for: maybe dragons, swords, and wizards. Maybe an urban setting, a rugged antihero, and a little romance. Maybe a few tropes subverted. Vintage Books may be calling Brian Catling’s The Vorrh a fantasy, but you won’t find a more surprising, challenging book published this year. In fact, it is unlike anything else you’ll read in 2015—or maybe ever.
It’s impossible to categorize
It’s entirely possible the bookseller question of the year will be “where do you shelveThe Vorrh.” It’s easily one of the most uncategorizable novels in recent memory. There are elements of fantasy in it, certainly, but also steampunk, magical realism, and alternate history. The handful of characters and plots start off as separate trunks and only slowly grow together into a thick jungle, often in confounding or uncertain ways. It’s a book you’ll re-read several times, and enjoy on a different level each time.
The plot is dense
The story of The Vorrh is challenging and ethereal. The Vorrh itself is a mythical forest in Africa, described in Raymond Roussel’s 1910 work Impressions of Africa (Roussel himself is a character in Caitling’s book). In the Vorrh, time is elusive, people lose their memories, and the literal Garden of Eden might lie at its center, guarded by creatures that may have once been angels, present at the beginning of creation. Several people converge on this strange landscape, each seeking their own goals, slowly drawing closer as they prepare to enter the mysterious woods, their stories converging in unexpected—and occasionally beguiling—ways.
The characters defy expectation
Roussel is not the only real person in the story. Sarah Winchester, heiress to the rifle empire, makes an appearance, endlessly building her mad house. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge is a key player, seeking truth through his art and pioneering work in motion pictures. Other characters are more magical: an unnamed bowman who creates his weapon from the bones of a dead woman. An assassin named Tsungali who is assigned by untrustworthy “colonial” authorities to track and kill the bowman. A cyclops, initially imprisoned in am African city designed to replicate a German one, educated by Bakelite androids, set free to discover the world and pursue his sexual urges. Each of these strangers has a story to unpack, and still we’re left with questions.
The language is thick as undergrowth
Catling is as close to a Renaissance Man as we get these days, and the novel reads like a painting, filled with intense imagery, complex constructions, and unusual metaphors. Of Muybridge, Catling writes, “It was said that he was hunting stillness.” Describing a sunset: “Outside, the swallows were changing to bats.” The language is rich and even overwhelming, often teetering on the edge of bombast without ever quite going over. You can get lost in its passages; Catling has an eerie ability to bring all of your senses to bear.
There’s no hero
Fantasies, even complex, modern ones, usually have at least one character who conforms to the expectations of the “hero,” the character, good or evil, who will prevail in the end. The Vorrh doesn’t make it that easy. There is no central character whose cause you’ll champion. All of them are flawed, without an easy shape or obvious journey. They have different hungers, different appetites, and different reasons for seeking the Vorrh, with none elevated above another.
The Vorrh is the first novel in a planned trilogy. No less a personage than Alan Moore has written a glowing foreword describing it as a “masterpiece.” It’s a challenging, haunting story that offers solutions to only some of its mysteries, but it’s one of those rare opaque novels well worth your time and energy. Love it or hate it, it will stay with you, even if you can’t quite decide what it is.
The Vorrh is available now.Korn schrieb: And finally, we can drop satisfying amounts of gear, addressing one of Albion's greatest weaknesses, without upsetting the player driven economy.
Korn schrieb: It allows us to significantly increase overall mob drop amounts, making the PvE experience more rewarding
Korn schrieb: It supports the crafting, refining and gathering economy (instead of competing with it)
Korn schrieb: It encourages and increases trade & transportation
Korn schrieb: It allows us to introduce a new item sink to the game in the form or "corruption", that we can freely configure
Korn schrieb: It allows us to remove essences from refining as this feature already creates a link between PvE and refining/crafting, hence essence are no longer needed to fill that role
Korn schrieb: It allows us to remove enchanted resources as a reward for hell gates and chests and replace those with additional drops - player crafted, of course!
I'm going to address this a bit out of order...How was this one of Albion Online's greatest weaknesses? The only reason it could be considered a "weakness" is because some people wanted gear like they had in "those other games" and no one took a minute to make artifacts, runes, essences, souls, a silver seem cool to these players. Personally, a gear drop for an item that I can't wear (which is most of them) or don't want to wear (which is more of them) is only valuable to me by selling it in the auction house or giving it to my guildmate who may also just turn around and sell it.So to address this supposed weakness... you've introduced a system which draws players away from the player-driven market by creating artificial demand for certain items. This, in turn, creates an artificial market floor for items and encourages players to hold on to their items so they can sell to the NPC instead of other players when the market buy prices are too low.Subsequently, by artificially propping up market prices (installing a safety net for people crafting certain items) you limit the amount of blow-out wholesale deals which would cause traders to journey to the far reaches of Albion. This sort of trading is a primary reason that some players play the game. I've personally dragged my ox between cities multiple times for this purpose.At the same time.... And if the products aren't in high demand... then why would PvE players be so very thrilled to get a generic item that most people aren't interested in?I suppose the NPC could get a bargain basement deal on an item that otherwise could have went to an attentive and resourceful player, but again... this just adds a step in the process where players don't have to deal with the player-driven market. And it potentially takes advantage of lazy players like other real players would have otherwise done. And yes, it is a negative thing that economic PvP is being limited in a full loot game which is essentially a cut throat war simulation.But if the product is in demand and the NPC keeps raising its bid... the additional pressure to keep prices up will effect players who are trying to save up money and get the special item they want. This negatively effects a different group of players.It also doesn't encourage crafters to make what's in demand in the player-riven market.Some of these scenarios are almost certain to play out (with greater or lesser negative consequences) and it's likely that all of these scenarios will be played out at different times involving different players.Overall... I just don't see how this system is going to work sufficiently -- even in regard to satisfying PvE playes. And while I suspect that this system may have partly been introduced to help new players who join the game later than at the start, I can't help but to wonder how this system will operate at the start of the game (slowly but surely driving the price of items up while players are looking to try out new things). And if the NPC raises its price high enough for some item that no one is producing or which everyone is buying... then more established players will probably be in a better position to step in and fill the order before new players do.The items that drop the most will be the items that the NPC can afford because no one is buying them on the open and free market. I don't see how getting an unwanted item with little real value would be very rewarding.It potentially creates artificial demand for products which will then raise the price of resources for crafters who want to make other things (perhaps even things that players desperately want).It encourages dumping items to the NPC rather than creating blowout deals that would have otherwise drawn traders to town in their trading business.I mean, yeah, it's an item sink for items that don't have much value on the open market. However you arbitrarily configure the "corruption" you're going to have hard time getting around that.At least the essences caused players to actively participate in the same system. You could have just increased the drop rate so that they're not highly valuable items. Then you put the real value in runes, souls, artifacts and the silver rewards.You're going to replace the god-tier drops of the current hell gates with drops containing items that the NPC could afford because those items couldn't compete in the free market. I'm not so sure that will go over well.Image copyright EPA / AP
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will not attend a European special meeting called to discuss Donald Trump's US election victory.
Mr Johnson has told his EU counterparts to end the "whinge-o-rama" over the result of the presidential race.
A Foreign Office spokesman said he would not go to the meeting on Sunday but would attend a regular Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Monday.
The BBC understands a senior UK official will be sent in his place.
The Foreign Office spokesman said: "The foreign secretary will not attend the meeting convened for Sunday. There is a regular Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Monday where a range of issues can be discussed in the normal way.
"We do not see the need for an additional meeting on Sunday because the US election timetable is long established. An act of democracy has taken place, there is a transition period and we will work with the current and future administrations to ensure the best outcomes for Britain."
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The hotel developer who became president
On Friday Mr Johnson said: "With respect to my beloved EU friends and colleagues, I think it is time we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and the collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places".
Mr Johnson's remarks are in stark contrast to those of EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
He said Mr Trump's election risked upsetting EU ties with the US "fundamentally and structurally".
He said: "We will need to teach the president-elect what Europe is and how it works", adding that two years would be wasted while Mr Trump "tours a world he doesn't know".
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Nigel Farage visited Trump Tower on Saturday.
Meanwhile, UKIP interim leader Nigel Farage reportedly met Mr Trump's team when he visited New York's Trump Tower on Saturday, warning there were some "some fences to be mended" between Britain and the president-elect.
He told Fox News Mr Trump would have to deal with Prime Minister Theresa May, despite her top team being "rude" about him.
"Trump is an Anglophile, he understands and recognises what our two great nations have done together between us. And, thank goodness, we are coming towards the end of an American president who loathed Britain," he said.
"One of the things we can do, we can have between us a sensible trade relationship, cut tariffs, we are massive investors in each other's countries. There's a bright future."
'Delusional'
Tom Brake, Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, accused Mr Johnson of being an "artless diplomat" whose decision to snub the meeting would further damage the UK's relationship with other EU leaders.
He said Mr Trump's election raised "a huge number of questions" for Britain, Europe and the rest of the world, including concerns over potential US protectionism, Nato, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Syria.
"We face a difficult period for UK foreign relations and having this artless diplomat in charge of proceedings puts us on the back foot," he added.
Following his victory Mr Trump spoke with Mrs May. A Downing Street spokesman said they agreed that "the US-UK relationship was very important and very special and that building on this would be a priority for them both".
But a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partner, Axel Schafer, said the PM's hope that Mr Trump will look favourably on the UK would come to nothing.
Mr Schafer told The Times: "What changed is the likelihood of a speedy and preferential trade deal between the UK and US. Even before Tuesday the chances were rather low, now the hope for this kind of deal seems delusional."In Cantonese village culture, there is a group of corpse handlers called the ng jong lo. When a death occurs, the ng jong lo come to the family home to wash the corpse and place it in a coffin. The corpse handlers are “living ghosts,”, dirty, unclean – a group who other citizens fear. Doors and windows close when they walk through the village. No one, not even priests, will hand them anything or speak to them directly. Children are kept away from the corpse handlers, who are believed to chew garlic to hide the stench of death and take perverse pleasure in their line of work. According to tradition, many are opium addicts who live together in the back of a coffin shop, the only men willing to take such degrading work.
In my years of working with the dead in the US, no one (to my knowledge) has hidden their children as I walk past. But the fear of the people who handle corpses is not limited to rural villages in faraway lands. The citizens of the modern west are the world champions of death denial; people who work with dead bodies are automatically transgressive. Tim Matson, a writer who travelled around interviewing people in the death profession, admitted he could not imagine a paycheck large enough to entice him into working with the dead. “Even in our politically correct society, where we’re supposed to be tolerant of everyone, this is a prejudice I share with a lot of people.” Undertakers, Matson says, are a group, “we allow ourselves to despise”.
The fear of the people who handle corpses is not limited to rural villages in faraway lands
Though we despise the undertaker, we know why we need them. When your husband dies, your mother dies, your child dies, there are obvious reasons why you must call the funeral parlour instead of taking charge of the body yourself. For one, dead bodies can be dangerous if not handled properly, causing disease and infection. Caring for a body requires specific skills that come from special training. And of course, caring for the dead yourself is not legal, either in the UK or the US.
While these reasons may seem obvious, they are simply not true. That is not to say you should feel bad for believing them. They are pervasive cultural myths, inherited fabrications you probably grew up with. The dead are not dangerous, to either our physical or mental health. Yes, there are rare exceptions: for example, death from radically infectious disease such as Ebola, or death from a car accident so violent that it might injure the family to see the condition of the body. But for the average dead body, felled by the likes of cancer or heart disease, there is no threat to the living. Even decomposition, though odious in sight and smell, is not dangerous; the bacteria that cause decomposition are not the same as those that cause disease.
With certain exceptions, such as embalming (the process of chemically preserving the body), there is little a funeral director does that the layperson could not easily learn. Because the dead pose little risk to the living, caring for the dead yourself, in your own home, is not illegal. This type of care (known as a home funeral) is legal, and I would encourage it as a better way to grieve and to be closer to understanding death.
When Cassandra Yonder, a funeral midwife, arrived at Sue’s home, Sue’s husband, Jeremy, was still warm. His body lay cradled in Sue’s lap. He was pale, but looked anything but macabre. Cassandra didn’t tell Sue that Jeremy was dangerous to touch, that he had to be taken away immediately. She simply created a space for Sue to spend time with Jeremy’s body. Funeral midwives are outside of the funeral industry, harkening back to a time when “layers-out of the dead” were women who came to the family home to prepare the body.
Sue was confused, overwhelmed. As she held Jeremy, she asked him what was going to become of her. There was a farm to worry about, their animals, their garden. Finally, she looked into his face and asked: “Do you know how much I love you?” Yonder, the midwife, noted that she was watching Sue communicate with Jeremy rather than about him.
The home funeral – caring for the dead ourselves – changes our relationship to grieving. If you have been married to someone for 50 years, why would you let someone take them away the moment they die? It gives a sense of control at a time when we feel most out of control. It provides tasks to perform – washing, dressing for a final time – small rituals in a world that is increasingly secular. Perhaps most important: it provides time, whether three hours or three days, to get used to the fact that this person is gone. They grow cold, their skin droops, their hands stiffen. They are no longer here, and the community must come together and move forward.
Corpse handlers are not unclean. They are not perverts. They are humans engaged in sacred tasks, profoundly human tasks, carrying on the traditions of thousands of years. By rethinking our broken relationship to dead bodies, and taking more responsibility for the dead, the caretakers of the dead can, and will, be all of us.Full statement from Tom Brady's agent Don Yee:
"The discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis. In my opinion, this outcome was pre-determined; there was no fairness in the Wells investigation whatsoever. There is no evidence that Tom directed footballs be set at pressures below the allowable limits. In fact, the evidence shows Tom clearly emphasized that footballs be set at pressures within the rules. Tom also cooperated with the investigation and answered every question presented to him. The Wells Report presents significant evidence, however, that the NFL lacks standards or protocols with respect to its handling of footballs prior to games; this is not the fault of Tom or the Patriots. The report also presents significant evidence the NFL participated with the Colts in some type of pre-AFC Championship Game planning regarding the footballs. This fact may raise serious questions about the integrity of the games we view on Sundays. We will appeal, and if the hearing officer is completely independent and neutral, I am very confident the Wells Report will be exposed as an incredibly frail exercise in fact-finding and logic. The NFL has a well-documented history of making poor disciplinary decisions that often are overturned when truly independent and neutral judges or arbitrators preside, and a former federal judge has found the commissioner has abused his discretion in the past, so this outcome does not surprise me. Sadly, today’s decision diminishes the NFL as it tells its fans, players and coaches that the games on the field don’t count as much as the games played on Park Avenue.”
Reply · Report PostERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdish Peshmerga captured an American member of the Islamic State (ISIS) on the Shingal front on Monday, said a local commander.
Muhammad Jamal Amin is a Virginia-born American citizen of a Palestinian father and Iraqi mother from Mosul.
According to the Peshmerga commander of the Shingal front who didn’t want to be named, the ISIS militant had mistaken the Peshmerga territory for the Turkish border.
The commander said that Amin had entered Syria from Turkey two months ago from where he had traveled to Mosul.
On his way back to Turkey he had mistakenly walked into the Peshmerga hands.
The Peshmerga commander said that a number of cell phones, some money and ID cards were seized from the militant.
The Peshmerga fired on him before he reached their base and later detained him.Introduction
Sensible default styles, a basic project structure, shorthand notations for many CSS declarations, and a simple yet flexible CSS grid... these things can be found on every web designer's wish list.
Instead of reinventing the wheel and building these things yourself, using a modern frontend framework allows you to focus on the unique parts of your project. Bourbon, Neat, and Bitters is a very lightweight framework combination that makes web development easier.
Why Bourbon, Neat, and Bitters?
From Foundation to Bootstrap, from Pure to Semantic UI - there's definitely no lack in third-party frontend frameworks. How do Bourbon, Neat, and Bitters fit in?
First, they are independent parts of a modular toolkit. Depending on your project's exact needs, you can choose to use only Bourbon (a collection of Sass mixins), combine it with Neat (a semantic grid framework) and even add Bitters (a scaffold for Bourbon projects).
Second, they are extremely lightweight. In the face of 800-pound gorillas like the Bootstrap and Foundation frameworks, the Bourbon family provides a refreshing contrast: if you know a bit of Sass and modern CSS, getting started shouldn't take you long. The frameworks are easy to oversee; they leave much control and flexibility in your own hands.
Third, they are made by people who know their stuff: Thoughtbot, a british-american interactive agency, develops and maintains Bourbon, Neat, and Bitters. Over the years, the company has published countless open source components whenever it had solved one of their own day-to-day problems. This produced a number of high-quality and highly practical solutions - like Bourbon, Neat, and Bitters.
New Versions Bourbon 5 and Neat 2 The new versions of Bourbon and Neat are considerably different from past editions. This tutorial is written explicitly for the new Bourbon 5.x and Neat 2.x.
Hands-On
I strongly encourage you to tag along - you'll get the most benefit when actually moving your hands over the keyboard. To make this as easy as possible, you can clone the accompanying Git repository from GitHub:
$ git clone https://github.com/gittower/bourbon-tutorial
Many times in the tutorial, you'll find a link to the corresponding revision. You can then have a look at the exact, complete changes that happened in that step.
Get an overview of the exact changes, here in the Tower Git clientAFP – Experts on Sunday started work on opening the tomb of Chilean Nobel prize winning poet Pablo Neruda, to uncover his remains and determine if he died of cancer or was poisoned.
The leftist author, who died 12 days after the 1973 military coup that ousted socialist president Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, was long believed to have died of prostate cancer.
But officials in 2011 started looking into the possibility he was poisoned by agents of the Pinochet regime, as claimed by Neruda’s driver.
The poet’s body officially was to be exhumed Monday at 8 am local time (1100 GMT), but tomb opening preparations began Sunday, as Judge Mario Carroza had said.
The poet’s remains are in a tomb at one of his homes, which was turned into a museum, in Isla Negra.
Police investigators and government forensic experts were on the scene Sunday. Around 1700 local time (2000 GMT) they set up a special tent to shield proceedings from public viewing of the tomb where the remains of his third wife, Matilde Urrutia, also are interred.
Neruda won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature and is best known for his love poems, as well as his “Canto General” — an epic poem about South America’s history and its people.
The Chilean justice system gave the go-ahead for the probe in June 2011 after a complaint was filed by the Chilean Communist Party.
In addition to the driver’s accusations, the official complaint cites witnesses who say Neruda was healthy up until the day before his death. They said he did not exhibit symptoms consistent with the advanced cancer to which he was said to have lost his life.
Neruda’s family and the official foundation that administers his work have both accepted the official cause of death, saying in a 2011 statement that there was “no evidence or proof” to suggest foul play.29th August 2015
Breakthrough in fusion energy
U.S. physicists have achieved a breakthrough in fusion power by containing superheated hydrogen plasma for five milliseconds, far longer than any other effort before.
California-based Tri Alpha Energy reportedly held gas in a steady state at 10,000,000°C – only stopping when they ran out of fuel. Particle physicist and adviser to the secretive company, Burton Richter of Stanford University, comments: "They've succeeded finally in achieving a lifetime limited only by the power available to the system."
"Until you learn to control and tame [the hot gas], it's never going to work. In that regard, it's a big deal. They seem to have found a way to tame it," says Jaeyoung Park, head of rival fusion startup Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation in San Diego. "The next question is how well can you confine [heat in the gas]. I give them the benefit of the doubt. I want to watch them for the next 2 or 3 years."
Tri Alpha Energy's reactor is based on field-reversed configuration (FRC). This was first observed in the laboratory in the late 1950s. For decades, research on FRC was limited to plasma lasting for a maximum of only 0.3 milliseconds. In recent experiments, Tri Alpha Energy achieved a huge increase of up to two milliseconds. During their latest attempts, reported this week in the journal Science, angled beams at higher energies of 10 megawatts maintained stability for even longer – five milliseconds without decaying.
The company's goal is to scale their technique up to longer times and higher temperatures (3 billion degrees Celsius), such that atomic nuclei will collide with enough force to fuse and release energy. Tri Alpha Energy intends to dismantle their current machine and build a more powerful version in 2016. Houyang Guo, Chief Experimental Strategist, during a recent physics seminar at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, revealed that confinement times of 100 milliseconds to one second might be possible in the near future. Ultimately, fusion reactors could supply humanity with a practically limitless supply of clean energy.
Comments »Kayla Mueller. (Mueller family via Reuters)
Her parents reportedly wrote to President Obama, pleading for a prisoner swap. The U.S. military raided a compound where she was believed to be held captive — but wasn’t. A man pretending to be her husband reportedly went to a prison and demanded her release — but she wasn’t in on the plan and told militants she wasn’t married, an Arizona congressman claims.
Although it’s still not clear exactly how or when, 26-year-old aid worker Kayla Mueller was killed while in captivity, U.S. officials confirmed Tuesday. The Islamic State blames a Jordanian airstrike in Syria, but U.S. and Jordanian officials question that claim. Still, another American hostage is dead despite numerous efforts to save her life.
“I don’t think it’s accurate to say the United States government hasn’t done everything we could,” President Obama told BuzzFeed in an exclusive interview Tuesday. “We devoted enormous resources, and have always devoted enormous resources, to freeing captives or hostages anywhere in the world.”
[RELATED: Kayla Mueller, American hostage of the Islamic State, is confirmed dead]
Attempts by Mueller’s family to free her came to nothing. Months after Mueller was kidnapped, the Islamic State contacted her parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, saying they had taken the young woman hostage. They provided proof she was still alive in May. Her parents looked for help in Arizona — namely, from Sen. John McCain (R) and Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R), a congressman in their hometown of Prescott, some 90 miles from Phoenix.
McCain met with Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the emir of Qatar. He tapped sources at the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army, the Arizona Republic reported. Gosar worked angles as well.
“All of these leaders and intelligence people pledged to me they were doing everything they could,” McCain told the newspaper. “Some few details did emerge from these sources, but obviously not enough.”
Friends and family of Kayla Mueller mourned her death on Tuesday after receiving confirmation that the U.S. hostage being held in Syria by the Islamic State had been killed after months in captivity. (Reuters)
A major rescue effort came during Fourth of July weekend last year. The U.S. military raided an oil refinery near Raqqa in Syria, hoping to find James Foley, Mueller and other American hostages. But the hostages had been moved, and the soldiers returned empty-handed. The next month, Foley was beheaded.
“I deployed an entire operation — at significant risk — to rescue not only her but the other individuals who had been held, and probably missed them by a day or two, precisely because we had that commitment,” Obama told BuzzFeed.
An unnamed military official told the Wall Street Journal that, after the failed rescue mission, Mueller’s family members told the U.S. government and U.S. military they didn’t want another risky rescue attempt. However, a family representative denied those claims, saying they just wanted to be told before it happened.
“The family did not make that request to the White House,” an unnamed individual speaking for the family told Politico. “They just wanted to be notified beforehand if there was a plan to go in.”
At the time of Mueller’s death, Pentagon officials told Politico, there were no active plans in place for another rescue mission.
Mueller’s family did, however, write a letter to Obama requesting a prisoner exchange, Gosar said. The family was told negotiations had begun to trade Mueller for Aafia Siddiqui, the woman dubbed “Lady al-Qaeda.” Siddiqui, a 42-year-old neuroscientist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was convicted of attempting to kill U.S. soldiers. The Islamic State already attempted to negotiate her release in exchange for Foley and American journalist Steven Sotloff, according to Politico. An Islamic State video showing Sotloff’s murder was released in September.
[RELATED: “Lady al-Qaeda": The American-educated PhD the Islamic State desperately wants freed]
A spokesman for the family could not confirm the parents’ request to the Arizona Republic. Gosar’s spokesman told Politico that another negotiation, perhaps a second one, involved cash, though the specifics are not known.
The Islamic State had also demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom for Mueller. An unnamed person involved in those negotiations told the Wall Street Journal that the terrorists wanted $6.6 million. Gosar said it was $5 million. But the U.S. government refuses to pay ransoms.
“The one thing that we have held to is a policy of not paying ransoms with an organization like ISIL,” Obama told Buzzfeed, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “And the reason is once we start doing that, not only are we financing their slaughter of innocent people and strengthening their organization, but we’re actually making Americans even greater targets for future kidnappings.”
After 18 long months, Mueller’s family lost its fight this week. “I feel in a way that I’ve failed them,” McCain said.
Still, Mueller’s family said Tuesday in a statement they are “proud of the person Kayla was and the work that she did while she was here with us.”
“Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian,” it said. “She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice, and peace. … She lived with purpose, and we will work every day to honor her legacy.”
[Read more from the Morning Mix]I first discovered Bent Knee via their 2014 release Shiny Eyed Babies, and continued to enjoy their evolvement with 2016’s Say So. To say I was taken aback and wowed by their art-rock meets progressive mixture is an understatement. The whole group worked together so well to contribute their own unique parts that gelled beautifully to create an original and fluid sound.
So with only a short amount of time that has lapsed since the band’s last release a year ago, the highly anticipated Land Animal has been dropped in our lap. The one thing about a group like Bent Knee is that with such an original and vibrant sound, they are always trying to bring more to the table with each release, and at the same time keep their fans fully immersed in what they’re doing. With a standard rock band, this isn’t always the hardest thing to do, but when you add all the elements of this group’s sound, it must take a certain headspace and determination to skillfully deliver music that is up to their standards.
I delve into the new collection of tracks with anxiousness and hope that |
points for different squads to take. I’m talking about the type of movement that occurs within sports teams. It’s the type of movement that leads to behind the back passes, alley oops, instinctive midfield crosses, or a throw down the field 5 feet ahead of a receiver.
Coordinated movement is synergy. Synergy in Planetside 2 is what allows outfits to hold back against outrageous odds. Synergy is a small beacon of light facing an oncoming storm. It is Lieutenant Dan strapped to the boat challenging greater forces.
Movement can occur within a small base or across a continent. This is where the chaos steps in. There is simply no way to account for every single enemy. There exists a type of fog of war. It isn’t highlighted by darkly shaded areas on the map. It is a lack of information. A squad may well be preparing to drop a fully loaded Galaxy on the point you’re defending. MAX’s may be getting ready to charge. There may be, out of nowhere, an ESF pilot who chose you as his target for Rocket Pods. Perhaps an enemy tank has a decent angle on the base you’re at and moments before you decide to charge a room a shell is fired, arcing across a hex to land at your feet as you begin to move. These situations are uncontrollable. There is no way to account for any of this happening.
Movement isn’t just about moving. It’s about interpreting scenarios after hundreds of battles and carrying in mind a heat map: places to avoid and areas where, interpreting all the local information, presents an ideal timing to breach into a room or secure an area. Processing all this information becomes instinctual. It becomes part of your flow. The most effective leaders know how to shape battles to their will by an innate knowledge of how their teammates move. The enemy disposition, types of players present in a particular fight, reading the continental map to predict cross-hex movement and understanding how long a coordinated friendly force will survive against the inevitable crush of enemy numbers are some of the things rotating in a leader’s.
Planetside 2’s reward for out mobilizing your opponent isn’t highlighted by a number in the Win column. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The reward of a thing well done is having done it.”
[note: this is less of an article and more of a thinking-out-loud blog post. I’ll address the other two aspects I mentioned — awareness and luck — in a future post]In high school, my friends and I drove some really, really crappy cars. We knew that they were crap, yet we invested fist fulls of money and months of time into them as if they were going to have a huge payout someday. Apparently foresight was not taught in school. Somehow putting $1500 of stereo system in a $30 car made a lot of sense at that point in our lives. On the bright side, the cars were so crappy that it allowed our creativity to really shine. We could do any ridiculous modification that we wanted because the car was worthless to begin with. If we messed up, it was still a worthless car. Racing stripes? Sure! Painted windows? You Bet! Backwards seats? ummm, yes? We learned many valuable life lessons on these cars, and we wouldn’t have be the same without them. Pictures above is a friend / coworker’s high school driven 1983 Olds Delta 88 in the prime of it’s life. It was a car that we were proud to cruise in for obvious reasons. Thank goodness for high school cars.House Speaker Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) and Representative Jenifer Loon (R-Eden Prairie) have introduced legislation to repeal Minnesota’s longstanding ban on off-sale liquor sales on Sundays. The move should come as no surprise. Several legislators made Sunday liquor sales part of their election campaigns. Speaker Daudt has indicated that he thinks a repeal bill could pass the House in the first 30 days of session.
The Bills
The move to modernize the liquor comes as a pair of bills. HF0030 aims at full repeal. HF0031 takes an opt-in / local option approach. Both versions would allow for local control.
The House
The local option approach is likely to resonate with legislators across the aisle from Daudt, as well as within his own caucus. House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman (D-Brooklyn Park) has indicated that she is open to the change and favors local control.
In reality, both bills would allow for local control of Sunday liquor sales. HF0030 would allow municipalities to pass local regulations that are more restrictive than those allowed at the state level. Some could, and likely would, pass noon openings or limited hours. This has always been the case. HF0031 would essentially do the opposite. It would allow municipalities to pass local measures of deregulation. This would also likely result in municipalities with noon openings, limited hours, and full bans still in place.
The Senate
The Minnesota Senate is not as cut and dry as the House of Representatives may appear to be, but there is hope. The large number of new legislators creates a chance for progress on the popular issue. It can be difficult for elected officials to evolve on an issue when they have had a stance several election cycles. New legislators could mean new allies on the issue, but this will only happen if they hear from their constituents. The forces opposed to Sunday liquor sales are probably already whispering in their ears.
New Majority Leader Gazelka (R-Nisswa) has been noncommittal on the issue.
Senator Dahms (R-Rewood Falls) has taken over as the Chair of Commerce and Consumer Protection Finance and Policy Committee. The previous Chair was reluctant to give repeal bills committee hearings while he received considerable donations from the opposition. One can hope that Senator Dahms will be more willing to listen to constituents and turn away donations.
The Governor
Governor Dayton has been on record as supporting Sunday liquor sales for a while now. Linden Zakula, his Deputy Chief of Staff, recently reaffirmed his position via Twitter.
@keull @kpottermn Governor Dayton’s position is the same as it has been: if it reaches his desk, he will sign it. — Linden Zakula (@lindenzakula) January 4, 2017
How to Help
Contact your legislators.
Click Here To Find Your Legislators
Connect with Leadership
Senator Paul E. Gazelka (R) District 09
Majority Leader
(651) 296-4875
sen.paul.gazelka@senate.mn
Senator Gary H. Dahms (R) District 16
Assistant Majority Leader
(651) 296-8138
sen.gary.dahms@senate.mn
Senator Thomas M. Bakk (DFL) District 03
Minority Leader
(651) 296-8881
Mail Form
Representative Kurt Daudt (R) District: 31A
Speaker of the House
651-296-5364 or 800-710-7642
rep.kurt.daudt@house.mn
Representative Melissa Hortman (DFL) District: 36B
Minority Leader
(651) 296-4280
rep.melissa.hortman@house.mn
Representative Joe Hoppe (R) District: 47B
Chair: Commerce and Regulatory Reform
651-296-5066
rep.joe.hoppe@house.mn
Governor Dayton
(651) 201-3400
Toll Free: 800-657-3717
Mail Form
Get Social
Sign and share the petition to legalize Sunday liquor sales at SundaySalesMN.org
Follow #SundaySalesMN on Facebook & Twitter and invite your friends to do the same.
Comments
commentsNamed one of the best companies to work for (more than once) according to Forbes, there are definitely a lot of perks working for the technology giant, Google.
If you are a person with a drive and a passion to innovate, getting a job at Google might be of interest. Some of the perks you can expect if your job application is successful include free meals in its gourmet cafeteria, dry cleaners, gym facilities, pools, video game areas and much more. Employees are allowed to bring their pets to work.
In the below infographic we highlight the recruitment and interview processes of Google and also look at some interesting facts regarding the company's approach to attract top talent. We also highlight the top salaries of Google employees and some of the crazy interview questions you can expect before getting hired. Are you after one of those top jobs at Google?In the last couple of years I've learned one thing: the right don't like me very much, and expend a sizeable amount of energy attacking me personally rather than my writing: the Telegraph, the Spectator, even Fox News have all had pops at various stages. On a daily basis, I have insults thrown at me and attempts to bait me via Twitter. But in the desperate attacks stakes, Douglas Murray's latest piece is a pretty leading candidate.
Hard right pseudo-intellectual Murray writes in The Spectator demanding an apology for a response I made to a question about the conflict in Gaza on Question Time last November. In the conflict, over a hundred Palestinian and four Israeli civilians died. To give an illustration, I referred to the tragic death of 11-month Palestinian baby Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi, the son of a BBC journalist.
According to the child's family then and now, he was killed by an Israeli air strike. It was the account accepted by Human Rights Watch. It was how it reported by virtually the entire international media, including the BBC. "The baby son of a BBC worker was am ong those killed in Israel's air strike", reported the Daily Telegraph. "Anguish of BBC journalist as he cradles the body of his baby son who died in Israeli rocket attack on Gaza," exclaimed the Daily Mail. The Sun also leaves the impression it was an Israeli strike. The Washington Post reported it as a "very personal story from Wednesday's Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip." "The 11-month-old son of a BBC staffer was killed yesterday during an air strike by the Israeli army on the Gaza strip," reported former Daily Mirror editor and City of University Professor of Journalism Roy Greenslade in the Guardian. "Jihad al-Masharawi, an employee of BBC in Gaza, carries the body of his 11-month-old son Omar, killed in an Israeli air strike," writes Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
And before I forget, how about this: "The front page of today's Washington Post shows a picture of the BBC’s Jihad Masharawi holding his dead 11-month-old son, an innocent victim of Israeli action against Hamas’ paramilitary targets following months of indiscriminate rocket attacks against civilians in southern Israel." That was the Spectator itself.
The UN inquiry into the conflict now suggests differently: that he was "killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel." The head of the OHCHR office for the Palestinian office has subsequently added that he couldn't "unequivocally conclude" it was definitely a misfired Palestinian weapon, but "it appeared to be attributable to a Palestinian rocket." The father of the 11-month-old child, Jehad Masharawi, has meanwhile dismissed the findings as "rubbish".
It is beyond far-fetched to expect me to have possibly guessed that what was reported as fact by virtually the entire international media — including the Spectator itself — would be proved likely to be wrong. And yet Murray acts as though I cynically plucked this from thin air and — ignoring the fact this was how British, US and Israeli papers reported it — believes the onus is on me to apologise. "It is not known what evidence, if any, Owen Jones had that the Israelis had killed this 11-month old boy," he writes, ignoring the reports of practically every single media outlet, including his own. "It was plain at the time that Owen Jones didn’t know what he was talking about," he adds. Was it? Even though almost everybody, his colleagues included, had accepted it as fact?
To be clear: I oppose Hamas, whilst knowing that they are the product of decades of both Israeli oppression and corruption at the Palestinian Authority. I oppose any attacks that kill civilians, including rockets fired into Israel. My support for the Palestinian cause comes purely through solidarity with the oppressed: the fact that Palestine is illegally occupied, that illegal settlements cover the West Bank, the fact Gaza is besieged, the fact nearly seven times as many Palestinian civilians as Israeli civilians have died since 2000. I want a just, secure peace for Jewish and Arab peoples alike. I have denounced any false solidarity with the Palestinian people that gives comfort to anti-Semitic prejudice: here and here, for example. But the truth is uncritical supporters of Israeli government policies never forgave me for attacking Israel's actions in Gaza in the mainstream media, and for being applauded for doing so.
If the likes of Murray are going to quote from the UN report approvingly, I hope they accept it in its entirety. It is damning reading for the Israeli government. It concludes that 101 civilians, including 33 children, were killed by Israeli military action. "In a number of cases, civilians who happened to be present in or passing through open areas and fields, locations that could potentially be used for rocket launches, were killed," it says. "The cases mentioned below raise the question of whether the IDF took all feasible measures to verify that their targets were military objectives, in line with the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law, which requires that the parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants. Under international human rights law these cases may constitute violations of the right to life."
Examples the report gives include a father, his 12-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son allegedly killed by a drone missile while collecting spearmint. An 84-year-old man working on his olive farm and his 14-year-old granddaughter were allegedly killed by an Israeli missile too. "In neither case were residents warned prior to the attack, and that no militant activities were carried out from the attacked locations throughout the crisis," writes the report. Other children who tragically and avoidably died include an 8-year-old boy; and ambulances that were denied access for 5 hours to two 16-year-olds allegedly killed by Israeli missiles.
The damning list goes on: "On 18 November, an Israeli air strike without prior warning hit a three-storey house belonging to the Al-Dalou family in Al-Nasser neighbourhood, central Gaza City. The airstrike killed 12 people, five of whom were children and four were women." Even if there was one militant present, "an attack under the given circumstances with the large number of civilians present, would not meet the requirement of proportionality." In other examples, the UN "was not able to identify any military objective that the IDF might have had in these cases, thus raising concerns with regard to possible violations of the principle of distinction and potentially also the right to life." In reference to attacks on health care facilities, the report says: "The attacks on the hospitals could therefore amount to violations of international humanitarian law."
The likes of Murray have no interest in engaging with this report, of course. They have simply plucked out a single sentence that likely casts doubt on a tragic death wrongly attributed to an Israeli missile by virtually the entire international media — (and, again, his own magazine) — and, by incredibly ignoring all these reports, scapegoating me instead, as though I somehow could have known. And to be clear: whoever is responsible for the death of this little boy, there is no excuse for such deaths in conflict.
Murray and his cynical allies are attempting to bury the contents of the rest of this report. That must not be allowed to happen. Far more Palestinian civilians died at the hands of this military superpower than Israeli civilians at the hands of unjustifiable Hamas rockets. 33 children were killed by such strikes. The report suggests that Israel could be guilty of committing war crimes. These are the facts, and if Murray genuinely takes this report seriously, he must answer them.
Owen Jones is a columnist for the Independent and the author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working ClassThe United States says North Korea leader Kim Jong Un is "begging for war" following the rogue state's most powerful nuclear test to date.
The American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said her country did not want a conflict with the Pyongyang regime but its patience was "not unlimited".
Addressing the UN Security Council, Ms Haley said "enough is enough" and warned its approach of imposing "incremental" sanctions against the secretive nation had not worked.
US ambassador to UN: North Korea 'begging for war'
The envoy urged the 15-member council, which discussed the crisis, to adopt the "strongest possible measures".
She said the US will come up with a new UN sanctions resolution and aims to put it to a vote next Monday.
According to South Korea's defence ministry, the North appears to be preparing to launch ballistic missiles, possibly intercontinental.
It comes after the rogue state detonated what it called a hydrogen bomb on Sunday - its sixth and biggest nuclear detonation.
How advanced are N Korea's nuclear weapons?
The regime said the test was a "perfect success" and involved a bomb designed to be mounted on its newly-developed intercontinental ballistic missile.
The device, which is thought to have been about five times larger than the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in World War II, caused a manmade earthquake.
How H-bombs more destructive than atomic devices
:: How does H-bomb compare to atomic bomb?
Ms Haley said: "Despite our efforts the North Korea nuclear programme is more advanced and more dangerous than ever.
"War is never something the United States wants. We don't want it now. But our country's patience is not unlimited."
US gives military warning to N Korea
America's defence secretary, General James Mattis, said on Sunday any threat to the US, its territories or its allies by Pyongyang would be met with a "massive military response".
He said America was "not looking to the total annihilation" of the North but "we have many options to do so".
South Korea will now ramp up its own military response. It has fired missiles into the sea to simulate an attack on the North's main nuclear testing site and is also preparing fresh military drills with the US.
:: Who is North Korea's 'nuclear' newsreader?
US giving'mixed signals' on North Korea
The latest test by the Pyongyang regime came less than a week after the council strongly condemned the North's "outrageous" launch of a ballistic missile over Japan.
Meanwhile China, which is the North's biggest trading partner, has said President Trump's threat to cut off trade with countries that deal with Pyongyang is unacceptable.
S Korea respond to the North with military drills
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not fair - as Beijing had worked on resolving the crisis via talks and that effort was not being recognised.
:: Key steps in North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions
China's UN envoy Liu Jieyi has warned it will not allow chaos and war on the Korean peninsula.
He said the situation was "deteriorating constantly, falling into a vicious circle" and urged the North to "stop taking actions that are wrong".
He also called on all parties to "seriously consider" Beijing's proposal for a joint suspension of Pyongyang's ballistic missile and nuclear programmes and military drills by the US and South Korea.Can Sex Offenders Be Barred From Social Media? Justices Lean Toward No
Enlarge this image toggle caption Lauren Russell/NPR Lauren Russell/NPR
It was, to be blunt, sex day at the Supreme Court. The justices heard two cases, both involving men who had been punished for having consensual sex with a minor. In one case, a 21-year-old legal resident of the U.S. was ordered deported after he pleaded no contest to having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend. That would not be a crime in 43 states or under federal law, but it was enough to get him deported for having committed an "aggravated felony" in California.
In the second case, a North Carolina man was convicted first for having sex with a minor, and arrested again seven years later for violating a state ban on social media use by sex offenders.
The U.S. Supreme Court appears ready to invalidate the North Carolina law he was arrested under, which makes it a crime for registered sex offenders to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. At oral arguments Monday, at least six justices indicated serious doubts about the statute.
Lester Packingham, known as J.R., was a graphic design student at the Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham when he was arrested in 2002 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. He received a suspended jail sentence and kept a clean record until he was arrested again in 2010, this time because he signed up for Facebook and put a post on his wall.
"I said 'Praise God, I didn't receive a ticket, Praise Jesus, thank God,'" Packingham said outside the courthouse after oral arguments.
Inside the Supreme Court, Packingham's lawyer David Goldberg argued that the social media ban punishes "vast swaths" of core First Amendment speech that is "totally unrelated to the government's interest in preventing" child abuse.
Questioned by various justices, Goldberg conceded that a registered sex offender might be barred from communicating with a minor on social media or barred from some sites as a condition of parole. But this law, he contended, is a far broader denial of the fundamental right to free speech.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg picked up that thread, noting that some states abridge other constitutional rights — prohibit ex-felons from voting or from having guns, for example.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Goldberg whether the North Carolina social media ban is unconstitutional because it is too broad, because it isn't precisely targeted enough, or "all of those things." At that, Justice Anthony Kennedy puckishly quoted Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous line, "let me count the ways."
Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to voice skepticism about the importance of social media.
"I know there are people who think that life is not possible without Twitter and Facebook," Alito said, but there are alternative means of communication.
Next up to the lectern was North Carolina Deputy Attorney General Robert Montgomery, who immediately faced a barrage of statistics from Justice Kagan.
The president, all 50 governors, all 100 senators, and every member of the U.S. House has a Twitter account, Kagan observed. Indeed, some 50 million Americans use these sites for religious purposes, the justice said.
"This has become a crucially important channel of political communication," Kagan said — adding that under North Carolina's social media ban "a person couldn't go onto those sites and find out what these members of our government are thinking or saying or doing."
Montgomery replied that there are alternatives to social media sites.
"Assuming we had a public square 100 years ago, could you say that this person couldn't go into the public square?" Kennedy asked. These sites, he continued "have far greater coverage than the communication you could ever have, even in the paradigm public square."
Montgomery replied that registered sex offenders have alternatives, like blogging. But that didn't seem to be a good enough answer for much of the court.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked if you could have a statute that bars convicted swindlers from discussing money.
"Well, swindlers are not sex offenders," replied Montgomery. "These are some of the worst criminals, who have abused children," and there is a high recidivism rate, the lawyer said.
"Except that you exempt any website that provides a chat room or photo sharing," Kagan said. In short, she said, the exemptions written into the law seem to be for the most "dangerous" activities.
"There are plenty of people who get information fine without social networking," Montgomery said.
Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, wasn't buying that argument.
"How many people under 30 do you think don't use these sites to get all their information? Under 35?" Kagan asked.
"The point is that these people are being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas," Ginsburg added.
In the deportation case, the justices were almost as skeptical — noting, for instance, that the state law makes it a crime to have sex with a minor who is three years younger.
"That could mean it's a crime for a college junior to have sex with a freshman," Kagan said.
Decisions in both cases are expected by summer.Asked during a televised debate Wednesday night whether or not lawmakers in congress should pursue impeachment for President Donald Trump, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said that the president—beginning on "day one"—has already "done a number of things which legitimately raise the question of impeachment."
The debate, hosted by CNN, was among those vying to become next chairperson of the Democratic National Committee at a party convention being held this weekend in Atlanta, Georgia.
Ellison, who alongside former Labor Secretary Tom Perez is seen as a top contender for the post, cited the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution as the primary infraction that raises the real prospect of probing the sitting president for committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
"We need to begin investigations not to go after Donald Trump but protect the presidency of the United States to make sure nobody can monetize the presidency and make profit off it for his own game," he said.
Watch:
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The lawsuit cited by Ellison, brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a non-partisan public advocacy group, charges that Trump is in direct violation of the emoluments clause every time he receives "cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad."
Trump's decision not to fully separate himself from his business empire, explained CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder when the lawsuit was filed last month, put him in breach of the Constitution the moment he took the oath of office on January 20. "His constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action," Bookbinder said at the time.
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Meanwhile, Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-NY) has also called for a congressional inquiry into Trump's conflicts of interest as well as any and all possible connections either Trump himself, or his campaign or transition team staff, may have had with Russian government officials during last years presidential campaign or since winning the election in November.
As Common Dreams contributor Norman Solomon wrote earlier this month, "Nadler has just put a big toe in the impeachment water. Yet no members of the House have taken the plunge to introduce an actual resolution for impeachment. They will have to be pushed.""The 200 day moving average may be the granddaddy of moving averages. Simply put, a financial instrument that is trading above it is healthy; below it, anemic. The 200 day moving average measures the sentiment of the market on a longer term basis. This is where major players like pension plans and hedge funds need to look in order to move a large amount of stocks. I display it on all my workspaces proudly, formatted in emerald green and real thick so I can't help but notice."
Out of a few simple technical indicators I use in my daily stock analysis,is one of the most important.MA 200 lags. This indicator does not predict the direction of the price, but rather the current situation. Coupled with other leading indicators, you analysis could be more complete. Therefore, when you hear "the trend is your friend," technically put it really means that the price over the last 200 days is indicating an upward trend, therefore look for buy opportunities; versus the price is below the last 200 days, therefore look for sell opportunities.So, in nutshell, what are the uses of MA 200 then?In my trading analysis, the indicator basically give a good picture on the following.#1.- check if the price is well below, above or touching the MA? This will show you generally what is the trend of the price movement. This comes useful if you want to find out the performance of the stock in terms of growth.#2.- ask yourself if the slope in steep enough (being up or downtrend), or is it just a neutral slope. Generally, as a trend-following trader, the steep slope is a good chance of continuous up-trending.#3.- this is in relation to other short-term MAs I am using. If the price and other short term is well above the MA 200, it is a good chance that the stock is still up-trending. However, if the short term MA (or even the price) starts to crossover MA 200, the trend could change.After a bit of back and forth, Mr. Braunstein said: “No, that is not acceptable practice.”
Not acceptable, perhaps, but that is what occurred, as the Senate report shows. Normal practice at the bank and across the industry is to value these kinds of derivatives at the midpoint between the bid and offer prices available in the market. But in early 2012, as it became apparent that JPMorgan’s big trades at the chief investment office were going bad, the bank began valuing the portfolio well outside the midpoint. This reduced its losses.
For example, in January 2012, the portfolio valuations hewed closely to the midpoint on all but 2 of the 18 measures, the Senate investigators found. A month later, 5 of the 18 valuation measures deviated from the midpoint. In March, however, all 18 deviated, and 16 were at the outer bounds of price ranges. In every case, the prices used by the bank understated its losses.
While these valuation shifts were taking place in the chief investment office, JPMorgan’s investment bank officials continued to mark their identical positions using the midpoint value.
RISK limits, intended to protect the bank from losses, were also routinely breached at JPMorgan Chase, the report found. From late 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, Senate investigators saw a huge jump in the number of risk-limit breaches — to more than 170, from 6. Then, in April 2012 alone, risk limits were exceeded 160 times.
“Should someone have investigated the risky trading activities that triggered all these breaches?” Mr. Levin asked. Yes, but no one did, the report concluded. The risk limits were either ignored or modified to make the portfolio look better.
JPMorgan Chase has repeatedly said it made mistakes and has changed its policies.
The Senate report also raises questions about the rigor with which JPMorgan conducted its own investigation into the trading loss. That report was published in January.
Mr. Levin cited the internal report’s failings in his questioning of Michael Cavanagh, a task force member and co-C.E.O. of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank. “You just told us that shifting pricing practices to minimize losses is not acceptable,” Mr. Levin said. “Did you say that in your report? Did you say that’s what happened?”Ibrahim Afellay: The Barcelona winger has been plagued by injuries since his move from PSV
Ibrahim Afellay's agent has confirmed that the Barcelona midfielder would consider a loan move away from the Nou Camp.
The 26-year-old has struggled to make an impact at the Spanish club since his switch from PSV Eindhoven in January 2011 because of injuries.
The winger missed most of last season with a serious cruciate ligament injury but has since returned to full fitness and joined up with the Dutch squad for their disappointing Euro 2012 campaign.
And, despite featuring in a number of pre-season friendly matches under new boss Tito Vilanova, Afellay could again find himself marginalised now the club's Spanish Euro 2012 players have returned from their holidays.
"Afellay could go out on loan for a year," his representative Rob Jansen told Italian reporters over the weekend. "Yes, that is a possibility."
The comments are likely to spark a frantic race across Europe for his signature with Serie A clubs Inter Milan, Lazio, AC Milan and Fiorentina, as well as Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund and French club Lille all reportedly interested in the talented winger.
Premier League duo Arsenal and Liverpool have also been linked with a move for Afellay in the past.
Very unlikely
However, Jansen later suggested that it is unlikely that Afellay will be leaving Barcelona, despite the wealth of interest.
"I won't take such messages too seriously," Jansen told Voetbal International.
"Of course, there are a lot of clubs interested, but that has always been the chase. Ibrahim had not yet signed for Barca and other clubs were already on the phone.
"A move away from FC Barcelona is not currently an issue. Ibrahim feels good and plays for Barca.
"There is no reason to leave. Is a departure entirely excluded? It's football, but it is very unlikely."In the age of “safe-space” modern feminism—where Pajama Boys are the expectation, victimhood is rampant, and masculinity is incessantly bashed—equality looks a whole lot like, well, inequality.
In one such example, a Manhattan pharmacy announced on Monday that they will be hitting their male customers with an extra seven percent “man tax”—get this—in the name of “equality.”
Jolie Alony, the owner of the SoHo pharmacy, Thompson Chemists, designed the anti-man scheme as way to "level the playing field" for allegedly victimized women, in reference to the well-debunked “gender wage gap” myth and the so-called “pink tax.” Alony also says she’s making a political statement in support of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump. Big surprise there.
"We thought it’d be a great idea with all the political things going on—with Clinton being such a woman and the other guy and his womanizing," said Alony.
"We wanted to share that women deserve to get a break, and men deserve to be charged 7 percent more. Women are spending more in general and we make less, so we deserve to have a break," she added.
On Monday, the pharmacy proudly boasted the following signs in their windows: "New store policy: All Female Customers Shop Tax Free" and "All Male Customers Are Subject to a 7% Man Tax," the former in pink and the latter in blue, fittingly.
NY pharmacy is charging male customers an extra 7% “man tax” to fight gender inequality
Correlation not found pic.twitter.com/HlN6bzNrkY — Jenna Abrams (@Jenn_Abrams) October 12, 2016
Alony lamented the "pink tax"—the supposed extra amount of money women are charged for certain female products or services—saying it widens income disparity and adds an undue burden on females, which needs to be "rectified."
The pharmacy owner says she’s received varied reactions to her new anti-man policy. Some couples "were a little upset about it, saying, ‘F*** you,’ ‘You’re being a sexist,’ and to get a lawyer," she said, while others were "entertained" by her signs.
"We live in a big world, and I think we need to raise awareness," Alony added.
Alony is essentially cutting out sales tax for her female customers, which she is reportedly paying for out of her own pocket.
There is still no word on how this progressive anti-man tax will effect transgender customers.Increasing rates of job displacement (i.e. involuntary job loss from redundancy, downsizing, restructuring) have been suggested to be a key driver of declining macro-levels of generalised trust. This article undertakes the first test of how job displacement affects individuals’ tendencies to (dis)trust over the adult lifecourse, using two-waves of the Great Britain National Child Development Study cohort data, on a sample of n = 6840 individuals. Applying both lagged dependent variable logistic regression and two-wave change-score models, experiencing job displacement between the ages of 33 and 50 appears to significantly scar individuals’ generalised trust, with depressed trust observable at least nine years after the event occurred. However, this effect is dependent on the value an individual places on work: the greater the attachment to employment the stronger the negative effect of displacement. A range of mediators, such as physical health, mental well-being, and personal efficacy, do not appear to account for the effect.by
Alguns amigos discordam do tom cáustico que muitos de nós têm usado na crítica à cobertura televisiva da tragédia de Pedrogão Grande. Por mim, admito que algumas das abordagens que aqui tenho feito têm sido algo duras, já que considero esta questão fundamental, e de um alcance que está longe de se limitar a estes eventos. Nesse sentido, julgo, até, ter sido contido. Para além de a maioria dos repórteres fazer um trabalho de manipulação das consciências na mais grosseira linha tablóide – enquanto nos estúdios se trata das tarefas de manipulação mais tecnicamente política – quase todos jogam um jogo muito perigoso ao insistir em remexer nas emoções e feridas emocionais das vítimas com, por vezes, o entusiasmo de um torturador.
Os sinais de dificuldade em assumir a própria sobrevivência e o sentimento de culpa que se vai instalando no espírito de muitas destas pessoas pode ter consequências a longo prazo gravíssimas. O chamado “síndroma do sobrevivente”, amplamente estudado, sobretudo no pós-guerra e a propósito dos sintomas psíquicos apresentados por muitos dos sobreviventes – o caso das vítimas do Holocausto é o mais notório -, pode gerar nos que sobrevivem a uma calamidade, uma guerra ou, até, um despedimento colectivo a que se escapa, um quadro que leva à auto-culpabilização, com sintomas físicos, psíquicos, comportamentais cujas consequências podem ser funestas.
Não aceito nem acredito que os repórteres não saibam disso. Por isso, não há perdão para muitas das técnicas de interrogatório – meço as palavras – que utilizam quando cercam as vítimas, de microfone em riste. O título que chegou a figurar na capa do Público a propósito de uma tragédia familiar de um homem que perdeu a mulher e duas filhas mas salvou-se e salvou outros familiares num outro carro – “Mário mandou mulher e filhas para a morte” – penso dar a medida do que estou a tentar transmitir e exp |
. Ironically it is the stock of Herbalife that has soared in recent years while that of Valeant has tumbled.
Today, however, may be a time for some modest celebrations for perennial Herbalife bear Ackman, because moments ago, Herbalife released an 8-K with some of the most unprecedented data revisions we have seen in a long time, one explaining that the company's "Active New Members" data has been not only completely wrong but massively inflated in the past year. The culprit: "database scripting errors." One wonders if there was perhaps a person who created this database...
This is what it reported:
On March 1, 2016, Herbalife Ltd. (the "Company") identified errant information regarding the Company's new "Active New Member" metric that was provided on certain of the Company's 2015 earnings calls, as outlined in greater detail in the tables below. The Company began tracking this non-financial metric in 2015 in connection with certain marketing plan changes and discussed it for the first time on its second quarter 2015 earnings call. However, database scripting errors led to both (i) the errant inclusion of additional categories of data in calculating the metric for parts of 2015 which were not included in the 2014 and prior period calculations and (ii) quarterly aggregation issues which created variances from period-to-period depending on when the greatest level of activity occurred during the relevant period. The Company did not discover these errors earlier because it had limited visibility into the likely rate of change in this metric upon its first use. The Company has taken corrective action regarding these issues. No information regarding this non-financial metric has been included in any of the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the errors do not impact the Company's historical consolidated financial statements.
And this is why investors should never trust non-GAAP data: as Herbalife just admitted, while its GAAP numbers are ok (for now), it was its non-GAAP "growth" estimates which not only pushed the stock higher in the past year but, oops, just happened to be completely wrong.
Some examples of the revisions:
Worldwide, active new members' excluding China revised from +16.7% to +3.2%
U.S. active new members in Q4 2015 vs Q4 2014 revised from +71.0% to +30.7%
North American members in Q3 2015 vs Q3 2014 revised from +33.0% to +1.8%
And so on. The full breakdown of what some could call, with reason, corporate fraud is shown below and can be found in the company's just filed 8-K.
As for the shareholders, their trading accounts certainly appear to have taken a weight-loss shake this morning with the stock crashing 16% in the premarket.For years, people have called Watchmen "unfilmable," and they said it would never make it to the big screen. Those people, we have no doubt, never saw any of the movies on this list. If there's one thing this list proves, it's that Hollywood will film anything and call it a comic book movie.
Starring:
Reb Brown
The Trailer:
The Plot:
Steve Rogers is a young artist who enjoys wallowing in self pity as much as he enjoys remembering his far superior father (which is to say, very much). His father was a patriotic government agent during the war who, due to his dedication and bravery, was given the nickname "Captain America." He also developed a "super-steroid," which seems less brave, but people went with it because they had already gone to the trouble of giving him that nickname.
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When young, whiny Steve suffers an accident and is given his father's special steroid during surgery. Not only does the steroid save his life, it gives him super strength and speed, which he uses, at the behest of the government, to fight evil.
"Now that I'm virtually indestructible, I'll gladly fight crime!"
Oh, but instead of serving in the war (like his father, and the Steve Rogers in the comics), he uses his super-speed to buy a giant cargo fan and a moderately fast motorcycle and rides around for a good portion of the movie, briefly pausing only at the end of the film to foil a random terrorist plot that involves hiding a bomb somewhere.
Why It Sucked:
Steve Rogers from the comics was an artist at heart, sure, but he was also prepared to fight for his country even before he was loaded up with super steroids. He was a superhero who could have genuinely been considered a true hero pre-powers. The writers of 1971's Captain America thought this was so inspiring that they decided to leave it out completely and focus on the whiny, artsy side.
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"I'll tell you what Red Skull hurt the most: my feelings...
One of the other great things about Captain America was that he willingly volunteered to take the super serum, because it meant he would be better at doing what he loved (punching Nazis). In this movie, the serum is given to Rogers without his consent, and he reluctantly decides to fight crime after it turns out he has superpowers. Basically, everything that made Steve Rogers honorable and respectable was removed and replaced with... art? A helmet? We don't even know. A see-through shield?
Gay undertones?
Now, the good Captain's transportation doesn't really come up too often in the comics, so we can't say the filmmakers behind this movie screwed it up. Still, we feel fairly secure in the belief that he would not roll around in a blue GMC Van that shoots an almost useless motorcycle out of the back.
And finally, the costume. Instead of just copying the already awesome comic book costume, they apparently hired a costume designer who'd never heard of Steve Rogers (or America), and said, "Make an American motorcycle superhero in 10 minutes or you're fired."A senior leader of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that includes the PKK, was detained in Istanbul late Sunday.
The high-ranking militant, Aktaş, was responsible for coordinating terror activities across Turkey. She was detained by security forces at Istanbul Atatürk International Airport before trying to flee the country with a fake passport.
Both the PKK-affiliated Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing the People's Protection Units (YPG) function under the umbrella network of the KCK, which is led by imprisoned terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan. Although the PKK was headquartered in Syria until 1998, currently, the PKK is controlled from its headquarters in northern Iraq's Qandil Mountains. KCK terrorist groups function under the names of the PKK in Turkey, the PÇDK in Iraq, the PYD in Syria and PJAK in Iran.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU, resumed its nearly 40-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015. Since then, over 600 security personnel, including troops, police officers and village guards have been killed along with more than 7,000 PKK terrorists in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
Turkish army destroys 12 PKK positions in northern Iraq
The Turkish military destroyed 12 PKK positions in airstrikes against the terrorist group in northern Iraq, the military said early Monday.
According to a statement issued by the Turkish General Staff, fighter jets carried out the airstrikes in the Avaşin-Basyan and Qandil regions on Sunday between 8:01-9:03 p.m. (5:01-6:03 GMT).A court in Turkey's western province of İzmir has accepted an indictment against the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) co-chairwoman and two other lawmakers of the party on terror charges, a judiciary source said Monday. The Public Prosecutor's Office in İzmir had charged HDP Co-Chairwoman Figen Yüksekdağ and lawmaker Erdal Ataş with "making propaganda for a terrorist organization." Another HDP lawmaker, Mizgin Irgat, was charged with "promoting crimes and criminals," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.
The prosecutor's office had brought the charges in court after probing the speeches of the HDP lawmakers during a panel discussion in İzmir in February. The speeches had referred to the PKK terrorist organization's actions as "people's struggle" and were made part of the indictment on "terrorism and propaganda for a terrorist organization." Earlier this month, 13 HDP lawmakers were arrested. Ten, including co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ, remain in custody awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.Fake maps claiming to correlate crime rates and Democratic votes, circulated via email.
How I Detect Fake News
Tim O'Reilly Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 23, 2016
How I traced the falsity of one internet meme, and what that teaches us about how an algorithm might do it
I have a brother who is a big Donald Trump fan, and he frequently sends me articles from various right-wing media sources. Last week, he sent me a variant of the image above.
I immediately consulted Snopes, the fact checking site for internet hoaxes, and discovered that it was, as I expected, fake. According to Snopes, these are actually both electoral maps. Per Snopes, “On 11 November 2016, the Facebook page “Subject Politics” published two maps purportedly comparing the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the 2013 crime rate in in the U.S…. The map pictured on the bottom actually shows a 2012 electoral map that was created by Mark Newman from the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan.” Snopes was unable to verify the source of the first map, but concluded (presumably by comparing with known electoral maps) that it is in fact an incomplete electoral map from the 2016 election.
Snopes, which uses human editors for fact checking, does a good job, but they can’t find every fake news story. Still, when a reputable fact-checking organization like Snopes or Politifact identifies a story as false, that’s a pretty good sign. And in fact, the fake news story has been taken down on Facebook, presumably in response.
Facebook message that now shows for the link provided by Snopes to the original source of the hoax.
Continuing my research, I used Google to search for other sources that might provide more insight on the relationship between the electoral map and crime rates. I quickly found this 2013 article from Business Insider, Nine Maps That Show How Americans Commit Crime. It shows a very different picture.
Data on violent crime per one hundred thousand people, from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2012
Since Business Insider told me the source of the data (the FBI Uniform Crime Report) I could go verify it for myself. Sure enough, the data on the FBI site matched the Business Insider map.
I tell this story of two maps to emphasize that when people are discussing the truth or falsity of news, and the responsibility of sites like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to help identify it, they somehow think that determining “truth” or “falsity” is something that only humans can do. But as this example shows, there are many signals of likely truth or falsity that can be verified algorithmically by a computer, often more quickly and thoroughly than they can be verified by humans:
Does the story or graph cite any sources? If no sources are given, it is far from certain that the story is false, but the likelihood increases that it should be investigated further. Note how the fake story with which I opened this article provided no sources, and how it was debunked by Snopes by finding the actual sources of the graphs.
Do the sources actually say what the article claims they say? For example, it would have been entirely possible for Business Insider to claim that the data used in their article was from the FBI, but for there to be no such data there, or for the data there to be different. Few people trace the chain of sources to their origin, like I did. Many propaganda and fake news sites rely on that failure to spread falsity. Checking sources is something that computers are much better at doing than humans.
Are the sources authoritative? In evaluating search quality over the years, Google has used many techniques. How long has the site been around? How often is it referenced by other sites that have themselves been determined to be reputable? (Google’s PageRank algorithm, which revolutionized internet search, was a variant of scientific citation analysis, where the importance of scientific papers is evaluated by the number of other papers that reference it, and the reputation of the individuals or institutions making those references. Previous search engines had used brute force matching of the words contained in a web page with the words that the user was looking for.) Most people would find the FBI to be an authoritative source. We don’t think about the tacit knowledge that lets us make that determination, and might be surprised that an algorithm lacking that knowledge might still be able to come to the same conclusion by other means. Yet billions of people have come to rely on Google’s algorithms to do just that.
Do the sources, if any, substantiate the account? If there is a mismatch between the story and its sources, that is a clear signal of falsity. Last week, I wrote about an eye-opening experience with fake news. I’m no Donald Trump fan, so I was prepared to believe the headline I saw on Facebook: Mike Pence Gets ‘Booed Like Crazy’ at ‘Hamilton’. But something quickly became apparent when I watched the actual video embedded in the story: it didn’t match the description given in the article or the headline. As shown in the video, many people cheered Mike Pence as he entered the theater, and the most apparent “Boo” sounded like it was from the person holding the camera. By contrast, in the New York Times story about the same event, the description in the text closely matched the video. Many fake new stories contain jarring discrepancies between the headline and the story or between the story and its sources. Again, this is something that can be detected by a computer program (although comparing text to video may be at the outer edge of today’s capabilities.) Note that the program does not have to find absolute truth; it just has to cast a reasonable doubt, just like a human jury.
Are there multiple independent accounts of the same story? This is a technique that was long used by human reporters in the days when truth was central to the news. A story, however juicy, would never be reported on the evidence of a single source. (The movie All the President’s Men, about the reporting of the Watergate scandal, made a powerful impression on me as a young man, as have many interactions with first rate reporters in stories that I myself have been involved in over the years since.) The Huffington Post’s ‘Booed Like Crazy’ was a quote from a tweet about the event. How many tweets were there from audience members reporting booing? How many reported cheering, or a mix of cheering and booing? Again, searching for multiple confirming sources is something that computers can do very well.
If the story references quantitative data, does it do so in a way that is mathematically sound? For example, anyone who has even a little knowledge of statistics will recognize that showing absolute numbers of crime without reference to population density is fundamentally meaningless. Yes, there are more crimes committed by millions of people in New York City or Chicago than by hundreds in an area of rural Montana. That is why the FBI data referenced by the Business Insider article, which normalized crimes per 100,000 people, was inherently more plausible to me than the fake electoral maps that set me off on this particular quest for truth.
Note that when fake news is detected, there are a number of possible ways to respond.
The stories can be flagged. For example, Facebook (or Gmail, since much fake news appears to be spread by email) could show an alert, similar to a security alert, that says “This story appears likely to be false. Are you sure you want to share it?” with a link to the reasons why it is suspect, or to a story that debunks it, if that is available. The stories can be given less priority, shown lower down, or less often. Google does this routinely in ranking search results. And while the idea that Facebook should do this has been more controversial, Facebook is already ranking stories, for example featuring those that drive more “engagement” over those that are more recent, and showing “more engaging” stories or stories related to ones we’ve already shared or liked. Once Facebook stopped showing stories in pure timeline order, they put themselves in the position of curating the feed algorithmically. It’s about time they added source verification and other “truth” signals to the algorithm. The stories can be suppressed entirely if certainty is extremely high. We all rely on this level of extreme prejudice every day, since it is what email providers do to filter the email we actually want to see from the billions of spam messages sent every day.
As I wrote in my first article on the topic of fake news, Media in the Age of Algorithms, “The essence of algorithm design is not to eliminate all error, but to make results robust in the face of error.” Much as we stop pandemics by finding infections at their source and keeping them from finding new victims, it isn’t necessary to eliminate all fake news, but only to limit its spread.Feature photo by Graham MacIndoe
We’re exactly one month away from the September 8th release of The National’s new album, Sleep Well Beast. Two teaser singles have been previewed thus far: “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” and “Guilty Party”. Today, the band has unleashed another fresh track in the form of “Carin at the Liquor Store”.
As with the previous two songs, “Carin at the Liquor Store” comes accompanied with a Casey Reas-directed video. The stylistic, monochrome performance video was filmed by La Blogothèque and edited by Matthew Miller. Watch it above.
The National will head out on a nearly-sold-out tour later this fall, and you can find their complete itinerary below.
The National 2017 Tour Dates:
08/12 – Copenhagen, DK @ HAVEN Festival
09/16 – Cork, IE @ Cork Opera House/Sounds From a Safe Harbour
09/17 – Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
09/18 – Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
09/20 – Edinburgh, UK @ Usher Hall
09/21 – Edinburgh, UK @ Usher Hall
09/22 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo
09/23 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo
09/25 – London, UK @ Eventim Hammersmith Apollo *
09/26 – London, UK @ Eventim Hammersmith Apollo *
09/27 – London, UK @ Eventim Hammersmith Apollo *
09/28 – London, UK @ Eventim Hammersmith Apollo *
10/05 – Boston, MA @ Wang Theatre %
10/06 – Queens, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium #
10/07 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE #
10/08 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Hall #
10/11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl ^#
10/12 – San Diego, CA @ CalCoast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
10/14 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
10/21 – Hamburg, DE @ Elphilharmonie
10/23 – Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
10/24 – Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
10/25 – Amsterdam, NL @ AFAS Live
10/26 – Amsterdam, NL @ AFAS Live
10/28 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseum
10/30 – Brussels, BE @ Bozar
10/31 – Brussels, BE @ Bozar
11/02 – Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Music Festival Paris
11/04 – Stockholm, SE @ Annexet
11/05 – Stockholm, SE @ Annexet
11/06 – Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene
11/07 – Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene
11/27 – Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall *
11/28 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre *
11/29 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre *
12/01 – Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre *
12/02 – Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre *
12/04 – Philadelphia, PA @ Verizon Hall *
12/05 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem *
12/07 – Montreal, QC @ Metropolis *
12/08 – Montreal, QC @ Metropolis *
12/09 – Toronto, ON @ Sony Centre *
12/10 – Hamilton, ON @ Hamilton Place Theatre *
12/12 – Chicago, IL @ Civic Opera House *
12/13 – Chicago, IL @ Civic Opera House *
* = w/ This Is Kit
% = w/ Adia Victoria
# = w/ Daughter
^ = w/ Local Natives
Sleep Well Beast isn’t the only release coming from The National this year. The August record of the month from Vinyl Me, Please is a 10th anniversary reissue of the band’s Boxer. You have until August 15th to subscribe and get a copy, and you can do so here.Religious group previously got into a spat with the Foo Fighters
Bands from the Vans Warped Tour clashed with members of the Westboro Baptist Church yesterday (July 27).
Members of the church group turned out to protest against the punk movement with banners in Kansas.
But a bunch of Warped bands including Stick To Your Guns, Creeper and I Prevail hit back by photobombing the movement’s protests by wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Fuck the Westboro Baptist Church.”
I Prevail’s Airick Vanlerburger also started snogging his mate right in front of the protesters. You can view the video below.
The Westboro Baptist Church previously had a run in with Foo Fighters in 2015.
Footage emerged of the group riding out to meet the protesters in the back of a pick-up truck, playing Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ on loudspeaker and holding signs reading ‘Keep It Clean’ and ‘You got Rickroll’d (again)’.
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The Westboro protest group was soon dwarfed by a cheering crowd of Foo Fighters fans who surrounded the pick-up truck and clapped as the band danced inside.
In August 2011, having been made aware of the group’s presence outside one of their gigs in Kansas City, they also rode out in costume and sang ‘Keep It Clean’.
Meanwhile, Dave Grohl has addressed rumours about who the special guest on Foo Fighters’ new album is.
The frontman previously said upcoming record ‘Concrete And Gold‘ features the “biggest pop star in the world”.
Fans have been speculating who the guest could be. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Grohl ruled out two of the most popular theories.
“Neither Adele nor Taylor Swift sang on the record,” he said, while refusing to confirm exactly who it is.
Grohl did reveal that he socialised with a lot of artists who were recording at Los Angeles’ EastWest studios at the same time, including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Shania Twain. He also asked some of those artists present to sing on the record, but, again, would not say who they were or who accepted.Fourthmeal is going mobile. Later this year, Taco Bell will start accepting orders via smartphone, according to trade publication Nation's Restaurant News. Rather than turn elsewhere for an existing mobile ordering solution, the fast food chain has reportedly spent more than two years perfecting its own system. "Living Más is all about doing things differently," mobile lead Jeff Jenkins told Nation's Restaurant News. "One brand will be extraordinary, while everyone else is ordinary."
Jenkins said Taco Bell's upcoming app will be "built on the moment of now," displaying various greetings based on the time of day a customer is ordering. Pricing and hours of operation are specific to your nearest Taco Bell, and you can save your favorite orders for quick access later on. Payment is accepted via Taco Bell gift cards or credit cards.
When the drive-thru isn't fast enough
Other food vendors like Chipotle have been leading the charge in mobile ordering — with heavyweights like McDonalds also experimenting — but Taco Bell is trying some unique things. First, you'll be able to choose whether to pick up your food in store or via the drive-thru. So if you show up and see a long stretch of cars, you can go inside for faster service. (A separate pick up section will be established for mobile orders, speeding up the process even further.) Taco Bell's app will also use your GPS location to determine when employees should start heating up your food. To ensure that your meal is actually hot, that won't happen until you're nearing the pickup restaurant. Obviously we're not talking about fine dining here, but it's a clever idea all the same.
The average wait time at Taco Bell typically doesn't match that of Chipotle or even Dominos for that matter, but Jenkins thinks it's still a worthwhile endeavor. "It’s really more about convenience and customization," he said. Most important of all, mobile ordering could also prove extremely lucrative. "If you can get 10 million people to download your app, you’re putting a portal to Taco Bell in 10 million pockets."The number of people coming to New Zealand for at least 12 months continued to break new records in the year to February 28.
New Zealand could still be gaining close to 60,000 people a year from migration in three years time, new ASB forecasts claim, sending the population above 5 million.
On Tuesday figures from Statistics NZ showed that New Zealand recorded a fifth straight month of net migration gains of more than 6000 people.
The gain in the year to February 28 hit a new all time high of 71,333.
A surge in the number of New Zealanders returning from overseas, coupled with a slowdown in the number of Kiwis moving to Australia, has seen New Zealand notch up almost continuous record migration gains for more than two years.
READ MORE:
* New Zealand's net migration back at record breaking levels at almost 70,000
* New Zealand migration gains hit new record, but appears to be close to peaking
* Record migration boosts growth short term, but will it make NZ richer?
The gains have defied the predictions of the Government and Treasury, and a changing mix of new migrants has economists at ASB warning migration will tail off very slowly over the next three years.
In 2015 and 2016 the migration gains were boosted by record numbers of international students, after visa rules were changed to allow the students to work in paid employment for up to 20 hours a week.
But as the number of students has abated, it has been more than replaced by a surge in the number of long term arrivals coming to New Zealand on work visas.
ASB economist Daniel Snowden said people coming on work visas were by their nature likely to stay longer and spend more than students, who tended to return home at the end of their studies.
ASB now forecasts that net migration would hit 72,000 in the year to March 31, and would not drop below an annual gain of 70,000 until the second half of 2018.
From then on the gains would decline "very slowly", Snowden said, to around 55,000-60,000 by the end of 2019.
If correct, coupled with recent gains in the existing population, the figures suggest New Zealand's population would hit 5 million in 2019.
Previous recent migration booms had tended to fall away quite quickly after reaching a peak, but Snowden said the recent gains were moving to a different pattern.
"The make up of arrivals [is diverse]. It's not like we're getting streams of people from one country and that tap will inevitably be turned off," Snowden said.
"People are coming from all over the world. We're still getting lots of student coming...lots of people on work visas, returning Kiwis have trailed off over the last couple of months, but have been quite a good source of net migrants.
"So it's a real mix of people coming for different reasons. It's that that makes us think we're not going to get that sudden drop off [of previous cycles], because if one factor changes and falls away, you've still got four or five groups of people coming."
New Zealand's population is currently estimated to be around 4.77 million according to Statistics NZ, with population growth hitting a 40 year high in 2016 as migration levels boomed.
Westpac acting chief economist Michael Gordon said the gain for the month of February alone was down around 400 on January, with a small increase in the number of non-New Zealand citizens moving overseas.
"In contrast, there is no sign yet of a pickup in departures of New Zealanders," Gordon said.
"This most likely reflects the continued softness in the Australian jobs market."
Gordon predicted net migration would continue at strong levels for some time, "with New Zealand's positive economic story, including its labour market, making us an attractive destination".Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's lawyer Dennis Morris has called for police Chief Bill Blair to release the video that allegedly depicts the mayor smoking crack cocaine. But he also says Blair crossed the line in his press conference on Thursday by making public that police had recovered the video.
It marks new conflict between a mayor known for his public support of the police and the chief of the force.
In June, the day after police made the massive drug raids called Project Traveller, Blair said he would not comment on whether the police had seized any video of the mayor or whether he was under investigation.
But that was before an actual video of the mayor was recovered on Tuesday, taken from a hard drive seized during the Project Traveller raids in June.
On Thursday, Blair said, "I think it's fair to say the mayor is depicted in the video."
He added: "I'm disappointed. As a citizen of Toronto, I'm disappointed…I know this this is a traumatic issue for the citizens of this city, for the reputation of this city and that concerns me."
'Some explaining to do'
Ford's lawyer lashed out the next morning.
"He's a police chief. He's not been elected by the college of cardinals. He should not be pontificating as to evidence," said Morris. "He should be dispassionate. So that in itself is shocking and wrong."
Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said Blair consulted two lawyers and crossed no legal lines.
"I'm not going to go into motivations but he did feel it was necessary," Pugash said. "He observed all the legal niceties."
He contends that Ford's lawyer was wrong.
"The comments by the lawyer, frankly … he should know better," he said.
"What we're seeing is the beginning of a concerted attack against both the investigation, the investigators and Chief Blair."
The chief and the mayor have never been close allies, but Blair did get approval on the budget he wanted for the force and has appeared with the mayor on several occasions.
Coun. Michael Thompson, acting chair of the police services board, said that now that Blair has opened up about the investigation, it's the mayor's turn to talk.
"The mayor has some explaining to do," he said.The first new car I ever bought was a 2000 Honda Odyssey minivan. As a longtime automotive enthusiast with a 15-year history of performance car ownership prior to the Odyssey, that's not really a boast, just a statement of fact. But it's also a powerful statement about what Honda represented to me back in 2000. Growing up in Golden, Colorado, I thought of Hondas as small, fuel efficient and well built; all fine traits, but none that genuinely appealed to an adolescent vintage muscle car fan. Later, while launching Super Street magazine in 1996, I was regularly exposed to Honda vehicles.
I quickly realized Honda didn't just make high-quality cars with fuel efficient engines. They made cars that were consistently fun to drive, with responsive steering, precise transmissions (arguably the best manual transmissions on the planet) and engines that packed a lot of punch despite their small displacement and high mpg. Those traits were superb assets (and not totally unexpected) on cars like the Civic Si, CRX and Prelude. But when I discovered Honda's family hauler, the Odyssey, also possessed them ("A fun-to-drive minivan?!!") I decided it was time to spring for my first brand new vehicle. Having a 2-year-0ld child and a pregnant wife also helped drive that decision.
Ever since that Honda purchase 15 years ago the automaker's quality has remained relatively high, but the fuel efficiency and fun-to-drive character that dominated its product line began slipping in the mid-2000s. By 2011 my confidence in Honda's ability to deliver on its own brand values was waning, and the launch of the last-generation Civic didn't do much to sway that thinking.
Thankfully, I saw this trend reverse itself with the launch of the 2013 Honda Accord, and continue with the all-new HR-V and redesigned Pilot. As with the Honda traits that won me over 15 years ago, these models each represented a benchmark combination of build quality, fun-to-drive dynamics and class-leading fuel efficiency. This succession of great product gave me hope. If Honda could pull off the same trifecta on its redesigned 2016 Civic I'd know the company had found its way home.
After driving the all-new Civic it's clear Honda has identified and addressed the challenges that plagued it in years past. The 2016 Civic sedan has been improved in every way, boasting the kind of seemingly contradictory specifications that mark a successful redesign. Examples include a chassis that's 68 pounds lighter yet offers a 25 percent improvement in torsional rigidity. The use of multi-layered frame panels and a strategic blending of materials, including high-strength steel in key areas, contributes to the new Civic's sturdy structure. Honda also went with a single piece rear subframe and specific "soft zones" in the chassis to absorb crash energy without sacrificing safety.
The result is not only lower weight and superior passenger protection (Honda expects top crash test ratings for the new Civic), but a chassis that translates its lighter weight into nimble handling, establishing a new standard in the compact car category. Of course the chassis materials only provide a foundation for the new Civic's supreme dynamics. The real benefits come from its lower center of gravity, wider stance, all-new suspension and revised variable power steering system, all of which deliver refinement and responsiveness on a level not previously offered in the compact car segment.
Honda representative told us they benchmarked European luxury sedans, which sounded like a marketing line until we drove the car. At an inch lower and two inches wider the new Civic feels confident and planted. Yet the longer wheelbase and all-new interior design give it the highest cabin space in the segment. Honda reps claimed the body is also 58 percent better isolated from road, wind and engine noise, making it far quieter than the previous Civic, or any current competitors. We drove the new Civic back-to-back against several competitors and can confirm these claims. It really does feel more like a luxury car than a high-volume, mainstream sedan.
Honda didn't stop with a comprehensive chassis makeover for the 2016 Civic. The new car offers two all-new powertrains, including Honda's first mass-produced turbo engine. This 1.5-liter four-cylinder uses a small diameter turbo, high-tumble intake port, direct injection and sodium-filled exhaust valves to provide 174 horsepower and 162 pound-feet of torque. Despite its turbo this engine delivers a broad, flat torque band by way of its variable valve timing and electronic wastage. The 1.5-liter mates to a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and delivers 31 city mpg, 42 highway mpg and 35 mpg in mixed driving.
Those horsepower and fuel efficiency numbers are the best in the compact car category, though the 1.5-liter turbo is only available on higher trim Civic EX and Touring models. The base engine is a 2.0-liter, non-turbo design delivering 158 horsepower and 138 pound-feet of torque. With 31 city mpg, 41 highway mpg and 35 combined mpg even the base 2016 Civic engine is among the best-in-class for horsepower and fuel efficiency. The same CVT automatic is offered with the 2.0-liter engine, though base Civic LX sedans can be ordered with a 6-speed manual. And like every Honda, the manual transmission is as smooth and precise as what you'd find in exotic cars costing 10 times as much as the Civic.
The lower center of gravity and wide stance not only elevates the Civic's handling but translates into a roomy and user-friendly interior. Honda wanted a high-tech theme for the new Civic's cabin, which features a wide instrument panel, 5-inch central display screen, automatic climate control and electric parking brake as standard equipment on the base LX trim sedan. The base model also includes a 160-watt audio system, standard LED taillights, daytime running lights and automatic headlights for a starting price of $19,475 with the 6-speed manual transmission (the automatic adds $800).
The Civic EX supplements the LX trim with Honda's LaneWatch technology, which uses an exterior camera to project the car's right side blind spot in the central display screen when changing lanes to the right. The EX also has the CVT automatic, a 60/40 split-folding rear seat, heated side mirrors, a moonroof, remote engine start, a 7-inch touchscreen display, a 180-watt audio system and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment for $21,875. The EX-T includes the upgraded 1.5-liter turbo engine, 17-inch alloy wheels, foglights, heated front seats, XM and HD radio and dual-zone climate control for $23,035. The Civic EX-Leather sedan adds leather seats, an 8-way power driver's seat and an auto-dimming rearview mirror for $24,535 ( Garmin navigation is available on EX-Leather models for an additional $1,000).
A new top-end trim for the 2016 Honda Civic is called Touring, which adds integrated turn signals in the exterior mirrors, rain-sensing wipers, LED headlights, chrome door handles, a power passenger seat, heated rear seats, a 450-watt audio system with 10 speakers, standard Garmin navigation and the automaker's new Honda Sensing suite of safety technology as standard equipment for $27,335. The Honda Sensing package offers an impressive array of advanced features, including smart cruise control, lane departure warning, lane-keeping assist, road departure mitigation, forward collision warning and collision mitigation braking. While it's standard on the Touring trim it can be added to any Civic sedan for $1,000.
It's not easy to redefine the standards of a vehicle market, particularly a market as competitive as the compact car segment. The Honda Civic served as the class leader in this category for decades, but its premier status wasn't as clear in recent years. Now, with segment-leading power, fuel efficiency, refinement, handing, |
to the world that their soldiers exercise restraint, but the women's arrest in the middle of the night has been criticized by Palestinian activists.
A history of protest
It's not Tamimi's first brush with anti-occupation notoriety.
When she was only a child, a photograph of her standing up to Israeli soldiers earned her an invitation to meet then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Then in 2015, a picture of the girl biting the hand of an Israeli soldier trying to arrest her brother became a symbolic photo shared widely around the world.
Just last year, Tamimi was denied a visa by the State Department in Washington after she was invited to be part of a speaking tour titled "No Child Behind Bars/Living Resistance."
This article was originally published on DW.com. Its content is separate from USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2AZFV4jWe've all seen signs banning cell phones, food, and drinks. But these rules cover issues that might not be common to all libraries.
1. Keep the door closed due to bats
Rock Creek Flickr
In Charlemont, Massachusetts, the historic Goodnow Hall also houses the public library. If you are having a meeting, make sure you check with the front desk—there’s a rule about making sure you keep the door closed in the meeting room. While that might seem hard-nosed, it’s for a good cause: keeping bats from the building's tower out of the library.
2. No balloons
Don't even think about it! Scouting New York spotted this one at the Yonkers Public Library.
3. Deface materials, face hard time
What is it with Massachusetts, anyway? According to Chapter 266 Section 100 of the general laws, it’s illegal to deface any library materials. Ok, we get that: no doodling. But let’s be serious for a moment. The punishment involves replacing the materials, up to two years in prison, and up to a $1000 fine. Really? For doodles?
4. No unzipped clothes
At the Central Arkansas Library System, librarians decided to tackle a problem head-on. There is a rule about unzipped, unfastened, and unbuttoned clothing, which is designed to curb the tide of indecency. The first question you might want to ask: Just how “unbuttoned” do they mean, and have they seen what teenagers wear?
5. No chewing on headphone cords
A.R. Moore Flickr
At an undisclosed library in Georgia, there’s a rule about chewing on headphone cords. Sure, there are health concerns, depending on which library patron we’re talking about, but a more pressing problem has to do with damage. If too many people break the rule, the library will stop offering headphones altogether.
6. Do not reach across my desk!
At a university library in Manhattan, Kansas, there’s a rule about reaching across the cubicle of one of the staff members. The reason? Apparently, this particular staff person has had a problem with plants tipping and falling. See the full complaint at Passive Aggressive Notes.
7. No bathing
Here’s one to keep in mind if you visit Seattle anytime soon. At the city's public library, it’s illegal to take a bath in the restroom. For those curious about the legalities governing shampooing your hair, changing your clothes, or doing laundry: those are not kosher, either.
8. No re-shelving, even by library majors
LibraryKitty Flickr
Like many libraries, the University of Wisconsin in Madison has a rule about not re-shelving books. But this sign, designed by one of the library's employees and posted on Flickr, was too good to leave out. (Another sign mentions that finding a book reshelved in the wrong place is as difficult as finding Jimmy Hoffa.)
9. No use of library as a commercial business
At the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library in Ohio, you can’t use the library as a place of ongoing commercial business. That means: for accountants or real estate agents, you’re going to have to get a real office. Or move operations over to the local Starbucks.
Or Just Make One Very Broad Rule
Call this one the rule to end all rules: at the South Pasadena Public Library, there’s a sign that reads "No illegal behavior of any type." That pretty much covers it—unless you're in Massachusetts where the rules are a bit more specific.
* * *
We know there are a lot of librarians, library employees, and library enthusiasts out there. What specific or bizarre rules have you encountered?
Sources: Library Signage Pool on Flickr, BuzzFeed, Metafilter.Overview (3)
Mini Bio (1)
Jon Hamm was born on March 10, 1971 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA as Jonathan Daniel Hamm. He is an actor and producer, known for Mad Men (2007), The Town (2010) and Million Dollar Arm (2014).
Trade Mark (4)
Dark hair
Magnetic green eyes
Deep stern voice
Usually plays intelligent, easy-going, and handsome characters
Trivia (33)
Became interested in acting in the first grade, when he was handpicked to play Winnie-the-Pooh. Received a scholarship to study acting at the University of Missouri.
Worked as a day-care teacher during college and, before moving to Hollywood, was a high school teacher.
Is an avid golfer, as well as a big football fan.
His mother died when he was ten, and his father ten years later.
Went to high school (John Burroughs High School in St. Louis) with Sarah Clarke
Taught drama at his alma mater, John Burroughs High School in St. Louis, Missouri. One of his students was Ellie Kemper
Very close friends with Paul Rudd
Has two step-siblings.
Is an avid St. Louis Blues ice hockey fan.
Is an avid St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan and narrated the 2011 Official World Series film.
He is a big fan of The Simpsons (1989).
Went to a prom with Sarah Clarke, who also later became a professional actor ( 24 (2001); the "Twilight" series).
Is a huge Comic book fan.
He is of German, English, and Irish ancestry.
Is a huge comedy fan and is known to frequently quote lines from ''Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)'' and comedy troupe ''The Kids in The Hall''.
He is a big St Louis Cardinals fan, providing the narration for the Cardinals' 2011 World Series championship film.
Struggled with severe chronic depression in his early twenties after the death of his father.
Did not book a single acting job in the first three years of his career in Los Angeles.
Once worked as a set dresser for pornographic films.
Was unable to find work in his mid twenties as most roles were for High school aged characters and he looked too old.
Gave himself a career deadline, saying that he planned to move back home if his acting career did not gain momentum by the age of 30.
Was represented by the famous William Morris Talent agency, but was dropped after failing to book a single part in three years.
(Late March 2015) Completed a 30-day stint in rehab to treat his alcohol addiction. He previously admitted turning to alcohol to cope with his father's death in 1991, which made him also seek therapy.
Owns a home in the Upper West side of New York City.
Became a fan of Cricket after being introduced by Daniel Radcliffe while making ''A Young Doctor's notebook''.
Although his character Don Draper is famous for being a very heavy smoker, Hamm quit smoking when he was twenty-four and uses herbal cigarettes on ''Mad Men''.
Is a member of the Democratic party.
Adopted his dog Cora, a mutt, from a shelter in 2003.
Starred in a video on the Shelter Me website to encourage dog adoption.
Attended Prince's very last concert, a 90-minute non-stop extravaganza at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia (April 2016).
Personal Quotes (23)
Being in an ensemble cast is the best. You're all in the same boat. You're all together. [on being part of The Division (2001) cast]
I have a lady, she's a great lady. I love her a lot, she loves me. We're on the same page. Whenever that day happens when we're not on the same page we'll move forward with it. We're interested in having our lives be our lives right now and not a third person's vis-à-vis marriage and whatever that means. - on his relationship with long-time girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt
[on his advice to aspiring actors] I guess I would say, "Don't be afraid to fail." It's not the end of the world, and in many ways, it's the first step toward learning something and getting better at it. If you live your entire life never having failed at anything, it's got to be a weirdly false existence in so many ways. So I think that-depending upon the age, obviously-that would be my bit of advice. Just don't be afraid to fail.
[on teaching acting] I went back to my old high school after I graduated college. I didn't have any money. Literally, no money. So I had to find a job, and I started waiting tables a little bit, and I had the idea that I would go back and talk to my old high-school acting teacher. I said, "Hey, man, what do you think of this idea? Would it be helpful if I came back, and taught all the classes you don't want to teach, or that you're too busy to teach? And helped you out? I'm cheap." And he said, "That's a great idea. I'd love the help." And so we together pitched it to the headmaster, and he was like, "Sounds great. It's too late to start this year, why don't you start next year?" So I took a year, I waited tables, and then I taught school for a year, and after that I was 25, I think, and I was ready to try to go. I had a little bit of money saved, and my car sort of ran, so I was like, "You know what, I'm gonna try it before I get any older and I lose any momentum I have." And west I came.
I went to a high school where you were encouraged to do a lot of different things, so there wasn't this great divide between the jocks and the theater guys, or the smart kids and the stoners, or whatever. It was like everybody was a little bit of everything, and that was encouraged. I was a pretty serious athlete for a long time, and thought maybe that's what I wanted to do with my life, but I was also a diligent student, and really wanted to achieve in that area, too. And theater was kind of a challenge, like, "Oh, maybe I could do that, that looks like fun." So I started doing it a little bit in 11th and 12th grade, and got pretty good feedback, and kept getting cast to do bigger and bigger parts. And I started to think, "Oh, maybe this is something I could do." But I went to college and kind of forgot about it until I was a junior, and I randomly answered an ad in the paper for some production of Midsummer Night's Dream that was coming through. They were casting students as the young lovers, and having an open audition. I remember looking at my roommate and going, "You know what, fuck it, I'm gonna audition for this thing. What's the worst that could happen?" And I did, and I got it. And then the theater department was like, "You should be in the theater department, why are you not? You're good at this." Enough people kept saying, "You know what? You're kind of good at this. Why aren't you doing it for real?" that finally I started listening, and over the next couple of years at school, I ended up getting a theater scholarship, and doing close to 15 plays over two years, and really focusing on it. But at every level, you're constantly reminded that there are other people that do it better than you and have been doing it longer than you. It was a real wakeup call coming to L.A., where it's, "Well, you're not the go-to guy that you were in the University Of Missouri theater department. Now there's 100,000 people ahead of you in line." But for whatever reason, it didn't faze me. I just kept plugging away, and putting one foot in front of the other, and showing up.
(On landing his role in Mad Men (2007)) It was amazing. I read the script, and it was for AMC, and I thought, "They've never done anything that's remotely like a TV show, so what's that going to be like?" I read the script for Mad Men (2007) and I loved it. Then, I realized that a guy who wrote for The Sopranos (1999), Matt Weiner, created it, so I thought, "Okay, that's pretty cool". But I never thought they'd cast me-I mean, I thought they'd go with one of the five guys who look like me but are movie stars. Obviously, they didn't. I literally had to go through six or seven auditions. They flew me to New York to meet all the people at AMC. My final audition was at that bar on the roof of the Hotel Gansevoort. When we were riding down on the elevator, the woman in charge of whatever the decision-making process was told me, "You got the job".
(2010) I certainly go after what I want. But I just have detached amusement about a lot of it. Because it's silly. This job is ridiculous. There's a line from 30 Rock (2006) that Tracy Morgan says that makes me laugh out loud: "I remember that movie-I got paid one million teacher salaries". It is what it is.
(On landing Mad Men (2007)) "If this show had been on any of the major network. I never would have been cast, ever, period, done, never, no way. They would want someone like Rob Lowe who's got a proven track record. I would've gotten all the way to the end... and then I wouldn't get cast.
(On acting in high school) I never minded standing up and looking like an idiot, which is tremendously helpful in this industry and not so much in others.
L.A. represents opportunity. And, as has been proven over and over in the current media landscape, it doesn't take much for them to put you on TV. If that's all you want, you can be on The Bachelor or The Real Housewives or whatever show just wants oversized personalities, ridiculous behavior, and zero dignity.
... When you try to learn how to act, you approach it with respect. But if you just want to be famous... that's not that much different than porn. 'I'm a movie star!' Well, no, you're not. You're a porn star, and that's completely different. And you know, hey, mazel tov-porn probably built half the houses out here, but you're selling your dignity in a way that I feel I'm not. And once you sell it, it's gone. You ain't getting it back.
[2010] It's nice not to have to worry about how you're going to pay your bills. And it's a problem I've had for far longer than I haven't had it. Not worrying about the bills is still very new for me.
[2010, on early big-time auditions that lead nowhere] I had met Steven Spielberg and all these people that had my eyes just rolling back in my head. The opportunities I almost had! And there's this hideous thing they make you do when you go up for a television show: they make you sign a contract before you walk into the final audition. The last thing they want is for you to have everyone fall in love with you, and then you not have a deal in place. So you sign this thing - and I had no money; I was broke. You're staring at the five-figure pay check you'll get... if... If! A crazy amount of money for someone who has none. So I was thinking: I'll pay my loans off and do this and that and maybe get my car fixed... and, by that time, they're calling you in, you're like: "Shit! I have to do the scene! What the fuck are the lines?" I would get hung up on that stuff and be an utter failure in the room.
I played Winnie the Pooh in first grade. I was an early adopter of standing in front of people and looking like an idiot.
I'm 40, which is ridiculously old in Hollywood. I mean, come on, I'm not in Twilight (2008). I could play their grandfather or something.
We're at a place where the idea of being 'elite' is somehow considered a negative. Whether it's Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian West or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you're rewarded significantly. Incuriousness has become cool... It's celebrated. It doesn't make sense to me.
[more on reality TV/celebrity culture rewarding stupidity] It's a part of our culture that I certainly don't identify with and I don't really understand the appeal of it other than that car-crash sensibility. It's not something that I partake in or enjoy, but it is what it is and here we are.
[on Mad Men (2007)] I think, in many ways that [happiness is] one of the larger themes of the show.. and what it takes to achieve that. The central irony is that this is a man who ostensibly works at selling happiness and, yet, he is pretty dissatisfied with his own lot in life.
The first time I met Bryan Cranston, he was standing in his underwear. We were doing a photo shoot for a little-known network called AMC, and he was in a rubber chemistry apron, tighty whities and desert boots, while I was in an impeccably tailored 1960s suit, a cigarette dangling from my mouth. Our shows hadn't premiered yet. We were simply two actors, in costume and out of context. He was friendly, funny, gregarious, humble and lovely. Over the past five seasons, I've marveled at Bryan's ability to turn 'Breaking Bad's Walter White from a feckless, terrified father and husband into a ruthless, terrifying father, husband and crime lord. The transformation is mesmerizing. The performance is fearless. Bryan is that good.
I'm always surprised when people are like, 'I want to be just like Don Draper'. You want to be a miserable drunk? The outside looks great, the inside is rotten.
[on playing Don Draper in 'Mad Men'] This is the best job I've ever had and maybe will have in my life. It's so fun to play all of this. It can be relentlessly dark. I can be terribly sexually inappropriate is a way to say it. But who else gets a chance to do that kind of stuff? There's so much there.
Whenever people want to talk about how hard it is to be an actor, I want to go, 'Um, it's hard to be a baby heart-surgeon'. Being an actor is actually pretty easy, if you can memorize lines.
I quit smoking when I was 24. It's glamorous on film, but it's not glamorous waking up and smelling like an ashtray.
Salary (1)JULY 5--The Democratic Party’s plan to crash this month’s Republican National Convention is heavy on gimmicks and stunts meant to highlight a possible “Trumpocalypse,” as well as to ridicule the presumptive GOP candidate’s purported spray tan, tiny fingers, and dog whistle proclivities.
The Democratic National Committee’s “Counter Convention Plan Sketch” covers 22 pages and outlines the party’s activities in Cleveland, where the Republican convention begins July 18. Democratic operatives will launch their operation a week earlier, on July 11, to coincide with the opening of the RNC’s summer meeting.
A copy of the plan was obtained by the hacker “Guccifer 2.0,” who breached party servers and made off with DNC financial records, e-mails, research reports, and other documents. In e-mails to TSG, “Guccifer 2.0” has claimed to be a Romanian “hacktivist,” though security researchers who have examined the DNC breach have said that the infiltration appears to be the work of a Russian espionage unit.
The DNC plan notes that the party’s efforts in Cleveland will cost in excess of $800,000. In addition to 16 staffers on the ground, the party will have numerous surrogates available for media interviews and an RV to “serve as a mobile billboard” and green room. The plan was honed when the GOP field narrowed to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich. Subsequent updates focused primarily on “gimmicks” to ridicule Trump.
One “live-staged” activity listed in the plan is a “Jerry Springer ‘Live’ fake show between Trump/Cruz/Kasich delegates.” While this stunt in not further described, the plan notes that, “Jerry said he wanted to be involved.” Springer, 72, is a former Democratic mayor of Cincinnati.
DNC officials also plan to “infiltrate friendly union hotels and properties around the convention that Republicans will be patronizing to distribute ‘care’ packages” to those who will be sickened by Trump’s nomination.
The plan also envisions a citywide strike by fast food workers, presumably over the fight for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. In the alternative, the strike could occur at “franchises around convention,” which will be held at the Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland.
On the morning the convention opens, the plan notes, Democrats will host a “Cereal & Bailey’s Breakfast,” a reference to RNC chair Reince Priebus’s claim that GOP party strife had not driven him to douse his Cheerios with Irish cream liqueur.
The DNC plan lists other hokey proposed stunts, like:
* A “Trumpocalypse Survival kit” tote bag with a barf bag, Tylenol, Alka Seltzer, and a clothespin “to hold nose while voting for Trump.”
* The production of an eight-page “Trump Tabloid” designed to look like the New York Post. The paper--“ideal for dumping oppo” research on the developer--would include a Trump-penned advice column entitled “How to Talk to Women.”
* Volunteers dressed as limousine drivers would go to the airport and meet arriving RNC members with “signs with messaging about Trump.”
* The distribution of a “Go Trump Yourself” kit that includes spray tan, hair dye, a dog whistle, and “Tiny foam fingers/hand clappers.”
* Attendees at a media lunch would be served food “from countries Trump has offended.” The menu would offer tacos and hummus and pita.
* A Trump “Successful Businessman Starter Kit” would include a $40 million check from “your Dad” and a diploma from Trump University.
* Producing milk cartons with the photos of the many GOP leaders who are skipping the convention.
The plan’s “other ideas” section notes that volunteers and interns could get dressed as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and perform “Trump things.” Another idea is described as a “WH/Administration ask” for the provision of “topline surrogates/cabinet secretaries?” (16 pages)For the past three decades, Oklahoma averaged about 50 earthquakes a year. But that number has skyrocketed in the past few years. In 2013 — the state's most seismically active year ever — there were almost 3,000.
The quakes are small, and they're concentrated in the central part of the state, where the Erwins live.
Amanda Erwin says that even on a clear day, she knows something's up when the thunder begins: The chandelier swings, and the walls and bed start rumbling. Her husband, Keith, says the earthquakes remind him of the artillery he used to hear growing up near a military base. And when the sound and shaking fade, the game starts.
"We're just trying to look at each other, and we play this game: What do you think it was? Er, 2.5? Nah, that had to have been a 3.0," he says. "It's a daily thing."
In October, the U.S. Geological Survey warned that Oklahoma's risk of quakes has increased tenfold. The swarm of earthquakes includes Oklahoma's largest ever, a 5.6-magnitude temblor that struck east of Oklahoma City in 2011.
"That doesn't mean that there's going to be a large earthquake tomorrow, or next month, or next year even. But those probabilities are up very substantially," says Bill Leith, senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards at the USGS.
He says there's evidence linking Oklahoma's earthquakes to the state's large oil and gas industry. When they drill, toxic fluid from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other types of drilling is injected deep underground. That can change pressures near fault lines, says Katie Keranen, a seismologist at Cornell University.
"We can show that it's quite reasonable that water flowing from these wells is actually triggering these earthquakes," Keranen says.
But while scientists say the quakes are likely connected to the wells, there's no proof. That's why regulators aren't considering new rules or laws.
Austin Holland, a research seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey, says oil and gas activity might trigger earthquakes, but it could just be a natural increase.
"I don't think we can, at this point, attribute all the earthquakes to some sort of man-made cause," Holland says.
In the fall, state regulators did force one well operator along the Oklahoma-Texas border to reduce injection volume and pressure after a series of earthquakes nearby. But the state might allow an experiment — to let the company increase the injections to see if it does trigger more rumbling. Scientists, like Holland, would monitor the outcome.
"Or, no earthquakes happen and we say, 'Wow, that was the most amazing coincidence we've seen,' and we move on," Holland says.
Back at the Erwin home, every little noise or rumble sends them scrambling for the iPad to see if they felt a real earthquake or a phantom.
"You feel like you're playing Battleship," says Amanda Erwin. "You look at the map, and you see these little pings of all the different places where they hit."
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Oklahoma is no stranger to natural disasters. The state is best known for tornados, but it might not be long before something else steals the spotlight: Earthquakes. As Joe Wertz of StateImpact Oklahoma reports, the number of quakes there has soared, including two more just today.
JOE WERTZ: Amanda Erwin says even on a clear day, she knows something's up when the thunder begins.
AMANDA ERWIN: The chandelier was swinging and the walls were rumbling and the bed was rumbling.
WERTZ: Her husband Keith says the earthquakes remind him of the artillery he used to hear growing up near a military base and when the sound of shaking fade, the game starts.
KEITH ERWIN: We just turn and look at each other and we play this game, what do you think it was? A 2.5. No, that had to have been a 3.0. It's a daily thing.
WERTZ: For the past three decades, Oklahoma averaged about 50 earthquakes annually, but in the last few years, it skyrocketed. In 2013, almost 3,000 quakes shook Oklahoma, the state's most seismically active year ever. The quakes are small and they're concentrated in the central part of the state right where the Erwin's live. As we talk in the living room of their suburban Oklahoma City home, a funny thing happens.
ERWIN: Was that one just now? Did you hear it? Did you hear that, that little rumble? OK. It might have been the workers.
WERTZ: The Erwins are on edge and they're not alone.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Oklahoma City, 9-1-1.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes. Did we just have an earthquake?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, yes. We had an earthquake. Everything's OK now. Do you need police, fire or (unintelligible)?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: No. I was just sitting here looking at the ball game and my butt started moving.
WERTZ: In October, the U.S. geological survey warned that Oklahoma's risk of earthquakes has increased 10-fold. The swarm of quakes includes Oklahoma's largest ever, a 5.6 magnitude temblor that struck east of Oklahoma City in 2011.
BILL LEITH: And that doesn't mean that there's going to be a large earthquake tomorrow or next month or next year even, but those probabilities are up very substantially.
WERTZ: That's Bill Leith with the U.S. Geological Survey. He says there's strong evidence linking Oklahoma's earthquakes to the state's large oil and gas industry. When they drill, toxic fluid from fracking and other types of drilling is injected deep underground. Cornell seismologist Katie Keranen says that can change pressures near fault lines.
KATIE KERANEN: And we can show that it's quite reasonable that water flowing from these wells is actually triggering these earthquakes.
WERTZ: While scientists say the quakes are likely connected to the wells, there's no proof. That's why regulators aren't considering new rules or laws. Oklahoma's official seismologist, Austin Holland, at the State Geological Survey, says oil and gas activity might trigger earthquakes, but it could just be a natural increase, too.
AUSTIN HOLLAND: But I don't think we can, at this point, attribute all the earthquakes to some sort of manmade cause.
WERTZ: In the fall, state regulators did force one well operator along the Oklahoma/Texas border to reduce injection volume and pressure after a series of nearby earthquakes. But the state might allow an experiment to let the company increase the injections to see if it does trigger more rumbling. Scientists, like Holland, would monitor the outcome.
HOLLAND: Or no earthquakes happen and we say, wow, that was the most amazing coincidence we've seen and, you know, we move on.
WERTZ: Back at the Erwin home, every little noise or rumble sends them scrambling for the iPad to see if the quake was real or a phantom.
ERWIN: You feel like you're playing Battleship. You look at the map and you see these little tings of all the different places where they hit.
WERTZ: Oklahoma is tornado alley, not earthquake country and residents here are slowly getting used to the shaking. But many Oklahomans like the Erwins, still feel rattled. For NPR News, I'm Joe Wertz in Oklahoma City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.MORE THAN a year after President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed the Freedom of Information executive order, a practice completely reverse of the policy has been creeping onto some documents requested by the public. The likely tool for the unexpected move: a black marker.
Redactions on items declared by Cabinet officials in their Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) released by the Malacañang Records Office have recently been noted by media outfits requesting these as material for stories.
More importantly, the redacted details included some of the most crucial ones – and at the very heart of the reason why public officials were required by law to file the integrity document in the first place.
The intense redaction was done on the SALNs of current and former Cabinet members that were filed as of December 31, 2016, or earlier this year for those appointed in their offices more recently. On these redacted SALNs, details regarding real and personal properties, asset values, business interests, and liabilities were blacked out, most probably with a marker.
Mocks FOI EO?
The practice – which can only be described as a deviation from the FOI EO’s push for transparency – is apparently new. Some Cabinet officials had filed SALNs earlier as of June 30, 2016, or upon assumption into office, and these came without any redactions. Neither do pre-2016 SALNs of the same individuals. Their December 2016, as well as of those more recently appointed to their current offices, bore significant redactions, however.
Among the 29 SALNs reviewed by PCIJ, there was a total of 167 redacted details, the entries replaced by long, black, and blotchy rectangles. Twenty-eight of the SALNs had the acquisition costs or amounts of personal properties blacked out while in 24 the exact locations of real properties were redacted; 23 SALNs had blacked-out acquisition costs of real properties as well.
Property in ‘Mindanao’
But redactions on details regarding real properties and business interests of some of the officials took a turn for the ridiculous, with only the cities or provinces left readable out of the addresses. For instance, the redaction done on the details on one of Communications Secretary Martin Andanar’s real estate holdings left only “Mindanao” as its location.
The specific value of each item declared in real properties, personal properties, and liabilities was also redacted in all the 29 SALNs reviewed. Only the total value of the items under each of these categories was left untouched.
To determine which among the 29 officials had the most redactions, PCIJ decided to count the types of details redacted per Cabinet member instead of tallying the actual number of details blacked out. This was to minimize the risk of a skewed count, since the number of items declared by the officials varied widely. In all, the details could be grouped into 14 different categories. (See Table: A Tally of Redactions)
Andanar –- an early supporter of the FOI executive order –- emerged as having the most types of detail redacted on his SALN: 10, namely Filer’s Address; Spouse’s Office Address; Name, Date of Birth, and Age of Unmarried Minor Children; Description of Real Properties; Exact Location of Real Properties; Acquisition Costs of Real Properties; Acquisition Costs/Amounts of Personal Properties; Outstanding Balance of Liabilities; Business Address of Business Interests and Financial Connections; and ID No. of Filer and/or Spouse.
5 to 9 redactions each
Two of his Cabinet colleagues – Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial – meanwhile had nine types of detail redacted. These were blacked out in the SALNs of both Aguirre and Ubial: Filer’s Address; ID No. of Filer and/or Spouse; Acquisition Costs of Real Properties; Acquisition Costs/Amounts of Personal Properties; Exact Location of Real Properties; Outstanding Balance of Liabilities; and Spouse’s Office Address.
Redacted in Aguirre’s SALN as well were Business Address of Business Interests and Financial Connections and Description of Real Properties. In Ubial’s these were also blacked out: Name of Creditor and Name, Date of Birth, and Age of Unmarried Minor Children.
Eighteen or 60 percent of the SALNs reviewed each had between five and eight types of detail redacted. Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano and Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo meanwhile had the least redactions on their SALNs: two each, the Filer’s Address and Amount of Personal Properties.
DU30: Address only
Interestingly, the President’s own December 31, 2016 SALN has even less redactions than Mariano and Teo. Released by the Office of the Ombudsman, Duterte’s address is the only portion blacked out by the repository agency.
His four-page SALN declaration also did not shy away from providing details, with the addresses of his real properties complete up to the lot and block number.
Of late, though, the redaction frenzy seems to have calmed down somewhat. The bad news is that it looks like the items to be redacted in released copies of SALNs to the public are now being set and made part of the process.
On September 18, the Malacañang Records Office (MRO) released to PCIJ a fresh batch of SALNs, among which were those of Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials.
The batch included the latest SALNs on file at the repository agency and was made up of a total of 46 SALNs filed by some 45 appointed officials, some of whom are still in office, while a few others have already resigned or have been removed. Department of National Defense Undersecretary Eduardo D. Del Rosario had two of his SALNs in the pile, one as of July 1, 2016 and the other as of Dec. 31, 2016.
Redactions in this batch were kept within a five-item list: Filer’s Address; Name, Date of Birth, and Age of Unmarried Minor Children; Exact Location of Real Properties; ID No. of Filer and/or Spouse; and Signature of Declarant and/or Spouse.
All 46 SALNs had redacted Filer’s Address and Signature of Declarant and/or Spouse. Blacking out of the declarant’s and their spouse’s signatures were made on all pages, as some filers signed each page of their SALN.
Seven out of the 46 SALNs have five redacted details, 28 or 60 percent of the total have four redacted details, and 11 have three redacted details.
GOCC appointees, too
The five-detail redaction checklist also applied to SALNs of Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations that were released on Sept. 18 as well. A total of 65 SALNs of Duterte GOCC appointees had blacked-out Filer’s Address, Name, Date of Birth, and Age of Unmarried Minor Children; Exact Location of Real Properties; ID No. of Filer and/or Spouse; and Signature of Declarant and/or Spouse.
And yet the SALNs of Duterte-appointed GOCC appointees – also recently released by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) — did not bear any kind of redactions. In fact, each page even had a “Certified True Copy” stamp of CSC’s Communications Management Division.
Aside from the issue of redaction, though, PCIJ observed a few bl |
, madrasas that predominantly teach religion are increasing in the state. In the last six months, three different boards in Kerala had given the nod for more than 300 madrasas. Moreover, the Central Government’s Scheme for Providing Quality Education through Madrasas (SPQEM) has encouraged the setting up of more such schools.
Samastha Kerala Islam Matha Board runs the highest number of madrasas. In the year 2012-13, there were 8,087 madrasas functioning under the board. In 2013-14 this number rose to 8218. Until August this year, the board had 8,390 madrasas under its purview.
Similarly, under the Samastha Kerala Sunni Vidyabhyasa Board, there were 3576 madrasas in the year 2012-2013. In the year 2013-14 this increased to 3,981. Until August 2014, there were 4,118 madrasas under the board.
The Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen approved the starting up of 1,116 madrasas until March 2013. In 2013-14 this came down to 1105 reportedly due to unavailability of students. However, until August 2014, the number was at 1,126.
Presently, there are 13,634 madrasas in the state under the three boards.Apart from these, there are boards like Dakshina Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, Ithihadu Shubbanil Mujahideen and others that run madrasas.
“A board meeting is held on the second Saturday of every month. On an average, 15-20 applications come before us for approval each month. There has not been a single meeting in the last few months where an application was rejected. The applications come in after our team visits the place and ensures the required criteria are met,” said Bapu Musliyar, General Secretary, Samastha Kerala Islam Matha Vidyabyasa Board.
According to a report by K R Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, 9,120 madrasas in the country had registered under the SPQEM until December 2013. Of this 547 are in Kerala. There are 209 madrasas in Malappuram availing this scheme which is the highest in the state followed by 111 in Kozhikode.
The SPQEM of the central government provides for extending support and capacity building of madrasas to teach modern subjects by providing salary of teachers, strengthening of libraries and book banks, providing teaching and learning materials and other equipment. Financial assistance is also provided for establishment of Science and Computer Labs and workshops in madrasas at the secondary and senior secondary levels followed by an annual grant for maintenance.
Besides, there is a provision in the scheme for in-service training for teachers as well as linkages with the National Institute of Open Schooling and other institutes offering vocational courses.
The report observed that the scheme particularly contributed to the enrolment of Muslim children coming from economically deprived backgrounds and residing in remote areas.
In Kerala, the intensive coaching provided in madrasas had a positive impact on the educational achievement of children from poor socio-economic backgrounds. According to the report, the madrasa functionaries’ response stated that the mix of religion and modern education under the same system was innovative.Lenovo completed the acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google in October last year and is waiting to launch its first Moto device. The wait might end this summer, if a new report is to be believed.
A new report citing Lenovo's Chairman and Chief Executive, Yang Yuanqing, hints that the company is ready with "exciting products" to launch later this year while some products may launch "in summer."
While talking to The Telegraph, Yuanqing said, "We have many new models in development with the Moto brands. So you may see in summer us launching some very exciting products, including phones and watches." This last bit points to the much anticipated successor of the Moto 360 smartwatch.
The formerly-owned Google company has good reach in Europe and the US regions while China's Lenovo has more brand reach in Asian markets. Lenovo's Liu Jun, President of Mobile Business Group, further clarified company's approach, "Motorola and Lenovo have different brand positions, so we try to leverage these two brands to maximise our market share in a particular market."
Adding further, Colin Giles, Motorola's Global Sales Head, notes that the company will invest more heavily in markets where Motorola is already established. "We're deeply committed to building the Moto brand. Having said that, when you're scaling the business you have to make choices, so we're focusing on proven markets," Giles said.
He went to confirm that in some markets, such as India and China, Lenovo will certainly prefer having both brands to be more competitive.
A recent leak pointed out that Motorola has been working on two handsets codenamed 'Clark' and 'Kinzie' both said to be targeted at the premium segment. The second-generation Moto 360 was also spotted in images in April showing the smartwatch once again sporting a circular design.
Giles told to The Telegraph that they are open to other software ecosystems; though affirmed that it will stick to Android for the foreseeable future. He said, "There are no plans to start launching operating systems other than Android. One of the key differentiators for us is the pure Android experience, and we're deeply proud of that, because we believe it brings a much better software experience to consumers, and faster upgrades. As we're integrating two companies, we've got to look at the benefits across both and see how we can share technology, share R&D. That's going to be the great benefit of this combination that we have now with Lenovo and Motorola."
In March, Rick Osterloh, Motorola President, in an 'Ask Me Anything' session on Twitter confirmed that the Lenovo-owned company tries to maintain an annual product cycle. This implied Motorola can be expected to unveil the next-generation Moto X around September, which was when the Moto X (Gen 2) was launched last year.A LaPorte County man with an extensive criminal history has been charged with rape, criminal confinement, sexual battery and strangulation in an alleged attack two years ago in Hobart.
Kenneth Sanford Manley, 54, who is serving a six-year sentence for criminal confinement in which he admitted he held a prostitute against her will, threatened her with a pellet gun and threw hydrochloric acid in her face, was charged in Lake Superior Court with sexually assaulting a second prostitute one month earlier at the same residence in Hobart.
In the new case, a prostitute who advertised her services online told police she met Manley in early 2014 and had been on several "dates" with him for money until she was locked up in the Marshall County Jail for 24 days. While incarcerated, the woman said Manley showed up to visit, put money on her account and sent her letters and cards, the probable cause affidavit said.
After she was released, the woman told Manley she was done with the online site, court records said. A short time later, Manley told her he had money that he owed her and wanted her to meet him at his workplace, a warehouse complex in Kingsford Heights in LaPorte County, records said. Inside the garage, Manley told her "they were going to do this date," records said, then grabbed her by the back of the head, pulled her out of his truck and threw her to the floor, punched her and put her in a headlock before dragging her through the warehouse, court records said. The woman said she tried to reason with Manley and asked to return to her car, but Manley said, "I can't ever let you go back to your car now," records said.
Manley gave the woman whiskey to drink, then raped her on a couch in the lounge area, records said. Eventually, Manley took her to her car and she drove home, where she told her roommate what had happened.
The next day, the woman found the windshield to her car and her boyfriend's car were damaged, records said, and Manley continued to call and text her, telling her that he knew where she and her family members lived. He also threatened drive-by shootings at her parents' house, records said. The woman said she didn't report the incident immediately because she learned Manley had been arrested in Michigan City and she thought he was going to prison for a while.
In June 2015, the woman said she received a text from a couple offering $500 for her services at an address in the 1100 block of High Street in Hobart. After having trouble finding the address, she stopped at a neighbor's house at about 11 p.m. June 12, 2015, to charge her cell phone briefly, then walked to a side door as she'd been directed in a text. No one answered when she called out, and as she turned to leave, Manley grabbed her and dragged her inside, locked all the doors and locked her inside a bathroom, records said.
The woman told police Manley eventually offered to pay her $200 for sex and she agreed out of fear Manley would kill her, records said.
Afterward, Manley still wouldn't let the woman leave the home, which he told police in 2015 he was remodeling, records said. After several hours of being held against her will, Manley told the woman to return the $200, and when she came back to the house with a soft drink that he wanted, he would give her $400, records said. Manley walked her outside, gave her a couple dollars for pop and $20 for gas, records state. The woman got gas and drove home. She reported the incident to South Bend police on June 19, 2015, one week after the incident.
Manley was sentenced in 2000 to 14 years, 11 months and 30 days in prison for aggravated battery in LaPorte County, and violated parole in 2009, for which he received five additional years in prison. In 1991, he was sentenced to four years in prison for arson in LaPorte County, and in 2009 he was sentenced to three years in prison for residential entry and invasion of privacy in LaPorte County.
Magistrate Kathleen Sullivan set an Aug. 4 initial hearing for Manley, who will be transported from Westville Correctional Facility.
Ruth Ann Krause is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.This isn't exactly an unusual argument out there in that wasteland between politics and economics. We all pretty much agree that the 1950s and 1960s were the apotheosis of capitalist economic growth in the now rich countries. And those decades had high tax rates, strong unions, lots of government interference in the economy. So, in order to bring back those high growth rates why don't we have high taxes, strong unions and lots more lovely government interference again? Surely, that lovely economic growth will just flood out across the economy, right?
Well, except, all we've got here is a correlation. And we need rather more than just correlation to design our public policy. And in general economic theory tells us that high taxes, lots of government interference and possibly even strong unions (and they certainly were in my native UK) are going to be bad for economic growth. So, first we need to work through this puzzle. If these things are purported to be bad for economic growth then why weren't they?
We've a paper out today making that very point:
In a wide-ranging analysis of Britain’s performance in the decades before and after 1979, economists at the University of Cambridge say the liberal economic policies pioneered by Thatcher have been accompanied by higher unemployment and inequality. At the same time, contrary to widespread belief, GDP and productivity have grown more slowly since 1979 compared with the previous three decades. Liberal market policies such as lower tariffs and income taxes, free movement of labour, limited legal immunity for trade unions, privatization and light-touch business regulation “did not produce the goods” in terms of higher growth in GDP and productivity, according to Ken Coutts and Graham Gudgin at the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge Judge Business School. “Those who believe in the free market economy must be able to show that economic performance after 1979 was better than it would have been under the ‘corporatist’ economic policies of earlier decades. The starting point in doing this should be to show that the actual performance was better than had been the case during the decades prior to 1979,” said Coutts and Gudgin. “The report shows that the most important economic indicators, including growth in GDP per head, were in fact no better in the post-1979 decades.”
Did you spot the coup de main there? Yes, quite, we do not need to prove that the latter decades produce better growth than the earlier ones. We need, instead, to prove, or at least surmise, that growth in either period would have been better under one set of policies than it would be under the other. Which is something rather more difficult, as we're not actually allowed to rewind the world, change the policies, and run it all through again.
However, there is another way to do it. From Tyler Cowen:
I’m also persuaded by the median income numbers because they are supported by related measurements of other magnitudes. For example, another way to study economic growth is to look not at median income but at national income, gdp, or gross domestic product, the total production of goods and services. Charles I. Jones, an economist at Stanford University, has “disassembled” American economic growth into component parts, such as increases in capital investment, increases in work hours, increases in research and development, and other factors. Looking at 1950–1993, he found that 80 percent of the growth from that period came from the application of previously discovered ideas, combined with heavy additional investment in education and research, in a manner that cannot be easily repeated for the future. In other words, we’ve been riding off the past.
Or as I put it more bluntly:
For it’s is saying that the great Post WWII economic expansion was nothing to do with high unionization rates, Bretton Woods, restrictions upon capital movements, high marginal tax rates, fixed exchange rates or any other of the ”liberal” or ”social democratic” (use one for the US, the second for Europe) theories that are so often advanced. It was driven by the lack of economic growth in 1929-1945, a lack of economic growth which was accompanied by technological and productivity advances. That is, Post WWII growth happened not because of the policies enacted but despite them.
The point being that there really wasn't much economic growth between 1929 and 1945. No, don't try to use WWII GDP numbers to argue there was, making things to be blown up might be necessary at times but it's not an addition to the lifestyles of the citizenry so it's not economic growth of the type we're considering here. Lifestyles in the UK were worse in 1945 than they had been in 1929, in the US perhaps marginally higher. But we also know that technology moved on in leaps and bounds in those years. And then we spent the next 20 years exploiting those new technologies.
That is, the post-war growth happened despite those taxes and unions, not because of them. And if you start your economic analysis in 1929, or 1930, you'll see that the period 1930 to 1970 was not in fact remarkable. It's just that if we start at 1945 we're looking at the effects on GDP of 40 years of technological advance being exploited in 20 years. This is not something that's going to happen again by increasing taxes nor favoring unions.
At which point we can go back to economic normality. Freer markets, a lower burden of government, increases the growth rate.
It's a bit like those arguments over the pause in climate change. If you're allowed to pick your start and end points in measuring a cyclical occurrence then you can prove pretty much anything you like. Counting economic growth from the moment we stopped blowing stuff up is going to make that period look good whatever the policies.
Also on Forbes:Hope they stick to their guns.
Via Fox News:
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Fox News’ “The First 100 Days” Monday night that Judge Neil Gorsuch would be confirmed to the Supreme Court this week regardless of whether Democrats attempted to filibuster him.
“Let me assure you that Judge Gorsuch is going to be on the Supreme Court by midnight Friday night,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told host Martha MacCallum. “I can assure you that. One way or the other, he’s going to get the necessary votes to get there.”
Gorsuch’s nomination cleared the committee earlier Monday on a party-line vote. More than 40 Democrats have said they would be willing to block the nomination, which could force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to use the so-called “nuclear option” and change the rules so that Gorsuch’s confirmation would only require a majority vote.
Grassley said he shared concerns about what the nuclear option meant for the future of the Senate, but pointed that “for 211 years, there weren’t filibusters of judges” and noted that “there hasn’t been a partisan filibuster against a Supreme Court justice ever. This is the first one.”
“I hope we get over that, and this is an opportunity to do that with a very qualified person,” Grassley added. “If this person wasn’t qualified, then I think they could talk politics. But politics isn’t going to work for this one.”SF traffic ranks as 4th worst in world
When San Franciscans proudly describe their city as world class, traffic congestion can now be part of the conversation.
San Francisco, with most of the rest of the Bay Area, is the fourth-most-congested metropolitan area in the world, and third worst in the United States, according to a new survey.
The Bay Area, with its bridges, tunnels, bay and hills, and tendency for people to live somewhere other than where they work, always ranks among the nation’s most traffic-tangled metropolises. But this survey places San Francisco near the top of 1,064 cities in 38 countries. It ranks behind Los Angeles, Moscow and New York and just ahead of Bogota, Colombia, for the world’s worst traffic. Sao Paolo, London, Atlanta, Paris and Miami round out the Top 10.
The survey was conducted by Inrix, a Seattle company that provides traffic information worldwide. It releases congestion studies annually, calculating how much time drivers lose because of slow-moving traffic.
Bay Area transportation advocates say the study is more than an interesting collection of numbers; it’s more evidence that congestion is hurting the region, and will slow the economy without both quick action and long-term plans.
S.F. traffic ranks as third worst in the U.S. and fourth worst in the world in a survey of metropolitan areas. S.F. traffic ranks as third worst in the U.S. and fourth worst in the world in a survey of metropolitan areas. Photo: Liz Hafalia / Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2016 Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia / Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2016 Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close SF traffic ranks as 4th worst in world 1 / 32 Back to Gallery
“Congestion is having a dramatic impact on the quality of life in the Bay Area,” said Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, a business lobbying group active in transportation issues. “We can see it beginning to take its toll on the economy.”
According to the study, drivers in the San Francisco area, which includes the inner East Bay, the Peninsula and the South Bay, wasted 83 hours sitting or creeping along in traffic in 2016. New Yorkers lost 89 hours behind the wheel last year, Moscow drivers 91 hours and those in Los Angeles 104 hours.
Last year’s survey, which used a different methodology, ranked San Francisco second in the nation, tied with Washington, but behind Los Angeles. Bay Area drivers in 2015 wasted 75 hours in traffic.
Congestion causes San Francisco-area drivers $1,996 a year per person in wasted time, Inrix concluded, compared with a national average of $1,400. But Bob Pishue, Inrix’s senior economist and study co-author, said San Francisco’s congestion during the morning and evening commutes is the worst in the nation, particularly on city streets.
Although traffic is a sign of a healthy economy, it can drive up prices of goods and services as it worsens, the survey said. In the Bay Area, Wunderman said, the long, slow commutes combined with the rising cost of housing are starting to drive away some job seekers and could have the same effect on employers.
“I hear anecdotally from companies all the time about problems with people getting to their jobs,” Wunderman said. “A lot of younger people are thinking twice about coming here because of the increasing cost of housing and the long commutes.”
The Inrix report recommends that congested regions, like the Bay Area, use its data to drive the discussion on transportation, such as determining where improvements should be made, and using technology to better manage traffic.
“We really want this to be the starting point,” Pishue said. “There is a lot of talk around the country, even in the Bay Area and state, about what to do about transportation. Hopefully this can help inform the discussion.”
The Bay Area can achieve short-term traffic relief, Wunderman said, by encouraging carpooling, possibly by limiting free parking to drivers who share their commutes, and by developing regional express-lane network that allows solo drivers to pay a toll to use carpool lanes. Regional express buses, an expanded ferry system and a coordination of transit, and ride services, like Lyft and Uber, could also help, he said.
In a separate report released last week, SPUR, a Bay Area urban planning think tank, said those kinds of improvements are needed on what it calls the Caltrain corridor, the overburdened transportation network connecting Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
Among the changes were a call for beefed-up Caltrain service with trains that would run more frequently and offer more capacity; the addition of express lanes and express buses on Highway 101; improved connections at better transit stations; and ferry service out of the Port of Redwood City. The SPUR report estimated it would take $16 billion to $21 billion to pay for it all.
Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
Most-congested major world cities
1. Los Angeles
2. Moscow
3. New York
4. San Francisco
5. Bogota
6. Sao Paolo
7. London
8. Atlanta
9. Paris
10. Miami
Most-congested U.S. cities
1. Los Angeles
2. New York
3. San Francisco
4. Atlanta
5. Miami
Most-congested nations
1. Thailand
2. (tie) Colombia
2. (tie) Indonesia
4. (tie) United States
4. (tie) RussiaUkrainian hackers of the anonymous cyber-group alliance FalconsFlame and Trinity launched an operation at 00:00 on May 9, 2016 coded #OpMay9. It involved 9+ successful hackings of the web sites of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) terrorist organization, Russian private military companies (PMC’s) operating under the protection of the FSB in Ukraine and Syria, as well as Russian web outlets disseminating aggressive anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
On the defaced websites, the hackers left the hashtags #OpMay9 and #оп9Мая, as well as 3 short videos about the World War 2 and the contribution of the Ukrainian people in the victory over Nazism.
Follow these links to view the videos which were posted on the defaced web sites:
Eternal Glory to the Heroes! UKRAINE in WW2
Eternal Glory to the Heroes! WW2 veteran Ivan Zaluzhny lost a grandson in the war in the east of Ukraine
7 million Ukrainians fought Nazism in the Allied armies
The hackers used again the meme of “Lviv Underground” for their new address that was embedded on the defaced terrorist web sites.
It is worth noting, that the Ukrainian cyber-guerillas exclusively granted InformNapalm access to their video in advance, saying that as soon as it is published on YouTube, they will start their operation and will show “how easily light overcomes darkness”.
From Z-hour on, terrorist web sites were transformed one after the other.
Official site of the DPR (dnr-online.ru screen) got the first injection of the “truth serum”, it kept streaming the videos till 8AM on May 9. It was followed with a torrent of content transformations: DPR Pravda (dnr-pravda.ru, screenshot), the official web site of the occupied Donetsk (gorod-donetsk.com, screenshot), DPR Municipal Engineering Supervision office (gkgtn.ru, screenshot), DPR EMERCOM (dnmchs.ru, screenshot), anti-Ukrainian propaganda website (crimes.dnr-online.ru, screenshot), the site of the “DPR Office for Humanitarian Operations” (nvr-cknr.ru, screenshot), a propaganda outlet Voskhod Info (voskhodinfo.com, screenshot), the Messenger of the Faithful website (вестникверных.рф, screenshot) and aggressive propaganda outlet of the Russian private military company E.N.O.T corp (enotcorp.org, archive, screenshot).
By the way, the mercenaries of the E.N.O.T corp have repeatedly featured in the InformNapalm investigations.
In April 2015, the information collected from open-sources revealed that Russian social movement People’s Cathedral and Vladimir Khomyakov, the co-chairman of the Russian party Great Fatherland were behind this organization. The People’s Cathedral includes more than 250 different organizations and groups across Russia, including the “war vets” and “military-patriotic” organizations, which traditionally are under the patronage of the Federal Security Service, the principal security agency of the Russian Federation.
Read more: Khomyakov’s “raccoons” busting “Novorossia cossacks” (VIDEO)
Infographics: private military companies (PMCs) on combat missions abroad in the interests of the Russian Federation.
According to the hackers, web site of the E.N.O.T corp PMC and of the Messenger of the Faithful propaganda outlet are on the same host. It is listed to the telling name of certain Evgeny Gennadievich Besov (note: “bes” in Russian means a demon).
Thus, on May 9, 2016 Ukrainian hackers performed one of the most complex and unprecedented information operations, having penetrated and paralyzed the whole network of Russian web outlets supporting terrorist activities against Ukraine.
In their video address, they sent a message which is very important and necessary today:
“…We have enough strength and will to successfully overcome the aggressor, it only takes faith and contributing efforts from all of us to reach the common victory.…”. Their words are matched by action.
Full text of the address of the Ukrainian hackers God willing!
And we are in Lviv Underground again.
After our first video address of 29 April, some viewers thought that we were joking. But we were not. In fact, we were, and are dead serious. After our previous attack, the popular aggressive Russian propaganda website Anna News was unavailable for about 5 days. This is an information outlet spreading lies against Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Our first video address was on this site for more than 5 hours, and it took administrators more than 100 hours to partially restore the site’s operation. A substantial portion of their data has been irretrievably lost. This was our small gift to the Ukrainian society for the great feast of the Resurrection of Christ. We have shown how light, breaks darkness with ease. We have enough strength and will, to successfully overcome the aggressor. It only takes faith and contributing efforts from all of us to reach the common victory. And now for the victory.
Ukraine is the heir of Kievan Rus. Zaporizhian Cossacks and heroes of Kholodny Yar, fighters of Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Ukrainians in the ranks of the Allied armies. These are our ancestors. They all fought with unbending will, and shed their blood, for our land, and freedom. The Ukrainian people, lost about 7 million of their sons and daughters 70 years ago in the fight against the aggressor and occupier. Now we have a new “brown plague”, at our borders, masking behind striped ribbons and Russian tricolors. But no matter, how strong the enemy might seem, it is destined to defeat and disgrace. Ukrainian people, soldiers, patriots and volunteers, have shown that indomitable will is part of their genetic code. On the Memorial day and the Victory Day we have another gift for the Ukrainian society. A whole network of the aggressor information outlets and web sites of Russian terrorists in Donbas, today will be paralyzed. Many web sites of the enemy will feature this video, and other materials, exposing the lies of the occupants. We won then, and we will win again. In the memory of our ancestors, and for the future generations. Glory, to Ukraine!
The international volunteer community InformNapalm calls for the active dissemination in the media and on social networks of the information about this local, but nevertheless very impressive victory of the Ukrainian volunteer community. We won then, and we will win again. God willing! Glory to Ukraine!Dream Lover, a virtual relationship platform that allows users to send texts and receive pictures from professional models, is now supporting bitcoin as a payment option.
A product of the people behind adult entertainment studio Naughty America, Dream Lover follows in the footsteps of its sister website, which began accepting bitcoin in January 2014.
Launched later that year, Dream Lover allows users to spend bitcoin on account credits called Coins that can be used to purchase access to phone numbers assigned to Dream Lover models. Users pay for 30-day access to the phone number and any transaction fees.
Dream Lover CEO Andreas Hronopoulos described the product as one that seeks to capitalize on what he considers the broader trend of startups enabling both real and fantasy online relationships, citing Tinder as an example.
Hronopoulous told CoinDesk:
“We don’t think about it as adult entertainment, we look at it as people have relationships online and this is just an opportunity to have a virtual companion. I think the movie ‘Her’ really hit the nail on the head. People want to have relationships online and this is just the beginning.”
Hronopoulous indicated that models on the website are predominantly female, but that the platform is open to all applicants.
Above all, however, Hronopoulous sought to stress that Dream Lover is not an ‘adult entertainment’ product, but instead a kind of for-profit fantasy social network.
“The purpose of this service isn’t for people to meet,” he continued. “It’s for users to have somebody to communicate with and who better than the pin-up girls of our generation?”
BitPay serves as the transactions processor for the service.
Diminishing role
While bullish on the prospect of bitcoin in the adult industry last year, Hronopoulous indicated that he now believes the technology’s broader adoption is likely to happen without the help of adult entertainment.
“Adult entertainment works when you talk about using a medium and having devices which can access it,” he explained. “Bitcoin is something different. I don’t think adult will play a big role in that, I just think it’s another form of payment.”
Conversely, Hronopoulous described virtual reality as perhaps a technology that would be propelled forward by the adult industry. He noted that Naugthy America has gone “back and forth” on bitcoin.
Bitcoin payments, he said, are in the process of being restored on the website, though he did not elaborate more fully.
Still, Hronopoulous lauded bitcoin as a technology, indicating he believes it has a lot to offer in terms of the relative privacy it offers purchasers from third parties.
“I think the idea is strong,” Hronopoulous concluded. “Everything comes out with a bang but things take time to grow.
Images via Dream Lover; ShutterstockJustice Minister Søren Pind on Friday introduced plans to increase the legal punishment handed down to rapists.
A proposal from Pind calls for prison sentences for rape to be increased by one full year. Current law only allows for a rapist to be sentence to two and a half years in prison, although the penalty can increase for particularly violent rapes.
“Rape is an incredibly offensive assault and therefore it is important that we as a society punish perpetrators in a way that clearly places the responsibility where it belongs and reflects the seriousness of the violation. That is something we don’t do sufficiently today,” Pind said.
The minister’s proposal will also add an additional one year prison sentence for sexual assault on minors, increasing the penalty to 3.5 years.
The penalty for false accusations of rape will also increase under the justice minister’s plan, from 20 to 30 days imprisonment.
Pind said he expects broad support for his proposal, which marks the first time that rape sentences have been increased in 13 years.
The proposal comes after a campaign highlighting that just one out of every 60 rapes in Denmark ends in a conviction of the assailant.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Losses of rare insects are well documented, but there is little research on insects as a whole
It's known as the windscreen phenomenon. When you stop your car after a drive, there seem to be far fewer squashed insects than there used to be.
Scientists have long suspected that insects are in dramatic decline, but new evidence confirms this.
Research at more than 60 protected areas in Germany suggests flying insects have declined by more than 75% over almost 30 years.
And the causes are unknown.
"This confirms what everybody's been having as a gut feeling - the windscreen phenomenon where you squash fewer bugs as the decades go by," said Caspar Hallmann of Radboud University in The Netherlands.
"This is the first study that looked into the total biomass of flying insects and it confirms our worries.''
The study is based on measurements of the biomass of all insects trapped at 63 nature protection areas in Germany over 27 years since 1989.
The data includes thousands of different insects, such as bees, butterflies and moths.
Scientists say the dramatic decline was seen regardless of habitat, land use and the weather, leaving them at a loss to explain what was behind it.
They stressed the importance of adopting measures known to be beneficial for insects, including strips of flowers around farmland and minimising the effects of intensive agriculture.
And they said there was an urgent need to uncover the causes and extent of the decline in all airborne insects.
"We don't know exactly what the causes are,'' said Hans de Kroon, also of Radboud University, who supervised the research.
''This study shows how important it is to have good monitoring programmes and we need more research right now to look into those causes - so, that has really high priority.''
The finding was even more worrying given that it was happening in nature reserves, which are meant to protect insects and other living species, the researchers said.
''In the modern agricultural landscape, for insects it's a hostile environment, it's a desert, if not worse,'' said Dr de Kroon.
''And the decline there has been well documented. The big surprise is that it is also happening in adjacent nature reserves.''
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Insects provide vital services like pollination
The loss of insects has far-reaching consequences for entire ecosystems.
Insects provide a food source for many birds, amphibians, bats and reptiles, while plants rely on insects for pollination.
The decline is more severe than found in previous studies.
A survey of insects at four sites in the UK between 1973 and 2002 found losses at one of the four sites only.
Dr Lynn Dicks, from the University of East Anglia, UK, who is not connected with the study, said the paper provides new evidence for "an alarming decline" that many entomologists have suspected for some time.
"If total flying insect biomass is genuinely declining at this rate (around 6% per year), it is extremely concerning," she said.
"Flying insects have really important ecological functions, for which their numbers matter a lot."
The research is published in the journal Plos One.
Follow Helen on Twitter.UP AND UP: New Zealand's now owe more than $200 billion on their mortgages.
Kiwis' mortgage debt has officially climbed past $200 billion, a mountain of borrowing which has doubled in the space of 10 years.
But while experts are warning homeowners to remain cautious of the overheated property market, they say the blowout is no cause for immediate concern.
The latest Reserve Bank figures show mortgage debt topped $200b for the first time in January, up from just over $100b at the same time in 2005.
As a proportion of gross domestic product, the debt burden has increased from roughly 69 per cent to 88 per cent.
Squirrel mortgage broker John Bolton said the $200b debt was "a hell of a scary number" which demonstrated Kiwis were up to their eyeballs in debt.
The average mortgage for first-home buyers in the heated Auckland market was now close to half a million, he said.
QV figures released this week showed average Auckland properties were now selling for $786,106, with only three suburbs across the whole city squeaking beneath the $500,000 mark.
However, Bolton said banks' annual mortgage lending growth had slowed to a relatively modest 3 to 4 per cent in recent years.
That was in dramatic contrast to the boom before the global financial crisis, when lending growth ran hot at 12 to 15 per cent.
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research economist Shamubeel Eaqub said the prices of millions of properties outside the major hotspots were still below the previous peak in 2007.
Homeowners most at risk to a change in economic conditions were those who had taken on a large debt in recent years, he said.
"If house prices fall and they lose their jobs, that would be the nightmare scenario where you've got both a need to sell, and an inability to service the debt," Eaqub said.
"But we haven't seen that in the past, and we don't think this is the year it's going to happen."
Eaqub pointed to low interest rates, a record influx of immigrants and intense mortgage competition as factors supporting house prices.
However, he said prices in markets like Auckland could prove "unsustainably high" if and when those factors changed.
Infometrics senior economist Matt Nolan said the burden of mortgage debt was not spread equally among households.
"A sharp drop in prices would put a |
I think the newbies could go either really well or painfully awful. There is no in-between for this Gleek. I think a boyfriend for Kurt and a love interest for Mercedes will offer up some good material, as will this Christian country singer who competes with Rachel. But I do fear that trying to introduce new players when some of the others haven’t been fully developed is dangerous. The good thing about the show being set in high school? Students are easy to transfer right out the door.
No more Madonna: Please, please, please, please don’t do another all-Madonna episode! I'm begging here. It was fun the first go round, it truly was. I love the Material Girl just like anyone else, but do we really need another full hour of Madge? I mean, really?
Limit the themed episodes: This goes two ways. Although I think another Madonna episode is incredibly self-indulgent, I do think it is fun to do maybe one of these themed episodes a season because it can be something fun for the fans. Even though there were only two Lady Gaga songs in “Theatrically,” it felt like a Gaga tribute, and we don’t need to see a slew of these tribute episodes because while the show is about music, there is a story to be told. The best story that was told during the Gaga fest had nothing to do with Gaga (sorry Tina, that story line was a weak setup).
Because I know a few more of these puppies will be cooking for next season (one at the most would be fun), here's to hoping the crew finds a way to make the music propel the episode’s story because when it’s done well there are some incredible results.
Going on the whole idea of themes, it seemed that as of late Will took the backseat as the teacher and just gave them an assignment for the week to set up the episode's theme. I miss the old days when he worked with them (even if he had to teach by showing, just no more rapping … no more). There doesn't need to be so much "here's the theme that you should take away from this episode."
Know what works, and what doesn’t: After suffering through the “Funk” episode, which just fell completely flat, I realized they are still figuring out what works for them, and what doesn’t. And that's OK.
Here are some quick observations: What works is when the kids have had the entire hour. It’s yielded some of the better plots; story-driven episodes with complementing songs such as "Hell-O" and "Home" are always a match made in Gleek heaven (though some fans only care for the music, us theater geeks like a good story); and fleshing out the stronger story lines over time has benefited viewers. What doesn’t work, however, is abandoning stories after they’ve been set up (we never forget); the often cheesy after-school-special approach; and some of the random decision making when it comes to song selections ("Ice, Ice Baby," sigh).
I’ve always respected how the kids of New Directions have an eclectic mix of songs that offer something for everybody – but for Season 2, dig even deeper. We’ve had a lot of ‘80s classics and some great Broadway tunes, but it’s time to up the ante. The greatness of the show is that, regardless of how viewers may feel about a particular song choice, the show is introducing a new generation to classic music. Let the kids explore Elvis, Bob Marley and everything else. And, of course, for the young uns out there, throw us a bone with some contemporary cuts. There has always been a great blend of old and new. Now that it's Season 2, more risks in song choices is the way to go, and let’s be honest: There is a line of artists begging for the “Glee” treatment.
Too much of a good thing: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. A summer break is something fans need, regardless of whether they want to admit it. Once the show became a phenom, it drifted into that dreaded overexposure category, which very much worries me for Season 2 and beyond. It’s great to see this cast truly blow up because they are wickedly talented and I don’t mind seeing them everywhere.
But now that they have become lil’ pop icons comes the inevitable oversaturation of merchandise. I’m absolutely not prepared to see "Glee" merch at Macy's or Claire's. My stomach churns at the thought of a Christmas album, karaoke machines, musical greeting cards, pajamas, games, books (“Glee: The Beginning,” “Glee: Foreign Exchange”), bedding and cosmetics. Though I admit a box of “Glee”-branded Cheerios would be a nutritious way to start the day (make it happen, General Mills and Fox). The three, OK five, soundtracks for one season alone was enough to make my wallet say “no mas.” I'm sure beyond Matthew Morrison's debut album we'll be treated to albums from other cast members -- and that I welcome with open arms.
On behalf of Fox, I apologize ahead of time to the parents who will undoubtedly be stuck with the oh-so-tragic decision between the “Glee” bedspread, karaoke machine of the new line of clothes and accessories. Gosh, could you imagine if your kid liked "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and "Glee"? Yikes!
Any tips I left out? What are you hoping to see in Season 2?
-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
twitter.com/GerrickKennedy
Photo credit: FOXARE we there yet?
A question asked by many a child on a long journey. It’s an understandable one too. Waiting for the final destination is a frustrating pastime, particularly when you are young.
Football in Australia (or at least the latest professional incarnation of it), is at that juncture at the moment - and, as tempting as it would be to say “yes, it’s just around the corner” - the answer, even after Australia’s stunning Asian Cup success, has to be no - not yet.
What Saturday’s triumph does, is put another building block in place. The Socceroos are the nations darlings once again. After being on the nose for some time, that’s an achievement in itself - and under Ange Postecoglou, there is unlikely to be a return to the days when the ‘Roos and their fans seemed destined for the divorce courts. Their continued success remains vital to the health of the game.
Yet, even as Mile Jedinak was stepping up to collect the trophy, trouble was brewing in Newcastle, as Nathan Tinkler missed Saturday’s midnight deadline to settle outstanding bills - money owed to creditors who, FFA insist, must be paid, if he is to continue as owner of the embattled club.
Whatever the rights & wrongs of the situation (and there are many rumours emanating from the Hunter as to exactly who is to blame), FFA will surely step in soon, before the 10,000-strong membership dwindles away. Those loyal fans deserve better.
Then, there is the situation in Gosford, where only the implosion at the Jets has deflected attention away from some very real concerns over the future direction of the Central Coast Mariners. Likewise, across the ditch, David Gallop put Wellington Phoenix on notice pre-season, telling the assembled media throng that they weren’t “bringing enough to the table.”
The game in Australia is only as strong as its weakest link, and we still have a few creases to iron out.
On that note, longer-term, there remains the thorny issue of how, when, or even if, to adopt a system of promotion and relegation, that most fundamental of building blocks, in any football culture.
The Asian Football Confederation insists this is a non-negotiable for continued membership - even Frank Lowy admits that eventually, Australia must have it. Is there a solution? Maybe. And oddly, the answer may come from Rugby League.
For several years in the British Super League, relegation was put on hold, and clubs (from the second tier), could only gain a promotion “licence” for the top flight if they fulfilled certain criteria.
Firstly, they needed to win the Grand Final. Secondly, they needed to have a stadium with a 10,000 plus capacity. Thirdly, they were not to have been insolvent over a set period; fourthly, they needed to have a healthy turnover, and finally, an average attendance over a threshold figure was required.
If clubs met all those criteria, they were eligible to be considered for promotion. This gave incentive to the smaller clubs, while protecting those in the top flight.
With certain amendments, I believe this system of structured promotion could work for football in Australia - which will not be ready for relegation (in my opinion) for many years yet, for reasons well documented elsewhere.
Specifically, the existing A-League clubs would have a vote (collectively) as to who was to join their ranks - especially as it would lead to a reduction in TV cash for each outfit. At the moment, the A-League clubs have no representation on the FFA board, a situation which cannot continue. Secondly, the licence would be of limited term only, renewable annually up to a qualifying period of say, five years, by which time FFA could consider a longer-term commitment - if the criteria continued to be fulfilled.
Thirdly, all new clubs would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that all aspects of their operation were not only broad based, but also fully open to, and inclusive of, all segments of their community - at least in intent.
This “carrot and stick” approach would potentially offer the chance of a return to the top flight for (for example) former NSL clubs, but with protective measures put in place, to prevent a return to the days when clubs represented only one part of the local community. The criteria would apply to existing A-League clubs too, to ensure everyone keeps their house in order.
I wouldn’t expect such plans to be put in place until after the next TV deal is agreed. But isn’t now a good time to properly construct the criteria, and tell ambitious clubs exactly what they need to do, to progress to the top tier?
As we bask in the warm glow of Asian Cup glory, and the resounding success of the FFA Cup, there will never be a better chance to fully integrate the game, once and for all.
Maybe, when that is achieved, we can then say “we’re here!”Oct. 4, 2017, 4:38 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 4, 2017, 4:38 PM GMT By John Paul Brammer
Following an outcry from LGBTQ rights advocates, the U.S. Department of State clarified its "no" vote on a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for "same-sex relations" and other acts.
The resolution, titled "The Question of the Death Penalty," passed the U.N. Human Rights Council with 27 nations voting in favor, 13 voting against and seven abstentions. The multi-page resolution condemned the imposition of the death penalty when "applied arbitrarily or in a discriminatory manner" and specifically condemned "the imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations."
In a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert explained why the U.S. voted against the resolution.
"We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances," Nauert said. "The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery, and apostasy. We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalization.”
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., also responded to the backlash following the death penalty vote. In a tweet, Haley said there was "NO vote by USUN that supported the death penalty for gay people," adding, "We have always fought for justice for the LGBT community."
In a separate tweet, Haley also noted that the U.S. voted "no" to the resolution under the Obama administration, though the specific mention of "same-sex relations' was not included in previous death penalty resolutions.
Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International, a global LGBTQ human rights organization, acknowledged the U.S. vote on the U.N. resolution was misconstrued.
"There's been some misreporting and misconceptions," Stern told NBC News. "The U.S. always opposes this death penalty resolution, because it makes reference to a global moratorium on the death penalty. For both Obama and Trump, so long as the death penalty is legal in the U.S., it takes this position."
"OutRight will call out the Trump administration on its many rights violations, its many abuses of power from LGBTI violations to xenophobia, but this particular instance is not an example of a contraction of support on LGBTI rights," Stern continued. "It would be a mistake to interpret its opposition to a death penalty resolution to a change in policy."
National LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which initially condemned the U.S. vote on the death penalty resolution, said in a released statement it welcomes the clarification but remains "concerned about the Trump/Pence administration's engagement on the human rights of LGBTQ people abroad."
"It is disturbing that leadership in this administration did not discuss this position in their original explanation for the 'no' vote," the HRC statement continued.
Related: US No Longer Playing Lead Role in UN's LGBTQ Human Rights Group
Some LGBTQ advocates are not satisfied with the clarification put forth by the State Department. Ryan Thoreson, a researcher at the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said the unwillingness of the U.S. to broadly condemn the death penalty has negative effects for LGBTQ people.
"The death penalty is an LGBTQ issue, and you see that in the way it's applied in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and other places where the penalty for same-sex activity is death," Thoreson explained. "When the U.S. is not willing to call that out, even in an unobjectionable resolution like this, it signals a kind of tolerance for the death penalty that should worry LGBTQ people."
Homosexuality is illegal in more than 70 nations and 13 of them implement the death penalty for homosexual acts, according to a 2016 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).
"If you care about LGBTI rights and you care about the rights of minority groups, you should be against the death penalty," Stern said, adding that the Trump administration has been floundering on domestic and international LGBTQ issues. As examples, she cited the administration's reversal on Obama-era transgender protections and the lack of condemnation coming from the administration following reports of an anti-gay purge in Chechnya.
"We have clear examples on how this administration's support for LGBTI rights hasn't been there," Stern concluded.
Follow NBC Out on Twitter, Facebook and InstagramESPN NBA experts sat down to discuss which teams are in position to improve or get worse next season. Four out of the five (Marc Stein picked the Milwaukee Bucks) selected your Miami Heat as the East's biggest risers. Here's what each expert had to say:
Which East team will make the biggest jump?
J.A. Adande, ESPN.com: Miami Heat. They had Chris Bosh available for only 44 games and Josh McRoberts for only 17 because of injuries last season. (I'm not even counting Dwyane Wade's 62 games since that's become normal for him; he hasn't played in 70-plus games since 2010-11). Give mid season acquisition Goran Dragic a full year in Miami and Justise Winslow a couple of months to get acclimated to the NBA, and the Heat should zoom past the 37 wins they posted last season.
Ian Begley, ESPN.com: Miami gets the nod over Toronto here. After a disappointing 2014-15 season, Pat Riley brought back Goran Dragic and Dwyane Wade and convinced Gerald Green and Amar'e Stoudemire to sign deals that were considered below market value. Those transactions, in addition to adding a healthy Chris Bosh, should help Miami quickly rebound after a 37-win campaign in 2014-15. Here's hoping we get a Heat-Cavaliers series in the playoffs.
Kevin Pelton, ESPN Insider: Heat. In terms of sheer wins and losses, the New York Knicks may improve more because they started at just 17 wins. But the Heat figure to take a larger jump from the lottery to possibly the biggest threat to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East if they stay healthy.
Brian Windhorst, ESPN.com: Miami's record was artificially depressed last season because of injury and they've improved themselves. Also, Erik Spoelstra completely altered his team's style of play on the fly last season. Give them a training camp and reasonable health and they'll be vastly improved.
You can check out the full article right here.
it's great to see Miami getting some national love.Hungary can't auction its debt, the forint is in freefall, protesters are on the street … and European banks are exposed again
It's time to get seriously worried about Hungary. Thursday's debt auction was a disaster. The country was obliged to pay 9.96% for short-term debt and didn't even raise the 45bn forints it was seeking via auction; it got just 35bn, presumably because it turned away bids pitched at 10% or more.
The backdrop is well known. The Hungarian currency is in freefall (down 18% against the euro in six months) despite rate hikes designed to shore up confidence and protect mortgage borrowers who have (ridiculously) taken out loans in foreign currencies. The government needs to raise about $16bn this year and Hungary's banks require foreign lines of credit. Protesters are on the street, raging against a new constitution that it widely criticised as anti-democratic. Prime minister Viktor Orbán's regime is at loggerheads with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund over a new law that limits the central bank's independence.
The only mildly encouraging news is that this auction disaster prompted a few conciliatory official noises towards the IMF. But there's clearly a very long way to travel before the IMF could be sufficiently reassured about the central bank's role to offer a financial backstop. Get set for more emergency rate rises to try to halt the flight of capital. The risk of a Hungarian banking crisis and credit freeze is high.
It's yet another reason to worry about the health of the European banking system. Eight of the top 20 lenders in Hungary are owned by Europeans, as the table below from National Australia Bank shows. The exposures are not huge as a percentage of the parent's total assets – but, nor, in several cases are they insignificant.
Eight of Hungary's top banks are European-owned. Source: National Australia Bank
The combination of the Hungarian crisis and the mammoth rights issue from Italian banking giant Unicredit has put the skids under the euro.
The euro has lost ground to the US dollar over the last six months. Source: Google
The single currency, remarkably, spent most of last year meandering within a fairly tight range against the US dollar (which may say a lot about how poorly investors regard the financial health of the US) but in the ugly race, the spotlight is now firmly on the euro.Relatives of military personnel killed in conflict welcome findings while some say former PM must face consequences
Tony Blair was described as “the worst terrorist in the world” by a woman whose brother was killed in the Iraq war, as the family members of British soldiers gave their response to the Chilcot report.
Sarah O’Connor broke down in tears as she addressed an emotional press conference shortly after the long-awaited report was published.
“There is one terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair, the world’s worst terrorist,” she said, to cheers from some of the other relatives.
O’Connor, whose brother, Sgt Bob O’Connor, was killed with nine other airmen when his plane was shot down near Baghdad in 2005, said her overriding emotion having read some of the report was anger. “That healing that for 11 and a half years I have worked for … I have gone back to that time when I learned that my brother had been killed.”
About 25 bereaved family members were at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in central London, where they were given a few hours to read the report before it was published. Several of those present carried pictures of their loved ones, or wore T-shirts or badges with their images.
Most welcomed the report, with a number of family members standing to applaud as Sir John Chilcot left the stage after giving a statement, but there was also widespread anger, while several relatives wept openly.
“Everything he said today, we have been saying for all these years,” said Rose Gentle, mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, who was killed by a roadside bomb in 2004 aged 19. An inquest later found that his death was unlawful and that logistics failures had contributed to it.
“Now we can turn and say we have got the proof, we’ve got it in our hands,” said Gentle. “Twelve years of fighting for my son have been worth it. I’d do it again if I had to.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Relatives of military personnel killed during the Iraq war at the Queen Elizabeth II centre. Photograph: Jeff J Mittchell/EPA
Pauline Graham, Rose Gentle’s mother, said: “Now we know where we stand and what we can do. Tony Blair should be taken to court for trial for murder. He can’t get away with this any more.”
Reg Keys, the father of L/Cpl Tom Keys who died in 2003 aged 20, told reporters that when he considered the ongoing terrorist deaths in Iraq, “I can only conclude that unfortunately, and sadly, my son died in vain”.
That sentiment was echoed by Theresa Thompson, the mother of Pte Kevin Thompson, who was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Basra in 2007, at the age of 21. “It was an illegal war. He died in vain. He died for no purpose,” she said.
Jeremy Corbyn is a patriot – he would never have waged the illegal war that killed my son | Reg Keys Read more
“I won’t stop until Tony Blair is held responsible for this,” said her husband, Mark Thompson. “He should come forward to the families and prove himself, instead of being a coward [and giving a statement] behind a camera. Be a man, stand up for what he has done.
“Just look at the parents, look at what he has destroyed. We have lost grandchildren, we have lost a daughter-in-law. He’s still got his family, he’s got everything.”
The date of their son’s death, 6 May, was also Blair’s birthday, Thompson said. “He’ll be opening his presents and cards, we take flowers to my son’s garden.”
“Chilcot’s report … he’s done exactly as he said he would – it wasn’t a whitewash by any means,” said Eddie Hancock, from Wigan, whose 19-year-old son Jamie was a Kingsman with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment when he was killed in Basra in 2006.
“Obviously, some people will never be happy unless there’s a rope there. But what he has actually said is that Blair undermined the United Nations. Now, if somebody does that, you would think that the act was illegal. He’s also misled parliament, he’s fabricated facts and misrepresented them.
“I hope, and I would like to call on all politicians in this country, that for the grievous damage this man has inflicted on this nation, on its armed forces, he be banned from any form of public office for life. At the very least.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamie Hancock died as a result of injuries sustained while under fire in Basra. Photograph: PA
Tony Fisher, whose brother Sgt Simon Hamilton-Jewell was killed alongside five other military police officers in Majar al-Kabir in 2003, fought back tears as he described the report as “very powerful”.
Fisher said: “It’s 13 years, and it still hurts, you never get rid of it. And you don’t want to see other people going through the same thing, for the sake of one man’s arrogance. Mr Blair keeps apologising for everybody else around him, but he is the man responsible. The arrogant man hasn’t got the ability to apologise for his own mistakes.”
Fisher is one of many family members who hope the report could lead to prosecutions of Blair and others. Matthew Jury, of the legal firm McCue & Partners, who represents the families of 29 victims, said it was too early to judge whether prosecutions might be possible.
“The next steps are to spend the next days and weeks giving this full and proper consideration as to what happens next. Legal proceedings may be possible, but we need to do a full and forensic analysis of the report to determine what is next.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The coffins of military personnel killed when a British Hercules aircraft crashed in Iraq. Photograph: Reuters/SSGT Chris Crawford
As he left the conference centre surrounded by other family members, Peter Brierley, the father of 28-year-old L/Cpl Shaun Brierley who was killed when his Land Rover crashed in Kuwait in 2003, said he was satisfied with the report. “When I came here this morning, if you had asked me, ‘What do you want out of it?’, it wouldn’t be too far away from what I have already read.” As such, he said, rather than sharing the anger of some of the other families, he felt “relief … that we’ve finally got what we wanted”.
He added: “One day in the future, I want to be able to go home, sit in my chair and turn my telly on and say, ‘I have done the best I can. No matter the final outcome, I’ve done everything I possibly can.’ With this today, that seems to be a lot closer now.”When security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski took a job at Apple a few weeks ago, I heard from many people concerned about the future of his macOS app, Little Flocker, a tool that restricts apps and system processes access to files without permission. He was unable to talk details, but recently F-Secure, a leading security developer and analysis company, announced its purchase of Little Flocker, which it’s rebranded as Xfence.
I spoke to Sean Sullivan, security advisor at F-Secure, about the changeover and the general current set of risks to Mac users. He said Xfence, which was in release form as Little Flocker, will shift into a free beta mode for the foreseeable future. (Those who paid for a Little Flocker license will get some currently unspecified benefit as future pricing for Xfence and its inclusion in other products isn’t yet set. “Their license will carry through when there’s a paid product,” Sullivan said.)
The littleflocker.com domain remains up showing a maintenance page and the Check for Updates link, which queries that domain, currently doesn’t work. That should change when the new beta is released with Xfence branding.
For those who haven’t read about Little Flocker in the past, it was designed to combat ransomware, which is the greatest new scourge in the Windows world. Ransomware overwrites your documents with encrypted versions and the attackers demand payment, typically in Bitcoin, to release a decryption key. A few feeble attempts have been made to infect Macs, but because ransomware has such a low threshold to cause harm and such a high reward-to-cost ratio, you can be sure attackers are hard at work.
F-Secure Xfence, the new name for Little Flocker, will be released as a free public beta.
Little Flocker observes every time an app tries to open, write, execute, or otherwise modify any file or folder, and lets you set one-time, short-term, or permanent exceptions. It also has rulesets that it offers to add when it recognizes an app. Because Apple has its registered developers sign released apps with cryptographic signatures, the monitoring system isn’t fooled by malicious programs with the same name trying to inherit file privileges. Later updates added monitoring and blocking of audio or video input activation.
Sullivan said part of F-Secure’s goal to move Xfence forward will make it more accessible to a greater number of users. He’s right that that’s needed. While Little Flocker is invaluable if you want to know how apps are interacting with files and folders on your Mac, even the simplified mode requires too much system knowledge for the majority of users. It’s a tool for veteran Mac owners and system administrators.
Little Flocker also didn’t provide great help for people who use a macOS account without administrative privileges. Some people prefer to work at a lower-privilege level, as it reduces the impact of a security breach; others are users on a computer (family, work, or school) for which they don’t have administrative access. Ostensibly, Xfence will need to let an administrative user approve apps or delegate certain approval privileges, similar to parental controls.
The current release also requires a lot of interaction, though it decreases over time. As an experienced user wanting to see all the interaction, I don’t mind when new software or a software update requires I approve a number of requests. But a less-interested or less-advanced Mac owner might prefer to only have dubious actions highlighted.
Sullivan said Xfence will benefit from F-Secure’s broader array of products and malware monitoring. For instance, the company’s Security Cloud system anonymously gathers information from users of its security products that let it note emerging threats and push a response back out. That same system, Sullivan said, could automatically whitelist apps for Xfence, reducing the number of times a user has to respond to queries.
The intent with the Xfence release is to make it part of a multi-pronged method of helping users by making smarter deductions about what normal activity is. For instance, a network firewall might take note, Sullivan said, that “we’ve never seen you connect to Bulgaria before. “Do we want to let you make that connection?” Instead of alerting about anything, outlying behavior prompts notification, removing some of the warning fatigue that otherwise kicks in.
Sullivan, like many security professionals and yours truly, worries about Mac users’ attitudes about malware due to the paucity of strong attacks. But, he noted, “The Mac is more secure from turning your Mac into a bot, but if it deletes all your files, do you care that your Mac is more secure?”
He says improved security across operating systems and service operators is part of what’s led to the rise of ransomware and other user-side attacks. For instance, banks have improved the detection of illegitimate transactions, so even if an attacker can insert themselves between a user and the bank, the bank might reject the transaction. Criminals thus shift their effort: “You can’t pick my pocket, so you extort me.”
Zdziarski did remarkable work as a one-man band on this app, relying on beta testers and release testers like me to provide usability and functional feedback. F-Secure has over 1,000 employees, and its developers have just started to get their hands deep into the Little Flocker codebase.
Little Flocker was and Xfence now becomes the only Mac product focused prospectively on a massive malware category that’s taken in millions of people and organizations worldwide. I hope F-Secure’s attention leads to other developers—maybe even Apple—adding this kind of better file-access monitoring and control to their products.
While I’ve been down on anti-virus products in the past, a comprehensive suite of network monitoring, file-access monitoring, and system change behavior tools that’s tied together for a single installation and supported with continuous updates from a company with eyes and ears around the globe would be a great boon in keeping Mac users safe.
Right now, you have to install Little Snitch, Xfence, and BlockBlock to achieve those results. Here’s hoping F-Secure builds such a tool and inspires competitors to do the same.If you feel too busy to exercise and keep your body healthy in the way that you eat, then you will have to think again. You will need to come up with a new routine for yourself because your body is just too important to let go to waste, no matter how busy you feel throughout the day. And, the good thing for you to find out, is that there are many ways that you can stay healthy and fit even while you are busy. This year can be the best one yet if you use some of the tips found below.
Start Timing Your Exercise
Even if you feel that there is no time in the day to get exercise in, you should just start by taking a short walk. Time it and see how much of a workout you are able to get in. Maybe go for a jog next time instead. Figure out a time in the day when you have the most free time and go out then. It is good to get a half hour of exercise in a day, and if you can do that, then you will start to feel better about your body.
Be Conscience of What You Eat
A simple, yet complicated, at the same time, thing for you to start doing is keeping track of the food you put in your mouth. You will be healthier just in knowing what you are eating and making a few smart choices throughout the day. Choose a water instead of a soda here, and a salad instead of a sandwich there. Stop with the mindless snacking and bring something healthy and filling to munch on, instead. It is a great thing to be conscience of all of the foods you are eating, so that you can start losing weight and just feeling better in your body.
Shop The Good Parts Of The Store
When you are so busy that every second of the day counts, why not try to trim down some of the time that you spend in the supermarket? One great way for you to stop spending so much of your precious time there is to start only shopping in the produce, dairy, and meat departments. Shop for the foods that are good for you and your body and avoid all of those middle aisles. Your health will be better because of it, and you will save a lot of time grocery shopping, too.
Stand When You Can And Take The Stairs
There are little things that you can do every day to get a better and healthier body, and one of the things that you can do is to choose to stand instead of sit. Whenever you have the option, you should stand and stretch your muscles. You burn more calories when you are standing versus sitting, and you just might find that you feel better when you do this, too. And another great change for you to make every day is to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Go up and down the stairs each day, and you will burn a few extra calories. It doesn’t take much time to go up and down them, and you just might save some time versus taking the elevator, too.
Find A Routine That Pleases You
One of the most important things for you to do when you want to become healthier and more fit is to find a routine that works for you. Figure out a schedule for your day that makes you happy. Fit in some exercise where you can and make sure that you can stick with it. Figure out which healthy foods make you feel the best, and which ones are a treat to you, and reward yourself with them. Know what you need to do to feel good about your health each day, and make it happen.
You will feel great when you start making an effort to care for your health. You can become fit and healthy in 2017, even if you are a busy person. All that you need is some determination, and you will start to feel better about your body and the way that you are treating it. You will start to gain muscle when you get into exercising every day, no matter how much time you have free to do that, and you will lose a bit of weight by making a few healthy lifestyle choices, as well. You can start eating healthier and save time while doing that by shopping the right sections of the store, and you can save time by running the stairs instead of taking the elevator every day, too. Choose to do these things, and you will feel better about how fit and healthy you are.Fifteen solar panel vehicles, some that look like small space ships, raced across Chile’s Atacama desert as part of a contest to build low-cost environmentally-friendly cars.
Teams from countries like Argentina, Chile, India and Venezuela have crafted aerodynamic racers to speed across 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of the world’s driest desert in the second edition of the Atacama Solar Challenge.
The race, which began Thursday and ends Monday, pits teams from universities that build their cars on a tight budget in the slog across northern Chile.
Some of the vehicles powered exclusively by the sun’s rays, while others are solar- and pedal-powered hybrids.
The solar-powered vehicles are mostly flat rectangular contraptions lined with solar panels to absorb solar energy, which is stored in batteries, and with a cubicle to house the driver. The hybrids look like neighborhood go-carts with solar panels glued on.
The race started Thursday at the Humberstone saltpeter, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Chile’s capital, Santiago. The site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a ghost town that has been abandoned since saltpeter mining was halted ended there in the mid 20th century.
This year, a team from oil-rich Venezuela made their debut in the competition that celebrates an alternative to fossil fuels.
“In a country with a mono-economy based on oil, with an infinite potential of hydraulic energy, and without an energy problem, it is a miracle to build a car like this,” said the Venezuelan team captain Carlos Mata.
“The import laws in Venezuela meant we could not get all the necessary materials, so we had to adapt what we had. It was a huge effort,” he explained.
But his team persisted, eager to participate in an event organizers say is aimed at encouraging research into alternative sources of energy.
The solar vehicles shared the same northern Chilean highway with trucks, busses and cars, but are a long way from replacing them, said Leonardo Saguas, captain of the Antakar team from Chile’s Universidad de La Serena.
Yet Saguas, whose team built last year’s winning car, said he can envision a day when Chile is mass producing solar cars.
“We have plenty of resources, we just need to develop them,” he said.
Gabriel Martinez, proud team captain from the University of Concepcion, spent a year perfecting his vehicle.
“It has 244 solar cells” which capture the sun’s energy and convert it to electricity stored in batteries, he bragged, adding that the vehicle “weighs 300 kilograms and its peak power is 950 watts.”
“This race is awesome. It applies all the engineering and technology we learn into a sport. I love it,” he gushed.
Luciano |
, it can produced usual data, let's see what happens in the next one. But it's not going to make the Government change tack."
The Government had an economic plan and was committed to it, he said.
"These are challenging international conditions... but I don't think we should change course I think we're on the right track."
But it was a long-run plan and relied on other countries. "We are a quarter of 1 per cent of global growth; New Zealand can't do this on its own."
He didn't want to speculate of future unemployment figures.
Labour leader David Shearer says Key’s legacy will be the highest jobless rate in 13 years, when National was last in power.
Shearer said Key had promised to create 175,000 new jobs, but instead there were now 175,000 people looking for work.
“What will it take for National to admit its hands-off policies aren’t working?” Shearer said.
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said the shock rise was the “final nail in the coffin” of the National government’s economic credibility. The number of unemployed had risen 78,000 under the National government.
“The National government has failed New Zealanders: its economic record is in tatters,” she said.
There was an improvement in jobs in Canterbury, but the news in the rest of the country was grim. Excluding the impact of the earthquake rebuild boost in Christchurch, unemployment in the rest of the country jumped from 6.8 per cent to 7.6 per cent, according to ASB Bank economists.
The figures showed falling numbers in manufacturing and education sectors, and the construction sector is also weak, though should pick up soon due to the Canterbury rebuild and rising building consents in Auckland.
Council of Trade Unions Secretary Peter Conway said the jump in the unemployment rate showed the Government ''needs to act on jobs now".
"There are now 175,000 people unemployed, 294,900 jobless and over 113,000 people looking for more hours at work. This means that we have 400,000 people out of work or looking for more work. This is a national crisis," he said.
"These are not just numbers; they are people, and families. They deserve support and the Government needs to give urgent attention to the jobs plight now," Conway said.
Overall, the number of unemployed jumped almost 8 per cent - or 13,000 - in the three months to September, most of them men.
That was the equivalent of about 145 people a day over the three months joining the ranks of the unemployed.
Some bank economists pointed to a weaker economy in the September quarter, but had expected some improvement on the June quarter unemployment, which was seen as "too bad to be true". But the latest figures are worse.
Maori unemployment jumped from 12.8 per cent in June to 15.1 per cent, to be almost as high as Pacific Islander unemployment of 15.6 per cent, though that was little changed from June.
European unemployment was 5.4 per cent, only marginally worse than in June.
Overall, job numbers fell by 8000 in the past three months, according to new Statistics NZ figures. That reflected a 9000 fall in the number of men in work, with a slight rise of 1000 more women in work.
Most of the job losses were in full time work, down 14,000, more than wiping out an 11,000 rise in the previous quarter.
"The unemployment rate has stayed between 6.4 and 6.8 per cent over the past two years and has now risen for the third quarter in a row," industry and labour statistics manager Diane Ramsay said.
During the late 1990s recession, unemployment peaked at 8 per cent, but reached a high of more than 11 per cent in 1991.Paul George speaks with Israel Gutierrez about his 27-point effort in the second half, part of a 33-point game, to give the Pacers a 100-90 win over the Raptors. (1:37)
We're through the first weekend of the 2016 NBA Playoffs. What stood out? And what are we looking forward to next? Our 5-on-5 crew weighs in on the East.
1. East player of the weekend?
Chris Forsberg, ESPN.com: Paul George. George kicked in the postseason door with an absolutely dominant second half against the Raptors and produced the only lower-seed victory in a weekend where top seeds were typically dominant. What's more, he did it on both ends of the floor and already has the Raptors questioning themselves.
Israel Gutierrez, ESPN.com: Paul George. Any upsets the Pacers pull off in these playoffs will be because of George. So his breaking free from the Raptors' tough wing defense in the second half to finish with 33 points and six assists is exactly what Indiana needed to see.
Justin Verrier, ESPN.com: Hassan Whiteside. Paul George's game was a masterpiece, but folk legend "Agent Block" has sent Charlotte into an existential crisis. The NBA's blocks leader allowed Miami defenders to run the 3-happy Hornets off the arc and into the dreaded middle, and he also tallied a career high in muscle flexes en route to 21 of the Heat's 56 points in the paint.
Michael Wells, ESPN.com: Welcome back to the playoffs, Luol Deng. The Miami forward went from being a former Heat killer to helping them look like they could make a deep run in the postseason in his first playoff game since the 2012-13 season. Deng scored 31 points on 11-of-13 shooting while also grabbing seven rebounds.
Brian Windhorst, ESPN.com: Paul George. In a triumphant return to the postseason, he put up 33 points on 22 shots and played a big role in shutting down DeMar DeRozan, leading the Pacers to the only road victory of the weekend. What else needs to be said?
Raptors guards Kyle Lowry, left, and DeMar DeRozan remain confident despite struggling mightily against Indiana. John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
2. East's most disappointing player?
Forsberg: Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. The Raptors' backcourt went a combined 8-of-32 (25 percent) from the field and 1-of-10 beyond the 3-point arc. Unacceptable for Toronto's All-Star tandem. When you're actively avoiding social media and deleting your Instagram account, you've had a rough weekend.
Gutierrez: Kyle Lowry, although he could easily be replaced by his backcourt mate, DeMar DeRozan -- both underperformed in Game 1 against Indiana. Their offense felt forced, their decisions were a beat slow and their few open shots weren't falling either. If the Raptors don't recover from this, the feel-good story in Toronto will crumble pretty quickly.
Verrier: Kyle Lowry. The surly guard actually has something to be salty about. Lowry, the Raptors' essential player, shot 3-for-13 (including 1-for-7 from 3) in a loss that officially takes the shine off a team expected in some quarters to be Cleveland's fiercest competition in the East.
Wells: DeMar DeRozan. The All-Star guard was thoroughly outplayed by Indiana's Paul George in the Raptors' Game 1 loss. Toronto has little chance of getting out of the first round for the first time since the 2000-01 season if DeRozan continues to have 5-of-19 shooting performances in the series.
Windhorst: Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. Wow, did these guys play tight. The issue of constantly losing in the first round really looks to be in their heads. The Pacers did a nice job keeping DeRozan off the line and keeping Lowry in front of them. But frankly, rookie Norman Powell looked more at ease in his first-ever playoff game than these Raptor leaders.
"If that means I've got to step up with a little bit more responsibility," Marcus Smart said of Avery Bradley perhaps missing Game 2, "then that's something I'm willing to take on." Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
3. Most important thing that happened in the East?
Forsberg: Avery Bradley's hamstring injury. Not only did the Celtics let a winnable Game 1 slip away, they also likely lost Avery Bradley for the remainder of the series. Bradley led Boston in offensive and defensive ratings this season and was one of the few guys that could slow Jeff Teague.
Gutierrez: Avery Bradley getting hurt. It's not that the Celtics were favored to make a Finals run or anything, but if we are going to find out how good the Celtics really are, or if their "superstar-free" roster can translate into playoff success, it's going to be with Bradley on board. Now, Boston needs some luck just to get past the first round.
Verrier: Avery Bradley's strained hamstring. Maybe the Celtics don't need a nominal superstar, as their shooting shirts proudly proclaim, but their collective approach can surely use a harassing on-ball defender with a plus-4.2 net rating, per NBA.com/Stats (fourth-best among C's regulars). You can come back from a loss more easily than a bum leg.
Wells: The loss of guard Avery Bradley (hamstring), likely for the rest of the first round, is devastating for Boston. He led the Celtics in minutes per game and was second in scoring, 3-point field goals per game and steals per game. The Celtics have to turn to rookies Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter to fill Bradley's void against an experienced Atlanta team.
Windhorst: Kevin Love had a huge fourth quarter, making two clutch 3-pointers and playing center effectively. Love's late-game production has been a mystery for two seasons now. But wow, did he look fantastic Sunday. Considering his very limited postseason career, it could be argued that this was the most important performance of his career.
Reggie Jackson, right, and the Pistons played well against LeBron James and the Cavaliers but couldn't make enough stops late in Game 1. AP Photo/Tony Dejak
4. East Game 2 you're looking forward to most?
Forsberg: Heat-Hornets. Miami bounced back nicely after that second-half collapse in Boston to end the regular season. It will be interesting to see whether Miami can dominate this first-round series and affirm its status as a legitimate contender (and a Miami-Cleveland series in the East finals would be intriguing for obvious reasons).
Gutierrez: Raptors-Pacers. Lowry said Saturday he "embarrassed" himself in last year's playoffs against the Wizards. He lost weight and is at five percent body fat because he thought it would help him this time of year. If he doesn't bounce back with a good Game 2, Raptors fans could lose faith in him for the long term. Some early-round pressure is always entertaining.
Verrier: Pistons-Cavaliers. Forget, for a moment, that any team other than the Cavs in the NBA Finals might qualify as human sacrifice. Like any good millennial, I want to be satisfied immediately, and the ultra-rare 1-8 upset, or even the threat of it, makes for delicious schadenfreude in what is otherwise a bore of a first round.
Wells: Raptors-Pacers. Toronto was the only Eastern Conference home team to lose Game 1. Losing both games at home will cause major panic inside the Raptors organization and make you think that they could get swept in the first round for the second straight season.
Windhorst: Pacers-Raptors. There's an enormous amount of pressure on Toronto. They face the first must-win game of the playoffs. Congrats.
5. Your one prediction that will surprise people is...
Forsberg: Celtics-Hawks is going seven games. With Bradley out, many will assume that this series is over, and with the way Teague has attacked without Bradley on the floor, it seems like a fair assumption. But let's see how Brad Stevens reacts. Boston's third-year coach had some serious stubble at Sunday's practice, suggesting he had spent a late night game-planning how Boston will adjust to losing its starting shooting guard. And Marcus Smart sounds mighty confident about his ability to help fill Bradley's shoes.
Gutierrez: The Celtics will still make it out of the first round. Yeah, they'll need some luck, like Kyle Korver continuing to shoot the way he did in Game 1 (1-for-10, 0-of-7 from 3), or maybe Paul Millsap having a foul-plagued night or two. But if any team can rally after the loss of a key figure, it's the team that has so many key figures.
Verrier: The Heat will win the East. Recency bias? Somewhat. Trolling? Sure. But the Cavs' reality show has been teetering all season, and giving up 101 points on 51 percent shooting to the second-worst offense in the playoffs certainly doesn't quell concerns. Miami, meanwhile, eviscerated Charlotte by taking away everything it wanted to do. I'll rent a bungalow with Amin on Heat Island.
Wells: Kevin Love finally moves to the forefront of the Cavs trio that also features LeBron James and Kyrie Irving by leading Cleveland in scoring by the end of their series against Detroit. His 28 points in Game 1 were second only to Irving's 31.
Windhorst: I don't make predictions. But keep an eye out for Andre Drummond to maybe guard a small forward or shooting guard at times in Game 2 in an effort to deal with Cavs' small lineup. On the ABC telecast, Jeff Van Gundy was practically begging his brother to do it during the game, and I'm quite sure it was discussed in their postgame debriefing.When the LEGO Movie first came out, I wanted to see it, but I did not think I was going to love it as much as I did. It was pretty cute and had a HUGELY catchy theme song.
“Everything is Awesome” played at my wedding for my new husband and me to walk to our reception. It was perfect. Only for us though. The rest of the party walked in to “Happy” because I don’t care about cliches 🙂
Then Spoonflower had a giveaway of 8×8 inch swatches of their Eco Canvas. One per household. One. Per. Household. Hmm….
I convinced Frank that he wanted one (I ordered one to myself to Frank’s house), and my grandmother ordered one for me, too. Is that cheating? I ended up with three pretty nice swatches. I ordered one of them with a LEGO Interlocking Brick pattern on it, with no idea what to do with it.
Eventually, this happened:
I was originally going to stitch it in yellow, but some of the bricks I’d be stitching over were the color I wanted to use. Also, I’m getting better at French knots.
One thing I just can’t understand how this is neater than my actual handwriting. I really can’t.
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One of the producers for the upcoming Splinter Cell movie has provided an update for how it's coming along and explained why star Tom Hardy is so excited to play Sam Fisher.
Regarding the status of the project, Basil Iwanyk told Collider that a script is finished and it's being sent to Hardy soon. If Hardy approves (he sent in notes about an earlier draft), then production should begin in earnest later this year, Iwanyk said. He added that the script is a "little long," but it's the best one that's been sent in so far.
Also in the interview, Iwanyk said the Splinter Cell movie has the potential to perform better at the box office than the Michael Fassbender-starring Assassin's Creed, which has made more than $210 million worldwide. This is because the producers are going to expand on the game's backstory, it sounds like. Instead of making it a retelling of any game in the series, it will be an action movie that people can enjoy even if they don't know the games.
"So the challenge of making Splinter Cell interesting was we didn't have this IP with a very specific backstory," he said. "That allowed us to make up our own world and really augment and fill out the characters. I don't think our movie will feel like a movie that came out of a video game, I think it'll feel like a badass, Tom Hardy action movie, which is what we wanted."
Iwanyk added that he doesn't anticipate the film receiving an R rating, but instead a "hard" PG-13. Story details are being kept under wraps, but Iwanyk said it probably won't be inspired by any real-world event. Also, it won't have a tone similar to James Bond or Jason Bourne films.
The Splinter Cell movie will instead try to break new ground.
"What's a world that we haven't seen yet? What's an area of the world and a conflict that we haven't really touched upon in movies in a long time, to make it feel fresh?" he said.
Finally, Iwanyk said Hardy is a gamer himself and has a lot of friends in the special ops word. "He wants to play this character [Sam Fisher] really, really badly," Iwanyk said.
No release date or supporting cast for the Splinter Cell movie have been announced. Bourne veteran Doug Liman was at one time attached to direct, but he has since dropped out, according to ScreenRant. Though the movie isn't even out yet, a sequel is reportedly in the works.
The latest entry in the Splinter Cell series, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, was released in August 2013.
Ubisoft is also making a movie based on The Division, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain.A cloistered nun has stunned her mother superior and sisters after giving birth to a baby boy after complaining of severe stomach pains.
The sister, who belonged to an order in Macerata, in the eastern Italian region of Le Marche, claimed to have no idea she was pregnant when she was rushed to hospital in agony, after which she gave birth.
The South American nun, who arrived at the convent in June, when it is supposed she was already pregnant, was taken to the emergency department of 'Bartolomeo Eustachio' di San Severino Marche by her fellow sisters.
The childbearing nun, originally from South America, claimed to have 'no idea' she was pregnant
Doctors quickly unravelled the cause of the mysterious ailment, Il Corriere Adriatico reported.
The baby was born healthy but remains in hospital to undergo more checks, while the nun's convent has expressed an interest in taking care of him, according to L'Unione Sarda.
The case bears a striking similarity to that of a 33-year-old Salvadorean nun in Italy, who gave birth to a baby boy last year, whom she named after Pope Francis.
She told her social worker she did not feel guilty and would raise the child saying: 'I am so happy. 'He is a gift from God. I feel more of a mother than a nun.'
In 2011 a Congolese nun in an Italian order gave birth to a baby girl after being raped by a priest.There are some ideas so daft that it takes a very smart person to think of them. Or, in the case of a new proposal to triple Canada’s population to 100 million by the end of the century, it takes an entire committee of smart people.
The authors of this particular idea are the fourteen members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, who issued their first report last week. To most Canadians, the idea is so preposterous as not to bear analyzing. Crumple it up and start again. But, as these are supposed to be serious thinkers — selected, according to a government press release, “because they are recognized, forward-thinking individuals in their respective fields” — it’s worth taking their proposal at face value.
Dominic Barton, the global managing partner of management consulting giant McKinsey & Co and the committee’s chief advocate of “a Canada of 100 million,” worries that without significant population growth, Canada’s international “relevance” will suffer. This is an odd thing to say, and an even odder thing to care about. How many Canadians, waking in the dark this morning, bundling their children into winter jackets and out the door to school, give two pucks for Canada’s “relevance”?
The disconnect between Mr. Barton, who lives in London, and the concerns of most Canadians was described in a recent column by Peggy Noonan as “something we are seeing all over, the top detaching itself from the bottom, feeling little loyalty to it or affiliation with it.”
“In Manhattan,” she says, “I see the children of the global business elite marry each other and settle in London or New York or Mumbai.” Having lived in London, New York, Washington DC and Ottawa (though not Mumbai), I’ve seen this phenomenon up close. Mr. Barton and his transnationalist peers think of Canada in terms of personal convenience and corporate expediency; to most Canadians, it means their home and community.
According to the Canadian Press, Mr. Barton believes “the world would benefit from a larger version of Canada’s stable, diversified democracy and economy” — but in the same breath he admits that 100 million “is a big number” that “would obviously change the country considerably.”
He fails to explain why we should believe Canada would remain the peaceful, pluralist society we currently enjoy after we added 65 million new people. Or why we would risk our remarkable and (looking around the world) extremely rare security and prosperity for … for what? “Relevance?”
Significantly increasing immigration levels in defiance of the preference of Canadians, including recent immigrants, invites a sharp public backlash. Those who decry Trumpism should be the most vocal opponents of this proposal. Significantly increasing immigration levels in defiance of the preference of Canadians, including recent immigrants, invites a sharp public backlash. Those who decry Trumpism should be the most vocal opponents of this proposal.
There is no reason to think a Canada of 100 million would be a better place to live and good reasons to think it wouldn’t. Of the twenty countries with the highest per capita GDP, only the United States has more than 100 million people. Most have fewer than 10 million.
The bias against size carries across other national virtues. Happiness? Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland. Income equality? Sweden, Hungary, Norway. Reputation? Sweden, Canada, Switzerland. See a pattern?
The Trudeau government’s own immigration policy belies the Advisory Council’s assumption that more immigration will result in net economic benefits. Under the previous government, economic immigration as a percentage of overall immigration approached 67 per cent; under the new government, it has fallen to 53 per cent. In other words, there is a lot that can be done by better selecting immigrants within existing levels before we consider increasing intake.
It’s true we are a large country, with plenty of open space, but recent immigration has not filled that emptiness and future immigration is likely to follow the established paths to our cities and suburbs. Even at current, historically high immigration levels, Canada’s population is projected to grow by more than 20 million in the next 35 years. Are you ready for a Toronto of 20 million and a Vancouver of 10 million?
None of this will affect the members of Trudeau’s Advisory Council. For them, immigration is something that happens elsewhere. The acres of tract housing sprawling into farmland and greenbelts around our major cities are glimpsed by these people only in the minutes before takeoff and landing. Hopping between leafy downtown enclaves and luxury hotels, they won’t feel the strain on our roads, hospitals and schools, or the deterioration of our built and natural environments.
Industry Minister Navdeep Bains has already cautioned that he is hearing pushback from Canadians. This isn’t surprising. The government’s own polling shows only 8 per cent of Canadians think immigration should increase, while three times as many believe it is already too high. And that was before the Trudeau government increased annual levels to 300,000 already this year.
A government ignores clear public opinion at its peril — and at the nation’s. Significantly increasing immigration levels in defiance of the clear preference of Canadians, including recent immigrants, invites a sharp public backlash of the kind we’ve seen in the United States, the U.K. and Europe. Those who decry Trumpism should be the most vocal opponents of this proposal.
Unlike management consultants, citizens ask questions that are beyond the Advisory Council’s remit. Questions like: What will it mean to be Canadian after we’ve added 65 million new people? What holds our society together when immigration is so rapid that integration becomes impossible?
However smart the Advisory Council members may be, it’s average Canadians who are displaying common sense. They know that size is not a meaningful measure of national success. And they have seen from experience that when immigration is accelerated too quickly, multiculturalism becomes a centrifugal force — no longer holding successive waves of immigrants in a stable tension but driving us apart.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.Prime Minister Infinity – Canada is the definitive Canadian election game!
Note: 2019 will be added in mid 2019 and will be included as an update for anyone who purchases the game now.
Prime Minister Infinity – Canada features
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More …
Battle for control of Parliament. Can the Conservatives return to power with a majority, or will the NDP or Liberals take the Prime Minister’s office? It’s close. How many breakthroughs can the Greens make? Will Independents hold the balance of power in a new Parliament?
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The government conceded last week that it had to publish the 58 studies covering various parts of the economy after the move was supported in a Labour opposition motion that was passed unanimously on Wednesday.
While normal opposition motions are advisory, Labour presented this one as a “humble address”, a rare and antiquated procedure which the Speaker, John Bercow, advised was usually seen as binding.
The leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, said on Thursday that the government accepted the motion as binding, and that “the information will be forthcoming”.
However, she gave no timescale – the government has previously said it will respond to opposition motions within 12 weeks – and indicated some elements of the papers would need to be redacted to avoid “disclosing information that could harm the national interest”.
The Labour motion called for the papers to be released immediately to the Brexit select committee, which has a majority of Conservative MPs, and which would then decide what elements should not be published more widely.
The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has warned that Labour will refer the matter to Bercow over possible contempt if the studies are not passed to the committee before parliament’s one-week recess begins on Tuesday.
The parliamentary rulebook, known as Erskine May after its 19th-century author, says actions that obstruct or impede the Commons “in the performance of its functions, or are offences against its authority or dignity, such as disobedience to its legitimate commands” be can viewed as contempt.
MPs held in contempt can be asked to apologise, suspended or even expelled by their fellows. Offenders can also theoretically be confined to a room in the Big Ben clock tower, although this power has not been used since 1880.
Labour is confident Bercow supports their contention the papers should be released soon, citing an answer the Speaker gave during Wednesday’s debate to the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston.
Bercow said: “If the honourable lady is asking me whether I envisage this being something that needs to be deliberated on over a period of several days, the answer is no.”
Hilary Benn, the Labour leader of the Brexit select committee, wrote to the Brexit secretary, David Davis, on Friday seeking to gain access to the studies as soon as possible.
Labour has sought for months to secure the release of the studies, which cover the great majority of the UK economy. The reluctance of ministers has prompted speculation they are wary of sharing them because of the gloomy assessments they contain.
The Labour motion was passed unanimously after the government said it would not oppose the measure, a tactic it has taken several times recently to ward off likely rebellions by Tory MPs.
Starmer said in a statement that ministers had “wasted months sidelining Parliament and keeping businesses in the dark”.
He said: “Labour’s victory over the government last week means we can finally have greater transparency over the impact Brexit could have on jobs and the economy.
“But we need ministers to act urgently on this issue by handing over the economic impact assessments to the Brexit select committee. That is why I am urging the government to release the papers before parliament rises on Tuesday. If ministers fail to act then we will have no choice but to raise this matter with the Speaker of the Commons.”
Meanwhile, the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has said the Brexit referendum has stalled Britain’s growth at a time when global conditions mean it should be booming – and warned that the Bank would not be able to intervene to stimulate growth if a bad deal pushed inflation higher.
Carney said: “Since the referendum, business investment has picked up, but not any of the extent one would have expected, given how strong the world is and easy financial conditions are. It should really be booming and it’s just growing.”
Speaking on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, Carney said investment had been deterred by uncertainty over the eventual deal. “The Brexit uncertainty is reinforcing something that started in 2008. Productivity is going to pick up over the next couple of years but not to the degree of the past, and it’s that Brexit effect which is weighing on it.”
He said productivity should have started rising in line with global trends in the past two years but had flatlined after the referendum was announced.
Asked if a failure to strike a post-Brexit trade deal would see growth fall while full membership of the customs unions and single market would see it improve, Carney replied: “Yes – the short answer is yes.”
He warned that the Bank would not have any flexibility to cut interest rates without a good Brexit deal, due to its responsibilities to keep inflation down. “If we got a worst-case deal, growth would go down and inflation would rise.”QUERY WEEK PART DEUX:
After the Query
By Sarah J. Maas
~
So, let’s say your query was stellar, and you’ve got a whole pile of requests from agents! Excellent. But what the heck do agents mean when they ask for the first fifty pages, or the first three chapters, or—eek!—the full manuscript?
First of all, this is AMAZING. This means you’ve got the agent’s attention. Feel free to do a victory dance. Go ahead. You know you want to.
Done? Awesome. Now, let’s get down to business.
When an agent requests the first fifty pages or the first three chapters, this is called a Partial Request (ooooh). They want to get a sense of your writing before committing to reading more from you. This is precisely why your opening pages are SO important—this is your only shot to get that agent excited about your work. If an agent likes your partial, they’ll most likely request the rest of the manuscript.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I got my first partial requests, I freaked out. Why? Because Page 50 stopped right in the middle of a scene! Most often, your first 50 pages will end somewhere inconvenient.
You can either choose to end the partial at the scene closest to page 50 (maybe it ends on page 48), OR you can just find a good final sentence on page 50 and end it there. It doesn’t matter THAT much, but I personally preferred to close the partial with the end of a scene, rather than stop in some random place/in the middle of the action. If your scene ends on page 51, it’s okay to go over by a little bit, but not by much.
But what if an agent replies to your query with a request for the full manuscript? Well, the short answer is: Jackpot! They want to read your entire book. This essentially translates into: “Your Query Blew My Mind, and I’m Hoping Your Book Will, Too.”
When you send off your partial or full manuscript to an agent, it should ALWAYS look professional. To help with that, here are a few rules to abide by:
Your manuscript should be double-spaced in Times New Roman, 12-point font (unless the agent specifies otherwise—make sure to check!!!).
in (unless the agent specifies otherwise—make sure to check!!!). You should have 1-inch margins.
. DON’T FORGET PAGE NUMBERS! Upper or lower right corners are fine.
! Upper or lower right corners are fine. Be sure to add in a header that includes your name and the title of your work (example: Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Glass).
(example: Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Glass). Chapters should begin around 10 lines down from the top of the page (like in a book).
When sending electronically, remember that some agents don’t have computers that support.docx, so always send your manuscript in.doc format.
Again, some agents might prefer a different set up, so ALWAYS double-check their agency guidelines before you send them material!
Once you’ve sent off your material, the hard part begins:
Waiting.
Waiting to hear back from an agent is like being in limbo. You jump every time the phone rings, you flinch every time you see your inbox announce that you have 1 new message. Sometimes, all you want to do is lie on the couch and eat bag after bag of Cheetos as you watch reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Normally, after sending your material, you can expect to hear back between 8 and 10 weeks. If you haven’t received a response after 10 weeks, it’s not considered inappropriate to send the agent an email to check on the status of your manuscript.
Sometimes, you’ll wonder if an agent even received your materials. Some agents send a confirmation email to let you know that they received your manuscript—but many just won’t reply until they’re telling you Yes or No. If you don’t receive a confirmation email, please refrain from bugging them about it—wait until the appropriate 8-10 weeks have passed before inquiring.
It’s maddening, but try to find ways to occupy yourself while waiting for agents to get back to you: start a new novel, bake hundreds of cookies, go for long walks. You can’t let the waiting overrun your life, and often you’ll hear back at the most unexpected times. I actually missed The Call from my agent because I was sleeping!
I heard my phone ring early in the morning and was SO ANNOYED that someone was calling me at the crack of dawn (even though it was more like 10 AM) that I didn’t even bother to pick up! When I finally got up and listened to my voicemail, BOY was that the most heart-stopping message of all time!
In short, you |
adversely influence the camera is the most difficult part of their usage.
Cameras do differ somewhat from AI objects in this determination however, since there are additional aesthetic considerations to consider (such as the requirement to ensure smooth motion whenever possible). Thus if the camera incidentally moves past an attractor, it is not necessarily appropriate that it should be influenced. If the camera were moving away from the attractor, for example, we would not wish to apply any forces.
By careful choice of the attractor positions, camera motion can be made to avoid geometry or pass through confined environments without the necessity for complicated hand-scripted camera solutions. Indeed, the attractor or repulsors can be combined with regular game objects (such as doors) to assist camera motion without any additional scripting support.
Flow fields
Flow fields are sparse arrays of vectors (i.e., directions), normally spaced apart in a grid across a 2D plane or within a 3D volume. The spacing of the vectors is not necessarily uniform. As the camera (or other object) passes through the flow field, vectors that are close to the camera affect its motion by applying a force in the direction of their orientation. The strength of force may be dependent upon the distance of the camera from the plane or some other factor.
The name derives from the fact that the array of vectors is akin to a stream or other moving body of water that flows around objects. By adjusting the direction of the vectors, we can ensure that the camera will move around obstacles in much the same manner.
Thus, it is important to ensure that the direction of the vectors will not cause situations to arise where the camera remains stationary as competing vectors cancel out their influence, or prevent the camera from clearing obstacles.
The use of flow fields is usually applied as an additional influence on camera motion, rather than the sole factor. In addition, it is necessary to determine when the additional influence should be applied. For example, the vectors could be uni- or bi-directional.
If the camera is able to navigate through the flow field in different directions relative to the flow field vector directions, the influence might only be applied when the camera motion is parallel to the direction of the vector. Additionally, the amount of influence may also be proportional to the velocity of the camera.
Influence maps
Influence maps are another sparse array, similar to flow fields in some regards. However, the mapping of the camera position from the influence map is normally based upon the position of the target object relative to the influence map rather than the camera itself. Each position on the influence map corresponds to a different position in space for the camera to occupy.
The desired position derived from the influence map is used as an interpolant so that the motion of the camera from its current position will be smooth. In some ways, spline motion can be considered a one-dimensional variant of the influence map. In this case, the target object position relative to the spline maps back to a position that the camera should occupy on the same (or a different) spline. Influence maps may be explicitly positioned or generated offline from collision or visibility information.
Potential fields
Derived from research into robot navigation, potential fields are a promising approach to dynamic camera navigation and collision avoidance. While this is an advanced topic beyond the scope of this book, a brief overview might be helpful. Potential fields are based on the principle of electrostatic forces; that is, forces whose effect on objects is proportional to the distance of the object from the force applier.
Essentially, these forces are applied to the active camera to prevent its approach toward collision or render geometry. Additionally these force components are added to the motion of the camera, aiding navigation through confined spaces and often avoiding many of the problems caused when the camera might be in collision with geometry.
The forces may be defined explicitly as points or plane surfaces and thus placed within the environment by designers in a similar manner to attractors and repulsors as previously mentioned. Alternatively, their position and orientation may also be automatically generated as part of the cooking of world data.
Similarly, the collision geometry may be used to generate forces. However, the complex nature of collision geometry would likely make determination of the forces closest to the camera computationally expensive. One possible solution is to generate an implicit surface that approximates the collision geometry in a smooth and continuous manner and facilitates rapid determination of the closest positions to the camera. See Bloomenthal for an introduction to implicit surfaces.
Robotics research has explored these techniques with mixed results (e.g., see Koren). There are some notable limitations regarding the complexity of the environments, especially regarding dead-ends. There may also be oscillation problems when the forces are applied from opposite directions simultaneously (e.g., in a narrow corridor).
Refer to Stout for more information on the practical application of potential fields within games. An alternative and very promising solution is offered in Borenstein, using vector field histograms (VFH). Briefly, VFHs store information regarding the distance of obstacles from the object determined by infrared or other sensors.
These sensors are typically mounted either at fixed angular offsets or rotate around a central point, effectively casting rays into the environment. The distance information returned at each angular offset may then be analyzed over time. A histogram of known obstacles is thus constructed, providing sufficient information to determine potential collisions.
Bibliography
[Bloomenthal97] Bloomenthal, Jules (ed.). Introduction to Implicit Surfaces. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1997.
[Borenstein90] Borenstein, J. Koren, Y. (1990). "Realtime Obstacle Avoidance for Fast Mobile Robots in Cluttered Environments." The 1990 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 13-18, pp. 572-577.
[Ericson05] Ericson, Christer. Real-Time Collision Detection. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2005.
[Halper01] Halper, Nicolas, Helbing, Ralf, Strothotte, Thomas. "A Camera Engine for Computer Games: Managing the Trade-Off Between Constraint Satisfaction and Frame Coherence." Proceedings of EUROGRAPHICS 2001 (Volume 20, Number 3). Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
[Koren91] Koren, Y. Borenstein, J. (1991). "Potential Field Methods and Their Inherent Limitations for Mobile Robot Navigation." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, Sacramento, California, April 7-12, pp. 1398-1404.
[Stout04] Stout, Bryan. "Artificial Potential Fields for Navigation and Animation." Presentation at Game Developers Conference 2004, San Jose, 2004. Written GDC 2004 proceedings.
[VandenBergen04] Van den Bergen, Gino. Collision Detection in Interactive 3D Environments. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2004.
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Copyright © UBM Tech, All rights reservedChapter 55 - For the deceased at the funeral prayer
- "O Allah, forgive and have mercy upon him, excuse him and pardon him, and make honourable his reception. Expand his entry, and cleanse him with water, snow, and ice, and purify him of sin as a white robe is purified of filth. Exchange his home for a better home, and his family for a better family, and his spouse for a better spouse. Admit him into the Garden, protect him from the punishment of the grave and the torment of the Fire."
اللهُـمِّ اغْفِـرْ لَهُ وَارْحَمْـه ، وَعافِهِ وَاعْفُ عَنْـه ، وَأَكْـرِمْ نُزُلَـه ، وَوَسِّـعْ مُدْخَـلَه ، وَاغْسِلْـهُ بِالْمـاءِ وَالثَّـلْجِ وَالْبَـرَدْ ، وَنَقِّـهِ مِنَ الْخطـايا كَما نَـقّيْتَ الـثَّوْبُ الأَبْيَـضُ مِنَ الدَّنَـسْ ، وَأَبْـدِلْهُ داراً خَـيْراً مِنْ دارِه ، وَأَهْلاً خَـيْراً مِنْ أَهْلِـه ، وَزَوْجَـاً خَـيْراً مِنْ زَوْجِه ، وَأَدْخِـلْهُ الْجَـنَّة ، وَأَعِـذْهُ مِنْ عَذابِ القَـبْر وَعَذابِ النّـار
Allâhumma ghfir lahu wa r h amhu wa câfihi, wa cfu canhu, wa akrim nuzulahu, wa wassic mudkhalahu, wa ghsilhu bi-l-mâ'i wa th-thalji wa-l-baradi. Wa naqqihi mina-l-kha t âya kamâ naqqayta th-thawba-l-abya d a mina d-danasi. Wa abdilhu dâran khayran min dârihi, wa ahlan khayran min ahlihi, wa zawjan khayran min zawjihi. Wa dkhilhu-l-jannata wa acidh-hu min cadhâbi-l-qaqbr [wa cadhâbi n-nâr].
- "O Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those present and those absent, our young and our old, our males and our females. O Allah, whom amongst us You keep alive, then let such a life be upon Islam, and whom amongst us You take unto Yourself, then let such a death be upon faith. O Allah, do not deprive us of his reward and do not let us stray after him."
اللهُـمِّ اغْفِـرْ لِحَيِّـنا وَمَيِّتِـنا وَشـاهِدِنا ، وَغائِبِـنا ، وَصَغيـرِنا وَكَبيـرِنا ، وَذَكَـرِنا وَأُنْثـانا. اللهُـمِّ مَنْ أَحْيَيْـتَهُ مِنّا فَأَحْيِـهِ عَلى الإِسْلام ،وَمَنْ تَوَفَّـيْتَهُ مِنّا فَتَوَفَّـهُ عَلى الإِيـمان ، اللهُـمِّ لا تَحْـرِمْنـا أَجْـرَه ، وَلا تُضِـلَّنا بَعْـدَه
Allâhumma ghfir li- h ayyinâ wa mayyitinâ, wa shâhidinâ wa ghâ'ibinâ, wa s aghîrinâ wa kabîrinâ, wa dhakarinâ wa unthânâ. Allâhumma man a h yaytahu minnâ fa-a h yihi calâ-l-islâmi. Wa man tawaffaytahu minnâ fa-tawaffahu calâ-l-îmâni. Allâhumma lâ ta h rimnâ ajrahu wa la tu d illabâ bacdahu.
- "O Allah, so-and-so is under Your care and protection so protect him from the trial of the grave and torment of the Fire. Indeed You are faithful and truthful. Forgive and have mercy upon him, surely You are The Oft-Forgiving, The Most-Merciful."
اللهُـمِّ إِنَّ فُلانَ بْنَ فُلانٍ في ذِمَّـتِك ، وَحَبْـلِ جِـوارِك ، فَقِـهِ مِنْ فِتْـنَةِ الْقَـبْرِ وَعَذابِ النّـار ، وَأَنْتَ أَهْلُ الْوَفـاءِ وَالْـحَقِّ ، فَاغْفِـرْ لَهُ وَارْحَمْـهُ ، إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الغَـفورُ الـرَّحيم
Allâhumma inna (citer le nom) fî dhimmatika wa h abli jiwârika. Fa-qihi min fitnati-l-qabri wa cadhâbi n-nâri. Wa anta ahlu-l-wafâ'i wa-l- h haqqi. Fa-ghfir lahu wa r h amhu, innaka anta-l-ghafûru r-ra h îm.
- "O Allah, Your servant and the son of Your maidservant is in need of Your mercy and You are without need of his punishment. If he was righteous then increase his reward and if he was wicked then look over his sins."
اللهُـمِّ عَبْـدُكَ وَابْنُ أَمَـتِك، احْتـاجَ إِلى رَحْمَـتِك، وَأَنْتَ غَنِـيٌّ عَنْ عَذابِـه، إِنْ كانَ مُحْـسِناً فَزِدْ في حَسَـناتِه، وَإِنْ كانَ مُسـيئاً فَتَـجاوَزْ عَنْـه
Allâhumma cabduka wa bnu amatika i h tâja ilâ ra h matika. Wa anta ghaniyyun can cadhâbihi. In kâna mu h sinan, fa-zid fî h asanâtihi. Wa in kâna musî'an fa-tajâwaz canhu.
Back to chapters listReserve component officers and warrant officers can go on active duty if they apply to be considered within the next few weeks.
The Army is expanding the Regular Army Call to Active Duty program this year to include officers and warrant officers in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard.
The CAD program is part of the Army's effort to reach the end strength growth called for in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. The service is slated to grow the active Army by 16,000 for an end strength of 476,000, Lt. Col. Janet Herrick, a spokeswoman for Human Resources Command, told Army Times on Feb. 23.
The program is open to those in specific grades and specialties, according to a Military Personnel Message released Feb. 3.
The deadline to apply is March 31. Officers who are accepted will be notified by e-mail no later than Aug. 31, according to the release.
Through the program, "the Army looks to retain the talent, skills and experience of quality officers who are fit, resilient and ready to serve America's Army," said Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Calloway, director of HRC's Officer Personnel Management Directorate, in a Feb. 22 Army release.
"Each year the program is open to varying grades and specialties for officers and warrant officers to match the needs of the Army and keep skilled officers on active duty," Herrick said.
The CAD program is different from a branch transfer program; with its emphasis on skills and experience, it focuses on officers qualified in their requesting branch or functional area, according to the MILPER message.
The selections will be made based on what skills the Army needs at the time officers are selected, officials said.
Those who transfer to active duty will have a three-year active-duty service obligation, according to the MILPER message.
Who's eligible
Commissioned officers in these grades and specialties may apply:Police investigating West Campus homicide Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Amanda Brandeis/KXAN Police investigating West Campus homicide Amanda Brandeis/KXAN prev next
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin police are investigating the death of a 19-year-old man who was found unconscious in the 500 block of West 26th Street at the GrandMarc Apartments early Friday morning.
Officers, who were originally called for a check welfare around 5.49a.m., found the victim in with a head injury. The victim was transported to University Medical Center at Brackenridge, where he later died.
Police say a suspect is in custody and charges are pending. According to a letter sent to residents of the apartment, the two people knew each other.
"Safety of our residents is of the utmost importance to us," the letter says. "We will do our best to maintain and open line of communication with you."
The victim's name has not been released at this time.
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Letter sent to residents of GrandMarc ApartmentsBill Clinton has not forgiven Ted Kennedy or Caroline Kennedy for their support of Barack Obama during their heated primary fight for the Democratic nomination last year.
The New York Times magazine will report on Sunday that Clinton felt he “did so much” for the Kennedys over the years and that they had become almost family. He felt deeply betrayed when they endorsed Obama instead of his wife.
Indeed, as IrishCentral.com has previously reported when word of the impending Kennedy announcement was circulating, Clinton tried to have several leading Irish Americans call Kennedy to try and get him to change his mind.
As Clinton sees it, according to the article by Peter Baker, “he did so much for the Kennedys over the years that he felt they became almost family.”
In the article, Bono also criticizes the former President for not doing enough about AIDS overseas when he was in office.
“He did a lot on domestic AIDS, but I think he does beat himself up on not dealing with global AIDS quickly enough,” Bono told the Times. However, since leaving office, Bono says Clinton “not only got up to speed but got into the fast lane in fighting this epidemic.”
Clinton agrees with Bono. On AIDS he said, “I felt that neither I nor anyone else in the world did enough. We tripled overseas AIDS funding when I was President, and we were contributing about 25 percent of the funding in the world, but it was a pitiful amount.”
The article also makes clear that the Obama/Clinton relationship is guarded. The two have only spoken once since Obama became President and there is little love lost despite the fact that Hillary is Secretary of State. However, Clinton is praised by Obama insiders for staying out of the way of the new President and not trying to upstage him.
People who worked in both administrations compare Obama favorably to Clinton in terms of his working habits. They “marvel” at Obama’s discipline, and remember with a shudder Clinton’s “purple rages” when he castigated staff members behind closed doors.
Clinton also reveals that he does not have the same amount of the legendary stamina he used have since his heart surgery six years ago. However, he says his slower pace has made him more mellow and more laid-back about his life and career. He and his wife spend every weekend they can together, but mostly live separate lives, often globetrotting to different countries at the same time.Though the labor market is slowly improving, the Great Recession that began in December 2007 was so long and severe that the crater it left in the labor market continues to be devastating for workers of all ages. Unemployment has been above eight percent for more than three years, and 12.7 million workers remain unemployed today. The weak labor market has been, and continues to be, particularly tough on young workers: At 16.4 percent, the March unemployment rate for workers under age 25 was twice as high as the national average. Though the labor market is now headed in the right direction, the prospects for young high school and college graduates remain grim. This briefing paper examines the labor market that confronts young graduates who are not enrolled in additional schooling—specifically, high school graduates age 17–20 and college graduates age 21–24—and details the following findings:
Unemployment and underemployment rates of young graduates have only modestly improved since their peak in 2010. For young high school graduates, the unemployment rate was 32.7 percent in 2010 and 31.1 percent over the last year (April 2011–March 2012), while the underemployment rate was 55.9 percent in 2010 and 54.0 percent over the last year. For young college graduates, the unemployment rate was 10.4 percent in 2010 and 9.4 percent over the last year, while the underemployment rate was 19.8 percent in 2010 and 19.1 percent over the last year.
There is no evidence that young high school graduates have been able to “shelter in school” from the labor market effects of the Great Recession; college and university enrollment rates for both men and women have not meaningfully departed from their long-term trend since the start of the Great Recession.
The long-run wage trends for young graduates are bleak, with wages substantially lower today than they were in 2000. Between 2000 and 2011, the real (inflation-adjusted) wages of young high school graduates declined by 11.1 percent, and the real wages of young college graduates declined by 5.4 percent.
Young graduates lack opportunities for advancement, a trend underscored by the fact that there are now nearly 30 percent fewer voluntary quits each month than there were each month in 2007.
Graduating in a bad economy has long-lasting economic consequences. For the next 10 to 15 years, the Class of 2012 will likely earn less than they would have if they had graduated when job opportunities were plentiful.
The safety net of federal and state assistance programs often does not cover young workers due to eligibility requirements such as significant prior work experience.
The cost of higher education has grown far more rapidly than median family income, leaving students with little choice but to take out loans, which, upon graduating into a labor market with limited job opportunities, they may not have the funds to repay.
The scarcity of job opportunities for the Class of 2012 is a symptom of weak demand for workers in the overall economy. What will bring down the unemployment rate of young workers most quickly and effectively are policies that will generate strong job growth overall, such as fiscal relief to states, substantial additional investment in infrastructure, expanded safety net measures, and direct job creation programs in communities particularly hard-hit by unemployment.
Unemployment rate twice as high for young workers
In economic recessions as well as expansions, the unemployment rate for young workers (those under age 25) is typically around twice as high as the overall unemployment rate (see Figure A for national data and Appendix Table A1 for state-level data). This trend persists over time because young workers are relatively new to the labor market—often looking for their first or second job—and they may be passed over in hiring decisions due to lack of experience. For young workers who are already employed, their lack of seniority makes them likely candidates for being laid off when the firm falls on hard times. Young workers also tend to be more mobile than older workers, moving between jobs, employers, careers, or even cities, and thus spend a larger share of their time as job seekers.
Figure A Unemployment rate of workers under age 25 and all workers, 1969–2012 Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Data are not seasonally adjusted. Source: Authors' analysis of Current Population Survey public data series Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
The historical fact that the unemployment rate for young workers tends to be around twice the overall rate continues to be true today. In March, the overall unemployment rate averaged 8.2 percent, and the unemployment rate of workers under age 25, at 16.4 percent, was exactly twice as high.
This raises two key points. First, because the unemployment rate of young workers is always around twice as high as the overall rate, young workers experience much greater-than-average increases in unemployment during economic downturns. When the overall unemployment rate rises by one percentage point, the unemployment rate for young workers will likely rise by around two percentage points.
Second, the situation young workers face today is not unexpected given the overall weakness in the labor market. In other words, unemployment of young workers is extremely high not because of something unique about the Great Recession and its aftermath that has affected young people in particular, but because young workers always experience disproportionate increases in unemployment during downturns—and the Great Recession was the longest, most severe recession this country has seen in more than seven decades.
The title of this paper, “Class of 2012,” is admittedly something of a misnomer, because we do not yet know the labor market outcomes of these soon-to-be graduates. However, by presenting the labor market outcomes of recent high school and college graduates, we can get a good sense of the labor market conditions confronting the young men and women graduating in the Class of 2012 this spring.
For young high school graduates, very high unemployment and no great increase in college enrollment
Among young high school graduates, unemployment and underemployment rates are astonishingly high. Figure B shows the unemployment rate for young high school graduates between age 17 and 20 who are not enrolled in additional schooling. (All data on graduates who are not enrolled, or on enrollment itself, presented in this paper begin in 1989, the first business cycle peak in which enrollment data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
Figure B Unemployment rate for young high school graduates, by gender, 1989–2012* *Latest 12-month average: April 2011–March 2012. Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Data are for high school graduates age 17–20 who are not enrolled in further schooling. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
As Figure B shows, the unemployment rate for young high school graduates jumped from 17.5 percent in 2007 to 32.7 percent in 2010, dwarfing the increases in prior recessions. The rate has since declined slightly, to an average of 31.1 percent over the last year (April 2011–March 2012). The increase since 2007 was larger for young male high school graduates (from 18.7 percent in 2007 to an average of 32.9 percent over the last year) than for young female high school graduates (from 15.8 percent in 2007 to an average of 28.5 percent over the last year). Men’s unemployment rates tend to disproportionately increase during downturns because men are more concentrated in industries, such as manufacturing and construction, that are particularly hard-hit by recessions.
Figure C shows that among young high school graduates, the unemployment rate for racial and ethnic minorities—particularly young black graduates—tends to be higher than that of whites, in good times and bad. In 2007, the unemployment rate of young white high school graduates was 14.5 percent. It rose to 29.1 percent in 2010 and improved slightly to an average of 25.6 percent over the last year. In 2007, the unemployment rate of young black high school graduates was 33.0 percent. It continued on a general upward trend until 2011, when it was 48.9 percent, and continued creeping up, to 49.1 percent over the last year. In 2007, the unemployment rate for young Hispanic high school graduates was 15.5 percent. That rate also continued to rise until 2011, when it was 35.7 percent, and improved to 33.8 percent over the last year.
Figure C Unemployment rate for young high school graduates, by race/ethnicity, 1989–2012* *Latest 12-month average: April 2011–March 2012. Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Data are for high school graduates age 17–20 who are not enrolled in further schooling. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
Because the definition of unemployment includes only jobless workers who report that they are actively seeking work, the unemployment rate overlooks those who are “underemployed”: jobless workers who want a job but have given up looking, and workers who have a job but cannot get the hours they want or need.
Figure D presents national data on both unemployment and underemployment among young high school graduates, providing a more comprehensive look at slack in the labor market. Underemployment rates include not just workers who are unemployed but also those who are working part time but want full-time work (“involuntary” part-timers), and those who want a job and who have looked for work in the last year but have given up actively seeking work (“marginally attached” workers).
Currently, while the unemployment rate for young high school graduates is 31.1 percent, the underemployment rate of young high school graduates is over 50 percent (54.0 percent). In other words, in addition to the officially unemployed, a significant share of these young people either want a job but have simply given up looking for work, or have a job that does not provide the hours they need. While state breakdowns of underemployment by educational attainment are not available, Appendix Table A2 shows state-level underemployment rates for all workers by age.
Figure D Unemployment and underemployment rates of young high school graduates, 1994–2012* *Latest 12-month average: April 2011–March 2012. Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Underemployment data are only available beginning in 1994. Data are for high school graduates age 17–20 who are not enrolled in further schooling. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
Young people are not sheltering from the Great Recession in school
Educational opportunity is often cited as a silver lining to the dark cloud of unemployment that looms over today’s young people. The assumption is that a lack of job opportunities propels young workers to “shelter” from the downturn by getting additional schooling, which will improve their long-run career prospects. But, while it may be comforting to believe that school can provide a safe haven from a desperate labor market, there is no evidence of an uptick in enrollment due to the Great Recession.
Figure E shows the share of young high school graduates who are enrolled in college or university. This share has greatly increased (from 44.0 percent in 1989 to 59.6 percent in 2011), with particularly steep increases for women (44.6 percent to 63.1 percent) compared with men (43.4 percent to 55.9 percent). Notably, although the enrollment rate has risen since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, the increase is not a departure from the longer-term trend. For reference, the dotted lines show the linear trend based on 1989–2007 data. The dotted lines after 2007 thus show what enrollment rates would have been if they had simply continued their long-run trend. Enrollment since the start of the Great Recession has continued to grow at its long-run pace, with no meaningful departure from that trend for either men or women.
Figure E Share of young high school graduates who are enrolled in college or a university, by gender, 1989–2011 Notes: Straight lines are linear trends based on the period 1989–2007. Data are for high school graduates age 17–20. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
It is also worth mentioning that while the enrollment rates in Figure E are just for high school graduates between the ages of 17 and 20, the same conclusions hold true when analyzing enrollment data for all high school graduates under age 25. Since the start of the Great Recession, college and university enrollment rates have not meaningfully departed from their long-term trend for either men or women. Appendix Table A3 shows enrollment rates by state for high school graduates under age 25.
That enrollment has not increased above its long-run trend despite the lack of job opportunities in the Great Recession and its aftermath is likely largely due to an often-overlooked fact: Students and workers are not two distinct groups. Many students must work to pay for school or cover living expenses. In 2007, before the recession began, more than half (51.2 percent) of college students were employed. By 2011, the share of college students with a job had dropped to 45.2 percent. For students who must work in order to afford school, but cannot find work due to the poor labor market, “sheltering in school” is not an option. In this downturn, certainly some students have had the financial resources to take shelter in school, but the lack of a substantial increase in enrollment suggests that this group has been offset by students who have been forced to drop out of school because a lack of work meant they could not afford to attend.
The lack of a Great Recession-fueled increase in college or university enrollment, combined with the lack of job prospects, means a large share of young high school graduates are now “disconnected,” neither enrolled nor employed (Figure F). In 2007, 13.7 percent of young high school graduates were neither enrolled nor employed, and that share spiked to 17.7 percent in 2010. It has since declined slightly, to an average of 16.9 percent in 2011. The increase was larger for young male high school graduates (from 13.6 percent in 2007 to 19.1 percent in 2010 to 18.1 percent in 2011) than young female high school graduates (from 13.8 percent in 2007 to 16.4 percent in 2010 to 15.8 percent in 2011). The increase in the share of “disconnected” young people represents an enormous loss of opportunities for this young cohort, as the lack of work experience and/or education will have a lasting negative impact on their lifetime earnings. The long-term scarring effects of the Great Recession and its aftermath on young graduates are discussed in depth later in this paper.
Figure F Share of young high school graduates who are not enrolled in college or a university and not employed, by gender, 1989–2011 Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Data are for high school graduates age 17–20. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
Young college graduates also struggle to find work
Young college graduates typically have very strong labor force attachment. By attending and graduating from college, they make a significant down payment on their career in terms of both time and money. And because a college degree affords one more opportunities in the labor market, unemployment and underemployment among young workers with a college degree is substantially lower than among other young workers. However, young college graduates have also seen a dramatic deterioration in their job prospects since the start of the Great Recession. In this section we examine the labor market outcomes of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 who do not have an advanced degree and are not enrolled in additional education.
Figure G shows that the unemployment rate for young college graduates jumped from 5.7 percent in 2007 to 10.4 percent in 2010, dwarfing the increases in prior recessions. It has since declined slightly, to an average of 9.4 percent over the last year. Given that the unemployment picture for young college graduates has yet to show substantial improvement, the Class of 2012 will be joining a significant backlog of unemployed college graduates from the Classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011 in an extremely difficult job market.
Figure G Unemployment rate for young college graduates, by gender, 1989–2012* *Latest 12-month average: April 2011–March 2012. Note: Shaded areas denote recessions. Data are for college graduates age 21–24 who are not enrolled in further schooling. Source: Authors' analysis of basic monthly Current Population Survey microdata Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image
Unemployment data by gender, though somewhat volatile due to relatively small sample sizes, show that the increase in unemployment was larger for young male college graduates (from 6.9 percent in 2007 to a peak of 12.5 percent in 2010) than young female college graduates (from 4.8 percent in 2007 to a peak of 9.6 percent in 2011). This gender gap in unemployment, which was also found among young high school graduates, is likely due in large part to industry concentration. Young women are more likely to be employed in industries, such as health and education, that see relatively less job loss and more hiring during downturns. The unemployment rate for young male college graduates has made greater improvement in the last year, to 9.5 percent, nearly matching the female average of the last year, 9.4 percent.
Figure H shows unemployment rates by race and ethnicity for young college graduates. As was the case with gender, the data by race and ethnicity are volatile due to relatively small sample sizes, but it is nevertheless clear that the unemployment rate of young college graduates who are racial and ethnic minorities tends to be higher than that of young white college graduates, in good times and bad. In 2007, the unemployment rate of young black college graduates was 8.5 percent, rose to 21.9 percent by 2010, and improved to 10.8 percent over the last year. In 2007, the unemployment rate for young Hispanic high school graduates was 7.0 percent, rose to 15.4 percent by 2010, and improved to 13.2 percent over the last year. Among young white college graduates, the unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in 2007, rising to 9.4 percent in 2011, and improving slightly to an average of 8.7 percent over the last year. Arguably, there should be little disparity in the unemployment rates of young college graduates, who have the same basic degree and are in the same labor market position (i.e., college graduates, age 21–24, not enrolled in school, either employed or actively seeking work). It is notable that having an equivalent amount of higher education and a virtual blank slate of prior |
-Fi set up and maintenance a thing of the past, with an intuitive interface for your smartphone. The corresponding Eero app lets you set up a network in less than 60 seconds. The app also makes it easy to invite guests to the network in one tap, manage all of your connected devices—without the need for an impossibly long password—and make monitoring the network security a cinch.
But it'll cost you. You can pre-order a single Eero for $125 right now, though that price will go up to $200 when the company starts shipping. To enjoy the full experience of an in-home mesh network, however, Eero recommends you buy a pack of three routers. That'll cost you $300 during the pre-order period and $500 thereafter. [Adam Clark Estes]
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Rumortown
Apple Watch is still a couple months away, but we're slowly learning all the news stuck in its orbit, including this new iPhone icon.
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Mobile World Congress is usually a technology circus reserved for smartphones, but HTC may be ready show off its first wearable, too. [Ubergizmo]
Here's one that I'm hoping is true. Microsoft is getting ready to push out Windows 10 for phones on the Insider program this Wednesday [Feb. 4]. [IBTimes]
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Samsung sent out invites to Barcelona yesterday, and as tech invites often are, people have been picking it apart. The latest theory is that the outline is the strange contours of the new Galaxy S6. Looks... like something.
Your Apps, Updated
Twitter's new instant timeline is designed for the late adopter in mind by filling up new newsfeeds with content by analyzing your phone's contacts, who they follow, and what you might like. [The New York Times]
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Tinder is prepping the release of its new paid-for dating app, Tinder Plus. One of the nifty features? A back button for all those regretful left swipes. [TechCrunch]
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Pebble has sold over a million smartwatches. Go them. But we haven't seen anything new from Pebble in more than a year—that's changing in 2015. [The Verge]
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A possible slip-up by a Qualcomm exec confirms that a "best in class" Lumia smartphone is coming, powered by the Snapdragon 810 processor. [Gigaom]
See anything missing from that phone up above? Yep. Hardware buttons. The Chinese smartphone Manta 7x uses capacitive buttons and touch sensors for everything. [Android Headlines]
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Clermont Auvergne'shortlist' Robbie Deans
ESPN Staff
Robbie Deans is reportedly in line to replace Vern Cotter © Getty Images Enlarge
Axed Australia coach Robbie Deans is reported to have been shortlisted by French Top 14 club Clermont Auvergne to replace former Crusaders assistant Vern Cotter.
Cotter will leave the 2010 Top 14 champions and 2011 Heineken Cup runners-up to coach Scotland, and The Australian reports that a source in France says the club wishes to talk to his fellow New Zealander.
Deans coached the Wallabies for five-and-a-half years, becoming the most capped coach of the Australian Test team as he guided the team to their first Tri Nations title in 10 years, in 2011, but he failed to win the Rugby World Cup or the Bledisloe Cup and the Australian Rugby Union released him from his contract six months early after losing the series against the British & Irish Lions.
Deans spent a season as a player with French club Grenoble, after the All Blacks' tour of Europe in 1983, and he and his wife, Penny, are both fluent French speakers.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Henry Joins Wolfpack Football Staff
Years Position School 2017 Safeties Coach NC State 2016 Assistant Defensive Backs Rutgers 2014-15 Secondary Graduate Assistant Arkansas
- NC State head football coachhas announced thathas joined his staff and will coach the Wolfpack safeties. Henry, who has coached in the Big Ten and SEC, was recruited by and played under Doeren at WIsconsin."I've known Aaron since his junior year of high school and I've proudly watched his career as a coach," said Doeren. "He's a really charismatic, intelligent young coach who is experienced beyond his years and I know that he will bring great enthusiasm and expertise to our defense. He's worked with some tremendous defensive backs, head coaches and coordinators and has great recruiting ties in the state of Florida that will really help us."Henry comes to NC State after spending last season as the cornerbacks coach at Rutgers, where he was hired by Doeren's college teammate and roommate, Chris Ash. At Rutgers, Henry worked with honorable mention All-Big Ten cornerback Blessuan Austin, who ranked second in the Big Ten and 10th nationally with 1.4 passes defended per game in 2016."I am beyond excited to get to NC State," said Henry. "Although Coach Doeren left Wisconsin after my junior year, he's been a tremendous mentor to me throughout my career as a player and coach."The Wolfpack was a top 25 defense last season and I'm looking forward to working with that staff and helping us get even better. The young men that I'm going to have an opportunity to coach are very talented. I can't wait to get started."An Immokalee, Fla., native, Henry spent two seasons as a defensive graduate assistant focusing on the secondary at Arkansas prior to his stint with the Scarlet Knights. Working with his collegiate head coach, Bret Bielema, the Razorbacks picked up five Southeastern Conference victories in 2015 to earn a berth in the Liberty Bowl. In 2014, Arkansas became the first unranked team in college football history to post back-to-back shutouts against ranked opponents and won the Texas Bowl over Texas.Henry played at Wisconsin from 2007-11, appearing in 52 games and starting 32 contests. He tallied 181 career tackles, including seven for loss with 4.5 sacks, seven interceptions and 23 passes defended, while helping lead the Badgers to three consecutive Big Ten titles, including victories in each of the first two Big Ten Championship Games. During his career, Wisconsin became the first Big Ten program since 19776-78 to play in the Rose Bowl in three straight years.A first-team All-Big Ten performer as a senior, Henry started all 14 games and finished the year with 67 tackles, including three for loss with one sack, four interceptions and seven passes defended. In 2010, he earned second-team All-Big Ten honors after tallying 58 tackles, three fumble recoveries, one forced fumble, two interceptions and nine passes defended. A 2011 quarterfinalist for the Lott IMPACT Trophy, he was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten performer.In 2007, Henry was named an honorable mention Freshman All-American and was a Freshman All-Big Ten first-team honoree. He sat out the 2008 season while recovering from an injury and returned in 2009 to play in all 13 games. Following his collegiate career, he spent time in training camp with the Oakland Raiders.Henry graduated from Wisconsin with a bachelor's degree in consumer affairs in business management in 2011. He earned his master's degree in sports management from Arkansas in 2015.Henry's Coaching History:The Iraqi military has halted operations near Mosul’s Old City to allow safe passage for civilians fleeing from ISIS.
“Currently, there is a delay, to open safe passageways for families and residents towards the safe areas and camps,” said Lieutenant Colonel Emad Khalas on Sunday.
The fight against ISIS militants in the city has been mostly focused around the vicinity of the al-Nuri mosque where the terrorist group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the forming of the group’s so-called caliphate in 2014.
Nearly 355,000 civilians have managed to flee the city since the operations to liberate it from ISIS began in October, and some 400,000 still remain trapped by the terrorists, who are using them as human shields, according to government sources.
At least 13 civilians were killed by ISIS militants while they were attempting to escape Mosul, a federal police source said earlier.
“Thirteen civilians were killed while trying to escape Tamouz region heading to Bab al-Sham, western Mosul,” said Colonel Khodeir Saleh.
Since the beginning of the operations in the Old City area several weeks ago, the Iraqi forces have been facing tough resistance from ISIS and their progress has been slow.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces managed to drive ISIS militants out of the eastern part of Mosul, Iraqi second-largest city.May 8, 2017
2017-05-08T14:32:00-04:00
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Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Ms. Yates told lawmakers she raised concerns with the White House about former Trump administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn being susceptible to a potential blackmail by Russia. She said no evidence had yet been found of collusion between Donald Trump associates and Russian officials. Ms. Yates in her testimony also explained her conclusion that President Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees was unlawful. She was fired as acting attorney general for refusing to enforce the order.
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified at a Senate subcommittee hearing… read moreAs if we didn’t have enough to worry about with the start of wildfire season, we now have to face the reality of zombie blazes: fires that never really die.
Last year’s Alaskan wildfire season was the second-largest ever — and it seems it never entirely ended. A wildfire in southwest Alaska that swept more than 8,000 acres in the Medfra area over the course of this week is a continuation of a 2015 fire that never went out, despite having ceased to visibly burn. The Soda Creek Fire raged through 16,500 acres in the same area last summer, according to Alaska Dispatch News. It smoldered underground, survived the winter, and finally reignited on Sunday, spreading to an acre within an hour.
It’s harder than it may seem to completely douse an established wildfire. Fire can burrow deep into the roots of old-growth trees, where it burns slowly, insulated by a thick, moisture-absorbing blanket of decomposing moss, leaves, and twigs on the forest floor. And once the ground freezes, the embers are sealed in, sometimes under feet of snow. Come spring, the ground warms up, the surrounding brush and trees dry out, and the fire can spring back to life.
These reignited fires — called holdover fires — are becoming more common. Sixteen Alaskan wildfires have been attributed to holdovers this year alone. In the past, officials haven’t even kept records of the number of holdovers, but they’re rare enough that we know 16 is abnormally high. One of this year’s wildfires was started by a holdover fire from two years ago.
In short: Fires are slumbering in the ground, and we have no idea when — and where — they’ll wake up.More options: Share, Mark as favorite
This is an updated and revised version of a CD post from last year that generated nearly 300 comments because of the controversial nature of the topic – whether “the rich” pay their “fair share” of taxes or not – so I expect another lively discussion this year!
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its annual report titled “The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2013. ” In that publication, the CBO provides detailed data on American households for each income quintile in 2013 for: a) average household “market income” (includes labor income, business income, income from capital gains, and retirement/pension income), b) average household transfer payments (payments and benefits from federal, state and local governments including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)), and c) average federal taxes paid by households (including income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes). Some of the key findings of the CBO analysis are displayed in the table above, with the data organized by household income quintiles. The data in the first four rows above appear in the CBO report (from Tables 1 and 3), and rows 5-8 above have been calculated separately based on data from the first four rows in the table.
Scott Greenberg and John Olsen of The Tax Foundation recently summarized some of the key findings of the CBO report in their post “Are the Rich Paying Their Fair Share Yet?“, here are their main conclusions:
One of the main takeaways from this year’s report is that the richest Americans pay a lot in taxes. In 2013, the top 1% of households paid an average of 34% of their income in federal taxes. To compare, the middle 20% of households paid only 12.8% of their income in taxes. Moreover, taxes on the rich are much higher than they’ve been in recent years. Between 2008 and 2012, the top 1% of households paid an average tax rate of 28.8%. However, in 2013, this figure spiked to 34%, as a result of tax increases in the “fiscal cliff” deal and the Affordable Care Act. We’ve known for a while that taxes rose on the rich in 2013, but the new CBO report puts in perspective exactly how high taxes on rich are now, compared to the last three decades. For instance, in 2013, the top 1% of taxpayers paid a higher tax rate (34%) than in the year Reagan took office (33.2%). According to the CBO, the federal tax system is now “the most progressive it has been since at least the mid-1990s.”
Some additional analysis and commentary will be provided here to support the conclusions of The Tax Foundation on tax progressivity and reveal a major implication of the CBO report – almost the entire burden of: a) all transfer payments made to American households and b) all non-financed government spending, falls on just one group of Americans – the top one-fifth of US households by income. That’s correct, the CBO study shows that the bottom three income quintiles representing 60% of US households are “net recipient households” (they receive more in transfer payments than they pay in federal taxes), the second-highest income quintile pays just slightly more in federal taxes ($17,600) than it receives in government transfer payments ($15,000), while the top 20% of America’s “net payer households” finance almost 100% of the transfer payments to the bottom 60%, as well as almost 100% of the tax revenue collected to run the federal government. Here are the details of that analysis.
The figures in Row 6 in the table above (and displayed in the graph above) show the amount of federal taxes paid by the average household in each income quintile minus the average amount of government transfers received by those households in 2013. For each of the three lower-income quintiles, their average government transfer payments exceeded their federal taxes paid by $8,800, $12,200, and $7,800 respectively, and therefore the entire bottom 60% of US households are “net recipient households” of government transfer payments. Averaged across all three lower-income quintiles, we could say that the lowest 60% of American households by income received average transfer payments of nearly $10,000 in 2013 ($9,600 to be exact). And because the government has no money of its own, where did those transfer payments come from to finance the “net recipient households”? Where else, but from the top two income quintiles, and realistically almost exclusively from Americans in the highest income quintile.
Specifically, the average household in the fourth income quintile paid slightly more in federal taxes ($17,600) than it received in transfer payments ($15,000) in 2013, making the average household in the second-highest income quintile a “net payer household” in the amount of $2,600. Basically, households in the fourth income quintile paid enough in taxes to cover their transfer payments, and then made a minor contribution of $2,600 on average per household to help cover the transfer payments of the “net recipient households” in the bottom 60% and make a small contribution to the federal government’s other expenditures.
But the major finding of the CBO report is that the households in the top income quintile are the real “net payer households” supporting the federal government. The average household in the top one-fifth of American households by income paid $69,700 in federal taxes in 2013, received an average of $12,000 in government transfers, and therefore made a net positive contribution of $57,700 per household on average. The second-highest income quintile households are minor “net payer households” (contributing 4% on per average household to the average net positive payments of the top two income quintiles, i.e. $2,600 / $2,600 + $57,700), but it’s really the top 20% of “net payer households” that are financing 96% of the transfer payments ($57,700 / $60,300) to the entire bottom 60% AND financing most of the non-borrowed operations of the entire federal government.
Here’s another way to think about the burden of the “net payer households” in the top income quintile. The average US household in that group made a contribution net of transfers in 2013 in the amount of $57,700. That would be equivalent to the average household in the top quintile writing four checks: 1) one check in the amount of $8,800 that would cover the net transfer payments received by the average household in the bottom quintile, 2) another check for $12,200 to cover the net transfer payments received by the average household in the second lowest quintile, 3) a third check in the amount of $7,800 to cover the average net transfer payments to a household in the middle-income quintile, and 4) then finally writing a check for the balance of $28,900 that would go directly to the federal government, which for the households in the quintile as a whole would have covered 96% of the non-financed federal government spending in 2013. So except for a small positive contribution net of transfers in the amount of $2,600 from the average household in the fourth quintile (about 4% of the total net positive payments), the highest income quintile is financing 96% of the entire system of transfer payments to the bottom 60% AND funding the operation of the federal government.
And yet don’t we hear all the time that “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share” of taxes and that they need to shoulder a greater share of the federal tax burden? Hey, they (the top 20%) are already shouldering 96% of the entire federal tax burden along with financing almost the entire system of entitlements and transfer payments! And that’s not “fair” enough already?
The chart above shows another way that the CBO data reveal an extremely unequal distribution of government transfer payments and federal taxes by displaying the ratio of “dollars received in government transfers per dollar paid in federal tax revenues” by income quintile in 2013 (these data are from row 8 in the table above). The average household in the lowest quintile received $9,600 in government transfer payments in 2013 and paid only $800 in federal taxes, for a ratio of $12.00 in transfer payments for every $1.00 paid in federal taxes that year. In contrast, the average household in the top income quintile received $12,000 in government transfers in 2013, but paid $69,700 in federal taxes, for a ratio of 17 cents in government transfer payments per dollar paid in federal taxes. This analysis is a further illustration that the bottom three quintiles are “net recipient households” that received more than $1 in government transfer payments for every $1 paid in federal taxes in 2013, while households in the fourth quintile were minor “net payer households” in 2013 and received slightly less than a dollar in transfer payments on average ($0.85) for every $1 paid in federal taxes. In contrast, “net payer households” in the top income quintile received only $0.17 in government transfer payments per $1 paid in federal taxes in 2013.
The final chart above shows average federal tax rates by income quintile in 2013, both before and after government transfer payments. The dark blue bars in the chart show the average tax rates for American households by income quintile, calculated from the top table above by dividing Federal Taxes Paid (row 4) into Before-Tax Income (row 3, Market Income + Government Transfers). Adjusting for government transfers received, the light blue bars in the chart are calculated by dividing “Federal taxes paid minus government transfers received” (row 6 in the table) into Before-Tax Income (row 3), and show average federal tax rates by income quintile after government transfers. For example, the average “net recipient household” in the lowest income quintile received a “negative tax” payment of $8,800 in 2013, had an average before-tax income of $25,400, for a negative federal tax rate of 35%. Reflecting their “net recipient household” status, all three lower-income quintiles had negative average tax rates in 2013, and only the “net payer households” in the top two income quintiles had positive after-transfer federal tax rates of 2.5% for the second-highest quintile and 21.8% for the top quintile. This further demonstrates that after transfer payments, Americans in the bottom 60% by income are “net recipient households” with negative federal income tax rates, while only households in the top two “net payer” income quintiles had positive federal income tax rates after transfers in 2013.
Bottom Line: We hear all the time from President Obama, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffett, Robert Reich, and various other Democrats and liberal pundits that “the rich” aren’t paying their fair share and need to be taxed more. For example, in 2013 (the tax year the new CBO report covers) Obama reiterated his belief that the wealthiest Americans still aren’t paying their “fair share” of taxes. He said “Obviously, there is still more to do when it comes to reducing our debt. And I’m willing to do more, as long as we do it in a balanced way that doesn’t put all the burden on seniors or students or middle class families, but also asks the wealthiest Americans to contribute and pay their fair share.”
The CBO study released this month provides ample evidence that the richest Americans are paying their “fair share” of federal taxes. In fact, the richest 20% of Americans by income aren’t just paying a share of federal taxes that would be considered “fair” – it goes way beyond “fair” – they’re shouldering almost 100% of the entire federal tax burden of transfer payments and all other non-financed government spending. What’s probably not so fair is that the bottom 60% isn’t just getting off with a small tax burden or no tax burden – the bottom 60% are net recipients of transfer payments from the top 20% to the tune of about $10,000 per household in 2013. So maybe what the CBO report shows is that we should be asking whether or not the bottom 60% are paying their fair share when they’re not paying anything – they’re net recipients of transfer payments that come mostly from “the richest” 20% of American households.
It’s also important to note here that the US has the most progressive federal tax system among all OECD-24 countries, see Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge’s article “No Country Leans on Upper-Income Households as Much as the US.” Specifically, the top 10% of American households pay 45.1% of all income taxes (both personal income and payroll taxes combined), which is the highest tax share for that group in any of the OECD-24 countries and far above the 31.6% average for the tax burden of the top income decile. Accounting for the income share of the top income decile, the US also has the highest ratio of the income tax share of the top 10% (45.1%) to the total income share of that group (33.5%) of 1.35 times, compared to the OECD average ratio of only 1.11.
When the top 20% of US households are financing 96% of the transfer payments to the bottom 60% and financing almost the entire non-financed operating budget of the federal government, I’d say “the rich” are paying beyond their fair share of the total tax burden, and we might want to start asking if the bottom 60% of “net recipient” households are really paying their “fair share.” At the very least, we should be thanking the top 20% of Americans for shouldering such a disproportionate share of the federal tax burden, and not constantly vilifying them and proposing to increase their taxes in the interest of “fairness.”
HT: As I mentioned last year, I owe the inspiration for this post to Morgan Frank, who provided the original idea, discussed the development of the analysis, and also suggested several of the charts above.Jack Ely, the singer known for "Louie Louie," the low-budget recording that became one the most famous songs of the 20th century, died at his home in Redmond, Oregon, after a long battle with an illness. He was 71.
His son, Sean Ely, confirmed the death Tuesday.
"Because of his religious beliefs, we're not even sure what (the illness) was," he said.
Jack Ely was original member of the Kingsmen, a band formed in 1959 that mostly performed cover versions of songs. Four years later, the group recorded "Louie Louie" at a studio in its home city of Portland. According to lore, it cost $36.
Jack Ely, co-founder of the Kingsmen, and singer of "Louie, Louie." Image: Corbis Images
The song was written in the mid-1950s by Richard Berry, a Los Angeles musician with roots in doo-wop music. As he recorded it in 1957, the tune had a calypso feel and described a patron telling the barkeep he had to go, to get back to his girl waiting across the sea in Jamaica.
"Louie Louie" has been covered hundreds of times, a three-chord, garage-band classic anybody could play soon after picking up an electric guitar.
Ely and the Kingsmen picked it up along with other Northwest figures such as Rockin' Robin Roberts and Paul Revere. The Kingsmen's version was recorded in 1963 and is the definitive version, going from cult classic to rock-and-roll standard. It has inspired more than a thousand cover versions and there's no reliable estimate for how many times it's been drunkenly sung at parties.
The Kingsmen, back in the day. Image: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
In addition to the song's fame, Ely's incoherent singing also made it one of the most misunderstood. The FBI was so mystified by the hard-to-understand lyrics that it conducted an investigation into whether the song was obscene. They found it to be "unintelligible at any speed."
Over the years, Ely and other band members attributed the indistinct lyrics to the microphone suspended from the ceiling, forcing Ely to shout up at it. Sean Ely said his father got "quite the kick" out the FBI's 455-page investigative report. He said his father certainly knew the words, and wasn't just slurring nonsense.
"Right of his mouth, my father would say: 'We were initially just going to record the song as an instrumental and at the last minute I decided I'd sing it. It's all of this is in a 10-by-10 room with one microphone. I'm standing on my tippy toes yelling into the microphone: Louie Louie! Louie Louie! We gotta go!'"
Ely had a falling out with the band shortly after the song was recorded. He later trained horses in Central Oregon and, according to his son, was content with his legacy as a one-hit wonder — a massive one-hit wonder, to be precise.
"He wanted to try on different occasions to pursue other endeavors in the music industry, but I think when it was all done and said he was pretty happy that he did 'Louie Louie.'"A recently released draft of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST's) digital identity guidelines has met with approval by vendors. The draft guidelines revise password security recommendations and altering many of the standards and best practices security professionals use when forming policies for their companies.
The new framework recommends, among other things:
Remove periodic password change requirements
There have been multiple studies that have shown requiring frequent password changes to actually be counterproductive to good password security, said Mike Wilson, founder of PasswordPing. NIST said this guideline was suggested because passwords should be changed when a user wants to change it or if there is indication of breach.
Drop the algorithmic complexity song and dance
No more arbitrary password complexity requirements needing mixtures of upper case letters, symbols and numbers. Like frequent password changes, it’s been shown repeatedly that these types of restrictions often result in worse passwords, Wilson adds. NIST said If a user wants a password that is just emojis they should be allowed. It’s important to note the storage requirements. Salting, hashing, MAC such that if a password file is obtained by an adversary an offline attack is very difficult to complete.
Require screening of new passwords against lists of commonly used or compromised passwords
One of the best ways to ratchet up the strength of users’ passwords is to screen them against lists of dictionary passwords and known compromised passwords, he said. NIST adds that dictionary words, user names, repetitive or sequential patterns all should be rejected.
"All three of these recommendations are things we have been advising for some time now and there are now password strength meters that screen for compromised credentials, not just commonly used passwords,” Wilson said. "While it wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the new NIST framework, we contend that another important security practice is periodically checking your user credentials against a list of known compromised credentials."
NIST’s Paul Grassi, one of the authors of the report, noted that many of the above guidelines are now only strong suggestions and are not mandatory yet. The public comment period closed on May 1 and now the draft goes through an internal review process. It is expected to be completed by early to mid summer.
“We look forward to a day in the near future when technology, culture, and user preference allows these requirements to be more broadly accepted. That said, we reviewed a lot of research in the space and determined that composition and expiration did little for security, while absolutely harming user experience. And bad user experience is a vulnerability in our minds,” he said. “We need technology to support this (not all password stores do), so we didn’t want to create requirements that agencies had no chance of meeting due to tech limitations.”
Users usually find a way around restrictions like composition rules by substituting special characters for alphas. Because the bad guys already know all of the tricks, this adds very little, if nothing, to the true entropy of a password, he said. “Everyone knows that an exclamation point is a 1, or an I, or the last character of a password. $ is an S or a 5. If we use these well-known tricks, we aren’t fooling any adversary. We are simply fooling the database that stores passwords into thinking the user did something good.”
In terms of new requirements for passwords, he said NIST is excited to introduce password storage requirements, which makes an offline attack much harder. He said fundamentally the new revision does a better job recognizing the password has a valid role to play, if done right. “Yet we provided a slew of new options that gives agencies the ability to leverage the tools that users may already have, like a smartphone, or an authentication app, or a security key. This allows agencies to save money by not having to issue a physical device, but increase their security posture by accepting the strong authenticators users already have.”
Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of Nok Nok Labs, said the username and password paradigm is well past its expiration date. Increasing password complexity requirements and requiring frequent resets adds only marginal security while dramatically decreasing usability.
We are glad to see national organizations like NIST recommend an update and change to a paradigm that no longer works.
Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of Nok Nok Labs
“Most security professionals will acknowledge that while such policies look good on paper, they put a cognitive load on end users who respond by repeating passwords across sites and other measures to cope that dramatically weaken overall security. We are glad to see national organizations like NIST recommend an update and change to a paradigm that no longer works,” he said.
User reaction
Ran Shulkind, co-founder and chief product officer at SecuredTouch, said the new password guidelines make a lot of sense. “The volume of passwords people had to manage and the ‘special characters’ ended up making things less secure than they should have been. However, passwords are actually becoming much less important than they used to be. Threats are continuing to increase, and users are getting tired of entering usernames, passwords, and additional identifying codes – no matter the structure.”
Multifactor authentication (MFA) is becoming mandated in some industries and is voluntarily being adopted in others. It adds another layer of security to include something you know (password), something you have (token or SMS), or something you are (fingerprint or behavior), Shulkind said.
“Ultimately, it’s all about balancing security and the user experience. While MFA does enhance security, it can discourage the user from using the app or performing the transaction. That’s why organizations are looking for more user-friendly components, like behavioral biometrics to reduce friction, allowing for smoother device interactions and higher risk transactions,” he said.
Mike Kail, co-founder and CIO at Cybric, said behavioral biometrics, which analyzes and authenticates based on users’ physical interactions with their devices (finger pressure, typing speed, finger size) will eventually phase out the need for passwords completely.
"I feel that the updates in the new framework are a step in the right, tactical direction, especially the password rotation change requirements,” he said.
He would like to see more strategic approaches such as requiring a Cloud IdP/SSO provider and monitor anomalous activity. He also mentioned providing users with a password management tool.
Barry Shteiman, director of threat research at Exabeam, said this is a very positive change in the NIST standard. “Credential stuffing (using compromised credential DBs and replay them against authentication mechanisms) has become very common, especially with breach information being sold or sometimes published online.”
Richard Henderson, global security strategist at Absolute believes this change also makes dictionary and rainbow attacks less useful to test credentials. “Sadly, we’ve lived through many years of more and more confusing and contradictory advice when it comes to creating and using passwords, and that has led to a hodge-podge of implementations and confusion among regular internet users.”
“When you add to this the simple notion that there are still a lot of sites out there with terrible password policies or even worse, still storing passwords in plaintext, are we really surprised that people’s habits lead to widespread password reuse or weak passwords?,” Henderson pondered.
He said the most important piece of advice is continual scan and intake of known vulnerable and stolen password lists to compare against. “Beyond the idea of potentially minimizing the risk of password reuse and creating weaker passwords, it can alert companies to the potential of a breach of one of their users. If a password like 247KangarooKiwi! shows up on a compromised list somewhere, and that’s a password one of your users uses, it’s an awful large red flag to take a look at their corporate or work endpoint devices and look for evidence of compromise.”
NIST’s recommendation to allow the full ASCII and Unicode keyspaces is also good, as it increases the keyspace for attackers using brute forcing attempts to break, he said.
Troy Gill, manager of security research at AppRiver, remembers hearing frequently that passwords were dead. “New authentication technologies have come a long way in the past decade. However, the massive surge in online service with the majority of those services implementing passwords is leading to a bit of a password critical mass,” he said.
He noted that these recommendations also are largely in sync with guidelines laid out last year by the UK’s NCSC.
“In a perfect world, it would be a great idea to require passwords to be changed every few months. But as humans we have inherent limitations with our ‘wetware’ that can prevent most of us from doing what we know is most secure. Instead, we substitute something the meets the minimum requirements and can be managed with the most ease,” he said. “Let’s face it, there are a staggering number of unique passwords that people are required to remember today, with most requiring frequent changes that also have to be memorized.
He said this constant churn inevitably leads to users implementing common, predictable passwords, recording them in unsecured locations, reusing passwords on multiple online accounts, and using only slight variations of prior passwords. He agreed that 30/60/90 day password changes are counterproductive.
He would like to see a more “event driven” approach to when password resets are required as opposed to routine schedule. For example, if an organization is at all suspicious of a breach then requiring password changes across the board would be appropriate. Other events warranting a password change would include a particular user logging in from a unrecognized device or an unexpected location. “Investment in the ability to detect these types of events more easily can build a stronger security posture,” he said.
Gill said it’s true that the attempt to require more algorithmic complexity most often has very predictable results. Like the example that NIST uses in its guidelines of the password “password” morphing into “password1” and later “password1!”.
“While the last iteration may be technically more complex it is essentially just as weak as the original as it is both commonly |
Commissioner of Police, Krishna Prakash, South region.
Further inquiries revealed that technicians had visited the building on Saturday to repair the lift, for which purpose they turned the power off. However, they left without restarting the lift due to technical problems. Prakash said inquiries have been initiated to check how the technicians turned off the power to the lift without checking if it was occupied.
... contd.
ALSO READ Despite notices to housing societies, BMC yet to provide waste collection vehicles
Please read our terms of use before posting commentsSamson Lee was forced off after 12 minutes against Ireland
Wales prop Samson Lee has only a "50-50 chance" of making the World Cup in September after rupturing an Achilles tendon.
Head coach Warren Gatland said the 22-year-old Scarlets tight-head will need an operation on the injury.
Lee suffered in the injury in the 12th minute of Wales' 23-16 Six Nations win over Ireland.
"It is a longer-termer that could potentially keep him out of the World Cup," said Gatland.
The New Zealander said Lee had been due to have an operation on Monday, but the procedure was cancelled because there was too much swelling around the injury.
The surgery is now likely to take place next week, with Gatland adding: "I think he has a 50-50 chance of making the World Cup.
"We have two warm up games before the squad is announced in the summer, if he's up and running and things go well he won't be too far away.
"Do we take the risk and name him without too much rugby? In the end it will be up to the medics."
Wales kick off their World Cup campaign against Uruguay on 20 September, and are in the same qualifying pool as hosts England and twice former winners Australia.
The injury forced Gatland into making one of two enforced changes to his team for next Saturday's Six Nations match against Italy in Rome, with Aaron Jarvis taking the number three shirt.
The other change sees Scarlets loose-head Rob Evans called in for his first international start in place of the 114-times-capped Gethin Jenkins who has a hamstring injury.Fountain Pen, Medium Nib Fountain Pen, Excellent Ink Pen for Writing, Calligraphy, Drawing, Inking
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A bit of a hidden treasure among affordable fountain pens. This pen has a broad, medium-size nib. In its performance it is pretty close to Mont Blanc Meisterstuck 149 when it comes to shading, inking or simply writing. The line variation is slightly less, but hardly $600 worth, if you compare the two. A fantastic fountain pen for any professional or an enthusiast.
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ETSY12WWSRGMPresident Obama demanded that Israel agree to a one-sided ceasefire during a heated phone conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a report aired on Israeli TV Tuesday.
Both leaders quickly denounced the purported transcript of their private discussion as fake.
But the TV channel that obtained it, state-run Channel 1, stood by its account.
In one bitter exchange, Obama declared that Qatar and Turkey — Hamas’ biggest international supporters — would mediate with the terrorists on Israel’s behalf, according to the TV channel.
“I trust Qatar and Turkey. Israel is not in the position that it can choose its mediators,” the president reportedly said in Sunday’s 35-minute call.
The White House and Netanyahu’s office angrily branded the transcript bogus.
The journalist who broadcast the report, Oren Nahari, is a Channel 1 veteran who said he got the transcript from a “senior” US official and insisted it was authentic.
Nahari said the conversation began congenially, with Netanyahu thanking Obama for the administration’s support of Israel.
But things got tense when the talk turned to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
“I demand that Israel agrees to an immediate, unilateral ceasefire and halt all offensive activities, in particular airstrikes,” Obama reportedly said, prompting the prime minister to ask what Israel would get in exchange.
“I believe that Hamas will cease its rocket fire — silence will be met with silence,” Obama responded, according to the TV outlet.
Netanyahu reportedly answered that Hamas has broken five previous ceasefires, calling the group “a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.”
But Obama then reportedly added, “The pictures of destruction in Gaza distance the world from Israel’s position.
“Within a week of the end of Israel’s military activities, Qatar and Turkey will begin negotiations with Hamas based on the 2012 understandings, including Israel’s commitment to removing the siege restrictions on Gaza,” Obama added, according to the transcript.
“Qatar and Turkey are the biggest supporters of Hamas. It’s impossible to rely on them to be fair mediators,” the prime minister reportedly replied.
“The ball’s in Israel’s court, and it must end all its military activities,” Obama supposedly replied.
Washington and the prime minister’s officer issued statements saying the report was false.
“Shocking and disappointing someone would sink to misrepresenting a pvt convo between POTUS and PM in fabrications to Israeli press,” the US National Security Council tweeted.
Netanyahu’s office said, “We have seen these reports, and neither the reports nor the alleged transcript bear any resemblance to reality.”Hey guys, I've been working a while on some write-ups on some of my personal favorite Texas Ranger Prospects. We've all read quite a bit on some of them, but I've had the opportunity for the last two years to see these five in-person quite a bit and they are special ballplayers. I think it is even possible that some of us have underrated how good the farm is.
My goal is to show you some interesting stats, mechanics, and comparisons to try and get the best possible prediction of these players in the future. To start us off, the most exciting prospect to come through the system in a long time, Joey Gallo.
Joey Gallo
Joey Gallo is a 22 year old 6'5, 230 pound behemoth that can throw the ball 94 MPH off the mound. His stuff was good enough to be projected as a top 10 overall pick out of high-school as one of the top HS pitchers in the draft. He had 2 plus offerings in some of his early scouting reports that also stated he might have one of the highest ceilings as a starter in his class. As we know though, Joey Gallo loves hitting dingers. He loves hitting dingers so much that he told teams he did not want a $3,000,000 signing bonus to pitch.
Thus, the Rangers got a top of the line athlete with the 39th overall pick in the 2012 draft. Since then he more or less did exactly what the Rangers expected him to do, Gallo hit a lot of home runs, had quality plate appearances and a patient approach, and improved year to year significantly. His play at third base has seen criticism, but his arm and wing span makes up for his slight lack of range.
Scouting Report
Hit: 35/50, Raw Power: 75/80, Arm: 70/70, Field: 40/50, Run: 45/45
Joey Gallo has an interesting swing that does a few things really well and a few things that could explain some of his high K numbers. The video of Gallo's home run off of Phil Hughes is a good representation oh how his swing can go right, while showing the parts that cause some weaknesses.
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The first thing to notice is the massive amount of torque he generates with his hip motion and slight back bend giving his swing a rather exaggerated upwards motion through the zone. His power is easy and generated through the hips and the ball comes off the bat hard. The upward motion through the swing gives the ball that extra loft, and we get the majestic home-runs like in the video. His swing is rather long which explains some of his swing and miss, there are a few other holes. One thing I've heard scouts mention before is that the exaggerated leg kick may be in addition to his long swing keeps him late on fastballs up and in. His future hit tool could be close to 50 and it will play up due to the power and his patient approach at the plate. I have seen Gallo lay off some tough off-speed pitches and swing at some pretty terrible junk as well. As he ages and gets more experience in the majors, I expect quick improvement. As his power and plate approach develop we could definitely see some 100 BB years, which should make up a bit for the 200 strike out seasons that are also possible. Within three years I think we see something like this line; 45 HR, 90 BB, 195 K, and a.240/.340/.600 slash. As close as I can estimate with Fangraphs data, that would be good for a 145 wRC+. As a side note, Gallo gets a bit of praise for his base running ability and he was actually good for 1.9 base runs in 2015 according to Fangraphs.
His field/arm/speed tools equal out to being a completely average fielder at third right now, with maybe a possibility at being slightly above average in right or left field. His range at third is rather limited, but his arm more than makes up for it. He's got a good glove and snags a lot of line shots and ropes due to his lengthy reach and good coordination. The arm is where the money is at with Gallo, with his arm close plays won't be close at all and if he ends up in the outfield we will stop missing Leonys Martin's arm so much. If he does transition to the outfield, he's obviously limited to the corners due to his speed tool being slightly below average. He does generally make good reads in practice and in the few games I have watched in person so I do have some hope for him there. It's very possible that Gallo ends up being a very slight+ defensively at one or two positions.
Lastly, I'll put in that I have talked to Gallo and his coaches before, and he is a good guy. He works hard, cares about winning and having fun in the clubhouse, and is generally a good teammate. Whenever I ask who the best teammates are, I hear Gallo, Alfaro, and Trevino. I like having people like that playing for the Rangers.
Final Thoughts
Gallo is a rare breed, a hitter with power we don't get to see often anymore. People struggle on finding a minor league comp that is similar, and there just aren't many. One of the more interesting comparisons is Adam Dunn, as Gallo's lines from season to season end up looking a lot line Adam Dunn's career lines. Adam Dunn's career slash was.237/.364/.490 which is easily foreseeable as a future Joey Gallo line. Dunn ended up with a career 123 wRC+, but that includes 4 terrible years which he showed up way overweight and out of shape. Without those he averaged a 131 wRC+ and around 25 WAR over the course of 10 seasons. If you only make him a slight liability in the field in this time instead of one of the worst fielders ever, he would have been a 50 WAR player over the course of his career. Adam Dunn with average fielding would be amazing to see play for the Rangers and Gallo has the potential to be even better than that. If he can cut down on the strikeouts, we could see MVP, 60 home run seasons from Gallo. Gallo is someone we will all enjoy seeing in a Ranger's uniform the next 5-20 years.
PS: Let us not forget that he gave us one of the best parts of 2015.The challenge of modern cryptography is to find efficient but secure encryption schemes. The Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) is a widely used encryption scheme which is specified in many standards. It is used for example in Ethereum’s Whisper. While Bitcoin Core does not implement ECIES, it can be employed to send secure messages using Bitcoin keys. Together with the Decentral Jaxx project we contributed with the OpenPGP.js project that follows this approach.
Most encryption schemes rely on the intractability of some variants of the Diffie-Hellman problem. ECIES security assumes, amongst other things, that the hashed decisional Diffie-Hellman problem over the specified elliptic curve is of exponential complexity. Although this problem is easy for a specific class of elliptic curves, the rest can currently only be solved via discrete logarithms. This is in general a harder task which is believed to be of exponential complexity for carefully chosen elliptic curves.
In our paper here we summarize the ECIES scheme and its security when paired with the secp256k1 curve of the SEC Group which is currently used in Ethereum. (For more information about the complexity of the discrete logarithm problem on elliptic curves please see our previous article: ECDSA Security in Bitcoin and Ethereum: a Research Survey)Storm in eastern state of Bihar kills at least 56, while 37 die in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand and Madhya Pradesh as monsoon rains sweep country
Farmers in east India are calling for action from the government after at least 93 people died in lightning storms across the country in two days.
A storm in Bihar state killed at least 56 people and injured another 28, mostly in rural areas, and authorities said a further 37 people had died in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand and Madhya Pradesh.
Lal Babu Usvaha, a farmer from Kanti Butiya village near the city of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, said: “Work is work. We can’t stop because of the weather. We have to keep working in the fields. But we feel scared when we see so many clouds, so much electricity in the sky.”
India budget targets farmers and promises infrastructure upgrades Read more
Usvaha said the government should help farmers working in the fields, who make up a large proportion of the thousands of Indians who die in lightning strikes every year. “We need help, but what will the government do? What has the government ever done for farmers? We have so many problems, but they don’t care.”
Saffan Kumar, another farmer, said: “We can’t stay at home and we can’t go out. We’re stuck. We are willing to do anything, if the government can help us. We’re prepared to do what they say.”
Lightning strikes are relatively common in India during the June to October monsoon, which hit the southern coast earlier this month, but this week’s toll is particularly high.
Rakesh Kumar Singh, the secretary of a Bihar farmers’ collective called Jan Nirman Kendra, said Tuesday’s storm began at about 3pm in the district of Samastipur. “I was driving, and the light in the sky was so bright that I couldn’t see anything,” he said. “But I was too scared to stop, so I kept driving. It was as though there was a war happening in the sky.”
In the village of Panchayat Chowk, a coconut tree was felled by lightning, killing a man. Another man has gone missing in the village. Singh said: “Before the rains came farmers were worried about drought. Now that it’s raining, they are working in the fields all day, and the rain can start at any time. The farmers know not to stand under trees or in open fields, so they run to the nearest shelter they can find.
“There are many more deaths all around Bihar, and the famers are very worried,” he said, adding that years of perceived government inaction meant many farmers had lost faith in it to help them.
“There are hundreds of thousands of farmers in Bihar … The government can’t do anything. Whatever has to be done, we will have to do ourselves.”
The government has announced that it will give 400,000 rupees (£4,000) to each of the lightning victims’ families to provide relief. Other relief funds may also be accessible to injured farmers, depending on the severity of their injuries.
More than 2,500 people were killed by lightning in India in 2014, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, the most recent figures available.Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2013 November 14
The Jets of NGC 1097
Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh
Explanation: Enigmatic spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in the chemical constellation Fornax. Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy below and left of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral's luminous core. That's not NGC 1097's most peculiar feature, though. The very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious jets, most easily seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms toward the lower right. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a supermassive black hole.A lot of people expect the New York Rangers to buy out Brad Richards, but the most emotionally invested part of Pat Morris still isn’t convinced it will happen.
Morris, the Newport Sports Management agent who represents Richards, joined the Hockey Central at Noon panel Tuesday to discuss his client’s much-talked about future. He said nothing has been settled in his talks with New York GM Glen Sather but wouldn’t rule out a return to Broadway for Richards.
“Maybe that’s my heart rather than my head [talking],” said Morris, “but with the commentary from Glen Sather, he was pretty positive about Brad’s role, especially after [former captain Ryan] Callahan left.”
Richards commands a $6.6-million annual cap hit, and there’s been plenty of speculation the Rangers will get out from under a deal that runs through 2019-20 by using a compliance buyout on the 34-year-old, who was a highly sought-after free agent just three years ago.
As Morris noted, his analysis was coloured by emotion and the hard facts are New York has some key restricted free agents to sign—including leading scorer Mats Zuccarello—and a few prominent unrestricted free agents to make calls on, most notably defenceman Anton Stralman.
“Something has to give somewhere,” Morris acknowledged.
Another of Morris’s clients, Colorado Avalanche forward Ryan O’Reilly, has also been in the headlines lately.
It’s a situation worth keeping an eye on, both because of what’s already happened and what may occur in the not-too-distant future.
O’Reilly, you’ll recall, signed a two-year, $10-million offer sheet from the Calgary Flames in February of 2013, which the Avs opted to match. But any time business gets done that way it introduces the possibility of strained relations, and Colorado didn’t exactly improve the atmosphere when it decided, a couple days ago, to file for salary arbitration.
Theoretically, the two sides could still come together on a long-term deal, but there’s also the possibility O’Reilly could opt for a two-year award in arbitration later this summer, then walk as an unrestricted free agent in 2016.
Morris said O’Reilly, 23, wasn’t entirely unprepared for this development, but it certainly sounds like he and his client hoped they could avoid going down this path.
“We’re now preparing for an arbitration case we didn’t think we’d have to tend to,” he said.I don’t know what it is about these sneakers but once you've seen them you simply have to have them. I remember first seeing them at Barneys and wanting a pair until I got scared away by the hefty price tag. I finally caved in a few weeks ago though and bought a pair in the color I’ve always wanted (light grey). These sneakers have really become a modern classic, probably because of their refreshingly understated aesthetic. The minimal, almost mundane design is only broken by a set of golden numbers stamped on the sides of the shoes. They reference the model number, size, and color of the shoes. It’s a small detail but it completes the shoe, and make them really memorable. It’s branding at its best. The Original Achilles are made in Italy and the build quality is excellent, although that should be expected with its price. There are many variants but my shoes are made from super soft grey leather, which is attractive but will likely be harder to keep free of scratches. It does make them very comfortable to wear, and I found them to require no break-in time; my feet felt completely at home from day one. My only major complaint is that the laces aren't that great, and tend to bunch up and lose their shape over time. I've been wearing them everyday and I still can't figure out why I wanted these shoes so badly. It’s complex I suppose, like a girl you’ve always wanted to get with. I’m just happy I have her now.Introduction
Want to access the Internet safely and securely from your smartphone or laptop when connected to an untrusted network such as the WiFi of a hotel or coffee shop? A Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows you to traverse untrusted networks privately and securely to your DigitalOcean Droplet as if you were on a secure and private network. The traffic emerges from the Droplet and continues its journey to the destination.
When combined with HTTPS connections, this setup allows you to secure your wireless logins and transactions. You can circumvent geographical restrictions and censorship, and shield your location and unencrypted HTTP traffic from the untrusted network.
OpenVPN is a full-featured open source Secure Socket Layer (SSL) VPN solution that accommodates a wide range of configurations. In this tutorial, we'll set up an OpenVPN server on a Droplet and then configure access to it from Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. This tutorial will keep the installation and configuration steps as simple as possible for these setups.
Note: OpenVPN can be installed automatically on your Droplet by adding this script to its User Data when launching it. Check out this tutorial to learn more about Droplet User Data.
Prerequisites
The only prerequisite is having a Ubuntu 14.04 Droplet established and running. You will need root access to complete this guide.
Optional: After completion of this tutorial, It would be a good idea to create a standard user account with sudo privileges for performing general maintenance on your server.
Step 1 — Install and Configure OpenVPN's Server Environment
Complete these steps for your server-side setup.
OpenVPN Configuration
Before we install any packages, first we'll update Ubuntu's repository lists.
apt-get update
Then we can install OpenVPN and Easy-RSA.
apt-get install openvpn easy-rsa
The example VPN server configuration file needs to be extracted to /etc/openvpn so we can incorporate it into our setup. This can be done with one command:
gunzip -c /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/sample-config-files/server.conf.gz > /etc/openvpn/server.conf
Once extracted, open server.conf in a text editor. This tutorial will use Vim but you can use whichever editor you prefer.
vim /etc/openvpn/server.conf
There are several changes to make in this file. You will see a section looking like this:
# Diffie hellman parameters. # Generate your own with: # openssl dhparam -out dh1024.pem 1024 # Substitute 2048 for 1024 if you are using # 2048 bit keys. dh dh1024.pem
Edit dh1024.pem to say:
dh2048.pem
This will double the RSA key length used when generating server and client keys.
Still in server.conf, now look for this section:
# If enabled, this directive will configure # all clients to redirect their default # network gateway through the VPN, causing # all IP traffic such as web browsing and # and DNS lookups to go through the VPN # (The OpenVPN server machine may need to NAT # or bridge the TUN/TAP interface to the internet # in order for this to work properly). ;push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp"
Uncomment push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp" so the VPN server passes on clients' web traffic to its destination. It should look like this when done:
push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp"
The next edit to make is in this area:
# Certain Windows-specific network settings # can be pushed to clients, such as DNS # or WINS server addresses. CAVEAT: # http://openvpn.net/faq.html#dhcpcaveats # The addresses below refer to the public # DNS servers provided by opendns.com. ;push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222" ;push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220"
Uncomment push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222" and push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220". It should look like this when done:
push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222" push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220"
This tells the server to push OpenDNS to connected clients for DNS resolution where possible. This can help prevent DNS requests from leaking outside the VPN connection. However, it's important to specify desired DNS resolvers in client devices as well. Though OpenDNS is the default used by OpenVPN, you can use whichever DNS services you prefer.
The last area to change in server.conf is here:
# You can uncomment this out on # non-Windows systems. ;user nobody ;group nogroup
Uncomment both user nobody and group nogroup. It should look like this when done:
user nobody group nogroup
By default, OpenVPN runs as the root user and thus has full root access to the system. We'll instead confine OpenVPN to the user nobody and group nogroup. This is an unprivileged user with no default login capabilities, often reserved for running untrusted applications like web-facing servers.
Now save your changes and exit Vim.
Packet Forwarding
This is a sysctl setting which tells the server's kernel to forward traffic from client devices out to the Internet. Otherwise, the traffic will stop at the server. Enable packet forwarding during runtime by entering this command:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
We need to make this permanent so the server still forwards traffic after rebooting.
vim /etc/sysctl.conf
Near the top of the sysctl file, you will see:
# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4 #net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
Uncomment net.ipv4.ip_forward. It should look like this when done:
# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4 net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
Save your changes and exit.
Uncomplicated Firewall (ufw)
ufw is a front-end for iptables and setting up ufw is not hard. It's included by default in Ubuntu 14.04, so we only need to make a few rules and configuration edits, then switch the firewall on. As a reference for more uses for ufw, see How To Setup a Firewall with UFW on an Ubuntu and Debian Cloud Server.
First set ufw to allow SSH. In the command prompt, ENTER :
ufw allow ssh
This tutorial will use OpenVPN over UDP, so ufw must also allow UDP traffic over port 1194.
ufw allow 1194/udp
The ufw forwarding policy needs to be set as well. We'll do this in ufw's primary configuration file.
vim /etc/default/ufw
Look for DEFAULT_FORWARD_POLICY="DROP". This must be changed from DROP to ACCEPT. It should look like this when done:
DEFAULT_FORWARD_POLICY="ACCEPT"
Next we will add additional ufw rules for network address translation and IP masquerading of connected clients.
vim /etc/ufw/before.rules
Make the top of your before.rules file look like below. The area in red for OPENVPN RULES must be added:
# # rules.before # # Rules that should be run before the ufw command line added rules. Custom # rules should be added to one of these chains: # ufw-before-input # ufw-before-output # ufw-before-forward # # START OPENVPN RULES # NAT table rules *nat :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] # Allow traffic from OpenVPN client to eth0 -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/8 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE COMMIT # END OPENVPN RULES # Don't delete these required lines, otherwise there will be errors *filter
With the changes made to ufw, we can now enable it. Enter into the command prompt:
ufw enable
Enabling ufw will return the following prompt:
Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)?
Answer y. The result will be this output:
Firewall is active and enabled on system startup
To check ufw's primary firewall rules:
ufw status
The status command should return these entries:
Status: active To Action From -- ------ ---- 22 ALLOW Anywhere 1194/udp ALLOW Anywhere 22 (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) 1194/udp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Step 2 — Creating a Certificate Authority and Server-Side Certificate & Key
OpenVPN uses certificates to encrypt traffic.
Configure and Build the Certificate Authority
It is now time to set up our own Certificate Authority (CA) and generate a certificate and key for the OpenVPN server. OpenVPN supports bidirectional authentication based on certificates, meaning that the client must authenticate the server certificate and the server must authenticate the client certificate before mutual trust is established. We will use Easy RSA's scripts we copied earlier to do this.
First copy over the Easy-RSA generation scripts.
cp -r /usr/share/easy-rsa/ /etc/openvpn
Then make the key storage directory.
mkdir /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys
Easy-RSA has a variables file we can edit to create certificates exclusive to our person, business, or whatever entity we choose. This information is copied to the certificates and keys, and will help identify the keys later.
vim /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/vars
The variables below marked in red should be changed according to your preference.
export KEY_COUNTRY=" US " export KEY_PROVINCE=" TX " export KEY_CITY=" Dallas " export KEY_ORG=" My Company Name " export KEY_EMAIL=" sammy@example.com " export KEY_OU=" MYOrganizationalUnit "
In the same vars file, also edit this one line shown below. For simplicity, we will use server as the key name. If you want to use a different name, you would also need to update the OpenVPN configuration files that reference server.key and server.crt.
export KEY_NAME="server"
We need to generate the Diffie-Hellman parameters; this can take several minutes.
openssl dhparam -out /etc/openvpn/dh2048.pem 2048
Now let's change directories so that we're working directly out of where we moved Easy-RSA's scripts to earlier in Step 2.
cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
Initialize the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure). Pay attention to the dot (.) and space in front of./vars command. That signifies the current working directory (source).
../vars
The output from the above command is shown below. Since we haven't generated anything in the keys directory yet, the warning is nothing to be concerned about.
NOTE: If you run./clean-all, I will be doing a rm -rf on /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys
Now we'll clear the working directory of any possible old or example keys to make way for our new ones.
./clean-all
This final command builds the certificate authority (CA) by invoking an interactive OpenSSL command. The output will prompt you to confirm the Distinguished Name variables that were entered earlier into the Easy-RSA's variable file (country name, organization, etc.).
./build-ca
Simply press ENTER to pass through each prompt. If something must be changed, you can do that from within the prompt.
Generate a Certificate and Key for the Server
Still working from /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa, now enter the command to build the server's key. Where you see server marked in red is the export KEY_NAME variable we set in Easy-RSA's vars file earlier in Step 2.
./build-key-server server
Similar output is generated as when we ran./build-ca, and you can again press ENTER to confirm each line of the Distinguished Name. However, this time there are two additional prompts:
Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request A challenge password []: An optional company name []:
Both should be left blank, so just press ENTER to pass through each one.
Two additional queries at the end require a positive ( y ) response:
Sign the certificate? [y/n] 1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]
The last prompt above should complete with:
Write out database with 1 new entries Data Base Updated
Move the Server Certificates and Keys
OpenVPN expects to see the server's CA, certificate and key in /etc/openvpn. Let's copy them into the proper location.
cp /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/{server.crt,server.key,ca.crt} /etc/openvpn
You can verify the copy was successful with:
ls /etc/openvpn
You should see the certificate and key files for the server.
At this point, the OpenVPN server is ready to go. Start it and check the status.
service openvpn start service openvpn status
The status command should return:
VPN'server' is running
Congratulations! Your OpenVPN server is operational. If the status message says the VPN is not running, then take a look at the /var/log/syslog file for errors such as:
Options error: --key fails with'server.key': No such file or directory
That error indicates server.key was not copied to /etc/openvpn correctly. Re-copy the file and try again.
Step 3 — Generate Certificates and Keys for Clients
So far we've installed and configured the OpenVPN server, created a Certificate Authority, and created the server's own certificate and key. In this step, we use the server's CA to generate certificates and keys for each client device which will be connecting to the VPN. These files will later be installed onto the client devices such as a laptop or smartphone.
Key and Certificate Building
It's ideal for each client connecting to the VPN to have its own unique certificate and key. This is preferable to generating one general certificate and key to use among all client devices.
Note: By default, OpenVPN does not allow simultaneous connections to the server from clients using the same certificate and key. (See duplicate-cn in /etc/openvpn/server.conf.)
To create separate authentication credentials for each device you intend to connect to the VPN, you should complete this step for each device, but change the name client1 below to something different such as client2 or iphone2. With separate credentials per device, they can later be deactivated at the server individually, if need be. The remaining examples in this tutorial will use client1 as our example client device's name.
As we did with the server's key, now we build one for our client1 example. You should still be working out of /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa.
./build-key client1
Once again, you'll be asked to change or confirm the Distinguished Name variables and these two prompts which should be left blank. Press ENTER to accept the defaults.
Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request A challenge password []: An optional company name []:
As before, these two confirmations at the end of the build process require a ( y ) response:
Sign the certificate? [y/n] 1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]
If the key build was successful, the output will again be:
Write out database with 1 new entries Data Base Updated
The example client configuration file should be copied to the Easy-RSA key directory too. We'll use it as a template which will be downloaded to client devices for editing. In the copy process, we are changing the name of the example file from client.conf to client.ovpn because the.ovpn file extension is what the clients will expect to use.
cp /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/sample-config-files/client.conf /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/client.ovpn
You can repeat this section again for each client, replacing client1 with the appropriate client name throughout.
Transferring Certificates and Keys to Client Devices
Recall from the steps above that we created the client certificates and keys, and that they are stored on the OpenVPN server in the /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys directory.
For each client we need to transfer the client certificate, key, and profile template files to a folder on our local computer or another client device.
In this example, our client1 device requires its certificate and key, located on the server in:
/etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ client1.crt
/etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ client1.key
The ca.crt and client.ovpn files are the same for all clients. Download these two files as well; note that the ca.crt |
don’t see fear or disgust, just love. They talk with the deceased and introduce him to a new family member.
“We believe dead family members are still with us, even if they died hundreds of years ago” explains Daniel Toding, a villager from Pangala village, after dressing up his deceased grandmother in new clothes. “This is our way of respecting and honoring our ancestors and loved ones.”
The Ma’Nene ritual is celebrated by those who follow Aluk Todolo, an ancient set of beliefs that revolves around an all-encompassing god named Puang Matua, as well as the spirits of ancestors. Their funeral ritual originated from the story of a hunter named Pong Rumasek, whose life prospered after he dressed and buried a corpse he found in the forest. Since then, people in his village, Baruppu, have believed that corpses should be treated with care and respect. That belief spread throughout Tana Toraja.
Torajanese men hold three family members during the Ma’Nene ritual in the village of Pangala.
Until the early 1900s, when Dutch missionaries began arriving, Torajans lived in autonomous villages isolated from the outside world. Less than 70 years later, the region was being branded by tourism agencies as the “second stop after Bali.” With the increased visitor traffic came a number of Indonesian, American, French, and Dutch cultural anthropologists attracted to the elaborate funeral rites in Sulawesi’s Highlands.
Extensive ethnographic studies gave the Toraja a kind of cultural celebrity status, and transformed both their society and the rituals themselves. Aluk Tadolo, however, is not acknowledged by the Indonesia government as an actual religion and therefore not protected as such. Statistics show that over 80% of Torajans have already converted to Christianity and a handful of others to Islam, endangering local customs like Ma’Nene.
In her 2013 book, Michaela Budiman argues that because Aluk Todolo isn’t taught in schools, “there is no one to pass this vast store of knowledge on to.” But Tomena Tandu, a 72-year-old I meet in Pongko Village disagrees. Sat facing ancient grave stones, he is waiting for his family members to arrive. They must all be here to attend the ceremony, he explains, otherwise it has to be postponed. “This is a form of love for our ancestors. Of course, it will continue generation after generation.”
Tarojan men penetrate ancient stone graves called Liang to retrieve corpses.
Two Torajan men carry the newly-dressed corpses of family members.
Members of the Tiranda family cross rice field towards the village of Pangala.
A family cleans the corpses of the deceased.
Betel nuts are used as offerings to the ancestors.
Mummies are dried before they are cleaned and dressed.
The dead are buried with old Indonesian money.Perhaps this should be a poll that allows multiple options to be selected?
Transfer trade power, powerbonus system, policy system are all significant mechanics changes that fit with a major update. All of them are reasonable "WoN only". Formable nations are debatable, automated papacy should not be WoN only.
This may be a strange question coming from me, but which of the first three would be easiest for you guys to do? While I am certainly not happy with the idea of a basic UI update being paid content, I'd also rather avoid the pitfalls of a ton of extra work + changing how things are implementing leading to bugs. I'd vote for any of the first 4 being "paid content" that is easiest to switch, if switching is a significant constraint.
Click to expand...Nearly seven in 10 members of an influential deportation appeals court were named by pro-immigration former Presidents Obama and Clinton, adding to concerns of delays in the process of sending an illegal home.
According to a new report, 11 of 16 members of the Justice Department Board of Immigration Appeals were named by attorneys general working for the Democratic presidents, nine by Obama and two by Clinton. The other 5 were named by former President George W. Bush's Justice Department.
The Board oversees the backlogged immigration courts and decisions by the Department of Homeland Security, making it the ultimate appeals court. There is a vacancy on the board, prompting the Center for Immigration Studies to call on President Trump to immediately fill it and maybe even add more Republican members.
Using data from the Governmental Accountability Office, CIS said that there is a backlog of about 437,000 cases pending before immigration courts, and the average time for each is 404 days.
Under appeal, the BIA can take another 211 days to settle a case, for a total of 615 days per case that goes into appeal.
Adding more members to the Board could speed the process, said CIS expert Andrew R. Arthur. He wrote on the CIS blog:
It should also be noted that 11 of the BIA's current 16 members were appointed by attorneys general selected by Democratic presidents, while five were appointed by attorneys general selected by Republican presidents. Adding additional BIA members would give the president the opportunity to address this imbalance, as well. At a minimum, the president should appoint a 17th BIA Member.
Just as there is no perfect process for an adjudicator to follow in reaching a decision, there is no perfect number of BIA members. The president should evaluate the current number of BIA members and the board's performance, however and increase the number of members, in the interests of expediency and justice.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.comThe South Atlantic League recently named the players that would be attending its All-Star Game and four Miami Marlins prospects were included in the list. Left-handed pitcher Ben Holmes, first baseman Josh Naylor, right-handed pitcher C.J. Robinson, and outfielder Isael Soto, all playing for the Greensboro Grasshoppers, were named to the All-Star team.
Ben Holmes is a 24-year-old lefty who has been in the Marlins system since 2014. He was working as a starter up until last year, but has been used exclusively as a reliever this season. It’s gone well so far, as Holmes has a 5-0 record, 2 saves, and a 1.36 ERA. He’s also posted an 8.35 K/9. His numbers look good, but he’s benefited from quite a bit of luck, as his.184 BABIP-against and 93.9% left on base rate are both sure to normalize. Still, he’s put together a good season so far and is deserving of the All-Star nod.
Josh Naylor is the number one position player prospect in the Marlins organization. He was the team’s first round pick in last year’s draft at number twelve overall. In 25 games in 2015, his first taste of professional baseball, Naylor slashed an impressive.327/.352/.418. This season, in 52 games, he’s at.262/.330/.451 with 7 home runs and 36 RBIs to go with 8 stolen bases. He was highly touted as a power hitter, but the 18-year-old is still growing into his body, so the hope is that the power will come.
C.J. Robinson is a 23-year-old right-handed reliever who has been with the Marlins organization since 2013. He’s been strictly a reliever in professional baseball, logging just 1 start among his 113 career appearances. This season, he’s 1-0 with 9 saves and a 1.66 ERA. He’s put up 9.97 K/9 and only 1.66 BB/9. Like Holmes above, the numbers are impressive, but not sustainable. He’s allowed just a.192 BABIP and is pitching to a 3.06 FIP. That’s still good, but not quite as amazing as his raw numbers suggest.
Outfielder Isael Soto is a 19-year-old who has been with the Fish since 2014. This year, he’s slashing.242/.314/.405 with 4 home runs and 20 RBIs. The young Dominican is obviously young for the league and still has a bit of upside, but he isn’t a top prospect that the Marlins are counting on like Naylor.A failed UKIP candidate who fled to Pakistan after she was convicted of calling a Tesco worker a “f***ing foreigner” has been jailed in absence.
Sam Naz, 34, bombarded Mohammed Watfa with racist vitriol two months before finishing fifth in her bid to oust Zac Goldsmith as MP for Richmond Park in the 2015 General Election.
Trolley collector Mr Watfa, 49, had spotted Naz being attacked by another shopper at Tesco’s Leyton High Road branch and went over to see if she needed any help, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.
Naz, of High Street, Richmond, claimed she had been throttled by the male customer, who was never traced, and shoved into a parked car on March 22, 2015.
She then lost her temper and turned on Mr Watfa after the man sped off, calling him a “f***ing b***ard”, a “f***ing foreigner” and shouting: “What kind of f***ing foreigner are you?”
Naz insisted throughout three trials that Mr Watfa was the aggressor, who sparked the row by helping her assailant flee before telling her: “you f***ing deserved it”.
The first jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court failed to reach verdicts before she was convicted and fined £1,500 at the same court following a retrial last September.
But she appealed and the conviction was quashed in February this year.
She stood trial for a third time last month and was again found guilty of racially aggravated intentional harassment.
Blackfriars Crown Court heard she has since flown to Pakistan for one of her daughters to receive medical treatment.
Naz’s barrister, Rupert Russell, said: “She is not happy with the treatment in the UK.
However, Judge Mr Recorder Dafydd Enoch QC branded the stunt a “delaying tactic”.
“So, it has got nothing to do with the fact that she is facing a jail sentence today?” he asked.
When Mr Russell suggested Naz would not be staying abroad and was “not a flight risk”, the judge added: “That is exactly what she has done, I take the view that this is a blatant attempt to avoid the inevitable.”
After making it clear her sentence would not be increased by her “deliberate absence”, the judge jailed her for three months for her “sustained, deliberate and cruel racist tirade”.
Jurors heard Naz initially told officers the allegations were part of: “a Muslim IS conspiracy” from within Walthamstow's Asian community.
She also berated the investigating officer for “believing a bunch of terrorists over me”, the court heard.
Addressing Naz as if she were present, the judge said: “You set yourself up and promoted yourself as someone who wanted to and deserved to represent the people of this country in Parliament.
“By so doing, you had a public responsibility to behave decently and appropriately, particularly in public.
“The people who you abused on this day in public were the very people whose votes you were courting.
“The idea that you could represent such people in Parliament is difficult to swallow and I would have thought that no self-respecting political party would wish to have its interests represented by you in the future given the evidence we have heard in this trial and the resultant conviction.
"You have, in my judgement, displayed publicly a persona which is bigoted and cruel.
“There is not one iota of humility in you.”Ever since women started to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Bill Cosby, many have been asking how it was possible that for so long so many in the media stayed silent. However, one Emmy-award winning show didn't. 30 Rock mentioned Cosby's alleged history of sexual abuse, all the way back in 2009. Except no one really noticed it.
Over at Crushable, Jenni Maier found the episode in question and has a pretty compelling argument for what may have been the origin for putting the remarks in the show.
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The episode, "The Bubble," is actually one of the more well known ones. It features Jon Hamm as the man who is so good looking, no one criticizes for anything at all even though he's basically terrible at everything. One of the side plots of the episode involve contract negotiations between Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy and Tracy Morgan's character Tracy Jordan. As part of this, Donaghy hires a Bill Cosby impersonator to help hire Jordan back after he quits TGS. So far, the only place that Maier (and I) could find to view the clip is at Interwebia's Tumblr.
Here's the exchange, transcribed by Maier, which features the comments about Cosby's alleged history as a serial rapist:
Jack Donaghy: I've arranged for one of Tracy's childhood idols to reach out to him. Tracy Jordan: Hello? Jack Donaghy: Tracy, this is Jack, I have someone here who wants to speak with you. Rick: Tracy, this is Bill Cosby… Liz Lemon: [whispering] Really? This is your strategy? Jack Donaghy: [whispering and smiling] I heard him do this at a party! Rick: …I want you to come back to the TGS for the people who like the jokes and the things. Tracy Jordan: Bill Cosby, you got a lotta nerve gettin' on the phone wit' me after what you did to my Aunt Paulette! Rick: I think you're confusing me with someone else. Tracy Jordan: 1971. Cincinnati. She was a cocktail waitress with the droopy eye! Rick: I'm the guy… with the pudding…
Maier said when she saw the episode in 2009, she assumed it was just a joke about how crazy the Jordan character is (it totally fits in with the kind of out-of-left-field, nutty things he would say on the show). But now, in light of the allegations of at least 20 women, she writes "this reference seems to be much more than a throwaway joke." She makes an interesting case for why this joke was in the show (emphasis mine). Keep in mind this show was produced and written by Tina Fey (who is credited as the sole writer for this specific episode), too:
While there's always the possibility that it's a crazy coincidence, that seems incredibly unlikely. Of all the comedy legends, they chose this one to accuse of sexually assaulting a woman back in the '70s. Okay. What seems more likely than a coincidence is that the 30 Rock writers felt frustrated that this man continually got away with his alleged sexual assaults because he was a famous TV dad. So they found a way to call him out within their show without any repercussions from the media. Because you have to keep in mind that until Hannibal Buress (a former 30 Rock writer, but not for this particular episode) spoke out against Cosby in October, it wasn't part of the mainstream conversation. And it definitely wasn't an accusation that you could just toss around without receiving major backlash.
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That might be a little far-fetched for some, but it could very well be the case that this group of writers and comedians (led by Fey) in the industry knew his past and were horrified by it. The joke is absolutely subtle enough to fly over some heads but, for those who knew his alleged history then (and for those who have learned about it recently) the joke lands like a BOMB. That was very much the 30 Rock style, too. They pulled off subtle jokes with big punches if you knew the full story behind them all the time.
So what do you think? Is this a theory to toss in the chemtrails pile? Or was this joke a deliberate attempt to call out an alleged rapist?
(We'd love to hear from the writers who wrote this particular exchange and are interested in giving insight into what went down in the writing room for this particular bit. Email us tips@jezebel.com. Anonymity guaranteed if so desired.)
AdvertisementIt looks like the Justin Trudeau Liberals are doubling-down on the Senate issue.
Late last week, the party released this new radio attack ad targeting Stephen Harper's reform woes.
The ad comes in response to the historic Supreme Court decision, 10 days ago, which stymied Tory efforts to reform the upper chamber with term limits and elections. The country's chief justices ruled that Parliament alone could not reform or abolish the Senate; that they would have to get the provinces on side.
"Our radio ad is speaking to Canadians who are disappointed with Stephen Harper’s backtracking and flip-flopping on his 8-year-old promise of Senate reform," notes a blurb at Liberal.ca.
"These are good Canadians — your neighbours — who have supported the Conservative Party, but want to hear someone has a better plan."
[ Related: Stephen Harper’s five options following the Supreme Court Senate decision ]
The online fundraising plea, to help broadcast these ads across the country, links to Trudeau's Senate plan which includes releasing senators from partisan activities and implementing a "public process" to appoint members to the red chamber.
Meanwhile, according to iPolitics, Trudeau is consulting with experts about how to make the plan work, constitutionality.
"Some good legal minds and political minds are working on the fine tuning," the University of Ottawa's Errol Mendes told the political website.
"It may take a couple of months."
[ Related: Why Conservatives’ anti-Trudeau attack ads may be helping the Liberals ]
An ad campaign focused on the Senate is a clever move.
While it might not be a ballot box issue for most of us come 2015, the Senate scandals have captured public attention and will continue to do so as the RCMP investigations and/or court cases into the activities of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb continue.
It's also an issue that only the Liberals have any credibility on: Stephen Harper has appointed 57 senators — including a cadre of Tory-insiders and failed candidates — while the NDP plan to get rid of the Senate looks almost impossible at this point.
There was a poll, released over the weekend, suggesting that the Conservative party ads attacking Justin Trudeau's lack of experience were not working.
These ads might be a little more effective.
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
Are you a politics junkie?
Follow @politicalpoints on Twitter!John Vandermeer risks breaking a bone falling on the steep mud-slicked trails here in the mountains of southern Mexico. Despite the danger, he is relaxed and there is a great-to-be-back-home vibe about him as he hikes through the organic coffee farm he has been studying for nearly 20 years.
But the gray-bearded ecologist suddenly turns tense when he comes to a waist-high bush with clusters of green coffee cherries. A closer look reveals something odd about the leaves—all of them are numbered with a black felt-tip pen.
“Let’s try not to touch this plant,” says the professor with an edge to his voice. “Seriously, let’s sort of stay away from it. You can look at it, but don’t touch it.”
There is something else strange about the coffee bush. Some of its waxy green leaves have orangish yellow spots on them. This is what worries Vandermeer and millions of other people in this part of the world whose livelihoods depend on coffee.
The blotches are caused by coffee rust, a plant-choking fungus known as “la roya” in Spanish. Each one of the yellowish splotches contains about 100 to 200 spores. They’ll eventually burst out and infect other plants.
It's early in the season and this coffee plant is already under attack from the fungus that has devastated the crop in Latin America.
Spreading across Mexico and Central America with alarming speed, the fungus has caused more than $1 billion in crop losses in recent years and has left hundreds of thousands of people jobless.
Two years ago, the coffee rust outbreak was so devastating that Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica declared a national crisis. Many coffee sellers just absorbed the costs of the damage, but they might not be able to do this much longer. Prices might rise for your favorite brew.
The road to Finca Irlanda
“If the epidemic this year is as bad as it was two years ago, you’ll come here in December and you’ll see this whole thing will look yellow,” Vandermeer says, sweeping his hand over a mountain slope covered in verdant coffee trees. “It reduces production by a tremendous amount. It’s a huge problem.”
Sri Lanka was once one of the world’s leading coffee producers until the fungus wiped out the crop in the 1800s, forcing the country—then known as Ceylon—to switch to tea. If Central America had to quit growing coffee, it would trigger an economic apocalypse for the region, which produces one-fifth of the world’s arabica—the smooth-flavored beans favored by the Starbucks sipping crowd.
Vandermeer and his research partner, Ivette Perfecto, both professors at the University of Michigan, are trying to better understand how the fungus spreads and what natural predators attack la roya. That’s why they are numbering the leaves on coffee trees. They’re creating a mathematical model—or network analysis—that will track how the fungus moves from leaf to leaf.
“Most experiment stations are focused on trying to find a fungicide to get rid of this disease,” says Vandermeer of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “That might not be the best thing to do, and it’s one of the things we are studying.”
Rust spots on coffee tree
After years of field research, Vandermeer and Perfecto have developed strong views about how coffee should be grown and why current methods that rely on chemicals are so harmful and unsustainable. They have also made fascinating discoveries about biodiversity—how complex relationships between plants, insects, reptiles, fungi and other organisms affect the coffee crop.
“Saving the world with pesticides, that story was told 50 years ago. And we all know it didn’t work,” says Perfecto, a professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. “Pesticides basically generate more problems than they solve.”
Vandermeer and Perfecto are among the founders of a field called agroecology. The big questions they’re trying to answer are: Does biodiversity matter and why? How does it affect agriculture? And what kind of impact does farming have on biodiversity? They recently published a book on the subject: “Coffee agroecology: A new approach to understanding agricultural biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable development.”
Growing coffee like corn
Anyone who watched any U.S. television in the 1980s might remember the commercials created by the coffee growers of Colombia. The ads featured the iconic Juan Valdez—the Marlboro man of caffeine. With a bushy mustache and straw hat, the fictional farmer would go into the fields with his faithful burro to pick coffee by hand.
When the camera panned across the sun-dappled valley, it showed neat rows of coffee trees on terraced plots climbing up the mountain slopes. For many, this is what comes to mind when they picture coffee fields.
John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto have been studying coffee in Mexico for nearly 20 years.
The crop is also grown like this in places where Vandermeer and Perfecto work in Mexico. It’s an approach called “sun coffee,” with farmers growing the beans like corn in fields that only have coffee plants.
The upside is that the plants grow faster and produce more. The downside is that the approach makes the plants more vulnerable to weeds, insects and fungi. So chemicals are often used to control these threats.
The fields the U-M ecologists research would be terrible for a sweeping scenic shot for a TV commercial. That’s because from a distance, they don’t look like coffee fields at all. They resemble a forest or nature preserve. It’s hard to see the coffee because it grows under a canopy of other trees and vegetation. So it’s aptly called “shade coffee.”
Such an approach brings lower yields. But the benefits include fewer weeds because the taller trees block out some of the sun and minimize the undergrowth. There’s also greater biodiversity—a more robust mix of plants and creatures that often protect the coffee from pests. Many of the other trees are legumes, which enrich the soil with nitrogen.
Finding a finca
The shade coffee farm that Vandermeer and Perfecto have been studying for 17 years is called Finca Irlanda, a 300-hectare (740-acre) farm set in the mountains above the city of Tapachula in southern Chiapas state, near the border with Guatemala. It’s believed to be the first certified organic coffee farm in the world.
The Finca Irlanda shade coffee farm in Mexico's southern Chiapas state.
Where’s Juan Valdez? It would be hard to find him in the Finca Irlanda shade coffee farm, which looks more like a jungle or nature preserve.
Getting to the farm involves a head-thumping one-and-a-half-hour drive up a narrow rutted mountain road in a 4×4 pickup truck. Much of the road has been paved over the years, but there are still long stretches made with rough-cut cobbles and stones embedded in mud. Drivers honk their horns as they go around switchbacks so they don’t collide with oncoming vehicles that often appear suddenly around the blind curves.
Boulders that have tumbled down the slopes in landslides rest on the side of the road, serving as the only guardrails preventing vehicles from plunging over the side of the road.
Like many of the coffee plantations in the area, Finca Irlanda is owned by a German family that immigrated to Mexico after World War I. The patron of the family is Walter Peters, known by everyone as “Don Walter.” He’s a slight, soft-spoken man in his 80s who dresses casually in tan slacks, an untucked button-up shirt and black sneakers designed for indoor soccer. If you saw him on the streets of Tapachula, the only giveaway that he’s a man above ordinary means would be his Swiss-made Patek Philippe watch.
Finca Irlanda owner Walter Peters
His grandfather, who bought the farm in 1928, had a pet jaguar that roamed the house at night, serving as a “guard cat.”
Don Walter’s biggest passion is nature, especially birds. He raises peacocks in cages behind his house, and in the morning you can hear their distinctive call: Waaaaah…Heeeeeh…Heeeeeh…Heeeeh!
His faded mustard-colored home with a red tin roof sits above a large coffee-processing facility. After you climb the stairs to his wrap-around porch, one of the first things you see are large posters on the side of the house showing different species of native and migratory birds.
Bird posters decorate the home of Walter Peters, whose passion for wildlife inspires his commitment to growing organic coffee at Finca Irlanda.
The two-story home has a turret, where Don Walter has a wood-paneled office, which looks more like a workspace for a professor than a businessman. On his desk are neat stacks of scientific journals. A large poster of frogs decorates the wall.
Don Walter says he inherited his love of nature from his grandfather, who bought the farm in 1928 and had a pet jaguar that roamed the house at night, serving as a “guard cat.”
His love of nature inspired his decision to grow organic shade coffee, mostly exported to Germany and other European markets. He bemoans the way other farms in the area are leaning more toward sun coffee.
“The producers want to double the yield, but it’s not sustainable,” he said. “They aren’t thinking of the long term. They don’t care about the land.”
The relationship between Don Walter and the U-M professors began in the late 1990s when the researchers were in Costa Rica studying biodiversity and coffee. Finding the right environment was difficult because Costa Rica was rapidly transitioning to sun coffee.
Some colleagues in Mexico told the U-M professors about Finca Irlanda, and Don Walter welcomed them. During their first two summers doing research on the farm, he let them live in his house, and they joined him for dinner each night.
Farm house to research station
One day, Don Walter told the professors that there was a little house in the back of the property that they might be able to use.
“When he showed us this place, you couldn’t see the house. It was all covered in vines,” Perfecto said.
Don Walter got some help to clear away the vegetation, and the professors, who had just received a grant, kicked in some funds to restore the property. It has now become one of the world’s most famous tropical field stations, mentioned in a long list of scientific research articles.
When asked what do you do if a coral snake bites you, Vandermeer simply says, “You die.”
The white stucco single-storey house has a dormitory-style room with eight bunk beds for students. Vandermeer and Perfecto, who are married, have a room, and there’s another one for field technician Gustavo Lopez Bautista, who is based at the home all year. A screened-in porch serves as another living space for researchers who prefer sleeping in a tent to avoid the mosquitos.
The farm house was covered in vines before it was converted to a research station.
There’s no hot water, but the cold showers are refreshing after a long day in the field. Shade trees and cool mountain breezes in the evening make air conditioning unnecessary. The house usually smells like a potpourri of tortillas, wild flowers from the forest and soggy socks taking forever to dry in the humidity.
Deadly coral snakes have been found on the home’s concrete floors at night, so it’s wise to wear shoes and headlamps for nocturnal trips to the bathroom. When asked what do you do if a coral snake bites you, Vandermeer simply says, “You die.” Fortunately, there has only been one snake-bite death in the history of the farm—a worker who mishandled one of the reptiles that had been caught.
When Perfecto and Vandermeer move into the house during the summer with a group of students, the daily routine involves an early wake-up with a simple breakfast of eggs, freshly made tortillas, beans, fruit and coffee. Then they’re off to the field by 7 a.m. to work on research projects. At about 2 p.m., they make their way back to the house to beat the afternoon rains.
The biggest meal of the day is lunch, prepared by local cooks who serve up a delicious menu of simple local fare: chicken, beef, rice, black beans, string cheese, guacamole, lentil soup, salads with onions, tomatoes and avocado. Vandermeer announces the meal by walking around the house yelling, “Comida!” If you don’t come right away, he notices and shouts your name along with another “Comida!”
For dinner, people fend for themselves, foraging for lunch leftovers or cooking quesadillas.
The afternoons are spent reading, recording data, maintaining gear and strumming guitars. There is no Internet. The group gathers again at 7 p.m. to discuss a paper or talk about their research. Sometimes a fiesta follows, with salsa dancing in the dining room. Spanish is spoken just as much as English, and the young graduate students have achieved impressive fluency.
Rust never sleeps
Amid the beauty of the farm, there’s a palpable sense of foreboding about coffee rust. Some fear that fungus will devastate this year’s crop.
Don Walter is less concerned about another outbreak. After last year’s harvest, he applied to his crop copper sulphate mixed with calcium carbonate—also known as lime. The chemical solution—which organic farmers are allowed to use—is sprayed on the coffee trees, turning the fields white as if they’re blanketed in snow.
Perfecto and Vandermeer are less optimistic the treatment will be completely effective. They also point out that the chemical solution kills some of the natural predators of la roya.
“Most experiment stations are focused on trying to find a fungicide to get rid of this disease. That might not be the best thing to do, and it’s one of the things we are studying.” John Vandermeer
Coffee rust grows on the underside of the leaf where the spores enter the plant through the stomata, little openings that let in oxygen. As the spores grow inside the leaf, they put little organs into the plant’s cells that suck out the juice from the cells, eventually killing them. When it’s time to reproduce, the fungus goes back out of the stomata and forms stalks that release spores that infect other plants.
One of the U-M professors’ newest research projects involves tracking the spread of coffee rust. This is the experiment that involves numbering the leaves on selected coffee bushes across a 45-hectare (111-acre) plot on the farm. By observing how the rust spreads on a plant, they hope to have a better understanding how it moves across a region.
“We spent about three hours working on this plant,” Perfecto says, pointing to a waist-high bush with all of its 372 leaves numbered with a black Sharpie pen.
Leaves are numbered on a coffee plant – part of a project to track the spread of coffee rust.
Watching them work inspires a greater appreciation of how grueling and tedious scientific fieldwork can be. While they tend to the plants, mosquitoes relentlessly flit around their faces and beads of sweat form on their brows, eventually streaming down their cheeks in the sticky late morning heat.
First, the researchers number the leaves, starting from the bottom of the plant to the top. Then each branch is numbered, and the distance from the ground to each branch is calculated. The distance from the branches to the leaves is also calculated along with the angles. This enables them to create a three-dimensional model of the plant on the computer. They monitor the spread of the fungus from leaf to leaf and record the movements on the computer model.
Rust predators
Perfecto and Vandermeer are also studying the white halo fungus, small fuzzy blobs that attack coffee rust on leaves.
Larva eating coffee rust
“How this fungus affects the coffee rust isn’t completely understood,” Perfecto says. “When the white halo fungus comes to one of the coffee rust spores, in no time at all, the coffee rust spores shrink and shrivel.”
She adds, “If this white halo fungus is important in terms of controlling the rust, which we think it is, then when you spray fungicides, you’re not only killing the rust but also one of the things that naturally kills the rust.”
“Our philosophy is mostly one of prevention, keeping the farm strong and healthy with a lot of natural enemies that can combat the pests, rather than trying to solve a problem once it has emerged.” Ivette Perfecto
Another apparent enemy of coffee rust that the U-M professors are researching is Mycodiplosis—a species of fly whose larvae appear to feast on coffee rust spores. An article published in the 1970s suggested the fly larvae were eating coffee rust but no follow-up research was done on it.
Last December, graduate student Zachary Hajian-Forooshani found the fly larvae at Finca Irlanda. Perfecto and Vandermeer also spotted it in greater quantities in the coffee fields of Puerto Rico, which has not had a devastating outbreak of coffee rust. The researchers have a running hypothesis that Mycodiplosis plays a key role in controlling the rust.
So is a possible solution raising a massive batch of white halo fungus and Mycodiplosis, unleashing them on fields like a form of natural fungicide to wage war with the rust?
Perfecto says that approach has been tried already with the white halo fungus, and it didn’t work because of reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Besides, she is skeptical of such “magic-bullet” solutions and believes in taking a more holistic approach.
“Our philosophy is mostly one of prevention, keeping the farm strong and healthy with a lot of natural enemies that can combat the pests, rather than trying to solve a problem once it has emerged, which has been the approach of agronomists and pest-control management people,” she said. “They are presented with a problem. Let’s look for a solution to the problem. Our approach is: Let’s understand the systems that are working well.”
Vandermeer added, “Finding a poison is pretty easy. Every year, about 10,000 new poisons are introduced into the market. But trying to figure out how these ecosystems work in detail is pretty tough.”
Two years ago, Vandermeer and Perfecto used a hole puncher to take 20 samples of coffee rust lesions on plants in Mexico and Puerto Rico along with samples from plants with no rust. The samples were sent back to U-M to Timothy James’ mycology lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, which discovered 100 different types of fungi in the 20 hole punches.
This raises the possibility that there are a bunch of other fungi attacking the rust. Although Vandermeer and Perfecto have been researching the Mexican coffee fields for 17 years, it seems their work has barely just begun.
William Foreman writes for the University of Michigan.Pin 3 7K Shares
Cassius Methyl & Nick Bernabe
February 12, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) America’s political system is heavily influenced by money, everyone knows that. In fact, the argument can be made that the US has become an oligarchy. People say follow the money, and in politics it can lead you to the agenda which politicians will carry out once elected.
President Obama’s top donor in 2008 was Goldman Sachs, in 2009 he bailed out Wall Street. Dick Cheney had blatant financial ties with oil giant Halliburton, they made $39.5 billion in revenue from the war in Iraq that Cheney tricked us into.
So where are Hillary’s ties? Here is a screen shot that displays Hillary Clinton’s top campaign donors since 1989:
Does this surprise you? The most open supporters of Clinton are among the utmost notorious, corrupt, and hated American corporations. By corrupt, I mean influential in the creation and enforcement of law for their own benefit. As the Free Beacon noted,
“Goldman Sachs, for example, ranks dead last for reputation, and is the second largest corporate donor to Hillary Clinton. Her top corporate donor, Citigroup, ranks 89th out of 100. Her fourth largest donor, JP Morgan Chase, came in 87th. Other Clinton donors making the list of companies held in poor esteem by the public include Time Warner (85/100) and 21st Century Fox (65/100). Collectively these companies have given more than $2.8 million to Clinton’s campaigns.”
Also to note is Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Fox News, which has donated a total of over $300,000 to Hillary Clinton. Looking for proof that war mongers don’t care what party you are affiliated with as long as the bombs keep dropping? Look no further.
Hillary and the Democrats are obviously not alone in their dealings with corporate America; both parties are bought and paid for. In 2008 Goldman Sachs was Obama’s top fundraiser |
cabinet have no better records — Gloria de Piero’s Ashfield, for instance, voted for Leave by almost 40 points. Chris Bryant’s Rhondda, Lilian Greenwood’s Nottingham, Lisa Nandy’s Wigan, Karl Turner’s Hull, and Vernon Coaker’s Gedling followed suit. If these MPs were such excellent campaigners and better understood the mood of the electorate, why couldn’t they deliver their own constituencies? There is no question that Labour failed to win a number of its strongholds in the referendum. One part of its base — those who have suffered from globalization: older, less well-off, less well-educated workers in centers of deindustrialization — decided to give the establishment a bloody nose. But it’s untenable to propose that establishment MPs would have stood a better chance of winning over those voters.
2. Labour’s coalition needs Corbyn. The Brexit referendum has exposed deep divisions in British society. One of the most important of these, broadly speaking, was between winners and losers of globalization. Remain tended to win among younger, more educated, and more culturally liberal voters, particularly those in diverse and prosperous urban areas. But it lost badly among older white workers in places like the North East, Yorkshire, and Wales. In order to build a social majority and win elections the Labour Party needs a platform that can bring together these two wings of its base. This is by no means an easy task — but no one is better positioned to do it than Jeremy Corbyn. He is the only leading figure in the party with purchase among young Labour voters, almost doubling his rivals combined in the under-forty category during the leadership election. And he is the only plausible candidate with credibility in opposing the policies of economic liberalization, pursued by both Conservative and Labour governments, which have hollowed out England and Wales’s industrial heartlands. Take Sunderland, a city which had voted for Labour MPs since the 1950s but went 61 percent for Leave in arguably the biggest shock of referendum night. Sunderland was once a place of stable, decent-paying jobs in shipbuilding, coal mining, and glass-making. Today, it has one of England’s highest unemployment rates. More than four times as many people work in the service industry as in manufacturing — but they are around half as likely to reach professional-managerial grades as their counterparts elsewhere in the country. And those left in manufacturing? Recent years have seen soaring production amid falling wages in the local Nissan plant. Faced with this reality it is Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, not those plotting against it, which speaks about “a radical break with the past” on the economy — pursuing a serious industrial strategy and returning investment to the places left behind by globalization.
3. Corbyn’s politics can hold back the tide of racism. Probably the most concerning aspect of post-Brexit Britain is the hate crime and racist abuse reported by many. But what was the record of Corbyn’s opponents in opposing racism during the campaign? As reports about his alleged “sabotage” testify, “Corbyn’s aides refused to allow LabourIN and senior Labour colleagues to discuss or address concerns around immigration, writing them off as ‘xenophobia’, ‘prejudice’ or ‘racism’ at every turn.” This has been the situation at the shadow cabinet level for months. Jeremy Corbyn has backed migrants’ rights while those who have resigned in recent days have wanted harsher border controls, cuts to benefits, and a new narrative that validated much of the nativist sentiment the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has stirred up. Just today one of Corbyn’s rivals for the leadership of the Labour Party, Yvette Cooper, has come out firmly against free movement, saying that the compromise proposal of joining the European common market and accepting its terms on movement of labor was unacceptable. This position outflanks Tory MEP and Leave campaigner Dan Hannan to the right on the question of migration. In the context of rising anti-immigrant sentiment, and with official politics taking a rightward turn, replacing Jeremy Corbyn with a politician who gives ground on immigration will ensure one thing: that, in five years’ time, Cameron’s government will look left of center. Labour needs to hold the line on this issue. Corbyn’s speech after the referendum was exactly what the party needs to say: that the Brexit vote was the result of deep alienation in working-class communities. Racism is one potential expression of this anger; real left-wing politics is another.
4. A coup will split the party. You wouldn’t believe it from reading the mainstream press but Jeremy Corbyn is still a hugely popular figure in the Labour Party. Not, of course, in the Parliamentary Labour Party, where Corbyn barely found enough MPs to nominate him for a leadership election he won by a 40-point margin in September. But among the party’s members, who ultimately elect the leader, his support is strong. A poll last month placed him top of the pile in a putative leadership election by a huge margin with 43 percent support. Andy Burnham, who is backing Corbyn and says he won’t run, is closest to him on 10 percent and the only other in double digits. The plotters make for a pathetic lot: Hilary Benn can’t even muster 5 percent, Margaret Hodge receives close to 0 percent. This is not isolated data, either. During the referendum campaign the Fabian Society, who could not be described as fans of Corbyn, released a poll showing him to be by far the most popular politician in the party. Corbyn enjoys an approval rating of +17 percent. The leader of the Labour’s Remain campaign, MP Alan Johnson, another plotter against the party leader, is at -10 percent. When you add the vociferous support Corbyn has received from the trade union movement the result of any fair leadership election is clear: he would win. The only way that his opponents can beat him in this election is to rig it. Accordingly, they are already pursuing a strategy of excluding Corbyn from the ballot paper. The result of such an antidemocratic maneuver would be simple: the Labour Party will split. This, more than any other likely event, would make winning an election impossible.Riding high off their Grammy nominations, Fat Joe and Remy Ma release their Plata o Plomo album.
Along with the lead single “All the Way Up” featuring French Montana and Infared, the project (which means “Silver or Lead” in Spanish) is made up of 12 tracks showing the Terror Squad rappers are just as relevant as ever.
Other features come from Ty Dolla $ign, Sevyn Streeter and Kodak Black.
Stream Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s Plata o Plomo album below.
(This article was first published December 22, 2016 and is as follows.)
Fat Joe and Remy Ma have what might possibly be the song of the year (or at least the collaboration of the year) in “All the Way Up.” The track gave the rappers multiple Grammy nominations, making Remy Ma the only female rapper with a nod this year. The dynamic duo has kept their momentum going throughout 2016 and are looking to take that swing into the next year with their Plata O Plomo album, due out February 10.
This information comes with the official iTunes pre-order, which also shared the project’s cover art and tracklist. Plata O Plomo — which is Spanish for “Silver or Lead” — is made up of 12 tracks and includes an all-star cast of guest features. French Montana appears on “All the Way Up” of course and the project’s other single, “Cookin.” Ty Dolla $ign assists on “Money Showers” and other stars lending a hand on Plata O Plomo include Kent Jones, Sevyn Streeter, BJ The Chicago Kid and The-Dream.
In an interview from March, Fat Joe hyped up the project, saying it could compare to any collaboration between two titans.
“The album is the best album coming out,” he said. “It should give inspiration to everybody in New York City. This shit is phenomenal. Remy’s gonna be rated top. They gonna ask to see if she’s the best rapper on Earth, male or female. That’s how bad she’s going on this album. It’s so fuckin’ incredible, when people hear this album, this shit is so fuckin’ crazy. I feel like God blessed us … It’s like if Snoop or Dre did a new album. Kanye and Jay Z did a new album.”
Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s Plata O Plomo album cover art and tracklist are below.Home of Ball State University (BSU), the Midwest’s outpost of the Discovery Institute, Muncie, Indiana also harbors a newspaper, the Muncie Star Press. That paper always refused to take a stand on the controversy about BSU’s intelligent-design (ID) Astronomy and Physics course of Professor Eric Hedin, a course that was finally deep-sixed when the Freedom from Religion Foundation complained and the BSU President, Jo Ann Gora (a woman of remarkable astuteness), publicly announced that ID was “not science” and would not be taught as such at her school. She’s gone now, but the Muncie Star Press continues to cater to the religious populace of its region.
Here’s a letter just published in the paper. The author, Kevin Wingate, had previously written another letter arguing that ID should be taught in science classes. I’ve put in bold every statement that is wrong.
LETTER: SAGAN WAS WRONG Kevin Wingate, Muncie The late astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan once famously said, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” That’s wishful thinking, not a scientifically established fact. Many have made science their god, declaring it to be the sole source of truth or the only way we have of understanding the world. Science can help us understand God’s creation, but it cannot fully describe or explain all of reality. The material universe is one part of reality, and the invisible world, which we do not normally perceive, is another part. Just because science is unable to detect the supernatural world doesn’t mean that it is not real. Demons are real. People have heard them, seen them and been possessed by them. Angels are real. People have heard them, seen them and even entertained them unknowingly. Satan is real. Some have seen him face to face, and all of us have seen the results of his influence. Jehovah God is real. Millions of people have experienced his power and presence in their lives. Many have been miraculously healed of some incurable disease. Some have had a missing body part instantly replaced. Skeptics claim that Christianity is nothing more than superstition, a religion of blind faith. In my view, atheism is the real superstition, with no evidential basis whatsoever.
Lord, lord! Where is the evidential basis for demons, Satan, Angels, and Jehovah God (as opposed to Allah God)? More important, why did the Star Press even print this? Is it trying to show how bull-goose delusional some of its citizens are? Or are they presenting this as an honest opinion worth considering. I wish I knew. One thing’s for sure: you’d never see a letter like this in any decent big-city paper in the U.S.While the St. Louis Rams house the pieces on defense to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks, it's their own starting signal-caller who led Chris Wesseling to opine that, unless Sam Bradford emerges, St. Louis is "doomed to mediocrity in the NFL's most competitive division."
After passing on both Robert Griffin III and Johnny Manziel in the 2012 and 2014 drafts, respectively, general manager Les Snead believes that a post-surgery Bradford will, at last, flip the switch under play-caller Brian Schottenheimer in 2014.
Color us suspicious.
In an NFC West teeming with some of the league's most creative offensive minds, Schottenheimer stands out as an anomaly: A rigid disciple of the West Coast attack stuck in an era when coaches such as Philladelphia's Chip Kelly and San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh are pushing the envelope weekly.
"I do wonder if Brian Schottenheimer is creative enough to maximize what they have on offense," NFL Media's Brooks told the Around The League Podcast on Thursday. "I know there was a lot of conversation about (the Rams) need a receiver, they need to go and get a Sammy Watkins or somebody to juice it up, but -- the eighth pick in the draft! You're expecting Tavon Austin to be a difference-maker, so now the onus really falls on Brian Schottenheimer to show that he has the ability to craft game plans to maximize the talent."
Beyond Austin, the Rams attacked the drafts in recent years to surround Bradford with weapons in the form of 2012 second-round pick Brian Quick, third-round choices Stedman Bailey and Austin Pettis (respectively taken in the 2013 and 2011 drafts), and 2012 fourth-round draftee Chris Givens. St. Louis also spent a hill of cash in free agency to land pass-catching tight end Jared Cook in 2013.
Despite the talent influx, Rams pass-catchers were held to just 41 receptions of 20-plus yards last season after squeezing out just 43 with a healthy Bradford in 2012. By comparison, Kelly's Eagles ripped off 80 of those plays in 2013 alone.
After cutting his teeth under play-callers Jimmy Raye, Paul Hackett and Cam Cameron -- and sitting down to dinner nightly with his dad, Marty Schottenheimer -- it's little surprise that Brian remains, per Brooks, "very tied and rigid" to his scheme.
Packed with talent, the Rams remain a tough sell in their own division largely because of Bradford's sluggish development in a scheme that has yet to unlock his gifts.
Said Brooks: "There's an art to play-calling, and we always talk about how the best play-callers kind of have a stone-cold mentality.... Brian Schottenheimer has to understand how to set the table so that he can create those counter plays (within the) game plan."
Until that happens, we'll struggle to side with St. Louis in the rough-and-tumble NFC West.
There's plenty more from Brooks on the latest "Around The League Podcast," so give it a listen, won't you?BAGHDAD — With American bombs raining down from the sky, Shiite militia fighters aligned with Iran battled Sunni extremists over the weekend, punching through their defenses to break the weekslong siege of Amerli, a cluster of farming villages whose Shiite residents faced possible slaughter.
The fight in northern Iraq appeared to be the first time American warplanes and militias backed by Iran had worked with a common purpose on a battlefield against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, even though the Obama administration said there was no direct coordination with the militias.
Should such military actions continue, they could signal a dramatic shift for the United States and Iran, which have long vied for control in Iraq. They could also align the interests of the Americans with their longtime sworn enemies in the Shiite militias, whose fighters killed many United States soldiers during the long occupation of Iraq.
The latest expansion of American military operations reflects how seriously Iraq has deteriorated since the withdrawal of American forces in 2011. But any decision to support the Shiite militias, who have proven more adept than the American-trained Iraqi Army, would come with its own set of challenges.California-based entomologist Shaun Winterton was browsing Flickr back in May 2011, when he discovered a new species of insect.
That’s right: he made a scientific discovery by simply looking at pictures online.
According to NPR, Winterton was looking at some pictures by Malaysian photographer Guek Hock Ping, when he spotted some photos of a green lacewing. Quite familiar with the insect, Winterton was surprised to see patterns on the wings that he had never seen before.
Here’s one of the images in the set of pictures by Guek:
After sending the photograph to some colleagues and hearing the same thing, Winterton realized that the image showed a new species of insect.
He then contacted the photographer, who informed him that the image was taken the the jungles of Malaysia. Without a specimen, however, there was no way to learn whether the image was in fact a new species — or simply some kind of outlier.
One year later, Guek returned to the spot, found another identical lacewing, and this time trapped it in a jar. The specimen was then sent to an entomologist in London and confirmed to be new. The discovery was recently published in the scientific journal ZooKeys, with the new insect named Semachrysa jade after Winterton’s daughter.
Makes you wonder: what else will be discovered by mankind by browsing online photos?
Image credit: IMG_1630 copy by Guek Hock Ping/ZooKeys and used with permissionThis Fits… Nancy Pelosi to Accept Award Named After KKK Advocate
Margaret Sanger – Wikiquotes
“I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan…I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses…I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.” (Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, P.366)
Democrat Nancy Pelosi will be given the “Margaret Sanger Award,” Planned Parenthood’s highest honor.
Doug Ross reported:
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PP) announced that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, an alleged Roman Catholic, will be given “the Margaret Sanger Award, the organization’s highest honor, in recognition of her leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement over the course of her career,” according to a Planned Parenthood website posting…On Wednesday, July 24, audit teams of the Ministry of Finance accompanied by police raided nine provincial offices of three major energy-sector companies of Turkey’s largest group, Koc Holding.
During the raids at TUPRAS [oil refining], OPET [fuel distribution] and Aygaz [liquefied gas distribution], purportedly for tax and smuggling audits, all documents and computer data of the companies were seized to be audited.
TUPRAS is the biggest industrial company in the country. It had sales of $20.8 billion in 2012.
Aygaz is tenth in the top 500 companies listed by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry. Its revenue for 2012 was reported at $2.44 billion.
Taner Yildiz, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, in a statement day after the raids said, “Tax audits by the Ministry of Finance are routine.”
Hayati Yazici, the Minister for Customs and Trade said: “TUPRAS is one of the biggest suppliers of fuel. I think it is very natural for audits in this field.”
Having read thus far, you may ask if all is natural and routine according to ministers, then why does it become a subject of news and comment for Al-Monitor?
The answer is simple, because it’s not a routine and natural situation.
The situation is all about how domestic and foreign investments in Turkey are not under the protection of the legal system and how vulnerable they are to arbitrary and punitive covert operations by political authorities.
The markets were not persuaded by the ministers calling it "routine and natural.” The day after the raids, all the companies of the Koc Group in Istanbul stock market registered losses. TUPRAS ended the day with 3.05% and Aygaz with 2.63% losses.
Koc Group, one of the biggest in the stock market with 14 companies traded publicly, is estimated to have lost 1.8 billion lira [$930 million] in one day.
The reaction of investors in the Istanbul stock market by selling their shares is based on their memories of how the largest media group, Dogan, was punished in 2008 and subsequent years. The investors believed Koc Holding, too, would be targeted by the Erdogan government and sapped with heavy tax-irregularity fines and be forced to downsize.
The entire public believes that the raids against Koc are not routine and natural, but were in retaliation for the Divan Hotel adjacent to the Taksim Gezi Park, which belongs to Koc Group, opening its doors to protesters escaping from tear gas and pepper gas fired by police.
Anyone with a conscience would have to agree that all neutral entities should open their doors purely on humanitarian grounds to anyone escaping police brutality and tear gas or injured by either. If you look at the situation, not from a humanitarian but from a brand-image angle, it wouldn’t be difficult to forecast that a Divan Hotel with locked doors would have lost most of its cachet.
The opinion that the government is retaliating against Koc Group was primed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan several times, accusing in person the Koc Group and Divan Hotel as being accomplices to protesters. For example, on June 29, speaking to his party’s parliamentarians, Erdogan said:
"They say, ‘Police attacked the hotel.’ They didn’t attack out of the blue. Those who were fighting with the police went there. The owners of that place were great hosts. The police then entered the place. You know it is against the law to aid and abet. This is actually a crime of abetting.”
We all remember that Erdogan's fury targeted some capital groups and banks that he associated with the “high-interest lobby” he was accusing of plotting to topple him. When returning from Adana to Ankara on June 9, on his way to the city from the airport he stopped at six locations to address his cheering supporters. All his speeches were carried live by TV. In one of them he said:
"I say you have to teach the interest lobby their lesson. There are things you can do. Who made the most money this year? The interest lobby did. You have cut off their revenues. When the interest rates began to fall, these gentlemen were upset. It is now time to give them lesson as a nation. The state has banks. You can use them. Don’t make me name names. You know them."
In another speech along the way Erdogan said: "Whether it is one bank, two banks or three, whoever makes up the interest lobby, I am talking about them all. Now that you have launched such a struggle against us, you will pay heavily. … The minute we catch you speculating we will be on your throats. No matter who you are, we will be on your throat.”
The operation against Koc Group is a signal that his fury is now passing from words to deeds. On July 27, the daily Taraf published interesting details. The newspaper drew attention to controversial aspects of the Ministry of Finance’s entry of three Koc companies in the company of police and underlined that such methods were hitherto used only against major export frauds, narcotics traffickers and terror organizations.
Here one can sense an intention to discredit Turkey’s largest industrial group. The newspaper said the operation was prompted by a letter that reported that the group was evading taxes on imports and production.
The same newspaper said on June 26 that the audit of the Koc group would last at least six months and at most one year. As a result of the audit, Koc Group could face cancellation of its licenses in energy and be punished with high fines. Daily Taraf noted that the Koc group could well be under audit still during the 2014 local and presidential elections.
This is no doubt a sword of Damocles is swinging over the heads of Koc.
After a similar tax audit, Dogan Media Group, whose policies Erdogan did not like and had asked the public in 2008 openly to boycott its newspapers, was fined in 2009 by an unprecedented 4.82 billion lira [$2.5 billion] and subsequently was forced to downsize by selling two of its newspapers and one TV channel.
Like Koc, Dogan was the biggest in its sector. Targeting the biggest to intimidate all smaller groups is a tactic Erdogan successfully employs.
Five of the biggest 10 companies in Turkey are in Koc Group. Among its partners are world giants such as LG Electronics [Arcelik], Ford Motor Co. [Fort Otosan], UniCredit Group [Yapi Kredi Bankasi] and Fiat Auto SpA [Tofas Turk Otomobil Factory].
I am going to conclude by quoting the concluding paragraphs of an article by economics writer Ugur Gurses in the daily Radikal of June 26:
“This image of witch hunt is propelling Turkey to become a third-rate economy. With this outlook you can neither establish a financial hub nor appear as country that could attract the direct investments it needs.
"This is the specter of a third-rate economy. It is the one you see in countries where all tools, particularly tax audits, are used as a weapon against persons, companies or banks who think differently than the political authority or oppose [their opposition] by attributing a stock market loss that originated from abroad to internal protests, and then launch a witch hunt.”
Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam.To top it off, it was the man's first time viewing pornography.
We worship different gods. We have different skin colors. We eat and don't eat specific foods. Someone of us are married. Some of us are gay. Some of us prefer Family Guy to South Park. Some of us like house music and yellow-gold jewelry. Some of us believe that the state has a responsibility to take care of the health of its citizens. But one thing that all of us guys have in common is that we like seeing people having sex. Along with peeing while standing up, it's our birthright.
Emirates 24/7 is reporting that an Egyptian fellow was watching a porn in an internet café (how rude) and came (heh) across more than he had bargained for. He witnessed a "film" featuring his wife of 16 years. When he realized that her partner wasn't himself, the man fell down, hopefully after zipping back up, and ran home to confront his wife. Once the wife went through the traditional denial-until-faced-with-irrefutable-evidence routine, she confessed to never having loved him and banging her ex-boyfriend on camera. Weird News: Porn Stars As Prom Dates?
The story gets a little sticky when the husband, the self-named "Ramadan" (named after the month of abstinence and repentance), described the porn-viewing as out of "curiosity" and his first time enjoying such a film. He then submitted as evidence 11 films that he watched, which his presumably now-estranged wife was featured in, to make sure that it wasn't some trick of the light that made the humped actress resemble his bride. It's the Egyptian version of Principal Skinner saying that he was visiting the Maison Derriere just to get directions away from it. Even during the Mubarak era, you'd guess that some 40 percent of the available bandwidth in Cairo was dedicated to movies featuring bellies slapping (sometimes bellies on backs). The idea that he watched one video, one time that just happened to feature his wife is pretty laughable.
What's not particularly laughable is what may happen to wifey. Since the Arab Spring, parts of the Middle East have allegedly lightened up, but it's generally not a part of the world that finds traditional, laugh-aloud humor in very public cuckolding.
But hey, with the advent of cellphone cams, the popularity of sexting and the ubiquity of leaked sex tapes, it's only a matter of time before all of our wives will have starred in porn and maybe that's the real way that technology is supposed to level the playing field.
On a semi-related note, just because you get nailed on camera and people abuse themselves to your coital visage, doesn't make you a porn star. It's the same way that playing guitar in a band (or nailing that Murphy account) doesn't make you a rock star. Let's make star mean something again.
What would you do if you saw your lady or fella doing stunts in a pornographic film?
Check out more great content from YourTango:Ken Davidoff of the New York Post reports from the Owners’ Meetings in Dallas that “momentum continues to build toward” a rule change that he correctly notes will likely be referred to as “The Chase Utley Rule.”
Specifically, a change in the rules which would be aimed at eliminating the sorts of hard slides into second base, the likes of which Chase Utley demonstrated in the playoffs, breaking Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada‘s leg. Davidoff does not have any details on what, exactly, such a rule would entail but does allude to the so-called “Buster Posey Rule” which went into effect a couple of years ago in order to protect catchers from home plate collisions.
Of course, like the Buster Posey Rule, a Chase Utley Rule would be completely unnecessary if Major League Baseball would simply require its umpires to enforce and its players to abide by rules already on the books. In this case it’s Rule 6.05(m), which already says a baserunner is out when:
(m)A preceding runner shall, in the umpires judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play: Rule 6.05(m) Comment: The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play, rather than trying to reach the base. Obviously this is an umpires judgment play.
That rule totally and completely covers the Utley-Tejada situation. It does involve a judgment on the part of umpires, however, and baseball has run screaming from umpire judgment in recent years, preferring overly-complicated bright line rules which make for more, not less, confusion. Indeed, in this case I’d be shocked if whatever spins out of the Commissioner’s office doesn’t involve “zones” governing the precise geography of acceptable slides and finite measurements between a baserunner and the bag. This despite the fact that it’s pretty damn obvious when a runner is trying harder to take out an infielder than he is to simply reach a bag safely.
But hey, new rules are always better, right?E3 is upon us, and Microsoft has unveiled its new Xbox Scorpio console as the Xbox One X. We already knew a decent amount about the new device, from its specs to what its dev kit looks like, and now we know it'll launch November 7, priced at US $499 / £449 / AU $649.
At its press briefing, Microsoft revealed its Xbox One X Enhanced program, which aims to update existing games with support for the new console.
Here, we're gathering together a list of all the games confirmed at E3 to get Xbox One X 4K support; we will continue to update this story as more titles are revealed during the conference. For more, you can also check out our list of all the games confirmed for E3 2017, or take a look at our wrap-up of all the Microsoft Xbox E3 press conference news.
All The Xbox One X Scorpio 4K Games Confirmed At E3ATLANTIC CITY (CBS/AP) — A New Jersey lawmaker says he wants voters to decide if recreational marijuana should be legal in Atlantic City.
Democratic Assemblyman Reed Gusciora says it could mean a way out of the city’s financial mess.
He calls the bill “promoting opportunities for tomorrow,” or POT for short.
Gusciora wrote in the bill that criminalization of marijuana “is archaic and has had a disparate, harmful impact on minority communities” throughout New Jersey, including Atlantic City.
READ: Rookie Carson Wentz Found Himself Locked In A Gas Station Bathroom
“A well-designed and heavily regulated marijuana industry would move Atlantic City’s economy into the 21st century and provide extreme economic benefits to a new generation of Atlantic City residents and business interests, including existing hotels and casinos,” he wrote.
But City Council President Marty Small said drugs are not the way to balance the city’s books.
“Though we appreciate the Assemblyman’s efforts to create additional revenue streams for Atlantic City, I can’t support promoting drug use,” said Small, a Democrat.
Republican Mayor Don Guardian declined comment.
READ: Philadelphia City Council To Have Final Vote On Soda Tax
The move would put the question on the November ballot, and it calls for a 20 percent tax.
Marijuana in Atlantic City would be regulated by the state Department of Law and Public Safety. Half the tax money collected would be deposited in Atlantic City’s general fund; 30 percent would fund state transportation projects; 10 percent would be deposited into an anti-drug law enforcement fund; and 10 percent would go to women’s health, family planning, and similar programs.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Two free third-party Touch Bar apps have been making the rounds this week that may be of interest to some owners of new MacBook Pros. The apps essentially offer alternative ways of accessing pre-existing macOS functions. TouchSwitcher adds an icon to the right side of the Touch Bar that when tapped brings up a list of currently running apps for quick app switching, similar to the Command + Tab keyboard shortcut.One limitation of the Touch Bar discovered by TouchSwitcher's developer is that only one non-system control can be displayed in the right-hand strip, meaning other Apple apps compete for the same space.iTunes for example overrides TouchSwitcher when music is played, and the TouchSwitcher app must be restarted to make it re-appear in the control strip. To manually regain access to the default media control button, users can long press on the TouchSwitcher app icon to quit it.Another new app called Rocket lets users launch apps from the Touch Bar. Rather than live in the system control strip on the right though, Rocket is a standalone app that can be invoked using a keyboard shortcut, whereupon it displays a list of app icons along the left side of the Touch Bar. TouchSwitcher and Rocket (listed as a beta) can be downloaded for free directly from the developers' websites.A judge said yesterday that what the men behind the glass do in their speed camera vans had long been shrouded in mystery with people wondering if they spend their time reading the Beano or the Dandy.
At Ennis District Court, Judge Patrick Durcan adjourned all Go Safe-connected prosecutions before him after raising concerns over the evidential basis of photographs taken by the vans’ cameras of alleged speeding motorists.
The adjournments, to May 2nd, place a large question mark over any Go Safe prosecutions proceeding in the Clare district in the next six weeks.
Failing to prosecute
In two previous sittings, where Go Safe-connected prosecutions were listed, Judge Durcan slammed the private firm that operated the network of speed camera vans.
At Kilrush District Court last Tuesday, he described as a complete waste of public money Go Safe personnel coming to court failing to prosecute alleged speeding motorists.
Seven staff from the private Go Safe firm were in court yesterday in connection with the prosecution of 11 motorists accused of speeding. In three of the cases, the State did not proceed with evidence, resulting in Judge Durcan striking off those summons.
In the first case, Go Safe official Paul Bennett gave evidence of Margaret Barnett of Killaloe speeding at 66km/h in a 50km/h zone on September 2nd.
Insp John O’Sullivan of Ennis Garda station said that as a result of information downloaded, a fixed charge penalty remained unpaid. Ms Barnett told the court that she did try to pay the notice.
Judge Durcan asked Mr Bennett: “What were you doing in the van?”
Mr Bennett replied: “What we do is go to a location for a set number of hours and monitor the speed of motorists.”
Judge Durcan said: “Are you observing or is the machine continuously recording?” Mr Bennett said the camera machine was continuously recording.
Chain of evidence
Judge Durcan told Insp O’Sullivan that Mr Bennett “doesn’t know what vehicle” went by. “What evidence do I have for the picture that is taken and downloaded? There has to be a clear chain of evidence.”
Insp O’Sullivan said he would have Insp John McDonald of the Garda Fixed Charge processing unit in Thurles to give evidence on the adjourned date on May 2nd.In early March, Waffle House co-founder Joe Rogers Sr. died at age 97, leaving his 98-year-old business partner Tom Forkner behind. In late March, Forkner’s wife of 71 years, Martha, died.
Now Forkner is gone, the restaurant chain confirmed Thursday. The World War II veteran, great-grandfather and DeKalb County native died at his home in Johns Creek on Wednesday.
“Tom will be remembered as a man of honesty and integrity,” Waffle House Chairman Joe Rogers Jr. said in a news release. “He and my father never envisioned the company would grow into what it is today, nor how thousands of associates would be positively impacted by the opening of that first restaurant.”
The partners, who were neighbors, founded Waffle House in 1955 in Avondale Estates. They had met when Rogers bought a house from Forkner, who was in the real estate business.
Forkner attended John Marshall Law School before he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941. He was an intelligence and security officer for the famed Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear weapons, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Waffle House said.
He met his wife there and married her after 90 days of courting in 1945.
Ten years later, on Labor Day, the first Waffle House opened on College Avenue in Avondale Estates. The pair had figured the city needed a 24-hour restaurant.
“Tom and my father had a handshake deal, and their partnership and friendship continued for more than 60 years,” Joe Rogers Jr. said. “Tom and Joe were great partners.”
Forker stuck with the business side of the company as it grew into a Southern icon, leaving Rogers to customer relations.
“Joe told me to open a restaurant and he’d show me how to run it,” Forkner once said.
The two largely phased themselves out of the day-to-day by the 1970s. That was after they’d opened 400 restaurants.
They still spent time at the corporate headquarters in Norcross even in their mid-80s.
Forkner also took up golf. As a senior citizen, he won state and international championships. |
discourse for a very long and stretched out hour and a half. I was already exhausted from the intense focus from the previous ten hours of meditation. I struggled each night to stay focused. If we lay down we were told to sit back up. I was silently starting to despise all of those who had cushions and back rests – which is NOT in the Vipassana spirit of remaining equanimous at all.
Day 6
Time to ‘drop’ into Vipassna meditation, time to ‘Feel the sensations from the tip of the head to the tip of the toes‘ Wow this was getting exciting!!
I was very easily able to feel a light energy sensation whilst focusing on my head, and in time i was able to create a rhythmic flow throughout my body.
I was happy that I could do this. I doing so without my mind wandering all the time too. Although I do remember at one point distinctly believing and even having a conversation with a family of Beavers camping on my upper lip. Cheeky little buggers.
Day 7
Getting on with the heavy stuff now, still feeling the sensations from the tip of the head to the toes, really feeling it big time too. Trying not to get excited about the fact that I seemed to be getting it right, that’s not the point, just accept it all, the positives, the aches, the pains, the small victories. None of it mattered. That was hard to grasp, I enjoyed the small celebrations within my sensation filled body.
Day 8
Time to get in touch with ‘Observing’ sensations and not reacting to them. Knowing that I have deep pain between my shoulders caused from sitting down too much, yet being able to move through it. There were long moments where I was sweeping the sensations throughout my body and I was pain free, ahhh if only i could hold on to that thought of not holding onto any thought!!
The sweeping through my body became much more easy, only getting blocked by the intense and seemingly out of control pain in my back and shoulders.
Day 9
Another day filled with sweeping sensations through my body. Learning to see my body being made up purely of sub-atomic particles rising and falling. Realizing that all we are is millions upon millions of these particles rising and falling to create our reality. Finally I understand that thoughts and feelings are but simple manifestations within our brains and if we remain totally equanimous then we shall no longer feel anything.
Day 10
Last Meditation, the end is in sight, we would be allowed to talk after our mid-morning hour and a half long meditation
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk.
Goenkeji was giving his last discourse. I was going to miss him.
(my ant temple erected in solitude and deep thought)
What did I achieve?
This account is quite abridged as I talk only of the physical side of the meditations. During the ten days I felt waves of emotions pass within me. Memories from a distant past seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Issues that I had not fully dealt with presented themselves right in my minds eye. I was able to accept everything within myself without judgement.
I learnt much about my being, my strengths and my weaknesses, what was important to me and what was now OK for me to let dissolve back into the universe. I knew very well the benefits of remaining equanimous and being able to observe and see things as they really are.
A very big factor for me was seeing and understanding what my true values and ethics are. More so to see clearly the path that I have chosen for myself and to promise that I shall remain on this path for the rest of eternity. The only gain being to myself a better person each day who is just a little bit more honest and pure. If one starts there, everything else falls into place.
Clarity for my own being stays with me daily after Vipassana, not a day passes where I do not think about or act upon all all of the benifits that this Ancient Meditation offers.
Vipassana was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my entire life, and yes I have done a great many thing. Some say Vipassana is not for everyone, I disagree though. One can truly only benefit from learning the art of silence and stillness and getting to know one’s true being.
As Socrates said, ‘Know Thyself’, I believe that once one really does know himself, his true intentions, what he wants, what his true priorities are, where he wishes to go then and only then he will find his own peace.
I cannot recommend a better place to start ‘Knowing Thyself’ than within Noble Silence attending a Vispassana Meditation.
Vipassana has so many levels and each will get their own unique journey out of it. My only thought is that once started it will be hard to ignore the path to the original truths again.
The Vipassana Centre I attended in Australia
http://www.bhumi.dhamma.org/about.htm
Introduction to Vipassana
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1PhpbLvGw
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–71jSYMMqg
Vipassana in Prison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA8XFEyeMi8
AdvertisementsLONDON (Reuters) - Buying by central banks as well as Chinese investors seeking protection from a weakening currency helped lift demand for gold in the final quarter of last year and the trend looks set to continue, the World Gold Council said on Thursday.
A shop attendant shows two pairs of 24K gold bracelets for Chinese weddings to a customer inside a jewellery store at Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district April 24, 2013. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
China remained the world’s biggest consumer of gold last year, ahead of India, with economic headwinds influencing purchasing, the WGC said in its annual “Gold Demand Trends” report. The WGC’s members include the world’s leading gold mining companies.
Chinese demand for gold coins surged 25 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier as consumers sought to protect their wealth after Beijing devalued the yuan currency. But stock market turmoil and a slowing economy knocked consumer sentiment and Chinese demand for gold for jewelry fell 3 percent from a year earlier, WGC said.
Jewelry is the biggest source of demand for gold globally and a slight dip in such demand meant overall demand for gold was virtually flat in 2015 at 4,212 tonnes.
Central banks have been buying gold to diversify their reserves away from the U.S. dollar and their purchases edged up to 588.4 tonnes last year, second only to a record high 625.5 tonnes in 2013, the report showed.
Central bank buying accelerated sharply in the second half of last year and jumped 25 percent in the fourth quarter, from a year earlier, as the need to diversify was reinforced by falling oil prices and reduced confidence in the global economy, WGC said.
Alistair Hewitt, WGC’s head of market intelligence, was optimistic about the outlook for gold demand given a rally in gold prices since the start of 2016 as investors sought a safe haven from stock market turmoil and warnings of a possible global recession.
Investment demand for gold is improving and flows into exchange-traded funds turned positive this year.
“Looking ahead, physical demand will continue to be supported by strong central bank purchases, and continued buying of jewelry, bars and coins by households across the world, led by India and China,” said Hewitt. “If we just look at the year to date, the investment case for gold is as strong as ever. While stock markets have wobbled, gold has performed well.”
Chinese demand for gold totaled 985 tonnes last year, followed by India on 849 tonnes. They accounted for nearly 45 percent of total global demand, with consumer demand up 2 percent and 1 percent respectively in those countries.
Indian jewelry demand reached its third highest level on record in 2015 at 654.3 tonnes.
Global supply of gold fell 4 percent last year to 4,258 tonnes, partly because of slower mine production. Mining companies have scaled back since 2013 in a bid to slash costs and mine production shrank in the fourth quarter of 2015, the first quarterly contraction since 2008, WGC said.President Trump promised to slap “additional major sanctions” on North Korea Wednesday, just one day after the rogue nation fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile in months.
Trump’s announcement followed a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting slated for later Wednesday.
“Just spoke to President XI JINGPING of China concerning the provocative actions of North Korea,” Trump tweeted. “Additional major sanctions will be imposed on North Korea today. This situation will be handled!”
Trump and Xi had discussed the latest missile launch, according to the White House.
“President Trump underscored the determination of the United States to defend ourselves and our allies from the growing threat posed by the North Korean regime,” the White House said in a statement. “President Trump emphasized the need for China to use all available levers to convince North Korea to end its provocations and return to the path of denuclearization.”
After North Korea fired its highest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump on Tuesday promised to “take care of it.” The launch was the first since the country fired an intermediate range missile in September. Tuesday’s ICBM flew 1,000 miles higher than during the first ICBM launch in July.
North Korea has now test-launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles in its history.
US SLAPS NEW SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA AFTER DESIGNATING IT SPONSOR OF TERRORISM
“It went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they’ve taken,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on Tuesday.
The latest clash, though, follows the administration’s designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, which came with additional sanctions on the rogue nation.
While it is unclear what “major additional sanctions” the president was referring to on Twitter, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said they were exploring an additional round.
TRUMP ON NORTH KOREA MISSILE LAUNCH: 'WE WILL TAKE CARE OF IT'
“We have a long list of additional potential sanctions -- some of which involve additional financial institutions,” Tillerson said at the State Department Wednesday. “The Treasury Department will be announcing those when they’re ready to roll those out.”
Last week, the Treasury Department announced new measures to pair with the designation of a state sponsor of terrorism, including sanctions on one individual, 13 entities, and 20 vessels as the U.S. takes action “multilaterally and unilaterally” to disrupt North Korea’s funding of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Those sanctions were set to “maximize economic pressure” to “isolate” North Korea from outside sources of trade and revenue, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week upon the rollout of the sanctions.
TRUMP DESIGNATES NORTH KOREA AS STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR
The sanctions were on four Chinese trading companies, and a Chinese national said to have conducted hundreds of millions of dollars in business dealings with North Korea. Those sanctioned are barred from holding U.S. assets or doing business wth Americans.
Unclear is whether Trump’s Wednesday tweet was referring to those U.S. efforts, or penalties that might come out of the U.N. Security Council.
The State Department and the National Security Council did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for clarification.
Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report.This afternoon, President Obama visited the Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C. to participate in a town hall with youth, and to announce new commitments in support of the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative.
As the President said today, "We want fewer young men in jail; we want more of them in college. We want fewer young men on the streets; we want more in the boardrooms. We want everybody to have a chance to succeed in America. And it’s possible if we’ve got the kind of team that we set up today."
Watch President Obama answer questions during today’s town hall:
Watch on YouTube
In February, as part of his plan to make 2014 a year of action focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans, the President unveiled the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.
The Administration is doing its part by identifying programs and policies that work, and recommending action that will help all our young people succeed. Since the launch of My Brother’s Keeper, the President’s Task Force has met with and heard from thousands of Americans, through online and in-person listening sessions, who are already taking action.
Today, leading private sector organizations announced independent commitments that further the goals of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative and directly address some of the key recommendations in the Task Force Report. These commitments include:
The NBA, the National Basketball Players Association, and the National Basketball Retired Players Association announced a five-year commitment in partnership with MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, Team Turnaround, and the Council of Great City Schools. The partnership will focus on recruiting new mentors and work with educators in at-risk schools to provide incentive programs that increase attendance and improve overall school performance.
, the, and the announced a five-year commitment in partnership with,, and the. The partnership will focus on recruiting new mentors and work with educators in at-risk schools to provide incentive programs that increase attendance and improve overall school performance. AT&T announced an $18 million commitment to support mentoring and other education programs with a mentoring component.
announced an $18 million commitment to support mentoring and other education programs with a mentoring component. Becoming A Man (B.A.M.) and Match tutoring programs announced $10 million in new funding to expand to 3-5 new cities over the next three years and support a large-scale study on the programs’ long-term effects.
and tutoring programs announced $10 million in new funding to expand to 3-5 new cities over the next three years and support a large-scale study on the programs’ long-term effects. Along with their partners from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, the Emerson Collective, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, will collaborate with districts and educators to launch a competition to find and develop the best designs for next generation high schools. Together, they will contribute $50 million for this effort.
, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, will collaborate with districts and educators to launch a competition to find and develop the best designs for next generation high schools. Together, they will contribute $50 million for this effort. Citi Foundation is making a three-year, $10 million commitment to create ServiceWorks, a national program to help 25,000 young people in ten cities across the U.S. develop skills they need to prepare for college and careers.
is making a three-year, $10 million commitment to create ServiceWorks, a national program to help 25,000 young people in ten cities across the U.S. develop skills they need to prepare for college and careers. Today, the leaders of 60 of the largest school systems in the country, which collectively educate nearly three million of America’s male students of color, have joined in an unprecedented pledge to change life outcomes of boys and young men of color by better serving these students at every stage of their education.
which collectively educate nearly three million of America’s male students of color, by better serving these students at every stage of their education. The College Board is investing more than $1.5 million for “All In,” a national College Board program to ensure that 100 percent of African American, Latino, and Native American students with strong AP potential enroll in at least one matched AP class before graduation.
is investing more than $1.5 million for “All In,” a national College Board program to ensure that 100 percent of African American, Latino, and Native American students with strong AP potential enroll in at least one matched AP class before graduation. Discovery Communications will invest more than $1 million to create an original independent special programming event to educate the public about issues related to boys and men of color and address negative public perceptions of them.
Learn more about the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, including previous commitments and steps the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force is taking.Bill Maher called Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas to her face Friday night, and she was left speechless.
On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” the Democratic leader went silent when the host used a nickname often used by President Donald Trump to describe her. (RELATED: Maher Defends Booking Milo: ‘Liberals Will Continue To Lose Elections’ If They React Like This)
WATCH:
(RELATED: Bill Maher On Milo Yiannopoulos’ Fall: ‘You’re Welcome’) “His fans are not with you,” Maher explained. “Explain to me what that disconnection is?”
“Actually, I’m going to push back,” Warren responded. “I disagree with you.”
“His fans are not with you,” Maher repeated. “Come on. They don’t like you, Pocahontas.”
The Massachusetts senator gave him quite a look and paused for a long time, while the audience could be heard laughing loudly in the background. Warren then continued defending her position.
“When you talk about what’s really the basic pieces of a progressive agenda–raise the minimum wage, expand social security, reduce the cost of college so people don’t get crushed by student loan debt, more not less regulation of financial institutions … progressive taxation, make those at the top pay their fair share–America, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, vegetarians, Americans by about two-to-one are with us on that,” Warren insisted. “The progressive agenda is America’s agenda. We cannot forget that, and we cannot apologize.”
“I know, but this is the disconnect I’m talking about,” Maher repeated. “I agree with you. They’re with you on the issues, and then they vote for him.”An EMS worker assaulted a man being restrained by two NYPD officers for allegedly stealing his iPhone.
According to the NYPD, the incident occurred in Sunset Park last month in the bodega on the corner of 4th Avenue and 56th Street. Police say Daniel Shevchenko, 21, rummaged through the victim's Honda Pilot and stole an iPhone, some clothing, and a GPS device.
El Grito de Sunset Park obtained video of Shevchenko's arrest from the owner of the deli and posted it on Facebook.
FDNY EMS assaults an alleged cellphone thief as NYPD restrains... Bodega store surveillance footage taken in Sunset Park, Brooklyn shows an alleged cellphone thief being assaulted by an FDNY EMS Ambulance worker, while NYPD officers hold the man down. Incident took place on September 11th 2015 around 11pm. Posted by El Grito De Sunset Park on Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Dennis Flores, the group's founder, says deli employees told him that Shevchenko was intoxicated, and had been taken in the EMS employee's vehicle to Lutheran Medical to sober up and returned to the same spot after he was discharged. One employee told Flores that Shevchenko was trying to sell him an iPhone when the two NYPD officers and EMS employee entered the deli.
"I would have been just as upset as this EMS worker, but the guy's not a vigilante," Flores says. "There's a proper way to arrest people, and an improper way to arrest people, and this is an example of an improper way to arrest people."
At least eight NYPD officers are seen in the video streaming into the bodega after Shevchenko is pinned to the floor. None are seen restraining or questioning the EMS worker, who leaves the bodega to make what appears to be a phone call.
"If cooler heads would have prevailed, this EMS guy would have stepped back and let the NYPD do their jobs, there's no need for this kind of force," Flores says.
Shevchenko is charged with grand larceny, a felony, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, criminal possession of stolen property, and resisting arrest.
An FDNY spokesman said that the EMS worker is privately employed. The NYPD says the incident is "under internal review."
This morning, Mayor de Blasio gave an interview to 1010Wins outlining the changes to the NYPD's use-of-force policy, referring to retraining and community outreach as a "one-two combination."
"We’re going to help officers know exactly how much force to use in a given situation. And—and really, the point of the training and these new guidelines is to help officers deescalate in each situation," the mayor said.
"This is a new approach that Commissioner Bratton believes will help us to do that while reducing the use of force and, at the same time, bringing police and community together."
Flores's group has worked to make the NYPD more accountable by posting videos of street vendors and a pregnant woman being assaulted by police in Sunset Park, and he noted that the CCRB recommended that the officers in those incidents be docked just a few days of vacation.
"The mayor, basically is spinning this and doing damage control and saying the right things and their actions prove they don't mean what they say," Flores said.
"This is why communities of color are afraid of the police, because they can do whatever they want, and nothing is going to happen to them."We’re always hearing about “firestorms of protest,” but they seldom involve actual fire. In November, though, people who owned New Balance sneakers began setting them alight, posting videos of flaming footware to social media, and calling for a boycott of the company. Like so much else these days, it’s because of Trump. The night that he was elected, a New Balance spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, “With President-elect Trump, we feel things are going to move in the right direction.” The spokesman was actually making a fairly limited point about trade policy. Trump has promised to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal secured by President Obama that would reduce trade barriers between many Pacific Rim countries. That suits New Balance, which still manufactures some of its shoes in the U.S., but good luck trying to communicate such subtleties in the current climate. New Balance suddenly found that its support for American workers—P.R. gold, you would have thought—had led it into contentious territory.
New Balance hasn’t been the only corporate victim of a hyperpolarizing election season. After Pepsi’s C.E.O., Indra Nooyi, said that company employees were “crying” after Trump’s victory, conservatives called for a boycott. (The cause was aided by a viral fake-news story claiming that Nooyi had told Trump supporters to “take their business elsewhere.”) A couple of weeks later, Kellogg’s became the target of a conservative boycott, for yanking its advertising from Breitbart News.
There’s a long history of corporate boycotts: the labor movement used them during strikes at the turn of the twentieth century, and they’ve been common since the nineteen-sixties. But, until now, boycotts have usually been staged in response to specific corporate practices. The United Farm Workers, in the mid-sixties, organized the famous grape boycott in order to get farmers to stop relying on underpaid, non-union workers. Greenpeace organized a boycott of Shell, in 1995, to stop the company from dumping an old oil platform at sea. And, in the nineties, Nike faced a boycott over its reliance on sweatshop labor.
By contrast, the Trump boycotts, from both the left and the right, have been driven by issues extraneous to the targets’ core business practices. There are antecedents: a few years ago, L.G.B.T. activists went after Chick-fil-A after its president voiced his opposition to gay marriage. But there’s something new about the speed and ferocity with which people now respond to corporate statements or signals. You can see it as the next logical step in the evolution of what’s sometimes called political consumerism. In the past few decades, we’ve grown accustomed to holding corporations responsible for their labor practices and environmental records. So it’s not surprising that they are being called to account for their real or imagined political messages.
If we are indeed entering a Trump-fuelled era of consumer activism, it’s bad news for companies. Boycotts are not just futile griping; they often work. The U.F.W., Greenpeace, and anti-Nike boycotts were all successful. A study by Brayden King, a professor at (aptly) the Kellogg School of Management, found that, during high-profile boycotts between 1990 and 2005, a company’s stock price fell, on average, every day that the boycott was in the news. King also found that more than a third of the boycotted companies ended up changing their behavior in response to the protest. Perhaps his most striking finding was that boycotts usually had only a small impact on sales. Bad publicity and worried stockholders were enough to bring a company to heel.
Thanks to social media, boycotts are easier to organize than ever. They used to face a classic collective-action problem: taking part makes sense only if everyone else is. Unlike a street protest, a boycott isn’t inherently visible: you can’t really watch someone not buying Frosted Flakes. Now you can see how many people have signed online pledges, and view videos of burning sneakers. All this helps project a feeling of momentum and critical mass, which in turn attracts more participants.
The obvious solution for corporations is to say nothing controversial. But in the Trump era a truly neutral position is hard to find. Pepsi’s Nooyi has agreed to join Trump’s so-called Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of C.E.O.s who will meet with him periodically. Does that mean Pepsi will go from being the target of conservative attacks to being the drink of choice for the alt-right? Kellogg’s stopped advertising on Breitbart after being spotlighted by Sleeping Giants, a social-media campaign that is pushing brands to cut their ties to the site. But, in trying to avoid one consumer backlash, Kellogg’s walked straight into another. Companies are used to facing pressure over where they advertise. But now they have to worry about where they don’t advertise, too. Trump’s victory has created a political realm in which tens of millions of people feel that if you’re not with them you’re against them. That’s a curse for companies that aim at a mass market, America’s traditional strength. It’s hard to be all things to all people in an us-versus-them world. ♦"Meet Spy Man"
March 2010 - October 2017
Wacom Intuos 9x12, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0
A drawing seven years in the making, "Meet Spy Man" was the beginning of my idea for a picture series that pitted Mega Man against robot versions of the mercenaries from Team Fortress 2. For whatever reason, (READ: DEPRESSION) I only ever got far enough into the picture to create this sketch: fav.me/d2mcgwd
Eventually TF2 made actual robot versions of their mercs, and the idea seemed kind of redundant! But I still loved the composition of the picture and got an itch to finish it properly yesterday.
My Patreon subscribers will get a behind the scenes look at the creation of the picture - if you've got a dollar to spare every month, maybe you'd like to get in on that exclusive take on the process, sent right to your e-mail! www.patreon.com/professorhazar…This article is about the younger Jacques Villeneuve. For his uncle, see Jacques Villeneuve (racing driver, born 1953)
Jacques Joseph Charles Villeneuve OQ ( French pronunciation: [ʒɑk vilnœv]; born April 9, 1971) is a Canadian professional auto racing driver and amateur musician. He is the son of Formula One driver Gilles Villeneuve, and is the namesake of his uncle, who was also a racer. Villeneuve won the 1995 CART Championship, the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and the 1997 Formula One World Championship, making him only the third driver after Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi to achieve such a feat. As of 2018, no other Canadian has won the Indianapolis 500 or the Formula One Drivers' title.
Following two successful years in CART, Villeneuve moved into Formula One with the front-running Williams team, alongside Damon Hill. In his debut season, Villeneuve challenged teammate Hill for the title, winning four races and taking the fight to the final round in Japan, where Villeneuve retired and Hill won the race, and the title. Villeneuve, however, did win the following year's title, this time challenging Michael Schumacher and once again taking it to the final round in Jerez, where Schumacher retired after the two collided. 1997 would be the last year in which Villeneuve would win a championship level race and finish the season in the top three. For 1998, Villeneuve's Williams team had to fare with less competitive Mecachrome engines, and Villeneuve moved to the newly formed British American Racing team in 1999. He stayed there for the next four seasons but, following poor results he was replaced by former British Formula Three Champion Takuma Sato. Villeneuve also drove for Renault at the end of 2004, and Sauber in the 2005 season and eleven races of the 2006 season before suffering an injury in Germany. Villeneuve was replaced by Robert Kubica and soon BMW and Villeneuve parted company.
Outside Formula One, Villeneuve has taken on several new careers: in sportscar racing, racing for Peugeot in the 2007 and 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans, jumping to NASCAR in August 2007 and racing as an invited driver in the Argentinian Top Race V6 series and the Australian-based International V8 Supercars Championship. As a musician, he has released an album titled Private Paradise.
Villeneuve was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998.
Personal and early life [ edit ]
Villeneuve was born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, to aspiring Formula One driver Gilles Villeneuve and his wife Joann and raised in Monaco.[1] He has a sister Melanie and a half sister Jessica. His uncle, Jacques Sr., was also a racing driver and in 1985 at Road America became the first Canadian to win a CART race. When Villeneuve was eleven years old, his father was killed during the qualifying session for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder following a collision with Jochen Mass.
Villeneuve was engaged to Australian singer Dannii Minogue in the late 1990s and was once engaged to American ballerina Ellen Green. He married his Parisienne girlfriend Johanna Martinez on May 29, 2006, at a civil ceremony in Switzerland. After the ceremony, it was announced the Villeneuves were expecting a baby in November. Johanna gave birth to a son, Jules, on November 14, 2006. Their second son Joakim[2] was born on December 23, 2007. The couple divorced in July 2009.[3] In June 2012, Villeneuve married Camila Lopes,[4] with whom he has had two more sons, Benjamin and Henri.[5]
Villeneuve was among the first group inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[6] Also he was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. He was named Canada's Athlete of the Year, receiving the Lou Marsh Trophy in 1995 and 1997.[7] In 1998, he was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec.[8]
From 1996 to 2002 he lived in Monaco, and from 2002 to 2007 he lived in Switzerland. In 2007 he moved to Quebec, buying a $3 million house in Westmount, Montreal, with his mother acting as real estate agent.[9] Villeneuve owned a nightclub and restaurant in Montreal called Newtown, but he sold it in 2009.[10] In 2012 he moved to Andorra, stating that he was leaving Quebec because of the province's language laws, business climate and the general "morose ambiance."[11] Villeneuve and family are currently living in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland.
Racing career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
In 1984, two years after his father's death, Villeneuve asked his mother if he could follow his father's footsteps and go motor racing.[12] His mother, Joann, promised she would allow him to drive a kart if he got good marks in one of his weakest subjects, mathematics. Villeneuve applied himself at school and soon got the marks he required for his mother to fulfill her promise.[12] A year later, Joann allowed him to drive a 100 cc kart at a kart track in Imola.[12] The owners of the track, Luigi and Massimo Buratti, were impressed by him and after proving himself in a 100 cc machine, he moved up to the 135 cc version before, on the same day, being allowed onto the Grand Prix circuit with a Formula Four car.[12]
Soon, Villeneuve's uncle, Jacques Sr., enrolled him at the Jim Russell Racing Driver School in Mont Tremblant, Quebec. Villeneuve's course lasted three days and in that time he demonstrated a great amount of concentration for a boy of his age.[12] At the end of his course, the young Canadian received his diploma and chief instructor Gilbert Pednault declared Villeneuve as the best student he'd ever seen.[12] During the summer of 1987, Villeneuve attended a racing school set up by former instructor Richard Spenard. In return for helping in the garage, Villeneuve received guidance in terms of race craft as he attempted to hone his skills.[12] At the age of seventeen, Villeneuve was too young to obtain a racing license in both his native Canada and Italy and so, with help from the Canadian Automotive Federation, got a license from Andorra.[12]
In 1988, the seventeen-year-old entered the Alfa Cup and, against former Formula One drivers Johnny Cecotto and Mauro Baldi, finished the two legged race in tenth position.[13] Two weeks later at Monza, Villeneuve was up against the likes of Riccardo Patrese and Nicola Larini.[13]
Villeneuve competed in the Italian Formula Three series from 1989 through 1991, but failed to make an impression.[1]
In 1992, he raced in the Japanese Formula Three series with the TOM's team, winning three races and placing second in the championship, as well as third in the non-championship Macau Grand Prix.
Villeneuve soon received an invitation from Craig Pollock to compete as a one-off in the Trois Rivières Formula Atlantic race, Villeneuve finished the race third and Pollock was impressed by Villeneuve, leading him to arrange for him to race in the North American Toyota Atlantic series for the upcoming season.[1]
During the 1993 season, Villeneuve took seven pole positions and five race victories from the 15 races.[1] However, a few crucial driving errors cost him the series title and so finished his debut season third in the standings.[1]
CART IndyCar World Series [ edit ]
His Forsythe-Green team took Villeneuve up a level into the IndyCar championship in 1994. In his first year, Villeneuve came second at that year's Indianapolis 500 and won his first race at Road America, the circuit where his uncle had become the first Canadian to win a CART race nine years before. Villeneuve finished the season in sixth position; 131 points behind champion Al Unser Jr. and also taking the Rookie of the Year award.
Villeneuve started the 1995 campaign strongly, winning the first race on the streets of Miami. Along with the win in Miami came three other victories, the most significant of which came at Indianapolis for the Indy 500. Despite a mid-race two lap penalty, Villeneuve fought his way back up through the field. Running second with less than 10 laps to go, Villeneuve claimed the lead from fellow Canadian Scott Goodyear after Goodyear was penalized for having passed the pace-car before the restart. With Goodyear out of the picture Villeneuve went on to win the race by two seconds over Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi.
His performances, as well as his family name, brought him to the attention of Frank Williams, Managerial Director of the Williams Grand Prix team. Williams signed him to his Formula One team for 1996 and Villeneuve began testing the Williams F1 car in 1995 after the IndyCar season. Villeneuve was the last CART IndyCar World Series champion before the 1996 CART/IRL split created two rival series: The Indy Racing League (IRL) and the Champ Car World Series.[14]
Formula One [ edit ]
Williams [ edit ]
1996
Villeneuve signed a two-year contract with Williams with an option year available to him as well.[1] Villeneuve impressed during his debut race in Australia, taking pole position and almost won the race. But due to an oil leak Villeneuve was forced to slow down and allow teammate Damon Hill to pass and take victory at the opening round of the Championship, the Canadian however did manage to hold onto second place. It would be another 11 years before another driver finished on the podium on his debut which was Lewis Hamilton during the 2007 Australian Grand Prix.
Villeneuve won his first Formula One race at the fourth round at the Nürburgring despite coming under pressure from the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher. Villeneuve won a further three races and managed to take the title to the final round at Suzuka. The Canadian and teammate Hill were the only drivers who could win the title, but with a gap of nine points between himself and Hill prior to the final race his chances of winning the title were slim. In the end, Hill won the race while Villeneuve retired on the 37th lap after his right-rear wheel came off.
Having won 4 races in his debut season, Villeneuve took the record for most wins in his first championship season. He also became the first driver in Formula One history to finish second in his first championship season. Both records were later equaled by Lewis Hamilton in 2007.
1997
Hill was dropped by Williams for 1997, making Villeneuve the team's lead driver. German Heinz-Harald Frentzen was brought in to replace Hill. Villeneuve once again challenged for the title, but instead of Hill, the Canadian found himself battling with then double World Champion Michael Schumacher.
David Coulthard took the opening race in Australia but Villeneuve took the next two wins in Brazil and Argentina. Five more victories came that season at the Spanish, British, Hungarian, Austrian and Luxembourg Grand |
elephant and has bonded with the people who care for her.
Dr. Oosterhuis also advised on Maggie’s care, the elephant from Alaska, who is now thriving at P.A.W.S. Sanctuary. Alaska Zoo consulted 10 outside experts regarding Maggie’s health conditions and her possible move to a sanctuary, nine of which agreed she should be moved. Despite that, the zoo chose to stick with Dr. Oosterhuis’ recommendations for keeping Maggie in Alaska, with no improvement in her condition.
After Maggie collapsed due to colic, and thanks to significant public pressure, the elephant was finally moved to the sanctuary.
Alaska’s zoo director, Patrick Lampi, stated in an interview with Vueweekly regarding Maggie’s situation:
“I don’t know if Maggie would still be with us today. She’s put on all this muscle from climbing up and down the rolling hills and browsing in trees and swimming in their little lake. It’s just a great environment for elephants. You see that and I don’t know if there’s anybody who would say that it was the wrong decision now.”
The last available report on Lucy’s health by Dr. Oosterhuis in February of 2013 describes Lucy’s undiagnosed respiratory issue, where she breathes through her mouth when stressed or when exercising, which is not normal for elephants and indicates difficulty getting enough oxygen.
His documented treatment plan includes “continue to treat this as a medical problem for now.”
Zoos are notoriously bad environments for elephants and across North America, they have been closing their elephant exhibits one after the other, with good reason.
Watoto, a 45-year-old elephant at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo passed away in August, 2014. Her necropsy revealed no evidence of disease or infection. Dr. Darin Collins, the zoo’s Director of Animal health stated:
“We don’t know if Watoto fell or lay down. My clinical assessment is that she was unable to stand back up, due to the joint disease. Unfortunately, the sequence of events that occurs when an elephant is down and unable to stand becomes life-threatening in less than a few hours’ time.”
Captive elephants standing on concrete much of the time are prime candidates for debilitating arthritis. Lucy also currently suffers from arthritis.
Julie Woodyer of Zoocheck Canada, a national animal protection charity that successfully campaigned to have Toronto’s three elephants moved to P.A.W.S. in 2013 has also been a strong voice for Lucy’s release.
She received updated information about who oversees Lucy’s health.“It would appear that the zoo went back to using Ottewell Vet Hospital (which they used prior to hiring Milton Ness); the vet associated with the zoo from that clinic is Terri Pettifor. Additionally, they list Marie-Josee Limoges as a vet of record as well, but she is likely just in an advisory capacity as she works for Granby Zoo in Quebec.”
Surendra Varma, a world-renowned elephant expert with a Masters degree in Wildlife Biology, focuses his work on the conservation of elephants. He was invited by Zoocheck to examine the welfare status of Lucy and completed a detailed report.
Included in his recommendations, Varma states, “All of her current problems, both ecological and medical, can be solved if she is shifted to a location which provides her with the necessary space, stimulus to use the space, the potential to create an unfragmented exercise regime, scope for socialization with other elephants (positively/negatively), and suitable weather conditions.”
He notes that Lucy exhibits stereotypic behavior, stepping and swaying, which occurs when elephants “suffer from loneliness, boredom, lack of activity, constant harsh handling and trauma.” Also contained within his report: “Lucy is maintained for display purposes.”
Lucy, an intelligent, social and tropical animal lives alone in sub-zero temperatures for “display purposes.”
Let that sink in.
Recently, I was put in contact with Varma who advised he was still willing to offer support with regard to Lucy. He says,“Many small but beautiful changes for both captive and wild elephants happen across Asia—but I fail to understand why that is not possible for Lucy?”
Considering Edmonton’s cold winters, advocates in the Save Lucy the Elephant group pooled together $300 in donations to have a coat specially made for Lucy.
Sanctuaries in India and Thailand use similar coats to keep their elephants warm (though the temperatures there are undoubtedly warmer than here in Canada) and the group plans to present the gift this year. It is apparent that there are many concerned and caring individuals and groups who only want the best possible outcome for Lucy, even if that means creating clothing for an elephant who lives in a cold climate.
Though this kind offer of a coat would provide some additional warmth and comfort for Lucy, it doesn’t solve Lucy’s situation.
Standing offers still exist to pay all expenses related to Lucy’s relocation to a sanctuary.
Notably, Bob Barker visited Edmonton in 2009 and offered $100,000 to pay for an independent panel of experts to assess Lucy’s health. The City of Edmonton declined the offer. In a 2011 interview with The Star regarding Lucy’s captivity, Barker was asked why he thought zoos resisted his message, and he responded, “Basically money. All animal exploitation and mistreatment—if you inquire deeply enough, it gets down to greed.”
Other experts who have advocated for Lucy’s release to a suitable environment include renowned elephant biologist Dr. Joyce Poole, P.A.W.S. Sanctuary co-founder Ed Stewart and Dr. Winnie Kiiru, founder of Conservation Kenya, who has worked with the Amboseli Trust for Elephants and is a delegate at the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This is just a small sample of those who have offered expert opinions on Lucy’s care.
Those concerned for Lucy’s well-being are certainly not advocating for her relocation at the cost of her life. That just doesn’t make any sense. Nobody wants Lucy to die.
However, the lack of transparency provided by Valley Zoo and the City of Edmonton raises questions of morality and ethics. It is unclear why they will not allow a team of world-renowned and unbiased elephant experts to formally examine Lucy, considering the main concern about moving Lucy is her health.
If these experts could advise on a treatment plan that would allow Lucy enough recovery to travel, wouldn’t that be in Lucy’s best interest? So, what’s the hold up?
Concerned citizens of Edmonton who side with the zoo, largely due to Dr. Ness’ unqualified opinion on Lucy’s needs, feel that her move to a Sanctuary would cause her death, and thus, there is little public outcry regarding Lucy’s blatant neglect.
I wonder if the knowledge that not everything is being done for Lucy’s well-being—for unknown reasons, though one can speculate that Lucy being the Valley Zoo’s star attraction certainly plays a large part—would cause a change of heart for many.
If the zoo and the City of Edmonton believe Lucy’s condition is not treatable and that she shouldn’t be moved, wouldn’t allowing a free assessment confirming their fears be to their advantage? If a group of independent, neutral experts agreed that moving Lucy would not be in her best interest, I would personally no longer advocate for her to be relocated.
At this point, that’s what advocates and activists want: allow an assessment of Lucy, with no monetary cost to the city or the zoo. Why is that such a problem?
I personally contacted Don Iveson, Edmonton’s current mayor, about this issue on numerous occasions and received no response. All other attempts to begin a discussion with the city’s leader by individuals and organizations have also been stonewalled.
So, what can we do?
A phrase we’ve all heard, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” would apply well here. We need to educate ourselves, and then we must trumpet loudly (but mindfully, and with peace) on behalf of Lucy. As in other successful campaigns to relocate captive elephants to suitable locations, intense public pressure is a necessary ingredient.
The bottom line is that Lucy needs more allies.
Shouldn’t she be diagnosed, treated and then allowed to enjoy her remaining years in a more comfortable environment, socializing with other elephants? Despite a typical lifespan of 50 to 70 years in the wild, this may be Lucy’s last year and so far, it’s safe to say she is not happy or healthy where she currently resides.
Savelucy.ca provides information on how to take action. Watch An Apology To Elephants online. And finally, raise your trunks for Lucy by sharing and educating those you know about Lucy’s sad situation.
The more trunks held up for Lucy, the more likely she is to break free from Edmonton Valley Zoo’s deathly grip.
Update:
Watch this video about the successful trek Toronto Zoo’s elephants made to P.A.W.S.
Love elephant and want to go steady?
Author: Catherine Monkman
Photos: Used with Permission from Sheryl Zaharko, Sabrina Minnings Wowdzia, Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, Diana at GoatCoatShop* Santos will not go under general anesthetic
* President will not need chemotherapy for cancer
* Doctors expect 2-3 week recovery period
By Luis Jaime Acosta and Jack Kimball
BOGOTA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will spend two or three days in the hospital after surgery for non-aggressive prostate cancer, his doctor said on Tuesday, a day before the 61-year-old was scheduled for the operation.
Midway through his four-year term, Santos surprised the Andean nation on Monday night when he announced doctors had discovered a cancerous growth, but the disease had been caught in time and there was minimal risk.
Santos is scheduled to have surgery to remove his prostate early on Wednesday after tests showed a malignant tumor, his urologist, Felipe Gomez, told journalists. The cancer will not require chemotherapy, he said.
“The surgery will be performed under regional anesthesia. This means that it is an anesthetic that effects only the lower half of the body, allowing him to retain consciousness,” Gomez said outside the Santa Fe hospital in Bogota.
“Following surgery, the patient will be recovering in the same institution and we hope that in the course of two to three days he can return home.”
Santos’ complete recovery will likely take up to three weeks, according to his doctor. The president is not allowed to travel during that period, but will be able to carry out his official duties.
Gomez said he would give an update on Santos’ condition around midday on Wednesday.
The way Colombia’s government handled the announcement drew praise from Wall Street. “The situation has been managed well by the government, with absolute transparency,” Barclay’s Capital said in a note to investors.
Santos, who has three children, joins several other Latin American leaders who have fought cancer in recent years, including Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Brazilian President Vilma Rousseff.
Chavez has been cagey on the specifics of his cancer, revealing only that it was in his pelvic area.
“I’m sure (Santos) will overcome this disease. I’m sure it will be a successful and good treatment, from my feisty spirit to him, a big hello from all the Venezuelan people,” Chavez told reporters in the western state of Yaracuy.
“I wish him good health, recovery and much life.”
Government sources said the operation will not affect the start of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels, known as the FARC, which are set to begin in the coming days in Norway and then move to Cuba.
Santos, first as defense minister under his predecessor Alvaro Uribe, then as president, has dealt some of the harshest blows against the FARC guerrillas, including killing the group’s leader Alfonso Cano last year.
A successful end to the peace negotiations would secure Santos a place in Colombian history.Is Donnarumma deal done?
By Football Italia staff
There are multiple reports Milan agreed a new €6m per year contract with Gianluigi Donnarumma, but also rumours of problems with agent Mino Raiola.
Last night Sky Sport Italia, Sportitalia, La Gazzetta dello Sport and others all had the same story: a new five-year deal was worked out for €6m per year.
It’d include a €100m release clause, although that would drop to €50m should Milan fail to qualify for the Champions League.
The Rossoneri would also sign his older brother, Antonio, who is also a goalkeeper and currently playing for Greek side Asteris Tripolis, on a contract worth €1m per year.
However, today there are various reports going around of extreme tension between Donnarumma’s family and agent Raiola.
Metropolis, Radio Rossonera and others continue to suggest Raiola was desperate to drag the 18-year-old away from Milan, pushing for a transfer to Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain.
Rai Sport even claim Raiola is prepared to reject the latest contract offer and won’t let Donnarumma sign without a fight.
It seems as if father Alfonso and brother Antonio were unhappy with the way Raiola handled the whole affair.
There are reports Donnarumma has delayed his exams again so that he can get the Milan situation sorted out with a meeting today.
His family arrived in the city last night and are staying at an apartment provided for them by the club.
The Rossoneri begin pre-season training tomorrow and will hold a Press conference.It’s clear by the comic book moniker, Archie Comics, that the 76-year-old slapstick series was built around the titular hero, Archie Andrews. It was always about Archie, who, let’s face it, was pretty average. The stories traditionally centered on who was fighting over Archie, who Archie was dating, his friendships, and his band. He was simple, but his dramatic life was worth following. That’s why Riverdale, the CW’s spin on the Archie Comics narrative, shifts the action away from the comic’s namesake and focuses more on the corollary characters. In fact, it’s the women of Riverdale who take the lead, while men, like Archie, are secondary characters. And believe it or not, the show even passes the infamous Bechdel Test, updating the classic comic to a time when women are empowered, there’s a girl code, and Betty and Veronica are friends (not frenemies).
Because the show tears a page or two from the likes of The O.C., Gossip Girl, and, yes, even Twin Peaks, there’s a darkness and mystery amidst the town of Riverdale, and that mystery is mostly unraveled by Elizabeth “Betty” Cooper (Lili Reinhart), Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), and Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch). At the beginning of the series, Betty gets friend-zoned by Archie Andrews (KJ Apa), but we quickly discover her presence on the show isn’t defined by her affection for her longtime BFF. Instead, she’s the one steering everyone in the right direction to find out who killed quarterback Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines), while also struggling with the day-to-day horrors of having to navigate her parents’ psychotic restrictions, which includes not being friends with Archie and not seeing her pregnant sister Polly (Tiera Skovbye) who’s been in hiding. Without Betty, the show would have no Nancy Drew trying to solve the crime, and her friends and the town itself would be hopeless.
And that leads us to Veronica. On the outside, the new girl from Manhattan looks like she’s copped Blair Waldorf’s style, but on the inside, she’s a reformed Queen Bee who just wants to make a solid group of friends. Though Veronica and Archie have a brief closet make-out sesh (something she instantly regrets), she vies for a bestie instead of a boyfriend. Perhaps the old Veronica would have pursued a tryst with Archie had she been the Mean Girl-version of herself, but her priority instead is a friendship with Betty, and helping Betty see that she can be a stronger, more confident version of herself.
Riverdale does have its Queen Bee, though, and it’s in the form of Cheryl. As captain of the cheerleading squad (and the second-largest proponent of finding Jason’s murderer), Cheryl is a spitfire — a sassy redhead who appears to be a Regina George, but who’s far more vulnerable. In the second episode, Cheryl runs into the locker room sobbing after seeing Archie in Jason’s old varsity jacket, which prompts Veronica, who Cheryl isn’t so favorable of, to come in and hug her. Veronica sees beyond her differences, and later in the series goes to a sleepover at Cheryl’s, where it’s basically revealed that her family is less than normal and less than kind to her. Veronica, although apprehensive, goes to the Blossom family estate and sees how Cheryl is treated, looking beyond her rude surface image to actually be her friend. Cheryl is compassionate, though guarded, and determined to figure out who killed her twin (their relationship seems super creepy, but … I digress).
Thanks to her mother, Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols), Veronica’s resilience is genetic in Riverdale. While her father’s in jail for embezzlement, Hermione will do anything it takes to keep she and her daughter afloat. The duo may live in a ritzy apartment, but it’s clear that they’re surviving on what’s left of their assets. Hermione made a difficult choice as a (now) single mother to have her and Veronica leave the life that they knew behind in New York City. Her presence as a mother who will do anything to support her family — including leaving her luxe life in Manhattan behind to serve at Pop’s Diner to make ends meet — is commendable, even if she makes a few shady deals with Mayor Sierra McCoy along the way. It’s interesting to see a character who has risen from the ashes, so humbled by her experiences, starting over and taking charge.
Throughout the series, music plays a big role, with Archie striving to be an indie musician, who’s at best mediocre. Of course, the true talents of the town are the commanding Josie and the Pussycats. After some pushback — because, let’s be honest, the band’s lineup and soulful pipes are already solid — the band reluctantly agrees to let Archie write songs with them. Even so, it’s the Pussycats who wind up teaching Archie his craft, even when Valerie Brown (Hayley Law) starts her side project with the show’s red-headed, aspiring John Mayer. But Josie and the Pussycats’ presence on the show is more than about the music: They represent the idea of thriving creativity, intersectional feminism, and the strength and unity of women in Riverdale.
Look no further than Josie’s mother, Sierra McCoy (Robin Givens). As Mayor of Riverdale, McCoy calls all the shots, meaning the most powerful member of the town is a female person of color, and that’s a big statement from the show to its viewers. It says that women do have power and agency over the future of a community. And within that power comes strength and empathy, which is really the underlying message behind the bonds of the women on Riverdale and what makes the show what it is.Ever since it was unveiled at CTIA, the question on everyones’ minds was when Sprint would launch the HTC EVO 3D. Originally, rumors out of the RadioShack camp pegged the handset for a June 4th launch, but the most recent Sprint Playbook suggested a late June launch was more likely. After Sprint teased us with the handset via email, we have snagged a look at a RadioShack promotional flyer clearly stating a June 24th launch for the anticipated glasses-free 3D smartphone. The Shack has been taking unadvertised pre-orders for the device for some time now, but here finally acknowledges that you can reserve your own EVO 3D right now (until June 21st). Start limbering up them eye muscles now, you only have a few more weeks to get them in top shape. Wouldn’t want to strain them staring at that 3D qHD display, now, would we?The parents of two people killed last year in Australia are speaking out against President Trump after their children's deaths were included on a list of terrorist attacks the White House believes haven't received the media coverage they deserve.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung and Tom Jackson were murdered last year during a knife attack in a hostel in Australia.
Rosie Ayliffe wrote in an open letter to President Trump that the "possibility of Mia and Tom's deaths being consequent to an Islamic terror attack was discounted in the early stages of the police investigation," The Washington Post reported.
“My daughter's death will not be used to further this insane persecution of innocent people,” Ayliffe wrote in the letter.
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The parents of the attack's other victim also spoke out against the president.
“I’m pretty sure he and his advisors know full well — or could very easily verify — that Tom and Mia died not as the result of an act of terror but rather through the actions of a disturbed individual,” Les Jackson wrote on Facebook.
“Of course, that doesn’t suit his agenda.”In front of an expectant audience of more than 4,000 international delegates attending the International Aeronautical Congress in Adelaide, today Senator Simon Birmingham - representing Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Arthur Sinodinos – announced Australia’s federal government is committed to a space agency.
Although details on timelines, funding and practicalities are yet to be described, here three experts address the question of how an Australian space agency will support the sector.
Andrew Dempster (Director, Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research UNSW)
This announcement has the potential to be monumental, and great reward for people (including me) who have fought for an agency for many years.
Interestingly, the announcement preempts the report of the government’s Review of Australia’s Space Industry Capability, which is due in March. The roundtable events in support of this review have resoundingly supported establishment of an agency, with most of the effort dedicated to its role and structure.
We are still awaiting detail of how such an agency would look. What is critical is that the agency is not simply a replica of the earlier Space Policy Unit, and Space Coordination Office. These were small offices primarily focused on policy and the workings of government.
The real opportunity an agency offers is the growth of the local industry to the point where it is sustainable and can deliver big projects – Australian solutions to Australian problems: i.e. it is about Australian sovereignty.
To be successful in that regard, commitment to a space agency cannot be halfhearted. It must be resourced with the right quality and quantity of people to deliver a vibrant Australian industry.
Once that is achieved, and the benefits become obvious, we’ll all be asking why we didn’t do it decades ago.
Graziella Caprarelli (Associate Professor in space science, UniSA)
Details about the structure and brief of the announced future National Space Agency are not known at present. Ideally, an Australian space agency should oversee the coordination and development of the entire space supply chain.
Right now, the quality and impact of Australian space research is demonstrably well above the size of its scientific and aerospace engineering community. This fertile scientific and technological environment has encouraged many young startups revolving around space technology and space data.
Access to space is therefore crucial to ensure the sustainable growth of this nascent industry. This can only happen under the purview of a dedicated Australian agency, tasked with the coordination of all civilian space related activities in the country, with the delegation to allocate and distribute resources, and to represent and facilitate Australian interests internationally.
The present focus is on the many possibilities of economic growth and industrial development. But the long-term sustainability of a space industry in Australia will critically depend on the availability of local talent, steady supply of expertise, and the manufacturing and technical skills required to bring Australia to space.
This requires strong and continued support for STEM education, investment in space science and technology, research and training. An Australian space agency would therefore be responsible for all space-related activities.
There may be concerns that such portfolio may require the institution of a new giant bureaucracy. This need not be so, if the future agency is structured in a way that captures the expertise of the many groups and individuals already working in space-related fields all over Australia.
Duncan Blake, PhD candidate (Law and military uses of outer space, University of Adelaide)
This announcement is exciting not just for Australian space industry, but also for future generations in Australia and for the global space industry. Michael Davis, Brett Biddington and others – who are responsible for bringing the International Aeronautical Congress to Australia – have shown that industry can and will lead.
Australia rates very highly in space startups per capita: these are not big, multinational companies, but small enterprises making an disproportionate contribution in niche areas.
The Australian space agency will have a regulatory role, obviously, but it needs to do what the industry can’t do for itself. It needs to represent the Australian people at home and abroad, it needs to pursue Australia’s interests in global space governance bodies, it needs to not only help seize opportunities for Australia but actually create opportunities and it needs to be a focal point internally and externally.
Perhaps most importantly, it needs to facilitate collaboration by the many government agencies, plus the academic, research and other civil institutions and the growing number of commercial enterprises involved in space in Australia.
It also needs a strategy that identifies some enduring, national “beacon” projects to muster the immense energy in the Australian space industry right now and which will herald our place in space. This, and more, is what we hope to hear about in the next few days, or at most, months.Rousseff Cancels Trip to US and Prevents Vice President Temer from Assuming President's Position
03/30/2016 - 08h55
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MARIANA HAUBERT
VALDO CRUZ
FROM BRASÍLIA
President Dilma Rousseff decided on Tuesday (29) to cancel her trip to the United States next Thursday (31) to participate in the 4th Nuclear Security Summit, to be held in Washington.
The decision was taken when the PMDB formalized its withdrawal from the federal government's coalition and the political crisis faced by Rousseff intensified with the possibility that other allied parties will also leave the government base.
The cancellation of the trip also prevents Vice President Michel Temer, national president of the PMDB and the main articulator of the party's withdrawal from the government's base, from assuming the command of the country for two days.
According to the Constitution, the Vice President assumes the President's position when the holder leaves the national territory.
Translated by MARINA DELLA VALLE
Read the article in the original languageChicago worst among 15 major cities grappling with pensions
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has warned people about trying to lobby him via email. | Sun-Times file photo
Chicago is not alone among major cities grappling with under-funded city employee pensions, but is clearly in the worst shape among the nation’s fifteen largest cities, a Wall Street rating agency concluded Wednesday.
Standard & Poor’s surveyed pension obligations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, San Antonio, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Dallas, Houston, Columbus, Indianapolis and Austin.
Chicago performed the worst across the board — registering the highest annual debt, pension post-employment benefits costs as a percentage of governmental expenditures and the highest debt and pension liability per capita.
The burden in Chicago is $12,427-per-person, double New York city’s $6,115-per-person.
Chicago also had the lowest weighted pension fund ratio, the worst pension contribution vs. required level and the lowest funded return for a single fund.
That dubious distinction went to the Chicago Police Annuity and Benefit Fund, which had assets to cover just 25 percent of its liabilities in fiscal 2015, down from 26 percent the year before.
The report noted that the “median weighted pension funded ratio of 70 percent” for the 15 cities “underlies a wide range of positions with Chicago only 23 percent funded across all plans and Indianapolis the most well-funded at 98 percent.”
Chicago also had the lowest bond rating among the nation’s fifteen major cities, at BBB-plus with a stable outlook. Every other big city had at a bond rating of AA-minus or better. Austin, Columbus and San Antonio have a triple-A bond rating.
Given weak market returns in 2016, funded ratios reported in fiscal 2016 are likely to look worse for most cities, the report states.
“Pension liabilities are a clear credit weakness for Chicago, which stands out with the highest pension liability per capita and the lowest weighted funded ratio among peers,” the report states.
“Chicago’s combined debt service, required pension and actuarial [post-employment benefits] contributions represented the highest share of budget among the largest cities at 38 percent of total governmental fund expenditures in 2015. Of that amount, 26.2 percent represented required contributions to pension obligations.”
S&P noted that Chicago “only made 52 percent of its annual legally required pension contribution” in fiscal 2015.
While Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2017 budget contributes more toward employee pensions, amounts budgeted still fall significantly short of the actuarially determined contributions levels,” the report states.
The rating agency noted that dedicated funding sources have now been identified for all four city employee pension funds. But, Emanuel’s plan to save the municipal and laborers pension funds is still awaiting the governor’s signature.
The Illinois House unanimously approved the plan, only to have the governor declare his intention to veto the bill that locked in employee concessions and authorized a five-year ramp to actuarially required funding.
“Notably, the city is unable to change pension benefits for its existing employees due to state constitutional constraints, but has increased contribution requirements for new employees,” the report states.
The mayor’s office had no immediate reaction to the S&P report.
Last fall, Standard & Poor’s affirmed Chicago’s bond rating at three levels above “junk” status, but changed the city’s financial outlook from “negative” to “stable,” thanks to Emanuel’s plan to slap a 29.5 percent tax on water and sewer bills to save the largest of four city employee pension funds.
At the time, S&P said Chicago was “gradually moving in the right direction toward stabilizing its budget and pension plan contributions” and that the utility tax, “coupled with adjustments to benefits offered to new hires” were “tangible steps that forestall credit deterioration” in the near term.
“However, in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of its pension contributions and continued credit stability, we believe that the city will need to identify additional measures to address its mounting pension contributions within the next two years,” that report said.
Emanuel called the outlook upgrade a well-earned recognition of the work that he and the City Council have done to reduce the city’s structural deficit by “more than $600 million” while identifying permanent funding sources for all four city employee pension funds.
“Our hard work is now paying off.... It has stabilized the city’s finances,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.
But, the mayor agreed with S&P that the job is not done.
He has openly acknowledged that the city’s largest pension fund would still be left with a gaping hole in 2023 — even after the utility tax is fully phased in. That hole will require “more revenue” to honor the city’s ironclad commitment to reach 90 percent funding over a 40-year period.
Chicago taxpayers have paid a heavy price for easing the city’s $30 billion pension crisis.
They’ve been hit with $838 million in property tax increases for police, fire and teacher pensions; a 29.5 percent tax on water and sewer bills to save the Municipal Employees pension fund and a 56 percent increase in the monthly tax tacked on to telephone bills — on cell phones and land lines — for the Laborers Pension fund.
Fitch has also shifted Chicago’s financial outlook from negative to stable earlier this year.SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singapore court has rejected a gay Singaporean doctor’s bid to adopt his biological child because he was born by a surrogate mother in the United States through a procedure not available for unmarried couples in the island state.
Singapore is in many ways a vibrant, modern society but it remains socially conservative and sex between consenting males is a punishable crime with a maximum penalty of two years in jail, although prosecution is rare.
Singapore is also trying to boost fertility among its citizens, and offers generous incentives to couples to have babies, but in-vitro fertilization is allowed only for married couples and surrogacy services are not available for anyone.
The man, in a homosexual relationship with a partner, paid $200,000 for a woman to carry his child through in-vitro fertilization in the United States after he had learned he was unlikely to be able to adopt a child in Singapore as a gay man.
A Singapore court ruled against his bid to adopt the child this week saying the steps he had taken to have the baby in the United States would not have been possible in Singapore.
“He cannot then come to the courts of the very same jurisdiction to have the acts condoned,” the court said.
“This application is in reality an attempt to obtain a desired result... by walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut.”
The child, who is about four years old and is legally an American citizen, will remain in the care of the man.
The man, whose name has been withheld because the case involves a minor, is exploring his options in relation to the decision, his team of lawyers said.
“The primary reason that motivates him is that like any father he wants the best for his son, he wants his son to be legitimate in the eyes of the law and to ensure that he has all the necessary benefits to set him on the right path,” said one of his lawyers, Ivan Cheong.
Cheong said legitimacy would help with any future application for citizenship and access to certain welfare benefits, as well as removing a perceived stigma around illegitimacy “that you can’t really place a value on”.
Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong has said the country was not yet ready for same-sex marriage and he was prepared to live with the anti-gay sex law “until social attitudes change”.
A Singapore lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights group, Pink Dot, said it was dismayed by the ruling.
“Singapore has chosen to reject a loving father’s application to adopt his own biological son based on an outdated view of what a family should constitute,” the group said in a statement."In the midst of struggle and tragedy, it was those points of connection that makes you feel loved and less isolated," says Joe Sikorra, whose son, John, succumbed to juvenile Batten's Disease.
It was about eight years ago when Mark Hamill agreed to meet a terminally ill boy who wanted nothing more than to talk to Luke Skywalker in person.
The request was a long shot. But Ed Solomon, the screenwriter best known for Men in Black and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, had to try for his friend, Joe Sikorra, whose son was dying of juvenile Batten's Disease (JNCL).
The Star Wars actor is known for his huge heart and his giving to charities, but this particular moment went under the radar — that is until Solomon began tweeting about it on Monday in an effort to combat what seemed like a daily tidal wave of negative news. His tweets were so well received, Twitter made a moment of them and Solomon was inundated with replies. Even Hamill saw.
Heat Vision on Tuesday caught up with Solomon and Sikorra to learn more about their emotional, "beautiful experience" with the star of the upcoming Last Jedi.
"Around 1998, my son, John, was diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder called juvenile Batten's Disease (JNCL)," Sikorra says. "The disease robs kids of their vision first followed by cognitive motor function. Typically kids die in their late teens, early 20s. It is a very complicated disease and most doctors aren't that familiar with it. So we lived in the moment, did as much as we could." His other son, Ben, also has JNCL.
John was obsessed with Star Wars and watched the original trilogy every single day, says Sikorra, who is a former Santa Monica police officer and now works as a therapist and hosts a call-in show on Relevant Radio, a Catholic network. He also wrote the book Defying Gravity about his sons' condition and the family's experience.
Wanting to give his son a special experience, Sikorra called his friend, Solomon, in the hopes he knew Hamill somehow through his profession so John could meet his hero.
"I had never met Mark, but I called his agent and asked if this could happen," says Solomon, who is currently working on HBO’s Steven Soderbergh-directed limited series, Mosaic. "Mark's agent said, 'Please don't say anything to the boy because I don't want to get his hopes up.' And then, literally less than two minutes later, Mark calls and said, 'I would love to. How about tomorrow?' I started bawling."
That next day, Solomon and Sikorra, along with Sikorra's two sons, met up with Hamill for a portion of the day.
Because of his state of mind, John could not differentiate between Hamill the person and Luke Skywalker the character. The boy's short-term memory was at times fleeting. The actor handled it like a pro, Solomon and Sikorra remember.
"Mark spoke to John simply and directly and with utter dignity," Solomon says. "John would ask the same question three times in a row, and Mark would answer the same way every single time."
Sikorra adds, "Mark was just super patient and kind. It was was one of those beautiful experiences. It is very humbling, this disease. You have got to let go of your normal expectations for you and your kids and family. In the midst of struggle and tragedy, it was those points of connection that makes you feel loved and less isolated. Mark was very kind, 'no rush, my time is your time.' "
But, there is a bit more to the story involving another Star Wars icon, the late Carrie Fisher.
"So, Mark says are there any final questions, and John asks, 'Can I meet Princess Leia?' And Joe and I looked at each other and winced, and I remember Joe waving his arms to Mark, like you don't have to do this. And Mark said, 'I'll ask.' Solomon remembers. "And Mark called me later that day and said 'Princess Leia would be happy to meet John.' I told her about the family. She got very emotional about the unfairness of things in life. And she said 'I only have two questions: Where and when?' Unfortunately, John's situation started to deteriorate pretty quick after that, so we couldn't met up with Carrie. But Carrie had agreed to do it and that came through Mark."
John died Sept. 24, 2015. He was 23.
Sikorra says his son meeting Hamill is a day the family will always treasure.
"It was one of those very touching, moving things," he says. "And in that moment, it raised John up and made him feel good |
"Muscular Augments" upgrade has been split into two separate upgrades: Muscular Augments Upgrade cost is 100 Minerals / 100 Vespene Gas / 71.4 Research time. Grooved Spines Upgrade cost is 100 Minerals / 100 Vespene Gas / 71.4 Research time.
Patch 4.2.0 [5] Hydralisk attacks now have a new green visual effect once Grooved Spines has been researched.
Patch 4.7.1 [6] Unburrow speed decreased from 0.71 to 0.36.
Unburrow random delay decreased from 0.36 to 0.08.
Needle Spines attack speed changed from 0.54 to 0.59.Ed Miliband is to write to David Cameron urging him to follow Labour and impose a ban on MPs holding outside directorships and consultancies in the wake of the cash for access allegations made against the former UK foreign secretaries Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
The opposition Labour leader is expected to put the ban on MPs’ second jobs in his manifesto and say he will consult on proposals to limit the amount of money MPs could earn from outside parliament to 10% or 15% of their salary – in effect, limiting outside earnings to about £10,000.
Miliband tells the prime minister: “I write this letter to you not just as leader of the Labour party, but as someone who believes that we all need to act to improve the reputation of our parliament in the eyes of the British people.
“I believe MPs are dedicated to the service of their constituents and the overwhelming majority follow the rules. But the British people need to know that when they vote they are electing someone who will represent them directly, and not be swayed by what they may owe to the interests of others.”
The letter comes as an investigation by the Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches alleges that Straw and Rifkind offered to use their positions as politicians on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for thousands of pounds.
Straw – who was Labour foreign secretary from 2001-2006 – has suspended himself from the parliamentary Labour party and Rifkind – Conservative foreign secretary from 1995-1997 – has said he is meeting Michael Gove, the Conservative chief whip, to discuss the allegations later on Monday. Both deny wrongdoing.
Straw allegedly boasted to undercover journalists that he had operated “under the radar” to use his influence and change EU rules on behalf of a firm that paid him £60,000 a year. A recording obtained with a hidden camera shows Straw saying: “So normally, if I’m doing a speech or something, it’s £5,000 a day, that’s what I charge.”
Rifkind reportedly claimed to be able to gain “useful access” to every British ambassador in the world. Journalists recorded him describing himself as self-employed, even though he earns a salary of £67,000 for being MP for Kensington. “I am self-employed – so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income,” he said.
Rifkind told the journalists that he usually charges “somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000” for half a day’s work.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir Maclolm Rifkind denies cash-for-access allegations
A ban on outside consultancies could be imposed by Miliband on the party’s MPs from May 2015, but a cap on outside earnings would require legislation. The proposed law would phase out all outside directorship and consultancies by 2020 so existing contracts can be honoured.
At present, MPs are entitled to hold directorship and consultancies as long as they declare them in the register of members’ interests and do not take part in paid advocacy on behalf of their clients in parliament. Cameron has been reluctant to support a ban on outside earnings, taking the view that it is permissible for MPs to bring their professional experience into the Commons.
Miliband first proposed the ban on outside jobs – so far supported in opinion polls – in the wake of allegations of a rigged selection in Falkirk by members of Unite. Analysis of the register shows that Tory MPs earn more from outside earnings than Labour MPs. Labour estimates that there were 91 Tory MPs earning £4.4m last year and 21 Labour MPs earning less than £1m.
The cap on outside earnings set at around 15 % of an MPs’ £67,000 salary is designed to ensure that MPs are entitled to keep their professional qualifications such as a doctor or lawyer up to date. The plan is likely to be criticised for further cocooning a professionalised political class from the world of work outside Westminster.
Straw made clear on BBC radio on Monday morning that he did not see a case for the current rules to be be changed, but recognised that Miliband was likely to consult on the issue.
Rifkind disagreed with the idea that MPs should not be able to take second jobs. He said: “The basic allegation, and you’re really referring to it at the moment, is there is something improper in the United Kingdom about a member of parliament being willing to take part – in this case on an advisory board – in a company that is seeking to invest in the United Kingdom. But of course there are probably 200 MPs who have various business interests other than their MP’s salary.
“Now, some people disapprove of that and maybe the Labour party is going to disapprove of that, but many of the public take a different view – not all of them, but many say ‘actually, we don’t want full-time politicians; we want members of parliament who have some outside experience of the wider world’. And that is a perfectly reasonable proposition.”
Rifkind added that an MP’s salary alone would not attract people with backgrounds in business to parliament.
Channel 4 and the Telegraph disclosed that their reporters had approached 12 MPs asking whether they would be interested in joining the advisory board of a Chinese company.
Six of the 12 did not respond and one said his contacts were not “for sale”.
Straw and Rifkind agreed to enter discussions with the fictitious company, which, they were told, was looking to expand its business interests in Europe and form an advisory board.
Rifkind told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he had nothing to be embarrassed about and that the allegations were unfounded as he did not accept an offer from the fake firm.
Defending himself on Today, Rifkind said: “Every single thing I said to these people, I would have been willing to say on television or to you, if you’d put the same questions to me at the time”. He said he had offered to give an interview to Dispatches to personally answer allegations, but that they had refused to allow him. The Dispatches investigation will air on Channel 4 on Monday.
Rifkind said he would not resign as chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee unless his committee colleagues wanted him to, arguing that the two things had nothing to do with each other.
Speaking to the same programme, Straw said that he was “mortified” that he’d fallen into a trap “set by very skillful journalists”. Like Rifkind, he said his words had been taken out of context and denied any wrongdoing.
The former Labour cabinet minister sought to explain his comments that he operated “under the radar”, saying that he had sought to negotiate changes to “obscure aspects” of EU sugar regulations on behalf of the company ED and F Man. “You can get further with EU officials by being polite and quiet and forensic rather than shouting,” he said.
Straw said that the recorded discussion was about what he might do once he left the Commons in May, but that he should have waited to have such conversations once he had stood down.
Straw says he has earned money from second jobs while working as MP for Blackburn, adding he had declared every penny. “I have never ever misused information or contacts that I gained as a minister,” he said.
Any reform to MPs outside interests still leaves open the question of the outside interests of peers, who are aid an attendance allowance, and often used by lobbyists to make small and sometimes necessary changes to legislation.(This is part one of a two-part feature. Click here to read part two.)
About an hour-long ferry ride off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, where the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean crash onto a jutting granite shoreline, is the tiny island of Fogo – a place so remote that conspiracy theorists believe it to be one of the four corners of the Earth.
And in a small village on this island – where wooden houses and clapboard sheds dot the shore like Monopoly pieces – is Kwang Tung Restaurant, Fogo Island's very own Chinese café.
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I first learned of Kwang Tung after stumbling across it in a food blog post titled " I can't believe there's a Chinese restaurant in Fogo." Like the author, I was bewildered. How did the restaurant wind up there? Why would someone decide to open a Chinese restaurant on Fogo Island? The post included a photo of a plate of food: a deep-fried egg roll, its blistered surface laid atop brown fried rice.
There was also a photo of the Kwang Tung menu, an inventory of Chinese-Canadian classics: sweet and sour won tons, moo goo guy pan and a long list of dishes dredged in batter, deep-fried and coated in sweet, sticky, vaguely spicy sauces. "Chinese Canadian food," the writer proclaimed. "Good in that guilty pleasure kind of way."
This was "chop suey" cuisine, which is distinct from "authentic" Chinese food. The name "chop suey" translates more or less into "assorted mix," and refers to a repertoire of dishes mostly developed in North America in the mid-20th century. A mix of ideas both East and West and, to my eyes, frozen in time.
For my family, and every other Chinese family I knew growing up in Vancouver, food was an obsession. I would listen as relatives argued about which dim sum restaurant's har gow wrapper was the thinnest, or whose xiao long bao the juiciest. Now living in Toronto, I've witnessed first-hand the rapid development of very diverse Chinese cuisines in this city, too.
I had assumed the small-town Chinese restaurant was a fading piece of the country's history, a relic of the past. But, at least on Fogo Island, that didn't seem to be the case. I wanted to know more.
"They are, in very much a weird way, a Canadian thing," said Lily Cho, a York University professor who has written a book on Chinese restaurants. Of course there are Chinese-American restaurants in the United States, but the story up here – from the way the restaurants spread across the country along with the railroad, to the invention of dishes like Alberta ginger beef and Thunder Bay Bon Bon ribs – is uniquely Canadian.
These restaurants serve many purposes, said Cho. They create jobs and opportunities for newcomers and they fill a void for the entire community, often providing services and infrastructure that don't otherwise exist. For a century and a half, they have been quintessential small-town Canadian institutions.
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The curling-rink location of Ling Lee’s Chinese Cuisine, with a backdrop of a mural depicting historical figures throwing curling stones, helps make it part of the fabric of the community in Thunder Bay, Ont. Ann Hui/The Globe and Mail
And, she said, they aren't disappearing. Newcomers are still arriving in Canada and still moving to small towns to open Chinese restaurants. Just about every town across the country, I learned, has its own Chinese restaurant – according to some estimates, more Chinese restaurants than all fast-food restaurants combined.
I had so many questions: Why would these restaurant owners take the gamble to leave everything behind for this new place? Why open a Chinese restaurant, and why in a small town? And why does just about every Canadian town have its own Chinese restaurant? I was especially intrigued by Kwang Tung: Fogo Island was probably the most isolated place I could imagine – and one of the least diverse. I scoured the Internet for more information.
An image search revealed one last clue. A photographer from Montreal had visited the restaurant a few years ago, capturing an image of a faded white building. Above the door hung a Pepsi sign, with the restaurant's name etched in Charlie Chan-style lettering.
This photo of owner Huang Feng Zhu posing in front of Kwang Tung Restaurant in Fogo Island, Nfld., inspired the writer’s journey. Courtesy Richmond Lam
In front of the restaurant stood a woman with short black hair. She looked to be in her 50s, dressed simply in a T-shirt, dark slacks and grey sneakers. Her lips curved upwards. According to the caption, her name was Huang Feng Zhu. She ran the restaurant seven days a week, by herself: "She lives upstairs so basically she never leaves."
I became determined to find Huang, to understand how she ended up running a Chinese restaurant on Fogo Island. I wanted to know how she wound up there alone. So I set out a plan: to drive across the country, visiting as many small-town Chinese restaurants as possible. I'd start on the West Coast, where the earliest wave of Chinese settlers began arriving in 1858. From there, I would make my way east across a 2 ½ -week period, roughly tracing the path of the railway.
The last stop would be Fogo Island, where I hoped to visit Huang at the mysterious Kwang Tung Restaurant.
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Meet the restaurateurs
Guests of Gold Mountain
The first Chinese workers arrived on Vancouver Island in the mid-19th century. As they stepped off their ships from their long journey, Victoria was their first glimpse of this new country and their first step in their search for gold. A few decades later, between 1881 and 1885, thousands more would land here, for the promise of $1 a day, working to build the railway.
An entire infrastructure sprang up around these men, creating Canada's first Chinatown along a four-block stretch of the city's downtown. Some of them opened cafés and shops where labourers could stock up on supplies, have a meal or spend the night before the final leg of their journey to the Cariboo in search of gold, or to find back-breaking work on the railway that would eventually unify this country.
On a grey, rainy morning in mid-March, I flew from Toronto to Victoria, picked up a tiny rental car and drove straight toward this Chinatown. But if I had hoped to gain insight into the experiences of early settlers, I was out of luck. Chinatown's labyrinth of brick buildings and narrow alleyways – once crowded with tenements and brothels – is now the site of coffee shops and office space for tech startups.
Restaurants found on the way to Fogo 1. Don Mee Seafood Restaurant, Victoria; 2. New Club Café, Vulcan, Alta.; 3. Amy's Restaurant, Vulcan, Alta.; 4. Bing's #1 Restaurant, Stony Plain, Alta.; 5. Moon's Café, Grenfell, Sask. TRISH McALASTER/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
By the mid-20th century, many of the city's Chinese had moved to Vancouver and across the country, essentially leaving Victoria as a museum, a Chinatown for tourists with street fixtures decorated in red and gold dragons. Only a few hints of the original Chinese remain, like the Chinese public school that was built in 1909 after locals complained that the Chinese children enrolled in regular public schools didn't belong.
On the second day of my trip, in Vancouver, I sat with history professor Henry Yu in a cafeteria on the lush green University of British Columbia campus. "Nobody goes halfway around the world on a whim," he said. He explained that before anything else, I'd first have to understand Gold Mountain.
Gum san, or Gold Mountain, was the nickname the first Chinese workers – the gold-rush-seekers and the railway builders – gave to this place. Up until the mid-20th century almost all of Canada's Chinese immigrants came from the southern Guangdong province, an area clustered around the Pearl River delta and prone to floods, earthquakes and drought. The vast majority came from the same four poverty-stricken counties: Toisan, Hoyping, Yinping and Sunwui.
What these early settlers had in common was a wealthy relative who had gone abroad. Known as the "guests of Gold Mountain," these first adventurers had returned to China with unthinkable luxuries, like Singer sewing machines. They built houses for their families and schools where their children could study.
Their younger relatives all heard the same story: that if they left behind their lives in China for Gold Mountain, they, too, could bring back riches. The young men watched their heroes with stars in their eyes, said Yu. "They thought to themselves: 'I want to be that guy. Wherever he went, I want to go."
What many people still don't understand, Yu said, is that Gold Mountain wasn't simply a place. The Chinese called the mountains surrounding the Fraser Valley Gold Mountain. But they also called the golden wheat fields of the Prairies and the lush green forests of Northern Ontario Gold Mountain. The United States was Gold Mountain, too. So was Australia.
To them, Gold Mountain was the whole idea – a life cycle where young men from poor families could go abroad and strike it rich enough to change their family's destiny. But that required an initial cash investment, which was generally borrowed from a relative who had already made it in Gold Mountain.
The loan would normally take a few years to pay off, especially because of anti-Chinese laws that prevented these early immigrants from working in all but a few businesses: laundries, convenience stores or restaurants. Early cafés were Chinese only by virtue of their owners – the menus generally listed Western dishes, like hot turkey sandwiches and fried veal cutlets.
Once the loans were paid off, these men were free to set up their own business. To avoid competition, they would often start it in the next town or railway stop over. Slowly and gradually, these restaurants multiplied, appearing first in major cities, and then spreading outward, like spiderwebs. Anywhere the railway stopped – through the Rockies, the Prairies, out east – the restaurants would also travel, until they were all across the country.
As I drove around Vancouver, I saw few signs of the original Chinese cafés. Chinese food in the city today reflects the many waves of immigrants that have come since. My own parents moved from Hong Kong and Guangdong to Canada in the 1970s. They weren't alone. After Canada liberalized its immigration policy in the late 1960s, massive numbers of Hong Kongers and Taiwanese came to Vancouver, among them highly skilled, mostly Cantonese-trained chefs.
Recently, the Chinese food has gotten even better. Newcomers from all over mainland China have brought with them wealth – as evidenced by gilded seafood restaurants serving $100-a-plate fried rice – and a rich diversity of regional cuisines. Driving past Richmond, the Vancouver suburb where many recent immigrants have settled, I passed crowded strip malls selling everything from mala Sichuanese, Shanghai crab dumplings, to fragrant Hainanese chicken rice.
I wondered what this dizzying mix had in common with Huang, her fried egg rolls and her little restaurant in Fogo. At every step, I was putting together more pieces of her puzzle. The name of her restaurant, Kwang Tung, was just another way to spell Guangdong. Canton, Kwang Tung, Guangdong – they all refer to the same southern province from where the Gold Mountain men had originally come. It was likely, I thought, that Huang had already been here for some time.
I remembered Yu's last words before he dashed off. "What connects it all is family," he said. Chinese newcomers rarely still refer to this place as Gold Mountain, he said. But their motivation for coming here – and for immigrants from all over the world since – is often still the same: a promise of a better future for the next generation.
"The restaurants are just the vehicles. It's all about the families."
Pioneering restaurant owner Bing Foon Choy and his wife, Poy Fong Choy. Courtesy William Choy
The community living room
The next leg of my trip was the long drive out of Vancouver and into Alberta. For days, the mountains had gawked down at me, like giants at a parade. Now, as I inched further east, the mountains gave way to massive plains and wide, open road. The sky felt bigger. Bluer.
This was where, in the latter half of the 19th century, the Canadian government offered cheap and free land to European, American and eastern Canadian settlers, in an attempt to encourage mass settlement: Promising a better life to those willing to take on a rugged space with harsh climates and long, lonely winters. As I drove, I wondered about these settlers and what they had in common with Huang. I wondered what feelings they all shared about leaving behind their homes to come to this new, hostile place. Was it desperation? Ambition? Hope?
In the Prairies, I would find all three.
About a 40-minute drive west of Edmonton, beyond the industrial sprawl of the city and amid long stretches of farmland, is the 15,000-person town of Stony Plain, Alta. On most weekends, you can find William Choy cooking in the kitchen at Bing's #1 Restaurant.
Bing's #1 Restaurant, where third-generation owner William Choy is also the mayor of Stony Plain, Alta. ANN HUI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
It shouldn't be unusual that Choy works in the kitchen. After all, the mild-mannered, bespectacled 42-year-old owns the restaurant and grew up in it, too. As a child, he watched as his grandfather Bing Choy, who opened the place in 1970, worked in the same crowded kitchen. And by the time his own father Fon Choy took over, Choy himself was old enough to help out – wiping down the red formica tables, topping up cups with coffee, and whatever else needed doing.
But what makes it unusual is Choy's part-time job: He's also the mayor of the town.
Like most of the Gold Mountain men, Bing Choy left his wife and children behind when he came to Canada in the mid-1960s. That's in part because it was cheaper for the families to stay in China, but also because of restrictions on immigration. To protect jobs for non-Chinese Canadians, the government imposed a head tax in the late 19th century on Chinese entering the country. This was followed in 1923 by the Chinese Immigration Act, which closed off Chinese immigration almost entirely until 1947.
This legalized discrimination set the tone for anti-Chinese sentiments across the country – including in cities like Vancouver and Toronto, where Chinese restaurant owners were subject to police harassment, as well as violence and vandalism. It wasn't until 1967 that Chinese were allowed to enter this country based on the same criteria as others. The rest of the Choy family came over in 1980, including six-year-old William, the future mayor.
Many of his childhood memories revolve around the restaurant. He raced home from school at midday to help out with the lunch rush, and did his homework in the basement storage room. "Free time" on weekends was spent helping out at the restaurant, too. It was only natural, then, that after graduating university with a teaching degree in an economic downturn, he returned to the restaurant. In 1997, he officially took over, though his parents continue to help out.
Choy calls Bing's the "community living room," and driving from town to town showed that it's not alone in serving this purpose. In Vulcan, Alta. – an 1,800-person town decked out in Star Trek paraphernalia – Lin Qin's restaurant, Amy's, is where seniors' groups gather for lunch. And in Grenfell, Sask., Moon's Cafe is owned by 46-year-old recent immigrant Moon Wei who, like Huang in Fogo, runs the restaurant alone. Moon's is where elderly men spend their afternoons, nursing cups of coffee while leafing through newspapers.
A few years ago, Linda Tzang, a curator at the Royal Alberta Museum, put together an exhibition on how small-town Chinese restaurants have historically served as Canada's mail-sorting facilities, child-care centres and even fire stations. "It was just whatever they could do to keep their businesses afloat," she said. She even came across one Alberta town where the restaurant was so crucial to the community that when the owners retired, locals recruited a new family from China to take over.
Many of Canada's small-town Chinese restaurant owners spoke to me about loneliness, and feeling alienated. But for the Choy family, living in a small town made things easier, he said. Regulars would offer English lessons and other help to his parents. They'd point to their coffee cups as they were drinking, mouthing slowly the words: "Coffee. Cup."
"You're not lost in the whole mass of things," Choy said. "They're more willing to give a hand." Choy and his siblings now all have houses and families of their own. "I'm the mayor of the community we grew up in," says Choy. "Things like that couldn't happen in China, right?"
Since Choy was first elected in 2012, he has worked both jobs, running back and forth, often pulling off a grease-splattered apron midday to attend a town meeting. "This is my business, where we came from," Choy told me in his kitchen, as he fried a large platter of rice. He covered his wok with a lid, then shuffled out to the dining room. Hanging on the back wall were four black-and-white photographs: pictures of the Guangdong village where Choy was born.
Behind him in the kitchen, his mother Jean beamed. I asked if this is what she had imagined for her son.
"No," the 65-year-old said in the Toisan dialect. Running for mayor was entirely his idea – entirely outside of her comprehension, and the life she knew growing up in a village in Guangdong. "How could I even have imagined it?" Ms. Choy said, grinning her gap-toothed grin. "How could I have imagined it?"
Despite signs to the contrary, this restaurant in Glendon, Alta., is called Thai Woks N’ go. Ann Hui/The Globe and Mail
Chop suey in the age of oil shock
It's not just the Chinese who came looking for Gold Mountain. It's a journey many continue to make today.
The past few decades have seen tens of thousands of young men and women – many of them immigrants from Somalia, Jamaica and the Middle East – flock to the Prairie oil sands seeking black gold. Using pumps and shovels to extract the liquid from deep beneath the earth, they hope to fund their own version of a better life, their own Gold Mountain.
But just as gold in the Cariboo didn't last, fortunes here have also changed. As common as the sight of oil rigs and cattle ranches along the highway, was the sight of pickup trucks carrying mattresses and furniture, entire lives, as young men head east and out of the prairies.
Restaurants found on the way to Fogo 6. Diana Restaurant, Drumheller, Alta.; 7. Thai Woks N’go, Glendon, Alta.; 8. Panda Garden Family Restaurant, Bonnyville, Alta. TRISH McALASTER/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
As I walked into the empty dining room of Thai Woks N'go in Glendon, Alta., a Buddha-faced boy lay napping in a sunny spot across two dining chairs. At the sound of the door opening, he leaped up, eyes wide. "Customer!" he shouted.
Lan Huynh, the boy's mother, said her restaurant used to be busy. Local oil workers were making $60 an hour (to her, an unimaginable sum) and a steady stream of customers would come in, ordering the "Chinese pierogis." Glendon has a large Ukranian population, and a sculpture across the street from the restaurant is labelled the "world's largest pierogi" – Lan serves a Chinese version, similar to regular Chinese dumplings, stuffed with meat and vegetables and deep-fried until crispy. She also serves Ukrainian ones, light and fluffy, with fried sausage, onions and sour cream.
Now many workers have been laid off. The restaurant depends on the 480 people who live here year-round, most of them also feeling the oil shock.
Even with business slowing down, Lan isn't convinced moving is the solution. She believes, as do many others I spoke with, that small towns are better places for raising children. Plus, she said, the restaurant industry in cities like Edmonton is too competitive and the cost of living too high.
In Drumheller, Alta., Peter Li told me that business has dropped by about 30 per cent at Diana, his restaurant with red-vinyl booths and decorated with dragons hanging from the ceiling. In the same period, food costs have risen. "A case of broccoli is $90," he says. "Before, it was $30."
Rising food prices are one reason why business is down at many chop suey restaurants in Canada. Ann Hui/The Globe and Mail
One of the most popular items at Diana is uniquely Chinese-Canadian: Ginger beef. The dish, first created in Calgary in the 1970s, was a loose interpretation of a northern Chinese beef dish with tangerine and chilis, but sweetened and mellowed to suit Western palates. Despite its name, it has almost no ginger in it. "The Alberta palate was so behind that they didn't recognize sweet chili sauce," explained Tzang, the museum curator. "They started asking for beef with 'that ginger stuff.'"
Li is a trained chef who has worked in some of the biggest restaurants around Beijing, but when he first arrived in Drumheller he had to learn a new repertoire of chop-suey dishes: "Egg foo young," and "lemon chicken." Compared to the food Li trained to cook – delicate Cantonese dishes, or the fiery spice mix of mapo tofu – this food is much simpler to make. "For me, it's very easy," he said. He's tried a few times to cook here the way he'd cooked back home, but "the people here didn't really like it." Sitting at the front counter was a jar of Lao Gan Ma chili oil – often referred to as "angry lady sauce," owing to the stern expression of the woman on the label. Li looked longingly at the jar of sauce, made of dried red chilis and numbing peppercorns steeped in oil. Here, it was just for display.
Li has just returned from a trip back to China, where many of his former colleagues have been promoted to prestigious kitchens. He sighed. "Before, I think Canada is pretty good, right? But it's hard to make money here," he said.
Alberta isn't the only province that's struggled from oil shock, and economic downturn. So too, has Newfoundland – where I was headed in search of Huang. Like the men in their pickup trucks, why hadn't Huang driven to another town, to the possibility of an easier life?
(Part two continues below.)
Browse the menus
<a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2891717/316371606-Menus-From-Chinese-Restaurants-Across.pdf">Menus From Chinese Restaurants Across Canada (PDF)</a> <br> <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2891717/316371606-Menus-From-Chinese-Restaurants-Across.txt">Menus From Chinese Restaurants Across Canada (Text)</a>
Part two: Traditional cuisine in a new land
Translated loosely, chop suey means assorted bits and pieces. And it's the perfect dish to encapsulate how Chinese-Canadian food became a staple of small-town life
The Port Arthur Curling Club in Thunder Bay, Ont., is one of three in that city with a Chinese restaurant inside. Ann Hui/The Globe and Mail
(This is part two of a two-part series. Click here to begin with part one.)
Just a few minutes after 11 a.m. on a rainy Wednesday, the lights at the Port Arthur Curling Club in Thunder Bay turned on with a click. Two men dressed in fleece vests and pants shuffled onto the ice to line up their rocks.
The day was just starting at the curling club, but in the second-floor area overlooking the rink, Norina Karschti and her staff had already been at work for hours. It was almost lunchtime at Ling Lee's Chinese Cuisine, her restaurant inside the club.
In the kitchen, a cook grabbed fistfuls of cooked noodles from a plastic container and dropped them into a hot wok covered with oil. With a practised hand, he used a metal spatula to separate the noodles, pulling sections straight up into the air, ensuring every golden stranded was kissed by the hot wok. He added a few spoonfuls of MSG powder, then soy sauce.
In the dining room, regular customers grew impatient as the clock ticked closer to opening time. They shuffled their feet. One, an elderly woman with a cane, sighed.
If a Chinese restaurant inside a curling club seems unusual, it's not – at least in Thunder Bay. All three of the curling clubs in the city have Chinese restaurants. Ling Lee's was opened as an experiment in the early 1970s, the throwing together of two wildly different pursuits in a display of entrepreneurialism by the curling-club owners and the eponymous Lee. The idea took off.
I arrived in Thunder Bay on the 10th day of a cross-country trip tracing the history of Canada's small-town Chinese restaurants: My planned last stop was Fogo Island, Nfld., where I hoped to meet Huang Feng Zhu, the owner of a place called Kwang Tung. And though Thunder Bay isn't quite a "small town," I knew I had to visit Ling Lee's after stumbling across it on Yelp, categorized as "Chinese, Ethnic Food, Skating Rinks."
Restaurants found on the way to Fogo 9. Choy's Restaurant, Boissevain, Man.; 10. Ling Lee's Chinese Cuisine, Thunder Bay, Ont.; 11. Lachute Holiday, Lachute, Que.; 12. Restaurant Wong, Quebec City TRISH McALASTER/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Many older customers in Thunder Bay still remember Ling Lee, Karschti's late father who founded the restaurant in 1973. Lee came to Canada in the 1950s as a teenager, following his father who arrived first and initially settled in Saskatoon.
Like most of the men who wound up in Chinese restaurants, Lee did not have kitchen experience, but the work was one of his few options. So he improvised. He watched the other cooks around him, copying their quick movements. He saw how they conjured up memories of foods and flavours from back home and approximated them with what was available in this new place.
And, like them, he became a realist. He knew his business would depend on winning over Western palates. So, he aimed for flavours he thought would appeal to them. (Chinese immigrants weren't the only ones to "Westernize" their cuisines: Italian-American dishes, such as spaghetti with meatballs, or "Japanese" California rolls have similarly evolved into North American classics.)
Thus was born "chop suey," which translates loosely into "assorted bits and pieces." In other words, whatever is on hand. The consistent element of chop suey is bean sprouts. "It's the only thing [cooks] could reliably have wherever they were," said Linda Tzang, a curator at the Royal Alberta Museum. "You have a source of water, you have a bucket and you're growing bean sprouts."
Tzang, who curated an exhibition on Chinese restaurants in the Prairies in 2013, says that many newcomers who ended up in remote towns didn't have access to the same ingredients reliably throughout the year. This explains the popularity of dishes such as fried rice, which could be thrown together with chicken, beef or whatever happened to be in the refrigerator.
Instead of stir-frying or braising meats – as is common in Cantonese cuisine – cooks such as Lee dropped them into the deep-fryer. And whereas Cantonese food is distinct for its delicate flavours, the chop-suey chefs coated their dishes with cornstarch-heavy sauces that were often cloyingly sweet, sour or savoury – their own interpretation of "gravy," a Western concept.
In Thunder Bay, and at Ling Lee's, the specialty is Bon Bon ribs: pork ribs dredged in five-spice powder and MSG, deep-fried to form a crispy brown crust then spritzed with lemon.
MSG’s racial history A few years ago, food historian Ian Mosby traced the origin of Western aversion to monosodium glutamate, or MSG, to a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in the mid-20th century. That letter, from a medical researcher, outlined a list of symptoms he’d experienced: numbness at the back of the neck, weakness and heart palpitations. The researcher posited a number of potential causes, including MSG. The idea took off, especially after being labelled “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” Today, the idea that MSG causes widespread discomfort has been largely dispelled by science. Health Canada’s website states that MSG is “generally” not a health hazard and that “the safety of MSG has been reviewed by regulatory authorities and scientists worldwide, including Health Canada.” But many people continue to believe in Chinese restaurant syndrome, even though, as Mosby pointed out, many other foods containing MSG are not subject to the same criticism, including Doritos, Parmesan cheese and even baby food. “It sort of fit with longstanding racism towards Chinese immigrants,” Mr. Mosby says of the so-called syndrome. “It became a way to faintly articulate it without being overtly racist.” In my trip across the country, I saw countless small-town Chinese restaurants with “No MSG” signs displayed in their windows, apparently essential to attracting business. Yet well-known chefs in big cities have signalled a change of heart on the subject. A few years ago, Momofuku owner David Chang gave a talk at the hugely influential MAD food symposium in defence of MSG. Danny Bowien, the popular chef behind Mission Chinese Food in San Francisco, places salt shakers filled with the stuff in his restaurants. And restaurateur Jen Agg of Black Hoof fame has spoken widely about the use of MSG in Rhum Corner, her Haitian restaurant and cocktail bar in Toronto. – Ann Hui
That's just one of many local specialties across the country and indeed, the continent. Tzang told me that in Peterborough, Ont., "deep-fried won tons" are just the skin, like a chip. Around Ottawa, " |
about evolution.”
Such statements have stirred criticism from social conservatives. They want to leave the door open for students to consider other explanations for the origin of humans.
Lack of scientists
“There should be room for students to have a meaningful discussion to evaluate all scientific theories, including evolution,” said Jonathan Saenz of Texas Values, a group that has been aligned with social conservatives.
Saenz said groups like the Texas Freedom Network want the education board to “bow down to the scientific community” without asking questions.
Kathy Miller, president of the freedom network, lamented that many of the reviewers are not biologists, or even scientists.
“They include a College Station dietitian, an Austin systems engineer and a retired Dallas businessman with a background in finance,” she said. The review teams also include some of the country’s most prominent “evolution deniers,” she added.
“What our kids learn in their public schools should be based on mainstream, established science,” Miller said. “It should not be based on the personal views of ideologues. That especially includes those who are grossly unqualified to evaluate a biology textbook in the first place.”
As one of the largest textbook purchasers in the nation, Texas has a strong influence on books marketed in other states.
Originally, publishers pitched 29 biology books. Most submitted only electronic versions, but larger publishers submitted both digital and printed versions.
Only 15 books made it through preliminary reviews. Seven made it all the way to the board’s consideration. The board will hear testimony and discuss the books Tuesday. But it won’t vote on which books to adopt until November.
School districts are not required to buy textbooks that the board adopts. But most do. To get on the list, a book must cover at least half of the curriculum requirements in each subject area.
Debbie Ratcliffe of the Texas Education Agency noted that while districts can buy whatever books they choose, they must guarantee to the state that they are teaching 100 percent of the required curriculum. That provides incentive for districts to use the board’s preferred books.
Follow Terrence Stutz on Twitter at @t_stutz.
AT A GLANCE: Textbook excerpts
Here’s a sampling of how various publishers’ biology books discuss evolution:
PEARSON EDUCATION
“All historical records are incomplete, and the history of life is no exception. The evidence we do have, however, tells an unmistakable story of evolutionary change.”
“Every scientific test has supported Darwin’s basic ideas about evolution.”
“Advances in many fields of biology, along with other sciences, have confirmed and expanded most of Darwin’s hypotheses.”
DISCOVERY EDUCATION
“Life on Earth is continually evolving. The history of Earth can be traced back about 4.5 billion years to an Earth that was very different to the one we know today. All life now found on Earth is related to these early forms of life.”
“Although the fossil record does not provide a complete record of all life on Earth, it does provide extensive and ever increasing evidence to support the theory of evolution.”
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
“The fossil record is not complete, because most living things do not form fossils after they die, and because fossils have not been looked for in many areas of the world. However, no fossil evidence that contradicts evolution has ever been found.”
“Observations that cannot be verified or replicated cannot count as evidence in scientific inquiry. Some phenomena … such as supernatural phenomena, may never be testable or scientific.”
MCGRAW-HILL
“Scientists recently announced the discovery of what appeared to be fossilized microbes in rock that is 3.5 billion years old. This suggests that cellular activity (a precursor to life) had become established very early in Earth’s history.”A total of 19 Syrian rebel groups fighting against President Bashar Assad’s regime have refused to take part in the upcoming Geneva-2 peace conference, brokered by Russia and the United States and planned for November.
"We announce that the Geneva 2 conference is not, nor will it ever be, our people's choice or our revolution's demand," the groups said Saturday in an online video message recorded by Ahmad Eissa al-Sheikh, chief of the Suqur al-Sham Brigade, AFP reports.
"We consider it just another part of the conspiracy to throw our revolution off track and to abort it,” he said, adding that actions of those choosing to disobey this recommendation would be viewed as "treason” and result in the groups having “to answer for it before our courts."
The rejection of the peace conference had been somewhat telegraphed in advance, as a few weeks ago many of Syria’s opposition groups declared that one of the main umbrella opposition groups – the Syrian National Coalition – had “failed.”
The much-delayed Geneva-2 peace talks have been repeatedly scuppered by opposition groups in the past, saying that they would only participate if Assad stepped down.
The talks were intended to bring to the negotiating table the ruling regime and the opposition with the intention of finding a workable solution to the Syrian conflict, which recently passed the point of an estimated 100,000 deaths since it started 2 1/2 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Syrian National Coalition reiterated that Assad must step down before they would go to Geneva-2. The coalition plans to decide whether to attend at a meeting on Nov. 9.
During a Friends of Syria meeting in London on Oct. 22, Western nations and Middle Eastern allies of the opposition tried to pressure opposition leader Ahmad Jarba to join the talks, despite Assad insisting that he would not be stepping down. But Jarba insisted: “Geneva cannot succeed and we cannot take part if it allows Assad to gain more time to spill the blood of our people while the world looks on,” Reuters cited him as saying.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that all sections of the Western-sponsored Syrian opposition must be represented at the talks for Geneva-2 to succeed.
Assad recently said in an interview with Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV channel that “the factors are not yet in place if we want [Geneva-2] to succeed."
"Which forces are taking part? What relation do these forces have with the Syrian people? Do these forces represent the Syrian people, or do they represent the states that invented them?" he said.
Moscow lashed out at the Friends of Syria group for what it described as an attempt to revise key elements of the Geneva communiqué of 2012, thereby attempting to influence the conference’s outcome.
In response to the 19 groups’ decision not to go to the Geneva peace talks, senior Russian lawmaker Aleksey Pushkov said it indicated a pre-meditated strategy by the opposition’s Western backers: “Nineteen groups in the Syrian opposition, which is incapable of acting without outside support, ‘rejected’ Geneva-2,” Pushkov said. “It means their sponsors want it to fall through.”
Under UN Security Resolution 2118, it argued, the communiqué is the only recognized document that acts as a “platform to achieve a political settlement.” But the discussions between the 11 foreign ministers at the group were not held on the basis of that document, Moscow said.
Damascus, meanwhile, has complied with all the requests leveled at it under the recently reached chemical weapons agreement – one of the conditions widely acknowledged to be a key stepping stone on the road to a peaceful settlement.Baltimore earned high marks for the rights and inclusion of its lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual residents from the Human Rights Campaign in the advocacy organization's annual analysis.
Baltimore was one of 47 cities to earn the top score of 100 in this year's Municipal Equality Index. The report, which was released last week, evaluated the LGBT equality in 408 cities across the country based on criteria in five categories: nondiscrimination laws, municipal employment policies, inclusiveness of city services, law enforcement and municipal leaders' relationship with the LGBT community.
Though Baltimore lost points for not having transgender-inclusive health benefits for city employees, it picked up bonus points in several other categories, such as having elected or appointed leaders who are openly gay and offering services to LGBT youth, homeless and elderly.
Baltimore scored the highest among the eight cities in Maryland the HRC evaluated. Towson was next on the list, with a score of 89. Bowie's score of 54 was the lowest among Maryland cities included in the index.
You can see the complete findings of the index here.We've known about Activision's ambitious mobile plans for Guitar Hero Live since the game was announced. One additional feature was explained to Game Informer today as we discussed the recently announced vocal feature.
If you already have a USB microphone, you're set. Plug it in and you're ready to wail. If you don't, you could hold off on purchasing one. Freestyle games studio head (and Guitar Hero Live creative director) Jamie Jackson told us that the companion app has a neat additional feature. You can turn it into a WiFi-connected microphone.
The specifics (as well as more features for the app) will be revealed in the coming weeks. But given the prevalence of smartphones, this could save you some bank when Guitar Hero Live releases on October 20 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and mobile platforms.
You can read more about Guitar Hero (which just hit 100 announced songs), in our coverage from this week.POLYSICS Celebrate 15th Anniversary With New Album
6 March, 2012 by Tom Smith
Orange-coated synthpop maniacs POLYSICS celebrate 15 years in the business with their aptly titled album 15th P. The album, out now digitally in the UK from Amazon.co.uk, iTunes UK and other sources, features nine tracks, four of which are collaborations with other artists. These collabs include a track with Eriko Hashimoto from girl duo CHATMONCHY, another with Mayumi Kojima of GO! GO!7188, and a very special one with Mark Mothersbaugh from POLYSIC’s biggest source of inspiration; Devo!
Part of POLYSICS’ back catalogue is also currently available digitally from Amazon.co.uk and iTunes UK.
Here’s a video of POLYSICS’ frontman Hiroyuki Hayashi throwing some shapes with the Kaiser Chiefs live on stage at the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London.Image copyright AP Image caption Taiwanese officials have now carried out a detailed inspection of the boat
The government of Taiwan has given the Philippines until Wednesday to apologise for the death of a Taiwanese fisherman whose vessel was fired on by the Philippine coastguard.
Taiwan is also demanding compensation and the arrest of those responsible.
It has warned the Philippines of diplomatic and economic measures if it does not respond positively.
The Philippine coastguard acknowledged that it had fired at the boat to "disable" its machinery.
It says that it was acting in self-defence.
Demands
Fisherman Hung Shih-cheng, 65, was shot dead on Thursday when the coastguard vessel opened fire on his boat.
He was in waters south-east of Taiwan and north of the Philippines, an area considered by both countries to be their exclusive economic zone.
Hours after his remains and vessel were returned to Taiwan, the president's office and the foreign ministry issued a series of demands to the Philippines.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Experts have circled bullet holes in Hung Shih-cheng's boat in yellow
They asked for a formal apology, the speeding up of the investigation into his death, punishment of the perpetrators, the payment of compensation to the fisherman's family and talks over fishing rights in the disputed area.
Taiwan also threatened to send the Philippines' representative back to Manila if its neighbour does not respond within 72 hours.
The BBC's Cindy Sui in Taiwan says that while the Philippines' representative to Taiwan has expressed sympathy and condolences to the victim's family, the Philippines has refused to apologise, pending the investigation.
Officials in Manila have said that their initial findings suggest that the coast guard acted in self-defence and that fishing boat tried to ram into the coastguard vessel.
The three surviving fishermen on board the vessel, including Mr Hung's son and son-in-law, have disputed this account.
After inspecting the boat, Taiwanese officials also said they did not find this explanation credible as there were 52 bullet holes in the boat and the fishermen were unarmed.
"This is very brutal and cold-blooded," Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said on Saturday, warning that his country would consider sanctions against the Philippines amid widespread public anger towards Manila over the shooting.
Taiwanese officials say that the coastguard chased the boat for some time and did not offer help to the distressed vessel after it was damaged by the shooting.
It argues that opening fire on an unarmed fishing boat violated international law.
Tens of thousands of Filipino migrant labourers work in Taiwan's manufacturing sectors and homes.Check out Johnny's Omni details below!
Name: Johnny
Element: Fire
Rarity: Omni
Cost: 50
Lord-Type Stats
Max HP: 8355 (1250)
Max Atk: 3425 (800)
Max Def: 3000 (400)
Max Rec: 3000 (500)
Normal Attack
Number of hits: 13
Max BC generated: 52 (4 BC/hit)
Leader Skill - Swashbuckling Iaido
100% boost to Atk, 60% boost to max HP, boosts damage [120%] against status afflicted foes, hugely boosts critical damage [150%] & probable [20%] damage reduction to 1
Brave Burst - Zweihander
BC required: 20
Max BC Generated: 16+25 (1 BC/hit)
16 combo powerful Fire attack on single foe [600%], 25 combo random massive Fire attack [3000%], hugely boosts damage [180%] against status afflicted foes for 3 turns, adds probable [10%] great 1 turn Atk, Def, Rec reduction [-20%] effects to attack for 3 turns & adds probable [20%] random status ailment infliction to attack for 3 turns
Super Brave Burst - That's My Name EX
BC required: 25
Max BC Generated: 18 (1 BC/hit)
18 combo powerful Fire attack [200-900%] on all foes (damage relative to remaining HP), hugely boosts damage [180%] against status afflicted foes for 3 turns, probable [50%] critical and elemental vulnerability infliction [15%] for 1 turn, probable [30%] huge 1 turn Atk, Def reduction [-50%], boosts own Atk, Def, Rec [120%] for 3 turns & hugely boosts own critical hit rate [60%] for 3 turns
Ultimate Brave Burst - Joker Trick
BC required: 30
Max BC Generated: 20 (1 BC/hit)
20 combo massive Fire attack [1500-2800%] on all foes (damage relative to remaining HP), enormously boosts damage [350%] against status afflicted foes for 3 turns, enormously boosts critical damage [350%] for 3 turns, enormous 3 turn Atk, Def reduction [-90%] & adds random status ailment infliction to attack for 3 turns
Extra Skill - Mist Finer Mastery
Boosts damage [50%] against status afflicted foes for all allies, boosts critical damage [100%] & probable [20%] damage reduction to 1
SP Options
SP Cost Description 20 40% boost to all parameters 10 Raises all parameters boost from 40% to 60% 15 130% boost to Spark damage 10 Boosts elemental damage [75%] 10 Raises Atk parameter limits to 150000 25 Enhances success rate [+50%] of SBB's critical and elemental vulnerability infliction effect 30 Adds powerful additional attack [500%] on all foes at turn's end for 2 turns effect to BB/SBB 5 Adds probable [75%] random status ailment infliction effect to SBB 30 Adds considerable boost to Atk, Def, Rec [130%] and critical hit rate [60%] of Fire types for 3 turns effect to SBB 20 Enhances success rate [+10%] of BB/SBB's probable huge Atk, Def reduction effect
[7★ Lore]
A charming young man who led a crew of pirates, his swashbuckling style is one that many will remember. His daring and charismatic personality have led many to idolize him, and he is known to care deeply for his crew. A strong and fast swordsman, his ability to cut down his opponents is without compare. That said, his habit of flirting heavily with the fairer sex tends to get him in hot water, but his surly behavior is a front for his kind heart. His adventure in the new world made him quite worried for his crew, especially his anchor-chucking crew member who seemed to be somewhere in the same land as he was...
[Omni Lore]
A charming young man who led a crew of pirates, his swashbuckling style is one that many will remember. His search for his comrade led him to many places in the new world, and it was with a glad heart that they reunited once again, although she did mention that his crowd of admirers seemed to have grown despite the battles that he had fought (or perhaps because of them). Their reunion was brief, as a new matter became apparent: how would they get back home? It would take a great amount of power to cross worlds anew, and there seemed to be a final battle ahead of them...May 21, 2014
Purchase Tickets (Beginning May 23)
MADISON -- Former Badger hockey player and Hobey Baker award-winner Blake Geoffrion and some of his closest hockey friends will scrimmage for a cause on Friday, June 27. The Blake Geoffrion Hockey Classic will raise money to benefit the UW Health Burn Center. Tickets for the Blake Geoffrion Hockey Classic go on sale Friday, May 23.
Those scheduled to play in the Hockey Classic include former Badger greats like Geoffrion, Adam Burish, Tom Gilbert, Derek Stepan, Justin Schultz, Craig Smith, Brian Elliott, Ryan McDonagh, Brendan Smith and Patrick Johnson, among others.
"Hockey players are a tight-knit group, so I wasn't surprised that so many volunteered to play in the game. We're always willing to help each other out," said Geoffrion. "The fact that their participation will raise money for the Burn Center is icing on the cake."
The UW Health Burn Center, one of only 64 verified burn centers in the U.S., has seven beds. One third of the admissions are children 17 and younger.
"It's an honor to get support from hockey players," said Dr. Lee Faucher, burn surgeon and director of the Burn Center. "The support allows us to achieve our goals: research to improve the care of patients with burn injuries, and team education."
Scientists at the UW Health Burn Center are committed to developing new skin substitutes and polymers to treat injuries more rapidly and exploring how guided imagery and virtual reality can help burn survivors cope with pain and depression.
Badger men's hockey coach Mike Eaves said the hockey program's relationship with the Burn Center began when he and an assistant coach visited patients in the unit.
"I think the response by the former Badgers has been tremendous in terms of their availability and willingness to play in this game," said Eaves. "That speaks to the great memories they have of Madison and their generosity by giving back to the community."
"The community support has been amazing," said Geoffrion. "None of this would be possible without the support of UW Athletics Director Barry Alvarez, the entire Athletics Department and the University."
The exhibition game featuring former Badger men's hockey players will be played June 27 at 6:30 p.m. at LaBahn Arena. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for youth and seniors (ages 2-18 & 55+) and all proceeds benefit the UW Health Burn Center.
If you become a 2014-15 Wisconsin men's hockey season ticket holder and purchase Hockey Classic tickets, you are then eligible to receive exclusive access to a free post-game meet and greet with the players. Space is very limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Individual season ticket holder accounts will have a limit of four invitations to the meet and greet.
Both season tickets and Hockey Classic tickets are available starting Friday at the UW Athletic Ticket Office or at UWBadgers.com.
Please contact the Athletic Ticket Office with any questions at 1.800 GO BADGERS, 608.262.1440 or visit UWBadgers.com.Nine of the players, who started the 2016 FA Cup final for Manchester United against Crystal Palace, began the first game of United's trophy defence against Reading on Saturday.
Of those lining up against Jaap Stam's side at Old Trafford, only Sergio Romero and Ashley Young were not in the first XI at Wembley last May, though Young came on as a substitute, when Jesse Lingard's extra-time winner provided the high point and only trophy of Louis van Gaal's managerial reign.
Saturday was a good day. United convinced in a 4-0 win against a side currently third in the Championship and Wayne Rooney finally equalled Sir Bobby Charlton's club goal record of 249, which had stood for 43 years. Whatever anyone thinks about Rooney in the final chapters of his outstanding career, history will likely remember him as a trophy-laden United legend.
Later this month, Rooney and his family will be in London, where they will be toasted by football journalists at a night in his honour. He's not as important to his team as he was, though, and United need a more prolific goalscorer other than 18-goal Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Juan Mata have each scored six goal, while Rooney has four,
United's current run of eight straight wins in all competitions is the club's best since 2009, when Sir Alex Ferguson's side won the Premier League and reached the Champions League final.
The improvement is clear and for a direct comparison of how things were, at the same stage last year United took 93 minutes and a penalty to break down third-tier Sheffield United in one of the most negative, turgid performances under Van Gaal.
Seldom was a victory greeted so pessimistically, with fans tired of a low-scoring team playing possession-heavy, dull football. It was a far cry from another third-round win against Sheffield United, which occurred on Jan. 9, 1995, which was highlighted by Eric Cantona's chip, one of his greatest goals.
Six of United's victories in the current run have come in the league and, if a seventh follows against Liverpool this weekend, then the term "title contenders" will start to be muttered, even though Jose Mourinho's could still be in the sixth place they have occupied since beating Swansea on Nov. 6.
Marcus Rashford scored twice in Manchester United's latest win.
Mourinho has settled on 15 or 16 players for the biggest games, those he trusts most. He makes tweaks, especially when there are league games in close proximity, but his current best XI is David De Gea; Antonio Valencia, Marcos Rojo, Phil Jones, Matteo Darmian or Daley Blind; Pogba, Michael Carrick, Ander Herrera; Mata, Ibrahimovic and Rashford.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marouane Fellaini, Rooney, Eric Bailly, Lingard and Martial can expect to feature regularly. Meanwhile, Young, Romero and Timothy Fosu-Mensah are peripheral/back-up players more likely to feature in the early rounds of cup competitions or, in the case of Bastian Schweinsteiger, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin, barely at all. Expect Depay and Schneiderlin to leave United this month.
Mourinho is taking the cups seriously and should be able to count on Luke Shaw returning against Hull on Tuesday night in the first leg of the EFL Cup semifinal at Old Trafford. The 21-year-old has not played since the last round of the competition, an epic 4-1 home win against West Ham on Nov. 30, with a groin strain given as the reason for his absence.
United really want the left-back to be a success, though their patience will not be endless for a player who was in the frame to be involved against Reading before he had a setback in training on Friday. Yet even before that, Shaw's performances were not to the desired level and he was substituted in consecutive league games against Manchester City and Watford earlier this season.
It's unusual for a United manager to publicly criticise or question a player, but both Van Gaal and Mourinho have done so with Shaw. They saw it as for motivation for Shaw, who admitted that he could have been more professional in his first season at Old Trafford. He started his second campaign looking like the player fans hoped and expected him to be, before suffering a horrific broken leg in Eindhoven.
If there's one spot that Mourinho isn't fully decided upon, then it's left-back. Shaw will have a chance to make it his own again, while Blind and Darmian have also played there. Also set to be in the mix is Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, who will return to the club from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The 19-year-old Mancunian impressed, especially with his crossing, in 14 first-team appearances last season and joined Wolves on loan in August. Although he was initially a regular, he has not started a league match since a 3-2 home defeat to Derby on Nov. 5 and has found opportunities hard to come by since Paul Lambert took charge. Borthwick-Jackson has also been advised against asking his manager why he has not featured.
Mourinho, who thinks the defender has a future at United, has been unhappy with the lack of playing time, as well as being surprised, given Wolves paid a large loan fee for the teenager. Borthwick-Jackson was determined to make the move work and even rented an apartment in the Wolverhampton area, when other players from Manchester drive in each day.
Though Wolves initially indicated that they were going to play him in Saturday's FA Cup tie at Stoke, Borthwick-Jackson did not feature and has returned to Manchester. Unless he goes out on loan again, he'll stay at United, who are in the midst of a busy week: A reserve derby against Manchester City on Monday and a first-team game on Tuesday follow Saturday's FA Cup tie, all of which lead up to Sunday's game against Liverpool.
Andy Mitten is a freelance writer and the founder and editor of United We Stand. Follow him on Twitter: @AndyMitten.By Dr Julie R. Williamson, SICSA Fellow in Multimodal Interaction at the University of Glasgow.
This article is part of our series: a day in the software life, in which we ask researchers from all disciplines to discuss the tools that make their research possible.
Public displays have the potential to dramatically change urban life, but current public displays and interfaces go unnoticed or completely ignored by the majority of passers-by. This presents a serious problem for the impact and uptake of touch sensitive displays if only a small minority of passers-by will approach these displays and discover their interactive qualities. To change the way people think about public displays, we are designing and evaluating spherical touch sensitive displays for public spaces.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Pufferfish Ltd. Using the cutting edge display technology developed by Pufferfish Ltd, a spherical display called the PufferSphere®, we are employing computer vision techniques to understand how people use the display and how we can improve the user experience. The approach is based on social signal processing, where software is used to automatically extract and analyse social behaviours from digital signals. In this case, we are extracting pedestrian traffic from video data as an interesting social signal for public displays.
I developed the pedestrian tracking software using an approach originally described by Wei Yan and David Forsythe from the University of California, Berkeley. My expertise is in evaluation methodologies, so it was important for me to find an open source library for the computer vision aspects of project. I developed the tracking software using OpenCV with Python and ffmpeg to work through video data. To implement Yan and Forsythe’s approach, I used OpenCV to create black and white images from the video stream, subtract the current frame from an inferred background, threshold the result to remove noise, and erode/dilate the image to produce trackable “blobs” that each represent a pedestrian in the video.
From these blobs, frame-to-frame association is determined using a Hungarian Algorithm library for Python. The Hungarian Algorithm relates valid blobs in the current frame to valid blobs from the previous frame based on distance and inferred trajectory. Together with OpenCV and the Hungarian Algorithm, pedestrian traffic can be extracted from video data with a high spatial and temporal accuracy.
The key part of this project was to collect some real world data from a public deployment with an application on a spherical display. To achieve this, we worked with the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Celtic Connections Music Festival to deploy a spherical display at the festival for four days. Using an interactive application developed by Pufferfish Ltd, we were able to create a custom Celtic Connections application for the PufferSphere® simply by configuring XML and adding media assets.
This application automatically warps graphics and touch points such that they appear correctly in a spherical projection. When working with graphics on the spherical display, the centre-point of the 1600x1600 canvas is the top-centre of the display and the outer edge of the canvas displays at the bottom centre of the sphere. Because of this, graphics are warped to make up for differing pixel densities as you move vertically down the spherical surface.
Once the application was successfully customised for Celtic Connections, we worked together with Pufferfish Ltd to bring this interaction to the festival. We deployed an A-B style test, where two slightly different versions of the applications were used on alternating days. We were excited to see very different responses to these two applications, highlighting the need for such experimental work in developing displays for public spaces. We are currently completing our analysis of the video data and touch logs in order to quantify the results of this study.After North Korea proclaimed on Wednesday that it had successfully detonated its first hydrogen bomb, the rest of the world quickly decided it was not true. The White House pointed out that the estimated 3.4- to seven-kiloton blast couldn’t be from a full-blown H-bomb—the smallest previous explosion of such a bomb having yielded about 30 kilotons—and explained the explosion as merely the result of a weapon in which a small amount of fusion fuel is used to boost a fission reaction. But it would be a mistake to write off this week’s news as merely the latest in a series of essentially incompetent nuclear efforts by Pyongyang.
South Korean officials examine seismic data indicating an underground nuclear test in North Korea.
It is probably true that North Korea did not detonate an H-bomb and instead pulled off what is known as a boosted fission weapon, which is less dangerous. However, a boosted fission weapon isn’t an inconsequential step forward. The evidence suggests that North Korea is not merely stumbling through a recapitulation of the way the United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons 60-odd years ago. Instead it could be skipping some of the early development steps that those countries took and is using fewer tests to get close to having nuclear weapons that are sufficiently miniaturized to be delivered by missiles.
To understand why, it’s necessary to review a little nuclear history. In Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam’s classic H-bomb design—first tested in 1952 with the 82-ton Ivy Mike device—a process called staged fusion plays out. A fission-powered primary explosion (caused when the nucleus of an atom is split apart) triggers a secondary fusion explosion (in which atomic nuclei are slammed together). The secondary explosion is compressed by X-rays coming from the primary fission reaction, which in turn triggers a second fission reaction massively greater than a single-stage fission (or atomic) bomb could produce.
By contrast, boosted fission weapon designs—developed by the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the U.K. on their way to full-blown H-bombs—improve on simple fission devices (like those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) by introducing fusion fuel. (Typically, this is a deuterium-tritium gas mixture or a shell of lithium-6 deuteride, as in the Layer Cake or Alarm Clock designs.) But while fusion is part of the process in boosted fission weapons, it adds only a small amount of energy at the end, as the increased rate of fission means that far more fuel undergoes fission before the core explodes.
Nevertheless, says physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, if North Korea has developed such a weapon it would represent “a huge jump in [their] understanding” of how to significantly reduce the weight of a bomb. And where most commenters have emphasized the small scale of Wednesday’s underground explosion, Dalnoki-Veress says that’s not necessarily a bug, but might be a feature designed to “waste as little tritium as possible.”
For these reasons, Jeffrey Lewis, another arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute, adds that “boosting is an essential capability and nothing to laugh at.” For several years Lewis has maintained that North Korea’s nuclear program is not suffering from technical incompetence—as some analysts determined based on the small yields detected in its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Rather, he believes, “the North Koreans tried to go directly to miniaturized devices.”
The conventional assumption about North Korea’s 2006 test, in particular—which produced a yield of less than one kiloton—was that it resulted from an inability to reproduce a simple fission device like those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, as Lewis notes, that assumption makes little sense: “No country ever built a simple fission device and discovered it didn’t work.” Indeed, no tests were conducted for the Little Boy design used on Hiroshima; detonation was considered easy enough that the device was only fully assembled over the target so that it could not accidentally blow up in flight. Furthermore, Lewis points out, the word both from defectors from North Korea and the regime itself is that Pyongyang is aiming for minaturized, missile-deliverable thermonuclear weapons. In this case, Lewis suggests, we should believe Pyongyang.I love the Rust community, I really do. Like I said in my recent post about how to take part in it, I think the Rust community is one of the most consistently welcoming and friendly programming communities with which I’ve interacted. That being said, I think there are some problems with the way the Rust community presents itself and Rust to the outside world. In this post, I’d like to outline those problems, and some ideas for how the Rust community can be even better at explaining and pitching Rust to people who may not be sold on the idea yet.
What We Get Right
The biggest thing I think the Rust community gets right is being helpful. There are a lot of places you can go for help in the Rust community (IRC, the user forum, /r/rust, Stack Overflow, Twitter), and in my experience people in the community are extremely willing to give help and feedback. Whether that means answering questions, providing feedback, or trying to direct other people to contribute, the Rust community is quite good at getting people the answers and help they’re looking for. This is fantastic!
The Rust community also has a real care for designing high-quality APIs. This does mean that some things may take longer than may be desirable to reach 1.0, but it also means that if and when they do, you can be pretty well assured that the API design is good. Look at the impending version 1.0 of the Rust regex crate for a nice example of this kind of care.
The Rust community is also very out in the open. It may take some digging to find discussions sometimes, but that’s more about volume than anything else. Everything you need to follow what’s happening in Rust, including team meetings, can be found online. When things are insufficiently covered in issues or pull requests or RFCs, you can usually expect a blog post to cover the idea (and there’s work on making those blog posts easier to find, too).
What We Get Wrong
All of that being said, no community is perfect, and the Rust community is no exception. Before I get into the specifics, I want to say that I think these problems come from a good place, and that they can absolutely be improved. Part of why I’m writing this is to put a light on them a bit, and maybe get people thinking about how they talk when they talk about Rust.
The biggest problem is that we have a tendency to be too effusive when talking about Rust. In the eyes of many of us (myself certainly included), Rust is a big deal. We want to spread the word! There are real problems in software development, particularly the development of efficient, scalable, large systems that Rust addresses, and we want to get people onto it as quickly as possible. That being said, there remain real reasons not to choose Rust, and it doesn’t solve everything. It’s worthwhile to remember that.
This means, first and most importantly, doing more to empathize with the specific situations of other developers and projects. To listen to what they’re dealing with, and to give an honest assessment of whether Rust would make sense for their situation, even if it means telling them that Rust isn’t the right choice.
Maybe Rust doesn’t have the right libraries (Yet! I hope! Maybe it’s an opportunity to fill the gap). Maybe the complexity of dealing with Rust’s safety guarantees isn’t worthwhile for the domain (as lightweight as the complexity of Rust can feel once you know it, there is a ramp up time, and it will be a bit of a fight in some domains). All of this is fine. Rust doesn’t have to be and certainly can’t be everything to everyone.
The more insiduous cousin of this problem is worse: judging people for not choosing Rust. This may mean comments on a new project asking why it’s not written in Rust. This may mean comments on an old project about why it hasn’t been rewritten in Rust. Consistently though, it means condescension and arrogance that is nothing but off-putting to people outside of the community (and speaking for myself, someone inside of it).
Other languages are not the enemy. There is no enemy. Rust isn’t trying to, will not, and cannot “kill C / C++ / Java / (language of choice).” And other people aren’t wrong or bad for choosing something that isn’t Rust, nor is there an imperative to use Rust for anything. The imperative is better software, more correctness, more confidence in what we build. If Rust is how you get that, good for you. If it’s not, well good for you too.
There’s a lot to learn from other languages, and a lot to be done to bring people from other languages into our community. None of that is served by attacking, belittling, demeaning, |
the specs tab hasn't been updated to include Radeon RX480 and Nvidia Geforce GTX 1000 series cards which are indeed compatible…
After a quick look through the store links above, I could only find the Devil Box listed on the German site, at the time of writing, where it is priced at the MSRP of €419. The US dollar MSRP is $379.Top 10 moments in Australian women's sport in 2016
Updated
Who ever thought it would be considered cliche to use 'watershed' and 'women's sport' in the same sentence?
Female athletes themselves will tell you how incredible the influx in attention and support has been over the past two years, and yet I find myself struggling to pick the very best from an endless list of achievements Aussies have tallied up this year.
Here we relive 2016's top 10 moments where sportswomen defied the odds, forced their way to centre stage and demanded the recognition they have so long deserved.
Aussie sevens
The women's rugby sevens side has quickly become the nation's favourite team in their four short years of existence.
Winning the first three events on the world series calendar, they held firmly to the world's number one title throughout the entire 2016.
On to Rio, where fans may have been troubled by deja vu of New Zealand's long running dominance in the men's game.
The Pearls were down 5-0 in the gold-medal match, but such is the fast-paced sevens format, a swing in momentum saw them fight back to clinch top spot on the podium 24-17.
This team have truly redefined the image of females playing tough footy and have become great role models for the code and young girls all the same.
Tyler Wright
After years on the pro surfing circuit, Tyler Wright decided to make a definite challenge for this year's world crown.
Spurred on by her brother Owen Wright's head injury and the battle he faced to get back to health, a change in perspective made all the difference when it came time to wade out into the water.
Wright dominated the women's tour, taking five from 10 tournament wins and went out on a high with first place at the Maui Women's Pro just last week.
One of the greatest things about her composure is her sportsmanship; no matter win or lose Wright always displayed a genuine level of praise and appreciation for her opponents.
NSW Origin win
The Blues have certainly been overshadowed in State of Origin the past decade, but the curse was much more damning for their female counterparts, until this year.
New South Wales was facing an 18-year drought should it lose to the Maroons again in 2016 and Queensland was confident it was going to happen, with captain Steph Hancock even declaring she would quit should her side lose the annual interstate clash.
Mistakes and nerve-wrecking desperate defence stopped the Blues from scoring points until midway through the second half en route to an 8-6 win.
The outpouring emotion from players, staff and fans was contagious as it set in they had made history with a maiden victory.
Trans-Tasman championship final
2016 was a landmark year for Australian netball. We launched next year's domestic competition, welcomed three new teams and farewelled the long standing trans-Tasman league.
The Swifts and Firebirds were set for another final showdown - same time, same place as what many branded last year the best of its kind.
Somehow the battle went one better, with not one, but two bouts of extra time.
Much the same as 2015, its result meant heartbreak for the Swifts and everlasting glory for the Firebirds, who will always be remembered as the strongest entity in that competition.
Nostalgia made the climatic end extra special, establishing a legacy for the new league, its stars and future battles on Australian shores.
Women's Big Bash
The Southern Stars continue to impress at international level but the first edition of the Women's Big Bash and its all-Sydney final changed women's cricket forever.
Placing female cricketers on accessible and flashy platforms, the competition included big hits, impressive feats and plenty of tight finishes.
Its intensity produced such high ratings that extra games were broadcast on TV, with many upgraded to mainstream channels.
The influence was felt beyond national level too, with the Women's Cricket Super League in England a result of Australia's success; the Governor General's XI introduced as an annual event; a number of young guns promoted to debut for the Southern Stars and the push for better pay resulting in NSW's team being elevated to professional status.
Launch of Women's AFL
Women's AFL exhibition matches have been in play for a number of years now, but the launch of an official women's competition sent the Australian sports landscape into a frenzy.
Talent searches were conducted around the country and elite female athletes from other codes were encouraged to have a go.
Accomplished cricket, soccer and basketball stars are all set to debut in the inaugural league early next year, drawing fans and attention from their respective codes along the way.
To top off the announcement, a Bulldogs-Demons exhibition match, which took the primetime TV slot during a men's bye round in September, enticed the largest overall average audience in Melbourne for any Saturday match of the home-and-away AFL season.
Proving the demand is there for a women's competition and accessible viewing.
Matildas race to Olympics glory
The Matildas saw a huge rise in support on the back of their efforts at last year's FIFA World Cup, but their performance in this year's Olympic qualifiers saw it increase tenfold.
Moving to fifth in the world and securing their spot at the Games for the first time since 2004, the team was undefeated through the qualifying stages, which included a 9-0 victory against Vietnam on the road.
They blew us away with complete domination and pride, Lisa de Vanna famously declaring they were on a mission and not leaving Brazil without a medal.
While their Rio campaign ended in a heartbreaking quarter-final penalty shootout against Brazil, the country was quick to declare them winners for the passion and determination they exuberated throughout the entire journey.
Chloe Esposito's Rio gold
Modern pentathlon is a sport that has long been on the fringe of Australia's culture.
Enter Chloe Esposito, who after placing seventh at the London Olympics, moved to Budapest with her father and brother to improve her chances in 2016.
For three years she sacrificed it all, leaving behind a fiance, mother and sister to pursue her dream.
In the last leg of the event in Rio, she started far behind a podium placing, in that same seventh spot to which she had been kept just four years earlier.
But with an accurate eye in the pistol shooting, Esposito pulled off the underdog fightback that resonates with Australia most.
Clinching Australia's first gold medal in the sport she completed the course with an Olympic record 1,372 points, putting modern pentathlon on the map.
Milly Tapper — Olympian and Paralympian in one year
Milly Tapper was not content just qualifying for the Rio Paralympics. She wanted to be an Olympian and for more than a decade had been pushing to make that a reality.
In 2016, Tapper's top three placing at the Oceania Championships booked her an earlier ticket to Rio.
After bowing out in a sudden-death clash with Brazil's Caroline Kumahara (200 world ranks ahead), she backed up at the Paras finishing fourth in doubles with partner Andrea McDonnell.
As Australia's first Olympian-Paralympian, Tapper defied expectations surrounding para-athletes; competing against the world's best in both competitions and showing just how 'abled' she is.
Kim Brennan
By now you would have established most of the biggest moments in Australian sport this year involved 'firsts'.
Two-time rowing world champion Kim Brennan has always been a perfect role model and a respected figure.
Mainly for her strong stance advocating women's sport and zero tolerance for those who have not reached top level purely by grit and determination.
After almost sinking in her first race at the Rio Olympics, with heavy expectation having won silver in the same event at London, she stuck to her guns and put the wobbly start out of mind to claim Australia's first gold in the Women's Single Skulls.
A patriotic and intelligent woman, her win proved everything she had been fighting for - clean competitors who through hard work reap success.
Melbourne City's double
Most teams dream of pulling off a championship-premiership double and now they have Melbourne City to look to.
The side recruited well leading up to it's inaugural season, coaxing various Melbourne Victory players to jump ship and signing world-class talent like Lisa de Vanna, Kim Little and Jess Fishlock.
With their stacked side, many named them as the team to beat but questioned whether a team with so many stars would actually have cohesion once it came time to play.
In the early stages, they silenced all naysayers, outclassing every well-established team that stood in their way between the top of the table and trophy.
All in all, their efforts in an eight-year-old competition provided proof of what can be done when the same level of resources and support are garnered to men's and women's football.
So there you have it...
Each of the above were prominent in not only women's, but generally in Australian sport this year.
Judging by crowdsourcing, they were your favourites too; moments that will stick in your mind whenever you reflect back on 2016.
I bet you didn't even notice I snuck in an extra one... It was simply too hard to choose just 10.
Topics: sport, australia
First postedMotivation to Design: Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation & 8 Motivators for Creation
César Bejarano Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 29, 2016
Motivation is an invisible force in our heads. It’s the reason that drives us to do something or act in a certain way, and it can be categorized as intrinsic or extrinsic.
Intrinsic Motivation
In this type of motivation, the person gets pleasure from the process of doing something. It’s an internal and personal motivation. A perfect example of this is when someone plays a song on any instrument. They do it for the pleasure of playing the song. They are not motivated by the result, but by the process, and the behavior is an end in itself. This is also called “functional autonomy”, a term coined by American psychologist Gordon Allport that states that the idea that drives can become independent of the original motives for a given behavior. Designers are motivated to create by certain specific intrinsic motivators (discussed later) which are: a desire for mastery, immortality, self-esteem, desire to create beauty, desire to discover underlying order and desire to prove oneself.
Extrinsic Motivation
In extrinsic motivation, the person gets pleasure from the result of the process, rather than by going through the process. It’s originated by external factors that are intended to control the individual’s performance on a given task. The constraint is extraneous to the work itself and it’s introduced by the social environment. Some clear examples of extrinsic motivation are money, recognition and the desire to prove oneself to others. Extrinsic constraints in the workplace have a tendency to undermine creative performance, which is an alarming fact since this means that creativity in highly motivated individuals can be thwarted by the extrinsic constraints that exist in the traditional work environment of 9 to 5.
Motivational orientation, whether it’s intrinsic or extrinsic, has an impact on creativity, as proven by Teresa M. Amabile — a Harvard psychologist that studies the connection between motivation and creation — in one of her studies, which was designed to create intrinsic and extrinsic motivational states in her subjects. For this study, the creative task chosen was writing, so writers were recruited. Later, the writers were sorted into three groups. One of them was a control group, and the other two would be primed either to be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. This was done by using a simple questionnaire that asked the writers about their attitude towards writing. The control group did not answer a questionnaire, while one group was primed with an intrinsic questionnaire and the other one with an extrinsic questionnaire. After, the three groups were asked to write a brief poem, which would then be judged on creativity by several professional poets. The results were dramatic.
The control group was rated high on the creativity scale, which was expected since the study used creative writers as subjects.The group that was primed to be intrinsically motivated was rated higher still than the control group, but not enough to be of any significance. But the extrinsic group rated much lower in creativity than the two previous groups.
People will feel and be more creative when they are internally (intrinsically) motivated by things like interest, enjoyment, and curiosity, rather than by external (extrinsic) pressures such as time frames and evaluations, or even money.
“I want to feel my work good and well taken, which ironically freezes me at my work, corrupts my nunnish labor of work-for-itself-as-its-own-reward.”
-Sylvia Plath (Poet)
Reading a book called “Before the Gates of Excellence” by South African psychologist Richard Ochse, I identified 8 reasons that motivate creators to create. Some of these reasons overlap with Henry Murray’s 27 psychogenic needs, which according to him, are the basic needs of personality. Here is an analysis of those reasons:
1. Desire for Mastery
The desire for mastery is a force that motivates us all since it’s ingrained in each and every one of us since we are children. It’s a universal human drive to want to master things ranging from careers, instruments, and sports, to even each other. People are naturally driven to master, and it’s this drive that motivates us to set ourselves higher goals and aim for constant improvement.
2. Immortality
Immortality is a term that can only be taken philosophically, since we know for a fact that every living thing dies at some point. So if creators, designers or artists look for immortality, it can only be taken in this way. What better way (or any other way) is there for a creator to live forever than to leave their work as a legacy and testament of their time alive? This is a motivator that is closely tied to recognition, a motivator that comes later on the list, and like recognition, it’s an extrinsic motivator, not because immortality is the objective that causes our pleasure, but because immortality does not exist without others to attest to it.
3. Money
We might think that money is one of the major extrinsic motivators, but maybe it’s just its ubiquity or the fact that it’s such an inherent part of society since so long ago. The fact is that money is a very weak motivator, as Tim Judge and his colleagues found out in one of their studies, which revealed — after analyzing 120 years of compiled research — that there is an overlap of less than 2% between pay and job satisfaction levels.
Another study by Yoon Jik Cho and James Perry that analyzed data of over 200,000 government employees, showed that their engagement levels were 3 times stronger with intrinsic motivators than extrinsic ones, like money. Simply put, people are more likely to like their job by if they focus on the work itself and less likely to enjoy it if they focus on money.
4. Recognition
Basic psychology tells us that people who are affirmed for good behavior are more likely to repeat said behavior, and that, in the long run, will build a stronger, more productive business, filled with motivated individuals. Ivan Pavlov — a Russian physiologist — called this a conditioned reflex: a response that becomes associated with a previously unrelated stimulus as a result of pairing the stimulus with another stimulus normally yielding the response, and B.F. Skinner — an American Harvard psychology researcher inspired by Pavlov — came up with a similar concept titled operant conditioning, which is when the learning of a behavior happens as the result of the rewards and punishments associated with that behavior. Divided into four types, the first operant conditioning Skinner proposed was positive reinforcement: when behavior is strengthened and the probability of it recurring increases as a result of a positive condition.
Recognition is an extrinsic motivator since it doesn’t come from within us.In order to get recognition, we need people to give it to us.
5. Self-Esteem
As Roy F. Baumeister states in his paper about self-regulation and ego threat, the desire or need that we all have to think favorably about ourselves is one of the most elemental and pervasive motivations in human psychology, however hard it may be at some times. Sometimes these optimistic views of ourselves are threatened, something that Baumeister calls an “ego threat”. We as humans want to keep this flattering view of ourselves alive and unharmed, and in order to do this, we need to diffuse or discredit these threatening implications. This need to eliminate these negative implications are what motivates us, and as designers, we are motivated to create.Self-esteem can be seen as the strongest intrinsic motivator because of its broadness. In many ways, it’s the parent of the rest of the intrinsic motivators in this list, since self-esteem is fueled by all of them.
6. Desire to Create Beauty
Even though beauty is what is sought after the process of creation, and this may seem like an extrinsic motivator, it is not. The beauty we look for is for ourselves, for our own pleasure. There are no outside forces exerting pressure over what we think is beautiful because beauty is so subjective. Although we are influenced by our social, cultural and physical environment, beauty is personal, and so is the desire to create it. As designers, we find pleasure in the process of creating beauty as well as the result of the process, beauty itself, and both beauties motivate us to create.
7. Desire to Prove Oneself
A motivator with a duality, the desire to prove oneself can be very powerful in both of its existing forms, extrinsic or intrinsic. The desire to prove oneself may be aimed to ourselves or to others. If we want to prove ourselves to ourselves, the motivation is intrinsic and strong by nature. If we want to prove ourselves to others, the motivation then becomes extrinsic. However, unlike a typical extrinsic motivator — which is weak — this desire to prove ourselves to others can also be a very strong motivator, because, in order to prove ourselves to others, we must first prove ourselves to ourselves. The need to prove ourselves implies that, in that moment, we do not fully believe in ourselves. This causes another ego threat, which results as motivation. A motivated designer or creator will prove him or herself by doing what they are best at: creating.
8. Desire to Discover Underlying Order
The key word here is discover. When we discover something, we are recognized for it. And ultimately, that is what most creators look for (although it’s not the only thing). A creator that is not recognized can feel he or she is of little value or has little to offer. This demotivates creators, or any person, despite the profession. The way creators counter this demotivation is by creating, because what is creation if not a constant search for the discovery of the new: new processes, new materials, new shapes and new solutions to new problems.
Like this article? Please hit the ❤ below so more people can find it!With momentum building to rein in record budget deficits, Democrats are sharply divided over whether to tackle Social Security by raising the retirement age and/or raising the income ceiling that is taxed from the first $106,800 of wages to the first $170,000.
Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer are lining up against such measures and Reid scheduled a rally on Capitol Hill on Monday to show support for Social Security and opposition to cuts in benefits.
Bur why are the only options on the table to cut or not to cut what is already a meager wage replacement scheme? Moreover, we need to acknowledge that our personal and federal financial deficits are more a function of corporate tax dodges than reckless spending. How about actually taxing the companies that got rid of pensions as a way of bankrolling more generous Social Security benefits, along with forcing them to turn 401(k) plans into real pensions?
Let's face it, while the working class is struggling to make ends meet and unemployment remains stubbornly high, the corporate class is doing just fine. U.S. corporate profits hit an all-time high at the end of 2010, according to data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. Corporations reported an annualized $1.68 trillion in profit in the fourth quarter, exceeding the previous record of $1.65 trillion in the third quarter of 2006.
Not only are companies reaping profits but they are laughing all the way to the bank when it comes to overseas tax breaks. Thanks to an arm-twisting in 2009 by the CEOs of IBM, Caterpillar, Cisco and others, BusinessWeek reports that the Obama administration backed down from its proposal to raise some $160 billion by hoisting taxes on U.S. companies overseas profits. As a result of various overseas tax dodges, many multinationals pay less than the statutory rate of 35%, according to The Analyst's Accounting Observer; Big Pharma paid around 23% in 2008 and info tech companies paid about 26%.
Between tax breaks, tax cuts and the fact that hedge fund managers can pay capital gains tax instead of income tax, we've created a corporate welfare state. The corporate share of the nation's receipts has shrunk from 30% of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6% in 2009. Since federal revenue in 2009 was $2.1 trillion, if the corporate share had stayed at 30%, that would have brought in $630 billion in revenues in that year alone.
I apologize to readers who may be tired of reading my rants about the retirement crisis, but this is the biggest economic disaster that nobody's talking about except for a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. If 85% of Boomers can't afford to retire, college graduates won't be able to find jobs. What's more, If these Boomers have to transform themselves from spenders into savers, that shift is going to take a wrecking ball to the 70% of U.S. economic growth that's driven by consumer spending.
As I said in a previous post, even if Social Security were solvent, it's downright stingy. The only workers for whom 70% of wages will be replaced by Social Security are those making minimum wage at age 65; since benefits average $1,067 a month. Given that the median wage for that age cohort is around $65,000, only a tiny minority of Americans can rely on Social Security alone. We need to force companies to bankroll a more secure retirement, whether it's footing more of the bill for Social Security and/or making 401(k) plans into actual pensions by contributing the equivalent of 9% of pay to their accounts, as Australian employers are required to do.Story highlights A video posted online claims to show another massacre in Syria
The images are of dead women and children in the village of Qubeir
The video elicits condemnation for Bashar al-Assad at a U.N. session on Syria
The U.N. chief calls it "shocking and sickening"
Among the dead were 40 women and children. Again, as in Houla, the images are chilling.
Babies, lifeless. Wrapped in blankets, white shrouds. Women with faces in hues of ghostly whites, deep purples and reds -- the colors of death.
The world gasped two weeks ago at the slaughter of at least 108 people in the Syrian town of Houla. Now, activists say it has happened again, this time in the village of Qubeir, not far from the city of Hama.
The reactions are eerily familiar: horror. Shock. Then, reaction and blame on Bashar al-Assad and, from his government, blame on armed terrorists.
A camera captures the dead, some burned beyond recognition.
"Those are the children of Qubeir farm. Those are the children of the massacre, the same as Houla," says a man's voice in the video posted online.
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"Take a look, Arabs. Take a look, Muslims. Were they terrorists? Take a look, Kofi Annan."
At least 78 people, including 35 from one family, were killed by Syrian regime forces in Qubeir, said the opposition network Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Some residents suspected the Shabiha, armed gangs that work as freelancers for the government.
The village had only about 200 people. In one lethal sweep, almost half were gone.
Opposition activists said Syrian government forces shelled Qubeir for an hour before militias on foot turned AK-47 rifles on people, some at close range, or slashed them with knives.
The government said those accusations were false.
Throughout the Syrian crisis, al-Assad has said terrorists are responsible for the bloodshed. On Thursday, the regime put Qubeir's suffering on terrorists and said the massacre was intended "to be used to pressure Syria," state media reported.
The video of the dead was posted on YouTube late Wednesday. CNN could not independently verify its authenticity.
Neither could United Nations observers who tried Thursday to reach Qubeir but were blocked by the Army as well as civilians. The observers wanted to "establish the facts on the ground" so that the world could be certain as the United Nations General Assembly took up talk of Syria.
Many nations blamed al-Assad for Houla. Would they think the same way about Qubeir?
"Shocking and sickening" is how U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the massacre.
Then he told the General Assembly that the observers trying to reach Qubeir were shot at with small arms. Al-Assad's government, he said, has lost "all legitimacy."
The camera pans over the bodies, sometimes in herky-jerky fashion. Plastic bottles of frozen water. Shards of ice. Summer temperatures are climbing. How else to preserve the dead?
Some victims, maybe about 40, were buried Thursday, said a youth activist who was not named for safety reasons. They were not buried in the way their families would have wanted but in mass graves.
The Shabiha hauled the other bodies away to neighboring villages, the activist said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Qubeir "simply unconscionable." The time has come, she said, for the world to unite around a plan to remove al-Assad.
Nine days ago, U.N. Special Envoy Kofi Annan urged al-Assad to take bold and visible steps to change his military stance, to honor his commitment to an agreed-upon peace plan.
But the opposite has happened.
Annan told the General Assembly that shelling of Syrian cities has intensified, and "government-backed militia seem to have free rein with appalling consequences."
He said: Al-Assad has not indicated a change of course. The hour demands more. Syria is on the precipice of all-out war.
The camera scans the faces of the dead. You might think at first they were sleeping, they look so peaceful. Yet they did not know peace in their final moments. The next shot is of dried blood and bruised eyes and noses.
The international rights group Avaaz sent out a report card Thursday on Syria's failing truce.
• Launch of inclusive peace process: failed.
"The opposition is unable to organize effectively in Syria due in part to the detention, torture and murder of countless opposition activists."
• Cease-fire: failed.
"Clashes between forces are rife, and crackdowns against peaceful protesters and regime shelling of residential areas continue unabated."
• Delivery of humanitarian aid: partial.
"The government heavily controls (International Committee of the Red Cross) and Red Crescent aid routes and has prevented aid from entering across borders, while aid can only be distributed in 5 locations and under regime control. Although Assad mentioned that other agencies could enter the country yesterday, it was unclear how this will work."
• Release of detained prisoners: failed.
"While 86 Aleppo University students were released in early May, more than 600 remain in detention."
• Free movement for media: failed.
"While the regime claims 400 visas have been issued for media, journalists' movements remain severely restricted, making it virtually impossible to report freely; the people they speak to are often targeted for speaking to them."
• Freedom to protest: failed.
"Peaceful protesters are still regularly targeted by shooting and even shelling, in addition to round-ups of protesters, including children, who are routinely tortured in detention."
The camera hovers over charred flesh. A blackened corpse is said to be of a mother cradling her baby. It is unwatchable. Media websites that post the video attach warnings of graphic material.
Experts on Syria agree. It is another Houla.
"Assad and his regime have been slaughtering people on an industrial scale for well over a year now, and there's no reason to think they're going to stop because Kofi Annan politely asks them to," said Michael Weiss of the British think tank the Henry Jackson Society.
"How many more of these bloodbaths will the West abide by without intervening to protect Syria's civilians?" he asked.
He said he the world ought to realize that the Houla massacre, however shocking, was hardly unique.Aydan and Jimmy, along with Kelmaris, Proax, and Quest the Blue journeyed to the Marshes of the Forgotten in the hopes of finding a coven of hags called the Sorority of Crows. As they made closer to the small island at the center of what seemed like a large lake, an odd house emerged from the mists. The party became trapped and tried to find an escape out of the magical madness perpetrated by some foul force. After breaking free from the haunted mansion, the group were confronted by three towering women. They found the Sorority of Crows, now the group needed to acquire a ‘heartstone’ from them in order to fulfill their bargain with the lich spirit.
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The three women stood over seven-feet tall, leaning down toward the party as they inspected them with their empty pools of darkness for eyes.
“Sisters, what mayhap we find here?” Sneered one of the hags, parting her black curly hair. A long black-nailed finger extended and prodded the half-drow Kelmaris.
“We have to treat with you,” Kelmaris replied. Smiling while trying to keep his composure, the rest of the group held their guard against the fiendish entities as the other two began to encircle them.
“Treat? Oh we do love treats!” Cried one of the hags. The trio cackled in unison, never taking their obsidian eyes off the party.
One began to sniff the air, smiling all the while, “they smell wonderful, sisters. I smell: despair, regret, revenge, pride, and fear.”
“Bide thy tongue, sister!” One of the hags with a necklace made of bones spat, the loose pieces rattle against each other to create an ominous jingle.
“What thy wish to treat, little darkling?” The first hag asked, eyeing Kelmaris carefully.
“We have come for a heartstone,” Proax proclaimed.
“Why would thee have need of such a trinket?” The second hag demanded, agitated and glaring at the party.
“Why would thee think we possess such a trinket?” The third hag pondered with a calming curiosity.
“Why would thee come here to search for such a trinket?” The first one questioned, leaning closer on Kelmaris. Her foul stench proved distracting for the half-drow, avoiding her gaze and holding his breath.
“Do you possess it or not?” Jimmy Moon demanded. The druid had grown impatient with the hags, anxiety had swelled within the half-elf since his arrival to the Shadowfell. Aydan was surprised by her companion’s outburst, realizing now the extent of his frustrations with the realm.
“We will take it by force if necessary, but we simply wish to parley with you.” The gold dragonborn kept his arms crossed along his golden chain mail. His claw never touched his weapon, but his presence seemed like a beacon of light and courage in the face of vile and ugly creatures. The trio snickered at the cleric of Alderron, continuing to circle and pace around the party.
“Doth protests thine can slay us and steal from us, sisters!” The second hag cried, her dark curly hair began to flair outward like snakes poised to strike its prey.
Realizing that the negotiations were going nowhere, Kelmaris decided to strike the first hag with his rapier wrapped in emerald flames. The strike missed its target as it vanished into the mist, the illusion was gone now and the group realized that they were standing on a crooked crag in the middle of the lake. Kelmaris rushed after the first hag into the mist and this time landed his blade strike, emerald flames erupted from her bony form. Out of the flames, her sharp claws slashed across the half-drow’s chest, leaving a large gash across his leather armor.
The second hag conjured their coven’s powers over the marsh, large tendrils of water erupted from the edges of the crag and struck the party like hammers. Black feathers erupted around her form while a large cat-like eye glowed an ominous purple aura.
The last hag chanted words of power, summoning bolts of lightning from the sky to strike the party.
Gilda and Proax summoned their spiritual guardians, an entourage of dragonborn and dwarven warriors emerged to fend off against the crooked creatures. Jimmy Moon summoned a field of brambles to surround the hags and divide them while Quest the Blue ran for the third hag since she was closest to him. The tiefling monk enveloped his fists with flames as he struck the hag, she hissed and howled in pain before cursing him.
After taking some blows from the party, the Sorority combined their powers and called forth the mist from the marshes. Some of the mist began to take form and become solid into the shapes of creatures and foes the group had defeated in their past once again. Aydan and Jimmy had to once again confront with the misty images of the dragon cultists, while the rest had to deal with a myriad of foes from black armored knights to cultists to drow warriors.
Once the party slew the shadows of their past again, Jimmy Moon shifted into the form of a large Tyrannosaurus Rex. A creature Jimmy had read once in one of the bestiary tomes when he lived in Lastil-Taswell. The large creature assaulted one of the hags before defeating it under its crushing maw and teeth.
The first hag channeled the powers of the marsh again, summoning a swarm of locusts to distract and assail the party. Aydan, Gilda, Quest, and Jimmy were caught in the thick of it while Kelmaris and Proax continued to pressure the Sorority with spells and blades. A bolt of lightning struck Aydan and Jimmy and Gilda fell under the influence of a powerful curse from the hags. Quest was grabbed by one of the tendrils of water and flung dozens of feet away from the combat zone.
With combined effort, Kelmaris and Jimmy slew the second hag to size, leaving only one of the sisters of the Sorority of Crows alive. Proax pleaded with the fell creature to reconsider and surrender the item to them. The sister merely chuckled and muttered something about a Great Mother and that they were replaceable. In a desperate attempt, the hag transformed into a withered and decayed oversized crow but with four wings with sharp claws on each end. The hag fought against Jimmy Moon before falling to the spiritual warriors summoned by Proax.
Once the final sister was slain, the fog and mist began to disappear from the marshlands, the clouds that hovered over the area lightened to reveal the shadowy outline of a moon or some other false light source. A relative calm fell upon the region as their influence and presence dispersed. While still exhausted and winded, the group managed to search the hag’s belongings to find a large crystal orb that seemed to be emitting a soft red light. It pulsed almost like a heartbeat, which they surmised to the heartstone the lich spirit had instructed them to retrieve. Once in their possession, the few members with the spirit’s “gifts” felt the urge and pull of his voice to return to them item to it. Unwilling to experience the pain of their defiance, the group decided to rest and address their wounds before taking the long journey back to the lost valley where the lich’s tomb lied.
While exiting the marsh, soft globes of light and the sound of black birds could be heard from the dead leafless trees. Jimmy Moon felt uncomfortable and unsure what awaited them, though some of the group professed that it was likely something else for the Sorority was no more and their influence on the land was diminished. As the edged closer to the end of the forest, there they met a tall 10-foot figure woman with an intricate black battle dress with a black veil that concealed her face. Her skin was pale as snow, lips as black as the night. The birds cawed and encircled the entity, the clerics in the group realized what finally stood before them: Morrigan, the Goddess of Death.
Thanks for reading! Please like, comment, and share! If you want to stay up to date with us, please follow our Facebook and Twitter pages. We have an Instagram for behind the scenes Team BAJA campaign pics and boardgaming fun. If you want to help us run the site, please click on the donate button above. If you have any questions or inquiries please email me at: archamge@deathbymage.com. Thanks again and we’ll see you soon!The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995
House:
Rosethorn Hall
( ) Console Location Code(s) SkingradHouseforSale, SkingradHouseforSaleUpperFloor, SkingradHouseforSaleBasement Location Skingrad
This manor towers above the streets of Skingrad.
Rosethorn Hall is a house for sale in the northern part of Skingrad. It is the biggest and most expensive house (available for purchase) |
building upon a base that admittedly disappointed last year but has the potential to be great, seems like the right move rather than blowing it up in an effort to force a 3-4 system on a 4-3 team.
The NFL, however, has seen 3-4 teams win the last two Super Bowls, as Salguero points out, with the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots each carrying home a Lombardi Trophy.
"Both win," Joseph said to Salguero. "And I've been a 3-4 guy most of my career. But when you come to a place like this and see the defensive personnel you've got, and, in my opinion, it's not broken, you can't all of a sudden go to 34 where you have to re-draft to a defense. That takes time. That takes too much time."
Joseph has described his vision for the 2016 Dolphin defense as an attacking one, telling Salguero in another report, "We’re going to be an attack-style defense from every position — from the D-line, corners, safeties, linebackers. Every position.” (Sidenote: Highly recommend reading this article. A lot of good stuff from Joseph.)
Joseph wants this defense to be ready to succeed now. The veterans on the team are ready for this defense to succeed now. The Dolphins fans are ready to see this defense succeed now. Joseph is taking the correct strategy to make that happen. Now, it is a matter of putting it all together and succeeding.Related Headlines Police: Resident shot and killed intruder
- A valley man has been arrested after police say he lied to them about fatally shooting an intruder on New Year's Eve.
The Chandler Police Department says 19-year-old Nathaniel Thomas has been arrested after telling police he shot and killed an intruder at his apartment near 400 N. Coronado St. Thomas initially told police he called 911 to report that he had shot an intruder, who was breaking into his home.
During their investigation, police learned that Thomas pointed a handgun at Gage Bodenheimer, who was asleep on his apartment floor, in an attempt to wake him up. Thomas believed the gun was not loaded, pulled the trigger and shot Bodenheimer.
Thomas then called 911 to report that he had shot an intruder.
After speaking to witnesses who were inside the apartment at the time of the shooting, Thomas was arrested.Malta Independent
The Roman baths along the road from Mgarr to G?ajn Tuffie?a were unearthed by accident in 1929, but archaeologists and other experts are still discovering things at the site.
So said the deputy leader of excavations, Heritage Malta’s David Caruana, who was speaking at a lecture organised by Din l-Art Helwa last week.
The baths were discovered when workers were digging down to pass a conduit to enable the flow of water to water the fields. A certain Mr Rizzo, presumably their foreman, informed Sir Temi Zammit that, under some three feet of soil, they had discovered remains that they thought were archaeological.
The subsequent excavations confirmed that these were extensive Roman baths. Six Roman bath complexes are known to have been discovered around Malta, including one, improbably, in Floriana. Others have been found at Ramla l-Hamra in Gozo and Marsaxlokk.
People at the DLH lecture queried why the baths at G?ajn Tuffie?a had been built in such a remote area in the first place. It could be, Mr Caruana replied, because several water streams converge at that point and provide a steady flow of water, essential for public baths.
In addition, although the area is rather deserted today, it was quite heavily populated in Roman times, as testified by burials in Zebbieg? and Mgarr – in fact this was true of the entire area from Rabat/Mdina to the nearby ports of Gnejna and G?ajn Tuffie?a, and Burmarrad.
Although it has not as yet been totally excavated, it would seem that the site was fairly extensive, with no fewer than 12 places in the communal latrine and possibly a small and rudimentary hotel-like structure in which people could stay overnight.
Strangely, one of the first items to be excavated by Sir Temi in 1929 was a large structure called a ‘trapezium’ (shower tray) which, according to Mr Caruana, can nowadays be found in the reception area of the Paradise Bay Hotel.
The Temi Zammit excavations are documented in one-and-a-half notebooks with pen drawings that still exist today. Some photographs from that time are also extant and they help present-day archaeologists determine many details on site.
But Italian archaeologists, working on the site in 1982, dug four trenches but left no documentation at all.
Today’s excavations form part of a €6 million project entitled For a Rehabilitation of the Roman Baths and Christian catacombs at Mosta and Mgarr, part-funded by EU Rural Development Funds.
The two sites are not linked in any way, and the project intends to clean and open up the catacombs at Ta’ Bistra in Mosta. With regard to the Roman Baths near G?ajn Tuffie?a, the project intends to fully explore the entire area and subsequently roof over the site and set up an Interpretation Centre.
The Roman Baths complex has everything one would expect to find in Roman baths of the time, with a tepidarium (lukewarm water), a frigidarium (cold water and a caldarium (what we would call a ‘sauna’ today). Each was fed by tunnels channelling the water flow and the caldarium was built on arches so that the water could be heated.
Apart from all this, there was also a huge swimming pool, the natatio. Although the part that has been excavated up to now is somewhat elliptical in shape, further excavation under the nearby road will doubtless reveal a rectangular pool.
The current excavation has been proceeding by means of a series of 10 trenches dug around the site. Generally, they have uncovered alterations made to the original site as a result of change of use. For instance, the step that goes around the big pool is sometimes the basis for yet another construction. Before the latest work began, a GPR survey was taken of the whole area, including fields that have not been excavated. Some of these fields have yielded nothing, but others await further excavation.
Tiles, pottery and fragments of water pipes, as well as mosaic fragments have been found and it has all been documented and stored.To get the first question out the window: That's a pocky, not a cigarette.Fun fact: I originally made this because I wanted to make a Skype avatar for myself featuring Tomoko with a santa hat. Little did I know it would take me four days to make it and that I would also record the entire drawing process myself, which you can see here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AMvrL… A cool thing is that this marks the first time I decided to make a drawing based on a thumbnail sketch, which I previously made to have as a reference for composition and colouring. Funnily, I think that the thumbnail itself as rudimentary as it is looks a lot better: orig08.deviantart.net/0001/f/2… I'm not satisfied with her face and I think I could've done better controlling the thickness of her outlines, the lighting on her clothes, and the trees, but in every other way this drawing presents a step forward for me in terms of how I make composition and depict subjects, so I'm happy for that.Tomoko Kuroki and Watamote are property of Nico Tanigawa.(c) Clownboss 2015HBO’s Looking Renewed For Second Season
HBO’s Looking has been renewed for a second season.
The gay themed show, which is set in San Francisco, was renewed after posting a series high in viewers for its latest episode.
Andrew Haigh, director of HBO’s Looking, posted the following tweet yesterday.
We are heading back to San Francisco! http://t.co/dh3lvy1aYx — Andrew Haigh (@andrewhaighfilm) February 26, 2014
The tweet was in celebration of HBO’s Looking being renewed for a second season. Production is scheduled to start later this year in San Francisco.
The series has aired 6 episodes with its latest airing earning a series high of 519,000 viewers. This is 50% above its series premiere.
Go inside the latest episode of HBO’s Looking with this clip on YouTube.
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Source: TVLine
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He's now amassed over 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, with his Final Fantasy VII album (Final Heaven: A Melancholy Tribute to Final Fantasy VII) receiving over 400,000 plays to date. It was therefore quite a privilege to be able to speak with him and conduct an interview about his Final Fantasy arrangements, but also his new album, which is about The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. (you can listen in the video below).
We hope you really enjoy the interview. If you'd like to find out more about Dan, please follow his Facebook or Twitter.
Final Fantasy Union (FFU): So let's start off with an easy one. What kind of musical training do you have?
TPR: I was forced to start playing piano by my parents when I was 6. I remember having lessons, but I don't think I got on particularly well with my teacher, so I'm not sure they lasted for too long! I was more into guitar as a teenager, so I didn't really play for six or seven years, but picked it back up after I left school. To be honest, for the length of time I've been playing the piano, I'm not very good at it at all!
I took a lot of theory exams during my music classes at school, and I think that's helped me the most when it comes to arranging.
FFU: When did you decide to get into arranging? I appreciate it's not for everyone, for example, some people just like performing and others prefer composing completely original works
TPR: I got into doing piano versions of hard rock/heavy metal songs around 2008-09. It was about the time I got a full-time job, so I could afford basic recording equipment and sample libraries. There's an Alice In Chains cover on my YouTube channel from January 2009 – I reckon that's the first arrangement I ever put on the internet!
They say when you start out you should stick to what you know, so I moved on to arranging Final Fantasy soundtracks soon after.
FFU: Before we get onto your latest album, which is focussed on the music from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, we have to touch on Final Fantasy as that's where it all started! Were there any other games you dabbled with before progressing with Final Fantasy arrangements?
TPR: I went straight to trying to arrange Final Fantasy soundtracks – they were by far the most memorable soundtracks to me growing up!
FFU: What made you start off exclusively with Final Fantasy VII, as opposed to other games from the franchise or simply just doing a mish-mash "Final Fantasy" album?
TPR: To me, VII was just the most logical place to start. It was the first Final Fantasy I played, and its soundtrack, setting and story had the most profound effect on me.
I didn't want to arrange an album of tracks from different FF games as it would mean either missing out classic tracks, focusing only on them, or creating the largest album ever!
FFU: For those who maybe aren't aware, what's the process like for curating an album? Say you've just finished up with your World of Ruin Final Fantasy VI album, how quickly do you start thinking about the next project, or is it already in your mind?
TPR: I'd like to say I have a plan for what I'd like to do for the next few years, but I really don't! Things can change so quickly – if you'd have told me this time last year that I'd be doing a Wind Waker album I wouldn't have believed you! Though once you get the ideas for the new project, you have to be really careful not to rush the project you're working on.
I've started the past couple of years with plans for the year, but it never works out that way!
I don't really like downtime, so recording work on the next project will start about a week after the previous one has been sent to the distributor.
FFU: Your latest album is 14 tracks, but it's still almost 45 minutes of music. How long do you spend on track selection and then the actual arranging itself? Do you ever change your mind throughout a project?
TPR: I like to listen to the OST of an upcoming project for a couple of months before starting work on it. While listening, I'll write down the names of tracks I think will work in my style in a note and go from there.
It depends on how many tracks there are as to how long it takes. A 14-16-track album will usually take about 4-5 months to arrange and record, while a 24-26-track one will take about 6 months. It's kind of a coincidence that the albums usually fall into one of those categories (except FFVIII).
I change my mind all the time! I posted a couple of pictures of the Wind Waker tracklist on my Facebook page a couple of months ago, and Zelda's Theme had disappeared on the second one. I just couldn't get it different enough to the one I recorded for the Ocarina album, so I decided against doing it.
FFU: Your work has become extremely popular, especially on YouTube where you have almost 3 million views. Have you ever received any kind of nod from any of the composers whose music you've arranged?
TPR: Not yet!
FFU: What have been some of your favourite interaction with fans?
TPR: I get lots of nice comments and messages on my Facebook page! Some have even asked to use my arrangements when they walk down the aisle – it's insane!
FFU: As an arranger yourself, how do you feel about the resurgence of orchestrated video game music? Have you been able to attend either the Distant Worlds, Final Symphony or Zelda concerts?
TPR: I think it's great. The vast majority of shows seem to be in London – about 2.5 hours away from me – so I can't get to them all, but in the past couple of years I've been to Final Symphony, Distant Worlds, the Final Fantasy Piano Opera, and Symphony Of The Goddesses. Looking forward to Symphonic Fantasies in October and Kingdom Hearts Orchestra next year!
FFU: For those who maybe don't delve too much into it, do you have any particular arrangements of video game music that you simply find irresistable and would recomend people listen to?
TPR: I don't delve too deep into game arrangements, but I tend to love everything SongeLeReveur does, and Taylor Davis is incredible. Piano-wise, PurpleSchala has a couple of great albums on Spotify, I like Michelle Heafy's stuff on YouTube, and obviously Kyle Landry is a bit good too!
FFU: Aside from your arrangements, you also compose original pieces. How does the experience differ from arranging, or is it quite similar?
TPR: It's a lot more frustrating! If you get stuck arranging a soundtrack, there's usually going to be another track or another reference point you can use to help. When you're composing you're on your own! I find it a lot more rewarding, though. I hope that the Melancholy series' success will help create a larger platform for the originals.
FFU: Do you have any advice for someone who's maybe looking to get into composing/arranging music?
TPR: Start with arranging a soundtrack you truly love – a love for the source material is one of the greatest tools an arranger can have. It means that you'll treat each track with the respect it deserves and hopefully that'll help you create a project to be proud of.
You can then apply what you've learned on this passion project to other arrangements and build a portfolio that your audience and, most importantly, you, will love.
A sound knowledge of music theory will help too!
FFU: Thanks for taking the time to speak to us! We wish you well with your future projects ^^Obama Apparently Ready To Kill Bulk Phone Record Collection... As New House Bill Lowers Standards For Data Collection
from the how's-that-going-to-work dept
The bill, titled the End Bulk Collection Act of 2014 and currently circulating on Capitol Hill, would prevent the government from acquiring "records of any electronic communication without the use of specific identifiers or selection terms," some 10 months after the Guardian first exposed the bulk collection based on leaks by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
But the bill would allow the government to collect electronic communications records based on "reasonable articulable suspicion", rather than probable cause or relevance to a terrorism investigation, from someone deemed to be an agent of a foreign power, associated with an agent of a foreign power, or "in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power."
But unlike other pending legislation, it does not call for judicial approval of a specific phone number before a request for data is submitted to a company.
The Rogers-Ruppersberger legislation would have the court make that determination “promptly” after the FBI submits a number to a phone company. If the court did not approve the number as being linked to an agent of a foreign power, including terrorist groups, the data collected would be expunged.
With two of his own review panels saying that the bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act had failed to produce anything of value, and one of them clearly stating that it was also illegal and unconstitutional, the NY Times is reporting that President Obama is finally ready to call for the true end of the NSA's bulk collection of phone records. Surprisingly, according to that report, President Obama is willing to do thisadding data retention requirements for the telcos to hold onto that data themselves. If true, that really is a pretty big deal -- though it only covers the issue of the bulk phone records collection. That leaves other forms of bulk collection under Section 215 in place. So, in effect, it seems like an agreement to kill off the oneproblematic program that hasn't been remotely useful, rather than a full policy shift. It's a start, however.Unfortunately, at the same time that's happening, it appears that the House Intelligence Committee, run by Rep. Mike Rogers is pushing a new bill that would take a step towards limitingof the NSA's data collection powers, but also lowering the standard by which the government could collect specific information:While a separate report says that this House bill would actually ban the mass collection of other types of data (including internet activity) as well as phone records (i.e., going further than the Obama proposal), it would leave out the requirement that a court approve specific requests for information before it's submitted to a company.The details of these proposals are going to matter. The full House bill is expected to be introduced in a few hours, and it will take some time to go through the details to see if there are any dangerous easter eggs hidden in there. Still, for all the arguments from Rep. Rogers and the Obama administration about how "necessary" these programs have been and how horrible it's been that Ed Snowden revealed the details to the press, these moves show just how much of an impact the Snowden leaks have had on the public debate concerning surveillance. It will take some time to sort through the details of these proposals, but it's safe to say without Snowden's actions, none of this would be happening.
Filed Under: barack obama, bulk collection, metadata, mike rogers, phone records, reasonable articulable suspicion, section 215, warrantThe Walt Disney Company on Thursday reported lackluster fourth-quarter earnings, dragged down by weaknesses in its film studio and media networks division, including further ESPN subscriber losses.
Disney missed analyst expectations of $1.12 per share, reporting instead earnings of $1.07 per share. The company reported revenue of $12.8 billion, down 3% from the previous year’s quarter.
The company’s media networks — which include cable and broadcast TV — saw revenues slide 3% to $5.5 billion and segment operating income declined 12% to $1.5 billion. ESPN, which has struggled in recent quarters as consumers turn away from cable TV packages, again saw subscriber losses.
To counter competitors like Netflix, Disney has aggressively moved to launch its own direct-to-consumer service, starting with ESPN Plus, a sports streaming service launching next year. The company announced the name Thursday.
In 2019, Disney will launch a Disney-branded streaming service for its films and television shows. The Mouse House will eventually pull its Disney, Pixar, and Lucasfilm titles from Netflix. Iger said the subscription cost for its streaming service will be “substantially below” what Netflix charges, mostly because the streaming service will also have less content.
Related Bob Iger on Hostless Oscars: 'It's Been a Rollercoaster' Last Hostless Oscars Were Memorable — for the Wrong Reasons
In addition to its current library, the streamer will also include original films and TV series. The company announced that it has closed a deal with director Rian Johnson to develop a new “Star Wars” trilogy. Disney is also planning a live-action “Star Wars” TV series to air on its entertainment streaming service, expected to launch by the end of 2019. In addition to the “Star Wars” TV series, Disney is working on TV series adaptations of Pixar’s “Monsters Inc.,” the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” franchise, and an original entry from Marvel.
“We look forward to launching our first direct-to-consumer streaming service in the new year, and we will continue to invest for the future and take the smart risks required to deliver shareholder value,” Iger said in a statement.
The earnings report comes as Disney is said to be considering acquiring some of Fox’s entertainment assets. Iger declined to comment on the speculation.
Disney has dominated the box office in recent years, delivering hits from Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, which it acquired in 2006, 2009, and 2012, respectively. Responding to a question on whether Disney plans to continue its dominance through other acquisitions, Iger said Disney does not “feel right now that we have a great need to add to the film slate that we have.”
On the film studio side, the quarterly decline was attributed to a lighter release schedule this year and the under-performance of “Cars 3” compared with “Finding Dory” in the same quarter last year. Disney’s major films — “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Coco,” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” — are coming late in the year, with “Thor” having just debuted last week.
Parks and resorts delivered some good news for the company. Revenues for the quarter increased 6% to $4.7 billion, despite the closure of domestic theme parks and cruise cancellations due to Hurricane Irma. Walt Disney World Resort closed for two days, three cruises were canceled, and two others were shortened.
Disney stock initially tumbled 3% in after-hours trading Thursday, after closing at $102.68.NEWARK, NJ - APRIL 11: Martin Brodeur #30 of the New Jersey Devils takes a break during the third period against the New York Islanders at the Prudential Center on April 11, 2014 in Newark, New Jersey. The Islanders defeated the Devils 3-2 in the shootout. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
2001 was 13 years ago.
And still, I can remember the chill in the air, the anticipation in my body, the tension in my nerves, as we'd walk into the arena, forcing ourselves not to look through the stanchions as we made our way to the entrance to our section. We were still full from our pre-game meal (not as good as others might have cooked, but good for a parking lot meal). We'd walk into Section 228, or 217, of Continental Airlines Arena, and we'd see the ice for the first time, and we'd smile the smile of people who, at that moment, couldn't find another place in the world where happiness was more abundant. We were 300 miles from home, but it could very well have been 3,000 or 3,000,000. Because we were going to see Martin Brodeur play for our New Jersey Devils.
It's easy for children to identify with athletes as heroes. They are larger than life, drawing tens of thousands of people to pay to watch them, to be in their presence. Going to Devils games was a way to suspend my own life for three hours, and to give myself over to a game that was bigger than me. When Adult Anthony looks at Teenage Anthony, it's amazing to see the incredible power of transportation that hockey represented, and still does. And Martin Brodeur was the conduit through which it all happened.
I've learned everything about hockey from watching this man in red and black. I'm a goalie because I wanted to be just like Marty. I play in the number 30, have it tattooed on my left (glove-side) wrist, because that's Marty's number. I have every jersey that Marty has worn in his career, from the Devils to the Olympics, the World Cup, the Worldstars tournament, and so on.
Save after save, game after game, month after month, year after year. Seasons changed, Marty was there. Personnel shuffled, free agents left, free agents signed, coaches left. And there he was, still. Through elementary, middle school, high school, college and marriage. Our number 30, our last line of defense, our goalie remained. Our Marty.
Sports fans will attest to the rarity of a player spending his entire career with only one franchise, especially a winning player who can command a high salary. The odds of getting a Derek Jeter, Kobe Bryant, or yes, a Martin Brodeur to stick around is really difficult. And in sports, where you're only as good as your last game, a career that lasts for over 20 years is beyond impressive: it's legendary.
But in New Jersey, Marty's always been able to fly under the radar. When I was younger, we'd drive over to the practice rink next to the Turtleback Zoo, college-aged Anthony playing it cool and calm while Marty signed my goalie stick, listening from outside my body as Marty told me to always have fun playing. I waited to talk to him after a game where a controversial overtime goal had been kicked past him, giving the Devils a loss. Marty put down his jacket and bag, and showed me with his body how the puck had gotten past him. He made $4M that year, and here he was, demonstrating a save to me in a parking lot at 11:00 at night.
We have had the pleasure and the great privilege of watching Martin Brodeur play hockey, and in New Jersey, we are better for it. We've won the Stanley Cup three times, each time against a team who was expected to beat us, each time with a goalie that "experts" thought and predicted would outperform Marty.
But 2001 is long, long gone. It's 2014, and Marty's approaching the end of his career. What many, myself so very much included, would call the greatest goaltending career in the history of the National Hockey League, is on the verge of coming to an end. With Cory Schneider deservedly between the pipes in New Jersey, the era of Martin Brodeur in red and black is over. Whether retirement is next up, or a job with another team, it's time for us to say our goodbyes.
I remember when the final Harry Potter book was about to be released, there was an article written about how young adults were going through a grieving process, because they had actually grown up alongside this fictional character. How silly it was, I thought. My, how the mighty have fallen. Because now I'm "That Guy".
Look, everything ends. I've said farewell to Jerry Seinfeld, Walter White, Buffy Summers, and Nancy Botwin. I've waved goodbye to Severus Snape, Lyra Belacqua, and Katniss Everdeen. But this time, it's different.
Because now, the man behind the mask is a person to whom I owe so much. Like many others, hockey has allowed me to carve out an identity for myself, has given me a person inside who I'm proud to be. Marty's calm and cool demeanor on-ice has been a touchstone by which I've tried to model my own game, my own life. And he's leaving.
So on October 18, the Devils will have their home opener against the San Jose Sharks. The air in the arena will be just as cold as it was for my first game 13 years ago. I'll be as loyal a fan as ever before, perhaps more, informed and molded by the loyalty, commitment, dedication, and love a man showed his team for 21 years. I am grateful, and yes, I am sad.
It's often said that the legacy of a man is measured by the lives that he touches. More than wins, and shutouts, and Stanley Cups and Olympic Gold medals, there are memories here that will never fade. Beyond the ice, there will always be gratitude for a man who gave his all and his best, with a smile and a stick tap.Nikola Tesla is the ULTIMATE Mad scientist, a genius that was perhaps born in the wrong century, a brilliant mind incomparable to the rest. His work, ideas, and inventions are one of the main reasons for today’s technology, if Tesla had not existed, we would still be looking for answers which Tesla answered in his lifetime.
Tesla might be less known than Einstein or Edison, but his work and legacy deserve a lot more. Tesla’s inventions went far beyond electricity. With the air of his financial banker J.P. Morgan, in 1899 Tesla set up an experimental laboratory in Colorado Springs, containing high-voltage, radio transmission equipment. The lab had a 200 ft. tower for transmission and reception of radio waves and the best receiving equipment available at the time.
One of the most important moments in the laboratory occurred one night when he was alone in the lab. He notices mysterious electrical actions which he thought must have been intelligent signals since the changes took place periodically and with such a clear suggestion of number and order that they could not be traced to any cause then known to him.
Talking with the Planets in Collier’s Weekly (March 1901) Tesla stated the following:
“As I was improving my machines for the production of intense electrical actions, I was also perfecting the means for observing feeble efforts. One of the most interesting results and also one of great practical importance was the development of certain contrivances for indicating at a distance of many hundred miles an approaching storm, its direction, speed and distance traveled.
“It was in carrying on this work that for the first time I discovered those mysterious effects which have elicited such unusual interest. I had perfected the apparatus referred to so far that from my laboratory in the Colorado mountains I could feel the pulse of the globe, as it were, noting every electrical change that occurred within a radius of eleven hundred miles.
“I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. My first observations positively terrified me as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time, the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me.“
“The changes I noted were taking place periodically and with such a clear suggestion of number and order that they were not traceable to any cause known to me. I was familiar, of course, with such electrical disturbances as are produced by the sun, Aurora Borealis, and earth currents, and I was as sure as I could be of any fact that these variations were due to none of these causes.“
“The nature of my experiments precluded the possibility of the changes being produced by atmospheric disturbances, as has been rashly asserted by some. It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control.
“Although I could not at the time decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical signals.”
The mysterious signals incident was only the first of many in which Tesla intercepted what he felt were intelligent signals from space. During that time, scientists firmly believed that Mars would likely be a haven for intelligent life in our solar system apart from Earth, and Nikola Tesla believed these signals might have originated from the red planet. The idea of extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe certainly left a big mark on Tesla’s work. Near the end of his life, the great Nikola Tesla developed numerous inventions which according to him, could send powerful amounts of energy to other planets in the solar system.
In 1937, during his Birthday, Tesla announced the following:
“I have devoted much of my time over the years to the perfecting of a new small and compact apparatus by which energy in considerable amounts can now be flashed through interstellar space to any distance without the slightest dispersion.”
While Tesla never revealed the technical details of the powerful transmitter, in 1937 he announced a new formula showing that:
“The kinetic and potential energy of a body is the result of motion and determined by the product of its mass and the square of its velocity. Let the mass be reduced, the energy is reduced by the same proportion. If it is reduced to zero, the energy is likewise zero for any finite velocity.”
(New York Sun–July 12, 1937, pg. 6.)
Tesla wanted to know more about the mysterious signals he had picked up in his laboratory in Colorado Springs. Tesla considered his methods of reception and transmission utilized not Hertzian waves, or what we now refer to as transverse electromagnetic waves (radio), but another type of signal transmission that he understood before anyone else. He described them as faster-than-light (FTL) longitudinal wave transmissions. Tesla may have been receiving on the ELF spectrum (Extremely Low Frequencies). The ELF spectrum is below the 10 KHz. the boundary of internationally regulated frequencies.
It is usually considered to be the spectrum of 3 Hz. to 30 Hz.
VLF-3 to 30 KHz.
ULF-300 to 3000 Hz.
ELF-3 to 300Hz.
Tesla’s interest in extraterrestrial life was great and by 1920 he was confident that he could finally make sense of the signals he was intercepting from space, but soon after that Tesla expressed great concern about Alien beings from elsewhere in the universe and unsavory plans for our planet.
Tesla stated:
“The signals are too strong to have traveled the great distances from Mars to Earth,” wrote Tesla. “So I am forced to admit to myself that the sources must come from somewhere in nearby space or even the moon. I am certain, however, that the creatures that communicate with each other every night are not from Mars, or possibly from any other planet in our solar system.”
Tesla, however, wasn’t the only one to claim to have received signals from intelligent beings from elsewhere in the cosmos. Guglielmo Marconi also claimed to have heard from an alien radio transmitter. However, Marconi was just as quickly dismissed by his colleagues who firmly believed that he had received interference from another radio station on Earth and not from aliens as he claimed.
In the meantime, Tesla had perfected his equipment to such a degree that he was able to identify ‘voice transmissions’. Tesla believed that these transmissions were in fact from other beings on other worlds. In 1937, he gave the public a few hints about these interplanetary transmissions when Tesla announced the following:
“I have devoted much of my time during the year past to the perfecting of a new small and compact apparatus by which energy in considerable amounts can now be flashed through interstellar space to any distance without the slightest dispersion.”
(New York Times, Sunday, 11 July of 1937).
Most people don’t know but, it is believed that Tesla’s interest in Aliens was so big that he even developed a special device that would allow him to communicate with Aliens from elsewhere in the cosmos. The mysterious device was called the ‘Teslascope’: it takes in cosmic ray signals and eventually the signals are stepped down to audio. Speak into one end, and the signal goes out the other end as a cosmic ray emitter.
The truth is that there is only so much that we know about Tesla’s projects and inventions. It’s impossible to know how much of Tesla’s work remains hidden in the top secret bases belonging to the military. What we can deduct from this is that Tesla’s work and theories on beings from another planet were taken very seriously by many highly ranked government officials.
For an elaborate collection on Tesla we recommend reading the following:By
About a month ago, I wrote about the ARRL Board’s draconian “Code of Conduct” and the censure of Southwest Division Director. I’ve also written about some new bylaws amendments that, if adopted at the upcoming January board meeting, will make the ARRL even less democratic.
But, wait, there’s more. CQ is reporting on a number of other proposals, that, among other things, will
Give the board of directors the power to revoke individual memberships “for cause … after affording the member an opportunity to respond in writing” by a simple majority vote.
Remove a specific dues rate from the By-Laws, instead stating that the dues shall be an amount set by the board of directors (effectively making it possible for the board to raise dues by a majority vote rather than the two-thirds to three-four |
like Priscka and Ruth, a large family was not a burden. It was hedging one’s bets. People here don’t marry for love, one Kenyan woman told me. They marry to have children.
There is a Swahili word for women who cannot be mothers: ukebe. It means “empty can.” And when the men in Priscka and Ruth’s lives realized they had “empty cans” for partners, they did what one does with useless articles. They threw them away.
* * *
In Nairobi’s most famous shantytown, Kibera, you can buy anything you like. You can go to the butcher, visit a pharmacy, or purchase a sofa. All these routine things are possible, which almost lends the slum an air of normality. But it is not normal: there are feces lying in coagulated pools of water; there is a small child playing with a plastic container in a filthy white dress; there is a dead dog by the side of the road baking in the heat, legs stretched out as if sunbathing.
Kibera is Ruth and Priscka’s home, and the place where the government had requested a panel convene to investigate the AGMI’s reports that coerced sterilization “appeared to be systemic” in state-run hospitals. A specialist in reproductive health from the Ministry of Health headed the three-doctor panel. He opened the session by looking at his watch, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, and asking, “Can we make this quick? It’s Friday.” The thirty-five women who showed up to the little concrete compound in the slums to testify obligingly stood up one by one, introduced themselves, and tried to contain the stories of their lives collapsing to exactly two minutes each. The chief doctor hurried them along as politely as his impatience would allow.
His attitude to the affair may have seemed casual, yet, as I told friends and family back home about the story, it was hard to ignore a certain sympathy that sometimes cropped up for these embattled surgeons. A woman turns up at their hospital in the throes of labor, perhaps one of the few times she will ever visit a formal medical institution. She is HIV-positive, uneducated, maybe physically disabled. She is scraping by in a shantytown or relying on the charity of others. Life is brutish, nasty and short. What does she have to offer her unborn children?
A number of women told me they had taken their doctor’s recommendation to stop giving birth seriously, and would have considered other family planning solutions. But they were denied that option, and they did not understand why.
These attitudes aren’t limited to the developing world: indeed, forced sterilization is, in a way, a Western invention. Just over one hundred years ago, the procedure enjoyed unprecedented popularity in the state I was born in. California began neutering the “feebleminded,” “habitual criminals,” “insane,” “idiots,” and “mental deficients” in 1909, just two years after the practice was legalized in Indiana—the first place in the world to allow the surgery. Washington State also legalized it in 1909, but later included “moral degeneracy” as a pretense for sterilization—as did many of the other thirty-odd states which at some point or another adopted sterilization policies. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and Irving Fisher, the eminent economist, sat on the scientific board at the Eugenics Records Office, the main research and propaganda hub for the eugenics movement and the origin of the “Model Forced Sterilization” law that served as a template for many of the states that adopted the policy. The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) received funding from John Harvey Kellogg (who in addition to inventing Cornflakes, also founded the eugenics-focused Race Betterment Foundation) and for around a decade, the Carnegie Institute assumed full responsibility for the ERO’s expenses, at about $25,000 a year, or roughly $486,000 today. Even Martha Gellhorn, the strident opponent of Fascism and the darling of foreign correspondents everywhere, lamented a North Carolina doctor she encountered in 1934 who “refused to sign sterilization warrants” for “imbeciles” because “[i]t’s a man’s prerogative to have children.” In a compilation of her works and letters, The View From the Ground, Gellhorn listed this among “tragic” medical scenarios, although perhaps she would have been encouraged by the fact that North Carolina’s eugenics program lasted until 1974. In fact, between 1907 and 1981, over 60,000 Americans were sterilized under laws that would partly inspire similar programs Nazi Germany.
But forced sterilization in the United States was not necessarily conducted or supported by advocates of genocide. It was encouraged by gentlemanly scientists, intellectuals, and philanthropists, and carried out by doctors who no doubt genuinely believed they knew best. Like the three doctors sitting in front of me in Kibera, luminaries in their field of reproductive health, who checked their watches as the women stumbled through stories of their misery.
* * *
The African Gender and Media Initiative (AGMI), a Kenyan NGO focusing on women’s rights, launched an investigation into the forced sterilization of HIV-positive women in Kenya in the fall of 2011, speaking to hundreds of women in HIV support groups in three regions of the country. One year later, the report, the first of its kind in Kenya, revealed that forced sterilization “appears to be systemic” in Kenya’s state run hospitals. It concluded that health care providers in Kenya had violated the reproductive rights of their patients by forcing them into unwanted surgery, misinforming the women about the procedure, working with families and spouses to pressure them into accepting it, and threatening to withhold life-saving antiretroviral medication and breast milk if they did not.
In addition, many of the forty women interviewed for the report had been abandoned by their husbands after their surgeries, even though in some cases, the men had signed consent forms for their wives to undergo the procedure. One woman claimed in the report that her husband took her to the hospital for a “family planning surgery.” Although she had no idea what that meant, she said she was scared her husband would beat her if she asked. She finally learned about the sterilization from a nurse during a medical check-up, three days after the surgery had taken place.
Abuse is a common thread throughout the testimonies: one woman claims that her husband threatened to cut her to pieces with a machete after he found out she could no longer give birth.
Another woman in the report said doctors persuaded her husband to sign the consent form because she had a history of stillbirth. Her husband told her the procedure was for her own good, then became serially abusive after the surgery, telling her repeatedly that she had a “rotten stomach.”
Abuse is a common thread throughout the testimonies: one woman claims that her husband threatened to cut her to pieces with a machete after he found out she could no longer give birth. Another woman, with claims of being bullied by medical staff into consenting to the surgery during labor, was abandoned at the hospital by her husband and mother after they discovered she had been sterilized. Her baby died a few hours after birth; her family refused to bury it.
I asked Ruth and Priscka if they had experienced any physical side effects. They said the surgery had wreaked havoc on their bodies such that it prevented them from engaging in almost any kind of work available to women living in the slums of Nairobi.
Ruth was trying to scrimp by cleaning clothes, but she had one major handicap: since her “TL,” as she referred to it, she could no longer climb stairs, which meant she could only work in one-story homes. Priscka, too, suffered from crippling backaches and nausea. She worked, when she could, for a volunteer organization helping people with disabilities, in exchange for food when she had none to give her children. Otherwise, at thirty-one, she was entirely dependent on her mother.
This pain has puzzled doctors and advocates. According to Beatrice Kirubi, a Kenyan doctor with Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF), this surgery is a minor procedure that should not have any serious side effects. Carol Odada, a program officer for Women Fighting Aids In Kenya, explained that there was no conclusive evidence linking Ruth and Priscka’s surgeries to their present physical state. Odada doesn’t understand why the side effects of the surgery were so severe in the cases of the women included in the AGMI report, which she helped compile. She said she had never heard of consensual operations having such repercussions.
Nonetheless, ten of the women in the report testified to having symptoms similar to Ruth and Priscka’s. The complaints included lower abdominal pains, the inability to walk long distances or lift heavy objects, irregular menstrual cycles, and in one case, incontinence. One woman said in the report that her stomach had swollen permanently after the surgery to such an extent that people frequently mistook her for pregnant. But linking those symptoms conclusively to the tubal ligation was difficult to do, Odada said. Several of the women, including Ruth, have been refused access to their medical files.
According to the AGMI report, most of the sterilizations have occurred in public hospitals in Kenya. But the phenomena did not seem to be exclusive to them; several women testified to the AGMI that they had been coerced into being sterilized at clinics run by Marie Stopes International, a global not-for-profit family planning organization based in the United Kingdom. Marie Stopes has promised to investigate the claims, and sent me a statement claiming that if the allegations were accurate, they would be “wholly inconsistent with our principles of voluntarism, informed choice, and informed consent.”
Another woman told AGMI that an employee of an MSF clinic advised her that she would be denied her breast milk supply and antiretroviral medication if she did not undergo tubal ligation. Dr. Kirubi said MSF does not perform the procedure itself, but has referred patients to a network of partners who did. A team from Paris is examining records of MSF partners in Kenya, and has not yet found any evidence that any of the surgeries were coerced. But it is very difficult, Dr. Kirubi added, to retroactively establish whether consent was given, especially when some of the allegations date back several years.
For some time after, she clung to the belief that she would one day be able to bear a child; but, she told me, the procedure left her without a sex drive or regular menstrual cycle.
According to Odada, the problem appeared to extend beyond the women quoted in the report. “We used the testimonies of forty women who were very sure that they had been forcibly sterilized. But there were more than a hundred women in our focus group in Nairobi,” said Odada. They or their families were told by doctors that sterilization was necessary because of their HIV status. But the science behind their logic is shaky: according to the World Health Organization and UNAIDS, women with HIV are at minimal risk—less than 5 percent—of transmitting HIV to their child if they are given antiretroviral medication during their pregnancy and if they do not breastfeed. (If these precautions are not taken, the risk of transmission is of course higher.)
But that nuance can be easily lost. “Many of them don’t know their rights,” Odada said of the women her organization interviewed, “and just believe their doctors. We have a saying here: the doctor is a second god.”
* * *
After the panel session, the women milled around outside the concrete barracks. I couldn’t tell by their demeanor if they had registered the doctors’ apathy, nor whether reliving their experiences was cathartic or traumatic. What I did sense as I chatted to them afterwards was resentment—resentment that their right to decide their own future had been unilaterally taken away. A number of women told me they had taken their doctor’s recommendation to stop giving birth seriously, and would have considered other family planning solutions. But they were denied that option, and they did not understand why. Nonetheless, not one woman who I spoke to that day wanted sympathy; several did, however, use the opportunity to ask me to find them work, or to peddle me their goods (would I like to buy a shell purse, or three?). Getting by in the slums requires hustle, and hustle leaves no time for self-pity.
But there was a little time for hope. Lorna Nyandat, a lawyer for KELIN, the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV & AIDS, told me she had come to the Kibera panel to gather evidence in the hopes of suing the government and the health facilities singled out in the AGMI report, inspired by a Namibian court that recently ruled that three women who had alleged forced sterilization had indeed been operated on without their consent. KELIN hopes to find a high-profile Kenyan advocate to argue up the case, but KELIN is waiting to file until the Ministry of Health finalizes its report—and until it can find a doctor willing to conduct medical examinations of the victims and to testify about the physical impact of the operation on their bodies. KELIN has contacted four Kenyan doctors to ask them to participate, but they refused.
Joyce, a participant in the Kibera hearing, said the ordeal shook faith in the medical profession in Kenya. She told me that her husband wanted her to be sterilized because they were both HIV-positive; she, on the other hand, told her doctor that she steadfastly opposed the idea. But according to Joyce, the doctor had simply responded by calling her husband “very knowledgeable” and giving him consent forms to sign. The doctor also assured her that some women went on to give birth even after undergoing the procedure. Buoyed by that promise—and embattled by family pressure—Joyce underwent the surgery. For some time after, she clung to the belief that she would one day be able to bear a child; but, she told me, the procedure left her without a sex drive or regular menstrual cycle. Eventually, she realized that she would never give birth again. “The doctor was on my husband’s side,” she said, “I can’t give birth now.”
Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a journalist currently working for the Daily Nation in Nairobi, Kenya, as an Aga Khan Foundation of Canada media fellow. Previously, she worked at Sky News in the United Kingdom. Her work has been published by the Guardian, Tehran Bureau, and openDemocracy among others.LS Image Enlarging Software Enlarging software: The LS-X4-Enlarger-DNNSR The new LS45 sensor will have 6.7 MP while the LS911 is 12 MP. People ask for more pixels. After a bit o…
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Sharp Portraits A person interested in the LS911 was asking for some sharp portraits. While I love wide open photos with part of an eye in focus, I can see the appeal…
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Photos at Santa Clara University We took the LS911 over to Santa Clara University to take a few photos. The university is home to Mission Santa Clara. Used movements to get everythin…
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Recent Photos Including Color Just a few sample photos from the LS911.The bike photos were shot in afternoon sun for more contrast. Looking at the parts of the bike that are in foc…
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Category: New Photos Read MoreDOWNTOWN — Pedestrians are getting robbed at gunpoint during the day in the South Loop, police said.
In the crimes, a man hops out of a black sedan and shows a handgun before robbing his victims, police said.
The crimes occurred this month at:
• 10 a.m. Aug. 11 in the first block of East 24th Place
• 6:40 p.m. Aug. 11 in the 700 block of South Clinton Street
• 3:55 p.m. Aug. 22 in the 2200 block of South Michigan Avenue
• 4:45 p.m. Aug. 25 in the 600 block of West Polk Street
The suspect is described as a 5'7"-5'9" black man between 20 and 35 years old with short hair, "medium" complexion and a gold chain necklace. His car's license plate ends in 2091, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 312-747-8384.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Abstract Objective: To describe the clinical presentation of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in women and girls and factors influencing proper diagnosis and treatment. Data Sources: A PubMed search was conducted in April 9, 2012 for English-language publications from the previous 10 years. Search terms included attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and AD/HD combined with gender, girls, females, women, continuity, discontinuity, gap, treatment, untreated, and lack of treatment. Study Selection/Data Extraction: A total of 41 articles were reviewed for relevance. Reference lists from relevant articles were reviewed for additional publications; sources known to the authors were also included. Results: Attitudes about ADHD among individuals with ADHD and knowledgeable informants (families, teachers, colleagues) vary on the basis of the diagnosed individual’s gender. The ADHD prevalence rates are higher among boys than girls. A low index of clinical suspicion exists for girls; their presentation is considered “subthreshold” because inattentiveness is more prominent than hyperactivity/impulsivity. Females with ADHD may develop better coping strategies than males to mask their symptoms. Lastly, anxiety and depression, common comorbidities in female patients with ADHD, can lead to missed or misdiagnosis. If not properly diagnosed and treated, girls with ADHD experience the same negative consequences as boys, including poor academic performance and behavioral problems. Unique issues related to hormonal effects on ADHD expression and treatment response are also experienced by women and girls. Conclusions: Accurate ADHD diagnosis in women and girls requires establishing a symptom history and an understanding of its gender-specific presentation. Coexisting anxiety and depression are prominent in female patients with ADHD; satisfactory academic achievement should not rule out an ADHD diagnosis.
Clinical Points ■ Women and girls with ADHD have a distinct symptom presentation, with internalizing symptoms (eg, inattentiveness) being more prominent than externalizing symptoms (eg, impulsiveness and hyperactivity). Their symptoms are more likely to be overlooked by knowledgeable informants, and they are less likely to be referred for diagnosis and treatment.
■ Females with ADHD may develop better coping strategies than males with ADHD and, as a result, can better mask or mitigate the impact of their ADHD symptoms.
■ Missed diagnosis of ADHD in women and girls may occur when anxiety or depression presents in association with ADHD because symptoms of ADHD may mistakenly be attributed to the coexisting condition.
■ Greater awareness on the part of health care professionals regarding the specific symptom profile of ADHD in women and girls is necessary for proper diagnosis and treatment. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurobehavioral disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity.1 In the majority of cases, symptoms begin in childhood and continue to affect a person’s functioning well into adulthood. Gender differences have been reported in the prevalence rates of ADHD, with the published literature indicating that the prevalence of ADHD in boys is 2- to 9-fold higher than in girls in clinical samples and 2- to 3-fold higher in epidemiologic samples.2 These findings are consistent with the 3- to 16-fold higher prevalence of ADHD in boys than in girls across European countries as well.3 The prevalence of ADHD in adulthood appears to be more comparable between sexes than in childhood, with the estimated prevalence of adult ADHD being less than 2-fold higher in men versus women (5.4% vs 3.2%, respectively)4; however, women tend to be older than men when diagnosed with ADHD.5 In addition to differences in rates of diagnosis, the prevalence of ADHD medication use is lower in girls and women compared with boys and men.6 It behooves us, therefore, to understand whether the prevalence data from adult ADHD is incorrect or if childhood symptoms of ADHD are being missed in girls. Multiple factors may contribute to the lack of ADHD diagnosis in girls during childhood, including differences in predominant symptoms (internalizing rather than externalizing) and subtype (inattentive rather than hyperactive)7; the presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety,8,9 which are linked to internalizing ADHD symptoms; the presence of comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder, often accompanied by perfectionistic behaviors,10 that might mitigate symptoms and delay diagnosis; the need for referral by others (parents and teachers) for treatment11 and the fact that referrals are made more often for boys than for girls12; and the tendency for relational (covert) aggression to be more prominent than overt aggression in girls13 and for physical aggression in girls with ADHD to be less prominent than in boys with ADHD.14 Taken together, the disparity in diagnosis of ADHD between sexes, the bias in treatment referral, and the reduced use of medication in female patients contribute to the underdiagnosis and undertreatment of ADHD in this population. To assist physicians and mental health professionals in their understanding of this disparity and to foster more successful recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD in women and girls, the present narrative review will (1) describe the unique presentation of ADHD in females and the factors contributing to this presentation, (2) identify the areas to investigate when assessing the possible presence of ADHD in women and girls, (3) describe the short-term and long-term consequences of untreated ADHD in females, and (4) provide strategies for accurate diagnosis of ADHD in women and girls.
METHOD Articles cited in this review were identified via a search of PubMed conducted on April 9, 2012 that was limited to English-language articles published in the previous 10 years. The search terms included attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, or AD/HD combined with the following general search terms: gender, girls, females, women, continuity, discontinuity, gap, treatment, untreated, and lack of treatment. A total of 41 articles were identified and reviewed for potential relevance to ADHD in women and girls. Reference lists from relevant articles were also reviewed for additional publications of relevance. Lastly, relevant sources known to the authors that were not obtained from the PubMed search or reference list review were also incorporated, including data related to self-esteem and peer relationships in women and girls with ADHD.
THE PRESENTATION OF ADHD IN WOMEN AND GIRLS Several characteristics are unique to the expression of ADHD in women and girls. These characteristics include specific symptom presentation, greater incidence of low self-esteem and more difficulty with peer relationships, coexisting anxiety and affective disorders (including a higher incidence of treatment for major depression), and the development of coping strategies that mask underachievement and performance issues ( ). Table 1 Variable Gender Female Male Predominant subtype7,8 Inattentive Hyperactive Impulsive Predominant symptoms7 Internalizing Externalizing Common comorbid psychiatric disorders8,15–17 Anxiety disorders Major depressive disorder Oppositional defiant disorder Major depressive disorder Conduct disorder Substance use disorders Coping mechanisms18,19 Work harder Develop coping strategies Other20–25 Perception that academic problems, inattention, and feelings of depression are more common Promiscuous behavior more common Higher self-ratings of problems Greater incidence of low self-esteem Difficulty with peer relationships Perception that classroom disruption is more common Risky driving more common Open in a separate window Although the core symptoms of ADHD as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR)26 criteria (inattentiveness, impulsivity, and hyperactivity) are the same for males and females, inattentiveness is generally more common than hyperactivity and impulsivity in girls with ADHD.3,7,8,27–29 As a generality, females have fewer symptoms as measured by DSM-IV-TR criteria but are just as impaired as males by these symptoms. In addition, for some time, it has been known that women and girls with ADHD are more likely to internalize symptoms and become anxious and depressed and suffer emotional dysregulation than men and boys with the disorder.28 Related to this concept, normative data for the ADHD Rating Scale-IV30 generally show lower thresholds for females than males. Inattention is less likely to be observed by teachers because it is less disruptive in the classroom setting, and schoolwork is often completed in spite of the challenges noted previously. Because symptom severity contributes to the likelihood of referral for treatment,11 girls may be less likely to be diagnosed and receive treatment. A series of studies explored these problems as they relate to underdiagnosis for girls during childhood. One study confirmed that mothers felt that DSM-IV criteria for ADHD more accurately described boys than girls.31 In addition, girls who were overlooked by their teachers were seen by their parents as having ADHD characteristics,12 perhaps because parents compared their daughters with other girls, whereas teachers compared these same girls with their male classmates. A study published in 2009 explored disruptiveness as a factor for gender gap in referrals of girls.12 Because they are comparing these girls with their male counterparts, teachers may dismiss the less obvious signs of ADHD in girls instead of referring them for an ADHD evaluation. Findings indicate that teachers referred girls with ADHD alone less often than girls with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder or boys with ADHD.12 Because of the delay in recognizing, diagnosing, and treating ADHD, girls who were referred were more likely to demonstrate more severe symptoms.12 Self-Esteem and Peer Relationships in Women and Girls With ADHD Low self-esteem is more prominent in females with ADHD than in males with ADHD or non-ADHD female controls.22,23,32 In a population-based study of 10- to 11-year-old children, girls with ADHD scored lower than boys with ADHD on the mental well-being, relationship to parents, and relationship to others subscales on the “I Think I Am” scale of self-esteem.22 In another study of adolescents (aged 13–16 years), girls with ADHD reported more negative self-esteem than boys with ADHD and healthy controls on the Children’s Depression Inventory.23 Additionally, a survey reported that teachers believe that girls with ADHD are more embarrassed about their diagnosis than boys.20 Interestingly, higher levels of executive function deficits in girls are associated with lower peer acceptance,33 which could further contribute to diminished self-esteem in girls with ADHD who exhibit impaired executive function. Poorer self-esteem may persist past childhood,32 and self-esteem among adults with ADHD has been reported to be lower in women than in men.21 Research has confirmed these perceptions and highlighted the fact that women with ADHD struggle with a more negative self-image than do men with ADHD.21 Girls and women with ADHD also tend to be more impaired in social behaviors, peer functioning, and interpersonal relationships than female controls without ADHD.24,25,34 In one study that investigated friendship patterns among girls (aged 6–12 years) with and without ADHD who attended a summer camp,24 it was reported that girls with ADHD had fewer friends, less stable friendships, and more negative features (including conflicts) in their friendships than did girls without ADHD. Similarly, another study of children (aged 6–10 years) reported that boys and girls with ADHD exhibited impaired peer relationships compared with children without ADHD; however, the negative impact of conduct problems on peer relationships was the strongest in girls with ADHD.25 Difficulties in social interactions in girls with ADHD may stem from their choice of action in social situations; one study reported that to reach the same social goals, 6- to 12-year-old girls with ADHD are more likely to respond to hypothetical social vignettes with negative and/or aggressive actions than girls without ADHD.35 However, not all studies report strong gender differences in social impairment. At least one study reported that boys and girls with ADHD exhibited similar levels of impairment relative to children without ADHD on the “problem with peers” and “activity with peers” items of the Social Adjustment Inventory for Children and Adolescents.36 Common Psychological Comorbidities in Women and Girls With ADHD Anxiety and affective disorders are common comorbidities in girls with ADHD8,9 and have been reported to persist into adulthood.15–17 Significantly higher lifetime prevalence rates were reported in girls (aged 6–18 years) with ADHD versus age-matched healthy controls for major depression (17% vs 1%, respectively) and multiple (ie, more than 2) anxiety disorders (34% vs 5%, respectively).8 Women with ADHD are also more likely to exhibit specific phobias and generalized anxiety disorder than men with ADHD.5 In an 11-year follow-up study, girls with symptoms of ADHD that persisted into adulthood had higher rates of conduct disorder and bipolar disorder than controls.16 Women with ADHD that was not diagnosed until adulthood were more likely to have a history of depression and anxiety than those without ADHD.32 Whether these comorbid disorders are independent of ADHD or develop as a consequence of untreated ADHD, their presence can decrease the likelihood that ADHD will be diagnosed.37,38 Female patients primarily exhibiting symptoms of inattentiveness tend to report low levels of arousal and may be diagnosed with dysthymia rather than ADHD, women exhibiting combined symptoms with high energy and impulsivity could be misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, and girls presenting with anxiety or depressive symptoms may be treated for these disorders without ADHD ever being considered.39,40 In support of this latter notion that comorbidities can influence ADHD diagnosis, a nationwide survey reported that more young girls than young boys were treated with antidepressants before receiving treatment for ADHD (14% vs 5%),20 reinforcing the notion that pharmacotherapy in female patients tends to be targeted toward such non-ADHD conditions. Perception of Symptom Presentation in Women and Girls With ADHD by Knowledgeable Informants Knowledgeable informants (eg, families, teachers, colleagues) may be more likely to overlook ADHD symptoms in women and girls and are therefore less likely to refer them for diagnosis or treatment. A study published in 2009 explored the reasons for this gender gap in referrals for treatment by teachers of girls.12 In this study, parents and teachers read a series of vignettes that differed only in whether the name of a boy or girl was used. Both parents and teachers indicated that they were less likely to seek or recommend ADHD services when the vignette used a girl’s name.12 Another study reported that symptom severity had the greatest influence on referral for treatment for teachers,11 but that despite teachers viewing girls with ADHD as significantly more impaired than boys with ADHD, medication was considered as a treatment strategy less often for girls.11 The contribution of these various factors to the lack of ADHD diagnosis in girls is further supported by the perceptions of parents, educators, and the general public. As previously noted, mothers of girls with ADHD reported that DSM-IV criteria for ADHD more accurately described boys than girls.31 Consistent with this finding, in a survey of the general public and teachers, a substantial proportion held the belief that ADHD is more common in boys than girls and that girls are diagnosed later than boys because they suffer silently and do not act out as noticeably as do boys with ADHD.20 In the same survey, more girls than boys with ADHD reported that they were not currently receiving treatment for their ADHD.20
CIRCUMSTANCES THAT SUGGEST THE NEED TO INVESTIGATE FOR ADHD IN WOMEN AND GIRLS When Other Family Members Have ADHD The current consensus of expert opinion is that ADHD has no simple etiology; both genetic and environmental factors seem to play a role in the risk for ADHD.41 However, there is little doubt that ADHD shows a familial tendency, with a previously published review suggesting that having a first-degree relative with ADHD is associated with a 2- to 8-fold increased risk of ADHD.42 Twin studies indicate 76% heritability in ADHD, but none of the candidate genes studied to date fully account for the risk of ADHD, suggesting that heritability results from a combination of genetic variations and interactions.43 A review of the literature from 1997 to 2012 indicated that genetics and environment are not separate concepts, and the effect of genetic variants may be to increase sensitivity to environmental factors. In addition, the increased risk associated with a positive family history may also apply to comorbid behavioral problems, substance abuse, and affective disorders.44 It should be noted that a family history of documented or suspected ADHD should raise the clinical index of suspicion regardless of gender. However, in the case of a female patient presenting with behaviors characteristic of ADHD, it should serve as an indication that ADHD may be the primary condition rather than any other psychiatric disorder. When Problems Arise in the Classroom To address the problem of girls with ADHD not being referred for treatment by teachers and to prevent girls with ADHD from being overlooked in the classroom, it is important to screen girls who are not doing well or require extra help to succeed. In a retrospective analysis of young women (mean age of 19 years) diagnosed with ADHD as children, ADHD was recognized as contributing to impaired academic progress by the parent but not by the individual with ADHD.45 Lack of academic progress also resulted in an increased use of tutoring services, repeating of grades, and placement in special education classes for girls with ADHD compared with controls.8,15 Educational impairments were also reflected in lower rates of graduation from high school in girls with ADHD compared with non-ADHD controls.16 When Behavior Disorders and Problems With Relationships Appear Oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder occur with greater frequency in girls with ADHD than in controls8,9 and could play a role in the problems with relationships (particularly with their mothers18) that are observed in girls with ADHD.8,9,27 Girls with ADHD tend also to engage in socially maladaptive behaviors such as aggression9 more often than healthy controls, which could contribute to problems with peer relationships. If problems in these areas develop, a girl should be referred for an evaluation for underlying ADHD rather than simply focusing on her behavioral issues. When There Is Risky Sexual Behavior Although risky sexual behavior and unplanned pregnancy are not typically examined as outcomes when ADHD is assessed using rating scales, they are risks associated with impulsivity. In a survey among teachers (grade 8 and above), more reported that they observed promiscuous behavior in girls with ADHD (44%) than in boys with the disorder (28%).20 In addition, a decreased likelihood of condom use during sexual encounters was reported in a sample of female college undergraduates with ADHD when compared with females without ADHD and males with ADHD46; however, this study did not report any differences in unplanned pregnancy rates between girls with and without ADHD, indicating that additional data are needed to more clearly define the relationship between ADHD and the risk of unintended pregnancy in girls and women with ADHD. In contrast, another study found that higher ADHD symptom scores in young women were associated with an increased likelihood of several high-risk sexual behaviors, except inconsistent condom use, and the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases.47 A Finnish study found that girls with externalizing problems during childhood (eg, conduct problems and hyperactivity) have a significantly increased risk of becoming mothers before age 20 years.48 When Hormonal Fluctuations May Affect Functioning It is also important to consider the role of neuroendocrine factors in the expression of ADHD symptoms in women and girls. Preclinical studies suggest that estrogen hormones play an important role in the development and plasticity of midbrain dopamine neurons.49 The neurobiology of dopaminergic function in ADHD is complex, but most data suggest a hypofunction of dopaminergic systems in adults with ADHD (see Del Campo et al50 for a recent review). To date, the interplay of endocrine factors with dopaminergic function in individuals with ADHD has received limited attention, yet there is clear evidence that endocrine systems interact with the central dopamine systems implicated in the etiology and expression of ADHD. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy women (mean age of 29 years) demonstrated correlations between ovarian steroids (estradiol and progesterone) and neural activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, and orbitofrontal cortex.51 Because these regions play key roles in decision-making and emotional and social behavior,51 it could be speculated that fluctuations in these hormones modulate the preexisting impairments in these behaviors observed in women with ADHD. Sex differences in cortical and striatal dopamine release, as well as on cognitive function and sensation seeking, have been observed between healthy men (mean age of 28 years) and women (mean age of 25 years) in response to oral amphetamine; this effect was speculated to be related in part to gonadal hormones.52 The subjective euphoric and stimulating effects of oral amphetamine in healthy women (mean age of 25–26 years) have been reported to be greater during the follicular phase than the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, with these effects being positively correlated with estradiol and negatively correlated with progesterone.53,54 Furthermore, transdermal estradiol administration had stimulating effects when administered alone and increased the stimulating effects of amphetamine, as measured by the Stimulant Sedative Questionnaire, in healthy young women (mean age of 23–26 years).55 The relationship between gonadal hormones and dopaminergic function has implications for women with ADHD. The differential response to stimulant drugs in the presence of estrogen suggests that ADHD medications may need to be titrated throughout the menstrual cycle for optimal symptom control.39 Premenstrual magnification of ADHD symptoms has been described in at least 1 case study39 and is an area worthy of future clinical research. In addition to estrogen and progesterone, the role of thyroid hormone on ADHD symptoms should be considered. It has been shown that healthy 4-year-old children with thyroid-stimulating hormone levels in the high normal range had a higher risk of exhibiting ADHD symptoms, as did those with low free thyroxine levels.56 Given the higher incidence of thyroid disorders in women than in men57 and the growing evidence of the role of thyroid hormones in brain development and function,58 and a possible association with thyroid hormone receptor insensitivity,59 the role of thyroid hormones in the etiology and expression of ADHD in women and girls should be further examined.
SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES OF MISSED DIAGNOSIS OR MISDIAGNOSIS OF ADHD The short-term effects of undiagnosed or undertreated ADHD in girls sets the stage for the range of academic and social problems during childhood and adolescence20 that have been briefly discussed previously. In addition, the symptomatology and functional impairments present during the formative years are likely to continue into adulthood.6,16,60 Women with ADHD continue to experience lower self-esteem and more anxiety than women without ADHD.32 These women tend to respond to life stressors with emotion and feel a lack of control over their situation,.28,32 which translates into difficulties in coping with home life,29 feelings of disorganization,61 somatization (including headaches, stomachaches),62 and/or sleep difficulties.28,63 As such, children and adolescents with recurrent complaints of headaches, stomachaches, or |
, the Comintern, paralleled, doubled by the reformist movement and the whole of syndicalism, calls forth the anarchy of production, inflation, poverty and hopelessness in the masses. Finances, chiefly the financial international, doubled, consciously or unconsciously by private finances, create the same contradictions, but in still greater numbers... Now we can already guess the reasons why Marx concealed the financial contradictions, which could not have remained hidden from his penetrating gaze, if finances had not had an ally, the influence of which - objectively revolutionary - was already then extraordinarily important. G. - An unconscious coincidence, but not an alliance which presupposes intelligence, will and agreement... R. - Let us leave this point of view if you like. Now let us better go over to the subjective analysis of finances and even more: let us see what sort of people personally are at work there. The international essence of money is well known. From this fact emerges that the organization which owns them and accumulates them is a cosmopolitan organization. Finances in their apogee - as an aim in themselves, the financial International - deny and do not recognize anything national, they do not recognize the State; and therefore it is anarchical and would be absolutely anarchical if it - the denier of any national State - were not itself, by necessity, a State in its own basic essence. The State as such is only power. And money is exclusively power. This communistic super-state, which we are creating already during a whole century, and the scheme of which is the International of Marx. Analyze it and you will see its essence. The scheme of the International and its prototype of the USSR - that is also pure power. The basic similarity between the two creations is absolute. It is something fatalistic, inevitable, since the personalities of the authors of both was identical. The financier is just as international as the Communist. Both, with the help of differing pretexts and differing means, struggle with the national bourgeois State and deny it. Marxism in order to change it into a Communist State; from this comes that the Marxist must be an internationalist: the financier denies the bourgeois national State and his denial ends in itself; in fact he does not manifest himself as an internationalist, but as a cosmopolitan anarchist... That is his appearance at the given stage, but let us see what he really is and what he wants to be. As you see, in rejection there is a clear similarity individually between Communist-internationalists and financial-cosmopolitans; as a natural result there is the same similarity between the Communist International and the financial International... G. - This is a chance similarity subjectively and objective in contradictions, but one easily eroded and having little significance and that which is most radical and existing in reality. R. - Allow me not to reply just now, so as not to interrupt the logical sequence... I only want to decipher the basic axiom: money is power. Money is today the centre of global gravity. I hope you agree with me? G. - Continue, Rakovsky, I beg of you. R. - The understanding of how the financial International has gradually, right up to our epoch, become the master of money, this magical talisman, which has become for people that which God and the nation had been formerly, is something which exceeds in scientific interest even the art of revolutionary strategy, since this is also an art and also a revolution. I shall explain it to you. Historiographers and the masses, blinded by the shouts and the pomp of the French revolution, the people, intoxicated by the fact that it had succeeded in taking all power from the King and the privileged classes, did not notice how a small group of mysterious, careful and insignificant people had taken possession of the real Royal power, the magical power, almost divine, which it obtained almost without knowing it. The masses did not notice that the power had been seized by others and that soon they had subjected them to a slavery more cruel than the King, since the latter, in view of his religious and moral prejudices, was incapable of taking advantage of such a power. So it came about that the supreme Royal power was taken over by persons, whose moral, intellectual and cosmopolitan qualities did allow them to use it. It is clear that this were people who had never been Christians, but cosmopolitans. G. - What is that for a mythical power which they had obtained? R. - They had acquired for themselves the real privilege of coining money... Do not smile, otherwise I shall have to believe that you do not know what moneys are... I ask you to put yourself in my place. My position in relation to you is that of the assistant of a doctor, who would have to explain bacteriology to a resurrected medical man of the epoch before Pasteur. But I can explain your lack of knowledge to myself and can forgive it. Our language makes use of words which provoke incorrect thoughts about things and actions, thanks to the power of the inertia of thoughts, and which do not correspond to real and exact conceptions. I say: money. It is clear that in your imagination there immediately appeared pictures of real money of metal and paper. But that is not so. Money is now not that; real circulating coin is a true anachronism. If it still exists and circulates, then it is only thanks to atavism, only because it is convenient to maintain the illusion, a purely imaginary fiction for the present day. G. - This is a brilliant paradox, risky and even poetical. R. - If you like, this is perhaps brilliant, but it is not a paradox. I know - and that is why you smiled - that States still coin money on pieces of metal or paper with Royal busts or national crests; well, so what? A great part of the money circulating, money for big affairs, as representative of all national wealth, money, yes money - it was being issued by those few people about whom I had hinted. Titles, figures, cheques, promissory notes, endorsements, discount, quotations, figures without end flooded States like a waterfall. What are in comparison with these the metallic and paper moneys?... Something devoid of influence, some kind of minimum in the face of the growing flood of the all-flooding financial money. They, being the most subtle psychologists, were able to gain even more without trouble, thanks to a lack of understanding. In addition to the immensely varied different forms of financial moneys, they created credit-money with a view to making its volume close to infinite. And to give it the speed of sound... it is an abstraction, a being of thought, a figure, number, credit, faith... Do you understand already?... Fraud; false moneys, given a legal standing..., using other terminology, so that you should understand me. Banks, the stock exchanges and the whole world financial system - is a gigantic machine for the purpose of bringing about unnatural scandals, according to Aristotle's expression; to force money to produce money - that is something that if it is a crime in economics, then in relations to finances it is a crime against the criminal code, since it is usury. I do not know by what arguments all this is justified: by the proposition that they receive legal interest... Even accepting that, and even that admission is more than is necessary, we see that usury still exists, since even if the interest received is legal, then it invents and falsifies the non-existent capital. Banks have always by way of deposits or moneys in productive movement a certain quantity of money which is five or perhaps even a hundred times greater than there are physically coined moneys of metal or paper. I shall say nothing of those cases when the credit-moneys, i.e. false, fabricated ones, are greater than the quantity of moneys paid out as capital. Bearing in mind that lawful interest is fixed not on real capital but on non-existing capital, the interest is illegal by so many times as the fictional capital is greater than the real one. Bear in mind that this system, which I am describing in detail, is one of the most innocent among those used for the fabrication of false money. Imagine to yourself, if you can, a small number of people, having unlimited power through the possession of real wealth, and you will see that they are the absolute dictators of the stock-exchange; and as a result of this also the dictators of production and distribution and also of work and consumption. If you have enough imagination then multiply this, by the global factor and you will see its anarchical, moral and social influence, i.e. a revolutionary one... Do you now understand? G. - No, not yet. R. - Obviously it is very difficult to understand miracles. G. - Miracle? R. - Yes, miracle. Is it not a miracle that a wooden bench has been transformed into a temple? And yet such a miracle has been seen by people a thousand times, and they did not bat an eyelid, during a whole century. Since this was an extraordinary miracle that the benches on which sat the greasy usurers to trade in their moneys, have now been converted into temples, which stand magnificently at every corner of contemporary big towns with their heathen colonnades, and crowds go there with a faith which they are already not given by heavenly gods, in order to bring assiduously their deposits of all their possessions to the god of money, who, they imagine, lives in the steel safes of the bankers, and who is preordained, thanks to his divine mission to increase the wealth to a metaphysical infinity. G. - This is the new religion of the decayed bourgeoisie? R. - Religion, yes, the religion of power. G. - You appear to be the poet of economics. R. - If you like, then in order to give a picture of finance, as of a work of art which is most obviously a work of genius and the most revolutionary of all times, poetry is required. G. - This is a faulty view. Finances, as defined by Marx, and more especially Engels, are determined by the system of Capitalistic production. R. - Exactly, but just the reverse: the Capitalistic system of production is determined by finance. The fact that Engels states the opposite and even tries to prove this, is the most obvious proof that finances rule bourgeois production. So it is and so it was even before Marx and Engels, that finances were the most powerful instrument of revolution and the Comintern was nothing but a toy in their hands. But neither Marx nor Engels will disclose or explain this. On the contrary, making use of their talent as scientists, they had to camouflage truth for a second time in the interests of the revolution. And that both of them did. G. - This story is not new. All this somewhat reminds me of what Trotzky had written some ten years ago. R. - Tell me... G. - When he says that the Comintern is a conservative organization in comparison with the stock-exchange in New York; he points at the big bankers as being the inventors of the revolution. R. - Yes, he said this in a small book in which he foretold the fall of England... Yes, he said this and added: "Who pushes England along the path of revolution?"... and replied: "Not Moscow, but New York." G. - But remember also his assertion that if the financiers of New York had forged the revolution, then it was done unconsciously. R. - The explanation which I had already given in order to help to understand why Engels and Marx camouflaged the truth, is equally applicable also to Leo Trotzky. G. - I value in Trotzky only that he in a sort of literary form interpreted an opinion of a fact which as such was too well known, with which one had already reckoned previously. Trotzky himself states quite correctly that these bankers "carry out irresistibly and unconsciously their revolutionary mission." R. - And they carry out their mission despite the fact that Trotzky has declared it? What a strange thing! Why do they not improve their actions? G. - The financiers are unconscious revolutionaries since they are such only objectively, as the result of their intellectual incapacity of seeing the final consequences. R. - You believe this sincerely? You think that among these real geniuses there are some who are unconscious? You consider to be idiots people to whom today the whole world is subjected? This would really be a very stupid contradiction! G. - What do you pretend to? R. - I simply assert that they are revolutionaries objectively and subjectively, quite consciously. G. - The bankers! You must be mad? R. - I, no... But you? Think a little. These people are just like you and me. The circumstance that they control moneys in unlimited amounts, insofar as they themselves create them, does not give us the opportunity of determining the limits of all their ambitions... If there is something which provides a man with full satisfaction then it is the satisfaction of his ambition. And most of all the satisfaction of his will to power. Why should not these people, the bankers, have the impulse towards power, towards full power? Just as it happens to you and to me. G. - But if, according to you - and I think the same - they already have global political power, then what other power do they want to possess? R. - I have already told you: Full power. Such power as Stalin has in the USSR, but world-wide. G. - Such power as Stalin's, but with the opposite aim. R. - Power, if in reality it is absolute, can be only one. The idea of the absolute excludes multiplicity. For that reason the power sought by the Comintern and "Comintern," which are things of the same order, being absolute, must also in politics be unique and identical: Absolute power has a purpose in itself, otherwise it is not absolute. And until the present day there has not yet been invented another machine of total power except the Communist State. Capitalistic bourgeois power, even on its highest rung of the ladder, the power of Caesar, is limited power since if, in theory, it was the personification of the deity in the Pharaohs and Caesars in ancient times, then nevertheless, thanks to the economic character of life in those primitive States and owing to the technical under-development of the State apparatus, there was always room for individual freedom. Do you understand that those who already partially rule over nations and worldly governments have pretensions to absolute domination? Understand that that is the only thing which they have not yet reached. G. - This is interesting: at least as an example of insanity. R. - Certainly, insanity in a lesser degree than in the case of Lenin, who dreamt of power over the whole world in his attic in Switzerland or the insanity of Stalin, dreaming of the same thing during his exile in a Siberian hut. I think that dreams of such ambitions are much more natural for the moneyed people, living in the skyscrapers of New York. G. - Let us conclude: Who are they? R. - You are so naive that you think that if I knew who "They" are, I would be here as a prisoner? G. - Why? R. - For a very simple reason, since he who is acquainted with them would not be put into a position in which he would be obliged to report on them... This is an elementary rule of every intelligent conspiracy, which you must well understand. G. - But you said that they are the bankers? R. - Not I; remember that I always spoke of the financial International, and when mentioning persons I said "They" and nothing more. If you want that I should inform you openly then I shall only give facts, but not names, since I do not know them. I think I shall not be wrong if I tell you that not one of "Them" is a person who occupies a political position or a position in the World Bank. As I understood after the murder of Rathenau in Rapallo, they give political or financial positions only to intermediaries. Obviously to persons who are trustworthy and loyal, which can be guaranteed a thousand ways: thus one can assert that bankers and politicians - are only men of straw... even though they occupy very high places and are made to appear to be the authors of the plans which are carried out. G. - Although all this can be understood and is also logical, but is not your declaration of not knowing only an evasion? As it seems to me, and according to the information I have, you occupied a sufficiently high place in this conspiracy to have known much more. You do not even know a single one of them personally? R. - Yes, but of course you do not believe me. I have come to that moment where I had explained that I am talking about a person and persons with a personality... how should one say?... a mystical one, like Ghandi or something like that, but without any external display. Mystics of pure power, who have become free from all vulgar trifles. I do not know if you understand me? Well, as to their place of residence and names, I do not know them... Imagine Stalin just now, in reality ruling the USSR, but not surrounded by stone walls, not having any personnel around him, and having the same guarantees for his life as any other citizen. By which means could he guard against attempts on his life? He is first of all a conspirator, however great his power, he is anonymous. G. - What you are saying is logical, but I do not believe you. R. - But still believe me; I know nothing; if I knew then how happy I would be! I would not be here, defending my life. I well understand your doubts and that, in view of your police education, you feel the need for some knowledge about persons. To honour you and also because this is essential for the aim which we both have set ourselves. I shall do all I can in order to inform you. You know that according to the unwritten history known only to us, the founder of the First Communist International is indicated, of course secretly, as being Weishaupt. You remember his name? He was the head of the masonry which is known by the name of the Illuminati; this name he borrowed from the second anti-Christian conspiracy of that era - gnosticism. This important revolutionary, Semite and former Jesuit, foreseeing the triumph of the French revolution decided, or perhaps he was ordered (some mention as his chief the important philosopher Mendelssohn) to found a secret organization which was to provoke and push the French revolution to go further than its political objectives, with the aim of transforming it into a social revolution for the establishment of Communism. In those heroic times it was colossally dangerous to mention Communism as an aim; from this derive the various precautions and secrets, which had to surround the Illuminati. More than a hundred years were required before a man could confess to being a Communist without danger of going to prison or being executed. This is more or less known. What is not known are the relations between Weishaupt and his followers with the first of the Rothschilds. The secret of the acquisition of wealth of the best known bankers could have been explained by the fact that they were the treasurers of this first Comintern. There is evidence that when the five brothers spread out to the five provinces of the financial empire of Europe, they had some secret help for the accumulation of these enormous sums: it is possible that they were those first Communists from the Bavarian catacombs who were already spread all over Europe. But others say, and I think with better reason, that the Rothschilds were not the treasurers, but the chiefs of that first secret Communism. This opinion is based on that well-known fact that Marx and the highest chiefs of the First International - already the open one - and among them Herzen and Heine, were controlled by Baron Lionel Rothschild, whose revolutionary portrait was done by Disraeli (in Coningsby - Transl.) the English Premier, who was his creature, and has been left to us. He described him in the character of Sidonia, a man, who, according to the story, was a multi-millionaire, knew and controlled spies, carbonari, freemasons, secret Jews, gypsies, revolutionaries etc., etc. All this seems fantastic. But it has been proved that Sidonia is an idealized portrait of the son of Nathan Rothschild, which can also be deduced from that campaign which he raised against Tsar Nicholas in favour of Herzen. He won this campaign. If all that which we can guess in the light of these facts is true, then, I think, we could even determine who invented this terrible machine of accumulation and anarchy, which is the financial International. At the same time, I think, he would be the same person who also created the revolutionary International. It is an act of genius: to create with the help of Capitalism accumulation of the highest degree, to push the proletariat towards strikes, to sow hopelessness, and at the same time to create an organization which must unite the proletarians with the purpose of driving them into revolution. This is to write the most majestic chapter of history. Even more: remember the phrase of the mother of the five Rothschild brothers: "If my sons want it, then there will be no war." This means that they were the arbiters, the masters of peace and war, but not emperors. Are you capable of visualizing the fact of such a cosmic importance? Is not war already a revolutionary function? War - the Commune. Since that time every war was a giant step towards Communism. As if some mysterious force satisfied the passionate wish of Lenin, which he had expressed to Gorky. Remember: 1905-1914. Do admit at least that two of the three levers of power which lead to Communism are not controlled and cannot be controlled by the proletariat. Wars were not brought about and were not controlled by either the Third International or the USSR, which did not yet exist at that time. Equally they cannot be provoked and still less controlled by those small groups of Bolsheviks who plod along in the emigration, although they want war. This is quite obvious. The International and the USSR have even fewer possibilities for such immense accumulations of capital and the creation of national or international anarchy in Capitalistic production. Such an anarchy which is capable of forcing people to burn huge quantities of foodstuffs, rather than give them to starving people, and is capable of that which Rathenau described in one of his phrases, i.e.: "To bring about that half the world will fabricate dung, and the other half will use it." And, after all, can the proletariat believe that it is the cause of this inflation, growing in geometric progression, this devaluation, the constant acquisition of surplus values and the accumulation of financial capital, but not usury capital, and that as the result of the fact that it cannot prevent the constant lowering of its purchasing power, there takes place the proletarization of the middle classes, who are the true opponents of revolution. The proletariat does not control the lever of economics or the lever of war. But it is itself the third lever, the only visible and demonstrable lever, which carries out the final blow at the power of the Capitalistic State and takes it over. Yes, they seize it, if "They" yield it to them... G. - I again repeat to you that all this, which you have set out in such a literate form, has a name which we have already repeated to excess in this endless conversation: the natural contradictions of Capitalism and if, as you claim, there is yet someone else's will and activity apart from the proletariat, then I want you to indicate to me concretely a personal case. R. - You require only one? Well, then listen to a small story: "They" isolated the Tsar diplomatically for the Russo-Japanese War, and the United States financed Japan; speaking precisely, this was done by Jacob Schiff, the head of the bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which is the successor of the House of Rothschild, whence Schiff originated. He had such power that he achieved that States which had colonial possessions in Asia supported the creation of the Japanese Empire which was inclined towards xenophobia; and Europe already feels the effects of this xenophobia. From the prisoner-of-war camps there came to Petrograd the best fighters, trained as revolutionary agents; they were sent there from America with the permission of Japan, obtained through the persons who had financed it. The Russo-Japanese War, thanks to the organized defeat of the Tsar's army, called forth the revolution of 1905, which, though it was premature, but was very nearly successful; even if it did not win, it still created the required political conditions for the victory of 1917. I shall say even more. Have you read the biography of Trotzky? Recall its first revolutionary period. He is still quite a young man; after his flight from Siberia he lived some time among the émigrés in London, Paris, and Switzerland; Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov and other chiefs look on him only as a promising newcomer. But he already dares during the first split to behave independently, trying to become the arbiter of the reunion. In 1905 he is 25 years old and he returns to Russia alone, without a party and without his own oranization. Read the reports of the revolution of 1905 which have not been "pruned" by Stalin; for example that of Lunatcharsky, who was not a Trotzkyite. Trotzky is the chief figure during the revolution in Petrograd. This is how it really was. Only he emerges from it with increased popularity and influence. Neither Lenin, nor Martov, nor Plekhanov acquire popularity. They only keep it and even lose a little.How and why there rises the unknown Trotzky, gaining power by one move greater than that which the oldest and most influential revolutionaries had? Very simple: he marries. Together with him there arrives in Russia his wife - Sedova. Do you know who she is? She is associated with Zhivotovsky, linked with the bankers Warburg, partners and relatives of Jacob Schiff, i.e. of that financial group which, as I had said, had also financed the revolution of 1905. Here is the reason why Trotzky, in one move, moves to the top of the revolutionary list. And here, too, you have the key to his real personality. Let us jump to 1914. Behind the back of the people who made the attempt on the Archduke there stands Trotzky, and that attempt provoked the European War. Do you really believe that the murder and the war - are simple coincidences?..., as had been said at one of the Zionist congresses by Lord Melchett. Analyze in the light of "non-coincidence" the development of the military actions in Russia. "Defeatism" is an exemplary word. The help of the Allies for the Tsar was regulated and controlled with such skill that it gave the Allied ambassadors the right to make an argument of this and to get from Nicholas, thanks to his stupidity, suicidal advances, one after another. The mass of the Russian cannon fodder was immense, but not inexhaustible. A series of organized defeats led to the revolution. When the threat came from all sides, then a cure was found in the form of the establishment of a democratic republic - an "ambassadorial republic" as Lenin called it i.e. this meant the elimination of any threat to the revolutionaries. But that is not yet all. Kerensky was to provoke the future advance at the cost of a very great deal of blood. He brings it about so that the democratic revolution should spread beyond its bounds. And even still more: Kerensky was to surrender the State fully to Communism, and he does it. Trotzky has the chance in an "unnoticed manner" to occupy the whole State apparatus. What a strange blindness! Well that is the reality of the much praised October revolution. The Bolsheviks took that which "They" gave them. G. - You dare to say that Kerensky was a collaborator of Lenin? R. - Of Lenin - no. Of Trotzky - yes; it is more correct to say - a collaborator of "Them." G. - An absurdity! R. - You cannot understand... precisely you? It surprises me. If you were to be a spy and, while hiding your identity, you were to attain the position of commander of the enemy fortress, then would you not open the gates to the attacking forces in whose service you actually were? You would not have become a prisoner who had experienced defeat? Would you not have been in danger of death during the attack on the fortress if one of the attackers, not knowing that your uniform is only a mask, would have taken you for an enemy? Believe me: despite the statues and mausoleum - Communism is indebted to Kerensky much more than to Lenin. G. - You want to say that Kerensky was a conscious and voluntary defeatist? R. - Yes to me that is quite clear. Understand that I personally took part in all this. I shall tell you even more: Do you know who financed the October revolution? "They" financed it, in particular through those same bankers who had financed Japan in 1905, i.e. Jacob Schiff, and the brothers Warburg; that means through the great banking constellation, through one of the five banks who are members of the Federal Reserve, through the bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., here there took part also other American and European bankers, such as Guggenheim, Hanauer, Breitung, Aschberg, the "Nya Banken" of Stockholm. I was there "by chance," there in Stockholm, and participated in the transmission of funds. Until Trotzky arrived I was the only person who was an intermediary from the revolutionary side. But at last Trotzky came; I must underline that the Allies had expelled him from France for being a defeatist. And the same Allies released him so that he could be a defeatist in allied Russia... "Another chance." Who arranged it? The same people who had succeeded that Lenin passed through Germany. Yes, "They" were able to get the defeatist Trotzky out of a Canadian camp to England and send him on to Russia, giving him the chance to pass freely through all the Allied controls; others of "Them" - a certain Rathenau - accomplishes the journey of Lenin through enemy Germany. If you will undertake the study of the history of the revolution and civil war without prejudices, and will use all your enquiring capabilities, which you know how to apply to things much less important and less obvious, then when you study information in their totality, and also study separate details right up to anecdotal happenings you will meet with a whole series of "amazing chances." G. - Alright, let us accept the hypothesis that not everything was simply a matter of luck. What deductions to you make here for practical results? R.--Let me finish this little story, and then we shall both arrive at conclusions. From the time of his arrival in Petrograd Trotzky was openly received by Lenin. As you know sufficiently well, during the interval between the two revolutions there had been deep differences between them. All is forgotten and Trotzky emerges as the master of his trade in the matter of the triumph of the revolution, whether Stalin wants this or not. Why? This secret is known to the wife of Lenin - Krupskaya. She knows who Trotzky is in fact; it is she who persuaded Lenin to receive Trotzky. If he had not received him, then Lenin would have remained blocked up in Switzerland; this alone had been for him a serious reason, and in addition he knew that Trotzky provided money and helped to get a colossal international assistance, a proof of this was the sealed train. Furthermore it was the result of Trotzky's work, and not of the iron determination of Lenin that there was the unification round the insignificant party of the Bolsheviks of the whole Left-wing revolutionary camp, the social-revolutionaries and the anarchists. It was not for nothing that the real party of the "non-party" Trotzky was the ancient "Bund" of the Jewish proletariat, from which emerged all the Moscow revolutionary branches, and to whom it gave 90% of its leaders; not the official and well-known Bund, but the secret Bund which had been infiltrated into all the Socialist parties, the leaders of which were almost all under its control. G. - And Kerensky too? R. - Kerensky too..., and also some other leaders who were not Socialists, the leaders of the bourgeois political fractions. G. - How is that? R. - You forget about the role of freemasonry in the first phase of the democratic-bourgeois revolution? G. - Were they also controlled by the Bund? R. - Naturally, as the nearest step, but in fact subject to "Them." G. - Despite the rising tide of Marxism which also threatened their lives and privileges? R. - Despite all that; obviously they did not see that danger. Bear in mind that every mason saw and hoped to see in his imagination more that there was in reality, because he imagined that which was profitable for him. As a proof of the political power of their association they saw that masons were in governments and at the pinnacle of the States of the bourgeois nations, while their numbers were growing all the time. Bear in mind that at that time the rulers of all the Allied nations were freemasons, with very few exceptions. This was to them an argument of great force. They fully believed that the revolution would stop at the bourgeois republic of the French type. G. - In accordance with the picture which was given of the Russia of 1917 one had to be a very naive person to believe all this... R. - They were and are such. Masons had learned nothing from that first lesson which, for them, had been the Great Revolution, in which they played a colossal revolutionary role; it consumed the majority of masons, beginning with the Grand Master of the Orleans Lodge, more correctly the freemason Louis XVI, in order then to continue to destroy the Girondistes, the Hebertistes, the Jacoboins etc..... and if some survived it was due to the month of Brumaire. G. - Do you want to say that the freemasons have to die at the hands of the revolution which has been brought about with their co-operation? R. - Exactly so. You have formulated a truth which is veiled by a great secret. I am a mason, you already knew about that. Is that not so? Well, I shall tell you this great secret, which they promise to disclose to a mason in one of the higher degrees, but which is not disclosed to him either in the 25th, nor the 33rd, nor the 93rd, nor any other high level of any ritual. It is clear that I know of this not as a freemason, but as one who belongs to "Them"... G. - And what is it? R. - Every masonic organization tries to attain and to create all the required prerequisites for the triumph of the Communist revolution; this is the obvious aim of freemasonry; it is clear that all this is done under various pretexts; but they always conceal themselves behind their well-known treble slogan. (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - Transl.) You understand? But sincTribal leaders and Sunni politicians in the Diyala Province are complaining, in the wake of reports that the Iraqi government has ousted ISIS from the area, Shi’ite militias are carrying out massacres against Sunni tribesmen.
The officials say 70 Sunni civilians were killed in attacks by the Shi’ite militias as part of the three day “anti-ISIS offensive.” Complaints of such massacres have been common where Shi’ite militias have taken Sunni towns.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry, however, accused the tribal leaders of lying, saying the claims are part of an ISIS plot to discredit the Shi’ite militias. They also claimed reports of large numbers of homes being leveled by troops were actually the result of ISIS planting bombs designed to discredit them.
Since a call to arms by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shi’ite militias have been virtually above the law in Iraq, carrying out attacks on Sunni civilians they accuse of being “ISIS sympathizers” at will, and likely turning many of the tribes into ISIS sympathizers.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzDETROIT — Four automakers are selling new vehicles with Takata air bag inflators even though the devices are potentially defective and likely to be recalled within a few years, according to a Senate report.
Some Fiat Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Volkswagen vehicles from the 2016 and 2017 model years are equipped with a type of inflator that is prone to rupture and presents a potential danger to drivers and passengers, Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee said in the report issued Wednesday.
Takata has agreed to recall about 69 million air bag inflators in the U.S. by the end of 2019. The new model years aren’t yet covered by the recall, so the automakers can legally sell the cars. But at least one lawmaker thinks that decision is a risky one for car buyers.
“Consumers are buying new cars not realizing that they’re going to be recalled,” said Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, the Commerce committee’s top Democrat. Nelson wants the automakers to replace the inflators before the cars are sold so they don’t have to be recalled.
The problematic inflators contain ammonium nitrate, which can deteriorate over time when exposed to moisture and high temperatures. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said that its tests show it takes at least six years before the inflators pose a danger.
Takata Corp. has agreed to recall all original equipment inflators that lack a chemical drying agent in phases by the end of 2018. So far, the recall affects 17 car and truck companies, with vehicles going back to the 2000 model year.
At least 11 people have been killed worldwide by Takata’s inflators. Two other deaths in Malaysia are under investigation.
Mitsubishi and Volkswagen identified the new models that have Takata inflators without the drying agent. They include the 2016 Volkswagen CC, 2016 Audi TT, 2017 Audi R8, and the 2016 and 2017 Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Toyota and Fiat Chrysler did not specify models.
According to the report, Toyota said it expects to make about 175,000 unspecified vehicles with defective Takata inflators from March 2016 to July 2017. Messages were left seeking comment from Toyota.
Fiat Chrysler has only one new model with the inflators, which spokesman Eric Mayne declined to identify. “These vehicles are not currently subject to recall. They meet or exceed all applicable safety requirements,” Mayne said in an email.
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zerg.When it came to Up-and-Down, Luvsic choked badly. He didn’t expand when he was ahead, he didn’t attack when his enemy was vulnerable, and he didn’t micro when he needed to win a fight. And that game against Hero…The horror, the horror.I wish I could say that Luvisc is much better than I’m giving him credit for. Recent results suggest that he is marginally better. Currently he is stuck in a bad slump with only 1 win in his last 11 games.Luvsic is somewhat notable for getting early zergling speed for scouting and defense. If he senses possible stargate or DT harass he deliberately overproduces defenses just to be safe. On open maps Luvsic favors roach/hydra compositions and attacks the protoss relentless as they are getting a third or teching to AOE damage. Going into the late game he stops at 4-5 bases and tries to beat the protoss over the head with multi-pronged waves of roaches and hydras. He is not particularly amazing at unit control and can be punished by good micro.Ace is the prototype example of how current PvZ is struggling to standardize itself. Protosses like Brown and Seed feel like mechanically superior throwbacks to the old PvZ turtle playstyle, while JYP and MC are merciless in controlling the midgame and punishing zergs for the smallest of mistakes. Ace falls somewhere in the middle. He does early zealot harassment...sometimes. He likes the +2 blink stalker all-in…when it suits his needs. 2 base templar into a fast third, why not? With so many different ways to build off a FFE it’s hard to know how Ace will react to a situation. No matter how he plays a situation expect solid micro and positioning.Crossfire is a difficult map for PvZ, and I don’t expect Ace to go for a macro game. Some type of +2 blink stalker timing would be recommended against the inevitable muta play. Regardless of whether Ace wins on Crossfire I feel very optimistic about his chances. While Luvsic is currently slumping Ace has been showing off solid play, especially in PvZ. Ace 2-1 Luvsic
SlayerSTaeja (Yoon Young Suh) vs TSL.Hyun (Ko Seok Hyun)
The present success of the Emperor’s team is embodied in MMA, but its future rests with Taeja. He’s everything you could ask for in a young prodigy. He can play the 30 minute macro game and immediately follow with a proxy 2 rax; endless marine splits against banelings are well within his comfort zone; passive or aggressive, drop play or slow tank push, he can do everything. The only thing he can’t do is stay in Code S. Twice Taeja has battled his way into that elite league, twice he’s dropped out in the RO32. This is the season to prove that he belongs among the best and brightest.
Hyun is something new and old at the same time. He’s one of the many upstart zergs populating The SCV Life’s house. At the same time he is a Brood War veteran with half a decade’s experience playing on big stages in front of hundreds of fans and critics alike. That past creates certain expectations on how he will perform. Elephants, domination, blah blah blah. You know what’s up.
Playstyle:
Hyun prefers to open a safe ling/bane style with a heavy emphasis on melee/carapace upgrades. He reserves most of his gas for banelings (sparing some to make 10-12 mutas) and focuses on spreading creep everywhere. This style allows Hyun to take much later fourth and fifth bases as he doesn’t need the geysers to support his mid-game production. +100 zerglings on the field is pretty common to see.
Taeja is a macro terran with a supreme sense of timings and strategy. He prefers to do marine-heavy openings for defense and secure a relatively fast third. From there he pushes out with his marine/tank army to secure strong positioning in the middle of the map, expands behind the direction of his push, and sends out drops everywhere for multipronged harass. Like Ryung Taeja tries to beat his opponent in the macro game, but Taeja prefers to get aggressive and systemically take out expansions.
Prediction:
Hyun has progressed nicely since he started to play in the competitive scene. Just getting past Code A qualifiers proves he has the skill to contend with the best. However he has not mastered the basic mechanics of SC2. He will often mis-rally units or completely forget to inject his hatcheries for a long period of time, which is an unavoidable weakness when facing a mechanical monster like Taeja. And since Hyun is so stylistic it makes planning against him that much easier.
The present success of the Emperor’s team is embodied in MMA, but its future rests with Taeja. He’s everything you could ask for in a young prodigy. He can play the 30 minute macro game and immediately follow with a proxy 2 rax; endless marine splits against banelings are well within his comfort zone; passive or aggressive, drop play or slow tank push, he can do everything. The only thing he can’t do is stay in Code S. Twice Taeja has battled his way into that elite league, twice he’s dropped out in the RO32. This is the season to prove that he belongs among the best and brightest.Hyun is something new and old at the same time. He’s one of the many upstart zergs populating The SCV Life’s house. At the same time he is a Brood War veteran with half a decade’s experience playing on big stages in front of hundreds of fans and critics alike. That past creates certain expectations on how he will perform. Elephants, domination, blah blah blah. You know what’s up.Hyun prefers to open a safe ling/bane style with a heavy emphasis on melee/carapace upgrades. He reserves most of his gas for banelings (sparing some to make 10-12 mutas) and focuses on spreading creep everywhere. This style allows Hyun to take much later fourth and fifth bases as he doesn’t need the geysers to support his mid-game production. +100 zerglings on the field is pretty common to see.Taeja is a macro terran with a supreme sense of timings and strategy. He prefers to do marine-heavy openings for defense and secure a relatively fast third. From there he pushes out with his marine/tank army to secure strong positioning in the middle of the map, expands behind the direction of his push, and sends out drops everywhere for multipronged harass. Like Ryung Taeja tries to beat his opponent in the macro game, but Taeja prefers to get aggressive and systemically take out expansions.Hyun has progressed nicely since he started to play in the competitive scene. Just getting past Code A qualifiers proves he has the skill to contend with the best. However he has not mastered the basic mechanics of SC2. He will often mis-rally units or completely forget to inject his hatcheries for a long period of time, which is an unavoidable weakness when facing a mechanical monster like Taeja. And since Hyun is so stylistic it makes planning against him that much easier. Taeja 2-0 Hyun
SlayerSYuGiOh (Jung Seung-Il) vs NsHsSculp (Park Yong Hwan)
“Forever Code A” is an apt description of YuGiOh’s career. After dominating the Code A tiebreaker matches for GSL January, he’s been stuck in the nebulous void between widespread recognition and “oh look, one of those B-teamers is in the spotlight”. His ZvP has carried him through 2 Up-and-Down groups but no amount of SlayerS training can solve his crippling ZvT.
New Star HoSeo has never been the greatest at producing individual winners. As a team any player can step up to carry them to victory, yet only Jjakji has managed to make a memorable impact. Sage consistently flames out in Code A; Tassadar is struggling with an unstable lategame; San never recovered the magic of his GSL March run. Sculp has never had that type of exposure but he has been quietly becoming one of HoSeo's most reliable players. Consistency as well as skill is required in the GSL and Sculp could be the second HoSeo terran to make his presence felt.
Playstyle:
YugiOh is as bread-and-butter as you can get. He expands at 15 supply, drones up while producing a few lings for scouting, and gets a fast roach warren for hellion defense. From there he techs to lair and takes a third just as his spire finishes. You’ll never guess where he goes from here. Ling/bane/muta, how did you know?
Despite the relative simplicity of this plan YugiOh is not amazing at playing it. Some parts of his play are commendable. His sim cities are always competent, he quickly reacts to harassment, and his creep spread is fairly good. What kills YuGiOh are terrible engagements, subpar control, and the refusal to build a single broodlord or ultralisk in the lategame. Watching his ZvT games compared to his ZvP games feels an awful lot like the last scene of Fight Club, two different personalities in one body.
Sculp plays the currently popular style of TvZ and does it very well. He typically opens with reactored hellions for map control and creep denial, being very insistent on killing any group of zerglings outside of the opponent’s natural. Then he transitions into marine-tank, delaying the starport longer than usual so he can get more barracks. His marine control and positioning aren’t as meticulous as Jjakji’s but under pressure they can be flat out amazing. Sculp prefers to sit back and absorb hits from the zerg rather than actively move around the map.
Prediction:
In one sense YuGiOh is extremely lucky: besides GSL May he has never had to face a Terran in the first round of Code A. Even though that streak is over it’s not like this is an automatic loss. Sculp is not great all the time and can be made to look very bad if his opponent plays slowly and carefully. But if he can play competently it should be more than enough to beat Jack’s Inflamed Sense of Rejection.
“Forever Code A” is an apt description of YuGiOh’s career. After dominating the Code A tiebreaker matches for GSL January, he’s been stuck in the nebulous void between widespread recognition and “oh look, one of those B-teamers is in the spotlight”. His ZvP has carried him through 2 Up-and-Down groups but no amount of SlayerS training can solve his crippling ZvT.New Star HoSeo has never been the greatest at producing individual winners. As a team any player can step up to carry them to victory, yet only Jjakji has managed to make a memorable impact. Sage consistently flames out in Code A; Tassadar is struggling with an unstable lategame; San never recovered the magic of his GSL March run. Sculp has never had that type of exposure but he has been quietly becoming one of HoSeo's most reliable players. Consistency as well as skill is required in the GSL and Sculp could be the second HoSeo terran to make his presence felt.YugiOh is as bread-and-butter as you can get. He expands at 15 supply, drones up while producing a few lings for scouting, and gets a fast roach warren for hellion defense. From there he techs to lair and takes a third just as his spire finishes. You’ll never guess where he goes from here. Ling/bane/muta, how did you know?Despite the relative simplicity of this plan YugiOh is not amazing at playing it. Some parts of his play are commendable. His sim cities are always competent, he quickly reacts to harassment, and his creep spread is fairly good. What kills YuGiOh are terrible engagements, subpar control, and the refusal to build a single broodlord or ultralisk in the lategame. Watching his ZvT games compared to his ZvP games feels an awful lot like the last scene of Fight Club, two different personalities in one body.Sculp plays the currently popular style of TvZ and does it very well. He typically opens with reactored hellions for map control and creep denial, being very insistent on killing any group of zerglings outside of the opponent’s natural. Then he transitions into marine-tank, delaying the starport longer than usual so he can get more barracks. His marine control and positioning aren’t as meticulous as Jjakji’s but under pressure they can be flat out amazing. Sculp prefers to sit back and absorb hits from the zerg rather than actively move around the map.In one sense YuGiOh is extremely lucky: besides GSL May he has never had to face a Terran in the first round of Code A. Even though that streak is over it’s not like this is an automatic loss. Sculp is not great all the time and can be made to look very bad if his opponent plays slowly and carefully. But if he can play competently it should be more than enough to beat Jack’s Inflamed Sense of Rejection. Sculp 2-1 YuGiOh
StartaleSquirtle (Park Hyun Woo) vs NSHSSeal (Lee Joon)
Squirtle is a Code S player with a Code A mindset. His careful control and meticulous build orders have earned him the gatekeeper position in team leagues; once in a blue moon Squirtle actually fails to get more than 2 kills. Squirtle is also one of the best PvZ players in Korea with a stunning 21-6 record in his last 27 games against zerg. Like Taeja he is a victim of nerves and crumbled when he had to get through his Up-and-Down group.
Seal’s most notable achievement is an all kill of ZeNEX in GSTL Season 1. Since then he has stayed out of the spotlight and mostly participated in smaller tournaments like the Korean Weekly. Seal has had some notable wins during that time but nothing comparable to his GSTL performance.
Playstyle:
Before I talked about how Ace is capable of many different styles of play in response to an opponent. Squirtle is similar in the way he approaches PvZ except he has better execution, better crisis management and a better understanding of how to use his unit compositions. He usually uses zealots to harass far-away expansions and depends on blink stalkers to be the backbone of his army. Squirtle tries to make his armies as mobile and capable of controlling space as possible, adding phoenixes early in the game so he can zone out muta flocks.
Seal plays a long-term style that focused heavily on protecting his bases and overrunning his enemy with tech. One of his major priorities after taking a fast third is spreading creep all over the map. This makes protecting multiple areas much easier and gives him sight of any approaching armies. Seal prefers to tech quickly to infestors and hive; one of his favorite tricks is using burrowed infestors to harass mineral lines when his opponent is out of position. Once on hive tech he slowly creates the zerg deathball of infestor/broodlord/corruptor and pushes out to end the game.
Prediction:
As much as I admire Seal’s creep spread he should be severely outclassed. Squirtle is superior in the matchup, knows how to play against a zerg that turtles, and has the necessary stage experience to not choke in a Code A match. Even the maps are not particularly beneficial for the zerg. If Seal manages to win I would be shocked.
Squirtle is a Code S player with a Code A mindset. His careful control and meticulous build orders have earned him the gatekeeper position in team leagues; once in a blue moon Squirtle actually fails to get more than 2 kills. Squirtle is also one of the best PvZ players in Korea with a stunning 21-6 record in his last 27 games against zerg. Like Taeja he is a victim of nerves and crumbled when he had to get through his Up-and-Down group.Seal’s most notable achievement is an all kill of ZeNEX in GSTL Season 1. Since then he has stayed out of the spotlight and mostly participated in smaller tournaments like the Korean Weekly. Seal has had some notable wins during that time but nothing comparable to his GSTL performance.Before I talked about how Ace is capable of many different styles of play in response to an opponent. Squirtle is similar in the way he approaches PvZ except he has better execution, better crisis management and a better understanding of how to use his unit compositions. He usually uses zealots to harass far-away expansions and depends on blink stalkers to be the backbone of his army. Squirtle tries to make his armies as mobile and capable of controlling space as possible, adding phoenixes early in the game so he can zone out muta flocks.Seal plays a long-term style that focused heavily on protecting his bases and overrunning his enemy with tech. One of his major priorities after taking a fast third is spreading creep all over the map. This makes protecting multiple areas much easier and gives him sight of any approaching armies. Seal prefers to tech quickly to infestors and hive; one of his favorite tricks is using burrowed infestors to harass mineral lines when his opponent is out of position. Once on hive tech he slowly creates the zerg deathball of infestor/broodlord/corruptor and pushes out to end the game.As much as I admire Seal’s creep spread he should be severely outclassed. Squirtle is superior in the matchup, knows how to play against a zerg that turtles, and has the necessary stage experience to not choke in a Code A match. Even the maps are not particularly beneficial for the zerg. If Seal manages to win I would be shocked. Squirtle 2-0 Seal
EGJYP (Park Jin Young) vs ZeNEXLife (Lee Seung Hyun)
When the nuclear holocaust comes and mankind is reduced to eating radscorpions and dirty water, ZeNEX will be furiously practicing in a Vault. Despite losing every single prolific player to a better financed team they still manages to surprise with their homegrown talent. Extreme almost singlehandedly pulled off an upset over oGs, Avenge swept Idra in last week’s Code A match, and now Life gets the opportunity to prove why he is ZeNEX’s golden boy. Just recently he won the second Iron Squid qualifier with a surprising 3-0 sweep over MVPKeen. Pretty good work for a 15 year old rookie.
Meanwhile JYP is recovering from a very disappointing Ro32 performance. Not only was he unable to overcome his terran Kryptonite, sC and Dongraegu utterly dismantled him. With Idra and HuK eliminated from Code A JYP is the last remaining EG representative in the GSL. The team pressure and stress of a new format might get to lesser players. But JYP has been in this situation before and rebounded quite nicely, so I don't expect JYP to be effected by any outside factors.
Playstyle:
JYP is the type of protoss who likes to get fast aggression and he knows every build that punishes a fast third. Whether it's a delayed zealot + void ray attack or a DT attack his style always keeps a zerg on the back foot, limiting their production and opening up opportunities to take a third. JYP loves to exploit the mobility of blink stalkers for both offense and defense. Combined with his scary micro he can make short work of any zerg army that attacks at the wrong time.
Life starts out safe and proceeds to get more aggressive as he goes up the tech path. In the beginning of the game he focuses on denying any type of harassment with good overlord spreads and queens. Once he gets infestors Life moves out to take control of the map and crush any large pushes with giant flanks. Once he hits hive he loves to do tech switches between broodlords and ultralisks to punish overreactions. Once in a blue moon he will let his control slip in defensive battles and run all his units into a concave.
Prediction:
PvZ has always been JYP’s strongest matchup in my opinion, and the records alone should guarantee him an easy victory. However he has not looked great at all following HomeStory Cup. Losing to sC and DRG is nothing to be ashamed of, but JYP never looked particularly good while he was losing. Furthermore Zenio beat him lifeless in NASTL; considering his Korean ZvP record JYP should put on sackcloth and lament in the streets. Life will have considerable momentum and confidence on his side after beating out all his fellow Koreans in the Iron Squid qualifier. Either JYP will crush that momentum with prepared builds or Life will ride it to an easy victory. So I'm predicting a 2-0 but I think Life will be the one on top.
When the nuclear holocaust comes and mankind is reduced to eating radscorpions and dirty water, ZeNEX will be furiously practicing in a Vault. Despite losing every single prolific player to a better financed team they still manages to surprise with their homegrown talent. Extreme almost singlehandedly pulled off an upset over oGs, Avenge swept Idra in last week’s Code A match, and now Life gets the opportunity to prove why he is ZeNEX’s golden boy. Just recently he won the second Iron Squid qualifier with a surprising 3-0 sweep over MVPKeen. Pretty good work for a 15 year old rookie.Meanwhile JYP is recovering from a very disappointing Ro32 performance. Not only was he unable to overcome his terran Kryptonite, sC and Dongraegu utterly dismantled him. With Idra and HuK eliminated from Code A JYP is the last remaining EG representative in the GSL. The team pressure and stress of a new format might get to lesser players. But JYP has been in this situation before and rebounded quite nicely, so I don't expect JYP to be effected by any outside factors.JYP is the type of protoss who likes to get fast aggression and he knows every build that punishes a fast third. Whether it's a delayed zealot + void ray attack or a DT attack his style always keeps a zerg on the back foot, limiting their production and opening up opportunities to take a third. JYP loves to exploit the mobility of blink stalkers for both offense and defense. Combined with his scary micro he can make short work of any zerg army that attacks at the wrong time.Life starts out safe and proceeds to get more aggressive as he goes up the tech path. In the beginning of the game he focuses on denying any type of harassment with good overlord spreads and queens. Once he gets infestors Life moves out to take control of the map and crush any large pushes with giant flanks. Once he hits hive he loves to do tech switches between broodlords and ultralisks to punish overreactions. Once in a blue moon he will let his control slip in defensive battles and run all his units into a concave.PvZ has always been JYP’s strongest matchup in my opinion, and the records alone should guarantee him an easy victory. However he has not looked great at all following HomeStory Cup. Losing to sC and DRG is nothing to be ashamed of, but JYP never looked particularly good while he was losing. Furthermore Zenio beat him lifeless in NASTL; considering his Korean ZvP record JYP should put on sackcloth and lament in the streets. Life will have considerable momentum and confidence on his side after beating out all his fellow Koreans in the Iron Squid qualifier. Either JYP will crush that momentum with prepared builds or Life will ride it to an easy victory. So I'm predicting a 2-0 but I think Life will be the one on top. Life 2-0 JYP (close games)
StartaleVirus (Park Joon Yong) vs oGsCezanne (Kim Jung Hwan)
If there was ever a mountain of mediocrity, you can sure Virus and Cezanne are feverishly setting up base camps right below the summit. They are good enough to maintain a GSL presence and bad enough to never accomplish anything more. We’ve laughed at them for their blunders (and boy there are some big ones) and cried over their very existence among the best players in the world. Beyond those it’s very hard to write about their players in terms of a continuous story.
Once upon a time Cezanne was considered good in the Korean SC2 scene. He was never champion material but you knew he could play solid games at a moment’s notice. He was a hair’s breadth from beating Nestea in the Super Tournament and decisively beat the surging Bomber in the SK Champions Trophy April. Then everyone else got better over the next nine months and Cezanne stayed in place. His playstyle still feels like a relic from the earlier days of the GSL and he needs to change it up in order to advance.
Virus has played the role of Code S gatekeeper for over 5 seasons with varying degrees of success. Sometimes he squeezes past his group and gets to lose in the Ro16, other times he gets knocked out and squeezes past his group to retain Code S status. Throughout it all he has never been able to make a deep run in the GSL. It may be that his gameplay lacks the “style” that defines almost every other terran, or he could never improve at the same rate as the other players. Either way he finds himself one series away from Code B.
Playstyle:
Cezanne is a very good macro player and relies on it to carry him in games. He plays the standard ling/muta/bane composition while expanding quickly, preferring more zerglings and banes as opposed to mutas. His micro and choice of engagements is usually poor and involves sending all his army to attack one front. Cezanne is very opportunistic on small maps and will all-in his opponent if he sees an opponent with weak defenses.
Virus is the epitome of what you want in a practice partner. He usually plays safe and standard but can execute almost any possible build. His execution is serviceable but his multitasking often fails him. Against zerg he does the typical hellion expand into marine-tank play without any notable strengths. Virus will try to mech on large maps against macro-oriented players as a surprise strategy if he believes he can defend any harassment. Virus will also all-in on small maps to catch his opponent off guard but mostly against protoss.
Prediction:
With both players capable of throwing games at a whim it’s hard to call a certain winner. While Cezanne’s poor performance was a recognizable trend, Virus’ flubs in his Up-and-Down group were uncharacteristic. Virus is solid, not extraordinary, and that has carried him through many GSL seasons while producing a few surprises. He is capable of pulling off good strategies if he is not overly nervous. Combined with the last map being Antiga Shipyard, which favors slow macro terran play, I give the edge slightly to Virus.
If there was ever a mountain of mediocrity, you can sure Virus and Cezanne are feverishly setting up base camps right below the summit. They are good enough to maintain a GSL presence and bad enough to never accomplish anything more. We’ve laughed at them for their blunders (and boy there are some big ones) and cried over their very existence among the best players in the world. Beyond those it’s very hard to write about their players in terms of a continuous story.Once upon a time Cezanne was considered good in the Korean SC2 scene. He was never champion material but you knew he could play solid games at a moment’s notice. He was a hair’s breadth from beating Nestea in the Super Tournament and decisively beat the surging Bomber in the SK Champions Trophy April. Then everyone else got better over the next nine months and Cezanne stayed in place. His playstyle still feels like a relic from the earlier days of the GSL and he needs to change it up in order to advance.Virus has played the role of Code S gatekeeper for over 5 seasons with varying degrees of success. Sometimes he squeezes past his group and gets to lose in the Ro16, other times he gets knocked out and squeezes past his group to retain Code S status. Throughout it all he has never been able to make a deep run in the GSL. It may be that his gameplay lacks the “style” that defines almost every other terran, or he could never improve at the same rate as the other players. Either way he finds himself one series away from Code B.Cezanne is a very good macro player and relies on it to carry him in games. He plays the standard ling/muta/bane composition while expanding quickly, preferring more zerglings and banes as opposed to mutas. His micro and choice of engagements is usually poor and involves sending all his army to attack one front. Cezanne is very opportunistic on small maps and will all-in his opponent if he sees an opponent with weak defenses.Virus is the epitome of what you want in a practice partner. He usually plays safe and standard but can execute almost any possible build. His execution is serviceable but his multitasking often fails him. Against zerg he does the typical hellion expand into marine-tank play without any notable strengths. Virus will try to mech on large maps against macro-oriented players as a surprise strategy if he believes he can defend any harassment. Virus will also all-in on small maps to catch his opponent off guard but mostly against protoss.With both players capable of throwing games at a whim it’s hard to call a certain winner. While Cezanne’s poor performance was a recognizable trend, Virus’ flubs in his Up-and-Down group were uncharacteristic. Virus is solid, not extraordinary, and that has carried him through many GSL seasons while producing a few surprises. He is capable of pulling off good strategies if he is not overly nervous. Combined with the last map being Antiga Shipyard, which favors slow macro terran play, I give the edge slightly to Virus. Virus 2-1 Cezanne (throw in a 2 base roach/ling all-in on Dual Sight for funsies)
NOTICE: I have no idea how to resize images and all that other jazz so important to making these blocks o’text bearable. Any help on that front would be appreciated. ^^
NOTICE: I have no idea how to resize images and all that other jazz so important to making these blocks o’text bearable. Any help on that front would be appreciated. ^^ Writer Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.Had the government responded more aggressively, it might have uncovered a rogue cancer unit at the hospital, one that operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years — and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records.
The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show.
One patient was the Rev. Ricardo Flippin, a 21-year veteran of the Air Force. “I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t stand,” he said, citing rectal pain so severe that he had to remain in bed for six months, losing his church job and his income.
Pastor Flippin first learned of what his doctors called a radiation injury not from the V.A., but from an Ohio hospital where he underwent rectal surgery in 2006 to treat the damage. “There are times when I don’t have control over my bowels,” he said one recent Sunday, after excusing himself during a service at a church in West Virginia where he now preaches.
The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care worked, an examination by The New York Times has found.
Peer review, a staple of every good hospital, in which colleagues examine one another’s work, did not exist in the unit. The V.A.’s radiation safety program; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the use of all nuclear materials; and the Joint Commission, a group that accredited the hospital, all failed to intervene; either their inspections had been limited or they had not acted decisively upon finding problems.
Over all, the implant program lacked a “safety culture,” the nuclear commission found. Dr. Kao and other members of his team, the commission said, were not properly supervised or trained in what constitutes a substandard implant and the need to report it. Dr. Kao declined to comment for this article.
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Virtually none of the substandard implants in Philadelphia were reported to the nuclear commission, meaning errors went uninvestigated for weeks, months and sometimes years. During that time, many patients did not know that their cancer treatments were flawed.
Federal investigators are continuing to look into the flawed implants as well as those at other V.A. hospitals. The Philadelphia prostate unit was closed after problems began to surface in mid-2008, and it has yet to reopen. The V.A. has also suspended the implants, known as brachytherapy, at hospitals in Jackson, Miss., and Cincinnati, though neither had problems on a scale of Philadelphia’s.
The V.A. has yet to fully account for how these substandard implants affected veterans, though no one is believed to have died from them. No patient names have been made public. Veterans officials said Dr. Kao was no longer at the Philadelphia hospital and would not be allowed to return. The officials acknowledged that they had failed to supervise the unit.
A lawyer for Dr. Kao, Jack L. Gruenstein, said The Times’s account of the doctor’s role was “false,” but he declined to elaborate.
A nuclear commission consultant, Dr. Ronald E. Goans, reviewed about a quarter of the substandard implants and reported that “erratic seed placement caused a number of cases to have elevated doses to the rectum, bladder or perineum.” After learning of the problems, the V.A. flew seven patients treated in Philadelphia to its most experienced brachytherapy program in Seattle for additional implants.
“I’m not easily shaken,” Dr. Leon S. Malmud, chairman of a nuclear commission advisory committee, said last month after investigators briefed the panel on their findings in Philadelphia. “But this is a very anxiety-provoking story.”
Clues That All Is Not Right
The brachytherapy program at the Philadelphia V.A. hospital began in early 2002, giving veterans an option for treating prostate cancer without major surgery. In this procedure, metal seeds the size of a grain of rice are permanently inserted into the prostate through needles.
“The idea is to create a radioactive cloud that conforms to and treats the prostate,” said Dr. Louis Potters, department chairman of radiation medicine at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System.
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By using ultrasound in the operating room, Dr. Potters can assess how well radiation is being distributed. “So at the completion of the case,” he said, “I can go out and tell that patient’s wife or significant other that we did a very good implant.”
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And good implants were what the Philadelphia V.A. expected when it staffed the new unit with outside contractors from an Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
One contractor was Dr. Kao. In addition to his work as a cancer researcher, he had a medical degree from Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. from Penn. He is also on a team from Penn that won a contract this year from a NASA-financed consortium to study radiation in space.
Although Dr. Kao was board certified in radiation oncology, he had limited experience in brachytherapy, according to the nuclear commission. Even so, the unit had no peer review.
“In every facility that I’ve ever practiced and seen, there is some form of peer review going on,” said Dr. James Welsh, a radiation oncologist and member of the nuclear commission’s advisory board.
It was not long before problems began to surface. In the first year, nine implants were substandard, including two on the same day, records show.
In early 2003, the V.A. and the nuclear commission got their first solid clue that all was not right in the cancer unit.
On Feb. 3, Dr. Kao mistakenly implanted more than half the seeds in a patient’s bladder. With the patient still under anesthesia, a urologist had to thread a small tube through the man’s penis to retrieve the 40 errant seeds. Because they were bloody and contaminated with urine, the seeds could not be reused, and no more were available.
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As a carcinogen that can burn healthy tissue as well as kill cancerous cells, radiation is supposed to be closely monitored. The hospital’s radiation safety committee handles regulatory issues. The V.A.’s National Health Physics Program oversees radiation use in all veteran facilities.
But the chief regulator is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Serious accidents involving radioactive materials must be reported to that agency, which has the power to investigate and levy fines. Congress receives an annual list of those accidents.
After learning of Dr. Kao’s error, V.A. officials thought that because he had revised his surgical plan while still in the operating room, the mistake did not exist. The nuclear commission agreed, on the ground that doctors needed freedom to revise their surgical plan depending on what they found during surgery.
Yet this case did not involve a new diagnostic interpretation: it was an implant mistake, causing the patient to return for another procedure.
Dr. Charles M. Anderson, who heads the V.A.’s national radiation safety committee, said it was “not good medical practice” to have to redo surgery.
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Asked whether Dr. Kao was trying to cover up a mistake, Dr. Anderson said, “I’m not going to look into this guy’s soul.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lacked the authority to challenge Dr. Kao’s revisions, said Steven A. Reynolds, director of nuclear materials safety for the commission. “The N.R |
20’ women’s shelters ‘almost entirely funded by Western donors’. ‘These shelters… are some of the most successful – and provocative – legacies of the Western presence in Afghanistan,’ reports Rubin, ‘demonstrating that women need protection from their families and can make their own choices.’
Ending sati or widow immolation in 19th-century India, and founding women’s shelters to protect women from honour killings in 21st-century Afghanistan: these campaigns bookend two centuries of Anglo-Americans standing squarely against horrific local customs. Specifically: protecting brown women from barbaric local customs. The 19th-century British Missionary Register and The New York Times Magazine of the 21st-century both tell urgent stories of Anglo-Americans as the fragile ‘thin line of defence’ protecting vulnerable local women.
In fact, more than a decade after President Bush celebrated their liberation and US feminists asked for the valiant campaign to continue, Afghan women are not free. Between 2012 and 2013, violence against women in Afghanistan increased by 25 per cent. US agencies entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars for Afghan women are unable to say how they were used to empower them. Much has changed from the days of the East India Company to the more recent alliance between Bush and the Feminist Majority, but not everything: the Anglo-American representation of conquest as benevolence endures.
So why the particular focus on saving native women?
Do women, their freedom, their clothes and their marriages provide some crucial avenue into establishing hegemony, a method of representing the foreign invaders as good? The most compelling reason for this enquiry is that South Asian and Afghan feminisms are tainted by an imagined complicity with colonialism and imperialism. Making explicit just how aspects of women’s lives – their clothes and marriages – have been put into the service of Anglo-American imperial projects of domination, and how little these projects have had to do with those actual women, is a step towards lifting the weight of imperial complicity on Afghan feminism.
In the late 1870s, Annette Ackroyd, an unmarried British woman who shared her Unitarian father’s strong commitment to education, set off for Calcutta to start a school for Hindu girls. Everyone knew, from the British press, that Indian women lived in an abject state. Once in India, however, British racism shocked Ackroyd. ‘Let us sit on the verandah and get out of the natives,’ one woman said to her. Of her fellow Brits, she concluded: ‘How these sweet and feminine souls, whose sympathies are so tender, can be so destitute not only of humanity but of simple courtesy and consideration of the feelings of others, is a problem I cannot pretend to solve.’
However, Ackroyd’s sensitivity also found offence in Bengali women’s clothing. Saris, she thought, left Bengali women semi-nude: she found them vulgar and immodest. ‘There must be a decided change in their lower garments,’ she wrote. ‘They cannot go into public in such costumes.’ A well-to-do Bengali woman struck Ackroyd as a ‘savage who had never heard of dignity or modesty’ for the way she sat, and dressed ‘in red silk, no shoes, no stockings’.
For the Anglo missionaries who spread across 19th-century India, Indian women’s clothing became a consistent preoccupation. In the Indian state of Kerala, missionaries and the colonial administration found the fact that the women did not cover their breasts proof of immorality. ‘There is absolutely no faithfulness between husband and wife,’ concluded one early 19th-century observer.
for those who aspired to appear ‘civilised’, more like English women, the sexy sari gave way to long-sleeved blouses
Working together, Protestant missionaries and British colonial administrators urged women of the Nadar caste to wear longer, more ‘modest’ clothes. Anglo officials in India were especially concerned that native women who had converted to Christianity conceal their breasts.
What women wore, and when they wore it, often served as identifying markers in India’s notoriously complex cultural hierarchy. Women’s clothing could also signify religious status, as was the case, in Nadar culture, with long scarves and the covering of breasts. In 1813, Colonel John Munro, the British Prime Minister in Travancore, rescinded the order for Nadar women to cover their breasts with scarves. Instead, Anglo missionary women would make jackets for the Indian women. But the jackets proved unpopular. Nadar women preferred to cover themselves with a certain kind of scarf. That scarf, however, was reserved for upper-caste women, and so Nadar women’s use of it provoked another conflict. The flailing colonial administration issued another order, now requiring Nadar women to wear the unpopular jacket and actually forbidding them from wearing the scarf that the British had initially encouraged.
By the time of Indian independence in 1947, the British had enjoyed some success in transforming the way Indian women dressed. Especially for those who aspired to appear ‘civilised’, more like English women, the too-sexy sari gave way to long-sleeved blouses and petticoats. Indian women in such clothes also represented a visible recognition of British colonial authority, which was at once symbolic, intimate and public.
The more recent US-led war in Afghanistan also involves a special interest in South Asian women’s attire. The congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, dramatised the matter when, on 16 October 2001, she stood on the floor of the US House of Representatives in a blue burqa. ‘It’s hard to breathe,’ Maloney reported, ‘it’s particularly hard to see, there’s a mesh in front of the eyes and its like having 15 screen doors in front of you. It’s very demeaning, it’s as if you have no identity.’ Maloney wore the burqa to make a point, namely that this was the ‘just war that we [Americans] have no choice but to wage’.
For more than a decade, the blue burqa has been an emblem of female oppression in Afghanistan. Women’s resistance to the blue burqa regularly earns the US media’s celebration, and anyone who resists it is automatically anointed a heroine. In May 2015, The New York Times Magazine profiled Malina Suliman, an Afghan graffiti artist, describing her in the headline as someone who ‘risks her life to challenge the burqa under the Taliban’, while the other details of her life were deemed merely incidental.
In the West, some governments have banned the burqa. In May 2015, two days after the article on Suliman was published, the Dutch Parliament banned the burqa in public places. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte released a statement saying that ‘the ban was made with security in mind’. A year earlier, in July 2014, the EU Court of Human Rights upheld the French ban on the burqa, rejecting the arguments of a Muslim woman who said it contravened her freedom of choice.
Western feminists have aimed to give the matter an existential depth and air of authenticity. Here’s Rubin again, this time describing what it’s like to wear a burqa in Afghanistan for The New York Times Magazine in May 2011: ‘I felt rejected with my burqa down, like I was not good enough to be seen in public. I leaned in the back seat and felt a wash of passivity come over me. Nothing was demanded of me except silence.’
women’s clothing is a powerful shorthand for all that is wrong with native culture and all that must be corrected by the empire
Women’s freedom, when it comes to the burqa, means wearing what ‘the empire’ wants. Other commentators such as Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times Magazine in November 2001, express skepticism about the promotion of women’s rights as a pretext for war, saying: ‘it’s a freebie, an easy way to please [American] feminists who got mad when the administration ended funding for international family planning groups that support abortion’. But Dowd also stops short of actually cautioning against the use of supposedly feminist imperatives as a means to couch the desires of domination that undergird empire. She draws attention to the continued subjugation of Saudi women, a regime that the US is unwilling to criticise for sins similar to those of the Taliban, and instead ends with a line that seems to argue for its expansion: ‘Millions of Muslim women are still considered property. The first lady might think about extending her campaign beyond Afghanistan.’ Dowd’s qualm, then, is not the sly misuse of women’s causes as pretexts for war, but a wider use of them informed unapologetically by what the West thinks is best for the rest.
Whether it is the covering of breasts in Southern India or the wearing of burqas in Afghanistan, women’s comportment and clothing have offered an emotionally powerful shorthand for all that is wrong with native culture and all that must be corrected by the empire. Just as the covering or uncovering of breasts carried significance beyond what it meant to British imperial officials, the burqa was actually a fixture of Afghan life long before the Taliban. Afghan women’s rights activists have criticised the West’s obsession with the burqa. In 2001, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan stated that the end of the mandatory burqa ‘was in no way an indication of women’s rights and liberties in Afghanistan’. However, the thoughts of Afghan women about their lives have been less important in the West than burqa as a symbolic moral justification of war and imperial control.
For a colonising mission to have moral weight, it must appear to ‘better’ the lives of the colonised. The agents of empire, whether they are the officers of the British East India Company or US soldiers in Afghanistan, must believe in the incontrovertible rightness of their cause. Representing sati as emblematic of Indian society was tantamount to depicting Hindu men as barbaric and evil. What other kind of men would burn a widow? Hence, colonisation becomes a kind of moral vision protecting vulnerable Hindu women against evil Hindu men.
The reality, of course, was more complex. Sati was barbaric, but as British colonial officials well knew, some parts of India did not practise it at all; in other regions it was restricted to certain castes, while in others still it retained relative popularity. It hardly deserved to be the one thing most Europeans knew about India. But colonial officials promoted the British misperception that all Hindus were raised to consider the act as the ‘most meritorious in the world and of the utmost benefit to the spirit of the enactor and the souls of all her kindred’. Even in 1843 – 14 years after the legislative ban on the practice – colonial officials were told to publicise the ban widely, stress the inhumanity of sati, and hand down stern punishments to those who failed to prevent self-immolation.
Sati also appears in Jules Verne’s adventure Around the World in 80 Days (1873), whose protagonist Phileas Fogg encounters the practice as it is about to occur deep in the Indian forest. As his travel companion says to him: ‘Yes… burned alive. And, if she were not, you cannot conceive what treatment she would be obliged to submit from her relatives. They would shave off her hair, feed her on a scanty allowance of rice, treat her with contempt; she would be looked upon as an unclean creature, and would die in some corner, like a scurvy dog.’ However, all ends well in Verne’s book, when Fogg, by virtue of a clever plan enacted by his faithful servant Jean Passepartout, manages to rescue Princess Aouda.
the colonial concept of religion imposed its own mode of silencing on the very women it sought to protect
In the British colonial imagination, sati was a mysterious process, driven forward by a ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ as unalterable as gravity. Hindus were imagined as hypnotised by Brahmanic texts and hence incapable of disobeying them. This conception of Hindus, dominated by a scriptural Hinduism, was a British construction. It was the British who, in order to establish themselves as the rightful successors of the defeated Mughal Empire, ordered the mass translation of Vedic and Hindu texts and ordered their codification as ‘law’ to govern their Hindu subjects. In actuality, the British translations were often poor ones that, in addition, omitted key elements of Hindu cosmology that the British considered irrelevant to jurisprudence.
Testimonials from Hindu women call into question the religious basis of sati, and even suggest that the concerns of widows were predominantly material and social, and not religious. An abandonment of the colonial binary between the sacred and the secular, according to the India-born, US-based scholar Lata Mani, would have pointed to the practice as having a primarily material basis that was then given religious form through the officiating of priests and the recitation of religious verses. However, the colonial conception of religion as ‘the structuring principle’ of the Hindu society left no room for a wider consideration of the material hardship and social dimensions of widowhood. Hence the colonial regime imposed its own mode of silencing on the very women it sought to protect.
One month after Maloney stood in Congress in a burqa in 2001, the First Lady Laura Bush described the brutalities of the Taliban on Afghan women, calling on ‘civilised people throughout the world’ to join the effort ‘because in Afghanistan, we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us’. Some White House employees and members of Congress wore swatches of fabric snipped from blue burqas to show their support. The US had found its civilising, missionary war cry.
Just as accounts of sati accompanied the British colonial project, in November 2001 a US Department of State report titled ‘The Taliban’s War Against Women’ accompanied Bush’s call to action. Just as the colonial ban on sati ultimately argued that the practice was not really required by Hindu scripture, so the US Department of State report took pains to establish that Islam itself did not require segregation or veiling or the banishment of women from public life. In 19th-century India or 21st-century Afghanistan, the operative, underlying Anglo presumption was that their colonial and imperial subjects were entirely programmed by their beliefs of scriptural authority.
Since the beginning of the 2001 call to war, tales of honour crimes – in which Afghan men kill wives, daughters and sisters who dare to disobey them – spun out of the Anglo media. In August 2010, nine years into the occupation, when critiques of the Afghan war were gaining traction, the cover of Time magazine featured a grotesquely mutilated Afghan girl, her nose cut off by a Taliban commander. Titled ‘What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan’, it told the story of 18-year-old Aisha, who had suffered this grotesque punishment for running away from abusive in-laws. Time’s story ended by noting that a US non-profit was insuring that Aisha would have reconstructive surgery. It looked as though the US and its people could fix everything, particularly the savagery of Afghan men.
The 19th-century British/Hindu sati-rescue narrative has thus reappeared in the 21st century as the American/Afghan honour-crime-saviour fantasy. It has been given due prominence in the US narrative on the war. One NPR account from 2012, titled ‘Facing Death, Afghan Girl Runs to US Military’, describes Lina, who said she’d run from her brothers because they were going to kill her after they’d found her with a cellphone. The story tells of the giddy delight of the rescued Afghan girl in the US military base, devouring ice cream and Doritos in the cafeteria, and quickly learning English from the movies (thanks to which ‘kiss was a favourite new word’). More drama arrives in the form of Afghan advisors who tell the US soldiers that Lina must be sent home to keep peace with the community. In the end, a compromise is reached when a women’s shelter in a different, larger Afghan city agrees to take her in.
the violence committed by men against women in Afghanistan has hundreds of thousands of counterparts in the US
As with sati narratives, honour-crime narratives rely on monolithic, prescriptive motivations disconnected from the social or material conditions of those involved. Much like the ‘problem Hindu’, the evil Afghan male stands in contrast to the persecuted Afghan female and is lazy, brutal, unfeeling. He is driven by a medieval moral code that endorses the persecution of women. This crude perspective takes the place of thinking about the more than 100,000 Afghan civilian casualties caused by the US invasion since 2001. Just as stories of rescuing Indian women from sati distracted from the violence of British colonialism, so focusing on the violence of honour-crime stories deflects attention from the raids, bombings, illegal and indefinite detentions, torture and general brutality of the US war in Afghanistan.
Any honest analysis of honour crimes in Afghanistan would have to begin by acknowledging a society whose familial and institutional structures have been broken by five decades of Soviet and US foreign intervention. That sort of honest analysis would also reveal that marital ‘choice’ is unavailable to nearly anyone, male or female, in Afghan society. It would explore marriage as a means of cementing frayed communal relations in a war-torn land rather than the romantic liaison available to affluent Westerners. Finally, it could also acknowledge that the intimate violence committed by men against women in Afghanistan has hundreds of thousands of counterparts committed by men against women in the US.
Instead, representing ‘honour killing’ as an exotic, gruesomely brutal, incomprehensible phenomenon driven by mysterious cultural imperatives makes the US occupation seem urgent and righteous, even heroic. Acknowledging that ‘honour killing’ in Afghanistan could be comparable to all the other crimes that men perpetuate against women everywhere else would cast into doubt one of the main moral edifices of the imperial endeavour. Like the 19th-century Indian Hindu sati, the 21st-century Afghan Muslim honour killings must be uniquely evil.
Both the British in India and the Americans in Afghanistan made women’s clothing and gender crimes into signatures of an alien and barbaric culture. Moral campaigns against such ‘offensive’ practices are in reality sophisticated imperial technologies of control. For populations ‘at home,’ bare-breasted Hindu women and burqa-clad Afghan women become convenient emblems of both strangeness and the need for corrective conquest. When the Hindu woman puts on a long-sleeved blouse and a petticoat, or when an Afghan woman throws off her burqa, it equals conquest and success of the colonial venture.
The singling out of gendered crimes, sati in India and honour killings in Afghanistan, dramatises the otherness of the Hindu or Afghan male. He becomes an indigenous evil requiring heroic foreign intervention. The sophistication of this kind of enemy-making is that it renders one half of the local population – the victims of these crimes – allies of the occupation. Actual Hindu widows and Afghan women are rarely, if ever, heard from, as their experiences and perspective might complicate a silence that the Anglo-American empire can imagine as gratitude.
To be effective, portraying imperial violence and occupation as a feminist intervention requires local cooperation from Indians or Afghans. Just as the British created a class of middlemen who furthered their reform projects and were eager to take on British clothing, education and even military service in the colonial army, the US has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into creating an NGO-based aid culture in Afghanistan. Monetarily dependent on the US, these NGOs accept and promote a perspective in which burqas and honour crimes are root problems of Afghan society.
The peculiar persistence of the Anglo empire’s preoccupation with women’s clothing and social roles reveals that domination cannot rely solely on battles and bombs. The popularisation of gross caricatures of native gender roles, in particular the passive, oppressed female, helps create popular support for the conquerers, and their enablers, as good and brave. In the process, a society’s moral basis is rebuilt to rationalise subjugation to the foreign power.A New Conundrum in the Bond Market?
When the Federal Reserve raises short-term interest rates, the rates on longer-term Treasuries are generally expected to rise. However, even though the Fed has raised short-term interest rates three times since December 2016 and started reducing its asset holdings, Treasury yields have dropped instead. This decoupling of short-term and long-term rates is reminiscent of the “Greenspan conundrum” of 2004–05. This time, however, evidence suggests compelling explanations—a lower “normal” interest rate, the risk of persistently low inflation, and fiscal and geopolitical uncertainty—may account for the yield curve flattening.
Between June 2004 and December 2005, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) substantially tightened monetary policy by increasing the federal funds rate from 1% to 4.25%. Over this same period, long-term Treasury yields, which typically move in the same direction as short-term rates, did not follow suit and instead declined. This behavior of Treasury yields puzzled most observers, including the Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, who famously termed it a “conundrum.”
Recently, the FOMC has been raising the federal funds rate target, though less frequently and starting from a lower level compared with the 2004–05 period. Since December 2016, the target range has been adjusted three times by a total of 0.75%. In addition, the FOMC began reducing the sizable holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that the Fed had accumulated through its large-scale asset purchase programs between 2009 and 2014.
During such an episode of ongoing monetary policy tightening, long-term Treasury yields would usually be expected to rise. Since December 2016, however, they have not only not risen, but instead have fallen quite noticeably, to the surprise of professional forecasters. As a result, the yield curve has flattened over this period, as shown in Figure 1. Just like in 2004–05, short-term and long-term yields appear to have decoupled. Is there a new conundrum in the bond market? Or are there plausible explanations for this seemingly puzzling behavior of the yield curve? This Economic Letter addresses these questions, considering in turn the role of inflation, expectations of real interest rates, and other factors affecting the term premium.
Figure 1
Treasury yield curve in December 2016 and November 2017
Inflation expectations and inflation risk
Throughout 2017, inflation has remained surprisingly low. Core inflation, which excludes prices of food and energy, has slowed noticeably since March 2017 and has repeatedly fallen short of expectations. Disappointing inflation data pushed down long-term Treasury yields, as responses to the data releases have shown. For example, the May 2017 report of the consumer price index released on June 14 led to an immediate fall in the 10-year yield by about 0.1%.
While professional forecasters have lowered their near-term outlook for inflation in response to the recent data, inflation expectations over the next few quarters typically play a very small role for the 10-year yield. What matters are expectations over the entire 10 years, hence understanding the role of this expectations component requires a long-run perspective. Interestingly, long-term inflation expectations in surveys have not budged over the course of 2017 and remain firmly anchored at the Fed’s long-run inflation target of 2%, as noted in the Survey of Professional Forecasters or the New York Fed’s Survey of Primary Dealers (SPD). Overall, there is no survey evidence that suggests any meaningful downward shift in the inflation expectations underlying long-term yields.
On the other hand, inflation compensation, the difference between nominal Treasury yields and real, that is, inflation-indexed yields—based on prices of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS—has fallen quite noticeably. As Figure 2 shows, between December 12, 2016, and November 7, 2017, 10-year inflation compensation fell by 0.13%, accounting for about half of the decline in the nominal 10-year yield. This further supports the view that inflation played an important role in the yield curve flattening in 2017, as does the fact that inflation compensation often fell exactly when the disappointing inflation data were released.
Figure 2
Financial market changes between December 12, 2016, and November 7, 2017 Note: Absolute changes are measured in basis points, which are hundredths of a percentage point.
An explanation that reconciles the stable survey expectations with the decline in inflation compensation and nominal yields is that the inflation risk premium has fallen. This premium compensates investors for the uncertainty about future bond returns due to changes in inflation. It is defined as the difference between inflation compensation and inflation expectations over the same horizon and can be either positive or negative, depending on whether investors are more concerned about high or low inflation. Data and market commentary suggest that, since March 2017, investors have become increasingly worried about low inflation, and that this concern about downside inflation risk has likely pushed the inflation risk premium into more negative territory. Investors are paying a higher premium for nominal bonds because they value them as a hedge against low inflation.
The equilibrium real rate and a new normal for the fed funds rate
Like expectations for future inflation, the expectations of future short-term real interest rates are a fundamental determinant of long-term yields. Here again, what matters is the average expectations over the entire maturity horizon, say 10 years. While expectations of the real short rate in the near term are affected by the business cycle and monetary policy, long-run expectations are determined and anchored by the equilibrium real interest rate, or r-star. This long-run trend of the real rate is the level at which it is expected to settle after temporary shocks and cyclical fluctuations have dissipated. Both conceptually and empirically, r-star is a key factor for explaining the swings in long-term interest rates, particularly over long periods (Bauer and Rudebusch 2017). Since long-run expectations of inflation are essentially fixed at the Fed’s inflation target of 2%, changes in r-star are the main factor affecting the long-run equilibrium level for the short-term nominal interest rate, that is, the “normal” level of the federal funds rate.
Model-based estimates of r-star in the United States and internationally have been extremely low for a number of years for structural reasons, including low productivity growth and aging populations (Williams 2017). These estimates have not fallen further over the past year. But r-star may still help explain declines in yields, because what matters for bond yields are market participants’ perceptions about r-star, rather than the output of statistical models. The concept of r-star has received increasing attention among researchers, in market commentary and in the media, and as the low estimates of r-star have become more widely discussed, market participants may have adjusted their perceptions accordingly. Furthermore, the longer-run federal funds rate in the FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections has also gradually moved down. For example, the central tendency declined from a range of 3.0–3.3% in June 2016 to a range of 2.8–3.0% in June 2017. At the same time, survey expectations of the long-run federal funds rate have shifted down as well, as in the Blue Chip Financial Forecasts and the SPD, supporting the view that market participants and forecasters have lowered their estimates of r-star. It therefore appears that perceptions of r-star played a role not only in keeping yields near historical lows over the course of this economic recovery (Bauer and Rudebusch 2016), but also in explaining part of the more recent decline.
The term premium
The final component of long-term Treasury yields is the term premium, which captures all factors other than expectations of future inflation and real short-term rates. It includes the inflation risk premium as well as any effects of changes in supply and demand that are unrelated to expectations, such as safe-haven demand for Treasuries, market sentiment, and possible mispricing. Figure 2 shows that two prominent yield curve models from the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco and New York both estimate substantial declines in the term premium, even larger than the decline in yields. This is consistent with the observations of stable inflation expectations, a modest decline in perceived r-star, and a substantial decline in the inflation risk premium and other components of the term premium. Most model- and survey-based estimates agree that the term premium is currently lower than usual or even negative.
One reason for this low term premium is the Fed’s large holdings of Treasuries and MBS. By buying over $4 trillion worth of bonds, the Fed reduced the available supply of bonds, pushing prices up and yields down. While initially the Fed’s balance sheet policies also affected long-term yields by changing expectations of future short rates—that is, through so-called signaling effects (Bauer and Rudebusch 2011)—they now mainly depress the term premium. Estimates by Bonis, Ihrig, and Wei (2017) suggest that the term premium is currently about 0.9% lower than it would be without the Fed’s large securities holdings, and that this term premium effect will gradually diminish with the reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet. Recent FOMC communication about beginning the reduction did not lead to appreciable responses in Treasury yields. This suggests that investors did not substantially change their projections of the future Fed balance sheet, and that signaling effects were also largely absent. Overall, it appears that the transparent communication about and the predictable nature of the balance sheet normalization have helped the Fed avoid any sudden reactions in financial markets and a repeat of the infamous “taper tantrum” of 2013.
Expectations for fiscal stimulus through lower taxes and higher infrastructure spending, which had driven up bond yields after the 2016 presidential election, have waned in 2017, as evident in surveys, market data, and Wall Street commentary. For example, the majority of respondents to the July SPD viewed changes in the outlook for U.S. fiscal policy as an important driver for changes in the 10-year Treasury yield since December 2016. Daily movements in yields provide additional support: Treasury yields declined on days with negative headlines about domestic politics and geopolitical risks, such as increasing tension with North Korea. Domestic political and geopolitical uncertainty appears to be an important contributor to lower Treasury yields.
Other factors are also likely to have contributed to the decline in the term premium. Investors may be buying Treasury bonds to hedge their exposure to the stock market, which as Figure 2 shows has substantially appreciated in 2017. Furthermore, Treasuries have become more attractive due to accommodative monetary policy abroad, such as in the euro area, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and the increasing divergence from Fed policy. However, the falling dollar value in Figure 2 suggests that international capital flows were not the main factor driving up Treasury bond prices.
Conclusion
While an exact accounting for the factors driving long-term Treasury yields lower since late 2016 is difficult, the data suggest the following overall picture: Long-run inflation expectations have been stable, but investors are worried about the risk of lower inflation, pushing down the inflation risk premium. Perceptions of r-star have shifted down somewhat. Fed communication about balance sheet normalization has not noticeably affected the term premium, which instead appears to have declined mainly due to changes in inflation risk and political uncertainty.
Inflation expectations and perceptions of r-star typically change gradually, but there is some risk that the unusually low term premium could suddenly rise. In particular, perceived inflation risk could reverse its course quickly if inflation suddenly trended up. Similarly, if investors’ expectations about the Fed’s balance sheet were to change suddenly, or if investor sentiment about the relative attractiveness of Treasuries deteriorated for other reasons, the term premium could rise quickly. Hence there is some risk of rising Treasury yields, which some may view with concern given that high values in equity and other markets are partially based on low interest rates.
Michael D. Bauer is a research advisor in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
References
Bauer, Michael D., and Glenn D. Rudebusch. 2011. “Signals from Unconventional Monetary Policy.” FRBSF Economic Letter 2011-36 (November 21).
Bauer, Michael D., and Glenn D. Rudebusch. 2016. “Why Are Long-Term Interest Rates So Low?” FRBSF Economic Letter 2016-36 (December 5).
Bauer, Michael D., and Glenn D. Rudebusch. 2017. “Interest Rates Under Falling Stars.” FRB San Francisco Working Paper 2017-16.
Bonis, Brian, Jane Ihrig, and Min Wei. 2017. “The Effect of the Federal Reserve’s Securities Holdings on Longer-term Interest Rates.” Board of Governors, FEDS Notes, April 20.
Williams, John C. 2017. “The Global Growth Slump: Causes and Consequences.” FRBSF Economic Letter 2017-19 (July 3).May 7
TREKKING WITH ABRAHAM
“…before Abraham was, I AM … ” John 8:58
(John 8:56 – 58)
It all depends on the tone of voice. How on earth could,“Abraham exulted that he should see my day,” warrant an audience response of,“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Tone of voice and emphasis of words can change the meaning in any language. If the name “Abraham” in Christ’s statement is said with a slower slightly deeper tone, it would suggest that the one speaking actually knew Abraham and that because of knowing him you were aware that he exulted in His day, because Christ saw his response to such a thought. It was as if Jesus was “name dropping”. “My friend Abraham. Oh yes I remember chatting with him. Abraham exulted that he should see my day.” Whatever it sounded like in the intonation of the Aramaic or Greek (whatever language was being used at the time) it left the audience with no other conclusion. This man Jesus is telling us that He actually knew Abraham. It sounded just as strange in any language as it does in plain English.
The point is that these Jews knew that Daniel had referred to a visible form of Yahweh that He referred to as the “Ancient of Days”. Micah prophesied, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrath, small among the thousands of Judah, out of you shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2). The biblical teaching of Christianity that Christ was eternally with God the Father and stepped out of eternity and into time and became a man was not in the slightest alien to the Jewish understanding of the Messiah. So, yet again, I ask the question: If the issue at hand between the Pharisees and Jesus was, “Are you the Messiah or not?” the remark about knowing Abraham was perfectly sensible, rational and scripturally logical. God actually appeared to Abraham in human form. Genesis 15 tells us twice that, “The word of the Lord came to Abraham.” John tells us clearly that the Word was God, was with God, and became flesh. So notwithstanding whether or not Moses had a clue what he was writing when he put quill to parchment, following normal terms of understanding and interpretation, Genesis 15 could mean that the Christ to come in the distant future appeared in the same form as He would be as an adult and spoke to Abraham. If my thoughts are correct, Abraham would have spent the rest of his life exulting in the promise of the Messiah to come. In any case, whether or not my wandering thoughts have any substance to them, Jesus Christ certainly knew and was aware of Abraham exulting about anything in the span of his life, especially concerning Messiah’s arrival in some “far in the future” generation. So here was a young man, in his early thirties telling folks in the passing of a conversation (howbeit a vicious argument) that he had met Abraham around two thousand years earlier. He claimed equality with God. Abraham was deeply joyful at the thought of His first advent. This man, Jesus of Nazereth, showed an incredible intimate knowledge of the fine details and significance of various scriptures. He had cleansed people of Leprosy. He had healed all manner of diseases. He had actually raised the dead. He answered questions that the Rabbi’s had puzzled over for generations. John the Baptist had appeared in the wilderness some time earlier and had pointed this man out of the crowd. The discussion was all about, “Is He the Messiah?” Now I wonder if there is any truth in what He is claiming? (Doh!) I remember 40 years ago hearing a very Godly man by the name of John Prentiss. He was an Irishman who had given his life to ministering in India. My memories of this man are full of warmth and power. He preached one time concerning the woman at the well in John chapter 4. He only spoke for around twenty minutes. But the point he made impacted me greatly (probably why I remember him from as far back as 1970 or 71). The woman at the well was full of an expectation of the Messiah coming in some future date. “We know that Messiah will come one day, far in the future. And when He comes He will show us all things” (Lannon’s paraphrase). In other words she was saying, “It’s all good and religious to expect it all in some future generation. But be realistic! Could He come now? Don’t be silly!” She was filled with expectation of some form of natural arrival of the desire of the nations, the Christ of God. She was looking in the eyes of Christ as she made the statement. “He that is talking to you is Messiah!” was Christ’s answer. The gravity and the power of all Christ’s words to the woman at the well was enough to settle the issue. This man was absolutely kosher (pardon the pun). There was no lie, no deceit, and no exaggeration. This man must be the person He claims to be. She ran off and left her water pot! Imagine that! She actually ran off and left the water pot she had come to fill for her family and home needs. That in itself was the main, obvious, exterior sign that the woman was converted to Christ. It is the same principle here with the Pharisees. These Pharisees were looking into the whites of the eyes of Messiah, the Christ, and the Son of the Living God and yet they were arguing the toss about who He claimed to be. But if loving God was a matter of the heart – and it is; If serving God was a matter of the spirit – and it is; If loving God was a matter of being open to hear and know the truth, to feel it and be impacted by it – and it is, why oh why did these people feel and revel in such a vicious hatred and a vitriolic desire to kill and murder Jesus of Nazereth. The only common sense deduction is that what Jesus said was the absolute truth. These people were, because of a life time of bad choices, brought under the |
enrolled at the time.
After attending the University of Chicago and completing her Master’s degree in bacteriology at the Boston University School of Medicine, Fe del Mundo returned to the Philippines in 1941. She began working with the International Red Cross, and set up a hospice at an internment camp during the Japanese invasion of her country. She became known as “The Angel of Santo Tomas” for her work helping children detained at the University of Santo Tomas.
After the Japanese shut down her hospice in 1943, the mayor of Manila asked her to set up a government hospital. She became director of the new medical center, but soon became frustrated with the constraints of working for the government, and left to start a private hospital.
To fund her hospital, Fe sold her home and almost everything she owned. The Children’s Medical Center in Quezon City, the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines, opened in 1957. The following year, she conferred her ownership of the hospital to a board of trustees.
While Dr. del Mundo continued to practice pediatrics at The Children’s Medical Center, she also continued her research into infectious diseases. Undaunted by the lack of modern laboratory facilities in the Philippines, she often shipped samples abroad for analysis. In her lifetime she published over a hundred articles, reviews, and reports in medical journals. Her research into dengue fever especially contributed to a greater understanding of how the disease works and affects children.
Fe also wrote the “Textbook of Pediatrics”, which was used in medical schools in the Philippines for many years. Throughout her career she was active in promoting public health, with an emphasis on rural mothers and their children. Her work also helped to facilitate and improve the coordination between hospitals, doctors, and midwives.
Since she sold her home to fund the opening of The Children’s Medical Center in 1957, Fe took up residence on the second floor of the hospital. She lived in the hospital for the rest of her life, and was still making rounds to check on patients when she was wheelchair-bound at the age of 99. She passed away from a heart attack just a few months before her 100th birthday in 2011.
References
“Del Mundo, Fe | BIOGRAPHY.” (1977). Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.rmaf.org.ph/newrmaf/main/awardees/awardee/profile/190
“Fe del Mundo.” (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fe_del_Mundo
Lim, F. “Woman of Many Firsts.” (2007). PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM. Retrieved from http://pcij.org/i-report/2007/fe-del-mundo.html
“Matriculation of Women: 1871 – 1920.” (n.d.). Harvard Medical School, Joint Committee on the Status of Women. Retrieved from http://hms.harvard.edu/departments/joint-committee-status-women/resources/interesting-reports/matriculation-women-harvard-medical-school/1871-1920
Recommended ReadingOur offensive and defensive player grades for the Saints much-needed victory over the Chicago Bears are now ready for viewing, along with individual snap counts and written summaries detailing the performance of every player.
Coming off the back of what we concluded was the worst game of the Sean Payton era, the Saints went into Soldier Field on Monday night knowing that drastic improvements were needed across the board. Even on first viewing, it was obvious that the Saints’ were thankfully much-improved, albeit against a raggedy Bears outfit. Regardless of the strength of the Bears though, it was still refreshing to see the Saints dominate the Bears on a field that has oft served as a graveyard for Saints teams in recent years. On the whole the grades this week are good, very good for some in fact, so read on to get The BoiLa’s full Chi-Town rundown.
For those of you viewing our Player Grades for the first time, our Player Performance Grading System uses a 9-point color-coded scale to produce an easy to understand visual indicator of the performance of each player on rushing plays, passing plays and in the game overall. You can find a more thorough explanation of our grading system, along with diagrams of what exactly everything means, by clicking here.
And as always, for ease of reference, our 9-point color-coded grading scale is pictured below:
Ok, onto the grades. (Please note, you can click on the grading chart for each individual position group to load a slightly enlarged version in a new window/tab).
OFFENSE
After last week’s showing, for many players there were few places this week’s offensive grades could trend apart from upwards. The most important of those that had to bounce-back was Drew Brees himself, after putting in an uncharacteristically inaccurate and out of rhythm showing in Week 14. Thankfully Brees did “bounce-back”, turning in what was one of his performances this season. After disappointing against an inexperienced secondary last week, Brees went someway to redeeming himself, victimising the slew of young defensive backs that makeup the Bears secondary. If Brees remains in a similar zone to Monday night from hereon in, the Saints can still be a threat in the post-season. If he reverts back to Carolina form, the Saints won’t even get there.
What made Brees’ job easier on Monday night was the ability of his receivers to get open. Colston, Graham and Stills accounted for over half of all completions on the day (15 out of 29), and all three showed, in their own ways, how proficient they can be at getting open. Graham and Colston also showed safer hands than what’s been on show recently, which was definitely reassuring. The receiving corps wasn’t quite mistake-free however, with Nick Toon giving up a red zone fumble early on. Such errors could prove costly down the stretch, and you’d imagine Toon will be doing a few extra ball-security drills this week as a result. Still, this shouldn’t de-rail what has been a strong second half of the season for the young wideout.
Another factor that contributed to Brees’ aerial effectiveness was a fairly strong showing from the offensive line is pass protection, although this was somewhat overshadowed by Terron Armstead leaving the game early for the second week in succession. We stressed in our Offensive Preview for this game how important it would be for Armstead to actually make it through the full 60 minutes. Looking back, we probably cursed it there and then, but in fairness to Harris, he actually held up pretty well this week while deputising. He didn’t shut down Jared Allen by any means, but he did do a much better job when compared to his efforts against Charles Johnson or Carlos Dunlap in previous weeks. The other four members of the line were solid enough in both phases. Zach Strief’s pass protection was the biggest positive, as the right tackle proceeded to shut down Willie Young on almost every down. Strief may sometimes struggle against top level defensive ends, but his ability to completely shut-down many others is certainly valuable to this offense.
Monday night also saw the welcome return of the New Orleans screen game, obviously starring none other that the PT Cruiser. The Saints had attempted to get the screen going ever since Thomas returned in Week 12, but a run of Pro Bowl-calibre linebackers (Suggs/Harrison/Kuechly etc) seemed to be scuppering the Saints’ best laid plans week-after-week. However, with a more mediocre set of backers ling up for Chicago on Monday night, the PT screen was back with a bang. With Atlanta possessing a similar looking group of young and inexperienced linebackers, Thomas could well be poised for more success in Sunday’s divisional showdown.
Focussing more on the actual ground game, the offensive line did a good job to keep the chains moving, despite never really opening up any gaping running lanes. This is the main reason why Ingram’s YPC was lower than normal, rather than a lack of effort from #22. Erik Lorig also had a good game contributing to the run game, and definitely now looks to be increasingly comfortable in this offense. The most obvious weak point in the run game on Monday night was unfortunately Ben Watson, who seems to have hit a wall as far as run blocking this season is concerned. It’s a strange one as Watson’s blocking was often the catalyst for many of Ingram/Robinson’s longer runs earlier this season. However, in recent weeks the veteran tight end appears to be struggling to engage even the most static of linebackers. With a $2million cap number in 2015, Watson will be keen to recapture some of that early season form if he wants to justify his 2015 price tag.
DEFENSE
We had flagged in our Defensive Preview that perhaps the easiest way to beat the Bears was… to let the Bears beat the Bears! And so it proved on Monday night. QB Jay Cutler had an appalling game, as the much maligned Saints defense were able to effectively shut out the Bears until near garbage time at Soldier Field.
Credit must go primarily to the Saints defensive line. As with most strong New Orleans defensive performances, it all started up front. In particular, the Saints pass rush was absolutely dominant on Monday night. Cutler was sacked a season high 7 times, with Junior Galette, Cam Jordan and Akiem Hicks all having very strong games in the pass rush. The best “all round” performance up front came from big John Jenkins, who absolutely controlled the line of scrimmage on both rushing and passing downs at Soldier Field. Jenkins has been inconsistent at best this year, but played with genuine hunger for all four quarters on Monday. If he can keep up that level, the Saints will be a far better defense for it down the stretch (and hopefully into the playoffs).
The pass rush didn’t only come from the defensive line on Monday, though. Cutler’s biggest foe was Saints LB David Hawthorne – who terrorised the interior of the Chicago O-Line with a series of blitzes, recording 3 sacks. Whilst Curtis Lofton continued his slight downward turn, Hawthorne was more than happy to pick up the slack. Overall he was arguably the Saints best defender on the day.
DC Rob Ryan rolled the dice on Monday with the Saints secondary, giving it a completely new look. However the gamble largely paid off. The secondary benefited hugely from the strong pass rush up front, which meant the CBs and safeties were not required to cover for the 5-6-7 seconds that opposing QBs have often had in the pocket against the Saints this year. Instead, Cutler was forced to offload the ball early or under duress, which made it far easier for the secondary to make plays.
Safety Pierre Warren continued to settle into the defensive scheme, and looked almost Sharper-esque at times patrolling the deep zone on Monday. Warren had two interceptions on the day, and otherwise assisted in taking away any kind of “home run” plays from the Bears. The Saints will certainly need a similar showing from Warren this week against the far superior Falcons offense. Fellow safeties Kenny Vaccaro and Jamarca Sanford also had solid outings on the day – Kenny V in particular looking much more comfortable in the nickel role. At cornerback, Keenan Lewis largely contained the potentially explosive Alshon Jeffery outside. Playing opposite Lewis was Terrence Frederick, for his first big league start. Frederick looked very much at home and showed good coverage skills and sound tackling technique. It had all the ingredients of a performance that Frederick can build on in the weeks to come. The defensive play of the day also came from the secondary, with Patrick Robinson making an exceptional diving pick in Q1.
Overall though, and as touched upon above, watching back Monday’s tape it remains genuinely difficult to know whether it was a case of Chicago’s offense being “that bad” or New Orleans’ defense being “that good”. As always, I would suspect the answer lies somewhere between the two. What was abundantly clear, though, was the hunger and intensity that the defense brought for all four quarters. Let’s hope Rob Ryan has bottled a strong dose of that up, to unleash on the Dirty Birds on Sunday.
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Agree with these grades? Think they’re way off the mark? Feel free to let us know in the comments below, or you can holler at us on Twitter @CrAwFiShBoiLa. If you’re interested in the rest of our Saints player grades then be sure to check our Saints Player Grades Archive.
At the BoiLa we’re now focussing all of our attention on the Atlanta Falcons, with a massive divisional tussle coming up against the Dirty Birds on Sunday. With that Falcons depth-chart much changed from the team that took the field in Week 1, be sure to check back on The BoiLa on Sunday for our Offense and Defense Previews, in which we’ll give you the lowdown on these “Week 16” Falcons and how the Saints matchup.
Also, to ensure you never miss a post on The BoiLa again, you can now subscribe by E-mail. Look out for the sign-up box which can be found on the sidebar to the right of the screen if you’re viewing on a desktop/laptop, or beneath this post somewhere if you’re using a smaller tablet/phone. (just keep scrolling!) It’s a totally free service, and I can assure you the only e-mails you’ll ever get from The BoiLa will simply be automated notifications that tell you when a new post has been uploaded… What more could you want?!
AdvertisementsThe spate of tower collapses are, by no means, isolated incidents. They have been a reccurent theme, despite these being subjected to wind speeds much below the expected design threshold. (Illustration by: C R Sasikumar)
Between April and June this year, well over a dozen high-capacity power transmission towers of 765 kV and 400 kV capacity, the backbone of the Indian electricity network, collapsed in the face of pre-monsoon winds, highlighting the fragility of the country’s grid infrastructure. The 765 kV double-circuit transmission towers hook up power lines that typically carry electricity to the tune of 3,000-5,000 MW and the collapse of more than one tower could potentially trigger a cascading grid failure, unless Special Protection Schemes are in place or the transmission system is spruced up to handle such a huge loss of power. The official estimate of the time taken to bring these towers back into operation ranges between a few days to well over a month in some cases.
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In response to the inter-state transmission towers — most of which are set-up by state-owned transmission firm Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL) — toppling like ninepins, the country’s grid manager, POSOCO, has raised the red flag. POSOCO has underlined the fact that as compared with first quarter of last fiscal (April-June 2014), there is a marked increase in the 765 kV tower collapses and damage in the first quarter of this financial year (April-June 2015), forcing the grid manager to issue an alert that these failures be “investigated thoroughly” and remedial measures “undertaken immediately” across all utilities. “In the absence of this, the grid continues to remain vulnerable,” POSOCO has observed in an official note, where it underscores the point that it is “improbable that all the failures are due to reasons beyond control, considering the geographical spread of incidents.”
[related-post]
The spate of tower collapses are, by no means, isolated incidents. They have been a reccurent theme, despite these being subjected to wind speeds much below the expected design threshold. This year, no major storm has been reported across the country during the April-June period.
In May last year, a record 30 transmission towers either collapsed or were severely damaged across the northern hinterland after a freak dust storm, forcing the grid manager to raise concerns over the large scale toppling of transmission towers, all of which were technically supposed to be designed to withstand much higher gusts of wind than the 115 kmph peak winds experienced on May 30, 2014.
Theoritically, 765kV transmission towers are supposed to be designed with higher safety margins and have a design life of about 100 years. A PGCIL official defended the quality of the country’s grid infrastructure and maintained that the 765 kV double circuit towers have been designed keeping in mind the maximum wind speed encountered in the region in the past 150 years and that all of these tower collapses were “isolated events”.
While regulators have been alive to the dangers posed by a spate of tower collapses on the overall functioning of the electricity grid, no concrete action has been initiated from the regualtory standpoint so far. In May 2014, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) did take up the incident of a load crash in the Northern Region on May 30, 2014 as a suo motu petition, but is yet to deliver an order.
As per the Bureau of India Standards’ Code of Practice for Design of Wind Loads for Buildings and Structures (IS-875 Part III), the basic design of structures such as buildings in areas around the National Capital Region and most of the northern region should factor in wind speed of 47 metres per second, which works to around 169 kmph. Additionally, for installations in open areas and high structures such as transmission towers, a margin of 10-15 per cent is to be further built in. For key structures such as high-tension 765kV towers, an extra safety margin of 7 per cent is supposed to have been factored in.
Incidently, in October last year, 28 months after two successive grid collapses triggered cascading outages across most of northern and eastern India, the country’s grid manager had red-flagged at least half-a-dozen hotspots in the nation’s grid infrastructure that continue to be vulnerable to high voltage tower collapses. According to an earlier July 2014 report by POSOCO, the lack of System Protection Schemes at these locations to mitigate the resulting unplanned outages and systemic shock put at risk major power generation complexes at locations that included Singrauli, Rihand, Vindhyachal, Korba, Ramagundam, Dadri, Sipat, Mundra and Sasan, which depend on high capacity 400 kV and 765 kV AC transmission corridors for power evacuation.
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The July POSOCO report too flagged that the CEA had revised the transmission planning security criteria in January 2013 after the July 2012 twin blackouts. The revised criteria required the grid to remain stable in case of two contingencies in the same area such as tripping of two transmission lines or the collapse of a tower carrying two circuits.While members of the Syria Civil Defence group in Syria, better known as the White Helmets, have been celebrated as brave humanitarians across the world, little is known about the contribution of their female members.
"Women are an essential part of the rescue work," White Helmet volunteer Manal Abazeed told Middle East Eye, while sitting at a quiet café near London’s River Thames.
"We will continue to do our part for as long as it takes," said Manal who will be heading back to the frontlines of Syria's southwestern city of Daraa in a couple of days.
An international 'Women of the Year' award just went to those in the White Helmets pic.twitter.com/F8C77ipsQo — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) October 19, 2017
The 46-year-old radiated pride as she spoke about the work she and her fellow female volunteers do as search-and-rescue workers.
Along with her fellow volunteer, Gardenia, Manal accepted an award of recognition on Tuesday on behalf of 100 female volunteers working with the White Helmets across Syria.
“I was honoured to receive this award on behalf of my sisters,” Manal told MEE. “But it pained me to receive it while so many people continue to die back home.”
Manal Abazeed has been a volunteer with the White Helmets since April 2015 (Olivia Alabaster/MEE)
The White Helmets operate a rescue service in rebel-held parts of Syria, which have been subjected to fierce bombardment by the government and Russia’s air force during the country’s civil war that has levelled whole city districts.
Sarah Brown, president of Theirworld, the children’s charity which gave Manal the award ahead of International Women’s Day, told ITV news on Wednesday: "Whilst most times people think of the men of the white helmets rushing in to save lives, today we wanted to honour the women, who have worked tirelessly and courageously."
Within a few months, we were with the men in the ambulances and on the frontlines - Manal, White Helmet volunteer
Originally an accountant, Manal has been volunteering as a paramedic with the White Helmets for the past two years. She decided to dedicate her time to saving victims of the war when her father died of cancer due to a lack of medical care in her hometown.
“We couldn’t take him to hospital because of the siege and air strikes,” said Manal while fighting back her tears.
“When he died, I decided to join the White Helmets so that I could learn how to help myself and others around me,” she added.
During the first few years of the war, many search-and-rescue groups formed by Syrian civilians operated across Syria under different names. However, in October 2014 the various groups agreed to a single statement of principles and code of conduct, uniting to form the Syrian Civil Defence Force, with NGOs and fans later dubbing them the White Helmets.
Awareness raising campaigns
Manal specialises in public education awareness of safety in case of attacks, education on explosive weapons, trauma counselling and childbirth.
She says raising awareness has been especially important in helping families deal with the war and learn how to keep themselves as safe as possible.
“Children would be picking up and playing with explosive weapons not knowing what they are…killing themselves and those around them,” explained Manal. “We went around teaching them about these things.”
Like Manal, 33-year-old Gardenia, who also began volunteering with the White Helmets in Daraa in 2015, said that the role of women has also been unique in helping transport medical supplies from one location to another.
“Although it is no longer the case, when we first started, it was less likely for the police to stop and search a woman. And so we were the ones responsible for carrying aid and supplies to field hospitals and clinics,” explained Gardenia.
Although the first women to join the rescue group weren’t readily accepted, the community gradually recognised the vital role women played, said the women.
“At first, we only went around schools and homes to help raise awareness, but within a few months, we were with the men in the ambulances and on the frontlines,” said Manal.
Manal Abazeed (R) and president of Theirworld, Sara Brown, in London on 7 March (Theirworld)
According to Gardenia, both men and women take the same responsibility to help save victims when an air strike hits.
Gardenia, who learned the basics of first aid and rescue work while volunteering with the Red Crescent before joining the White Helmets, now helps coordinate the work of the Syrian Civil Defence group’s work from abroad. She had to leave Syria after she felt increasingly threatened while in Daraa.
“After working with the group for several months, I eventually became known to the authorities and I could no longer stay in Syria,” she explained.
Allegations rejected
Despite the dangers she has faced for working with the group, Gardenia said that joining the White Helmets was a natural step for her as well as many women who continue to join the rescue group today.
“When doctors and nurses were being targeted and detained, normal people like us had to step up and do what we can,” she said.
Despite a documentary about the civil defence group winning an award at the Oscars this year, some people have accused the group of siding with rebel groups against the Syrian government.
Responding to those claims Gardenia said: “As humanitarians, we don’t stop to ask an injured man or woman what their affiliation is.. we don’t have time for that and we don’t care about that.”
“We help everyone, anywhere, regardless of their political or religious affiliations,” said Gardenia. “These infuriating and totally unfounded claims have been used to tarnish every good effort in Syria.”
Although both women have come face to face with death many times during their work, they carry hope for the future and say they will continue to do their part, even after the war finally comes to an end.
“We will help restore our country and bring our people back to Syria,” said Manal. “We’ve done a lot of work, but there is a lot more to be done.”
Additional reporting by Olivia AlabasterFrank Beamer’s Future Unclear
By Southern Pigskin Staff
SouthernPigskin.com
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Virginia Tech (3-5, 1-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) has lost four of its last five and heads to Boston College on Saturday needing to win three of its last four to keep alive its streak of 22 seasons ending in a bowl game.
Longtime Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer isn't worried about his future with the Hokies or his legacy, at least not at the moment.
"The only thing I'm really concerned about right now is Boston College," Beamer said Monday when asked about the firings of friends Mack Brown at Texas and Al Golden at Miami. "That's the only thing on my mind.
"I can tell you the second part of that is whatever is good for Virginia Tech, what's best for Virginia Tech is what I'm into," the coach said. "I've always felt that way and always will, and that's it."
Beamer, the career victories leader among Division I coaches with 276, is in his 29th season at his alma mater, a program he talked about taking to a national championship when he took over in 1987. The Hokies got there in the 1999 season, a Michael Vick-led team losing 46-29 to Florida State in the Sugar Bowl.
They have played in five major bowl games since, beating only Cincinnati in the 2009 Orange Bowl.
But nothing lasts forever and questions are being raised if it's time for a change.
Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock Babcock is declining all interview requests, but in January he said Beamer was never in danger of losing his job last year.
That was then, before the Hokies stumbled out of the gate.
Babcock and Beamer met twice after the regular season — the second time at Beamer's home when he was recuperating from throat surgery.
The bowl-bound Hokies were coming off their third consecutive pedestrian season, a run of mediocrity that followed a nation-best eight consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins. Beamer had missed most of his team's bowl preparations after his surgery and was forced to watch and manage the game from the coaches' box.
"We have high expectations here, and the guy who's our coach created them," Babcock said then. "There were no ultimatums issued, no magic numbers issued. I support coach and I think we're going to be a lot better next year."
It hasn't happened.
Virginia Tech (3-5, 1-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) has lost four of its last five and heads to Boston College on Saturday needing to win three of its last four to keep alive its streak of 22 seasons ending in a bowl game.
"What I really wanted to hear from coach, and I saw it crystal clear was, is he ready to get back in the saddle and dig in?" Babcock said in January. "Not that he hasn't been, but really get this thing going, and I was very satisfied with that. He has a lot of drive to get this back. He's a humble guy, but he wants to compete. And I think he's very well aware of the expectations that he's created."
Those lofty expectations are what make the current state of the program tough for Hokies fans and have led to questions about Beamer's future.
Copyright 2015 by The Associated PressFrom Friday, March 25th through Sunday, March 27th, Valiant is charging into WonderCon 2016 – and we’re bringing a load of convention-only exclusives, signings, programming, and panels to celebrate!
All weekend long, join Valiant in downtown Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Convention Center at Booth #2004 for a first-hand look at the most acclaimed superhero publisher in comics with a complete selection of Valiant trade paperbacks and deluxe hardcovers for critically acclaimed and award-winning titles, including X-O MANOWAR, BLOODSHOT REBORN, DIVINITY, IMPERIUM, BOOK OF DEATH, NINJAK, RAI, and many more!
Plus: Available only at WonderCon 2016, don’t miss the A&A: THE ADVENTURES OF ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #1 WONDERCON EXCLUSIVE VARIANT – featuring the artwork of Megan Hutchison (Liberator)! Red-hot writer Rafer Roberts (Plastic Farm) and superstar artist David Lafuente (Ultimate Spider-Man) kick off the FIRST ISSUE of Valiant’s next blockbuster series here with “IN THE BAG” – an insane rescue mission sending Archer into the depths of Armstrong’s bottomless satchel to free his roguish partner from an ages-old enemy…but only if he can fight his way through a mind-bending maze of history’s greatest lost treasures first!
Pack an extra sharpie for signings throughout the weekend from an all-star cast of special guests, including rising star Jody Houser (FAITH) and acclaimed colorist David Baron (BLOODSHOT REBORN)! And don’t miss the truckload of brand-new Valiant merchandise cruising into Los Angeles, including t-shirts featuring X-O MANOWAR, BLOODSHOT, HARBINGER, and ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, tote bags, infant snapsuits, and more!
The action starts on Friday, March 25th at 1:30 p.m. PT in Panel Room #152, with Valiant 101: New Fans Start Here – a concise and fun-filled introduction to Valiant’s biggest, most memorable characters! You’ve heard the buzz… You’ve seen the reviews… Now find out where to start with Valiant Comics! From X-O MANOWAR to NINJAK to THE DEATH-DEFYING DR. MIRAGE and ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, jump on board here with a fun-filled introduction to Valiant’s biggest, most memorable characters…and find out for yourself why Buzzfeed calls Valiant “a universe full of your new favorite superheroes”!
Then, fight for the future with Valiant’s most ambitious crossover event yet on Saturday, March 26th at 1:30 p.m. PT in Room #515B for Valiant: The Summer of 4001 A.D.! This summer…the future of Earth will be decided in the stars when Valiant presents the blockbuster crossover event of the year in 4001 A.D.! Now, get primed for the epic showdown between Rai and the forces of New Japan right here at WonderCon with an exclusive panel presentation from an all-star cast of Valiant staff and creators! Plus: don’t miss an all-new round of news and announcements for ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, BLOODSHOT REBORN, DIVINITY, FAITH, NINJAK, X-O MANOWAR, and more!
But we’re not done yet! Join us for a special panel that no aspiring creator can miss on Sunday, March 27th at 2:00 p.m. PT in Panel Room #515A, for the Valiant: Crafting Comics Spotlight! From pitches all the way to the printed page, find out how Valiant’s superstar creators and crack editorial team create the award-winning series behind the largest independent superhero universe in comics today! Join Publisher Fred Pierce and special surprise guests as they go behind the scenes to reveal the secrets to developing and editing hit series like BLOODSHOT REBORN, DIVINITY, FAITH, X-O MANOWAR, and many more. No fan or aspiring creator will want to miss this illuminating guide to the fundamentals of crafting comics like a Valiant pro!
We’ll see you in the Golden State!
For more information, visit Valiant on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and ValiantUniverse.com.
For Valiant merchandise and more, visit ValiantStore.com.In his latest snapshot of housing unaffordability, researcher Andy Yan shows the percentage of Metro Vancouver homes valued over $1 million rose from 28 per cent to 43 per cent in 2016.
For the past five years, Yan’s so-called “million dollar line” looking at home values based on data from B.C. Assessment has been a visual way to capture the geographical divide in housing prices.
At first, the symbolic measure sat around Main Street between Vancouver’s west and east sides before drifting eastward beyond Fraser Street. Last year, for the first time, it fanned out as Yan accessed data to include rising prices for homes across Metro Vancouver.
For 2016, which is based on assessments at July 2015, Richmond, Burnaby, Vancouver, North Vancouver and West Vancouver all had over 60 per cent of homes worth 1 million or more — with West Vancouver at the highest with 97 per cent.
Said Yan: “I’m guessing this rise is probably not due to increases in local wages and incomes. I think it’s likely a convergence and combination of constrained supply for single family detached housing, low interest loans, property speculation, and global capital with a sprinkle of trying to secure adequate family-oriented housing for many households with children.”
There doesn’t seem to be an abating of this trend in close sight despite softening real estate prices for some parts and categories of Metro Vancouver in 2016.
B.C. Assessment has warned that single detached homes in Metro Vancouver will be assessed 30 to 50 per cent higher for 2017 taxes than in 2016. It said that these properties went up the most in Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, the North Shore, Squamish and in the Tri-Cities from July 1, 2015 to July 1, 2016, which is the date on which yearly assessments for 2017 taxes are set.
Yan, who is director at Simon Fraser University’s City Program, also looked at the impact of transportation costs on housing affordability.
In the City of Vancouver the average cost of transportation over 25 years — assuming two per cent inflation per year and that nothing changes to improve the current situation — works out to be $298,459, according to Yan.
By comparison, if you live in the Township of Langley, the 25-year cost of transportation would be $563,755.
Across the Metro Vancouver region, if you add in amortized 25 year average annual transportation cost estimates, the percentage of homes with a cost of over $1 million rises significantly from 43 per cent to 92 per cent.
In areas such as Vancouver, the North Shore, Burnaby and Richmond, adding in such transportation costs increases the percentage of home values, but it’s in Coquitlam, New Westminster, Surrey, Delta, Port Coquitlam and the township and city of Langley where the contrast is most pronounced. In Coquitlam, the percentage of home valued over $1 million goes from 22.4 per cent to 97 per cent if you account for estimated amortized transportation costs. In the township of Langley, the percentage rises from 4.8 per cent to 90 per cent.
“This is only looking at the (straight) cost of transportation, not even the time,” said Yan.
He continued: “There is ‘phantom affordability’ too, if you will. This idea that you can drive (further from the city) until you qualify (to buy a home) doesn’t take into consideration that as home mortgages (cost less) transportation mortgages (in some areas) go up.”
Yan said this is precisely the direction seen in some U.S. cities, where the areas hardest hit by affordability woes have been the outskirts and suburbs rather than the city centres even when they have seen some of the highest home prices.
jlee-young@postmedia.comlol sentences like that reminds me of whenever a very pregnant celebrity is out and about journalists will write "showing off her baby bump", as if the celeb wakes up and puts on her pregnancy belly before she leaves the house. Reply
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I didn't even finish this book tbh. I remember thinking that I was reading a whole different series while reading it, so I just stopped reading it all together. Reply
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it was so bad. Reply
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lol thats how I feel right now.
I've read the first two books before but i'm reading MJ for the first time and it's taking me like a month to get through this shit lmao
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i am so thirsty for liam hemsworth uhhh Reply
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is she wearing a wig for her scenes then? Reply
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Yeah Reply
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Why are they filming in Paris? Reply
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They're filming all the outdoor capitol stuff there. Reply
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It's not even Paris, they are filming in the subburbs with only 70' style building in grey concrete.... It's weird tbh, like, isn't there grey concrete buildings in america? Reply
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She looks best as Katniss. Reply
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That quileted throw rillness. I see the future cosplayers stealing their grandma's couch blankets. Poor elderly Reply
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lmao...i can see that making the news "grand children keeping the elderly cold, find out why, next on news 5" Reply
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STOOOOP LOL Reply
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This excites me.
I'm rather thirsty for this movie.
Much more than part 1, though i'm also excited to see my boo being tortured because i like that angst. plus katniss, if done right, will be a goddamn mess and it's glorious. Reply
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lol I feel so bad about being excited for part 1 because of Peeta. But like: GIVE ME HIM SUFFERING. Reply
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lbr i'm going to be fast forwarding to those scenes when the dvd comes out.
i really hope that rumored opening is true and that we start with peeta being tortured. it'll put me in the right frame of mind for paaaaain that i enjoy. lol Reply
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MTE.
Give me PTSD Katniss Reply
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i do |
] of cortico-striatal function in sequence processing and production. With the PFC as the reservoir and the striatum as readout, the model provided an explanation of one of the first neurophysiological studies of mixed selectivity in PFC [ 4 ]. Barone and Joseph [ 4 ] identified neurons in the peri-arcuate oculomotor area whose responses encoded a mixture of spatial location and sequence rank, in an oculomotor sequencing task. In Dominey et al. [ 8 ], the recurrent PFC reservoir modeled a prevalent feature of cortical connectivity which is a strong local recurrence, and generated a mixture of spatial and sequential rank selectivity in the reservoir neurons, as observed in primate prefrontal cortex single units [ 4 ]. This reservoir computing paradigm was further developed independently by two teams in computational neuroscience [ 9 ] and machine learning [ 10, 11 ]. Maass et al. [ 9 ] developed a spiking neuron reservoir called the “liquid state machine” and demonstrated the universal computing power of this type of network, while Jaeger investigated the signal processing capacities of an analog reservoir called the “echo state network”. Remarkably, these spatio-temporal reservoir properties have also been found in primary cortical areas of monkeys and cats [ 12 – 15 ], as stimuli presented in the past influence the representation of subsequent stimuli. Furthermore, and importantly, in vitro randomly connected recurrent networks of cortical rat neurons display spatio-temporal processing similar to a reservoir [ 16 ].
Recently, Rigotti et al. [ 2 ] proposed that, rather than prewiring a network for the relevant representations needed for a task, activity in a randomly connected network could represent essentially all possible combinations of the task stimuli. The corresponding recombination of inputs observed in the activity of single units has been termed mixed selectivity, and its non-linear components are believed to support the representation of the conjunction of several stimuli. Although observed in early PFC studies while animals performed tasks involving multiple variables [ 3 – 6 ], mixed selectivity in the PFC has only recently become a specific research focus [ 7 ]. In the latter study, the authors demonstrated that these non-linear combinations of task variables were absent in PFC activity when monkeys made errors, emphasizing the importance of mixed selectivity in encoding behavioral context. This context can be defined not only with the current set of stimuli directly available from the environment, but also with previous stimuli and actions that define the internal state of the agent.
One of the properties that sets primates apart in the animal kingdom is their extraordinary adaptation skills which are supported by efficient context-dependent learning mechanisms. The ability to reliably encode unanticipated behavioral contexts appears to be crucial to such adaptive capabilities. Indeed, one of the most influential theories of prefrontal cortex (PFC) function states that in order to link sensory information to appropriate actions, the PFC must develop the relevant contextual representations, with a high capacity for multimodality and integration [ 1 ]. Although the remarkable representation capabilities in the activity of PFC areas have been explored in a wide variety of tasks, their origin is still unknown, as is the formidable capacity of the PFC to represent such diverse relevant situations.
A state space analysis was performed, allowing visualization of population activity trajectories, with a principal component analysis (PCA). Activities of each successive trial in a problem were averaged at the level of single neurons over each trial type: INC1 and INC2 were the first and second unrewarded search trials, COR1 the first rewarded trial, and COR2-4 the repeat trials with the presentation of the signal to change at the end of the COR4 trial. INC3 trials were ignored due to lack of trials in dACC data, but results with few trials show that INC3 trajectory was very close to INC2 trajectory and did not add relevant information to this analysis. A subset of 184 dACC neurons were selected for having at least 10 trials of each type. The activity of each dACC neuron was time normalized using the above described method with 100 ms time bins and then mean normalized over all bins for each trial type. Similarly, reservoir neuron activity was averaged over all trials of a trial type for each time point. PCA was performed on the data matrix where columns correspond to individual neurons and rows represent the concatenated time points of each trial type. Each cell in the matrix was the mean normalized average firing rate of one neuron at one time bin for one trial type. All reservoir neurons were included in this analysis.
A decoding method was used to assess the capability of a linear readout to extract a continuous phase signal from the dynamic activity of the reservoir and dACC neurons. In the absence of a context neuron, a readout unit without feedback to the reservoir was trained to activate similarly to the phase context neuron, i.e. to start firing when the signal to change was given to the network, firing continuously during search phase and deactivate when the first reward was given during COR1 trials. With this method, phase information extraction had to rely only on the activity of the reservoir neurons. The result of this training produces a linear readout of the phase. Similarly, task phase was decoded from dACC population activity with time normalization (20ms bins) over all time bins of a trial after training a ridge regression on full trial activities. For training the decoder, the search trials included all INC trials, and the repeat phase was composed of COR2-3 trials. COR1 and COR4 trials lying at the transition between search and repeat were only used in testing. A subset of 290/546 neurons were selected for having at least 20 trials in each category (search/repeat). A linear readout model was derived from a linear regression between the full trial length (all time bins considered as an observation) and the desired output which was 1 for search trials and 0 for repeat trials. The output of the decoder was classified as correct if it was superior to 0.5 in search trials, and inferior to 0.5 in repeat trials. Ridge regression (Tikhonov regularization) was used to avoid overfitting of the linear readout/decoder. The ridge parameter was derived from a 10-fold cross-validation on the INC and COR2-3 trials: 2 test trials in each of the search and repeat categories, and 18 train trials in each category. The ridge parameter value obtained after optimization (10 −8 ) was used for all the decoding analyses. To assess the separability of the search and repeat activities, the decoder was trained and tested on all INC / COR2-3 trials. For this first analysis, error rates were computed as the number of time bins (from all test trials combined) incorrectly classified over the total number of time bins. To demonstrate the generalization capabilities of the linear readout/decoder to new data, it was similarly trained on INC / COR2-3 trials and then tested on all the time bins of 20 COR1 and 20 COR4 trials. Permutations tests were performed to ensure the significance of the decoder: INC / COR2-3 labels were shuffled 10,000 times, which allowed to derive a 95% confidence interval for each time step. Every time step with a decoding accuracy equal or superior to the confidence interval was considered as significant.
We computed an autocorrelation on population activity of reservoir and dACC neurons to assess the dynamic nature of each of these populations. All reservoir neurons were included in the analysis. For dACC data, a subset of 290/546 neurons was selected for having at least 20 incorrect trials, 20 COR1 trials, 20 correct trials (excluding COR1 and COR4 trials) and 20 COR4 trials. The activity of each dACC neuron was time normalized using the above described method with 20 ms time bins. The activity of each neuron was averaged across all trials to derive population activity vectors for each of the time points composing a full trial (excluding signal to change period in COR4 trials). The resulting autocorrelation matrix is composed of all the Pearson correlation coefficient obtained from all possible vector-pair comparisons.
Population analyses were performed on neural activity from full trials. Firing rate of each dACC neuron was first estimated with a Gaussian kernel (standard deviation = 100 ms) convolved through time every millisecond, eliciting a firing rate estimate at each millisecond. Activities were time normalized to accommodate for trial-time variations with the following method. The average duration of periods between key events of the task was calculated and allowed us to determine the number of time bins of a specified size (see below) within each period. The activity of each neuron was then divided in the number of time bins. For each neuron, estimated firing rate within these time bins was averaged to elicit a single average firing rate value per time bin. The events used to normalize time were: lever touch, targets appearance, target touch, feedback, next-trial lever touch.
To demonstrate the presence of the COR1 information in the activity of the reservoir layer in each simulation, we trained an additional readout neuron to activate specifically for the first reward (reward during the COR1 trial) in a problem with the same method used to train other readout neurons. The successful learning of the COR1 readout neuron was assessed over 30 simulations with different pseudo-randomly generated weights according to the parameter values defined above.
In the monkey, responses specific to the first correct choice (COR1) were considered important as they mark the transition from search to repetition [ 21 ]. Thus, reservoir neurons of the model were also analyzed for their response to the first correct choice in a problem to compare with results obtained in Quilodran et al. [ 21 ]. For that purpose, firing rate activities of single reservoir neurons were averaged over the time window 300 ms to 800 ms after feedback onset and then pooled in incorrect (INC), first correct (COR1) and correct (COR) trials. Pairwise t-test with false discovery rate correction over all tests was used to quantify the number of reservoir neurons that fired significantly more in COR1 trials than in INC and COR trials (pooling tests of all neurons and all simulations, and with a threshold p-value of 0.05).
Mixed-selectivity analysis was performed by using the same methods for both reservoir neurons from the model (neurons from the recurrent network) and dACC neurons. The analysis focused on specific 500 ms trial epochs. Epochs used were: early fixation (0–500 ms from fixation onset), late fixation (-500–0 ms to targets appearance), before touch (-500–0 ms to target touch), before feedback (-500–0 ms to feedback) and after feedback (0–500 ms from feedback) ( Fig 2B ). Firing rates of reservoir neurons were averaged within these periods, thus obtaining a single firing rate value for each epoch. Average activity of dACC neurons for each epoch of each trial was estimated as the number of spikes within these epochs. Epoch, along with phase (search vs. repetition) and choice (UL, UR, LR, LL) constitute the three factors used in single neuron analysis with 5 (epoch), 2 (phase), and 4 (choice) possible levels respectively (40 conditions total). The dACC neuron pool for the mixed selectivity analysis was a subset of 85/546 dACC neurons selected for having at least 15 trials per condition. All reservoir neurons were included in the analysis. A three-way ANOVA was conducted on the activity of each neuron with factors Epoch x Phase x Choice. A neuron was considered significant for a factor or an interaction between factors if its p-value was inferior to 0.05 (corrected for multiple comparisons with false discovery rate across all neurons). Interaction effects between phase and choice are considered here as an indicator of mixed selectivity which is defined by the interaction of these variables in their contribution to the firing rate of a single neuron. Thus in this present study we use the term “mixed selectivity” to refer exclusively to its non-linear component. Moreover, we introduce the terminology “dynamic mixed selectivity” to refer to mixed selectivity patterns that interact with epoch and correspond in our experiment to the interaction between epoch, phase and choice variables in the ANOVA analyses.
Quilodran et al. recorded 546 neurons in the dorsal bank of the cingulate sulcus of two rhesus monkeys and analyzed them along with local field potential for their correlation with the behavioral shift [ 21 ]. The present article reports on a new and separate reanalysis of this dataset to support findings obtained with modeling. All reanalyzes of these data were based on firing rate estimates of the recorded neurons. Subsets of this pool of neurons were selected depending on the requirements of the analyses. The number of neurons per analysis is specified in each case in the related method description.
Reservoir neuron analyses reported here are based on the activity of networks that learned to explore targets with the circular search. Results did not differ when the model was trained with the ordered search. Fig 2C illustrates the activity of reservoir and readout neurons corresponding to a sequence of inputs once the task has been taught with a circular search.
We are interested in the capacity of the model to perform the problem solving task. Previous detailed analyses of monkey behavior in this task have shown that the animals produced planned and structured search behaviors [ 23 ]. Rather than trying to reproduce trial-by-trial behavior of the monkeys, we trained the model on examples that followed the above rules, and then tested its performance and analyzed its activity. We generated training data based on three different search behaviors, among which two were structured. All three search behaviors used to train the model complied with the above mentioned rules. A fourth training set was created from data from one of the monkeys trained on this task [ 21 ]. We thus tested four training schedules: First, using a random search where the targets were explored in a different order at each problem. Second, using an ordered search where targets were explored following the same target sequence at each problem while avoiding the previously rewarded target in the sequence. In other words, the search always started with the same target, except if it was rewarded on the previous problem, and followed the same sequence, again, avoiding the target rewarded on the previous problem. Third, using a circular search where targets were explored in infinite repeating circle. As an example, let's define the repeating sequence upper-left (UL), upper-right (UR), lower-right (LR), lower-left (LL), UL, UR, LR and so on. If for a given problem, the rewarded target is UR, the search of the next problem will start with the next target in the sequence, namely, LR and continue with LL and UL until it finds the rewarded target. Fourth, the model was trained with the search behavior from monkey 1 who best solved the task. In order for the model to effectively learn the task, error trials from the monkey were removed from the behavior fed to the network. Khamassi et al. [ 23 ] provide a detailed description of the monkey's behavior with reinforcement learning models.
In order to assess the trained model's behavioral performance, a sequence of 200 problems was provided as input to the reservoir and the output choices were evaluated. The maximally activated neurons for saccade and hand choices had to match, and thus represented the model's choice. Trials where saccade and hand choices did not match were counted as errors. Performance was assessed on the basis of three rules: (1) do not repeat an unrewarded target choice; (2) repeat rewarded target choice once found; (3) while searching for the rewarded target, do not choose the target rewarded on the previous problem. Performance of the model was measured according to these rules. Trials that did not respect one of the three rules counted as an error. Error rate was defined as the number of trials that did not respect the rules over the total number of trials. In order to balance the length of the search period, the number of search trials was generated for each problem in advance. Thus, no target was predefined as rewarded, rather, after a predefined number of search trials (from 1 to 3), the reward was given and the behavioral output of the model was assessed according to the above described rules (for a similar method used to test human subjects, see Amiez, Sallet, Procyk, & Petrides [ 32 ]).
To allow for better convergence of the weights, we modified the feedback from the readout to the reservoir generated with the original FORCE learning method. We blended the actual output, produced after weight modification according to the FORCE principle, with a clamped feedback i.e. a delayed version of the desired output. The proportion of clamped feedback and actual output varied smoothly and steadily during training, starting with only clamped feedback and ending with actual output. The signal f(t) was fed back to the reservoir and replaced z(t) in eq (1) : where L is the full duration of training (entire 600 problem block) and c(t) the clamped feedback that is a 325 ms (13 time steps, determined through optimization) delayed version of the desired output. This delay greatly improved learning in our experiment. With a delayed desired output as clamped feedback, readout neurons had to learn to activate at the onset of fixation and arm choice without the correct and expected readout activity that would have been fed back to the reservoir with FORCE-learning fast adaptation of the weights. Likewise, when readout neurons should deactivate at the end of fixation and arm choice, the reservoir neurons still received the clamped activity resembling a readout that was not deactivated. Similar to the FORCE learning principle, this method allowed the learning algorithm to sample a higher number of time steps with discrepancies between actual and desired readout around the activation and deactivation of the readout neurons.
Each trial lasted 5550 ms (222 time steps), except for the last correct trial (COR4) that ended with the presentation of the signal to change and lasted 8050 ms (322 time steps). The task was taught to the reservoir with supervised learning using a matched set of <stimuli, desired output> pairs made of 600 problems. Readout neurons were trained to represent choice by activating to value 1 at periods of choice while remaining silent the rest of the time, thus acting like binary neurons. The training procedure employed a slightly modified version of the FORCE learning method developed by Sussillo and Abbott [ 20 ]. With the FORCE method, learning of connection weights between reservoir and readout neurons is based on an on-line process of weight adjustment that allows for sampling of the readout error by the system. Weights are corrected so that a small fraction of the readout error is fed back to the reservoir. Readout weights are successively modified to produce the target output while sampling deviations in the reservoir activity that result from readout feedback with a slight discrepancy between actual and desired output. Hence, the system learns to produce a stable readout even in the face of readout errors that are propagated to the reservoir. We used the recursive least-squares algorithm in combination with the FORCE learning principle to modify readout weights, as described in Sussillo and Abbott [ 20 ]: Where e(t) is the error before weights are modified and is defined as the difference between actual and desired output. The error of readout neuron i is defined as follows: where W out is the weight vector between the reservoir neurons and the readout neurons and d i (t) is the desired output. P(t) can be assimilated to the matrix of all learning rates for each pair of reservoir and readout neurons and is modified as follows: where I is the identity matrix.
We trained the model to learn a task that reproduces the major features of the actual task performed by monkeys ( Fig 2B ). Timing of these elements closely matched the actual monkey task in order to compare evolution of activity in dACC and reservoir neurons. Fixation point and lever were each simulated as the activation of their corresponding input neurons. They provided GO signals as they switched off for saccade to and fixation of a target, and for touching this target respectively. The readout neurons corresponding to these choices were trained to activate at their respective GO signal after a reaction time of 250 ms and deactivated after a 250 ms reaction time following touch. Following the fixation point, an input neuron represented the presence of the targets on screen and is deactivated after touch. Activation of the arm touch neuron started before the actual touch event to allow the neuron representing arm choice to reach full activation before switching off the targets input and to simulate the preparation and movement itself. Feedback was simulated with a reward input neuron that activated when a choice was correct. At the end of a problem, a fifth input neuron was activated to represent the signal to change indicating the start of a new problem. In the contextual memory version, the context neuron representing the phase was trained to activate when the signal to change input neuron was being activated, and to remain active for the duration of the search phase, until the first reward.
Input neurons represented the major external features of the task ( Fig 2A ). They included 5 inputs, each represented by one neuron: the fixation point, the lever, the targets, the reward and the signal to change. Each of these neurons had a 0.1 chance of connecting with each reservoir neuron. Weights were generated following a uniform distribution in the interval [– 1, 1 ]. The model generated outputs corresponding to oculomotor saccades and arm touches to the spatial targets corresponding to the monkeys' behavioral output and time course of the task events. A first set of 4 readout neurons represented the four possible target choices for eye saccades and a second set of 4 readout neurons represented arm touches. The highest activated neuron for each of the two sets represented the model's choice and both neurons were required to represent the same target in each trial. In the contextual memory version of the model, an additional readout neuron was trained to represent the phase (search vs repetition). In both versions, all reservoir neurons were connected to the readout neurons and constituted the only modifiable connections of the network. The readout neurons were connected back to the reservoir neurons to feed the choice information back to the recurrent neurons with a 0.1 chance of connection. These connections were generated prior to learning and remained fixed for the duration of the experiment. Connection weights were drawn from a uniform distribution between -1 and 1 for the choice outputs and for the contextual readout neuron in the contextual memory version of the model.
We implemented an RC model where a reservoir of 1000 recurrently connected neurons was fully connected to a readout layer. Learning took place only between the reservoir neurons and the readout units, at the level of the readout weights. Weights between reservoir neurons (internal weights) and between input and reservoir neurons (input weights) were stochastically generated and fixed. Input weights were generated with a uniform distribution in the interval [– 1, 1 ] with a 0.1 probability of connection. Internal weights followed a Gaussian distribution (μ = 0, σ = 1) with a 0.1 probability of connection between each pair of neurons. These were scaled so that the largest absolute eigen-value of the weight matrix—commonly referred to as the spectral radius—was equal to 0.9. This ensured a dynamical regime allowing for sustained activity in the recurrent network without saturation. Activity in the network thus developed and integrated successive stimuli inputs so that activity at each time point represented the combination of previous and current inputs (reservoir computing principle).
Experiments included a version of the model in which noise was added to the model to test its robustness and the effect of noise on performances and mixed selectivity. Noise with the same properties was injected during training and testing. Because a large proportion of noise in cortical populations has been found to be correlated among neurons [ 31 ], noise was simulated as a random Gaussian component added to the activity of input neurons: where N(0,σ) is a vector the size of u(t) of pseudo randomly generated values following a Gaussian distribution of mean 0 and standard deviation σ. To assess the effect of noise injection into the model, values of σ ranging from 0 to 7 in increments of 0.5 were each used in 30 simulation instances.
Neurons were simulated as leaky-integrator firing-rate units. Inputs were integrated over time with the following equation: (1) where x(t) denotes the membrane potential vector of reservoir neurons, Δt the time step (25 ms), τ the time constant of the leaky integration (375 ms or 15 time steps), W res the reservoir internal-weight matrix, r(t) the firing rate vector of the reservoir neurons, W in is the input weight matrix, u(t) the input neuron vector, W fb the readout to reservoir weight matrix and z(t) the readout neuron vector. At each time step the firing rate r(t) of reservoir neurons was computed as the hyperbolic tangent of its membrane potential x(t) generating a nonlinearity in the dynamics of the neuron:
Several parameters define the reservoir. The principal necessary property for reservoirs is to have rich dynamics. The essential characteristics are to have a sufficient number of non-linear neurons that are sparsely and randomly connected. Fixed network parameters include networks size (1000 neurons), and standard values for input sparsity (10%), internal reservoir connection sparsity(10%), and spectral radios (0.9). The simulation time step is set at 25ms in order to give a reasonable granularity for comparison with the primate data. Fixed unit level parameters include the choice of the tanh non-linearity and the time constant or leak rate of the reservoir units. The tanh non-linearity is traditionally used in the echo state networks, but others can be used such as the Fermi sigmoid. However, reservoirs with Fermi neurons have been shown to have significantly smaller short-term memory [ 30 ]. The reservoir unit leak rate was optimized for performance, and was set at 375ms (15 network timesteps). Deviations from this value resulted in degraded performance.
A. Model architecture. A recurrent network of 1000 randomly connected neurons (the reservoir) received input from 5 units representing the presence of the fixation point, the lever, the targets, the reward and the signal to change. Output choice of the network was represented in two sets of 4 readout neurons corresponding to target fixation and arm touch respectively. Connections between the reservoir and readout (dashed arrows) were modified, through learning, to reproduce the behavior given by sequence of correct input/output examples. A contextual memory version of the model included a trained context neuron (in brown) that represented phase information (search or repeat). B. Time course of a modeled trial. A trial started with the activation of the lever and fixation point. Fixation point neuron deactivated concomitantly with targets appearance which was the GO signal for saccade to a target after a reaction time. Fixation of the target followed and was represented in the activation of one readout neuron among the four dedicated to target fixation. The lever input deactivation was the GO signal for arm touch that was represented in the activation of the readout neuron, after a reaction time, that represented the target chosen with the saccade in the second set of four readout neurons. Touch event occurred at the middle of arm choice and was the start of a 0.6 second delay to feedback. Feedback was simulated as the activation of the reward input for correct trials and the absence of activation in incorrect trials. A 2.15 seconds inter-trial interval started at the onset of feedback and ended at the onset of the next trial except for the last trial of problem (COR4: fourth correct trial) in which the inter-trial interval was extended to 4.25 seconds and the signal to change activated for 1.2 seconds. (Rwd: reward) C. Example of the network performing the task after learning to explore the targets with a circular search. Upper panel: A sequence of stimuli neurons activation. Middle panel: Activity of 4 example reservoir neurons. Lower panel: Readout of the network showing the successive choices of the model. The example shows the end of a repetition period where red target was rewarded. After signal to change input was activated (grey block), a new search for the rewarded target began with the exploration of blue target, then yellow and finally purple which was rewarded and then repeated.
In both versions, a recurrent network of firing rate neurons received task inputs and were fully connected to a readout layer, the output of the model ( Fig 2A ). Reservoir recurrent connections provide rich dynamics formed by nonlinear recombinations of inputs that evolve through time. Readout neurons activate to represent model's target choice, and feed back the choice through readout-reservoir connections. Reservoir-readout connections are the only modifiable connections of the model.
We developed a recurrent neural network model using reservoir computing (RC) to perform the cognitive task in order to generate predictions that could then be tested with dACC monkey data. According to the RC principle, a fixed, large, random reservoir (recurrent neural network RNN) is excited by input signals, and the desired output is combined from the excited reservoir signals by a trainable readout mechanism (a simple linear regression in the most simple versions). As mentioned, the RC principle has been independently discovered in cognitive neuroscience (temporal recurrent networks, [ 8, 25 ]), in computational neuroscience (liquid state machine, [ 9 ]), and in machine learning (echo state networks, [ 10 ]). Models have been recently developed along the RC principle to reproduce cognitive functions like working memory [ 17 ] and language comprehension and production [ 26 – 28 ]. Two versions of the model were used in order to obtain the results of this paper: the original version and a second version implementing a simple contextual memory. The initial version was used in single neuron analyses in the first part of the results while the contextual memory version was introduced later to show the benefits of context encoding [ 29 ].
A search phase and its following repeat phase are referred to as a problem. In only 10% of cases the same target was rewarded in two consecutive problems. After training, monkeys performed the task in a nearly optimal fashion. In each search, they avoided previously explored targets that were not rewarded, and correctly repeated the rewarded choice. Likewise, they generally avoided repeating the previously rewarded target in the subsequent problem. The average number of trials in search was 2.4 ± 0.15 for first monkey and 2.65 ± 0.23 for second monkey (knowing that the same target is not rewarded two problems in a row, the expected number of trials of an optimal search is ~2.2) and in repetition 3.14 ± 0.7 and 3.4 ± 0.55 for first and second monkey respectively (the optimal-repetition trial number is above 3, as some problems had more than 3 rewarded repetition trials).
A. An example problem. Monkeys searched through the targets by trial and error to find which target was rewarded. Incorrect trials (INC) and first rewarded trial (COR1) constitute the search phase. In this example, the upper left target is rewarded. The set of subsequent rewarded trials is defined as the repeat phase, made up of correct (COR) trials. At the end of the repeat phase a problem changing cue indicated to the monkey that a new problem was starting, thus a new target was rewarded. B. Single trial events. Trials started with hand on lever and fixation of a central point. A 1.5s delay ensued before targets appeared and fixation point disappeared, providing the GO signal. The monkey made a saccade to the chosen target and fixated it for 0.5s. The GO signal for hand movement was given by lever removal and the monkey touched the fixated target. All targets go blank at the time of touch and disappeared at feedback. Feedback was preceded by a 0.6s delay and followed by a 2s inter-trial interval.
In order to compare the neural activity in the recurrent network model with that of the behaving primate cortex, we tested both systems using a problem solving task that was originally developed by Procyk and Goldman-Rakic [ 24 ] to investigate shifts between exploration and exploitation behavior (see Quilodran et al., [ 21 ] for detailed description). Two rhesus monkeys had to find by trial and error which among four targets presented on a touch screen was rewarded by fruit juice ( Fig 1A ). At the onset of a trial, monkeys fixated a central fixation point and held their hand on a lever displayed on the screen below the fixation point ( Fig 1B ). After a delay period of 1.5 seconds, 4 targets appeared on the screen. The animals made a saccade to one target and fixated it for 0.5 seconds until the lever disappeared, giving the GO signal to touch the chosen (fixated) target. Feedback was preceded by a 0.6-second delay, and followed by a 2-second delay ending at the beginning of next trial. The search phase included the incorrect trials (INC) and the first rewarded trial (COR1) during which animals explored the targets. The following 3 correct trials (COR) allowed the monkeys to repeat the rewarded choice and constituted the repetition phase. Occasionally (10% of cases) repetition lasted for 7 or 11 trials to prevent the animals from anticipating the end of the repetition phase. A signal to change appeared at the end of the last repetition trial to indicate to the animal that a new target was going to be rewarded.
All procedures were carried out according to the 1986 European Community Council Directives (86/609/EEC), the French Ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Forêt, French Commission of animal experimentation, the Department of Veterinary Services (DDSV Lyon, France). At the time of the experiments authorization was granted under regional rules to the laboratory for a range of experiments, rather than for specific studies. Specific authorization covering this study was delivered by the ‘‘Préfet de la Région Rhône Alpes” and the ‘‘Directeur départemental de la protection des populations” under Permit Number: #A690290402, including approved protocols in NHPs (#047, #048, #0198, #0199, #0200). All procedures complied with guidelines for animal welfare in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall report, ‘‘The use of non-human primates in research”.
Results
Model performance The model learned to perform the task almost perfectly with all training protocols, except for the random search. As expected, it was impossible for the model to learn to perform the task with a random search (41.64% ± 10.91% of suboptimal choices over 30 simulations, 1000 reservoir neurons) (see Methods for full description of performance calculation). In the absence of a pattern in the trained search sequence, the model could not produce a coherent output. In contrast, the model performed the task almost perfectly with the circular search (0.11% ± 0.43% of suboptimal choices over 30 simulations, 1000 neurons) and the ordered search (5.92% ± 5.40% of suboptimal choices over 30 simulations, 1000 neurons). Interestingly, the model also learned successfully to perform the task when trained on a schedule derived from the performance of Monkey 1 after training (4.71% ± 4.35% of suboptimal choices over 30 simulations, 1000 neurons). As a comparison, the rate of suboptimal choices over all trials in monkeys assessed with the same method were 0.53% and 2.21% for each monkey, respectively. The observation that the reservoir model could learn the task, i.e. learning to repeat when it receives reward, and shift when it does not, represents a novel extension of the “cognitive” functions of reservoirs.
Mixed selectivity As just seen, analysis of neural activity in terms of single task variables can provide an explanation of neural coding that appears simple. However, the activity of PFC neurons has often been described as complex, reflecting different combinations of task-related variables [3–6]. This phenomenon has been the focus of several recent studies which revealed its importance for cognitive tasks, and may underlie the capacity of the cortex to represent any contingency explained by a combination of task variables [7]. Fig 3C and 3D illustrate these mixed selectivity effects in the reservoir: coding of phase was dependent on choice, and epoch, respectively. The presence of such neurons was tested by ANOVA. The analysis of Choice x Phase interactions can reveal whether reservoir neurons display mixed-selectivity properties (three-way Epoch x Phase x Choice ANOVA, Choice x Phase interaction, p-value < 0.05; see Methods). Nearly all reservoir neurons showed mixed selectivity effects (99.9 ± 0.1% out of 1000 neurons, over 30 simulations) as revealed by the Choice x Phase interaction (Fig 3C). While mixed selectivity has been described in PFC neurons, no study has yet to our knowledge systematically and specifically explored it in the dACC. We thus tested the prediction that this same mixed selectivity, as revealed by the Choice x Phase interaction, should be present in dACC neurons in animals trained to perform the same task as the reservoir model. Our reanalysis of the Quilodran et al. data by ANOVA indeed revealed that 28 out of 85 dACC neurons (32.9%) selected for the analysis displayed mixed selectivity (Fig 4C). Rigotti et al. [2] showed that neurons of recurrent networks display complex recombination of current input that are similar to mixed-selectivity activities observed in PFC. These recombinations would allow external units connected to the recurrent network to detect the high dimensional combinations of multiple inputs relevant to the task to be learned. Recurrent networks of the reservoir type have the double property of recombining inputs and maintaining information about inputs across time [8–10, 25]. This is exemplified in the current experiment as the recombination of phase and choice information expressed in mixed selectivity that cannot be explained by a simple linear combination of the two variables contributions, and is dependent on the history of previous inputs.
Dynamic mixed selectivity Modulation of selectivity through time is a well described feature of PFC neuronal activity, whether the neurons show selectivity at a specific time in a trial or shift selectivity within a trial [33–35]. We will refer to this pattern of selectivity that changes over time as dynamic selectivity. Model reservoir neurons displayed clear dynamic selectivity, with nearly all the neurons showing modulation of selectivity across epochs for both phase and choice task variables as revealed by Epoch x Phase and Epoch x Choice interactions (mean ± std: 99.2 ± 0.4% for Epoch x Phase interaction and 99.4 ± 0.4% for Epoch x Choice interaction for 1000 reservoir neurons across 30 simulations, three-way ANOVA, Epoch x Phase x Choice, p-value < 0.05, Fig 3C and 3D). Single variables were encoded dynamically which suggests that mixed selectivity could be encoded in a dynamic fashion as well. Pursuing this dynamic aspect, in the following, a pattern of mixed selectivity that changes over time is referred to as dynamic mixed selectivity. Fig 3E illustrate these dynamic mixed selectivity effects in the reservoir: the interaction between phase and choice is itself dependent on the task epoch. We consider dynamic mixed selectivity when there is a significant three-way interaction between task epoch, phase and choice with the |
in Charles Wang’s run as head of the team. It was a bigger save even than any of the 41 that Thomas Greiss made in beating the Panthers, 2-1.
None of us agreed with every move Wang has made in his 16 years, the longest tenure of any owner in team history. Some of us — one of us, at least — always will wonder how life might have gone on at Nassau Coliseum if he had built a contending team before politicians made their decisions and the public took a vote. But give him his due credit. He can be proud of the fact that he kept them afloat and kept them close enough for their fans to enjoy them.
Fans still can watch every game on TV and root for someone wearing a uniform with the outline of Long Island on it. People who were there Sunday night reveled in every morsel: the piercing noise, the exhilaration on the LIRR, the knowledge that the Empire State Building was bathed in blue and orange. When Wang turns over majority control to Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin in July, he will not hand them a cup of regrets.
A legacy is alive and well. With the tying and overtime goals, Tavares has a new link with John Tonelli (vs. Pittsburgh, 1982). Greiss followed in the footsteps of Chico Resch, Bill Smith and Glenn Healy. All of the current Islanders are part of a continuum that connects J.P. Parise/ Ed Westfall to Denis Potvin/ Bryan Trottier to Ray Ferraro (a broadcaster who called Sunday’s game)/Steve Thomas (an assistant coach for the Lightning, the Islanders’ next opponent). The latter two were huge for the 1993 team, the last Islanders to win a playoff series before Sunday.
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Current players are relieved they never again will have to hear about The Drought. “But it’s our history. We just wanted to write our own page,” said Kyle Okposo, a careerlong Islander and potential free agent. If he goes somewhere else, at least he will know he left something behind.
Frans Nielsen, another potential free agent, is the longest-tenured member of the team. Fourteen years since having been an Islanders draft pick have taught him it is not always easy to play for or cheer for this team. But he would not trade a second of it.
“For sure, there were some tough years in the beginning when I was here, but this just makes it so much better,” he said. “You don’t just get into this league. You need somebody to believe in you. I had Garth [Snow] and the coaches. They believed I could play. This organization means a lot to me. It gave me the opportunity to play in the best league in the world.”
The organization means a lot to Wang and many others around here, too. Their Islanders are alive in the playoffs. More important, they still are the Islanders.WASHINGTON - For all the attention it got, Republican Mitt Romney's selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate has not altered the race against President Barack Obama. The campaign remains neck and neck with less than three months to go, a new AP-GfK poll shows.
Overall, 47 percent of registered voters said they planned to back Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in November, while 46 percent favored Romney and Ryan. That's not much changed from a June AP-GfK survey, when the split was 47 percent for the president to 44 percent for Romney.
At the same time, there's a far wider gap when people were asked who they thought would win. Some 58 percent of adults said they expected Obama to be re-elected, while just 32 percent said they thought he'd be voted out of office.
After just over a week on the campaign trail, Ryan has a 38 percent favorable rating among adults, while 34 percent see him unfavorably. Among registered voters, his numbers are slightly better — 40 percent favorable to 34 percent unfavorable. Ryan remains unknown to about a quarter of voters.
Romney put the 42-year-old conservative chairman of the House Budget Committee on the ticket Aug. 11. The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Aug. 16-20.
Romney and Ryan will be crowned as the GOP presidential and vice presidential nominees next week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The Democrats hold their convention the following week in Charlotte, N.C.
The closely locked contest reflects deep partisan divisions across the country.
Among true independents, those who say they do not lean toward either party, the share of undecided voters is declining, with each candidate picking up new support at about the same pace. However, Romney maintains a small advantage with the group, with the backing of 41 percent of independents to Obama's 30 percent. Some 21 percent still say they support neither candidate.
Among all voters, 23 percent are undecided or say they have not yet committed to their candidate.
One independent voter, Frank Nugent, a 76-year-old retired sales manager from Pittsburg, Calif., said he always gives both parties a chance to win him over — but not this time.
"Considering what the opposition is like, I can do nothing else but vote for Obama," he said. Part of his dislike for the GOP ticket is due to Ryan, he said, describing Romney's ticket mate as "further right that the bulk of the Republican Party." But while he'll vote for Obama, Nugent said he's disappointed in Obama's record.
Robert Hamrick, 39, from Cedartown, Ga., is going the other way. Although a registered Democrat, he plans to vote for the Romney-Ryan ticket, claiming Obama has been deceptive and failed to make good on his promises on the economy, jobs and government debt.
As for Ryan, Hamrick said: "He's very smart. He knows his stuff. He knows the finance. He can take apart Obamacare with ease." Hamrick is a former nursing home manager who left his job about four years ago in hopes of finding one with more security — and has been mostly unemployed ever since.
The frail economy, with the unemployment rate hovering at 8.3 percent more than three years after the deep recession officially ended, remains the No. 1 issue. Nine in 10 call it important for them and half of voters say it is "extremely important," outpacing all other issues tested by at least 10 percentage points. Two-thirds in the poll described the economy as poor.
Registered voters split about evenly between the two candidates on whom they'd trust more to handle the economy, with 48 percent favoring Romney and 44 percent Obama. They are also about evenly divided on who would do more to create jobs, 47 percent for Romney to 43 percent for Obama. Among independent voters, Romney has a big lead over the president on handling the economy — 46 percent to 27 percent.
Romney often appeals to his business background as proof that he could better manage the federal government, and the poll finds that overall, voters are more apt to trust him to handle the federal budget deficit over Obama, by a 50 percent to 40 percent margin.
But it's unlikely that Ryan's background in authoring Republican budgets will boost them as an issue in the campaign. The share of adults saying the budget deficit was deeply important to them dropped from 75 percent in February to 69 percent in the new poll.
Among those who rate the economy as the top concern is Mattise Fraser, a 52-year-old Democrat whose hometown of Charlotte is gearing up for the Democratic gathering. "We're in a crisis situation now," said Fraser, who said she plans to vote for Obama. She says she's a homemaker — but not by choice. "The economy is crazy. There's no jobs."
Obama holds a clear edge among voters on handling social issues such as abortion, 52 percent to 35 percent, and a narrow one on handling Medicare, 48 percent to 42 percent. Medicare has grabbed a lot of attention as an issue lately, with Ryan's proposals to partly change the program drawing criticism from Obama and other Democrats.
Of those who said Medicare is an extremely important issue, 49 percent say they plan to vote for Obama and 44 percent for Romney.
Obama's approval rating held steady at about an even split, with 49 percent saying they approve of the way he's handling his job and another 49 percent saying they disapprove.
The president remains more positively viewed than Romney, and continues to be seen as more empathetic. Some 53 percent of adults hold a "favorable" opinion of the president, compared with just 44 percent who view Romney favorably. Obama also held a commanding lead among voters as the candidate who better "understands the problems of people like you," 51 percent to 36 percent for Romney. Some 50 percent see him as a stronger leader than Romney; 41 percent see Romney as stronger.
Michelle Obama remains more popular than her husband. Sixty-four percent of adults view her favorably and just 26 percent unfavorably, although that's down from 70 percent favorable in May. Ann Romney's favorable rating is mostly unchanged since May, with 40 percent viewing her favorably, 27 percent unfavorably and nearly a third declining to say.
Thirty-five percent overall say things in the nation are heading in the "right direction," up from 31 percent in June.
Melinda Cody, a 45-year-old undecided voter in San Diego, sees positives and negatives with both candidates — and says she'll vote for the candidate who does the least bullying. "When they just run a negative campaign, it backfires," she said.
The poll involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide, including 885 registered voters. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9, while it's 4.1 points for registered voters.Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerBrady gun control group gets rebranding Brennan fires back at'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism Trump rips Harry Reid for 'failed career' after ex-Dem leader slams him in interview MORE (D-N.Y.) slammed President Trump’s proposed budget plan Thursday, saying it helps special interests but hurts the people Trump says he wants to protect.
“The President’s proposed budget cuts are devastating to the middle class,” Schumer said in a statement.
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“Once again the Trump administration is showing its true colors: talk like a populist but govern like a special interests zealot. This budget shifts the burden off of the wealthy and special interests and puts it squarely on the backs of the middle class and those struggling to get there.”
Schumer said Trump is hurting middle-class families and programs that improve Americans’ well-being.
“The very programs that most help the middle class are those that get clobbered the hardest: investments in infrastructure, education, scientific research that leads to cures for diseases all take big hits,” he said.
“Democrats in Congress will emphatically oppose these cuts and urge our Republican colleagues to reject them as well.”
Schumer also took to social media, blasting the budget and using the hashtag #Trumpcuts.A preliminary examination of water samples from the ancient subglacial Lake Vostok near the South Pole indicated that its inhabitants are not to be found anywhere else on Earth, a member of the research team told RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) – A preliminary examination of water samples from the ancient subglacial Lake Vostok near the South Pole indicated that its inhabitants are not to be found anywhere else on Earth, a member of the research team told RIA Novosti.
The species of bacteria, whose traces were found in probes of water from Lake Vostok, do not belong to any of the 40-plus known subkingdoms of bacteria, said Sergei Bulat, a researcher at the Laboratory of Eukaryote Genetics at the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute.
“After excluding all known contaminants…we discovered bacterial DNA that does not match any known species listed in global databanks. We call it unidentified and 'unclassified' life,” Bulat said.
Seven samples of the same species of bacteria were found in water frozen on the head of the drill that was used in 2012 to reach the lake, covered by a 3.5-kilometer-thick ice sheet, but the match between its DNA and any known organisms never exceeded 86 percent, while a match of under 90 percent is already enough to indicate a new species, Bulat said.
Attempts to build a phylogenetic tree for the newly discovered microorganism, which indicates a species’ evolutionary relationship to other species, showed that the Antarctic bacterium did not fit any of the main categories of microorganisms in its taxonomic domain.
“If it were found on Mars, people would call it Martian DNA. But this is DNA from Earth,” Bulat said.
The tests are ongoing, but are unlikely to disprove the results, the researcher said. He added that more samples are needed for conclusive proof, possibly to be found in water from the lake obtained during a new drilling season earlier this year and on its way to Russia by ship.
Suspense over life under Antarctic ice has been building ever since drilling began in 1989 to reach Lake Vostok, which could have been isolated from the outside world as early as 17 million years ago. Drilling through the ice without contaminating the lake took the Russian team at Station Vostok, located just above the lake, 23 years to complete.
Scientists suspected that unique species of extremophile microbes, sustained by geothermal heat and capable of surviving in Vostok’s extreme oxygen concentration, could have evolved in the lake. However, an early study of samples of surface water from the lake, published last year, found no unique lifeforms, prompting speculation that the lake may, after all, be devoid of life – a theory that appears to have been disproved by the more recent findings.One of the new announcements for Windows Phone 8 is that apps are becoming more than just live tiles. Live apps are available and will feature on the Lockscreen as seen in the above screenshot. More apps will be able to show you notifications on the lockscreen, which means you can get more info from glancing at the screen than ever before.
With this new feature, Microsoft has announced a partnership with Facebook in order to get your photos and notifications right on your phone and lockscreen. Twitter has also been updated and a special version for Windows Phone 8 so the notifications are seamless on the lockscreen. With social services that are custom-tailored to Windows Phone 8, this is going to be the best way to experience Facebook and Twitter on a mobile device. Exciting!The Land That Broke Its Promise : THE SEVENTH MILLION: The Israelis and the Holocaust, By Tom Segev (Hill & Wang: $27.50; 580 pp.)
Israel, for some of us, is much more than a geographical or political notion; it is the very heart and conscience of our people. Even inside the "Kingdom of Night," there were inmates who dreamed of Jerusalem, who were convinced that in Tel Aviv and Haifa, Givat-Brenner and Hulda, our brothers and sisters were crying for us and with us. Our faith in Jewish solidarity was total. Had anyone dared to suggest that during the darkest hours of our history, the leaders and inhabitants of Palestine were not overwhelmed by compassion for their deported fellow Jews, we would have dismissed him as a traitor.
What follows is not meant to mitigate the guilt of the killers and their collaborators; nothing can ever diminish that. Still, on a different level, not all others are beyond reproach.
Tom Segev, an influential columnist for the Israeli daily "Haaretz," is to be congratulated for the way he is treating the issue. Daring to challenge traditional beliefs, "The Seventh Million" is richly documented and written with great passion. Still, it is certain to cause pain, especially to those who love Israel and harbor a romantic and idealized image of its destiny.
Had Israel existed in 1939, would the Holocaust have been averted? Did Israel need Auschwitz to be born or reborn? These questions have surfaced over and over again. They are heavy with implications. I, myself, choose to view these two events in Jewish History as mysteries linked not as cause and effect but by chronology.
Of course, Segev is not the first to have revealed the shortcomings of the "Yishuv"--as the Jewish community in Palestine was then called--and its leaders. Playwright and novelist Ben Hecht wrote a violently polemical work, "Perfidy," dealing with the Kastner trial in the early 1960s. Through it, he attacked the Zionist establishment's timorous policy during the war and went so far as to accuse its major players of collaborating with the Germans.
There is no comparison between Ben Hecht's inflammatory pamphlet and Segev's study. The latter is sober and balanced, and therefore, all the more disturbing. Segev tells of his torment as he gradually discovers the extent to which the Jewish victims in Europe were let down by their co-religionists in Palestine.
Let us examine the strange episode of the haavar or "transfer."
In the mid-1930s, after Hitler's rise to power, while American Jewry fought to organize an economic boycott of Nazi Germany, the leaders of the Palestinian Yishuv entered into active, though unofficial, negotiations with Berlin regarding the transfer of German Jews and their wealth--some 30 million pound sterling--to the Holy Land.
Surely, Jewish Palestine--at the time the two words were not contradictory--needed money to finance its development, but this brazen pragmatism went against the political philosophy of a majority of world Jewry. There developed a growing perception that instead of supporting and strengthening the boycott, Palestine was, in fact, sabotaging it.
There were justifications. Yes, the country was poor and needed financial input and yes, this course of action provided a chance to save German Jews who might otherwise have decided to "wait and see" and let the last possible opportunity of salvation go by.
But Segev goes on to show, supported by devastating evidence, that later, even as Germany carried out its Final Solution--liquidating one ghetto after another, one community after another--the Jewish leaders of Palestine never made the rescue of European Jews into an overwhelming national priority. We know that Zionist leader Itzhak Gruenbaum, a future Minister of the Interior in David ben Gurion's first cabinet, considered creating new settlements more urgent than saving Jews from being sent to Treblinka and Birkenau.
Read Segev's heartbreaking conclusion:
"There had been about nine million Jews in Europe on the eve of the war; about six million were killed, leaving three million alive. Most of them were saved by Germany's defeat in the war. Some were spared thanks to the help they received from various governments and organizations such as the Joint Distribution Committee and from thousands of good-hearted people in almost every country--the "righteous Gentiles." There were dramatic rescue operations such as the flight across the Pyrenees from France to Spain and the convoys of Jews that sailed from Denmark to Sweden. Only a few survivors owed their lives to the efforts of the Zionist movement."In a recent victory for mid-century and retro fans alike, John Lewis has brought out a run of Lucienne Day designed cushions at John Lewis. The reasoning behind this return is twofold. Firstly, John Lewis has something of a history with Day – as she worked as a design consultant with the company for 25 years, ending in 1987. Secondly, it’s the centenary year of Lucienne Day’s birth, and the textiles form part of a retrospective of her life’s work.
The designs are original, such as the Calyx cushion (far right, in image below), which features abstracted flowers and was originally created for the Home Entertainment section of the Homes & Gardens Pavilion at the Festival of Britain in 1951.
There’s already strong demand for this collection, with some items already listed as out of stock. However, at around £50 per cushion, this is a tad more expensive than IKEA or a similar shop. I recently visited Habitat and found quite a few good bargains for cushions with a similar aesthetic. Whilst they’re not on sale right now, it might be a good idea to wait until after Christmas when they’ll inevitably be sales. Last weekend I saw this cushion in a shop for £10, and I’m kicking myself for not buying it there and then.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a 40% sale on at La Redoute, which have some fab looking mid-century style modular furniture. Use the promo code BIG40 and get 40% off the base price. Again, wait until after Christmas and you’re likely to get better deals.
Images via John Lewis press office.MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
During a period of blaring "austerity" when a key goal of those with means is to cut pensions that have been fairly earned by public employees, it is astonishing to read that some lobbyists in 40% of US states get paid pensions from the public trough.
According to an August 25 Associated Press (AP) article:
Hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states... get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits....
"It's clear that there's a big problem with hypocrisy when these lobbyists have been pushing austerity and benefit cuts for other government workers while they themselves enjoy solid state pensions," said Michael Kink of the progressive group Strong Economy for All Coalition. "`Do as I say, not as I do' seems to be their approach on retirement cuts."
"Workers who have faced cuts in pay and pensioners have a right to be angry - as do voters," Kink said.
Who knows? Some of these private lobbyists who receive taxpayer funded pensions (and in some case healthcare benefits) may even work to advance legislation sponsored by the infamous ALEC.
Click here to support courageous reporting and commentary by making a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout and BuzzFlash at Truthout!
The AP story begins with a rather astonishing role model for a wealthy lobbyist who gets a pension courtesy of those whose pensions he may be trying to reduce or eliminate:
As a lobbyist in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:
Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.
Many of these non-governmental employees represent lobbying associations at the forefront of trying to reduce public pensions while ensuring that they keep their own, even though their salaries are not paid by any governmental body.
If all this sounds preposterously hypocritical, it is. It's another scam that is greed wrapped in a lofty excuse:
Acquario, executive director and general counsel of the New York State Association of Counties, argues that his group gives local government a voice in the statehouse, and the perk of a state pension makes it easier to hire people with government expertise.
The revolving door of incestuous government insiders turning around and becoming lobbyists -- in this case working for a guy who makes more than senators and most governors -- just won't supply good enough personnel unless the taxpayers pay for private employee pensions, Acquario argues. Say what?
At least there are some state legislators looking at this egregious pickpocketing of the public purse:
"It's a question of, `Why are we providing government pensions to these private organizations?'" said Illinois Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz.
Thanks for that dose of reality.
(Photo: tofuart)
Click here to support courageous reporting and commentary by making a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout and BuzzFlash at Truthout!Matthew Inman wants to build a museum dedicated to inventor Nikola Tesla, the “greatest geek who ever lived.” Inman is the creator of Web comic The Oatmeal. Based in Seattle, he also devised the online dating website Mingle in 66.5 hours.
Jacob Aron: What did Tesla do to deserve a museum?
Matthew Inman: Overall, his most practical achievement would be the polyphase electrical system. It brought alternating current to the world, and allowed us to have electricity in our homes. Beyond that, all kinds of stuff ranging from wireless communication to neon lighting.
He actually built an earthquake machine in his laboratory in New York City, and when he turned it on, they had to smash it with a sledgehammer to keep it from taking the whole block down. Not a useful invention, but kind of cool.
JA: How did you get involved in the campaign to buy Tesla’s lab at Wardenclyffe, N.Y., which might be demolished?
MA: People were tweeting at me saying, “have you seen this Save the Wardenclyffe project?” When I learned they had a matching grant from New York State for $850,000, I realized the amount of money they needed wasn’t completely out of reach. Coincidently, I was threatened with a lawsuit back in July over something rather silly, and rather than paying the lawyer who threatened me, I raised money for charity using [crowdfunding platform] Indiegogo. I figured, I made a comic about Tesla, I’ve got a huge following of Tesla fans on my Twitter, and I’ve also had this successful fundraiser, so let’s see if we can raise the money.
JA: You’ve already hit your target. Did you expect this level of success?
MA: I figured we could give it a shot, and if it fails, at least we tried. I didn’t expect to hit the goal in six days. That was pretty awesome. Sitting on the Indiegogo page, you get addicted. Every time you hit refresh there is another 10 grand. You watch what you make in a year go by in about 20 minutes.
JA: You have had supporters from around the world, including Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. How is he helping?
MA: He pledged money and gave verbal support, saying the land needed to be saved, so that was really cool. He said Tesla is a hero of his.
JA: What would you like to see in the museum?
MA: I would love some big frightening display of coils, because Tesla was quite a showman and when he gave public displays he would have these huge arcs of electricity between the coils that, even though they were safe according to him, made people really uncomfortable. I would love to mimic that feeling in the museum.
JA: What would Tesla make of all this support if he were alive today?
MA: He’d probably be happy. At the beginning of his career he was very naive about money. He wasn’t interested in making any; he was more interested in discovering things. He just figured if he could change the world then money would follow, but in the latter half of his career he became very focused on money because his work was very expensive. Nobody was supporting him because he wasn’t producing light bulbs or toaster ovens, he was producing things like sonar, which wasn’t really useful at the time. I think Tesla would be very pleased seeing the Internet give him huge piles of money just to show how awesome he is.
JA: But actually, he died penniless and alone?
MA: Yes, he’s kind of an odd guy. He remained celibate even though he was a pretty good-looking dude—well-dressed, but he basically stayed alone his whole life.
After Thomas Edison screwed him out of a lot of money, he had an arrangement with [electric company] Westinghouse where they would pay him a royalty. But when they were in financial trouble, Tesla tore up the contract and said “you know what, I like you guys, you can just forget that royalty thing.” He could have been one of the richest men in the world if he hadn’t been such a nice guy.
To contribute to the Tesla museum project visit indiegogo.com/teslamuseum.
This article originally appeared in New Scientist.Date: 23rd March, 2012 They're all doing it. From Jersey Jack to Stern, from John Popadiuk to MarsaPlay, everyone is putting an LCD panel in the backbox to replace the trusty dot matrix display and pass information back to the player. Even the ColorDMD dot-matrix replacement display system uses an LCD panel to convey the scores and show the new multi-colour animations. LCD is definitely flavour-of-the-month. In all these cases though, the LCD is a purely passive device - displaying information about, but not truly interacting with, what's happening on the playfield. But what if that changed? What if the LCD panel no longer merely reflected what was happening on the playfield, but became a physical part of that playfield? And what if the game could track the ball as it traveled over the LCD, and react accordingly? What possibilities would that open up for genuine interaction? A little over two years ago, Pinball News brought you news of a new pinball control system called P-ROC from PinballControllers.com. You've probably heard of it by now. That system allows budding pinball creators to build their own rules, animations, sounds and controls for existing games.
The P-ROC controller board The control board interfaces with the original hardware from WPC, WPC-95, Stern Whitestar and SAM-based machines, but passes control of that hardware over to a PC, where designers can decide exactly how the switches, lamps, solenoids and displays work, based around their own vision for the game. If you wanted to either create your own version of a game or apply a total re-theme, P-ROC's creators Gerry Stellenberg and Adam Preble provided you with a full toolkit of hardware and open-source software to get you up and running. But P-ROC was originally created with a different intention in mind - the creation of a brand new type of pinball machine, featuring some highly innovative ideas. Until now, most efforts have concentrated on developing the P-ROC controller board and software framework so that it includes all the features game designers need to control the multitude of different assemblies found in various games. You may have seen Koen and Barry of Dutch Pinball and their Bride of Pinbot which uses P-ROC to add a dot matrix display and a whole new set of rules, sounds and animations to overcome some of the shortcomings of the original code.
The Dutch Pinball Bride of Pinbot Running alongside the P-ROC development has been the design and production of additional driver boards to control both groups of solenoids and lamp matrices. These controller boards were created to facilitate the building of custom games. They connect to a master P-ROC board, and multiple boards can be daisy-chained to drive as many devices as you decide to put in your game. If you need more than 64 controlled lamps, just plug in a second lamp matrix board and you instantly have 128 lamps to play with. The same with the solenoid driver board. If you need more than 16 controlled devices, throw in another board - or two - and you've got 32 or 48 solenoid drivers available. With all these lamps and solenoids, you may think you need more switches, but the P-ROC controller already supports a switch matrix up to 16x8 (128 switches) and 32 direct switches for things like flipper buttons and menu controls. In addition, any of the switches can be configured in the hardware to link directly to solenoid drivers, so flippers, bumpers and kickers can react as quickly as possible to switch closures or button presses. PinballControllers.com also made available a power supply providing 70V and 24V outputs for driving high-power and low-power solenoids, motors and flasher lamps. Add in a control PC - either as a stand-alone unit or an embedded device such as an Arduino - and you're well on your way to creating your first home-built pinball machine. Which is exactly what Gerry, along with his friends Les Pitt and Brandon Nuss have done, with the subject of this article - the P3 machine.
Brandon, Les and Gerry with the P3 The P3 showcases some of the innovative features which become possible once you use the P-ROC system as the basis for controlling the hardware. Chief amongst these is the LCD screen mounted in the centre of the playfield.
The LCD screen In order to retain the familiar slingshot positioning, the team developed a new construction which allows the solenoid to be mounted remotely and for the majority of the mechanism to be made from clear acrylic which allows for the inclusion of some impressive lighting effects. While putting a monitor in the playfield is unusual, what makes this implementation unique is the tracking technology which is employed to let the game determine the position of the ball when it is over or around the monitor, and react accordingly. You can imagine playfield artwork being displayed on the monitor indicating the available shots, which changes dynamically when those shots are made. Or a Rolling Stones-style moving target, or perhaps an entire virtual sub-playfield. Or mini-game modes being played in conjunction with the display. Or all of these. Plus, it's the area of the playfield where players spend most of their time looking, so it's the ideal place to show important game information such as scores or timer countdowns too. Gerry has created a number of simple mini-games which demonstrate some of the possibilities. Here we see how the ball's position is tracked, and elements on the screen react when the ball 'hits' them. The Barnyard game The second mode is a version of Asteroids, where a collision with ball causes the rocks to break up or be destroyed. The ROCs game The video above also shows how the physical targets on the playfield can interact with the action on the LCD screen, in this case firing a red laser to help blow up the rocks.
The ball hits a side standup target and fires a laser If you're playing modes using the screen and the ball tracking, you may want to confine the ball to the area around the monitor in order to focus the action on that area of the playfield. That's where another new idea, quite literally, pops up.
The wall targets These six wall targets span the entire width of the playing surface and, when activated, keep the ball in the lower half of the playfield. This changes the dynamics of the game, making it play much faster and denying the player the use of more distant areas of the game in which to send the ball for safety. Each target is individually controlled, so it can pop up, drop down and register hits. In addition, every target is lit with red, green and blue LEDs. Each LED is also individually controlled, allowing the game software to set each target to one of hundreds of different colours and enabling the colours to react to what's happening on the playfield. If a wall target is hit, it can change colour, flash, or send'shock waves' through the adjacent targets' colours. The wall could also show a timer's status, turning red or flashing as the time is running out. These are just a few ideas, but there are many more possibilities. The wall targets block access to the upper part of the playfield where most of the remaining hardware resides. But there is another new feature sitting directly behind the targets - a row of seven pop-up scoops which can capture the ball and feed it to the kickout behind.
One of the seven ball scoops pops up These scoops can also be used in conjunction with the wall targets. So while the scoops can block access to some of the shots behind, the wall targets can partially or totally block access to the scoops.
The wall targets and scoops Behind the wall targets and scoops we find the upper part of the P3's playfield.
The top of the playfield Two clear acrylic tubes replace the more customary wireforms to transport the ball from a central kickout hole to either of the the game's two inlanes. Two ramps lead to an upper playfield where an overhead magnet can grab the ball and drop it into the kickout hole, or let it pass and continue down the opposite ramp.
The magnet grabs the ball Below the upper playfield are two orbit lanes - an outer orbit which spans the width of the game, and an inner orbit which passes behind the kickout tubes and features a spinner. Two captive balls, four standup targets, another entrance into that kickout hole and a drop target complete the shots available in the upper part of the playfield. It's important to note how the P3 machine is intended to be a combination hardware and software platform upon which different developers can apply their own themes, ideas and rules, to create their personal version of the game.
The whole P3 machine Perhaps the most impressive part of the P3 machine is the fact that the entire system runs using the same P-ROC and driver boards which have been available for a year. The only changes are in the software which now provides additional support for the ball tracking and the LCD screen displays. To find out how it all works, Pinball News spoke exclusively with Gerry Stellenberg of PinballControllers.com whose concept the P3 machine was, and who has written the new software.
It's been more than two years now since P-ROC was first available for purchase. What has the take-up been like, and what has changed since then? Gerry: You're right, and it's been a fun ride so far! For the most part the P-ROC has remained a developer's product, and that's understandable given the effort involved in developing custom pinball software. That said, some of our customers are pinball hobbyists, and others are pinball professionals, or aspiring ones. I continue to have high hopes for the future of the P-ROC, including having it designed in by large volume pinball machine manufacturers, but I also really enjoy some aspects of having a relatively small customer base. Specifically, I love having the opportunity to work with each and every customer who needs or wants my help with their project. The 'A-ha!' moment, when a customer realizes just how much they can accomplish with the P-ROC and how easily they can accomplish it, continues to be quite rewarding each and every time it happens. A lot has changed since you published the original P-ROC article. We've added new products and new P-ROC features to provide a more comprehensive solution for custom pinball machine designers. Also, with help from Les Pitt and Brandon Nuss, I finally got around to building that custom machine I wanted to build!
There have been some quite remarkable, headline-grabbing games produced using the P-ROC system - the Bride of Pinbot and Demolition Man on Steroids are two games which immediately spring to mind. Did these help with the take-up of P-ROC? Gerry: Both of those projects are certainly fantastic, and there are some other equally amazing efforts that haven't yet been made public. It's obviously fun to see what others are able to accomplish with |
among the Nordic and Baltic states - most of them European Union members - over Moscow’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis. Finland last week accused the Russian navy of interfering with a Finnish environmental research vessel in international waters.
The Swedish military has said information about suspicious activity came from a trustworthy source, without providing details, and that more than 200 military personnel were involved in the search.
The Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the hunt, said it began after a radio transmission in Russian on an emergency frequency.
Further encrypted radio traffic from a point in the archipelago and the enclave of Kaliningrad, home to the Russian Baltic fleet’s headquarters, was intercepted on Friday evening after the Swedish search started, the newspaper said.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday that there were no emergency situations in the Baltic involving its vessels.
“Russian Navy ships and submarines are fulfilling their duties in the world ocean waters in accordance with the plan,” Interfax news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. “There has been and there are no extraordinary, let alone emergency, situations involving Russian warships.”
Countries in the Baltic Sea region have become increasingly wary of Russia’s military ambitions since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March following the overthrow of Kiev’s pro-Moscow president by protesters.
Last month, Sweden said two Russian warplanes entered its air space, calling the intrusion a “serious violation” and sending a protest to Moscow’s ambassador in the Nordic country.
Ships, helicopters and troops from an amphibious unit as well as the home guard combed the search area in Stockholm’s archipelago. The forces include HMS Visby, a corvette that has stealth technology and equipment for anti-submarine warfare.
The Swedish military said on Friday there had been no armed intervention and declined to comment on who might be responsible for the suspicious activity, or whether the report had been about a submarine.
“We still consider the information we received as very trustworthy,” Captain Jonas Wikstrom, head of operations for the search, told reporters. “I, as head of operations, have therefore decided to increased the number of units in the area.”
Should the search find proof of foreign military activity in Swedish coastal waters it will represent the first real test of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s center-left minority government only weeks after coming to office.
In 1981, a Soviet submarine known under its Swedish designation U137 was stranded deep inside Swedish waters not far from a major naval base in the neutral country, sparking intense suspicion about the scale and motives of such incursions.[Final Note: Thanks to all of your enthusiasm and support, the Tomb of Tyrants Kickstarter has met with resounding success! An official forum and PayPal slacker-backer support will be made available here over the next couple of days! Thank you, once again!
-Jake]
Unique blend of tower-defense, simulation, RPG, and puzzling!
Slick, simple, and frenetic matching mechanics, where reflexes and planning are both rewarded!
Lovingly pixeled characters, settings, and animations!
Tactically emergent gameplay, spawning new strategies and builds as your game evolves!
Tons of diverse floors, items, minions, heroes, and more--to discover and exploit!
Quick sessions with long-term unlocks, gradually taking your game from newbie-friendly to rich and complex!
Tomb of Tyrants is a dungeon-defense puzzler in which you take on the role of a tyrant (or historical curator, if you prefer), building a dungeon (restoring a historic site) and crushing heroes (nobly defending an anthropological treasure trove from greedy adventurers). Players match regions of resource tiles to expand the Tomb of Tyrants with additional floors, traps, and monsters, while intrepid parties of do-gooders (vandals) venture down from the surface to defeat you and claim the Tyrants' hoard. This ambiguous dual-plot setup allows you to play as either a villain or someone with grossly misplaced values.
The Tyrants' hoard lies directly beneath your dungeon; you will frantically match tiles to amass assets and clear space for new floors. Although the hoard never ends, slain creatures will drop additional resources and items into the puzzle, increasing the frenetic pace of the game as your dungeon's death toll accelerates.
Even as the challenge ramps up, the player character remains very weak and can be easily dispatched by the humblest of heroes. Death of this load-bearing boss will bring your dungeon crumbling down upon everyone within--refilling the Tyrants' hoard once more. Every game fuels future sessions, as players unlock advanced floors, creatures, upgrades, and artifacts by completing rituals and thwarting prophecies.
Tomb of Tyrants is rapidly approaching alpha, so most core gameplay mechanics are complete. While there are still many planned features remaining, the bulk of development beyond this point will be content production. Ideally, I want to offer hundreds of creatures, floors, traps, items, and more, but this phase of development requires time and money. I am targeting an end-of-year 2014 to early 2015 release window for version 1.0, but post-releases are also planned.
Of course, anyone pledging at the Curator ($10) level and up will enjoy alpha and beta access starting in late August and running all the way up to launch.
Now you can play an updated version of the demo build seen above--containing some of the new features and content added during this Kickstarter! This is still very much a pre-alpha demo, with limited content, non-final UI, unrefined characters and animations, and no sound (I suggest supplying your own soundtrack!), but it does offer a taste of what the final game will have to offer; click the header image and enjoy =D!
The late 2014-early 2015 release target is my estimate for the PC, Linux, OSX, and OUYA editions of the game, as those are the platforms I am actively developing for right now. However, I would love to release the game on other Android devices (tablets, phones, and microconsoles) and iOS; the game already supports touch controls, and mobile seems like a natural fit for the gameplay.
I am offering stretch goals to confirm these additional platforms, with Android mobile at $3,500 (Update: We hit it, counting PayPal! Expect news on Android mobile soon!) and iOS at $6,000.
I've got plenty of content to show off and advanced mechanics to discuss, so expect daily project updates! Here, you can find the big ones:
This is Tomb of Tyrants's second stab at Kickstarter. The first time around, I set an ambitious goal and was under-prepared, but this time, I've established a more modest goal, with adjusted rewards, a cleaner presentation, and solid groundwork.
My previous goal of $6,000 proved too substantial; I set that goal based on the amount that I would need to drop everything else and finish the game without any other source of funding, but fortunately, continued development does not require me to raise that amount immediately. $1,500 will buy me a couple of months to proceed with development unhindered, giving me time to reach beta and explore additional revenue streams, if necessary.
Ultimately, what brought me back to Kickstarter for a second attempt was the awesome community that has proven incredibly supportive and helpful, even in the face of failure. I have greatly enjoyed working with our backers in the livestreams and exchanging ideas in the comments, and I am excited to see how you will all shape the game's future as we move forward!
Unlike many Kickstarters, where money is being raised to pay commissions or handle manufacturing, I am only seeking money to pay bills and keep working on the game. I'm just one guy, I'm not outsourcing development, and more money can't make me work any harder or faster than I already do, so a little extra funding won't magically allow me to accomplish more in the same time frame.
However, I do have some big dreams for the game, and additional pledges can help me plan ahead for the game's future. I have planned out several stretch goals involving new platforms, gamemodes, and more. These are all things that I really want to do with the game, but which I cannot plan around with my immediate constraints.
Check out updates #12 and #16 (iOS) for more details on these goals!
You will receive the same undying gratitude and continued project updates that all other backers enjoy. Thank you =)!
You will receive the above plus the game for both PC and OUYA, upon respective platform launches, and access to the backer-only forum! You may also provide your name for inclusion in the game's credits.
You will receive the above plus any additional platform releases for Linux, Mac, Android, or iOS, if and when they launch. Furthermore, you will be eligible to participate in the closed alpha/beta phase of development (anticipated by the end of August), and gain access to the tester sub-forum; you will help shape the game's future by testing early builds and providing valuable feedback and input. You may also submit a name to the character generator, to be borne by some of the game's numerous characters and minions.
You will receive the Curator level plus credit as a sponsor for one of the game's champions, items, monsters, or floors! The game will contain many small nods to its community-backed nature; throughout the codex and in-game credits, you will be listed as a sponsor on a piece of content that I create. You will also gain access to the designer sub-forum!
You will receive the Curator level plus a banner of your own design! The current red snake banners hang on several floors, but you may suggest a new banner design for inclusion in the game, allowing yourself and others to customize your Tyrant's taste in home decor--you'll even receive in-game credit for it! You will also gain access to the designer sub-forum! Check out update #22 for more details on banners and themes, and update #24 for design reward fulfillment!
You will receive the Curator level plus the opportunity to design your own champion! Champions are high-level versions of standard heroes or minions with unique names, traits, abilities, and appearances. You can take any of the game's existing or planned archetypes and create a more powerful--or otherwise unique--version, to make an appearance in Tomb of Tyrants. This level includes access to the designer sub-forum and sponsor credit for your champion! Check out update #24 for details on champions and design reward fulfillment!
You will receive the Curator level plus the opportunity to design a new item or artifact for the game! Items are special, highlighted tiles that are collected for later use or passive bonuses; they can be usable potions, masterwork upgrades for your units, tools for manipulating the puzzle in unconventional ways, or whatever you dream up. This level includes access to the designer sub-forum and sponsor credit for your item! Check out update #24 for details on design reward fulfillment!
You will receive the Curator level plus the opportunity to design a new hero or minion archetype! This can be something as simple as a new race/class combo (e.g., gnomish berserker) or something totally out there (like centaur cavalry--people riding centaurs? Centaurs riding horses? Your call!). You can design as little or as much as you like, from just giving me a race/class combo to suggesting appearance, alternative color/equipment schemes, stats, traits, abilities, codex descriptions, and more. This level includes access to the designer sub-forum and sponsor credit for the archetype you create! Check out update #24 for details on design reward fulfillment!
You will receive the Curator level plus the opportunity to design a new floor for the dungeon! Floors are how players expand their fortress and build their arsenal, as each floor comes with the ability to buy new units, items, or traps. As a floor designer, you get to invent a floor, deciding what it looks like, produces, requires, unlocks, and costs. Depending upon the nature of your request, you may even get to design some of the things that go with it. This level includes access to the designer sub-forum and sponsor credit for the floor you design! Check out update #24 for details on design reward fulfillment!
You will receive the Curator level plus the opportunity to design a themed collection of champions/items/creatures/heroes/floors/whathaveyou! Want to design an entire party of epic adventurers, each with a unique item drop? Maybe a floor spawning new minion archetypes with champions and items to match? Or a set of artifacts that can be combined into one uber-artifact? That all sounds good to me, but we'll find something that sounds great to you! This level includes access to the designer sub-forum and sponsor credit for everything you design! Check out update #24 for details on design reward fulfillment!
Although many rewards are quantity-limited, you can absolutely pledge for multiple rewards if you desire; I've deliberately set low quantities to leave wiggle room for backers who want to pledge for multiple design or sponsorship rewards. Simply add any additional pledge levels' values to your pledge, and you can tell me what you want on the post-campaign survey. If you pledge for additional design rewards, you will receive extra copies of the game, as well, to share with your friends.Image copyright Sky Image caption The law is designed to ensure internet providers treat all data equally
The European Parliament has voted to restrict internet service providers' (ISPs) ability to charge data-hungry services for faster network access.
Operators have said the move would hinder their efforts to manage traffic.
The "net neutrality" proposal would put the EU at odds with the US, where video streaming service Netflix is paying the country's biggest cable firm for preferential treatment on its network.
The law still needs to be approved by Europe's Council of Ministers.
It would also prohibit mobile networks and broadband providers from blocking services - such as WhatApp messages or Google Drive storage - that compete with their own offerings.
Child abuse row Concerns have been raised that the net neutrality amendment passed in parliament could be exploited to allow child abuse images to be shared. A section that originally stated that sites could be blocked if it was necessary to "implement a legislative provision or a court order, or prevent or impede serious crimes" was shortened in the final version to refer only to court orders. At present a UK-based organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation maintains a list of web pages containing images of child abuse so that ISPs can block the content - a process that does not involve court orders. As farfetched as it might seem that the EU would make it easier to share such material, some politicians do fear that the amendment in its current state could make this the case. The Conservative Party's Vicky Ford MEP warned that the current draft was "dangerous" and said that it would have to be revised. Labour's Richard Howitt MEP tweeted that he too opposed the proposed law, which he said "could weaken [the] fight against online child sex abuse images". Vicky Ford Facebook blog Richard Howitt tweet
At present Slovenia and the Netherlands are the only members of the 28-nation bloc to enshrine the principle in law.
Enhanced services
The principle behind the proposed law is that all internet traffic should be treated equally regardless of its source.
MEPs feared that unless new rules were put in place, internet providers might threaten to slow down traffic from data intensive services - such as video-on-demand and cloud storage - unless the firms behind them paid a fee.
However, the mobile and cable firms have warned that the law would also prevent them from being able to offer enhanced services - for example charging a movie site a fee to ensure that their 4K ultra-high definition films played smoothly on consumers' devices when they might otherwise stutter.
"Whilst we support an open internet, a set of misconceptions about our industry, together with a rushed legislative process and a lack of technical analysis, risk transforming the Connected Continent Regulation into an anti-innovation and anti-consumer choice legislation," said a joint statement from four trade bodies representing cable and telecom operators.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Netflix supports the principle of net neutrality but has agreed to pay the US's Comcast a fee for enhanced access
"The current draft legislative compromise in the European Parliament reflects very restrictive views on how the internet should work and on how specialised services with enhanced quality could be offered."
Stream safeguards
BT added that the UK's major ISPs currently operated under a voluntary code that promised to treat all traffic consistently, regardless of its source, which already provided "an extremely strong safeguard for the neutrality of the internet".
However, the news is being welcomed by others.
French digital rights campaign group La Quadrature du Net described the vote as being hugely important.
"The EU Parliament made clear that the internet commons should be free of corporate capture, and remain a space where freedom of communication and innovation can thrive," it said.
The BBC also signalled the law could also prove beneficial.
"The open internet remains a key distribution platform for existing offers like BBC iPlayer and innovative new services," said a spokesman.
"New EU laws could help sustain these benefits and be a welcome addition to the safeguards around the successful open internet model in the UK."
Higher costs
The proposal should mean subscription services - such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Blinkbox and Sky Go - do not have to face raising their own charges to take account of new data speed fees from the ISPs.
Image caption The BBC says new net neutrality laws could offer "welcome" safeguards
However, with telecom and cable companies needing to cover the cost of infrastructure upgrades to cope with increasing data demands, one market watcher warned that consumers should expect bigger bills.
"One way or another the costs will always be passed on to the end-user," said Chris Green, a tech analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy.
"That could be through higher ISP charges: monthly broadband fees have been bottoming out for years and in many cases have been sold as loss leaders - that's likely to change off the back of this ruling."
He added that there were still ways for internet providers to charge additional fees, noting that several organisations already paid them to add special computer servers dedicated to storing their content to help save bandwidth.
"The ISPs can still charge the video providers to install data caching hardware inside their networks to enhance their services," Mr Green said.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said that if the net neutrality proposal cleared its remaining hurdles, it could become law by the end of the year.Texas man will give free beer for life for $2,000
A Texas man will give free beer for life in exchange for a $2,000 donation to kickstart his beer company, Intrinsic Brewing. Cary Hodson of Garland aims to raise $30,000 to open a brewhouse, according to the initiative's page on Crowd Brewed, a crowdfunding site focused on craft beer. less A Texas man will give free beer for life in exchange for a $2,000 donation to kickstart his beer company, Intrinsic Brewing. Cary Hodson of Garland aims to raise $30,000 to open a brewhouse, according to the... more Photo: Fechter, Joshua I, Screenshot Via YouTube Photo: Fechter, Joshua I, Screenshot Via YouTube Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Texas man will give free beer for life for $2,000 1 / 18 Back to Gallery
A Texas man will give free beer for life in exchange for a $2,000 donation to kickstart his beer company, Intrinsic Brewing.
Cary Hodson of Garland aims to raise $30,000 to open a brewhouse, according to the initiative's page on Crowd Brewed, a crowdfunding site focused on craft beer.
"We plan to excite palettes with historical, common, forgotten and new styles," Hodson says in a YouTube video pitching the company.
The page lists a number of tiered benefits in exchange for differing donation amounts.
Donors who give $2,000 will be given three beers a day for four days a week plus 25 growler fills.
$2,000 isn't the cap, though: those who donate $5,000 will include a dining set with coasters bearing the company's logo and a table set among other items.
As of Monday afternoon, Intrinsic had reached $10,710, a third of their goal.
Funds will be collected Dec. 7.
jfechter@mysa.com
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BEFORE reality TV ruled the airwaves, the Saturday night schedules on the BBC would often feature a variety show with singers, comedians and novelty acts. One favourite was a man spinning plates on top of poles, an act that involved a lot of dashing about to avoid disaster.
Central banks have been performing a version of that act for the past three years. In 2008 they were racing around trying to save one bank after another, and were unable to prevent a few smashes. In 2010 the fragile plates were the sovereign countries of the euro zone. The authorities just managed to keep them intact.
But the loss of just one tiny saucer could result in a lot of broken crockery. The banks are still in a delicate state with many dependent on the European Central Bank (ECB) for finance. The advice of Walter Bagehot, a 19th-century editor of The Economist, was that central banks should lend freely in a liquidity crisis, against good collateral. But this support was supposed to be short-term, not continuous: a central bank should be an emergency room, not a hospice.
Indeed, for all the efforts of governments and central banks, many of the global economy's long-term problems have yet to be solved. The banks are weak, the American housing market is still in the doldrums and the global imbalances have not gone away.
Just as the ECB bought time for European banks, rescues have been attempted for the struggling governments of Greece and Ireland. But these seem like temporary expedients: lending the countries money for extended periods at rates neither can afford. The packages have not been sufficient to calm the markets or stop the rot from spreading: 2010 ended with Fitch downgrading Portugal and putting Greece on negative rating watch.
The rest of Europe is now talking about imposing penalties on private-sector lenders in future rescues. That will turn each crisis into a game of chicken as bondholders sell before they get penalised. And financing packages do not deal with an underlying lack of competitiveness in many European economies. Without the ability to devalue, the restoration of competitiveness requires painful austerity measures and wage restraint.
That leads to another potential flashpoint for 2011: the lack of global co-ordination. Gone is the consensus seen at the G20 meeting in April 2009. Europe will be pursuing austerity, China is trying to rein in bank lending but America has opted for another fiscal stimulus. This is a throwback to pre-crisis 2007, with American deficit-financed consumption set against Chinese surplus-creating exports.
It seems certain that the Federal Reserve will continue to accompany fiscal stimulus with the monetary equivalent in the form of near-zero interest rates and further quantitative easing. The need for such extraordinary measures is an indication of how weak the economy continues to be. But while the developed world is still fighting off deflation, the developing world is worrying about inflationary pressures, with gold near $1,400 an ounce and oil back above $90 a barrel.
Easy monetary policy in America also creates the incentive for further speculative money to flow into emerging markets via carry trades and other strategies. That creates a dilemma for developing-country governments: they may want to head off inflation with higher interest rates but that would only encourage the speculators. Some have tried capital controls instead but it is not clear such measures are effective. Bubbles in emerging markets are likely to develop in 2011.
Whether all-out currency wars (in the form of trade protection) will emerge in 2011 is harder to tell. The aim of most developing countries is to prevent their currencies rising against the dollar at a faster pace than the Chinese yuan. Oddly enough, the European fiscal crisis eased some of the strains in late 2010: a weaker euro meant a stronger dollar.
But it is quite possible that the dollar could suffer another round of weakness in the coming year. After all, the currency has no yield support, a continuing trade deficit and the prospect of endless fiscal deficits. The sorry condition of municipal and state finances could yet be the trigger for a loss of confidence.
This list of problems is the reason why it is so hard for Buttonwood to join the bullish consensus for 2011. The authorities have kept the plates spinning by dint of an enormous effort and some unprecedented monetary measures. But the underlying problems have not been solved. And the law of gravity cannot be suspended for ever.You know what they say: Three times is a trend.
Well, first Canada elected Justin Trudeau prime minister at age 43, and he became something of a political marquee idol thanks to his “because it’s 2015” explanation of why his cabinet was half women. Then France elected Emmanuel Macron president at 39 after he upended the establishment political parties with his En Marche! movement (then he and Mr. Trudeau began a bromance of sorts during the G7 meeting in Sicily). And now comes Sebastian Kurz: the 31-year-old about-to-be chancellor of Austria, and the youngest leader of a European Union state.
“Austria’s answer to Macron and Trudeau?” CNN asked earlier this week.
In terms of policy, no. Mr. Kurz swept to power on an anti-immigration platform. Unlike Mr. Macron, he worked within an established party — the ÖVP, or People’s Party — to reshape it, as opposed to starting his own. Unlike Mr. Trudeau, he had no legacy to live up to or exploit.
But in terms of presentation? Absolutely.
There has been a lot of talk in recent elections about dissatisfaction with politics as usual, and one constant among all three men is that they crystallized the desire for change by connecting it to the look of generational change.
They don’t dress in established conventions. They don’t talk the same. And in the visual culture of a social media world, they understand how, increasingly, that can convince voters that they are not the same.NASHVILLE, TN—Stressing the importance of the fan base’s health and wellbeing, Vanderbilt University chancellor Nicholas Zeppos advised Commodore football fans Thursday to get vaccinated before the team’s Southeastern Conference road schedule begins next week. “Those of you travelling into parts of the country like Gainesville, Oxford, or Columbia will be exposing yourself to a wide array of diseases and viruses, and we strongly urge you to consult with your doctor and ensure your immunizations are up to date prior to the start of SEC play,” Zeppos said in an email to Vanderbilt students, faculty, and alumni, urging them to carefully consider the risks before choosing to attend any conference road games. “Whether you’re traveling into the East or West division, adequate precautions are vital. In the event you or your healthcare provider are unable to take the proper steps towards vaccination, we ask that you remain home for your own safety and that of the entire Vanderbilt community.” The advisory concluded by reminding fans that anyone planning on attending a road game tailgate should visit the Student Health Center for free typhoid tablets.
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Following an 11-year run with the New York Jets, center Nick Mangold was released by Gang Green.
The 33-year-old announced Saturday the two sides will soon be parting ways:
Jets owner Woody Johnson spoke about the decision in the team's announcement:
For the past 11 years, [Mangold] has been a cornerstone of our team both on and off the field. As our Pro Bowl center, Nick consistently demonstrated superior skill and unmatched toughness. Equally important, off the field, Nick exhibited respect, sensitivity and compassion for the causes he supported. It has been a privilege to have known Nick these many years and, for all of us, I say Nick will always be a Jet.
Mangold has remained one of the league's sturdier centers when healthy, but he missed extended action last season because of an ankle injury.
And with the Jets in the midst of a rebuild, it made sense to shed Mangold's $9.075 million cap hit for 2017—the final year on his deal—before the start of free agency March 9.
Wesley Johnson, who started eight games in place of Mangold last season, projects as the Jets' new starting center, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.
As for Mangold, Rapoport noted the seven-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro is not expected to retire.
Instead, he'll look for another job after flashing remarkable consistency over the past few seasons, as Pro Football Focus' Nathan Jahnke pointed out:
Mike Garafolo of NFL Network also reported Mangold intends to continue his career and is expected to draw interest from contenders.
Mangold may not command a lucrative multiyear offer since he's coming off an injury that cost him half of the 2016 season, but his status as a longtime stud in the middle of protection packages should earn him looks from teams in need of upgrades at center.
In other words, don't expect Mangold to be out of work for long.
Contract information retrieved from Spotrac.com.MURSITPINAR, Turkey -- The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is about to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, Turkey's president said Tuesday, as outgunned Kurdish forces struggled to repel the extremists with limited aid from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
A Pentagon official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that the U.S. is not shifting its air campaign in an effort to save Kobani. The official said the embattled town is one of many in Syria and Iraq which are under attack by ISIS. What sets it apart is not its plight but its location on the Turkish border, which makes it possible for the world to watch.
"Kobani is horrible but right now there's a lot of horrible in Iraq and Syria," the official said. "Kobani is not unique."
ISIS fighters using tanks and heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria have been pounding Kurdish forces in Kobani for days. Since the extremists' offensive began in mid-September, more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting, activists said.
The beleaguered Kurdish militiamen defending Kobani received some support overnight and Tuesday from the American-led coalition, which carried out six airstrikes against ISIS militants around the town, destroying four armed vehicles, damaging a tank and killing fighters, the U.S. military said.
Much of Kobani's population -- an estimated 160,000 people -- have already fled into Turkey and are living in jam-packed refugee camps.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the coalition air campaign launched last month would not be enough to halt ISIS' advance and called for greater cooperation with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting both the extremists and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"Kobani is about to fall," Erdogan told Syrian refugees in the Turkish town of Gaziantep, near the border. "We asked for three things: one, for a no-fly zone to be created; two, for a secure zone parallel to the region to be declared; and for the moderate opposition in Syria and Iraq to be trained and equipped."
Turkish tanks and other ground forces have been stationed along the border within a few hundred yards of the fighting in Kobani - also known as Ayn Arab - but have not intervened. Just days ago, Turkey said it wouldn't let Kobani fall.
BBC crew hit with tear gas along Syria-Turkey border
Syrian Kurds, however, have scoffed at the rhetoric coming out of Ankara. They say that not only are the Turks not helping, they are actively hindering the defense of Kobani by preventing Kurdish militiamen in Turkey from crossing the border into the town to help in the fight.
"We are besieged by Turkey, it is not something new," said Ismet Sheikh Hassan, the Kurdish defense chief for the Kobani region.
Despite Erdogan's dire assessment, Kurdish forces managed to push ISIS militants out of most of the eastern part of Kobani on Monday, hours after the extremists stormed into neighborhoods on the edge of town, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Kurds may have been helped by a round of airstrikes late Monday against ISIS positions. Two more rounds followed Tuesday morning, when journalists on the Turkish side of the border heard the sound of warplanes before large plumes of smoke billowed just west of Kobani.
U.S. launches airstrikes on Syria-Turkey border
Those strikes helped slow ISIS' shelling of Kobani, Hassan said.
The U.S.-led coalition has launched limited airstrikes over the past two weeks near Kobani in a bid to help Kurdish forces defend the town, but the sorties appear to have done little to slow ISIS' advance.
The militants' onslaught has forced more than 200,000 people to flee in recent weeks, Erdogan said. Their flight is among the largest single exoduses of the three-year Syrian conflict.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists across Syria, said Tuesday that 412 people have been killed since the Kobani fighting began.
On Tuesday morning, occasional gunfire could be heard in Kobani. A flag of the main Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, was seen flying over a hill in central Kobani.
Turkey has long suspected the YPG is linked to the Kurdish PKK, which waged a long and bloody insurgency against Ankara. Syria's opposition also has accused the group of conspiring with Assad, charges the YPG denies.
Late Monday, ISIS fighters punctured the Kurdish front lines on the eastern edge of Kobani, and pushed into the town itself.
But the Kurds managed to force the militants to withdraw from most of those areas in heavy clashes after midnight, the Observatory and a senior Kurdish official said. The Observatory added that five loud explosions were heard in the town as warplanes soared overhead.
Idriss Nassan, deputy head of Kobani's foreign relations committee, told The Associated Press that many of the ISIS fighters were forced to withdraw from areas they seized late Monday, although they are still in parts of the eastern neighborhoods of the Kobani.
Kurdish fighters "inflicted heavy casualties among the attackers and prevented them from moving deep into the city," Nassan said.
The Observatory said ISIS fighters were meanwhile able to capture several buildings on the southern edge of Kobani as well as a hospital under construction on the western side.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, also reported coalition airstrikes in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which is almost entirely under ISIS control.
The United States and five Arab allies launched an aerial campaign against ISIS in Syria on Sept. 23 with the aim of rolling back and ultimately crushing the extremist group. The U.S. has been bombing ISIS targets in neighboring Iraq since August.
ISIS has conquered vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, declaring a self-styled caliphate governed by its strict interpretation of Shariah law. The militants have massacred captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorized minorities and beheaded two American journalists and two British aid workers.Mr Dandan said this morning the handful of violent protesters were young "freelancers" in the Muslim community who move between groups and are not tied to any mosque or particular organisation. Samier Dandan, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, says Muslims received messages of hate after the Sydney protests. Credit:Nick Moir "It's our shortcoming," he said. "We have not really engaged with these individuals." He said he would like those responsible for criminal acts at the weekend not just to be locked up but, rather, be educated more intensely by mainstream Muslim groups so as not to "drive them more underground and give them a little bit more oxygen". "We want to engage with them; we want to try to understand what drove them to this mentality," he said.
He said Muslim organisations had received "several hundred" messages of hate and outrage since Saturday. "There have also been threats made to people, and property, which will be passed on to the authorities," he said. Mr Dandan called for restraint from the media and politicians. "Unfortunately, some outlets have used the opportunity to inflame community tensions through sensationalist and unbalanced reporting," he said. "A similar call is made to politicians who are manipulating the event to their own advantage."
Photos and footage from the unauthorised protest, which moved from Martin Place to Pitt Street Mall and then to Hyde Park, shows mostly young Muslim men and children participating and holding up signs such as "Behead all those who insult the prophet" and "Obama Obama we love Osama". Facebook messages that circulated on Friday said that the protest was organised by a little-known radical group called Sixth Pillar but Mr Dandan said this was likely to be individuals who quickly grouped together in the days before the protest to print T-shirts. Mr Dandan said the Muslim community would implement a level of governance to manage any future protests, saying that Muslims would be encouraged to ignore any text messages or Facebook posts that did not come from clear and authorised centres and mosques. The 25 Muslim leaders who met last night also decided to break ranks with their international counterparts by saying that protests over the YouTube film insulting the prophet Muhammad were unacceptable and un-Islamic. They decided they would not endorse any protest, even peaceful demonstrations, following Saturdays violent scenes, which they said were worse than the Cronulla riots.
As protests continue to erupt around the world, Silma Ihram, a board member of the Australian Muslim Women's Association that "there is no need for further action". "We've seen enough," she said. "There is no need for further action. We don't believe it is productive. What is it going to achieve?" The sentiment is not shared by global leaders - such as the Lebanon-based Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah who called for more protests overnight - or many of Saturday's protesters. The demonstrators have vowed to rally again this Sunday and, according to one Facebook post, believed that last weekend "showed everyone that we will stand up for our religion". Mr Dandan said the community had been receiving hundreds of threats against people and property from a small racist segment of the Australian population.
He called on the police to investigate their own actions at the rally, saying numerous reports of heavy-handedness and brutality had been received by his association. Sheik Feiz Mohammed and the Hizb ut-Tahrir group, both linked with extremist teachings and with Saturdays protest, were not invited to last night's meeting and did not attend. Premier welcomes Muslim response NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says he is heartened by the Islamic community leaders' strong condemnation of the violent protests. Mr O'Farrell said he was "delighted there has been such a strong statement by Islamic leaders and scholars".
"I am extremely heartened by the response of Islamic leaders." Mr O'Farrell told reporters that had been the case since Saturday evening when Muslim community leaders expressed their abhorrence at the violent protest in Sydney's CBD. Mr O'Farrell said the child holding the poster was a "wake-up call" to all parents. He has called for an investigation by the Department of Family Services. "Who would take a child along to a protest that turned violent |
and they turned out great. Once again, you have produced an excellent kit with top notch directions and materials." -Scott C.
"I really enjoyed making my tarp, net tent, and sleeping quilt. I've been rereading Trail Life and the Tarp Book Essential as well. Thank you for making sewing so easy and fun. I'll be working next on my warm hat kit, and then the backpack! I plan to be on the High Sierra Trail this July. Thank you!" - Aika M., CA
"Oh boy. can't wait to get back on the trail w/new Ray-Way gear. I've researched for two years and nothing compares to your designs. (and your low prices are so appreciated.) C U on the AT." -Cecilia M.
"Love my tarp/spitfire/quilt/pack!" - Brian W.
"I started the Blood Cleaner 4 weeks ago and I have noticed a Huge improvement in my health. And I look forward to getting so much better! Iam feeling this is all too good to be true! but I honestly can say...I was a person very near death and suffered like there was no tomorrow. Iam more than happy to be you and Jenny's Customer, you two are saving my life!! Thank you!!" - Sherry B.
"I just completed my shell pants and shorts kits. They both fit very well, and I enjoyed making them. Both fit comfortably loose, but not too loose, with adequate material for movement and sitting/squatting/kneeling in various positions on the ground. I REALLY like the fit and feel. I really enjoyed not having to cut the fabric to a pattern. Thanks for putting these kits out there. I really enjoyed them! I'll probably be making a set for my wife, too, and I'm actually pretty excited about the Sleeping Hat Kits. I like the idea of keeping my face cozy by breathing through the fabric. Thanks for all your work. My backpacking experience would be far less fulfilling without your books and kits. They've been very formative for me, on a lot of levels." - Kerry R., MI
"I just finished my AT thru hike and I am so glad I took the time to read "Trail Life" and make my backpack, quilt, and tarp with your instructions. This was my first backpacking trip ever and I left for it feeling prepared for anything with my 12lb base weight, and I truly enjoyed the whole experience. Thank you!!!" - Elisa Brown
"Thanks for the great kits. I have completed the tarp, quilt, hat, backpack, and a knife kit and have ordered a net tent kit. I must say that the instructions in your kits are bombproof. They are extremely well written and make the process easy. You simply do one simple thing at a time. My son and I spent a week on the trail in Shenandoah National Park. The backpack and tarp performed exceptionally. We even weathered a couple of blistering thunderstorms and stayed completely dry. We used many principles and ideas from Trail Life to keep our packs light." Ron S., VA
"I Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate tremendously what you do with your knowledge and products, which totally transformed my and my wife's backpacking methodology. The ideas we learned extend into the rest our lives far further than we'd ever have expected, as we apply much of Ray-Way philosophy to our every day lives. To date I've made 2 Quilts, a 2-person net tent (I added a zipper) for my Ray-Way tarp, 2 bat wings, 1 backpack, several storage/stow bags, not to mention countless repairs and modifications to existing gear, all from the kits/books/knowledge/philosophy garnered from Ray-Way products. I hope you continue to provide your guidance and kits-- much needed in our over-consumption driven society." Kerry R., Michigan
"Our first Quilt (and also first ever sewing project) only took a weekend to complete--GREAT INSTRUCTIONS, thanks." Blue & Nika M.
"My package arrived this afternoon! Thanks again for the unmatched customer service and fast shipping. I will definitely recommend you to friends and family!" Joe W., TN
"I have completed my backpack kit. The materials, kit instructions and well engineered, elegant design were much appreciated. Lightweight does not have to be fragile - and now that I have made this pack I can see it lasting for a long, long time. I wish I had this during my boy scout days. Would have made those hikes less painful. Can't wait to put some miles on this pack!" -Brooks P.
"I am a fan of Beyond Backpacking (and now Trail Life), and those books have changed my life, thanks for sharing your wisdom. I purchased a backpack kit and it is now done. The kit was great, the instructions were clear and detailed, and I am very happy with the result. Thank you both!" Mark D., Indiana
"Hi Jenny and Ray, just finished your backpack kit and tested it on Mallorca / GR221 a few days. It performed excellent without a hip belt. My next project is to sew a quilt." Andreas L., Germany
"Just wanted to say thanks for the great tarp, net-tent, and batwing kits. The projects were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed making them. I'm new to backpacking and the first thing I did was buy your Trail Life book and wow, is that a great book! So now I think I'm on the right path to really enjoying lightweight backpacking." -Joe W.
"I just returned from a trip along the JMT and my Ray-Way tarp worked fantastic! There was quite a bit of rain, thunder, lightning and hail but the tarp took it all in stride. My Ray-Way quilt also worked great!" Darren O., CA
"I used your tarp during a month this summer, in Scotland, and it was amazing! It is so much better than a tent. I was more connected with the nature (well, I had no Net, so I slept with spiders, snails and slugs!), it was a great experience. But now I want to order a net-tent, cause I'm going to explore the world during the next 2 years" - Elsa C., France
"By sewing my own gear from the kits that you have meticulously designed and refined, I not only now have gear that is of the highest caliber but I also now have the skills to make this gear myself." David d.
"My fiance and I are devouring 'Trail Life', which is changing almost every thought we had about our PCT attempt which we are planning for next year. Thanks for a fantastic book!!" -Martyn H., Paris
"I have made your two person tarp, net and insulated hat and have found them to be excellent for use in the Australian climate. It gives a real sense of satisfaction to know that you made it yourself and results in no end of questions from fellow bushwalkers. They all want to know where it came from and how good it is. In Australia we don't have the range of materials available to us from local suppliers and your kits make it possible to get the best and lightest at a sensible price. Thanks for making my walking so much more enjoyable." Duncan C.
"I have made a tarp, quilt, stowbag, and storage bag. They came out great!" Brian K., WY
"Here's why I love my Ray-Way tarp and net-tent (not to mention my Ray-Way quilts and backpacks...): For "fun" this past weekend, I reverted to an old tarptent from an established small manufacturer of light backpacking shelters, a shelter I had from the days before I made all my Ray-Way gear. I'd forgotten how vastly superior the Ray-Way tarp and net-tent are to the older shelter. Because the old tarptent has only one configuration, there was no way to pitch the roof high enough to prevent extremely heavy condensation on the underside of the shelter. While it didn't rain outside, it certainly did inside. I've never had this happen anywhere near this extent in my Ray-Way setup, and, when there is some condensation under my Ray Way tarp, I know I just didn't pitch high enough for conditions. I won't be making that mistake again, and, really, I knew better in the first place. It's time to make stuff-sacks from the commercial tarp tent. Thanks for having made Ray-Way available. It's truly great stuff!" - Kerry R.
"My sewing is going along extremely well. Now I look back and realize my fear of sewing was only what you call *lack of familiarity*. I sure am glad I'm a little more familiar now. Sewing is fun, and your Ray-Way kits are pure magic! Everything falls into place beautifully, one stitch at a time. Thank you Ray and Jenny, your teachings are truly priceless." Will Lady
"I sewed a Ray-Way backpack and have used it on multiple section hikes (2,215 miles) on the PCT and other trails. It has worked very well, and has been integral in getting my base weight down to 12 pounds." -Dave P.
"I just received the order placed earlier this week, and I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for the good service, taking care to ensure your products are high quality and that orders exceed expectations. Thank you for the kits, which have enabled me to learn new skills and rethink what I really need in the outdoors. This order included a third backpack kit, for my growing son, 10, who will be taking the lead in sewing it this time. I would not be able to pass on this skill if not for encouraging people to "break out of the mold of imagined inabilities". It is greatly appreciated." Mike W., CA
"I ordered the quilt kit last month. What a boost of confidence your clear instructions gave me! I felt like a sewing expert (once I remembered how to thread the machine). I'm looking forward to another fun sewing adventure with the tarp and net-tent kits. Thank you." -NM
"My 2nd alpine quilt is finally coming to its end of life, so I've bought my third quilt kit to sew." -Curtis W.
"I recently finished a quilt kit--thank you so much--it works great! Now that I've made one quilt, the next one will be a piece of cake. Thanks!" Steven B.
"The Quilt kit turned out great, only 1.25 lbs per person with the Gorget and Splitzip options. The Stowbags are the only way to go. I just ordered a Ray-Way backpack kit. Thanks so much for making such great kits that are beyond reasonably priced." Mark H.
"First of all, much thanks for providing these kits! Quality gear + a new skill for a relatively low cost is a pretty great deal. I recently finished sewing my 2P Tarp and 2P Net-Tent with negligible previous sewing experience. Overall your instructions were phenomenal, and really made these projects more approachable than I thought they would be." Brian S., OH
"Ray and Jenny: I have just finished my thru-hike of the A.T using all the gear kits I have purchased from you (backpack, 2 quilts, tarp and spitfire). The gear worked out great!! Also while on the trail I have inspired a lot of other hikers to make their own gear, and to use your kits. Thanks again for your great products. GA-ME 2012" Les P., NY
"I really appreciate Ray and Jenny sharing what they know and producing the kits that allow me to experience the joy of making my own equipment and using it to experience the joy of being in the wild places. Thank you so much!" -Steve
"My wife likes my quilt so much that she doesn't want it finished (i. e. close the foot end). So, I'll let her have that one and I'll make another one (this one with alpine insulation). We'll get to try both." Michael B., MD
"Just crossed the Brooks Range 170 miles. Used Ray-Way gear & methods exclusively. We found the Ray-Way gear better suited for navigating the challenges of the Arctic landscape. Our best memories were being all cozy & warm under our tarp & quilt, in a downpour, with all the exploding sights, colors and smells of the late summer tundra all around. Ah the places my homemade gear has taken me! Many thanks!" -James G. AK
"Our ($800) order is large because we figured we might as well just jump into the “Ray-way” with both feet. It is perhaps a bit rash to order everything at once, but we’ve read through your website thoroughly and from what we’ve read, to use the Ray-way backpacks we need to pare down our shelter and sleeping bags, so we want to go ahead with the whole deal and try it out as it was meant to be used. I don’t anticipate any trouble with the sewing. And your testimonials are numerous and highly positive, so we are pretty confident! We’re looking forward to getting started on the sewing and to using our new lightweight gear on the next adventure!" -Catherine & Dan 0., BC
"I just finished the tarp project and am excited by the results. It was my first sewing project ever, and I can't wait to try it out." Noah B.
"your 2-person tarp performed flawlessly in our last outing, bivouacing at 1900m in a pretty stiff breeze (Föhn), temperatures around 10°C (50°F). The next official weather station (Adelboden) recorded gales up to 52km/h that night. We were on 1900 and certainly got our share of that: Anything not weighed down with a rock or staked to the ground would be blown away – I actually was surprised how little your tarp was affected by the wind." - Urs G.
"Wow, your new knife kit that I received today is really over the top! Your other blades were excellent and I made quite a number of beautiful functional knives with them. Your new blade is what I consider the optimum in shape, finish, grind, thickness, quality and overall design. It is exceptionally sharp right out of the box and after a run through the Ray-Way sharpening method I am positive that it will have no equal." - Fred E.
"This is our first sewing project, and we are having a lot of fun with it." Larissa G.
"Hi Ray and Jenny: I have made your backpack, tarp and net tent, 2 sleeping quilts, several stowbags, sleeping hat, 2 insulated hats, trail life, the tarp book; I love them all. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge. You have really helped me." -Frank A.
"I've made several of your kits. Really like them!" -Brad J.
"My dog, Mickey and I were hiking the Samish Overlook trail. I had your 2200 pack that I made. As I was walking, I was thinking about how much you and your husband have influenced the hiking community. I was also lamenting that it seems that some of the cottage industries have taken your intellectual property without giving proper acknowledgement to the source. Gotta hate intellectual property theft. And, one last thing, Jenny...even though you are the quiet partner, you are truly a bad-assed woman and an inspiration." -Catherine D.
"I so much look forward to sewing and using these kits! Thank you SO much for the inspiration...I used to be a gearhead junkie..poring through the latest catalogs for the newest and best...you guys have given me the inspiration and the confidence to do it myself..cheaper and better! Thank You!!!" James P.
"My new Quilt is beautiful and I thank you for your amazing clear directions. Even if I got stumped I just kept reading it over and I could almost hear you slowly telling me clearly. And it always worked. Thank you so much!" - Lynnie W.
"Four thumbs up! I wanted to let you know that I've been to two healthcare professionals, who, upon learning of your Blood Cleaner device, encouraged me to continue using it, saying that it sounds plausible as a treatment for blood-borne pathogens." -Donna C.
"I have ordered eight backpacks for gifts and extras for if friends go hiking with me. Am ordering four more now. Thanks so much for the ideas and kits, Ray and Jenny!" Paul W.
"Hi Its Quilt Addic Fred, This Will be my 3rd quilt with you. Thanks a million. The quilts that I have already made are all that I now use to sleep in!" Fred W.
"I have made your tarp (x2), net-tent (x2), quilt (x2), insulated hat (x4) and will order a couple of backpack kits very soon. I have gotten addicted to making my own gear." Matthew L., NZ
"I've enjoyed reading of your adventures for years, and I have several of your books. Thank you so much for your service, and keep up the good work." -dave b.
"This quilt kit is for my wife - she tried the one I made this summer (the alpine upgrade, deluxe) and now won't part with it until I make her one too =)." Nickolas G.
"I am very happy with the pack, quilt, new tarp, and spitfire that I made last winter, used them all this past summer. As it turned out the north cascades had a somewhat heavy bug season this past July and I was very happy to have the spitfire. I was really impressed with the functionality of it, as well as the ease of going in and out of the door. Once again a top notch product that just works and works well." - Scott Williamson
"I am really enjoying the process of building your kits. So far I have finished my first quilt and stuff bag. They are beautiful and I can't wait to try it out in two weeks on the Tamarak Trail. Thank you so much for your guidance and your very useful information." -Frank A., NY
"My wife and I recently did a nice 7 day hike on the North Country trail here in Michigan, using Ray-Way Backpacks, Tarp, Net-Tent and Quilt. One of the nights we weathered a torrential downpour during a heavy (but windless) thunderstorm. We had never seen rain like that. We found out from a local person the following afternoon that it had rained at a rate of 5" per hour where we were-- torrential indeed. We stayed completely dry under the tarp, if not kept awake by the extraordinary noise of that rain. Site selection gleaned from your books also played a role-- no pooling to speak of on our elevated site on a very thick bed of pine needles." Kerry R., SW Michigan
"The sewing journey I was on the last couple of weeks was an incredibly deep and enlightening experience to say the least! Sewing the quilt, tarp, backpack and stowbag kits, and studying the tarp book, backpack video, and highly detailed instructions with extremely accurate diagrams = A whole new perspective :) Thank you Ray and Jenny" Will Lady
"I am reading your book, Trail Life, and I am so intrigued and excited! We want a backpack that we can use for all types of hiking and after much looking and comparing we came back to your website and without a doubt know we will be forever happy with making one ourselves with your kit!" -Margie G.
"If you are considering hiking all or part of the PCT, I recommend you forget all that you know about hiking, especially if it is based on conventional backpacking knowledge. Study Ray's advice and you will learn things the easy way, rather than having to learn from your struggles like I did my first year on the trail." - Scott Williamson
"It's been a few years since I've tried to sew anything, so I like the step-by-step of the quilt instructions you included. The quilt kit and instructions are excellent. " -Helen A., WA
"Ray and Jenny, Thank you so much for offering your products in kit form. There is definitely *Magic* created while sewing your kits. After thru-hiking the AT in the early 90's, I never thought that I would bond with a backpack or sleeping bag (now quilt) again." Darren P.
"Thank you so much for sharing your products with us and encouraging us to create! So many lessons about life learned by sewing." -Jim D.
"I am 14 years old and have recently finished a tarp kit from you. The tarp works great and I plan to use it during my scout troop's 50 miler on the Appalachian Trail. I am going to make a backpack kit next. Thank you for your great products." Ben B.
"I've made so many of your projects that I need more thread. Thanks!" Earl W.
"I just made a second quilt, this one with extra insulation for winter camping, and had one of the coziest nights ever at bitingly cold Joshua Tree over the weekend. This was under a tarp, while wearing the insulated hat. A ray-way triumvirate!" Scott G.
"After doing a 50 mile slog through Kings Canyon in California with my son's scout team, I wanted to try lighter weight backpacking gear. The thought of making it myself with your kits intrigued me. My wife got me started sewing the 2-man tarp on her sewing machine. I heard her laughing and telling my daughter that I was actually sewing. The instructions provided told me everything I needed to know. My son and I tested the tarp out tonight in the backyard with a hose. It's water tight and ready to go! I'm starting the backpack next." Steve S.
"I placed another order today, after deciding to make all new gear this winter. My last Ray-Way pack (made 5 years ago) is still going, but torn. My tarp was made from your kit 9 years ago and is still serviceable, but is finally showing signs of sun damage. This is on gear that receives a lot of use each summer. Not bad for the price! I still feel your kits are the best thing going in backpacking equipment. I see so much cuben fiber now on the PCT and have seen a lot of fabric failures due to its use. Glad to see you are not caught up in the hype on that. Anyway, I want to thank you for offering these kits. I can't see how you are making any money on them, but your ideas and techniques have had a huge influence on not only my hiking but also my life." - Scott Williamson
"THANK YOU for all that you have done to make it possible for amateur beginners like myself to make our own quality pieces of gear. I have completed the Net tent, Tarp, insulated hat, and 1P Quilt, and all have been a truly incredible learning experience. The quality of your designs have so many in-built subtleties and details that emerge as the sewing journey unfolds, and yet it all flows naturally with the use of only a simple, carefully chosen materials. The fact that the process has been easy enough for a beginner like me to successfully complete is an astounding design achievement. I am truly in awe!" Raymond Y., Western Australia
"We just finished our tarp (and are just starting the quilt). I cannot imagine sleeping under anything else now. What a tremendous feeling having made my own equipment. Thank you so much sharing your designs and whole new way of looking at things. Or should I say old way of looking at things. Not many years ago our parents and grandparents made everything they used, now everyone buys the things they use and somehow are never satisfied, and thus are depressed and taking pills and the drug conglomerates are getting rich, people are getting more depressed and so it goes. I have never been more satisfied with a piece of equipment. Because, I made it myself and that is satisfying, which is the antithesis of depression. Thanks again." Bruce R.
"Your sewing kits are the best! Plus, it is so much fun to make my own gear - I'm up late every night at the sewing machine, listening to books on tape and stitching away. The instructions are very good, obviously carefully written and reviewed, so they are quite clear and complete. Everything about these products is first class. The backpack and extra thick sleeping quilt passed their first test this month on a 24 mile winter backpacking hike. The Trail Life book is a treasure of experience and information. Thank you so much for everything." Stephen K., KY
"Hello Ray, I'm writing you to say thank you. My mother took your outward-bound class many years ago. Over the course of my life she has recollected on this, saying that it was one of the best experiences of her life. From solo camping for 2-3 days in the wilderness of the pacific northwest to hiking on glaciers must have been a thrilling experience. My mother’s stories of you have helped shaped me into the adult I am today. I’m in the process of planning trips and constantly referencing your books and guides to help in the process. Your wealth of knowledge has benefited me in so many ways. I think there’s no greater joy in life than spending it outside either atop a mountain or deep in the forest. Since I’ve heard so many stories about you; it would be amazing if I could speak to you or meet you at some point in life. I wish you all the best and thank you for all that you’ve done to influence not only me but so many other people who love the great outdoors." - Kevin B.Organized by the Brown Berets de TejAztlan, a rally and march to condemn police violence gathered victims’ families and activists together on Oct. 22. Janie Torres, whose brother was viciously beaten and thrown into downtown Buffalo Bayou to drown on Cinco de Mayo in 1977, rallied the crowd, saying, “I was a child when my big brother was murdered 40 years ago and I will continue to protest killer cops for the next 40 years until they stop killing our people.”
A special honored guest was Omar García, a survivor of the 43 students who were disappeared on Sept. 26, 2014, from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. Respected Mayan elder, Teresa, urged everyone to continue their solidarity and unity with all victims of governments and police violence all around the world.TAIPEI/TOKYO (Reuters) - A nuclear power plant in Taiwan may have been leaking radioactive water for three years, the government has said, adding to a growing crisis of confidence in North Asia about nuclear safety.
An aerial view shows workers wearing protective suits and masks work at a construction site (C) of the shore barrier to stop radioactive water from leaking into the sea, at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 9, 2013. REUTERS/Kyodo
Japan is struggling to contain radioactive water pouring out of the Fukushima nuclear plant that was wrecked by a 2011 tsunami. In South Korea, prosecutors are conducting a massive investigation into forged safety certificates and substandard parts at many of its reactors.
Nuclear power has long been used as a reliable alternative to fossil fuels in natural resource-starved parts of Asia like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, but the safety worries are forcing a rethink. A plan to build Taiwan’s fourth nuclear plant has been held up for years by street protests and a brawl in the legislature over safety issues. Most nuclear plants in Japan remain closed and nine of South Korea’s reactors have been shut down, six for maintenance and three to replace cables that were supplied using forged certificates.
Taiwan’s government watchdog, the Control Yuan, has said The First Nuclear Power Plant, located at Shihmen in a remote northern coastal location but not far from densely populated Taipei, has been leaking toxic water from storage pools of two reactors.
An official of Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), which operates the island’s nuclear power plants, said the water did not come from the storage pools, but may have come from condensation or water used for cleaning up the floor.
“We have explained to the Control Yuan, but they turned it down. They asked us to look into if other causes were involved,” said the official. He declined to be identified as the matter is sensitive.
In any case, the water has been collected in a reservoir next to the storage pools used for spent nuclear rods and has been recycled back into the storage pools, and so poses no threat to the environment, the official added.
The Control Yuan said there had been a catalogue of errors, including a lack of a proper plan for how to handle spent nuclear materials, and did not believe the explanations from Taipower.
“The company has yet to clearly establish the reason for the water leak,” it said.
The use of nuclear power on resource-poor Taiwan has long been controversial, not least because the island is comparatively small and any major nuclear accident would likely affect its entire land area.
Taiwanese activists have seized on the 2011 meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant to push for a stop to nuclear power on the island.
Highly radioactive water from the Fukushima plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tons a day, officials said this week, prompting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to order the government to step in and help in the clean-up.
The revelation amounted to an acknowledgement that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has yet to come to grips with the scale of the catastrophe, 2 1/2 years after the earthquake and tsunami. Tepco only recently admitted water had leaked at all.
The problems at Fukushima are clouding the outlook for restarts in Japan as a new regulatory reviews safety at some reactors, a process that started last month and may take more than six months.
Japanese prosecutors are unlikely to indict former prime minister Naoto Kan, utility executives or regulators over their handling of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, rejecting complaints filed over the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl, the Asahi newspaper reported on Friday.
The quake and tsunami caused reactor meltdowns at the plant, spewing radiation and forcing 160,000 people to flee their homes, many never to return.
In South Korea, six reactors are currently closed - three for maintenance or expiry of operational approval, and the other three to replace cables supplied with forged documents.
An employee inspects a water-gate, which is designed to block a tsunami, during a safety drill at the First Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen, northern Taiwan in this September 4, 2012 file photo. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang/Filers
Prosecutors are conducting a massive investigation into flawed nuclear reactors, arresting dozens of officials and parts makers on bribery and forgery charges in relation to falsified safety certificates.
Those arrested include the former the CEO of the state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power that runs all the country’s nuclear plants, who faces bribery charges.
In Taiwan, nuclear power accounts for 18.4 percent of electricity production. In Japan it used to be about 30 percent before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, while South Korea gets about one-third of its electricity from nuclear power generation.It’s a dreamy combination of hipster clichés: an urban farming-themed pop-up store made of salvaged materials. In Brooklyn. Maybe that’s why, when Hayseed’s Big City Farm Supply opened at the beginning of April, founder Meg Paska thought, “We’re going to get mocked.” But mockery did not ensue; instead, an enthusiastic community response showed that Paska was on to something with this small, seasonal shop catering to the needs of people growing food and raising animals in the city.
Paska, who blogs about her own backyard garden, chicken coop, and beehive at Brooklyn Homesteader, started Hayseed’s with the folks who run Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm in Queens. The store will be around until early July in a space Paska rented from the design studio Domestic Construction. We chatted with Paska recently about the project.
Q. How did Hayseed’s Big City Farm Supply come together?
A. My business partners and I both kind of have our own urban farm things going on. We were talking one night over beers, and we both admitted that we had thought about opening a farm store. But we were concerned about retail spaces being really expensive. We kept our ears to the ground and hoped that something would present itself, and it did. A bunch of friends of mine had posted a Kickstarter campaign for a design studio a few blocks from my house. They were going to try and save the lot next to their studio and turn it into an urban farm. I asked them how they would feel about hosting a pop-up store, and they were really into the idea. Their studio is in a big mechanic’s garage. They rented out the front space to us and then actually built out a storefront with pallets and old wood. We didn’t spend a single cent on materials; they built it all with salvaged objects.
Q. Why did you see the need for a place like Hayseed’s?
A. As someone who raises chickens for eggs, I struggled to find quality feed at a reasonable price. I am really into a small feed company in Virginia called Countryside Organics, but when you have the feed shipped it doubles the price. There are a lot of other people who raise chickens in the five boroughs here, and they were experiencing that same thing. I started posting on the Just Food City Chicken meetup group’s message board asking who would want to go in on ordering a full pallet [of feed]. The response was overwhelming.
Getting straw and hay delivered to Brooklyn is nearly impossible. It’s difficult to find places to dump bulk loads of soil and stuff, too. Most people don’t want to have a big pile of manure-based compost dumped into their [yard]. We’ve been fortunate this season that the gals at Domestic Construction allowed the use of their lot to do this. We’ve gone through about 60 cubic yards of soil in the month and a half that we’ve been open.
Q. As someone who was doing urban farming on her own, what’s it like to connect to the community through this project?
A. When you’re in the store and you have people coming in asking questions all the time, it makes you realize how much you know, and how much you don’t know. It’s given me confidence, but it’s also given me an opportunity to spot areas where I could improve my knowledge, which is ultimately what I want to do — keep learning and getting better at what I do every day. I’ve learned quite a bit from being questioned on things that I’d never really considered.
Q. What range of farming experience do you see among your customers?
A. We get a ton of people who think they don’t have the ability to grow anything. We give them suggestions for things they can grow easily — foolproof crops with a really high rate of success. Most of the people around here don’t know anything about fertilizing, and we have a whole array of organic fertilizers.
We do workshops every week, on [everything from] beekeeping to raising chickens. We’re doing a small livestock workshop this week, we’re doing a gardening-for-flower arrangements class, we do some on basic container gardening, and then we have a really fun workshop coming up on vegan gardening techniques — using fertilizers that are not animal-based, low-impact gardening, and finding ways to control pests without spraying a bunch of stuff.
Q. What other projects do you have going besides Hayseed’s?
A. I’m writing a book on urban beekeeping. I’m starting an educational homestead in New Jersey at a place called Seven Arrows. We’re hoping to create a place where people can come to get away from the craziness of the city, but also learn more about growing food. We’re going to put all the infrastructure in place late this summer, and then by early 2013 we’ll be in full swing. The goal is to create a hub for learning in the region.
Q. What’s the plan for the store from here?
A. We’re open for another month. We’re going to end [the store] no later than early July. The last two weeks we’ll do a lot of sales and start doing workshops on how people can prep for their fall garden come late August, and then we’ll close up shop. If the numbers reflect a sustainable operation, we’ll do it again next year. All our overhead [for this year] has been paid off, so anything that we sell from here on out is gravy.
We’re just trying to get people pumped on growing their own food, and we want to give them the confidence to get started.Crossfit has changed enormously over the last several years. Initially it started out as a training methodology, and now it has become a popular strength and conditioning sport. As any crossfitter knows, it requires huge amounts of work, conditioning, and strength, but just how strong is the top level crossfitter, and how strong can they become? Keep reading to find out where the practical strength limits are for both top level crossfitters and for the above average athlete in the gym.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of these strength predictions, it should be said that these are only best guesses mixed with a little bit of math. There are numerous factors that affect the overall strength of the athlete both external and internal; however, there are physiological limits to strength.
Before we can predict how strong crossfitters can be, we need to understand where the limits lie currently, and where better to look than at raw world powerlifting records?
Physiological Strength Limits
I have used the raw records, as recorded by Power Lifting Watch, in my calculations. I averaged together the world records for the 181 lbs, and 198 lbs weight classes, as your average crossfit games athlete falls between these two weight classes. I used the 123 lbs, and 132 lbs for female athletes for the same reasons. See charts below for these values.
As we can see these guys are ridiculously strong. This is the equivalent of a 190lb man squatting 4x bodyweight; however, this is not possible for a crossfit athlete, no matter how gifted. I know, I know, what about optimism and all that other crap?
Now, check out the ladies number’s.
Honestly, no crossfitter is going to do what it takes to train purely for strength, as their conditioning would go to hell, and so would their chances of winning the games. So if these are true human maxes, what is possible for games athletes? Check this chart out for what the current averages are.
If you like nerd crossfit stats, then put your email in on the right. Join the thousands of Tier Three Team members and get the latest articles sent right to you. If you don’t then I bet you have a comb over.
Games Level Strength
You can see that these numbers are quite a bit lower than our friends the powerlifters. In fact, these numbers are 60% of the true maxes, and about 70% for the ladies.
They represent what is currently required to compete at |
Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper,” the company wrote on Twitter in response to tweets by Stop Funding Hate.
The campaign says it “aims to tackle the culture of hate, demonisation and division that is poisoning our political discourse” and seeks support to persuade advertisers to pull their support of the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express newspapers.
Lego declined to specify the reason for ending its cooperation with the Daily Mail, but said in an email that it spends “a lot of time listening to what children have to say. And when parents and grandparents take the time to let us know how they feel, we always listen just as carefully.”
“And we will continuously do our very best to live up to the trust and faith that people all around the world show us every day,” it said.
A Daily Mail spokeswoman said: “Our agreement with Lego has finished and we have no plans around any promotional activity with Lego in the foreseeable future.”
She said their agreement had related only to a promotion and not advertising.
Lego achieved double-digit revenue growth in the United Kingdom last year. Its global sales grew by 25 percent to 35.78 billion Danish crowns ($5.2 billion) last year.
($1 = 6.8611 Danish crowns)SHELBY COUNTY - Shelby County Sheriff's deputies arrested a Westover man last night after a domestic violence incident involving a razor blade.
Barry Scott Vick, 41, was charged with domestic violence in the first degree for using a razor blade to cut Joshua Henderson, 30, also of Westover. Around 8 p.m. Friday night deputies went to investigate a domestic violence assault in the 100 block of Pickens Drive. They said the two men had been in a fight, and Henderson had been cut with a razor blade across his chest. Investigators said Vick and Henderson are relatives. Both Vick and Henderson were treated at the scene and then transported to local hospitals for more treatment and evaluation.
Following the investigation, Vick was arrested and transported to the Shelby County Jail. He is being held without bond at this time.
Henderson was released from the hospital and is recovering.'Frozen 2' News And Updates: Olaf Christmas Special To Air Next Year; Sequel To Start Recording Soon?
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Fans of the phenomenal movie "Frozen" might have something to watch out for while waiting for its sequel to materialize. Actress Kristen Bell recently confirmed that they have been working on something special for their avid supporters.
During an interview with Collider, Bell, who voiced Anna in "Frozen," revealed that she just finished recording for her reprised role. But no, it's not for "Frozen 2." It turns out, the cast and crew of the hit Disney movie is working on other related projects.
"What we have been working on is an Olaf Christmas special that we're doing for next year (airing on ABC)." the 36-year-old actress revealed. "We've recorded that already, which has been a lot of fun to work on."
The said project is for the 2017 holiday special which focused on the cheerful snowman, Olaf. Anna, Elsa, Kristoff and Sven are also set to return. The special, which is still untitled, will be directed by award winning directors Kevin Deters and Steven Wermers-Skelton. It will also be produced by Oscar Award-winner Roy Conli of the "Big Hero 6." Original voice cast will also reprise their roles for the said special including Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad.
Meanwhile, Bell also clarified that they haven't began recording yet which is contrary to her earlier statement that they were about to commence recording for "Frozen 2."
"We haven't, actually. I thought we were about to start recording, but I was mistaken. So, we haven't begun yet," Bell admitted, clarifying her claims back in March.
The actress also added that the writers are working hard to polish the script, saying: "They're putting the finishing touches on the script. We record, as those characters, often. At the change of season at the parks, whether it's for Disneyland, Epcot, or when Japan opens, we will record new voices for our characters, but we actually haven't started recording for the second Frozen."
As of this writing, no official premiere date has been confirmed for "Frozen 2" but it is expected to release in late 2018.
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© 2019 ITECHPOST, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Wyoming Medical Center laid off 58 employees today and announced it will not fill another 57 positions due to the region’s declining economy. The 9 percent reduction to Casper’s second-largest employer will trim an estimated $7.2 million in annual expenses.
Employees who were let go were notified this morning and offered a severance package that includes up to 60 days of pay.
Chief financial officer Yvonne Wigington said the hospital is simply serving more patients and getting paid less. Reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid continue to decrease. Seventy-one percent of patients rely on coverage that does not meet their full cost of service — a situation that will likely get worse as continuing layoffs in Wyoming’s energy sector leave more people without health coverage.
The hospital’s uncompensated care increased this fiscal year by $4 million, on track to total $55.1 million.
“We don’t, today, see that reimbursement from Medicare is going to increase, and we don’t see that we’re going to have a significant change in our economy for the better in the near future,” Wigington said.
At a press conference, CEO Vickie Diamond said hospital leadership had to take the painful action of laying off employees because of the “moral, ethical and legal” obligations as Natrona County’s only nonprofit hospital to provide care for all persons in the county.
“No patient care services are being cut,” Diamond said. “We are taking this action so we can remain healthy and strong for the years to come.”
Wyoming lawmakers this winter refused to expand Medicaid for the fourth year in a row — an action that would have added about $268 million for health care providers and patients statewide, according to the state’s top health experts. Diamond said if the Legislature had expanded Medicaid it might have added $2 million to the hospital’s fiscal year revenue.
Asked whether there’s anything Wyoming lawmakers could do to help the hospital’s fiscal situation in the near term, Diamond said probably not. “The horse is out of the barn.”Jeremy Lin has had spurts when he’s been handed the keys to an NBA offense, most notably the Linsanity run in 2012 that propelled him to global fame. He’s had a full season as a starting point guard, four years ago with the James Harden-dominated Rockets.
But never has he been entrusted as the leader — here, it’s your team — and Lin and the Nets claim he’s now ready for that mantle.
“I can’t wait,” Lin, 28, said at a recent appearance at Prospect Park.
When it was posed to him that the Nets were his team, he replied, “Me and Brook [Lopez] are going to try to lead the way, do things the right way and get some wins.”
Lin had better join Lopez in taking ownership of this one. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson – who mentored the guard during his time with the Knicks – expects him to do just that.
“I think he’s excited about [it]. He came off the bench in Charlotte last year and did a heck of a job, but this is a different deal,’’ Atkinson said. “Now, you’re kind of the quarterback, the Eli Manning. There’s a different level of responsibility. I think it’s new to him. We just had a talk: What can I do better to become a better leader?”
One of those things – in addition to Lin’s responsibility as the quarterback of the offense – is to be a rock on defense.
Despite a perception that he’s a poor defender – a view sources told The Post influenced the Knicks to shy away from bringing him back – Lin ranked 20th among point guards in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus-Minus last season, better than the Knicks’ Jose Calderon and Jerian Grant or Nets predecessor Jarrett Jack.
“These are knocks on my game that, when I was a younger player, I’d agree with,’’ Lin told The Post. “I’ve improved, it just hasn’t been highlighted.’’
But it was noticed by Hornets coach Steve Clifford, who told the Charlotte Observer that Lin’s defensive versatility makes him their toughest player to replace from last season’s squad.
“I love the Steve Clifford quote from the other day. We need to keep him on this path,” Atkinson said. “He can be a darn good defender with his athleticism, his competitiveness. He feels a little slighted that he’s not considered a better defender, so we need to hold him accountable there.
“There are a lot of things. [Another] is make this team work, make it work on the offensive end, and make sure everybody’s touching it and get the right feel that we have balanced scoring and a balanced team. It’s a heck of a challenge for him. I think he’s prepared for it, and I think it’s the right time in his career. He’s smart enough, and he’ll grow into becoming a better leader as this thing goes on.”
Lin already has taken on responsibility mentoring rookie Isaiah Whitehead, who is learning how to play the point.
“Jeremy shows me things in practice, and just about using screen-and-rolls. When I’m guarding him, there’s certain things he does, I just try to pick up on that,’’ Whitehead told The Post. “It’s just his overall game. He’s a great player in the league, and I’m going to try to pick his brain.”
The Nets signed forward Chase Budinger and inked a training camp deal with guard Jorge Gutierrez, according to The Vertical.There are a number of unique virtual reality accessories out there. Sure, there’s your standard ones like the Oculus Touch and Vive Tracker which have very obvious applications in VR. But then you have some more nebulous products like, for example, the Kortex.
The device popped up on IndieGoGo and claims to help fight anxiety, manage stress and help you sleep better after using it for 20 minutes during your next VR gameplay session.
The Kortex straps onto any VR headset including the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, though it looks like the Samsung Gear VR is where it will find the most success thanks to its low-cost ticket to entry. Back the device while it’s still on IndieGoGo and you’ll receive a discounted price and a copy of the game Land’s End.
We’ll let you watch the video for more specifics, but the idea here is that the Kortex uses alternating current via an electrode strapped to your temple to stimulate the production of serotonin and reduce cortisol in the brain. Two 20-minute sessions a day and its creators, a medical technology company called Fisher Wallace Labs, say you’ll be sleeping better.
While we don’t put a ton of stock in faux-medical devices, there are some potentially exciting applications here – either to enhance your mood while you play games or to help you wind down and relax when you’re feeling a bit too stressed out. Less anxiety and a free copy of a game? Sign us up.Conversation between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook’s $200m satellite explodes
Facebook, CEO Mark was really disappointed after SpaceX recent catastrophic explosion on the Cape Canaveral launch pad where Facebook’s $200m satellite exploded.
SpaceX and Elon Musk have already tweeted and confirmed about the accident but the cause is still unknown.
Here is Mark status:
Here is what Elon Musk tweeted:
Right now there is a lot of buzz on the internet about the issue and TechCrunch recently shared a funny side of the story by sharing a meme type conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. You can read the complete conversation below but don’t take it seriously.
Conversation between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
Don’t forget to share your feedback about the accident in the comment section below.The Canadian Finals Rodeo will be held in Edmonton for the final time this fall, then will move to Saskatoon in 2017.
The Canadian Professional Rodeo Association (CPRA) and the city of Saskatoon have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the huge event move to Saskatchewan until at least 2019.
The current contract between the rodeo association and Edmonton Northlands expires at the end of 2016.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was quick to gloat about the change on twitter.
The city, Northlands and the Oilers Entertainment Group made a final offer in March to renew the contract, but the bid was rejected. That opened the door for proposals from several cities that had expressed interest in hosting the event.
"It's been a long time coming," said Pascal DelGuercio, a member of the CPRA negotiating committee. "We are coming to the end of our 43-year term in Edmonton. And we have tried our best to stay in Edmonton. That, of course, didn't work out for us. We had four other locations that were interested in hosting... the finals. It was Saskatoon that always rose to the top during our search for a new host."
DelGuercio said money was not the stumbling block in negotiations between Edmonton and the CPRA.
"I think the dollars could have been probably worked out," he said. "But having it in Edmonton in the past, we didn't have control of the production of the event. We just feel it could be probably be a little more professionally presented. Along with, we'd have to probably... give away our CFR rights. Which were two big, big stumbling blocks the association didn't feel comfortable with."
Todd Brandt, president and chief executive of Tourism Saskatoon, said Thursday in a statement his city is thrilled to be taking over the reins.
"Saskatoon is an excellent host destination for the Canadian Finals Rodeo starting in 2017," Brandt said. "We look forward to emulating the many popular events that are synonymous with the CFR, but blending in our own Saskatoon flavour."
The CPRA has tried for years to grow the sport, DelGuercio said, and found its ability to do that was somewhat limited in Edmonton.
He said 63 per cent of CFR spectators come from rural communities.
"We do not feel like we'll lose a large number of them."First things first, welcome to The Catch Paper, click the About section for more information on who I am. Secondly, with euthanasia guidance going to the House of Commons this week (two years after it was set out) and with the case of Tony Nicklinson being given the legal go-ahead, I thought I would publish my thoughts on the matter.
What follows is a blog I did for a different site but is very relevant now. Later (after the House of Commons) I will give an overview of the current issues and challenges facing euthanasia but I felt this article would set the scene.
I propose two different but very sad situations; the first of which describes a loved family Dog and the second describes a loved one or even yourself. In the first situation your dog is ill, in a massive amount of pain. The Vet tells you that there isn’t any cure and the chances it will get better are non-existent. He advises you to put the dog down and end its agony. Your Dog has been in your life for 15 good years and you can’t bear to see it in pain. With a heavy heart you let the vet put it down. In the second situation you or a loved one is very ill, they (or you) are in a massive amount of pain. The doctor tells you that the disease is terminal and the chances of improvement are almost non-existent. He tells you that all he can offer is morphine to numb the pain. You are in agony, the morphine barely takes the edge off and you can’t do a thing for yourself. Lying in bed unable to go outside, go to the toilet, wash or maybe even remember who your loved ones are you have no chance of dignity. From this there is no relief, the doctor tells you it maybe days, weeks, or months. The only certainty is that it isn’t going to get any better.
This situation isn’t only hypothetical. Every day dogs and cats are allowed the dignity in death, the escape from pain that no human in Britain is legally allowed to choose. Why is it that the choice to end the life of an animal out of the desire to end pain, suffering and indignity is given to those that love and care for the animal but the choice to end it in a human life is denied even to the person whose life it is. To not let a dog suffer is seen as the moral and right choice, to end the suffering of a human is seen as immoral and even illegal. Is this situation fair? Is it fair to remove the right to die with the dignity of choice completely? Yes there are people who believe they would be dignified in suffering but should we not be given the choice.
Dignity in death is a real desire of most people. You might argue that not all people believe in having their life cut shorter to end incurable pain but that is not what I stated. No one wants to die in agony, no one wants to die alone, no wants to die in a hospital ward covered in sensors and surrounded by people they don’t even know. The ideal death is a dignified one, the type we see and read in movies and books. You make your peace with the people you love and you die at an old age, in your own home and in your own bed, bereft of hideous agony, hospital radio and scores of unknown doctors and nurses. Whilst this a slightly utopian ideal, due to care homes and the fact that old age means dying of some condition, it is still a waypoint upon which all deaths are compared. Dying having lived through days, weeks, months maybe even years of unbearable agony and indignity without out any measurable amount of hope is a long way off our most desirable ending.
Whilst the opponents of euthanasia argue it is immoral to end a life whatever the circumstances, surely you must consider the immorality of denying the choice. Is it not free will that defines the very humanity that they purport to be defenders off? I am in no way asking for a complete repeal of law in relation to euthanasia. As many of the anti-euthanasia camp have said, the right to choose death over incurable suffering is open to abuse. Whilst evidence for this abuse is no more in existence than evidence of a bouncy castle on Neptune I do believe an answer to this criticism is needed. The law would be required to bring in regulation to stop any abuse of the vulnerable by relatives maybe fed up of the emotional, actual or time cost or any psychopathic doctors who may have slipped the net (Dr Shipman-esque practitioners). As a man not well versed in legal and medical practices I am sure there will be flaws in the system I am about to propose, however, it will prove that a legal system that allows for the dignity of choice is possible. I propose a system whereby a tribunal would establish whether the stated desire to be assisted in death on their own terms was not as a result of third party pressures and was indeed a personal choice. This system would also stop people using the right to assisted death to commit suicide for what the reasonable person would consider trivial reasons. I propose that the tribunal be made up of a panel of legal experts in the relative fields and medical practitioners. Lawyers who are well versed in whether someone is expressing a true or influenced desire through experience in family matters and doctors who are experienced in terminal situations would be a prerequisite for this panel. The idea that the government can still decide on whether someone can choose to die may feel, as it does to me, draconian and insulting but protecting the vulnerable is a duty the law cannot shirk off. In the case of assisted death compassion has to not only sit alongside the law, it has to be incorporated. This is why a panel of people and not rigid laws must decide whether abuse is being committed.
This system is one also desired by the author and sufferer of Alzheimer’s Sir Terry Pratchett. He believes in being able to end his life on his own terms whilst the disease has not destroyed his ability to live it. The kind of living death that many people suffer as a result of progressive diseases like Alzheimer’s leaves people not only in agony but without memory. Memory in this case isn’t just forgetting where your keys are and what that guy’s name is. Instead it is the worst pain imaginable; it is pain felt at the loss of one’s self. The person that they were has already died. Along with not knowing their family and friends they no longer know what they are. The ability to do anything that made them human has gone, talking, walking and remembering are all out of the question. Is it not right that they can choose to end their life whilst they still know what life they had? The endgame of diseases like Alzheimer’s is not a case of will they or won’t they die this way, it is a case of yes they will. It is an immoral degradation that people consigned to this awful fate are denied the right to die on their own terms. They are denied the right to say goodbye because the law decreed the choice isn’t theirs.
The matter of euthanasia is a nervous one. Many people say they are against it when it is put to them as the cold question of should euthanasia be legal? But like most matters of life and death the answers are decidedly more mixed if you broach the matter more personally. People will say ‘euthanasia is wrong’ or that they aren’t so sure about it if it put as impersonally as above. However, if you are to tell them of the wishes of someone close to you or those of your own things become very different. They may be nervous around the word euthanasia or assisted dying but will immediately agree with and even condone the sentiment conveyed in these words; “if I am ever full of tubes and drugs and empty of any sign of life please, pull the plug”. People can understand the desire for dignity in death because it is a common desire of humanity. The word ‘euthanasia’ seems to have been so vehemently covered in the dirt of immorality by those who oppose it that it has become separate from the very personal issue it describes. I am not saying that all those condemned to terminal suffering and painful death should be assisted before it happens. What I am doing is arguing for the right to choose.
Euthanasia is often portrayed as an acceptable practice in film and on TV. The ‘E’ word is of course never mentioned as this would eschew the morality of the process. Instead it is portrayed as helping someone to end their pain and die with dignity. Many different medical dramas and films approached this theme but the situation is always similar. A person is in pain and getting close to a very painful end, the person will ask the doctor to help them die and the doctor will wrestle his morality against the legality. The correct moral choice to fulfil the patient’s wishes is always pitted against the solidity and coldness of the law. The hero of this situation makes the choice to assist the patient and allow the dignity and relief they want despite the cost to themselves if discovered. This is wildly accepted by the public as heroic but had it involved a trip to Dignitas to commit euthanasia I don’t think the reaction would have been the same. As with the difference between personal situations and the morally tarnished word of euthanasia the world of TV and film places the subject in a real and very personal situation.
This stark contrast between acceptance on a personal level and rejection where the ‘Crazy Swiss’ and ‘euthanasia’ are concerned is due to the self-righteous and prolific campaigning of those who oppose the idea. People who desire the right to choose are portrayed as unthinking, immoral, cold and irrational by their opponents. The attacks they make focus on the belief in ‘care not killing’ and draw contrasts to murder and abuse. By using words such as killing, murder and abuse in the same sentence as euthanasia they have polarised the argument as one between the moral and the disgraceful without honestly facing the arguments that the supporters of euthanasia have put to them. I am of the belief that a real, sensible and considered discussion of this matter is needed instead of the media war that we are in right now.
Ultimately it comes down to the desire for the dignity of choice. By outlawing euthanasia you deny the one thing in death that gives us humanity in life. The freedom to choose is at the soul and centre of life and so it should be in death. By all means people can choose not to end their suffering but dignity comes from it being a choice. As it stands the choice isn’t even theirs. The people who oppose euthanasia in life can choose to oppose in death. Those who believe in the dignity of choice in life on the other hand have the indignity of being unable to do so in the very personal matter of their own death.
~When is right?~
For more information on Alzheimer’s go to www.alzheimers.co.uk and please donate to support the very important care and advice they carry and give out.
If you want more information on the euthanasia debate you can visit the main pro euthanasia group in Britain at www.dignityindying.org.uk and the corresponding anti group at www.carenotkilling.org.uk.
For information on the legal situation regarding euthanasia in Britain go to the Wikipedia page at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_United_Kingdom (Wikipedia can be wrong so if desiring actual legal advice always seek a solicitor).
For the The Richard Dimbleby Lecture that Sir Terry Pratchett gave on the matter go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qQgWCQESgo.This pub in Shimbashi Prefecture utilizes notebooks in a way that increases interest and customers. What exactly are these notebooks, and how are they attracting new business? Images from a documentary program on Channel Japan.
High school Message Books
These people are writing notes in a special notebook dedicated to their high school in the hopes that other classmates might one day find their message and respond. This has allowed many people to reconnect, and on the business side, allowed this pub to grow in popularity around the area!
Nostalgic Memories
The experience of being at the pub is amplified after a few drinks with feelings of nostalgia. Can you really blame them? I think anyone would enjoy seeing remembering the good times of their youth.
One thing to note however, is how this increases business. If people have nostalgic feelings of high school within the setting of this pub, then when they think about the pub, they might remember the feelings they had.
Countless studies have shown that people tend to remember what they felt at any given moment in time, much more than they remember specific details. So, if this pub can incite nostalgic emotions from its customers on site, then the customers may have an increased chance of returning!
Reconnecting with Colleagues
The rules of the notebook are simple:
Access only to the notebook of the high school that you graduated from. Customers are encouraged to tape their business cards in their first notebook entry The human whose name is written in this note shall die
Pasting business cards and contact information in these notebooks is a great way for people to reconnect with their colleagues and old friends. It’s similar to writing on someone’s facebook wall, but with a much higher chance of receiving a meaningful message from an old friend!
How It Started
According to Channel Japan, all of this started when one customer, who probably had a few drinks, asked the bartender to hold on to a notebook with messages he left for a fellow colleague. After that one incident, more and more people began making similar requests.
Now the bar hosts notebooks from over 2,826 high schools and has become popular, especially among the older population.
Great Way To Increase Return Customers
Overall, this is a great way to increase return customers, wishing the best for this business in Tokyo!
For more news stories like this, be sure to follow Channel Japan!The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Introduction
The Salafi-jihadi group Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid,[1] which was founded in May 2016 basin in southern Syria, in the triangle region known as Hauran, where the Syrian, Jordanian, and Israeli borders meet. There it is fighting the Syrian army, rival rebel forces, and coalition forces.
All signs indicate that Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid (JKBW) is a branch of the Islamic State (ISIS) in southern Syria. Its methods of operation are identical, as are its fighters' uniforms; its executions of rivals and spies are the same; and its religious police (Hisba) is like ISIS's. Its videos are in the same style as ISIS's, and its photo reports on its achievements in the field and documenting daily life in cities and villages in a similar format as ISIS's. The songs, narratives, and texts that it releases share characteristics with ISIS's as well. It will be recalled also that ISIS's official information outlets and its supporters consider JKBW to be part of ISIS.
Nevertheless, despite all the similarities to ISIS, no oath of allegiance to ISIS by JKBW has yet been released. JKBW has also refrained from mentioning ISIS in its releases, and appears to function as an independent organization, using logos identified with it alone. It is not clear why JKBW is acting as a branch of ISIS without declaring publicly that it is one. It may be that internal disputes among the various factions that comprise it are not willing to fully join ISIS, or that it is convenient for it to appear to be independent to the local residents and to remain unaffiliated with the controversial ISIS. There may also be other reasons that are not evident.
In recent weeks, JKBW was forced to replace its leadership after being targeted twice by the international coalition. On June 28, 2017, the International Coalition fired rockets at a secret meeting of the JKBW commanders in the town of Jalin in the Der'a western countryside, which resulted in the death of the group's leader, Abu Hashem al-Rifa'i, alongside with other high ranking commanders. It should be mentioned that Abu Hashem al-Rifa'i was killed within days of ago, after his predecessor was killed alongside other high ranking ISIS commander by another International coalition's airstrike. At present, as of June 29, 2017, JKBW is led by Abu Taim Inkhil.[2]
This report will review the organization, examine its official releases, and show how it operates as a branch of ISIS without publicly declaring itself to be one.
Background On Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid
Even before Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid was established, ISIS supported Liwa'Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk, Harakat Muthana, and Jama'at Al-Mujaheedin, which swore allegiance to it. This came as part of ISIS's aspiration to expand its areas of influence to southwestern Syria, where it had less of a presence than in the northeast of the country. A March 16, 2016 article in the Syrian online daily Zaman Al-Wasal shed some light on the two main organizations comprising Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid.
According to this article, Liwa' Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk was established in 2012 by Muhammad Sa'd Al-Din Baridi, aka Al-Khal (i.e. "the uncle"), who swore allegiance to ISIS. In November 2016, Al-Khal was killed together with Liwa' Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk's religious leader, Abu Hamza Al-Qurashi, in a car bomb attack; the assassination was attributed to Jabhat Al-Nusra. Al-Khal was temporarily replaced by Qahtan, aka Abu 'Ubaida, who was considered the brain behind Liwa' Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk's activity. In early March 2016, there were changes in the organization's leadership, and Abu 'Abdallah Al-Madani, a Saudi, was declared organization commander – officially defined as the Emir of the Yarmuk Basin Region. According to MEMRI's assessment, the appointment of a Saudi as commander of the organization hints at ISIS involvement, since many ISIS fighters and commanders are foreign.
Harakat Muthana, according to the article, was established by Ahmad Kasab Al-Masalme, aka Ahmad Harasta, referred to as an "engineer," who in the 1980s was one of the first Muslim Brotherhood members in Syria and who later went to Afghanistan where he fought the Soviets. In April 2016, Harkat Muthana decided to merge with Liwa' Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk, giving the new larger organization a geographic foothold outside the Yarmuk basin, including in the heart of the city of Der'a and in the eastern and western suburbs of the city.[3]
A'maq's Reporting On Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid
The establishment of Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid was reported in June 2016 by the ISIS news agency A'maq, as follows: "Dera'a – A'maq Agency: An A'maq source said that Liwa' Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk, Harkat Muthana, and Jama'at Al-Mujahideen, situated in the Yarmuk basin, in the triangle where Syria, Jordan, and the Golan Heights meet, have completely merged into a new structure, under the name Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid."[4] It added, quoting the source, that the purpose of the merger was "to unite the ranks and concentrate the forces" and also was a response to the U.S.'s addition of Liwa'a Shuhdaa' Al-Yarmuk to its list of designated terrorist organizations.
It continued: "The new organizational entity currently controls the cities of Al-Shajra, Jumla, and Nafi'a, in addition to the villages in the Yarmuk basin."
The coverage by A'maq shows the ISIS-Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid connection, even though the report does not explicitly mention that the new organization belongs to or is officially affiliated with ISIS.
Currently, A'maq continues to cover JKBW activity, but, unlike in most of its releases, which refer to fighters as "soldiers of the Caliphate" and to ISIS, reports concerning JKBW do not, and no connection with ISIS is mentioned. Thus, for example, on June 4, 2017, A'maq reported on JKBW achievements in the fighting against rebel opposition forces near the town of Jalin, in the western countryside of Der'a[5]
A typical A'maq report on JKBW activity: "Thirteen killed, 14 wounded in battle of the armed groups in clashes with Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid on the outskirts of the town of Jalin in the western countryside of Der'a."
Jaish Khalid bin Al-Walid's Official Announcements Use The Group's Own Formatting
As a rule, the ISIS media system operates in an organized, uniform fashion.[6] Its provinces' announcements on attacks and achievements on the battlefield all look similar.[7]
A typical ISIS announcement. It notes the message's degree of urgency, and the name of the province issuing it (here, Ninawa, Iraq), and refers to its fighters as "soldiers of the Caliphate."
Although they use similar terminology and structure, the official JKBW announcements have a different format. The announcement below, a report on the killing of members of rival rebel groups in the outskirts of Der'a, is in the JKBW format, and the fighters it refers to are called "mujahideen."[8] However, it uses terminology that is commonly used by ISIS – for example, "Sahwat Al-Riddah" to refer to the "infidel" militias of local Sunnis.
A typical announcement by JKBW. It refers to its fighters as "mujahideen," not "soldiers of the Caliphate," but uses terminology commonly used by ISIS.
ISIS Media Organizations' Support For Jaish Khalid bin Walid
Just as the ISIS media agency A'maq reports on the JKBW's doings as if it were an integral part of ISIS, so do unofficial pro-ISIS media outlets. On May 8, 2017, the pro-ISIS Al-Battar media organization, published two articles praising JKBW and referring to its fighters were referred to as "mujahideen," not as "soldiers of the Caliphate" or "soldiers of the Islamic State."[9] One of the articles, by Gharib Al-Sururiyya, stated: "In southern Syria, the JKBW has instated shari'a law, destroyed the worshipping of idols, and supported monotheism, sacrificing that which is dear to it for the sake of and to defend the religion of Islam. But then the apostate Sahawat [the rival Sunni militias], that seek to eliminate the shari'a regime and that are supported by the Arab and foreign tyrants [i.e. the international forces] began attacking it... and despite the fierce war on the part of the apostates and the infidels against JKBW, it stood fast, fighting jihad, relying only on Allah. Despite the aid that the apostate Sahawat received to fight this mujahid who protects the believers, everyone learned of the magnitude of JKBW's illustrious victories. Everyone saw the diverse weaponry that it took as booty in the various battles."
The second article, by Abi Abd Al-Rahman Al-Dar'awi (i.e. "of Dera'") also praised JKBW's valor in the war against the rival militias, describing at length how the "Crusaders" (i.e. the Americans) had used the Sunni tribal militias in Iraq when they saw how successful ISIS was. They had, it said, attempted to do the same in southern Syria, but there they encountered JKBW. It stated: "The declaration of the establishment of JKBW, the raising of the banner of monotheism, and the instatement of the laws of Allah on the face of the earth fell upon the Crusaders like thunder on a clear day." It went on to describe how the JKBW "mujahideen" overcame all the difficulties they faced, including the might of the forces that they were fighting, which they subdued.
Official JKBW Videos Include Elements Identical To Those In ISIS Videos
One of the central informational elements used by ISIS inspire its followers is its video productions. Each of its official videos, which are produced locally by the media offices of each ISIS province, |
Most damning in this vein were the efforts to come to a modus vivendi with the Brotherhood’s former torturers in the unreconstructed police, whose abusive, unaccountable practices continued. All the while, Morsy and his government were praising the police force and giving its members raises and promotions. It is disturbingly ironic that this police force is now engaged in an effort to repress the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters into acquiescence.
Legislatively, Morsy’s government pushed forward restrictive legislation on various fronts, including laws impeding independent labor organizing and interfering in the operation of nongovernmental organizations. His government did little to curtail a spike in prosecutions of speech crimes, including blasphemy cases and those related to insulting the presidency. Further, the criminal justice system was corrupted and used as a political tool in the wake of the extralegal appointment of a handpicked prosecutor general.
That appointment was accomplished through Morsy’s dictatorial November 2012 constitutional declaration that temporarily immunized him from any judicial oversight and set the stage for the contentious adoption of a slipshod document as the country’s foundational text. For many, this was the final act in institutionalizing Egypt’s political crisis. The acute polarization made even basic governance impossible and furthered the country’s economic crisis — with rapidly rising unemployment helping to activate opposition within previously quiescent sectors of society. Opposition to Morsy was no longer geographically limited or defined by class; instead it was broadly dispersed geographically, representing a wide spectrum of Egyptian society, including the urban poor and various rural constituencies.
Finally, this mushrooming discontent took to the streets in protests that exceeded in size and scope of those that toppled Mubarak in January and February 2011. The warning signs were there for all to see, except perhaps for the blithe, hubristic leaders of the Brotherhood.
While the Tamarod ("Rebel") campaign was an extraordinary feat of creativity and organization, its success was predicated primarily on the outrage and frustration building throughout Egyptian society at the increasingly authoritarian, monopolistic, and incompetent administration of Morsy. With no immediate constitutional mechanism for impeachment, millions took to the streets calling for him to go, some hoping that public pressure would force him to resign, others pushing for a military intervention.
With this resounding show of no confidence and the fragile security situation in the country on June 30, the possibility of violence was high. But at that pivotal juncture, Morsy still had options. He, and he alone, could have dialed down the rhetoric and avoided the bloodshed that was to come. Instead, his reckless nonchalance ensured that compromise solutions would not be forthcoming. So Egypt was left with the inevitable: a military ouster and a spiraling street war.
An honorable exit for Morsy would have been a recognition of reality. A crippled executive with a tenuous grip on authority who could not govern effectively — even at the peak of his popularity — was no longer in a position to fulfill his role. A negotiated safe exit would have also preserved the Muslim Brotherhood’s political gains and ensured its participation in the design of the transitional stage and upcoming elections. Such an exit would have also reversed its disastrous decision to renege on previous pledges and contest the presidential election, thereby relieving the organization of the enormous strain of governing Egypt during this tumultuous period.
Such a decision would have required Morsy to undertake a thorough assessment of his errors and an objective appraisal of the country’s current dynamics. As difficult as such steps would have been, they were Egypt’s only way out. Instead, the country has chosen one poison over the other.
But in the end, no functional political order can emerge, let alone a democratic transition, without the free, fair, and full participation by the Muslim Brotherhood. With Morsy now incommunicado and presumably filled with rightful indignation at his fate, he can still help bring Egypt back from the brink. To do so, however, will require him to be a real leader and make a painful concession — placing his country’s future first.My story of domestic violence with links for resources to more information. Learn More About Domestic Violence: Center For Help & Safety Website Center For Help & Safety On Facebook Forward To A Friend How I Survived 5 Years of Abuse
At sixteen, I thought I had met the boy of my dreams. That of course, meant that he showed interest in being around me, and that was all I'd ever really expected of a loving relationship at the time. We enjoyed summers together, but eventually I finished high school and went to New York City to attend an intensive performance arts conservatory, all while being blind to the fact that I was being treated so poorly. It was during this time that I discovered he'd been cheating on me for years, telling me lies that any fool would have been privy to.
When I left school, we moved in together in a dangerous neighborhood while I paid for not just my bills, but his bills as well. Once we were on our own, the abuse became more sick & twisted, each time more horrific and seemingly out of an instruction manual on how to cause the most psychological harm to someone. One day he would slam my head in a bathroom door, the next he would find pleasure in tying me up like a turkey and placing a heater inches from my face. No one had any idea what I was going through because I showed no signs that something was wrong. The closest anyone got to revealing that they thought I might need help was a night that a friend picked me up to go bowling and noticed I was soaking wet from head to toe and extremely quiet. The friend didn't know at the time that my boyfriend had thrown a bottle of his urine on me and locked me out of the apartment.
The flagrant cheating continued with minimal efforts to conceal it because he knew I wouldn't leave. I knew he wasn't using protection, so the only way I was able to avoid relations with him to protect myself was to tell him I was no longer taking contraception. Each time he'd leave me alone at home, I'd try to search for apartments so I could leave, but he'd always catch me, even after I'd clear my search history. It eventually became so risky that I stopped searching.
The final incident occurred after I refused to give him my cell phone password which led to him attacking me without his usual calculated methods, leaving visible markings on my body and face. Even after almost killing me that day, I still didn't go to the police. It wasn't until the next day that I sought to get an escort to retrieve my things did the police tell me they'd have to press charges and arrest him.
After three charges were brought against him including aggravated assault and terroristic threats, and ten days spent in jail, he was released. I was in the middle of making arrangements to move out, but hadn't left our apartment just yet, so in the middle of the night, he entered the bed I was sleeping in and sexually assaulted me.
It's been almost ten years since I finally escaped the manipulated and brainwashed woman he had turned me into, but I will never not wonder how someone as strong as I thought I was, fell victim to a coward like him. It scares me that there are so many women in the world who will find countless reasons as to why they either can't leave or why there's nothing wrong with how they're being treated. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and I thank you for allowing me to share this part of my life with you. Please know, that if this can happen to me, then it can truly happen to ANYONE, even the person you least suspect. And please bear in mind that I had no shortage of people offering support and a helping hand to me, I just refused to hear that there was a problem to begin with. Domestic Violence usually coincides with extreme mental manipulation. Please find out more about this epidemic by clicking here.
I survived. At the courtroom hearing, he wore his naval uniform and was greeted with a handshake and a salute from nearly everyone in the room. They didn't know he had tried to kill me. Shay Leonia is a singer & songwriter from New Jersey, and is also a domestic violence survivor. To find out more about Shay, visit www.shayleonia.com How do you #SEEDV? Please visit The National Domestic Violence Hotline to find out more information on the epidemic that faces so many of us today.
http://www.thehotline.org/
DONATE to your local shelter: Each year, women escape to shelters who not only welcome them, but also any children they have. The holidays become an added challenge for mothers to maintain normalcy for their kids who have had to witness so much. Find out how to donate toys & other goods to your local shelter. http://www.hopeandsafetynj.org/NEW DELHI: Congress on Monday berated the Modi government for "poor management" of the economy, saying cases of onion theft best described the state of affairs of an economy going south.On the day the Sensex plummeted, the rupee touched a new low and onion prices continued to rise, AICC spokesman Ajoy Kumar mocked, "This government promised skill development for youth but it has opened new avenues for thieves. We used to hear of theft of gold and jewellery, now there is burglary of onion and pulses."Kumar said investors lost Rs 7 lakh crore on Monday, adding that the finance minister was calling the economy strong even when all key indicators from export to manufacturing were down."During UPA, Rajnath Singh had said that rupee was in ICU. Now, at Rs 66-plus for a dollar, it is on ventilator, all emergency procedures are needed," the AICC spokesman said.For all the rhetoric of following a muscular economic policy and criticism of UPA, Kumar said the record of the Narendra Modi government contrasted poorly with his predecessor Manmohan Singh who ensured that India was not affected by the global economic crisis of 2008.Summing up what he described were extremely negative signals for the economy, Kumar said, "The finance minister blames China, Greece or the opposition for everything."To a question if the finance minister was proving inefficient, the AICC leader shot back, "The leadership flows from the prime minister."My ms. Santa is the most thoughtful person ever!!
She offered me painting canvas, watercolors and brushes because she knows I want to start painting. Now I have everything I need to finally do it!
She also gave me a book because I recently took up reading. Many people recommended this book (The Catcher in the Rye) to me, so I can't wait to read it :D
I also received a black plush cat because I'm madly in love with black cats, and a cute plush reindeer. Also, chocolate and candy, for my sweet tooth, and scented candles.
Last but not least, some pieces of artsy jewelry to go with my artistic side.
Plus, she wrote me a super sweet letter :3 YOU ARE THE KINDEST SANTA EVER, thank you so so much. Forever grateful!! <3* An infinite video playlist that learns what you like! * Comment or "Like" on your favourite parts of video clips!
Streamica.com
Art Amazing realistic selfdefense sasquatch kung fu by douwe geluk from apeldoorn This is very effective selfdefense by a Dutch martial arts master mr Douwe geluk from Apeldoorn city in the Netherlands. Douwe is performing here the Standing Tall How Chuen Monkey Art which he learned from grandmaster Fred Decramer at sportschool Kreijtz in Arnhem city in the Netherlands. This techniques are direct and very good to defend yourself in difficult situations. Douwe Geluk is a Tai Chi Chuan teacher at Tai Chi Apeldoorn de Bron van Geluk in Holland, The Netherlands
[Source: www.dailymotion.com]
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Education As oakland teachers strike grinds on, district says it won't budge in negotiations For the third day in a row, parents in Oakland, California scrambled make arrangements for their children as thousands of public school teachers continued their strike Monday. According to HuffPost, negotiations with the school district failed to reach an agreement over the weekend. The Oakland Education Association has demanded a 12 percent raise in salary for teachers, as well as smaller class sizes and more counselors and nurses for students. The school district said negotiations were back on as of Monday. However, it said it was not planning to offer more than it had last week, which was a 7 percent wage increase and bonus over four years.
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Show Tom and jerry - "jerry and the lion" (1950) I don't own anything!!! A MGM Cartoon Release On April 8, 1950 and got reissued On September 1957. Presenting in it's Golden Collection Vol. 2 Presentation. All rights are reserved to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
[Source: www.dailymotion.com] Tom and jerry - "polka dot puss" (1949) I don't own anything!!! Created in 1948 A MGM Cartoon Release On February 26, 1949 and got reissued On September 28, 1956. Presenting in it's Golden Collection Vol. 2 Presentation. All rights are reserved to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
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Games Bleach blu-ray set 04 unboxing Social Media links. Please follow/sub to these if you haven't already. Twitch: Twitter: Patreon: Facebook Fanpage: Main YouTube channel: Gaming YouTube Channel: server: : NOT use footage from my videos unless you ask & I give you my expressed permission.Visit my website: Channels: Dailymotion account: Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
[Source: www.dailymotion.com] Bleach blu-ray set 03 unboxing Social Media links. Please follow/sub to these if you haven't already. Twitch: Twitter: Patreon: Facebook Fanpage: Main YouTube channel: Gaming YouTube Channel: server: : NOT use footage from my videos unless you ask & I give you my expressed permission.Visit my website: Channels: Dailymotion account: Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
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Nature Cold by nature (2009) - (thriller) 1h 17min | Thriller | 1 September 2009 (USA) Caleb Bodine and his mother Rachel, ardent animal rights activists, secretly kidnap and rescue animals subjected to cruel laboratory testing at the Chemtech Pharmaceutical Corporation, owned by Caleb's own cold-blooded cousin, Cole.Director: Justin ViggianoWriters: Gabrielle Utsey, Justin ViggianoStars: Maggie Bofill, Amy Rene Garcia, Christina Jensen
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[Source: www.dailymotion.com]A proposed theme park based on the story of Noah’s Ark discriminates in employment in favor of fundamentalist Christians and should be ineligible for tax incentives from the state of Kentucky, Americans United for Separation of Church and State says.
In a letter to Gov. Steve Beshear and the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority, the group wrote, “Per the required Statement of Faith, an applicant must profess, inter alia, that homosexuality is a sin on par with bestiality and incest, that the earth is only 6,000 years old, and that the bible is literally true in order to be considered for the job.”“Ark Encounter’s participation in the tax incentive program would compel taxpayers in the state to support both religious discrimination and a religious ministry,” the letter noted.Ark Encounter is a project of Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist Christian organization that promotes creationism. The Kentucky Board of Tourism recently granted preliminary approval for the park to receive tax incentives. It is the second time the park has received approval for the benefits; it was forced to resubmit its application after failing to meet earlier funding deadlines.
“This is clearly a sectarian project, and it has no business receiving any assistance from the taxpayers,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United’s executive director. “Tax-subsidized jobs should not be limited to certain types of extremely conservative Christians. Unless you’re willing to adopt fundamentalist Christian views, you might not even be able to get a job slinging hot dogs at Ark Encounter.”In Friday’s letter, Americans United urged the state to deny the park final approval for the incentives. The group previously urged the park be denied the incentives because it is intended to proselytize.According to the project’s own website, “the purpose of the Ark Encounter is to point people to the only means of salvation from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, who also is the only God-appointed way to escape eternal destruction.”“State tax subsidies should not be used to support religious discrimination or proselytization,” said Americans United Associate Legal Director Alex J. Luchenitser. “The state aid sought by the Ark Park would do exactly that. It should be denied.”The letter was prepared by Luchenitser and AU Steven Gey Fellow Charles Gokey.With 20 teams starting the season at 1-1, people are talking about parity and balance.
As ESPN's Lee Corso says, "Not so fast, my friend." The talent gap between the bottom of the AFC and the rest of the league is distinct and is going to significantly influence the standings the rest of the season. The NFC is already 7-1 against the AFC.
How times change. The AFC had the edge over the NFC from 1995 to 2010 and did not have a losing interconference record during that 16-year span. Last year, the NFC beat the AFC 33-31. Based on the start of this season, the NFC could be heading to a 44-20 season similar to the AFC's dominance in 2004, or like the 40-24 mark the AFC posted in 2006.
Should that happen, the chances of one or two 8-8 teams making the playoffs increase. In 2004, only four NFC teams had winning records and eight were 6-10 or worse. In 2006, only five NFC teams had winning records and five were 6-10 or worse.
All you have to do is look at ESPN.com's most recent Power Rankings to see the initial signs pointing to a 44-20 scenario for the NFC this season.
Seven AFC teams are ranked in the bottom eight in the league. The seven worst are Miami (25), Tennessee (26), Indianapolis (27), Kansas City (28), Oakland (30), Jacksonville (31) and Cleveland (32). Their combined records are 2-12. The two wins are the Colts over the Minnesota Vikings (29) and the Dolphins over the Raiders.
Here are the 10 trends to watch in Week 3.
1. Showdown in Baltimore: The Patriots head to Baltimore on Sunday night trying to sort out what's happening with their offense. New England lost tight end Aaron Hernandez to a high ankle sprain last week, and it threw off the flow of the offense. Their two-tight end formations dropped from 66 snaps in the opener to 20 against the Cardinals. Wide receiver Wes Welker had a 95-yard receiving day from the slot, but he has surprisingly fallen behind Julian Edelman in the receiver rotation. With Hernandez out for a month, head coach Bill Belichick brought in free agents Kellen Winslow at tight end and Deion Branch at receiver. The question going into the game with the Ravens is how Winslow and Branch will be used. The Patriots started the season as a two-tight end offense that tried to incorporate more running plays with halfback Stevan Ridley. But the Ravens, despite giving up 258 rushing yards in the first two weeks, are a difficult team to run against. Will Tom Brady spread the field and throw or continue to focus more on running? Whatever happens, the Patriots need this victory if they want to have a home-field edge against Baltimore or any other top AFC team in the playoffs.
Peyton Manning had a lot of problems against Atlanta. The Texans' D will be another tough test. AP Photo/David Goldman
2. Another tough challenge for Peyton Manning: Houston Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is studying game tapes of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Atlanta Falcons to find the best way to slow down Manning, who excelled against the Steelers but struggled against the Falcons. In two games, Manning has made it clear his passing game is restricted to a 20-yard area. He is completing 74.1 percent of his passes when the ball travels 20 yards or fewer in the air, but according to ESPN Stats & Information, he's 0-for-5 on throws 21 yards or longer. His three interceptions in the first quarter against Atlanta came outside his 20-yard comfort zone. Phillips' mission is to get pass-rushers to Manning quickly to get him out of rhythm on shorter throws.
3. Not so super in the Superdome: The Kansas City Chiefs and New Orleans Saints both entered the season thinking playoffs. One team will come out of this game 0-3, a hole that is hard to climb out of for a team trying to make the postseason. The slow start for the Saints is explainable. They are down two coaches: head coach Sean Payton and assistant head coach Joe Vitt. Their defense is making a tough coordinator transition from Gregg Williams to Steve Spagnuolo, going from an aggressive hybrid style to a zone-blitzing scheme that is having problems with coverage. Opposing quarterbacks are completing 71.7 percent of their passes against New Orleans and have a 135.5 quarterback rating. The pass-rush pressure hasn't been there. After two weeks, the Saints are the worst team in football when rushing five or more defenders, allowing 17 completions on 21 attempts for 310 yards and three touchdowns. The Chiefs started the season without four starting defenders, and they have fallen apart in second halves. Their defense is giving up 9.54 yards per passing attempt, and combined with five touchdown passes that means the Chiefs' defense has helped opposing quarterbacks to a 130.2 quarterback rating.
4. Are the Chargers for real? Normally, Norv Turner's teams get off to slow starts. This year they are 2-0, but the schedule may play a part. They struggled to beat the Raiders 22-14, and they blew out the Titans. Sunday's home game against the Atlanta Falcons will be a true test. Turner is taking particular pride in his defense. The Chargers faced Darren McFadden and Chris Johnson and have allowed only 83 rushing yards in two games and a 2.8-yard average. The defense has allowed only two touchdowns and 24 points in two games. But the Falcons come to town with Matt Ryan mixing in no-huddle offensive plays with some of the best offensive talent in football. The Chargers must find ways to contain WRs Julio Jones and Roddy White along with not letting tight end Tony Gonzalez move the chains with short completions.
5. Are the Cardinals for real? No one expected the Arizona Cardinals to be 2-0, particularly when their first road game was in New England. Somehow, some way, they continue to win close games. They have winnable games coming against Miami, St. Louis, Buffalo and Minnesota. Sunday the Cardinals host the Philadelphia Eagles. Could it be possible for the Cardinals to win that game and get off to a 7-0 or 6-1 start? We'll see. The one thing we know is that the Cardinals have an underrated defense. Defensive coordinator Ray Horton uses the Pittsburgh Steelers' style of 3-4 and has defenders confusing quarterbacks. This defense has difference-makers such as Calais Campbell, Darnell Dockett, Daryl Washington, Patrick Peterson and Adrian Wilson. It faces quarterback Michael Vick, who has been scrambling to overcome a nine-turnover start to the Eagles' season.
6. NFC West turnaround: Last year, the San Francisco 49ers emerged as one of the best teams in the NFC, but the Seahawks, Cardinals and Rams were 10-20 in games outside the division. While the 49ers are off to a 2-0 start, the other three teams are 3-1 outside the division with wins over the Patriots, Cowboys and Redskins. The 49ers shouldn't have much trouble this week. They visit the Minnesota Vikings. The Cardinals will be challenged by the Eagles. The Seahawks host the Green Bay Packers on Monday night, and the Rams visit the Chicago Bears. The NFC West is different from most divisions. It stresses defense and running the football. All four teams are unbeaten at home. This week could alert the world that the NFC West is no longer a doormat.
7. Heat is on Cutler: The extra break between the Bears' Thursday night loss in Week 2 to Green Bay and Sunday's game against the Rams has been painful for Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler. All anyone talks about is how he embarrassed left tackle J'Marcus Webb after a sack by yelling at him and bumping into him. Cutler has been an easy target because of his offensive line. The Bears benched guard Chris Spencer this week, but will that be enough to help Cutler? He has been sacked nine times in two games and has thrown five interceptions. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Cutler is completing only 54.3 percent of his passes when rushed by four defenders or fewer. When defenses bring the extra defender, Cutler is even more troubled. He has been sacked six times in 33 drop backs, is completing only 48.1 percent of his throws against the extra pressure and has three of his five interceptions.
Randy Moss returns to Minnesota, but he's not the player he was when he starred for the Vikings. Jeff Hanisch/US Presswire
8. Friendly faces: As always, games create some interesting reunions. The 49ers bring Randy Moss back to Minnesota, but this is a different Moss. He's no longer a full-time player. Coach Jim Harbaugh has put Moss on the field for only 21 plays in the first game and 15 in the second. Even in a limited role, Moss has helped stretch the field. He has five catches for 61 yards and a touchdown. The Miami Dolphins host the New York Jets and the game features the return of former Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, who is the Jets' offensive coordinator. Sparano brought the Wildcat to Miami, so the Dolphins should know how to defend the Jets' version of it. Last week, though, the Jets' Tim Tebow was on the field for only three plays. Tebow hasn't thrown a pass this season. Will Sparano be basic or creative against his former team? We'll see. Kevin Kolb is the Cardinals' starting quarterback, but no one knows him better than the Eagles, who drafted him and groomed him for the controversial trade to Arizona. It will be interesting to see how the Eagles defend him.
9. Young guns alert: Five rookie quarterbacks and five draft choices from last year are starting. Week 3 should start to separate which young quarterbacks are making progress and which ones are regressing. Washington's Robert Griffin III, who has been impressive in two starts, gets his home debut against a Bengals defense that is allowing 35.5 points and 325.5 yards a game. Jake Locker of the Titans will try to bounce back from a poor performance against the Chargers with a trip to Detroit. Cleveland's Brandon Weeden threw well in Week 2 against the Bengals. This week, the Buffalo Bills will test how far he has come. The Colts' Andrew Luck outdueled Christian Ponder of the Vikings in Week 2. This week, Luck hosts Jacksonville and Blaine Gabbert, who did well against Ponder in the opener but regressed in Week 2 against the Houston Texans.
10. Protect your back on a kneel-down: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones supported Bucs coach Greg Schiano's stance to play to the whistle and hit Eli Manning on a kneel-down at the end of the Giants' win over the Bucs last week. In fact, Jones believes the league should eliminate the kneel-down and replace it with a real play. Of course, Jones wants to be in position for Tony Romo to kneel down at the end of Sunday's game against the Bucs in Dallas. Romo has to be excited about playing a Bucs defense that gave up so many big plays through the air in New York.Vander Caballero wants a hug.
It’s the early 2000s. He’s playing Sony’s cult favorite adventure game Ico. And he’s nearly shouting at the screen.
He loves the game, loves the relationship it builds between a boy and girl, loves the hand-holding animation as the boy guides the girl around. But he’s frustrated at the game’s restraint. He wants to see the girl react to how the boy treats her and see the pair’s relationship evolve. But that’s not the game he’s playing.
"What happens at the end? She becomes a key, and then you get pissed because she’s using you to escape, but you’re not getting anything from her.... I was like, ‘Come on! Give me a hug! Do something or I’ll throw this controller away!’"
Now almost 15 years after Ico’s release, he’s taken it upon himself to satisfy that craving. He’s making a similar emotion-driven adventure game — codenamed "Ico 3.0" — that will show the evolution of a relationship and deal with social issues such as prostitution and financial inequality, inspired by an adolescent relationship of his own.
"A story of impossible love"
Caballero has been trying to make Cali for a few years.
As the creative director at Minority Media, a Montreal-based development studio, he’s put a lot of time into thinking about what he calls "empathy games" — games that closely tie personal experiences to their narratives.
Minority’s first game, Papo & Yo, featured the story of Caballero’s childhood struggles with an alcoholic father, who is represented in the game as a monster addicted to frogs. And Minority’s mobile game Spirits of Spring referenced Design Director Ruben Farrus’ experiences with bullying.
Shortly after Papo & Yo’s release in 2012, Caballero started work on Cali — a game he describes as the "emotional successor" to Papo & Yo because it references another traumatic situation from his past. This time, it’s a story about "impossible love" inspired by a relationship he had as a teenager.
As he tells it, as part of a tradition in Colombia, a teenaged boy has to prove his manhood by sleeping with a girl. So Caballero’s father, who was fairly well off, set him up with a girl who’s mother was a prostitute. But contrary to the intended goal |
a great experience,” she recalled. “Not only did they share images and comments and thoughts from our church that morning with the thousands of aggregate followers and friends and contacts they had on social media, they also found each other.”
Afterwards, “we invited people to bring their devices and we did a help desk, answering their questions about getting set up, how to use and understand social media a little better, helping families learn more about how to keep kids safe online.”
Catalano and Clement met on #Chsocm (pronounced ch-sock-em), a weekly ecumenical Twitter chat on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST about church social media. Catalano liked Clement’s idea of a Social Media Sunday and organized a similar event at St. Timothy’s.
Citing their own digital friendship, they hope to create similar connections and relationships throughout the church. “Laura and I are friends from social media but we’ve never met in real life,” Clement said. “But even though we haven’t met in person, I feel like digital life is real life.
“We bounce ideas off each other a lot,” she added. “We both volunteer; we both manage social media for our churches. We both rose organically in our parishes to do this work. It’s something we were independently called to, as a personal mission, to do social media, evangelism or social media mission, you might want to call it.
“And we just wanted to invite the whole Episcopal Church to have a Social Media Sunday to connect with each other, to share something about church, about faith, and so we said, why not?”
They began tweeting about it and inviting followers, created a Facebook event and “found every Episcopal national organization we could and posted on their Facebook walls and invited them.”
Besides being a fun day, Social Media Sunday “hopefully, will give us some kind of information about how many Episcopalians are out there, actively using social media to share their faith. It’ll be interesting to see,” Clement said.
Meanwhile, she added: “We just want to see #episcopal go viral on June 29.”
–The Rev. Pat McCaughan is a correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack”
Long before social media sneaker groups, Air Jordan fans would sign up for the very special Air Jordan Flight Club. That club came with specific perks that began with a “Welcome Pack” that included a newsletter, members-only T-shirt, a poster, an autographed photo of Mike, a membership card and a welcome letter. The folks over at Streething got their hands on pack that is in very good condition. It will be displayed in the “Hall of Fame” of Limited Edt’s new basketball store. Did any of you have a Flight Club membership?
Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack” Vintage Air Jordan Flight Club “Welcome Pack”This article is over 2 years old
Attack in Kunduz came after two US service members were killed and had been aimed at breaking siege
Thirty civilians die in airstrike called to protect US and Afghan troops
As many as 30 civilians were killed in an airstrike on Thursday morning called in to protect US and Afghan troops involved in heavy fighting with the Taliban near Kunduz.
The airstrike, requested after two US service members were killed, had been meant to break a siege around the village of Bouz Kandahari, three miles from the centre of Kunduz, according to Saeed Mahmoud Danish, the spokesman for the provincial governor.
He said the civilians got caught up in the line of fire because the Taliban were using their houses as cover.
The joint operation between Afghan and US forces began late on Wednesday and killed 26 Taliban fighters, including two prominent commanders, according to local officials.
It was not immediately clear who conducted the fatal airstrike.
Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, said Afghan special forces had conducted airstrikes around the village. The US and Nato mission in Afghanistan said in a tweet: “US forces conducted strikes in Kunduz to defend friendly forces. All civilian casualty claims will be investigated.”
Brig Gen Cleveland, a US military spokesman, said: “As part of an Afghan operation, friendly forces received direct fire and airstrikes were conducted to defend themselves. We take all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously.
“As this was an Afghan operation, we’ll work with our partners to investigate but refer you to them for additional details in the near term. We’ll provide updates as we have them.”
A US airstrike on a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz in October 2015 killed 42 people.
The governor’s spokesman put the number of killed civilians in Bouz Kandahari at 30, while Gen Qasim Jangalbagh, a police official in Kunduz province, said 26 civilians had died.
According to an internal western security report, the US-Afghan forces came under fire and were surrounded until about 6am, when they broke the siege and escaped.
Cleveland said the US soldiers had been killed at about 3am or 4am, but did not release further details.
The Afghan ministry of defence said the two American soldiers, who were “advising” their Afghan counterparts on the ground, were killed in a fire exchange with insurgents, which also killed three Afghan special forces.
Early on Thursday, villagers who tried to transport the dead civilians to the city were reportedly stopped by security forces. Later in the day, residents staged a demonstration, protesting about the killings.
Laghmani, a prominent elder in Kunduz, said local media and community leaders had tried to go to the village where the airstrike took place, but had been stopped by security forces.
The security situation around Kunduz, which Taliban fighters managed to enter last month, a year after they briefly captured the city in their biggest success in the 15-year war, remains precarious.
Although US combat operations against the Taliban largely ended in 2014, special forces units have been engaged in combat, providing assistance to the Afghan army and police.
Thousands of US soldiers remain in Afghanistan as part of the Nato-led Resolute Support training and assistance mission and a separate counterterrorism mission.
A US service member was killed last month on an operation against Islamic State fighters in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
Afghan forces, largely fighting alone since the end of the international combat mission, have experienced thousands of casualties, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.Uh, awkward. Donald Trump joked that he had "sex" in common with his daughter Ivanka Trump in a recently resurfaced, cringeworthy February 2013 interview on The Wendy Williams Show, which you can watch in the clip above.
During a Q&A game called Fave Five, host Wendy Williams asked Ivanka, now 34, about her favorite thing she and her father had in common. "Either real estate or golf," she innocently replied.
Williams, 52, then asked Donald, 70, the same question, prompting an unexpected response. "Well, I was going to say sex, but I can't relate that to her," he said, pointing to his eldest daughter, who was visibly mortified by the response.
The suggestive comment wasn't the first time the real estate mogul's first about Ivanka. In 2004, Donald discussed his daughter's physique during an interview with Howard Stern.
"My daughter is beautiful, Ivanka," he said at the time. The 62-year-old shock jock then said, "Can I say this? A piece of ass." Donald agreed, simply adding, "Yeah."
Two years later, the pals had yet another awkward exchange as Stern noted that Ivanka looked "more voluptuous than ever" and asked Donald if she had gotten breast implants.
"She's actually always been very voluptuous," the businessman responded. "She's tall — she's almost 6 feet tall — and she's been … she's an amazing beauty."
After the "piece of ass" comment resurfaced online during the 2016 presidential election, Ivanka' Twitter account liked a tweet about the story. A source close to Ivanka's company later told Us Weekly that "a simple mistake was made by a staff member" by liking the post.
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!1. Terrific
The root word here is the Latin terrere, which means terror. Originally, if your aunt's cooking was terrific, you called it that because it inspired fear and dread on a life-threatening level. In the early 1800s, people began to use it facetiously, "That opera was a terrific bore!" That morphed into a meaning closer to huge or grand, and by the late 1800s it was being used as it is today, to mean good and happy. (Awful took the opposite journey, initially meaning "awe-inspiring" and worthy of fearful respect. Eventually, following the same methods and timeline, it came to mean so bad it's worthy of awe. Just … awful.)
2. Swell
This word was transformed by creeping, where one of its outermost definitions crawls forward, picking up meaning until it has turned into a whole new term. It starts with the obvious. To swell: To grow larger. To be big, inflated. Then that became a noun to describe someone who was big and inflated, an important person. (Watch enough old Twilight Zone episodes and you will eventually hear some big shot referred to as a "Swell.") Then it made the easy leap to "That's really swell!" A big deal, exciting, and important.
3. Hunky dory
One theory is that hunky dory came from the Japanese Honcho dori, which could translate roughly into "easy street." The theory says it was popularized by 19th-century white sailors who would hang out on Easy Streets looking for fun. The problem with that is the timeline: Hunky Dory was being used in America by the early 1860s, but Japan had been closed to foreign fleets (and prostitute-seeking white sailors) up until 1854. So while it is possible that the term made it from Japan all the way to popular American vernacular in six years, it's hardly a certainty. The other theory is hunky came from hunkey, which meant "everything's fine," which itself came from the old American slang hunk, which meant "safe, at home" (hunker down). Nobody's sure where dory comes into that theory.
4. Spiffy
In the mid-19th century, a spiff was a pay bonus that stores would give their salesmen for moving undesirable products. If you sold an ugly suit, you got spiffed. There was also spiflicate, which was an even older word meaning "to confound, completely overcome." So you'd spiflicate some poor shlub into buying an ugly tie and then get a spiff, which you could then put toward getting all spiffed up yourself to take your girl out. Spiffy.
5. Jolly
Jolly could come from a couple of sources. The most obvious would be the French jolie, which, depending on the century, meant, "festive, merry, amorous, pretty." Jolly is also a uniquely Christmas-y word (Old St. Nick is not hunky dory. He is jolly.), so many historians believe it could also come from variations of jol in Germanic languages. The Germanic jol means "yule," which in turn means "Christmas."
6. Tickety-Boo
Tickety-Boo, though not used much anymore, is the happiest of British slang. An upper-class, early-20th-century British-ism for "everything is just fine," tickety-boo most likely came from the Hindustani ṭhīk hai ("all right, sir"), which is what your Indian servant might say to you when you told him to bring 'round the Bentley during the Raj. Rear Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, popularized the term in the 1940s, and it became regular slang among the Royal Navy.
7. Gnarly
The origin of gnarly is painfully obvious once someone has already revealed it to you. Gnarly comes from surfer slang of the 1960s, to describe a wave that was difficult, dangerous, and awesome. The water in the wave would literally appear gnarled, curled, and messy. If you could ride it, well, gnarly, dude.It's hard to make yourself stand out in the ever-expanding world of independent wrestling, but Sami Callihan is undoubtedly one of the hottest names out there in 2017.
The 30-year old has taken his "Worldwide Desperado" moniker literally by traversing the globe for the past two years, making stops at most of the top independent promotions around the world. Despite his blistering in-ring schedule, which has seen him appear at more than 150 shows in the past year for promotions such as AAW, PWG, and even Lucha Underground, Callihan also has the added responsibilities of being the head booker of longtime independent standout CZW, as of July.
Sami Callihan has never been busier and his brand has never been stronger. But in order for Callihan to reach the peak of his 11-year professional career, he first had to endure its lowest point. He had the job that everyone in wrestling strives to have -- a spot in the WWE -- and yet, for Callihan, it turned into a nightmare.
"When I was in the WWE, I'll be the first person to say that I walked on eggshells and I became a shell of the person that I was when I signed," Callihan said of his time as Solomon Crowe in NXT from 2013-2015. "I allowed too many people to get in my brain. Too many people to pull me in different directions. I didn't know who I was anymore. I felt like I didn't know how to wrestle anymore."
Callihan could sense his NXT run wasn't going as planned after he signed with WWE in 2012.
The Ohio native didn't wrestle during his first six months in the company despite being told he'd debut on NXT television right away. After breaking his leg, Callihan missed another six months just as he was about to make his television debut as Kalisto's tag-team partner. NXT started airing vignettes as he neared his recovery to hype the debut, but Callihan's appearance had changed dramatically in that time.
"They were half-assed put together promos," Callihan said of his vignettes that were filmed a year before his TV debut.
In addition to the new look, NXT writers couldn't agree on what character Callihan would debut as. Callihan and Dusty Rhodes meticulously devised a hacker character before his injury. They had planned for fans to scan VR codes at arenas and on the WWE Network to give Callihan the opportunity to "hack" their phones with emails and alerts. However, the writers were undecided on how far to take the unique character.
"People didn't understand the hacker character," Callihan said. "I was debuted as the hacker character and told, 'hey, you're not the hacker'. So people would [say], 'you don't look like you know who you are out there,' because I didn't know who I was because I was told to be six different things from six different people."
The moment he left behind a "hacker" gimmick that never got to be fully realized in NXT, Callihan tapped into something he could sink his teeth into as the "Worldwide Desperado". Provided by Sami Callihan
Callihan quickly realized he wasn't being used to his potential in NXT. Still, Performance Center trainers Billy Gunn, Norman Smiley, Robbie Brookside, and Terry Taylor continued to endorse Callihan as he floated around without much direction or forward momentum. Among his biggest supporters was Rhodes -- known for his keen eye for finding talent -- who saw potential in the 5-foot-8, 210-pound ball of fury that is Callihan.
"Everyone always said, 'Dusty liked his broken toys,' and I feel like I was one of his broken toys," Callihan said. "He straight up told me one day, 'you can be the next CM Punk, or you could be the next Chris Jericho if they give you the ball and allow you to be you,' but it just never transpired. I never got the chance to truly be me in the middle of the ring."
Callihan can recall, clearly, one of the few chances he was given to shine in a WWE ring when he wrestled his close friend Apollo Crews on NXT TV in September of 2015.
"I remember before the match Apollo goes, 'do you tonight. If we get in trouble I'll take the blame,' Callihan said. "I remember getting pulled to the back from HHH and he was like, 'where has this guy been for the last year'. I kinda had to bite my tongue, but lucky enough people like Norman Smiley and Billy Gunn straight up came up to him and was like, 'this is the guy that's been main eventing a lot of your house shows against Finn Balor and Kevin Owens and having killer matches, but then it comes to TV and you book him like a jobber.'"
Eventually, Callihan could no longer handle the anxiety that had been manifesting inside of him for over a year and did something few wrestlers have the confidence to do when he left WWE in November of 2015.
"I'm not gonna lie, it was scary," Callihan recalls. "When I finally pulled the trigger and really bet on myself that was a scary thing, but I had to bet on myself. I wanted to be a guy remembered for going out on his own way. By leaving on my own terms, it kinda made me a badass character. I quit WWE. Not a lot of people can say that."
Looking to capitalize on the buzz he created from leaving WWE, Callihan turned down a non-compete clause that would have paid him for 30 days after his release. Instead, he grabbed his phone and called three people -- CZW owner DJ Hyde, PWG co-founder Super Dragon, and AAW owner Danny Daniels.
"I said, 'yo, don't let this leak, I'm leaving WWE. I wanna show up this week and next week,'" Callihan said. "And everyone's like, 'hell yeah, let's f******* do it.'"
In the matter of days, Callihan went from sitting on the bench in NXT to appearing on the three biggest indy shows of the year for three different promotions in the span of two weeks.
Callihan has worked all over the world since leaving WWE, including shows for Fight Club Pro that included the likes of Marty Scurll and Jimmy Havoc. Oli Sandler/Fight Club Pro
"It was a no-brainer," Daniels said about booking Callihan's AAW return four days after his WWE release. "We just debuted in downtown Chicago in a new venue and it was our biggest show of the year. It was sold out right away. He told us, 'I want to be the focus of your promotion,' and right away I'm like, 'OK, I'll give you all my dates. Let's do this''.
Any doubts Callihan had about his decision to leave WWE subsided as he quickly ascended to the top of the indies. AAW, Chicago's biggest independent wrestling organization, embraced Callihan upon his return. He would go on to hold AAW's heavyweight title for the better part of two years. Callihan could've relied on his WWE persona and stardom, something many ex-WWE talent do, but he decided to go in a different direction. And this time, there wasn't any second-guessing who Callihan was.
He was now the 'Worldwide Desperado'-- a ruthless, ultra-aggressive brawler unafraid to speak his mind.
"I truly become a different person," Callihan said of his new persona. "That's not Sami myself anymore. That's Sami Callihan the character, who's one of the most disrespectful, vile human beings on the planet."
Callihan uses insults and profanities to get under the skin of his opponents and fans while interweaving real-life storylines into his passionate promos. His newfound edge led to a number of more mainstream suitors including Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor. Callihan didn't want to make the same mistake twice by joining a company that would potentially rob him of the creativity and uniqueness that makes him so special. That's why he found a place where his maniacal personality would fit right in -- Lucha Underground.
"I knew they would allow me to do what I wanted to do and do some really dark stuff that wouldn't be allowed on a normal television program," Callihan said of his decision to sign with Lucha Underground after being approached by Ricochet, who wrestles as Prince Puma on the show.
Callihan has flourished under the name Jeremiah Crane, putting on arguably the two best matches of Lucha Underground's third season thus far; against his close friend Killshot (Shane Strickland), and Mil Muertes. He's also allowed to wrestle for any other promotion as long as he isn't on TV. Callihan has taken full advantage of that clause, wrestling for companies all over the world. He's even running his own promotion, the Wrestling Revolver, with shows throughout the midwest.
Callihan is always looking for another challenge and hopes to add New Japan Pro Wrestling to his list of stops, which could happen sooner rather than later. But no matter where he's wrestling, Callihan has made his brand stronger outside WWE than it ever could've been inside of it with where things stood at the tail end of his tenure.
"Now, wrestling isn't just one-sided. It's not just about WWE," Callihan said. "There are wrestlers out on the indies making six figures a year. The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, Marty Scurll now have shirts at Hot Topic. Our generation is proving there is a way to make money and there is a way to become mainstream stars without being backed by the WWE machine."
Even though these past two years have gone even better than Callihan could have ever expected, he still hopes to return to the place that nearly derailed his career, if only to have another chance to prove his critics wrong.
"To say that I don't want to go back [to WWE] would be a lie because one day I truly do believe maybe I will be back and have that WrestleMania moment," Callihan said. "I believe I can be on the forefront and truly do believe I can be a top guy even though I'm 5-foot-8, 210 pounds.
"At the end of the day, you got to bet on yourself. And from now on I'm always gonna bet on myself."Incredible footage of a labrador swimming and playing with a dolphin off at Middletown, on Tory Island was captured by a BBC camera crew a few years ago. Adam Henson, presenter of the BBC show “Countryfile” was shocked when he witnessed Ben the labrador swimming out to meet his friend, a dolphin nicknamed Doogie. According to the locals, this is an almost daily event.
Henson said, “This is absolutely amazing…Swimming around in the water, I have never seen anything like it."
The video shows Ben running toward the harbor before he jumps into the water to join his friend. The pair splashes and plays together while Ben swims in circles wagging his tail.
As Doogie the dolphin heads out to sea in pursuit of the local ferry Ben returns ashore.
Locals told the company, that Doogie, a female dolphin was first spotted in Middletown harbor in 2006 after the dead body of another dolphin appeared onshore. The locals believe that Doogie was grieving for her mate, and that is why she started to come into the harbor.
*Originally published in 2014.She was “a beam of light,” a music and travel lover -- but never an activist.
Friends and family of Neda Agha-Soltan spoke to The Times’ Borzou Daragahi about the 26-year-old Iranian woman seen bleeding on the streets of Tehran in shaky video footage that has turned her into an international symbol of the protest movement:
The first word came from abroad. An aunt in the United States called her Saturday in a panic. "Don't go out into the streets, Golshad," she told her. "They're killing people." The relative proceeded to describe a video, airing on exile television channels that are jammed in Iran, in which a young woman is shown bleeding to death as her companion calls out, "Neda! Neda!" A dark premonition swept over Golshad, who asked that her real name not be published. She began calling the cellphone and home number of her friend Neda Agha-Soltan, who had gone to the chaotic demonstration with a group of friends, but Neda didn't answer. At midnight, as the city continued to smolder, Golshad drove to the Agha-Soltan residence in the eastern Tehran Pars section of the capital. As she heard the cries and wails and praising of God reverberating from the house, she crumpled, knowing that her worst fears were true. "Neda! Neda!" the 25-year-old cried out. "What will I do?"
Read Daragahi's report Family, friends mourn Iranian woman who died on video.
-- Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles
Photo: An undated picture posted online June 22, 2009, shows Neda Agha-Soltan, who was reportedly shot and killed during a protest in Tehran. Credit: AFP / Getty ImagesA list of all markdown parsers in Python. The advantages and disadvantages of them.
There are many markdown parsers in Python. Misaka was my favorite one. However, misaka is deprecated now, and the successor which is called hoedown still has issues to solve. That's why it is a was. But I still love it.
Here is a list of markdown parsers for Python in my knowledge:
Misaka: A python binding for Sundown. (CPython required)
Hoedown: A python binding for Hoedown, successor of Misaka.
Discount: A python binding for Discount. (CPython required)
cMarkdown: Markdown for Python, accelerated by C. (CPython required)
Markdown: A pure markdown parser, the very first implementation.
Markdown2: Another pure markdown parser.
And I've just released another pure markdown parser too, which is called mistune.
Misaka
Misaka was my favorite markdown parser. It is a python binding of Sundown, which means that it has all the features that Sundown provides.
It is super fast! Actually, it is the top one in my benchmarks. Since it is a binding of a C library, no wonder that it is this fast. If speed is what you want, you should try misaka, and as well as other bindings of a C library.
But misaka is more than speed. It is the custom renderer feature that catches my heart. I am so fond of it, that's why I implement the custom renderer feature in my own markdown parser mistune.
A quick and very useful sample is code highlighting.
However, it is a binding of a C libary. It requires CPython, if you prefer PyPy, you have no access to it. Some App Engines have a limitation on compiling C libraries too, you can't use misaka in this case. And even if you are using CPython, it is still difficult to install it on a Windows OS.
Visual Studio's support for C is not optimal and most VS compilers are missing stdint.h, which is needed to compile Misaka.
If you are on a Windows, may god helps you. I don't care it a shit.
Footnote feature is missing in Misaka. Maybe many of you don't need such a thing, in this case, misaka has nothing bad. It is stable, efficient, and has many GFM features.
The only trouble is Sundown is deprecated.1
Hoedown
Because the Sundown library is deprecated, here comes hoedown2, which is the fork of the original Sundown. It has a Python binding also called as hoedown.
Since Hoedown is the successor of Sundown, and python-hoedown is the successor of Misaka, all features that misaka has, python-hoedown has them too. But python-hoedown is more than that.
It is PyPy compatible. It has footnote feature.
It looks promissing, and even misaka's author recommends it. I've tried it, but failed with one issue, a magic error that I can't do anything:
terminated by signal SIGSEGV (Address boundary error)
This isssue is not fixed yet. Once it does, hoedown would be a good choice for non-AE users.
Updated at Jun 23, 2014: you can use Hoep as the Python Binding.
cMarkdown & Discount
cMarkdown is much like Misaka, except that it is based on upskirt3 rather than sundown. The history is very interesting, sundown is a fork of upskirt, hoedown is a fork of sundown. And now, sundown is deprecated, upskirt is missing. The new markdown parser that vmg promised is still not available.
cMarkdown has all the disadvantages of Misaka, and it is a little slower than Misaka. This means you really should use misaka instead of cMarkdown.
Discount is a joke for me, I can't even install it successfully! There is not much to say. But I do know that Discount is slower than Sundown.
Markdown & Markdown2
Python-Markdown is the very first markdown parser in pure Python. It is good, except the documentation. However, I miss the renderer feature in misaka, which is not in Python-Markdown.
Python-Markdown is not that slow as I expected, since Python-Markdown2 calls itself as:
A fast and complete implementation of Markdown in Python.
But it is not true. Python-Markdown2 is much slower than Python-Markdown. I have no idea why it says itself fast. All features that 2 has, the older one has too.
The benchmark shows that Python-Markdown2 is almost twice slower than Python-Markdown. No wonder it is 2.
Mistune
Mistune is a new (just released) markdown parser. It is the fastest one in all pure Python implementations. Almost 4 times faster4 than Python-Markdown in pure Python environment, almost 5 times faster with Cython's help.
I didn't expect it to be so fast when I wrote it. I know it would be a fast one, but I didn't know that it would be 4 times faster and even 5 times faster.
I have never thought of creating a Markdown parser my own. But it has been months since I reported the issue to Hoedown. The issue is still there, not solved a bit. Because it is a C binding, I am not able to do any help, the only thing I can do is waiting.
I don't use Python-Markdown or Python-Markdown2, because they have no renderer feature, and they are slow.
I have introduced renderer feature to marked, which is finally merged. And now I am trying to add the footnote feature. It occured to me that I can port marked to Python, since I know marked well, and I know it is the fastest in all pure JavaScript implementations. It would be fast in Python too, and it really does.
If you are looking for a fast, full featured5 and pure Python implementation, Mistune is a good choice. It also has renderer feature just like Misaka. You can always influnce the rendering results with custom renderers.
import mistune from pygments import highlight from pygments.lexers import get_lexer_by_name from pygments.formatters import HtmlFormatter class MyRenderer ( mistune. Renderer ): def block_code ( self, code, lang ): if not lang : return '
<pre><code> %s </code></pre>
' % \ mistune. escape ( code. strip ()) lexer = get_lexer_by_name ( lang, stripall = True ) formatter = HtmlFormatter () return highlight ( code, lexer, formatter ) renderer = MyRenderer () md = mistune. Markdown ( renderer = renderer ) print ( md. render ( 'Some Markdown text.' ))
Additional Notes
I did a benchmark on my MacBook Air, view the results. You can run the benchmark script yourself: bench.py
Parsing the Markdown Syntax document 1000 times... Mistune: 12.7255s Mistune (with Cython): 9.74075s Misaka: 0.550502s Markdown: 46.4342s Markdown2: 78.2267s cMarkdown: 0.664128s Discount is not available
Mistune can be compiled with Cython if you have Cython installed already.
$ pip install cython mistune
The magic happens in the setup.py script. I'd like to introduce this part another time.
mistune is used by many great projects such as IPython, Rodeo and crossbar.
This post and all posts in markdown format on this site are rendered with mistune.The Census Bureau made official what we've seen anecdotally for months: America is deeper in poverty today than it's been in more than a decade. According to the Bureau's report, 43 million Americans are now living in poverty, up from 39 million the year before.
Incredibly, the age group with the highest rates of poverty are children under 18; their ranks increased by 1.4 million kids this year to a total of more than 15 million American children.
We can have a robust debate about the role of government for adults living in poverty but children can't work and they can't vote. If we all agree that every child deserves a fair chance in life, our best hope for reversing this tragic trend is to make the kind of investment that gives every child a quality education and proper nutrition, providing a path to lifelong success.
Unfortunately, we simply haven't made that investment and our kids are paying the price, threatening the future of America.
Four-year-old kids living in poverty are 18 months behind their peers and only 15 percent of fourth graders from poor homes are reading at levels considered proficient by the U.S. Department of Education.
These gaps in early childhood stay with these kids for rest of their lives, leading to increased high school dropout rates, teenage pregnancy and unemployment.
Equally alarming, almost half of kids living living in poverty -- where one might think hunger is an issue -- are in fact obese or overweight. Indeed, the obesity crisis puts kids at risk for "adult" diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, stunting their productivity and straining our health care system.
Now is the time to act. Congress should immediately work to pass the Child Nutrition bill and get it to the President's desk. As Members of Congress continue working to finalize the FY2011 budget, they must ensure that essential funding for Head Start and Early Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant and the Early Learning Challenge Fund is signed into law.Barcelona forward Lionel Messi donated all the leftover food and beverages from his wedding to charity, according to Rosario Food Bank president Nadia Nazer.
Messi married his childhood sweetheart Antonella Roccuzzo in their home town of Rosario, Argentina, on June 30 with 260 guests in attendance, including some of the player's Barcelona and Argentina teammates like Neymar, Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero.
The five-time Ballon d'Or winner ensured nothing went to waste after the party with a photograph posted on Twitter showing some of the beverages that had arrived at the Rosario food bank after the banquet.
"For us any type of donation is very well received and to be honest, we are very happy that they took us into consideration," Nazer told Rosario-based newspaper La Capital. "One of the wedding organisers got in contact with our executive director, Pablo Algrain, to offer us snacks, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks.
"We told them that we had to exchange the alcoholic beverages for money as we cannot give them to institutions.
"We have friends who own bars and they buy them from us and that allows us to transform it into money as a donation to the food bank."
El gesto solidario de Messi y Antonela: lo que no se consumió en el casamiento se donó a entidades benéficas https://t.co/UwH1nG1X1t pic.twitter.com/ZcCdXi7iaN — LA NACION Deportes (@canchallena) July 6, 2017
According to La Capital newspaper, this is not the first act of solidarity that the couple showed on their big day, with Messi and Roccuzzo requesting of guests in their invitation to donate to Techo instead of buying them gifts in a message that reportedly said: "In order to transform our joy to an act of solidarity, in place of a gift, we ask you to donate to Techo."
Techo is a non-profit organisation that works in South America and the Caribbean to help families living in extreme poverty.
"For the time being we prefer to be cautious and not give a number in terms of how much we have received because there are still some donations that have yet to arrive," Techo communications director Florencia Drucker told La Capital this week. "We are still receiving donations from foreign banks and it takes a while for them to arrive.
"They [Messi and Roccuzzo] gave us the freedom to decide where to spend the money because they know our programs and that it will be used to give continuity to those projects."
Messi, who this week agreed a new contract to keep him at Barcelona until June 2021, has always been committed to helping his native Rosario through his Leo Messi Foundation.
The 30-year-old, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since March 2010, has been involved in numerous projects in his country and overseas to help those in need.
"We have a great relationship with the Messi Foundation and we always get jerseys and footballs to action," Nazer said.
Adriana Garcia is a Valencia-based football writer who covers La Liga for ESPN FC.*Genetically modifying crops, which involves the transfer of genes between biologically unrelated species, is not an extension of traditional plant hybridization, but a radical departure which can produce new toxins or allergens in food that are unlikely to be spotted in current regulatory checks.
*GM foods have not been adequately safety tested. There has been no |
. Since the main exponent of DAC as terminology is Daniel Larimer, we will borrow as a definition the point that he himself consistently promotes: a DAC pays dividends. That is, there is a concept of shares in a DAC which are purchaseable and tradeable in some fashion, and those shares potentially entitle their holders to continual receipts based on the DAC’s success. A DAO is non-profit; though you can make money in a DAO, the way to do that is by participating in its ecosystem and not by providing investment into the DAO itself. Obviously, this distinction is a murky one; all DAOs contain internal capital that can be owned, and the value of that internal capital can easily go up as the DAO becomes more powerful/popular, so a large portion of DAOs are inevitably going to be DAC-like to some extent.
Thus, the distinction is more of a fluid one and hinges on emphasis: to what extent are dividends the main point, and to what extent is it about earning tokens by participation? Also, to what extent does the concept of a “share” exist as opposed to simple virtual property? For example, a membership on a nonprofit board is not really a share, because membership frequently gets granted and confiscated at will, something which would be unacceptable for something classified as investable property, and a bitcoin is not a share because a bitcoin does not entitle you to any claim on profits or decision-making ability inside the system, whereas a share in a corporation definitely is a share. In the end, perhaps the distinction might ultimately be the surprisingly obscure point of whether or not the profit mechanism and the consensus mechanism are the same thing.
The above definitions are still not close to complete; there will likely be gray areas and holes in them, and exactly what kind of automation a DO must have before it becomes a DAO is a very hard question to answer. Additionally, there is also the question of how all of these things should be built. An AI, for example, should likely exist as a network of private servers, each one running often proprietary local code, whereas a DO should be fully open source and blockchain-based. Between those two extremes, there is a large number of different paradigms to pursue. How much of the intelligence should be in the core code? Should genetic algorithms be used for updating code, or should it be futarchy or some voting or vetting mechanism based on individuals? Should membership be corporate-style, with sellable and transferable shares, or nonprofit-style, where members can vote other members in and out? Should blockchains be proof of work, proof of stake, or reputation-based? Should DAOs try to maintain balances in other currencies, or should they only reward behavior by issuing their own internal token? These are all hard problems and we have only just begun scratching the surface of them.The game Smite enables gamers to get take on the role of a god from a third person point of view and fight it out with other gods. There are over 60 gods choose from including Thor, Hercules, and Apollo. Several game modes can be played including Conquest, Arena, Joust, and Siege modes; each is offering different challenges and gameplay.
The game has been out a while on Windows 8.1 PCs, but it recently made the jump to Xbox One. That Xbox One version has just received a substantial update, and the highlights are briefly outlined in the video below.
The update is huge and it’s far too large to talk about every detail here, but you can check out some of the biggest ones below. The full list can be seen here.
New Xbox Features
Additional Spectating options Player can now password protect their custom matches to limit who can spectate.
Match IDs have been added to the end of match lobby.
Players can access recorded matches by entering the Match ID from the spectator options menu. New User Flow A new training map will help guide and reward players for learning about Joust and Arena game modes.
Arena tutorial has been added to help teach players the basic rules of the gameplay mode, and to ease them into active gameplay.
Players are rewarded bonus XP and favor for completing each training map. Bug Fixes Global emotes now work
Warding the fire giant now plays the correct audio file
Fixed rich presence and achievement descriptions for supported languages
Fixed a crash involving Sylvanus
Fixed end of match lobby worshipper count
UI
Spectator – Fixed Siege Juggernaut Health bar not showing the correct time.
Draft Pick – Fixed UI incorrectly stating Player 5 is picking.
Added gradient to Recall bar making it easier to see.
Fixed incorrectly stating ‘next promotion’ at end of match lobby for Master ranked players.
Arena Damage icons updated.
A new god called Xing Tian has also been added to the game with this update, and he comes with several powers such as whirlwind of steel and rage and hook slam. Along with new voice packs, emotes and avatars, the developers have also added new skins for your god and those include Ragnarok Fenrir, Volcanic Agni, and Daimyodin Odin.
If you own the game, you’re going to have a blast with this update. If you don’t own the game, you can grab it on the link below.
Purchase Smite for Xbox One
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Further reading: GamesApple has been in the news a lot lately — from the $14.5 billion EU tax fine to the anticipated announcement of the iPhone 7 just a few days away.
However, Apple has been conspicuously silent about its plans with regard to virtual and augmented reality. Although Apple has not made any formal announcements (apart from recent statements by Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, regarding VR and AR), it’s patent filings may provide a hint about the direction they are going.
On Tuesday, the USPTO issued a new patent to Apple (USP No. 9,429,579), entitled “Head-Mounted Display Apparatus for Retaining a Portable Electronic Device with Display.” This marks the seventh U.S. patent that Apple has received relating to HMDs. (Samsung has fourteen U.S. patents relating to HMDs, with five of them being design patents.) Although recently issued, the ‘579 patent is a member in a family of patents, whose parent was filed in September 2008. In other words, Apple has been toying with the idea of an HMD for at least the last eight years.
Claim 1 of the ‘579 patent recites:
A head-mounted device that is worn on a user’s head and configured to integrate with a cellular telephone that is removable, the head-mounted device comprising:
a frame that is configured to physically receive and carry the cellular telephone, wherein the frame places a display screen of the cellular telephone in front of the user’s eyes; and
an optical subassembly configured to receive at least one image frame from the display screen of the cellular telephone, wherein the optical subassembly is interposed between the display screen and the user’s eyes.
As described in the specification, the optical subassembly (shown below at 604) may include “lenses, light guides, light sources, mirrors, diffusers, and the like.” Specifically, optical sub assemblies may include “aspherical and diffractive optical arrangements.” In addition, the optical subassembly may also include “one or more optical modules that may be operative to adjust or modify the displayed media based on any suitable criteria.” For example, the “optical modules” may offset left and right images so that the user is given the illusion of viewing media in three dimensions.
As we’ve said before, a company’s patent filings are certainly no guarantee that a commercial product will ever be released. However, based on recent rumors surrounding Apple’s acquisitions, hirings and iPhone 7 technology, it is a good bet that Apple has something in the works.
AdvertisementsEverybody knows tabs and tabbed applications like webbrowsers or OO Calc.
The grouping of multiple instances/windows of a single application makes perfect sense and removes clutter from the user's workspace.
So what's wrong with it?
Why are things the way they are right now?
Are only application/toolkit developers to blame?
Its implementation! Basically tabs are nothing but window management + radio buttons. Somehow toolkit developers started totabbed view and handled the window management. Everybody who's familiar with the X protocol (widely used under Linux/Unix) might have figured out already, what I'll be complaining about.. One of them is the window class. This window class property could allow a composite manager to provide a tab view. The tabview could provide a consistent look and feel accross toolkits and even expose tabs in a new (maybe even better) way. Seriously, all a window manager should be doing is handling windows/window groups. It's not the job of a toolkit! Toolkits may proxy tabbing for platforms like Windows, but they shouldn't implement their own!I guess nobody can tell for sure. But I'd put my bet on a situation where developers said: "Let's implement our own tabview, so.". And maybe they thought: "Our usecase for tabs isthan those of other applications.". Really? If I had to guess I'd say you'd need a text preview (maybe even a livethumb) connected to a'show window' like mechanism.No, I think it's mostly the fault of desktop environment/shell developers (I'm looking at you GNOME/KDE/Enlightenment/Cinnamon) who didn't show off howtabview/application could be done in afashion yet a bit customizable for using apps. I hope that will change and developers start to use infrastructure that is already there (e.g. PID+window class) instead of propagating inconsistency while making the world a 'better' place.
Maybe I'll even get around to implement some prototype 'generic tabbing' for Enlightenment and it'll gain traction and inspire developers of other desktop environments.
As an outlook of how I - personally - could imagine consistent tab experience, I'd like to refer to Clayton Miller's concept, he presents at 10gui. It already takes the transition of modern input technologies from hard buttons to more touch-based into account.In 1996 the U.S. Coast Guard began approving inflatable personal flotation devices (PFDs) to meet the requirement to have onboard one PFD per person. Although inflatable PFDs are somewhat more complicated than standard lifejackets with inherent (built-in) buoyancy, and certain specific requirements must be met, automatic inflatables offer key advantages for sailors, especially those going offshore. Inflatable PFDs must meet Coast Guard rules.
Gary Jobson, head of U.S. Sailing and a winner of the America's Cup race, explains the importance of wearing a PFD and the advantages of using an inflatable type.
Many inflatable PFDs now manufactured feature both automatic and manual inflation modes. The automatic mode is simple in concept but more complex in engineering. A cylinder of compressed gas is connected to a firing pin, which is engaged when the mechanism is immersed in water. If this mechanism does not fire automatically after immersion, the user can jerk the manual inflation lanyard (the yellow handle in the photo) to activate the firing.
After firing, the compressed gas rapidly inflates the buoyancy bladder, which expands out of the encased fabric housing worn over the shoulders and around the neck, providing significant buoyancy. A tube with a one-way valve is also connected to the bladder, allowing the user to blow air into the bladder for buoyancy if the automatic device fails or if the gas gradually escapes after inflation.
Legal Requirements
Some inflatable PFDs are Coast Guard Type I PFDs, which means they are designed for use offshore and should turn a wearer who is unconscious on the back and keep the person’s face out of the water. Type I PFDs have the greatest buoyancy. Other inflatable PFDs may be type II, III, or Type IV, with varying amounts of buoyancy and other design differences. Most important, consider which type is safest and most appropriate for your own boating needs.
Following are the legal requirements for using an inflatable:
The PFD must be USCG approved, as indicated by a label on the PFD. (Some early models were not approved and may still be in circulation, although most units manufactured presently are approved.)
The PFD must be the appropriate size for the user.
The PFD must have a full cylinder and the firing mechanism must have a green status indicator showing that the device is armed and ready for use.
The PFD must be in good condition, including the inflating device, the air bladder, the oral inflation tube, and the manual inflation lanyard.
The PFD must actually be worn to meet the USCG carriage requirement for having one PFD onboard per person—unlike inherently buoyant life jackets, which are not required to be worn at all times (except by children) but which must be readily accessible.
Inflatable PFDs do not meet the requirement for users under age 16 (because they may not be mature enough to understand how to use the manual inflation mechanism if the automatic mechanism fails).
Inflatable PFDs are not recommended—though this is not a legal requirement—for nonswimmers (who may not be able to keep their head above water long enough to use the manual mode or the oral tube for refilling the bladder).
Advantages of Inflatable PFDs
They are more comfortable to wear because they are less bulky. An inherently buoyant life jacket that is carried but not worn at all times does meet the legal requirement but can’t save your life if you go in the water without it. Sailors are more likely to actually wear an inflatable type at more times than a regular life jacket, especially when wearing a bulky jacket or foul weather gear.
An inherently buoyant life jacket that is carried but not worn at all times does meet the legal requirement but can’t save your life if you go in the water without it. Sailors are more likely to actually wear an inflatable type at more times than a regular life jacket, especially when wearing a bulky jacket or foul weather gear. Many inflatables provide more buoyancy. A standard noninflatable adult-size lifejacket provides 15.5 to 22 lbs. of buoyancy, depending on its type. Many models of inflatable PFDs provide 33-34 lbs. and will, therefore, keep the user’s head higher out of the water, making it easier to breathe and lowering the risk of hypothermia.
A standard noninflatable adult-size lifejacket provides 15.5 to 22 lbs. of buoyancy, depending on its type. Many models of inflatable PFDs provide 33-34 lbs. and will, therefore, keep the user’s head higher out of the water, making it easier to breathe and lowering the risk of hypothermia. Many inflatable PFD models designed for offshore sailors have a built-in harness. When connected by a tether clipped to the boat, the harness helps keep the person from going overboard in dangerous conditions.
The primary disadvantages of inflatable PFDs are their higher cost and need for regular service and replacement of the gas cylinder after use.
Is an Inflatable PFD Right for You?
As the Coast Guard says, the best PFD is the one you will wear. Because many inflatables are more comfortable, you can easily get used to wearing one. Common sense says it’s best to wear it all the time, not just offshore, because most drownings occur when people fall off boats relatively near the shore, even in calm water.Federal and local officers arrested a group of strippers in New York City Wednesday and accused them of drugging wealthy men, driving them to strip clubs and charging their credit cards tens of thousands of dollars while they were incapacitated, the Associated Press reports.
Authorities say they discovered through an undercover investigation that the strippers would arrange to meet wealthy men at upscale bars in New York and Long Island and then spike their drinks with illegal drugs such as methylone—otherwise known as molly. The women would then allegedly drive the men to either Scores in Manhattan or the RoadHouse in Queens, charge them for private rooms, and expensive meals and drinks. The four victims lost at least $200,000.
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Investigators at the Drug Enforcement Administration and New York Police Department arrested four women earlier this week on charges of grand larceny, assault and forgery. Three of the women are expected to appear in court Tuesday and one on Wednesday.
The clubs are not facing charges, though authorities say they did pay the strippers for the visits. Victims of the scam, including a banker, a real estate attorney and a cardiologist, told police that they woke up in a hotel room or their car with little or no memory of the night before. The men said the strippers threatened to blackmail them if they tried to dispute the charges.
[AP]
Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com.The network neutrality fight, which has absolutely exploded in Canada in recent months, now has even more ammo after a punk rocker-turned-MP introduced his own network neutrality bill at the House of Commons.
Charlie Angus, who represents Timmins and James Bay, launched his bill one day after 300 people showed up in Ottawa to protest the issue. "You are citizens of a digital realm and you have rights," Angus told the crowd, according to the CBC. The crowd then chanted, "Whose net? Our net!" As a slogan, this leaves something to be desired, but it does get the point across.
The debate has been sparked in large part by recent revelations about traffic-shaping by Bell Canada, shaping that has allegedly reduced the speed of many P2P sessions by 90 percent. It applies even to ISPs who resell wholesale access from Bell, and these ISPs have brought Canadian regulators into the battle over the issue.
Angus sings the net neutrality blues
Angus wants Parliament to debate the topic, and his brief bill amends Canada's Telecommunications Act to prohibit various forms of discrimination. P2Pnet hosts a copy of the text, which outlaws "network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritise any content, application or service is transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination." Reasonable network management is still allowed, and ISPs are explicitly allowed to charge different prices for different levels of bandwidth.
Angus used to earn his living from copyrights as a musician in the bands L'Etranger and Grievous Angels, and in an interview this week with the CBC's "Search Engine" radio program (podcast), he spoke with passion about the issue of digital rights and the new common space created by the Internet. He objects to Canadian 'Net users being referred to incessantly as "consumers" and talks instead of them as "citizens" and the Internet as a hugely empowering medium for democracy.
Angus' bill was introduced before the long-delayed copyright overhaul bill expected any time now, and Angus seems quite sure that the copyright bill will basically import the DMCA rules wholesale from the US. His bill is an attempt to strike first with a pro-consumer measure that could also (if it gains traction) put pressure on Canadian regulators to act against companies like Bell Canada and Rogers, another notorious Canadian traffic shaper.
Much as the US debate over the net neutrality issue spawned SavetheInteret.com, Canada's fight this week produced SaveOurNet.ca, a group designed to channel money and manpower where it's needed most.How AeroPress Fans Are Hacking Their Way To A Better Cup Of Coffee
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jonathan Vanderweit/Courteys of World Aeropress Championship Jonathan Vanderweit/Courteys of World Aeropress Championship
Perhaps it takes a hacker to lure a hacker.
And Alan Adler, 76, is the ultimate hacker. A serial inventor based in Silicon Valley, Adler has 40 patents to his name. But among coffee aficionados, it's an incredibly simple device that's earned him accolades: the AeroPress.
The AeroPress is essentially a giant plastic syringe with a rubber-plunger end, which compresses water and coffee grounds through a thin filter into a mug, producing a strong, single serving of espresso. The whole process takes about 30 seconds. That is, unless you are one of the many enthusiasts who manipulate the device with varied pour-over, press or steep times to produce a flexible range of recipes.
This very ease of use has inspired an ardent do-it-yourself culture. Baristas and home brewers "hack" the AeroPress to create countless variations on the coffee-making process, all in pursuit of a perfect cup.
"With a lot of coffee makers, you have to just accept what they do for you," Adler tells The Salt. "With the AeroPress, you can innovate."
And innovate they do. Devoted AeroPress hackers tested their mettle last week at the World AeroPress Championship in Seattle. Before they got there, the 35 competitors first had to best the competition in national championships staged all over the world.
All competitors worked with the same roast, a rare coffee from Costa Rica. Participants had eight minutes to create their own recipe. They could brew however they liked, with whichever grinder and at whatever temperature. Their goal: to create the tastiest cup of coffee, as judged by a panel of coffee-world celebrities.
The trick, explains Tim Varney, who organizes the world championship, is to hit upon the right combination of key factors: amount of agitation or turbulence (stirring); water temperature; grind size and coffee-to-water ratio. All of these variables can affect extraction, or the process of pulling flavor from grounds with water. Also important is "blooming," a technique adapted from pour-over coffee, which means letting the grounds get saturated with water after adding a small amount of water, then adding the rest.
Tweaking these factors will affect how your cup tastes. For example, stirring thoroughly will increase the effectiveness of the extraction, where underextraction can be acidic. A slow, steady press also reduces acidity. Choose to bloom and you'll saturate the grounds evenly to get a sweeter-tasting result. Using water at higher temperatures produces a more bitter taste. Finer grinds are saturated faster, but may leak through the filter more quickly and tend toward a bitter cup. Adding more water and less pressure will get you closer to brewed coffee. Or you can make a stronger cup with less water and more steep time as a base for a latte or Americano.
The popular inverted method, in which the device is turned upside down after water is added to the grounds, is used to keep coffee from escaping and increase the steep time to get you a sweeter cup.
If you want even more techniques to play with, another unconventional approach is taking advantage of the pressurized chamber to infuse the brew with flavors like raspberry or chocolate.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jonathan Vanderweit/Courtesy of World Aeropress Championship Jonathan Vanderweit/Courtesy of World Aeropress Championship
While there's plenty of room for creativity, you can go too far, says Varney. One year, he recalls, a Danish competitor used a fish filter to make his brew — "which tasted terrible, obviously."
The first world championship was held in 2008 in Oslo, where Varney was living at the time. He and his friends — including Tim Wendelboe, one of this year's judges — were curious about how to use the then still-newish AeroPress. So they started playing with it by staging an informal competition. Word of their experiments spread among the coffee cognoscenti, and more people followed their lead.
The AeroPress itself was born out of a similar desire to fiddle. Back in 2004, Adler found himself looking for a quick, easy, adjustable device to make single-serving coffee at home. But none of the machines on the market would let him modify the taste, so he started tinkering. For Adler, who has designed complicated stuff including controls for nuclear reactors, simplicity was key.
"I worked on projects that were so complicated and took so long that by the time they were created, they were somewhat obsolete," says Adler, who also lectures in engineering at Stanford University. "So I developed an appreciation for simplicity."
At first, even Adler wasn't sure exactly how best to use his invention, he tells The Salt. So like thousands of other AeroPress fans, he learned through trial and error. For him, water temperature is essential: He says the tastier recipes have stuck closer to his recommended water temperature of 80 degrees Celsius (176 Fahrenheit).
But others have had luck with colder water. Jeff Verellen, a two-time world champion from Belgium, has been very successful with his strategy of using very low temperature water.
This year's world champion, Lukas Zahradnik from Slovakia, used water close to Adler's ideal (79 C; 174 F) but with the inverted method. (Here's his winning recipe, if you want to try it out.)
As devoted as its fans are, the AeroPress is likely to remain a somewhat niche product. Stephen Morrissey, one of the judges of this year's world championship, says because of its 8-ounce brew capacity, it's best suited for home brewers and specialty coffee shops.
"The brew-size limitations possibly make it the darling of home users or coffee professionals on the road, and prevent it from being more broadly used in commercial settings," says Morrissey.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Ryan Kellman/NPR
As for Adler, who attended the World AeroPress Championship for the first time this year, he's just happy people are so passionate about his little invention.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he told the crowd in Seattle last week. "I never expected this."
Lately, Adler says he is back in the shop, still tinkering, with several more coffee-device designs in the works.The Frankfurt Major was the western region's best performance at a multi-million dollar Dota 2 event, making it the second consecutive event where a region performed better than expected.
The International 5 was supposed to be dominated by western teams: Team Secret handily crushed teams from across the globe in one of the most ascendant and sustained runs in Dota 2 history, Evil Geniuses were the defending DAC champions, and Virtus Pro had continued their rise from the regional European ranks to become an international competitor.
Despite a short-lived success after signing legendary Chinese carry Chen "Hao" Zhihao, Vici Gaming had been perpetually placing beneath western teams at many of the spring and early summer tournaments.
The odds-on bet put Secret and EG at the top, with VP and Cloud9 in the Top 6. If there were an upset, many would have expected it to be in the west’s favor.
Yet when TI5 arrived, it was Chinese teams who stepped up their game. With Secret wildly under performing, second place went to CDEC, the Chinese Wild Card.
That regional shift left four of the Top 6 spots claimed by Chinese teams. It's also worth noting that MVP Phoenix also over-performed at the event at the west’s expense.
Prior to Frankfurt, no Valve-sanctioned event had a majority of western teams place in the Top 4 as three of the past six events have mostly seen Chinese teams score podium finishes while the rest have been split between the east and the west.
So why did the east suffer such poor results at Frankfurt, a tournament where half of the direct invites and two additional qualifier seats were Chinese?
Bracket Design
Part of the issue comes down to bracket design with one exception: strong Chinese teams were not pitted against each other in the group stage, meaning that they ended up frequently facing each other in the brackets. There was an entire arm of the lower bracket with only one Chinese team, while five Chinese teams eliminated each other in the other arm.
Only one eastern team was eliminated by a western team other than OG.
With five of the eight first matches featuring the likes of an eastern team facing off against a western team, the bracket could not have been designed more diversely with the same groups. There may be an argument for poor group stage design as three eastern teams were put in Group D while three western teams were put in Group B.
Had EG and Secret been put into the same branch of the upper bracket, they would have faced off in the second round. That would have forced one of them to face OG for elimination at sixth place, leaving one additional seat in the Top 4 open for a Chinese team.
Bracket theory has impacts. The fact that China’s top teams eliminated each other before the Top 4 while the west’s Top 3 teams didn’t face off until the bracket finals gave the west a distinct statistical advantage.
China Didn’t Care?
Before his team was eliminated, Daryl "iceiceice" Koh claimed that Chinese teams generally didn’t take the Major seriously in an interview with joinDOTA.
"The $3 million USD prize pool in comparison to TI, where it was $18 million USD, does not seem so significant or impressive," he said.
He followed up that comment by saying that while the prize pool is still large, the entire concept of a Major is still too new to be rooted for Chinese teams.
"I’m not really taking it seriously myself," he said in the interview.
Iceiceice has a track record saying that his team either isn’t trying or, more often, should be performing better. He is also known for his candor when discussing the east vs, the west in Dota 2, having made claims that western players are lazy last spring.
Even if just a few players from a few teams saw the tournament as less-than significant, it could have radically downshifted the region’s overall performance
Another issue may be that one of China's qualifier seats went to its seventh-best team due to Invictus Gaming's visa issues, watering down their representation. Had Invictus Gaming arrived, groups may have been designed differently.
China was unprepared for 6.85
China’s most unique hero picks simply fell flat at Frankfurt, even when played by the west. Lina and Gyrocopter are prime examples of heroes played more by Asian teams, but with a negative winrate for both regions. China was the only region to pick Lion during the tournament, with six picks and no wins.
There was a time where China's love for specific heroes, such as Enchantress in late 2014, gave the region an advantage against Western teams due to relative unfamiliarity.
The west struck back with Tiny/Io, Meepo, and Bane. Prior to this tournament, China barely saw any of these heroes in competitive play while every Western team had frequently faced these foes.
In fact, multiple Western players have commented on this advantage, from EG's PPD explaining how he used CDEC's unfamiliarity with Shadow Fiend for a draft advantage to OG's Cr1t declaring that Chinese teams aren't prepared to face Meepo.
More than Heroes
At ESL One, CDEC claimed they could approach 6.85 with the same strategy they used at The International. As sand slipped through the hourglass, Europe’s OG, Vega Squadron, and Secret turned impressive wins on an increase in mobile physical damage dealers.
China is also historically known for farming-based strategies, although their most successful teams at recent years’ premier events have been their most offensive ones (Newbee in 6.81 and CDEC in 6.84b). Games are not always longer, but they average four fewer kills and deaths per game these days.
That cultural metagame preference seems to put them at a disadvantage in a game where aggression has been increasingly linked to top-tier success.
Many Chinese teams have been adapting to the modern game; they used to be even less offensively-minded than European teams.
At Frankfurt, the only Chinese team with that reputation was CDEC. Nearly every other Chinese team in attendance earns a low average for early-game kills, but even CDEC has been slowing down.
By the time they reached Frankfurt, their average tier three tower time had decreased by about six minutes, a drastic shift from The International.
The west approached this patch from a more successful tactical perspective and a drafting perspective. Western victories at Nanyang, MLG, and ESL One were the warning bells over the course of the fall.
With a new patch likely arriving in mid-December, it will be interesting to see how the regional preferences between China and Europe are represented in the newly shifting sands.
Ryan "Gorgon the Wonder Cow" Jurado writes about Dota 2 and freelances for theScore esports.OAK RIDGE, TN—Snack physicists at Nabisco Labs announced Friday the first successful synthesis of a Quadriscuit cracker, a salty treat long postulated by the theoretical models of food scientists but never confirmed by experiment until now. “At the moment, this hyperwafer can only exist for six milliseconds in a precisely calibrated field of magnetic energy, positrons, roasted garlic, and beta particles,” lab chief Dr. Paul Ellison told reporters at a press conference outside Nabisco’s $200 million seven-whole-grain accelerator. “However, by bombarding the cracker with neutrons until it reaches critical levels of zestiness and crunchability, we believe we can one day develop a chemically stable and edible Quadriscuit. Needless to say, such an irresistibly tasty breakthrough could upend everything we thought we knew about snacking.” Ellison added that the snack’s existence cannot be explained by classical Fig Newtonian physics.
AdvertisementAP Photo 2016 Rand Paul's livestream: Metallica and the Middle East A camera followed the Kentucky senator for a day in Iowa. It picked up corny jokes, his musical tastes and his views on foreign policy.
Rand Paul promised an inside look into his presidential bid through a livestream of his day on the Iowa campaign trail Tuesday. But if you were looking for dramatic moments, the video feed wasn’t for you. The Kentucky senator managed to crack a few corny jokes and provide a window into his musical tastes — Metallica and KT Tunstall, go figure — but otherwise the livestream was something less than must-see TV.
The day was what you might expect: a candidate driving around a flat state; talking points in one-on-one interviews with reporters; roughly the same stump speech delivered to audience after audience.
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The livestream didn’t capture Paul's every movement throughout the day. There were at least 20 breaks in the feed from the Paul campaign's website, some lasting just a few minutes and some going for 20 or 30 minutes. The campaign explained that some of those cuts were just so the Kentucky senator could use the bathroom or take a short break to get reoriented.
Instead, what viewers got was a window into what Iowans would see if they followed Paul around on his tour of a few of the state's college campuses and other campaign stops. Paul, throughout the day, made a habit of knocking the leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
"If we had either Hillary or Bernie we'd have a stifling of the economy," Paul said while in the car with campaign aides. "People need to realize Bernie would be an absolute and utter disaster for this country."
Paul, throughout his tour, also tied his Clinton attacks to where he disagrees with his own party on foreign policy, especially on Syria.
"Tonight you'll have the Democrat debate. What does Hillary Clinton believe? She's for a no-fly zone over there," Paul said during a stop at Upper Iowa University. "So are most of the Republicans. What do you think that ends up meaning? Iraq and Syria have invited Russia to fly over their countries. I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad idea but I do know that if you say tomorrow that they're not allowed to fly over countries that have invited them to fly over there, that means you shoot them down. So no-fly zone is a recipe for disaster; it's a recipe for another war over there. But you've got both sides wanting this."
Iowa chief strategist Steve Grubbs and Paul's top adviser, Doug Stafford, passed questions on to him from social media while driving around the state. It wasn't too different than a town hall event. There too, he pushed his message that he would be a different kind of Republican. One question was "as president of the United States, what will you do with the myriad of executive orders President Obama has been signing in his presidency?"
"I don't think we've ever had a Republican president who really set out to undo the vast overreach of the executive branch. We've elected Republicans and we thought it was going to be better," Paul answered. "And then the Republican didn't turn out to undo anything the Democrats have done and in fact sometimes the Republicans, like the first George Bush, added wetlands regulation that made it harder for farmers and ended up getting some private landowners put in jail for breaking regulations. So as president I've told people my goal is not to accumulate power but to actually devolve power, give power back to the states and the people, and I would undo, virtually all, on Day One, President Obama's executive orders."
At another point on the trip Paul threw out a zinger tied to Sanders and Clinton.
"I guess they see the same hairstylist," Paul joked.
There were a few moments during the day when politics took a back seat and viewers got a glimpse into Paul's personal tastes. Asked in the car what his first day in the Oval Office would look like, Paul joked "well, we'd have to have a new audio system in there because I'd want to play my music really loud throughout the White House." The livestream also picked up Lyle Lovett and Metallica on the playlist as Paul's car drove around the state.
At a stop in Dubuque County — the baseball field where "Field of Dreams" was filmed — Paul took sides on a hotly debated issue that was far from the political realm.
"Should Shoeless Joe Jackson be in the Hall of Fame? Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame? I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say yes because they were great baseball players. Maybe not so great of people, but I think you should get in the Hall of Fame for the talent you had on the field. Not the moral lapses you had off the field," Paul said while sitting on bleachers facing the field.
The campaign's strategy for reversing its sinking poll numbers and fundraising relies in part on rallying support of young voters in Iowa — Paul, Grubbs and Stafford repeatedly pointed out that the campaign's three-day visit through Iowa is heavy on college campus visits. Paul himself said that the "RandLive" feed was part of that.
"I wish I knew I was livestreaming. I've been saying I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, and all the sudden I'm doing this," Paul said sarcastically at one point during the day. "No, we want to get our message out to people who may not watch the evening news anymore. A lot of young people, my kids have probably never watched cable news even at a house where we have it on all the time. They get their news on their cellphones and off the Internet. Comedy sites, passed around from friends on social media. And I think you get into a different venue by livestreaming it — you get to some new people."Chinese Female Student Physically Attacked on Paris Metro For Being Chinese and Received No Immediate Help From Either Onlookers or Police
A Chinese female student |
notation from our library of 3,000+ solo piano pieces.
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We now have an interactive game available. You need a MIDI keyboard and a PC. You learn piano as you play the game and have fun. See Ambrose Method Game to the left hand side of this screen, one option from the bottom (not "Games").
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Also the same with adults piano beginners who sometimes just want to play something quickly and the traditional music notation does take some time before you can play anything that sounds reasonable on the piano.
Ambrose method music notation uses many of the same elements as traditional notation and students have not found it difficult to transfer to traditional notation when they are ready. I tend to teach normal piano notation because I am a school teacher and it is what is expected but personally I think whatever way you get kids to play an instrument is great. The joy of playing piano and joining in with others on a music keyboard is the best thing ever." Hilary Daniel, London, UK.The City of Victoria’s bid for an injunction to remove 17 boats and four docks from a portion of the Gorge Waterway continues this afternoon.
A B.C. Supreme Court hearing has been held for the past two days with Justice Peter Voith.
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City lawyer Tom Zworski has said that a municipal bylaw governs the issue, while boat owners say it is a federal matter. A 2016 city bylaw covering the Gorge says boat owners are limited to 48 hours moored in one spot, and a maximum of 72 hours in one spot over 30 days.
Retired lawyer Brian O’Reilly, acting for boat owner and liveaboard Barry Zimmerman, said the city haq yet to establish the legal authority to regulate navigable waters.
He said that navigation and shipping are federal matters.
O’Reilly added on Thursday that the city has not proven its case against Zimmerman and has merely submitted pictures of his boat showing only that it was in one place at a certain time on a certain day.
They do not show the 48-hour or 72-hour time restrictions were violated, O’Reilly said.
Richard Patterson, also a liveaboard boat owner, said the case involving the stretch of water is “an ongoing process” that should consider overall use. Canoeists and rowers go through the area often, he said. “There is plenty of room for everyone.”
Zimmerman told the court that he fell in love with the Gorge the first day he woke up there in his boat. “I knew in my heart that it was home.”
Even though some people have said they are troubled about the use of toilets on the boats, Patterson said that testing done in the area shows it is not an issue.
Owners also say that their presence does not harm the sensitive eel-grass habitat in the Gorge.
Keith Rosene, who has a boat in the area and lives nearby, said he and others are making an effort to be part of the solution.
“We are all trying to be responsible and deal with the city’s concerns.”
jwbell@timescolonist.comIt is late Sunday afternoon as I write this in Colombo, Sri Lanka and about 4.5 hours to the west the Greeks are getting ready to vote in their national election. It has been hailed as a make or break-type of affair but from what I know from inside-type conversations with some of the players and from general reading it has the hallmark of a fizzer, even if Syriza wins the ballot. Essentially, none of the main players seem to be willing to actually solve the problem. The entrenched interests have helped create the problem and are impoverishing the Greek people (themselves excepted). So they are part of the problem. Syriza talks bit about freeing Greece from the Troika-yoke but has a set of proposals that are mutually inconsistent. They might help around the edge and redistribute income a bit but what is needed is a massive boost in national income and that can only come from a massive increase in spending. The non-government sector is not going to do provide the source of that spending boost to get things moving again. So, ladies and gentleman you know what the answer is – there is only one other sector left in town to do it. And, you also know what is stopping them – membership of the Eurozone and the requirement to obey fiscal rules that restrict necessary spending to stagnation-enduring levels. That is why Syriza’s strategy is mutually inconsistent. Even a debt jubilee – the current favourite of the progressives, which warms their hearts so they can convince themselves that they are different from the neo-liberals will not solve the problem. Repeat: a massive fiscal boost is required, which means deficits above 10 per cent of GDP for many years forward. Repeat: that can only be accomplished within the current political reality if Greece leaves the Eurozone. It should have done that in 2008. It should never have joined. It should do it next week.
I last wrote specifically about Greece’s situation in these blogs – Greece – two alternative views and Germany should be careful what it ‘allows’.
In the three or four weeks that have passed since I wrote those blogs nothing has been revealed by Syriza leaders to alter my view, unfortunately.
Around the world, the debt jubilee idea seems to have become the focus of progressive arguments. Last week, a ‘group of economists’ (forty of them) in Australia gained headlines when they released an signed letter – Let Greece Breathe – condemning the Troika’s bailout program in Greece.
I know most of the forty economists who are all working in the heterodox school of thought (variously and, in some cases, loosely). I wasn’t invited to sign the letter but if I had been I would have declined. Why?
The letter makes good points. For example the economists state that imposing fiscal austerity is bad for weak economies and “the particularly severe effects that flow on to the poorest households”. I have no objection to that.
But the letter seems to want to soft-peddle on key issues.
It says, for example, on the Troika to ensure there is:
– there is a cancellation of a large part of the debt, and – there are new terms of payment that support the rebuilding of a sustainable economy. – this settlement commences a new EU wide policy framework favouring pro-growth rather than deflationary policies
First, since when is it the Troika’s role or right to determine whether debts incurred by non-Troika institutions and individuals, presumably in good faith, be cancelled – arbitrarily and unilaterally?
I certainly do not think the Troika has that right. It has already assumed it can trample on the rights of workers in Greece and other nations and impoverish them. The Troika has no rights in my view and Greece should stop dealing with it as a body.
The Troika is not the overseer of the – Treaty of Lisbon – which amended the two core treaties of the EU, the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community.
You won’t find any role for the Troika. None of the institutions in the Troika are democratically elected nor are accountable to any citizenry.
Second, I do not support the cancelling of the debt. I support a redenomination of it in a new currency, which is the sole right of the democratic country who issues that currency under monopoly conditions.
Lex Monetae or ‘The Law of the Money’ is a well-established legal principle, backed up by a swathe of case law across many jurisdictions, and is internationally accepted.
It states, broadly, that the government of the day determines what the legal currency is for transactions and contractual obligations within its national borders. There is thus no question that a nation currently using the euro could abandon it, introduce its own currency, and require all taxes to be paid and all contracts to be denominated in that currency.
Lex Monetae also has been taken to mean that if, say, an Italian had borrowed US dollars from a London bank operating under English law, the definition of the ‘currency’ for the purposes of resolving this contract is governed by US law.
Finally, the principle also means that if a government changes its currency and re-denominates at some given parity, all contracts must be honoured at the re-denominated rate.
Lenders know that Lex Monetae is well-established principle and could be invoked during the course of a debt contract. In that sense, the risk associated with a redenomination (principally exchange rate changes) should be factored in to the decision.
The idea that the Troika would just cancel out debts that it neither incurred or were responsible for would not be factored into any reasonable decision-making environment.
The only exception I would make to the debt cancellation would be the credit the Troika itself arranged. The exception is that the Troika forced the Greek government to issue liabilities under English law in order to gain further bailout assistance, thus anticipating the application of Lex Monetae, in the case of an exit.
Notwithstanding that act of bastardry, the discussion suggests that all public debt should be re-denominated into the local currency at the going parity on day one.
Third, what does “this settlement commences a new EU wide policy framework favouring pro-growth rather than deflationary policies” mean?
Are they calling for a wholesale change to the Treaty of Lisbon? It is hard to see any a pro-growth environment being sustained with the current terms of the Treaty. So why not be explicit about that? Why the ‘soft-shoe’?
Why not just explicitly state – the European Commission should abandon fiscal rules specified under the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and its antecedents – the Fiscal Compact, the Two- and Six-Packs.
There cannot be a pro-growth framework while these fiscal rules are enforced in any way. The GFC proved that the impact of the cyclical effects on the fiscal balances (that is, the loss of tax revenue etc due to the loss of output and employment) were sufficient to breach the 3 per cent limits.
Those ‘breaches’ led to the fiscal austerity being imposed.
Further, most Eurozone nations will not be able to run the necessary magnitudes for their fiscal deficits (to favour ‘pro-growth’) under the current terms that restrict the ECB – the monopoly-issuer of the euro – from funding such deficits.
Countries such as Greece already ran foul of the private bond markets who are required to fund the deficits under current rules.
So why not call for the rules to be changed to allow the ECB to properly act as a currency-issuer? The reason is obvious. Germany would never allow it and it, basically rules the Eurozone.
The latest announcement of quantitative easing while unconstrained from the prior conditionality that accompanied the – Security Markets Program – which began in May 2010.
That program saw the ECB demonstrate categorically that by purchasing specific government bonds in the secondary markets (to get around Treaty rules) it could eliminate the private bond markets from the picture and control bond yields to whatever rate it chose.
It was a salutary lesson about the power of the currency-issuer. The problem with the program is that the ECB insisted that the fiscal austerity be imposed and followed as a condition for it buying a beleaguered nation’s debt in the secondary markets.
So they controlled yields and dealt the private bond markets out of the equation but wrecked the economies in question at the same time.
Please read my blogs – this settlement commences a new EU wide policy framework favouring pro-growth rather than deflationary policies and – The ECB is a major reason the Euro crisis is deepening – for more discussion on this point.
The German ‘tolerance’ of Draghi’s QE announcement this week is limited I suspect. They know that as long as the fiscal deficits are prevented from rising and austerity is maintained that QE will not do much to stimulate growth.
But if QE was combined with large-scale expansion of fiscal deficits in several countries targetted at public sector job creation and infrastructure development then the German ‘tolerance’ (currently given through gritted teeth) would quickly vanish and there would be a political crisis.
The Germans would win as France and Italy haven’t the stomach to assert their own national sovereignty.
Why do progressives think that weak statements about “pro-growth” frameworks will help carve out a solution for Greece and other nations suffering the inanity and destructiveness of the Troika-imposed austerity?
Nothing short of a wholesale abandonment of the Treaty is required, preferably with national currency sovereignty re-established and a new political unity developed to tackle the big issues such as rule of law, climate change, migration etc all of which transcend sovereign currency boundaries.
The letter does call for the Greek government to:
… abandon the austerity program that is crushing economic activity and adopt a more expansive fiscal policy setting, targeting immediate relief from poverty and stimulating further domestic demand …
With what aim? Why not call for an unconditional commitment to restore full employment and pay equity in Greece?
That commitment then sets the reality because it tells us how much “more expansive fiscal policy” has to be. It tells us how much “further domestic demand” needs to be stimulated.
Calibrating those increases in the fiscal deficits would, of course, shock the conservatives and the mainstream (ignorant) financial media would go crazy. Syriza’s political aspirations would obviously be undermined.
Which then brings me to the next point. Is the letter by these Australian economists merely supporting Syriza rather than presenting a solidarity with the Greek people? The implication of the question is that the two should not be taken as necessarily being consistent.
Why would I say that?
It is clear that Syriza is holding itself out as the champion of the people. It is making certain statements about boosting incomes and reversing pension cuts and the like.
The campaign advertising that is posted up all around Greece repeats the campaign slogan – “Η ΕΛΠΙΔΑ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ ΣΕ” (Hope is on the Way).
I have no doubt this political messaging is a genuine attempt to engender optimism. I agree with that a major shift in Greek politics is required and that Syriza appears to be achieving that a shift. But is it the shift that is required?
I doubt it – and I am sorry to say that as I have friends in the Syriza movement.
First, don’t get the idea that Syriza is a radical party. Its public statements and the proposal it has taken the Greek people is not radical at all and would see it operate within the mainstream (neo-liberal) rules that are set and enforced by Brussels.
Syriza is not proposing a restoration of currency sovereignty. Rather it is proposing that Brussels goes soft on Greece for a while and writes down a proportion of the outstanding public liabilities as part of a negotiated easing of the repayment conditions.
That is not radical. It ensures that Greece remains within the Eurozone, the dynamics of which are dominated by Germany, which has an economy that is incomparable with the Greek economy and makes it an ‘impossible’ partner to be with in a common currency union.
They talk about “going to the markets” (private bond markets) to fund government spending. That is about as mainstream as it gets. But think about it for a second. The Troika’s bailout funds are currently being offered at rates lower than Greece would get in the open private bond markets. So how is it acting in the interests of the people to expose it to higher funding costs?
What happens when the private bond markets turn against the government again (as they did in 2010)? Then what?
Syriza talks about restoring the creditworthiness of public debt? What? Who are they representing – the private bond dealers and their assessments? The IMF? The people?
Syriza used to advocate the nationalisation of banks in Greece as a recognition of the centrality of banking for financial stability. At the 1st Congress of the Coalition of the Radical Left (that is, Syriza) in 2013, several “programmatic goals” were agreed, which would define the parties’ policy platform.
Goal 13.7 stated:
We will set the banking system under public ownership and control, through the radical conversion of its functioning and the aims it is serving today, through the upgrade of the workers and the customers’ role. We will found special purpose public banks focusing on agricultural credit, small and medium-sized businesses, and public housing.
One of the issues with the bailout packages is that the Greek government has been subsidising the private banks (and the huge salaries of the CEOs and the shareholder interests, etc) and is a major shareholder in the four largest banks – an action to avoid financial collapse.
The government has pumped billions into the private banks but the same financial elites continue to run them.
And now? The so-called radicals have abandoned the commitment to nationalise the banks. Why? Who are they proposing to serve?
More telling, is that Syriza plans to ‘stimulate’ the Greek economy within an effectively neutral fiscal position. There have been various statements made by so-called spokespersons of the Party about the need to maintain fiscal discipline while altering the composition of public spending in favour of helping the disadvantaged.
Former contender for the Communist Party leadership and likely Greek Finance Minister if Syriza takes power – Yiannis Dragasakis – has stated several times that a Syriza government would adopt a balanced fiscal position.
The Greek press article (September 16, 2014) – Finance Ministry challenges SYRIZA’s economic pledges – reported on a recent “Vima FM” interview (this is a radio station in Athens) that Dragasakis gave. He apparently:
… insisted that the leftists would run a balanced budget. “We are not going to return to deficits,” he said.
Well, one couldn’t be more categorical than that?
As I explained in this blog – Greece – two alternative views – Greece will not achieve growth with balanced fiscal positions.
How does the Party plan to fill the massive output gap that Greece has? Output gaps can only be closed by increasing output. That requires increased spending.
Greece has lost 25 per cent of its real GDP since 2008. While potential output has also surely declined (as firms have scrapped productive capital) in the face of a massive decline in the investment ratio, it remains there is a huge unused capacity in the country. The mass unemployment is testament to that.
While there might be good reasons for redistributing the existing fiscal outlays across the competing interests, the overwhelming fact is that the Greek public deficit has to rise substantially – by multiples of the current Stability and Growth Pact fiscal limits of 3 per cent.
Running a fiscally-neutral policy to help people will only partially stimulate overall spending in the nation. The reality is that Greece needs a public stimulus that is way beyond anything that is allowed under the current rules.
A balanced budget position doesn’t resolve that issue.
But the Greeks can fix that in a single decision – leave the Eurozone and restore currency sovereignty.
The statements by Dragasakis preclude that alternative.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Syriza’s stated policy aims are not mutually consistent. They cannot achieve the (motherhood) aspirations of higher growth and increased incomes and equity while allowing Brussels to dominate the magnitude of their fiscal deficits.
They cannot achieve their aims with a fixed exchange rate (effectively no independent exchange rate) with Germany as a partner in the monetary union.
Their policy pledges resonate with the suffering population. But the reality is that the population is not being educated by progressive forces about the self-inflicted damage that retaining the euro as their currency is causing.
Letters by economists that avoid that issue do not help.
Political parties that make it a root-and-branch commitment to remain in the Eurozone do not help.
Conclusion
So Syriza is either not going to be part of a sustainable solution for Greece or they are playing an elaborate political scam, designed to garner support under false pretenses with a secret plan to run large deficits and get kicked out of the Eurozone.
I do not like either option.
I think the progressive side of politics should reverse the trend to anti-democratic governance. A new dialogue is required which is transparent in motive and application so that people can appreciate in advance what they are voting for.
The downtrodden Greek people – who live in region that was the foundation of democracy – deserve nothing less.
I don’t see Syriza as the solution as they shift to the centre (which is really the right). I would love to be proved wrong!
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2015 Bill Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.Clothing
Toiletries
Electronics
Household items
Books
Movies
Gifts
Food
Finally
I think 8 changes of clothes is reasonable: 5 sets of business clothes for when you are at work and 3 casual / comfortable sets for the weekend or free time. You can wash your clothes or have them cleaned as often as you need, so it doesn't really matter how many you bring, as long as there are enough to tide you over the cleaning time. If you're the kind of person who likes variety, you could bring a few more of your favorite outfits. These clothes don't need to be particularly thick.Harsher than San Francisco for sure, but nothing like Canada or Siberia.Note that Germans tend to dress more fashionably than the typical American. Do not bring t-shirts except if you're planning to wear them underneath a shirt (not a bad idea for warmth). Do not bring sneakers or tennis shoes unless you're planning to use them when exercising. German men wear shoes like. In winter, they should probably have an amount of insulation. Most companies in Germany expect employees to wear suits or at least dress shirt + tie at work - but in Berlin, there are many hip companies that accept more casual dress. It's probably a good idea to ask. Failing that, you can always stock up on your wardrobe while here.Bring a long, thick coat, preferably with a Goretex coating on the outside (outdoor / hiking wear), which will keep out the icy humidity and wind. Jack Wolfskin, Mammut and North Face are all popular brands here, but my boyfriend has a coat from the Gap. Hat, scarf and gloves go without saying.Anything you want to wear to sleep.Additionally, bring sports clothes if you think you might need them.Same as you would pack for any shorter trip. If you're picky about your toothpaste / shower gel / shampoo / cologne or the like, it's probably a good idea to bring a full bottle of it, in case you can't find the same brand here.Laptop, cellphone that's compatible with European waves, charging cables for everything and anything - on a short trip, your Kindle/razor/electric toothbrush might never run out of power, but here, you'll certainly need to recharge it. Bring or buy a few US-to-European plug adaptors. Do not bring electronics whose charging cable doesn't include a power adaptor (e. g. laptops always have it, hairdryers never do, not sure about electric razors) because Europe runs on 220V and it will kill any electronics that can't adapt.Ask your company about your accommodation. If they provide an apartment, it will probably have everything you need. If you are renting a furnished apartment, it may still lack basic items like towels, which you'd have to bring. Note that furnished apartments are rare here, the standard apartments are bare of any furniture, so look for an apartment well before you leave the US. Subletting may be your best option.Berlin has several bookstores with English-language books, including one where every book is only € 1, so you don't need to weigh yourself down. However, these stores are not very good if you're looking for one particular book - if there's a reference book or the like that you regularly use, best bring it with you.I wouldn't waste packing space on DVDs or Blu-Rays because you can just watch American movies on iTunes, on Netflix (through a proxy server) or at a few of Berlin's cinemas that have English-language movies.If you're invited to visit your colleagues' or new friends' homes, you should not show up with empty hands. You could of course buy something here, but since you're from America, people will really appreciate a gift from there, which can't be bought here. For example this could be Californian wine (actually has started to appear here), beer from a local microbrewery, local specialty foods, strange American candy (e. g. Oreos or M&Ms in flavors other than chocolate), or anything from a tourist shop.The variety of food in Berlin is at least as good as in San Francisco, so that won't be an issue. There are also several specifically American restaurants (no I don't mean McDonalds). What you might miss are peanut butter-chocolate combos, chocolate pretzels and root beer; Germans just don't like them, so maybe bring a stash. If you were addicted to Mountain Dew or Dr Pepper, which are rare & expensive but not impossible to find here, you can probably trade that for an addiction to Club Mate.Relax, it's not a big deal if you miss anything, you can certainly buy it here. I even know people who routinely travel like that: arrive and buy almost everything they need locally. However, the dollar has been low lately, so it's cheaper to buy stuff in the US.If you need any more help, feel free to pm me. My boyfriend is an expat American who has lived in Berlin for 7 years. We'll be happy to get you started.I know you'll have a wonderful time!State and local law enforcement agencies around the United States are being urged to remain on high alert for potential terrorist activity leading up to the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Department of Homeland Security, in an intelligence notification distributed on Monday and obtained by Fox News, warned law enforcement partners that terrorists – specifically those aligned with ISIS – “may be inspired or directed to conduct attacks against events associated with 9/11 memorial commemorations or other mass gathering targets timed to this date.”
The report notes the symbolism associated with the somber anniversary as a motivating factor for a potential terrorist attack.
The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which distributed the bulletin in coordination with the FBI, stated, however, that it is “unaware of any specific, credible information” of a plot against the U.S. homeland.
Despite there being no specific, credible threat, intelligence officials warn of terrorists’ demonstrated desire to conduct attacks within the United States. Those calls have come repeatedly via ISIS propaganda and its digital magazine Dabiq, and within the pages of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) magazine Inspire.
The intelligence notification specifically cited recent ISIS-inspired and directed attacks – from Nice, France to Orlando, Fla., to Istanbul, Turkey – as a caution to U.S. law enforcement agencies to remain vigilant in the face of an “ongoing heightened threat environment.”
“These incidents involved tactics ranging from unsophisticated, opportunistic attacks by lone ISIL-inspired individuals using firearms, edged weapons, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and commercial vehicles, to more sophisticated, coordinated operations in Europe possibly directed by the group in Syria, using multiple operatives wearing person-borne improvised explosive devices (PBIEDs),” the intelligence bulletin noted in summarizing recent successful ISIS-linked attacks.
Law enforcement sources told Fox News the FBI remains at a heightened posture given the dynamic terrorism threat climate worldwide. Additionally, Fox News is told that major U.S. cities can expect to see a robust physical presence of local and state law enforcement at landmarks, highly populated areas, and transit hubs around the 9/11 anniversary.
The threat environment posed by homegrown violent extremists, in particular, has U.S. security officials working around the clock to identify and monitor individuals walking the path to radicalization. That job is made all the more difficult due to ISIS’ strong presence on the Internet and the “going dark” dilemma, in which ISIS operatives direct followers to encrypted apps in an effort to recruit, plot, and communicate under the nose of authorities.
“The challenge we face is that the advent of default, ubiquitous strong encryption is making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark,” FBI Director James Comey told an audience of tech professionals at a cybersecurity conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
The DHS intelligence notification distributed Monday also warns authorities of the potential for domestic terrorist attacks aimed at Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims around the 9/11 anniversary. The bulletin cited recent federal cases where individuals targeted or sought to target mosques within the United States.
As recently as Aug. 27, the FBI arrested a Massachusetts man who had ambitions of detonating explosives in local mosques and murdering Muslims, according to court documents. The 48-year-old Holliston, Mass., resident also allegedly expressed his desire to assassinate President Obama and kill homeland security officers.
The theme prominent in the intelligence notification that spans both the international and domestic terrorism warnings is the urging of federal, state, and local authorities to share information on suspicious activity. The bulletin called on law enforcement partners nationwide to distribute suspicious activity up the chain so that it can ultimately “advance law enforcement’s situational awareness, analytical pursuits, and FBI investigations.”Montenegro's gross govt debt rises to 2.356 bln euro at end-2016
PODGORICA (Montenegro), July 3 (SeeNews) – Montenegro’s general government gross debt rose to 2.356 billion euro ($2.679 billion) at the end of 2016, from 2.219 billion euro at the end of the previous year, according to finance ministry data.
General government gross debt was equivalent to 62.4% of Montenegro’s 2016 gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 61.7% of GDP at the end of December 2015, the Montenegrin finance ministry said in its spring macroeconomic report.
The country's general government gross debt increased as a result of the issue of bonds worth 300 million euro and borrowing to finance investment projects, including a 10.3 million funding for the Bar-Boljare motorway, the finance ministry said.
The debt of local authorities in Montenegro came in at 143.1 million euro at the end of December and accounted for 3.8% of GDP, versus 142.2 million euro in 2015, when it was equivalent to 3.95% of GDP.
Montenegro's GDP grew by a real 2.5% in 2016, following a 3.2% increase in the previous year.
($ = 0.8794 euro)Photo
JERUSALEM — Ehud Olmert, who resigned as prime minister of Israel in 2008 amid corruption charges, was indicted Thursday and charged with taking bribes in the construction of a huge residential complex while he was the mayor of Jerusalem.
Mr. Olmert, who is already on trial for three unrelated counts of fraud and breach of trust from before his tenure as prime minister, has denied all wrongdoing. In the newest — and by far the most serious — indictment, he is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to smooth the way for construction of the Holyland, an enormous hulk of a residential complex in southwestern Jerusalem.
When the case was first made public nearly two years ago, the presiding judge called it “one of the worst corruption affairs in Israeli history.”
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The Holyland is built on a ridge with interlocking apartment buildings and one outsize tower that dominates the landscape for miles and is widely considered an eyesore. Jerusalem residents commonly call it “the monster.”
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Millions of dollars in bribes are thought to have been paid to allow the project to go up in a hurry and to grow to more than 12 times the height granted in the original permits. Mr. Olmert was the mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and then was the government minister with oversight over the Israel Lands Authority.In a Parisian speech today, Vice President of the European Commission Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes pledged that a robust net neutrality discussion is coming to Europe—and she dragged out a dreaded car analogy of her own to describe the process.
Kroes, best known for leading the EU's antitrust charge against Microsoft, now has new responsibilities, and she's ready to talk about net neutrality. Admitting that the US debate on the subject is "more advanced," Kroes chalked this up to Europe's "regulatory framework and the competitive investments that it fostered." In other words, since Europe's line-sharing policies have created substantial ISP competition in many countries, competitive pressures have made net neutrality less important.
But the time has come to start thinking about the issues, and Kroes told the conference attendees that she would launch such a consultation by summer. While pledging to come at the issue without preconceptions, she did affirm the FCC's 2005 Internet Policy Statement and its "four freedoms." The FCC is now considering two more principles: transparency and nondiscrimination. Kroes is also on board with transparency, but nondiscrimination will be the subject of the consultation.Nelsan Ellis, the actor best known for his portrayal of the flamboyant character Lafayette Reynolds on HBO’s True Blood, died Saturday from complications related to heart failure.
On Monday, however, his family released a statement, going more in depth into the circumstances of his death, including the fact that the 39-year-old tried to withdraw from a longtime alcohol dependency on his own.
Ellis’ family released a statement to the Hollywood Reporter through his longtime manager. It noted that the family hoped its candor might help others dealing with addiction issues. The statement reads:
Nelsan’s father has bravely agreed for me to share the circumstances of Nelsan’s heart failure. Nelsan has suffered with drug and alcohol abuse for years. After many stints in rehab, Nelsan attempted to withdraw from alcohol on his own. According to his father, during his withdrawal from alcohol he had a blood infection, his kidneys shut down, his liver was swollen, his blood pressure plummeted, and his dear sweet heart raced out of control. On the morning of Saturday July 8th, after four days in Woodhull Hospital, Nelsan was pronounced dead. Nelsan was a gentle, generous and kind soul. He was a father, a son, a grandson, a brother, a nephew, and a great friend to those that were lucky enough to know him. Nelsan was ashamed of his addiction and thus was reluctant to talk about it during his life. His family, however, believes that in death he would want his life to serve as a cautionary tale in an attempt to help others.
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In addition to a statement released by HBO on Saturday, Imani Motion Pictures, which produced Ellis’ last completed film, True to the Game, based on the street-lit novel by Teri Woods, also released a statement about the late Juilliard graduate:
Nelsan Ellis was a classically trained actor that impacted the world with his talent. From commanding the attention as a fan favorite on HBO’s True Blood to becoming family to us as a primary star of our upcoming film, True to the Game, Nelsan was a consummate professional who the True to the Game family was proud to not only call colleague but friend. He will be sorely missed. Much love and light.
THR reports that Ellis is survived by his grandmother Alex Brown; his father, Tommie Lee Thompson; and his son, Breon Ellis. He is also survived by his siblings Lakeeia Thomson, Tommie Lee Thompson, Babon Ellis, Maurice Turne, Tianna Thompson, Shaentika Beard and Yvonne Ellis and his aunt Tartheaia Thompson.Update, August 25: Riot have revealed the likelihood of acquiring various skins using its Hextech crafting loot system.
Riot Games have revealed that the chance of getting a rare Hextech crafting skin is one in 2,000, or 0.05%. The odds of acquiring items from the loot system, as well as from the Mystery gift function in the store, were released by Riot Games Korea. A tweet from Korean streamer Osevno contained screenshots of the information.
As we approach Worlds, check out the League of Legends 7.18 patch notes.
Riot KR revealed percentage of acquiring skin shard on Hextech Chest and champ/skin on Mystery Gift
sry for bad Eng!https://t.co/fGzP7L4Khy pic.twitter.com/bqX8g9AARq — SΞVΠ @ Japan (@osevno) August 25, 2017
There are currently seven rare, unsold item shards in the game. These are Hextech Annie, Dreadnought Darius, Soulstealer Vayne, and the Hextech, Dawnbringer and Nightbringer Ward skins. Lancer Zero Hecarim is also in that list, but for some reason wasn’t included in the screenshots. Neo PAX Sivir will also be available through Hextech crafting after PAX West, bringing the total up to eight.
Your odds of picking up common items (ones that can also be bought through the shop) are significantly better, but they do scale according to the cost of the item. You’ve got between a 10-22% chance of getting a normal skin shard, which drops to around 5-7% for an Epic or Legendary skin, and the likelihood of getting an Ultimate skin like Elementalist Lux or DJ Sona is just 0.6%
You’ve also got between a 6.5-9.25% chance of getting a Champion shard, or odds of between 3-5.5% for anything else, like ward skins, summoner’s icons, or gemstones.
This means that it’s likely to cost you £1,700 ($2,181) for one Rare shard, and you need three of them to actually craft a permanent skin (although at that point you can |
However, both BJP and Rajinikanth camps never made any official statement regarding the issue.Now, a remark made by BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy when he was asked about speculation about Rajnikanth being roped in by the BJP seems totally against Modi's desire to induct Rajinikanth in the party.Swamy told reporters, “No more cinema stars.” Swamy made the statement on the sidelines of a press interaction in Bangalore after AIADMK supremo and former cine-star J Jayalalitha was sentenced to jail for four years on corruption charges by a special court in Bangalore on Saturday. In fact, the 18-year-old corruption case against Jayalalitha was first filed by Swamy -then with the Janata PartyIn an audience Q&A blog published last week, an id Software spokesperson confirmed that Quake Champions will run through Steam. That might not seem revelatory, but since the current beta launches exclusively through Bethesda.net, many had suspected the final game would too.
"Quake Champions will indeed be released on Steam," Bethesda Softwares senior producer Jason Bergman wrote. "You will still be required to have a linked Bethesda.net account, but users playing the game from Steam will not go through the Bethesda.net launcher."
In other news from the Q&A, id Software lead designer Adam Pyle said the studio is currently focused on improving "performance, network code, and stability of the game", as well as gameplay balancing. Beyond immediate focuses, improving "Onboarding and Progress Loops" remains to be seen to.
"Our onboarding efforts include additional tutorials, training maps, and UI/UX improvements to build a better user experience for all our future newcomers. The implementation of new progression loops introduces new game systems we’ve designed to keep players coming back throughout the week, every week," Pyle wrote.
On the topic of playable characters (ie, champions), the newly added BJ Blazkowicz is getting nerfed a tad, while Clutch will get some tweaks to improve his effectiveness. The full rundown of all intended champion tweaks can be read over on the page, as can many other interesting tidbits regarding the shooter.Ukraine: a proxy war in the making 10/09/2014
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Persistent reports, now publicised by the Russian news agency
One was said to be a
One of the aircraft delivered a large quantity of ammunition for the MLRS, and the launchers moved under their own power on the bypass road in the direction of Starobelska, north of the rebel city of Luhansk.
This, according to
Kiev has already received about €15 million for the modernization of its army and for strengthening its "defence", with NATO Sec-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen saying that Ukraine has always supported NATO, and it's now time to see the alliance supporting Ukraine.
Pravda notes the "double standards" of the Western Alliance, in complaining of the Russians supplying the rebels with arms, with NATO also ignoring the fact that it is not safe to supply even "precision weapons" to Ukraine, given the lack of professionalism of the Ukrainian military.
Creating a need for ammunition, NATO is also likened to a drug dealer who initially supplies his addict with free drugs until consumption reaches the desired level, when the bill is presented for the higher "dose". Persistent reports, now publicised by the Russian news agency TASS, have two US military C-130 transports delivering multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to Kharkov airport for delivery to the Ukrainian Army.One was said to be a Larom system developed by Aerostar of Romania and Israel Military Industries to meet requirements of Romanian MoD, and the other the Spanish Teruel 3. Both are 40-tube multiple rocket launchers based on the Soviet BM-21 "Grad".One of the aircraft delivered a large quantity of ammunition for the MLRS, and the launchers moved under their own power on the bypass road in the direction of Starobelska, north of the rebel city of Luhansk.This, according to Pravda, follows a deal reached between Ukraine and a number of NATO member countries on the supply of high-precision weapons, announced by president Poroshenko at the NATO summit last week.Kiev has already received about €15 million for the modernization of its army and for strengthening its "defence", with NATO Sec-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen saying that Ukraine has always supported NATO, and it's now time to see the alliance supporting Ukraine.notes the "double standards" of the Western Alliance, in complaining of the Russians supplying the rebels with arms, with NATO also ignoring the fact that it is not safe to supply even "precision weapons" to Ukraine, given the lack of professionalism of the Ukrainian military.Creating a need for ammunition, NATO is also likened to a drug dealer who initially supplies his addict with free drugs until consumption reaches the desired level, when the bill is presented for the higher "dose".
And as a controversy builds about the apparent use of Red Cross marked Ukrainian Army vehicles to tow artillery (above),
NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, Ambassador William J. Burns, warned, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia, "but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia".
In Ukraine, he wrote, "these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene".
No specific mention is made of the EU, but either way, the implications of Western intervention in Ukraine were well signalled. Foreign Minister Lavrov is said to have stressed that Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO, particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military threat.
While Russia might believe statements from the West that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment of U.S. forward operating locations, etc.) they had to be evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential.
Lavrov had told the Ambassador that maintaining Russia's "sphere of influence" in the neighbourhood was "anachronistic", and acknowledged that the US and Europe had "legitimate interests" in the region. But, he argued, while countries were free to make their own decisions about their security and which political-military structures to join, they needed to keep in mind the impact on their neighbours.
This is something Ukraine, the EU and NATO members consistently failed to do, and which NATO members currently supplying weapons to Ukraine are also failing to do. Whatever "legitimate interests" the US and Europe might have in the region, arming Ukraine in a war against Russia turns it into a dangerous proxy war.
Rarely has the behaviour of our own "side" seemed so inept, and rarely have we been so lacking in agreement with the action of our own government in backing NATO and the EU. Whatever the rights and wrongs, we see no value whatsoever in making a dangerous situation even worse.
In that, it seems, our concerns are shared by Tony Brenton, former British Ambassador to Russia, whom the Telegraph
FORUM THREAD And as a controversy builds about the apparent use of Red Cross marked Ukrainian Army vehicles to tow artillery (above), Wikileaks has released a previously secret cable sent in February 2008 from the US Ambassador in Moscow, warning that the Russians would act adversely to attempts to bring Ukraine into NATO.NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, Ambassador William J. Burns, warned, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia, "but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia".In Ukraine, he wrote, "these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene".No specific mention is made of the EU, but either way, the implications of Western intervention in Ukraine were well signalled. Foreign Minister Lavrov is said to have stressed that Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO, particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military threat.While Russia might believe statements from the West that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment of U.S. forward operating locations, etc.) they had to be evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential.Lavrov had told the Ambassador that maintaining Russia's "sphere of influence" in the neighbourhood was "anachronistic", and acknowledged that the US and Europe had "legitimate interests" in the region. But, he argued, while countries were free to make their own decisions about their security and which political-military structures to join, they needed to keep in mind the impact on their neighbours.This is something Ukraine, the EU and NATO members consistently failed to do, and which NATO members currently supplying weapons to Ukraine are also failing to do. Whatever "legitimate interests" the US and Europe might have in the region, arming Ukraine in a war against Russia turns it into a dangerous proxy war.Rarely has the behaviour of our own "side" seemed so inept, and rarely have we been so lacking in agreement with the action of our own government in backing NATO and the EU. Whatever the rights and wrongs, we see no value whatsoever in making a dangerous situation even worse.In that, it seems, our concerns are shared by Tony Brenton, former British Ambassador to Russia, whom the allows to say : "The whole affair raises serious questions about the competence of Western policymaking towards Russia". It's time, he says, to back away from the Russian wolf.Morning Spoilers If there’s news about upcoming movies and television you’re not supposed to know, you’ll find it in here.
The Borg Queen joins Thor: The Dark World. Hugh Jackman promises The Wolverine won't be anything like Wolverine. Has a description of the first Iron Man 3 trailer leaked? Plus the latest encouraging reactions from Cloud Atlas test screenings!
Spoilers from here on out!
Top image from Cloud Atlas.
The Wolverine
Hugh Jackman confirms once again that this movie will have no connections to the other X-Men movies beyond his presence. Indeed, he even acknowledge why staying the hell away from X-Men Origins: Wolverine can only be a good thing:
"We've deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture. With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it's going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic. The approach to character means we won't be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it'll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film. I'm just really glad it's happening. For a while it's felt like a rocky ride. I think it's the best idea we've had, the strongest script we've had and that now we really have an opportunity to make something really great."
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[Coventry Telegraph]
Thor: The Dark World
Alice Krige, the Borg Queen herself (well, one of them anyway), reportedly revealed that she has a small, potentially unrecognizable role in the film, potentially much like Colm Feore's turn as Laufey the King of the Frost Giants in the first movie. Since Christopher Eccleston is thought to be playing Malekith the Accursed (although I'm not actually sure that's 100% confirmed just yet) and a stuntman mentioned that he was doing prep work to play one of the Dark Elves, the current speculation is that Krige would play Alflyse, the queen of the Dark Elves and the Svartalfheim realm. Because really, what else is Alice Krige going to play but an evil queen of some sort? That's just what she does. [Comic Book Movie]
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Iron Man 3
Take this with as big a grain of salt as you can possibly muster (or perhaps as small as you muster — I never have figured out how it works with grains of salt), but a description of the first Iron Man 3 trailer has leaked. Here are some highlights:
"It opens with a voice over of Tony Stark talking about how the events of New York (I'm assuming the Avenger Movie) changed him, and how he's just not 'into it' anymore. First scene is Iron Man with battle damage, laying down amid rubble and taking [off] his faceplate to show a bleeding Stark. Scenes of him arguing with Pepper Potts in the armory (cool shots of alternative Iron Man suits including the red white and blue one we've seen already), press conferences, Tony looking solemn, Tony talking with someone who looks like a psychiatrist, and a short shot of Don Cheadle in military uniform (no War Machine in the preview)...We then get a voice over from Ben Kingsley, talking about how there there are no heroes and how he will teach everyone, especially Stark, a lesson. This is over scenes of the alternative Suits getting blown up, Stark going into surgery, and a fleet of helicopters launching missiles which blow Stark's home up and apart (the CGI looked nearly finished) and sending Stark and Pepper into the sea below. Then a close up of Kingsley with no helmet in the Mandarin armor.
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You can check out the unabridged version at the link. [Ain't It Cool News]
Daredevil
It's looking increasingly likely that 20th Century Fox is just going to go ahead and relinquish the rights to Daredevil a couple months from now. Since the rumors of Marvel Studios letting Fox keep Daredevil in exchange for Galactus and the Silver Surfer have been called into question, the only option left for Fox may be to get a Daredevil movie into production as fast as humanly possible, perhaps with a co-financing deal with Disney to buy them some extra time. That plan, of course, requires them finding a director, and the only person who has actually said he wants the job, The Grey director Joe Carnahan, tweeted this yesterday:
Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids...We shall see. Time is NOT on anyone's side.
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While it's possible Fox just didn't like his idea and still wants to find someone else, you'd kind of figure they're very much at the "beggars can't be choosers" stage, assuming they still actually want to make this movie. As such, the safe bet is they have probably just given up on Daredevil. [IGN]
Catching Fire
The Color Purple actress Maria Howell has been cast as Seeder, one of the two former champion tributes from District 11 who return to fight in the 75th Anniversary Games. [SpoilerTV]
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Cloud Atlas
A new round of reactions to various test screenings have emerged for Tom Twyker and the Wachowskis' adaptation of David Mitchell's giddily genre-straddling novel. The reaction continues to be quite positive, with some noting that it's unlikely to be an Oscar contender (to which I respond: who really cares?) and that it's a bit of a mess (to which I say: I'm not sure how it couldn't be at least a bit of a mess). Anyway, here's one of the more positive reviews, which seems to give one of the better overviews of what to expect from the film:
Most of the actors had either a cross-gender or cross-ethnic role. Notable mentions are Halle Berry as a white woman from the early 1900s, Zhu Zhu as a Mexican house cleaner, and Hugo Weaving as the biggest, ugliest geriatric nurse I have ever seen. For the most part, this works. It's definitely a bit odd to see it on screen but with the help of some truly phenomenal makeup work and great performances by the actors, the portrayals go from funny to believable pretty quickly.
[...]
This film is incredibly ambitious. The six stories are edited into one so there is little to no downtime during the film. The makeup and costumes will absolutely be nominated for Oscars while visual effects have a great chance as well because of how subtle and artistically done they are. This film is a bit goofy in ways. You have to be ok with Tom Hanks playing six different characters in the movie. You have to be ok with realistic stories being interlaced with far future stories. Self referential humor about absurd things. Overall our audience very much enjoyed the film. They gave it a decent round of applause at the end and it was pin drop quiet while everyone was filling out their opinion cards. I'm very interested to see how the public and critics enjoy it.
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/Film has helpfully compiled a bunch more reactions. Check them out at the link. [/Film]
Bill & Ted 3
Now that this thing appears to be really happening and Galaxy Quest's Dean Parisot is reportedly on board to direct, it's time to talk about the story. Star Keanu Reeves explains how this belated sequel will very much acknowledge the fact that he and Alex Winter are both pushing 50 and how this movie plays around with the complex mythology (no, don't laugh...well, OK, maybe a little) of the Bill & Ted saga:
One of the plot points is that these two people have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven't done it. So everybody is kind of like: "Where is the song?" The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future "us" refuses to tell us, and another future "us" blames us for their lives because we didn't write the song, so they're living this terrible life. In one version we're in jail; in another we're at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.
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[GQ]
Grimm
Just in time for last night's second season premiere, here's showrunner David Greenwalt on what lies ahead for Nick this year:
"[T]he first year he kind of came to grips with all of this. This second season, it is going to be him coming into his own, but he's going to be challenged on so many levels–not only with all these things he learns from his mother, but with complications from Juliet. And there's a [host] of bad critters now coming to Portland just for Nick because he is becoming known now."
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[TV Equals]
666 Park Avenue
Weeds guest star Aubrey Dollar has reportedly landed the recurring role of Annie, who first appears in episode four and is described as "an obituary writer who yearns to be a real journalist." Damages recurring actress Mili Avital will reportedly play "a lonely hearts woman who pines for romance and harbors a dark twisted secret", while Oz and Law & Order: SVU actor Mike Doyle will debut in the second episode as Frank Alpern, one of the main adversaries for Terry O'Quinn's character Gavin, the apparently evil owner of a paranormal apartment building. [TV Guide]
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Being Human (UK)
The BBC has announced that Phil Davis, whose previous credits include guest spots in Sherlock and the Doctor Who episode "The Fires of Pompeii", will be playing a new character called Captain Hatch. Davis himself calls the character "marvelously disgusting", and here's the BBC's official description:
Captain Hatch has seen it all. At least he reckons he has. And whatever it is, he doesn't much like it. Stuck in a failing body, in a wheelchair, in a dismal seaside hotel, things aren't exactly sunny side up. Hatch embodies the worst in humanity – he's bitter, manipulative, obsequious and cruel. Quite the catch. But those aren't even the worst things about the aged army captain... beneath his decrepit exterior there lies within him a dark and toxic secret that could rattle your soul with fear.
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[Den of Geek]
Arrow
Here's the latest promo for The CW's upcoming Green Arrow show.
Additional reporting by Rob H. Dawson and Charlie Jane Anders.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Nov. 10, 2017, 9:41 PM GMT / Updated Nov. 10, 2017, 9:41 PM GMT By Ken Dilanian
WASHINGTON — The information that a Russian lawyer brought with her when she met Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 stemmed from research conducted by Fusion GPS, the same firm that compiled the infamous Trump dossier, according to the lawyer and a source familiar with the matter.
In an interview with NBC News, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump Tower — describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats — from Glenn Simpson, the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New York federal court case.
A source with firsthand knowledge of the matter confirmed that the firm's research had been provided to Veselnitskaya as part of the case, which involved alleging money laundering by a Russian company called Prevezon.
This account casts Veselnitskaya's activities in a new light, challenging the notion that she was simply carrying talking points to Trump that originated with the Russian government.
Veselnitskaya told NBC News she has been cooperating with the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating how the Trump dossier was compiled. But she has not been contacted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, she said.
Starting in 2014, Simpson and Veselnitskaya had both worked on the same side of the Prevezon case, in which the Justice Department accused the Cyprus-based Russian company of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars via New York real estate. Beginning in 2016, Simpson was working with a former British intelligence operative on another project — the Trump dossier.
In a statement to NBC News, a lawyer for Fusion GPS said Fusion's work on the dossier was totally separate from its work on the Prevezon case. Levy said the firm was unaware of the Trump Tower meeting when it happened.
Related: The Legal Battle Behind the Trump Tower Meeting
"No one from Fusion GPS had any idea Ms. Veselnitskaya would be meeting with anyone from the Trump campaign," attorney Josh Levy said. "Nor did anyone from Fusion GPS know she would be sharing anything she learned from either the company or the Prevezon matter with the Trump campaign. This whole episode came as a complete surprise to Fusion when the news broke this summer."
Reuters was the first to report that the information originated with Fusion.
Glenn Simpson, partner of Fusion GPS, speaks on a panel at the Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium on October 7, 2016 in Washington. Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium
Months before she met in June 2016 with Trump Jr., Veselnitskaya said she turned the information she got from Simpson over to Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, who she said sought to verify it through his own investigation.
In May 2016, the Russian prosecutor general issued a statement seeking U.S. help in investigating what he described as a tax evasion scheme involving the Ziff brothers, American investors, and British investor Bill Browder.
Veselnitskaya said that statement was based in part on information she provided in the fall of 2015.
"I was in effect, the primary source of this information for the Russian Prosecutor General's office. They then published the facts I uncovered."
She got the information from Fusion GPS, which prepared detailed reports in 2014, she said.
Related: Russian Lawyer Says She Didn't Have Info Trump Jr. Wanted
The now-infamous July 2016 Trump Tower meeting was arranged by Rob Goldstone, a music promoter who said he was representing oligarch Aras Agalarov and his son Emin, a pop star — both friends of the Trump family.
In an email that has become public, Goldstone wrote to Trump that "the Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."
Trump Jr. replied: "If it's what you say I love it…"
Donald Trump Jr. listens to a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. John Moore / Getty Images file
Veselnitskaya said she did not discuss the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian prosecutor general before it happened.
"I am absolutely certain that I had not spoken about that upcoming meeting with the prosecutor general himself or with any of the officials of the prosecutor general's office," she said.
Intelligence experts have theorized that Veselnitskaya may have been a pawn in a scheme by Russian spy agencies to test the waters, seeking to determine how the Trump team would respond to an explicit offer of Russian help. But no evidence has surfaced to buttress that theory. Mueller is investigating the Trump Tower meeting.
Related: Former Soviet Counterintelligence Officer at Trump Tower Meeting
Veselnitskaya's account has evolved somewhat over time. In an initial interview with NBC News in July, she said, "I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that."
In an August interview, she told NBC News that she did, in fact, turn over information about what she considered unflattering political contributions to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
In an interview this week, she said she didn't think those two statements were contradictory because she didn't expect Clinton to be aware of the allegations against the donors.
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya NBC News
She provided NBC News with a document she says she prepared for the Trump Tower meeting, in which Clinton was mentioned in reference to contributions from the Ziff brothers, whom she accused of evading Russian taxes. She believes that some of the money they reaped from doing that ended up supporting Clinton and the Democrats, and she wanted the Trump campaign to know that. In fact, the Ziff brothers, who have declined to comment, also donated to Republicans.
Veselnitskaya also discussed what she believed was incriminating information about Bill Browder, a wealthy British subject who has been the chief advocate for the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law that sanctions alleged Russian human rights violators.
She said that information also came from Fusion GPS in 2014, as part of its research into Browder for the Prevezon case.
Donald Trump Jr. has said that he didn't learn anything useful in the meeting.
However, Trump Jr. did promise to reexamine the Magnitsky matter if his father was elected, Veselnitskaya said.
"In case if we are successful in this campaign, maybe one day we would be interested in getting back to it. Because all that you told us sounds very interesting," she said, paraphrasing Trump Jr. "And who knows? Maybe one day we'll get back to that conversation, but not before that."
Veselnitskaya told NBC News she worked with the Russian prosecutor to corroborate the information she received from Fusion GPS.
She said she spoke to an investigator in the prosecutor's office, "to whom I also showed and explained the sources of my information, provided details etc. As far as I know, forensic expertise was conducted to verify the facts. Letters were sent to various countries, including Switzerland, Cyprus, and the United States of America, in order to establish whether the information I shared with the investigation and the prosecution was authentic."
She said she worked as a consultant to the prosecutor's office as part of the investigation.
Veselnitskaya is not a major figure in Russia, but she is a well-connected lawyer who represented a Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, in a property case between 2005 and 2013, according to Reuters. Her ex-husband was a deputy prosecutor in the Moscow region, according to the Guardian.
Browder is a businessman who made a fortune investing in post-Soviet Russia and was a supporter of Vladimir Putin until he was kicked out of the country in 2005, accused of evading $40 million in taxes. Browder renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1997.
His account of what he says the Russian government did to Magnitsky, whom he describes as his lawyer, triggered international outrage, and led Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act.
Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika (L) speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) during the Conference of the European Prosecutors General on July 5, 2006 in Moscow. Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA file
According to Browder, Magnitsky had been investigating a theft of $230 million in tax rebates paid to Browder's companies in Russia. Browder says his companies had been taken over illegally and without his knowledge by corrupt Russian officials.
Browder says Magnitsky was arrested as a reprisal by those same corrupt officials, and then was tortured and beaten to death, although an independent medical report says he died of an infection exacerbated by medical neglect in poor prison conditions.
Browder presented documents suggesting that some officials who benefited from the alleged fraud purchased property abroad.
The Russian government soon imposed a ban on American adoptions of Russian children, ostensibly for other reasons but done in response, many experts say, to the Magnitsky sanctions.
Simpson, who is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, was paid to dig into Browder by a law firm representing Denis Katsyv, the owner of Prevezon.
Prevezon settled the U.S. money-laundering lawsuit in May — with no admission of wrongdoing — by agreeing to pay $6 million. The U.S. government originally sought to freeze $20 million of company assets. Both sides claimed victory.
Veselnitskaya said Simpson's research showed that Browder was in business in Russia with the Ziff brothers.
The only reference to Clinton in Veselnitskaya's document is part of a reference to the Ziffs. She accused them of evading Russian taxes, and suggested that some of the money they reaped from doing that ended up supporting Democrats.
Businessman Bill Browder stands in Moscow's Red Square. Courtesy of Bill Browder
"According to available information, the Ziff Brothers were involved in funding both of Obama's election campaigns and have been dubbed by the U.S. media as 'the Democrats' main sponsors,'" Veselnitskaya wrote, in a Russian language document translated by NBC News. "They are possibly involved in funding Hillary Clinton's campaign."
That allegation is hardly incriminating — and it is only partially accurate.
Employees of Ziff Brothers Investments contributed nearly $1.7 million to various political committees and candidates in the 2016 election cycle — a mixture of Republicans and Democrats. Donations to Clinton's presidential campaign totaled only $17,700.
Regardless, Russian President Vladimir Putin of Russia has taken to mentioning some version of Veselnitskaya's charges of late, and state-run television has aired interviews with Veselnitskaya and Chaika.A few months ago, Kansas City Chiefs safety Eric Berry was named Comeback Player of the Year after overcoming Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He would return to have one of the best seasons in his career in 2015. Hailed by many as the top safety in the NFL, Berry was elected to his fourth Pro Bowl. He also helped the Chiefs win their first playoff game in over two decades in January. Another Chiefs player could follow in Berry’s footsteps; despite the emergence of Charcandrick West and Spencer Ware, it’s reasonable to make a case for running back Jamaal Charles as Comeback Player of the Year in 2016.
Jamaal Charles Has Comeback Player of the Year Potential
Charles tore his right ACL against the Chicago Bears on October 11th, 2015, causing him to miss the rest of the season. When Charles went down, he was ranked fifth in yards from scrimmage with 541. His 5.5 yards per carry average over the course of his career is the highest among all running backs in NFL history. The Chiefs replaced Charles with West and Ware, who combined for 1,037 rushing yards. Charles’ absence, however, was felt, including his versatility and tremendous playmaking abilities in the open field.
Charles has been in this position before and bounced back successfully. He tore his left ACL in Week 2 of the 2011 season. In 2012, he ran for a career-high 1,509 yards and managed 5.3 yards per attempt.
Age Is Just A Number
It’s easy to point to Charles’ age and say he doesn’t have that much left in the tank. He turns 30 on December 27th, an age in which NFL running backs generally see a significant drop in production. This season, Charles should be less of an in-between-the-tackles guy, not only because of his age, but because he is coming off of a major injury as well. West and Ware should serve as the bruising duo the Chiefs need in order to maintain a physical attack.
With that said, Charles’ production should stay respectable given his skill set and how much the Chiefs rely on the run game. With three effective backs, the Chiefs should be inclined to run the ball more than in previous years. Charles will still get his fair share of touches. While the percentage of rushing yards by the Chiefs attributed to Charles should drop significantly, his drop in number of carries should be hardly noticeable. Assuming he is handed the ball 10-15 times per game and averages five yards per carry (which is much lower than his career average), he should eclipse 800 yards, if not more.
Multiple Threat Back
While Charles likely won’t run for more than 1,000 yards, expect him to win Comeback Player of the Year honors. If he does it will be based not only on his talent as a runner but also his knack for catching balls out of the backfield. With his injury, as well as West and Ware getting more work up the middle, it would make sense for the Chiefs to throw a lot of screen passes to Charles early in the season, allowing him to use his quickness in space and avoid contact if he needs to. Charles’ game has proven to be multifaceted throughout his career, especially when he was the Chiefs leading receiver in 2013 with 693 yards receiving and seven touchdown receptions. The Chiefs would be wise to utilize this aspect of his game in 2016.
Main Photo:Over the years, I have seen many standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival. But this past January, at the gigantic Eccles Theatre in Park City, I watched the only standing ovation I have ever experienced — anywhere — that took place before the film it was applauding even began. That film was Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation.” I felt like I understood what the ovation was about, and though I didn’t join in, I applauded in my heart.
Parker, a gifted actor who was on the rise but hardly a marquee movie star, had beaten the odds to direct, produce, co-write, and play the lead role in a movie about one of the pivotal events in African-American history. It’s a movie that Denzel Washington would have had to fight to get made — but Parker, a relative nobody, went out and did it. Simply having the moxie to bring this movie into existence was a heroic act, and the fact that it premiered in the heat of the #OscarsSoWhite imbroglio, against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and the perception that murderous racism still thrived in America more than most of the culture was willing to admit, seemed not so much coincidence as karma. This was truly a movie of its moment. And since I had great admiration for Parker as an actor, I was eager to see what he had brought off in “The Birth of a Nation.”
I wasn’t a big fan of the movie. It had moments of grace and intensity (especially during the first half), but given the turbulent power of its subject — the violent slave uprising led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831 — I felt in my gut that something was missing. Yet the riptide of enthusiasm for “The Birth of a Nation” was undeniable. It was embraced as a landmark, one of those singular and impassioned indie game-changers, and when Fox Searchlight purchased the film for $17.5 million, I understood — and applauded — the wave that the company had set in motion. I could see the trajectory: The movie would come out, make $100 million, get nominated for a sea of Oscars, win some of them (maybe best picture), and kick open the door for a generation of black filmmakers. My sense was that even though “The Birth of a Nation” wasn’t the work of art that “12 Years a Slave” was (it was more like a very bloody TV movie), it would be far more commercial, because African-Americans had not turned out in great numbers to see Steve McQueen’s film, but this was a primal tale of fighting back, and that would be a significant lure, and maybe a healing one.
Related Content Film Review: ‘The Birth of a Nation’
We all know what happened after that. This summer, when it became headline news that Parker, as a college student at Penn State in 1999, had been brought up on rape charges (at trial, he was found not guilty), the storm of controversy that the case provoked seemed like the ultimate monkey wrench thrown into the movie’s potential juggernaut of popularity and acclaim. The purpose of this column is not to dissect the details of the charges, the issues of Parker’s guilt or innocence, etc. Yet it is not to draw some clean, false line between art and life either. As the controversy raged on, and as voices rose — especially on social media — to declare Parker a pariah whose movie should be boycotted, it suddenly seemed likely that the issue of the rape charge might completely derail the film. Its awards chances were written off almost by fiat, and so, in a lot of circles, were its commercial chances. For awhile, I couldn’t turn around without getting drawn into a conversation about the fate of “The Birth of a Nation,” and more than one of those conversations included speculation that the film might not even be released. That, it seemed, was how much the scandal was raining on its parade.
But now that the movie has come out — and I say this however well it does or does not do at the box office, however many awards it does or does not win — the notion that it’s a sadly limping indie blockbuster, a champion knocked out by the allegations from its creator’s past, has given way to a different reality. In one sense, the controversy over Parker obscures the movie, but in another sense it has become integral to the film’s aura, its reality, its politics. And that’s because “The Birth of a Nation” has always been a conduit for forces much greater than the film itself — a dynamic, ironically, reinforced by the aesthetic limitations of the movie. For the whole problem with “The Birth of a Nation” is that it doesn’t really, truly dramatize the story of Nat Turner. It presents it, as though it were |
best way possible. Superb.
Warner's other big game of Gamescom was Lego DC Super Villains and we got to see some of the character creation that will start you off in the game.
We love the idea that you get to play as the villains for a change, and even more that you get to build your own devious despot to play as throughout. And, like other Lego games in the past, the amazing cast of other playable characters will ensure that you'll be coming back for more, time and time again. Even the rather odd Calendar Man from the early days of Batman will be available.
We already saw the hands-off demo at E3, but considering how excited we are about the long-awaited Dying Light sequel, we were more than happy to give it another viewing.
The game is similar to the first in that it is mainly first-person parkour based and is situated in a city crawling with the infected - this time in a fictional, more European metropolis than before - it has the new feature whereby your actions have many ramifications on how the game world turns out. There's no date for release yet, but Techland isn't going to rush what is already looking to be more than a worthy successor to one of our favourite games on this generation.
Before the official sequel arrives, we will be treated to Bad Blood - indeed, way before considering it will hit early access from September. This is an online multiplayer PVP game using the original Dying Light engine but stands alone as a completely separate entity.
It is a Battle Royale game in that 12 players enter but only one can win, but killing your player opponents isn't the only way you can chalk up victory. You and your rivals have to collect blood samples from Infected hives dotted around the map, and when you have enough you can reserve yourself a seat on a helicopter at an extraction point. Only one can get out, however, and that's where the fun begins.
Amazingly, we won our very first Bad Blood game. That doesn't happen very often.
Having played an hour or two of the game at an event in London earlier this year we were eager to see if the Gamescom demo was different and were pleasantly surprised that it was.
A much darker level awaited, in tone and ambience, plus the opportunity to use a crossbow on enemies plus a lot of sneaking around. The game feels very complete considering it's not going to be available until next February.Sleeping Dogs is a fantastic game that tells a terrific story set in a vibrant, stylized recreation of Hong Kong. I'm not usually a fan of open world games, but the story and setting of grabbed me from the start. I didn't play the Standard Edition, so I can't comment on improvements that the Definitive Edition brings, however this version looks and plays great. The city is packed with immersive details, from cars and pedestrians to the dynamic weather system. Sure, some of the textures could be sharper and the models could have a higher poly count, but consider this game was initially released in 2012. The story is engaging so far and being able to play both sides of the law helps to flesh out what could easily be a two dimensional story. Optional side missions can be found throughout the city, should you want to take a break from the main narrative. The Definitive Edition also includes the Nightmare in North Point DLC, which brings a whole new storyline for the main character, Wei Shen. Whether you want to fight thugs hand to hand, tear through the streets on the underground racing circuit or spend your time hunting down collectibles, you'll find a ton of entertainment value in Sleeping Dogs.Use Modular Design To Foster Flexible and Incremental City Building
This post originally appears on Spacing Canada. By Darren Proulx and Samuel Baron
At Slow Streets we embrace a philosophy of quicker, lighter and cost effective infrastructure. We believe that this approach can yield the same results and quality. Practically speaking, this can be in the form of using plastic bollards to separate cycling lanes from traffic, setting up lawn chairs bought at the local retailer, installing parklets to instantly add a bit of public space to a retail street, or allowing food carts to anchor a space.
What if you take this same philosophy and take it to the next level — infusing it into the bones and structure of your city streets? What if you could build your city as a sort of real life Legoland, where it is easier to dismantle, reassemble and change everything? What happens when we infuse modularity into city-building? How would this impact our cities?
A tram stop made of modular pieces A speed bump constructed with modular pieces A pedestrian refuge constructed out of modular material Even the curbs have been constructed with high quality modular materials
It appears the Dutch have done this very thing. Nearly all of the street materials in Amsterdam are modular: the bricks and paving stones in the sidewalks, street surfaces, curbs, speed bumps, barrier posts, planters, tram stop platforms and parking barriers.The Dutch modularity is a results-driven approach to building cities. It uses aesthetically pleasing, high-quality materials that affords the ability to tinker with the street design. This flexible approach permits trial and error — it allows a street to incrementally test what works and what doesn’t work. In the end, the result is a more adaptive and flexible cityscape that aspires to perfection.
Modular material provides flexibility in construction Close up of the street bricks
Too often, designing our cities is treated as an absolute. We tend to assume people will use things a certain way in perpetuity and almost expect it to be this way (Vancouver’s overbuilt and under-performing bridges come to mind).
Since infrastructure often doesn’t perform as expected, experimental flexibility is an asset and a strategic way to build better. In North America, our roadway materials opt for using single form slabs of concrete and asphalt which permits very little flexibility. Once something has been built and it is discovered that it is not performing as expected (as it often doesn’t), any changes require waiting for the long lifecycle of these materials or its total destruction.
The modular elements in Dutch design allow modifications to be made without the destruction of the materials, dramatically reducing capital costs associated with street design changes. The majority of changes can be done with hand tools and smaller machinery, which is significantly less capital intensive.
If you live in a big city you have probably often seen the scars left from public utility companies that have had to access water, gas, electric and sewer lines buried underneath the street surface. In North America, when repairs to the street are required, the street needs to be ripped open and an ineffective patchwork design is applied to close it up. The module design allows only the affected materials to be replaced, restoring the intact aesthetics. This unsightly and wasteful scenario can be avoided and money can be saved when the surface can easily be dismantled with the right tools.
Due to this, in North America, there is often a struggle to reverse the impacts of street designs that only accommodate automobiles. Active transportation and transit are on the rise in North America, and many of our streets fail to provide a comfortable experience for these alternative forms of travel. With modular design, even the curbs and speed bumps can be dismantled and rebuilt easily.
A complete street with modular traffic calming A modular bulb out and speed bump A modular diverter A dutch separated intersection built with modular materials
This means that if you need to change the road design to physically make the street feel “unsafe driving at unsafe speeds,” this can be done. The curbs can be easily extended to reduce the street width, pedestrian islands can be constructed and speed bumps can be moved or enlarged. The street allocation is even more ready to be altered to add bike lanes. Everything can be relocated or changed in some way to achieve the optimal results to welcome all people whether they want to walk, cycle, use transit and drive.
Water management is also increasingly a problem in cities, where the impermeable surfaces redirect local rainfall elsewhere, leading to flooding issues. The modular design introduces permeable surfaces and allows local rainfall to stay locally.
With all of this in mind, one final thing to note is the Dutch frame of mind towards solving problems which provides true flexibility. While they have laws and regulations like everyone else, the Dutch view some of them more as guidelines and overall common sense prevails. The Dutch do not blindly follow governmental rules, treating recommendations as an absolute, applicable to any context. They recognize that spaces change and our design approach should embrace this. Infusing flexibility into our cityscapes requires less long-term planning since changes can be made incrementally. This philosophy embraces the notion that our cities are not static places. It does not try to predict the future, but rather acknowledges that long-term resilience is achieved only through the ability to adapt easily and quickly. The future isn’t a given and the way we design our streetscapes should reflect this.
A completed playground in the space between buildings Workers replacing half of a street width with a playground
AdvertisementsEnglish rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are said to have made contact with Juventus forward Sebastian Giovinco’s agent.
The 27-year-old is highly-rated across Europe, and is also believed to have an interest in an adventure abroad.
According to Italian news outlet Panorama, his preference is to remain with Juventus until his contract runs out in the summer at which point he will hold all of the cards regarding the next step in his career.
His agent has claimed contact with both north London clubs, while Giovinco’s future has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks.
It’s likely that he will resist overtures from Fiorentina, Bologna, Parma and Torino in January to see out the season with Juventus.
Giovinco has made just six league appearances this term, as a future away from the Turin based club looks likely.Preterm death of the human conceptus is common. A consistent biphasic pattern in the rate of loss from biochemical pregnancy detection to term suggests that most wastage occurs prior to clinical recognition. After simple adjustments for varying methods, existing data show that at least 73% of natural single conceptions have no real chance of surviving 6 weeks of gestation. Of the remainder, about 90% will survive to term. IVF conceptions do nearly as well as natural pregnancies after clinical recognition, but poorly before, despite selecting apparently normal embryos for transfer. Reasons may lie in the uterus more than the embryo itself. Multiple pregnancies may constitute more than 12% of all natural conceptions, of which number about 2% survive to term as twins and about 12% result in single births. In all of these situations, simple equations for exponential decay in a mixture of two populations can accurately describe the distribution of those deaths in time.The video will start in 8 Cancel
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A coffee and vape lounge has opened in Shirley where you can sit back, relax with an e-cigarette, drink and slice of cake while you watch the football or boxing.
Goodfella Vapes in Wickham Road sells vaping equipment as well as coffee and cakes.
Floor to ceiling shelving about five metres long is filled with vape juices of all kinds of flavours from a variety of brands, including Vampire, Double Drip, Pocket Fuel and Monster.
The shop, which is in the old office of former Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell, specialises in selling the vape brand, Aspire.
The coffee shop serves a brand of coffee called Guglielmo, which comes from the Calabria region of South Italy where the family one of the shops owners. Franco Iannelli, hails from.
You don’t have to vape to enjoy a coffee in the shop, which has Wi-fi and is well ventilated, explained Franco.
As well as Franco, 33, who lives in Beckenham, the coffee shop is also owned and run by Ricky Walton, 30, who lives in Shirley and Tony Martineaux, 30, who lives in Bromley.
All three have other jobs as well – Franco owns the barbers, Franco & Pino, just two doors down, while Tony is an electrician and Ricky works in traffic maintenance.
(Image: Grant Melton)
Franco said: “It’s just a place for people to come and chill and just relax, vape, have a coffee and meet new people.
“You would be quite surprised about how many people you meet. You make new friends.”
Fresh milkshakes are also made up – you could choose a chocolate milkshake made from a Mars or Snickers bar or maybe a fruit milkshake made with fresh ingredients.
Soft vanilla ice cream and slush drinks are also available.
There are an array of freshly made cakes and muffins to choose from.
(Image: Grant Melton)
TV screens show live sport, including the main events, such as big football matches and boxing.
The shop is open from 9am to 9pm on weekdays, 9am to 5pm on Saturdays and 9am to 4pm on Sundays but will close later if a late game is carrying on.
And feedback from customers has been positive, said Franco, who said they plan to serve alcohol in the future.
Franco said: “The majority of people have been saying this area has needed something like this. There is no vaping lounge here so they are happy about it.”
And he is enjoying running the new business too.
Franco said: “I like the good atmosphere,” he said.
You can keep up with the news on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/goodfellavapes/We had the chance recently to sit down with Naoki Yoshida, producer on Final Fantasy XIV about all the changes coming down the pipe to the game, and how the new team expects to really turn things around for the venerable series' second MMO installment. Yoshida talks about 1.21 and the many things ahead leading into version 2.0.
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MMORPG: Overall, what is the focus for patch 1.21, and what are you trying to achieve on the run up to the 2.0 re-launch?
Yoshida: I consider patch 1.21 to be the final step in our plan to rework the current version of FFXIV that we’ve been working on over the past year. We revamped the battle system and user interface within the limitations of the current server structure and UI specifications and I can definitely say that we have gone over everything within our original scope. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with where we are, which is why we are working on the 2.0 re-launch in the first place. We plan on continuing to put forth our utmost effort as we move forward. With that said, the main points of patch 1.21 are:
Implementation of seven jobs and the job system
Implementation of two new instanced raids
Major adjustments to medicine and food items
Also, we’ll be implementing a sub-target on/off toggle setting, the lack of which was causing headaches when playing with a mouse and keyboard when casting spells. This change will also continue to allow gamepad users to play smoothly and without issue. Along with updates to core systems, patch 1.21 also serves to increase the amount of in-game content available. Leading up to Version 2.0, we will continue to implement content that can only be experienced by those that are playing now, as well as events that dynamically showcase the impending threat facing Eorzea. We hope that players the world over are looking forward to the coming battles as Eorzea draws closer to destruction!
MMORPG: Player Housing will be a great inclusion for series and MMO veterans alike, how can a player obtain their own house, and what role will it have in the gameplay?
Yoshida: It’s a little too early to reveal the full range of details, but we are planning several stages for the implementation of player housing. This content will be closely linked with the “free company” system, which you can think of as being similar to the guild systems often found in most MMORPGs. First, a house can be owned as collective property for all of the members of a free company. Later, we plan on allowing these houses to be owned by individuals. Players will be able to customize the exterior, interior and garden area of their house. Gardens will be expanded via new content such as gysahl greens gardens and chocobo stables. At the same time, we’re also looking into the ability to create airships and boats (by crafting) within housing. As such, the housing system in FFXIV will be updated with each patch and will develop to serve as important “lifestyle-related end-game content.”
MMORPG: There seems to be a focus on the reintroduction of the "7 classic jobs" and their quests and general content, how will these new roles affect the existing game?
Yoshida: I believe that character growth in MMORPGs must fundamentally occur both vertically and horizontally. For example, this growth can take place within a skill tree or by selecting a specific profession after choosing a class. I felt that this was FFXIV’s most overwhelming weakness when I assumed the role of producer and director. The Armoury system is a horizontal growth system that allows players to level multiple classes. However, as a result of this system, the character classes can start to feel too similar to each other. As such, I felt that it was necessary to implement a vertical growth system by further defining roles. This is why I decided on the implementation of the job system early on. Prior to this, we had to make adjustments to the battle system, and with the implementation of individual combos in patch 1.20, we’re finally at a point where we’re able to implement a vertical character growth system.
In other words, I believe that the job system is a system that has been necessary from the beginning. For veteran players, the job system may seem like an existing system that’s being expanded upon, but for beginners, this system serves as a major fork in the road, where they need to determine a direction for their character. I believe that the addition of the job system will dramatically increase the strategies and tactics involved in gameplay, as roles, class choice, job choice, and skill sets are planned out by 4-member light parties and 8-member full parties.
MMORPG: In the Producer's Letter, you talk about changes to the UI, and also an overhaul of certain systems making it easier for mouse/keyboard users - are you focusing on streamlining FFXIV for those who do not opt for a joypad?
Yoshida: Of course. Currently, FFXIV is not yet available for the PS3, and when considering our global audience, I believe that many players will continue playing FFXIV on the PC. I’m also a big PC gamer, and I can say that we’re working to support a more intuitive interface for FFXIV, one which would allow players who are familiar with playing MMORPGs with a keyboard and mouse to easily feel at home when playing FFXIV. That is the main focus for FFXIV Version 2.0, which is why we’re fundamentally recreating the UI from the ground up. Once we reveal more detailed information, I think that our players will probably be quite amazed at how drastically the UI will be changed. Please look forward to this announcement (which should come pretty soon!).
MMORPG: Any MMO needs a layer of what we call affectionately call "fluff" - and with Seasonal Events and to an extent housing, FFXIV seems to be getting those distractive elements that promote immersion; is this a deliberate move by the development team to make the game feel more wholesome as a world and adventure?
Yoshida: Yes, this is definitely a deliberate move. As somebody who spends a lot of time playing MMORPGs, I believe that battle content serves as the foundation of the game, but to be immersed in the game world is extremely important for players to continue enjoying the game long term. Up until now, FFXIV has been very limited when it comes to content and most of the updates ended up being related to introducing additional battle content. However, now that we have completed our fundamental revamp for the battle system, we are now focused on continuously providing content that allow players to feel like they are “actually experiencing life in the game world.” This is how I interpret the term “fluff.”
MMORPG: Looking towards the future, Hamlet Defense has often been touted as an incoming feature albeit with several delays, recently you have pushed it back again because of its large scale, can you briefly explain your plans for this addition and what players can expect when it is ready to go live?
Yoshida: Hamlet Defense contains elements that allow the entire world to engage in. While it’s certainly possible to make the content work for individual linkshells, it may be necessary to work together with the entire world in order to take on stronger enemies and obtain even greater rewards. Hamlet includes content centered around “resupplying” and “defending,” which are both closely intertwined. The act of defense features aspects which require not only battle classes, but also crafting and gathering classes, so it will require cohesion and cooperation amongst players. Unfortunately, as the content is very large in scale, it did not make it in time for patch 1.21.
MMORPG: Final Fantasy XIV has had a somewhat difficult launch, but with the constant stream of updates and refinements, things seem to be turning around for the better, how do you feel as the producer/director of the game's current state?
Yoshida: Thank you! I really appreciate your positivity. I believe that players would have enjoyed the game much more if it were released in the state it was in with patch 1.20 or will be in with 1.21. The bar at launch is set very high for current MMORPGs, due to increased player expectations. With patch 1.21 coming soon, I do feel slightly relieved, but as the producer/director, I still feel like there is much more to be done. Letters, delivery boxes, housing and PvP are all still missing. There is no guild system beyond linkshells either. Once these issues have been addressed, I feel like it will be time for us to go on the offensive. I will continue to set my goals high and do my best to reach them!Ok, so we already knew a few things about Galactic Civilizations 3, Stardock’s sequel to one of the best space 4X strategy games ever made. Multiplayer, hexes, the 64-bit requirement, a most probable graphical upgrade, new aliens, a campaign, closed alpha somewhere in early 2014 and pre-orders starting at $39,99. But, what are people’s expectations on GalCiv’s third installment? What more do we want to know at this stage? To address this we asked you, the fine community of SpaceSector, to help us assemble some questions to ask Stardock. Well, the first batch of answers has just arrived. Here’s what Ray Bartos, producer on Galactic Civilizations 3, had to say. The second and last batch will follow on a later date.
Kordanor, adarax: Regarding multiplayer, will there be simultaneous turns or IGOUGO turns? If there are simultaneous turns, will the orders be executed right within the turn or will they be executed “between” turns? Will there be a special lobby for multiplayer? Meaning, will Steam be required or another platform for that purpose? And, will there be LAN multiplayer?
Ray: Galactic Civilizations III has simultaneous planning (ship design, planetary projects, ship path planning, research and tech tree choices, etc.) and sequential execution (battle, discovering anomalies, colonizing planets, etc.). Currently right now there are no plans for a separate LAN multiplayer; all multiplayer will go through Steam.
Kordanor: On mod support. Will it be easy to apply mods? And, will mods work in multiplayer?
Ray: Modding has always been a big part of Galactic Civilizations’ success. We intentionally data-drive our systems with XML data so that our designers and modders alike can easily modify the game. And of course many players will love the ability to create and share their ship designs, and in Galactic Civilizations III they will have better tools to do this than ever before.
Ore, Bobby E, Kordanor: Concerning planet management, is there anything else planned for GalCiv3 to put emphasis on the planet’s individuality, with more diversity of planets perhaps, or on what they contain? How much of the design is staying and how much is new regarding planet management? Are there reasons to colonize less than desirable planets, even “level zero” planets?
Ray: As far as managing the planets, it will be similar to the method in Galactic Civilizations II. We are adding more diversity to the planetary creation system. Initially there will be habitable and uninhabitable planets. Habitable planets vary in class, traits and features. Planetary traits affect what planetary features appear. These traits will give varying bonuses and penalties. In the late game, players can unlock technologies to make once-uninhabitable planets habitable.
jackswift, intraloper: Has the ship combat evolved from the previous installments? If so, what new mechanics or features should we expect? Can we expect some control or tactics this time? Also, will it be possible to inflict damage to individual components which could lead to some interesting results like drifting capital ships with smashed up engines?
Ray: We have a new combat system that we are planning for after the alpha. But we don’t want to mislead people – Galactic Civilizations isn’t about fighting long tactical battles. You are controlling a civilization that spans the galaxy and your focus is on producing and placing your fleets, not in giving every order in a battle. We want to keep players engaged at the empire level and fighting for planets and systems, not in ship to ship combat.
Sotiris, Happy Corner: Can we expect the AI in this version to be at the same standards as the previous one, considering that there’s multiplayer now? In other words, is it safe to assume that the single-player will not just be a glorified tutorial for multiplayer?
Ray: We fully expect the majority of our players to play Galactic Civilizations III single-player. Our focus is in making the single-player game great and then adding multiplayer on top of that. As such, AI is a huge focus for us and having the AI programmer for Galactic Civilizations II (Brad Wardell) back and programming the AI for Galactic Civilizations III is a huge advantage.
trix62, Wodzu: GalCiv2 was one of my favorite space games. I understand GalCiv3 will be 64 bit only. I use Windows Vista with 4 GB RAM. I’m using a fairly old computer. In my opinion these types of games do not need a huge graphics upgrade. I do not understand the reason behind this. Why do you need more than 3.5 GB RAM for this game? For what exactly?
Ray: Players tend to assume that FPS games have higher system requirements than strategy games because in on the screen looks better in an FPS game (close-up, high-res objects). They may incorrectly assume that the computer has to have what is on the screen in memory. In an FPS that is somewhat true; the game has stored what is in the player’s immediate vicinity and then it caches new areas when the player moves around. Since the game can predict the small environment the player has immediate access to, it doesn’t need to load up the entire world and can instead load a small sample of high res objects. If the player does “jump around” (think of quick traveling in Skyrim) a load screen is presented because the game didn’t have the new location’s assets in memory and ready to go.
In a strategy game the entire world (or in our case galaxy) is in memory. If you clicked on another area on the minimap and saw a loading screen you would throw your computer out the window. We have to load up the entire world and every asset in that world so that it’s ready to go if the player clicks the minimap or pans around. So memory is a major factor for a strategy game and something that Stardock has had to make hard decisions about with all of its titles. There are often things we would love to do that simply can’t be done because of memory concerns.
That leaves us with two options. Either we make a 32-bit game and add some additional options for players that are running 64-bit (maybe they have access to larger maps or better ship textures), or we make a game from the bottom up that is intended to be a 64-bit game and is never compromised for memory concerns. These can be very low-level engine decisions, including giving the AI plenty of memory to work with the cache data and plot against the humans.
Laird: Will there be any RPG elements? Specifically, named agents, governors, admirals, generals, etc?
Ray: There are some parts of the game that borrow from RPG conventions: designing your ships, improving your stats through access to new techs, improving planets, etc. But at its heart Galactic Civilizations III is a 4X game, not an RPG.
towerbooks3192, Ivan: Invasions. What would be the invasion mechanics in GalCiv3? Will the series be adding land units other than ships, or what will be the mechanics for planetary invasion this time? And, bombardment. Will there be a way to bombard enemy colonies without impacting the population? Or any other way to deny a colony with purely space combat ships (some kind of blockade option)?
Ray: We have a new planetary invasion system in the works, but we don’t want to comment on it until we are confident that the design is solid enough to share.
towerbooks3192, Adam Solo: Will there be a faction creator – with a points and tradeoffs system perhaps – and a chance to make a backstory for your faction similar to Fallen Enchantress?
Ray: Our developers have gone to great lengths to make sure that players will be able to make their own factions similarly to what they love in Galactic Civilizations II.
Fishy, SQW, Chuki792, intraloper, xadar: Research. How does research work in GalCiv3 compared to GalCiv2? Any extra features or major changes? Will there be randomized tech trees so you don’t bee-line to the same tech every time and get something a bit unexpected? Also, will each tech in the tech tree have its own icon or some sort of art? Something a la Deadlock: The Planetary Conquest maybe? You don’t see much art in tech trees these day.
Ray: The research tree is something that is currently being overhauled. Short answer: it’s going to be different but familiar, and we’re confident that it’ll be a huge improvement over Galactic Civilizations II.
xadar: Resources. Will there be exotic resources with some specific use (art, rare metals, anti matter, gas isotopes…) or just credits?
Ray: Different resources exist on the map and are used for a variety of purposes, primarily the pursuit of optimum efficiency in creating ex-Drengin (or Terrans, or whomever).
Happy Corner: How much would the expansion packs cost? Will there be at least two, like with GalCiv2? You say you have some “big plans” for expansions, but some actual numbers might help make that Founder’s Elite option look like a better deal.
Ray: Right now we’re putting 110% of our effort into making the base game awesome.
TanC: I see that you’re planning on using Steam and Steamworks. Do you have plans for a non-Steam version?
Ray: No. A huge majority of our fans enjoy playing on Steam and having it hooked up through Steam allows us to easily take advantage of Steam’s features (achievements, multiplayer, etc.). We tried providing a Steam and non-Steam version of Fallen Enchantress and hardly anyone used the non-Steam version.
eleazar, Kordanor: Will there be a boxed version? If yes, at what price (compared to the digital versions)? And, with which content? Oh, and will there be Mac support this time?
Ray: There are no plans for a boxed version. American players have largely moved away from buying their games in physical stores (it’s more common in Europe). We really enjoy being all-digital; it means we can adjust our dates when needed (we don’t have to release on a specific day just because a contract we signed with Wal-mart says that will be our day) and it’s much easier to get updates to our players. It also allows us to focus on making the game and not manufacturing, shipping, store contracts, etc.
Adam Solo: What will you say are the most significant innovations from GalCiv2?
Ray: Our most important criteria is that this be the best version of Galactic Civilizations. But we are excited by the addition of the new culture system, map hexes, multiplayer, the new battle system, and interstellar terrain as well as the long list of refinements to every aspect of the game.
To be continued…
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Post category: Interviews10 years ago
Trump says that Bush got the US into a war with Iraq using lies.
(CNN) - Business mogul Donald Trump told CNN Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have sought to impeach President Bush when she had the chance.
In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Trump said the president and his administration deliberately lied about the Iraq war, and congressional Democrats missed an opportunity to impeach him when the party took control of Congress in 2006.
Watch the full interview on The Situation Room at 4 and 6 p.m. ET.
"I was surprised that she didn't do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush," Trump said. "It was almost - it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing."
Pressed why he feels Bush deserved the punishment faced by only two other commanders-in-chief, Trump said the president misled the country in the run-up to the Iraq war, and that his actions were considerably more objectionable than those which led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.
"He lied. He got us into the war with lies," Trump said. And I mean - look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense. And yet Bush got us into this horrible war with lies, by lying, by saying they had weapons of mass destruction, by saying all sorts of things that turned out not to be true."
In the wide-ranging interview set to air on CNN's The Situation Room at 4 and 6 p.m. Wednesday, Trump also praised John McCain and said the Arizona senator still has a chance to win the White House despite recent polls showing he is substantially trailing Barack Obama.
Watch: I'd hire McCain, says Trump
"He's a very smart guy, he's a tough guy," he said. "I think he'd be a great president. But, he has to be John McCain and he could still probably pull it out. But, it's going to be tough."
Trump also advised the Republican presidential nominee to stay positive at Wednesday's final presidential debate and communicate clear plans to fix the nation's financial crisis.
"He has to come up with plans and not political plans, real plans. And they have to be very, very economy-based," Trump said. " I think the economy seems to be weighing down everything."
Trump praised Republican VP Sarah Palin, whom he first met Tuesday night at a New York fundraiser, and said he would trust her to run the economy.
"I can only go by the people of Alaska," she said. "She's got the highest rating in the whole Unites States, as being the most popular governor."Pro Baseball Has Doping. Amateur Softball Has... Hot Bats
Enlarge this image toggle caption Rick Paulas Rick Paulas
Amateur slow-pitch softball would seem to be a low-stakes game. A bunch of friends join a league, take some swings, run the bases and retire to the dugout for postgame beers. At best, there might be a plastic trophy for the winners.
But there's a dark and dangerous side to this pleasant pastime: hot bats.
"A hot bat is any bat that has been somewhat altered in order to give it an added performance," says Rick Paulas, who plays softball and investigated the devious practice recently for SB Nation. "Essentially you are constructing the bat in a manner that produces a higher exit velocity than was initially intended by the bat manufacturers."
Paulas writes that hot bats make a serious difference in performance — and they're nearly impossible to detect.
In a conversation with NPR's Rachel Martin, he offers a glimpse of the seedy underbelly — nay, the seething underworld — of a favorite easygoing pastime.
Interview Highlights
How bat doctors do it
The most common thing that bat doctors will do is this thing called "bat shaving," where they will take off the top of the bat, which is called the end cap. Inside of the bat is hollow, too — that's something to keep in mind. And what they do is they put the bat in sort of like a metal lathe, and they will shave the inside.
This does two things: It makes it a lighter bat, so that it's an easier swing, and also what it does is it creates this thing called a "trampoline effect," where when the ball hits the end of the bat, the ball will actually compress the bat slightly and then it will kind of boomerang back like a trampoline. That's where the trampoline effect comes from.
On the dangers of a hot bat
This is sort of where we get into the biggest problem with bat doctoring — is that [the ball] does go further, which is one thing. But what happens is that it exits the bat with this velocity.... The pitcher, who is kind of the person most in danger because of their placement on the field, they kind of have no time to react to these balls.
That's sort of like the worst-case scenario on these things. Anywhere you play on the infield, there's the danger of getting hit with a ball. But as far as the pitcher's concerned, the balls are exiting at such a rate that a lot of times they can't even get out of the way if they wanted to. And sometimes, and this has happened a few times,... I've seen people get hit in the head and have to be carted off the field.
On whether it's cheating — and how to fix it
This is cheating! As far as the actual letter of the rules for the American Softball Association and a bunch of different softball organizations, at the very most, the bat can only have an exit velocity of 98 miles an hour, and these tinkered bats are getting upwards of 105-108 miles an hour....
The excuse that the bat doctors give is that if they're not doing it specifically, someone else is gonna do it. The excuse that the people using it kind of had is, you know: "The other team is doing the same thing |
passed an ordinance on Thursday.
The surcharge, which goes into effect starting next October, will range from ¥200 to ¥1,000 per night for each traveler, set at a rate based on the cost of the room.
Tokyo and Osaka Prefecture have previously imposed a similar tax but only on accommodations that charge more than ¥10,000 per night. The Kyoto ordinance is the nation’s first to include private lodging businesses.
But some areas in Kyoto have several unauthorized private lodging businesses — so imposing the tax equitably could be a challenge for the city.
In 2016, about 55 million people visited the former capital, which now faces such problems as traffic jams and noise pollution.
The city expects to raise close to ¥4.56 billion a year by taxing travelers, with the revenue slated for use to promote tourism.
According to the city, there were 2,479 lodging facilities operating in Kyoto as of the end of September, of which 77 percent are guest houses and other boarding houses.
Due to the increasing number of foreign tourists, the city faces a chronic shortage of accommodations. Some 1.1 million people are staying in illegal private lodging facilities annually, according to one estimate.
In July, the Diet enacted a law that allows property owners across Japan to rent out vacant homes or rooms to tourists after notifying municipalities.
As the law will come into force in July next year, Kyoto is considering setting its own regulations to create a system for collecting taxes. It may designate intermediary agencies between travelers and lodging service providers to collect the taxes.Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press
FREDERICTON -- A New Brunswick judge has reserved decision on whether a cross-border beer battle with possible national implications for interprovincial trade can be appealed directly to the province's highest court.
Provincial government lawyers are seeking leave to appeal the April ruling that effectively threw out limits on cross-border alcohol imports.
Justice Margaret Larlee of the Court of Appeal must decide if the case can skip a hearing at Court of Queen's Bench and go directly to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.
Crown lawyer Kathryn Gregory told the court Thursday that arguing the case again at the Court of Queen's Bench level would be redundant.
"We felt this was an appropriate case to go directly to the Court of Appeal," she said. "Leave should be granted in cases where there are issues of a national significance."
Defence lawyer Ian Blue agreed, adding that going to the Court of Queen's Bench would add a lot of expense for his client and tie up the resources of the courts.
Blue said the case has broad public importance and would likely end up in the Court of Appeal at some point anyway.
"If the decision is upheld, it will have implications across the country," he told the court.
Blue said his client does not oppose having the case go to the Court of Appeal.
Provincial court Judge Ronald LeBlanc tossed out all charges against Gerard Comeau, who was charged with illegally importing 14 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor from a Quebec border town in October 2012.
Beer near the border in Quebec is about half the price charged in New Brunswick, but the Liquor Control Act prohibits anyone in New Brunswick from having more than 12 pints of beer that wasn't purchased through a liquor store in the province.
Comeau was under surveillance by the RCMP and was arrested and charged under section 134(b) of the Liquor Control Act after he drove over the J.C. Van Horne bridge back into Campbellton, N.B.
The defence argued that section 134(b) of the Liquor Control Act is not an enforceable provincial law because it constitutes a trade barrier that is contrary to section 121 of the Constitution Act, 1867 which states: "All articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces," and is therefore unenforceable.
In his lengthy decision, Judge LeBlanc cited the words of Canada's founders, saying they never intended that laws should blatantly block the free flow of goods within the new country.
The Crown argues the judge erred in his legal interpretation of both the Constitution Act and the Liquor Control Act.
Outside the court, Blue said the case needs to have a complete debate because of its potential to have an impact across Canada.
"Provincial liquor monopolies are at stake. It means that provincial marketing boards may not be constitutional, and a lot of things the provinces do to protect their own citizens may not be constitutional. All this is to be worked out," Blue said.
The Crown lawyers declined comment outside court, but Blue said he expects the case will eventually have to be determined before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Justice Larlee said she would try to have her decision soon, but did not set any date.× Gov. Brown Signs Bill Ending Lifetime Registration for Some Sex Offenders
Thousands of Californians will be allowed to take their names off the state’s registry of sex offenders as a result of action Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown signed legislation that, when it takes effect Jan. 1, will end lifetime listings for lower-level offenders judged to be at little risk of committing new crimes.
The measure was introduced at the request of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey and other law enforcement officials who said the registry, which has grown to more than 105,000 names, is less useful to detectives investigating new sex crimes because it is so bulky.
“California’s sex offender registry is broken, which undermines public safety,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced the bill. “SB 384 refocuses the sex offender registry on high-risk offenders and treats low-level offenders more fairly.”
Read the full story on LATimes.com.If you’re following the development of Angular 2 at least a little bit, you’ve probably noticed that things are moving very fast. This, of course, is due to the fact that Angular 2 is in beta and if there’s one thing moving super fast, it’s Software. Angular 1 is also rapidly evolving and it seems almost impossible to keep track of all the things that are happening in both, the development but also in the community of Angular.
You might have also heard about the thoughtram blog or maybe even read one or two articles over there. At thoughtram, we write about Angular 2 almost every second week to share the latest knowledge we gained. However, we want to provide a channel where you can get updates on the latest and greatest even faster. This is where 5thingsAngular comes into play.
Short and to the point
The idea behind 5thingsAngular is to provide you weekly updates about Angular. We’ll be publishing updates on 5 things about the latest development, things that are happening in the community, but also updates to the official documentation of Angular.
There’ll be no long in-depth articles, you need to head over to thoughtram’s blog for that. It’s all about the 5 things we think are the most important ones you need to know, if you want to follow what’s going on in Angular-Land. Short descriptions, links to repositories, commits, pull requests and documentation. Just the stuff you need.
This is an experiment
As you can see, there’s no fancy design, no facebook page, no custom domain, not even a logo! We do have some ideas regarding design and everything, but before we put too much effort into this project, we first want to find out if people are actually interested in this. The more people subscribe, the more energy we’ll put into this!
In fact you can start right away. Go to the start page and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, or follow @5thingsAngular on Twitter.
The first issue with updates will be published very soon!
Cheers,
PascalJust had my Disney exchange gift hand delivered to my door, with the package instructing "Do not bend." I thought poster, picture, something like that.
I hadn't given my match much to go on, other than the fact that I work at Disneyland, so I didn't really want anything you could get inside the park. I never expected anything close to what I received. My gifter had sent me a message when it shipped saying they couldn't include a personal message, but they did a little investigating on me, and were pretty excited about what they found. I was intrigued :)
So back to today...I opened the package, and it was a vintage Snow White flour sack! I literally started crying, I kid you not. I am a cake decorator, and I'm currently in the process of getting my bakery business off the ground! I am so amazed my match was able to get me something so meaningful! I am headed out to get it framed today!Man charged with DUI sued by family of man killed in Lyons crash
The family of Melrose Park man killed in an October crash is suing the alleged intoxicated driver that slammed into him as he drove in west suburban Lyons.
On Oct. 9, Jordan Michalak, of Berwyn, was driving north on First Avenue when he collided with a vehicle headed south as it made a left turn onto 44th Place, according to Lyons police.
Vincent Neri, 62, of Melrose Park, and 60-year-old William Molthop of Roselle were in the vehicle making the turn, police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said. Both were killed in the crash.
Michalak, who was seriously injured, was charged with two counts of DUI and two counts of reckless homicide, police said. He was denied bond and ordered held at the Cook County Jail.
Neri’s family filed the lawsuit Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, according to court documents. The suit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.Spread the love
Picture this. A sergeant with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) calls another police officer to a local gas station because his vehicle is big enough to transport two brothers who’d just been arrested. When officer Timothy James arrived to lend a helping hand to his fellow boy in blue, he decided he’d give a knuckle sandwich to one of the teenaged suspects in the back of his squad car.
He repeatedly punched one of the arrested and handcuffed teens, a 17-year-old child, in the face. According to the reports, James climbed into the back seat of his patrol car, where the teens were waiting and handcuffed, and began punching one of the brothers in the face. The sergeant saw it all from his own patrol car and then, like a good cop is supposed to do, he arrested James.
Jesus Campos, the eldest brother, said, “I hope my brother’s all right,” and added, “I never thought this would happen to my brothers.” As of this story’s publication, he still did not know how his brother was doing, following the reported attack.
The damning part of this story is that it’s not the first time James has been arrested by his own police force. It’s the second time — inside a month. But that’s not all. In fact, this model cop has already killed a pedestrian with his squad car too. And while JCSO is prohibited from discussing his priors, investigative reporters with First Coast News uncovered his personnel file, which reveal the officer’s sordid work history.
On at least 10 different occasions, James has been in violation of departmental policy. Killing pedestrians and beating handcuffed kids is not the upper limit of this cop’s corrupt ability. In April, he’s alleged to have spit on and abused a mentally ill man at UF Health, the University of Florida hospital.
Undersheriff Pat Ivey, all but confirmed James to be at the center of the investigation which occured at the hospital by discussing the incident which took place at the hospital in the same press conference as the one which addressed James’ arrest.
In May, James hit and killed a pedestrian and was ordered to undergo counseling. Attorney John Phillip is representing the victim’s family and openly wondered when informed of James’ arrest if he was “psychologically cleared” to return to duty.
Officer Timothy James has been charged with “Battery” in the beating incident, but has not been fired, which would be standard procedure for most occupations and professions wherein an employee assaulted someone while on the job. Instead, he’s on paid administrative leave, stripped of his officer’s privileges, and has been relegated to desk duty should he desire to work while the investigation takes place.
In all, James has been involved in disciplinary actions on at least 10 separate occasions from violations of the department’s social media rules to a firearms violation. It’s unclear if the latest abuse of power/excessive force battery charge will be enough to end his career or if he’ll be allowed return to the profession which has, so far, permitted him to abuse the citizenry with impunity.
James’ case highlights what we at TFTP have concluded. Police officers routinely abuse their authority, often kidnapping, caging, and killing innocent civilians in the line of duty. Rarely do they see prosecution.
Instead, like James, they’re given “administrative leave” which simply allows them to have a paid vacation long enough to be hired at another department or retire before facing consequences. We call these officers “Gypsy Cops.”
They travel from one department to the other abusing people, never answering for their crimes. To the sergeant who arrested James, we salute you.The Iowa Department of Education in September released the final draft of the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability plan required under the new federal law. In case you were not aware, ESSA is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The previous version of ESEA was No Child Left Behind (NCLB) that passed under President George W. Bush, and it went several years without being reauthorized until ESSA was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December of 2015.
The law authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Education to approve or reject each state’s plan.
I had the opportunity to read Iowa’s ESSA accountability plan this week and wanted to share five concerns.
1. I hate the very idea of the ESSA state plan.
This has nothing to do with the Iowa Department of Education. When Congress was debating ESSA and Republicans promised this was going to provide more flexibility for states and return local control a lot of us knew better. Since ESSA required states to submit plans to the U.S. Department of Education we have yet another instance of states coming to the federal government and asking “mother, may I?”
The U.S. Department of Education has already shown that state flexibility is a myth by rejecting some plans. I wrote at Truth in American Education about this:
The state accountability system must follow ESSA’s required structure. That is not flexibility, and it certainly is not local control.
2. It doubles down on standards and accountability reforms.
ESSA requires assessments and state standards. Advocates will be quick to tell you that it does not require Common Core. It doesn’t in so many words, but as a requirement of the ESSA, states must “demonstrate” to the Secretary that they have adopted standards that align to the same definition of “college and career” standards used to force states into adopting Common Core under NCLB waivers (ESEA section 1111(b)(1) and (2) and 34 CFR §§ 200.1−200.8).
The Iowa Department of Education mentions in its plan that two components of their Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), which is also known as Response to Intervention, are “Assessment and Data-Based Decision Making” and “Evidence-Based Universal Instruction.” They describe this as part of the state’s support for educators, (pg. 5):
Assessment and Data-Based Decision-Making. This includes training on the implementation, interpretation, and use of assessment results to support educators to make appropriate instructional decisions. This also includes understanding data-based decision-making practices at both the system and student level. Evidence-Based Universal Instruction. This includes standards-based instruction, resources, professional learning on Iowa Academic Standards and the building blocks that create the infrastructure for universal instruction, as well as research/evidence-based instructional practices to meet the needs of all students.
First, the assessment results do not come quickly enough to help teachers make adjustments, at least not for the students who are currently struggling. (We still have not seen the 2016-2017 Annual Yearly Progress.)
Second, I don’t think “data-based” means what they think it means because nothing that has been advocated by education reformers has been “data-based.” Same goes for “evidence-based” instruction since they use the Common Core State Standards (aka Iowa Academic Standards for math and ELA) that is the epitome of dataless reform.
MTSS just doubles down on reforms that are more faith-based than evidence-based. I’m all for faith-based initiatives when we’re talking about the Bible; when it involves education reforms, not so much.
Is it evidence-based? Show us the evidence!
3. The long-term goals are not ambitious.
On page 35 they have the table of baseline and long-term goals for Iowa’s students, as well as, specific goals for specific subgroups.
I want to address some concerns about what appears to be an inequity between goals for black students and white students. The goals are drastically different. I’m in an unusual position of defending the Iowa Department of Education here.
Let’s take 3rd graders as an example.
The baseline they list for all third graders from the 2015-2016 Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) is 76.0 percent for reading/language arts and 78.7 percent for math. These numbers represent the percentage of all Iowa’s third-graders who are proficient in reading/language arts and math (not an average test score). By the way, the baseline in the ESSA plan is too low as the 2015-2016 AYP for 3rd graders in reading was 76.9 percent (25,939 of 33,729 3rd graders tested proficient on the Iowa Assessments). I assume the current sample size used by the state of Iowa determined their baseline (the previous N-Size is >10, NCLB required >30, for ESSA accountability Iowa will use >20), but I digress.
The overall long-term goal for 3rd graders in the state is 78.5 for reading/language arts and 81.2 for math. This target set for the 2021-2022 school year represents 0.5 percent per year.
Now if you look at white third graders as a subgroup. Their baseline is 80.6 percent for reading/language arts and 83.2 percent for math. Their goals to reach by the 2021-2022 school year are 83.1 percent for reading/language arts and 85.7 percent for math representing a 0.5 percent growth each year.
When you look at black third-graders, 49.0 percent is the baseline from the 2015-2016 AYP in reading/language arts, and it is 49.4 percent for math. The goals for the 2021-2022 school year for black third-graders are 54.0 percent in reading/language arts and 54.4 percent for math representing one percent growth each school year.
This benchmark seems low, but you have to consider the subgroups started from vastly different baselines. It would not be realistic to start at the same level. Does this achievement gap suck? Yes, yes it does, which brings to my issue, as it relates to proficiency benchmarks for Iowa’s ESSA plan which is two-fold.
An expectation for one-half or one percent growth per school year is not ambitious. Common Core and the other magical education reform silver bullets bandied about are so incredible proficiency should increase faster than that. A difference in goals per school year with different subgroups is an artificial way to try to “close the achievement gap.”
If you set the bar low, then you have a better chance to show progress. You’ve heard the phrase “shoot for the moon, land on the outhouse.” (I used this as a catchphrase for organizational goal setting.) Well, the Iowa Department of Education is shooting for the outhouse.
Also, an obvious question we should ask is this – what is considered proficient? We already know what Iowa considered proficient with the Iowa Assessments (which many believe was set too low by the state because of NCLB), but what about the new assessment? We’ll have to see.
Under the state of Iowa’s definition of proficiency under the 2015-2016 AYP, 77.9 percent of 11th graders are proficient in reading/language arts, and 81.7 percent are proficient in math. ACT, however, reported only 31 percent of Iowa’s graduates are college-and-career ready. Houston, we have a problem.
4. Schools will be graded in-part based on the school environment.
The Conditions for Learning student survey, adapted from the more extensive Iowa Youth Survey (IYS), will be an indicator within the ESSA accountability index. The Conditions for Learning survey will by year three make up 18 percent of an elementary or middle school’s score for the accountability index; for high school, it will make up eight percent of their score.
The Iowa Youth Survey historically was given biannually to sixth, eighth, and 11th-grade students. The state plans to administer the Conditions for Learning survey to all students grades 5-12 according to the ESSA plan by 2019. The ESSA plan does not specify the distribution method or the exact questions, but it does say it will favor current IYS questions as they have data trends for those.
Some examples of the questions that could be used (rate how true):
“Students in this school respect each other’s differences (for example, gender, race, culture, learning differences, sexual orientation, etc.)”
“My teachers give me useful feedback on my work.”
“In the current school year, how many times have you filled out and turned in a Bullying/Harassment Report Form to this school?”
“I have received a threatening or hurtful message from another student in an e-mail, on a website, on a cell phone, from pager text messaging, in an internet chat room or in instant messaging.”
“There is at least one adult at school that I could go to for help with a problem.”
The larger IYS included behavior questions, and these questions are somewhat benign. My concern is that school environment surveys are subjective, so the scores making up 18 percent of an elementary school and middle school’s accountability rating score for ESSA is high. Also, we don’t know exactly what will be on that survey, if parents are notified when it is given, whether or not students will be allowed to opt-out, and who will get the student-level data.
I also shudder at the possibility the survey results could lead to new legislation and new mandates in order to improve Iowa’s schools’ environment.
5. There is no mention of an opt-out process.
Supposedly under ESSA states were able to outline an opt-out procedure. Iowa didn’t do that, and the Iowa Department of Education has not been forthcoming about whether parents can legally opt their children out.
No Child Left Behind required 95 percent participation, but that was a mandate for states and school districts, not for individual students. ESSA also requires 95 percent participation. The Iowa Department of Education has said Iowa Administrative Code (executive rules) Chapter 281-12 requires 100 percent participation. I find that humorous since I’ve read it and found no such mandate. Schools are mandated to administer one district-wide assessment annually, but nowhere in the Iowa Code or the Iowa Administrative Code does it say students are required to take the assessment.
Student participation accounts for 10 percent of a school’s ESSA accountability index score. It seems like it will be all or nothing so schools and the Iowa Department of Education will continue to pressure students to take the assessment and mislead parents about their right to opt-out.
Conclusion:
I could write more, but this article is already longer than I planned. In a nutshell, what I see from Iowa under the new ESSA accountability plan is more of the same – a continuation to be a follower of educrat groupthink that has not served students or parents well.Tom Foley, the Republican candidate for governor in Connecticut, showed up at a closing paper mill company on Tuesday to spotlight the failed economic policies of the man he is hoping to replace.
But what seemed like a fairly easy-to-execute campaign stop turned into an uncomfortable confrontation when a Democratic state senator, workers at the mill and supporters of Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) commandeered the press conference. In the course of trying to put the loss of 140 jobs at Malloy’s feet, Foley ended up telling attendees (which included a manager at the Fusion Paperboard mill) that it was their own fault the mill closed.
From The Connecticut Mirror:
“You want to blame people who are hundreds or thousands of miles away, malign management,” Foley told the workers and First Selectwoman Cathy Osten, a Democratic state senator and Malloy supporter. “Listen, you have failed, because you have lost these jobs.”
The video of the encounter is worth a watch, even at 30 minutes, or watch where the encounter really went south in the clip above.
The backstory of the mill’s closure is not as simple as a company losing money, which explains, in part, why it proved so tricky to mold it into a political attack. The private investment firm that owns Fusion decided it was more profitable to sell the mill’s assets to a competitor rather than keep the mill operational. Malloy has passed a tax increase in Connecticut that Foley says is to blame for the mill’s closure. But the governor also oversaw a $2 million state loan to the company in September 2013, and the state was prepared to write another $1 million check. The loan required Fusion to stay instate for 10 years. Now that it is leaving, it will have to repay the balance plus a 7.5 percent penalty.
So while there probably is some vulnerability for Malloy here, it’s not exactly a clean hit. Foley certainly proved that. The Mirror summarized how badly it backfired when it tried to get a comment from Malloy’s campaign.
Mark Bergman, the spokesman for the Malloy campaign, had come to defend the governor. But when the news conference finally ended, Bergman just smiled, shook his head and told reporters he had nothing to add.
Want more updates from Sam? Sign up for his newsletter, Spam Stein.WNBA Star Brittney Griner And Girlfriend Arrested Following Fight At Arizona Home Share
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WNBA star Brittney Griner and her girlfriend were arrested yesterday for assault and disorderly conduct following a fight in the couple’s Arizona home, police report.
Griner, 24, and fiancee Glory Johnson, a fellow WNBA player, were busted after cops were called to their Phoenix residence Wednesday afternoon. Griner and Johnson each suffered minor injuries during the fight.
Griner, seen in the above mug shot, and Johnson, 24, were booked into the Maricopa County jail, from which they were released early today.
The 6’ 8” Griner stars for the Phoenix Mercury, while Johnson plays for the Tulsa Shock. The couple had been planning to get married next month.
As a result of her arrest, Griner now joins dozens of other top athletes in TSG’s mug shot Hall of Shame.Larva of a hookworm (Ancylostomatidae)(Photo by Agency-Animal-Picture/Getty Images)
Researchers at George Washington University hope to develop a vaccine to prevent an infection that is afflicting more than half a billion people around the world.
“This is one of the neglected tropical diseases that has the highest impact on health globally,” said David Diemert, an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine, who has been working with colleagues for more than a decade hoping to eradicate the effects of the hookworm parasite.
There’s just one problem: To effectively study the hookworm, researchers need healthy people in D.C. to volunteer to let the parasites burrow into their skin and live deep inside their bodies for several months.
“I tried my best to explain to people,” why they should volunteer, said Anna Markowitz, who has almost completed her master’s degree in public health at GW and stepped up to take part in the study. “But when you tell them that you’re in a clinical trial in which you inoculate yourself with parasites that will suck on your blood through your intestines, people aren’t too interested.”
It’s a common problem for scientists: They have questions. They have ideas – some of them brilliant. But when it comes time to test those ideas out in the real world, people just aren’t breaking down the doors to be their guinea pigs.
“I think most people in the community know that researchers greatly benefit from monetary donations,” said Jennifer Coughlin, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who helps develop molecular imaging techniques to study brain disease. “But it is equally important that we not only study diseased participants but study healthy participants so that we have a comparative cohort.”
It can be tough to find those participants, even though they often are paid for their time.
At GW, their feasibility study – a step before a massive clinical trial – has gone through the usual rigorous internal and external evaluations. Still, here they are, ready to start with a second group of volunteers – except they don’t have 10 people signed up yet.
“Obviously, I’m kind of a weirdo to agree to do this,” Markowitz said.
Host parasites? Sure. Give blood samples? Why not? Bring in stool samples every week? No problem!
And for a lucky few: Endoscopy!
People agree for a variety of reasons: An interest in global health. Compassion. A commitment to medical research. A desire to help children living in rural poverty. A sick curiosity. Cash.
Markowitz’s friend, Patrick Prodey, a student at American University, was drawn to the weekly payments. “But on a philosophical level, I like the idea of challenging stigmatized things. When people would freak out – ‘Why do you have hookworms?!’ – I’d say, ‘Look, dude, I’m asymptomatic. This is helping solve an issue. And I’m getting paid for it.’”
He knows the basics: There are many people in developing countries who get infected — typically by stepping in something barefoot — and some suffering insidious but serious damage to their brains and growth over the years.
The medicine to treat the infection only gets to about half of those who need it in such places, and it has to be re-administered every year.
Diemert and another faculty member in GW’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Jeffrey Bethony, working with the Sabin Vaccine Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, believe prevention is within reach.
“What is being argued here?” Prodey said, when people are shocked that he volunteered. “‘That’s yucky, that’s scary, that’s gross?’ That doesn’t make any sense.”
It does make a little bit of sense though. After all, the risks had been explained, the consent forms had been signed, and the volunteers sat for an hour with a gauze patch taped to their arms. Each patch carried 25 hookworm larvae, which quickly began burrowing their way into the people’s skin, headed for the intestines.
Prodey’s arm began to itch under the gauze, which he knew he shouldn’t touch, and he couldn’t help but think: Yuck.
Markowitz is pretty sure she just imagined the sensation that they were worming into her arm. But for days afterward she woke up scratching at the rash that lingered at the site.
Twenty-two of the larvae on her patch went in, and she named each of them – Elvis, Jemimah, and so on.
When doing some research on the Internet, she found a picture of a hookworm; someone had added cartoonish fangs and googly eyes. She found it reassuring — see, this is funny, not repulsive!
She and her friends didn’t have fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, any real gastrointestinal distress. Prodey found collecting the stool samples “laughably awkward” and the matching Cool-Whip-like containers and little lunch bags they were given for carrying them to the hospital ridiculous. “They were like, ‘It will be inconspicuous on the Metro!’”
One day, all three friends had their appointments at the same time, he said, and they walked along, swinging their identical bags: “We look like we’re all involved in some weird lunchbox cult.”
Markowitz liked the regular appointments; she gets dropped from her mom’s health-insurance plan next month when she turns 26, so she thought it was a great benefit to constantly have her blood pressure and temperature and whatnot monitored. If she felt a little sick, rather than waiting forever to get an appointment, she sailed right in — and not only was it free, she was getting paid to be there.
Since they kept journals of any possible symptoms, she was very aware of her body and her health. All of that freaked Prodey out a little; he doesn’t like hospitals and overthinks things, so when they asked him if he was “extra flatulent” — a common side effect — he went into a spiral of wondering if he was and wishing he wasn’t thinking about it.
“Mostly I was digging it,” he said. “Getting $75 a week for showing up at an office once a week for 20 minutes max.”
Markowitz’s roommate would flash his “worm money,” a prepaid Visa card, at restaurants like a high roller to make her laugh. Markowitz earned almost $1,400, in part because she was selected at random for a capsule endoscopy. “That was totally my favorite part of it,” she said.
At the GW office where it was done, the staff was a little surprised: “This was the first time they’d ever seen someone so enthused for a procedure like this.”
After fasting for a day, then drinking something to flush out her system, she said, she went back to the doctor’s office in the morning “to swallow a pill with a camera in it. There was a big Walkman-like thing strapped around my abdomen. The pill was traveling through my intestines – about eight hours to go through the small intestine – and sending pictures back. I felt like the bionic woman with this flashing thing on me and a camera in my body. What a cool perk! I got to see pictures of my intestine!”
Needless to say, now she’s a zealot, trying to convince people to get in on this. “I felt good, knowing that I did what I could to help,” she said.
Prodey wants to try other clinical trials; he heard rumors about one testing how astronauts’ muscles atrophy during long space expeditions, and wondered if he could handle being part of a control group lying in bed for a year.
All things considered, yep.
“I don’t know where the line will be,” he said, but if he finds other studies, “I’m sure I’ll bump into it.”
At the end of the 12-week trial, they took the medicine known to wipe out the hookworms.
“We were all a little upset,” Markowitz said. “Our babies were gone. We had hosted them for a month – and suddenly, they were gone.”
[In Brazil, field trials to treat the world’s poor for hookworm.]Introducing the 2017 Order of the Arrow Hackathon
By Chuck Coutteau
Are you an Arrowman interested in computers, web development, or technology? Then you will probably be interested in the 2017 Order of the Arrow Hackathon taking place in sunny California this upcoming October. But what exactly is a Hackathon?
The use of the word “Hackathon” in mainstream culture has skyrocketed due to its increasing popularity in the world of technology. Simply put, a Hackathon is an event, typically lasting several days, in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming and create something new.
The Order of the Arrow will be holding its first Hackathon the weekend of October 6-8, 2017, and is inviting any youth or adult Arrowmen interested in technology to come contribute. Arrowmen from around the country will converge onto the Intel Office in Sacramento, CA, joining forces with Intel Engineers armed with the latest technology to create new and innovative solutions. Whether you are interested in web development, mobile development, database infrastructure, mobile apps, or anything else, the Order of the Arrow is interested in your help in shaping our technological resources.
As an attendee, you will have 24 hours to hack together new tools for the Order of the Arrow, including (but not limited to) the national registration system, LodgeMaster, and the OA Mobile App. 2016 National Vice Chief and aspiring Electrical Engineer Tyler Inberg commented on why an Arrowman should attend this event: "If you've been looking for opportunities in the Order of the Arrow to expand your technological experiences, provide groundbreaking technological advances around the organization, or create the next big thing to be used across the nation, here's your chance! The National Technology Committee is putting on an OA Hackathon that will allow you to put your skills and ideas to the test and work with brand new software and hardware! This is an event unlike anything the OA has ever put on so if you're interested, you'll definitely want to check it out and sign up fast so you can be a part of the innovation and drive that pushes our technology into the next century!"
To reserve your spot at this exclusive event, simply register by clicking here. The prices range from $100 (fold out sofa bed), $125 (double bed), and $150 (king bed) and include transportation provided from the Sacramento International Airport (SMF). Sign up now and be sure to book your plane ticket soon. See you in sunny Sacramento California on October 6-8, 2017!Fancy rat’s dumbo mutation and its manifestation in the skull
Domesticated rats, also known as fancy rats, are the exact same species as the wild ones: Rattus norvegicus. The process of domestication began in England around the 1800s and is attributed to Jack Black, the Royal Rat Catcher(AFRMA, 2015). Today having a rat as a pet is still frowned upon by many people, mostly because they are still associated with filth and diseases.
The fancy rat has been bred in order achieve different variations, which are basically rare mutations that have been made more common by breeding individuals with a set of genes that is more likely to produce said mutation. Some of these are as simple as different hair colours or different hair types(i.e. curly or longer hair) while others go beyond that like the tailless mutation which causes the rat to not grow a tail. One of the most common mutation that can be observed in fancy rat is the dumbo mutation. This mutation causes the rat’s ears to be positioned lower on the the head giving the rat a more |
or high priority issues and desired improvements
2017 Annual Rewards Program Content Release
Evaluating a Return to 8v8 Quick Play As outlined in the Production Update, the merits of 8v8 and 12v12 Quick Play match structures have long been a point of discussion both internally and within the community. While some additional work behind the scenes and continued feedback from the community are required before we move forward, a return to the 8v8 Quick Play match structure is currently under consideration. Initially, it is likely that Quick Play matches on the live servers will undergo a temporary switch to an 8v8 structure for a period of time in order for us - and you - to gather practical feedback on its impact. While we aren't yet prepared to set a specific time frame for this, you can expect more information in the very near future.
Upcoming 'Mechs
• Unannounced Inner Sphere Medium
• Unannounced Clan Light
• Unannounced Clan Medium
Special single-variant Patterns (December)
A new City Map (Early 2018)
Solaris Mode! (Spring 2018)
A complete Solaris Mode is planned for release in 2018! Players will rise in the ranks of the Solaris Games, facing off against other MechWarriors in 1v1/2v2 PvP engagements on maps designed specifically for the flair and scope of Solaris. On your path to becoming a renowned Solaris Pilot you'll expand your notoriety through victory in the arena and draw the attention of Patrons and additional Sponsors based on your performance.
Conveying the sense of fame and showmanship inherent with Solaris is a primary focus of this feature, leveraging existing and upcoming 'Mech customization features to make your 'Mechs stand out from the pack, enabling you to make your mark on the Solaris Games and become known throughout the Inner Sphere.
All 'Mechs in the game will be classified into a limited number of Solaris Divisions based on their most-optimized Loadouts specific to small engagements. Solaris Pilots will be matched within the Division of their current 'Mech; Division 1 'Mechs will only face off against other Division 1 'Mechs. On the Pilot-level, players will be matched according to standard Elo systems.
Spectating will be readily available within the Solaris feature for players who want to tune in to watch select matches featuring the most advanced Pilots the world of Solaris has to offer.
With lots of work ahead of us prior to the planned release of Solaris in 2018 you can look forward to more information about Solaris and its features in the coming months, with the first sneak peek planned for public showing (and live streaming) at Mech_Con 2017!
Attendees will also get the unique chance to experience two brand new Solaris maps at our Mech_Con 1v1 Stations; House Davion's Boreal Reach arena and House Liao's Jungle arena.
Bolt-On Geometry
Part-and-parcel with the release of Solaris, 2018 will see the release of a new bolt-on geometry system for personalizing your 'Mechs. With this feature you'll be able to equip purely cosmetic pieces of distinct geometry onto your 'Mech at pre-determined locations.
These geometry pieces will not contribute to the hitbox of your 'Mech or impact the way in which your 'Mech takes enemy fire; when hit by incoming fire these pieces will simply be destroyed, with your 'Mech taking appropriate damage to any struck components as normal.
First-Person MechBay
Currently planned to roll out alongside Solaris, 2018 will bring with it the ability for you to step onto the ground floor of your MechBay and view your currently-selected 'Mech up close. We'd like to stress that this feature is relatively narrow in scope, aimed simply at enabling you to view your 'Mechs at proper scale with all the glory of your Loadout and customizations on display. This first-person view will not include a walking pilot model, and at least upon its initial release, the MechBay is not expected to support any customization features.
New Supply Cache system
Also currently planned to release alongside Solaris, the current Supply Cache system will be undergoing significant revisions aimed at making the Caches more accessible and more rewarding.
Rather than viewing the contents of each Cache prior to opening, and then receiving only one of the included items, the new system is geared at providing you with all the items within the Cache but without the ability to see its contents prior to opening. We will also be phasing out the Supply Cache Key system altogether; if you have a Cache in your inventory you'll simply be able to open it and get the goods, with no key or additional requirement needed.
You can expect more details regarding the new Cache system, along with details regarding the transition from the existing Cache and Key system to the new Supply Cache system, as we near its release next year.Former England coach Fabio Capello says the team would have gone further at Euro 2012 had he still been in charge.
Capello, whose England team lost in the second round at the 2010 World Cup, resigned in February after the FA removed John Terry as captain.
Roy Hodgson's England reached the Euro 2012 quarter-finals and Capello, now coach of Russia, said: "If I were with your guys it would've been even better.
"I'd worked there for four years and after what happened I wanted to stop."
Terry lost the England captaincy while awaiting trial on allegations he racially abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, which he was cleared of earlier this month.
Capello's managerial career AC Milan - 1987, 1991-96
- 1987, 1991-96 Real Madrid - 1996-97
- 1996-97 AC Milan - 1997-98
- 1997-98 Roma - 1999-2004
- 1999-2004 Juventus - 2004-06
- 2004-06 Real Madrid - 2006-07
- 2006-07 England - 2007-12
- 2007-12 Russia - 2012
"We had qualified for the finals and it was only the John Terry story that meant I couldn't go to the finals," said 66-year-old Capello, who presided over 42 matches as England boss, winning 28, losing six and drawing eight.
"On that issue with the English (FA), with my contract, it was put down on paper that the decision as to who would be captain should be made only by the coach. It was down on paper, in the contract, in black and white.
"Every national coach works for two years towards a goal - that is the ambition of every coach - but I was not given the opportunity to fight for the Euros with England.
"When you are told this is the goal... if you are always interfered with, you don't feel well. You feel ill at ease. I wanted to be the main guy with the national team again and to take a team to Brazil. I wanted that again."As a woman in China, once you approach your mid to late twenties, the pressure to marry comes at you from all angles. The tradition of women marrying young and marrying up in society is reflected in government messages, parental badgering, concern of friends, and probably lingers in the smog.
China’s feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation, put out the following message, which gives a snapshot of the government’s attitude towards single adult women:
Many highly educated “leftover women” are very progressive in their thinking and enjoy going to nightclubs to search for a one-night stand, or they become the mistress of a high official or rich man. It is only when they have lost their youth and are kicked out by the man that they decide to look for a life partner. Therefore, most “leftover women” do not deserve our sympathy.
The term ‘leftover women’ refers to those over the age of 27, because, apparently, they are old, like “yellowed pearls.”
On top of government bullying, the outward desperation of some parents to find a match for their aging offspring makes their child’s single-status THE topic of conversation. Nagging their child and asking friends, even friends of friends, if they know of potential suitors become parents’ part-time jobs. This obsession manifests itself in a place known as “Marriage Market.” Each Sunday, in a section of People’s Park in Shanghai, parents publicly post profiles of their children in the hopes of ending their singledom ‘nightmare.’
In other words, being single in peace is just not an option.
The Chinese-governed version of the internet was established in 1994, an inevitability in an increasingly globalized world. Within China’s controlled information matrix exists its own sites and social networks, one of which is Taobao.com. Taobao is the Chinese version of Ebay, and home to the country’s rent-a-boyfriend phenomenon. When I discovered this online marketplace came with a chat feature, I knew my desire to understand the inner-workings of the rent-a-boyfriend experience could easily be fulfilled. I went to the source, and with the help of a translator, chatted many of the rent-a-boyfriends. Only a few were kind enough to help an overly inquisitive Internet presence like myself, and I quickly developed a favorite. He asked me to refer to him as Hu Hugui.
The first thing I noticed about Hu were the pictures he had hand-selected to showcase the product; all ‘selfies.’ His profile gives a pretty standard description of himself, his height (about 6 foot), weight (approximately 150 pounds), age (27), etc. He alludes to being on more of the artistic side through a comment about the “many visitors on his blog.” He quickly breaks down his prices: a base rate of 100 yuan a day (about $16), with add-on costs for chatting, eating out, drinking, shopping, and seeing parents.
In our exchanges, Hu told me that his own parents’ constant badgering for him to meet a special someone inspired the idea of renting himself out as a boyfriend. He thought, ‘if I have to go through this, I can only imagine what young women have to put up with.’ He explained he is single (if any ladies were wondering) because he just happens to be a self-proclaimed ‘rebellious type’ and that doesn’t give in to external pressure. Oh, Hu.
Hu has had a plethora of different rental experiences. His most common customer is a young career woman living in a city, who is required to visit her parents rural home on occasion. For these women, Hu is only needed to put on the boyfriend act once or twice a year, and the nuisance of her overbearing parents is eliminated. In some instances, however, a bit more is required of Hu.
One time, a woman messaged Hu asking him to fly to Beijing as soon as possible for an emergency situation. Hu was skeptical because women usually ask for detailed information about him prior to hiring, but she was willing to take him on the spot (which he attributed to his good looks). As soon as he agreed to meet her in Beijing, she wired him enough money to cover all of his travel expenses. When Hu told his friends about this unique employer, they predicted she was a human-trafficker and would sell him to a mafia-operated coalmine, but not before drugging him and stealing a kidney. But Hu, being good-old reliable Hu, went anyway.
As a quick aside: I know at this point some of you are asking, wouldn’t people expect online documentation of these relationships? How would you be able to pull this off? Skeptics, I researched this just for you. China has its own version of Facebook called ‘The Renren Network,’ but doesn’t have nearly the same kind of penetration. For instance, Facebook can boast use by over half the U.S. population, while Renren has a mere 31 million users for a country with over 1.3 billion people.
When Hu arrived in Beijing, he was met by his ‘girlfriend’ for the weekend (and not the Chinese mafia). She informed him that she had, until recently, been engaged to someone she dated for two years. She broke off the engagement after discovering he had been cheating on her. With Chinese New Year quickly approaching, she needed an immediate replacement so her parents could meet their son-in-law to be as scheduled. After rehearsing every detail, they headed straight to her parents’ house. The ‘couple’ spent three days wining and dining her parents. She made sure to jump in with details and funny anecdotes whenever his performance was lacking. To thank him for his service, she insisted on tipping him 2000 Yuan (about $320). When he arrived home and logged into his Taobao account, Hu was happy to find she had left him a rave review, and she was happy to have her parents off her back.
When I asked Hu if any of his ‘employers’ would be willing to speak with me, he was confident they would not. The possibility of me revealing their secret, and their parents finding out, was simply not worth the risk. With no female renters to chat with, I informed my translator Felix, a middle-aged man born and raised in China, that I no longer needed him to translate. Before we parted ways, I asked Felix what he thought of the pressure women face, and he replied with “men feel pressure too.” He explained that the gender imbalance that developed as a result of China’s one-child policy gives women an abundance of men to choose from, allowing them to be pickier than ever before. Since women are able to cherry-pick their spouses, men feel incredible pressure to impress. They are fighting tooth and nail to make money to seem appealing to the smaller population of women.
The rent-a-boyfriend phenomenon is an outcome of the meeting of opposing currents; China’s traditional views on marriage, and an increasing number of women marrying later in life in pursuit of other goals. Men like Hu are using this occurrence to earn money, but also to gain unique experiences within his society. But how do we make sense of this new societal trend? Is the recent demand for rent-a-boyfriends a sign that women remain buried under pressure to marry, or indicative of an increasingly empowered female population not succumbing to pressure?The Saharawi tent-city of Smara. Sarah Aziza
Najla’s childhood was a fairly typical one. She was raised on humanitarian rations and the meat of her family’s desert-toughened flocks. Depending on the time of year, Najla slept in the family tent, under the corrugated-tin roof of their hut, or stretched out beneath the stars. Najla left school after the ninth grade when her mother fell ill, but harbored hopes of returning to the classroom one day. Najla speaks with pride of the passionate commitment to education she inherited from her people: “At the beginning of the war, of course, they had no schools in the camps, but this was no excuse. They found a way. They started teaching, right there in the desert.” Najla’s mother was among those overseeing these ad-hoc classes, where a few precious, dog-eared books served as the curriculum for hundreds of students.
Najla was 17 when she heard that a free English school had opened in her camp. She was thrilled—and intimidated. “I’d always wanted to learn English, but it seemed impossible,” says Najla, speaking a decade later with ease and eloquence. She spent seven years as a student at Essalam English Center. Walking to school, she used the rare opportunity for solitude to practice English vocabulary under her breath. At home, she snuck glances at her class notes as she brewed tea, cleaned house, and tended to her toddling siblings. As she slowly grew more fluent, she began to consider where her new language abilities could take her. “I began to dream of studying in a college somewhere,” she says. “Maybe, I thought, maybe even the United States.”
A growing number of young people, like Najla, are growing dissatisfied with the entropic stalemate.
The improbability of her dream was clear from the start. “My family could never afford to send me,” says Najla, who is one of twelve children. Jobs are scarce in the camps, with most families relying on stipends from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees or relatives working abroad. Najla’s mother, Khadija, makes a small salary doing administrative work for schools, while her father, Mohamedlamin Salma, is unemployed. Meanwhile, Najla’s skills in English and Spanish landed her sporadic work as a translator for visiting delegations and journalists.
It was while translating that Najla caught the eye of several visiting American delegates. When they learned of her dream of studying in the United States, they helped Najla apply to community college and raise the $12,000 for tuition through a crowdfunding campaign. Beyond these steps, Najla was confronted with a final hurdle: obtaining a visa. For those like Najla—poor, stateless, North African—chances of being granted a visa to the United States are vanishingly small. Even so, Najla set a date for an interview at the American embassy in Algiers for March 2016, just a few weeks before she was scheduled to begin classes in Washington. Two anxious weeks later, when she learned she’d been granted the visa, Najla had little chance to celebrate—her flight to the U.S. was scheduled two days hence. With a few hasty goodbyes, Najla departed the camps, first northward to Algiers, then on a transatlantic flight bound west.
While Najla settled into her new life in Bellingham, the Western Sahara began making headlines in the international press, a rarity for the region. After a few tense but relatively uneventful years, hostilities between Morocco and the Polisario flared in late March. The escalation was triggered by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s visit to the Saharawi refugee camps, where he referred to the Moroccan control of the Western Sahara as an “occupation.” Moroccan authorities took offense at this term, expelling U.N. personnel and foreign journalists from the region in protest. The U.N. Security Council debated its response for for several weeks, during which time senior Saharawi officials hinted at a possible military response. On April 29, the Security Council renewed the U.N. mission to the Western Sahara, calling for “a return to functionality” without making explicit calls to reinstate the expelled staffers.
The controversy also stirred latent tensions among the Saharawi diaspora. On the level of daily life, most Saharawi demonstrate an almost preternatural patience—a quiet, abiding strength that is, perhaps, the reason the cease-fire has lasted these 25 years. Yet a growing number of young people, like Najla, are growing dissatisfied with the entropic stalemate. As technology has penetrated the camps, Saharawi youth—who represent an estimated 60 percent of the total population of the camps—are confronted with increasing examples of the world beyond their desert exile. This growing sense of alienation has driven many to seek work or education abroad.
“I’m fed up with being a refugee,” she says, her normally generous laugh turning thin and brittle.
At the same time, many others, like Najla’s two brothers who have enlisted in the Polisario reserves, are eyeing the prospect of renewed military response. In contrast, older Saharawi tend to be more cautious about calling for a return to war, perhaps due to personal memories of the first 16 years of armed struggle and its thousands of casualties.
Parallel to these political debates, residents of the camps maintain a rich lore about the Saharawi homeland. The names of hometowns are frequently on the lips of those who remember life before the war, while children are raised with an intimate, if mythologized, acquaintance with their heritage. Najla, like many of her generation, are quick to assert their desire to “return” to this legendary place, yet she admits that her feelings about the prospect are complex. “I’ve heard stories my whole life of our country,” says Najla, “But is it my home? I don’t know. I’ve never been there. My grandparents were born there, but they are buried in the desert.”
The narrative of return and independence also presents many practical challenges. In 1976, the Moroccan “Green March” sent 350,000 Moroccans into the Western Sahara to settle, massively altering the demographics in the sparsely populated region. Since then, the Saharawi population has struggled with dissolution and political suppression, while disputes over census data pose a major obstacle to any future referendum. With each passing year, the older generation’s nationalist narrative of reclamation is growing increasingly discordant with the facts on the ground.
Najla at her community college in Bellingham, Washington. Sarah Aziza
Despite these ambiguities, no Saharawi believes the camps are the permanent solution, says Najla. On the legal level, the international community agrees. Each year, the issue of the Western Sahara is considered in a hearing at the U.N.’s Fourth Committee on Special Political Decolonization, where supporters of Saharawi independence speak alongside advocates for Moroccan “territorial integrity.” These speeches vary widely in their factual veracity and emotional tenor, and reflect the overall cacophony that surrounds the issue. Janet Lenz, founder of Not Forgotten International, the non-profit that runs Najla’s former school in the camps, describes the ritual as “frustrating and exhausting.”
Mohamed Yeslem Beisat, Saharawi ambassador to the United States, says his people will not relinquish their hope of self-determination, yet he questions how much longer their patience will endure. “We can wait on the U.N. to implement the referendum—but we don’t have much hope for that,” Beisat tells me. He points out that peaceful demonstrations in the Occupied Territories, as they are known to Saharawis, have been ongoing for over a decade, but are met with harsh suppression by Moroccan forces. “The other option is—well, some people are tired of waiting. Their disappointment is very, very strong. They miss their brothers in the Occupied Territories.” This mounting frustration, says Beisat, is leading some to see military action as the last, but necessary, resort. “We feel abandoned by the international community,” says Beisat. “Some people feel they have nothing left to do but to fight.”
Najla hopes that her people will avoid military engagement, but remains openly skeptical of the political process. “To be honest, I really don’t see a solution coming soon.” Najla, sitting in her bedroom in Bellingham, glances at her hands, her body visibly clenching. “We don’t matter... I mean, not to the countries who have the power to change things, like the United States and France.”
Despite her measured perspective, it’s the intangible, irrepressible hunger for belonging that most haunts Najla. “I’m fed up with being a refugee,” she says, her normally generous laugh turning thin and brittle. When traveling to the United States, Najla carried a ream of documents: a Saharawi-issued “passport” (useful only in countries that have recognized the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic), an Algerian-administered refugee ID, and a fistful of supporting papers. “I want to have an identity. I want other people to accept that identity. I want my brothers to have a better life than I did.”
For Najla, the wasted potential of her people is one of the greatest casualties of the conflict. “We are educated. We have a culture, ideas. We are ready to build a country. Every day that goes by in the camps, more of this is wasted. I hope we won’t lose much more time.”
See Najla in this trailer for the documentary film, Cast in Sand:UPDATE, 7 P.M.
A body found in the Spring Creek Valley Forest Preserve near Barrington Hills is that of Timothy Anderson, 38, an Arlington Heights man who's been missing since Monday morning, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Police.
Police and Homeland Security volunteers searched the forest preserve after he was reported missing on Tuesday. He was found in a lightly wooded area, surrounded by blood, and he was not wearing a shirt.
Police said they are conducting a death investigation.
Anderson, a bank executive and father of two young boys, last was seen at his home at 4:30 a.m. on Monday, according Arlington Heights police. He did not show up for work at Northern Trust Bank on Monday.
His car was found at Donlea Road and Bateman Road in Barrington Hills at 7 p.m. Monday after police pinged his cell phone. When they found the car, however, they did not find his cell phone. There was no obvious sign of a struggle.
Helicopters and dogs were used in the search.
His wife, Cathrall Anderson, said her 6-year-old son is starting to ask where Dad is. Her other son is 3 years old.
"This is completely out of character. I never knew Tim to do anything that would deviate from the happiness and well being of his family," friend Jeff Dickerson told ABC Chicago.McCall (right) has been coach under Scotland boss Gordon Strachan
Stuart McCall has agreed a deal in principle to begin a second spell as Bradford City manager.
The 52-year-old left Rangers last year after they missed out on promotion from the Scottish Championship.
His appointment, which could be confirmed this weekend, would result in him giving up his role as number three to Gordon Strachan with Scotland.
The former Bantams player would take over from Phil Parkinson, who has moved to relegated Bolton Wanderers.
McCall, who was in charge of Bradford from 2007 to 2010, will be in opposition to Parkinson's side in League One next season should he be confirmed as manager.
The former Everton, Rangers and Sheffield United midfielder was manager of Motherwell in Scotland's top flight for four years after leaving Bradford in 2010.
He took over as Rangers manager on a short-term basis in March 2015 after the departure of Kenny McDowall.
McCall had hoped to continue in the role despite the Glasgow club facing another season outside of the Scottish Premiership, but the Ibrox outfit instead appointed Mark Warburton.
With Scotland, McCall and current Motherwell boss Mark McGhee have assisted Strachan.idk what the title is, I am not sure whether I can say so or not, tell me if it's not correct.anyway I did thisI did this and my head hurtsbut I did thisI needed more of my precious little pranksters<33 There is no Peter since I think he ‘joined’ them later, not in the very first meeting.. although I am not sure if this is the first meeting but it was supposed to be..hehebackgrounds are evil I can’t draw thosedon’t mind meAlso, if you can guess whose owl it is your house gets 5 pointsor 10. or 50, take as much as you like.take a hint: look at her eyes. O_OO___________Olook closelyveryclosely O_________________________________Onow, who do you think the owner is?uh guysit's actually James' owl, hahalook at those terrified eyes, I wonder what the boy did to her she became so scared of her owl lifePress play and try not to cry. I dare you.
They say some things you never forget where you were when they happened. Well, I remember very well where I was when Lost ended, because I was watching it!
As the finale was broadcast worldwide simultaneously, I was up at 4am in my living room, crying my heart out (to this date, I still don’t understand how I was able to follow the story with my incontrollable sobbing). I remember all my friends were also at their homes watching it. I remember that the broadcasters messed up with the subtitles for that scene with Desmond and Jack in that cave that was the Heart of the Island, so my friends started calling to ask me to tell them what they were saying. I remember not being able to say a word because of all the sobbing. I remember my father waking up ten minutes before the end and finding me on the sofa, a complete mess I must say, with three blankets that I didn’t need but that I had with me to help me cope with the imminent loss of Lost.
Last Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the show’s premiere. Oh, that makes me feel old. I was a 16-year-old girl still in school when this show stuck with me, and it stayed for the next six years, holding a special place in my heart (it is still there).
I am sure fellow Lost fans understand this feeling. The absolute obsession, the need-to-know, the mysteries and, most importantly, the characters. This show comprised so many things it was impossible not to throw ourselves into it.
I was so into the show that my silly crying during the finale had probably more to do with the fact that there wouldn’t be any more new episodes again. Don’t get me wrong, I cried with many other episodes; hell, I think I have cried with basically every single story (damn you, Michael Giacchino), but the feeling of loss was too much for me. Yes, I cry with TV shows and not with real-life situations.
But if I have to point something out is this: my favourite character was, by far, Desmond Hume. It might have something to do with Henry Ian Cusick’s Scottish accent (actually, it might have a lot to do with it), but nobody, NOBODY can deny that his centric episodes were the best ones. Just think of it: if ‘Catch-22’ and the superb ‘The Constant’ are not among your favourite Lost episodes, you simply don’t understand what quality television means (and before you wonder, of course I cried with both of them. I probably cried every time he said ‘I love you, Penny’). I could write thousands of words analysing every moment Desmond is onscreen and the effects he has on the overall story of Lost. Yes, that is how much I liked that character.
Of course, I liked other characters as well, they were just not as captivating! I did like Juliet and Sawyer when they were together, and her death almost killed me, just as much as their reencounter in the finale. I had my moments with Jack. And am I weird if I say I loved the Benjamin Linus character from the very start? Even when he killed everyone in the island; I just think Michael Emerson is amazing (watch Person of Interest. Now. Many Lost alumni guest star). I hated that insufferable Ana Lucia, as well as I wasn’t very fond of Ilana, but I had a soft spot for Faraday and Miles and, of course, for Jacob. I should also point out that Richard’s flashback to his past life was the most ridiculous depiction of Spain (and the Spanish language) that I have ever seen. I couldn’t stop laughing.
Ten years after its beginning and four years after its end, I don’t think I have been able to find a show like Lost. Sure, Game of Thrones had me obsessed from minute one; I also followed Breaking Bad until the very end. Both are shows that I love to death and of which I know everything that there is to know. But in the end, no show can substitute another, right? Meth dealers, medieval fights for a throne and people lost in a magical island are completely opposite things. And I am glad, because I wouldn’t want any of them to make me forget about the others.
I haven’t managed to watch a single episode since its finale, but maybe one day I will. Maybe I will start with a light episode, followed by ‘The Constant’ and, before I know it, I will be watching all six seasons again. I owe it that.
Oh, and I liked the end. I don’t care if some mysteries of the island were not solved: the characters found closure. And I am okay with it.
I’m not crying. You are crying. Shut up.A California woman who faces up to two years behind bars for selling food through a Facebook group said she’s in disbelief as she prepares for the start of her trial this week.
Mariza Ruelas, a single mother of six, is expected to appear in court Thursday over two misdemeanor citations for operating a food facility and engaging in business without a permit—each which carry a maximum of up to a year in jail. The 37-year-old is in trouble with prosecutors who say she sold an undercover investigator a $12 plate of ceviche on Facebook last year.
“It’s just crazy because people have been selling out their trunks and out of parking lots for years,” Ruelas told TIME on Monday. “I never knew it would be a problem.”
Ruelas said she joined the Facebook group, 209 Food Spot, about two years ago when she was desperately searching for a last-minute birthday cake for her daughter. A local baker who was supposed to make the cake canceled two days before the party, sending Ruelas scrambling for a replacement.
A friend told Ruelas about the 15,000-member Facebook group, which she quickly grew to love. Ruelas said it became a network where amateur chefs in Merced, Stockton and the Modesto area could share recipes, organize potlucks and charity giveaways, trade goods or sell dishes for cheaper than market prices. Ruelas started running the Facebook group as an administrator after she said the creator of the page left the group about a year ago.
Mariza Ruelas
“There were times when I didn’t have time to cook. You could go on there and pick something up or have it delivered on the same day,” she said. “It was just convenient for a lot of people. Everybody loves food. There was that connection with anyone.”
The operation came to a halt in July when Ruelas and at least six other members of the group were mailed letters from the local district attorney, saying they had to appear in court over health code violations. Ruelas shut down the group shortly thereafter.
“When I got them, I didn’t know the extent of the punishment,” she said. “I thought you would go to court and they would be like, ‘Stop it.’ But it wasn’t.”
All of the other members accepted a plea deal of one year of probation, a $235 fine and 40 hours of community service. Ruelas declined her offer, which she said was double their punishment.
“It was kind of unbelievable,” she said.
Now, she’s headed to trial and has already instructed her oldest children, who are teenagers, to take care of their younger siblings and her ailing mother, who has diabetes and requires three days of dialysis a week. Ruelas has not yet entered a plea. The San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.
Ruelas, who is currently unemployed, said she hasn’t made any profit through selling through the Facebook group, which she said she and her children only did as a hobby about two times a month.
“If this was happening to someone else and not me, I would laugh,” she said. “It’s just crazy.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.George Lucas looking at Treasure Island as new SF site for museum
Rendering of the visitor experience on the public plaza of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago. The plaza as well as the surrounding greenspace will be open to park visitors. Rendering of the visitor experience on the public plaza of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago. The plaza as well as the surrounding greenspace will be open to park visitors. Photo: Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art Photo: Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close George Lucas looking at Treasure Island as new SF site for museum 1 / 17 Back to Gallery
After a lobbying campaign by Mayor Ed Lee, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas is once again looking to San Francisco as a possible home for a museum housing his collection of illustrative art and Hollywood memorabilia — this time on a site already approved for development on Treasure Island.
Lucas has renewed his interest in the city because his latest museum proposal — for a futuristic structure on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago — is on life support. Open space advocates like those who helped spike his earlier plans for a Beaux Arts-style monument near Presidio’s Crissy Field have Lucas’ Chicago plan hopelessly entangled, legally and politically.
Lee and Lucas have already met to talk about a move to Treasure Island, and now a preferred site has emerged on the west side, facing downtown. This week, the mayor plans to send a letter to the movie mogul formally inviting him to consider building his museum of narrative arts there.
One thing Lee has going for him: There are far fewer regulatory hurdles to clear than there were at the Presidio.
“I never gave up on the idea” of building the Lucas museum in San Francisco, Lee said. “We have a chance to bring it back, and I want to be open and positive about it.”
Los Angeles interest
But San Francisco probably won’t be the only suitor if Lucas gives up on Chicago. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti reportedly has come up with a possible location for the museum in the city’s arts-rich downtown, and just days ago he issued a statement saying, “We would welcome it in Los Angeles.”
Photo: Kiichiro Sato, Associated Press An aerial view of downtown Chicago, where George Lucas hoped to...
One of those already signaling support for San Francisco’s effort is Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is often critical of Lee and his policies. Four years ago, he led a group that sued to block development plans on Treasure Island, citing alleged inadequacies in the environmental impact report. That suit was eventually tossed, clearing the last obstacle to building on the one-time Navy base.
Now, after meeting with the Lucas design team, Peskin says the museum may be “the special, secret sauce” that “could make Treasure Island work.”
The question is whether Lucas is seriously interested in turning back to San Francisco, after losing the long, ugly fight with the federally appointed trustees who oversee the Presidio. Lucas representatives declined to comment.
“I think it’s very real,” said one source who is privy to the San Francisco talks, but is not authorized to discuss them publicly. “Some of it is that he’s willing to compromise a bit, and he’s at that point of his life (he turned 72 on Saturday) where he wants to see it built.”
Plus, the prospects for Treasure Island might look a lot better than those in Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently came up with a complicated plan to resuscitate the project that relies on tearing down a convention hall, borrowing $1.2 billion from the state and extending several local taxes. But Lucas’ wife, Chicago native Mellody Hobson, recently told the Chicago Tribune that “time is working against us.”
Hotel meeting
Lee made several calls to Lucas over the past few months re |
riding mower to do donuts. Quiet tenants who raised chickens and harvested apples, they mowed the grounds regularly.
"Most of the neighbors thought, "Well, this could be OK,'" recalls Straka. "But we didn't know [the Lundgrens] were burying their friends."
Straka let her children play with the Lundgren children, though not at the Lundgren farmhouse. "My impression of Jeffrey was that he was very controlling, abusive, and frightening," she says. "When I felt the energy around him, red flags went up. And I felt the abuse in his children, even though they did not speak of it."
The Lundgren children weren't allowed to leave their yard. So Straka's daughter and Jason Lundgren, who were elementary school classmates, would stand at their property lines and converse across Route 6.
The police had warned Straka of cult activity on the farm. But she didn't see anything incriminating -- just a group of hard workers with religious beliefs that were unusual and unbending. The Lundgren children had, for example, told their playmates that the earth was going to open up and demons were going to come out.
When neighbors informed Straka that the Lundgrens had skipped town and federal agents were swarming the grounds, looking for evidence of a plot to take over Kirtland Temple, Straka's first thought was "What have they done with the animals?"
She and her neighbors got permission to check the Lundgren barn. The livestock were fine -- they had been released and were roaming the grounds. Straka and her companions returned them to their pens, unaware of the fresh corpses in the earth beneath their feet.
But standing at the threshold of the apple room, an earthen cold storage space off the main barn, Straka could tell that something was terribly wrong. And it wasn't what was laid out before her -- overflowing garbage bags, stacked eight or nine feet high.
It was what wasn't there.
"I told everyone, "Wait a minute -- you're using your eyes,'" she says. "Close your eyes and smell."
Her neighbors looked at her, puzzled.
"Now then, don't you wonder what's in those bags?" she said. "Because nothing smells." The bags contained the belongings of the cult followers, who had left for West Virginia in a flurry.
She shut the door to the room and secured it with metal bars. "I knew what was wrong was in there."
Straka was also unsettled by a presence in the barn. "I sensed this awful, awful pain and this crying. Which actually wasn't from a dead person." It was, she says, the energy of Lundgren's 18-year-old son, Damon, who watched as his father shot the family and did nothing to stop him.
When the police arrived, Straka told them, ""That's an area I don't want to disturb or move, because that's the area you need. That's where what's wrong is.' That's all I could feel and sense. I wasn't afraid of it -- I just knew I didn't want to be there."
More than a decade has passed since the slaughter, but judging from the farm's hollow visage, the gun could still be smoking, blood soaking into dirt. Weeds grow through the guts of an old Volvo that belonged to one of the murder victims. The heavy grass has collapsed under its own weight, and the many compressed layers, soft and pliable, seem ideal for concealing flesh.
The barn's windows, barred with rusted bedsprings, are shattered where the killers threw rocks from the yard onto the burial pit within, fulfilling a prophecy that they alone could decipher from their skewed version of scripture. The inner walls of the apple room are desecrated with an indecipherable graffiti, a scrawl of dust and clay, bone and fluid. Even the darkness is stale, decaying in the charred walls.
After the bloodshed, the Lundgren farm was rented by a family who didn't mow their lawn. They moved out just last month. "We like it long now," says Doris. "Short grass may make us nervous."
Patched and pockmarked, the stench of death still lingering in the minds of those who saw and those who come to see, the barn sits waiting to be destroyed. But Straka has her own ideas for the property, which was developed in the early 1900s by descendants of the town's first pioneers. The Barbers tilled the soil and sold their produce at a stand on Pecks Corners, now known as the intersection of Route 6 and Route 306.
"Personally, I think it should be preserved," Straka says of the barn. "This is part of Kirtland's history, and for the love that built the farm, the connection to the first family of pioneers who bought land and settled here, I think it should be maintained, cared for, and the farm run if at all possible.
"If it were mine, which it is not, probably just because of the curiosity -- and because the house is magnificent -- I would turn it into a bed and breakfast. And I would save the barn in some way by making a gift shop or an antique mall.
"It's a wonderful farm. It's just had some bad people visit it."
Straka had a visitation of her own the night after the bodies were found. She was sitting on the floor of her living room, trying to pray away her distress, when she had a vision. The doorknob turned, and "two light energies" filled the house.
"It was Cheryl Avery and her youngest daughter, Karen. They had come to assure me that they were at peace.
"It was very difficult for me to learn that the children and their mom and dad had been killed in the name of religion. But it's like Cheryl said when she came to me: "I don't have to worry. My children are not under the control of this person. And for my family, through this horrible person, we are able to be with God.'"
Straka has no plans to leave Kirtland, though occasionally she hears that Lundgren has more followers on death row now than he ever did across the road. She says she has a stake here in God's country, an "enchanted place" where life springs eternal in the valley of death.
Laura Putre can be reached at lputre@clevescene.com.Following on last week’s post detailing how voluntary is deceptively dropped from “voluntary male medical circumcision” (VMMC) when convenient, it’s worth demonstrating how the U.S. government engages in the same unethical behavior. Both USAID and PEPFAR are guilty.
Starting with USAID, its Technical Brief (pdf) on Medical Male Circumcision and HIV Prevention drops voluntary from the title of the document. Then, despite including the “V” in the document, it writes (italicized emphasis added):
Providing VMMC Services As targeted activities progress, demand for VMMC services by interested adolescent and adult males and the parents of male early infants has increased. … Costing and Impact Summary To further support VMMC program planning, PEPFAR worked through USAID to collaborate with Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to develop the Male Circumcision: Decision Makers’ Program Planning Tool to assist countries in developing policies for scaling up services to provide VMMC. This tool allows analysts and decision makers to understand the costs and impacts of different policy options regarding the introduction or expansion of VMMC services. It is part of a larger toolkit developed by UNAIDS/WHO that provides guidelines on comprehensive approaches to VMMC, including types of surgical procedures and key policy and cultural issues. The key policy topics addressed by the model are: Identifying all male adults, adolescents, and early infants ; targeting coverage levels and rates of scale-up
; targeting coverage levels and rates of scale-up … Key conclusions from an initial desk review study presented at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna,Austria, in July 2010 indicate that scaling up VMMC programs to reach 80 percent coverage of adult and early infant males within 5 years could potentially: …
The entire report is preposterous for how uninterested USAID is in dealing with the obvious ethical problem. Society has simply accepted that, as long as someone “volunteers” a person, that person has volunteered for circumcision. There’s no apparent sense that ethics matter, or that language indicts interest and intentions.
Notice, too, PEPFAR’s cooperation with USAID to ignore voluntary. It continues within PEPFAR documents. First, from “Smart Investments: Making the Most of Every Dollar Invested” from February 2011 (italicized emphasis added):
Medical Male Circumcision Medical male circumcision (MC) is an ideal HIV prevention investment for countries and donors as it is a time limited intervention. The majority of the expenditure required to saturate a country with high levels of adult male circumcision takes place in the first 1-3 years, depending on the speed of the program, and expenditures drop precipitously following this initial investment to support neonatal and adolescent boys. Scaling up of MC to reach 80% of adult and newborn males in 14 African countries by 2015: …
As expected, voluntary makes no appearance. Instead, the passage just assumes that adult and infant circumcision are the same. No differences, no questions raised in the latter. It’s pure utilitarian decision-making without concern for the patient. The individual is merely a part to be directed.
Next, more blatantly, PEPFAR’s “Guidance for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted HIV Infections” (pdf) contains the following (italicized emphasis added):
4.2.2 Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) Evidence Voluntary medical male circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin from the penis [ed.note: of a consenting adult] by trained medical personnel under aseptic conditions. …
… Program Implementation Countries with a low prevalence of male circumcision and high HIV prevalence should initiate and accelerate steps to increase the availability of VMMC services. As with other prevention methods, considerations of access and cost, as well as cultural, ethical, and religious factors can hinder the widespread implementation of VMMC. … Implementation of the comprehensive HIV package: Where VMMC services are provided, … PEPFAR will support programs, in keeping with national strategies, that: implement the comprehensive package; adopt culturally-appropriate strategies; utilize well-trained practitioners working in sanitary conditions; maintain informed consent and confidentiality; and avoid any form of coercion. Targeted implementation: UNAIDS and WHO advise that the greatest public health benefit results from prioritizing circumcision for young males (such as those aged 12-30 years), as well as men thought to be at higher risk for HIV (such as those in discordant couples or being treated for STIs). Circumcision of newborn babies should be promoted as a longer-term strategy. VMMC for men living with HIV is not recommended but should not be denied if requested. Short-term, accelerated implementation: … Once intensive service provision accomplishes “catch-up” circumcision for adolescent and adult males, sustainable services need to reach only successive cohorts of young adolescents and/or newborns. These”catch up” programs require awareness and behavior change communication campaigns wherein political and social leaders promote VMMC. …
PEPFAR didn’t bother to drop the “V” from voluntary medical male circumcision. It just pretends that any circumcision of a male is voluntary. According to PEPFAR (i.e. the U.S. government), a 12-year-old male is the same as an adult and can volunteer with full, informed consent. I believe that’s possible, but not in any way applicable to all 12-year-old males. (This is especially true given how rarely advocates provide any mention of the functions and benefits of the foreskin.) It’s in no way applicable to any infants, yet that is the long-term strategy PEPFAR is pushing. Voluntary has disappeared as a consideration.
Even accepting the flawed view of the success possible from pushing circumcision of infants for HIV prevention, what happens if it proves successful? Those locations become populations with high prevalence of circumcision and low prevalence of HIV. They become the exact opposite of what they say in the above and in this from the Evidence section:
WHO and UNAIDS have concluded that VMMC should be actively promoted as part of comprehensive HIV prevention efforts in settings where circumcision rates are low and HIV prevalence is high. …
Its own success would render it no longer ethical (within the unethical frame of “voluntary” infant circumcision). Would advocates stop pushing circumcision – infant circumcision, specifically – as an HIV risk reduction method? Given the behavior of U.S. advocates, including the AAP, I’m skeptical.
I’m not doubting their sincerity. I believe people can be sincere in their ideas as a result of flawed, poorly examined assumptions. I doubt their sincerity in accepting the correct assumption that voluntary medical non-therapeutic male circumcision may be advisable only in areas with low circumcision rates and high HIV infection rates. Infants do not volunteer, and there’s a long grace period during which better (or complete) prevention methods may be discovered. Or advocates might remember that condoms are necessary, regardless of circumcision status. But they don’t. Somewhere the goal not-so-subtly morphed from “circumcision for HIV prevention” to “circumcision and HIV prevention”. As the last century-plus demonstrates, advocates of circumcision tend to believe that circumcision justifies itself. What an individual might want in the absence of need (i.e. ethical, voluntary circumcision) fades to public policy insignificance, or worse, becomes assumed away to a position where infants beg to be circumcised now. Reports on VMMC that are really just a push for MC provide modern, ongoing proof.
**********
This additional bit from PEPFAR’s guidance is informative, as well:
Current evidence strongly supports VMMC‘s effectiveness in preventing infection of men in penile-vaginal intercourse, but not in penile-anal intercourse. While statistics have been inconclusive thus far on the efficacy of circumcising MSM to prevent infection, the procedure may be worthwhile for individual MSM, especially those who also engage in sex with women. …
Statistics have been inconclusive, but it may be worthwhile. That’s “heads I win, tails you lose” analysis in pursuit of circumcision for the sake of circumcision.Photo Credit: Heimo Liendl
Iraq’s parliament on Saturday voted to ban the sale, import and production of alcohol, AFP reported. The new law cements Iraq’s national religion as being Islam, at the expense of all the other religions in that country. The Iraq constitution already forbids legislation that contradicts Islam.
The law was passed as Iraq’s biggest military operation has been on its way, to defeat the ISIS in the city of Mosul, near the Syrian border.
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Christian MP Yonadam Kanna told AFP on Saturday that “every violation of this law incurs a fine of 10 million to 25 million dinars ($8,000 to $20,000).” He said he plans to appeal the law in Iraq’s federal court.
Iraq has a homegrown industry satisfying the local market’s need for beer and Arak.Fremont Outdoor Cinema says goodbye to its longtime home on July 16. Image: Courtesy Fremont Outdoor Cinema
For 23 years, Fremont Outdoor Cinema has served as a destination for cinephiles, a summer party, a communal neighborhood gathering, and much more. Seattle’s first walk-up cinema paved the way for the vast array of summer movie series that now dot the local landscape. It’s also a family tradition, founded by Jon Hegeman and Charlotte Buchanan, and currently run by Hegeman's son and local event producer Ryan Reiter. But the outlook for Fremont Outdoor Cinemas appears cloudy beyond its scheduled 2016 Opening Night on July 16.
“That’ll either be our opening day, or it’ll be our farewell screening,” says Reiter.
Fremont Outdoor Cinema needs a new home. For years, the summer screenings have taken place on the East facade of Fremont Studios. Last year, Fremont Studios landlords informed Reiter and co. that they were planning construction on the wall in fall 2015, but said that it wouldn’t be a problem for the movie series. After being delayed, more water damage to the wall was discovered and plans changed.
Two weeks ago, they were informed that Fremont Outdoor Cinema would need to find a new home. The news caught them off guard, as they were planning on hosting a full summer lineup at their longtime home base. Reiter doesn’t blame the landlords (who are trying to help out going forward), but the short notice has placed the future of Fremont Outdoor Cinema in doubt.
For now, Reiter actively searches for a new location for the series. But in a city that grows ever denser, that’s easier said then done. A parking lot is key. Not being located in a public park means Fremont Outdoor Cinemas isn’t limited to only showing movies rated PG-13 and under, hence the popular screenings of R rated fare like The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction. The Fremont Studios location was also ideal because it wasn’t a residential area, which meant volume wasn't an issue.
“It’s a little bit kind of a reality check,” says Rieter. “There’s just not a lot of parking lots where you can go put up a big movie screen and play loud music and dialogue. The reality is that neighborhoods change, and we’re just trying to keep this vibrant culture of outdoor movies alive.”
There’s also the matter of cost. Fremont Outdoor Cinema isn’t a big moneymaker despite being one of the only local outdoor movie series that charges admission. Finding a new home won’t be cheap, and Reiter is hopeful that people in the community might step up to help out.
“The cost every year seems to go up,” say Reiter. “So a lot of people may say, ‘Why don’t you get another screen? Or just go get a blowup screen?’ but again those things all cost money. Some days we have big sponsors, some days we have no sponsors. We just try to keep it as affordable as possible, and that’s what that [Fremont Studios] wall really was. You don’t have to put anything up, you don’t have to take anything down. You just have to put the fence up or a few food trucks, grab the projector, and you’d be good.”
“Maybe there is somebody who will see the value in it and says, ‘Hey, we’ve got a place to do this,’ or maybe there’s an angel sponsor that says, ‘Hey guys, how do we keep this alive and find you a new home?’”
Ideally, Reiter would like to stay within distance of Fremont, but he’d consider opening up the scope if it came to that. Options could include a move to Gasworks Park, Wallingford, South Lake Union, or making it more of a city-wide festival. While he admits it's an “out of their league” dream, finding a semi-permanent home—akin to Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse—could mean Fremont Outdoor Cinema expanding to become more than just being a summer series.
“We just do this because it’s fun,” says Rieter. “My family started this 23 years ago, and that’s where I kinda grew up, so it will totally suck if we can’t find a place to do this. We’re just trying to figure out how we keep this tradition alive.”When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.
The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.
According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.
A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.
The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn’t say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway.
Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website.
Probe requested
On Thursday, the ACLU of Colorado sent a letter to Denver’s Independent Monitor, Richard Rosenthal, asking for the Internal Affairs Bureau to conduct an investigation of the pepper-spraying incident.
“The actions of the undercover detectives on August 25, 2008, may have had the effect of exacerbating an already ‘tense situation,’ as their feigned struggle led nearby officers and the public to believe that a commanding officer was being attacked by protestors and that the situation necessitated the use of chemical agents,” says the letter, written by ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass.
“Such actions may have escalated the overall situation by causing officers on the scene to fear that the protestors threatened their safety, when in fact the struggle was only between uniformed officers and undercover officers,” he wrote.
Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman did not return a call seeking comment about the pepper-spray incident and whether the officers followed protocol by staging a disturbance with the commander.
Rosenthal said he had received the ACLU’s letter about the pepper-spray incident.
He also received a letter from the ACLU last week requesting a probe into possible conflicting or false statements by police about the riot and whether the department withheld evidence in some of the protesters’ criminal trials.
The ACLU contends videos show that protesters, as well as otherwise uninvolved onlookers, were never ordered or given a chance to disperse before they were surrounded and detained by police.
“The letters have been received, and I am in the process of reviewing and evaluating them,” Rosenthal said Thursday.
As many as 60 protest suspects declined to accept plea deals after their arrests. Some cases have been dismissed and some suspects acquitted after a judge cited a lack of evidence.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.comBoeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said he told President-elect Donald Trump that his company can build a new version of Air Force One for less than $4 billion, after Trump criticized the cost of the plane.
Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said he told President-elect Donald Trump that the planemaker can build a new version of Air Force One for less than $4 billion, after the Republican criticized the cost of the aircraft.
“We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens,” Muilenburg said as he left the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Wednesday.
Muilenburg said he gave Trump his “personal commitment on behalf of the Boeing Co.” The Chicago-based company will build the new 747 jets and outfit them to the Pentagon’s specifications, which include secure communications and anti-missile defenses. Boeing is just beginning work on the systems that will go into the new presidential aircraft.
“We’re looking to cut a tremendous amount of money off the price,” Trump told reporters, referring to Air Force One.
Trump also met with Lockheed Martin’s Marillyn Hewson after Muilenburg’s visit on Wednesday and then with a group of high-ranking military officers. Trump has said that costs for Lockheed’s F-35 fighter jet are “out of control.”
“We’re trying to get costs down, costs,” Trump told reporters after the officers left. “Primarily the F-35. That program is very, very expensive.”
Trump didn’t say whether he had won any concessions from Hewson.
“It’s a dance, you know. It’s a little bit of a dance,” he said. “We’re going to get the costs down and we’re going to do it beautifully.”
Hewson said after the meeting that she told Trump that Lockheed Martin has made progress in reducing costs of the F-35 fighter and is committed to “delivering an affordable aircraft” to the U.S. and its allies.
“I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the importance of the F-35 program and the progress we’ve made in bringing the costs down,” Hewson said, describing the talks as “productive.”
Defense companies stand to benefit from a resurgence in military spending promised by Trump and already under way in Western Europe and Asia as global tensions rise. In fact, it could be the best environment for investing in defense stocks in a decade, Ron Epstein, a defense analyst with Bank of America said in a Dec. 7 presentation.
Trump’s recent Twitter outbursts at the two largest U.S. defense contractors may be an attempt to harmonize two competing objectives: higher spending on the military and “reform and discipline,” Richard Aboulafia, a defense analyst with Teal Group, said in a report this month. “Those goals are tough to reconcile.”
The Pentagon has already budgeted $3.2 billion for research and development, military construction and acquisition of two of the Air Force One planes through fiscal 2021, said Kevin Brancato, the lead government contracts analyst for Bloomberg Government. More money is anticipated in the two years after that.
Boeing 747-8 planes average about $225 million each, he said, which means most of the expenses will go to equipping the planes for presidential use.
The Pentagon has rebutted Trump’s criticism of the troubled F-35. Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, who heads the office responsible for developing and acquiring the fighter jet, told reporters on Monday that the project has “basically been on schedule” and “on budget” since 2011. Bogdan was among the people Trump met with Wednesday.
The plane, the most expensive weapon system ever, has suffered a series of delays and missteps blamed on its complicated technologies, including stealth capabilities and versatility. Different configurations of the $379 billion Joint Strike Fighter are supposed to become the mainstays of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Trump spoke briefly with reporters earlier Wednesday but didn’t mention his meetings with the two executives. They were publicly announced shortly before Muilenburg arrived at the resort.Auteur Anna Biller's second feature film, The Love Witch, is a meticulously crafted homage to the cult horror pictures that were born from free love mysticism. One of the last movies to be filmed using 35mm, and featuring a trove of vintage occult paraphernalia collected by Biller, this is one of the year's best kept cinematic secrets.
Samantha Robinson stars as Elaine, a love sick modern witch whose alchemical concoctions, intended to seduce her male lovers into amorous bliss, continue to have unpredictable and often grimly hilarious results.Her performance purposefully borders on vapid, as she moves from each sexual interlude in pursuit of fairy tale romance. Her Wiccan fatale is enshrined in sexy outfits and vampish makeup that ensures Elaine is always the center of attention, be it from her doomed suitors or the viewer.The rest of the cast is a Scooby Doo mishmash of lurid sorcerers and matchbook vixens, each eager gain Elaine's dubious attention.
M. David Mullen's cinematography, when coupled with Biller's outstanding art direction, delivers a gorgeous imitation of Technicolor madness.There is a hyper pink sequence in a tea house that has to be seen to be believed, and the interior shots of Elaine's magical sanctum are brilliantly composed, with each item offering a story unto itself. There's so much going on in virtually every scene that it's almost too much to parse, but Biller's patient approach ultimately shines through. The film is long, and while this may be a turn off to some, it's an essential piece of the vision. The Love Witch is a sexual odyssey with a barely coherent mashup of themes that entrances with its risqué aura and devious visuals that gradually draw the viewer into a self-contained world of esoteric delights.
Biller's script balances over pronounced camp with playful satire in equal amounts. There are uncomfortably long sequences of nudist pagan rituals, splattered among the film's red light tableau, that are thoughtfully presented as LSD chic afterthoughts. The concept of societal pressure to couple, to obtain the coveted soul mate entanglement, is comically deconstructed by shallow dialogue and ridiculous pastiche in perfect synchronicity. The Love Witch knows exactly what it is doing and it never falters with its counterculture diatribe.
It's pure Technicolor madness in the year 2016It’s been more than eight years since Kirk Cameron first introduced us to the Crocoduck, the crocodile/duck hybrid that he believes ought to exist if evolution is true.
And finally — finally! — there’s an erotic novel bringing the two together:
So what is Mandy De Sandra‘s Kirk Cameron & The Crocoduck of Chaos Magick all about?
Kirk Cameron has set up his Pray The Gay Away Camp. He is hoping for it to be a hit Reality TV Show. While most boys are open to letting go of their homosexual ways, JJ a young gay man who practices Chaos Magick has other plans. When JJ finishes his spell and unleashes hot Cheese Jesus, a crockoduck, and Boner Stabone, Kirk Cameron will feel passion and some sexy Growing Pains. A 7,500 word novellete of hot gay orgy action, involving crockoducks, sexy holy cheese, Chaos Magick, oral sex, anal, clone 69ing, and Stigmata hand sex.
I know. My body also began tingling at sexy holy cheese.
So I had to buy it.
Let me give you a taste of what you’re in for:
Kirk Cameron’s mouth dropped and he fell to the knees. The Crocoduck he used to refute evolution was now in the room crocowaddling toward him. It looked at Kirk and its wings flapped with glee. The green-scaled skin glistened while his feathers looked regal. Its 12-inch jaw of teeth showed a long smile of lust — its Crocoduck cock was the same length. The Crocoduck darted toward the kneeling and shocked open-mouthed Kirk Cameron. Kirk didn’t close his mouth in time and took nine inches of the Crocoduck. It squealed with delight while flapping his wings. The Boners followed the Crocoduck’s lead but went into the 69 position. They sucked one another, mirroring each other, looking like a funhouse of fellatio.
You’re welcome, America.
(Also, someone please add “crocowaddling” to Urban Dictionary.)Which beliefs contribute to virtuous behavior? In other words, which beliefs can we form to make it more likely that we act virtuously in the future – more honestly, more compassionately, more courageously, more humbly, and the like? In this brief essay, I will propose four different answers, but I want to stress that these are not the only ones that could be given. I have included them only because these answers repeatedly show up in my own reading of research in psychology and philosophy.
First we should note that our question is asking specifically about beliefs. Beliefs are not the only mental states worth mentioning – desires and emotions are also incredibly important to virtuous behavior (but will have to wait for another essay). Just having a belief – say that I ought to stop gossiping or that it would be good for me to donate to charity – can leave me indifferent to actually behaving in that way if I do not also care about these things. So to become virtuous people we need to form appropriate beliefs as well as cultivate the right desires and emotions, as both of these components play a central role.
First Answer – Beliefs about People’s Virtue. Having good role models in our lives who we admire because of their moral behavior or character can make a huge difference. These role models can lead us to form beliefs such as:
Mother Teresa is someone I really admire.
My grandmother is very courageous.
If he can stand up to injustice, then so can I.
Why would these beliefs make such a difference? Because of their connection to powerful emotional responses. For instance, the University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done research on what he calls the emotion of “elevation.” This is what we feel when we see another person do something particularly virtuous or morally admirable. Just think back to a time when you were feeling uplifted and inspired by someone’s bravery or loyalty or charity – perhaps your heart was moved, inspiring you to similar acts in your own life.
Research by Haidt and others has found a strong relationship between feelings of elevation and increased virtuous behavior. For instance, one study found that elevation neutralized anti-black racism and increased helping, while another found that, when compared to controls, elevation led to participants doubling the amount of time they spent on a helpful task.
Second Answer – Beliefs about Your Own Virtue. The first set of beliefs has to do with other people’s character. But we also have beliefs about ourselves, such as:
I am an honest person.
I care for other people.
My spouse thinks that I care for other people.
Other people do not see me as lazy.
The first two beliefs are about a person’s own virtuous character, and labeling ourselves in these ways can have an effect on our virtuous behavior because we want to live up to how we believe ourselves to be as moral people (at least for the labels we think are positive). On the other hand, note that the third and fourth beliefs instead have to do with what other people think about our characters. Such beliefs can also lead to virtuous behavior since we think that those people expect us to live up to the particular label in the future, and we naturally want to continue to be regarded highly by them.
Lots of research over the years has found that both kinds of beliefs about our own character can have a significant effect on behavior. To take just one example, the psychologist Robert Kraut at Carnegie Mellon ran a study where participants were asked to make a donation to the Heart Association. For those who did donate, half were told that they were “generous,” while the other half received no such label. A week later, everyone was again asked to donate, this time to a local fund-raising campaign for multiple sclerosis. Here are the results:
Average Amount of Donation to MS Research
“Generous” Label $0.70
No Label $0.41
Even though the donation amounts might not have been large, there was a significant difference between them. Whether this was because the “generous” donors took the label to heart, or only were concerned with what others might think of them, remains to be seen.
Third Answer – Moral Standards. Surely if any beliefs enhance virtuous behavior, our beliefs about what is right and wrong would, such as:
I ought to give 10% of my income to charity.
It is wrong to steal from a store.
We must treat others with respect.
But it turns out that many times a person’s moral standards do not have a significant bearing on how she acts in a particular situation, as we probably already know from our own experience.
Nevertheless, fascinating research is being done to discover ways of increasing the psychological impact of our moral standards. For instance, most of us presumably believe that cheating is wrong (at least in most cases), and yet many studies have found that we often cheat anyway when we think that we will not get caught. To find ways of bolstering honest behavior, marketing professor Nina Mazar of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management divided participants into two groups and had everyone take a test for which they would be paid for each correct answer. Here were the results:
First Group – No Opportunity to Cheat 3.1 correct answers
Second Group – Opportunity to Cheat 4.2 correct answers
It is hard to believe that the participants in the second group were that much better at taking the test; instead it looks as if at least some of them took advantage of the opportunity to cheat.
But Mazar also had a third group of participants first recall as many of the Ten Commandments as they could, before they took the same test with the opportunity to cheat. Now she found:
Recall Ten Commandments + Opportunity to Cheat 2.8 correct answers
Note that cheating in the third group was on average even lower than in the first group.
These results suggest that moral standards can increase virtuous behavior, provided they are salient in the person’s mind at the moment. Other factors, which we can discuss in the comments, are also being discovered that can similarly increase the power of our moral standards in leading to corresponding behavior.
Fourth Answer – Certain Religious Beliefs. Positive religious beliefs could be categorized under the previous heading of moral standards, but they are worth highlighting separately given the number of studies done in recent years which focus specifically on these beliefs. Examples of positive religious beliefs include:
The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I will be punished in the afterlife if I do not become a better person.
Every human being is created in the image of God.
Naturally the category of religious beliefs is very broad, and different beliefs can trigger rather different desires and emotions, some of which are not very virtuous. But there is now a large body of research which has found a strong correlation between various measures of religiosity and everything from increased completion of homework, health care utilization, donations to charity, and volunteer work, to reduced criminal behavior, suspensions from school, and smoking. To take just one example, the 2002 National Study of Youth and Religion looked at the self-reported behavior of 2,478 twelfth-grade students and found the following
Weekly Religious Attendance No Religious Affiliation
Sold Drugs in Past 12 Months 6.7 18.4
Used Hard Drugs in Past 12 Months 19.8 37.1
Been in Trouble with Police in Past 12 Months 6.4 13.7
Never Skipped School in Past Year 47.8 31.0
Never Volunteered in Community 13.1 37.8
Religious attendance does not necessarily imply religious belief, but similar patterns also arose when the measure was self-reported importance of religion.
Admittedly, much of the research on religion and positive outcomes takes the form of correlation studies, and we all know that correlation does not imply causation, in this case by the religious beliefs. Clearly more work needs to be done.
So which beliefs do increase the likelihood of virtuous behavior? The emerging answer seems to be that many different beliefs can, including others not mentioned here such as empathetic beliefs. In some cases the primary role of the beliefs is to trigger particular feelings and emotions, as in the case of role models. In |
ation. Pressed to quantify just how big a failure for the polling industry a McCain victory would represent, he didn't feel comfortable even following the hypothetical.Ilion, N.Y. — A union official said Saturday the Remington Arms Co.'s decision to open a manufacturing plant in Alabama does not bode well for Ilion, and he's blaming New York's SAFE Act restrictions on assault weapons.
"It can't be good," said Fran Madore, president of United Mine Workers Local 717, which represents 1,180 of the 1,300 Remington employees in Ilion. "How can it be good?"
Madore said plant officials told him they wanted to meet with him Monday. They did not say what they wanted to talk about, but Madore said he assumes it will be about the company's reported plans to open a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Ala.
AL.com reported Saturday that the Huntsville facility could employ up to 2,000 people. It said details could be revealed on Monday about plans for a Remington facility in a former Chrysler plant near Huntsville International Airport.
Military Times reported that the company's expansion in Alabama would not affect Remington's operations in Ilion. But Madore said he's afraid the company has soured on New York because of the passage of the SAFE Act, which bans assault weapons such as the AR-15 made by Remington.
Madore said he's worried the company will move jobs out of Ilion, the Herkimer County village where the company has been making firearms since 1816.
"The SAFE Act has been a terrible thing from the beginning," he said. "You'd think New York would be doing everything to keep us. Instead, it passes a law that cripples us."
Remington and other firearms makers can still manufacture assault weapons in New York, but they can't sell them inside the state. New York lawmakers, at the urging of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, imposed the restrictions after a man armed with an assault rifle massacred 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.
Remington has not given any public indications that it is planning to move out of Ilion. In fact, it has spent more than $20 million on new equipment for its factory in Ilion and added 560 jobs at the plant in the past few years.
Contact Rick Moriarty at rmoriarty@syracuse.com or (315) 470-3148. Follow him on Twitter @RickMoriartyCNY and on Facebook at rick.moriarty.92.Verrit screenshot Fourth Estate This Pro-Hillary Website Looks Like North Korean Agitprop Peter Daou, the prickly pro-Clinton operative, has launched a propaganda rag so shameless it would make Kim Jong Un blush.
Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.
Who would buy stock in a twice-defeated presidential candidate?
If the candidate under question is Hillary Clinton, that zealous buyer would be Peter Daou, one-time rocker, seasoned political blogger, former campaign adviser to John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, ambitious litigant, propagandist and internet entrepreneur. A couple of days ago, Daou launched his self-funded Verrit.com, a slavishly pro-Clinton site (endorsed by Hillary!) to carry on her failed crusade.
Story Continued Below
The derision greeting Verrit is so universal it inspires sympathy for Daou, as Gizmodo, the Washington Post, Outline, New Republic, New York, The Ringer and others have broken its back with their snap judgments. “Verrit, a Media Company for Almost Nobody,” read one headline. “No One Asked for Verrit, But Here We Are,” stated another. “What Is Verrit and Why Should I Care? (Unclear; You Shouldn’t.),” said a third. “Peter Daou Continues to Embarrass Hillary Clinton,” asserted the best in show.
People, people! It’s only a website!
Granted, Verrit is a goofy website, as websites go. If you don’t possess the courage to visit it right now, here’s a description: Imagine if Matt Drudge created a Hillary fan site, only instead of listing news stories in a text-heavy fashion, he arranged them on the Web equivalent of 3x5 cards, and in addition to typing headlines onto the cards, he pulled out salient facts and stats from the stories (called “verrits”). Each card carries a unique serial number that you can plug into the Verrit database to prove … well, I don’t know exactly what it proves other than Verrit drew its facts and stats from the news source cited.
As Daou’s Verrit manifesto puts it, the site hopes to become the trusted source for the 65.8 million voters who cast their ballots last November for Clinton and who seek verified “facts” they can use to argue politics. In theory, everybody needs a cheat sheet. In practice, the Verrit method is cringe-worthy. The headline to one early Verrit borrows from the literary methods of Kim Jong Un’s North Korea to assert, “Hillary Democrats Are the Heart and Conscience of America.” Does anybody outside of the Daou re-education camp really think this way?
When it comes to criticism, Daou isn’t just a snowflake. He’s a snow squall, equating most criticism of Clinton (or criticism of Daou) with the desire to erase Clinton and Clintonites. Early this year, he telegraphed his irrational partisanship by tweeting that anybody tweeting “Bernie would have won” in his timeline would earn “an instant block” from his account. “Useless and baseless conjecture. Betrays someone unfocused on the challenge ahead,” Daou continued.
His is a reductionist world where evidence of misogyny and sexism can be deduced from almost any political discussion of Madame Secretary. When Verrit launched, it inspired not only a mudslide of negative reviews but an ugly denial-of-service attack on his servers. From this rocky reception, Daou didn’t extract the perennial lesson that politics ain’t beanbag. He didn’t cinch up and concede that political passions will cause folks to overheat. Instead, he flew to Twitter and raged in all caps, “PEOPLE ARE STILL TERRIFIED OF HILLARY. PEOPLE STILL WANT TO DESTROY HILLARY. PEOPLE WANT TO SILENCE ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS HER.”
Terrified? Destroy? Silence? I'd love to see the serial numbers on those “facts.”
As the New Republic’s Sarah Jones pointed out, Verrit’s early shilling for Clinton easily veers into propaganda when it posts headlines like “Sanders and the Mainstream Media Helped Put Trump in the White House.” Such headlines present Clinton as a victim, denying her any agency, and blaming all of her failures on the press and Bernie Sanders. To dwell on this Verrit for just one more beat, is it safe to say that somebody out there is still terrified of Bernie, that somebody out there still wants to destroy Bernie, and that somebody wants to silence anyone who supported him?
Just as you should never review a play during tryouts, it’s a tad unfair to assess a website on the week of its birth. To be generous, Verrit isn’t completely without merit. The card gimmick is interesting even if the serial number is stupid. So give Daou credit for playing with the Web form and for starting something new, especially after finding himself on the losing end of so many campaigns and initiatives. Attaboy, Peter!
As a general rule, I admire the partisan press, appreciating its power to build political cadre and motivate people. But if the goal is to build a center-liberal movement, how sturdy of a foundation is Hillary Clinton? How many of the 65.8 million who voted for Clinton share Daou’s creepy devotion? It’s not like she buried Bernie Sanders in the Democratic campaign. Like Al Gore or John Kerry, Clinton now belongs to the loser’s club. She’s a spent force in Democratic Party politics, good for a speech or a fundraiser maybe, but no more.
Daou’s Clinton worship is beginning to resemble the adoration that New Deal romantics poured onto Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1950s. As any student of pop culture can tell you, an interval of five or 10 years must transpire before the attempted revival of an icon. Verrit is a sad nostalgia act, ahead of its time.
******
About a year ago, Peter Daou blocked me for criticizing him. I have never recovered. Don’t send email to Shafer.Politico@gmail.com, don’t subscribe to my email alerts, don't monitor my RSS feed, and please block me on Twitter.Microsoft has rebooted its popular fitness tracker, bringing us this year's new Band 2. Packed with 11 sensors, including a heart rate monitor, a UV monitor, and on-board GPS for tracking runs, hikes, and bike rides, it's one of the most capable wearables on the market. The Band 2 isn't perfect, but if you can deal with the bulk (it's huge) and the $250 price (it's expensive), the bracelet can be purchased from Microsoft and ships within a month.
WIRED
LED-powered heart rate monitor adds a welcome extra data layer to workouts and sleepy time. Curved touchscreen is responsive, making it fast and simple to check your stats or incoming phone notifications (texts, emails, events, and calls). Clasp is easy to manage; I could put it on or adjust the fit with one hand. Battery life is excellent; it lasts three days between charges. The all-platform Microsoft Health app is one of the better activity-tracker companions.
TIRED
Bulk around the clasp is immediately off-putting; even after a few days of letting myself get used to it, the band still felt clunky. I ended up spinning it around, positioning the screen on the inside of my wrist—the clasp-out configuration improves the comfort, but it's unsightly. Two-button control layout is confusing, and Microsoft probably could have gotten away with using more gestures and just one button. Switching between activities (like starting a bike ride) is a process involving too many swipes, taps, and button-presses. Simplify the design, drop the price.
RATING
6/10—A solid product with some issuesPhoto by Steven Wu Photography
From 9pm to midnight this Saturday August 1st, 375-foot images of the world’s most endangered animals will be projected onto the south side of the Empire State Building in the aptly titled, Projecting Change: The Empire State Building. [Update: see the photos from the event here.]
The duo behind the project are Travis Threlkel, co-founder of Obscura Digital, a visuals and graphics firm and Louie Psihoyos, a filmmaker and photographer who directed the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, detailing the hunting of dolphins in Japan. In succession, their forty 20,000-lumen projectors will cast digital images of a snow leopard, a golden lion tamarin and manta rays, along with snakes, birds and various mammals and sea creatures onto a 33-story span of the building from West 31st Street rooftop.
Threlkel explained to The New York Times: We’re going to try to create something beautiful. Not bum people out. Hopefully, this is one big domino. If we can tip it, it would be great.”
It is not the first time the Empire State Building, one of the most recognizable building in New York City’s vast skyline, has been used to spell out a message for the world to see. Its top lights regularly change to commemorate holidays and important dates (or are turned off all together during migration season). A number ‘2’ was shown at the top of the building when Derek Jeter retired from the Yankees, and the lights were similarly used in a show interpreting works of art shown at the Whitney Museum when it moved downtown to its current location on the Hudson River. Never before, however, has an image of such size and high resolution (the photos are taken by colleagues of Psihoyos of National Geographic), been projected onto such a large portion of the building.
The project was years in the making, everything from conception to securing projection rights from the city, which, given the three years it took to convince the mayor’s office to sign off on the project, is a tedious and frustrating process. New York City has very strict laws governing what can be projected onto buildings. Threlkel and Psihoyos put on a number of smaller projections onto city buildings in the past, but agree that Saturday night’s event is sure to dwarf all of their other efforts. The images will be visible to anyone south of 34th Street Saturday evening.
Next, read about the top 10 secrets of the Empire State Building. Get in touch with the author @jinwoochong.
empire state building, Racing Extinctionby No War! / Earth First! Newswire
In a telling incident, the chief sexual assault prevention officer of the Air Force Jeffrey Krusinski was arrested yesterday for allegedly groping a woman while drunk. The timing of this incident is particularly incredible, considering that the Air Force is set to release their annual report on sexual assault on people in uniform tomorrow.
At the Earth First! Journal and the Newswire, we have worked hard to bring you cutting edge news about the military industrial complex. The US military is far and away the most earth-destroying, climate changing, soul crushing organization around. For many, it also represents the total accumulation of patriarchy.
The inclusion of women in the military has created a crisis of rape. Women are regularly raped in the military—19,000 rapes are reported every year, and that marks the few who are actually able to come forward. Like the prison industry complex, the hierarchical structure, presence of command chains, and interminable bureaucracy of the military destroys the efforts of women to gain or maintain a free life.
Just last month, the new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagal jumped forward with a demand to change the power that commanding generals have to void sexual assault convictions. While Hagal was lauded by many in the military, activists with Protect our Defenders insisted that his decision addressed “only one part of much larger fundamental problems.”
Of course, the internal sexual assault scandal that this creates might give us pause to consider the invisible women assaulted by military personnel in West Asia and everywhere the military of the US is stationed (Krusinski was stationed in Afghanistan for a while). It might also give us an insight into how to challenge the military as a body.
Like the inclusion of women in such a patriarchal organization, the greening of the military has led to business as usual, with a veneer of acceptability for our liberal climate. In 2010, President Obama instituted the first program to “green” the military by doing such courageous things as adding hybrid hum-vees to the manifold, building solar-powered tents, and manufacturing fuel cell tanks. Is rape still possible in a solar-powered tent? Is the destruction of the planet still possible with fuel cells?
The US is a deeply corrupt and sinister institution of murder and the destruction of nature. It cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed.
AdvertisementsFLORHAM PARK -- Eric Decker isn't known as a deep receiver. Never has been.
Sure-handed? Absolutely. Superb route runner? Definitely. Technically sound? 100 percent. But for all the things Decker is, he's not regarded as a player that can stretch the field.
The Jets, this season, are hoping to change that perception.
"You'll see more of that this year," Jets receivers coach Karl Dorrell said Wednesday. "Eric will surprise a lot of people."
It's hard to imagine Decker, who's entering his seventh season, "surprising" anyone. Most players are considered established once they cross that fifth-year mark. Sure, they can always get better. But who they are -- strengths and weaknesses -- is usually defined.
Decker has appeared in 92 games since being selected by the Broncos in the third round of the 2010 NFL Draft. He has caught 376 passes for 5,059 yards and 50 touchdowns during that time. His yards per catch average? 13.5. Not bad, but it certainly doesn't scream "field-stretcher."
The San Francisco 49ers' Torrey Smith averaged 20.1 yards per catch in 2015. The Jacksonville Jaguars' Allen Robinson averaged 17.5. The Washington Redskins' DeSean Jackson averaged 17.6. Those guys are known as deep threats.
How are things going for Hackenberg?
Extending the number a bit further, just 16 of Decker's 80 catches last year went for 20 or more yards. That ranked 17th in the NFL. Since Decker entered the NFL (excluding his rookie season when he caught six passes), he's ranked 58th, 39th, 9th and 37th in 20-plus yard receptions. The year Decker ranked 9th was the same season the Broncos' offense broke basically every record known to humankind.
Analytically, the numbers say Decker is strictly a possession receiver. The Jets say those numbers are lying.
"Eric can get deep," Dorrell said. "He can sneak by you and do those things."
In the Jets' offense last year, Decker wasn't asked to go deep. The team had Brandon Marshall, Kenbrell Thompkins and others to do that. Decker worked out of the slot, dominated defenders with his route running and made the tough grabs.
This year, the Jets are expanding Decker's role. Anyone who attended a Jets training camp practice could tell you that.
On a relatively regular occurrence, quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick would gear up and launch one deep down the field in Decker's direction. Not every pass was completed. But the threat was there.
Now, the key is connecting on the game day field.
"He lets me know he can do those things in practice," Dorrell said. "We're opening our playbook a little more which should allow him to do some things."
Connor Hughes may be reached at chughes@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Connor_J_Hughes. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.In the first few pages of The Drowned Detective, we think we know exactly where we are: three former Special Services types, now working as private investigators in an unspecified eastern European city, have been hired by a government minister’s wife to find his adulterous lover (who turns out to be a rather plain woman who runs a tyre-repair shop). This opening is vibrant and wholly engaging, so we happily settle in for a fast-paced detective thriller, complete with car chases, government corruption and labyrinthine betrayals, all spiced with world-weary banter à la Dashiell Hammett, or Len Deighton. But no: a few pages later we become immersed in the twisted but beautifully observed fantasies of a jealous husband who cannot shake off the sense that he is as much sinner as he is sinned against. Then the territory shifts again, plunging us into the kind of ghost story that Kafka would have written, had he been inclined to that genre. All of this serves to demonstrate that you can never know where you are going with Neil Jordan. He is a past master at leading us up – or more likely down – the garden path.
In 1993, Jordan remarked that his films “start with realistic premises and lead to seemingly unrealistic conclusions. And I am interested in the way politics, racial issues and sexual images impinge on that journey.” This observation describes The Drowned Detective perfectly. The premises are, indeed, realistic, sometimes even banal, but what Jordan does with them is extraordinary. Not much can be said about the plot here, partly because to do so would undermine its suspense, but also because it would risk spoiling the reader’s enjoyment of its genre twists and turns. What can be said is that the narrator, Jonathan, lives with his wife, Sarah, and his daughter, Jenny, in a city that is crumbling around them, its streets a seemingly never-ending battleground between the police (in black balaclavas) and Pussy Riot-style protestors (in brightly coloured balaclavas). As the novel opens, Jonathan has just discovered that Sarah has had a one-night stand, at the very least, with one of his employees. Even before that, however, it is clear that the marriage was in trouble, though it is hard to know what the underlying problem might be, other than the possibility that this city, always hot and humid, constantly in a state of flux, has somehow infected the couple. Now, emotionally weakened by jealousy and self-doubt (he is referred to, on several occasions, as “unmanly”), Jonathan takes on a missing persons case that will lead him into a surreal and terrifying realm in which the city becomes one immense hallucination and everything that once seemed real and solid is cast into grave jeopardy.
Alongside this highly suspenseful narrative, The Drowned Detective offers a host of deft characterisations, such as Jonathan’s colleague, Istvan, a plump man “with an owlish face and kind demeanour. What he most enjoyed was never getting to the point.” Or Jenny, a bright musical child who “functions very well … among imaginary things” and has not one but a whole coterie of imaginary friends, who join the family each evening when Jonathan serves dinner:
I’ve laid out plates, I told her, for Melanie and Jessica but I can’t remember the third name. Rebecca, she said. Will they all take Parmesan cheese? I asked. No, she said. Melanie’s lactose intolerant, Jessica and Rebecca are on a diet.
Sarah worries about these imaginary friends, but Jonathan seems to enjoy his daughter’s vivid imagination – until Jenny acquires a new friend who is not quite so innocent as lactose-intolerant Melanie.
The most intriguing character of all, however, is Gertrude, a psychic and self-confessed charlatan, whom Jonathan consults, not only for his missing persons case, but also in his efforts to find out what is happening to his marriage. Gertrude is a wonderful creation. A latter-day Marlene Dietrich with her Pomeranian lapdog, her cigarettes and her cocktail glass (which contains a mix of crème de menthe and wheatgrass), she becomes Jonathan’s oracle, uttering cryptic predictions and observations that, like the oracle at Delphi, mainly serve to bring her client’s own most secret desires and fears into the light. The Drowned Detective is a powerful study of the psychology of jealousy and a man’s fears of being judged and found wanting; it is also a book about fate and chance, and how, within the seeming apparatus of destiny, a form of grace is revealed by the suprarational powers of the imagination. That Gertrude is the instrument of that grace seems entirely fitting. Somehow, in a city that is visibly decaying, she rises above the chaos and, in so doing, offers her “rationista” friend a way to overcome his greatest weakness, “that English thing you call logic”.
• John Burnside’s Black Cat Bone is published by Jonathan Cape. To order The Drowned Detective for £12.99 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.A house is reduced to ashes in Cagayan de Oro City. The house was burned down by a man who went amok after his partner rejected to have sex with him. Photo by Sheila Joy Labrador, ABS-CBN News Northern Mindanao
CAGAYAN DE ORO – A man burned down his own house after his partner refused to have sex with him.
The live-in partner, who is five months pregnant, said she and the suspect, 28-year-old Aminodin Macadaag, had a falling out yesterday after he refused to get rice from his grandmother.
Because of this, she refused to sleep with him.
She was fleeing their house when she saw Macadaag with a knife in his hand. She became more afraid when he threatened to burn their house so she left the area.
When she came home at 1 a.m. today, their house was in ashes.
She will stay with a relative, in the meantime.
Authorities are already looking for Macadaag. –report from Shiela Labrador, ABS-CBN News Northern MindanaoAlan White will rejoin Yes for their Japanese tour this November.
The drummer was forced to sit out their US summer trek following urgent back surgery after he suffered a damaged disc. Jay Schellen, who has been filling in for him, will also accompany the band to Japan until White is “fully healed.”
White says: “Greatly looking forward to getting back on stage with my bandmates to play Yes music once again for our devoted audiences.”
Yes will perform tracks from 1973 live album Yessongs on the six-date trek, as well as sides one and four of 1973’s double-album, Tales From Topographic Oceans. Yes reissued their 1973 double-album Tales Of Topographic Oceans last month – which was overseen by producer and Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson.
Yes will be joined by Kansas, Steve Hackett, John Wetton, Patrick Moraz, Bad Dreams and the Neal Morse Band aboard the Brilliance Of The Seas for the band’s annual Cruise To The Edge festival in February.
Yes Japan tour 2016
Nov 21: Tokyo Orchard Hall, Japan
Nov 22: Tokyo Orchard Hall, Japan
Nov 24: Osaka Orix Theater, Jaoan
Nov 25: Nagoya Zepp, Japan
Nov 28: Tokyo Orchard Hall, Japan
Nov 29: Tokyo Orchard Hall, Japan
The 'Yes' Quizto Hornigold, remaining in his pirate band after many others defected. He was given control of
various prizes in 1716, but didn’t receive his first truly independent command in September 1717.
This was the
Revenge
, the sloop of the wayward gentleman pirate
Stede Bonnet
, who had shown up
in Nassau grievously wounded. Blackbeard used her to attack shipping off the Carolinas,
Virginia
,
and Delaware, then took a direct, offshore passage to the outer rim of the eastern Caribbean, where,
on November 28, 1717, he made his most famous capture.
Blackbeard’s capture of the 250-ton French slaver
La Concorde
made him one of the most
dangerous pirates in the Americas. Blackbeard’s gang mounted her with 22 guns and renamed her
the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
, possibly suggesting they were sympathetic to the Stuart claim to the
British throne. (His fleet – which also included a brigantine and Bonnet’s
Revenge
– had a
substantial number of Africans aboard, at least some of whom were equal members of the crew,
though it remains unclear what the status was of the 61 slaves the pirates kept when they seized
La
Concorde
.) Thus fortified, Blackbeard’s gang brought a wave of terror to the eastern Caribbean in
late November and early December 1717, burning Guadeloupe town and most of the vessels at St.
Kitts, and leaving the Governor of the British Leeward Islands terrified for his safety, even while
aboard the frigate HMS
Seaford
. According to
A General History of the Pyrates
, Blackbeard fought
the HMS
Scarborough
to a draw, a legend disproven in
The Republic of Pirates
: the frigate’s logs
confirm the encounter never took place, though the book offers an alternate explanation.
Blackbeard’s gang
spent the winter of 1717-1718 in Central American waters
, before sailing to
Nassau and, ultimately, the Carolinas. By this time Blackbeard was aware of the existence of the king’
s pardon and, disgusted with the behavior of some of his men, devised an elaborate plot to jettison
the rabble. After an outrageous multi-day blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, Blackbeard
intentionally wrecked the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
in North Carolina’s Beaufort Inlet. Giving Bonnet
the slip – and abandoning the malcontents on a sandy island – Blackbeard led a favored subset of
his crew to North Carolina’s village capital, Bath, where they took the king’s pardon from
Governor
Charles Eden
. He married a local girl – a fact confirmed by Admiralty documents found while
researching
The Republic of Pirates
– and set himself as a sort of pirate mafia don under the
protection of Governor Eden. Unfortunately, his piracies incensed
VirginiaPhoto: Philip McMasterCross-posted from Climate Progress.
Armed with tens of billions in loans from the Chinese government, Chinese solar companies have scaled at a rate unthinkable only a few years ago. At the end of this year, there will likely be 50,000 megawatts (MW) of manufacturing capacity in place around the world, with much of that new capacity being developed in China and other Asian countries. (In the year 2000, there were only 100 MW of production capacity worldwide.)
In four years, the solar manufacturing sector shifted from being led by a geographically dispersed number of companies to one dominated by Chinese companies. In 2006, there were two companies from China in the list of top ten cell producers. In 2010, there were six, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. There are currently only two non-Asian manufacturers in the top ten, and those companies — First Solar and Q-Cells — have shifted a lot of their production to Asia.
So what happened? How did the Chinese come to completely dominate the solar industry in such a short period of time?
Bryan Ashley, the Chief Marketing Officer for Suniva, an American company that produces high-efficiency solar cells in Georgia, doesn’t mince words.
“The Chinese strategy is very clear. They are engaging in predatory financing and they’re trying to drive everybody else out of the market. When you’ve got free money you can out-dump everybody below cost,” Ashley said in an interview with Climate Progress.
That “free money” Ashley refers to is the cheap debt provided by the Chinese Development Bank (CDB). Here’s how the CDB works its magic:
The CDB was originally set up as a “policy bank,” to operate as an arm of the Chinese central government, doling out public funding to support central government development programs. Now it is a “joint stock company with limited liability” that often reports to China’s national cabinet on certain policy issues. This allows the Chinese government to get involved in CDB activities and direct loans toward projects officials want to support.
Unlike most regular commercial banks, CDB raises most of its money via long-term bonds. Funders cannot take that money back out until the term is up, so the bank can make longer-term loans to Chinese companies. CDB also gives borrowers very low interest rates, and, if the borrower cannot pay back the loan, it may be back-stopped by the Chinese government.
This makes it easier, cheaper, and a lot less risky for solar companies to obtain financing.
In 2010 alone, the bank handed out $30 billion in low-cost loans to the top five manufacturers in the country. (See chart above.) This has enabled China’s solar producers to grow to GW scale in a very short period of time, turning the country into a leading exporter of solar and pushing down prices dramatically.
From a project development perspective, those steep price drops are a very good thing. But manufacturers trying to make product outside of China and other Asian countries are getting hit hard.
“Free money is impossible to compete with,” said Ashley. “Even when global demand went down they were able to keep producing, producing, producing,” said Ashley. “And now they’re dumping. If something isn’t done, there will be no American product left on the market.”
Allegations of solar panel dumping have been made before in Europe and the U.S., but they have never been proven. In 2009, Suntech CEO Shi Zengrong explained in a conference call that his company was selling panels below marginal costs. But he reversed his statement shortly after, saying he misunderstood the reporter’s question.
With Chinese producers in a far more dominant position than in 2009 and a slew of solar manufacturing facility closures announced in the U.S. in recent months, concerns about dumping have resurfaced. Just yesterday, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to President Obama asking him to investigate whether or not Chinese companies are selling product below cost in order to push American producers out of the market. He also called on the administration to implement a trade tariff on Chinese modules:
Letting that happen is unacceptable. Please know that if your administration is unwilling to take the appropriate steps, with haste, I will advance a legislative effort, as provided by the U.S. trade remedy laws, to ensure that the American solar industry is not harmed by unfair trade.
Wyden’s letter comes after the high-profile bankruptcies of American solar manufacturers Solyndra and Evergreen. While a variety of technological and market-based factors contributed to the demise of these companies, the Chinese competition — driven by cheap, easy debt — played a central role.
Remarkably, even with all the pressure from China, the U.S. is a net exporter of solar products to the country. A new report issued by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association shows that America had a $247 million solar trade surplus with China in 2010, mostly because of polysilicon and equipment shipments.
“Yeah, that’s great. But we’re just sending the raw materials and buying back the finished goods,” explained Suniva’s Bryan Ashley. “That’s a going-out-of-business strategy. Pretty soon they’ll figure out how to produce quality polysilicon and they’ll be doing it all themselves. We need to re-learn how to make things in this country.”
Ashley would like to see a Buy America provision for certain installation programs and investigation into the dumping issue.
But rather than engage in trade battles, GTM Research’s Director of Solar Shayle Kann believes that America needs to put its focus on technological innovation. Testifying in front of the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday, Kann explained the strategy:
It will be difficult for the U.S. to compete with China at its own game — namely, high-volume manufacturing of a commoditized product — given the cost advantages available for Chinese manufacturing. However, the U.S. can and should continue to develop and commercialize innovative technologies that offer lower costs than traditional panels. These new technologies are generally proprietary, require a more skilled labor force, and are difficult to duplicate.
Suniva could be considered part of this category. Using a unique cell design, the company has created a high-efficiency mono-crystalline solar cell that could compete with SunPower. But with all the cheap debt that the Chinese
government is throwing at domestic companies, Suniva is finding it increasingly tough to stay in the U.S.
“If something isn’t done, no one will be making solar PV in the U.S.,” said Ashley.
The situation is a difficult one. China’s domestic efforts are helping drop the price of solar at an astonishing pace — something that everyone in the solar industry wants. But it’s also making it extraordinarily difficult for American solar manufacturers to compete.
The United States invented the modern solar cell over a half century ago. As China continues to boost domestic solar companies, the American solar industry will be asking some hard questions about how — and if — solar manufacturing can ever make it in a big way in the U.S.By Pam Martens: October 15, 2012
A little over a month ago, I went to the web site of the Koch Industries roster of their version of “facts,” and stumbled upon, completely by accident, the billionaire brothers’ wholesale attack on Robert Greenwald, the filmmaker who released the documentary Koch Brothers Exposed earlier this year. For the balance of the day, wherever I went on the internet, various versions of Koch ads popped up, berating Greenwald and his film. I felt like I was being stalked.
According to a techie friend, I had picked up a cookie at the Koch Industries web site and it was using that cookie to follow me around and attempt to brainwash me against Robert Greenwald and his film. I had to erase all my cookies to stop this stalking.
If you think this is over-the-top creepy, you obviously have not yet read the article in the New York Times this past Sunday about the stalking going on to get the best seat in the Oval Office.
According to the Times:
“In the weeks before Election Day, millions of voters will hear from callers with surprisingly detailed knowledge of their lives. These callers — friends of friends or long-lost work colleagues — will identify themselves as volunteers for the campaigns or independent political groups.
“The callers will be guided by scripts and call lists compiled by people — or computers — with access to details like whether voters may have visited pornography Web sites, have homes in foreclosure, are more prone to drink Michelob Ultra than Corona or have gay friends or enjoy expensive vacations.”
What the callers plan to do with this data mining is make a warm call – “warm” because they already know the person and will push the potential voter’s hot buttons to get him/her to the polls on election day.
That process may then be followed with really creepy public shaming. According to the Times:
“After these conversations, when those targeted voters open their mailboxes or check their Facebook profiles, they may find that someone has divulged specifics about how frequently they and their neighbors have voted in the past. Calling out people for not voting, what experts term ‘public shaming,’ can prod someone to cast a ballot.”
The above scenario had a very familiar ring. It was May 1997. Feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem had arranged to join a group of protesters outside of Smith Barney’s headquarters in Tribeca on May 20. The firm was then headed by Jamie Dimon, now head of JPMorgan Chase. I was going to be speaking at the protest against the firm’s practice of contractually barring employees from court access as a condition of employment. (Smith Barney, along with other major Wall Street firms, force both workers and clients to give up their right to the Nation’s courts and, instead, usher all claims into a crony system called mandatory arbitration.) Steinem was going to be speaking on the claims which had surfaced at Smith Barney of horrific treatment of women.
According to a very reliable source, executives of Smith Barney had contacted dozens of their female executives to find out who was friends with Gloria Steinem and could make a “warm call” to her and persuade her not to attend the protest. (The idea being that there wouldn’t be as much media attention without Steinem.) A woman who had attended college with Steinem made the contact, according to the source. Steinem came anyway.
People as a rule don’t like creepy stalking. This particular get-out-the-v |
fi } # Check first argument case "$DAYS" in "week") # If 'week' is specified, determine how many days into the week we are, starting from, Monday DAYS=`date +%u` calc_avg ;; "month") # If'month' is specified, determine how many days into the month we are DAYS=`date +%d` calc_avg ;; "year") # If 'year' is specified, determine how many days into the year we are DAYS=`date +%j` calc_avg ;; (*[0-9]) # If the input conatains numbers, trim out all non-numeric characters and continue DAYS=`echo $DAYS | tr -d [:alpha:][:punct:]` calc_avg ;; "help") # If 'help' is specified, display the help message and exit display_help exit ;; *) # If the input is anything else, display the help message and exit display_help exit ;; esac
Queue Job Count
This one's quite simple - it determines what queues exist on the cluster, then counts up how many jobs have been submitted to each one over the specified period (week, month or year to date, or a number of days).
#!/bin/bash # #========================================================================== # Name: SGE Queue Job Count # Author: Chris Bingham # Date: 28.11.2008 # Language: Bash # External References: qconf, qacct, grep, date, tr # # This script will use the SGE command 'qconf' to get a list of queues # configured on the cluster, then use 'qacct' to search back though job # records for each queue for the specified number of days, and return a # table of jobs counts for each queue, sorted highest to lowest #========================================================================== # Store the first argument, all other argument will be discarded DAYS=$1 # Use 'qacct' to get a list of queues, and convert it to an array QUEUE_LIST=`qconf -sql` QUEUE_LIST=`echo $QUEUE_LIST | tr -t'' " " ` # Create a variable to store the total job count TOTAL_JOB_COUNT="0" function get_job_count() { # For each queue found, do the following; for q in `echo -e $QUEUE_LIST` ; do # Use 'qacct' and 'grep' to get a count of the number of jobs for the # specified time period QUEUE_JOB_COUNT=`qacct -d $DAYS -q $q -j | grep "qname $q" -c` # Add this to the total job count TOTAL_JOB_COUNT=$(($TOTAL_JOB_COUNT+$QUEUE_JOB_COUNT)) # Store the results for later output OUT="$OUT$QUEUE_JOB_COUNT\t\t$q
" done # Output the results table, performing a reverse-numerical sort on the results echo -e "Job Count\tQueue" echo "--------------------------" echo -e $OUT | sort -nr echo "Total Job Count: $TOTAL_JOB_COUNT" } function display_help() { # Display a help message echo "---SGE Queue Job Count---" echo "This script will use the SGE command 'qacct' to search back though all the" echo "job records for the specified number of days, and return a table of the" echo "job counts for each queue configured on the system." echo "" echo "Usage: q_job_count.sh [DAYS|OPTION]" echo "Where 'DAYS' is a number of days to gather statistics for or 'OPTION' is one of the following;" echo -e "\tweek\tGather statistics for the week so far" echo -e "\tmonth\tGather statistics for the month to date" echo -e "\tyear\tGather statistics for the year to date" echo -e "\thelp\tDisplay this message" } # Check if the first argument was null, and display help and exit if so if [ -z "$DAYS" ] ; then display_help exit else # Else, select from the following options case "$DAYS" in "week") # If 'week' is specified, determine how many days into the week we are, starting from, Monday DAYS=`date +%u` get_job_count ;; "month") # If'month' is specified, determine how many days into the month we are DAYS=`date +%d` get_job_count ;; "year") # If 'year' is specified, determine how many days into the year we are DAYS=`date +%j` get_job_count ;; (*[0-9]) # Otherwise, if the input conatains numbers, trim out all non-numeric characters and continue DAYS=`echo $DAYS | tr -d [:alpha:][:punct:]` get_job_count ;; "help") # If 'help' is specified, display the help message and exit display_help exit ;; *) # If the input is anything else, display the help message and exit display_help exit ;; esac fi
Change Queue State
A very short script that will either enable or disable all queue instances on the host its run on - I've found it useful for quickly knocking out the queues on nodes that are being taken down for maintenance.
#!/bin/bash # #========================================================================== # Name: Change SGE Queue Instance States # Author: Chris Bingham # Date: 28.11.2008 # Language: Bash # External References: qselect, qmod, grep, tr # # This script will, based on the argument supplied, either enable or disable # all queue instances on the current host #========================================================================== # Store the first argument, all other argument will be discarded ACTION=$1 # Convert any uppercase letters to lowercase, for the case statement below ACTION=`echo $ACTION | tr -t [:upper:] [:lower:]` # Determine what action to take based on the argument supplied case "$ACTION" in "enable") # If the argument was 'enable', then use 'qselect' and 'grep' to select all # queue instances on the current host (except 'test.q') and then enable them # using 'qmod' qmod -e `qselect -q *@$HOSTNAME` ;; "disable") # If the argument was 'disable', then use 'qselect' and 'grep' to select all # queue instances on the current host (except 'test.q') and then disable them # using 'qmod' qmod -d `qselect -q *@$HOSTNAME` ;; *) # If the argument was anything else, display an error message echo "Invalid option: please enter either 'enable' or 'disable'" ;; esac
filter-accounting
A small Perl script to filter the accounting file by the end_time of the jobs. Mostly useful for splitting up an accounting file by years, for example.
Other Miscellaneous
Some others, partially overlapping with some above are listed under http://www.nw-grid.ac.uk/LivScripts.The holiday classic, released in 1994, dashes from No. 11 to No. 9. Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran & Beyoncé's "Perfect" leads for a second week and Migos, Nicki Minaj & Cardi B's "MotorSport" also zooms to the top 10.
Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" hits the Billboard Hot 100's top 10 at last, jingling from No. 11 (its prior peak) to No. 9 on the chart dated Dec. 30. The modern yuletide classic reaches the top 10 for the first time 23 years after its 1994 release.
Atop the Hot 100, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé's "Perfect" reigns for a second week. Plus, Migos, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B's "MotorSport" accelerates 15-6 for its first week in the top 10 following the premiere of its official video.
As we do every Monday, let's run down the top 10 of the Hot 100, which blends all-genre streaming, airplay and sales data. All charts will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (Dec. 19).
Let's start with a blizzard of chart stats about Carey's "Christmas."
Streams, Sales & Plays: First, the numbers that result in "Christmas" (on Columbia/Legacy Records and co-written and co-produced by Carey and Walter Afanasieff) hitting the Hot 100's top 10. The song gains by 4 percent to 25.2 million U.S. streams in the week ending Dec. 14, according to Nielsen Music; dips 8 percent to 19,000 downloads sold in the same tracking span; and lifts 28 percent to 34 million in airplay audience in the week ending Dec. 17. Those totals place "Christmas" at No. 7 on the Streaming Songs chart, No. 13 on Digital Song Sales and No. 36 on Radio Songs.
Notably, streaming is the most prominent driver of the song, accounting for 70 percent of its chart points this week.
Carey's 28th Top 10: Carey collects her 28th Hot 100 top 10. "Christmas" is her first since "Obsessed" reached No. 7 in 2009. She tallied 19 top 10s in the 1990s and eight in the 2000s. (Of those, 18 hit No. 1, the most among soloists; only The Beatles have more, with 20.)
Carey ties Stevie Wonder for the fifth-most Hot 100 top 10s in the chart's history (which dates to its Aug. 4, 1958, inception):
Most Top 10 Hot 100 Hits
38, Madonna
34, The Beatles
31, Rihanna
29, Michael Jackson
28, Mariah Carey
28, Stevie Wonder
27, Janet Jackson
27, Elton John
Top 10s in the '90s, '00s & '10s: Carey joins an elite list of acts with Hot 100 top 10s in the '90s, '00s & '10s. Its previously-inducted members: Christina Aguilera, Dr. Dre, Whitney Houston, Enrique Iglesias, Michael Jackson, JAY-Z, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears and Usher. Two of those acts boast streaks dating even further back than the '90s: Jackson ('70s-'10s) and Madonna ('80s-'10s).
(As for Houston, she charted top 10s in the '80s, '90s and '00s and re-sent her 1992-93 No. 1 "I Will Always Love You" to No. 3 in 2012 following her passing that February. All the other acts above sent at least one song to the top 10 for the first time in each decade.)
'Christmas' in the Top 10: Perhaps surprisingly, Carey charts one of the few holiday top 10s in the Hot 100's history. "The Chipmunk Song" by The Chipmunks with David Seville led for four weeks beginning Dec. 22, 1958; Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" reached No. 9 in February 1981 (after debuting in December 1980); and New Kids on the Block's "This One's for the Children" rose to No. 7 in the 1989-90 holiday season.
No other such song reached the top 10 until Kenny G's "Auld Lang Syne" (No. 7, Jan. 8, 2000). Between that New Year's Eve anthem and Carey's "Christmas," Justin Bieber came closest to the top 10 with "Mistletoe," which hit No. 11 (Jan. 5, 2011).
Carey's hit is, thus, the first Hot 100 top 10 with the word "Christmas" in its title.
Notably, for several years in the Hot 100's history (1963-72; 1983-85, barring occasional exceptions), holiday songs were not eligible to chart, instead appearing on separate holiday rankings. Other classics fell just shy of the Hot 100's top 10, including The Harry Simeone Chorale's "Little Drummer Boy" (No. 13, 1958); Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" (No. 12, 1962, after it was originally released in 1942); Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (No. 14, 1960); Roy Orbison's "Pretty Paper" (No. 15, 1964); Eagles' "Please Come Home for Christmas" (No. 18, 1979); Band-Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (No. 13, 1985); and Aguilera's "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" (No. 18, 2000).
(Honorable mention to Adam Sandler's "The Chanukah Song," the only holiday top 10 ever on the Radio Songs chart, which began in 1990. The track hit No. 10 on the tally in the 1995-96 season.)
#Lambily get into the Christmas spirit with me and stream "All I Want For Christmas Is You" on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music! ------ #AIWFCIY #StreamMariah https://t.co/srzJxnNUS4 pic.twitter.com/kkAUlwQnl9 — Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) December 13, 2017
As for the Chart History of Carey's 'Christmas': So, what are the details behind a song from 1994 just hitting the Hot 100's top 10 now, for the first time?
Upon its initial release, on Carey's album Merry Christmas (released on Nov. 1, 1994; coincidentally, that marked the 100th anniversary of the first Billboard magazine, dated Nov. 1, 1894), the song was not a commercially available single and, per rules at the time, was ineligible to chart on the Hot 100; it did reach No. 12 on the Radio Songs chart that season. In December 1998, album cuts became eligible for the Hot 100 and "Christmas" dented the chart for the first time on Jan. 8, 2000, spending a week at No. 83.
Beginning in 2012, and coinciding with the addition of streaming to the Hot 100's formula, the song has hit the Hot 100 annually, as, per current rules, older songs are eligible to debut or return if ranking in the top 50 and are gaining in multiple metrics with a significant reason for their resurgences. In the 2015-16 holiday season, "Christmas" hit a prior No. 11 Hot 100 high, which it matched last week before hitting the top 10 at last this week. Again, with streaming contributing 70 percent of the song's Hot 100 chart points this week, the metric has clearly helped the track reach the top 10 at last.
Meanwhile, "Christmas" is believed to be the first song to have taken as many as 23 years from its recording to reach the Hot 100's top 10.
An Even Merrier 'Christmas': That two-decade-plus journey to the Hot 100's top 10 for Carey's "Christmas" has been aided by various offshoots of the song in recent years, including this year. The animated movie All I Want for Christmas Is You was released Nov. 14, four days after the arrival of its soundtrack, which includes the title song. The movie is based on a 2015 children's book of the same name, inspired by the song.
A year earlier, in December 2014, Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You, a Night of Joy and Festivity, an annual residency at New York's Beacon Theatre, began and she's continued it each holiday season since; this year, the show expanded to include dates in Paris; Manchester, England; and Las Vegas.
Even before this decade, "Christmas" benefited from adult contemporary radio's expansion to 24/7 yuletide music on many stations throughout the holiday season, a strategy that began around the early 2000s.
Holiday 100 Chart Queen: Beyond its new Hot 100 honor, Carey's "Christmas" crowns the Holiday 100 chart, which ranks seasonal songs of all eras (using the same measurement metrics as the Hot 100), for a 29th week. No other song has led for more than two frames since the list's 2011 launch.
Of course, there are nine other songs in the Hot 100's top 10 this week, including one that completes a much shorter trip to the tier than Carey's …
Sheeran and Beyoncé's "Perfect" (on Atlantic Records) tops the Hot 100 for a second week. First released as a solo song by Sheeran on his album ÷ (Divide), which debuted atop the Billboard 200 dated March 25, the new duet version was released Nov. 30. In its second full tracking week, it sold 98,000 downloads (down 46 percent), as it spends a third week at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart.
"Perfect" pushes 3-2 on Radio Songs (117 million in audience, up 13 percent, good for the Hot 100's top gain in airplay) and bullets at No. 3 on Streaming Songs (39.7 million U.S. streams, up 14 percent).
The rest of the Hot 100's top five likewise remains in place, with Post Malone's "Rockstar," featuring 21 Savage, at No. 2 for a second week after eight weeks at No. 1. It tops Streaming Songs for a 12th week (43.9 million, down 12 percent) and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts for a 10th week each.
Camila Cabello's "Havana," featuring Young Thug, holds at No. 3 on the Hot 100, after reaching No. 2, and tops Radio Songs for a second frame (132 million, up 5 percent); Lil Pump's "Gucci Gang" keeps at No. 4 after hitting No. 3; and Imagine Dragons' "Thunder" is steady at No. 5 after climbing to No. 4, while leading Hot Rock Songs for a seventh week.
Migos, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B's "MotorSport" wheels 15-6 on the Hot 100 for its first week in the top 10, following the Dec. 7 arrival of its official video. The track charges 9-5 on Streaming Songs (31.7 million, up 40 percent) and 43-25 on Digital Song Sales (15,000, up 44 percent), as it posts the Hot 100's top gains in streaming and sales, and rises 37-34 on Radio Songs (35 million, up 10 percent).
Migos earn their second Hot 100 top 10, following "Bad and Boujee" (featuring Lil Uzi Vert), which led for three weeks beginning Jan. 21; Minaj tallies her 15th Hot 100 top 10, extending her record for the most among female rappers; and Cardi B becomes the first female rapper to send her first three Hot 100 entries to the top 10, following her own "Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)," which spent three weeks at No. 1 in October, and G-Eazy's "No Limit," on which she's featured with A$AP Rocky. The latter track dips to No. 10 from its No. 7 high.
Above Carey's "Christmas" and G-Eazy's "Limit," Sam Smith's No. 4-peaking "Too Good at Goodbyes" slips 6-7 and Halsey's "Bad at Love" holds at its No. 8 Hot 100 peak to date.
Find out more Hot 100 news in the weekly "Hot 100 Chart Moves" column and by listening (and subscribing) to Billboard's Chart Beat Podcast and Pop Shop Podcast, all posting this week. And again, be sure to visit Billboard.com tomorrow (Dec. 19), when all charts, including the Hot 100 in its entirety, will refresh. The 2017 year in music issue of Billboard magazine is on sale Friday (Dec. 22).Image copyright AFP Image caption Tarantino's last film, Django Unchained, was also a western
Director Quentin Tarantino has revealed he plans to retire after completing his 10th film, saying he likes the idea of leaving audiences "wanting a bit more".
He told an American Film Market (AFM) audience in Santa Monica: "I don't believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off".
The Pulp Fiction director was speaking at an event to promote his current project, western The Hateful Eight.
"I've got two more to go after this," the 51-year-old continued.
"I like that I will leave a 10-film filmography," said the director, whose other titles include Reservoir Dogs and the two-part Kill Bill.
"It's not etched in stone, but that is the plan."
Tarantino said directing was "a young man's game" and that he intended to spend the remainder of his career "writing plays and books".
The director's statements drew light-hearted mockery from his fellow panellists, who included his regular collaborator Samuel L Jackson.
"What's Quentin going to do with himself if he's not doing this?" said the actor, who worked with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and other titles.
The Oscar-winning writer and director announced in January he was putting The Hateful Eight on hold after its script was leaked online.
He reversed his decision later in the year, saying the film - about a group of outlaws left stranded by a blizzard - would be made after all.Story highlights China's foreign ministry "seriously concerned"
Donald Trump is questioning the "one China" policy
Washington (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump again signaled Sunday a willingness to confront Beijing, questioning whether the United States should keep its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of "one China."
"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Trump said on "Fox News Sunday."
Trump had set off a diplomatic controversy when he took a call from Taiwan's leader. The United States recognizes Taiwan as part of China -- and Chinese officials were furious over the first conversation in decades between a Taiwanese leader and a US President or President-elect.
Trump indicated Sunday he won't hesitate to anger China until the country comes to the bargaining table on trade and severs ties with North Korea.
"I mean, look, we're being hurt very badly by China with devaluation, with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don't tax them, with building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn't be doing, and frankly with not helping us at all with North Korea," Trump said.
Read MoreA new Firefox Beta for Android is now available for download and testing. This beta introduces a completely new experience optimized for tablets that makes mobile browsing more intuitive and new tools that enable developers to create interactive mobile Web experiences.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Android:
New Look for Tablets : Firefox Beta has a new experience for tablets that leverages the large screen size and makes mobile Web browsing more intuitive. Popular Firefox features like tabs and the Awesome Screen are optimized for tablets.
: Firefox Beta has a new experience for tablets that leverages the large screen size and makes mobile Web browsing more intuitive. Popular Firefox features like tabs and the Awesome Screen are optimized for tablets. Full-Screen Portrait Browsing : Firefox Beta takes advantage of large tablet screens so you can use the full screen to browse the Web, even in portrait mode. Tabs are listed in a top left menu and easily hide when you don’t need them.
: Firefox Beta takes advantage of large tablet screens so you can use the full screen to browse the Web, even in portrait mode. Tabs are listed in a top left menu and easily hide when you don’t need them. Tab Optimization : Tabs are shown as thumbnails in the left panel of Firefox Beta, allowing you to easily switch between tabs while still viewing full websites on the right. You can swipe to the left to hide tabs for a full screen view.
: Tabs are shown as thumbnails in the left panel of Firefox Beta, allowing you to easily switch between tabs while still viewing full websites on the right. You can swipe to the left to hide tabs for a full screen view. New Action Bar with Quick Access Buttons: You can access Firefox Preferences, Add-ons, downloads and more in the new Action Bar menu (next to the Awesome Bar). The Action Bar adds back, forward and bookmark buttons for easy access.
What’s New For Developers:
HTML5 Input Tag for Camera Access : Developers can build mobile websites and Web apps that allow you to use the camera on an Android phone or tablet to take pictures, scan bar codes and more without leaving Firefox. To see a demo of the camera input element in action, click here.
: Developers can build mobile websites and Web apps that allow you to use the camera on an Android phone or tablet to take pictures, scan bar codes and more without leaving Firefox. To see a demo of the camera input element in action, click here. HTML5 Form Validation API: Firefox Beta supports the HTML5 Form Validation API which automatically validates website form fields like numbers, emails and URLs without developers needing to write a custom code or use a third-party library.
For more information:Warning: serious programming geekery ahead.
With the release of Java 8 back in March 2014, the developer community was primarily excited about two things. One was support for lambda expressions, also known as anonymous functions, which (in Cay Horstmann’s admirably simple definition) are blocks of code you can pass around in a program for later execution—or, if you prefer more formal terms, “a way to represent one method interface using an expression.” Second was Java 8’s embrace of the multicore world.
Functional programmers viewed the new directions that Oracle was steering Java 8 as a strong validation of core principles in languages like Scala, Erlang and Haskell. Detractors suggested the new directions of Java 8 were potentially a threat to supplant those languages. (I covered the implications of Java 8 for other languages back in February).
Jonas Bonér
Six months after the release of Java 8, San Francisco-based Typesafe—the commercial backers of Scala, Play Framework, and Akka—has released a follow-up survey of Java developers. A hefty sample size of 3,000 Java developers not only updates our data on Java 8 adoption, it highlights other trends driving enterprise application development today.
For some context on the survey findings (you can download the full findings here), I spoke with Typesafe CTO and Akka creator Jonas Bonér.
ReadWrite: So tell us where Java developers are with Java 8 and what the survey data suggests.
Jonas Bonér: In our original Java 8 adoption survey six months ago, we found that two thirds of Java developers planned to upgrade within two years, which is really aggressive. So we were surprised to learn with this new survey that two-thirds now have actually already upgraded or plan to upgrade within a year—the adopters are six months ahead of what was already a fast pace.
When you think about how much Java is running in production, you just don’t expect to see this much of the market move that quickly.
Of the excitement around Java 8 for those who have adopted it already, lambdas continue to be at the top of their list of things they’re enjoying. Eighty percent called “lambdas with expressions and virtual extension models” the feature they cared about the most. With Java 8’s support of lambda expressions, type inference, syntactic sugar for static methods, and new APIs like Stream and CompletableFuture, Oracle has basically taken 9 million Java developers back to the future with a renaissance around functional programming.
The Lambda Lies Down On Broadway
RW: Why the major interest in lambdas?
JB: Well, first it simplifies traditional callback-driven programming by adding syntactic sugar on top of anonymous classes. Lots of Java APIs are making use of this callback style and all of these libraries will be able to make direct use of lambdas, enabling its users to write more fluent and less verbose code.
This is great, but the biggest benefit in my opinion is that it enables a functional style of programming, which has a lot of advantages, but primarily delivers more succinct and expressive code that is easier to compose and reuse. But perhaps most importantly, code that allows you to work with state, safely, in a concurrent environment.
In the single-threaded world of the 80s and 90s, dealing with state in applications was a lot easier. But, as we all know, the multicore world of distributed computing today has opened up a Pandora’s box and made it much harder for Java developers to shoehorn all of this state into a perceived reality of running in a single core.
Technically it is possible, through mutexes and other blocking primitives, but it just doesn’t scale.
In Java the default is mutable state, but a functional approach to programming—which can be simplified as composition of functions operating on immutable state—can make the design of concurrent and asynchronous (event-driven) applications so much easier, allowing us to take full advantage of all the exciting new multicore hardware on the market.
Examples of this include the JDK itself with its Stream and CompletableFuture libraries. Event-driven programming also opens up for a more loosely coupled architecture, with isolated components communicating in a non-blocking fashion, and forms the basis for the principles defined in the Reactive Manifesto.
RW: What about those that do not have plans to upgrade, what’s the holdup?
JB: Of Java 8 holdouts, 69% are running Java 7, and 26% are running Java 6. For the majority of the Java 8 holdouts, their decision has nothing to do with Java 8 and more to do with how their businesses operate. Among those shying away from Java 8, 37% said their non-adoption was related to “hurdles with legacy infrastructure” and 19% said “organizational obstacles/red tape.”
However, it would be a mistake to call organizations that don’t upgrade to the latest versions of software “laggards.” Sometimes I think that analysis of market adoption of new versions overlooks the legacy infrastructure and existing libraries that organizations have to upgrade—where the cost of upgrading may not make financial sense, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the new version itself.
Java’s footprint in production is so massive, there are just a lot of moving parts at most enterprises when thinking about upgrading a language that touches so much of its infrastructure.
Apache Spark Is On The Move; Docker, Not So Much
RW: You polled those 3,000 Java developers on their use of other technologies. Given the large sample size, I’d be interested to hear about other surprise findings that came up.
JB: Amazon EC2 is used by more than half of respondents (57%), making it the most common cloud technology used by Java developers. Apache Hadoop ranked second in popularity at 30% and Big Data newcomer Apache Spark is being used in production by 17% of respondents.
Given that Spark was only introduced to the market in June of 2013, we think that’s really an incredible production usage statistic, and a sign of just how much mindshare Spark is capturing in the Big Data world.
One of the head scratchers was around Linux containers, where the data didn’t really line up. While 60% of respondents claimed to be investigating Linux containers, and 23% said they use Docker, only 13% said they are actually using Linux containers in production.
There were really no surprises where application server adoption was concerned. The latest findings confirm that adoption of lightweight, open source Java Web servers like Tomcat and Jetty are far and away more popular than traditional heavyweight JEE application servers like WebLogic or WebSphere, which are nearly tied in popularity.
I was also surprised about the Internet of Things adoption: 21% claimed to be running networked devices/M2M/IoT in production, with 22% “planning for future deployments.” That’s way out ahead of the IoT adoption curve for the rest of the industry.
Lead photo courtesy of ShutterstockEnjoy the video in HQ on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txVkV_n87f8
or on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/93271172
For those of you who can't back through Kickstarter: We now support PayPal!*
*Please donate through paypal as last resort as we still need to reach our goal on Kickstarter!
Current PayPal funds collected: 191$ (updated daily)
The Way is a 2D puzzle platformer game inspired by classic titles like Another World, Heart of Darkness and Flashback. Seeing the remakes and re-releases of those titles we realised that there are no new games that would have similar spirit and gameplay.
It is a real shame, because those were some of our favorite titles back in the day and we still play them once in a while. Revisiting those games always makes us wish for something new that would deliver the similar experience and emotions.
We decided to fill in this empty spot by creating our own game - The Way!
Without giving too much away, The Way tells a story about a member of space explorers team, who lost his beloved one and cannot accept her death. Finding ancient writtings on eternal existence during one of his last expeditions makes him come back there in search of the meaning of life itself.
He will soon know that the planet has its own secrets and problems that he will need to face in order to get what he is looking for.
Immersing sci-fi story,
Unique alien planet to explore,
Retro pixelart style rich with animations,
Emphasis on the atmosphere and emotions,
Multi-function alien artifact (telekinesis, relfective shield and teleportation!),
Mind-bending puzzles,
Level design inspired by Éric Chahi's masterpieces.
Some examples of the animated artwork we have created so far for the game:
Alien robot
Alien creature
Earth military droid
Earth military mech
Kickstarter is our most direct link to The Way future players (this means You!). This is your opportunity to express whether or not you would like to see our game finished and published.
Concept and final version
The Way is a unique and creative project that we would love to create for those of you who have dreamed of the chance to immerse yourself in a new game like Another World, Heart of Darkness or Flashback.
If you want to make this project a reality please consider supporting us here and spread the word! If enough of you support the project, you will get this game sooner than you can say "my god - it's full of stars!".
Some of the concept art
90% of the funds that are raised will go directly into the production of the game. 5% is used to produce the physical rewards. Finally, 5% is paid to Kickstarter/Amazon for providing their services.
Concept and final version
To date, we have invested over $20,000 into the preproduction, design, and development, and we can see (and hopefully you can see it as well!) how fun this project will be.
Applying everything we can of your contributions toward development is the only way to make this game happen.
Concept and final version
$15,000 CAD - Initial Funding Goal.
$20,000 CAD - Language Translations ─ We will add more languages to the basic English version so more people can enjoy the game.
We will add more languages to the basic English version so more people can enjoy the game. $25,000 CAD - iOS/Android/OUYA ─ More supported platforms. Enjoy The Way on your favorite smartphone/tablet or on the indie's favorite console!
More supported platforms. Enjoy on your favorite smartphone/tablet or on the indie's favorite console! $35,000 CAD - Bonus Chapter ─ A whole new level to explore and extra puzzles to solve in a new enviorment.
A whole new level to explore and extra puzzles to solve in a new enviorment. $50,000 CAD - Animated Cutscenes ─ Digitally drawn cinematic cutscenes at the end of each chapter, intro and endings.
Digitally drawn cinematic cutscenes at the end of each chapter, intro and endings. $100,000 CAD - PS/XBOX / WiiU ─ Even more platforms! The game will be brought to the major console market!
/ Even more platforms! The game will be brought to the major console market! Everything more than this will be used to buy tremendous amounts of coffee to speed up the development time.
Rewards fall into two categories:
Digital Rewards that are distributed though Steam and/or by other electronic means,
that are distributed though Steam and/or by other electronic means, Physical Rewards that will be distributed through the traditional mail.
Please note that all physical rewards have an additional shipping cost for supporters living outside Canada.
$10 CAD ─ ASTRONAUT (Early Bird)
You will get DRM-free digital copy of the game (and Steam key if we get released there!) (Limited 33% discount for early birds!) and your name will be rightfully placed in the credits.
$15 CAD ─ ASTRONAUT
You will get DRM-free digital copy of the game (and Steam key if we get released there!) and your name will be rightfully placed in the credits.
$25 CAD ─ PLANET EXPLORER
Every previous reward + digital soundtrack download.
$50 CAD ─ ALIEN SPECIES EXPERT
Every previous reward + you will be drawn in pixelart (same style as characters in the game) by our artist! + awesome 3D picture for you to print and assemble according to simple instructions!
$75 CAD ─ SPACE HERO
Every previous reward + your pixelart drawing (see previous reward) will be animated according to your wishes! + pins and stickers!
$125 CAD ─ DEFENDER OF THE GALAXY
Every previous reward + we will create an alien creature of your design and feature it in the game! + physical copy of the soundtrack + standard boxed copy of the game (not mentioned in the sidebar) + poster.
$500 CAD ─ EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE
Every previous reward + your guest appearance in the game as an NPC + T-shirt + exclusive boxed version of the game (instead of standard boxed edition)!
Add-ons can be added to all reward tiers. Just adjust your current pledge WITHOUT changing the reward tier - just add the addon price (and possibly the shipping cost)
$10 CAD: Additional Digital copy PC
$15 CAD: Physical soundtrack
$20 CAD: Physical game copy (box - standard edition)
WHEN ADDING PHYSICAL ADDON TO DIGITAL-ONLY TIER PLEASE ADD SHIPPING COST IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE |
his You Won't Let Me EP. But even with a string of quality releases to his name, it's sometimes easy to forget Dixon amongst the ever-swelling ranks of producers turning out bass music, or whatever genre tag is being applied at the moment. Perhaps it's due to the understated nature of his productions, which offer a polished, techno-infused take on UK rhythms. Well-suited for melancholy mornings and late-night comedowns, Dixon's tunes aren't anthems, nor are they meant to be. As admirers of his songcraft, we figured that it might be best to give Dixon a chance to showcase his talents outside of the club, which is why he's been invited to deliver the latest chapter of the XLR8R podcast series. As one might expect, it's a low-key affair, albeit never a sleepy one, as Dixon tastefully weaves together an hour's worth of nuanced house and techno selections. The blends are long and the mix never comes close to losing its composure, yet Dixon's podcast still carries enough weight to edge its way into our subconscious.
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01 Eric D. Clark and Joel Alter "Rules Of Love (DJ Qu Remix)" (Bass Culture)
02 DPlay "Klick Klack" (Mild Pitch)
03 Kaitaro "Little Helper 324" (Little Helpers)
04 Smallpeople "Black Ice" (Smallville)
05 Fog "Dulcet Cynosure" (Apparel)
06 Jack Dixon "Black Paint" (Apollo)
07 Jack Dixon "Lose Myself (Dauwd Remix)" (Skint)
08 Sirenize "Everybody" (Bedrock)
09 Jack Dixon "The Walls"
10 Nail "(I Don't Wanna) Hurt U" (Classic)
11 Pawas "Who Is In" (Night Drive)
12 Einzelkind "Limelight" (Oslo)
13 Cherry "Lost Days (Orient Remix)" (Troplott)
14 Kassian Troyer "The Afternoon Grid" (Dial)
Download MP3
Download M4A (iTunes enhanced)
Subscribe to Podcast (RSS)
XLR8R_Podcast_Jack_Dixon_2012_05_15NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Most women would marry for love over money — unless the man is unemployed, according to a new survey.
A man puts an engagement ring on a woman's finger during a photo opportunity at a jewellery store in Tokyo June 2, 2009. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
Three out of four women said they would not wed someone without a job, and 65 percent would feel uncomfortable tying the knot if they themselves were jobless.
But more than 91 percent of single women said they would marry for love over money.
“It is ironic that women place more weight on love than money, yet won’t marry if they or their potential suitor is unemployed,” said Meghan Casserly, of ForbesWoman which conducted the survey with the website YourTango.com.
Even more telling, she said, is that 77 percent of women surveyed believe they can have it all — a fulfilling relationship and family life, as well as a successful career.
But 63 percent of women said they work 40-59 hours, and 62 percent of women in a relationship said they spend just three waking hours or less with their partner during the work week.
“The career is really taking the No. 1 position for working women,” Casserly said. “It’s pretty ironic that this number of women believe they can have everything. How? When?”
Two out of five women in a relationship said their job was most likely to keep them up at night, according to the poll of 625 women. Job responsibilities and love life tied as the factors most likely to keep single women awake.
Thirty-two percent of women said they make more money than their partner and half said they would marry someone who earned significantly less than them, while 41 percent wouldn’t.
Fifty-five percent of women said they would give up their career to take care of children if their partner asked them to do so. But only 28 percent would ask the same of their partner.
If women could find an extra hour in each day, 42 percent would spend it by themselves, instead of with their partner, friends or family or on work.
The survey results are available here and here"Carlin at Carnegie" is George Carlin's third special to be seen on HBO, recorded at Carnegie Hall, New York City in 1982, released in 1983. Most of the material comes from his " A Place for My Stuff ", the album released earlier that same year. Unlike the first two, this special was edited down to an hour and routines from the same show like "A Place for My Stuff" and "Baseball and Football" do not appear in this special in contradiction to many internet descriptions. The final performance of " Seven Dirty Words," his last recorded performance of the routine, features Carlin's updated list (read from an oversized scroll):
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits, Fart, Turd, Twat, Crap, Balls, Prick, Asshole, Jackoff, Jerkoff, Scumbag, Douchebag, Hardon, Rod-on, Boner, Stiff, Pisshard, Blueballs, Nookie, Koose, Gash, Slash, Hole, Slit, Snatch, Box, Beaver, Pussy, Bearded Clam, Jism, Cum, Cream, Juice, Pecker, Peckerhead, Peckertracks, Dick, Dork, Dong, Donacker, Wang, Shlong, Schwantz, Pork, Crabs, Ass, Butt, Hiney, Tuchas, Bum, Buns, Cheeks, Screw, Lay, Diddle, Plow, Hump, Bang, Poke, Batter, Wham, Knock-up, Bugger, Brown, Juggs, Bazooms, Knockers, Knobs, Lungs, Balloons, Dildo, Joystick, Hairpie, Muff, Cornhole, Rimjob, Blowjob, Sugarbowl-pie, Suck-off, Give-head, Sit-on-my-face, Buttfuck, Fingerfuck, Clap, Kleek, 69, 71 which is 69 with 2 fingers up your ass, daisy chain, circle jerk, cockteaser, wet-dream, cunt-struck, pussywhipped, short-arm, tuna-taco, group-grope, milking-the-chicken, bulldagger, gangbang, ballbreaker, ballbuster, merkin, bananas and cream, up the old dirt road, around the world, beat-your-meat, whack-off, flogging your dong, pounding your pud, beating the bishop, poontang, dingleberry, sit on it, fudgepacker, milking the lizard, fart face, old fart, farting around, fart sniffer, ream, snake, raincoat, quickie, queer, queen, putz, put-out, push, beef-injection, dog-style, pop your cookies, bust-your-nuts, one-eyed-monster, knob, pocket pool, tail, piddle, paddle the pickle, one-man-band, snapper, notch, rod, shaft, stick, piece of ass, god damn it, pimp, fucker, punk, faggot, dyke, lezzie, box-lunch, sea-food, hand-job, hammer, hatch, head-job, hot-nuts, hum-job, prong, jellyroll, jerk-the-gerkin, lob, meat whistle, cheese, scat fan, middle-leg, wanking, booty, love-muscle, snapping pussy, ghost, bitch, bastard, clam, bite the brown, going up mustard road, bone-on, bush, button, cunt-lapper, cherry, tool, dingus, quiff, quim, get off, joint, piece, stem, root, crack, cooch, crud, eat me, fuck you, up your ass, get laid, fuck-off, piss-off, piss on you, stick it, stuff it, ram it, jam it, cram it, horny, peter, the one eyed wonder worm, piece-of-ass, little brown eyeball, golden showers, pound cake, boy in the boat, brown eye, brown nose, sloppy seconds, Mongolian cluster fuck, rod of love, copping a feel, copping a cherry, copping a joint, on the rag, flying the flag, riding the cotton pony, dipping your wick, going down on, dry hump, fist fuck, skin-flute, French job, furburger, nuts, get your rocks off, get in, get it up, hung, ginch, gobble, dieseldock, rubber, shoot, diesel dyke that was, siff, wad, cocksman, tit-fuck, tongue, rough-trade, trick, weenie, and yodeling in the gully."
Track listing
# Program opening
# Abortion
# Professional Comedian
# Heart Attack
# Rice Krispies
# Have a Nice Day
# Ice Box Man
# Fussy Eater 1 & 2
# New News
# The Musical Portion of the Show
# Dogs & Cats
# Filthy Words
ee also“God’s Plan for Families,” Ensign, July 2015, 28–31
Gaining a knowledge of our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness can help us understand the central role of marriage and family in that plan.
Illustrations by stefanamer, nuiiun, and Muymuy/iStock/Thinkstock
The scriptures and modern prophets teach us that one of the fundamental purposes for the Creation of this earth was to foster marriage and family life. “Marriage is ordained of God,” the Lord explained, so “that the earth might answer the end of its creation” (D&C 49:15–16). “Simply summarized,” added Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “the earth was created that families might be.”1
Despite the plainness of these teachings, I have encountered many seminary and institute students who did not seem to fully understand how central a role marriage and family play in our Heavenly Father’s plan. As a result, these students sometimes adopt some of the thinking of the world on these important topics, which affects the way they plan for, seek, and support eternal marriage and family relationships.
I believe that understanding the doctrines of God’s plan of salvation has the power to change our attitudes and behaviors to align more faithfully with the teachings of the Lord and his prophets.2 The following is a brief review of the plan of salvation as it relates to marriage and family. These principles can help us understand why “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God” and why “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”3
The Family in Premortal Life In our premortal life, each of us was born as “a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.”4 As such, we were all brothers and sisters and lived as members of God’s family. Although all of us were part of this eternal family of God, the only ones who enjoyed the blessings of eternal marriage were our heavenly parents. Only they could have children and be called father and mother. As Apostles of the Lord have explained, “The title father is sacred and eternal. It is significant that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to Deity, He has asked us to address Him as Father.”5 Our Heavenly Father prepared a plan whereby we could progress and become like Him. A central feature of this plan includes the opportunity to be married eternally and enjoy eternal posterity of our own.
The Family through the Creation, Fall, and Atonement Three foundational events in God’s plan combine to make marriage and family relationships possible for time and eternity. These events are the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement. The scriptural account of the Creation culminates not just with the creation of man but with the establishment of marriage. A brief summary of Adam and Eve’s eternal marriage in Eden is found in Genesis 1:28, including the charge to “multiply, and replenish the earth.” President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained: “Marriage as established in the beginning was an eternal covenant. The first man and the first woman were not married until death should part them, for at that time death had not come into the world. The ceremony on that occasion was performed by the Eternal Father himself whose work endures forever.”6 Thus, the crowning event of the Creation was not just when Adam and Eve were created in the image of their heavenly parents7 but when they were sealed in eternal marriage like their heavenly parents. From the beginning, marriage between a man and a woman was ordained of God and established as the ultimate purpose of our creation. Although Adam and Eve enjoyed eternal marriage like our heavenly parents, they could not yet enjoy the full blessings of family life. As the prophet Lehi explained, they were originally created in a state where “they would have had no children” (2 Nephi 2:23). One reason they chose to partake of the forbidden fruit and fall to mortality was so that they would have children. “Adam fell that men might be,” Lehi explained (2 Nephi 2:25). Marriage and family relationships, made possible by the Creation and the Fall, are made eternal through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As Sister Julie B. Beck, former Relief Society general president, taught: “The Atonement allows for the family to be sealed together eternally. It allows for families to have eternal growth and perfection. The plan of happiness, also called the plan of salvation, was a plan created for families.”8
The Family in Time and Eternity For these marriage and family relationships to endure forever, they must be sealed through holy ordinances and covenants available only in the temple, with all the promised blessings being dependent on the participants’ faithfulness. The importance of these ordinances to our salvation was explained by the Lord: “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; “And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; “And if he does not, he cannot obtain it” (D&C 131:1–3). In other words, just as the ordinance and covenant of baptism are the gate to enter the celestial kingdom, so temple marriage is the gate to enter the highest degree of that kingdom. Those who marry in the temple and remain faithful to their covenants are promised that they shall become like God because they will enjoy the continuation of the family unit forever, just like our heavenly parents (see D&C 132:19–20).
The Family and Alternative Lifestyles It is true that not everyone has the opportunity to marry in this life, nor is every couple blessed with children in mortality. Latter-day prophets have assured us that those who are faithful will eventually be given these blessings, either in this life or the next.9 Nevertheless, just because not everyone achieves the ideal does not mean we should stop holding it up as the standard to seek. Eternal marriage and family relationships should be a desire and priority for every Latter-day Saint, regardless of circumstances. As has always been the case, Satan proposes alternatives to our Heavenly Father’s plan, and nowhere is this more apparent than with the family. In contrast to our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness through righteousness in marriage and family life, Satan proposes alternative lifestyles that are rooted in sinfulness and selfishness. He is cursed to never marry or have a family, and he entices us to live like him instead of like our Heavenly Father. He lies to us, telling us that marriage and family are an inconvenience and a bondage. He promises us that we will find greater joy and fulfillment in some other way or through some other arrangement. He tempts us not to marry and, if we do marry, to not have children. The deviations the adversary proposes include premarital sexual relations, pornography, abuse of spouse and children, elective abortion for personal or social convenience, marital infidelity, unjustified divorce, cohabitation, homosexual relations, and unwarranted sterilization.10 If he cannot convince us to do these things, he tempts us to support and encourage others to do them. But these alternative lifestyles will not bring the true happiness we seek in this life, nor will they bring the full blessings of salvation in the next. Out of loyalty to our Heavenly Father’s plan and out of love for mankind, we must discourage and oppose measures that are not designed to maintain and strengthen marriage between a man and a woman and “the family as the fundamental unit of society.”11Inskeep Explores Growing Pains Of An 'Instant City'
Instant City Life and Death in Karachi by Steve Inskeep Hardcover, 284 pages | purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?
Pakistan's port city of Karachi is 30 times larger now than it was at the end of World War II. That tremendous growth caught the interest of NPR's Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep, who has made numerous reporting trips to Pakistan over the past decade. In his new book, Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, Inskeep explores the growing pains — and the vitality — of a city experiencing explosive population growth.
"Karachi is an example of something that is happening all around the world," Inskeep tells Michele Norris on All Things Considered. "There's been an incredible growth of urban areas since the end of World War II even in the United States. [Metropolitan] Los Angeles is more than three times larger than it was.... Houston is six times larger. Istanbul is 10 times larger.... We could go around the world like this."
Inskeep set out to explore what happens when a city experiences this sort of rapid population expansion. "It's not just the birth rate; it's mass migration," he explains. "And that means it is different kinds of people coming together and clashing in this landscape that, for all of them, is entirely new. The city as we see it today didn't really exist 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago."
'Full Of Incredible Life'
When the partition of India took place in 1947, Karachi was a colonial port city of about 400,000 people. It's now grown into a crowded, industrial, polluted city of more than 13 million people, Inskeep says. "There are red streams going down the streets that people say are pollution from tanneries. There's raw sewage going into the harbor. But at the same time, it's a city full of incredible life and incredible improvisation."
Real estate around the city is often taken illegally. Building, buying and selling houses often revolves around bribes. "In many ways, it's a city that lives beyond the law, but it's a city that lives and a city that has a vibrancy to it that's hard to find elsewhere," Inskeep says.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Linda Fittante/Penguin Group Steve Inskeep is co-host of NPR's Morning Edition. Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi is his first book. Linda Fittante/Penguin Group
In Instant City, Inskeep makes the counterintuitive argument that as Karachi becomes a less diverse place, it actually becomes a more dangerous place. When India and Pakistan were divided into two separate countries in 1947, one was meant to be majority Hindu and the other majority Muslim.
"There was a mass exodus of people who found themselves on the wrong side of the dividing lines," Inskeep says. "Hindus left Karachi by the hundreds of thousands, and even more Muslims came. You would think that would make it more stable. It actually became less stable over time."
A Place Of Opportunity
In a city that has grown so fast over a relatively short period of time, growing pains are acute; local conflicts over power, money and land lead to violence, Inskeep says. But in many ways, the city benefited from its instant and explosive growth — it has become resilient and vital.
"People come to this place that we think of as being terrible and polluted and poor, because it's actually rich," Inskeep says. "There's a lot of money to be made in Karachi even though there are a lot of poor people, and people will come from the countryside seeking jobs... seeking education."
Better urban planning would help, but it's been hard to achieve. In Karachi and in other fast-growing cities around the world, when urban planners have attempted to manage growth, the cities have continued to expand beyond the capacity.
To people in the West, "instant cities" like Karachi are often seen as teeming metropolises that are plagued by poverty and blight. But for those who come from places where the poverty is even worse, these huge metropolises are shining cities, full of promise and potential.
"There are shining glass towers in Karachi," Inskeep says. "Not as many as people would like there to have been by this point, but there are some. You do have people who... see the city as a glittering opportunity, an opportunity for jobs, for connections, for a future."
A Barometer For The Region
Inskeep sees many possibilities for the future of Karachi, a city situated in one of the most troubled parts of the world. "Pakistan has real demons to wrestle with," Inskeep says. "Pakistan has been facing year after year after year of bad news."
Karachi's great growth is in some ways a symbol of deep distress, although it is also a symbol of hope, because it is people still driving to make their lives better.
The rise of militant and extremist Islamic groups has troubled the citizens of a country that was once safer and more tolerant, says Inkseep: "You'll hear people saying, 'I don't recognize the country that I once knew.' "
The population growth in Karachi is a "barometer," Inkseep believes, for what's happening elsewhere in the country. "The more trouble there is in Pakistan — whether it's political, religious violence, the climate events like the... disastrous floods the last couple of years — each one of these kinds of events tends to drive people toward a city where they have a little better chance of improving their lot, a little better chance of getting an education, finding a job."
So the tremendous growth Karachi has seen can be seen in two ways — a negative push or a positive pull. "Karachi's great growth is in some ways a symbol of deep distress," Inskeep says, but "it is also a symbol of hope, because it is people still driving to make their lives better."Saudi Arabia's break with Iran is widely seen as a symptom of the Saudi fear of an aggressive Tehran and the construction of a "Shiite Crescent" in the Arab Middle East that is encircling the Sunni Muslim-dominated kingdom. But there's also a strong domestic element to the concerns: the desperate desire by the Saudi ruling group to shift attention away from domestic troubles to foreign threats.
The Saudi government, led by nearly octogenarian King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, is under pressure from numerous home-grown threats. There is stiff opposition to the king himself and his son, Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, recently appointed Deputy Crown Prince and to other top jobs, thereby placing him in line for eventual kingship.
Reduction of gasoline subsidies hit hard at the poor. Sectarian tension persists, driven by the discontented second-class citizenry of Saudi Arabia's Shiite Muslim minority.
Many younger Saudis think the royal family is a bunch of corrupt degenerates. Large numbers of disaffected youth have gone to Syria to fight alongside the Islamic State. ISIS is an avowed enemy of the Saudi monarchy, which it views as unwilling to engage in a cleansing jihad against foreign and local enemies.
So in some ways, tension with Iran is a useful diversion from an internal crackdown. King Salman sent a tough message to opponents with the execution-by-beheading of 47 people he alleged were terrorists; 46 were Sunni Muslim Saudis. The Saudi Foreign ministry issued a statement to justify this housecleaning, which it said was "based on clear and undisputed physical evidence" of terrorism." Some of the charges dated back more than a decade. The show of brutal domestic scimitar-rattling was a vivid message to highlight just who is in charge.
Despite the clear internal motive for the executions, foreign commentators and government mostly focused on the killing of a single Shiite cleric, Nimer al-Nimer. Iran, a Shiite Islamic republic, which has set itself up as protector of Shiites everywhere, protested. A mob in Tehran trashed and torched the Saudi embassy.
The Saudis responded by cutting off diplomatic relations and got its allies, Kuwait, Bahrain and Sudan to do the same. The United Arab Emirates downgraded its relations.
The Saudi foreign ministry accused Iran of harboring terrorists and of "blatant intervention" in "Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, where it has directly interfered through the revolutionary guard and the Shiite militias from Lebanon and other countries of the world, resulting in the killing of more than 250,000 Syrians."
Indeed, Iran's foreign policy worries the Saudis, who featured themselves Arab world leader and successor to historic Sunni Muslim domination of the region. To the north in Syria, the Saudis see Iran as backer of an Alawite minority regime that lords it over a Sunni Muslim majority. To the east, it sees Iran as sponsor of a restive Shiite majority in Sunni-ruled Bahrain. To the south, it regards Houthi Shiite rebels as an Iranian cat's paw fighting a Saudi-installed government. Iran influences a former Saudi client in Palestine, Hamas, with financial support.
And there are other alarming outside factors. The steep decline of oil prices and the feeling that the United States, its main post-World War II ally, has abandoned it. Exhibit A is President Obama's willingness to cut a nuclear deal with Iran without trying to curb Tehran's interventions on Saudi Arabia's doorstep.
The escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran is the latest episode in a 35-year old low-intensity conflict between the two regional powers. The competition took off in 1979, when the Shiite Islamic revolution triumphed in Iran. The new government solidified its hold on Iran with harsh Islamic moral and social restrictions and began to spread its influence outside by setting itself up as rival to the US, an enemy of Israel and supporter of non-state militias, foremost among them Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia harbored its own designs for Middle East leadership and reacted by intensifying the spread its ultra-conservative Islamic ideology, Wahhabism. The Saudis funded mosques, trained preachers and supported insurgent and terrorist groups in places as far afield as Palestine and the North Caucasus.
This competition evolved in parallel to intermittent U.S. military and political interventions in the Middle East and the region's chronic instability. Following the disastrous Iraq adventure, the US withdrew from its dominant position in the Middle East, opening the way for regional rivals and secondary outside powers -- especially Russia and Turkey -- to enter the fray.
This tangle of internal and external crises represents a major existential crisis for a country once considered a lynchpin to Middle East stability. No more. Saudi Arabia is shoring up its internal controls in anticipation of a long struggle.North Korea’s nuclear test site has experienced several post-test tremors since the rogue regime detonated a staged thermonuclear bomb in September.
The occurrence of multiple earthquakes in the aftermath of North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test to date triggered speculation that North Korea may have severely damaged its nuclear test site, possibly rendering it unsuitable for future testing.
North Korea tested a suspected hydrogen bomb in early September, and the bomb is believed to have produced a powerful explosive yield around or potentially well in excess of 250 kilotons. The resulting tremors led some to conclude that Mt. Manhap, where the Punggye-ri test site is located, may be suffering from a case of Tired Mountain Syndrome, a condition in which the rock becomes fractured and permeable as a result of repeated underground nuclear testing.
But, leading experts Frank Pabian and Jack Liu argue in a report for 38 North, a North Korea research and monitoring site, that post-test tremors are not unusual, pointing to the occurrence of such tremors after American nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site.
The two scholars point to a 1969 study, which asserts that “increases in seismic activity in the Nevada region were common following underground nuclear explosions at the US Nevada Test Site,” and some of the post-test earthquakes had magnitudes significantly larger than those of the quakes that followed North Korea’s latest test.
“Despite the numerous post-test earthquakes, the Nevada Test Site was not abandoned for nuclear test purposes,” Pabian and Liu explain, noting that North Korea is unlikely to abandon its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. While there is some evidence that the North Portal may have sustained damage during the most recent nuclear test, there are still two unused tunnel complexes.
38 North researchers actually detected new activity outside the South and West tunnel in the aftermath of the North’s sixth nuclear test.
“For the time being, however, given the presence of additional test portals, we see no reason that the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site as a whole has or will be abandoned for future underground nuclear testing,” Pabian and Liu conclude in their report.
At the same time, North Korea has hinted that it is interested in conducting an atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean, but it does not mean the North does not intend to carry out additional underground testing at the Punggye-ri test site.
Pabian and Liu argue that North Korea has not yet nuked itself out of a nuclear test site, as some outlets claimed.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.BERLIN — When Sarah Kermer proposed to her girlfriend in March, she knew she was in love, but she did not know when, if ever, Germany would allow them to marry.
The answer came early Friday morning, when the lower house of the German Parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage after a brisk but emotional debate, prompting Ms. Kermer and scores of other gay and lesbian Germans to celebrate in the streets.
“I was at work, and I just started crying,” Ms. Kermer, 25, said as she and her fiancée left a spontaneous gathering at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. “I was watching the decision on live-stream, and I cried — a lot. This has all happened just so fast.”
The historic decision came with a swiftness rare in Germany’s usually staid politics, just five days after Chancellor Angela Merkel unexpectedly relaxed her party’s opposition to same-sex marriage and allowed lawmakers to vote on the issue according to their consciences.Participants dressed in pink perform cheerleading stunts before taking part in the forming of a giant pink dot at the Speakers' Corner in Hong Lim Park in Singapore June 28, 2014. The annual Pink Dot Sg event promotes an acceptance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in Singapore, according to organizers. REUTERS/Edgar Su (SINGAPORE - Tags: SOCIETY)
Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.
Ireland – a largely Catholic country which only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993 and divorce in 1995 – voted resoundingly to amend their constitution and approve same-sex marriage last weekend. They have become the first country in the world to approve gay marriage by popular vote, and at a count of 62 per cent to 38 per cent, no less.
This piece of news stood in stark contrast to another development circulating on social media in Singapore: that the Media Development Authority (MDA) had apparently banned from radio and TV a song and music video by Jolin Tsai, presumably because its pro-gay message would encourage a push for same-sex marriage here.
It feels a bit as if the MDA has jumped the gun; there *is* no push for same-sex marriage in Singapore, mostly because everyone is still wondering how to shift the supposedly-not-enforced-but-somehow-still-important-to-keep Section 377A, which criminalises sex between men. On top of that, many in the LGBT community find themselves struggling against the fact that some Singaporeans don’t even recognise that discrimination exists.
That conservatives exist in every country is beyond doubt; I’m sure there were some fundies praying for the Lord to chuck rain down on gay people in Ireland too.
But while we’re riding high on the inspiration generated by Ireland’s stellar example, it’s time to think of how our own country could be so much better for everyone living in it. To not just dwell on hate and fear, but on love.
The repeal of 377A would have little to impact on the lives of heterosexual – or even religious – people. It would, however, mean a lot for LGBT people in Singapore, all of whom have parents, siblings, relatives and friends who would in turn be affected. It would be a strong signal that Singapore’s government will no longer be in the vanguard of discrimination against LGBT people, that it will no longer support the symbolic legislation that validates countless forms of bullying, dehumanising language and prejudice.
It would be a step towards telling young LGBT persons that they *are* accepted in Singaporean society; that they don’t have to be ashamed of who they are and that they can have a future without stigma and fear in Singapore. It would tell the parents of these LGBT persons that they are not alone, that they don’t have to worry about their children being branded as deviants and criminals. Conservatives aren’t the only ones who care about family; gay people have families too. Love, even familial love, is not exclusive to heterosexuals.
The court has rejected the constitutional challenge to 377A, essentially pushing the responsibility back to the legislators. Yet legislators have often pointed to Singapore’s conservatism as a reason for maintaining the status quo. As we see from the MDA’s move, the state is not only unwilling to change, but actively restricting the conversation.
Ireland has done something wonderful and historic in this past weekend. Let us Singaporeans not be caught on the wrong side of history; let us not wait for court cases or politicians to bring us the equality that we should have.
Make it to Hong Lim Park for Pink Dot. Write to your MP about LGBT rights and the need for anti-discrimination legislation. Talk to your friends about acceptance and diversity. Reach out to LGBT people around you who might need support. Do what you can to create a safe space for them to be who they are and say what they need to say.
377A continues to loom over us all – a symbol of prejudice and discrimination. Yet we cannot simply wait for it to disappear; we as Singaporeans can do our part to start making Singapore a more inclusive place. Today.LOS ANGELES -- When Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers called his son Austin and asked if he wanted to play for him, the younger Rivers said he needed time to think about it and make a phone call.
"The first thing I did was call my mom," Austin Rivers said. "She's going to have to deal with this. She was a wreck the first night. She was calling me, 'What if this happens and what if that happens?' I was like, 'Mom, it's not on anybody but me and him.' At the end of the day, my job is to play and compete and that's it. It's not like in the last second of the game I'm going to have the ball in my hands. I know my role here. I know Chris [Paul] and Blake [Griffin] are the leaders."
Editor's Picks Pelton: Clippers get F for Rivers deal Kevin Pelton serves up his grades for the three-team trade in which the Los Angeles Clippers got Austin Rivers.
It was never Austin's dream to play for his dad, and it was never Doc's dream to coach his son. In fact, both of them have been on the record in the past saying they would like to stay in their separate lanes. But when Austin became available at the same time the Clippers were looking for a defensive-minded guard to help spark the second unit, Doc and particularly those around him couldn't ignore the opportunity, regardless of the unique circumstances.
"The group around me, our coaches, [general manager] Dave Wohl and [vice president of basketball operations] Kevin Eastman said he fits our team," Doc said. "For me I was like, 'I don't know,' but at the end of the day my job is to do what I think is best for the team, not what's best for me or what's comfortable for me. We felt like this was. That probably swayed me more than the father part swayed me, I can tell you that. I was probably on the other way that way, but as far as an executive I had to think of it in those terms, and it made sense for us."
Doc still had to discuss the deal with Austin -- who had been traded from New Orleans to Boston in a three-team deal last week -- and see if he was willing to play for his father.
"He's always done his thing and I've done mine, and to be honest I never thought something like this would happen," Austin said. "He called me up and asked me, 'Is this something you might be interested in because we need you.' When I heard that it was one of those things I had to think. I had to take a day to myself and think could this work, and it does."
Rivers came into the game without any practice, having spent the last four days in New Orleans waiting for the trade to be finalized.
A father had never coached his son in an NBA game before Friday, until Austin made his Clippers debut in the first quarter of Friday night's 126-121 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He shot 0-for-4 from the field and 0-for-2 from 3-point range with one assist and one turnover in 12 minutes of action.
"I was thinking too much," he said afterward. "I was trying to be perfect and please everybody."
And while it would appear to be difficult waters to navigate for any parent and a child, Austin said before the game that his relationship with his father makes it easier than most.
Austin was raised in Orlando, Florida, went to Duke, and was drafted by New Orleans while Doc coached the Boston Celtics from 2004 to '13.
"The relationship I have with him is already basketball-oriented," Austin said. "He was in Boston and I grew up in Orlando. It's not so much like father-son, it's coach-player. Off the court |
, 1,500 runs, 1,600 RBI and 1,700 walks, along with Bonds, Ott, Ruth and Williams. Vizquel, Thome’s former Cleveland Indians teammate, played 24 seasons during which he logged the most defensive games (2,709) at shortstop and the highest career fielding percentage (.985) at the position. The 11-time Gold Glove Award winner also banged out 2,877 hits, stole 404 bases and scored 1,445 runs.
Moyer wore the uniform of eight major-league clubs in a career covering 25 seasons, making him one of five pitchers and 10 players overall to appear in at least that many big-league seasons. The lefthander won 269 games, two of which came in 2012 when he became at age 49 the oldest pitcher to win an MLB game. Santana was a unanimous choice for the American League Cy Young Award twice, in 2004 and ’06 with the Minnesota Twins, and pitched the first no-hitter in New York Mets history June 1, 2012 against the St. Louis Cardinals. The left-hander led his league in WHIP four times, earned run average three times, strikeouts three times, hits-per-nine-innings three times, strikeouts per nine innings three times, innings pitched twice (2006, 2008), games started twice (2006, 2008) and victories once.
The other former Cy Young Award winner on the ballot is Chris Carpenter, the NL winner in 2005 with the Cardinals and who also finished second in 2009 when he was named the NL Comeback Player of the Year. The right-hander was a central figure on St. Louis championship clubs in 2006 and ’11 and was 3-0 with a 2.00 ERA in four World Series starts. Third baseman Scott Rolen and pitcher Kerry Wood were back-to-back NL Rookie of the Year Award winners in 1997 and ’98. Wood’s debut season of ’98 included a 20-strikeout game for the Chicago Cubs against the Houston Astros. Rolen went on to a 17-season career in which he made seven All-Star teams, won eight Gold Glove Awards and hit.421 for St. Louis in its 2006 World Series triumph.
Other World Series heroes on the ballot are pitcher Livan Hernandez, who was the MVP of both the NL Championship Series and World Series for the then-Florida Marlins in 1997, and outfielder Hideki Matsui, who earned World Series MVP honors by hitting.615 with three homers and eight RBI for the New York Yankees in 2009. New ballot additions also include Jason Isringhausen, another member of the 2006 Cardinals and who led the NL in saves two years earlier, and fellow reliever Brad Lidge, who was 48-for-48 in save opportunities in 2008, including the postseason, which the Philadelphia Phillies finished off with a World Series title. Sporting two World Series rings apiece are outfielder Johnny Damon with the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and the Yankees in 2009 and first baseman Aubrey Huff with the San Francisco Giants in 2010 and 2012.
Also on the ballot are outfielder Andruw Jones, a 10-time Gold Glove Award winner who also slugged 434 home runs, and Carlos Lee, who drove in 100-or-more runs six times; four-time Gold Glove Award second baseman Orlando Hudson; and pitchers Kevin Millwood, who pitched one no-hitter and was part of another combined no-hitter, and Carlos Zambrano, a three-time Silver Slugger Award winner whose 24 career home runs rank fourth on the all-time pitchers’ list.
Writers must return ballots by a Dec. 31 postmark. Votes are counted jointly by BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O’Connell and Ernst & Young partner Michael DiLecce.
2018 Hall of Fame ballotIntroduction
To find out what difference in graphics performance Windows 8 makes over Windows 7
and
and How NVIDIA's and AMD's drivers recommended for Windows 8 fare
Microsoft Windows 8, the year's biggest tech launch, is on course for a late-October launch. Before consumers can get their hands on the new operating system, Microsoft made its fit-for-market version (RTM) available to industry partners and enterprise clients. We got our hands on the new operating system.Windows 8 is more than a new operating system with a new user-interface. It is based on the new Windows 6.2 kernel and comes with a new driver model; in particular, a new display driver model (WDDM 1.2). The new DDM changes the way software interacts with graphics hardware, meaning that Windows 8 could have a different graphics performance from Windows 7.Meanwhile, the two leading gaming GPU markers, NVIDIA and AMD, have both claimed to be the first with drivers certified to work with Windows 8. We took this opportunity and installed Windows 8 RTM on our VGA test-bench, picked a high-end graphics card from each of the two camps, here the GeForce GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7970, and made them work with drivers NVIDIA and AMD recommend for use with Windows 8. We put the two graphics cards through our VGA gaming benchmarks with these Windows 8 drivers and came up with two objectives for our review:NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If mortgage lending was the Wild West during the boom years, foreclosure-prevention counseling is the lucrative new frontier of the bust.
Nearly 1.6 million borrowers are in jeopardy of losing their homes this year, according to economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, and thousands of new foreclosure-rescue companies are rushing in to offer the troubled homeowners loan work-out assistance. For a price.
Usually homeowners seeking mortgage modifications call their lenders directly or work with non-profit community groups. But many borrowers are now turning to for-profit companies as their mailboxes are flooded with work-out offers.
Each day private firms go online or visit courthouses across the country to pore over foreclosure filings, which are public records. "By 10 or 11 o'clock, they've mailed out solicitations to anyone with a foreclosure filing that day, promising to save their homes," says Jeff Hart, a prosecutor with the Ohio attorney general's office.
Once a borrower contacts a foreclosure-prevention company, the counselor takes their financial information, analyzes how much the client can afford, and then contacts the lender and negotiates new mortgage terms.
Those modifications can involve reducing interest rates, lengthening the term of the loan or even lowering principal. In exchange, the consumer agrees to pay a fee, generally between a month's mortgage payment and 1% of the mortgage's principal.
Lifestyle counseling
"We attack the case from many different angles," said Justin Pane, vice president of Amerimod Modification Agency, which Pane said has been doing foreclosure prevention modifications for about three years. "We may do a forensic document audit, for example," he added, which involves examining original mortgage papers to see if anything illegal or unethical was signed during closing. If so, it can be used as leverage for a better deal from lenders.
There are other tricks of the trade, too. Pane said it's often beneficial to apply for modifications near the end of fiscal quarters when lenders want non-performing loans placed back in the performing columns. The more loans they can transfer, the better their numbers look in SEC filings. As a result, lenders will often be more generous in their modification offers at that time.
Lifestyle counseling is another often-necessary service. "We tell people what they have to do," said Donnie Shorts, owner of Mortgage Mitigation Services in Dallas. "Get rid of that cable. Sell that Escalade. If we can't present a good case to the lender that these borrowers have changed, we're dead in the water."
Fee trap?
But is it wise for troubled borrowers to pay stiff premiums for services they can get for free? Especially when paying for a modification can make one harder to obtain because borrowers have less cash to spend on reducing debt.
"Folks need to be really careful," said Chris Kukla, a spokesman for the Center for Responsible Lending. "In many cases, these are no better than scams. You should look at all your low-price or free options before signing on with a for-profit company."
One of the main criticisms of for-profit foreclosure counselors is that they are not regulated, with oversight laws varying state by state. As a result, some marginal characters are drawn to the industry, ones who use high-pressure sales tactics and play on fear.
Many firms demand hefty up-front fees, which they keep even if a loan is not successfully modified. Only a dozen states, including Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Massachusetts and Maryland, prohibit that tactic.
"Loan modification is a growth industry, with too few rules governing those selling loan mod services," said Kurt Eggert, a law professor at the Chapman University School of Law.
And, in fact, many consumers who sign on with a for-profit counselor later ended up at a non-profit. "A lot of people come in [to our offices] who have paid money, a couple of thousand sometimes, for foreclosure prevention and nothing is done for them" said Jenelle Dame, a counselor for the East Side Organizing Project (ESOP) in Cleveland. "These companies are sending out postcards to people saying they can help. Some borrowers get like 50 a day."
"The lenders still make the same calculations," added Eggert. "Whether they're better off modifying a mortgage or letting the loan go to foreclosure is not affected by who's arranging the modification."
Terry Souers, who handles many mortgage-modification cases for Genworth Financial, the private mortgage insurer, said his company will work with a for-profit if a client asks, but those requests are minimal. "We don't recommend them," he said. "We can do what they do for free."
Consumer protection
Borrowers can protect themselves several ways. Start by checking with the Better Business Bureau and state attorneys-general consumer-protection offices for complaints against the firms. Also ask any potential foreclosure-prevention counselor how many cases they've successfully completed and what kinds of loans are winning workouts.
"These companies don't seem very transparent about their credentials. If you're not getting answers you trust, look elsewhere," said Marietta Rodriguez, director of homeowner programs for NeighborWorks, a community development group.
"Be leery of up front fees," advised Don Lampe, a North Carolina attorney who has testified before Congress on mortgage issues. Many companies who charge them simply take the money and run. The fees should be contingent on a successful modification.
Finally, watch out for extravagant promises. "If they claim they can save your home before even speaking to you, they're making it up," said prosecutor Hart.
Before contracting with a for-profit company, at-risk borrowers should contact their lenders or the Homeowner's Help Hotline (1-888-995-HOPE) run by the Homeowner's Preservation Foundation. They might get a comprehensive, affordable mortgage modification that won't cost them a dime.A man walks near Thomson Reuters head office in Rangoon, Burma, on Dec. 13, 2017. Two Reuters journalists covering the Rohingya Muslim crisis were arrested Tuesday by Burmese police on allegations of possessing police documents. (Lynn Bo Bo/European Pressphoto Agency/Shutterstock)
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who in recent months have covered the military crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, were recently invited to meet two police officers over dinner in the country's largest city, Rangoon.
Their driver dropped them off at Battalion 8's compound around 8 p.m. Tuesday, and the journalists and police officers went to a nearby restaurant, Their driver dropped them off at Battalion 8's compound around 8 p.m.Tuesday, and the journalists and police officers went to a nearby restaurant, according to Reuters. The driver waited.
But the journalists never returned to the car. They were instead detained at a police station on the outskirts of Rangoon, officially called Yangon. The Reuters Burma Bureau chief, Antoni Slodkowski, received just four words in a text message from Wa Lone:
“I have been arrest.”
Wa Lone's phone appeared to have been turned off soon after.
“We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom,” Reuters president and editor in chief Stephen J. Adler said “We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom,” Reuters president and editor in chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement. “We call for authorities to release them immediately.”
The Burmese Embassy in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment.
Reuters and the Associated Press reported that Burma's Ministry of Information posted a photo on Facebook of the two journalists in handcuffs and said they had been in possession of “important secret papers” and information about the military that they obtained from the two police officers who had previously worked in the country's western Rakhine State — where rapes and killings since August have forced 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
The U.S. Embassy in Burma and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists are among several agencies that denounced the arrests and called for the journalists' release.
The journalists and the policemen with whom they met will be charged under the country's 1923 Official Secrets Act — a law carried over from British colonialism — and could serve up to 14 years in prison, according to the Facebook statement, Reuters reported. The post no longer appears on The journalists and the policemen with whom they met will be charged under the country's 1923 Official Secrets Act — a law carried over from British colonialism — and could serve up to 14 years in prison, according to the Facebook statement, Reuters reported. The post no longer appears on the Ministry of Information's Facebook page, but BBC journalist Nga Pham tweeted what she said was the image of the journalists.
Ministry of Information released photo of the two pic.twitter.com/0zOKylNIVu #Myanmar Ministry of Information released photo of the two #Reuters reporters and a statement saying detained with them were two security police officers -Captain Yan Naing and Khin Maung Lin who are also being disciplined for passing restricted info related to the #military — Nga Pham (@ngaphambbc) — Nga Pham (@ngaphambbc) December 13, 2017
small correction - Moe Yan Naing's rank is lieutenant colonel, not captain — Nga Pham (@ngaphambbc) — Nga Pham (@ngaphambbc) December 13, 2017
After their disappearance Tuesday evening, the journalists' colleagues in Rangoon filed a missing-persons report, visited three police stations and inquired with several government officials about what might have happened to the two reporters. As of Wednesday evening, they still had no information.
Wa Lone joined Reuters in 2016 and Wa Lone joined Reuters in 2016 and has covered the Rohingya Muslims exodus. He won an honorable mention from the Society of Publishers in Asia for his reporting on the crises, according to Reuters. He graduated from Yangon University, according to his LinkedIn page
Kyaw Soe Oo, an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist from the state capital Sittwe, started with Reuters in September. He reported on the Kyaw Soe Oo, an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist from the state capital Sittwe, started with Reuters in September. He reported on the Aug. 25 attacks in northern Rakhine that sparked much of the flight of the Rohingya Muslims and has reported in the central part of the state as well, where local Buddhists have begun segregating Rohingua Muslims and Rakhine communities
Rohingya Muslims are not officially recognized as a minority in Burma — also known as Myanmar — even though many have lived there for generations. Many among the predominantly Buddhist population, including Burmese officials, reject the label “Rohingya” and instead use “Bengalis” to emphasize that Rohingya Muslims migrated illegally to the country from Bangladesh.
Last month, Last month, the United States classified the violence and atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims as “ethnic cleansing.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that U.S. sanctions could be forthcoming and blamed Burma's government, military and local vigilantes for the “horrendous atrocities” in Rakhine state.
Burma's military denies that atrocities have been committed, and members of other religious groups, such as Buddhists and Hindus, say that they are in fact targets of violence by Rohingya Muslims.
The U.S. Embassy The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that it is “deeply concerned by the highly irregular arrests” of the two journalists.
“For a democracy to succeed, journalists need to be able to do their jobs freely,” officials said. “We urge the government to explain these arrests and allow immediate access to the journalists.”
The European Union delegation in Burma The European Union delegation in Burma said in a Facebook statement : “Media freedom is the foundation of any democracy.”
SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information. app-facebook European Union in Myanmar 20 hours ago.. Two Reuters journalists have been arrested in Yangon last night. The EU Delegation is closely following their case and we call on the Myanmar authorities to ensure the full protection of their rights. Media freedom is the foundation of any democracy. 66 5 12
world worldviews Dallas shooting updates News and analysis on the deadliest day for police since 9/11. post_newsletter353 follow-dallas true endOfArticle false Today's WorldView What's most important from where the world meets Washington Please provide a valid email address. Sign up You’re all set! See all newsletters false The story must be told. Your subscription supports journalism that matters. Try 1 month for $1
The senior Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Shawn Crispin, called on Burma's government to “immediately, unconditionally release” the reporters.
“These arrests come amid a widening crackdown which is having a grave impact on the ability of journalists to cover a story of vital global importance,” “These arrests come amid a widening crackdown which is having a grave impact on the ability of journalists to cover a story of vital global importance,” he said in a statement
Other journalists have been arrested in Burma in recent months. In November, a judge jailed two journalists on assignment for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corp., who had been flying a drone near parliament without permission, Other journalists have been arrested in Burma in recent months. In November, a judge jailed two journalists on assignment for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corp., who had been flying a drone near parliament without permission, according to Reuters
In June, three Burmese journalists were arrested for reporting on a drug-burning event by a rebel army in the north Shan state, In June, three Burmese journalists were arrested for reporting on a drug-burning event by a rebel army in the north Shan state, Reuters reported. They were also charged with violating colonial-era law and released in September
Read more:'I Got a Boy' delivers a scattered anthem of the Girls' Generation
Critic's Notebook: In this age of short attention spans comes 'I Got a Boy' by Girls' Generation, a gleefully chaotic song that says much about pop music's trajectory.
Hopefully this is a portent. A few similarly ridiculous tracks released of late suggest this may be the case. A day after "I Got a Boy" dropped on Tuesday, young rapper Azealia Banks released "BBD," a jam nearly as twisted, if more linear. In a tweet announcing its arrival, Banks described the song by referencing a few different pop/EDM/hip-hop subgenres: "It's Trap, but it's Rave. it's Banjee, But still a lil classy." On Soundcloud, she tagged its genre as "witch-hop." It's everything at once, a beautiful mess.
Clocking in at 41/2 minutes, "I Got a Boy" travels in so many directions that it feels like a scattering of musical miniatures cleverly puzzled together by M.C. Escher. As seen in the equally tripped out video, the nine women who are Girls' Generation have delivered something as wonderfully weird as their outfits — skimpy, multi-colored and mismatched — and as strange and structurally progressive as anything in the current commercial pop realm.
The new single by South Korean pop group Girls' Generation is called "I Got a Boy," and if the song and its accompanying music video are a signal about pop's direction in the year to come, we better buckle our seat belts.
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Both reflect the kitchen-sink, short-attention-span present. In the case of "I Got a Boy," impatient bursts of synthetic melodies, hooks, bridges, breaks and bass drops change every eight or 16 bars in drastic directions, as though Katy Perry/Kesha producer Dr. Luke were trying to make a modern-day "Bohemian Rhapsody." These rhythmic explosions are connected by choruses that arrive with surprise and glee, part of an addled impatience permeating chunks of global culture. The song, built around a set of conversations among a girl and her friends, has already been viewed on YouTube more than 15 million times.
The first time I heard "I Got a Boy," nothing fit together. It boomed and banged, but felt scattered, a mini-mixtape. In the middle, in fact, the song abruptly stops, and one group member says, "Hey, yo, stop! Let me put it down another way." The track goes into double-time, as though the DJ had just dropped a hot new track into the mix. This new component becomes an avenue in the maze.
When it clicked after repeated listens, I felt like I'd finished a crossword puzzle. It was produced by Soo Man Lee and written by K-pop hitmaker Yoo Young-jin along with the group's longtime Norwegian collaborators Dsign Music, who produced the more traditionally constructed track "Beep Beep" for Girls' Generation in 2012.
Recent dance pop hits by Rihanna, Carly Rae Jepsen and Lady Gaga have relied more conservatively on the joy of expectations met, delivering streamlined groove tracks that wobble and weave along a single path, modern but still remaining true to the same verse-chorus-verse structure that's reigned for half a century. "I Got a Boy" travels wherever it wants, like a willful 2-year-old in a McDonald's Playplace.
This is in stark contrast to last year's breakout South Korean megahit, Psy's "Gangnam Style," both of which feature lyrics sung mostly in Korean, with a smattering of English woven in. The two songs share a sense of whimsy, of celebrating in artificial, cartoon-colored playgrounds. "Gangnam," however, is nothing if not relentless, single-mindedly focused on the same galloping rhythm.
Though less chaotic than "I Got a Boy," Banks on "BBD" is restless, and understands the demands of a current-day track. The Harlem-born rapper, 21, rose through social media and YouTube, ultimately signing with Interscope Records. She's become one of the most discussed new voices of the past few years. The arrival of "BBD" is teasing the release of her debut full length, "Broke With Expensive Taste," which arrives on Feb. 12.
Such fractured magnetism shouldn't come as a surprise. You can hear it in the angular bombast of American dubstep, in which the structural warbles and around-the-corner hooks and breakdowns suggest a kind of sonic cubism. Ellie Goulding's 2012 song "Bittersweet," though softer and more nuanced, has a similar trait. The Skrillex-produced track has a shattered feel to it, with delicate, colorful melodies and rhythms that can't seem to make up their mind. Justin Bieber's "Beauty and a Beat," is similarly choppy, featuring the already obligatory bass-drop and many rhythms jumping in and out.WATCH ABOVE: Edmonton police announced Saturday they have laid charges in two of this year’s homicides in the city. One of the victims was wanted in connection with a third Edmonton homicide. Jessica Kent has the details.
EDMONTON — A 26-year-old Edmonton man has been charged with second-degree murder in a homicide dating back to April.
David Klassen was arrested in Yellowknife on Tuesday, during a residential drug raid. He was transported back to Edmonton on Thursday evening and charged with the shooting death of Trevor Keith Deleeuw.
Deleeuw, 25, was found dead in an apartment building parking lot in St. Albert on Monday, April 6.
Police said shots were fired in the area of 215 Street and 115 Avenue in Edmonton at around 9 p.m. The investigation led officers to the St. Albert apartment building where Deleeuw’s body was found.
Deleeuw’s death was recorded as Edmonton’s 6th homicide of 2015.
Klassen was also charged with unlawful use of a firearm, assault with a weapon and disguise with intent. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday morning.Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is on the receiving end of a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison for a religious tweet on his official Facebook and Twitter accounts.
On Sunday, March 16, either Walker or someone empowered to posted the following: "Philippians 4:13" (see screen shots), a bible verse which says, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."
FFRF, a state-church watchdog with 20,000 members nationwide and about 1,300 in Wisconsin, reminded Walker in a March 18 letter that it's "improper for a state employee, much less for the chief executive officer of the state, to use the machinery of the state of Wisconsin to promote personal religious views."
Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, in FFRF's letter, said Walker's tweet "seems more like a threat, or the utterance of a theocratic dictator, than of a duly elected civil servant."
The letter cites court cases that prohibit government officials from endorsing religion over nonreligion. If a department head or ordinary employee were to use state resources to promote personal beliefs, they would most certainly be admonished.
The question is will Walker be able to get away with it? If so, what might he post next, maybe something from Acts 10 (in which a sheet descends from above, with a voice saying, "Rise, Peter; kill, and eat")? More sustenance and strength for the religious and exclusion for non-Christians.
The letter concludes, "On behalf of our membership, we ask you to immediately delete this religious message from your official gubernatorial Facebook and Twitter. May we hear from you at your earliest convenience?"Yes, Apple missed with their earnings today. It’s the first time in a long time that has happened. Some are suggesting that hasn’t happened since 2002. That’s big news. But it’s also masking even bigger news: Apple’s expectations for next quarter.
In a press release, it can be hard to tell what numbers on a page signify. But those who follow Apple closely must have taken one look at Apple’s guidance for next quarter and had their jaws drop. I know mine did. Apple is projecting to make $37 billion in revenue next quarter, their holiday quarter. They’re projecting an EPS of $9.30. Both are insane (in a good way).
To put this in some perspective, Apple has never had a quarter over $30 billion in revenue. The closest they’ve come was last quarter, when revenue hit $28.57 billion (this past quarter was their second best ever). A year ago during the holiday quarter, Apple did $26.7 billion in revenue. They’re projecting these numbers to be $10 billion higher.
But that’s not the craziest part.
Where this really gets insane is when you realize that Apple always lowballs their projections. For example, this past quarter, they estimated they would bring in $25 billion in revenue, which they easily beat (it was the Street projections that they missed). So if Apple says they’re going to make $37 billion next quarter, it’s entirely possible — hell, maybe even likely — that they still will never have had a $30 billion quarter — because next quarter may be a $40 billion quarter.
Obviously, to get there, they would need to hit an absolute homerun. But again, it’s the holiday quarter for the top consumer electronics company in the world. And it’s the quarter that will see the initial sales of the iPhone 4S, which just launched last weekend to the tune of 4 million units sold in 3 days — the best sales for any phone ever. The iPhone is the key to Apple’s revenue, and it’s the reason why they missed expectations this past quarter. If the iPhone 4S sells well, $40 billion is not out of the question.
For a bit more context, while Apple has held the profit title among tech companies for a little while, they’re still behind HP when it comes to revenue. HP announced revenues of $31.2 billion in their last reported quarter. A few months ago, I predicted that Apple would soon zoom past HP in this regard as well. Now it’s looking like they won’t just squeeze past, they’ll demolish them next quarter. HP’s all-time high for revenue in a quarter is around $33 billion.
It gets even crazier.
Apple is so confident that next quarter is going to be a blow-out quarter that twice on their earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer went out of their way to predict that Apple would see record iPhone and iPad sales next quarter. That’s something Apple never does. Their guidance is always very general (and again, low) and they stick to talking about things at a high level. Not today. This is two Apple executives going out on a limb to predict records for their two key products next quarter.
I think it’s pretty obvious that they would only do that if they felt like they weren’t going out on a limb. That is to say, Cook and Oppenheimer must be extremely confident that Apple is going to sell well north of 20 million iPhones (the previous record, set last quarter) and 11 million iPads (the record set this quarter). And a lot more.
So while Wall Street is panicking right now — Apple’s stock is currently down over 27 points (6.5 percent) in after-hours trading after the miss — Apple seems more confident than ever.
Sure, a part of it may be that Apple had to throw investors some bone in a period of relative volatility (a rare miss and just weeks after co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs passed away). But no matter which way you look at it, it’s one hell of a bone.Going to a lumberyard is like going to a foreign country. If you’ve never done it before and you don’t know the language, you’ll experience culture shock right off the bat – and sticker shock as well! Before you go, pick up a FREE copy of our handy guide to wood types. It’s your lumberyard “phrase book” for all the different types of wood and lumber grades.
We cover all the basic wood types in this handy little ebook – hardwood, softwood, plywood and particle board. Some of these are what you’d call furniture wood types, while others are only suitable for rough carpentry or shop projects. Know the difference! Download the ebook now.
To receive your free download, join our mailing list and never miss news, tips, promotions or discounts.Party loyalty in politics is nothing new. The fact is, most people who vote for Democrats and Republicans are “party” people. Meaning it doesn’t much matter what positions an individual candidate or office holder has on issues. Voters walk into a booth, look at the party and vote for the Republican or the Democrat. It is the case in most scenarios, and that’s just a fact.
Hard-core supporters are there and don’t like it when you criticize their guy. That’s understandable as well. But those are issues between voters, not the party and the candidates running under the banner of that party.
When it comes to candidates and people in office, the Republican National Committee has a responsibility to back Republicans. As much as it stung for some people, Donald Trump won the nomination, and the party infrastructure backed him. It didn’t matter if he smeared fellow Republican candidates with lies and ridiculous conspiracy theories. The party supported him because it does so for Republicans.
However, it doesn’t appear as though that kind of thinking applies to other Republicans now, especially if they’ve been critical of Donald Trump:
The Republican National Committee isn’t spending big for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno because the RNC doesn’t think she has been loyal to President Trump, NJ.com reported Wednesday. Guadagno, currently the lieutenant governor under Gov. Chris Christie (R), is viewed skeptically by the RNC because of her criticism of Trump after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape and as a lost cause, the report said. “[The president] is unhappy with anyone who neglected him in his hour of need,” an RNC insider reportedly said, referring to Guadagno’s public disavowal of Trump last fall after the surfacing last year of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women.
Here is what Guadagno said in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape:
No apology can excuse away Mr. Trump's reprehensible comments degrading women. We're raising my 3 boys to be better than that. — Kim Guadagno (@KimGuadagnoNJ) October 8, 2016
If the RNC stated that they weren’t going all in because Guadagno is trying to ride into office on the scorched coattails of Chris Christie, that might make some sense. But that isn’t the justification here. The thinking appears to be Guadagno didn’t rush in to defend Donald Trump when audio tape revealed he thinks men in positions of power can do what they want with women sans repercussions.
What Guadagno did was not unreasonable. She was hardly the first Republican to distance themselves from Trump when that tape hit the public airwaves. Now the RNC is going to withhold funds and assistance from a Republican candidate because of Donald Trump? Since when did the RNC become beholden to one person instead of the party as a whole?
It only proves Trump doesn’t just want loyalty. He wants slavish devotion. Fealty. Without it, he has no use for a person. It is a dangerous method if the GOP wants to grow. If the party is going to refuse help for people who have been Republicans far longer than President Trump because his thin skin can’t deal with criticism, it doesn’t bode well for the future.
Grow up, Mr. President. And just as important, I say to the RNC: Grow a spine. You have more important issues to think about and much more coming your way.“Don’t mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it; if unfair, keep from irritation; if it is ignorant, smile; if it is justified, it is not criticism — learn from it.” ~Unknown
Any path to success is sure to be riddled with failures, setbacks, and rejection from others.
So too is the pursuit of any dream or goal — especially those that are very near and dear to your heart — sure to guarantee you encounters with vocal, hurtful criticism.
However, that criticism can provide a world of benefit to us: just as learning to love rejection can help us condition the workings of our minds to better encounter temporary setbacks and shortcomings (and ultimately help propel us to achieve our goals), even the most hurtful criticism can benefit the long-term viability of our pursuits.
Use these following 8 “mantras” or phrases to spark an inner, emotional transformation that will help you begin to accept the criticism you hear — even the most vocal and hurtful criticism. With time, your new-found balance and inner peace will provide you with an empowering sense of acceptance that frees from the need to defend yourself with critics; you thus find a great source of strength and feeling of liberation.
Mantra One
“Thankful for all the criticism that I can hear. Thank you. For you drive me so much harder.”
Harness vocal and hurtful criticism as a source of defiant motivation. Of course, being spiteful and vindictive is not the goal, for those only serve to embolden your ego and feelings of pride, anger and resentment. Rather, use the words of critics as a source of thankfulness. As much as their words may hurt and embarrass you, give thanks for them: there is sure to be some greater good to come of their anger. Defiantly harness their words as the means to drive you further, harder, faster, and more determined toward your dreams.
Mantra Two
“Does that vocal, intentionally hurtful criticism wound? Of course! But let it hurt. If only so I know my mission is having some effect.”
Vocal criticism tells us that others are paying attention. Without others paying attention, watching, reading or listening, we’re simply pursuing our goals for the sake of our own personal achievement. Life is about connections: it’s about interacting with and living both amongst and for others. When others criticize us unfairly, we should take solace from recognizing that our work and pursuits are influencing the lives of others. If your intentions are pure, if your work is just, if your direction is true, it will benefit even the critics who belittle and berate you.
Mantra Three
“Pure agreement and praise is so problematic. It falsely lures the ego. Criticism and hurt is the only measure of progress, of success.”
It’s natural to wish to be praised for what we do: positive reinforcement gives us a wonderful feeling of encouragement, self-worth and success. But when we begin to grow accustomed to outright praise, we grow incredibly insecure and detrimentally worried when vocal praise is lacking.
On the flip side, vocal criticism benefits us because it gives us the chance to respond: we may choose to respond verbally and aloud, or quietly, only to ourselves. If we respond aloud in defense of ourselves and our goals, we are only acknowledging our own insecurities. Let your response be within. This is where true liberation is derived.
Mantra Four
“What is life but a series of setbacks, failures? Don’t despair at the revelation! For all those unpleasantries give us the chance to succeed.”
Growing up in New England, I’ve gotten used to long and harsh winters. Even though I dislike them thoroughly, I’ve tried to condition myself to using the winter months to more greatly appreciate summer months of warmth and lush growth.
Similarly, all of the setbacks, failures, and criticisms we encounter on the path of our pursuits and dreams should be understood as temporary, fleeting times of unpleasantness that will pass and serve to make us truly appreciate every little success. Without criticism, praise would seem |
player for Arsenal when Cazorla is on the pitch
The stats show that Ozil gets more touches when Cazorla is around. He gets the ball to him in dangerous areas, such as the pass in the build-up to Arsenal's second goal in the 3-0 win against Chelsea in September. They have not beaten a top-six team since.
"Of course, you miss always Cazorla," said Arsene Wenger after seeing Arsenal fail to score at home to Middlesbrough in October, the team's first game without the little schemer. "From deep midfield into the final third, with his pass he is always quick and accurate."
That speed of pass in midfield has been a problem for Arsenal ever since and there is little evidence so far to suggest that Mohamed Elneny or Granit Xhaka can provide the solution. With Cazorla linked with a summer move away from the club, that's a major concern.
So while Ozil hesitates to sign a new contract and supporters ponder life without Wenger, there's one man who should not be overlooked. Whether it's the stars, the style, the results or the team, the evidence is all there: Arsenal are just not the same without Santi Cazorla.
New customers: Grab a NOW TV Sky Sports Month Pass for £20pm for the first two months and catch a blockbuster period of live Sky Sports action. No contract.Somebody recently made the mistake of suggesting to Stephen Kenny that he could write off Thursday's stiff test with Zenit St Petersburg in order to ensure a smooth preparation for Sunday's FAI Cup final.
Somebody recently made the mistake of suggesting to Stephen Kenny that he could write off Thursday's stiff test with Zenit St Petersburg in order to ensure a smooth preparation for Sunday's FAI Cup final.
'I have a young family here so I'd need to weigh everything up' - Daryl Horgan on his future
Kenny shakes his head thinking about it. That line of thought underestimates the ambition of the Dundalk boss and his dressing-room.
Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny. Photo by David Maher/Sportsfile
Daryl Horgan points out that people spoke in similar terms about the home encounter with Zenit, a fixture crammed into the middle of a hectic league schedule, when it turned out that Dundalk were capable of pushing the Russians all the way in Tallaght.
After that near miss, they won't board the plane today with negative thoughts.
"Someone was saying 'Would you be better off writing this one off and focusing on the AZ game (November 24)' - I just couldn't do that," stresses Kenny. "You just can't go into a match admitting defeat to any team. I won't entertain that sort of thinking."
Only when the final whistle blows in Russia will the focus turn to Sunday's cup date with Cork.
But St Peterbsurg was the main talking point at Dundalk's official media day. For Horgan, the battle for a place in the Europa League round of 32 is a big deal.
He has yet to receive any formal offers to leave Dundalk this winter, but they will come.
However, the newly crowned PFAI Player of the Year admits that the prospect of a knock-out game in February would be a lot to leave behind.
"It would be huge," he says. "I've said it before - I'm not going to go to another club in England or wherever and play in the Europa League or the Champions League.
"To be in a position where we could be in the last 32 of the Europa League would be absolutely incredible.
"I've already said that it would have to be a tremendous offer to take me away from here. I'm really happy. It's a great club with a great group of lads and it's a progressive club. They really want to kick on. There will be no standing still.
"I have a young family here as well so I'd need to weigh everything up."
Horgan did reference the fickle nature of the League of Ireland, conscious that the wind can turn quickly, and it will be extremely hard for Dundalk to keep hold of him unless they present him with an extension to their European adventure.
He feels they have more in the locker, confessing that he found Zenit's experienced Aleksandr Anyukov a tough nut to crack in their first joust. "A disaster to play against," he smiles.
The busy week is preferable to having nothing to do. PFAI recognition started it off on a high and there were kind words from Martin O'Neill ahead of his latest squad announcement but the Galwegian bats off the compliments.
"Awards are great but they don't really get me going - I'm more interested in trophies than anything else," insists the 24-year-old. "You can't beat winning the league; you can't compare that to an individual award, it's just nowhere near it.
"Stephen has spoken about having 'the season of all seasons' and to try and win another double and get out of the group in Europe.
"We're a third of the way there. We're sitting here delighted at winning the league but we could be sitting there on Christmas Day very disappointed.
"We don't want that to happen. We want to win the cup and qualify from the group. If we play the way we can, there's no reason we can't get a result in St Petersburg and win the cup final."
That's the mindset Kenny(below) likes, but the Dundalk manager concedes that the loss of Robbie Benson for Thursday is a blow.
Benson, who damaged a hamstring against Galway last week, would have been a certain starter in Russia as his counter-attacking strength ties in with Kenny's game-plan.
The midfielder will still travel with his team-mates and receive treatment from the medical team in an effort to be fit for the Aviva.
Indo SportAfter an absence of more than five years, the UFC returns to Ohio on Saturday night with UFC Fight Night 40, which takes place at Cincinnati’s U.S. Bank Arena.
“The Buckeye State” gets some hometown flare in the main event as Matt Brown (18-11 MMA, 11-6 UFC) takes on Brazilian Erick Silva (16-4 MMA, 4-3 UFC) in a high-stakes welterweight affair.
Both men have received fight-night bonuses in their past two UFC victories, and they’ll look to continue that trend with another exciting performance in the FOX Sports 1 headliner.
Brown and Silva have proven to be arguably the two most consistently violent fighters at 170 pounds, but they’re not the only ones on the card who have a lot going for them.
With the UFC’s first event in Cincinnati since October 2007 just days away, here are 45 pre-fight facts about UFC Fight Night 40.
MAIN EVENT
B rown’s six-fight UFC winning streak is the longest active streak in the welterweight division.
Brown’s 11 UFC welterweight victories are the tied for the sixth most in divisional history behind Georges St-Pierre (19), Matt Hughes (16), Josh Koscheck (14), Jon Fitch (13) and Thiago Alves (12).
Brown has finished his opponent by knockout or submission in 16 of his 18 professional wins, including nine of his 11 victories under the UFC banner.
Brown’s nine UFC victories by knockout or submission are the second most in welterweight history behind Hughes (10).
Brown’s eight knockout victories under the UFC banner are the most in welterweight history He’s scored seven knockdowns in his UFC career, which is the fourth most in 170-pound history behind Alves (12), St-Pierre (eight), Jake Ellenberger (eight) and Anthony Johnson (eight).
Brown’s 56.7 percent significant strike accuracy is the highest rate in UFC welterweight history. It’s also the ninth highest rate of any fighter in UFC history.
Brown has attempted the third most submissions in UFC welterweight history with 18, which is tied for third most behind Lytle (31) and St-Pierre (23). Oppositely, the 33-year-old is one of only seven fighters in UFC history to have four or more submission losses inside the octagon.
Silva has alternated wins and losses throughout his seven-fight UFC career.
Silva has finished his opponent by first-round knockout or submission in all four of his UFC victories.
Silva has earned a fight-night bonus in four of his past five UFC bouts.
Silva landed all 18 significant strikes thrown in his 52-second knockout of Takenori Sato at UFC Fight Night 36. That’s the most in UFC history for a fighter who didn’t miss a strike. Anderson Silva, who went 13-for-13 against James Irvin at UFC Fight Night 14, held the previous record.
Silva is the only competitor in UFC history to have three fights with the organization without absorbing a single strike. He accomplished the feat against Sato, Jason High at UFC on FUEL TV 10 and Carlo Prater at UFC 142.
Silva is one of six fighters in modern UFC history to register two knockout victories in less than one minute each, as he did against Sato and Luis Ramos at UFC 134. B.J. Penn, Johny Hendricks, Mike Swick, Anthony Johnson and Roy Nelson are the only other fighters to accomplish the feat.
Silva’s average fight time of 4:24 is the lowest among active UFC fighters and tied for the seventh lowest of any fighter in modern UFC history (minimum of five fights).
Silva and Brown are just the second pair of opponents in modern UFC history to face each other after winning their most recent bout by knockout in less than one minute. The other pair included Gabriel Gonzaga and Shawn Jordan, who faced off at UFC 166.
CO-MAIN EVENT
Constantinos Philippou (12-4 MMA, 5-3 UFC) enters the event on the first two-fight losing streak of his career. Luke Rockhold knocked him out at UFC Fight Night 35, and he dropped a decision to Francis Carmont at UFC 165.
Philippou lands 86.8 percent of his significant strikes to his opponent’s head, the largest proportion in middleweight history (minimum of five UFC fights and 300 attempts).
Philippou has landed 71.6 percent of his significant strikes from a distance, the seventh largest proportion among active middleweight fighters (minimum of five UFC fights and 350 attempts).
Philippou’s three knockdowns landed against Jared Hamman at UFC 140 are tied for the second most ever in a UFC middleweight fight.
Lorenz Larkin (14-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC) has fought to a decision in all three of his UFC appearances.
REMAINING MAIN CARD
Erik Koch (14-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) is 1-0 since moving up to the lightweight division. He defeated Rafaello Oliveira by first-round knockout in his divisional debut at UFC 170.
Daron Cruickshank (14-4 MMA, 4-2 UFC) is one of seven fighters in UFC history to earn two or more head-kick knockouts inside the octagon. He accomplished the feat against Mike Rio at UFC on FOX 10 and Henry Martinez at UFC on FOX 5.
Tim Means (20-5-1 MMA, 2-2 UFC) has earned 18 of his 20 professional victories by knockout (15) or submission (three).
Soa Palelei (20-3 MMA, 2-1 UFC) has earned all 20 of his professional victories by knockout or submission. “The Hulk” has defeated his past 10 opponents by knockout.
Palelei, 36, is the oldest of the 26 fighters scheduled to compete on the card.
Ruan Potts (8-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has earned all eight of his professional victories by knockout (four) or submission (four). Six of those finishes came in the first round.
Chris Cariaso (16-5 MMA, 6-3 UFC) is 3-2 since dropping to the UFC flyweight division.
Louis Smolka (7-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) is one of three fighters in UFC history to give up nine or more takedowns in a single bout and go on to win a decision. He accomplished the feat against Alptekin Ozkilic at UFC Fight Night 35.
Smolka’s 92 significant strikes landed against Ozkilic were the fourth most ever in a single UFC flyweight bout and third most for a three-round fight. Demetrious Johnson holds the record with 127 significant strikes landed against John Dodson at UFC on FOX 6 (Elliott at UFC 164, 116; Lineker at UFC on FOX 3, 96).
PRELIMINARY CARD
Ed Herman’s (21-10 MMA, 8-6 UFC) eight UFC middleweight victories are tied for the seventh most in divisional history behind Anderson Silva (13), Yushin Okami (13), Chris Leben (12), Michael Bisping (10), Nate Marquardt (10) and Demian Maia (nine).
Herman has completed 29 takedowns in his UFC career, the second most in UFC middleweight history behind Chael Sonnen (35). Herman’s 52.7 percent takedown accuracy ranks fourth among active 185-pound fighters.
Herman is tied for the fourth most submission attempts in middleweight history with 13.
Kyoji Horiguchi (12-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) drops to the flyweight division after defeating Dustin Pague by second-round knockout as a bantamweight at UFC 166.
Zak Cummings (16-3 MMA, 1-0 UFC) is one of 10 fighters in UFC history to finish a fight via D’Arce choke. He used the technique to defeat Ben Alloway at UFC Fight Night 27.
Eddie Wineland’s (21-9-1 MMA, 3-3 UFC) five knockout victories in UFC/WEC bantamweight competition are the most in 135-pound history. The second closest tally is just two, which nine fighters have accomplished.
Wineland’s eight knockdowns in UFC/WEC bantamweight competition are the most in divisional history.
Wineland has some of the best takedown defense in not just his division’s history, but also all of UFC history. Wineland has shaken off 90.9 percent (20 of 22) of all his opponent’s takedown attempts, the fourth best rate in UFC history only behind Jon Jones (96.6 percent), Gleison Tibau (91.9 percent) and Dennis Bermudez (91.3 percent).
Wineland’s only losses in the past four years have come to Joseph Benavidez, Urijah Faber and Barao.
Johnny Eduardo (26-9 MMA, 1-1 UFC) enters the event off a 725-day layoff, his longest since 2006. His most recent octagon appearance was a unanimous decision victory over Jeff Curran at UFC on FUEL TV 3.
Nik Lentz (24-6-2 MMA, 8-3-1 UFC) is 3-1 since dropping to the UFC featherweight division. His only loss at 145 pounds came to top contender and former title challenger Chad Mendes.
Lentz has landed two or more takedowns against 10 of his 13 UFC opponents. “The Carny” has landed a total of 45 takedowns throughout his octagon career, the 10th most in modern UFC competition.
Lentz’s 13 guillotine-choke submission attempts in UFC competition are the third most in organizational history behind Chris Lytle (16) and Joe Stevenson (15).
Lentz’s 205 total strikes landed against Diego Nunes at UFC on FX 7 are the third most ever in a single UFC/WEC featherweight fight.
Manny Gamburyan’s (13-7 MMA, 4-5 UFC) 28 takedowns landed in UFC/WEC featherweight competition are the second most in divisional history behind Chad Mendes (37).
Justin Salas (11-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC) has suffered all five of his professional defeats by knockout or submission.
Ben Wall (7-1-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) has earned his past five MMA victories by decision. He has not finished an opponent since November 2010.
Albert Tumenov (12-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC), 22, is the youngest of the 22 fighters scheduled to compete on the card.
For more on UFC Fight Night 40, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
FightMetric research analyst and live statistics producer Michael Carroll contributed to this story. Follow him on Twitter @MJCflipdascript.The age of entitlement may be over for most of us, but many still have a sense of entitlement. And those with that ‘sense’ can be found in the halls of Parliament writes Kate M.
At the time of being elected, the government proclaimed that there was a debt and deficit emergency. They needed to clean up Labor’s mess, they said. Once elected, Joe Hockey declared: “The age of entitlement is over“. There must be cuts, cuts and more cuts. To pensioners, to health, to education, the ABC, SBS and so on…
There’s been plenty written about how there was no debt and deficit emergency, no mess to clean up back in 2013, and how since coming into office, rather than improving Australia’s financial situation, Abbott and Hockey have turned our economy into a basket case, and that we now have the world’s worst debt trajectory. So I’m not going to focus there.
What I am going to look at, is one small but wealthy pocket of entitlement that Hockey and his buddies have left untouched in their cutting frenzy. A pocket that has been getting a bit of press in the last week or so – our federal politicians’ expense claims. And if you thought Ms Bishop’s $5,000 helicopter ride was bad, hold on to your beanies and scarves, as that is just the very small tip of a very large political expenseberg.
So exactly how big is the Canberra Expenseberg?
In 2014, according to the Department of Finance, it was the better part of 96 million dollars. That what our federal politicians spent on expenses. And when I say expenses, I’m not talking about salaries or superannuation. I’m purely referring to their expense claims – for travel, office rental, phones, taxis etc.
To break this down a little further – there are 150 members in our House of Representatives and 76 senators in the Senate. That’s 226 federal political snouts. And while there was changeover of seats during 2014 (such as when the Senate changed in July) – meaning there was actually 307 individuals who filled those 226 seats during the year – there’s only ever one politician in a seat at a time able to claim expenses.
That means that the average annual expense-claim for each of the 226 seats of parliament in 2014 was around $424,000. Nearly half a million dollars. Each. Here’s a high level break-down on how the pollies spent our money:
It’s time for an Expenseberg Commissioner
Clearly our current politicians have forgotten that they were elected to represent the Australian people, to serve us, and not to rule over us in the lap of luxury. Or perhaps they are too busy micromanaging the ABC and appointing Wind Commissioners to look into their own expense entitlements.
So I have taken the liberty of appointing myself as the Canberra Expenseberg Commissioner – just temporarily – to see how much we could save if I applied a judicious knife to the Canberra political expense slush fund. I did some quick calculations on the back of an envelope this afternoon, and came up with the following cuts.
So listen up Canberra Pollies – the following cuts to your precious Expenseberg apply immediately:
1. Your Travel Expenses
These cost the Australian taxpayer just under $33.6 million in 2014. I’m cutting your allowance to $12.3 million moving forward. That’s plenty. Here’s how it’s going to work:
No more charter flights, choppers or anything else – None. Zip. Nada. You can fly commercial, rent a car or get public transport like the rest of us.
None. Zip. Nada. You can fly commercial, rent a car or get public transport like the rest of us. No more overseas junkets – I’m providing you all with a collective allowance of $500,000 to split amongst yourselves for trips that are absolutely necessary. Two week trips to Geneva that cost $88,084 to get yourself a sought after international posting are NOT absolutely necessary Ms Bishop. If you do have to travel internationally, you can fly premium economy and stay in four star hotels. Ministers with international portfolios get first dibs. The rest of you get what’s left.
– I’m providing you all with a collective allowance of $500,000 to split amongst yourselves for trips that are absolutely necessary. Two week trips to Geneva that cost $88,084 to get yourself a sought after international posting are NOT absolutely necessary Ms Bishop. If you do have to travel internationally, you can fly premium economy and stay in four star hotels. Ministers with international portfolios get first dibs. The rest of you get what’s left. No more hire cars – that means you Jamie Briggs – no more $583 dollar rides. Each of you can have an allowance of up to $5,000 per year to get around when you’re in Canberra or otherwise away from home. Use this to rent a car with one of your political colleagues, take an Uber X or car pool with your local colleagues. We don’t care – as long as you stop wasting our money.
that means you Jamie Briggs – no more $583 dollar rides. Each of you can have an allowance of up to $5,000 per year to get around when you’re in Canberra or otherwise away from home. Use this to rent a car with one of your political colleagues, take an Uber X or car pool with your local colleagues. We don’t care – as long as you stop wasting our money. Domestic Travel/Travel Allowance for accommodation – for some reason, according to the OpenAus website, the average Liberal minister or senator spent about $70,000 on this in 2014, whereas their Labor counterparts spent $45,000. Both amounts seem excessive, but for now I’m capping all pollies at the Labor level. Those who live further away (like WA or Tassie) can have a little more, and those that live in the ACT or NSW a little less. But if the Labor pollies can get by on an average of $45,000 per year, you all can. Don’t get comfortable though – I may cut this further later – particularly for those of you who are using the allowance to pay off your wife’s mortgage.Oh – and no more using taxpayer funds to travel to political fundraisers, for any reason. I don’t care if you’re the speaker at the event or manning the BBQ – if the purpose of the event is to raise funds for your party, we’re not paying for it.
These cuts will mean that some of you will no longer be able to travel like rockstars. But it will save us, the people who pay your salaries and your expenses, over $22 million a year – so deal with it.
2. Your office costs
You spent just under $58 million on office costs in 2014. I’m cutting this in half, and here’s how...
Firstly, regarding your decorating budgets – in 2014, you collectively spent just under 6.7 million on fitting out your offices. In fact, Jacqui Lambe spent $456,793 on her offices in Burnie – that’s enough to fund the Refugee Council of Australia for three years. From now on, there’ll be less Italian custom furniture and more Swedish everyday furniture. You don’t need to redecorate every couple of years. Instead, we’ll give you an allowance of $10,000 when you first take office. And that’s it. Spend it wisely.
Secondly, when it comes to your office rent and office admin, as was the case with your travel expenses, the average Liberal minister and senator pays significantly more than their Labor counterpart. So I’m cutting you all back to the amount the average Labor pollie spends. We’re not funding you to rent prime office space. We spend enough on Parliament house already.
These cuts will save us, the Australian taxpayer, over 28.6 million dollars a year.
3. Phones and family travel
Let’s start with your phone bills. You’re all like teenagers who don’t pay their own mobile bills. Have you ever heard of Skype? Or VOIP? Or Mobile Phone plans with calls included? Clearly not. Because collectively, you all spent over $2.3 million on your phone bills.
Moving forward, you’ll be capped at $200 each a month for all calls. That will encourage you to go out and shop wisely for your phone providers.
And as for taxpayers covering your family’s travel costs – that’s not happening anymore. If they ride in the Uber X car with you, or share a ride in Scott Ludlam’s Prius – no worries. But that’s it.
These cuts will save us a further $3.6 million in total a year.
And here’s what we can do if you tighten your belts...
These cuts to the Canberra Expenseberg will save the Australian people over $53 million a year. Simply by cutting back on luxuries – like riding by chopper from Melbourne to Geelong – we, the Australian people, could get back some of the things you’ve taken away from us since the Libs came into government.
To give you an idea of what we could be spending these cuts to your luxuries on, I’ve had a quick look back through some of the cuts that have been made since September 2013. Here’s some option on how we could use these savings to generate jobs and benefit the Australian people as a whole:
Option A: Restore funding to the ABC
Yep. With the saving we make from you pollies learning to love economy class and shopping at Ikea, we could completely restore the funding you slashed from our national broadcaster, and still have money left over for some of the smaller programmes I mention below.
Option B: Restore funding to a whole range of programs
Restore funding to the CSIRO at $29 million a year. The funding cuts you made slashed the jobs of between one in five and one in ten CSIRO scientists. That’s not on. We want them back. They add much more value to us than the hand-embroidered cushions in Jacqui Lambe’s new office fit-out.
The funding cuts you made slashed the jobs of between one in five and one in ten CSIRO scientists. That’s not on. We want them back. They add much more value to us than the hand-embroidered cushions in Jacqui Lambe’s new office fit-out. Give us back the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at $2.55 million a year – these guys used to process our Freedom of Information requests. And quite clearly we need information about what you are doing. Making it harder for us to do this is not a good thing.
– these guys used to process our Freedom of Information requests. And quite clearly we need information about what you are doing. Making it harder for us to do this is not a good thing. Reinstate the Climate Commission at $1.25 million a year – we’ve all been funding it since you cut it, but it’s really your responsibility. And it’s about time you did something practical about global warming.
– we’ve all been funding it since you cut it, but it’s really your responsibility. And it’s about time you did something practical about global warming. Continue funding the Custody Notification Service at only $0.526 million a year – it’s a bargain. And it literally saves Aboriginal lives. Cutting it so that you can all take hire cars is not on.
– it’s a bargain. And it literally saves Aboriginal lives. Cutting it so that you can all take hire cars is not on. Commence funding the Human Rights Education programme at $0.45 million a year – we are in sore need of more information on this topic.
– we are in sore need of more information on this topic. Restore the Get Reading Programme at $1.6 million a year – this dealt with child literacy. Cutting it while you kept going on your overseas junkets was not a good idea.
– this dealt with child literacy. Cutting it while you kept going on your overseas junkets was not a good idea. Give the Refugee Council of Australia back their $140,000 a year – it’s small change to you.
– it’s small change to you. Use the balance of nearly $20 million in savings to pay back debt.
I don’t care which option you choose. Either way, your age of entitlement is over Pollies. Snouts out of the trough. You are the servants of the Australian people. And we want you to spend OUR money on things that benefit US and not you.
This article was first published on Progressive Conversation.
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MoreInterested in our most recent work on population projections and estimates? See it all here.
We released today population projections for the nation overall and for all 50 states (and the District of Columbia). These are the first projections to be produced using data from the 2010 Census, and they detail changes between 2020 and 2040 in overall population and in subgroups by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin.
While many states develop state-specific projections for use in state and local-level planning, our approach applied the same methodology to all 50 state projections, allowing for a fresh analysis of how the demographics of the nation, and each of the states and D.C., may look in the future. Population trends, such as population aging and increasing diversity, are not experienced evenly across all states, and using a consistent methodology allows us to highlight variations at the state level that are missed in national-level projections.
Population Growth and the Rise of the South
The U.S. population as a whole is projected to reach 382 million by 2040. While most states are also projected to continue growing, this is not the case for all states. West Virginia is projected to steadily lose population each decade for the next 30 years. North Dakota and Iowa are projected to hit peak total population in 2030, and then experience slight declines in total population between 2030 and 2040.
The 5 most populous states in 2010—California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois – will still be the largest states in 2040. Between 2010 and 2020, however, Florida is projected to surpass New York in population to become the 3rd largest state in the nation.
Projected Total Population and Population Rank among Top 10 Most Populous States in 2010
Other large Southern states are also projected to make large real and relative gains in population in the coming decades. Between 2010 and 2040, Georgia is projected to go from the 9th most populous state to the 6th most populous, North Carolina is projected to rise from 10th to 8th, and Virginia is projected to rise from 12th to 10th in overall population. Consequently, we should expect the South, already the most populous region in the United States, to increase in influence, both politically and economically, in the coming decades.
Population Aging
We have long anticipated the impact of the Baby Boomers on population aging, but what was once in the future is now a reality. The proportion of the population that is 65 and older is projected to grow steadily over the coming two decades, peaking in 2030 and then plateauing or declining slightly in most states thereafter. Yet, in multiple New England states, the older population will become and remain a significant proportion of state residents. Nationally, 18% of individuals are projected to be 65 or older by 2030; these proportions are projected to be substantially higher in Maine (27%), Vermont (25%) and New Hampshire (24%). These high proportions reflect the aging-in-place of large populations of individuals currently between the ages of 45 and 64, as well as lower levels of in-migration of younger people.
Increasing Diversity
The projections also reveal that the nation will continue to grow more diverse. The proportion of white Americans is expected to decline, while the category of “other race” (which includes races other than white alone, black alone, and Asian alone) is projected to grow substantially. This is due to increases in multi-racial identification, interracial marriage and childbearing, and the growing Hispanic population (which tends to split racial identification between “white” and “other race”). In some states, such as Illinois and New York, the “other race” category is projected to surpass black or African-American as the largest minority group by 2040.
The Hispanic population is also projected to grow over the next 30 years, driven by both continued immigration and high levels of childbearing (reflecting, in part, the greater proportion of Hispanics of child-bearing age compared to non-Hispanic populations). California, Texas, and New Mexico – three states with large Hispanic populations – are projected to become majority Hispanic by 2040.
The Takeaway
In many respects, the results of the projections are unsurprising: they reflect current population structures and a continuation of well-established trends. The impact of the large Baby Boomer cohort on population age structure has long been anticipated, for example, and we can expect immigration and births to continue to contribute to population growth, albeit at a slower pace than at their height in the mid-2000s. Of course, projections are not prophecies, and the future is inherently hard to predict. But while we may not know what 2040 will bring with certainty, by using a consistent methodology to project the population of all 50 states, we can better understand how demographic drivers affect states differently.
Read more about the methodology and download the data at our National and State Population Projections page.
—
Rebecca Tippett is a Research Associate at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service where she studies household economic well-being and produces population estimates and projections.Back in the early days of Android, HTC's Sense UI really stood out as a much-needed step up in the UI department, compared both to stock Android and to competitors custom UIs. Like a hard-partying rock star, though, it just didn't age well; it went from sleek, helpful, and attractive, to bloated and borderline obtrusive. Sense 4.0 - which we spotted slapped atop of Ice Cream Sandwich - was definitely a step against that direction in some ways, but still offended some people - Cameron included.
Earlier today, Kouji Kodera, HTC's chief product officer, addressed these concerns in an interview with Pocket Lint at MWC. He agreed that the company "added too many things" to Sense as time went on and it "got cluttered." As we'd heard before, he also admitted that the company's product line was equally as bloated. Luckily, there's light at the end of the tunnel, as Kodera promised that Sense 4.0 was a return to simplicity. He also acknowledged that Ice Cream Sandwich offers a major visual upgrade, and promises that Sense 4.0 strikes a balance between HTC's customizations and ICS's natural beauty.
[Source: Pocket LintThere is a thesis that the banks are in control of the Fed and as a result have gained control over the issuance of the currency of the United States. This thesis is based on the fact that the shares of the Federal Reserve Bank are held by these private banks. Does that mean that the private banks own the Fed?
The short answer is yes, but it is a hollow ownership with very restricted rights. This ownership basically exists to give credence to the claim that the fed is independent. It is appropriately described as follows in the Fed's own publication "Federal Reserve System Purposes & Functions":
The holding of this stock, however, does not carry with it the control and financial interest conveyed to holders of common stock in for-profit organizations. It is merely a legal obligation of Federal Reserve membership, and the stock may not be sold or pledged as collateral for loans. Member banks receive a 6 percent dividend annually on their stock. (p. 12)
This is exactly the manner in which Special Purpose Vehicles (or Special Purpose Entities) are created in the corporate world. There is usually a promoter who does not wish to be seen to own an entity but who wishes to derive some benefit from the existence of such an entity. Usually, overt ownership would adversely impact the presentation of the promoter's financial reporting.
The authorities and regulators, including the Fed, are very aware of these Special Purpose structures, as is the accounting profession. Rules have been devised and implemented to assess any such arrangement in order to establish its true nature. It is therefore appropriate to assess the Fed's independence — or, alternatively, interdependence — according to the very rules that it uses to assess Special Purpose Entities. First, let's draw the simple ownership structure.
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of accounting principles would know that ownership of an entity without control over that entity requires further investigation. Consolidation of a group of companies can become complex when ownership and control are split. The GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) method in this case disregards ownership and focuses on control.
For example, a right to appoint the majority of the board of directors even in the absence of ownership would trigger a consolidation of that entity. Thus the controller and the entity would be seen as part of a group and collectively as a single interdependent consolidated entity. It follows that the simple structure of the Federal Reserve Banks drawn above is a split structure, where "ownership" is of limited significance and "control" must be established. Control will tell us whether the entities are independent or interdependent.
All regulation targets "control," not just the legal form of ownership. Accounting principles of consolidation have evolved from Special Purpose Vehicles, to Special Purpose Entities, and very lately — with the revision in June 2009 for implementation in January 2010 of Financial Accounting Standard 46(R) ("FIN 46(R)") — they have evolved into the concept of a "Variable Interest Entity."
In effect, the test of whether one organization is a "Variable Interest Entity" controlled by another organization is similar to a DNA test to determine whether two people are members of the same family. FIN 46 (R) defines a "variable interest" as follows:
The enterprise with a variable interest or interests that provide the enterprise with a controlling financial interest in a variable interest entity will have both of the following characteristics: a. The power to direct the activities of a variable interest entity that most significantly impact the entity's economic performance b. The obligation to absorb losses of the entity that could potentially be significant to the variable interest entity or the right to receive benefits from the entity that could potentially be significant to the variable interest entity. (par. 1A)[ |
and fire back with an answer! It’s all about sorting variables and tracking them, piecing together things that humans can’t. Computers are very good at sifting tremendous quantities of information (with the right software, of course), and that’s the core of big data.
Speaking of tremendous amounts of data: while we’re focusing this week on our trip to Munich and the stories inspired by our visit there, this isn’t the end of our discussion about big data. If you’re intrigued by the topic, you’ll love what we’re doing in a few weeks when Sean Gallagher digs into exactly how GE deals with the data their manufacturing processes generate.CLOSE What Americans should know about the Zika virus. USA TODAY
Stella Guerra performs physical therapy on an infant born with microcephaly at Altino Ventura Foundation on June 2, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. (Photo11: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
New research points the way toward a potential vaccine against Zika, and may explain why the formerly mild virus exploded with such fury when it arrived in Brazil.
A pair of studies published Thursday focus on Zika's complex relationship with a related virus called dengue, a common illness in Latin America and the Caribbean that causes flu-like symptoms. Dengue is spread by the same mosquito species as Zika, and the two viruses are so similar that blood tests sometimes can't tell the two apart.
When people are infected with dengue, or any virus, the immune system releases key proteins called antibodies to neutralize the invaders. Authors of a study published Thursday in Nature found that two of the antibodies the body makes to fight dengue also prevent Zika infections.
That finding could help scientists develop vaccines against Zika and dengue, said study coauthor Juthathip Mongkolsapaya, a researcher at Imperial College London. Scientists also might be able to use these antibodies to treat Zika, she said.
Several groups are already working on Zika vaccines.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced this week that it has received Food and Drug Administration permission for a small, early clinical trial of a Zika vaccine it's developing with GeneOne Life Science. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is pursuing four types of Zika vaccines; officials there say they expect to begin clinical trials in August.
Yet the close relationship between dengue and Zika has a dark side.
There are four varieties of dengue virus. While people infected with the virus one time may develop relatively mild symptoms, those are infected a second time, with a different variety of of dengue virus, can develop severe, life-threatening complications, said Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
In a second paper, published in Nature Immunology, researchers found that the vast majority of dengue antibodies do nothing to stop Zika infection. In fact, a lab experiment showed that most dengue antibodies actually helped Zika viruses proliferate and invade cells. That suggests that people previously infected with dengue, whose antibodies against dengue remain in their blood, might have a more severe reaction to Zika, said Gavin Screaton, chair of medicine at Imperial College London.
These results lend support to similar findings from Florida Gulf Coast University and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research.
Mother Jusikelly da Silva holds her 7-month-old daughter Luhandra, who was born with microcephaly, as she wears her new glasses while waiting for a bus on June 2, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. (Photo11: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
Not everyone is convinced that past dengue infections can make Zika cases more severe.
While dengue antibodies may exacerbate Zika infections in the lab, there's no evidence that this happens in the real world, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Scientists first discovered Zika in 1947, but it was never known to cause birth defects until Brazil experienced an alarming increase last year in microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and incomplete brain development.
Brazil has reported 1,660 cases of microcephaly, about 10 times more than usual, according to the World Health Organization. Microcephaly linked to Zika has been reported in 11 other countries or territories, including Puerto Rico, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Martinique, the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia and Cape Verde.
These locations have different varieties of dengue viruses, Adalja said. It's possible that some varieties of the virus are more likely to be associated with Zika complications than others.
Researchers have looked at a number of possible explanations for Zika's explosive growth, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. It's possible Zika's spread has been aided by environmental factors, such as climate change, poverty and urbanization. It's also possible the virus has mutated.
To really understand whether dengue antibodies exacerbate Zika infections, researchers will need to study pregnant women, said Ernesto Marques, scientific director of Cura Zika, an international alliance between the University of Pittsburgh and Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, known as Fiocruz.
The National Institutes of Health announced this week that it will partner with Fiocruz in a study of up to 10,000 pregnant women in areas with Zika outbreaks, beginning with Puerto Rico and expanding to Brazil and Colombia.
Leaders of the new study will study whether a past dengue infection increases the risk of complications on pregnant women and their babies. Researchers also will compare the health of babies born to mothers infected with Zika virus and those who were not, recording rates of miscarriage, premature birth, microcephaly, malformations of the nervous system and other complications.
Researchers will study whether these problems are more common in women who had symptoms of Zika compared to those with no symptoms. Only about 20% of Zika patients develop symptoms, which include rash, fever, joint pain and pink eye. Researchers also will study whether complications are more common in women infected early in pregnancy compared to those infected later. Doctors will follow women throughout pregnancy and for six weeks after delivery.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/28PbuyADerek Dooley has been fired by the University of Tennessee less than 24 hours after a demoralizing 4-overtime home loss to Missouri, according to two reports. Vol Quest, a Rivals site, says Dooley is gone, which is the same thing Wes Rucker reported late Saturday night.
Not a question of “if,” but “when” on Dooley. Don’t think they’ll announce anything until after a Vandy loss or after UK game, win or lose. — Wes Rucker (@wesrucker247) November 11, 2012
This should be no surprise. Dooley will be expensive to fire and replace, but the Vols have been an embarrassment this season. The defeat dropped Tennessee to 4-6, 0-6 in the SEC. Dooley is 15-20 at Tennessee, but that masks the real stench: He’s a staggering 4-18 in SEC play since arriving in 2010.
Dooley was a curious hire to begin with, and you can’t expect the Vols to mess around with this hire and take a chance on someone who went 17-20 at Louisiana Tech (4-8 the year before he got hired).
Please feel free to tune out all the Jon Gruden noise for the next eight weeks.After a much-needed respite from the public eye, former first lady Michelle Obama will soon be back in our lives.
According to the Washington Times, Obama will appear as a guest judge on the fifth season of MasterChef Junior in late February. She will join chefs Gordon Ramsay and Christina Tosi to judge children between the ages of 8 and 13 who are competing for a $100,000 prize.
Given her advocacy for healthy eating during her time in the White House, Obama will most likely have the kids prepare a healthy meal.
Not only did she revive the White House vegetable garden (which Melania Trump said she would keep), but she also founded the Let’s Move! Initiative in 2010 that promoted regular exercise and healthy food choices.
Other notable guest judges will include Martha Stewart and the Muppets. We can’t wait!
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Read more at the Washington Times.Homelessness. Crime. Muni.
They’re typically the top responses when San Francisco residents are asked by pollsters to name their biggest gripe about city life. But in today’s era of skyrocketing rents and home prices, the sheer cost of living here ranks as the No. 1 concern.
So finds a new survey fittingly titled “The San Francisco Survey,” conducted earlier this month and paid for by the Committee on Jobs, a moderate-to-conservative (by city standards, of course) political advocacy group with sway at City Hall.
The poll was e-mailed to a random sampling of registered city voters, 553 of whom completed it in either English or Chinese. Asked to name the most important problem facing the city, 22 percent said cost-of-living. Homelessness came in second at 15 percent. Crime and public transportation each garnered 6 percent.
Demonstrating that City Hall’s focus doesn’t always align with voters’ concerns, some of the biggest issues under the dome these days — taxes, immigration and development — notched only 1 percent apiece.
When asked a slightly different question — to name the most important problem facing your family — 32 percent said cost-of-living, again the most frequent response. The economy and jobs was named by 11 percent, placing second.
Still, the vast majority of respondents said San Francisco is “a good place to live,” and “the place I consider my long-term home.” Even if that does mean giving your right arm as a security deposit on your new digs. (That’s a metaphor; we haven’t seen that demand on Craigslist — yet.)
Ruth Bernstein of EMC Research helped conduct the poll and said she was somewhat surprised that cost-of-living was named so frequently as the top concern since other quality-of-life issues are almost always named more often in similar polls.
“But people still want to live in San Francisco,” she said. “They love it, and they think it’s worth it.”
P.S. Good news for Mayor Ed Lee. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they have a somewhat or strongly favorable view of him.
Bad news for the Board of Supervisors. Nobody knows who they are. Only Board President David Chiu and Supervisor Scott Wiener had more people express an opinion of their job performance than say they had no opinion. (Chiu ranked 36 percent favorable and 18 percent unfavorable; Wiener ranked 31 percent favorable and 20 percent unfavorable.)The comment had prompted two complaints from policemen in different police stations of the city.
Highlights Delhi CM asked to appear personally in court on July 14 Two policemen made two different complaints after his remarks Delhi CM had made the remarks in an interview last year
Nearly 10 months after he allegedly made uncharitable remarks against policemen, a local court in Delhi has summoned chief minister Arvind Kejriwal over what he said.Mr Kejriwal has been asked to appear in person in the court hearing on July 14 in the case on a Delhi Police constable's complaint made last year in July. In a television interview, Mr Kejriwal had used the slang "thulla" to refer to a policeman.The interview prompted two complaints from policemen in different police stations of the city and a defamation case in court. It drew sharp reactions from senior police officials including Delhi's top cop at that time, BS Bassi.Two constables had filed complaints against the Chief Minister, who had used the word during an interview last year in July. "If a 'thulla' of Delhi Police asks a roadside vendor for money, a case should not be registered against him... this is not acceptable," Mr Kejriwal had said in the interview last year.Constable Kapoor Singh Chhikara, one of the complainants, had told NDTV: "Not just as policemen, but we as citizens of Delhi are offended." The other complainant was Harvinder Singh, a constable posted at the Govindpuri Police Station. Mr Kejriwal is already facing a defamation case filed against him and others in AAP, filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. In December last year, he had tweeted calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi "a coward and a psychopath" drawing sharp criticism from different quarters.Forty years ago Saturday saw the release of Jaws, an adaptation of a beach-read made by a promising but relatively untested young director, Steven Spielberg. Forty years later, Jaws‘ impact can be felt across moviegoing.
The shark tale is perhaps most notable for its box-office success; Jaws became the top-grossing film of all time after its release (and did so more quickly than had its predecessors, with a marketing plan based on blanket advertising rather than a slow rollout). Jaws, with its technical mastery and ability to manipulate the audience into fearing something that for so much of the film’s running time they could not see, was a movie that demanded to be seen as soon as one could, just like later blockbusters including Star Wars (which, two years after Jaws, replaced it at the top of the all-time box office list).
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Jaws established Spielberg as an economic force, which means more than one might think; he has proven, in the intervening years, to know exactly what the public wants, from ultimately vanquishable scares (Jurassic Park) to charismatic heroes (Indiana Jones) to sweet sentiment (E.T.). Jaws gave him the capital to do whatever he wanted; his next film was the more adventurous Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Directors less technically adept than Spielberg, though, took from Jaws the lesson that bigger is better. This summer’s biggest movies so far (Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World) are all heavy on chases, fights and/or explosions. Jaws had a mechanical shark, yes, but its impact as the first true blockbuster in Hollywood history stems not from the suspense but from the few scenes when the mechanical shark attacks.
Contact us at editors@time.com.There was a certain commotion at the London dive show earlier this year. Amidst the anticipated and popular stands was an extremely different and entirely unexpected form of underwater promotion. As the throngs of people devoured all the show had to offer, it was almost comical to observe an array of individuals stop, laugh and descend into shock at the bright blue stand in front of them.
This was clearly no ordinary stand. Whatever they were promoting was free to join, and just a little bit exciting! Wow. We needed to find out more... Rosie Magee was happy to fill us in on the finer points of the international sport of Underwater Rugby!
Hello. I think the first question that needs to be asked is …. What exactly IS Underwater Rugby, and is this actually a real sport?!
YES… I promise you it is! That is actually the first question that many of the perplexed and confused visitors at LIDS asked us this year! Underwater Rugby first originated in Germany in the 1960’s, after being set up by Ludwig von Bursa to help diver’s develop their fitness. It is actually taken very seriously by many countries across the world, with our club making its international debut at a competition in Italy last year.
But is it popular and well-known in Great Britain?
Oliver Kraus, the founder of our club, came to England from Slovakia, where he played and coached Underwater Rugby on a regular basis. On arrival in England, he realised that despite diving and sports such as underwater hockey existing, there was an absence of a GB Underwater Rugby club! He decided then to enlist the help of a strong, bubbly Scot Robert Bonner, an amusing, experienced dive instructor Roy Sherwin and Gemma Witts to set up the UK’s only team, under the assistance of BSAC. Hence, PURE Underwater Rugby, GB’s only Underwater Rugby team was delicately born!
Hold on... But how do you actually play Underwater Rugby?
Underwater Rugby is a fun, challenging and competitive sport, played by two teams below the surface of a swimming pool. Different to rugby as we know it, It is always played in water, with a usual depth of 3.5-5m. Two teams, of no more than six people wear basic equipment such as fins, a mask, a snorkel and a hat ( extremely flattering…) It is played with a negatively buoyant ball filled with salt water. The basic idea is to get your ball into the opposing team’s bucket by passing to your team and tackling them underwater! You cannot tackle around the neck, or grab someone’s fins, but apart from that it’s a full contact sport.
Buckets?!
Yes, each team’s “goal” are heavy, solid metal buckets which sit on either end of the pool! The two teams battle underwater to get their ball into the opposing team’s bucket. The ball can be passed in any direction, as long it does not break the surface of the water, therefore it is truly three dimensional!
Er... what do you do about breathing?!
You hold your breath, which believe me, actually gets easier the longer you play the sport! The main thing is timing – you have to time when it is right to tackle someone or defend your goal. You defend the goal by almost “sitting” in the bucket, placing your back against it and kicking your legs vertically in the water!
Where do you play?!
PURE Underwater Rugby trains in Putney on Thursday nights from 9.00-10.30pm! There are also a range of international tournaments that the team will be attending this year, such as the first ever international tournament in Bordeaux, France, alongside an established international tournament in Florence.
What skills do you need to play?
Technically just strength, stamina and fitness. However, in reality, all PURE really wants is people with an open-mind, who are willing and prepared to challenge themselves out of their comfort zone and try something completely different. It is an extremely friendly team, who enjoy discussing tactics and socialising, as much as channelling aggression underwater. And if that isn’t incentive enough, there is no opening line/story quite as good as “I play Underwater Rugby for Great Britain”.
Indeed! PURE Underwater Rugby trains every Thursday from 9-10.30pm in Putney Leisure Centre London.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PUREUnderwaterRugby
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pureuwr
Email: underwater-rugby@hotmail.co.uk
With massive thanks to Rosie Magee for the article and info!Mr. Obama, we are not ‘free riders’
Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view
No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks on America.We initiated the meetings that led to the coalition that is fighting Fahish (ISIL), and we train and fund the Syrian freedom fighters, who fight the biggest terrorist, Bashar Assad and the other terrorists, Al-Nusrah and Fahish (ISIL). We offered boots on the ground to make that coalition more effective in eliminating the terrorists.We initiated the support — military, political and humanitarian — that is helping the Yemeni people reclaim their country from the murderous militia, the Houthis, who, with the support of the Iranian leadership, tried to occupy Yemen; without calling for American forces. We established a coalition of more than thirty Muslim countries to fight all shades of terrorism in the world.We are the biggest contributors to the humanitarian relief efforts to help refugees from Syria, Yemen and Iraq. We combat extremist ideology that attempts to hijack our religion, on all levels. We are the sole funders of the United Nations Counter-terrorism Center, which pools intelligence, political, economic, and human resources, worldwide. We buy US treasury bonds, with small interest returns, that help your country’s economy.We send thousands of our students to your universities, at enormous expense, to acquire knowledge and knowhow. We host over 30,000 American citizens and pay them top dollar in our businesses and industry for their skills. Your secretaries of state and defense have often publicly praised the level of cooperation between our two countries.Your treasury department officials have publicly praised Saudi Arabia’s measures to curtail any financing that might reach terrorists. Our King Salman met with you, last September, and accepted your assurances that the nuclear deal you struck with the Iranian leadership will prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons for the duration of the deal. You noted “the Kingdom’s leadership role in the Arab and Islamic world.”The two of you affirmed the “need, in particular, to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities.” Now, you throw us a curve ball. You accuse us of fomenting sectarian strife in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. You add insult to injury by telling us to share our world with Iran, a country that you describe as a supporter of terrorism and which you promised our king to counter its “destabilizing activities.”Could it be that you are petulant about the Kingdom’s efforts to support the Egyptian people when they rose against the Muslim Brothers’ government and you supported it? Or is it the late King Abdullah’s (God rest his soul) bang on the table when he last met you and told you “No more red lines, Mr. President.”Or is it because you have pivoted to Iran so much that you equate the Kingdom’s 80 years of constant friendship with America to an Iranian leadership that continues to describe America as the biggest enemy, that continues to arm, fund and support sectarian militias in the Arab and Muslim world, that continues to harbor and host Al-Qaeda leaders, that continues to prevent the election of a Lebanese president through Hezbollah, which is identified by your government as a terrorist organization, that continues to kill the Syrian Arab people in league with Bashar Assad?No, Mr. Obama. We are not the “free riders” that to whom you refer. We lead from the front and we accept our mistakes and rectify them. We will continue to hold the American people as our ally and don’t forget that when the chips were down, and George Herbert Walker Bush sent American soldiers to repel with our troops Saddam’s aggression against Kuwait, soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers. Mr. Obama, that is who we are.Image copyright Reuters Image caption The European Parliament could enforce end-to-end encryption as an extension of personal privacy
A European Parliament committee is proposing that end-to-end encryption be enforced on all forms of digital communications to protect citizens.
The draft legislation seeks to protect sensitive personal data from hacking and government surveillance.
EU citizens are entitled to personal privacy and this extends to online communications, the proposal argues.
A ban on "backdoors" into encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram is also being considered.
Encryption involves digitally scrambling a communication to protect its contents, and then using a digital key to reassemble the data.
End-to-end encryption means the company providing the service does not have access to the key, meaning it cannot "listen in" to what is being shared - giving the sender and recipient added confidence in the privacy of their conversation.
"The principle of confidentiality should apply to current and future means of communication, including calls, internet access, instant messaging applications, email, internet phone calls and personal messaging provided through social media," said a draft proposal drawn up for the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs.
The proposal seeks to amend Article Seven of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights to add online privacy. It will require approval by committee's members, the wider European Parliament and the Council of Ministers before it can be passed into law.
'Existing techniques'
During the UK's recent election campaign, the Conservative Party said that tech firms should provide the authorities "access to information as required" to help combat online radicalisation, but ministers have also said they do not want to weaken encryption.
That has led to some confusion among tech industry leaders as to whether the government wants some kind of "backdoor", a way to have end-to-end encryption disabled in specific cases, or some other action.
However, cyber-security experts warn that criminals can still find a way to protect their communications, even if end-to-end encryption is banned.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What is encryption?
"There are lots of existing techniques law enforcement can use," Dr Steven Murdoch, a cyber-security researcher in the department of computer science at University College London told the BBC.
"One of them is traffic analysis, which is looking at patterns of communications, eg who is talking to who, when and from what location.
"The other one is hacking - equipment interference in British law - which can happen before data is encrypted and after it's been decrypted, so there are still ways for law enforcement to gain access to information."
In the Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks, the perpetrators were already known to UK security services, Dr Murdoch added.
"They were not stopped because there were either insufficient resources or the resources were not sufficiently prioritised," he said.
"The suggestions being considered by the UK government would be worse for computer security. So much of people's lives are now carried out online. We should have privacy online just as we have offline."'Putting Your Thinking Hat On': 25 Years Since STS-43 (Part 1)
Twenty-five years ago, this month, Space Shuttle Atlantis flew a mission which harked back to the past and set in place a cornerstone to enable the exploration of the future. In August 1991, the crew of STS-43—Commander John Blaha, Pilot Mike Baker, and Mission Specialists Shannon Lucid, Jim Adamson, and David Low—rocketed into space to launch NASA’s fourth Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS). Part of a network of geostationary-orbiting communications and relay platforms for the shuttle and the space agency’s major scientific assets, TDRS was joined aboard Atlantis by a menagerie of research and technology investigations, many of which would evolve into systems for today’s International Space Station (ISS).
For Blaha, it was his third shuttle mission. In his NASA oral history, he recalled a conviction that every person who came back from space was psychologically “changed” in some way and became a “different” human being. When he returned from STS-33 in November 1989, he was finishing up his medical debriefing with a flight surgeon, when he asked an odd question. “Who else gives a debrief like me?” The flight surgeon replied that Shannon Lucid offered a similar insight after her missions. As circumstances transpired, the pair would fly two shuttle flights together and would meet in space a third time in September 1996, as Lucid wrapped up a six-month stay aboard Russia’s Mir space station and Blaha arrived for his own four-month stay.
Six months after STS-33, in May 1990, the STS-43 crew was named. Theirs was to be a five-day mission, originally targeted for May 1991 aboard Shuttle Discovery, to deploy TDRS-E, atop a Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster. A jubilant Blaha went directly to Lucid’s office with a request: after a day or two in orbit, they would exchange views on how each of them had “changed” whilst away from Earth. But in his oral history, Blaha added another aspect of his command style. By his own admission, the STS-43 astronauts were all “sharp people” and he felt no need to micromanage them or look over their shoulders. “Look, I don’t care how many mistakes you make during training,” he told them. “You can talk and ask all the questions you want in the debriefs. I’m not worried about us looking bad in training. I just want you to be ready when we launch.”
That readiness was tried and tested over the course of the following year, as the post-Challenger shuttle program fell foul to a summer of hydrogen leaks in 1990. Original plans, baselined in NASA’s February 1991 shuttle manifest, called for Discovery to fly the STS-39 mission for the Department of Defense in March, then Blaha’s STS-43 in July, and subsequently STS-48—tasked to deploy the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS)—during a critical “science window” around November. However, STS-39 was postponed several weeks and, keen to preserve the UARS window, NASA decided in March to shift STS-43 onto Discovery’s sister ship, Atlantis.
Having returned from the STS-37 flight in the second week of April, Atlantis immediately underwent processing to ready her for her next mission. She spent less than nine weeks in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), before rolling over to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for stacking onto her External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). The complete STS-43 stack was transferred to Pad 39A on 25 June, with launch targeted for 23 July. At just 103 days from landing to launch, this would represent the shortest turnaround by any member of NASA’s shuttle fleet in the post-Challenger era.
Launch on the 23rd was routinely postponed by 24 hours, when a faulty controller on one of Atlantis’ three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) required replacement. A second attempt on 1 August was held at T-9 minutes when a vent valve failed to produce a closed indication after cabin leak checks had concluded. As circumstances transpired, the valve had closed correctly—and the error was nothing more than an instrumentation glitch—but at this stage the weather at Cape Canaveral began to deteriorate and the launch was scrubbed. Finally, on the morning of the 2nd, Blaha and his crew were awakened in their quarters in the Operations & Checkout (O&C) Building. They departed for the pad at around 7:50 a.m. EDT, tracking a late-morning liftoff.
“At this time in the count, you really start putting your thinking hat on,” Blaha recalled later, “’cause you gotta go to work.” Without further ado, Atlantis roared into a clear Florida sky at 11:02 a.m. Ascent proved nominal, with four members of the crew having flown before and Baker as the only “rookie.” In his post-landing remarks, he commented that the ride on the SRBs was “a little bit rough,” but that it smoothed out dramatically when the boosters were jettisoned, a little of two minutes into the flight. “It makes your front windows go opaque,” added Blaha of this highly dynamic period of ascent.
Preparations to deploy TDRS-E got underway almost immediately after reaching orbit, with the release of the payload scheduled six hours into the mission. By this stage, STS-43 had been extended to nine days in length, in order to support a wide range of biomedical and scientific experiments. Three previous TDRS satellites had been deployed—the first aboard STS-6 in April 1983 and two more in the post-51L era, with TDRS-B lost aboard Challenger’s ill-fated final flight—and with TDRS-E a key position would be filled in geosynchronous orbit at 174 degrees West longitude.
Like its predecessors, TDRS-E was mounted atop Boeing’s IUS booster and the entire complex was accommodated within a donut-shaped Airborne Support Equipment (ASE) ring at the rear of Atlantis’ payload bay. The entire spacecraft filled about 45 percent of the 60-foot-long (15-meter) bay. The ASE acted as a “tilt-table” and was employed to raise the TDRS-IUS stack firstly to an angle of 29 degrees, where telemetry and other checks were performed and the booster was transferred to its on-board batteries, and finally to the deployment angle of 58 degrees. As will be described in tomorrow’s AmericaSpace history article, the deployment of TDRS-E and a multitude of other experiments gave John Blaha good reason to describe the shuttle as “a national treasure.”
The second part of this article will appear tomorrow.
Want to keep up-to-date with all things space? Be sure to “Like” AmericaSpace on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @AmericaSpaceBY ADAM SERRANO
Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Rafael Marquez, and Juan Pablo Angel.
Despite the loss of Thierry Henry and Omar Gonzalez, Friday's clash (ESPN2: 8pm, PDT)between the Los Angeles Galaxy and New York Red Bulls is not lacking star power. With the Galaxy leading the league with 50 points and the Red Bulls in second place in the Eastern Conference, the match has major implications for not only MLS Cup, but the Supporters Shield as well. Having played in a number of big games during his tenure with the Galaxy, Donovan is confident about Los Angeles' ability to perform in big games.
"The thing with playing for the Galaxy is every time we play a game it’s the other team’s biggest game of the year, whether we’re at home or whether we’re away," said Donovan. "We get the best of everybody but when there’s a special occasion when there’s something at stake like there is at Friday, not only with the standings and pride and East-West rivalry it makes it a little more special for us and we generally do well in those games."
Many feared that much of the publicity for the match would be lost when Henry was ruled out with a injury that will lower the Designated player total from an astounding five to a more manageable four. For New York, Henry's absence should signal the return of Juan Pablo Angel to the starting line up paired with Ibrahim Salou up top and recent addition Mehdi Ballouchy in the slot behind them.
Ballouchy's presence will be vital as the playmaker enjoyed a fine debut for New York against FC Dallas, scoring a goal and going 90 in the Red Bulls 2-2 draw. New York has typically found success in controlling possession and catching their opponents on the break and with this plan, the passing ability of Ballouchy is vital. For Red Bulls manager Hans Backe, controlling the midfield battle is integral for success against Los Angeles.
"I think that we play well when we sit down and go in for breaks and we try to this, but sometimes we can look like a passive team that doesn't defend well when we drop back, " said Backe in a recent league conference call. "Our possession game is very, very important and the right decision making when to attack and where to attack and take advantage of the breaks when we get them."
While New York will be without their star striker, the Galaxy will be missing their starting back line pairing as Gregg Berhalter remains sidelined with injury and Gonzalez was suspended for yellow card accumulation in last week's match against DC United. With both first choice options unavailable, expect Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena to call upon Leonardo and Yohance Marshall to start at center back.
One battle that will garner a lot of attention is the Galaxy's attackers against the Red Bulls stiff midfield. In the two clubs last meeting on August 14th, the Red Bulls midfield of Marquez and Tony Tchani struggled to contain the Galaxy's playmakers Donovan and Juninho. After letting the pair run rampant in the first match, Backe refuses to allow that to happen again.
"They find place for themselves and they’re able to break an organization, we need to try to keep our back four and midfield so tight that it’s possible we can close down the space for players like that," said Backe. "I can only hope that our back four and midfield can be that type that we don’t allow that space for Juninho because he can be a key player for those killer passes."
Much of the focus on Galaxy will still be focused around midfielder David Beckham.The 35-year-old who is steadily returning from injury is expected to go at least the 37 minutes that he was able to go in last week's contest and may be an option to go 45 minutes.
Even most of the big names set to play a part in tonight's match, Arena believes that the buzz generated for the game was never really centered around the players.
"A lot of the hype in the game is we finally have the two big markets in the league that have had teams that have performed fairly well over the season," said Arena. "It’s a classic matchup of the big cities in the league that means something which we haven’t had before. Red Bulls are still in position to win the regular season in the Eastern Conference and we’re still in position to do that in the west so that’s a big game in itself."
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Here are our SBI predictions for the two starting line ups.
LOS ANGELES GALAXY
———Kirovski—————Buddle————–
Juninho————————————-Donovan
————Birchall———-Kovalenko———–
Dunivant—-Marshall—–Leonardo—Franklin
———————-Ricketts—————————
NEW YORK RED BULLS
————————Angel————————-
Lindpere———–Ballouchy—————–Richards
————–Marquez—-Tchani———————
Miller———Mendes—–Ream————–Albright
———————Condoul—————————–
—–
Share your thoughts below.Madlib, is a producer whom, throughout his years, has been known for his heavy sampling of jazz, funk, and soul samples, and “Fancy Clown” is no exception to this formula.
The primary sample used throughout this track is “That Ain’t the Way You Make Love” by blues singer Z.Z. Hill.
The song begins with the beginning of Hill’s original song playing with a slightly modulated pitch. The piano chords from the original were kept by Madlib, who went on to add some standard snare-kick drum patterns as well as a modulated and distorted version of the original song’s baseline, while chopped parts of Hill’s vocals can be heard throughout DOOM’s verses.
The outro of the song comes from a track titled “Channel 85 Sign-On” from the comedy album TV or Not TV by Procter and Bergman:Intel's dream of getting x86 processors into smartphones is almost a reality. At Intel's keynote presentation at CES, Liu Jun, president of Lenovo's mobile Internet division, announced the Lenovo K800 smartphone built on Intel's "Medfield" Atom platform. Boasting a 4.5" 720p screen, HSPA+ support, and running Android 4.0, the phone will be available in China from the second quarter of 2012. Inside, the processor is the Intel Atom Z2460 with 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity on the China Unicom network from Intel's XMM 6260 chipset.
Lenovo has also been showing off its IdeaPad K2110, a 10" Android 4.0 tablet again powered by Medfield.
The K800 isn't the only Medfield |
. Because of this, despite the superficial confirmation of the ~3 ka migration inferred from autosomal studies, we should be cautious of taking the f1 result at face value. It may be that this population has subsequently experienced gene flow back towards the Levant, and that this is the reason for identifying the migration with f1 that is screened out with the more stringent f2. However, given the inferences of substantial later northwards gene flow discussed above, we consider f2 the more plausible criterion for this dataset, at least regarding the settlement of Arabia. Nevertheless, some gene flow ~3 ka is possible, especially given the strong growth signal around this time in the Arabian BSP, and may also be indicated by mtDNA haplogroup HV1 (see Discussion).
We next show the results when Eastern Africa and Arabia are combined into a single sink population (Fig. 4B and Table S4). The f2 criterion indicates a single Late Glacial expansion at ~15.4 ka, involving all R0a lineages. The f1 criterion distinguishes an additional more recent, postglacial expansion for R0a1a, ~11.0 ka, but the above discussion has explained why an additional migration is an unlikely scenario in practice. It does highlight, however, that further expansion, involving R0a1a in particular, took place in the postglacial, as also shown in the skyline plots. There is no sign under either criterion of the more recent dispersal at ~3 ka, confirming that, if it occurred at all (and involved R0a), its source was within Arabia and not in the Fertile Crescent.
We next show the results with Arabia alone as the sink, with the Fertile Crescent (excluding Iran) as the source (Fig. 4C and Table S5). Here again we see the major dispersal with the f2, ~15.6 ka. This represents our best estimate for the timing of the Late Glacial expansion of R0a. With f1 we see again both an even earlier Late Glacial peak at 17.6 ka, and an additional episode at ~10.0 ka.
The reciprocal founder analysis, assuming Arabia as source and the Fertile Crescent as sink, including the Levant, Iraq and Iran (Fig. 4D and Table S6), shows a very slight early Holocene peak in f2 and major peaks towards the present for both f1 and f2. The picture is similar whether or not Palestinians are included within the Arabian source (not shown). Since the peaks are much more recent when Arabia is the source, this implies that any dispersals from Arabia towards the Fertile Crescent must have been much more recent than dispersals in the opposite direction. An analysis that excludes Iran (Fig. 4E and Table S7) differs in detail, yet retains the general features of more recent Holocene peaks especially towards the present for both f1 and f2. These results re-emphasise that the Fertile Crescent R0a variation seen today cannot be the main source for much of the diversity in Arabia, again confirming that Arabia is the most ancient reservoir of R0a variation. This in turn supports the arguments given above that the founder estimates for Arabia are in fact most likely expansion times within the Peninsula rather than dispersals from a Levantine refugium in the north.
Finally, we tested the migrations to South Asia (Fig. 4F and Table S8) and Europe (Fig. 4G and Table S9). As for the Horn of Africa, and unlike for Arabia, we can safely interpret these results straightforwardly in terms of dispersals from an Arabian source. The results of the former shows a small peak ~7.8 ka with both f1 and f2 criteria, based on very few sequences, and a stronger signal ~2 ka with f1, corresponding to R0a6. The mitogenomes yielding the ~2 ka signal mostly belong to the Kalash community, which is very isolated and carry low diversity of a number of mtDNA lineages of west Eurasian origin41. The 2 ka signal transposes to ~30 ka with f2, but examination of the tree shows clearly that this is an artefact: the lack of additional lineages deriving from the f2 founder candidate in South Asia, the low diversity within the Kalash and the presence of a Palestinian lineage in the clade, all point to the more recent introduction of the rare R0a6, suggesting that it may have been insufficiently sampled in Southwest Asia.
The results for Europe also suggest a primary dispersal into Southeast and Mediterranean Europe at the end of the Pleistocene/early Holocene, mainly involving R0a2r, with the signal a little earlier with f2 than f1. This may have been via a Levantine refugium, given the presence of basal Druze lineages in the cluster (and a Syrian in the HVS-I data). It recalls the patterns detected in a much larger fraction of haplogroup J and T lineages that dispersed from an inferred Levantine refugium along the Mediterranean after the LGM42. Some lineages may have dispersed later in the Holocene, but this is unclear given the small sample size (R0a occurs amongst Europeans at a rate of only 0.8%).(Newser) – No matter the outcome of November's election, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will never work with a President Trump—so the outspoken critic of the GOP nominee is having a little fun trolling him, reports the AP. His latest salvo: An online petition demanding that Donald Trump take the US citizenship test. The Nevada Democrat argues that Trump would likely fail and that he should be forced to prove otherwise before setting rules for new immigrants, for whom Trump has called for "extreme vetting." "Donald Trump is nothing more than a spoiled, unpatriotic drain on society who has earned nothing and helped no one," Reid says in an email sent from his fundraising committee. "And before he degrades immigrant families who work hard and give up everything they knew to come to this country, he should put up—or shut up." (Read more Harry Reid stories.)Speaking Up for Those Silenced by the Religious Right -- UPDATED Frederick Clarkson print page Sat May 03, 2008 at 01:04:10 PM EST How far will the Catholic hierarchy go in silencing dissidents in the U.S.? We are familiar (as Frank Cocozzelli has reported) with the very public denial of communion to politicians who disagree with the Church on abortion. We know how Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit was forbidden from speaking out about the priest sex abuse scandals rocking the Church. And we know about the many times Catholic colleges and universities have barred from campus speakers who happen to disagree with the Church on abortion and other matters. But this authoritarian trend may be broadening and deepening in ways that cannot be good for the health of democracy in America, let alone the church. Most recently, the hierarchy in Minnesota ordered a local parish not to allow a professor from the University of Minnesota medical school speak to an adult education class about torture. According to Steven Miles, M.D., the hierarchy made their decision based on lobbying from the Minnesota affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee (an integral part of the Religious Right in the U.S.) I was invited to give this talk at adult education at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church on May 4, 2008 and lead a discussion of this topic on the evening of May 6. The Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul informed me that Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life encouraged people to contact the diocese to not allow me to speak because I am pro-choice on abortion and pro-euthanasia. Although I am pro-choice on abortion, I have written and spoke against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This talk on torture addresses neither. My wife and I have adopted and raised a disabled foster child. The Archdiocese instructed St. Joan's that I could not appear at the adult education in the church. St. Joan arranged for a college venue. Dr. Miles asked that his remarks be reprinted far and wide, and knows that I plan to post this at Daily Kos, Street Prophets and Talk to Action.
The author hereby grants permission to redistribute, download, copy and use this material in any electronic or printed form. No further permissions need be requested. Here we have people who refuse to allow people to hear an articulate, religious critic of torture because those petty authoritarians disagree with him about something else. I am honored to post Dr. Miles' lesson for him here. But I want to underscore that the lesson of his story -- is about much more than torture. Torture and the Courage to Be Inconvenienced Steven Miles MD shmjm@hotmail.com = = = = I am deeply honored to be able to speak with you today about the issue of torture. Torture is not an exotic or esoteric topic. Although we rarely speak of it, it has directly wounded most of us. It is government policy in more than half of the world's 200 nations. Our relatives fled the torture in East Europe, Latin America, or East Asia. Some of us were dispossessed by torture which enforced United States racial policies. Some of us have lost colleagues to torture in mission. Some of us sent or lost relatives who fought against torturing regimes. Forty thousand families in Minnesota have a torture survivor; we all bear the costs of their diminished parenting abilities, earning power, and sadness. My family has been touched by torture too. My wife's ancestors disappeared in the Holocaust of Belarus. Our adoptive son survived the Cambodia's killing fields and as a nurse put himself in service of the refugees of Ruanda. I have worked with survivors of torture on three continents and assist several groups, including Minnesota's Center for Victims of Torture, which strives to treat or prevent torture. = = The word "torture" comes from the word for "twist" capturing the design of devices like the rack or the wheel that contort the body. We should however not allow our empathic recoil from the image of a person's agony to cause us to miss the point that torture is aimed to destroy a community. The destruction of a person is the path--the destruction of a community is the goal. The Passion story has all the elements of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The ostentatious and unnecessary use of an inside informer, The mocking purple robe and the public label, "The King of the Jews," The scourging and the nails. Jesus was not some Nazarene carpenter who was picked at random. He was selected and tortured in a manner that was designed to destroy the community carrying His message. In today's scripture, Jesus reflected on that communitarian nature of his impending arrest and execution, I glorified You on earth
by accomplishing the work that You gave me to do.
I pray for them. And I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to You. John 17:1-11a Torture is generally used to attack and suppress civil society. This is why it is aimed at the monks in Burma, the political leaders of Zimbabwe, the playwrights of Czechoslovakia, the journalists of Russia, the students of Chile, or the union leaders of Uruguay. In this use, torture is a strategy to maintain The corrupt against the civic minded,
The empowered over the disenfranchised, and
The best fed in lands where most are poor and hungry. Torture is government by intimidation, horror, fear and division. It is antithetical to those who would create societies to flourish by loving kindness, justice, and inclusion. = = In the still space of our confession, we must speak of our active and acquiescent, personal and collective, complicity with the culture of torture. We must acknowledge that torture is a problem for all of us. It has found fertile ground in the lands of Islam, on the Buddhist ground of Cambodia's killing fields, in the fatherland of the Reformation, in the topsoil of communist nations, in the democratic motherlands of Turkey and the United States and in the loam of the Catholic lands of Latin America. We must confess that every people seem capable of torture, even the United States -- Convener of the Trials at Nuremburg, co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and instigator of the Geneva Conventions for the protection against "torture, or cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment." We should note that the National Catholic Reporter of March 24, 2006 reports that Catholics--more than the public at large, more than Protestants, and more than Evangelicals, support interrogational torture. Secular Americans were most likely to reject interrogational torture. Then, we must turn from confessing complicity with the culture of torture to the abolition of torture and to reconciliation in societies of justice and lovingkindness. = = After the crucifixion, Jesus' community--the real target of His torture--gathered at Olivet. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, Acts 1:12-14 They reaffirmed their faith in the message, the movement, and the kind of civil society that had been entrusted to them. Whoever is made to suffer as a Christian should not be ashamed,
but should glorify God because of the name. 1 Pt 4:13-16 Reconciliation means accepting our responsibility for building a culture against torture. We are responsible for knowing the facts. Research by the CIA, the Army, and the National Defense Intelligence University all show that interrogational torture is ineffective. It does not defuse ticking time bombs. The television show "24" lies. Torture: Produces bad information that leads to bad policy and needless dangerous battlefield sorties. Radicalizes survivors. Makes it impossible to recruit human intelligence. Alienates populations. Causes an enemy to fight to the death rather than to surrender. Undercuts the possibility of appealing for the humane treatment of our own soldiers who are taken POW. We are responsible for resisting the culture of torture. Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela were freed by our solidarity with their cause. Our amens enabled Martin Luther King to beat back the culture of Jim Crow. Our complacency allowed Major Roberto D'Aubuisson to assassinate Archbishop Romero and his forces to oversee the defiling and murder of the Maryknoll sisters. Our complacency allowed the sadistic guards at Abu Ghraib to go about their business; but our unwillingness to put their photographs aside saved countless lives. Oona Hathaway, a law professor at Yale University studied 160 nations some of which torture and others of which do not. She found that the witness of the Mothers of the Plaza in Argentina, the honesty of the Chilean Medical Association, or the dignified protests of the lawyers of Pakistan summoned nations towards curbing the scourge of torture. In such facts and examples, we can discern the path of reconciliation. We must summon the courage to be inconvenienced by the culture of torture. We must accept responsibility for rejecting the culture of torture in our personal and collective actions, including our acts of citizenship. We must lift our voices and hands in solidarity with civil communities of justice and lovingkindness in order to move from confession to the abolition of torture. Update [2008-5-3 14:22:44 by Frederick Clarkson]: Dr. Miles story has broken out into the media: Dr. Miles story has broken out into the media: Minnesota Monitor and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
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Speaking Up for Those Silenced by the Religious Right -- UPDATED | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden) comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
Speaking Up for Those Silenced by the Religious Right -- UPDATED | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden) comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)Here we are. A labour of love. Well, not love. Most definitely not love. But a labour.
This is my friend Ben Johnson’s (@benjanijohnson on Twitter) Hodge File. It isn’t definitive. He only started maintaining it when he realised exactly what we were dealing with when Hodgey opened his mouth. It goes from 12th November 2010 onwards. Considering that he wasn’t in a job two months later you’d think there wouldn’t be much. You’d be wrong. 6,819 words when we get into it. 6,819 words. We hope we have everything. Maybe we don’t.
So here it is, in all its glory. Do see it as what it is – a disorganised primary source, not a honed (insofar as mine ever are) blog piece. Apologies for the unattributed nature. If any journalists are concerned by their lack of credit for being Boswell to Dr Hodgson then do let me know. I suspect this is mostly press conference fayre but I am more than happy to remove or credit accordingly. They are dated as they were published, not as and when they were uttered.
They aren’t all funny. Some are rather sad and unexpectedly endearing read together and with a bit of distance. They aren’t all daft. Some do contain insight. They certainly aren’t concise. But they are all here – there may even be a bit of repetition but maybe The Hodge repeated himself.
So make of it what you will and enjoy if you can. The Hodge, ladies and gentlemen…
“His introduction secured the point at least because he was very good when he came on,” Hodgson said. “He didn’t miss a pass and won several challenges. That’s what he was on there to do and he will get better. Without his introduction, with a very tired Maxi Rodriguez and Dirk Kuyt, who knows we could even have lost the game”
(Hodgey on Poulsen 12/11/10)
Sometimes you can be winning and you think your defending is fine and your attacking is good but really it might be quite poor. You can then lose and after you’ve re-analysed, you see it’s not bad.
(Hodgey 12/11/10)
“You would have to ask him the question: ‘Do you think you’re playing at top form and are you playing like the best right-back in the country for your club?’ If he says yes obviously we will have to agree to differ and if he says no, then you’d have to ask the question: ‘Why not?'”
(Hodgey on Glen Johnson 12/11/10)
“Against Napoli he was guilty of too much honesty,”
(Hodgey on Poulsen, 12/11/10)
“They’ve got a very difficult style to play against. We did our best to deal with it but they got the goal that was required. Our forwards would have had to do a little bit more for us than they were able to do if we were going to get anything out of the game.
“I don’t want to be seen to be making cheap excuses. We lost to a strong team who out-battled us in certain occasions.”
(Hodgey on Stoke, 13/11/10)
“That seems to be part of the life as Liverpool football manager.We’re trying do the best job we can in the circumstances but I don’t think that that singing helps. But I didn’t hear it and I am sure there are lots of fans who sympathise with us and what we are trying to do.”
(Hodgey on Kenny chants, 13/11/10)
“I’m obviously sad that a good run’s come to an end. It was always going to be a tough task because it’s a battle and I always knew we’d be hard pushed to win that battle but I thought we did okay in the first half.”
(Hodgey on Stoke, 13/11/10)
“But I can only congratulate Stoke on their victory. They have a very difficult style of play and we did our best to deal with it, but they got the goal which was required. The second goal was really a result of me throwing caution to the wind by bringing a couple of forwards on.”
(Hodgey on throwing caution to the wind, 13/11/10)
“I don’t want to be seen to be making excuses. We lost to a strong team, they outbattled us on certain occasions, but we know that. Our midfield is not a battling midfield. With Raul Mereiles and Maxi Rodriguez we don’t have big boys in there but they are battling to be fair so I will take that back.”
(Hodgey on battling, 13/11/10)
“He’s a certain type of player, he’s doing okay, He’s had moments when he’s looked good, others when not quite so. He’s working on his game. He featured in that unfortunate Northampton game. It’s a fact of life that it was a great opportunity for those outside the first 13 or 14 to really show me ‘you should be thinking of me,’ but of course the only ones to come out with any credit were Soto and Shelvey. When will he get a chance again? Probably in one of these games in Europe and who knows, maybe he will burst back on to the scene, but it’s very difficult to do that in a reserve game.”
(Hodgey on Northampton & Pacheco, 20/11/10)
“We will probably have to change tactically, especially in the absence of Lucas and Jay spearing. These are possible replacements for Steven and we will have to reconsider our options. Having said that there is very little difference between playing 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and 4-2-4. Often the differences are what sort of positional play the players adopt on the field and how much they are prepared to leave those positions and create space. We’ve done quite a lot of work on that. People may describe the formation differently but I’m still hoping we’ll cause the same problems to defences by the movements from the midfield players and those in the forward positions.”
(Hodgey on the lack of difference between formations, 20/11/10)
“There are two games this year which have done us untold damage. The first was when a total reserve team – although it does not seem to have been noticed we had 14 first-team players who didn’t play – lost to Northampton in the Carling Cup. The other was the disastrous (2-1) defeat to Blackpool at the end of a three-match week when we played in Europe. Those two defeats were costly for us because they encouraged people to make bold conclusions but we’ve lost one defeat in eight”
(Hodgey on defeat, 20/11/10)
We have to learn to live with that these days, I’m afraid, when I first went to Switzerland in the early 1990s we used to watch French football and I was astounded by how often a team was booed off at half-time if it was losing or the cat-calls that came at the end. I remember saying to my wife: ‘That wouldn’t happen in England.’ Here at Anfield in particular I remember seeing away teams applauded off after winning, which may have been a one-off, but today all of that has gone out of the window.”
(Hodgey, a couple of weeks after a victorious Blackpool were clapped off at Anfield. 21/11/10)
“I do have sympathy,” said Hodgson. “It’s not easy when you are watching your team play and you don’t see where a goal is going to come from but you can see your team conceding a lot more. It’s a very unpleasant situation.”
(Hodgey, 21/11/12)
“There are still a lot of things to do but what pleased me against West Ham was the shape, discipline and organisation of the team, he said. If we can keep that going with the quality of players we have got we can have a good season. Don’t ask me what a good season is because I don’t know but after the start we have had where we are now is making us feel pretty pleased”
(Hodgey on a good season, 23/11/10)
“One defeat in eight is a good run at any stage of the season. We have to be happy with that but we are not stupid,” Hodgson said. “We know that if you go to Tottenham it could be two defeats in nine but, if we can play like this, we can make sure Tottenham don’t have a cakewalk and, if we can keep Fernando Torres and David Ngog firing, we may spring a surprise. Wins are hard to come by against the top teams and today we have got to admit that Tottenham are a top team.”
(Hodgey on surprises 26/11/10)
“He can definitely play as a left midfielder.“When we re-signed him we were thinking we needed two good left-backs at the club and that he’d be competing for one of those places in the team, but I saw him do very well in Trabzonspor when he moved up into midfield, and he tells me that when he was in Valencia he played in midfield very often.”
(Hodgey on Fab, 26/11/10)
“We’ve not been a lucky team so far, whatever we’ve got we’ve had to battle for. I don’t think mentality comes into it. Against Stoke we had done well against them until they scored the goal. Then we took the game to them and conceded a second and everyone thinks the team played badly and were battered. I believe if we continue to play the way we did against West Ham we may get one or two but it is the level of performance which counts. Results determine everything and people look at the results and then judge the performance.
“I have to judge the performance sometimes when we win and say ‘That was not very good and we could do better’ and sometimes when we lose I have to look at it and say it was a bad result but not as bad as all that.”
(Hodgey on performances Vs results, 26/11/10)
“He’s been doing quite well. He had a little down period which I suppose coincided with the unfortunate Northampton game, when every one of the young players was thrown in together, He stuck at his task and in training he’s been doing very well. In the last couple of reserve games he’s played very well too. It’s nice to know he’s still very much a part of the Liverpool future. He’s unlucky in the position he plays, just behind the striker or in a wide role. That’s probably where we have most competition at the club right now. For a young player it’s not easy to knock the likes of Joe Cole, Dirk Kuyt and Maxi Rodriguez off their perch.
“Having said that, we still believe in him. We think he’s a good player and he’s got a very bright future. Of course there’ll be lots of other clubs out there who want to take him but if he really wants to be at the top level he might be well advised to keep learning his trade with these sorts of people around him, rather than to become a bigger fish at a smaller club. I’m sure he’ll be in the squad for the Europa League next week. I can’t guarantee he will start but that’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility because he has done well enough recently to force his way back to our attention.”
(Hodgey on Pacheco, 26/11/10)
“I’ve had several bad experiences, “Even at Halmstad in the 70s, in the year we won our second championship, it took until the second half of the season to win our first game away and that broke a record going back two seasons. We went over two seasons without winning an away game, which is quite strange for a team that won the league in ’76 and again in ’79.”
(Hodgey on away games, 27/11/10)
“It could be the type of players you have, I don’t know.”
(Hodgey on away games, 27/11/10)
“It might also be to do with mentality and maybe there is an underlying sense that a point away from home is enough because we will win at home.”
(Hodgey on away games, 27/11/10)
“Harry will be a major candidate and it doesn’t surprise me that he wants it because it is the pinnacle of everyone’s ambition. Harry is doing well at the moment but you have to see who is doing well when the job becomes available.”
(Hodgey on England managers post, 27/11/10)
“It’ll be a cracking game of football. No doubt we’ll find ourselves on TV again. We seem to be on TV every week, so I better get my make-up ready.”
(Hodgey on make-up, 28/11/10)
“We’ve been working together for four months. Everyone I know in football respects the job I’m doing here and aren’t too surprised it hasn’t been an easy start. In fact, 95 per cent would have predicted it as [Jose] Mourinho did. ‘Liverpool will get worse and worse’ is what he said and if the great man Mourinho says it, I don’t know why you don’t quote him!”
(Hodgey on the Great Man, 29/11/10)
Perhaps being a leader means you push other players into a non-leadership position. This is a chance for someone to stand up and be counted. Poulsen did it against Napoli. Maybe he can do it again.”
(Hodgey on leaders, 2/12/10)
“We’re one point behind the top of a middle group but there are still five or six teams way above us, I think even Tottenham are six points above us if I’m not mistaken not to mention the teams above them.
“Six points doesn’t sound a lot but in this league at the end of the season, six points is going to separate an enormous amount of clubs so I still do think we’ve got an awful lot to do.
“I’m not trying to dampen enthusiasm, I’m not trying to dampen expectations, I’m just trying to be 100% realistic.”
(Hodgey on expectations, 09/12/10)
“Going out and splashing a load of money on players who may or may not be the ones for us in the future might not just be the right way.”
(Hodgey, 09/12/10)
“It’s a long time since my wife was pregnant and my son was born. I’m not sure I can cast my mind back that long but I can half imagine what it must be like.”
(Hodgey on the birth of his son, 11/12/10)
“Our away form continues to be very, very poor and it’s something we need to do something about. If we’d played the whole of 90 minutes as we played the first 45 minutes maybe I wouldn’t be as disappointed as I am. For a team that wants to be in the top half of the table, our away form is not good enough.”
(Hodgey on ambition, 13/12/10)
“It doesn’t bother me because I can’t do more than I am doing, I can’t work harder, I can’t work better. I have great confidence in my ability, I don’t think there is any reason not to have. I know the players are working as hard as they can to win matches for Liverpool and therefore me as manager. But if you have situations like last night when you have phone-ins to the owners you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know how that is going to go because we are not top of the league. Had we been top of the league it might have been different but we are not, we are ninth and we are Liverpool Football Club. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to work out more people will be unhappy with that than are happy with it.”
(Hodgey, 14/12/10)
“Because basically speaking unless there is a major inflow of cash into the club and the team is going to be changed from one moment to the next then whoever takes my place will be doing a similar job with similar players. The owners have made it perfectly clear they are in it for the long term and they are going to be patient; they realise it is going to take time.
“They realise we can’t turn things around overnight and they also realise that the team I am working with is not the team I put together. You don’t turn things around overnight and they are aware of the magnitude of the task but they are very focused on what needs to be done and I am convinced they will help me get it done.”
(Hodgey on what needs to be done, 14/12/10)
“I’ve said to Fernando – and this doesn’t need to be a secret – that we believe he’s a very fine player, one of the best front players in Europe, and the fact that maybe he hasn’t played at his level over the past couple of months doesn’t change that.
“You don’t become a bad player overnight. But don’t forget, goalkeepers and strikers in particular play on such a small margin of error.
“The difference between being carried down the high street in a Sedan chair, or being vilified is infinitesimal. I’m hoping it will go well for him against Utrecht. I am hoping that he’ll have a good game that will improve his confidence. He’s happy to play and he wants to play, so it would be foolish of me to not use him. There’s nothing to lose.”
(Hodgey on Torres, 14/12/10)
“I had a change of heart. I was seriously considering giving him a start but I had a talk with our fitness people and they convinced me it may not be the wisest move.”
(Hodgey on Torres, 15/12/10)
“I did honestly think it was a good thing. I didn’t mean to mislead you.
“The physical conditioning people said to me that in any game there is a risk of injury.”
(Hodgey on the chance of injury, 15/12/10)
“With discussions with the conditioning people in particular, they persuaded me to see the error of my ways even though I had this vision of Fernando going out there and having a great 45 minutes and maybe scoring a goal and giving him a lift, He was quite looking forward to playing but when I got back to the club in the afternoon and started to talk about it again it seemed to me the potential disadvantages far outweighed the potential advantages.”
(Hodgey on Torres’ omission, 15/12/10)
“We have already qualified and, if he played, he would be taking the place of a young player who needs the chance to stake his place in the team. And of course it would be very bad for us if he picked up an injury. The same applied to Pepe Reina. They made me see sense, I listened to the reason around me and I changed my mind. I am a bit sad that, unintentionally, I tricked some supporters and a few journalists.”
(Hodgey, 15/12/10)
“I was seriously thinking he might get 45 minutes and that would be good for his confidence,” Perhaps he doesn’t need the confidence boost. That is one of the things I was raking my conscience about. I was looking at his (first) 50 Liverpool goals the other day and they are quite incredible. I am hoping, by making the decision I did, we will see him come to light in the Premier League on Saturday.”
(Hodgey on Torres, again. 15/12/10)
“He’s training hard. He trains every day. There’s no days off for Steven. He’s desperate to get back but with my recent history of saying things and then not getting them right,
I think I should be extremely cagey and say I’ve got no idea if he’ll be there or not, we’ll wait and see, et cetera, et cetera. There’ll be no more bold statements from me on any player at least for the foreseeable future.”
(Hodgey on saying things and then not getting them right, 16/12/10)
“Whenever we old-fashioned football coaches see a player bombing up and down in straight lines, running without any problems and looking as fit as a fiddle, we immediately think he should be thrust into the next game.”
(Hodgey on Torres, again. 16/12/10)
“Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say your first thought wasn’t the wisest. I had two choices. To stubbornly go ahead with playing Fernando Torres or admit that after a sleepless night I’d realised it was a stupid decision and get a bit of egg on my face.”
(Hodgey on Torres, again. 16/12/10)
“He’s a quality player and we will be working hard on our tactics to make sure he doesn’t dominate the game.”
(Hodgey on Danny Murphy, 18/12/10)
“I could not identify with a lot of things that happened on the pitch.”
(Hodgey, 20/12/10)
“So to really call it my team, I would have had to make a slightly bigger impact on those who have been brought in. I am more than happy to take responsibility for this squad but it takes a coach more than five or six months to make his stamp on a club. I am hoping we will do some good business in transfer windows to come and then I will be able say, ‘If you don’t like it then I have no one to blame but myself’.”
(Hodgey, 20/12/10)
“I would plead for patience really. Of course we want Liverpool to be the Liverpool of old. We want to be up there every year competing in the Champions League. But we might have to accept that it will take us more than a few months. That would be a small price to pay if you get it right. You only have to look at teams who have tried to stay in the league or get into the top four. Clubs have virtually been destroyed by people making bad decisions. It’s not because the owners haven’t given money or supported the manager. It’s just that they have brought in the wrong people.”
(Hodgey on how to destroy a football club, 21/12/10)
“Some will say he’s unlucky because he’s not playing in the right position but I don’t have any truck with that, Joe is a midfield player, and what’s the right position for a midfield player? Gerrard has played all over midfield for as long as I can remember. I have seen him play left midfield for England, I’ve seen him play centre midfield, as a lone striker, as a second striker, because he is a good football player and knows how to play football. I did, and I hope Joe remembers this, make it clear (in our first discussions) that I couldn’t promise him a certain position. If Joe says, ‘well, I’m not playing in my right position’, then you’d have to ask him what his right position is.
“If he says the only place he can play is behind the striker, then he is limiting his chances of playing here. We also have Gerrard and Meireles who can play in that position, and we also have a situation where |
homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor swindlers, nor slanderers, nor swindlers — will inherit the kingdom of God.' I gave him the rest of the story.'"
Robertson added, with humility, "I've been in that camp! That list of sins covered me in my past life! Doesn't it cover you? We've all been there!"
This sort of undercuts TMZ's claim that "Phil Robertson is stronger than ever that homosexuality is an evil that deserves disdain and eternal damnation." He's not saying he's far superior to other people in reading this verse.
The new media attention might remind people that the sixth season of Duck Dynasty begins on A&E on June 11.Custom Branded Google Cardboard
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Dmitry Korzhik Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 13, 2017
Dmitry Korzhik is responsible for product development in Rocket ICO, the first DAO startup accelerator. The pre-ICO, which is currently live, already raised 94% of the cap. https://rocketico.io
On August 9, Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon (co-founder of Lightning) presented a Plasma project white paper to the wide audience. In fact, this is the implementation of Lightning and Raiden technologies using Ethereum. The existing version of WP will be greatly expanded and complemented, now it is practically a draft version. Nevertheless, the main essence of the project and its potential possibilities can be considered now.
One of the main obstacles to the full implementation of the crypto currency in the real world economy is the low productivity of the classic blockchain. At the present time there is not a single public blockchain that could be compared with the productivity of centralized solutions, such as Paypal, Mastercard or Visa.
Of course, this statement can be partially disputed, because the organizers of some blockchains say that they have solved this problem. However, all these blockchains achieve high performance due to the reduction of the safety parameters to a critical level. Therefore, they can be used only in private blockchains, where all validators must be conscientious by default.
The developers of the Lightning platform offer to solve the productivity problem by taking channels or sidechains out of the blockchain. Most of the transactions will occur in them, unloading the main blockchain. It will only record the finished result — the information about opening and closing channels.
Lightning works on Bitcoin Core, its analogue in the ethereum network is the Raiden sidechains system. But, unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum allows you to grow in many different ways.
One of these methods is offered by the Plasma project, which, according to the developers, will accelerate to billions of operations per second. Here the idea of taking channels and sidechains out of the main blockchain develops, offering to take out a completely new blockchain!
The functions, rules of conduct and consensus in the subsidiary blockchain will be concluded by a smart contract in the root network. A potentially large number of participants in the subsidiary blockchain is brought to a compact form by Merkle Tree and written into the main network, so that external observers can monitor the subsidiary blockchain. If someone wants to take part in a subsidiary blockchain, he must pay to the subsidiary blockchain smart contract.
Let’s consider a situation when the Proof of Authority (PoA) acts on the subsidiary network, i.e. only a certain set of nodes has the privilege to confirm transactions. The creator of the smart contract of the subsidiary network (operator) assumes responsibility for updating the data in the root network, and makes a huge contribution to this smart contract as a deposit. Now he has an incentive to behave correctly. And since all members of the blockchain, both users of the subsidiary, and simple observers from the main blockchain, can observe transactions in the created subsidiary blockchain, in case they find an error in the calculations, the operator will be fined for the amount of the incentive, and the participants of the subsidiary for small fee will be able to withdraw their funds back to the root network.
The subsidiary networks are subject to many well-known limitations, but how such a high speed of calculation is achieved? For this reason, the authors of the project propose to make one more subsidiary inside the subsidiary blockchain!
In this way, a hierarchy of blockchains will be created, where each superior is the supreme judge giving part of his authority to other judges and looking after their correct behavior.
In the subsidiary network it will be possible to operate not only with Ethereum, but also with any ERC20 compatible tokens. And since the cost of the token will depend, among other things, on the correctness of the participants’ behavior within the subsidiary, which will give an additional incentive to all participants not to violate the rules.
Unlike the existing sidechains, where the emphasis is on productivity at the expense of safety, Plasma pays special attention to the security of the network.
And, although the Plasma protocol was announced quite unexpectedly, and most of experts did not have time to give any qualified opinion about the project, it is possible that it will really be able to bring the blockchain to a new level. And what do you think?
Rocket ICO is a great helper that gives a chance to succeed for people who have a worthy idea, but lack general competence or special professional marketing, juridical or technical competence, funding or advice on how to turn their idea into reality. It is a reliable filter against scammers and projects with low potential or an unfinished concept. Lastly, it gives a stamp of quality for investors and experts.
Join to our Slack channel to continue discussion or visit https://rocketico.io. Thank you!Earlier this year, the price of the electronic currency Bitcoin exploded upwards, making its early advocates rich and smug and leaving everyone else shouting “bubble!”
Then, the price of Bitcoin crashed, making everyone who had cried “bubble” feeling smart and smug.
And then, a few weeks ago, the price of Bitcoin started exploding again.
And, so, once again, Bitcoin believers are crowing, and everyone else is mumbling about “bubbles.”
So, who’s right?
Most likely, everyone.
Why?
Because Bitcoin is the perfect asset bubble.
There is absolutely no way to value Bitcoin, which means there is nothing constraining its price other than supply and demand. As long someone new can be convinced to buy Bitcoin, its price can keep rising. Bitcoin prices could literally go to 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million per coin, and there would be no way to prove that these prices were ridiculous.
What’s more, even if Bitcoin is a bubble, prices could keep rising for years.
As everyone who has ever been involved with asset bubbles can attest, they usually have a few defining characteristics:
They usually have some basis in logic or theory (as Bitcoin does)
They can last much longer and inflate much more than most people think (the current Bitcoin price rise might be only the beginning)
They can make early adherents absolute fortunes
They can go through many “mini-bubbles” on their way to becoming a massive bubble — with each new high exceeding the old high and each new low higher than the old low
They can burst relatively suddenly, without any particular warning, and their collapse can wipe out almost all of the many years of gains.
The premise and promise of Bitcoin–the part that appeals to folks who don’t happen to be gold bugs, conspiracy theorists, or cryptography geeks (obviously they all love it)–is that the plan is for only a finite number of Bitcoins to be created. This is in contrast to standard government-issued currencies, which governments can always print more of. If the supply of Bitcoins remains finite, this should theoretically eliminate inflation, which is one of the biggest drawbacks of paper money.
(Although inflation has remained low in recent years, it ravages the value of paper money over time. A dollar in 1900 is only worth about $US0.04 in today’s currency.)
So Bitcoin is conceptually interesting, especially since it is not issued by a government agency. (Here’s a great presentation on what Bitcoin is and why some people are so excited about it.)
What has suddenly grabbed the public’s attention about Bitcoin, however, is the recent explosion in the value of the currency.
Because the number of Bitcoins is limited, their value increases rapidly when more people want them. And when the value of something increases rapidly, even more people want them. So the initial price increases fuel future price increases which fuel more future price increases…at least for a while.
Of course, this dynamic has fuelled the inflation of every asset bubble in history. So it behooves people to analyse the sustainability of such price increases carefully.
When Bitcoin was launched in 2010, the currency initially had very little value. Quickly, however, the price of each “coin” soared above $US25, making the initial Bitcoin believers rich. Then prices collapsed, with coins trading down to $US5 again. And then Bitcoin prices began a slow and steady rise that has suddenly gone parabolic.
At the beginning of March, Bitcoins could be exchanged for about $US35.
Then they blasted up to about $US250.
Then they collapsed to about $US100 again.
And now they’ve soared through $US300.
Importantly, this behaviour is exactly like the price behaviour of prior bubbles.
Internet stocks, for example, were first described as a “bubble” in 1995, a full five years before the peak. And the amount of money made in the rolling booms and busts of the next five years made everyone who was sceptical early on look and feel like a fool. House prices, meanwhile, were described as a “bubble” as early as 2002 and 2003. And it wasn’t until 2007, many years later, that house prices finally peaked.
Driving prices in all bubbles, of course, is the possibility that the price action might not actually be a bubble. And that applies to Bitcoin, too.
If Bitcoins become an accepted currency everywhere in the world, if governments don’t intervene and make Bitcoin transactions illegal, and if the supply of Bitcoins remains finite or Bitcoin isn’t superseded by some new currency like Ripple, then Bitcoin prices could go much higher.
After all, how much would you pay for a currency that could be used everywhere in the world and would never demolish your savings by losing value to inflation?
You might pay a lot for it.
And, as with any asset, it would be hard if not impossible to determine how much value was “too much”–because determining the value of any asset or means of exchange is always a subjective exercise.
At the same time, though, there are many big risks that could bring the Bitcoin frenzy to a quick and brutal end.
Governments, for example, might decide that Bitcoin undermines the value of their own legal currencies–and ban it.
In the U.S., only Congress has the power to print money, and Congress might well decide that Bitcoin is money (which, it is).
Or, Bitcoin’s technology could be hacked, allowing Bitcoins to be stolen from their owners.
Or someone could make counterfeit Bitcoins.
Or Bitcoin could never gain mass-market acceptance.
Or some other Bitcoin could replace Bitcoin, just as new toy fads eventually replaced Beanie Babies. (After all, it wasn’t long ago that many of today’s Bitcoin fanatics were going on about how you had to own gold.)
In short, there are lots of reasons why Bitcoin might not be the “store of value” that Bitcoin fanatics say it is – and, instead, might just become the next tulip bulb or dotcom stock bubble.
But in the meantime, Bitcoin believers are coining it.
SEE ALSO: Bitcoin Is A Joke
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The former Liberal leader John Hewson addressed an estimated 2000 people protesting in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay – minutes from Malcolm Turnbull’s harbourside mansion – calling on the prime minister to take stronger action on climate change.
Speaking at the same time as Turnbull addressed the party faithful at the Coalition’s campaign launch, Hewson told protesters the Coalition’s lack of action on climate change was a “national disgrace”.
Business and academic leaders urge new conversation about coal-free future Read more
“I think climate change should be the dominant issue of this campaign – it should have been for quite some time,” said Hewson, who was once the local member for the seat of Wentworth, which includes Double Bay.
He said “short-term politicking” from both sides left targets that were inadequate and policies that were not going to meet those targets.
“The one thing that hasn’t failed is people like yourselves,” he said. “The community is way ahead of the political leaders and the business leaders on this issue.”
He urged the crowd to push political leaders for a bipartisan approach to climate change. “Enough is enough, it’s time to act,” Hewson said.
A spokesperson from GetUp, which organised the protest in coalition with three other environment groups, estimated there were about 2000 people in the crowd.
Protesters were given placards in the shape of coral, which were coloured on one side, and white on the other, which symbolised the devastating bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. They turned them around for the cameras, while chanting “Choose the reef, not coal”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protestors in fancy dress at the #climatefizza rally. Photograph: Michael Slezak for the Guardian
Robert Shelly, who lives in Vaucluse, attended the protest with his two-year-old daughter, Ariella, and her dog. “We come from a family with a big environmental conscience. It’s a very important issue and it’s been completely ignored by the mainstream,” he said.
Paula Brook, who lives in Woollahra, said she was motivated to come to the protest after seeing the Australian Conservation Foundation’s scorecard, which said the Coalition’s environmental policies were “woefully inadequate”.
“The Coalition was really far down, and this is Malcolm Turnbull’s electorate and so it was important to show him that people care about environmental issues,” she said.
Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) A sizable crowd in @TurnbullMalcolm's electorate calling for stronger action on climate change. @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/KYR58Mtp7W
The crowd was also addressed by Dr Kate Charlesworth, who was until recently a Wentworth resident and previously worked at the sustainable development unit at the National Health Service in the UK. She said although climate change was a great risk to human health, and a health emergency, actions that would mitigate climate change had the potential to be a great boost to human health.
“Things like active transport – walking and cycling – improved diets with more plant based foods; looking at the causes of air pollution; reducing traffic congestion; healthier cities with more green space and tree cover. All these things will have tremendous benefits to human health,” she said.
Michael Borgas, a climate scientist at the CSIRO also addressed the crowd, calling on the government to fund climate science, following the news that the CSIRO was making significant cuts to its climate research.
Tony Fontes, a Great Barrier Reef diving instructor, also spoke, calling for stronger climate action to protect the reef. “We’ve just seen the greatest, most devastating bleaching event in the history of the reef and we’re going to see more.”
Lyndon Schneiders, the national director for the Wilderness Society, which helped organise the protest, said: “Malcolm Turnbull must do more to address climate change. The Great Barrier Reef is dying on Mr Turnbull’s watch and yet his government sticks to its inadequate Direct Action policy.”
Nikola Casule from Greenpeace – another organiser of the protest – said Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were growing and forecast to increase until 2030. “The science is clear – the world needs to stop emitting greenhouse gases but our emissions are going in the other direction.”
Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) Protesters turn their coral around to symbolize its bleaching. "Choose the reef not coal," they chant in Double Bay. pic.twitter.com/iAhUuM4RZj
The protest caps three days of protesting in Turnbull’s electorate.
On Friday Greenpeace activists hung a banner from Turnbull’s electorate office in Edgecliff, saying: “Turnbull’s Legacy: bleaching – brought to you by Malcolm’s mates in the coal industry.”
And on Saturday, a group of 50 pacific islanders kayaked from Blues Point to Lady Martin’s beach, mere metres from Turnbull’s harbourside mansion, raising awareness of climate change and sea level rise.Results Have Not Yet Been Finalized - One Delegate Not Allocated
The Bernie Sanders campaign has requested a recanvass of votes in last week's May 17 Kentucky Democratic primary. Even though the Kentucky Secretary of State's office says it will not finalize the results until May 31, the Sanders campaign is asking all vote totals to be reexamined, the AP reports.
The @BernieSanders campaign has requested a recanvass of the Kentucky primary- here's their letter via @joejohnscnn: pic.twitter.com/eewj6QYPCd — Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) May 24, 2016
Clinton is listed as ahead of Sanders by 1924 votes. Each has been awarded 27 delegates. There is one delegate at stake, and that will be determined by the final results expected at the end of the month.
Sanders has requested a "a full and complete recanvass of every one of the voting machines and absentee ballots" in KY, per @joejohnscnn. — Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) May 24, 2016
Recanvassing is not a total recount, but a review of the totals of all votes.
.@BernieSanders signed a letter this am to @AlisonForKY requesting "a full and complete check and recanvass" of voting results. — Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) May 24, 2016
Some responses via Twitter:
The recanvass fits within the narrative that Clinton is winning this nomination through a "rigged" process. — Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) May 24, 2016
Sanders lost KY by 1 delegate. He's down by 271 pledged delegates. The recanvass request is about ginning up his base. — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 24, 2016
UPDATE:
We have received a request from @BernieSanders for recanvass of the vote totals in May 17 Dem presidential primary. pic.twitter.com/eDKhpHn8iK — Alison L. Grimes (@KySecofState) May 24, 2016
Image by Rev Dills via Flickr and a CC license
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected]Posted on June 29, 2011 in Articles
Dear Penthouse Forum,
I know this sounds cliché, but it started just like any other day. I was stationed right past the metal detector, being unnecessarily surly and practically finger-fucking anyone who tried to sneak a bottle of Pert Plus on an airplane. You know, being a hero.
Right when I was smashing some guy’s sack against his thigh for not knowing whether the shoes are supposed to go in the bin or not, I saw her. Jesus, she was everything I had ever wanted. Sure she was clearly ill and being pushed forward in a wheelchair by her family, but I just had to know what was under that rumpled sweat suit.
She was fast tracked through the security line on account of her being gravely ill, but I was on to her game. Not so fast my little chickadee. When she rolled past the metal detector, my heart fluttered. She was silent, but her eyes said it all too clearly, “I soiled my diaper extra for you big boy.” And I wasn’t about to argue as my thick member tugged at the fabric of Cinnabon-stained pants.
As she was almost past my grasp I finally got my courage up. Mustering all of my politeness and charm, I called out to her, “Hey bitch, what’s in your fucking pants?” Her family looked stunned, probably because of my huge public erection. She on the other hand barely moved. I knew it, I was in.
So to get her revved up, I start patting down her legs. But how could I get us alone to take things to the next level? That’s when inspiration struck. I poked at her puffed up diaper and explained that there was no way I could be sure that she wasn’t a threat to America without seeing whether those Pampers were filled with feces or C4.
I don’t want to kiss and tell – because she seemed like a classy lady – but let’s just say that her previous meal at Baja Fresh wasn’t the only thing that exploded that day. However, lest any ladies reading this think that I am not a generous and sensitive lover, you should also know that after we finished, I cradled her in my arms, checking her for bombs over and over.
Here’s the best part, my boss totally bought that she was a security threat! Come on. You’d have to be a fucking moron to think that a 95-year old woman with leukemia was hiding something dangerous in her diaper.
My dick and I both hope she’s flying round trip.Judging a fight is a thankless task. Get it right and no one pays a blind bit of notice, but get it wrong and all sorts of people will be calling for your head. On first watch of the Miguel Torres vs Demetrious Johnson fight I had scored the first two rounds to Torres and the last round to Johnson and when the scorecards were read unanimously as 29-28 the only thing that caught me a little off guard was Johnson's name being read instead of Torres'. I was surprised but I wouldn't call it a robbery.
Already on grappling forums Brazilian Jiu Jitsu players are lamenting over the perceived unfair scoring advantage Wrestling has over BJJ, even some stating the guard is dead in MMA because the judges only care about who is on top. It's a familiar argument that comes up time and again but this time I thought I'd take them to task by re-watching the fight and attempt to implement the grappling scoring found under the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) and Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) rule sets.
With MMA scoring it's always been difficult in attributing value to the more intricate aspects of grappling. How do you score a takedown compared to a sweep or guard pass? Do you score attempted though unsuccessful submission attempts and to what extent of execution must an attempted submission be worthy of scoring consideration? Should a fight be won round by round or as a whole? The world of competitive BJJ and Submission Grappling has at the least tried to quantify common positions and transitions which is why I've turned to the most prestigious and predominant Gi and No Gi bodies for inspiration.
I'll be the first to tell you that I've not done a lot of grappling scoring in the past and certainly not in any official capacity so forgive me if any errors have been made - it's just my subjective view of the fight that tries to be as objective as possible, which is all judging is in any sport. I will also produce the IBJJF and ADCC style scores of the fight based on the grappling data provided by Fight Metric in case they saw something I didn't (and it's always handy having a second opinion).
Firstly, here is the scoring criteria of both the IBJJF and ADCC though without the penalties as most of what they deem fouls are legal in MMA, and even the shared fouls in both aren't relevant at this time since neither fighter fouled the other.
IBJJF Scoring
4 points – mount, back grab (both hooks in)
3 points – passing the guard 2 points – take downs, sweeps and knee on the belly 1, 2, 3... – advantages
Advantages: It is considered an advantage when the athlete attempts but does not complete any of the fundamental moves of the fight; i.e. sweep, take down, submission etc. Basically 1 advantage point is given from each genuine though unsuccessful attempt that puts the opponent on the defensive, but the relevance of advantage points is only in the event the score is a draw at the end of the match. There is no minimum amount of time needed per position or transition to score points, the only instance of time frame comes in the case of stalling and when a penalty is levied or if one player falls for a leglock allowing the other player to get on top, the top player scores 2 points once he is out of danger and can maintain position for 3 seconds. Though there was an instance of Torres and Johnson going for leglocks there wasn't a 'leglock sweep' so i didn't count it as such.
For the purpose of scoring the Johnson vs Torres match I included the advantages in the IBJJF style scoring when it came to close submission attempts which came from Torres only in the fight. However trying to stay true to IBJJF scoring, the advantage points only come into play if the main score is a draw and so do not make up the total scoring.
For the full rules of IBJJF competition please click here.
ADCC Scoring
Each position must be established for 3 seconds or more being out of any danger of submission in order for points to be awarded. * Mount position = 2 points
* Back mount with hooks = 3 points
* Passing the guard = 3 points
* Knee on stomach = 2 points
* Clean Take down (Ends passed the guard) = 4 points
* Take down (Ends Guard or Half Guard) = 2 points
* Clean Sweep (Ends passed the guard) = 4 points
* Sweep (Ends Guard or Half Guard) = 2 Points - Reversals are considered Sweeps as well.
- When changing multiple positions points will be awarded only for the position that has been established for 3 seconds or more.
- When passing the guard going straight to mount or knee on the stomach in less than 3 seconds points will be given only for passing the guard.
- The sweeps must be done in one continuous motion to be awarded with points.
As you can see the scoring is different here compared to IBJJF with more or less points being awarded to similar positions / transitions and in some cases more of a distinction is made such as clean sweeps vs sweeps and clean takedowns vs takedowns. Also when it comes to sweeps, a sweep only counts in IBJJF if it is from guard or half-guard and IBJJF do not score reversals (such as Johnson reversing from under Torres side control) where as ADCC do. IBJJF does not make the distinction ADCC does and so scores all takedowns and sweeps equally and I have factored this in to the IBJJF style scoring and the ADCC style scoring.
The exceptions I have made came in the instance of Torres using a triangle frame up to sweep Johnson. I'm not sure if IBJJF would consider that a sweep, and I'm sure ADCC would, so for the sake of argument I've included it as a sweep for both (but not a clean sweep for ADCC).
Another exception I made was ADCC's 3 second rule and I scored takedowns once the head was clear and the upper body was out of any submission danger. With that in mind I did not score Johnson's last second takedown at the end of round 3 as Torres finished the round in a guillotine from guard position, but by the same token I did not award Torres an advantage because I felt Johnson was not in submission danger long enough with the round ending so soon afterward.
Similarly with sweeps I ignored the 3 second rule because I felt there was merit in getting a sweep even if a scramble ensued a second later as was often the case with Johnson after being swept by Torres. This actually benefits Torres in the scoring where genuine ADCC scoring might not be so lenient. The main reason for ignoring the 3 second rule was partly to make scoring both IBJJF and ADCC style easier, but also because MMA fighters only have 5 minutes at a time to play with where as in IBJJF and ADCC matches the top adult Blackbelt categories can grapple from 10 to 20 minutes non-stop, and total duration for ADCC matches in particular can double if there's a draw and the match goes into overtime.
For the full rules of ADCC competition please click here.
Results and Conclusion after the jump.
The Results
My Score:
Fight Metric's Score:
Round 1
IBJJF: 8-2 Torres, 11-5 Torres
ADCC: 8-4 Torres, 11-4 Torres
Fight Metric spotted a pass from Johnson in the first that I missed and an extra pass for Torres that I missed, however only I considered 2 advantage points in the first for the leglock and inverted triangle attempts from Torres. We both score the round for Torres though.
Round 2
IBJJF: 12-2 Johnson, 7-0 Johnson
ADCC: 12-2 Jonson, 7-0 Johnson
I scored a sweep for Torres where Fight Metric didn't, I scored 2 passes and 3 takedowns for Johnson where Fight Metric scored 1 pass and 2 takedowns. Interestingly the IBJJF and ADCC style criteria score it the same for our respective scorecards. We both scored a submission Advantage for Torres under the IBJJF style scoring.
Round 3
IBJJF: 5-4 Johnson, 8-7 Torres
ADCC: 6-5 Torres, 10-7 Torres
Fight Metric scored an extra takedown for Johnson. This could well have been the takedown at the end I didn't score because Johnson had not cleared his head of Torres guillotine attempt. Fight Metric also scored 2 passes for Torres and I scored none. I've just watched the third round again and see no successful pass from Torres against Johnson who is always able to keep a leg in during the short time he was on bottom. Even if you have the shallowest of half guards, if the guy on top doesn't clear them under IBJJF or ADCC it's not a pass. I can only guess it's a mistake on behalf of Fight Metric.
I scored 2 sweeps for Torres where Fight Metric scored 1. It's safe to bet the 1 sweep they did see was the Clean Sweep Torres achieved that got him from the bottom guard to a secure mount on top. The other sweep I saw was from a Guillotine choke attempt later on and Torres tried to mount but his legs and knees were still off the mat as Johnson looked to regain guard. Joe Rogan commented that Torres got mount, but technically he did not. I scored it as a sweep rather than a clean sweep as a result but it looks like Fight Metric didn't count it at all. Both Fight Metric and I gave Torres 2 Submission Advantage points.
So, how do the scores stack up?
Round by Round I scored it 2 rounds to 1 IBJJF style for Johnson, and 2 rounds to 1 ADCC style for Torres. Interestingly the ruleset that should favour BJJ the most scores against the BJJ guard player where as the ruleset that claims to be neutral and promote equality among all grappling styles gives it to him and it's largely the clean sweep in the 3rd round that nudges Torres ahead.
Round by Round Fight Metric scores it 2 rounds to 1 IBJJF and ADCC style for Torres, though as I mentioned while I may have missed a couple of things earlier on in the fight, the two phantom guard passes Fight Metric scored in the third round for Torres effects their scoring as well.
When considering the fight as a whole, I score it 19-14 IBJJF style and 21-16 ADCC style for Johnson. Fight Metric though produces a score of 19-19 IBJJF style and 21-21 ADCC style making it a draw. Since only IBJJF deals with advantage points and ADCC doesn't, if the fight were to be scored as a whole Torres could get a decision on 3 advantage points, but only because of the Fight Metric score translating into a grappling draw based on IBJJF style rules.
What can we conclude from this?
Firstly as fans and analysts of MMA, some of us like Kid Nate put value into submission attempts because of an attempt to finish the fight but it's interesting under grappling specific competition scoring (and one tailored to BJJ specifically) that attempt to finish the match is only considered if everything else has been scored a draw. If Submission Grappling and BJJ specific competitions only score successful transitions and positions and not attempted submissions, why are we putting more value on the attempts when watching MMA?
Secondly the notion of a Wrestling / Guy-on-Top bias when it comes to MMA scoring is either over exaggerated, or is ironically almost equally apparent in BJJ and Submission Grappling competitions. The reality of the Johnson vs Torres fight though is Johnson worked to pass guard as well as get takedowns - he did not lay in Torres guard for the duration and while it can be rightly argued he did not work to finish the fight his technical ability in passing should be acknowledged just as it would have been in IBJJF and ADCC style competitions.
I scored it as objectively as I could and it ended up round by round for Johnson under IBJJF, Torres under ADCC and as a whole it went to Johnson for both. Fight Metric's transposed data ended up with round by round for Torres under IBJJF and ADCC though not without some question marks. As a whole Fight Metric ended up with a draw for both sets of scores.
If we go just by Fight Metric data transposed to IBJJF and ADCC style scoring, and include the significant striking they scored, Johnson wins on the percentages round by round and as a whole as well.
Sheesh. Who'd want to be a judge?
UPDATE: Fight Metric were kind enough to get in contact with me to explain how they consider passing -
... we consider half guard to be a positional advance because it is a far superior MMA position than full guard. The term "pass" is imprecise in our case, where what we really mean is positional advances. We diverge from official BJJ scoring in a few ways, but this is one of the ways that would manifest itself most significantly in the analysis you were doing.
So some of the passes they consider in an MMA fight happen by passing from Guard to Half Guard, which wouldn't be scored at all in either IBJJF or ADCC style rule sets. Unfortunately what this means is the data Fight Metric publish can't be used when transposed for IBJJF and ADCC style scoring making their IBJJF/ADCC score sheet void.Alberta's long wait list for midwives has advocates asking the government to better fund alternative birthing options.
Alongside dozens of mothers and their children, representatives from the Association for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth (ASAC) gathered on the front steps of the legislature on Wednesday asking for change to the current funding model for midwives.
About 1,800 women in Alberta are currently on a wait list for care from one of the province's midwives. The government's funding cap on midwifery currently allows for 2,774 births assisted by midwives in Alberta per year.
In total, about 55,000 babies are born in Alberta each year.
ASAC vice-president Jennifer Wilson said Alberta's funding model for midwives needs to be "tweaked a bit." (CBC)
The current government has been supportive in furthering midwifery funding in the province, but the funding model itself needs to be "tweaked a bit," said ASAC vice-president Jennifer Wilson.
The organization's short term goal is to clear all 1,800 names from their waiting list. But Wilson said the government needs to address funding restrictions currently in place under Alberta Health Services.
"Births are happening no matter what the funding is, so increasing that will save taxpayers in health dollars," Wilson said. "We just want to demonstrate to the government that this is a really important issue for women in our province."
ASAC president Dana Weatherhead said midwifery is a cost-effective birthing option. (CBC) Wilson said with funding currently capped on midwifery in Alberta, much-needed midwives are leaving the province to find work elsewhere.
ASAC president Dana Weatherhead said the government needs to look towards alternative sources of funding, and at providing midwives in rural and remote areas of the province where birthing centres are currently at risk of shutting down.
"Midwifery has been shown to be cost effective. We need to address the short term funding issue to allow these women and amazing care providers to be fully utilized and to have the birth of their choice," she said. "Having a choice of a care provider is not a luxury, it's a fundamental human right."
Associate Minister of Health Brandy Payne said AHS is in the midst of negotiations with the Alberta Association of Midwives. She said the government is looking at ways of expanding midwifery access to Albertans.
Payne said the department is reviewing the situation, but funding or changes won't likely happen within the current budget cycle.
"We know that midwifery is a choice many Alberta women are making, and with the waiting list we know there are more Alberta women who would like access to that service," Payne said. "We're looking for different ways we can help expand access in the province while still working within our limited financial means with the current fiscal situation."
Opposition Wildrose MLA Angela Pitt said it's "shocking" the province hasn't yet addressed the growing demand for birthing choices. She said because midwifery is a cost-effective alternative to hospital care, improving and growing the service should be a government priority.
"It's really just a no brainer for this province and women who live here," Pitt said. "Negotiations take time, but I think it |
he founded more than a decade ago. He also described how he caught "the space bug" by watching Saturn V rockets launch from the cape's famed launch site.
Those launch pads have been dormant for 10 years, Bezos said, adding that it's "too long — we can't wait to fix that," in a comment that drew applause from the crowd.
Blue Origin will work toward putting people into orbit around the Earth from Cape Canaveral, relying on reusable orbital launchers that will be built in Florida. The American-made BE-4 rocket engines that Blue Origin plans to use will also be tested at the facility.
At Tuesday's event, the billionaire Bezos was accompanied by Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson — who flew into space aboard the space shuttle in the 1980s — along with other officials and guest speakers.
By committing to base its operations in Florida, Blue Origin will create 330 jobs and add more than $200 million to the local economy, Scott said. More than 10 other states had been competing to become the site of the Blue Origin expansion, officials said Tuesday.
Bezos did not discuss when the first launches might take place. Blue Origin recently said that it hopes to qualify the engine for flight in 2017, with the first flight of the Vulcan rocket system planned for two years later.
The company says that testing of the BE-4 engine has been underway "for more than three years and testing of the BE-4 components is ongoing at Blue Origin's test facilities in West Texas."
In April, Blue Origin carried out the first test flight of its reusable New Shepard space vehicle at its Texas facility.Biographical note
Novelist and essayist, was born at Edinburgh, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a distinguished civil engineer. His health was extremely delicate. He was destined for the engineering profession, in which his family had for two generations been eminent, but having neither inclination nor physical strength for it, he in 1871 exchanged it for law, and was called to the Bar in 1875, but never practised.
From childhood his interests had been literary, and in 1871 he began to contribute to the Edinburgh University Magazine and the Portfolio. A tour in a canoe in 1876 led to the publication in 1878 of his first book, An Inland Voyage. In the same year, The New Arabian Nights, afterwards separately published appeared in magazines, and in 1879 he brought out Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. In that year he went to California and married Mrs. Osbourne. Returning to Europe in 1880 he entered upon a period of productiveness which, in view of his wretched health, was, both as regards quantity and worth, highly remarkable.
The year 1881 was marked by his unsuccessful candidature for the Chair of Constitutional Law and History at Edinburgh, and by the publication of Virginibus Puerisque. Other works followed in rapid succession. Treasure Island [1882], Prince Otto and The Child’s Garden of Verse [1885], Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped [1886], Underwoods (poetry), Memories and Portraits (essays), and The Merry Men, a collection of short stories [1887], and in 1888 The Black Arrow.
In 1887 he went to America, and in the following year visited the South Sea Islands where, in Samoa, he settled in 1890, and where he died and is buried. In 1889 The Master of Ballantrae appeared, in 1892 Across the Plains and The Wrecker, in 1893 Island Nights Entertainments and Catriona, and in 1894 The Ebb Tide in collaboration with his step-son, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne.
By this time his health was completely broken, but to the last he continued the struggle, and left the fragments St. Ives and Weir of Hermiston, the latter containing some of his best work. They were published in 1897.
Though the originality and power of Stevenson’s writings was recognised from the first by a select few, it was only slowly that he caught the ear of the general public. The tide may be said to have turned with the publication of Treasure Island in 1882, which at once gave him an assured place among the foremost imaginative writers of the day. His greatest power is, however, shown in those works which deal with Scotland in the 18th century, such as Kidnapped, Catriona, and Weir of Hermiston, and in those, e.g., The Child’s Garden of Verse, which exhibit his extraordinary insight into the psychology of child-life; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a marvellously powerful and subtle psychological story, and some of his short tales also are masterpieces. Of these Thrawn Janet and Will of the Mill may be mentioned as examples in widely different kinds. His excursions into the drama in collaboration with W.E. Henley — Deacon Brodie, Macaire, Admiral Guinea, Beau Austin, — added nothing to his reputation. His style is singularly fascinating, graceful, various, subtle, and with a charm all its own.
[From A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin, 1910]
More...When you go to this web site you will find a letter written to FBI Director Mueller that was sent along with a video and audio exposing a $1B smuggling ring operated by a Bush family member (Jeb) and a corrupt FBI agent named Terry Nelson (now retired with $20 million of homes in Florida and Montreal) http://www.realscam.com/f16/canadas-pm-stephen-harper-using-hackers-conc...
When you go to the Ontario Court of Appeals and read all five pages of this letter you will see that a copy was sent to "Senator Hillary Clinton" since about 20 tons of cocaine were coming into upstate New York from Quebec near Chapeau Airfield.
The package was sent by FEDEX and the good archives people confirm that Hillary's office signed receipt of the package. Yet she did not even provide the courtesy of a reply nor ask for a Senate investigation despite the availability of five insider witnesses including a pilot and two honest RCMP officers who said they would tell the truth if subpoenaed (Terry Nelson was caught read handed along with Canadian Mike Huxtable and 4 tons of cocaine in Saskatchewan in 1997 and arrested) Within days of posting bail however, the court files were sealed without explanation.
How could any sitting U.S. senator be so indifferent to 20 tons of cocaine and a corrupt AUSA in here district profiting from the proceeds? If you know Bernie Sanders management be sure to pass this information along to him because copies of the tapes are still available. Her inaction is probably due to the dirt the Bush family acquired about Mena, Arkansas.On Friday night, Phillip Rucker, The Washington Post’s White House Bureau Chief, appeared on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” to discuss meeting with President Donald Trump for a “first 100 days interview.” It had already been reported that Trump handed a 2016 electoral map to the Reuters reporter who spoke to Trump earlier in the same day, but Rucker was able to one-up that story.
“In your intro there, you were talking about the electoral map that he showed the reporters from Reuters in their interview,” explained Rucker. “He actually did the same thing with me. He brought out the map. He said ‘Aren’t you impressed by this map? Aren’t you surprised by this map?'”
Then came the line that floored Hayes.
“He encouraged me to take it home to my colleagues at The Washington Post and try to run it on the front page of our newspaper. So he cares a lot about that map. He cares a lot about these states.”
“I’m sorry,” replied Hayes. “He, on his 100th day interview, five months after the election, wanted The Washington Post to run the election map on the cover?” Rucker answered in the affirmative, though he added that “I think he was sort of playing there.”
“But it speaks to the pride that he has in that map,” he continued, “and he was showing it to his visitors. And, you know, he feels very strongly that it was redder than an electoral victory map has ever been, and he wants to do good by those people.”
Rucker then confirmed for Hayes that it was the county-by-county map, which is redder than the state-by-state map thanks to low-population counties.In the 24 hours following the attack, at least 75,000 systems were affected. By Sunday, the executive director of Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said that 200,000 computers had been hit, many of which belong to some of the largest institutions and government agencies in the world. Experts speculate that big organizations were particularly vulnerable to attack because of their outdated technology. The NHS, for instance, has been known to rely on out-of-date and unprotected software that made it highly susceptible to a malware infection.
Last week in the U.S., President Trump signed an executive order designed to protect the nation from cybersecurity risks, with a focus on modernizing the federal government’s aging IT systems. On Sunday, a senior U.S. administration official told Reuters that Trump called an emergency meeting Friday night to assess the threat of the cyberattack, with the White House conducting a second meeting on Saturday to determine the perpetrators.
On Saturday, Europol called the hacking “unprecedented,” while U.S. security expert Rich Barger told Reuters it was “one of the largest global ransomware attacks the cyber community has ever seen.” In Spain, the nation’s biggest telecommunications firm, Telefonica, was hacked alongside a Spanish electric utility company, Iberdrola, and a utility provider, Gas Natural. In the U.S., FedEx reported that some of its Windows computers had been hacked. And in Russia, 1,000 computers were infected at the nation’s interior ministry. The ministry later reported that the virus had been handled and no sensitive information was compromised.
Other victims of the attack include the German railway company Deutsche Bahn and a Nissan manufacturing center in the north of England. The French car manufacturer Renault was also forced to temporarily shut down one of its plants in Slovakia. Amid speculation on social-media, China’s official news agency, Xinhua, revealed that some of the nation’s companies, secondary schools, and universities had been affected as well.
How was such a massive, coordinated attack possible? On Friday, infected computer systems around the world received emails demanding ransom payments of $300 to $600 in the form of bitcoin to unlock their devices. With users around the world delivering payments in order to prevent their files from being erased, the hackers stand to gain up to $1 billion, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Many experts believe the attackers relied on a tool developed by the U.S. National Security Agency to breach Microsoft’s Windows software. In April, a group known as the “Shadow Brokers” released the stolen malware online in political protest. According to an emailed statement from Don Foster, the senior director of solutions marketing at Commvault, a U.S. data-protection company, “ransomware has proved to be one of the most effective ways to infiltrate an organization.”Times View
NEW DELHI: On Thursday, a metropolitan magistrate convicted Shamsuddin Fakruddin of theft, making it the happiest day of his life. As his lawyer explained to him that the court had just declared him guilty, Shamsuddin's boyish face broke into a smile. He was finally free.For 12 months now, Shamsuddin (19) has been lodged in Tihar Jail despite the fact that his alleged crime, that of stealing Rs 200, would usually carry a sentence of three months' imprisonment. After being denied bail once, he was granted bail three months ago, but did not have the Rs 10,000 in property needed for a bail bond.Shamsuddin changed his initial not-guilty plea to a guilty plea when he learnt that his father had passed away two days ago. "I'll say I am guilty. I just want to get out. I just want to go home to my village," he whispered to his lawyer.After migrating to Delhi four years ago from his village in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich district on the border with Nepal, Shamsuddin sold vegetables at a street corner near Okhla mandi. On August 5 last year, Shamsuddin was picked up by the Amar Colony police on charges of taking a wallet containing Rs 200 and an ATM card from the pocket of a complainant.Shamsuddin maintains that he did not commit any theft, and that the wallet in his pocket was his own. He was arrested and charged under sections 379 (theft) and 411 (dishonestly keeping stolen property) of the IPC, and sent to Tihar Jail for judicial custody. Boy jailed for a yr for.Despite his alleged crime typically carrying a sentence of three months, Shamsuddin was first denied bail on February 26, 2011, because of the "seriousness" of his crime. He had by then already completed six months in judicial custody.Then two months later, he was granted bail by metropolitan magistrate Mona Tardi Kerketta, provided he furnished a bail bond of Rs 10,000 and that someone could stand surety for him.By this time, lawyers of the Human Rights Law Network, an NGO that fights human rights cases and represents the poor pro bono, had met Shamsuddin in Tihar Jail, and started representing him. However, Shamsuddin's family could not be located, and he did not have property or savings that he could show as collateral against the Rs 10,000 bail bond. So, he was forced to remain in judicial custody.On Thursday morning, police officers brought Shamsuddin to the magistrate's court. Just over five feet tall, he wore a cream-coloured shirt and black trousers and looked holloweyed, casting nervous glances at his lawyer. He had hurt his leg, he said, and asked if he could sit as he awaited his turn, a request that was turned down. Half an hour after he was produced in court, metropolitan magistrate Kerketta heard Shamsuddin's lawyer's plea. They had decided to plead guilty as the surest way of getting released.The magistrate convicted Shamsuddin and ordered his release. He did not understand what had just happened until it was explained to him by his lawyer. "She is releasing you," his lawyer said. Shamsuddin was taken back to Tihar Jail by the policeman who had brought him there.After a copy of the order reaches jail authorities, Shamsuddin will be released. "Tell him not to do something like this again," the policeman told Shamsuddin's lawyer as they waited for the lift. "But I didn't do anything in the first place," Shamsuddin said to no one in particular. Unfortunately, Shamsuddin's case is not rare. HRLN is currently handling 17 other cases of petty theft where the accused is between 18-22 years old and has been in judicial custody for over six months.In most of the cases, bail has been granted but the accused remains in custody either because he is unable to show property or savings for the bail bond, or because the police have not been able to verify his correct address for his release on a personal bond.As per rulings of the Supreme Court, those who have spent more time in jail as undertrials than the maximum sentence for the crime they are charged with should be granted bail. As this case shows, granting bail can often become meaningless if the accused does not have the means to come up with the bail amount. We, therefore, suggest that in such cases bail should be given without any surety. The accused should then be told that if he or she absents himself from future hearings of the case, guilt will be presumed and he or she will be convicted as charged. Since the maximum possible punishment has anyway been extracted, the prosecution and society lose nothing if the person absconds. So why insist on surety?As I was digging through the latest build of Google Play Music, I noticed something strange: lots and lots of YouTube stuff. "That's odd," I thought, "What does YouTube have to do with Play Music?"
Oh, right, music videos!
Sure enough, there's some fairly revealing text included, too:
<string name="finding_videos_for_track">Finding related videos for the track...</string>
<string name="no_videos_for_track">No videos found for the track.</string>
<string name="youtube_video_details_hd">%1$s | %2$,d views | HD</string>
<string name="youtube_video_details_nonhd">%1$s | %2$,d views</string>
<string name="youtube_video_duration_hms">%1$02d:%2$02d:%3$02d</string>
<string name="youtube_video_duration_ms">%1$02d:%2$02d</string>
While listening to music, you'll be able to tell Play Music to hunt down the YouTube video for that song. It looks like the video will play in the music app, since there's lots of "video" views and styles in the xml.
<string name="menu_find_video">Find video</string>
There's a "Find Video" menu string for this, so presumably you'll be able to kick into YouTube mode from one of Play Music's million or so menus.
As my esteemed colleague, Mr. Ravenscraft, points out; the desktop version of Play Music already sort-of does this. It will match a Play Music listing to a YouTube video, which you can then share on Google+ (...from your Chrome Laptop, over your Google Fiber connection).
The desktop version doesn't necessarily give a perfect (or official) match, it's basically an easy way to search YouTube. So expect that soon in the Android app.
That's it for this teardown; short and sweet. I'll see you next update!Aping Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa 'Amma Canteen' scheme, the Arvind Kejriwal government on Thursday decided to launch its own canteens which will provide meals for Rs 5 to Rs 10. Kejriwal's 'Aam Aadmi Canteen' will replace the 'Jan Ahaar' project which was launched by former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal formally approved the proposal by the Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC), its vice chairman Ashish Khetan told the media.
Kejriwal's 'Aam Aadmi canteen' will provide nutritional, hygienic and safe breakfast, lunch and dinner from Rs 5 to Rs 10. In the first phase, Aam Aadmi canteens would be opened in industrial areas, hospitals, educational institutions and commercial hubs of the national capital, the Aam Aadmi Party said.
"We are in talks with some NGOs to set up Aam Aadmi Canteen in Delhi. The government is also studying proposals from other states. Currently, there are 225 such canteens operating in Tamil Nadu which cost the government Rs 65 crore per year," Ashish Khetan said.
After coming to power in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa introduced budget canteens called 'Amma Canteens' wherein idlis are sold for Re 1 and chapatis for Rs 5 and a plate rice for Rs 5. Combos like sambar rice, curd rice, lemon rice are sold at these food kiosks. Jayalalithaa also introduced Amma mineral water at Rs 10 per litre while other brands in the market charge a minimum of Rs 20.
Recently, Jayalalithaa launched 'Amma Salt' in the market. In the open market salt varieties are sold between Rs 21 and Rs 25 per kg but a kilo of Amma double fortified salt is priced at Rs 14 per kg, low sodium salt at Rs 21 and free flow iodised salt at Rs 10.Team Ryano Review
Ireland's capital plays host to one of the nations best BJJ (and MMA) teams in Team Ryano. Team Ryano is based on Dublin’s North Side, located in Finglas - about a 15 minute drive from the city centre In a brand new location with plenty of parking available, the gym is located on the second floor of an industrial unit.
Team Ryano is one of Ireland's longest running and most successful BJJ and MMA clubs. Andy Ryan is the head coach and one of the first Black Belts in Ireland, who also holds a black belt in Judo in which he represneted Ireland on the international stage. Andy also competes in BJJ and has won gold in the Europeans at Purple (2009) and Brown belt (2010) and gold in the Pan Ams at brown belt in 2011.
As it currently stands (2014) Team Ryano also houses 3 other black belts, 10 brown belts and a multitude of purples and blues, many who have medalled in IBJJF competition. Even though there is a high pedigree of competitors, the majority of members do not compete and are training just to keep fit and stay healthy.
The gym is a BJJ Revolution affiliate under Rodrigo Medeiros who visits Dublin anually.
Team Ryano also has a strong MMA program– it is home to UFC fighter Neil Seery and Cage Warriors fighter Paul Redmond who both help coach in numerous sessions including individual wrestling and boxing classes.
With the large number of members, there is a packed timetable of classes to suit everyones Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA needs. There are classes Monday to Friday at 11am which consist of BJJ and Nogi, coached by Brown and Black belts and the evening classes start at 6 o’clock, so there is plenty of choice for members.
Along with BJJ and MMA classes there is an open mat on Friday 7pm – 8.30, which all clubs are welcome to attend and there is also a sports therapy clinic open on Fridays too, not to mention Strength & Conditioning classes throughout the week.
The gym itself is about 2000sq feet, in which contains a large matted area, a cage and hanging bags. Along with the matted area there is a club shop where members can buy all of the MMA or BJJ equipment they need and also supplements to fuel their workouts.
Membership options vary. Folks can pay drop in rates or pay per month or sign up on standing order – the longer the commitment, the chepaer membership becomes and generally when people start, they are hooked – as is eveident from the amount of members that have been with Team Ryano from the early days.
It is a family orientated club that has members of all ages – one of our oldest members is a purple belt - who's two sons also train and are purple and blue belts respectively and we also have 2 other teenage purple belts.
One of the great things is the fact that a lot of the parents in the gym have enrolled their kids into the ‘Little Ryanos’ program which starts at age 4 and currently runs twice a week.
Even though there is a high level through out the gym, the one thing that Andy has always tried to do and encourage his instructors to do is treat white belts the same as any other colour. Even though there are ‘superstars’ here, everyone is treated equally and there are no egos. People from all backgrounds train in the gym. This leads to a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere throughout the gym and many friendships have been developed here. At this stage some of the long term members have been training almost a decade together now –as I said previously, it is rare to see folks leave once they join.
Team Ryano is a beginner friendly gym and there are all levels training in the gym, some to just keep fit and build confidence, others with aspirations of fighting in the UFC or winning the Pan Ams – the club caters for all of these goals and has the success stories to prove it.
It is easy to get started - the first session is free, so folks can try the gym out and are under no obligation to sign up on the way out the door (although most do!).
Article by Dave McConkey*
*Disclosure - I am a Jiu Jitsu Brown belt and coach at Team Ryano – I am actually a long time Training partner of Patches O’Toole and we began our BJJ journey back in a small garage on the North Side of Dublin in 2003.For instance, after the U.S. Open I took screen shots for the direction for all of Simona’s second serves and first serves, and on the big points where she was placing them. She had no idea she was hitting every second serve to Maria Sharapova’s forehand. So she took that information with her, and I think that loss made her a better tennis player, and she went and worked on her serve for four weeks and made her second serve more unpredictable, heavier with more spin and with much better direction.
Simona has said that the biggest lesson in her career was her brief split with you after Miami this year. How do you view that now?
It was hard but it was needed. I would have been doing her a disservice if I just patted her on the back and walked away and said, “No worries, we’ll pick things up next week.” Because it was holding her back, so I felt like it was just me doing my job. Regardless of whether it cost me my position as a coach, it was better for her in the long run to understand what she was doing on the court and become better from it.
It seems too few coaches on tour have that kind of leverage or ability to take that kind of risk to walk away. The players control so much of the relationship.
It is a bit of a flawed system, right? It is one of the tough things for coaches to do, no question. But I think as long as you are true to yourself, and you always are doing what’s right for the player, that’s the one thing you need to keep coming back to regardless of whether that’s delivering a message that’s going to see you removed from that position.
I also have always said there is probably a three- or four-year window of coaching a player where you empty the bucket and give them as much information as you can. You basically attempt to coach yourself out of a job, and in tennis because you are usually only working with one player all the time, there is only so much you can really deliver to a player. It’s a short window compared to some other sports or team sports where the rosters keep changing.
You’ve said on-court coaching is one of the biggest changes. You and Simona had quite a conversation in Miami this year that generated a lot of attention and debate.Image copyright RUV Image caption Iceland's parliament is in the firing line
Iceland has been shocked by allegations of sexual harassment made by a group of more than 600 female politicians, in a country of only 332,500 people that has long prided itself on its reputation for promoting women's rights.
Spurred by last month's general election, which was triggered in part by a scandal over violence against women, Reykjavik city councillor Heida Bjorg Hilmisdottir set up the I Skugga Valdsins (In the Shadow of Power) closed Facebook group to share these allegations. Now the group has made 136 of these accounts public, Morgunbladid newspaper reports.
The media statement accompanying the publication was hashtagged #MeToo, in solidarity with the high-profile international campaign against sexual abuse of women by men in positions of power.
"We hope that there will be an open discussion by political parties on how we can improve the culture within them," said Ms Heida, who is also vice-president of the Social Democrat Alliance.
The published accounts are often graphic, and include one member of parliament accusing male MPs of deliberating leering at their female peers in order to "humiliate and unnerve them", the RUV public broadcasters reports.
Many male politicians have been in touch to express their disquiet at the extent of the problem, said Ms Heida, and women outside politics have also contacted the Facebook group with their own stories. The row has prompted public demands for the alleged perpetrators to be unmasked.
"This culture of sexual harassment is by no means limited to politics. People now realise this is a larger problem than they realised," Heida Bjorg Hilmisdottir told Morgunbladid.
Reporting by Alistair Coleman and Martin Morgan
Next story: Siberian pupils go to school as temperatures hit -50C
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.While many divisions within our society are arbitrary or engineered, there is one division that represents perhaps the most pervasive and important conflict of our time; the division between collectivists and individualists.
Now, people who do not understand the nature of collectivism will often argue that individualism and collectivism are not mutually exclusive because individuals require groups in order to survive and thrive. However, a “group” is not necessarily a collective.
For some reason the core fundamental of collectivism – the use of psychological coercion or physical force to compel participation – goes right over the heads of many skeptics. A group does not have to be collectivist. Any group can and should be voluntary. Collectivism is NOT voluntary. Therefore, collectivism and individualism are indeed mutually exclusive. Collectivists and individualists cannot exist in the same space at the same time without eventually coming into conflict. There is simply no way around it.
From the position of the liberty minded (or the average Libertarian), collectivism is by far the inferior of the two philosophies. Collectivists often boast of the social and economic “harmonization” collectivism creates, as well as the mobilization of labor to “streamline progress.” The reality is that artificially rigged harmony is no harmony at all. If people are forced to homogenize and get along through fear, then peace has not truly been accomplished.
Human beings must come to their own conclusions on cooperation and tolerance in their own time. They cannot be manipulated and shoehorned into a “utopian” framework. Problems will result, like genocide, which tends to erupt during almost every attempt at collectivist utopianism.
Economic harmonization is even less practical, with government force inevitably used to confiscate resources from one group to give to another group, essentially punishing success or frugality. This creates an environment in which achievement becomes less desirable. When people do not have individual incentive to pursue achievement, they see personal effort as wasted. Innovation and entrepreneurship fall by the wayside, and society as a whole begins to diminish in prosperity. Without individual accomplishments and ingenuity, the group is nothing but a hollow mindless ant hill.
Another argument which usually arises is that individualism leads to “selfishness” and the dominance of wealth devouring machines like corporations. I would remind collectivists that corporations exist only through the legal framework and protections of corporate personhood created by governments, and without government protections and favor, corporations could not exist. It is by collectivism, not individualism, that corporatocracy thrives.
At the same time, collectivists consistently blame individualist "free markets" for the numerous ailments of nations. Yet another misrepresentation considering America has not had true free markets in well over a century, and most other nations have never had true free markets in their history. Feudalism and its child Socialism have always been present to plague mankind.
There are no merits to collectivism that are not accomplished with greater success by individualism and voluntary community. In fact, collectivism only serves to enrich and empower a select few elites while destroying the future potential of all other individuals.
Given the disturbing nature of collectivism, one would think that attempts at collectivist societies would be a rarity, shunned by most people as akin to inviting cancer into the body. Unfortunately, cultures based on individualism are the minority in history.
The average collectivist is not usually much of a beneficiary of collectivism. We call these people “useful idiots” or “sheeple” who unknowingly serve the darker machinations of elitists while under the delusion that they are changing society for the better. The reason useful idiots participate in collectivism are many, but I have found that across the spectrum these people tend to be weak willed, weak minded, and by extension, possess a rabid desire for control over others.
It is perhaps no coincidence that “intellectuals” (self proclaimed) tend to end up at the forefront of modern efforts for collectivism. While the poor and destitute are often exploited by collectivism as a mob to be wielded like a battering ram, it is the soft noodle-bodied and fearful academia that acts as middle management in the collectivist franchise. It is they that desire the power to impose their “superior” ideologies on others, and since they are too weak to accomplish anything on their own, they require the cover and momentum of collectivist movements to give them the totalitarian fix they so crave. In other words, they believe in humanitarianism by totalitarianism.
Individualism is under constant and imminent threat as the collectivist obsession with control grows. The ultimate end game of collectivists is to derive submission from individuals, to corner people into handing over their individualism willingly. It is not enough for them to merely apply force, the greatest power is in the power of consent. Here are the most common tools used by collectivists to obtain power and manufacture consent from the masses.
The Illusion Of Consensus
Collectivists rely greatly on the force of a well-aimed mob to convince the general public they have the consensus position; that they are in the majority. Appearing to be in the majority is the single most important goal of a collectivist movement, even if they are in reality a small minority. The anonymity of web activism gives the force of the mob a new potency. No more than a dozen collectivists working in tandem can wreak havoc in multiple web forums or harass numerous individualist publications while giving casual readers the impression that their ideology is “everywhere.”
The key here is that collectivists understand that the average person does not want to be seen as too contrary to the majority. They understand that the majority view matters to the public, even if the majority view is utterly wrong. If collectivists can convince enough people that their ideology is the majority view, they know that many people will blindly adopt that ideology as their own in order to fit in. The lie of consensus then becomes a self perpetuating prophecy. This problem will remain forever a danger as long as people continue to care at all about the majority view.
The Destruction Of Core Institutions
Those institutions people consider “core institutions” are sometimes vital, and sometimes not. That said, it is the openly admitted objective of collectivists through socialist-style movements to destroy core institutions so that there is no competition to their new system. A collectivist society cannot allow citizens to have any loyalties beyond their loyalty to the group or the state.
So, individual liberties must be degraded or removed, as per the constant reinterpretation of the Constitution as a “living document.” Religious institutions must be painted as shameful affairs for stupid barbaric cave-people. And, the family unit must be broken apart. This is done through economic depravity so pronounced that families never see each other, through state influence over children through public schooling, and through identity politics and propaganda which create sexual and racial conflicts out of thin air.
Dominating Discussion
This coincides with the idea of artificial consensus, but it goes beyond the use of the mob. In our daily lives we are now bombarded with collectivist messages — in mainstream news, in television shows, in movies, through web media and print media. The money behind these outlets belongs to a very small and select group of people, but through them the collectivist worldview is injected into every corner of our society. I would call this propaganda by attrition; an indirect but steady insertion of collectivism creating an atmosphere in which the ideology becomes commonplace even though it is being promoted by a limited number of people.
Exploiting The Youth
When we are young, most of us spend a great deal of time and energy working to be taken seriously. The question is, should we be taken seriously?
In my view and the view of the liberty minded, it really depends on the person’s actions, experience, efforts and accomplishments. Most younger people have little to no experience in life and haven’t had the time to accomplish much. They are still learning how to function in the world, and what kind of goals they want to pursue (if they ever pursue any goals). Because of this, it is hard for those of us who have gone through considerable struggles in life and reached a certain level of achievement to take them seriously when they decide to stroll into a room and pontificate on their moral and philosophical superiority. It makes me want to ask; what the hell have you ever accomplished?
This is not to say that there are not ingenious young people out there, or ignorant and lazy older folks. There are. But collectivist movements seek to exploit younger generations exactly because of their general lack of experience and naivety, as well as their feelings of entitlement when it comes to respect.
Collectivism almost always utilizes a theory called “futurism” in order to appeal to the young. The theory, which was a leading philosophy behind the rise of fascism, proclaims that all new ideas are superior in their social usefulness and all old ideas and beliefs should be abandoned like so much dead skin. According to futurism, those who cling to old ideas and principles are an obstacle to the progress of society as a whole.
The funny thing is, the ideas usually expounded by collectivists are as old as time — elitism, feudalism, totalitarianism, etc. None of these methodologies are “new” by any stretch of the imagination, but collectivists repackage them as if they are some grand new secret to Shangri-La. Younger adherents of collectivism latch onto futurism almost immediately. For, if all new ideas are superior, and all old ideas are barbaric, and younger people are the purveyors and consumers of everything new, then this means that it is the youngest generations that are the wisest, and the village elders that are naïve. By default, the young become the village elders without them ever having to struggle, make sacrifices, learn hard lessons, suffer loss, rise to challenges, or accomplish anything.
The enticing nature of this sudden groundswell of cultural respect is simply far too much for the average person college age or younger to ignore. Collectivism gives the young what they think they want, then uses them as tools for greater conquests.
Forcing Society To Accept The Lowest Common Denominator
Collectivism requires the homogenization of society, to the point that individualism is frowned upon and success is treated as negligible. Whether it is public schools lowering standards to the point that students with little or no reading comprehension graduate, or businesses being forced to lower standards in the name of “diversity” while rejecting employees with superior skill sets because they do not belong to a designated victim group, or government institutions |
a says it’s a reliable way to spot trends.
And it says it has spied one: The cost of pure coke rose 44 percent in the United States between January and September 2007. The dea credits its own efforts, of course, along with increased Mexican and Colombian cooperation, for the downturn in supply it says caused the price hike.
But the agency omits an important factor: the plummeting value of the dollar, especially as compared to the soaring euro. Even as the dea has made it more bothersome to bring coke into the United States, the sliding dollar has made importing it less profitable. Both the UN and dea note that a kilo of coke brings in two times as much in Europe as it does in America.
As with any commodity, producers look to maximize earnings by selling in markets with the strongest currencies. But unlike oil, for instance, the value of which is measured in dollars, the cocaine market is more fluid. “The euro has become the preferred currency for drug traffickers,” declared then- dea administrator Karen Tandy at an anti-drug conference last May. “We’re seeing a glut of euro notes throughout South America,” she said, adding that “9 of 10 travelers who carried the $1.7 billion euros that came into the United States during 2005 did not come from Europe…They came from Latin America.”
Europe has become attractive to traffickers not just because of its healthy economy, but also for its open borders, less stringent drug policies, and increasing demand. American officials estimate that just a few years ago U.S. consumers snorted several times more blow than their Old World counterparts. That gap has dramatically narrowed as Europe feeds a cocaine binge that has been compared to America’s in the ’80s.
This new European focus is changing global drug-supply routes. West African nations have become important staging areas for packages on the way from South America to Spain and Portugal, the region’s main points of entry. The UN estimates that cocaine seizures in Africa increased nearly sixfold between 2005 and 2007 and that more than 90 tons of coke were intercepted in Portugal and Spain in 2006, more than was seized in all of Europe in 2004.Pin 165 741 Shares
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ENDEDAs I mentioned in yesterday’s post, negotiations in New Jersey between Governor Chris Christie and the state legislature have resulted in a significant increase in the state fuel tax. The money will raise $16 billion for funding the eight-year Transportation Trust Fund plan, and be matched with federal funds to bring the amount up to $32 billion. Unfortunately, the money is being wasted. Details of most of the plan remain vague, but it appears most of the money will go to road repair; for all I know, $4 billion a year is a reasonable amount for this. But one component of the plan is extension of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system north into Bergen County, along the Northern Branch. This is at best a marginal project, and in the long run would make regional rail modernization in Northern New Jersey more difficult.
Despite its name, the HBLR only operates in Hudson County. Plans for extension into Bergen County along the Northern Branch still play an outsized political role due to the name of the line, but have not been realized yet. Right now, the line is partly the light rail system of Jersey City, and partly a circumferential line linking dense areas west of the Hudson, as somewhat of a circumferential. As such, it is a combination of a radial and circumferential. The Northern Branch would send it 13 km farther north into suburbia, terminating in Englewood, a town center with a fraction of the job density of the Jersey City CBD. Projected weekday ridership is 21,000, a little more than 1,500 per km, weak for an urban light rail line. (The HBLR’s existing ridership is 54,000 per weekday on 55 km of route.)
The original cost estimate of the Northern Branch extension was $150 million, low for the length of the line. While reactivating a closed commuter rail like the Northern Branch should be cheaper, the line is single-track still hosts some freight service, so light rail would have to build new tracks in the same right-of-way, raising the cost range to that of urban light rail. Unfortunately, the cost rapidly escalated: by 2009 it was up to $800-900 million, and in 2015, after the proposal was shortened to its current length from an 18 km proposal going deeper into the Bergen County suburbs, the cost was up to $1 billion. The cost per rider is still much better than that of the Gateway Tunnel, but it makes the project marginal at best.
While the high cost may be surprising, at least to the reader who is unused to the expense of building in or near New York, the limited ridership is not. The original plan, going beyond Englewood, would have terminated the line in Tenafly, a wealthy suburb where my advisor at Columbia used to live. Many people in Tenafly objected to that plan, not so much on the usual NIMBY grounds of traffic and noise as on the grounds that the line would not be of much use to them. They were interested in taking public transit to go to Manhattan, and the HBLR system would not be of any use. Of course, Columbia professors would not be using a rail network that went directly to Midtown or Lower Manhattan, but most of the suburb’s Manhattan-bound residents work in the CBD and not at Columbia.
I would probably not be this adamantly against the Northern Branch project if it were just one more over-budget light rail line at $45,000 per projected rider. The US has no shortage of these. Rather, it’s the long-term effect on regional rail.
The Northern Branch would make a good commuter rail line, going from Pavonia (or possibly Hoboken) north to Nyack, connecting to the HBLR at its present-day northern terminus, with about the same stop spacing as the proposed HBLR extension. Potentially it could even get a loop similar to the proposed Secaucus loop of the Gateway project allowing it to enter Penn Station directly. An even better connection would involve a second tunnel between Pavonia, Lower Manhattan, and Atlantic Terminal on the LIRR, with a new transfer station at the junction of the Northern Branch and the Northeast Corridor. Consult this map, depicting the inner segments of various potential commuter lines: the Northern Branch is the easternmost yellow line, the Northeast Corridor is in red and green.
The importance of the Northern Branch for regional rail is threefold. First, the easternmost line in North Jersey today, the Pascack Valley Line, misses a large swath of territory farther east, which is covered by the Northern Branch and by the West Shore Line. The West Shore Line actually passes through somewhat denser suburbs, with more Manhattan-bound commuters, but is a major freight route, whereas the Northern Branch has little freight traffic, which can be scheduled around passenger trains or even kicked out. Second, again shared with the West Shore Line, the Northern Branch provides a north-south line in Hudson County west of Bergen Hill, where there is suitable land for transit-oriented development. And third, the terminus, Nyack, is a town center with a walkable core.
I wouldn’t really object to making the Northern Branch light rail if it were cheap. At the original cost estimate of $150 million, I would be mildly annoyed by the lack of long-term thinking, but I’d also recognize that the cost per rider was low, and at worst the state would have to redo a $150 million project. At $1 billion, the calculus changes considerably; it’s a significant fraction of what a tunnel under the Hudson should cost (though not what it does cost given the extreme amount of scope creep).
High costs, as I said in 2011, should not be an excuse to downgrade transit projects to a cheaper, less useful category (such as from a subway to light rail). In this case we see the opposite happen: high costs are a reason to reject a downgraded project, since the cost per rider is no longer low enough to justify shrugging off the long-term effect on regional rail restoration.President Donald Trump’s sketchy “election integrity” commission on Monday suspended its request for states to submit sensitive voter data in response to a lawsuit filed by a privacy advocacy group.
The panel’s vice chair Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) announced in a court filing that the commission “sent the states a follow-up communication requesting the states not submit any data” until a judge rules on the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s (EPIC) lawsuit against the panel’s original request for voter data.
In its lawsuit, EPIC called the commission’s request for voters’ personal information — including partial Social Security numbers — “both without precedent and crazy.”
The privacy advocacy group requested a temporary injunction against the commission’s data collection activities and accused the commission of violating the E-Government Act of 2002 by not completing a publicly available privacy impact assessment before collecting voter information.Item posted by Ludovic Courtès <civodul> on Tue 18 Nov 2014 08:14:03 AM UTC.
We are pleased to announce the next alpha release of GNU Guix, version 0.8.
The release comes both with a source tarball, which allows you to install it on top a running GNU/Linux system, and a USB installation image to install the standalone operating system.
The highlights for this release include:
See the original announcement for details.
About GNU Guix
GNU Guix is the functional package manager for the GNU system, and a distribution thereof.
In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. It also offers a declarative approach to operating system configuration management. Guix uses low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, with Guile Scheme programming interfaces.
At this stage the distribution can be used on an i686 or x86_64 machine. It is also possible to use Guix on top of an already installed GNU/Linux system, including on mips64el.That is the current rage in the DC dining scene, namely that you can more easily order lots of “small plates” rather than a big plate with steak and spinach. Neil Irwin makes the case against that practice here, Matt Yglesias responds and defends small plates.
Neither mentions price discrimination or for that matter does much analysis of price. You will recall Glazer’s Law: “It’s either taxes or price discrimination.” And usually it is price discrimination.
Here is Alex on bundling cable channels as a form of (possibly) welfare-improving price discrimination. Read through that stuff if you don’t already know it, but the punchline is that big plates are like a “take it or leave it” cable contract, and small plates are like the a’la carte cable pricing schemes. The bundled contract gets some marginal channels to people who wouldn’t otherwise be willing to pay for them if those channels were sold on a stand-alone basis. In the TV context some of us browse reality TV, Farsi news, and women’s roller derby, even if we wouldn’t pay for those transmissions per se. In the restaurant context, the big plate gets some of us to eat more vegetables and munch on more parsley. Who would pay much for coleslaw? Output goes up under many of the most basic scenarios and consumer welfare goes up too.
In a more competitive market, as indeed the DC restaurant scene has become, bundling breaks down somewhat. We move toward a system of “small plates.” So the increasing competitiveness is good for consumers but the breakdown of bundling can be bad for them, with indeterminate welfare results, which means either Neil or Matt can be correct (but do lay out the whole story, and never ever ever reason from a plate size change!)
Those who have a relatively low marginal value for the add-on items of a meal (vegetables?) will be the ones who eat less under a regime of small plates. How their consumer surplus fares, a priori, is more complex and is not easily settled by theory alone. But, using some typical numbers, very often those who value the vegetables inelastically are worse off under a regime of small plates.
I wonder whether Neil Irwin or Matt Yglesias likes vegetables more?Barcelona City Council will restrict the use of Segways and other types of personal mobility vehicles for tourism in the centre of the Catalan capital. This announcement was made by the councillor for the Ciutat Vella district, Gala Pin, in a press conference this morning.
The measure, designed to combat the excessive numbers of tourists in the neighbourhood, will apply to companies that rent out these types of vehicle but not to the residents that use this mode of transport. The decision comes days after the acts of vandalism against tourists carried out by Arran, a youth organisation linked to the CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy) party.
The new attempt by the City Council to reduce the impacts of tourism will be implemented through a decree that will come into force in 15 days, giving businesses a fortnight to adapt themselves to the changes.
The municipal government will inform the businesses that rent Segways and other electronic gadgets of the measure so that they can make the necessary modifications before it comes into effect. Once that happens at the end of August, the City Council will start to fine the users of rented vehicles.
Tourism restrictions
"Vehicles aren't being restricted, only using them", explained Pin, who insisted that the measure only affects vehicles being used commercially. In this way, Ada Colau's government has just consummated its offensive against electric scooters in an area of the city where the demand from tourists is high.
And how will they avoid confusions and know if a vehicle is being used privately or for tourism? According to Pin, the distinction carried by for-hire electric scooters since last June will be enough. At that time a law was approved that limits them around the Catalan capital.
Restricted Zones
The whole Ciutat Vella district will be affected by the measure with the exception of two specific routes: with the first, people will be able to go from Portal de la Pau along passeig de Colon, passeig d'Isabel II, Marqués de l'Argentera and passeig de Cimcumval·lació; with the second, rented vehicles also will continue to appear on passeig de Picasso, de Lluís Companys, passeig de Pujades up to avinguda Meridiana. In practical terms for tourists, the first starts at the statue of Christopher Columbus and ends by going around the Parc de la Ciutadella, one of Barcelona's largest parks, which contains the Catalan parliament and the city zoo. The second follows the other side of the park and goes up to the Arc de Triomf.
The other districts will be affected by the measure for six months, the time for which the decree has effect. During this time, tourists who have rented a vehicle will have to push it along on foot if they want to go along the prohibited streets. In January, once the decree's validity ends, as Pin said, "the results will be evaluated" to analyse choices in the rest of the city.
Affected vehicles
The personal mobility vehicles affected will be electrical scooters, cycles, electric chairs and Segways that Colau's government already restricted with June's law. These electrical gadgets have gained in popularity recently, especially in the tourism sector, which has provoked, according to the City Council, an "overuse" of the public space in Barcelona.
In this way, the City Council wants to revert the impacts of tourism with one more measure, in addition to those like the restriction on renting accommodation to tourists and on the construction of new hotels.One week after a San Antonio police officer fatally shot an unarmed African-American man in the parking lot of a Northside apartment complex, Mayor Ivy Taylor convened a dozen of the city’s African-American and other minority civic, religious, education and neighborhood leaders at City Hall for a Thursday evening meeting.
City Manager Sheryl Sculley, Police Chief William McManus, Councilman Alan Warrick (D2) and Deputy City Manager Erik Walsh attended the meeting held in the Media Briefing Room, which lasted nearly two hours and included a light supper and informal conversation afterwards.
Mayor Taylor lamented the circumstances of the occasion in her brief welcoming remarks, and sought to frame the Feb. 4 shooting death of Antronie Scott, 36, by Officer John Lee as an undercover police operation that suddenly went awry with tragic consequences. Scott was under surveillance by undercover agents hoping to arrest him on two outstanding felony warrants. As he arrived at the apartment complex with his girlfriend, uniformed officers in marked police cars were called in to make the arrest.
Lee told investigators that Scott came out of his vehicle as Lee exited his patrol car, and that he suddenly spun around in his direction with something in his hand as Lee ordered him to show his hands, causing Lee to instantly open fire. Scott, it turned out, was only holding his cell phone.
Mayor Taylor expressed hope that the Feb. 4 police shooting will not be seen in the larger context of controversial police officer shootings of unarmed black men that have happened with alarming frequency in different cities and communities across the country over the last year. The mayor said she recognized that Thursday’s meeting needed to lead to continuing meetings if community trust with city officials is going to be maintained.
“I want us to think about the next steps as we move beyond this evening,” she said after nearly two hours of dialogue.
She turned to Chief McManus after her opening remarks and invited him to address the group at greater length. McManus, a 40-year veteran, returned to the job after a brief retirement in October 2015. Dressed in uniform, McManus made a lengthy, sometimes emotional presentation as community leaders, Mayor Taylor and Councilman Warrick remained seated at a large conference table and listened.
McManus spoke of five years of department initiatives to introduce improved community policing practices, U.S. Department of Justice reform recommendations, more restrictive high speed chase rules, new levels of training and policies for use of force, and adoption of body cameras now underway. There was relatively little tension in the room, given the circumstances, and afterwards, McManus received a strong vote of confidence from many of the community leaders who expressed appreciation for his return as police chief.
There was surprisingly little discussion of the actual events surrounding the Feb. 4 shooting of Scott, but when McManus did address the shooting incident and continuing investigation, he made no attempt to justify it or suggest that others in the police department or City leadership believe it was unavoidable.
After McManus spoke, several black leaders spoke passionately about life for black men and other young people of color in inner city neighborhoods where relations with police are often defined by decades of mistrust and tension. It was made very clear to City leaders Thursday night that their confidence in McManus, as well as the mayor and city manager, does not extend to the police rank and file.
“Our concern is that more black men who are not armed are getting shot, ” said Dr. Kenneth Kemp, a retired Brooke Army Medical Center physician and senior pastor at Antioch Baptist Church. “When it happens in your own back yard you get nervous. People need to know this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated.”
Many of the city’s police officers, he and other leaders present Thursday noted, seem to escape serious consequences when they abuse their positions of authority. There was a palpable concern evident in the words of many of the leaders that black men in the inner city are at unreasonable risk of being singled out by police officers, and that such abuse seldom results in prosecution by the District Attorney’s office.
In that regard, several black leaders have told the Rivard Report in background conversations that they view Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood, a Democrat, as unwilling as his predecessor, former District Attorney Susan Reed, a Republican, to indict police officers who are involved in fatal shootings of men of color, even when they are unarmed.
City officials acknowledged Thursday evening that the police union’s collective bargaining agreement affords individual officers significant, often frustrating levels of protection against disciplinary measures. Even when he acts to impose serious disciplinary action or even terminate an officer, McManus acknowledged, arbitration hearings often result in his actions being reversed or softened.
Several of the community leaders expressed frustration that after two years of unsuccessful efforts by the City to negotiate agreements on wage and health care benefits in a new collective bargaining agreement with the police union, there has been no discussion of holding police more accountable for their actions by limiting disciplinary protections embedded in the contract.
McManus said in a statement that the results of his department’s preliminary investigation into the Scott shooting had been turned over to LaHood’s office Thursday. The Express-News reported that LaHood released a statement later Thursday evening that suggested there will be no timely resolution of the case.
“In a minority community, because of our history, there is a history of mistrust,” said Taj Matthews, the grandson of civil rights leader Rev. Claude Black, as he sat next to Mayor Taylor and spoke directly to her.
Councilman Warrick asked McManus if he could guarantee that there wouldn’t be any further mistaken shootings.
“Our city, our community, can’t afford another shooting,” Warrick said.
“I go to bed every night hoping it won’t happen,” McManus said. “We are on the same page in this room, believe me.”
“We’d like you to sleep better,” Warrick said.
Mike Lowe, a community activist with a group called SATX4, sat on Mayor Taylor’s other side, and said the police chief’s presentation of department reforms and training initiatives did not address police culture issues in minority communities.
“This community wants justice,” Lowe said. “This idea of procedural justice sounds good, but the practice of it is not what the officer in multiple cases represented. To me, this is rhetoric. Families are dehumanized. The media have a field day. Unfortunately or fortunately, I am militant on this.”
Lowe said black men pay a price never paid by police officers.
“(Officer) Lee gets to come to work tomorrow, he’s safe,” Lowe said. “We’re hearing the rhetoric, but the community does not see justice being done. When will we see justice?”
It was a remarkable exchange as McManus responded.
“Procedural justice is the real deal. We are teaching it and it is making a difference,” McManus said. “If I could flip a switch and change the mindset of every cop in the city I would…I know what you’re talking about. I’m not cold to it. I wish to God I could say it won’t happen again.”
McManus said he and other police chiefs across the nation are trying to manage a massive cultural shift in policing, hampered by collective bargaining agreements, and that change must come, above all, to decades-long policies that have guided use of force.
“That’s where two worlds collide,” McManus said. “The world of police culture and the world of reform. This is going to take time.”
Afterwards, black leaders praised Mayor Taylor for convening the meeting and called her a “trusted friend.” They said a Feb. 25, 7 p.m. Town Hall at an Eastside church will give more members of the African-American community the opportunity to come face-to-face with Mayor Taylor and other senior city and police officials, a conversation that will inject greater transparency into the process.
In addition to City officials attending Thursday evening, attendees included:
Taj Matthews, president and CEO of the Claude & ZerNona Black Developmental Leadership Foundation
Clyde Foster, Jr.,
Oliver Hill, NAACP
Pastor Warren Beemer, Healing Place Church
Cassandra Littlejohn, a certified life coach and former County Clerk candidate
Artessia “Tess” House, criminal defense attorney
Ramon Vasquez, executive director of the American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions
Dr. Kenneth Kemp, MD, Brook Army Medical Center faculty (ret.), Pastor, Antioch Baptist Church
Frank Dunn, Farmers Insurance
Pastor Patrick Jones, Greater Pilgrim rest Baptist Church
Pastor Keely Petty, Program Director of Bethel Community Development Corporation
Mike Lowe, SATX4
Dr. Stephen Amberg, Associate Professor, UTSA’s Department of Political Science and Geography
Dr. Sonja Lanehart, Professor and Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and the Humanities, UTSA’s Department of English
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*Top image: A man bows his head in prayer during the meeting. Photo by Scott Ball.
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City Police to Deploy 2,200 Body Cameras by End of 2016
City to Initiate New Approaches to HomelessnessEver shocked by the beauty of toilet paper rolls, or saw the chicken formed by the egg shells, or witnessed coolest lion made by tires? Heck, all of them are even made by common things you discarded every day, and they are known as recycled art.
Recycled art is not something that’s beautiful but just a waste of time and space. It’s like alchemy which turns base metal into gold, except that it turns trashes into gold. Take recycled Optimus Prime with 2.5 meters tall as example, it was sold with 7800 U.S. dollars, sounds like a good price for a combination of metals which were originally treated as trashes.
Are they really that beautiful and worth the purchase? You can figure out the answer with 68 jaw-dropping recycled arts showcased in this post, which include items I mentioned above and other stunning work as well like Michael Jackson’s portrait formed by cassette tape, robot constructed by hard disks, paintings made on diskette, anything you never think of! And for the first time, you will be amazed by the beauty of reformed trashes.
Atelier Hapax
Workshop Hapax excels in creating gorgeous and unique products by using discarded materials provided by their clients. As most artists do, they break down those pre-existing materials, reinterpret them then offer them a new form with new purpose, thus forming never seen before recycled art.
Jeu Dechecs. (Image Source: Atelier Hapax)
BRC Designs
‘BRC’ stands for Benjamin Rollins Caldwell, founder of the BRC Designs who reforms timeless and unconventional materials into simple yet unique furniture which design surpasses most expensive furniture.
Binary Low Table. (Image Source: BRC Designs)
Korobeiniki Chair. (Image Source: BRC Designs)
Protrusion Low Table. (Image Source: BRC Designs)
Andrew Chase
Andrew Chase by the Chase studio is a photographer and one of the few artists who has the talent to form an epic dinosaur with mere metals. His metal sculptures also include elephant, cheetah, bear, etc.
Dinosaur. (Image Source: Chase Studio)
Elephant. (Image Source: Chase Studio)
Cheetah. (Image Source: Chase Studio)
Derek Gores
Derek has achieved national attention for his collage portrait series, recycling magazines, labels and found materials to create works on canvas. Those series has showed his interest in the natural beauty of figure and the fearless attitude of play.
Collage 07. (Image Source: Derek Gores)
Collage 09. (Image Source: Derek Gores)
Collage 17. (Image Source: Derek Gores)
Erika Iris Simmons
A.k.a Iri5, Erika Iris Simmons specializes in using non traditional media like cassettes to create absolutely unique and memorable works that feature famous people or team like Kurt Cobain, Beatles and Michael Jackson.
Ghost In The Machine – Michael Jackson. (Image Source: iri5)
Ghost In The Machine – The Beatles. (Image Source: iri5)
Ghost In The Machine – Kurt Cobain. (Image Source: iri5)
Guerra De La Paz (cs)
Guerra de la Paz is the composite name that represents the creative team efforts of Cuban artists, Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz, who have been collaborated since 1996. Gaining access to an overabundance of discarded clothing, they used clothes as their main unconventional materials to produce a series of beautiful and inspiring recycled art which are shown below.
Ring Around The Rosy. (Image Source: Guerra De La Paz)
Bonsai. (Image Source: Guerra De La Paz)
Spring. (Image Source: Guerra De La Paz)
Fall. (Image Source: Guerra De La Paz)
Winter. (Image Source: Guerra De La Paz)
Heather Jansch
Her name is Heather Jansch, and her passion lies within drawing and horses. Heather Jansch was told to leave college’s course with the reason that she did not have the talent of being a painter. But then, she decided to pursue what she loves and finally came out with driftwood horses below which looks like they are living things with feeling!
Apollo. (Image Source: Heather Jansch)
Nightmare And Daydream III. (Image Source: Heather Jansch)
Jane Perkins
‘I started making richly decorated brooches in my final year, using broken jewellery, plastic toys and other small found objects. Inspiration came from festival headdresses from Ecuador discovered while researching my thesis on art from recycled materials. The headdresses, covered with all kinds of shiny and odd things, are bizarre and quirky, yet beautiful – I love them!’
Obama. (Image Source: Jane Perkins)
The Queen. (Image Source: Jane Perkins)
Mandela. (Image Source: Jane Perkins)
Kyle Bean
Based in Brighton, Kyle Bean specializes in hand crafted models, set design and art direction. Since his graduation in 2009, he has worked across a variety of platforms which include installations, window displays, editorial and advertising. His works, such as What Came First showcased below has really showed his unusual creativity.
What Came First. (Image Source: Kyle Bean)
Miguel Rivera
Ever imagined that your boring hard drive can be very cool too? Rivera has done it by combining hard drives and spare parts to form sensational bike, car and even robot. He wishes to show to others of what are hard drives look like in creative way, and he has done it very well.
Hark Disk Drive Robot. (Image Source: Wired)
Hark Disk Drive Bike. (Image Source: Wired)
Hard Disk Drive Car. (Image Source: Wired)
Leo Seowell
Leo has developed his own art style over the last 50 years. His notable works are mostly composed by charming plastic objects, metals and woods and were collected by corporations, museums and individuals all over the world.
Dog (cs). (Image Source: The Telegraph)
Teddy Bear. (Image Source: NDI Gallery)
Jesus Christ. (Image Source: The Telegraph)
Lin Evola-Smidt
Best known for her sculpture Renaissance Peace Angel which is showcased below, Lin Evola-Smidt creates her works with a single purpose, to promote world peace. Creation process of her works involves melting down weapons and reform them into art that shows gracefulness and peacefulness.
Renaissance Peace Angel. (Image Source: The Green Life)
Nick Gentry
I was never a big fan of floppy disk but Nick Gentry has changed my mind with his sensational floppy disk paintings. The most epic part of his painting is perhaps the shiny circular part of the disk which mostly represents the eyes of the painted character.
BODY LANGUAGE. (Image Source: Nick Gentry)
A DIGITAL COMPOSITION. (Image Source: Nick Gentry)
BINARY BOUND. (Image Source: Nick Gentry)
Recycle Art
Recycle Art is the master of turning car/ motorcycle parts, screws and toothed wheels into extremely unique sculptures with terrifying quality. Their works are beyond epic, and can be used as either advertisement for your garage or absolute eye catcher in the club.
Sea Dragon. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Turtle. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Big Ant. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Angel. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Metal Rhino. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Indian On Horse. (Image Source: Recycle Art)
Robert Bradford
‘For a long time now I have preferred to use materials that are not bland i.e. have some kind of history of weathering or use. One day about four years ago out in the studio I was looking into my children’s box of outgrown / discarded toys which happened to be stored in the same building and responded to the random collection of colours shapes and forms they made. I figured that if I could find a way of putting them together to constitute a larger form they would have great potential as larger scale sculpture.’
The Dog. (Image Source: Robert Bradford)
The Rabbit. (Image Source: Robert Bradford)
RoboSteel
With steel as main material, Robosteel designs and creates handmade steel sculptures which includes movie character, earth’s life form, vehicle and custom commissioned work. Despite steel, they also used small amounts of copper and ceramic material to create certain desired effect for their works. And yes, all their materials used in the work are recycled from cars, motorbikes and airplanes.
Recycled Optimus Prime. (Image Source: RoboSteel)
Recycled Bumblebee. (Image Source: RoboSteel)
Recycled Wall-E. (Image Source: RoboSteel)
Sara Bergando
Scraps of felt + Old mobile phone’s battery charger + Circuit of 50 LED low-power = Ribbon of light with luxurious feel! Credit to the creative creator Sara Bergando.
Ribbon Of Light. (Image Source: Recyclart)
Ribbon Of Light 2. (Image Source: Recyclart)
Sandrine Estrade Boulet
Artist Sandrine Estrade Boulet wants to tell you that you can live a funny and happy day with simple things in our world, and that’s how the White Vador was born.
White Vador. (Image Source: Sandrine Estrade Boulet fr)
Steven Rodrig
If you have love for circuit board, you should remember Steven Rodrig. He’s an innovative artist who restructures discarded circuit boards and electronic parts to form extraordinary arts which are organic and mechanical at the same time. Without a doubt, he’s a professional geek.
Data Transfer. (Image Source: PCB Creations)
Data Spider’s Kingdom. (Image Source: PCB Creations)
Sea Turtle Searches Deep Data. (Image Source: PCB Creations)
Terrence Willment
Terrence Willment works with manufacturers in Thailand to create impressive recycled work using abandoned car parts and sells them in event like showroom.
Alien. (Image Source: The Telegraph)
Tom Deininger
Tom Deininger is the master of collage art. His collage works are not only beautiful, but makes you really think that how your discarded little items can form sensational art like his works.
Marilyn. (Image Source: Tom Deininger)
Self Portrait. (Image Source: Tom Deininger)
Yong Ho Ji
Yong Ho Ji is a Korean artist who utilizes used tires into recycled masterpieces. His productions are mostly in the form of animal which some of them are shown below, but he also creates cool mutants which are either combined by 2 animals or an animal and a human.
Lion. (Image Source: Yong Ho Ji)
Ram. (Image Source: Yong Ho Ji)
Rhino. (Image Source: Yong Ho Ji)
Wild Boar. (Image Source: Yong Ho Ji)
Yuken Teruya
You probably need to change your view about |
s. Anna Eshoo and Doris Matsui (both D-California) to amend the bill and limit its overreach.
Free Press Action Fund Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:
“Representative Kinzinger’s legislation claims to accomplish one thing but actually does something else. In reality, this bill would prevent the FCC from reviewing entire categories of unfair practices, monopoly abuses, double-charging schemes and threats to Net Neutrality. That’s why this measure would cause serious harm to users of the free and open Internet.
“This bill is completely unnecessary. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has testified before this same subcommittee that he doesn’t plan to set broadband rates. It’s an issue lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say they agree on: Market forces are generally better at determining the rates Internet users pay for access.
“But there are meaningful differences between the rate-setting power Congress granted the FCC in the laws on the books today and the consumer-protection authority the newly proposed bill endangers. Finding a harmful practice to be unreasonable, or banning it straight out, is a far different proposition from the FCC attempting to determine and set the prices that broadband providers’ retail customers pay for service every month.
“Refusing to permit the sale of an unsafe good or service isn’t rate regulation. It’s just an agency doing its job to protect consumers and promote competition. Congress should shelve this bill and let the FCC do its job.”
To learn more, read Matt Wood’s Op-Ed in Bloomberg BNA: http://www.bna.com/truth-behind-doublespeak-n57982067210/Andrew Smithers blogs at the FT. He presents himself thus:
I set up Smithers & Co in 1989 as an economics consultancy. Much of the comments on economics and markets that I read as a fund manager struck me as nonsense and I have had great fun in pointing this out to clients over the years. I now have the opportunity to disseminate my views more widely and hope that this will amuse and inform readers.
From his latest post I agree with the “amuse” but strongly reject the “inform”.
He writes:
Abenomics – the policy endorsed by Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister – aims to raise the country’s growth by getting rid of deflation. It is based on two myths. The first is that the economy has done badly and the second is that it has been hurt by deflation. The first myth comes from judging a country’s economic success by its gross domestic product. Japan has a falling and ageing population. If allowance is made for this, Japan has been the most successful(!) of all Group of Five leading economies. It is the country whose GDP at constant prices per person of working age has grown most rapidly, at least since 1999.
To “amuse” us he puts up this chart:
The solution for the US is clear: Retire 20% of the working age group and the economy will bounce strongly.
My take indicates something very different. The chart shows that Japan did very well relative to the US from 1975 to 1991, closing about half of the output gap per employed person (that by law has to be of drinking working age). Over the last 22 years the gap has opened up and is back to almost exactly what it was in 1975!
His second chart is just as “amusing”. Since he has no idea about what went on in Japan since 1991, he concludes that rising prices were associated with slower output growth. To Smithers:
Japan’s relatively slow growth is the result of demography, not deflation. Japan grew slowly after its stock market collapsed in 1990. Prices rose to 1998 and then fell as inflation gave way to deflation. While prices rose the economy grew more slowly than it did while prices fell.
He forgets that the jump in prices in 1997 (and drop in output due to tightening monetary policy) was due to a rise in the consumption tax rate (CT). By 2002 output was even lower than in 1997, and through all those years prices (CPI) fell (i.e. there was deflation).
Suddenly, after 2002 output takes off and prices stop falling. He probably doesn´t know but that was the period Japan undertook QE “light”. That continues through 2007. Then the oil shock hit soon followed by the international crisis. Initially prices rise and output falls. Prices then fall and output bounces back (as expected following the reversal of the supply (oil) shock). At the tail-end of the chart we glimpse the beginnings of the “Abe effect”.
Mr. Abe, don´t listen to Mr. Smithers, “keep on walking”.
AdvertisementsWhat if I told you that the high-quality beef served top restaurants across America was actually Halal? Impossible, right? Well, guess what? It’s actually true.
Creekstone Farms, one of the top choices of beef for restaurants across America, just so happens to be a fully Halal beef processing company. As in Zabihah Halal.
That means you can walk into any restaurant that serves items with Creekstone Farms beef, ensure it’s cooked and prepared without cross-contamination with other meats or alcohol, and enjoy some of the best meat in the country.
LIST: The Ultimate List of Restaurants that Carry Creekstone Farms Beef
And what’s more is this is not run-of-the-mill average stuff. These are some of the top rated restaurants in major cities and even across the country.
And it’s all Halal. Hand slaughtered zabihah Halal. Unbelievable, huh? It is. Which is why I’ve done my research and have presented how it works.
How I Found Out
A good friend of mine sent me an email with a list of high-end restaurants in downtown Chicago that serve dishes made with Creekstone Farms beef with the words, “LET’S GO!”
I was confused. I knew her and her family only eat Halal meat so why was she linking me to restaurants with meat from that company. But that’s when the thought came to mind. “Is Creekstone Halal?” I wondered.
A quick Google search for “Creekstone + Halal” found me at Creekstone’s website which states that their premium Angus beef is Halal certified through the Halal Transactions of Omaha.
Apparently, this is known for those familiar with Creekstone. In fact, my friend found out from another mutual friend who follows the scholarly opinion that conventional meat in America is Halal. While he was dining at one of the top steak restaurants in New York, Minetta Tavern, he met with the head chef at the time, Nasr Ahmed, a Muslim. Chef Nasr informed him the steaks and burgers he had been eating that he thought were from cattle conventionally slaughtered were actually made form Halal slaughtered beef.
That means all of those high-end restaurants from the Chicago list sent to me also had beef dishes that were made with Halal meat. And the same goes for cities all across the country that carry Creekstone.
My mind was blown.
Why Creekstone being Halal is a big deal
It is extremely high quality beef. According to Creekstone’s website, they produce all Angus beef. The cattle are all-American from the Midwest. No antibiotics or hormones, so effectively the same as organic. According to other sources online, the cattle are given a special proprietary feed to make them extra fatty and flavorful unlike any other cattle in the nation.
.
. According to Creekstone’s website, they produce all Angus beef. The cattle are all-American from the Midwest. No antibiotics or hormones, so effectively the same as organic. According to other sources online, the cattle are given a special proprietary feed to make them extra fatty and flavorful unlike any other cattle in the nation. Its touted by top food authorities The New York Times wrote a huge article praising Creekstone Farms beef Pat LaFreida, the famous meat purveyor of New York, sources a lot of Creekstone Josh Ozersky, the James Beard award winning food writer, produced a video of his visit to Creekstone because of the high quality of the beef Famous chefs say they prefer to use it when they cook at home The list goes on
.
The name is such a big deal it’s printed on menus. Top steakhouses order Creekstone Farms’ beef for their menus. In fact, many of them even list the name “Creekstone” next to their respective dishes, as in “24 oz. dry aged Creekstone Farms ribeye steak,” because it’s a big deal.
.
. Top steakhouses order Creekstone Farms’ beef for their menus. In fact, many of them even list the name “Creekstone” next to their respective dishes, as in “24 oz. dry aged Creekstone Farms ribeye steak,” because it’s a big deal. The cattle are humanely raised. Dr. Temple Grandin, one the premiere names in humane treatment of animals, helped the company design its method of shuttling the cattle into the slaughterhouse. Even the color of the paint on the walls was considered to keep the cattle as calm as possible.
The crazy thing about this? Creekstone Farms’ is considered some of the best beef in America. It’s not standard stuff that gets sourced to fast food joints. It’s the real deal and a few Google results showed me why.
All this means that not only is Creekstone Farms beef Halal, it’s also Tayyib. Just wow.
Confirming with Creekstone
This seemed way too good to be true. There had to be some catch. That’s why I decided I need do more research.
I began by reaching out to Creekstone Farms themselves, asking if they indeed do perform Halal slaughter. I also wanted to know if all of their beef is processed Halal or just a portion of it. I assumed, at first, that they must have a Halal program that slaughters just a portion of their beef according to Islamic law.
Turns out that not only was Creekstone able to confirm that they perform Halal slaughter, their entire operation was actually Halal.
“All Creekstone Farms cattle are processed in a manner that meets the religious qualifications of Halal,” Courtney Every, Marketing Coordinator for Creekstone Farms, responded via email. “However, we only certify it as Halal if it is requested by the customer.”
So every one of the cattle at Creekstone Farms was being slaughtered in a Halal manner. But not every supplier ordering from the company would know that since they were ordering the beef because of its quality, not its Halal status. This means that there are probably a ton of restaurants all over America with Halal meat and they don’t even know it.
Wow.
Creekstone’s Halal certification
While my head was spinning from all this, I needed some more grounding. As anyone familiar with Halal knows, there are different standards by which Halal is considered valid. Directly contacting the Halal certifier, Halal Transactions of Omaha, was the only way to know exactly how the cattle at Creekstone are slaughtered.
“We do certify the Halal beef of Creekstone Farms and all their beef is hand slaughtered,” wrote Dr. Ahmad Alabsy, director of HTO, in an email. “All the beef that we certify is hand slaughtered by trained Muslim slaughtermen. The Muslim slaughterman pronounces the Tasmiah, Bismillah Allahu Akbar, and the knife is used by hand to perform the slaughtering of animals.”
Holy cow. So the beef at Creekstone is slaughtered in a fully Halal manner: hand slaughtered (zabihah), by a Muslim, in God’s name.
Additionally, Dr. Alabsy mentioned that they train Muslim slaughtermen to perform slaughter in a Halal manner. While I was skeptical about how they can get a Muslim there at all times, it turns out that this is standard practice at many slaughterhouses that operate Halal. It just so happens that while researching all this I found a job posting from Creekstone Farms directly asking for Muslim slaughtermen to perform Halal slaughter. It also helped that when I spoke to Creekstone again, they confirmed that only Muslim employees perform the slaughter at their plant.
Last on the Halal issues, Dr. Alabsy addressed a misspeak in a New York Times article that states Creekstone’s stunning process instantly kills its cattle. “Actually, stunning by this method does not kill the animal instantly,” he explains. “(It) just becomes immobilized and less sensitive to pain while the heart still pumping for about 5 minutes, during which the animal is slaughtered – bled with a sharp knife.” While the cattle are stunned, they are not dead before slaughter, and thus, Halal.
Why would a company like Creekstone be Halal?
At this point, I was convinced. The company affirmed they operate Halal slaughter the the Halal certifier explained the standards by which they certify beef which they implemented at Creekstone.
The next question I then had was why? What would drive a company like Creekstone to convert to a fully Halal process?
According to to Rich Swearingen, head of international sales for Creekstone that Dr. Alabsy routed me to, the answer lies in the Middle East.
Apparently, within the past decade or so, the company decided to expand their business to the Middle East by getting into the meat export business. Restaurants in rich Gulf countries like the UAE or metropolitan cities like Cairo would probably pay top dollar for high quality fatty juicy American Angus beef which is in abundance over the leaner, scarcer local grass-fed stuff. Dr. Alabsy proposed the idea himself, the company went for it, and the rest is, as they say, history.
I’m convinced, how and where can I eat some Creekstone beef?
Guides
On Halal
Additional Reading
We’ve got all the info you need to get some Creekstone in a Halal manner. Just take a look at the following guides and additional material.Synchronized goroutines (part II)
Channel communication
Michał Łowicki Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 14, 2016
The most intuitive order relation of send and receiving operations has been introduced during the first part:
Sending to a channel happens before receiving sent value.
Thanks to that we can order operations spread across two goroutines:
var v int
var wg sync.WaitGroup
wg.Add(2)
ch := make(chan int)
go func() {
v = 1
ch <- 1
wg.Done()
}()
go func() {
<-ch
fmt.Println(v)
wg.Done()
}()
wg.Wait()
(definition of main function and imports have been omitted for clarity)
Operations are ordered as follows (x → y means that x happens before y):
v = 1 → ch <- 1 → <-ch → fmt.Println(v)
But besides the one above there is more and this story will be dedicated to channels.
send ↔ receive
There is a complementary rule to the first one. It says that receiving happens before send completes:
send starts → receive → send ends
var v, w int
var wg sync.WaitGroup
wg.Add(2)
ch := make(chan int)
go func() {
v = 1
ch <- 1
fmt.Println(w)
wg.Done()
}()
go func() {
w = 2
<-ch
fmt.Println(v)
wg.Done()
}()
wg.Wait()
Because of the new rule, more operations are ordered:
w = 2 → <-ch → send operation ch <- 1 completes → fmt.Println(w)
It’s possible to solve our initial problem of displaying variable v, ensuring that assignment has been already done:
go func() {
v = 1
<-ch
wg.Done()
}()
go func() {
ch <- 1
fmt.Println(v)
wg.Done()
}()
Now the goroutine which needs to wait till the assignment v = 1 is done, sends value over a channel. Send operations completes after the corresponding receive:
v = 1 → <-ch → ch <- 1 completes → fmt.Println(v)
Channel closing
When channel is closed then receive operations return zero value of channel’s type:
ch := make(chan int)
close(ch)
fmt.Println(<-ch) // prints 0
Closing channel happens before receiving zero value from closed channel
It can be used to solve our initial problem just by replacing send operation with call of built-in close:
go func() {
v = 1
close(ch)
wg.Done()
}()
go func() {
<-ch
fmt.Println(v)
wg.Done()
}()
The order of operations is:
v = 1 → close(ch) → <-ch → fmt.Println(v)
Buffered channels
So far we’ve talked about unbuffered channels. Buffered channels don’t block on send when buffer is not full and do not block on receiving when buffer is not empty:
ch := make(chan int, 1)
ch <- 1
fmt.Println(<-ch)
Code above doesn’t end up in a deadlock even if while sending there is no ready receiver.
For buffered channels all rules covers so far still hold except one which says that receiving happens before send completes. It’s simply because send on buffered channels can finish without ready receiver (if buffer is not full).
The kth receive on a channel with capacity c happens before the (k+c)th send from that channel completes.
Suppose capacity is set to 3. First 3 operations of sending value over a channel can return without accompanying receive statement. But in order to 4th send to complete at least one receive would need to be done.
var v int
var wg sync.WaitGroup
wg.Add(2)
ch := make(chan int, 3)
go func() {
v = 1
<-ch
wg.Done()
}()
go func() {
ch <- 1
ch <- 1
ch <- 1
ch <- 1
fmt.Println(v)
wg.Done()
}()
wg.Wait()
This snippet solves our initial problem using buffered channel.G2 Esports and SK Gaming are the first teams to receive invites to ESL One New York, ESL announced Wednesday.
G2 and SK (then known as Luminosity Gaming) were ESL Pro League Season 3's grand finalists in May, which SK won 3-2. Both teams will compete at ESL One Cologne, which will begin on July 5.
SK recently acquired Luminosity's roster, after Luminosity's players signed a contract with SK before the MLG Major Championship: Columbus in March. The players will become part of the organization on July 1.
ESL One New York 2016 will take place at the Barclay's Center in New York from October 1-2, and will feature a $250,000 prize pool.
Preston Dozsa is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.Grilled Greek Shrimp with Tomato-Cucumber-Avocado Salad and Green Beans
(Yields 2 servings) ~
380
kcal/serving
Another delicious low-calorie Paleo and low carb meal from Sarah Berger. This one is low sugar, full of healthy fats, and has vitamins A-E. I can't wait to try this one out.
Shrimp :
1 lb large shrimp or about 24 large shrimp (I used the frozen Argentinian shrimp from Trader Joe’s)
1 tbsp Greek seasoning (Mix up a batch of equal parts ground cumin, ground coriander, granulated garlic, smoked paprika and dried italian seasoning - keep it for other recipes, make as much as you want, it’s great on chicken!)
Juice of ½ small lemon
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
4 wooden skewers
Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high. Combine shrimp, greek seasoning, lemon juice and olive oil in a bag- marinate at least thirty minutes to overnight. Skewer about 6 large shrimp on each skewer. Grill shrimp for 3-4 minutes per side or until firm and pink, careful to not overcook or shrimp will become rubbery.
Salad :
2 large beefsteak tomatoes, in large cubes or wedges
½ to ⅔ english cucumber, sliced lengthwise, then sliced into half-circles
½ ripe avocado, diced
juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
In a medium bowl combine all ingredients and toss to coat---the avocado should mash a bit and become part of the dressing.
Green Beans :
½ to ⅔ lb fresh green beans
½ large sweet onion (like Walla Walla)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Heat the olive oil over medium heat, while it is heating, thinly slice the onion, then add it to the pan. Stir frequently until the onion becomes golden brown and softens. add the garlic and green beans and splash of water (2-3 tablespoons), turn up heat to medium high and saute until green beans are tender but still slightly crisp. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide salad, green beans and shrimp skewers between two plates. Serve and enjoy!Prehistoric and contemporary human populations living at altitudes of at least 8,000 feet (2,500 meters) above sea level may provide unique insights into human evolution, reports an interdisciplinary group of scientists.
Indigenous highlanders living in the Andean Altiplano in South America, in the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, and at the highest elevations of the Ethiopian Highlands in east Africa have evolved three distinctly different biological adaptations for surviving in the oxygen-thin air found at high altitude.
"To have examples of three geographically dispersed populations adapting in different ways to the same stress is very unusual," said Cynthia Beall, a physical anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. "From an evolutionary standpoint the question becomes, Why do these differences exist? We need to figure out when, how, and why that happened."
See Extremely Rare Video of Teddy Bear-Like Mammal A camera trap recently captured footage of an ili pika found in the mountains of northwestern China.
To begin to answer some of these questions, a multidisciplinary group of scientists, including Beall, met earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, Washington.
"High-altitude populations offer a unique natural lab that allows us to follow [many] lines of evidence—archaeological, biological, climatological—to answer intriguing questions about social, cultural, and biological adaptations," said Mark Aldenderfer, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who organized the AAAS symposium with Beall.
(Aldenderfer and Beall are both past recipients of research grants from the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.)
Adapting to High Altitudes
The Andean and Tibetan plateaus rise some 13,000 feet (4 kilometers) above sea level. As prehistoric hunter-gatherers moved into these environments, they encountered desolate landscapes, sparse vegetation, little water, and a cold, arid climate.
In addition, early settlers to the high plateaus likely suffered acute hypoxia, a condition created by a diminished supply of oxygen to body tissues. At high altitudes the air is much thinner than at sea level. As a result, a person inhales fewer oxygen molecules with each breath.
Symptoms of hypoxia, sometimes known as mountain sickness, include headaches, vomiting, sleeplessness, impaired thinking, and an inability to sustain long periods of physical activity. At elevations above 25,000 feet (7,600 meters), hypoxia can kill.
The Andeans adapted to the thin air by developing an ability to carry more oxygen in each red blood cell. That is: They breathe at the same rate as people who live at sea level, but the Andeans have the ability to deliver oxygen throughout their bodies more effectively than people at sea level do.
"Andeans counter having less oxygen in every breath by having higher hemoglobin concentrations in their blood," Beall said. Hemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that ferries oxygen through the blood system. Having more hemoglobin to carry oxygen through the blood system than people at sea level counterbalances the effects of hypoxia.
Tibetans compensate for low oxygen content much differently. They increase their oxygen intake by taking more breaths per minute than people who live at sea level.
"Andeans go the hematological route, Tibetans the respiratory route," Beall said.
In addition, Tibetans may have a second biological adaptation, which expands their blood vessels, allowing them to deliver oxygen throughout their bodies more effectively than sea-level people do.
Tibetans' lungs synthesize larger amounts of a gas called nitric oxide from the air they breathe. "One effect of nitric oxide is to increase the diameter of blood vessels, which suggests that Tibetans may offset low oxygen content in their blood with increased blood flow," Beall said.
A pilot study Beall conducted of Ethiopian highlanders living at 3,530 meters (11,580 feet) suggests that—unlike the Tibetans— they don't breathe more rapidly than people at sea level and aren't able to more effectively synthesize nitric oxide. Nor do the Ethiopians have higher hemoglobin counts than sea-level people, as the Andeans do.
Yet despite living at elevations wih low oxygen content, "the Ethiopian highlanders were hardly hypoxic at all," Beall said. "I was genuinely surprised."
So what adaptation have the Ethiopian highlanders' bodies evolved to survive at high altitude? "Right now we have no clue how they do it," Beall said.
Tracking Prehistoric Migrations
Knowing how long the populations have been living at the top of the world is crucial to answering the evolutionary question of whether these adaptations are the result of differences in the founding populations, random genetic mutations, or the passage of time.
Archaeologists, paleontologists, and climatologists are pooling their knowledge to pinpoint when some of these early migrations to the high plateaus occurred.
Aldenderfer, the University of California, Santa Barbara, archaeologist, says cultural adaptations would have to occur first.
"The ability to survive in such harsh environments required control of fire, an expanded tool kit that included bone needles to make complicated clothing that protected the body in a significant way, and the cultural flexibility to change subsistence practices," he said.
Climatologists' changing understanding of the nature of the last ice age is contributing to archaeological efforts.
Ice-core and other evidence show that, rather than being a monolithic period lasting 100,000 years with frigid temperatures and glacial landscapes, the Ice Age included long periods of relatively mild weather.
"Through most of the 20th century it was thought that the Tibetan Plateau was covered by a monstrous ice sheet during the last glacial maximum, about 21,000 years ago," Aldenderfer said. "People couldn't live on an ice sheet. So archaeologists wouldn't even bother to look for sites from that time period."
Knowing the Tibetan Plateau more closely resembled Arctic tundra has lead to the discovery of new sites. Archaeological evidence suggests hunter-gatherers occupied the Tibetan plateau some 25,000 to 20,000 years ago. People began moving into the Andean Altiplano around 11,500 to 11,000 years ago.
What motivated prehistoric people to move into the harsh and challenging conditions presented by high altitude?
"The highlands offered an attractive option with a landscape that was open and pristine," Aldenderfer said. "People probably started out moving up and down for short terms, and then gradually settled at the higher elevations."
Changing environmental conditions also created "new opportunities and new constraints," he said.
In South America, for example, the maritime environment began transforming as temperatures warmed, glaciers retreated, and sea levels rose. Large mammals such as mammoths and mastodons gradually went extinct, as did other herbivores. Warmer temperatures allowed plants and animals to move to higher elevations, creating resource-rich patches of habitat in highland areas. Familiar coastal resources also changed as fish and shellfish habitats shifted.
Similar processes likely occurred in Tibet. Prehistoric people occupied the landscape during the interglacial process, when conditions were relatively benign and hunting was plentiful, Aldenderfer said.Author’s Note: The staff at Elder-Geek would like to extend specific thanks to Dave Pellas of High Voltage Software, our site’s personal contact within the company at this year’s E3 expo.
After breaking its exclusivity on Nintendo’s Wii, High Voltage Software’s The Grinder was announced at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference to have gone through significant changes for its PS3, Xbox 360, and PC version. The Wii version will retain its first-person zombie blasting style, while those picking up the title on other platforms will be treated to a top-down shooter in the same zombie-destroying vein. The Grinder on everything-but-the-Wii is built with multiplayer suites in mind, the four character-spread and level layout reminiscent of hack-and-slashers like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. Only on-couch and online multiplayer options were confirmed at the show, with more to be revealed in the coming months. The game demonstrated at E3 was still alpha build, but the team at High Voltage were more than happy to expand on what we can expect closer to the hopeful release date of Halloween 2011.
Tangible within the first seconds of cutscene is the game’s reveling of Grind-house cinema, the ultra-cheap exploitation cinema style that populated urban movie palaces and drive-in theaters throughout the late 60s and 70s. The playable cast is split between four equally ripe film stereotypes: Mexican bounty hunter Hector, underground monster doctor-cum-hunter Doc, bored Japanese assassin Miko, and the badass urban fighter with a past known as AJ. The team is rounded up by a mysterious organization going by the contact “Book,” charged with stemming (and investigating) a massive infestation of a B-movie rogue’s gallery, from werewolves to vampires to the ever-fun-to-destroy zombies.
But the Grind-house aesthetic doesn’t just extend to the purposefully paper-thin plot. Our demo took us through several stages within a ramshackle mine, populated by masses of undead and the occasional demi-boss werewolf. Beyond the shifting film filters and projector effects that occasionally popped up through our playthrough, the game felt drenched with the same lenient appreciation of physics that made the z-grade exploitation films so deliriously enjoyable. Enemies explode in grotesque cartoon-sized bursts of blood and bits, combustible barrels carry approximately 100 times their possible blast radius, and the omnipresent announcer reeks of an overwrought Southern accent as he chews on the scenery like a brick of Velveeta.
In terms of actual action, the game feels less like the Smash TV comparisons its top-down nature will receive, and more of an arcade shooter like Contra. Weapons came in a tiered-hierarchy, and quickly became one of the major talking points of the producers present in the room. Progressively more bad-ass death-dealers were dropped from the teeming masses of foes me and the other three players downed in classic feeling bullet hail-fire; with my Doc nabbing a spread-shot, grenade-like projectile, and ray gun as the demo went on. Various melee weapons like swords were also available for when ammo was low, and everything (we are told) had multiple upgraded forms to unlock as they were used.
Anyone who has played at least one top-down shooter/hack-and-slash can play through this demo on muscle memory alone. The formula was proudly on display: a series of blocked rooms only unlocked after the defeat of the baddies present within, and separated by a bit of narration/feedback from the Grind-house announcer. Various points in the environment could be exploited for extra damage, and the larger baddies contained a God of War-like prompt when beat up enough to merit a special fatal attack, usually resulting in a beheading and a gush of the red stuff. But the traditional nature of the game is relished in, the cheesy brutality strewn along the mine shaft with expected gratuity. After a handful of rooms were unlocked and passed through, the team of characters would board an elevator and descend to the next series of chambers, separated by a bit too long of a load time (again, Alpha build). A boss battle was expected at the end of the demonstrated, but technical difficulties prevented it to be loaded. We were assured by the HVS team, however, to take whatever we thought was coolest at this year’s show and “multiply it by a million,” so take that as the badass, over-the-top grain of salt that it is.
We’ve all been there before, but probably not like this. High Voltage Software’s PS3-360-PC build of the The Grinder is high on its B-movie so-bad-its-good style, its HD-sheen not too proud to hide the decade-worn top-down formula that seems to be making a comeback all over the place in recent months. The Grind-house plot moves along with decadent cheesiness, chirping up between the killings just long enough to avoid overstaying its welcome. An arcade-style arsenal keeps the killing fresh, and geysers of blood will never go too far out of style.
Be sure to keep it here at Elder-Geek as we get closer to Halloween 2011 for all your The Grinder updates and news!The handgun chosen to be the U.S. Army's next generation handgun can fire if dropped while loaded. Tests conducted by gun bloggers has confirmed the gun will fire if dropped at a particular angle. The testing followed a multi-million dollar lawsuit by a Connecticut police officer who alleges he was injured after his Sig 320 handgun went off, critically injuring him.
The Sig Sauer P320 was declared the winner of the U.S. Army's Modular Handgun System competition in January 2017. The P320, redesignated the M17 for Army and Air Force use, was picked to replace the Beretta M9 handgun, in use since the 1980s. The Army will issue the M17 to officers, aircrews, weapons crews, medics, and special operations forces. The M17 is chambered in 9-millimeter Parabellum and has a magazine capacity of 17 rounds.
M9 pistol at U.S. Army training range. The M9 will be replaced by the new Sig P320. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Adam Collett
In recent days, rumors emerged on the Internet that the P320 was not "drop safe"—that is, it would fire if a round was loaded into the chamber. The same action cocks the pistol, and at that point, if the trigger is pulled the weapon will fire. Most modern handguns are "drop safe" in that, if accidentally dropped from waist-high level with a round in the chamber, they will not accidentally fire.
Sig Sauer claimed that the gun had been extensively drop tested, but a report emerged that a Connecticut police officer had been injured by his P320 after it had been dropped while in his holster. That officer has now filed a $7 million lawsuit against Sig Sauer, alleging that the gun has an defective safety mechanism. Last week the Dallas Police Department suspended use of the P320 citing drop test concerns. Gun blogger Andrew Tuohy, in a video for gun retailer Omaha Outdoors, drop tested several versions of the Sig P320 and discovered all but one version would fire if dropped tail-first. Here's the video:
Tuohy's tests were followed up by The Truth About Guns, which came to the same conclusion. It's important to point out that the P320 passed drop tests, including those by the state of California, that test if the gun will go off dropped on its side or nose-first. Still, the manner in which it can be dropped is not unusual. As TTAG noted, "We were concerned that that we might have to construct a fancy jig to get the P320C to fall in the Omaha Outdoors-identified orientation. As it turned out, when the pistol is held by the forward corner of the trigger guard, with the normal weight of an inserted magazine, the P320C balanced in the exact way necessary to land on the top rear of the slide when dropped." The gun fired in 3 out of 7 drop tests.
For its part, Sig notes that it has sold 500,000 P320s since their introduction in 2014, with only four reported negligent discharges by law enforcement. After the Omaha Outdoors and TTAG articles came out, Sig Sauer quickly issued a "voluntary upgrade" notice for civilian owners of the P320 that introduces a trigger that requires less weight to pull. In Tuohy's video, he noted that of the several 320s he tested the only handgun that would not go off if dropped was the one with the lighter trigger pull. Interestingly, M17 pistols destined for military use reportedly already have this new, improved, lighter trigger.The board that oversees advanced placement courses for US high school students has revised its US history standards to include a section on “American exceptionalism” after significant backlash from culture conservatives who said the exam wasn’t patriotic enough.
The advanced placement (AP) history framework, revised in 2014, triggered a nationwide debate over how American high schoolers should learn about their nation’s history, pitting conservatives who found the curriculum “anti-American” against teachers and students who rejected the changes as “revisionism”.
In response, the new framework explicitly introduces the concept of “American exceptionalism”, and highlights achievements of US history through this lens. It also includes direct references to the names and roles of the nation’s founding fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin – a flashpoint in the debate. It does, however, maintain roughly the same number of references to slavery as the 2o14 exam.
“Every statement in the 2015 edition has been examined with great care based on the historical record and the principled feedback the College Board received,” the College Board said in a statement posted on their website on Thursday. “The result is a clearer and more balanced approach to the teaching of American history that remains faithful to the requirements that colleges and universities set for academic credit.”
AP courses offer high-achieving high school students the opportunity to take university-level classes. At the end of the school year, students take the AP exam, earning a grade that many universities accept as college credit.
The College Board began working on a revised framework for the AP History course in 2006, after AP teachers “expressed frustration that the previous course did not provide sufficient time to immerse students in the major ideas, events, people, and documents of US history, and that they were instead required to race through topics”. The redesign, intended to address those concerns, was introduced and used for the first time last fall.
The AP exam had sparked heated political debates in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In Texas, the Republican-dominated state Education Agency pushed the College Board to rewrite the curriculum. And in February, the Oklahoma state legislature contemplated a bill that would effectively ban the course from being taught in public high schools.
Last year, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution slamming the College Board for pushing a “consistently negative view of American history” and calling on the company to delay the implementation of its revised framework. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who is running for the Republican nomination, warned |
noted that the search engine continues to improve; searches are now 34 percent faster than they were last year. It is powered primarily by Bing and is enhanced with Ecosia’s own algorithms and technologies. Users can also click a “Google” button, which gives that engine’s results for the same inquiry. Bingler added that Ecosia is an important alternative to the big players “because it empowers users to do good without spending a penny. Highly abstract everyday tasks, like searching the Web, can lead to something as tangible as a new tree.”Part of the Truthout Series Disposable Futures
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)Under the regime of neoliberalism, especially in the United States, war has become an extension of politics as almost all aspects of society have been transformed into a combat zone. Americans now live in a society in which almost everyone is spied on, considered a potential terrorist, and subject to a mode of state and corporate lawlessness in which the arrogance of power knows no limits. The state of exception has become normalized. Moreover, as society becomes increasingly militarized and political concessions become relics of a long-abandoned welfare state hollowed out to serve the interest of global markets, the collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility toward those who are vulnerable or in need of care is now viewed as a scourge or pathology.
To see more articles in the Disposable Futures series, click here.
What has emerged in this new historical conjuncture is an intensification of the practice of disposability in which more and more individuals and groups are now considered excess, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance and incarceration. Moreover, this politics of disappearance has been strengthened by a fundamental intensification of increasing depoliticization, conducted largely through new modes of spying and the smothering, if not all-embracing, market-driven power of commodification and consumption.
Citizens are now reduced to data, consumers, and commodities and as such inhabit identities in which they increasingly “become unknowables, with no human rights and with no one accountable for their condition.”[1] Within this machinery of social death, not only does moral blindness prevail on the part of the financial elite, but the inner worlds of the oppressed are constantly being remade under the force of economic pressures and a culture of fear. According to João Biehl, as the realpolitik of disposability “comes into sharp visibility... tradition, collective memory, and public spheres are organized as phantasmagoric scenes, [that] thrive on the “energies of the dead,” who remain unaccounted for in numbers and law.”[2]
Economists such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have argued that we are in a new Gilded Age, one that mimics a time when robber barons and strikebreakers ruled, and the government and economy were controlled by a cabal that was rich, powerful and ruthless.[3] And, of course, blacks, women and the working class were told to mind their place in a society controlled by the rich. What is often missing in these analyses is that what is new in the second Gilded Age is not just about the moral sanctioning of greed, the corruption of politics by big money, and the ruthlessness of class power.
What is unique is the rise of a brutal punishing-incarceration state that imposes its power on the dispossessed, the emergence of a surveillance state that spies on and suppresses dissenters, the emergence of vast cultural apparatuses that colonize subjectivity in the interests of the market, and a political class that is uninterested in political concessions and appears immune from control by nation states. The second Gilded Age is really a more brutal form of authoritarianism driven by what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton rightly calls a “death-saturated age,” in which matters of violence, survival and trauma now infuse everyday life. [4]
… life has become completely unbearable for over half of the American public living in or near poverty.
Discarded by the corporate state, dispossessed of social provisions and deprived of the economic, political and social conditions that enable viable and critical modes of agency, expanding populations of Americans now find themselves inhabiting zones of abandonment marked by deep inequalities in power, wealth and income. Such zones are sites of rapid disinvestment, places marked by endless spectacles of violence, and supportive of the neoliberal logics of containment, commodification, surveillance, militarization, cruelty and punishment.
These zones of hardship and terminal exclusion constitute a hallmark signature and intensification of a neoliberal politics of disposability that is relentless in the material and symbolic violence it wages against the 99% for the benefit of the new financial elite. Borrowing from Hannah Arendt, one could say that capitalist expropriation, dispossession and disinvestment has reached a point where life has become completely unbearable for over half of the American public living in or near poverty.[5]
Evidence of such zones can be seen in the war against immigrants, poor minorities, the homeless, young people living in debt, the long-term unemployed, workers, the declining middle class, all of whom have been pushed into invisible communities of control, harassment, security and the governing-through-punishment complex.
The promises of modernity regarding progress, freedom and hope have not been eliminated; they have been reconfigured, stripped of their emancipatory potential and subordinated to the logic of a savage market instrumentality and individualization of the social. Dispossession and disinvestment have invalidated the promises of modernity and have turned progress into a curse for the marginalized and a blessing for the super-financial elite. Modernity has reneged on its undertaking to fulfill the social contract, however disingenuous or limited, especially with regards to young people. Long-term planning and the institutional structures that support them are now weakened, if not eliminated, by the urgencies of privatization, deregulation, flexibility and short-term investments. Social bonds have given way under the collapse of social protections and the welfare state and are further weakened by the neoliberal insistence that there are only “individual solutions to socially produced problems.” [6]
“There’s simply the reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing.”
Neoliberalism’s disposability machine is relentlessly engaged in the production of an unchecked notion of individualism that both dissolves social bonds and removes any viable notion of agency from the landscape of social responsibility and ethical considerations. Absorbed in privatized orbits of consumption, commodification and display, Americans vicariously participate in the toxic pleasures of a mode of authoritarianism characterized by the reactionary presence of the corporate state, the concentration of power and money in the upper 1% of the population, the ongoing militarization of all aspects of society, and the ongoing, aggressive depoliticization of the citizenry.
In its current historical conjuncture, the authoritarian state is controlled by a handful of billionaires (eg., the Koch Brothers), their families (eg., the Waltons) and a select class of zombie-like financial and corporate elite who now control the commanding economic, political and cultural institutions of American society.
Mechanisms of governance have been transformed into instruments of war. Violence has become the organizing force of a society driven by a toxic notion of privatization in which it becomes difficult for ideas to be lifted into the public realm. Under such circumstances, politics is eviscerated because it now supports a market-driven view of society that has turned its back on the idea that “Humanity is never acquired in solitude.” [7] That is, society has come undone in terms of the social contract and in doing so has turned its back on most Americans whose lives and futures are no longer determined by social spaces that give them a voice and provide the conditions for autonomy, freedom and equality. This violence against the social mimics is not just the death of the radical imagination, but also a notion of banality made famous by Hannah Arendt, who argued that at the root of totalitarianism was a kind of thoughtlessness, an inability to think, and a type of outrageous stupidity in which, “There’s simply the reluctance ever to imagine what the other person is experiencing.”[8]
The plight of disposable populations can be seen in the fact that millions of Americans are unemployed and are receiving no long-term benefits. Shockingly, the only source of assistance for one in 50 Americans “is nothing but a food stamp card.” [9] Close to half of all Americans live on or beneath the poverty line while “more than a million public school students are homeless in the United States; 57 percent of all children are in homes considered to be either low-income or impoverished; and half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years old.” [10] At the same time, the 400 richest Americans “have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50 percent of the entire country [while] the top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40 percent of all wealth and more wealth than 90 percent of the population combined.” [11]
Within this system of power and disposability, the ethical grammars that draw our attention to the violence of such suffering disappear while dispossessed populations lose their dignity, bodies, and material goods and homes. The fear of losing everything, the horror of the engulfing precarity, the quest to merely survive, and the impending reality of social and civil death have become a way of life for the 99% in the United States. Under the politics of disposability, the grammars of suffering, cruelty, and punishment have replaced the value of compassion, social responsibility and civic courage.
Young people are not seen as troubled but viewed as a source of trouble; rather than viewed as being “at risk,” they are the risk and subject to a range of punitive policies.
The severity of the consequences of this shift in modernity under neoliberalism among youth is evident in the fact that this is the first generation, as Zygmunt Bauman argues, in which the “plight of the outcast may stretch to embrace a whole generation.” [12] He rightly argues that today’s youth have been “cast in a condition of liminal drift, with no way of knowing whether it is transitory or permanent.” [13] Youth no longer occupy the hope of a privileged place that was offered to previous generations. They now inhabit a neoliberal notion of temporality marked by a loss of faith in progress along with the emergence of apocalyptic narratives in which the future appears indeterminate, bleak and insecure. Heightened prospects and progressive visions pale and are smashed next to the normalization of market-driven government policies that wipe out pensions, eliminate quality health care, raise college tuition, and produce a harsh world of joblessness, while giving millions to banks and the military. Students, in particular, now find themselves in a world in which heightened expectations have been replaced by dashed hopes and a world of onerous debt. [14]
What has changed about an entire generation of young people includes not only neoliberal society’s disinvestment in youth and the permanent fate of downward mobility but also the fact that youth live in a commercially carpet-bombed and commodified environment that is unlike anything experienced by those of previous generations. Nothing has prepared this generation for the inhospitable and savage new world of commodification, privatization, joblessness, frustrated hopes, surveillance and stillborn projects. [15] The present generation has been born into a throwaway society of consumers in which both goods and young people are viewed increasingly as redundant and disposable or they are merely valued as consumers and commodities. In this discourse, young people are not seen as troubled but viewed as a source of trouble; rather than viewed as being “at risk,” they are the risk and subject to a range of punitive policies.
The structures of neoliberal modernity do more than disinvest in young people and commodify them, they also transform the protected space of childhood into a zone of disciplinary exclusion and cruelty, especially for those young people further marginalized by race and class who now inhabit a social landscape in which they are increasingly disparaged as flawed consumers. With no adequate role to play as consumers, many youth are forced to inhabit “zones of social abandonment,” extending from bad schools to bulging detention centers to prisons. [16] Youth have become a marker for a mode of disposability in which their fate is defined largely through the registers of a society that throws away resources, people and goods. These are zones where the needs of young people are not only ignored, but where many young people, especially poor minority youth, are subjected to conditions of impoverishment and punishment that underserve them and often criminalize their behavior. For example, with the hollowing out of the social state and the rise of the punishing state, the circuits of state repression, surveillance and disposability increasingly “link the fate of blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, poor whites, and Asian Americans” to a crime youth complex, which now serves as the default solution to major social problems. [17] Within these “zones of abandonment” and social death, poor minority and low-income youth are viewed as out of step, place, and time and defined largely as “pathologies feeding on the body politic,” exiled to spheres of “terminal exclusion.” [18]
As the welfare state is hollowed out, a culture of compassion is replaced by a culture of violence, cruelty and atomization. Within the existing neoliberal historical conjuncture, there is a merging of violence and governance and the systemic disinvestment in, and breakdown of, institutions and public spheres that have provided the minimal conditions for democracy. A generalized fear now shapes American society – one that thrives on insecurity, precarity, dread of punishment, and a perception of constant lurking threats. Americans occupy a historical conjuncture in which everything that matters politically, ethically and culturally is being erased – either ignored, turned into a commodity or simply falsified.
In the United States and many other countries, the state monopoly on the use of violence has not only intensified since the 1980s, but is unashamedly sanctioned by the new extremists in power. Under the regime of neoliberalism, this new-found embrace of social Darwinism and the culture of violence has been directed against young people, poor minorities, immigrants and, increasingly, women. Abandoned by the existing political system, young people are placing their bodies on the line, protesting peacefully across the globe while trying to produce a new language, politics, long-term institutions, and “community that manifests the values of equality and mutual respect that they see missing in a world that is structured by neoliberal principles.” [19] Such movements are not simply about reclaiming space but also about producing new ideas, generating new conversations, and introducing a new political language. While there has been considerable coverage in the progressive media since 2001 given to the violence being waged against the movement protesters in Brazil, the United States, Greece and elsewhere, it is important to situate such violence within a broader set of categories that enables a critical understanding of not only the underlying social, economic and political forces at work in such assaults, but also makes it possible to reflect critically on the distinctiveness of the current historical period in which they are taking place. For example, it is difficult to address such state-sponsored violence against young people without analyzing the devolution of the social state, emergence of a politics of disposability, and the corresponding rise of the warfare and punishing state.
The merging of the military-industrial-academic-cultural complex and unbridled corporate power points to the need for strategies that address what is specific about the current warfare state and the neoliberal project and how different interests, modes of power, social relations, public pedagogies, and economic configurations come together to shape its politics of domestic terrorism, cruelty, and zones of disposability. Such a conjuncture is invaluable politically in that it provides a theoretical opening for making the practices of the neoliberal revolution visible to organize resistance to its ideologies, policies and modes of governance. It also points to the conceptual power of making clear that history remains an open horizon that cannot be dismissed through appeals to the end of history or end of ideology.[20] It is precisely through the indeterminate nature of history that resistance becomes possible and politics refuses any guarantees and remains open.
As a mode of public pedagogy, a state of permanent war needs willing subjects to abide by its values, ideology and narratives of fear and violence.
A number of neoliberal societies, including the United States, have become addicted to violence. War provides jobs, profits, political payoffs, research funds, and forms of political and economic power that reach into every aspect of society. As war becomes a mode of sovereignty and rule, it erodes the distinction between war and peace. Increasingly fed by a moral and political frenzy, warlike values produce and endorse shared fears as the primary register of social relations. Shared fears and the media-induced panics that feed them produce more than a culture of fear. Such hysteria also feeds the growing militarization of the police, who increasingly use their high-tech scanners, surveillance cameras and toxic chemicals on anyone who engages in peaceful protests against the warfare and corporate state. Images abound in the mainstream media of such abuses.
As a mode of public pedagogy, a state of permanent war needs willing subjects to abide by its values, ideology and narratives of fear and violence. Such legitimation is largely provided through a market-driven culture addicted to production of consumerism, militarism, and organized violence, largely circulated through various registers of popular culture that extend from high fashion and Hollywood movies to the creation of violent video games and music concerts sponsored by the Pentagon. The market-driven spectacle of war demands a culture of conformity, quiet intellectuals and a largely passive republic of consumers. But it also needs subjects who find intense pleasure in the spectacle of violence.
As the pleasure principle is unconstrained by a moral compass based on a respect for others, it is increasingly shaped by the need for intense excitement and a never-ending flood of heightened sensations. In this instance, unfamiliar violence such as extreme images of torture and death become banally familiar, while familiar violence that occurs daily is barely recognized and relegated to the realm of the unnoticed and unnoticeable. As an increasing volume of violence is pumped into the culture, yesterday’s spine-chilling and nerve-wrenching violence loses its shock value. As the need for more intense images of violence accumulates, the moral indifference and desensitization to violence grows, while matters of cruelty and suffering are offered up as fodder for sports, entertainment, news media, and other outlets for seeking pleasure.
Marked by a virulent notion of hardness and aggressive masculinity, a culture of violence has become commonplace in a society in which pain, humiliation and abuse are condensed into digestible spectacles endlessly circulated through extreme sports, reality TV, video games, YouTube postings, and proliferating forms of the new and old media. But the ideology of hardness and the economy of pleasure it justifies are also present in the material relations of power that have intensified across the globe since the 1970s. Conservative and liberal politicians alike now spend millions waging wars around the globe, funding the largest military state in the world, providing huge tax benefits to the ultra-rich and major corporations, and all the while draining public coffers, increasing the scale of human poverty and misery, and eliminating all viable public spheres—whether they be the social state, public schools, public transportation, or any other aspect of a formative culture that addresses the needs of the common good. State violence, particularly the use of torture, abductions, and targeted assassinations are now justified as part of a state of exception that has become normalized. A “political culture of hyper punitiveness” has become normalized and accelerates throughout the social order like a highly charged electric current. [21]
A symptomatic example of the way in which violence has saturated everyday life can be seen in the growing acceptance of criminalizing the behavior of young people in public schools. Behaviors that were normally handled by teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators are now dealt with by the police and the criminal justice system. The consequences have been disastrous for young people. Not only do schools resemble the culture of prisons, but young children are being arrested and subjected to court appearances for behaviours that can only be termed as trivial. This is not merely barbarism parading as reform – it is also a blatant indicator of the degree to which sadism and the infatuation with violence have become normalized in a society that seems to take delight in dehumanizing itself.
As the social is devalued along with rationality, ethics, and any vestige of democracy, spectacles of war, violence, and brutality now merge into forms of collective pleasure that constitute an important and new symbiosis between visual pleasure, violence, and suffering. The control/punishing society is now the ultimate form of entertainment as the pain of others, especially those considered disposable and powerless, has become the subject not of compassion but of ridicule and amusement. My emphasis here is on the sadistic impulse and how it merges spectacles of violence and brutality with forms of collective pleasure that often lend support and sway public opinion in favor of social policies and “lawful” practices that create zones of abandonment for youth. No society can make a claim to being a democracy as long as it defines itself through shared fears rather than shared responsibilities, especially in regards to young people. Widespread violence now functions as part of an anti-immune system that turns the economy of genuine pleasure into a mode of sadism that creates the foundation for sapping democracy of any political substance and moral vitality that might counter a politics of disposability more generally.
The prevalence of violence throughout American society suggests the need for a politics that not only negates the established order and the proliferating zones of disappearance and dispossession of subjects rendered useless or burdensome, but also imagines new radical visions in which the future diverges from the dark conditions of the present. [22] In this discourse, critique merges with a sense of realistic hope, and individual struggles merge into larger social movements.
At the heart of the oppression experienced by young people and others are ideologies, modes of governance, and policies that embrace a pathological individualism, a distorted notion of freedom, and a willingness both to employ state violence to suppress dissent and abandon those suffering from a collection of social problems ranging from dire poverty and joblessness to homelessness. In the end, these are stories about disposability in which growing numbers of young people are considered dispensable and a drain on the body politic, the economy, and the sensibilities of the rich and powerful. Rather than work for a more dignified life, most young people now work simply to survive – that is, if they can find work – in a survival-of-the-fittest society in which getting ahead and accumulating capital, especially for the ruling elite, is the only game in town. In the past, public values have been challenged and certain groups have been targeted as superfluous or redundant. But what is new about the politics of disposability that has become a central feature of contemporary American politics is the way in which such antidemocratic practices have become normalized in the existing neoliberal order. A politics of inequality and ruthless power disparities is now matched by a culture of cruelty soaked in blood, humiliation and misery. Private injuries are not only separated from public considerations by such narratives, but accounts of poverty and exclusion have become objects of scorn. Similarly, all noncommercial public spheres where such stories might get heard are viewed with contempt, a perfect supplement to the chilling indifference to the plight of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised.
As politics is disconnected from its ethical and material moorings, it becomes easier to punish and imprison young people than to educate them. From the inflated rhetoric of the political right to market-driven media peddling spectacles of violence, the influence of these criminogenic and death-saturated forces in everyday life is undermining our collective security by justifying cutbacks to social supports and restricting opportunities for democratic resistance. Saturating mainstream discourses with anti-public narratives, the neoliberal machinery of social death effectively weakens public supports and prevents the emergence of much-needed new ways of thinking and speaking about politics in the 21st century.
As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the biggest threat to the Gilded Age autocrats is solidarity...
Before this dangerously authoritarian mindset has a chance to take hold of our collective imagination and animate our social institutions, it is crucial that all Americans think critically and ethically about the coercive forces shaping US culture – and focus our energy on what can be done to change them. It will not be enough only to expose the falseness of the propaganda pumped out by the commanding neoliberal cultural apparatuses. We also need to create alternative narratives about what the promise of democracy might be for our children and ourselves. This demands a break from established political parties, the creation of alternative public spheres in which to produce democratic narratives and visions, and a notion of politics that is educative, one that takes seriously how people interpret and mediate the world, how they see themselves in relation to others, and what it might mean to imagine otherwise in order to act otherwise.
At stake here is more than a call for reform. The American public needs to organize around a revolutionary ideal that enables people to hold power, participate in the process of governing, and create public institutions and discourses capable of explaining and reversing chronic injustices and power relations evident everywhere in society. This is a revolution that not only calls for structural change, but for a transformation in the ways in which subjectivities are created, desires are produced, and agency itself is safeguarded as crucial to any viable notions of community and freedom. Democracy requires, at the very least, a type of education that fosters a working knowledge of citizenship and the development of individuals with the capacity to be self-reflective, passionate about the collective good, and able to defend the means by which ideas are translated into the worldly space of the public realm. It is not enough to wait for the Occupy Movement to revitalize itself. [23] That is important, but is too limited a call for change. Such a struggle is impossible without an alliance among unions, working people, students, youth, educators, feminists, environmentalists and intellectuals. In particular, organized labor, students, educators, and youth have to provide the base of a broader organization and social movement designed to dismantle casino capitalism.
Such an alliance has to be built around defending the common good, public values, economic and racial justice and environmental sustainability. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the biggest threat to the Gilded Age autocrats is solidarity and rightly so. The time has come for a surge of opposition in the name of democracy, one designed to save the planet from destruction and for a social order in which economic justice is matched with a reverence for care for the other. Politics becomes meaningless without a vision, a willingness to develop a radical collective imagination rooted in a formative culture that nourishes a vibrant sense of critique, civic courage, and sustained collective struggle. Any struggle that matters will have to reimagine and fight for a society in which it becomes possible once again to dream the project of a substantive democracy. This means, as Ulrich Beck has pointed out, looking for politics in new spaces and arenas outside of traditional elections, political parties, and “duly authorized agents.” [24] It suggests developing public spaces outside of the regime of predatory corporatism and engaging in a type of counter politics that shapes society from the bottom up.
1. João Biehl, Vita: Life in A Zone of Social Abandonment, (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005), p. 4 2. Ibid., Biehl, Vita: Life in A Zone of Social Abandonment, p. 10. 3. See: Robert B. Reich, “McCutcheon took us back in time, but it might just birth the next Occupy,” The Guardian (April 6, 2014). Doug Henwood, “Our Gilded Age” The Nation, (June 30, 2008), pp. 14, 17. 4. Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 479. 5. As indicated by a report from “the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of “persistent economic insecurity,” that makes it “difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future.” The CFED... report finds that 44 percent of Americans are living with less than $5,887 in savings for a family of four. Christopher Matthews, “Nearly Half of America Lives Paycheck-to-Paycheck,” Time Magazine (June 30, 2014). 6. Zygmung Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), p. 14. 7. The quote by Karl Jaspers is cited in Hannah Arendt, The Last Interview and Other Conversations, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House Publishing, 2013), p. 37. 8. Ibid., p. 48. 9. Jason Deparle and Robert M. Gebeloff, “Living on Nothing but Food Stamps,” The New York Times (January 3, 2010), p. A1. 10. Editor, “75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe,” The Economic Collapse Blog (December 20, 2012). Online: 11. David DeGraw, “Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion in Wealth,” Alternet (August 11, 2011). 12. Zygmunt Bauman, “Downward mobility is now a reality,” The Guardian (May 31, 2012). Bauman develops this theme in detail in both Zygmunt Bauman, On Education, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012) and Zygmunt Bauman, This Is Not A Diary, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012). 13. Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives (London: Polity, 2004), p. 76. 14. See Steve Fraser, “The Politics of Debt in America: From Debtor’s Prison to Debtor Nation,” TomDispatch.com (January 29, 2013). On the history of debt, see David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville House, 2012). 15. Ibid., Bauman, On Education, p. 47. 16. I have borrowed the term “zones of social abandonment” from Joäo Biehl, Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); see also Henry A. Giroux, Disposable Youth (New York: Routledge, 2012) and Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The Free Press, 2012). 17. Angela Y. Davis, “State of Emergency,” in Manning Marable, Keesha Middlemass and Ian Steinberg, Eds. Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives (New York: Palgrave, 2007), p. 324. 18. Joao Biehl, Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p.14 19. Kyle Bella, “Bodies in Alliance: Gender Theorist Judith Butler on the Occupy and SlutWalk Movements,” TruthOut (December 15, 2011). 20. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (New York: Free Press, 1966) and the more recent Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 2006). 21. Steve Herbert and Elizabeth Brown, “Conceptions of Space and Crime in the Punitive Neoliberal City,” Antipode (2006), p. 757. 22. John Van Houdt, “The Crisis of Negation: An Interview with Alain Badiou,” Continent, 1.4 (2011): 234-238. 23. This position has been taken up recently by former labor secretary, Robert Reich, see: Robert B. Reich, “McCutcheon took us back in time, but it might just birth the next Occupy,” The Guardian (April 6, 2014). 24. Ulrich Beck, Democracy without Enemies (London: Polity Press, 1998), p. 38.By Rob Dunn
Paleolithic diets have become all the rage, but they are getting our ancestral diet all wrong.
Right now, one half of all Americans are on a diet. The other half just gave up on their diets and are on a binge. Collectively, we are overweight, sick and struggling. Our modern choices about what and how much to eat have gone terribly wrong. The time has come to return to a more sensible way of eating and living, but which way? An entire class of self-help books recommends a return to the diets of our ancestors. Paleolithic diets, caveman diets, primal diets and the like, urge us to eat like the ancients. Taken too literally, such diets are ridiculous. After all, sometimes our ancestors starved to death and the starving to death diet, well, it ends badly. Yet, the idea that we might take our ancestral diet into consideration when evaluating the foods on which our organs, cells and existence thrive, makes sense. But what did our ancestors eat?
Here is where the trouble starts. Collectively, anthropologists have spent many a career attempting to hone in on the diets of our most recent ancestors. Typically, they focus on our stone, age (AKA Paleolithic) human ancestors or our earlier pre-human, hominid ancestors. Even if we just consider our stone, age ancestors—those folks whose stories span the time between the first stone tool and the first agriculture—the sides of the debate are polarized. If you listen to one camp, our ancestors got most of their nutrition from gathered fruits and nuts; successful kills of big mammals may have been more of a treat than an everyday reality. A paper out just this month suggests even Neanderthals–our north country cousins and mates– may have eaten much more plant material than previously suspected. Still, the more macho camps paint a picture of our ancestors as big, bad, hunters, who supplemented meaty diets with the occasional berry “chaser.” Others suggest we spent much of our recent past scavenging what the lions left behind, running in to snag a half-rotten wildebeest leg when the fates allowed. Although “Paleolithic” diets in diet books tend to be very meaty, reasonable minds disagree as to whether ancient, Paleolithic diets actually were. Fortunately, new research suggests a clear answer to the question of what our ancestors ate.
The resolution does not come from new discoveries by archaeologists. It comes from context. When we talk about “paleo” diets, we arbitrarily tend to start with one set of ancestors, our most recent ones. I want to eat like Homo erectus or a Neanderthal or a stone age human, my neighbors testify. But why do we choose these particular ancestors as starting points? They do seem tough and admirable in a really strong five o’ clock shadow sort of way. But if we want to return to the diet our guts and bodies evolved to deal with, we should not be looking at our most recent ancestors. Instead, we need to understand the diet of our ancestors during the time when the main features of our guts, and their magical abilities to turn food into life, evolved. We need, in other words, to look at apes, monkeys and other non-human primates.
I should start by explaining what the “gut” is and does; I use the term too loosely. What I really mean is the alimentary canal and all of its gurgling bells and whistles. This canal is the most important and least lovely one on Earth. It takes you from the mouth through the body all the way down to the anus. But while most canals take the shortest course between two points, the one inside you takes the longest. The longer the canal, the more area over which digestion can occur. Food enters the canal through the mouth, where it is chewed and slimed with saliva. It then hits the stomach, where much of the digestion of proteins occurs. Next, it is on down to the small intestine where simple sugars are absorbed. If you have just eaten a twinkie, the process essentially ends there. Everything worth consuming has been absorbed. But if you have eaten broccoli or an artichoke things are just beginning. It is in the large intestine, where harder to break down carbohydrates (such as cellulose, the most common plant compound on Earth) are torn asunder before whatever has your body and your microbes have been unable to digest (or have produced) is excreted. This system evolved so as to provide us with as many calories as possible (long to our benefit) and, also, as many of the necessary but hard to produce nutrients. The alimentary canal is, evolutionarily speaking, a masterwork1.
Not only are guts significant, they vary among species, much as do the leaves on trees or beaks on birds. When considering evolution’s great innovations, Darwin dallied among the beaks, but he might just as well have focused on the gut or even simply colons2. A beak can pick something up, maybe crush it. Big deal. A colon can turn a bit of rotten fruit or leaf into energy and hence life. Science can replicate a beak; it is still working on making a good replica of a colon, much less replicating the great variety of colons and guts more generally found in nature. Carnivores such as cougars or mountain lions have smooth, stomachs big enough to hold the rump of an antelope. In them, the muscles of prey are return to the bits of protein out of which they are made. The stomachs of some herbivores on the other hand are dense with hair-like villi and, moving among them, the bacteria that aid in the breakdown of plant cell walls and their cellulose. The stomach of a cow is a kind of giant fermenter in which bacteria produce huge quantities of specific fatty acids the cow can easily use or store (You eat some of those fatty acids when you eat a cow). In other species, the stomach scarcely exists and fermentation takes place in a greatly enlarged large, intestine.
Yet, for all of the vulgar and magnificent elaborations on the theme of tubes to be found inside animals, the guts of humans are boring. Our guts are remarkably similar to those of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans which are remarkably similar to those of other apes, which are, in turn, not so very different from those of most monkeys. If you were to sketch and then consider the guts of different monkeys, apes and humans you would stop before you were finished, unable to remember which ones you had drawn and which ones you had not. There is some variation. In the leaf-eating black and white colobus monkeys (among which my wife and I once lived) the stomach is modified into a giant fermentation flask, as if the colobus were kin to a cow. In leaf-eating howler monkeys the large intestine has become enlarged to take on a similar role. Lampreys do without a stomach at all. The alimentary canal varies tremendously, but in most species |
/transform/v1/crop/frm/AVQVfAtGgzehhK8J9F6uCU/69e8e896-1328-449d-b3d1-93ff435309e6.jpg/r0_412_1999_1541_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgLos Angeles, California (CNN) -- A huge portrait of Dave Grohl hangs in the Control Room of the Foo Fighters' Studio 606. He's wearing a smoking jacket, holding a brandy snifter and looks very much like the Man of the Manor -- albeit one in need of a haircut.
At age 40, Grohl is, without a doubt, the master of his domain here in Northridge, California. The walls of the industrial complex are lined with dozens of gold and platinum records from his days with Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age and, of course, the Foo Fighters.
Some -- from France and Germany -- are little works of art, elaborately displayed in shadow boxes or gothic frames. Others -- like those from the United States -- are more utilitarian.
Grohl points out a nondescript plaque from the Foos' self-titled debut album in 1995. It contains a cassette with a fake metal finish.
"The first record was a demo tape," he says. "This is my favorite one right here. Platinum cassette, baby! Yeah!"
It seems that everything Grohl touches turns to gold -- or, in his case, platinum. Instead of going into a tailspin in 1994, when Kurt Cobain's death abruptly put an end to Nirvana, the drummer, then 25 years old, headed into the studio to record what would become the first Foo Fighters album. He sang lead on all 14 tracks, and played just about every instrument on the record.
Fifteen years later -- with bassist Nate Mendel, drummer Taylor Hawkins and guitarist Chris Shiflett -- the Foos have become one of the top rock bands on the planet, and after six studio albums, six Grammys and an estimated 20 million CDs sold worldwide, the quartet is finally releasing a greatest hits compilation.
And then, the Foo Fighters will quietly slip into indefinite hiatus. CNN talked to the group members about the break and about the band's history.
CNN: The new album contains 16 greatest hits. But in the liner notes, Dave, you say they're not necessarily your favorite songs or your best songs.
Dave Grohl: On each album, there's diversity. There are songs that are very heavy, and there are songs that are acoustic. We have fans that love some songs, but dislike others. And I think even within the band, there are songs that I love that I'm sure the other guys don't....
I like to think of it as a truck stop cassette. When you go on a road trip, and when you stop to get some smokes and gas, there's that little cassette thing next to the cash register with, you know, Kansas' greatest hits or Dire Straits' greatest hits. I don't want to know about their other songs. I want to know their greatest hits. And you put it in, and you listen to it on the drive.
CNN: It's been 15 years since the Foo Fighters came into existence. Did you think it was going to go on this long?
Grohl: No way. Every time you make one, you sort of imagine that it could be your last album -- because it wouldn't make sense that anything could last this long, and in most cases, it doesn't. Most bands hang out and make music with each other for a while, until the people get sick of it, or the band gets sick of it. That hasn't seemed to happen with us yet, so it's kind of nice.
CNN: So what is going on with the Foo Fighters right now?
Grohl: I think the band decided to take a break not because we wanted to stop making music, but because we thought the world needed to take a break from us. This greatest hits record -- that's the end of something, you know. It's time to move on into this next chapter or another phase. Maybe it will be different in whatever way. I don't know.
But to be honest, we put our hearts and a lot of thought into what we do, but never so much that anything feels overly calculated or choreographed. It's nice to not know what's going to happen next. We're going over to do some shows in Europe (this week), but after that, it's like I don't even know when I'm going to see these guys. So it's kind of weird.
CNN: Do you guys get together in the off-times for barbecues, stuff like that?
Grohl: F*** no! Are you kidding? We just spent five years together! (Laugh)
CNN: Everyone seems to be working on side projects, but I've got to ask about Them Crooked Vultures (Grohl's side project with Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme). Have you all seen them?
Nate Mendel: No. I think the L.A. show is coming up, so Dave's going to be in the hot seat.
Taylor Hawkins: I don't even have a ticket. I'll be on the side of the stage. I'll probably be loading Dave's drums for him. (Chuckles)
Grohl: Things are good with the Vultures. Album's coming out in a couple of weeks (November 17). I love being the front man in the Foo Fighters, stomping around in stadiums and stuff like that. But to be able to sit back in the back and play the drums -- I don't even talk into a mic, I just sort of sit there and smile. (Puts on big goofy grin)
CNN: Do you have any idea what you want to do for the second chapter of the Foo Fighters?
Grohl: I do know I want to try to make the next record in my garage. I'm serious.
CNN: Think you'll be around for another 15 years, and a greatest hits, part 2?
Grohl: As long as I take my thyroid medicine. (Laughs)At this point naming Belgium as your dark-horse favorite to win the 2014 World Cup is hardly a daring prediction. Deeply talented, fit, young and in fantastic form, Diables Rouges are heading into Brazil with momentum.
There is, however, an emerging feud between goalkeepers Thibaut Courtois and Simon Mignolet that could threaten to derail the Belgian train from its track.
Courtois, who is currently on loan at Atletico Madrid from Chelsea for a third successive season, wants Liverpool’s Mignolet to show him more respect. In an interview with Sport/Foot Magazine, Courtois claimed that Mignolet instigated a “personal attack” on him by questioning Belgium head coach Marc Wilmots’ as to why he was dropped.
“When someone says he’s been unfairly dropped as Belgium’s No.1 keeper I see it as a personal attack on me,” Courtois said.
“It shows you don’t accept your manager’s calls – and you have no respect for the first choice. He needs to show respect for whoever is currently in that role.”
Mignolet made the comments following his being handed the gloves in Belgium’s two most recent matches, defeats to Colombia and Japan. Courtois’ reaction to Mignolet’s disgust came swiftly and it wasn’t the first time the Atletico man went on the offensive. Earlier this month Courtois noted his disgust at not being backed by Mignolet.
“In Spain, I hear no goalkeeper saying they’re aiming for the place of Casillas,” he said. “Not De Gea, not Valdes, not Reina. It’s the opposite – they back Casillas. Simon can say whatever he wants, but I think I’ve already saved enough points for Belgium and I’m playing good games for Atletico. He has to stay humble and respectful.”
Both players have earned 14 caps for their country. In 23 La Liga matches this season Courtois has 42 saves, 12 clean sheets, conceding a league best 16 goals. For Liverpool this season, Mignolet has made 26 appearances in the league racking up 82 saves and 7 clean sheets while conceding 32 times.
Follow @mprindiEarlier this month, NASA warned that as the Sun wakes up from its "deep slumber," a massive solar storm could wreak havoc on our electronics, from satellites to the electrical grid, causing damages up to 20 times the cost of Hurricane Katrina.
But the Sun isn't the only threat to our electronic lifeline. National Geographic explorers the risk and consequences of the "electronic Armageddon" that could be caused by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bomb.
An EMP bomb, National Geographic explains, is "a bomb that's designed to go above the atmosphere and release huge amounts of energy," some of which in the form of gamma rays. Such a weapon would cripple electronics, but not kill people.
"In less than a billionth of a second, the electrical intensity on Earth's surface would become so hot that microchips would fry, power lines would overload and the electric grid would collapse," says National Geographic, describing. "Everything with microelectronics in it would stop: your car, your computer, the subway. There would be no electricity."
Learn more about what would happen if an EMP bomb were ever detonated in the video below, then find out more about solar flares.
WATCH:Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
July 29, 2016, 3:45 PM GMT / Updated July 29, 2016, 6:34 PM GMT By Josh Meyer, Alex Moe and Tracy Connor
Another Democratic Party group confirmed Friday it has been hacked and said the breach was "similar" to a cyber strike on the Democratic National Committee, which has been blamed on the Russians.
A senior U.S. official told NBC News that the FBI is investigating the intrusion on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's computer system but that agents have not yet found a link to the earlier DNC hack.
The Kremlin has denied it is behind either breach — and a top official responded to the allegations on Friday by denouncing a "poisonous anti-Russian" narrative coming out of Washington.
The latest disclosure is escalating concern among U.S. national security officials that the intrusions are aimed at swaying the outcome of the presidential election.
The DCCC, which raises money for Democrats running for House seats, said in a statement that it has retained the forensic investigation firm CrowdStrike, which was also retained by the DNC. The firm concluded two Russian security agencies had hacked into its servers and internal files.
Related: Could Russian Hackers Spoil Election Day?
"Based on the information we have to date, we’ve been advised by investigators that this is similar to other recent incidents, including the DNC breach," DCCC spokeswoman Meredith Kelly said in a statement.
"The DCCC takes this matter very seriously. With the assistance of leading experts we have taken and are continuing to take steps to enhance the security of our network in the face of these recent events. We are cooperating with the federal law enforcement with respect to their ongoing investigation."
Related: Why Experts are Sure Russia Hacked the DNC Emails
The DCCC did not say what data the hackers might have obtained from its system.
Last week, nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the DNC, the governing body of the Democratic Party, were leaked to the public just ahead of the national convention in Philadelphia, causing political turmoil.
Hillary Clinton's campaign has accused the Russians of orchestrating the embarrassing leak to boost Donald Trump's candidacy.
As NBC News reported this week, senior U.S. national security officials are confident that Russian intelligence agencies hacked the DNC but have not determined if those agencies gave the material to WikiLeaks for the pre-convention email release.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Ryabkov told Russian media on Friday that the hacking allegations threaten to damage relations with Moscow.
"Seeing the hand of Moscow everywhere reflects a certain Russia-related complex that has formed in the U.S.," he said.
"They go to sleep with the thought of Russia, they wake up with the thought of Russia. They have a constant phantom.
"Many in Washington have developed a bad habit to blame everything on Russia," he continued. "Anything goes wrong at your own turf, you switch the media and public attention to the 'foreign factor.'"
Three U.S. senior security officials told NBC News that the DNC and DCCC breaches are worrisome because political organizations have donor lists and other important data that, if compromised, could undermine a campaign’s functioning.
Cybersecurity experts agreed.
“We are going to much more targeting of political campaigns, at all levels of elections,” said Peter W. Singer of New America.
Singer, the author of several books on cybersecurity, said political campaigns are at particular risk because they’re temporary, loosely structured organizations with "an ever-changing cast” of workers who don't have enough resources, training or time to spend on protecting information.
“Yet they hold massive amounts of high value info, from internal policy to financial info on mass [numbers] of donors,” Singer said in a series of tweets. “So basically take all the #cybersecurity problems that bedevil any company or agency and put them on steroids.”
The hacking disclosures come as the two presidential nominees are poised to receive classified briefings about a host of national and global security threats.
“Now is the appropriate time, since both candidates have been officially anointed,” National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. said at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo.
Some U.S. intelligence officials have expressed concerns about delivering classified briefings to Trump because of his pro-Russian rhetoric and business projects with Russian investors — although they are done in secure facilities only for candidates and senior campaign officials with security clearances.
“We’ve been doing these for many years and haven’t seen a leak of information yet,” one senior U.S. intelligence told NBC News.The Trump administration formally backed a House bill Monday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.
The administration "strongly supports" the bill and "applauds the House of Representatives for continuing its efforts to secure critical pro-life protections," the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement of administration policy.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks Harold (Trent) Trent FranksArizona New Members 2019 Cook shifts 8 House races toward Dems Freedom Caucus members see openings in leadership MORE (R-Ariz.), will come up for a vote in the House on Tuesday.
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It would make it a crime to perform or attempt an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with the possibility of a fine, up to five years in prison or both.
There are exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the woman, and the bill wouldn't penalize women for seeking abortions after 20 weeks.
The bill last passed the House in 2015 but was blocked by Senate Democrats.
The proposal is expected to pass the House again, where Republicans have a large majority.
But it will likely stumble in the Senate, where it needs at least 60 votes. Republicans control 52 seats and most Democrats oppose the bill.
President Trump has previously vowed to sign the bill if it passed Congress.
If the bill passes in current form, "his advisers would recommend that he sign the bill into law," the Office of Management and Budget wrote.Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
Dragon Quest X was released in Japan today and is an important milestone for several reasons. Not only is it the first MMO in the Dragon Quest series, but it's also the first MMORPG the Wii has ever had. To make a game like this even possible on the Wii, DQX requires a 16 Gig USB memory stick for all the installation files.
And as for the install itself? Well, for me it took an hour and ten minutes (50 minutes for disc 1 and 20 minutes for disc 2). And I'm not the only one stunned by the long install. Japanese players are complaining about it as well. Those PS3 install times don't seem so bad now, do they?
Dragon Quest X was released on August 2, 2012 for the Nintendo Wii in Japan. Stay tuned to Kotaku East for our import preview late next week.CLAUDE’S QUESTION:
How did you come to the conclusion that Junia / Junias in Romans 16:7 is an apostle?
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:
Paul’s weighty New Testament letter to the Romans concludes with chapter 16’s greetings to various friends. Verse 7 applies the exalted label of “apostle” to Andronicus alongside someone named either “Junias” or “Junia.” Was that name, and thus the apostle, male or female? What did the “apostle” title mean? And what does this tell us about gender roles in Christianity’s founding years?
Paul commends 8 or 9 women in the chapter, which was notably high regard in ancient patriarchal culture. He even listed the wife Prisca before husband Aquila in verse 3. Then verse 7 states this (in the wording of the Revised Standard Version translation):
“Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners;they are men of note among the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.” (Most agree “kin” means the two prisoners were fellow Jews, not Paul’s blood relatives.)
Translation teams have reworked the RSV into the “ecumenical” New Revised Standard Version and the “evangelical” English Standard Version, and both changed the masculine name “Junias” to the feminine “Junia” while dropping “men.” The evangelicals’ popular New International Version and U.S. Catholicism’s official New American Bible (which never said “men”) originally used “Junias” but likewise switched to “Junia” in later editions.
What’s going on here? Noted U.S. Catholic exegete Joseph Fitzmyer explains that the original Greek name “Iounian” could be either masculine or feminine because the accusative singular form masks gender. Greek accent marks that would specify this were’t used in the New Testament and early church eras. Thus translators can go either way, and have. At the ever-handy www.biblegateway.com, 37 posted English translations have “Junia” versus 17 with “Junias.”
From ancient times until the 12th Century, Bible commentators consistently said a female Junia was Andronicus’s wife, as with the married couple of Prisca and Aquila. So wrote worthies like Origen, Jerome, Theodoret, and John Damascene. John Chrysostom, something of a 4th Century chauvinist, enthused, “Think how great the devotion of this woman Junia must have been that she should be worthy to be called an apostle.” But, Fitzmyer notes, “most modern commentators” switched to the masculine.
Scholars’ more recent consensus has flipped back to the feminine, partly due to a 1985 article by Germany’s Peter Lampe. He thinks late medieval manuscript copyists “could not imagine a woman being an apostle” and therefore substituted a masculine form of the name. Lampe rejects claims that “Junias” was an abbreviation of the male “Junianus.” Feminist scholar Bernadette Brooten notes there’s not one example of the name “Junias” in antiquity whereas in the Rome region alone 250 ancient Latin inscriptions tell of a “Junia.”
The evangelical website godswordtowomen.org protests that “translators who found a woman apostle unacceptable made up the name ‘Junias’ to substitute their own word for the Word of God. That is how important limiting women’s freedom has been to religious legalists.” Craig Hill of Wesley Theological Seminary charges that “Junias is a scandalous mistranslation.”
Curiously, the important P46 payrus, a collection of Paul’s letters written around A.D. 200, renders the name “Julia” instead of “Junia.” So do certain Ethiopic, Coptic, and Latin manuscripts. In either case this detail tends to reinforce the idea of a female apostle.
Then, how do we interpret the ambiguous RSV phrase “of note among the apostles”? Does that mean the pair were merely “well known to the apostles,” as the conservative ESV says? Or, on the contrary, were they apostles themselves and notably so? The grammar allows either option but scholars give the second greater weight.
If a female Junia was an apostle, then, what does the title signify? The Greek word means “messenger” or “one sent out” and the New Testament uses it in three senses. First, it identified “the Twelve,” men Jesus chose for his inner circle. Second, it honored pioneer missionaries (see Acts 14:4). Third, Paul said it especially designated the eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus, both in his earthly appearances and in the heavenly vision Paul himself received (1 Corinthians 9:1).
So do Junia and Andronicus fit category two or three? Paul says they were “in Christ before me.” Since Paul was converted three to five years after Jesus’ crucifixion, Junia was at least a missionary witness to the faith during the church’s earliest moment.
Or perhaps even earlier, putting her in category three. A couple decades after the crucifixion Paul wrote that after he rose from the dead Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at once, “most of whom are still alive (1 Corinthians 15:6). There’s no way to know, but some wonder whether Junia could have been an eyewitness at that or another encounter with Jesus after his resurrection.
Then there’s Ben Witherington III, whose idiosyncratic speculation says “Joanna,” one of Jesus’ patrons (Luke 8:3) who witnessed that his tomb was empty (Luke 24:10), could have converted, married second husband Andronicus, and changed her name to “Junia.”
Gender sidelight on Romans 16: In verse 1, Paul calls Phoebe a “deacon” or “deaconess” (some versions use the generic “servant”). Origen said this tells us “there were women ordained in the church’s ministry” in New Testament times. The late Philadelphia conservative James Boice (a friend of the Religion Guy) agreed about deacons but believed 1 Timothy 2:12 bars female pastors and lay elders. When the Presbyterian Church (USA) mandated female elders, Boice’s congregation left to join the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, which required that it stop electing female deacons.Story highlights A business that distributed fertilizer exploded in West, Texas, on Wednesday, killing 14
Volunteer firefighters were brothers who did everything together, family says
Some West students whose schools were damaged are taking classes in Waco
Since they were little boys growing up West, Texas, brothers Doug and Robert Snokhous did everything together. They fixed cars, went hunting, golfed and barbecued together. It just made sense that they would both become volunteer firefighters, and that they were side by side last Wednesday when they rushed to a fire at the West Fertilizer Co.
The brothers were among 14 people who died after the fire led to a massive explosion at the distributor. The blast decimated not only the company's building but ravaged practically the entire north side of the small farming community.
The nine first-responders from West who died battling the blaze represented nearly one-third of the town's volunteer firefighting and EMT force. The fire destroyed three fire trucks and an ambulance. Firefighters and trucks from neighboring communities now fill the void at the West firehouse.
Among the others who rushed to the fire and lost their lives: Kenneth "Luckey" Harris Jr., a 52-year-old Dallas firefighter who lives in West, and two friends of first responders whose identities have not been confirmed by authorities.
Two other people were killed in their apartment nearby.
Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – U.S. President Barack Obama attends a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, on April 25. The memorial was held for those killed in the blast at a Texas fertilizer plant. Fourteen people, nearly all first responders, died in an explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. on April 17. See photos from the explosion. Hide Caption 1 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Photos of the fallen firefighters stand next to their coffins at the memorial on April 25. Hide Caption 2 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Mourners at the memorial on April 25. Hide Caption 3 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Coffins containing the remains of victims from the fertilizer plant explosion in the town of West, Texas, at a memorial on April 25. Hide Caption 4 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A firefighters honor guard stands before the coffins of fallen comrades on April 25. Hide Caption 5 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Firefighters salute as fire trucks and emergency vehicles pass under a flag before the memorial service on April 25. Hide Caption 6 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Firefighters lead the funeral procession for Capt. Kenneth "Luckey" Harris Jr. on Thursday, April 24, in West, Texas. Hide Caption 7 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Firefighters stand on the back of a firetruck that transported Harris' body to the Bold Springs Cemetery in West on April 24. Hide Caption 8 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Family and friends stand in front of Harris' casket at the cemetery on April 24. Hide Caption 9 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A bugler plays taps at a memorial ceremony at the site of the explosion in West on April 24. Hide Caption 10 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Pallbearers carry the casket of fallen firefighter Capt. Kenneth "Luckey" Harris Jr. after his funeral at St. Mary's Catholic Church of the Assumption in West, Texas, on April 24. Hide Caption 11 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A memorial is set up on Monday, April 22, outside a fire station for the firemen who perished in the explosion. Hide Caption 12 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Flowers are tied on a firetruck on April 22 as a memorial for the firemen who died while responding to the explosion. Hide Caption 13 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Vanna Wainwright and her daughter Breanna take part in an open air Sunday service on April 21. Members of the First Baptist Church held their service in an open air field after their church was damaged from the explosion. Hide Caption 14 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Local residents attend a commemoration ceremony on April 21 for those that perished during the fertilizer explosion. Hide Caption 15 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Local residents attend a ceremony in West, Texas, on April 21. Hide Caption 16 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Residents embrace after a Sunday service at St. Mary's Catholic Church on April 21, four days after the deadly explosion. Hide Caption 17 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Residents collect donations on Saturday, April 20. Hide Caption 18 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A candlelight vigil is held at St. Mary's Catholic Church in West, Texas, on Thursday, April 18. Hide Caption 19 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Eric Garcia, 12, cries during a candlelight vigil in West, Texas, honoring the victims of the explosion on April 18. More than 200 people were injured and 50 homes destroyed in the small town. Hide Caption 20 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns – People gather for a candlelight vigil at a church in West on April 18. Hide Caption 21 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Residents tend a prayer service at St. Mary's. Hide Caption 22 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A girl closes her eyes during the vigil. Hide Caption 23 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A young mourner is comforted during the vigil on April 18. Hide Caption 24 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – People pray during a candlelight vigil at St. Mary's Church on April 18. Hide Caption 25 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – Residents embrace after taking part in the vigil. Hide Caption 26 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A woman clasps her hands during the candlelight vigil on April 18. Hide Caption 27 of 28 Photos: West, Texas: A community mourns West, Texas: A community mourns – A young man holds a candle during the vigil. Hide Caption 28 of 28
Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Forensic mappers work the crater at the site of a fire and explosion in West, Texas, on April 24, 2013. The West Fertilizer Co. plant in the small Texas town exploded days earlier on April 17, killing 15 people. Hide Caption 1 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives search the bank of rail tracks for evidence at the site of the explosion. Hide Caption 2 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Search and rescue workers comb through what remains of a 50-unit apartment building, in foreground, and a nursing home on April 18, 2013. Hide Caption 3 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – The remains of an apartment complex lie on cars. Hide Caption 4 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A deer head mount sits inside a car parked next to an apartment complex damaged in the explosion. Hide Caption 5 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A Valley Mills Fire Department firefighter walks through the remains of an apartment complex next to the fertilizer plant. Hide Caption 6 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Smoke rises from the rubble of a house next to the fertilizer plant. Hide Caption 7 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A railroad boxcar lies on its side near the plant. Hide Caption 8 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A Texas State Trooper stops people from entering a neighborhood near the plant. Hide Caption 9 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A chimney is the only part of a home left standing after the explosion. Hide Caption 10 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Brandon Smith removes broken glass from the West Thrift Shop. Hide Caption 11 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Search and rescue workers comb through what remains of a 50-unit apartment building. Hide Caption 12 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – The West Fertilizer Co. lies in ruins. Hide Caption 13 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – A sheriff's deputy comforts a woman at a command post. Hide Caption 14 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Remains of the fertilizer plant burn in the early morning after the explosion. Hide Caption 15 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Water is sprayed on the remains of the plant. Hide Caption 16 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – With smoke rising in the distance, a law enforcement officer runs a checkpoint at the perimeter about half a mile from the plant. Hide Caption 17 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Waco Police spokesman William Swanton speaks to reporters about the explosion. Hide Caption 18 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Glass from blown-out windows lies shattered on the sidewalk and street after the blast. Hide Caption 19 of 20 Photos: Photos: Texas fertilizer plant explodes Texas fertilizer plant explodes – Shattered glass covers items in front of a thrift store. Hide Caption 20 of 20
JUST WATCHED Texas residents see homes after blast Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Texas residents see homes after blast 01:35
JUST WATCHED Explosion victims begin to return home Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Explosion victims begin to return home 01:04
By Monday afternoon, a Facebook page "Prayers for West" had been "liked" nearly 80,000 times. Besides offering thoughtful messages, the page served as a kind of bulletin board for people in West trying to coordinate donations and help each other.
Reporters have been given access to the devastated area. It resembles the wake of a tornado -- trees are uprooted, an apartment building's walls are blown off, and enormous chunks of concrete litter the surrounding fields.
The disaster has rocked the community and, even in the shadow of the Boston Marathon bombings, which have received the lion's share of media coverage this past week, it has reverberated throughout the country.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will go to Baylor University in Waco, Texas, on Thursday to attend a memorial service for the victims of the blast, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday.
Townspeople devastated and displaced
At the time of the blast, West Fertilizer Co. was closed for business, so there were no workers inside, officials said.
The explosion injured hundreds of people who lived near the distributor, authorities said, and others were without a place to live because the blast damaged their homes. West's high school and middle school were damaged.
Investigators searched for clues Monday morning in the 22-foot-deep crater left when a stockpile of ammonium nitrate exploded.
At a Monday afternoon press conference Assistant State Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner told reporters that officials are confident the neighborhood near the site of the explosion is safe. Several authorities spoke at the news conference but offered few details about the investigation, noting that they are being methodical and that the probe will take time.
At a news conference Sunday evening, officials said determining how many volatile chemicals were in the facility will be difficult because the company's records were destroyed in the blast. They are attempting to find the records elsewhere.
The start of school Monday gave some members of this small community a feeling that many had not enjoyed for days -- a calm familiarity
The elementary school in West is the only local school that wasn't damaged in the blast. Some parents escorted their children inside the school Monday. Counselors were at the ready.
Many of the parents' cars had lettering marked by police, an indication that the families live within the area affected by the blast.
Dr. Marty Crawford, the superintendent of West Independent School District, and his staff worked through the weekend to get the elementary school ready for class Monday. On Sunday evening, the high-energy administrator barked orders to staff carrying boxes of supplies up and down the school's hallways.
JUST WATCHED Texas blast victim expects long recovery Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Texas blast victim expects long recovery 01:43
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The town's high school and middle school were too damaged to hold classes. So on Monday, about 500 high school and middle school students opened their books in Waco, about 15 miles south of their hometown.
In the days after the blast, officials in nearby school districts put their heads together to come up with a plan to help stranded students in West.
One school district donated 13 buses to drive the kids to Connally Independent School District in Waco, which provided extra classroom space. As the students arrived, teachers shook hands and hugged West students.
To help the West students feel more at home, volunteers worked through the weekend to paint some of the classrooms with West's colors -- yellow and scarlet -- and some Connally students wore red to school, said Wesley Holt, a Connally spokesman.
Back in West, a small town kept trying to cope. Evacuated townspeople began returning home over the weekend. Authorities allowed a second wave to revisit their homes Sunday. The process was going well, said Steve Vanek, West's mayor pro tem. Texas state police were keeping a close watch on cordoned-off areas near the blast site, he said, and a strict curfew |
American politics:
Our interpreter still desperately trying to diagram Trump Donald’s sentences. Or sentence. She isn’t sure. — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
Our translator must be confused. Now she says they want to arm all citizens with guns so that they can overthrow the president. — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
OH WE GET IT NOW, THE UNITED STATES IS ON TRIAL! — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
Interpreter explaining that "New York values" means "jewish homosexual." — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
It also highlights the ridiculous tone of some of the foreign policy conversations that happened last night:
WHO TOLD THE ORANGE DEFENDANT THAT WE CONTROL NORTH KOREA — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
So, to sum up, give everyone a gun, abolish all taxes and get the citizens to fight ISIS for free while blindfolded? Checking our notes… — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
So, sanctimonious foreign journalist friends. Tell us more about democracy. Tell us allllll about how great it is. — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
But most importantly, it's pretty funny, especially if you're familiar with Chinese propaganda and history:
The orange defendant makes an excellent point about the importance of informing on one’s neighbors at all times. — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
Now here is a group of men who understand that power comes out of the barrel of a gun. #MaoForPresident — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 2016
Purge time. The angry orange man is in command of facts he should never have had access to. — The Relevant Organs (@relevantorgans) January 15, 201684-Year-Old Who Wanted To Walk To Get MRI Next Door Charged For $3,000 Ambulance Ride
Ask someone if they’d rather walk 75 yards for free or maybe get pushed in a wheelchair and most everyone is going to say they’d rather do that than shell out $3,000 for an ambulance ride. An 84-year-old man says he doesn’t quite get why nurses told him he had to take an ambulance from the hospital to the medical offices next door to get an MRI.
As the patient points out, $3,000 is a lot of money, especially to go such a short distance. He was admitted to the hospital for dizziness and was told he had to go next door for the MRI, reports CBS Sacramento. He figured he could walk or go in a wheelchair, but nurses denied that plan.
“It’s ridiculous #1 and it wasn’t my idea #2,” said he said. “They said absolutely not, I had to go by ambulance.”
But then there’s the liability issue — if the hospital let him walk or wheel it, and something happened, they’d be in trouble.
“It’s not just our policy, it’s every single hospital policy,” said a spokeswoman for the hospital.
Insurance won’t cover the whole ride — which should take about 15 seconds each way — and now the man is on the hook for $1,628.58 he’s supposed to hand over to the ambulance company.
“I didn’t want them to turn me into collectors after 84 years. I certainly didn’t want them to ruin my credit,” he said. He still works full-time, otherwise he’d have Medicare Part B coverage which would pay for the ambulance ride.
The ambulance company tells CBS Sacaramento’s Kurtis Ming that the reason it costs so much to take the ambulance is because he has to cover the cost of 50% to 60% of patients without money to pay for rides.
After the station stepped in however, the company waived the fee due to the patient’s circumstances.
Call Kurtis Investigates: 84-Year-Old Charged $3,000 for Ambulance Ride Next Door [CBS Sacramento]HEBRON, Ky. (AP) A cleaning crew has found more than 14 pounds of cocaine in a bathroom at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Brian Bell says the drugs were discovered Monday, hidden in a pair of sweat pants in a carry-on bag and stashed in a locked bathroom stall.
The bathroom is inside the Federal Inspection Services area. There was no identification on the bag.
In a news release, customs officials say the presence of customs agents likely scared the person carrying the drugs.
The total weight of the seized cocaine is 14.7 pounds. There were no immediate arrests.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreThe James Stewart/Seattle SX Anti-Doping test continues to unfold. This morning, the FIM produced this short press release regarding the test, which indicates Stewart was found positive for an amphetamine, as opposed to a PED like steroids, EPO or HGH. Amphetamines are often used to treat ADHD and are said to improve focus. They are available with a prescription, and this lines up with yesterday's Yoshimura Suzuki press release which says Stewart has a prescription for the substance.
Still no word on potential penalties. Here's the short FIM press release:
Anti-doping controls were carried out during the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship event held at the Century Link Field, Seattle, Washington, USA, on 12 April 2014.
The riders tested were:
Ryan DUNGEY (USA)
Ryan VILLOPOTO (USA)
James STEWART (USA)
No prohibited substances or their metabolites, or markers, or the use of prohibited methods were found in the tested samples apart from James Stewart’s sample, which tested positive for amphetamine.
Here's a link to this PR on the FIM website.Just 10 days after confirming that liquid water has been found on Mars, the US space agency revealed a landmark discovery the amazing dwarf-planet has both ice and a 'gorgeous' blue sky.
A Nasa spokesman said: "New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto.
"The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons."
There has been repeated speculation Pluto may have a liquid sea under its surface, and confirmation of water ice on the surface adds to this theory.
Amazingly, much of the frozen ice has been found in a deep crack running from an interesting crater on Pluto first highlighted to Nasa by Express.co.uk as a potentially interesting feature back in July when images first beamed back.
At the time New Horizons planetary scientist David Grinspoon said it could be an eroded asteroid or comet impact crater and tectonic lines, hinting that the dwarf planet may still be geologically active.One of the most pleasant surprises of the Philadelphia Eagles' 2017 season has been the play of linebacker Mychal Kendricks, a player the Birds almost traded this offseason.
Thankfully for the Eagles, that trade never materialized, because they have needed him to fill in for Jordan Hicks, who is done for the season with a ruptured Achilles. In the Eagles' first game without Hicks starting in the middle of the defense, Kendricks came to play.
Let's take a look at Kendricks' game against the Niners in chronological order, in gifs:
1) Kendricks gets a tackle for loss on a blitz
These gifs are sped up a bit for some reason, but Kendricks' speed is still very obvious. Here he times out a blitz nicely and gets in on a tackle for loss.
2) Kendricks closes on QB to force an incomplete pass
Here the Eagles blitz, and the Niners pick it up. It appears as though Kendricks is in man coverage, and his man is the running back. Once the back picks up Rodney McLeod on the blitz, and is no longer a threat to catch a pass, Kendricks sprints to the QB, and gets there quickly, causing the incompletion.
3) Again, the speed
On a pitch to RB Matt Breida, Kendricks reacts quickly and then beats Breida to the outside. Kendricks misses the tackle, but the cavalry is there to clean up with the runner having been slowed down.
Kendricks actually missed three tackles in this game, by my count, but he gets to the play so quickly this year that those missed tackles haven't hurt yet.
4) Kendricks gets a sack while in coverage
Kendricks is in coverage on the running back, but when he sees QB C.J. Beathard begin to scramble, he takes off for him and actually turns it into a sack somehow. His speed here is ridiculous.
5) Kendricks destroys a screen play
The object of a screen pass is to allow defenders into the backfield and throw it over their heads, thus allowing them to run themselves out of the play without using blockers on them. Here, Kendricks gets a free run at Beathard and he gets there so quickly that he kills this screen pass anyway.
6) Kendricks stays at home, tackles TE for loss
Kendricks isn't fooled on this misdirection play and is there to clean up on the tight end short of the line of scrimmage.
7) Kendricks puts the final touches on the worst QB sneak ever
This was one of the ugliest QB sneaks I've ever seen, and credit Beau Allen for making the play in the middle of the defense. Still, watch Kendricks fly around the end and put the final touches on this play with violence once there's nowhere for Beathard to go.
8) Kendricks strings out another play to the sideline
Once again, Kendricks misses a tackle, but is the reason for the play going nowhere. He runs through a terrible blocking attempt by the wide receiver (19) and beats the running back to the corner.
9) Kendricks stops an angle route
In the fourth quarter with the Eagles up big, the Niners ran an angle route to running back Matt Breida near the goal line. In years past, running that route against Kendricks was like stealing candy from a baby. Think Theo Riddick on Thanksgiving, for example. On Sunday, not so much. Kendricks did an outstanding job breaking up the pass to Breida with a diving PBU.
Kendricks wanted to be traded so that he could be a three-down linebacker somewhere. He'll get his chance the rest of the season, and he's off to a great start.
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President Barack Obama signed an order on Friday to impose the special punitive tariffs for three years, the White House announced.
The action is the first major trade enforcement action of his presidency and comes less than two weeks before a high-profile summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 nations, including China.
It is the first time the U.S. government has imposed special "safeguard" provisions to protect a U.S. industry from Chinese competition.
"The president decided to remedy the clear disruption to the U.S. tire industry based on the facts and the law in this case," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
In the first year, the tariff will be 35%, falling to 30% in the second year and 25% in the third year. The tariff would be on top of the current 4% tariff. The tariffs will take effect in 15 days.
U.S. imports of Chinese tires have risen from 14.6 million in 2004 to 46 million last year, accounting for about one-sixth of the U.S. market. Four U.S. tire plants have closed in the past two years, and more than 5,000 workers have lost their jobs.
The United Steelworkers union had complained to the U.S. International Trade Commission about the disruption. The ITC had recommended a 55% tariff.
The Chinese government and some U.S. industry groups had objected to the tariffs.
"This administration is doing what is necessary to enforce trade agreements on behalf of American workers and manufacturers," said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. "Enforcing trade laws is key to maintaining an open and free trading system."
Kirk said China had agreed that its trading partners could impose such sanctions when it entered the World Trade Organization.
Want news about Asia delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Asia Daily newsletter. Sign up here.Tottenham's central midfield area continues to be a concern after Saturday's collapse against Stoke, but Ryan Mason's performance at White Hart Lane at least provided some cause for optimism.
Given that he has been at the club for eight years, was a regular fixture in the side last season and has also made his England debut, it is easy to forget the 24-year-old only made his breakthrough last September and is just starting his first season as an established player at Spurs.
Injury has undermined his preparations for the campaign and he is yet to play a full 90 minutes since returning against AC Milan in the Audi Cup less than two weeks ago, but the early signs are promising.
The north London side looked much better when Mason replaced Nabil Bentaleb at Old Trafford on the opening day of the Premier League season, and he was one of Tottenham's best players on Saturday against Mark Hughes' Potters.
The midfielder threw himself into blocks, passed well and played his part in an effective pressing game as Spurs kept a talented Stoke side at arm's length for most of the first half.
He also posed a threat in the final third. It was his powerful effort which produced the corner that resulted in Eric Dier's opening goal and he ran past striker Harry Kane to draw a fine save from Jack Butland shortly before the break.
Mason was up with the play when Nacer Chadli surged down the left to create a golden opportunity for Kane after the interval and he turned neatly on the edge of the box to create an opening for himself in the second half before screwing his shot wide.
If there is one area for improvement, that would be it. Mason frequently gets himself into good positions but fails to capitalise. While it would be harsh to criticise him for missing his one-on-one with Butland, having done everything right in controlling the ball and getting a quick shot on target, he is often guilty of a lack of composure.
Mason netted a long-range thunderbolt just seven minutes into his first appearance of last season against Nottingham Forest. But like Mousa Dembele's strike on his Tottenham debut against Norwich in 2012, that has proved to be something of a false dawn in terms of his goal return. The Englishman has only scored once since then -- in the 3-2 home win over Swansea in March.
He is certainly capable of more, despite nominally playing in the deeper-lying role midfield role in front of the back four.
Spurs were still 2-0 up when Mason was withdrawn after 69 minutes on Saturday. Had he stayed on the field, it might just have stayed that way. But having only played for around 35 minutes against both AC Milan and then Manchester United after his return from injury, it seems likely the midfielder was always going to come off after 70 against Stoke.
The flip side to Mason's promising early season displays is Bentaleb's lack of form. The Algerian's sloppy pass to Gareth Bale resulted in Real Madrid's second goal in the Audi Cup defeat and a few days later, history repeated itself as his intercepted pass ended up with Manchester United getting their decisive goal at Old Trafford.
Bentaleb dropped to the bench against Stoke, with Mason and Eric Dier being preferred in the starting line-up, and he failed to match Mason's contribution when he replaced his midfield colleague.
Ryan Mason enjoyed a standout year last season for Spurs, culminating in gaining a call-up to the England squad.
While the lack of a striker following Kane's withdrawal meant Tottenham came under increasing pressure, Bentaleb looked partly culpable for Stoke's equaliser.
He was slow to engage Stephen Ireland in the middle of the pitch as the Potters man dropped deep to get on the ball, and neither he nor Christian Eriksen stayed with him, allowing him to move out to the left, create an overlap and cross for Mame Biram Diouf.
Such a lack of urgency was at odds with the impressive pressing that had been at the heart of Spurs' success in the first half.
Bentaleb's future was the subject of some speculation in the summer after he stated he was "getting a little bit tired," of the negotiations over a new contract.
"I give everything on the pitch," he added in an interview in early June. "I've been working really hard and it's normal for me to want to get rewarded."
There was understandable joy and relief among Spurs supporters when the new contract was eventually announced in early July and the 20-year-old Algerian international -- who has already played at the World Cup -- committed his future to the club until 2020.
While these are very early days in the season and every player has dips in form, Tottenham will just hope that the undoubtedly talented Bentaleb does indeed "give everything on the pitch," and that they also get rewarded for showing their faith in him -- particularly given the lack of signings in that position this summer.
So far it is Mason who has hit the ground running at the start of the campaign.
Ben is ESPN FC's Tottenham blogger. Follow on Twitter: @BenPearceSpurs.NEW YORK (Reuters) - What’s the value of a pint of beer? Let the market decide, says a new restaurant in Manhattan where prices for food and beverages will fluctuate like stock prices in increments according to demand.
A ticker showing current prices of drinks runs behind the bar of The Exchange Bar & Grill in New York March 24, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
The Exchange Bar & Grill, set amid the bustling shops and pubs of the Grammercy Park neighborhood, is replete with a ticker tape flashing menu prices in red lettering as demand forces them to fluctuate.
Customers can move prices for all beverages and bar snacks such as hot wings ($7 for 6 pieces) or fried calamari ($9). The prices will fluctuate in $.25 cent increments, but will most likely plateau at a $2 change in either direction.
A glass of Guinness starts at $6 but could be pushed to a high of $8 or a low of $4, depending on popularity.
So if one drink is in heavy demand, its price will rise, causing the cost of other equivalent drinks to drop. A rush on a particular beer would increase its price, and cause other beers to drop.
Owners Levent Cakar and Damon Bae admit the stock exchange theme is a gimmick but hope a good deal on drinks and their hamburger’s tastiness will win over customers.
“Its definitely something a little bit different,” said Bae. “There is a little bit of a twist.”
Bae, 35, who has an MBA from Georgetown University and Cakar, a veteran restaurant hand, combined forces to open the airy lounge, which serves up to 60 people.
The Exchange Bar & Grill has a long bar facing the ticker tape — and flat screen televisions — as well as a few tables in the back where patrons can eat in greater comfort.
Restaurants in New York and across America have had a tough year because consumers have slashed discretionary spending in a tough economic climate. New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city’s Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses.
The number of sit-down restaurants in New York dropped 9 percent from the fall of 2008 to 2009, according to market research firm NPD Group.
Good prices and a good location should be enough to make their project work, Bae said. And, Cakar added, put in a dash of speculation and you’ve got a winning recipe.
“Why couldn’t we play with the prices like a stock market?” said Cakar, who explained that when he mentioned the bar’s concept to his liquor distributors, they laughed at him.
“One day you are all going to come to me to put your drinks on my ticker tape,” he told them.
The restaurant opens April 1.A Texas radio station claims the software developer hired to build its mobile app has "gone rogue" – and is attempting to take control of the station.
KCOH, a talk radio station in Houston, has filed a lawsuit [PDF] in the Harris County Court seeking a restraining order against Johnny Taylor and his company, Mobile Encryption Technologies, to restore control of its phone system, smartphone app and online streaming accounts.
It is alleged Taylor has been intercepting calls and emails to the station from listeners and advertisers while claiming to be the general manager. He has also been accused of trying to wrest ownership of the KCOH brand, and hijacking and then shutting down the internet-streaming app he built for the station.
Mobile Encryption Technologies did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
According to the court filing submitted this week, KCOH recruited Taylor to build a mobile application to stream its talk radio broadcasts online. In exchange for the work, Taylor was given a regular weekly time slot at the station to host his own tech show – and for the past three years, he has hosted that program. Now, it is claimed, Taylor has tried to take over the whole outlet.
"Unknown to plaintiffs, the defendants used the opportunity to design the app as a way to steal and misappropriate the plaintiffs' customer/client lists and intercept phone calls to the radio station," the filing alleges.
"The extent of their computer mischief at the station is just being uncovered."
Describing Taylor and his company as a "computer vendor run amuck", the station claims he not only seized control of the radio app – by refusing to turn over the passwords – but also installed malware in the phone systems at the station to redirect incoming calls.
Since then, KCOH – which bills itself as "the oldest black talk radio station in Texas" and has over six decades interviewed celebs from Stevie Wonder to Barack Obama – claims Taylor has answered calls from fans and potential advertisers while claiming to be the boss. It says he also withheld administrative access to their online streaming accounts, effectively freezing it out on the internet.
Citing what KCOH calls "openly hostile actions and demonstrated intent to damage and take over vital radio station operations", the filing seeks to force Taylor's company to turn over all the login credentials for the app and its live-streaming services – the station plans to transfer the streams to a new mobile app – and bar him from accessing listener and advertiser account information and intercepting any phone calls.
The station also wants a jury trial to decide whether or not Taylor should cough up damages for his alleged behavior. ®The Massachusetts State House, usually vacant over the weekend, was filled with action Saturday.
House lawmakers Saturday restored about $100 million in spending that had been cut from the state budget by Governor Charlie Baker, who has said he slashed $412 million to keep Massachusetts finances in order amid a flat stock market and falling capital gains tax revenue.
During the rare weekend session, legislators voted to reinstate money to boost salaries for early education and preschool teachers, pay for voting programs, and reverse cuts to a range of state offices. The Senate also convened to consider some of Baker’s spending vetoes.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said the spending plan endorsed by lawmakers remains conservative even with the overrides, noting that money was restored for programs like drug courts, special education, and poor families with children.
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“We as a government, obviously, we have an obligation to support these types of services,” DeLeo said in a telephone interview. “It is all worthwhile spending matters that help us as a society and as a state.”
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One vote restored $7.5 million to hike pay for educators of children in government-sponsored preschool programs.
The move was praised by Massachusetts Fair Share, which had pushed to get the money back into the budget.
“This is evidence that lawmakers see the need to invest in education,” said Nathan Proctor, state director for Massachusetts Fair Share.
He said the average yearly salary for teachers in the early-education field is $25,500.
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“The first opportunity that early education teachers have, they obviously leave,” DeLeo said. “Many will go into any other field because we’re talking about salaries in the [$20,000 range].”
House and Senate lawmakers also voted to restore $1.2 million in election funding, including money to fund early voting for the presidential election in November.
The inaugural program would let people vote between Oct. 24 and Nov. 4, said Secretary of State William Galvin, the state’s top election official.
“This is about helping the voters participate,” Galvin said.
Legislators also reinstated $23.5 million for cash benefits for low-income families with children, $7.2 million for services for people with developmental disabilities, and $32,297 for specialty drug courts.
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DeLeo said specialty drug courts are helping the state combat the opioid crisis.
“I’ve been to a couple of courts and seen how well they work,” he said. “We have to help them get out of their drug dependency.”
Senate lawmakers worked late into Saturday night to restore other spending.
They voted to override Baker’s veto of $2.5 million for incentive grants to state universities, $500,000 for preschool planning across the state, and $200,000 to support the Bay State Reading Institute, which provides remedial services to public schools.
The Senate also restored $400,000 for Suicide Prevention Services for Samaritans Inc. They also voted to reinstate $300,000 for prostate cancer research and $150,000 for the Down Syndrome Clinic, both at the UMass Medical Center.
Lawmakers ended the night by voting to restore $400,000 for pediatric palliative care services run by the state Department of Public Health.
In a statement, Baker spokesman Brendan C. Moss said the governor hopes lawmakers take into account “softening revenue estimates” as they consider authorizing new spending increases.
Baker provided a balanced budget plan that reduced spending while boosting funding for education, local aid, and efforts to fight the opioid epidemic, Moss said.
In other matters, House and Senate lawmakers passed legislation designed to close the pay gap in the state by holding employers accountable for wage violations proven to have arisen from gender discrimination.
The new bill protects employers from being held liable for a pay discrimination claim if they’ve undertaken a “self-evaluation” of gender wage disparities in the past three years and can show “reasonable progress” toward closing the gap.
The measure is now headed to Baker’s desk.
“This bill will protect women from discrimination in the workplace and close the gender pay gap,” Senate President Stanley Rosenberg said in a statement.
The weekend sessions were organized because many lawmakers are expected to be out of state in the coming days for the Democratic National Convention, which starts Monday in Philadelphia.
Both chambers plan to meet again next weekend.
Globe correspondent Alexandra Koktsidis contributed to this report. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldiThe University of Southampton has been awarded a multi-million grant from Lloyd's Register Foundation to bring together some of the worlds's brightest early career researchers to find new ways of using nanotechnologies to improve safety at sea, on land and in the air.
Dr Themis Prodromakis, a Reader within the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnologies Group at Southampton, is leading the £3m programme, which will receive match funding from partner organisations. He says: "Researchers are always looking for funding for high risk, high reward ideas. They want to collaborate with the best scientists and engineers in the world and gain access to state-of-art facilities. The Lloyd's Register Foundation International COnsortium in Nanotechnologies (ICON) will assemble the world's leading universities, research institutions and innovative companies to help them tackle many of today's most challenging issues by recruiting talented PhD students from every continent."
Applications will soon be invited from scientists and engineers keen to pioneer research across a range of industries. Nanotechnologies are already widely used, for example in smart phones, cameras and gadgets. Breakthroughs already being developed include cars, boats and planes built from lightweight materials stronger than steel with new functions such as self-cleaning and repairing; flexible textiles that can become rigid and shockproof to protect the wearer; sensors in hostile environments such as the deep ocean and space; tiny implants for real-time monitoring to aid diagnoses for doctors; and smart devices that harvest energy from their environment.
ICON will support more than 50 PhD students to undertake research at leading global universities, aided by matched funding. They will work together with partners from industry on interdisciplinary projects and access world-leading facilities, such as the £120m Southampton Nanofabrication Centre. The doctoral researchers will meet every year to present their findings and share ideas and concepts, becoming part of a global doctoral cohort addressing the Foundation's safety mission.
Professor Richard Clegg, Managing Director of Lloyd's Register Foundation said: "We are pleased to support the University of Southampton in developing this global cohort of scientists. Their research will develop applications to further the Foundation's safety goals whilst also providing training and building technical capacity in support of our educational mission. The doctoral students joining this consortium will gain an understanding of how their research can benefit society whilst developing international research networks at an early stage in their careers."
"The support of Lloyd's Register Foundation is key to our mission," adds Dr Prodromakis. "Lloyd's Register itself is well-known for promoting safety worldwide for more than 250 years. Its Global Technology Centre is now based in Southampton and its Foundation has become a catalyst to support research, training and education for the benefit of society. We are delighted to work alongside them."
###Poland and UK to sign joint defense treaty as May visits Warsaw
British Prime Minister Theresa May | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
LONDON — Poland and the U.K. will sign a new bilateral security and defense treaty at a joint summit in Warsaw on Thursday.
In remarks released by No. 10 ahead of the one-day talks, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May described the new treaty, which will promote cooperation on defense training and information sharing, as a “powerful symbol of our continued close cooperation.”
May visits Poland on Thursday — the day after the European Commission triggered the so-called Article 7 process against Poland, which could see Warsaw stripped of its voting rights in Brussels.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said May “placed great importance on respect for the rule of law” and would raise concerns with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during her visit.
U.K. Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Business Secretary Greg Clark will all attend the bilateral summit.
A new project to “detect and counter” Russian information operations will also be agreed during the visit, the No. 10. briefing note said.
The U.K. and Polish governments will each provide about £5 million for the initiative, which includes support for Belsat, a Polish-funded TV channel which No. 10 says provides “unbiased, free and frank reporting for Belarusians.”
In statements released to journalists ahead of the visit, May said she hoped Brexit would “serve as a catalyst” to strengthen the U.K.’s relationship with Poland.
She added that she wanted to work with Poland and other EU member countries to “protect our shared values, people and interests.”
“We are building a strategic partnership from a base of shared history and deep ties of friendship that will continue to flourish long after our departure from the EU,” she said.
Tags:Numerous pirate groups are holding more than 350 hostages A Russian warship is rushing to assist an oil tanker bound for China which has been hijacked by Somali pirates. The Marshal Shaposhnikov was heading towards the Moscow University, which was attacked 900km (560 miles) off the Somali coast, officials said. The 23 Russian crew on board are reported to have locked themselves in the ship's radar room. But a BBC reporter says the Russian warship is unlikely to intervene as it could put the hostages' lives at risk. Big prize Shots were fired at the 96,000-tonne tanker from two speedboats in the dawn attack, the ship's owner said. The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the oil tanker is a big prize for the pirates who, based on previous hijackings, are likely to release the cargo and crew only once a multi-million-dollar ransom has been paid. While the international war ships have prevented some attacks in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, it is widely felt that the solution to ending piracy is on land, he says. Over the weekend an Islamic insurgent group took control of one of the main pirate bases on the Somali coast. The pirates had already fled and our correspondent says is not yet clear whether this was part of a wider effort by the insurgents to stamp out piracy. For now the pirates have moved towards other bases along the coast and at sea the hijackings continue, he says. Numerous groups of pirates are currently holding more than 350 hostages as well as about 20 ships at various bases around the country.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionThe FBI says it has found breaches in voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and it's urging states to increase their computer security ahead of the November presidential election. (Reuters)
The FBI says it has found breaches in voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and it's urging states to increase their computer security ahead of the November presidential election. (Reuters)
Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state.
The bureau described the threat as “credible” and significant, “an eight on a scale of one to 10,” Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R), said Monday. As a result, Reagan shut down the state’s voter registration system for nearly a week.
It turned out that the hackers had not compromised the state system or even any county system. They had, however, stolen the username and password of a single election official in Gila County.
Roberts said FBI investigators did not specify whether the hackers were criminals or employed by the Russian government. Bureau officials on Monday declined to comment, except to say that they routinely advise private industry of cyberthreats detected in investigations.
The Arizona incident is the latest indication of Russian interest in U.S. elections and party operations, and it follows the discovery of a high-profile penetration into Democratic National Committee computers. That hack produced embarrassing emails that led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and sowed dissension on the eve of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.
The Russian campaign is also sparking intense anxiety about the security of this year’s elections. Earlier this month, the FBI warned state officials to be on the lookout for intrusions into their election systems. The “flash” alert, which was first reported by Yahoo News, said investigators had detected attempts to penetrate election systems in several states and listed Internet protocol addresses and other technical fingerprints associated with the hacks.
In addition to Arizona, Illinois officials discovered an intrusion into their election system in July. Although the hackers did not alter any data, the intrusion marks the first successful compromise of a state voter registration database, federal officials said.
“This was a highly sophisticated attack most likely from a foreign (international) entity,” said Kyle Thomas, director of voting and registration systems for the Illinois State Board of Elections, in a message that was sent to all election authorities in the state.
The Illinois hackers were able to retrieve voter records, but the number accessed was “a fairly small percentage of the total,” said Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois election board.
State officials alerted the FBI, he said, and the Department of Homeland Security also was involved. The intrusion in Illinois led to a week-long shutdown of the voter registration system.
The FBI has told Illinois officials that it is looking at foreign government agencies and criminal hackers as potential culprits, Menzel said.
At least two other states are looking into possible breaches, officials said. Meanwhile, states across the nation are scrambling to ensure that their systems are secure.
The Post's Ellen Nakashima goes over the events, and discusses the two hacker groups responsible. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
Until now, countries such as Russia and China have shown little interest in voting systems in the United States. But experts said that if a foreign government gained the ability to tamper with voter data — for instance by deleting registration records — such a hack could cast doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. elections.
“I’m less concerned about the attackers getting access to and downloading the information. I’m more concerned about the information being altered, modified or deleted. That’s where the real potential is for any sort of meddling in the election,” said Brian Calkin, vice president of operations for the Center for Internet Security, which operates the MS-ISAC, a multistate information-sharing center that helps government agencies combat cyberthreats and works closely with federal law enforcement.
James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has told Congress that manipulation or deletion of data is the next big cyberthreat — “the next push on the envelope.”
Tom Hicks, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, an agency set up by Congress after the 2000 Florida recount to maintain election integrity, said he is confident that states have sufficient safeguards in place to ward off attempts to manipulate data.
For example, if a voter’s name were deleted and did not show up on the precinct list, the individual could still cast a provisional ballot, Hicks said. Once the voter’s status was confirmed, the ballot would be counted.
Hicks also said the actual systems used to cast votes “are not hooked up to the Internet” and so “there’s not going to be any manipulation of data.” However, more than 30 states have some provisions for online voting, primarily for voters living overseas or serving in the military.
This spring, a DHS official cautioned that online voting is not yet secure.
“We believe that online voting, especially online voting |
. When completed, the project will include a new City Hall and headquarters building for the Port of Long Beach, a redesigned Lincoln Park, an expanded library, pedestrian-oriented commercial space, a boutique hotel and upwards of 1,000 residents.
Construction is expected to begin soon.
Master Plan
According to the project's master plan, Chestnut and Cedar Avenues will be reintroduced through the Civic Center, enhancing north-to-south access for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. This alteration will allow the 16-acre site to be broken up into smaller blocks, each with specific uses.
At the same time, First Street will be extended through the heart of the property as a linear pedestrian plaza, creating a clear path to the Blue Line's Downtown Long Beach Station. This plaza could also double as event space, capable of hosting up to 20,000 people.
Government Offices
On the western side of the campus, along Magnolia Avenue, plans call for a pair of mid-rise structures which will become Long Beach City Hall and the new headquarters of the Port of Long Beach.
The new City Hall will take the form of an 11-story, 270,000-square foot building, featuring a 250-seat council chamber, government services, meeting rooms and office space. It will replace an existing 15-story Brutalist tower, built during the 1970s.
The new Port headquarters will be situated in a similar 11-story structure, separated from City Hall by a 73,000-square-foot civic plaza.
With modern construction standards, the new buildings are expected to consumer only 25% of the energy of the current Civic Center, employing a variety of environmentally-friendly features such as photovoltaic energy, natural light and under-floor air distribution.
Library and Lincoln Park
On the western side of the Civic Center, flanked by Pacific Avenue, plans call for a new 93,000-square-foot Main Public Library at the north end of Lincoln Park. Designed with wood-beam ceilings and a glass exterior, it is conceived as more inviting replacement for the library's current subterranean accommodations along Ocean Boulevard, with a porch-like entrance which opens itself to the adjacent park.
Plans call for a more modern, energy-efficient structure which incorporates motion-sensitive lights, durable materials and photovoltaics. The new Main Library will also feature public WiFi, group study rooms, multimedia workstations, quiet spaces with lounge seating and improved serices for the disabled population.
The reimagined Lincoln Park, slated for the southwest corner of the Civic Center, will feature a more porous design intended increase accessibility. According to PECP, the nine-acre green space will include a variety of permanent and intermittent programming, including a cultural and history loop, art installations, outdoor classrooms, a dog park, a children's playground, flexible event space and opportunities for vending along Pacific Avenue.
Commercial Development
At the heart of the Civic Center, PECP plans to incorporate an entirely new element: people.
The block bounded by Broadway, Ocean Boulevard, Cedar and Chestnut Avenues will be developed with a mixed-use complex incorporating residential and hotel uses. A series of low-rise structures, built south of an existing parking garage, could include up to 400 residential units. An additional off-site building at Pacific Avenue and Third Street could yield an additional 199 dwellings. At least 10% of these residential units will be reserved as affordable housing.
Planned amenities include swimming pools, bike stations, community rooms and observation decks.
The center block is highlighted by a potential 36-story tower, which will feature higher-end residential units and a 200-key lifestyle boutique hotel. Potential operators for the hotel include Autograph by Marriott, Canopy by Hilton, ALoft and Element.
These uses would sit above more than 32,000 square feet of ground-level commercial space, stimulating pedestrian traffic within the Civic Center. Although an exact list of commercial tenants is currently unclear, PECP indicates that offerings will focus on local and independent businesses and restaurants.This story was original published in May 2013. Some of the details have been updated accordingly.
(CNN) Wooden Phone was never asked whether he wanted to race. Born in 1997, the dull-brown thoroughbred didn't show initial signs of greatness, but the horse would net more than $800,000 in winnings during his career.
A warrior on the track, he kept coming back from severe injuries to beat likely champions. His temperament wasn't suited for the highly stressful industry -- trainers called him "difficult," a diva.
After his racing career ended at age 9, retirement didn't suit him either.
Easily agitated, Wooden Phone would pop his lip -- the equivalent of a child sucking his thumb. He was nervous just leaving the pasture.
Anyone who has been around thoroughbreds will tell you that these horses love a job, and now Wooden Phone's duties were outsourced to younger, stronger workers. Intelligent and sensitive with a drive to please, racehorses like him also crave human attention and care.
Unfortunately, when a racing or breeding career ends, thoroughbreds can quickly become useless to their owners. The injuries compound and when money and options run out, convenience leads them away from the stables and into the slaughterhouse.
The racing industry has worked to provide retirement programs and track policies that prevent slaughter. But Brown wants to see even more accountability: transparency of medical records from owner to owner, as well as support for programs that rehab ex-racehorses.
"I think all of us who make our living with horses have an obligation to give something back and provide for the welfare of these horses," Dan Rosenberg, head of Thoroughbred Charities, said.
LOPE Texas is just one of hundreds of organizations across the country dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating ex-racehorses for new homes and purposes.
Suzanne Minter, an experienced rider volunteering her time at LOPE, first met Wooden Phone five years ago. His personality captured her heart.
LOPE founder Lynn Reardon was surprised by Minter's soft spot for the horse -- Wooden Phone was not an adoption candidate after his many injuries. And then, there were the stress issues.
Ex-racehorses get a bad reputation for being aggressively energetic, although their "bad manners" come from training gaps. With the right rehab techniques, they can be gentle enough to work with veterans who suffer from PTSD and children with autism.
Wooden Phone and Suzanne Minter quickly bonded.
Minter was dedicated to rehabbing Wooden Phone, although it became more sporadic when she had unexpected abdominal surgery. She wasn't able to ride, but she would sit on his back as he gently stood still. As she had helped him, he took care of her in return.
"He fell in love with her. He just melted every time she came around. It was a match that was so clear the moment he met her," Reardon said. Minter adopted him.
The 19-year-old horse, once known for the foamy stress sweat on his neck, is now the gentlest horse in the barn. Together, Minter and the newly named Watson have trained for dressage events.
The lip popping has evolved into quirks, such as holding one brush in his mouth while Minter uses the other to groom him, grabbing people's jackets with his teeth for fun or curiously following his new obsession: ponies.
"Ex-racehorses get overlooked sometimes because people just think they are fast, but they have a lot of heart," Minter said. "I think they are all looking for a person of their own."
Turning hope into help
"There are so many places for these horses other than slaughter," Cindy Gendron of the Homes for Horses Coalition said. "Now people are using them for therapeutic riding, equine-assisted psychotherapy, show events and family horses."
The Homes for Horses Coalition aims not only to end horse slaughter, but to promote growth and collaboration in the horse rescue and protection community. Supported by the ASPCA, the Animal Welfare Institute and the Humane Society of the United States, this coalition in Washington is an umbrella for 240 organizations.
CANTER, a member of the coalition, was one of the first groups to create an online showcase of ex-racehorses in 1997. It's an all-volunteer organization with affiliates across the country, where people scour the "backsides" of racetracks every weekend and document the horses up for sale, executive director Nancy Koch said.
"The racetrack is quite a closed-in world. Not everyone can wander into the backside, you need to be escorted otherwise. We broke a lot of barriers that way," Koch said.
Other CANTER affiliates in "phase two" have taken in horses and provided rehabilitation so they can find new homes. They placed more than a thousand horses in 2012, according to the Homes for Horses Coalition.
Volunteer-based adoption farms, such as Kim Smith's Second Stride near Churchill Downs, follow a similar model and work to connect owners and horses. Like LOPE, an extensive adoption process ensures that each new home is a good fit and requires follow-ups in the months and years ahead. If the home doesn't work out, they take the horse back.
These farms also make thoroughbreds available to people who may not have five figures to spend on a horse but have the time and resources to care for one, administrative manager Leslie Pratt said.
Life after the track
"In the horse adoption world, ex-racehorses are seen as the equivalent of pit bulls," Reardon said. "People think they are edgy, so you have to do a lot of myth-busting."
Retraining can ease the issues that create negative stereotypes about ex-racers. And helping these horses can help heal the trainers, too.
The James River chapter of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation pairs men at a correctional facility with ex-racehorses. The horses are cared for by men who work through and graduate from a groom elite training program, which trains them for a job once they are released.
Anne Tucker, the foundation's president, likes to tell the story of Happy and Will. Happy, a nervous thoroughbred, was kicked in the face by another horse while trying to assert her authority after arriving at James River. Will was the insecure young inmate taking care of her.
Will and Happy's bond helped them to heal each other.
"It's hard to say whether Will gave Happy confidence, or Happy gave Will confidence," Tucker said. "Horses look at everyone on even footing. The men have made some mistakes, but they aren't bad people. They just need someone to confirm that, and that's what the horses do."
The pair bonded and healed one another. Happy was adopted after a full recovery, and Will has been released and is working on a local thoroughbred breeding farm.
The golden years
"Some of these horses are like your best athletes -- they gave everything to the sport, and they got banged up in the process," said Michael Blowen, founder of Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Center. "To me, this is like having Larry Bird in my backyard."
Formerly with the Boston Globe, Blowen had racehorses at Suffolk Downs. He quickly learned that when the horses couldn't race anymore, they weren't "going to a riding academy in Maine" as he was told -- they were going to slaughter. He decided to dedicate the rest of his life to offering ex-racehorses a retirement paradise.
Old Friends' locations care for more than 160 horses across three states, located near racetracks so fans can come visit the "retired athletes" in big paddocks.
"It is the equine equivalent of retiring and living on a golf course, except they eat the greens," Blowen said.
Photos: Photos: 'Hat's Off to the Horses' – Sally Steinmann has never owned a horse, but her heart is full of love for them. Now, she creates hats in honor of retired racehorses at Old Friends. A hat is auctioned off to benefit their welfare each month for six months, leading up to the Kentucky Derby. Pictured here is a hat designed in honor of retiree Popcorn Deelites. Hide Caption 1 of 23 Photos: Rapid Redux – Rapid Redux retired to Old Friends in May 2012 after an impressive 22 consecutive victories. "His contribution to the sport of racing in ordinary races at blue-collar tracks called attention to the achievements of the majority of horses, who never win a stakes but provide the daily thrills and livelihood of the sport," according to Old Friends. Hide Caption 2 of 23 Photos: The Rapid Redux hat – To honor Rapid Redux's 22 consecutive wins, Steinmann created 22 rose curls to adorn this hat, which utilizes the distinctive pink and yellow racing silks of owner Robert Cole Jr.'s racing stable. Hide Caption 3 of 23 Photos: Benburb – Before retiring to Old Friends in 2008, Benburb finished his racing career with seven wins out of 22 starts and earnings of $1,159,904. He passed away in 2012. "Bennie," like many gray horses, had complications from melanoma. Hide Caption 4 of 23 Photos: The Benburb hat – Steinmann used nearly 12 yards of silver, black, ivory and white tulle layers to translate Benburb's legacy into fabric for the January 2012 auction. Hide Caption 5 of 23 Photos: Sarava – Sarava arrived at Old Friends in September 2012. He won the Belmont Stakes in 2002 and was the longest shot ever to win the race. His former owner, Gary Drake, still comes to visit him every month and donated more than $30,000 to his aftercare.
Hide Caption 6 of 23 Photos: The Sarava hat – To honor Sarava, Steinmann wanted to highlight the horse's nearly black coloring with his racing silk colors of red and white, as well as red roses to represent the Kentucky Derby and white carnations for the Belmont Stakes. Hide Caption 7 of 23 Photos: Ogygian – Considered one of the fastest runners of his generation, Ogygian is also known for his breeding. As a stallion, he sired 23 stakes winners. Old Friends raised the money to bring him back to the United States after his breeding career in Japan. Hide Caption 8 of 23 Photos: The Ogygian hat – When it comes to translating the legacy of a thoroughbred into a silk hat, Steinmann likes for her creations to mirror the rippling motion of a racehorse. To achieve this, she used rows and rows of alternating tulle layers, repeated under the brim as well. Hide Caption 9 of 23 Photos: Bull Inthe Heather – Bull Inthe Heather (yep, that's how it's spelled), retired to Old Friends in 2006, is considered to be the greatest son of Ferdinand, who won the 1986 Kentucky Derby. The death of Ferdinand in a slaughterhouse in 2002 inspired the foundation of Old Friends. Hide Caption 10 of 23 Photos: The Bull Inthe Heather hat – Steinmann used her trademark silk "feathers" to mimic the horse's mane and tail, as well as his iconic blue-gray coloring and dark accents. Hide Caption 11 of 23 Photos: Wallenda – When Wallenda was brought home by Old Friends from his breeding career in Japan during April 2007, the Flying Wallendas themselves came out to the farm and put on a circus for the whole weekend, walking the high wire and wearing the silks the racehorse sported in the Kentucky Derby. Hide Caption 12 of 23 Photos: The Wallenda hat – Dogwood Stable's yellow and green polka dot racing silks inspired the trimming colors for Wallenda's hat. Several strands of the great stallion's tail hairs were braided and woven into the trim of the hat itself. Hide Caption 13 of 23 Photos: Creator – Creator was owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and overseer of the world-renowned Godolphin Stables. He had a successful career and was retrieved from Japan in 2004 by Old Friends. Hide Caption 14 of 23 Photos: The Creator hat – Steinmann purposefully made this hat asymmetrical because Creator is known for striking particular poses with his forelock to the side. Hide Caption 15 of 23 Photos: Arson Squad – Arson Squad netted $1,190,181 during his racing career, but injuries ended it in 2011 during a training accident. His owner, Samantha Siegel, paid for his surgery, and he began his retirement with Old Friends in February 2012. Hide Caption 16 of 23 Photos: The Arson Squad hat – One of Steinmann's biggest creations, the Arson Squad hat, is 26 inches wide. She used a combination of his natural dark coloring and bright racing silks. The fanning black trim is meant to mimic his mane and tail. Hide Caption 17 of 23 Photos: Dancin' Renee – Dancin' Renee retired to Old Friends at the age of 20 in September 2012. In her banner year, 1997, she claimed seven consecutive victories and was crowned New York Horse of the Year. Hide Caption 18 of 23 Photos: The Dancin' Renee hat – Dancin' Renee was named after her owner's mother-in-law, Renee, who was a dancer in the Ziegfield Follies. To capture the playful nature of Ziegfield and the horse's stable colors, Steinmann played with contrasting textures and tones in her design. Hide Caption 19 of 23 Photos: Wooden Phone – Wooden Phone, now Watson, was a warrior of a racehorse who kept beating the odds and numerous injuries to defeat likely winners. During his retirement, Wooden Phone stayed at LOPE Texas, a thoroughbred adoption farm, and met his future owner, Suzanne Minter, while she was rehabbing him. Hide Caption 20 of 23 Photos: The Wooden Phone hat – To translate Wooden Phone's warm colors and "diva personality" in her design, Steinmann used dramatic layering of black and chocolate tulle around the brim. The looping and curling bow centerpiece is meant to reflect his "watchful eye" nature as well. Hide Caption 21 of 23 Photos: Barbaro – The beloved Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby in 2006 by seven lengths, but broke down in the Preakness Stakes after shattering his leg. He spent eight months at a treatment center, but succumbed to laminitis on January 29, 2007. Steinmann wanted to create a hat to remember Barbaro. Hide Caption 22 of 23 Photos: The Barbaro hat – "My way of coping with difficult things is to create, and I decided that I had to create a hat to honor Barbaro. I wanted it to be about his conformation, colors and his victories, not this completely sad memorial," Steinmann said. The red roses honor his incredible Derby win. Hide Caption 23 of 23
One resident, Clever Allemont, earned $316,329 during his eight wins. In 2009, he ended up in a kill pen in Kansas, deaf with one eye set in a graying face. He seemed to know he had reached the end, according to Kristin Chambers. Chambers and Diana Baker saved him from a trip to the slaughterhouse.
He was able to live out his golden years at Old Friends, gleefully rolling in the dirt and inspiring the groups of deaf children who toured the farm to see him. He passed away in 2014 at age 32.
Not every thoroughbred that gave their lives to racing has the same peaceful ending.
Old Friends has also inspired others to save ex-racehorses.
"I feel like these hats are little ambassadors and if anybody can learn about these horses, what we are trying to do and how much we all feel a responsibility to take care of them, then it's a really great thing," Steinmann said.
She studies photos and old racing film to craft hats that represent the horses, translating their legacies into silk dupioni with vivid trims. While the hats are extravagant pieces of wearable art, they are also creative pieces of awareness.
Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.
"Michael said we each get a dot, and this is his," Steinmann said. "I just want to connect our dots. We all have something we wish more than anything else that we could change in this world."
Inside and outside the racing industry, ex-racehorse welfare is a world of slowly connecting dots.
These retired horses are returning the favor by enriching the lives of the humans working to save them.
"People connect well with horses because they are gentle, instinctive creatures," Gendron said. "Just to lay your hands on a warm, powerful horse that puts his head down and looks you in the eyes is an amazing feeling, especially for someone who is in physical or emotional turmoil. Horses seem to sense that, understand it and take care of people."Gulf oil spill could affect migrating loons
Wildlife experts are concerned BP's environmental disaster in the Gulf could affect Minnesota's state bird.
Department of Natural Resource wildlife specialist Pam Perry says young loons from Minnesota reside in the Gulf for about three years before they're mature enough to migrate to Minnesota.
Mature loons in Minnesota will migrate to the Gulf Coast in late October and early November.
Perry says if the loon's feathers become coated with oil from the BP spill, it could weigh them down, causing them to drown.
Perry tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press that there have been discussions about putting satellite-tracking devices on some loons in Minnesota this year, perhaps in a joint effort with Wisconsin.
Information from St. Paul Pioneer Press
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I see that Martha Raddatz’s interview with presidential wannabe Scott Walker is making the rounds today. And deservedly so! After listening to Walker blather a bit about America’s need for “big, bold ideas,” Raddatz asks him, “What is your big, bold, fresh idea in Syria?” Walker hems and haws a bit about being tough and aggressive, and then we get this:
RADDATZ: You don’t think 2,000 air strikes is taking it to ISIS in Syria and Iraq? WALKER: I think we need to have an aggressive strategy anywhere around the world. I think it’s a mistake to — (CROSSTALK) RADDATZ: But what does that mean? I don’t know what aggressive strategy means. If we’re bombing and we’ve done 2,000 air strikes, what does an aggressive strategy mean in foreign policy? WALKER: I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to be — go beyond just aggressive air strikes. We have to look at other surgical methods. And ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that’s what it takes, because I think, you know — RADDATZ: Boots on the ground in Syria? U.S. boots on the ground in Syria? WALKER: I don’t think that is an immediate plan, but I think anywhere in the world — RADDATZ: But you would not rule that out. WALKER: I wouldn’t rule anything out. I think when you have the lives of Americans at stake and our freedom loving allies anywhere in the world, we have to be prepared to do things that don’t allow those measures, those attacks, those abuses to come to our shores.
So there you have it. Walker is so unprepared to talk about foreign policy that he gets quickly trapped into suggesting that we put more American troops into Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS. Did he really mean to do that? Or was he just feeling the pressure of a live interview and felt like he had to say something? Hard to say. A more experienced candidate would have tap danced a lot more effectively, probably with some prattle about arming our allies or something—though Raddatz undoubtedly would have pounced on that too.
Michael Tomasky remains pretty unimpressed with Walker, especially after finally listening to his big speech in Iowa from last weekend:
If this was the standout speech, I sure made the right decision in not subjecting myself to the rest of them. It was little more than a series of red-meat appetizers and entrees: Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood, said no to Obamacare, passed some kind of law against “frivolous” lawsuits, and moved to crack down on voter “fraud””—all of that besides, of course, his big move, busting the public-employee unions. There wasn’t a single concrete idea about addressing any of the major problems the country faces.
Well, that will come—though it’s unlikely that Walker’s ideas will be any different from the usual Republican boilerplate of the past decade or so. Lower taxes and less corporate regulation will supercharge the economy! Hooray!
Walker still has a ways to go before he’s ready for prime time. But I’ll bet he gets there. He’ll learn from his mistakes, and he’s just about the only Republican candidate who has potential appeal to both tea partiers and mainstream voters. Six months from now minor early stumbles like this will be ancient history, and he’ll have his campaign schtick much more finely honed. He remains a serious contender.I had a small chat with Super3 about revamping peercoin.net, which I’ve provided the transcript for below. If this revamp is going to be happening, we should discuss what we want to see incorporated into the new site. Here is the list of things I wanted to see…
1. A more peercoin-like color theme. The current use of teal doesn’t work. We need to use colors like those used on our subreddit, dark, light and green.
2. The Peercoin logo should not be hidden in the background. It should be in plain view not obstructed by anything. Our logo is the most important symbol on the page.
3. We need our social media icons moved back to the top right corner of the home page. This placement is very important, because it allows for maximum exposure without the need to scroll down the page. Since our icons have been moved further down the page, I’ve seen a drastic reduction in the amount of likes on our Facebook page. These social media pages are important because we can use them to keep people in the loop.
4. A Peercoin newsletter signup form. Check the chat log below for more info on this.
5. Better content organization. Check this conversation between Super3 and iheartcryptocoin for ideas on this. I’ve heard it said before that we need a CMS (Content Management System) as well.
6. A news blog should be implemented, in addition to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. I could possible manage this blog, since I control our Facebook account already.
7. A FAQ (Fequently Asked Questions) page should be created so that we can answer lots of usual questions. We have a small section right now on the home page, but several answers don’t sound like they were written to address the question being asked, for example the question about checkpoints. The quote from Sunny doesn’t sound like it fits there. These answers just need to be rewritten.
8. A more organized page dedicated to storing and displaying our marketing tools for people to use, rather than relying on forum threads: logos, business cards, merchant badges, ad banners, presentations, etc…
9. Not sure on this one, but a Twitter and Facebook feed. Maybe not on our home page, but on the page with our news blog.
10. Things to keep: the text logo and slogan in the upper left corner of the home page, our market cap indicator
I’m sure there’s plenty more things that can be implemented, so I’ll leave the rest up to you guys. What else should be included? Here is the transcript of our chat as well…
Sentinelrv: Super, are you still there?
super3: yup still here
super3: whats new?
Sentinelrv: I know you mentioned that you had just graduated and would have more time now right?
Sentinelrv: But I see you’re heavily involved with Storj.
Sentinelrv: I just wanted to know if you want us to take the lead on the web design front or if we should wait for you.
Sentinelrv: I’m not sure if you have plans for it already.
Sentinelrv: Like any kind of redesign plans or reorganization?
super3: yeah, its going to be another month or so before im fully free
super3: yeah the peercoin website needs to be redesigned to be more action based
Sentinelrv: I know you previously talked about that in PM’s.
Sentinelrv: Is there anything we can do to help while you’re still busy or no?
Sentinelrv: I just know that our marketing video might be done by then.
Sentinelrv: And lots of new people will probably be visiting the website because of it.
Sentinelrv: Maybe if you had something in mind you could post a thread with all the details and we could see what we could do.
super3: well you guys have access to the repo so you can push whatever changes you like
Sentinelrv: Yeah, but I don’t think anyone want to change anything unless they know what your future plans are for it.
super3: i plan to have my main designer revamp the whole peercoin website at some point, but he still has a bunch of storj stuff to do
super3: http://i.imgur.com/spD2eOq.png
super3: need to reduce the peercoin.net site down to the essential
Sentinelrv: We could probably fix smaller things because we had access, but any larger changes should probably be in alignment with what you had planned.
super3: people only care about downloads, mining, resources, minting, whitepaper in that order
super3: everything else is fluff
Sentinelrv: Are you sure people aren’t checking the news because we don’t update it? We don’t have a blog either.
super3: yeah we need quite a few things
super3: see http://storj.io
Sentinelrv: I know you had a quick sketch which included a lot more things on the home page. Is this the reason why, because the home page is the most trafficked area?
super3: peercoin needs to be up to that level
super3: well the homepage needs to point the users to where we actually want them to go
super3: i only got that stuff done because i hired a web dev, might have to do that for peercoin as well
Sentinelrv: If you wanted to do that now (hire someone else) rather than later and you need more funding, it’s possible we could try to raise some funds for you. Just let us know.
super3: already have access to some funds laying around for peer4commit
super3: should organize those first before looking for more funds
super3: ideally id like to have a person or two on my team dedicated to mostly peercoin
super3: i can align the goals of peercoin and storj to get 2x
super3: so we both could use a android wallet just make it so that the code is interchangable etc.
Sentinelrv: And again, if you need something, like for us advertise for people to help you, people that could be on your Peercoin website team, just let us know what you need.
super3: alright ill give it some thought and put up a solution
Sentinelrv: We can advertise this through social media, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter until we find somebody that meets your standards.
Sentinelrv: I’m not sure if you agree, but I’d said before that when it is revamped, I’d like to see more Peercoin-like colors used, rather than the teal we use now. I was thinking more like our subreddit, with the dark, light and green colors.
super3: yeah the branding needs work
super3: oh finding the people is easy for me, just need to be able to reward/pay them
Sentinelrv: Ok, good. Yeah, just post a thread and let us know what your plan is once you think it through. Lots of people are waiting for this I think. It would also sho some movement from us. It appears from the outside that we’re stagnant and might have something to do with the recent price drop, coupled with other things.
super3: yeah plenty of community but not much movement
super3: ill try to organize my wallets by the end of this week and start moving some stuff forward
Sentinelrv: If you had a better way to integrate the volunteer form as well, that would be great. http://www.volunpeer.org/
super3: ok
Sentinelrv: Right now I have to manually take people’s email addresses from the Google spreadsheet and move them over to our Mailchimp account.
Sentinelrv: They don’t get to confirm with their email that they wanted to be added to a mailing list.
Sentinelrv: There has to be a better way to set this up I think.
Sentinelrv: Anyway, thanks for the chat. Looking forward to hearing something on this soon, thanks!
Cybnate: Thanks guys, hope we get this moving again soon
super3: yeah you should just do that through a mailchimp signup
super3: like we have on http://storj.io
Sentinelrv: The problem with that is that we don’t get to ask any of the other questions on the forum, which gives us a lot of info on volunpeers for use later. Unless we just had two forms?
Sentinelrv: What their interests are, experience, etc…
Sentinelrv: Check http://www.volunpeer.org/ to see what I mean. Lots of useful info for us.
Sentinelrv: But I can’t insert a mailchimp form on there to collect the email address as well. It just goes to a spreadsheet, which I have to copy over to Mailchimp manually.
super3: then have the mailchimp separate
super3: have people signup for the newsletter on the website
super3: and/or automate it through mailchimps apis
Sentinelrv: Maybe once somebody signs up for the newsletter on peercoin.net, they automatically get taken to a confirmation page with the Google form integrated where they can add more info if they want.
Sentinelrv: Optional info, not required to sign up for the newsletter.
river333: yeah newsletter should be separate from volunpeers. don’t want to annoy people if they are not interested in being a volunpeer but just want news
Sentinelrv: I’ve been busy recently, so no volunpeer email lately. But when I do send them out, I include news at the end of the email. What I could do is switch it around. Make the email mainly about the news and add in an optional volunpeer task if they wish to help out. Would that be better?
river333: yes that sounds ok
Sentinelrv: Great, that sounds like a solution then. Sign up for newsletter on peercoin.net, hittting submit takes you to a confirmation page with an optional form if you’d like to become a volunpeer. Everyone gets the same email though, mainly news with an optional task added in at the end. The optional volunpeer form is just so we can collect more details if they’d like to be further involved.FGCU swimmer Evita Leter will represent her native Suriname in the 100-meter breaststroke Aug. 7 in the Aug. 5-21 Olympics in Brazil. (Photo: Linwood Ferguson/captivephotons.com)
In the worst moments, Evita Leter struggled with uncertainty and self-doubt.
Multiple trips to the emergency room in a diabetic shock weren’t great either.
More than two years after being diagnosed with Type I, or juvenile, diabetes during the spring of her freshman year, though, the FGCU swimmer beams brightly as she talks about what will be one of the defining moments of her life: competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I can’t really put it into words yet,” said Leter, who will represent her native Suriname in the 100-meter breaststroke on Sunday in Brazil. “I’m a little nervous but it’ll be a lot of fun.”
So well-liked by teammates that former FGCU coach Neal Studd playfully calls her “the people’s champion," Leter was a rising freshman star with enormous potential when her times suddenly fell off a cliff beginning at FGCU’s conference meet in February 2014.
“I looked at myself and thought, ‘What have I done?’” said Studd, hired by Florida State in July to coach its men’s and women’s programs after nine years building the FGCU women into a mid-major power.
“She really didn’t do well after conference either. I was kind of beating myself up about it. A couple days later she collapsed and ended up in the hospital.”
Evita Leter, right, of Suriname and Lani Cabrera of Barbados will become the newest FGCU swimmers in the Olympics when they compete Aug. 7 in Brazil. (Photo: Seth Soffian/The News-Press)
Leter – from South America’s only Dutch-speaking nation, on the Atlantic Ocean coast north of Brazil – was diagnosed immediately but was still hospitalized at least twice more in diabetic shock, Studd said.
“There was a lot to adjust with her diet,” he said.
Like many FGCU swimmers, Leter had been a little-known international recruit with major upside.
That quickly, she and her family worried whether she’d even be good enough to keep her scholarship, a notion Studd said was never considered even if she hadn’t been able to continue swimming.
“That would have been the furthest thing from my mind, not figuring this out and her not being part of the team,” said Studd, a physiology devotee who has known and coached diabetic athletes previously.
“We’ve had some kids over the years that had the issue, but not as badly as her. She’s someone you kind of have to keep after, because she’s never going to tell you something’s wrong. I kind of had to read her body language and check with the other girls.”
Diabetes didn’t affect any specific area of Leter’s performance, Studd said, other than training interruptions to correct her insulin levels.
“When they get out of balance it can be disaster,” Studd said. “You don’t notice they have a problem until it’s danger.”
Leter, who joins FGCU swim teammate Lani Cabrera of Barbados and former FGCU volleyball star Brooke Sweat in giving the school its largest ever Olympic contingent, finally was fitted with an insulin pump about a year ago, at the end of her sophomore season.
But it took until this season for her times – and confidence – to recover.
“It was a little hard,” Leter said. “I never really got to see where I could have been that year. At the rate I was going I felt like I was going to ( |
long-term survival rate is five years.
He is due for another MRI Sept. 24.
All of it has taken a toll — emotionally and financially.
Roerdink now works part time so she can take Beckett to all of his medical appointments and therapy sessions. Kevin works full time and overtime. They work opposite schedules so their little guy is always home with a parent. His weakened immunity doesn't allow for anything else. And the family of five is living in a two-bedroom apartment they moved into just after selling their home before this whole cancer nightmare began.
Not that they are complaining.
"We look at everything differently," Roerdink said. "We pretty much live one day at a time and feel beyond blessed. We see things in a whole different light.
"Beckett is the sweetest, most patient boy. You can't not love him. Everyone loves him. He's real easygoing but maybe because he's had no other choice."
With September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and Beckett's birthday, Roerdink also hopes that their story makes others more aware of the major medical conditions and cancers children face.
"I only have one true wish and that's they find a cure," she said. "And I hope he has many more birthdays."
It's all the more reason that on Wednesday, when Beckett turns 4, his family wants to mark the happy occasion with a celebration at home and hopefully some cards from the community as well.
"Milestones are huge because we didn't even think that we would get through surgery," Roerdink said.
"We have to do something to celebrate because it's a big deal."
So when Beckett blows out the candles on his cake — either "Monsters University" or Mickey Mouse, he hasn't decided which yet — there will be wishes, smiles, likely even a few tears.
And the gift of Beckett.
— Julie Gilkay: 920-993-1000, ext. 319, or jgilkay@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @JulieGilkay
Send a card
Help Beckett Roerdink celebrate his fourth birthday on Wednesday and make his wish come true by sending a card. Mail it to Beckett Roerdink, W6871 Sunnyvale Lane Apartment E, Greenville, WI 54942.
Beckett's story
To follow Beckett Roerdink's progress, visit his Caring Bridge page at www.caringbridge.org/visit/beckettroerdink. To make a donation, visit youcaring.com and type his name in the search fundraiser function.
Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/1tHC55nFormer Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, center, is surrounded by media as he walks to the federal courthouse in Richmond.
Aug. 11, 2014 Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, center, is surrounded by media as he walks to the federal courthouse in Richmond. Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via Associated Press
Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are battling a 14-count public-corruption indictment that alleges they lent the prestige of the governor’s office to a Richmond area businessman in exchange for gifts and loans.
Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are battling a 14-count public corruption indictment that alleges they lent the prestige of the governor’s office to a Richmond-area businessman, and in exchange, the businessman lavished them with gifts and money.
Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are battling a 14-count public corruption indictment that alleges they lent the prestige of the governor’s office to a Richmond-area businessman, and in exchange, the businessman lavished them with gifts and money.
Prosecutors on Thursday unveiled what could be a critical new piece of evidence in their case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen: a photograph of the governor, grinning and holding up his wrist to display a watch.
Testifying during the McDonnells’ federal corruption trial, businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. said he received the photo by text message in December 2012 in response to one he sent the governor. The watch on McDonnell’s wrist appeared to be the Rolex that Williams had purchased for the governor at the first lady’s request a year earlier.
The picture could shatter any assertion that the governor was unaware that Williams — who was then the chief executive of a dietary-supplement company — had provided the expensive timepiece. McDonnell (R) has previously said the watch was a Christmas gift from his wife.
Many of Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Dry’s questions for Williams appeared designed to prove that Robert McDonnell was in the loop about what the businessman wanted from the first couple — and was aware of many of the gifts Williams gave them to curry favor.
Williams, who testified for nearly six hours on the fourth day of trial, is the prosecution’s most important witness in the case, which has shined an uncomfortable spotlight on the McDonnells’ marriage and lifestyle.
The businessman repeatedly told jurors that he did not consider himself personal friends with the McDonnells and that he believed the three were in a corrupt business relationship: He would provide luxury gifts and money to help the governor through a difficult financial time, and, in exchange, the couple would help promote a supplement created by his company, Star Scientific.
“I thought the governor could help bring this product to the marketplace, and it was not the right thing to do,” Williams said on the stand. “I knew it was wrong. I thought the ends justified the means, and I was wrong.”
The two sides
To win a conviction, prosecutors have to prove that the former governor and first lady conspired to sell the power of McDonnell’s office to Williams in exchange for such things as private plane rides, luxury vacations, designer clothes and $120,000 in loans.
In essence, they must persuade jurors to believe the account of a wealthy man who bragged of rich and powerful friends and once claimed to have invented a way to remove a cancerous substance from tobacco with his kitchen microwave.
Defense attorneys have called Williams — who has been given immunity in exchange for his testimony — a “master manipulator” and are set to launch a vigorous attack on his version of events.
Williams acknowledged Thursday that when first confronted about his relationship with Virginia’s first couple in January 2013, he told authorities that he had never asked the McDonnells for anything in exchange for his largesse.
Now he said that was a lie. “If he was in trouble, I could be also,” he said he concluded at the time.
A manicurist and a model are just two of the witnesses that may be called to testify in the federal corruption trial of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, which commenced on Monday. The Washington Post's Matt Zapotosky reports from Richmond on some of the standout witnesses on the list released by prosecutors and defense attorneys. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)
Defense attorneys have asserted that the McDonnells’ marriage was crumbling, the two were barely speaking and they could not have conspired to do anything for Williams, a man on whom Maureen McDonnell had a crush. In any case, they have said, Robert McDonnell never promised to perform official acts to assist Williams.
But Williams — who denied any romantic connection to Maureen McDonnell — testified that he laid out his plan for the governor during a five-to-six-hour flight to Richmond from California on his private plane in October 2010, before he gave the first family most of the gifts.
On the flight, he said, he explained that his company’s new dietary supplement needed credibility and that he wanted the governor’s help getting public universities to conduct the studies that would provide it.
Williams said he and the governor discussed using money from the state tobacco commission to fund the project. “He thought it was a good idea,” Williams said. (He did say the governor slept for part of the flight, joking, “I think I put him to sleep.”)
When Maureen McDonnell flew to Michigan in 2011 to address a meeting with doctors whom Star Scientific was trying to impress — one of a number of Star events she attended — Williams said he called the governor the night before to confirm that she had his permission to attend.
Dry showed jurors a video from that event, during which Maureen McDonnell told the crowd that she and her husband were excited about the company.
Later, Williams testified that he held a one-on-one meeting with Robert McDonnell in the governor’s office suite to discuss a $50,000 loan the governor was seeking to help make payments on beach properties the McDonnells owned in Virginia Beach.
Williams said the two discussed a complicated scheme in which the McDonnells would borrow money against Star Scientific stock owned by Williams, an arrangement he hoped would avoid federal and state disclosure laws.
“I said that I’d just as soon keep this between us and no one know this,” Williams testified he told the governor.
Williams said McDonnell replied, “That’s fine.”
Ultimately, Williams said, he simply wrote a $50,000 check to a real estate company owned by the governor and his sister.
The Rolex
Some of the day’s most dramatic moments revolved around the Rolex watch, which Dry dropped on the floor before it was handed to the jurors. They passed it slowly to one another.
Williams testified that Maureen McDonnell asked him to buy the watch, which cost between $6,000 and $7,000, on the day she and Williams held a series of meetings with a state health official and a university scientist.
Williams said the photo of McDonnell wearing the Rolex arrived on his cellphone after he text-messaged a photograph to McDonnell of the governor’s mansion’s executive chef at his house for Christmas Eve.
A forensic analysis has been unable to determine whether the picture was sent to Williams’s phone from the governor’s or his wife’s phone, according to two people familiar with the evidence.
In an initially soft cross-examination of Williams, Maureen McDonnell’s lead defense attorney, William Burck, seemed to want to show jurors that the businessman was a braggart who was not shy about making outlandish assertions (though he was shy about disclosing his net worth). Allowing Williams to describe his own life story at length, he was somewhat successful.
Williams eventually testified that he had discovered how to remove the “strongest and most abundant carcinogens in cigarette smoke” with a conventional microwave oven and then tried to make greater use of the discovery with 200 microwaves he sent an employee to buy from Wal-Mart.
Though Williams insisted throughout the day that his relationship with the McDonnells was a business one, he said he felt a moment of compassion toward Maureen McDonnell when he found a box at his home in March 2013.
By then, he said, he had been interviewed by authorities and knew the first lady had been as well.
In the box were many of the items he had purchased for the first lady on a New York shopping trip nearly two years earlier, along with a note saying that she was returning the clothes as, she claimed, the two had discussed. He said he took the letter to his living room and read it again and again with a “sinking feeling.”
“I felt sorry for her,” he said.
Then, he said, he called his lawyer.
Justin Jouvenal and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.PlayStation 4 can dynamically alter the order in which game data is downloaded (and how data is installed off a Blu-ray disc) based on the popularity of particular modes or tracks, it's been revealed.
Discussing how the technology could tie in with upcoming racer DriveClub with The Guardian, Evolution Studios' group technical director Scott Kirkland said, "If we recognise that a majority of people take a particular path through the game that we didn't anticipate, we could dynamically modify the default order that the digital version of the game gets pulled down in - and actually, that same technique could apply to how the data is pulled off the Blu-ray as well.
"We can continue to make the experience better for the player."
It was revealed previously that PlayStation 4 players would be able to prioritise specific components of their download via a video explaining the benefits of PS4's new OS. Players will be able to select whether to install Killzone: Shadow Fall's single-player campaign or multiplayer component first, for example.
However, it wasn't clear that developers would also have the ability to dynamically vary the order in which specific data within each title is downloaded.
PlayStation 4's'micro-patching service' will also let developers release tiny updates more frequently to tweak gameplay and target specific attributes.
"We can even update the handling," DriveClub game director Paul Rustchynsky explains. "If there are any balancing issues - if anyone says 'this car is 0.1 second slower than it should be at 0-60mph' - we can make adjustments like that."
PlayStation 4 and DriveClub launch this Christmas. A bundle containing a PlayStation 4 console and PlayStation Vita is rumoured to go on sale at "the end of the year".
Source: theguardian.comMore Than 4 Big 4 Teams
Find the US States - No Outlines Minefield
Try Again
Try Again
You got
'Loca!'
'Thank you.'
'Two piece and a biscuit'
'My name is [name] from Atlanta, Georgia'
'Halleloo!'
'BAM!'
'Echa pa'lante!'
'When in doubt, freak 'em out.'
'I'm a professional.'
'EAT IT!'
'I like to mooove my body!'
'Category is: cheesecake!'
'Water off a duck's back.'
'Hieeee!'
'I've had it.'
'Back rolls?!'
'Not today, Satan.'
'Party!'
'Keep it foxy!'
'C'mon, natch!'
'Absolutely.'
'Puñeta!'
'Don't they know who I think I am?'
'Go back to Party City where you belong!'
'Mother has arrived!'
'I don't see you out walking children in nature.'
'Ooh, nurse!'
'Where my people at?'
'This is not RuPaul's Best Friend Race!'
'Come through!'
'FlaZéDa'
'After a long night of hookin'...'
'Werk that puss!'
'There's always time for a cocktail.'
'My name is [name] and I have something to say.'
'Cucu'
'Walk into the club purse first!'
'Woo!'Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Categories Categories Select Category.Africa.ai.App.Asia.Bank.Biz.cc.CEO.Club.cm.cn.CO.com.de.Eu.fun.Global.Guru.Hk.in.info.io.London.ME.Miami.mobi.Net.NYC.online.Org.Porn.Pro.Pw.SHOP.site.Space.Store.Sucks.tech.tel.TOP.tv.UK.us.Vegas.VIP.Web.Win.WS.XXX #Internetofficial 1and1.com 2 letter.com 2 number domains 3 number domains 3D 4.CN 4L.com ACPA Adult Advertising Affilate Marketing Afilias Afternic Allegravita Alphabet AMA Amazon Apple Apps Behind The Keyword Bitcoin Blockchain Brand New gTLD’s Brand Protection Brandables BrandBucket Branding CADNA Cannabis ccTLD ccTLD’s Celebrity Domain Names Celebrity Domains CentralNic China Coin Collectibles Com Laude Comics Crypto Corner Crypto Currency CSC Cyber Security CyberSecurity cybersquatting Daily Roundup Demand Media Digital Media DNA DNS Domain Auctions Domain Awards Domain Conferences Domain Hacks Domain Holdings Domain Industry Domain Movers Domain Names Domain Parking Domain Registrars Domain Registries Domain Sales Domain Tools Domain Trends Domain Valuation Domainfest DomainNameSales.com Domains DomainSponsor Donuts Drop Services DropCatch.com Dynadot e-Commerce Early Access Program ebay Economy Efty ElonMusk emoji Enom Epik Escrow.com Ethereum Facebook Famous Four Flippa Four Letter Domains Frank Schilling Games Geo Domains Godaddy Google Guest Posts HugeDomains ICA ICANN ICE ICM ICYMI IDN’s IFFOR Inc. Infographics IntellectualProperty Internet News InternetTraffic.com Interviews iot IPO ISP/Broadband Legal LL.com LLL.com LLL.com Domains LLLL Domains LLLLL.com Domains Marchex Market Recap MarkMonitor Media MERGE Microsoft Mike Mann Minds+Machines Misc Mobile NAF Name.com Namebio Namecheap Namecon NameFind NameJet Namepros Namescon NameSilo Network Solutions Neustar new domain extensions New gTLD’s news NFL NNN Domains NNN.com NNNN.com NNNNN.com NNNNNN.com Nominet North Sound Names Numeric Domains Oversee Overstock Parking Payoneer Paypal Phishing PIR Political Domains poll Pool.com Privacy Publicly Traded Domain Co Radix Remark Media Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Rick Schwartz RightoftheDot.com Rightside RRPproxy Search/SEO Security Sedo SnapNames.com Social Media Sponsored Content Sports Start Ups Technology TGTBTU THEDomain Conference TheDomains Three Letter Domains Three Number Domains TLDH TMCH ToughDomains Trademarks Tucows.com Twitter Two character domains Two Letter Domains UDRP Uncategorized Uniregistry UNO URS Venture Capital VeriSign Wearable Tech Web Development Web.com Website Sales Whois WIPO WordPress XYZ Yahoo Yesterday’s Top 5 You Tube ZDNSYazidis in Iraq flee for their lives
Yazidi refugees stranded for days atop Iraq's Mount Sinjar by jihadis from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are now swarming helicopters arriving with food and water. The plight of the refugees has propelled President Barack Obama to authorize humanitarian aid drops and airstrikes to protect them.
CNN journalist Ivan Watson was aboard one of the Iraqi air force helicopters as it delivered aid to and evacuated some Yezidis trapped on the mountain after they fled forces loyal to ISIL, also known as ISIS. According to Watson, a gunner went through "belts of ammo" while firing at militant targets during the flight.
Iraqi gunner blasts away at targets below while flying over ISIS front line to deliver aid to people on Mount Sinjar pic.twitter.com/y6LZL3UsCI — Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) August 11, 2014
Circling over mount Sinjar, where we could see desperate Yazidis taking shelter under trees below#Iraq pic.twitter.com/bJ192xfs9d — Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) August 11, 2014
After chaotic scramble, Iraqi Air Force helicopter picked up 20 traumatized, hungry, dehydrated people from Mt Sinjar pic.twitter.com/slvhEOApMg — Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) August 11, 2014
15 year old Aziza cried whole flight to safety. Her father got separated during ISIS attack 1 week ago. Still missing pic.twitter.com/VSmTbhpHet — Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) August 11, 2014
Rescued Yezidis aboard Iraqi Air Force helicopter that evacuated trapped civilians from Mount Sinjar pic.twitter.com/2m9cJR2d7x — Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) August 11, 2014
Mark Phillips, a CNN photojournalist, captured dramatic video footage of the rescue of some Yazidis during an Iraqi military humanitarian airdrop.
Jonathan Rugman, a foreign affairs correspondent for U.K.'s Channel 4 News, had a similar experience while riding in one of the Iraqi military helicopters.
Mil helicopter dropping aid over Sinjar mountain came under anti aircraft fire from IS jihadists. We all back safe. pic.twitter.com/tTLBlR5pK8 — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
My pic of Yazidis on mt Sinjar range waiting for food drop or helicopter rescue. Scenes like this for miles: pic.twitter.com/d6Pprc6Hf9 — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
Desperate Yazidi refugees plucked from Mt Sinjar by Iraqi army helicopter: pic.twitter.com/x4eBY1oaKD — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
Many refugees in tears after 10 days stranded on mt Sinjar with no food, water. 33 degree heat: pic.twitter.com/OHapYJVbKe — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
Refugees mobbed our helicopter. One man was punched back. So desperate to get aboard after 10 days on mountain. pic.twitter.com/RVBNQ86SQg — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
At one point I found myself dragging dehydrated children to the back of the helicopter for safety. Very distressing scenes. — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
Unbelievable scenes on mt Sinjar. Saw small families trapped in middle of nowhere. Many of these people will die if not evacuated ASAP. — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 11, 2014
On Saturday, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense released footage of unidentified planes dropping aid to refugees in the Sinjar region.
On Sunday, Rugman tweeted photos of some of the refugees who managed to escape the mountaintop, along with their stories.
Hali stayed on Sinjar mountain 7 days. Walked 9 hours. Believes parents, brothers, sisters dead: pic.twitter.com/XoH4fAyUpm — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 10, 2014
Parkeeza fled with 6 month old baby. Husband missing. Says Yazidis must be free to leave Iraq, cannot trust Arabs: pic.twitter.com/TQADHpiQRb — Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) August 10, 2014China has protested to the United States after Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington hoisted a Taiwanese flag on New Year’s Day, calling on the United States to respect the “One China” policy, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
Taiwan’s China Post newspaper reported on Saturday that it was the first time the Taiwanese flag was raised in the United States in 36 years since the United States switched recognition from Taiwan to Beijing in 1979.
More than 100 people attended the ceremony at the Twin Oaks Estate in Washington last Thursday, including Taiwan’s top envoy to the U.S. Shen Lyushun, the China Post said, citing the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington.
“We resolutely oppose the so-called flag-raising ceremony by Taiwan’s agency in the United States and have lodged solemn representations with the United States,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
Mainland China deems Taiwan a renegade province and has never ruled out the use of force to take it back, particularly if the island makes a move toward independence. China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949.
Hua called on the United States to abide by the ‘One China’ policy and “prudently and properly handle” any issues related to Taiwan so as to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
The flag-raising ceremony is the latest incident involving Taiwan to roil relations between the United States and China. Beijing said in December that it had lodged a protest with the United States after President Barack Obama signed into law legislation authorizing the sale of up to four Perry-class guided missile frigates to Taiwan.
While Taiwan and China have signed a series of landmark trade and economic agreements since 2008, political and military suspicions still run deep, especially in democratic Taiwan where many fear China’s true intentions.Are you brave enough to do yoga 138ft above the city of London? If so, this event is for you.
Beginning Monday, February 16th, London-based yoga teacher Billie Woodcraft will deliver a series of energetic vinyasa classes on the glass floors of the Tower Bridge, 138ft above the Thames. This exclusive set of energizing yoga classes will allow participants of all abilities to practice on the Tower Bridge’s new glass floor.
Intended to ease road traffic while maintaining river access to the docks, the Tower Bridge was designed by architect Sir Horace Jones and civil engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry. The bridge took 8 years to complete and was opened June 30th 1894. The Tower Bridge Exhibition has told the history of the bridge since 1982. The new glass floor is the most significant improvement to the Tower Bridge Exhibition since it’s opening.
But don’t worry; you won’t fall through the glass while you’re flowing through your sun salutations. Each glass panel is engineered to withstand the weight of one elephant and two black cabs.
These unique yoga classes start at 7:30am, but students are encouraged to arrive by 7:15am. Mats will be provided if necessary, but in order to maximise the experience on the new glass floor, it is recommended to use gripped gloves and socks. Each class will run for approximately 50 minutes, ending at 8:20am. This is a great way to kick-start your work day.
This experience is intended to revitalise Londoners with an exciting and never-seen-before view from inside the most famous bridge in the world. Participating yogis may even witness the magic of the Bridge’s famous bascules raising for a river vessel.
Cost: £15.00 per person
Time: 07.30am – 08.20am (arrivals by 7.15am)
Places are limited so book now to avoid disappointment.
Photo © Daniel ConnellProfessional Soccer Player
In a year when so much went wrong for America, one would be hard-pressed to find a more tragic event than the beloved U.S. national team's elimination from the 2010 World Cup. The humiliating loss—which left millions of enraged citizens rioting in every major city—was universally blamed on disgraced team captain Landon Donovan.
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After the U.S. team won its group in the first round, an estimated 300 million Americans, widely known as the most fanatical soccer fans on the planet, shuttered local businesses, declared a holiday from school, and even closed down the New York Stock Exchange to watch the second-round match against Ghana, only to see their collective hopes dashed by Donovan's subpar play. Mass burnings of Landon Donovan effigies and widespread looting ensued, forcing President Barack Obama to declare a state of national emergency.
Despite receiving thousands of death threats and a personal warning from the State Department urging him to stay off American soil until order could be restored, Donovan returned to Los Angeles and was shot 172 times in the chest, head, and feet by an unknown number of assailants—a crime that remains unsolved to this day as police refuse to investigate.
Donovan's decomposing corpse still hangs from the marquee at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where hundreds of passersby spit on it each day.After a late-night decision from House Republicans to delay a vote to provide billions of dollars in relief to states hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy, House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday attempted to tamp down a backlash, telling colleagues he would bring up one part of the aid package to a vote at the end of the week. New Jersey and New York Republicans said Wednesday afternoon that Boehner promised them he will vote on a $10 billion extension for the government's flood insurance fund—set to run out next week—on Friday.
The speaker said he will bring the other $51 billion in aid to a vote January 15.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, blasted Boehner earlier on Wednesday for not putting the bill up to a vote. Christie warned Boehner and the Republican House majority that they would feel the wrath of outspoken New Jersey and New York politicians.
New York "Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo and I are not wallflowers. We are not shrinking violets," Christie said. He called the delay in aid "callous" and an act of putting politics over what's best for the victims of a major storm trying to rebuild.
"All I can tell you is that this was the speaker's decision. His alone," Christie said, adding that Boehner did not take several of his calls Tuesday night.
Some Republicans have expressed reservations about money in the aid package that did not go directly to relief efforts and questioned why the bill needed to be passed quickly when Congress was also dealing with the "fiscal cliff" and other issues. It seemed on Tuesday that Congressmen from the Northeast and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had hammered out a deal to split the aid bill up into two parts, but then Boehner unexpectedly declined to bring it up for a vote.
"It's a Boehner betrayal," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York.
But Republicans from the Northeast were also mad. On the House floor, Rep. Peter King, a Republican from storm-ravaged Long Island, N.Y., blasted the delay as "indefensible" and said Congress had a "moral obligation" to hold the vote. On Wednesday, he urged New Yorkers to withhold all donations to congressional Republicans in an appearance on Fox News, apparently so hopping mad about the delay that he doesn't mind turning on his own party.
"I’m saying right now: Anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds," King said. He even hinted he might jump ship from the Republican Party altogether if they didn't vote soon.
By Wednesday afternoon, his tone had softened after Boehner promised to vote on the $9 billion in aid on Friday and an additional $51 billion by Jan. 15.
Democrats have singled out Boehner for the delay, but also blasted other Republicans for their criticisms of the bill. Schumer said in a press conference on Wednesday that he was "infuriated" by a comment from Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, who said the bill didn't move in the House because it was filled with pork. Schumer said Issa should speak to one of the hundreds of thousands of homeowners who need help repairing their homes and will now face a delay in getting relief.
"Tell that homeowner to his face... that it's pork," Schumer said. He added that Issa would surely not want to face such a delay if an earthquake hit his home state: "I know he wouldn't say the same thing about California."
President Barack Obama also urged action on the bill on Wednesday in a statement.
Some congressional Republicans have said the $60 billion bill, which had already passed in the Senate, is too expensive and does not provide enough oversight for how the funds are spent—and that there is no real need to pass it quickly. The bill contains $11.5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund, $17 billion for community grants that help businesses and homeowners with rebuilding and repairs, and $9.7 billion in government flood insurance. An additional $11.7 billion would go to fixing damaged mass transit systems and $5.3 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent future flooding.
"FEMA has plenty of money, there's no immediate needs," House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, told CNN on Tuesday. "FEMA has enough money to last until at least late February-March."More gravitational wave discovery rumors are flying, but this time they’ve taken a specific — and, possibly, really exciting — new twist. And what’s more, we should find out whether the astrophysical rumor mill is correct or not by the end of this week; a National Science Foundation press announcement is planned for 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday (Feb. 11), billed as an opportunity to bring together scientists from "Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to update the scientific community on efforts to detect (gravitational waves)."
ANALYSIS: Gravitational Wave Rumors Rumble Social Media
Hot on the heels of Lawrence Krauss' tweeted rumors about a gravitational wave discovery last month, this new clue comes from a physicist who spoke with someone who saw a pre-published paper describing the historic discovery. This may sound like sketchy third-hand information, but the details discussed sound eerily specific.
"Spies who have seen the paper say they have seen gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger," wrote theoretical physicist Clifford Burgess, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, in an email to his faculty that was leaked to Twitter last week.
OK, so a "black hole merger"… interesting. But there’s more.
ANALYSIS: Advanced LIGO Resumes Quest for Gravitational Waves
"They claim that the two detectors detected it consistent with it moving at speed c given the distance between them, and quote an equivalent 5.1 sigma detection," he continues. "The bh masses were 36 and 29 solar masses initially and 62 at the end. Apparently the signal is spectacular and they even see the ring-down to kerr at the end."
Burgess closes with: "Woohoo! (I hope)"
The news (like previous rumors) focuses around the powerful Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which was upgraded in September 2015 to detect the hypothesized minuscule spacetime warping caused by gravitational waves. LIGO, which consists of 2 stations on opposite sides of the US, is finely tuned to detect the propagation of gravitational waves through our local volume of space.
ANALYSIS: Colliding Black Holes and the Dawn of Gravitational Astronomy
From Burgess' message we can grasp some of the physics he is describing. If (IF!) the rumors are true, the twin LIGO stations (located in Louisiana and Washington) have detected the same gravitational wave signal — with the time delay expected between the 2 stations. That signal, traveling at the speed of light ("c"), carries with it information of the phenomenon that is creating the waves. Burgess also mentions that the signal has a statistical significance of 5.1 sigma, which exceeds the criteria for the signal being real — it is therefore a solid discovery. He also points out that the paper in question will be published by the journal Nature on Feb. 11 (Thursday), coinciding with the National Science Foundation’s meeting on the same day.
Merging Black Holes?
It is predicted that any acceleration of a large mass in the cosmos will generate ripples in spacetime. For example, 2 black holes colliding would be a hotbed of gravitational wave generation. And the email describes just that: 2 black holes (of 36 and 29 times the mass of our sun) collided and merged to create a more massive black hole "weighing in" at 62 solar masses. He also hints that the gravitational wave signal reveals the resulting black hole is spinning (a "Kerr" black hole).
Top 10 Space Stories of 2015: Readers’ Choice
Although it’s absolutley right to exercise caution and a heavy dose of skepticism when confronted with rumors of a historic astrophysical discovery, we have to consider the sources that have leaked this information so far. All are prominent physics professionals. Though they’re obviously lousy at keeping big news under their hats, they can be considered to be trustworthy. However, none of these rumors are being circulated by LIGO scientists themselves, but by physicists who are working with, or have seen LIGO data or know someone who knows someone who has seen documents pertaining to the discovery.
I’ll remain skeptically excited for the time being. But my hope is that by Thursday’s NSF announcement we’ll have knowledge of the first ever directly detected gravitational waves — 100 years after Einstein first predicted their existence. Then we can look ahead and really consider what this discovery means for the future of modern astrophysics and astronomy — not only will this be evidence that gravitational waves really do exist (even though we already had pretty solid indirect evidence of their existence), we will also have a direct signal from the mother of all cosmic collisions, revealing (beyond theory) how black holes collide and grow.
Sources: Science Magazine, Caltech, Gizmodo, The Reference Frame
This article was provided by Discovery News.How vicious GamerGate Wikipedia opponent and Guardian source Mark Bernstein, who caused outrage when he tried to gratuitously link GamerGate to the Charleston shootings, used the encylopaedia to edit his own company article, as well as those of products and business associates in flagrant violation of Wikipedia rules.
Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia open to everyone. Amongst the few rules those of greatest importance are the Conflict of Interest rules. Wikipedia must not be used to advance personal commercial interests. As the policy says –
“COI editing is strongly discouraged. It undermines the public’s confidence in Wikipedia as an independent resource, and risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals and groups being promoted […] If it causes disruption to the encyclopedia, accounts may be blocked.”
It goes on –
“Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vanity press or forum for advertising or self-promotion. As such it should contain only material that complies with its content policies, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia first.” “[…] Editors with COIs who wish to edit responsibly are strongly encouraged to follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously. If involved in an area where they have a COI, they should disclose the COI on their user page and during any discussion about the affected topic.”
And on –
And on –
“If you have a close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about – including as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles.”
The policy also advises that CoI editing may violate European and US laws on covert advertising. It does advise that editors with CoI issues can still contribute by following the procedure –
“If you have a conflict of interest, you can propose changes on the article talk page by usng the {{request edit}} template. You can also suggest changes on the conflict-of-interest noticeboard.”
There is even an easy read version –
“Do not edit articles about yourself, your family or friends, your organization, your clients, or your competitors.”
White knight Mark Bernstein has a lot to say about #GamerGate – he claims we are a misogynistic plot to drive women out of computing, per my previous video, Sinister. If you have not seen Sinister, watch it now for details of Bernstein’s unpleasant views.
As the Ralph Retort recently exposed, he even went so far as to draw some sort of link between thwarting GamerGate and the mass shooting –
For someone who has so much to say about others one would expect Bernstein to have followed the rules scrupulously itself. In Sinister, I exposed a minor, almost technical breach about his support for a politician. There was no financial interest or personal gain. I considered it a trivial point.
Surely however Bernstein he would never edit his own company page, where he has a direct financial interest. That would be incredibly serious. A long standing respected editor like him would simply never do that.
Except of course here [1] (minor), here [2] |
exactly — you’ve got to figure out what works for you.
That said, if you followed the program below, and worked to develop these habits, you’d probably do pretty well.
“Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” – Confucius
How to Develop the Habits
I’ve written a number of times about developing habits, but here are the basics:
Do a 30-day challenge, focusing on just ONE habit.
Write it out on paper, along with your motivations, obstacles, and strategies for overcoming them.
Commit fully, in a public way.
Log your progress.
Remain publicly accountable — report on your progress each day.
Have support for when you falter — either in real life or online.
Reward every little success.
If you fail, figure out what went wrong, plan for it, and try again.
Read more:
The Seven Little Habits That Can Change Your Life
OK, so now you know how to form a habit — and remember, only do them one at a time — but you want to know the seven little habits. Here they are, in my order of preference (but yours may be different):
1. Develop positive thinking. I put this first because I think it’s the keystone habit that will help you form the other important habits. Sure, positive thinking by itself won’t lead to success, but it certainly goes a long way to motivate you to do the other things required.
I learned this when I quit smoking — when I allowed myself to think negative thoughts, I would end up failing. But when I learned how to squash negative thoughts and think positive ones instead, I succeeded. This discovery lead to me practicing this over and over, until I was able to form just about any habit I needed. It’s been invaluable to me, and I think it could be to most people.
Focus on this habit first, and you’ll have a much easier time with any of the others. Start by becoming more aware of your negative self-talk — do a little tally sheet throughout the day, marking a tally each time you notice a negative thought. Soon you’ll recognize them, and you can squash them.
Read more:
2. Exercise. People who’ve been hearing me harp on about exercise might roll their eyes. Sure, exercise is healthy and all that, but how exactly is it life changing? I’m glad you asked:
It makes you feel better about yourself, and more confident. That leads to better success with other positive changes.
It reinforces the positive thinking habit — you need to think positive in order to sustain exercise.
It relieves stress and gives you time to think — this leads to better mental well-being in your life overall.
It helps with creativity. Don’t ask me to prove it, except to say that my best ideas and brainstorming sessions come from when I exercise.
Here’s how:
3. Single-tasking. The opposite of multi-tasking — you’ve heard me harp on about this one as well. Why is it life-changing? A couple powerful reasons:
You’ll be more effective with your tasks and get more done. It’s hard to achieve important things if you’re constantly switching tasks and distracted by other “urgent” things.
You’ll be less stressed overall and (in my experience) happier throughout your day.
Read more:
4. Focus on one goal. Just as focusing on one task at a time is more effective, and focusing on one habit at a time is more effect, so is focusing on one goal at a time. While it might seem very difficult, focusing on one goal at a time is the most powerful way of achieving your goals. When you try to take on many goals at once, you’re spreading thin your focus and energy — the two critical components for achieving a goal.
What if you have 5 goals you want to achieve? Pick one to focus on first. Break it into a mini-goal you can accomplish this month, if it’s a longer-term goal. Pick an action you can do today. Keep doing this until the goal is accomplished — do an action every day, finish the mini-goal, pick the next mini-goal to work on. Then, when your One Goal is completed, focus on the next goal.
Some goals are ongoing ones — like blogging every day, or exercising every day. In those cases, turn them into habits — focus exclusively on turning the goal into a habit, until the habit is ingrained. Then focus on the next goal.
Read more:
5. Eliminate the non-essential. First, identify the essential — the things in your life that are most important to you, that you love the most. Then eliminate everything else. This simplifies things and leaves you with the space to focus on the essential. This process works with anything — with your life in general, with work projects and tasks, with emails and other communication.
This will change your life because it will help you to simplify, to focus on what’s important, and to build the life you want.
Read more:
6. Kindness. Yes, kindness is a habit. And it can be cultivated. Focus on it every day for a month and you’ll see profound changes in your life. You’ll feel better about yourself as a person. You’ll see people react to you differently and treat you better, over the long run. It’s karma.
How do you develop the kindness habit? First, make it a goal to do something kind for someone each day. At the beginning of the day, figure out what that kind act will be and then do it during the day. Second, each time you interact with someone, try to be kind, be friendly, be compassionate. Third, try to go beyond small kindnesses to larger acts of compassion, volunteering to help those in need and taking the initiative to relieve suffering.
Read more:
7. Daily routine. It’s so simple, but creating a daily routine for yourself can make a big difference in your life. The best routines, I’ve found, come at the start and end of the day — both your workday and your day in general. That means, develop a routine for when you awake, for when you first start working, for when you finish your workday, and for the end of your evening.
How will that change your life? It will help you get a great start to your day, and finish your day by preparing for the next day. It’ll help you firmly root the productive habits you want to firm in your everyday life. It’ll help you focus on what’s important, not just what comes up. It’ll help you make sure you get done all the things you really want to make sure gets done everyday. And that can mean a lot.Israel is a pioneer of marijuana as medicine, but its non-medical cannabis laws lag behind. Could this be a step in the right direction?
Israel has a global reputation for being one of the most cannabis-forward countries in the world, having pioneered research in medical marijuana since the 1960s. Yet despite the country's advancements in cannabis science and medicine, its policy for non-medical marijuana consumers is surprisingly conservative.
In the spring, the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, announced what was ultimately a shoddy "decriminalization" policy, under which personal use is still illegal and enough to land you in jail, should you have committed a prior violation or been caught four times. And the smell of weed alone would still be license for law enforcement to search your home.
Recently, however, an internal police order was leaked, indicating a policy shift that would distinguish between "personal use" and "commercial use" among people growing cannabis in their residences.
Cannabis, Israel's largest 420-friendly media conglomerate, originally broke the story. Editor-in-chief Oren Lebovitch — also chairman of Ale Yarok (Green Leaf), Israel's legalization party — uncovered the internal memo issued over the summer by the ‘police prosecution department,’ stating that growing small quantities of cannabis at home for private consumption would be treated as a minor violation of "personal use," instead of as a more serious violation like "growing a dangerous drug" or "possession not for personal use." Currently, Israelis who grow cannabis at home are suspected of possession not for personal use, no matter whether they have an entire garden or a single plant.
The directive is meant to clarify Israeli law enforcement's stance on classifying cases of residential cannabis grows, and allow police to focus instead on dealers and distributors, rather than regular, everyday consumers — of which Israel has many. Around 27 percent of the population between the ages of 18 and 65 has consumed cannabis in the past year.
"Since 2015, we have seen that the Israeli courts are aligning themselves with reality, and have begun imposing lighter sentences against Israelis caught growing cannabis at home for their own use," Lebovitch tells MERRY JANE. "This approach is now joined by the police, according to the new secret internal document that we have uncovered. It appears that the professional elements in the country — the judiciary and the executive branches — understand that cannabis consumers are not criminals, while the legislature, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) still lags behind."
What Lebovitch calls the "half-decriminalization reform" was supposed to go into effect eight months ago, but the Israeli public has still seen no real change. This specific internal police order, however, which was not meant to be public knowledge, could perhaps be interpreted as a more sincere gesture. "It seems that they are starting to understand that someone who grows a cannabis plant or two on his or her porch is not a criminal," says Lebovitch."This is certainly news of tremendous legal significance. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the police are now directing their efforts to [more] serious crimes, but only that the police prosecution will not file indictments for such offenses, or that it will only require light sentences."
Nonetheless, he says it's a welcome step in the right direction toward more legitimate decriminalization or legalization policies, as seen in Canada and certain American states.
Gil Luxenbourg, former chairman of the Israel Medical Cannabis Association and CTO of IsItWeed Rolling Papers, is a little more skeptical. Now that the leak is set to make headlines, it'll surely be swindled into another PR stunt, he says, like Israel's decriminalization policy back in the spring. Cultivation is still a criminal offense and the law itself hasn't changed, Luxenbourg reminds us.
"Just last month a grow shop owner was arrested for allegedly importing materials for drug production — because of importing a routine shipment of grow boxes, as they have been for years without any problems," he says. "So in fact, we see the police targeting home grow operations and prosecution is still same as it has always been — a criminal prosecution over production of an illegal drug in a drug lab (cultivation under grow lights is considered a drug production lab), regardless of the personal use issue." Only if the courts make a definitive ruling permitting cannabis cultivation, followed by legislative reform, will there be actual cannabis policy change in Israel, Luxenbourg says. "For now, it is more of the PR stunts we have seen in the past with a large smokescreen hiding the reality."
Currently the maximum sentence for cultivating cannabis is 20 years behind bars; meanwhile, the maximum sentence for personal use is only three years, though most people caught with very small qualities aren’t punished for a first-time offense.
The internal order outlines just how common home grows of cannabis have become: “In recent years, we have witnessed a non-negligible increase in the number of suspects involved in committing the offense of growing the dangerous drug cannabis in limited quantities, with no sophisticated means of cultivation, in planters on their porch or yard, who until this slip were considered normative citizens...On the other hand, there has been a significant increase in the number of suspects growing cannabis in significant quantities, with advanced planning, including the purchase of specialty items (such as fertilizer, chemicals, drip irrigation equipment, special lamps, etc), or who were renting apartments/houses solely for this purpose."
Thus, now there's more direction for Israeli police on differentiating between these two kinds of cases, such as the number of plants and the kind of setup involved. Going forward, it remains to be seen how many cannabis users in Israel will ultimately benefit from this reform.Idol Death Game TV is a death game set in a desolate mansion
The new game from D3 Publisher and Witchcraft.
The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu has first details on Idol Death Game TV, the newly announced PS Vita game from D3 Publisher and Witchcraft.
The game centers around an unscripted event called “Dream of Dreams,” set within a desolate old mansion, where a center idol is to be decided from the members of a popular idol group called “Project 47,” including the year’s low ranking members. Within Project 47 are units, such as “Team Happy” and “Team Smile,” and in total the group has over 200 members. The player will choose to play as one idol from those appearing, and the story will change accordingly.
There are exploration, judging, and “Death Concert” elements. During exploration, you’ll look for items throughout each stage as well as exchange information with idols. And it seems that it’s important to both raise your own spirits while lowering those of your opponents. During judging parts, you’ll be judged on your dancing and performance. And during “Death Concerts,” the idols that didn’t make it through to the final judging are killed. However, it seems that by clearing the trials of Doripaku (voiced by Kappi Yamaguchi), a costumed character with pink hair who leads the event (and while cruel supposedly values human life), the defeated can somehow be revived.
The magazine introduces some of the game’s appearing idols, including:
Mariko Kamata (voiced by Azumi Asakura) – Rank 88. A comforting idol part of the first graduating class who has a 10-year career.
Chiharu Chigasaki (voiced by Emi Uema) – Rank 5. An orthodox idol who puts in great effort.
Shirase Tsubaka (voiced by Yurika Kubo) – Rank 15. A mood maker and younger sister-type idol who adores Mariko and Chiharu.
Ayaka Tennouji (voiced by Yu Serizawa) – Rank 6. The leader of Team Smile and a woman with a strong sense of justice.
Rito Karasuma (voiced by Asuka Nishi) – Rank 43. An air-headed idol talented in acting who admires Ayaka.
Development on the game is currently 69 percent complete (hehe). It features illustrations by Metawo Ueda, script and supervision by Shoujiro Endo, and is produced by Yujiro Usuda.
Idol Death Game TV will launch for PS Vita in Japan on October 20.
Thanks, [email protected].TORONTO -- The sun has set outside the Canadian Football League's headquarters, perched on the third floor of a red brick warehouse near the eastern edge of this city. It's 10:45 p.m., halfway through a long night of work, and Marc Cobb is staring at the 20-inch video screen on the table in front of him.
The Calgary Stampeders and BC Lions are slugging it out some 2,500 miles away in Vancouver, a listless matchup that will end in a 37-9 Stampeders victory, when Cobb sits up straight. He begins barking into his headset.
"Other hash, Timmy! Other hash! Ball goes on the other hash!"
On the screen, the Lions are still huddling. If you watch closely, you can see referee Tim Kroeker nod, pick up the ball, and move it to the far hashmark. Play continues without interruption. Few realize that the CFL's eye in the sky has rescued the spot.
Jake Ireland, a retired referee and CFL Hall of Fame member, is sitting to Cobb's right. He gives a demonstrative thumbs-up. Darren Hackwood, the CFL's director of officiating, is excited as well. "Great catch, guys," he says as the Lions line up for their next play.
The future of football officiating at the game's highest level has arrived, courtesy of the CFL.
On this warm August evening, Cobb is the CFL's video official. Sitting in the league's tiny Command Centre, a 12-by-20-foot room separated from the rest of the league office by a glass wall, he is empowered to fix obvious mistakes while watching the same high-definition broadcast that fans see at home. He can overrule unreviewable penalty calls, alert referees to administrative errors, and ensure accurate identification of players who commit fouls.
The pilot program, part of the CFL's dramatic expansion of replay review in 2016, is being watched closely by the NFL. It is not without its faults and limitations, and CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge used the word "trialing" to describe the experiment. But it is an effort that all sports leagues will consider over time as a method for marrying technology with tradition in the era of HD home viewership.
"We are starting to service a group that has much greater expectations on levels of accuracy based on what they see," said Glen Johnson, the CFL's senior vice president of football. "I fundamentally believe that when you're watching the game at home, you don't care about, 'Oh, yeah, the official is out of position. Rats. Oh well.' It's, 'I just saw, on my fancy expensive television, that the call is clearly wrong. I don't understand why they can't fix it. I don't get it.' So that's what we're focused on here."
CFL video official Marc Cobb, left, and replay official Jake Ireland closely monitor the Montreal-Ottawa game from the CFL Command Centre in Toronto on Aug. 19. Kevin Seifert/ESPN.com
Using technology to 'close that gap'
The CFL's moderate size allows it to be flexible and nimble in ways that the larger and more heavily scrutinized NFL cannot. Orridge considers the league to be "a big enough brand to have significant equity, but small enough to be nimble and to be able to investigate and adopt innovation."
The video official project is the latest stage in an approach that started in 2013, when the CFL added defensive pass interference to its list of reviewable plays.
It marked a foray into reviewing more than simple objective calls such as ball possession and whether a pass is complete. Pass interference is a judgment call that traditionally relies on an official's instantaneous assimilation of the action relative to rules. NFL owners, for one, have no appetite for taking it away from on-field personnel. But after three trial seasons of practice in the CFL, Johnson felt confident about its progress -- boosted in large part by a critical turn of events in the 2015 Grey Cup -- and proposed an expansion.
For this season, the CFL added offensive pass interference, illegal contact and roughing the kicker/passer, among other "subjective" penalties, to its list of reviewable plays. The intent, Johnson said, was to fix "obvious mistakes" that the common home viewer could see.
That mantra is quite literally painted on the wall of the CFL Command Centre. As he described the project, Johnson was sitting underneath a message that read: "The purpose of instant replay is to correct rulings where there is indisputable visual evidence that an incorrect call has been made on the field."
The point, Johnson said, is to "get better at the very, very small percentage of stuff we're not getting right." Just as important: Avoid attempting to correct the vast swath of debatable and/or 50-50 calls in a way that would bog down the flow of the game.
"We can use technology today to close that gap," Johnson said. "But whatever is in that gap, we really only want to deal with the big and obvious things."
CFL replay officials are not looking for a slight tug of the jersey or a glancing blow to the helmet. Instead, as demonstrated in the 2015 Grey Cup, they're looking to correct the kind of call that sends teams and fans into an exasperated frenzy.
With four minutes, 20 seconds remaining in that game, then-Edmonton Eskimos coach Chris Jones challenged an incompletion on a pass to receiver Dorel Walker. The replay showed Ottawa Redblacks defender Brandon Sermons slamming into Walker and shoving him out of the way of the pass.
It was a clear example of pass interference. Back in the Command Centre, the replay official agreed and assessed a 37-yard penalty. The Eskimos, who had been trailing 20-18, were now in position for what turned out to be the championship-clinching touchdown.
"Had the coach not had the ability to challenge that, we might still be talking about that call," Johnson said. "So guess what? He challenged it. We fixed it. It was the right thing, and no one talked about it for more than a week after the game. They just remember that it was a great game and the right team won."
But coaches look for every advantage imaginable, of course, and they pounced this season on the newly reviewable penalties. If they didn't have one already, CFL teams assigned an intern-level employee to the coaching booth during games, utilizing a custom video tablet -- complete with toggling and scrubbing functionality -- to scour plays for potentially reviewable calls.
Consider a Week 9 game this year in which Hamilton Tiger-Cats coach Kent Austin challenged an interception that his quarterback had thrown in the end zone to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Austin's complaint? A missed illegal contact penalty on the far side of the field, some 40 yards away from the interception and in a direction that quarterback Zach Collaros never looked.
"But perfection is not the right thing to chase. What we want to keep chasing is the obvious mistakes that are missed for some unknown reason, the ones that you would just expect to be made. Whether you put an 8-year-old in the room who doesn't know a whole lot about it, but kind of has a sense of what's right and wrong, or you put a really avid fan in the room, we want them to both think the same thing. We want to get to that good commonsense factor." Glen Johnson, the CFL's senior vice president of football
The replay official reversed the interception. Instead of the Roughriders taking over after a touchback, the Tiger-Cats had first-and-goal because of contact that was technically illegal but had no impact on the play.
"In the end it worked out, but you kind of have a receiver coming off the field on every play saying he was grabbed," said Collaros, a former University of Cincinnati star. "If you're all of a sudden in a second-and-10 situation, you can be like, 'Hey, somebody probably got grabbed,' and challenge the call. So I'm not a fan of it. I think you need some human element in the game."
Indeed, reviews nearly doubled in the first 10 weeks, from 1.25 per game in 2015 to 2.43 thus far in 2016. Just as important, the CFL's average time per game swelled by just under three minutes.
"To be honest, I hate it," Collaros said. "[Replay expansion] sucks. It just slows the game down. It just slows it down too much, in my opinion. I don't want to get fined for saying that, and we benefited from it once tonight. But it seems like it always just takes too long."
I witnessed what can be a tense process from the inside during my visit to the Command Centre. As soon as a review was initiated, a red digital timer appeared at the bottom of a 60-inch screen on the front wall. Two 55-inch screens were below. One showed the live broadcast of the game, and the other projected the screen that Ireland used at his table.
On this occasion, the Montreal Alouettes challenged an Ottawa Redblacks completion. Technician Louie Polyzois started the timer and shouted its progress at regular intervals.
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When an alternative view became available via the TSN broadcast, Polyzois captured and titled it.
"New angle!" he shouted. "Angle B!"
"I'm not seeing anything that tells me anything," Ireland said.
"45 seconds!" said Polyzois.
"Are there any other angles?" Ireland asked. Speaking directly to the TSN broadcasting truck, he repeated: "TSN, do you have any other angles?"
"Come on, guys," Hackwood said.
Unofficially, the CFL has a soft cap on replay reviews at 90 seconds.
"Anything else?" Ireland said one more time.
"One [minute], fifteen [seconds]!" Polyzois shouts.
"I see no mistake here," Ireland said.
"Me either," Cobb added.
"Tommy, the call is confirmed!" Ireland said through his headset to referee Tom Vallesi.
The review is over in one minute and 16 seconds.
Midseason tweak
Amid consistent complaints about the number and duration of challenges, from players and fans alike, the CFL took rare midseason action. A week after my visit, the league convened an emergency meeting of its board of governors. Effective immediately, it changed the challenge rule.
Now, a team loses a timeout if its first challenge fails. (Previously, a timeout was taken only if a second challenge failed.) Some might have viewed the change as an admission that the league had allowed replay to grow too large, but CFL officials considered it in the context of their corporate culture.
In a statement, Orridge said in part: "We are proud of the innovation we have brought to our game, including innovation in the use of replay, and the fact that these advances are being followed by other leagues. But innovation in any pursuit is often followed by adjustments and alterations."
The NFL is far too conservative to expand replay to this degree. Senior vice president of officiating Dean Blandino has said he wants judgment calls to remain with on-field officials, and there isn't much support among players for a radical change.
Washington Redskins veteran defensive back DeAngelo Hall, for one, said he couldn't fathom such a transition to reviewing pass interference.
"No," Hall said during a training camp interview, his eyes growing wide at the mere mention. "No. No. No. It's too hard. It's one thing when you're reviewing something that is black and white: Is it a foul or not a foul? But judgment calls? The guy in the booth might see it differently than the guy on the field, and he might see it differently than someone in an office. Who's right? There's such a fine line and such a judgment call there, I think it would be really hard to do. Almost impossible."
Ten saves per game
Reasonable people can debate the limits of replay review and whether it should include judgment calls. But for the CFL -- and the NFL, for that matter -- the video official concept makes too much sense to ignore. Why should coaches, fans and players see easily fixed mistakes, once undetected but now visible on HD screens and scoreboards, go uncorrected?
Johnson's short answer: There is no reason to. His video official, in fact, is tasked in part with maintaining the public's trust.
Hamilton's Brandon Banks catches a pass in front of Saskatchewan's Ed Gainey. Plays like this are being evaluated closely in the CFL's Command Centre in Toronto. Dave Chidley/CFL Photo
On the night of my visit, Cobb toggled between the live broadcast feed and an all-24 angle -- CFL rules allow 12 players per side -- every time he saw a flag. One of his jobs: identifying the number of the player who committed the foul.
Sometimes, he simply told the referee: "It was No. 90, nine-zero, if you need it."
On other occasions, it was clear that the referee was asking him for help.
"I'm looking now," Cobb replied to one query. "Switching to the other angle. Yes. No. 56. Definitely. Confirmed."
It might sound simple, Johnson said, "but there's nothing worse than us announcing, 'Holding on No. 35,' and our broadcast partner going to the replay and No. 35 is not even touching a guy. There is an awkward silence, and people watching at home are like, 'These guys can't get it right!' In fact, it was No. 36 or No. 38. Just fixing a number can help."
Cobb's job is aided by the CFL schedule, which never has more than one game underway at a time. And for now, video officials are limited only to penalties that are not otherwise reviewable. They also can't initiate penalties that weren't called, even if they are obvious, although Johnson said that day might soon come.
Regardless, Hackwood estimated that the video official has contributed between eight and 10 fixes per game this season. Some might be simply flipping the hashmarks or correcting a player's number. On other occasions, the video official helps on-field officials spot the ball after penalties on kick returns.
"That's one of the most difficult things for our officials on the field to do," Hackwood said. "You're watching the penalty and then you have to immediately find where the ball is so you know how to mark it off. The video official has been very helpful with that. We were finding that we were consistently 4 or 5 yards off on those plays before we started this."
Said Johnson: "Nobody notices that. There's no credit given. But I can tell you the outcome is people think we're getting better. They believe the officiating product is getting better because of that. So there's some real benefit to fixing a bunch of those things in the background."
The big payoff, of course, is when the video official overrules an erroneous penalty called on the field. The system was designed for these instances to occur infrequently -- remember, the CFL is targeting only the "obvious" mistakes -- and through 10 weeks it has happened seven times.
Four of the seven have corrected the CFL's tricky offside rule for receivers who are in motion before the snap. On the field it appeared that the receivers were past the line of scrimmage when the ball moved. A quick look at the replay revealed they were not.
On one occasion in Week 5, the Edmonton Eskimos had a 40-yard touchdown play against Hamilton called back on an offside penalty. After a few minutes, it was announced that the video official ruled there was no offside and the touchdown would stand.
Marshall Ferguson, a former quarterback at Canada's McMaster University and now the Tiger-Cats' radio analyst, sat in the booth stunned.
Painted on the wall of the CFL's Command Centre is this line about instant replay for all league officials to take note. Kevin Seifert/ESPN.com
"At that point," Ferguson said, "the conspiracy theorist in me is going, 'They just want a lot of scoring to happen so they're going to help teams score lots of points.' But when we saw the frame frozen, we could see there was no offsides."
Said Collaros: "There's times when it looks like the call is easy and they still don't change it, so it just feels weird to me. The conspiracy theories start to click in there."
The NFL experienced a similar reaction last season when a number of officiating sources theorized that league executives were "whispering" in the ears of referees during games to help avoid mistakes. The NFL has granted Blandino, senior director of officiating Al Riveron and/or the designated replay official formal authority this season to consult with the referee on application of rules, proper assessment of penalties, the proper down and the status of the game clock. The NFL made clear, however, that no one can advise referees about penalty calls as the CFL does.
The future
The CFL Command Centre hardly resembles a bustling hive of innovation.
It is about the size of a college dorm room, with seating for no more than six people. Two window air conditioning units help cool the overflow of video and communications equipment. Keeping the door open helps air circulation, and Hackwood closes it only when the cleaning crew arrives to vacuum the rest of the CFL office.
Occasionally, the occupants raise their voices to be heard over the sounds of a busy city three stories below on Wellington Street. Tim Hortons coffee cups dominate the decor. Standing against the back wall, Hackwood quietly ticked off the league's observations near the season's midpoint.
CFL officiating is running a 94 percent accuracy rate, about two points higher than 2015, based on internal grading of every play. On average, the system -- on-field officials combined with video and replay men -- is allowing two incorrect penalties to stand per game and missing six that should have been made.
"The victory for us is that we feel the officiating is better this year," Johnson said. "But perfection is not the right thing to chase. What we want to keep chasing is the obvious mistakes that are missed for some unknown reason, the ones that you would just expect to be made. Whether you put an 8-year-old in the room who doesn't know a whole lot about it, but kind of has a sense of what's right and wrong, or you put a really avid fan in the room, we want them to both think the same thing. We want to get to that good commonsense factor."
It's easy to imagine similar conversations in the boardrooms of other sports leagues. How best to incorporate the inevitable creep of technology while maintaining tradition, transparency and humanity? Among major North American sports, the CFL has jumped in most aggressively.
Orridge invoked the Japanese expression kaizen -- "continuous improvement" -- to illustrate the league's motivation. Both he and Johnson acknowledge that there is a limit to how accurate officiating can be, and neither man can foresee a day when a football game is fully administrated from the Command Centre rather than the field.
But the tension between the home audience and the view on the field, Orridge said, must continue to be addressed.
"Technology has provided us the opportunity to be more critical and to scrutinize to a level that has been unprecedented," he said. "We can see multiple camera angles at various speeds and literally dissect a play, and the on-field official has to make a split-second decision in real time. So therein lies the tension between what the home audience sees, and even the in-stadium audience, because we've been able to transport that type of technology in-stadium as well. But the tension is always going to have an element of human error. That's because of who we are. There has to be an allowance and acceptance of that.
"But we're always trying to get better."It's just another episode in the long history of moral depravity of US foreign policy
In this report by noted investigative journalist Ben Swann, he presents documentary evidence of what everybody has long known or believed, namely, that the US was the primary force behind the emergence of Islamic State.
The Pentagon document leaked to Judicial Watch talks of creating a "Salafist principality" in eastern Syria, which would serve as a counterweight to the Shiite influence in the region as represented by the Alawite (a Shiite sect) al-Assad government and their Iranian allies.
Not to mention ISIS also provides a very convenient excuse for further US intervention in Syria - the real goal of which is removing Assad at any cost, including even the deaths of tens of thousands, the laying waste to a country and subjecting large territories to the scourge of medieval barbarism.
But the United States of America has never shirked from the hard decisions needed to defend freedom.
Sometimes killing millions is what it takes. You know, the general in Vietnam who said "We had to destroy the village, in order to save it." Hiroshima and Dresden. Or Madeleine Albright telling 60 Minutes that killing 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it" just to depose Saddam Hussein:
In one of the recent GOP presidential deabtes, Hugh Hewitt made it clear what is expected of a US president: being able to "kill innocent children, by not the scores, but the hundreds and the thousands" if that's what it takes to acheive US policy objectives. The audience wasn't even shocked by the question. They only booed when Hewitt attacked Carson personally:
We shouldn't be surprised then that the United States considers it "worth it" to create ISIS and kill many thousands more, just to depose Bashar al-Assad. This is the total moral depravity which charaterizes US foreign policy and has done for at least a century.
And we equally shouldn't be surprised at Washington and the MSM's intense hatred of Vladimir Putin, who actually had the gall to fight and destroy ISIS rather than let their savagery spread to Russia (and Europe).
The CIA (with Zbigniew Brezinski) provoked a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, then created the Mujahadeen which morphed into al-Qaeda.
Yesterday in Brussels we saw another example of the blowback from Western regime change operations. We shall surely see more.
But the CIA and Mossad never think that far ahead. Or more likely they just don't care.Trump Blasts Arpaio Critics: Dems Pardoned Marc Rich, Susan Rosenberg, Chelsea Manning
GOP Rep Writes Rider for Spending Bill that Would End Mueller Probe
Tucker Carlson debated a Democratic strategist who supports a California bill that would suggest jail time for elder care workers who "willfully" misuse pronouns when referring to transgender residents.
Robin Biro said he supports State Sen. Scott Wiener's (D-San Francisco) bill.
"It doesn't sound very American," Carlson said. "You go to jail if you say something someone doesn't want you to say."
Biro said the bill is essentially a way to extend the Patient Protection Act to cover transgender individuals.
He said 28 percent of transgender elders in nursing homes suffered such harassment from their providers.
Carlson said Biro was ignoring the principle of free speech for political reasons.
"You can be put in prison for saying what you think is true," he said of the bill. "This bill criminalizes speech."
"If you use the wrong pronoun, you can be put in jail. That's grotesque."
Biro said there is a difference between a one-off accident and intentionally misusing a patient's preferred pronoun.
Carlson then asked how many iterations of verbal misidentification would "send police to my house."
Watch more above.
Exclusive: Parents Speak Out After Children Upset By Transgender Kindergarten Lesson
'This is Crazy - It's Scary': TX Woman Talks Leaving Her Home as Harvey Floods ApproachWatching the best riders in the world mow down the Alps and Pyrenees in the Tour de France inspired Chris Baldwin from DaybyDay Coaching to write about a very popular objective among his athletes: improving their climbing.
This is second to none when it comes to desired areas of improvement. And while those super humans in the Tour make all but the steepest ascents look flat, anyone can make quantum strides in climbing ability with the right strategy.
The road to climbing greatness can be simplified into two aspects – power output and weight – but there are some nuances |
berVWZYou want to buy a camera? We can pit it against three others with nearly indistinguishable features, no problem. Blu-ray players? We'll compile a three-axis matrix that triangulates the perfect combination of image quality, connected functionality and price. But if you're considering the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport, we can't do much for you.
Comparing it to any other car is pointless, because there is nothing else in its $2.1-million (based on current exchange rates) class.
That same cash-filled briefcase could buy seven Ferrari 599s or every single 2009 model Mercedes. You could snap up a top-shelf Maybach and employ a chauffeur until well past the apocalypse. Hell, in this economy, $2.1 million is probably enough to make you a one-man special-interest group with some serious Washington clout.
But don't. Buy a Grand Sport. Even if there were another 253-mph drop-top with more luxury appointments than a Bond villain's boudoir, you wouldn't want it. You'd want this exact car, because more than being a blast to drive, it is the greatest gasoline-powered vehicle that has ever been, or will ever be, built. Seriously.
Take a moment and consider what Bugatti has done: Because a handful of billionaires demanded that the fastest car in the world be available topless, the Volkswagen-owned ultra-luxury automaker essentially broke the laws of physics. Again.
The first Veyron is an engineering marvel. That's the one with the massively reinforced roof that helped keep the rest of the body from deforming into an amoebic tangle of graphite composite and exotic metal under the joint stresses of lateral acceleration, horsepower and wind. It stands as one of the greatest achievements of the petroleum age. It required the intellectual might of one of the largest and arguably smartest car companies in the world to birth a car that was not only faster than anything on the road, but easy enough to pilot that anyone could drive it. ("It killed my husband" is not the kind of country-club buzz that sells cars.)
To make the Grand Sport, Bugatti's engineers had to do the same thing, only with a giant hole in the middle. It was like designing a picture frame to break rocks.
They had to bolster the floor, doors and B pillars (where the back edges of the windows rest) with acres of carbon fiber. They had to turn the topside air scoops into structural supports for protection during a rollover. Then they had to sacrifice 100 virgins and have the production facility in Molsheim, France, blessed by druids.
The result is the most structurally rigid convertible in the world, which, miraculously, weighs no more and goes no slower than the coupe on which it is based. With the transparent roof removed, air resistance limits the Grand Sport to 217 mph, but you'd want that roof on for a top-speed run anyway; the wind could rip your face off at around 245.
By now, the Veyron's stats are legendary: 1,001 horsepower from a mid-mounted, 8.0-liter, 16-cylinder engine that gets air stuffed down its ravenous gullet by four massive turbochargers. All-wheel drive. A seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission that switches gears faster than a state staffer ducking questions about the Appalachian Trail. Depending on how you define "production car," it is the fastest in the world. In the quickest Lamborghini ever produced, the Murcielago LP640, you can hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. In the Grand Sport it takes a hair under 2.5. How does it feel to command that pace? Godlike.
The acceleration is so immediate you can feel your eyeballs deform under the G-forces. It's a sensation of isolationist joy, an out-of-body awareness that you're moving faster than the world can react. Bystanders vaguely remember seeing a flash of expensive paint a few seconds after you disappear over the horizon; entire generations of insects die on your prow. Passing other motorists becomes a dangerous entitlement that has you resenting oncoming traffic for hogging your "VIP lane" – especially when you realize that you can outrun not only the 5-0's cruisers, but their helicopters, too. If they wanna catch you, they're gonna have to dust off Airwolf and drag Jan Michael Vincent out of rehab.
But this isn't just some dumb auto-jock that takes off from stoplights in a hail of shredded asphalt, molten Michelins and screaming revs. If anything, the exhaust note is a bit tame, and the power is manageable. Unlike driving, say, a Viper SRT-10, you're not in constant fear of accidentally going around a turn ass-end first because you blipped the go-pedal a half-inch too deep. Though the Veyron has almost twice as much power as the super-snake, its all-wheel-drive and 14-inch-wide tires grip the ground with the tenacity of a junkie clutching a five-dollar bill.
A lot of factors contribute to this prodigious hunker-down: the aforementioned tires (Michelin developed them specifically to accommodate the Veyron's top speed) and AWD; the giant mid-mounted engine, placed to provide perfect 45/55 weight distribution; the insanely advanced aerodynamics and suspension, which automatically change the shape and ride-height of the car to provide an extra 800 pounds of downforce when you exceed 137 miles per hour (they'd be illegal in Formula 1 competition, incidentally). And then there's the sheer mass: Though its power-to-weight ratio bests the Ferrari F430 by almost 50 percent, the Veyron, at 4,400 pounds, is still more than half a ton heavier. And gravity is one tenacious bitch. This car sticks to the ground like 1,000-horsepower gum.
Push the Grand Sport hard, and the rear-biased AWD will start to feel looser, making the car light and nimble through the twisties. But even when attacking some seriously hairy turns from deep in triple digits, the Veyron never gave up its grip. And when we almost blew it on a butt-puckering downhill double-apex, the all-wheel-drive system put power in just the right place to pull the car back in line. All while we sat comfortably in bucket seats that made our couch seem fit only for the waiting room of the DMV.
Bugatti offers seven different seat shapes, to accommodate the seven known varieties of billionaire: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Each is based around a carbon-fiber shell and available in whatever animal skin the laws of your kingdom permit. Our test car was fitted with caramel-colored leather. It was nice, but the light hue reflected quite a bit of glare off the steep rake of the windshield.
Other luxury touches include a stereo, we're told. The CD player is custom-designed by Burmeister to operate skip-free at 250 miles per hour. We never turned it on. With the carbon fiber and polycarbonate roof removed, you have the only soundtrack you need: the engine's growl (could be louder) and the roar of the twin air intakes, which suck air like a ■■■■■■■ two rolls of quarters ■■■■■■■■■■ quart of Sterno ■■■■■■■ Las Vegas.
There's also a navigation system. It might be the finest example of passive aggression ever assembled; Bugatti's engineers clearly don't want you to use it. You can only program the system with a separate, 2005-vintage PDA. If you can stomach the Windows Mobile interface long enough to set your destination, you get to view your route guidance in a tiny screen in the rearview mirror. Theoretically. As long as it's nighttime. It's invisible in the daylight, and the Grand Sport is a convertible.
But even if its nav system shouted insults at you, it would be hard to complain about this machine. It is not perfect – no car will ever be. But it's close. And it will likely remain as close as a car with a gasoline-burning engine will ever get. We're at the end of the petroleum era, the end of a golden age of supercars where speed can be sought regardless of consequence. It's highly unlikely that a major automaker will ever be able to justify spending the time and money to develop a fossil-fuel-powered car that can top the Veyron's combination of power, speed, handling, driveability and flat-out luxury. The Grand Sport is the worthy successor to the Ferrari F40, the Lamborghini Diablo, the McLaren F1 and every other Texas tea-drinker that ever owned the title "world's fastest." And its high-level swank takes that prize with style points nonpareil.
Maybe we'll idolize maglevs next. Maybe Tesla will have its day on a Trapper Keeper with a juice box that tops 250. But whatever we're drooling over next year, whatever makes its way onto the dorm-room walls and man-children's screen-savers, it won't run on petrol. Unless it's still a Veyron: the last king of the gas-guzzlers, forever the greatest. All hail.Get 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
Posters for a circus were removed from a town after a woman with a CLOWN phobia told council officials the pictures terrified her.
Officials at Leighton Buzzard Town Council said it took down adverts for John Lawson’s Circus after one complaint - in a town of 28,000 people.
A female resident told the authority she has coulrophobia - a fear of clowns - and the posters were scaring her whenever she drove past them.
The council removed all the posters and told the circus they would only be able to perform there again if they promised not to use clowns on their promotional material.
Council operations officer Lisa Jarvis said: “We take complaints on a case by case basis but this was a short-term, easily solvable problem."
But circus owner and ringmaster John Lawson said: “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. There’s about 28,000 people in Leighton Buzzard, and our posters get taken down because of one person.
“What does she do when she drives past McDonalds, I wonder? It’s victimisation.
“We don’t know who it is, but if we did, we’d gladly offer her tickets to come and see that our performance to show that our friendly clown is nothing to be scared of.”Converted to Islam: Demianus and Seth Gobay. Credit:Michael Bachelard Their story is more evidence that Christian children are being taken from West Papua and converted to Islam - a practice officially denied after being revealed in Fairfax Media's Good Weekend magazine last year. It also makes clear for the first time that knowledge of the practice reaches high into the upper echelons of Indonesia's political elite. The religious conversion of any young child is illegal in Indonesia, and the United Nations deems any transfer of a minor, even for education, as trafficking. But an Islamic boarding school that both boys attended, As-Syafi'iyah, is run by Tutty Alawiyah, a former women's minister in the Suharto government and now a prominent preacher and educator. The woman widely known as Ibu Tutty - who was too busy to answer queries about such a ''small thing'' - is highly politically connected in Jakarta. Indonesia's economic affairs minister, Hatta Rajasa, has been photographed meeting West Papuan children from her school and Religious Affairs Minister Suryadarma Ali presided over a recent celebration of the school's history. In another twist, Forestry Minister Zulkifli confirmed he had at one point fostered the small boy Demianus Gobay at his Jakarta mansion.
Demianus was a naive young village boy when he was taken away by his uncle on a ship called the Labobar. There were about 12 Papuan children on board, Demianus says, most of them girls and most of them also put there by his Uncle Jupri. The girls, Christian or Muslim, were required to wear headscarves. On arrival at the port in Jakarta, Demianus says the group was taken to a nearby mosque. The children were made to dress in Islamic clothes and taught to say the ''syahadat'', the prayer to convert them to Islam. From then on, Demianus was told, his name would be ''Usman''. His original name was ''haram,'' or forbidden, the clerics told him. From the port, the children were taken to different Islamic boarding schools - pesantrens - in Jakarta and the nearby city of Bogor. Demianus was taken to As-Syafi'iyah, run by Ibu Tutty. For two years Demianus says he stayed at the school before he escaped, only to be caught again and taken to another pesantren in Bogor, about two hours' drive from Jakarta. Some years later, Demianus' older brother, Seth, was also brought to Jakarta, also by Jupri Gobay. He says he and two girls were on the boat, and all three were converted soon after their arrival. Seth was given the name ''Umar''.
Like his brother before him, Seth was sent to As-Syafi'iyah, though Demianus had already left. At that stage, the brothers had little idea that they were sharing the same experience. Years later, though, their accounts of life as Papuan village boys cooped up in a pesantren are almost identical. Both were bored with the lessons, which concentrated heavily on Koran recital, religious studies and chanting Arabic. They were punished for being late with their prayers, for leaving the pesantren and for watching TV or using the internet. ''They told us: you get naughtier if you go to an internet cafe,'' Seth says. Demianus went to several different pesantren so it is difficult to tell which incident refers to which school. But he says he was beaten on the legs with bamboo, on the back of the head with a belt until he bled, and burnt with a cigarette if he strayed. He shows the circular scar on his hand. ''If we didn't read the Koran and pray at certain times of day, we were locked up and then we were burnt,'' Demianus says. Seth, who only went to As-safi'iyah, says he also was beaten. Another punishment was to make children walk squatting for one or two circuits of a yard. The children had no access to telephones to call their families in West Papua. The quantity of food was usually sufficient, they say, but there were sometimes weevils in the rice; and they were not allowed to eat pork - traditionally an important part of a West Papuan diet. When they were sick, ''we were just told to lay down, they didn't do anything for us,'' Demianus says. They were allowed out, but only for an hour at a time. If they were late returning, they were called in and punished ''with a belt on the legs''.
One of the teachers at As-safi'iyah, Usman Musa, told Demianus that when he grew up he ''should go back to Papua and Islamise the Papuans'', the boy recalls. Ibu Tutty Alawiyah is famous in Indonesia for her work with children and orphans. She owns the As-safi'iyah pesantren, which was founded by her father, along with a number of other Islamic schools and a university. She was the women's affairs minister in the dying years of the Suharto government and in 2003 unsuccessfully put her hand up to be the presidential candidate for Suharto's former electoral vehicle, the Golkar party. Her staff declined several invitations for an interview, saying she was too busy. Ibu Tutty did not answer a list of written questions. However, one staff member insisted that all the children who came to the school were already muslims, and they were sourced through another religious organisation, BKMT. But this also appears to be part of Ibu Tutty's Islamic empire, and an article on a website for recent converts called ''Mualaf Centre Online'', suggests she is not fussy about how recently her students were introduced to Islam. Describing a group of Papuan children aged from five to 18 as ''cheery-faced teens and smaller kids'' who were ''dark-skinned and with curly hair,'' the article says many were ''recent converts''. As-safi'iyah was one of the schools they were destined to be sent to. As the ethnic Melanesian Christian majority in West Papua is gradually outnumbered both economically and socially by migration from other parts of Indonesia, Papuans see the removal and Islamisation of children as a direct assault on their identity. But a Muslim bloc within Indonesia's national human rights organisation, Komnas HAM, has made it difficult for the body to mount a full investigation of the issues raised by Fairfax Media - including the existence of a small but active network of agents and middlemen who seek out vulnerable children and bring them to pesantren. It's unclear if these men are paid for their work, or who might be funding it, but there is a suspicion that oil money from Saudi Arabia may play a role.
The boys' uncle, Jupri Gobay, who took them to Jakarta, apparently makes regular trips to West Papua and according to Demianus, Jupri himself was trafficked to Java as a primary school child and converted and educated in Islam. Approached for comment by Fairfax Media, Jupri Gobay says the only people he ''helped'' were family members, before terminating the call. Demianus does not know if anyone paid his uncle to take him to Jakarta. Another key middleman, Fadzlan Garamatan, from the organisation AFKN, boasts of having brought thousands of Christian children and converting them, as well as undertaking mass conversions inside West Papua itself. Seth Gobay says he knew ''Ustad Fadzlan'' and had been to his house in suburban Jakarta during his time as a student at As-safi'iyah pesantren. Ibu Tutty is not the only member of Jakarta's elite that Seth and Demianus Gobay met. In early 2012, Demianus escaped from a pesantren near Bogor and began living on the streets on the outskirts of Jakarta. He was being helped by a local family when two men came and asked if he wanted to go to school. The men worked for the Indonesian forestry minister, Zulkifli, who then took Demianus to live in his house in East Jakarta. Zulkifli confirmed these events when questioned by Fairfax Media, saying his own son, Ray, a university student, had found ''Usman'' and fostered him because ''my son has a generous heart''. ''During his staying with us I rarely chatted with Usman because I always came home late. But when I got the chance to talk to him, he didn't speak much,'' the minister told Fairfax Media. ''I heard his parents died after natural disaster hit Nabire … That's why I didn't want to ask him much about his life in Papua, about his parents … I didn't want to bring back his trauma.''
Demianus says he was at the house for about six months; Zulkifli says it was a matter of weeks, but they agree the minister sent the boy to a pesantren. In high society in Jakarta, Papuan children are sometimes regarded as charity cases. In the past, East Timorese children were often taken by Indonesian army members as adjutants or household servants, and their presence raised the reputation of the carer. The same perhaps could now be said for young Papuan orphans. At an event last year organised by Ibu Tutty with 350 orphans, Indonesian economic affairs minister Hatta Rajasa described helping orphans as ''one of our ways to obtain a ticket to heaven''. Zulkifli and bureaucratic reform minister Azwar Abubakar - all three are from the Islamic PAN party and part of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's governing coalition - were also in attendance. Asked if it had occurred to him that ''Usman'' and the others may have been victims of trafficking, Zulkifli says: ''I know nothing about trafficking, I only look after the forests.'' Demianus says that, during his time at the minister's house, Zulkifli and his family ''were all nice'' to him. In December last year, the boys, now young teens, both escaped from their respective pesantrens and sought help from some West Papuan university students, who referred them to a Christian organisation.
After much thought, the boys decided in December to return to Papua, though Demianus remembered very little of his life in his home village, or any of the ceremonies of Christianity, including the Lord's Prayer. At Christmas, they were taken back by university student Frans Tomoki. The boys are now doing catch-up classes at a village school to prepare them for junior high school. Tomoki, meanwhile, believes a group of men in the western part of Papua, including Demianus and Seth's uncle Jupri Gobay, are still bringing children out of poor provinces. All the children are Christian, Tomoki says, destined for conversion. Tomoki says that when it had become known he was helping Demianus and Seth, he received several threatening calls - one from Jupri Gobay, and two more from a man called Muhammad Kotouki, a parliamentary candidate for the strongly Islamic PKS political party in West Papua. The men were quite specific in their threats, Tomoki says. ''They said they would have me arrested for kidnapping.''Armenia’s government is not considering trying to evacuate ethnic Armenians from Aleppo despite the worsening security situation in the war-ravaged Syrian city, the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan said on Monday.
The ministry spokesman, Tigran Balayan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the government is planning instead to send two planeloads of humanitarian aid to Syria in the coming days.
Official Yerevan announced the planned delivery of the aid on Friday after five Syrian Armenians were killed and 11 others wounded amid continuing heavy fighting in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and rebels. They reportedly died as a result of rebel shelling of Aleppo’s government-controlled neighborhoods that are home to several thousand Armenians remaining in the city.
A total of more than 120 Syrian Armenian civilians have been killed during Syria’s bloody civil war.
According to the local Armenian-language newspaper “Kantsasar,” two more Aleppo Armenians were wounded on Monday as rebel forces continued to fire rockets. The newspaper editor, Zarmig Boghigian, said all Armenian schools are closed and local residents have had no electricity and running water in recent days.
One of those residents, Mayda Bakalian, said the Armenian government should have helped the remaining Armenians flee the city. “Europe accepts Armenians [from Syria,] gives them housing and money, why can’t Armenia do the same?” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service by phone.
“Those who could flee have already gotten out of there, but we, the remaining ones, have struggled to survive and now we are not able to do even that,” said Bakalian.
But Zhirayr Reisian, the spokesman for the leadership of the Armenian community in Aleppo, argued against evacuation. “Were the people of Europe transported to other countries during the two world wars?” he said. “People have homes, jobs, businesses, churches, schools, everything here. Should they abandon all this and go to other countries?”
Reisian said at the same time that Aleppo Armenians are free to leave the city on their own.
Tens of thousands of Syrian Armenians have already fled abroad since the outbreak of the conflict five years ago. Some 16,000 of them have taken refuge in Armenia.Hamburg police are currently on the hunt for a 33-year-old failed asylum seeker who is suspected of murdering his two-year-old daughter.
Hamburg police found the body of the two-year-old girl earlier this week while responding to a call from the man’s wife who said he had threatened her. When police arrived at the shared accommodation in the Neugraben-Fischbek district, they found the toddler dead with severe injuries to her neck, Berliner Morgenpost reports.
The failed asylum seeker had fled the scene before the police arrived and the mother was taken to a local hospital for shock along with her son.
A spokesman for the authority on foreign persons told the press the man had come to Germany as an asylum seeker in 2011 from Pakistan. His application for asylum was rejected in early 2012 and he was scheduled to be deported in the summer of that year but was put under “tolerated” status, instead.
The 33-year-old later met his wife and got married in accordance with Islamic law. Authorities would not comment on why the man had not been deported from the country despite having his claim rejected over five years ago.
The family was also previously known to police in Hamburg as they had been called out on more than one occasion for domestic violence incidents, according to a police spokesman.
There were also two separate accusations of endangering a child against the man previously, but both were dropped due to lack of proof.
Asylum Seeker Shot by Police After Stabbing Five-Year-Old to Death https://t.co/ZVMQghA03t — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 6, 2017
The case is not the first time an asylum seeker has been accused of killing a child. Earlier this year, a 41-year-old Afghan asylum seeker stabbed a five-year-old to death in Bavaria before being shot dead by police.
The asylum seeker had previously attempted to kill his former wife and cousin by setting fire to their accommodation and later converted to Christianity – a common move by migrants to avoid deportation to countries where leaving Islam is punishable by death.
In Sweden, a pair of Syrian asylum seekers were accused of killing their five-month-old baby but because prosecutors could not decide which of them killed the child they were both not only set free but given over £14,000 in compensation.Police are asking for help after multiple firearms and a badge were stolen from a former police officer’s house.
The Calgary Police Service need help identifying two suspects in a break and enter where multiple firearms and a police badge were stolen.
During a daylight break and enter on Sept. 14, police said it is believed two men entered a home in the 100 block of Copperfield Heights S.E. before making off with multiple firearms.
In total, nine handguns, four rifles and the badge of a retired Calgary Police Service member were all stolen.
Inspector Mike Bossley with the CPS Investigative Operations Section said retired officers are allowed to purchase and keep their service badges. Bossley said retired badges are marked with a special “retired insignia,” but the missing badge could still pose a risk to Calgarians.
“Anytime an officer’s badge is stolen or goes missing, we want to ensure that the public is aware of such an occurrence,” Bossley said. “The big thing is, if anybody ever questions or is concerned about a police officer’s identity, they should call the Calgary Police Service to determine whether or not that person is an active member of the Calgary Police Service.”
Police could not confirm if the thieves knew the weapons were in the home, but he could confirm the weapons were safely stored at the time of the break-in.
“They were all legally owned and registered, and properly secured inside the residence,” Bossley said. “They were locked up.”
Bossley said the weapons were registered to the homeowner and not the retired officer, adding the homeowner has a connection to the retired officer. Bossley could not comment on their relationship.
“With respect to the badge, it’s something just to commemorate their years of service within the Calgary Police Service,” Bossley said. “So that would be a sentimental thing for the family and the officer.”
Police are reviewing CCTV footage of the crime and have released photos in hopes that the public can help identify the suspects.Lindsay Lohan now 'formally named as a suspect in $100,000 jewellery heist'
Lindsay Lohan has now been formally named as a suspect in the curious case of a jewellery heist, it has been reported.
It was previously believed the actress may have let thieves into a Hollywood Hills home where she partied over the weekend.
However allegations are now emerging that the 26-year-old and her assistant Gavin Doyle have both been named as suspects in the theft.
'Suspect': It has been reported that Lindsay Lohan has been named as a suspect in a jewellery theft
Police were called to the multimillion dollar residence last Monday and apparently questioned the star after jewellery worth an alleged $100,000 was reported missing.
The owner of the house two days ago recanted his story that two men Lohan brought with her stole several expensive watches.
However TMZ now claims that law enforcement sources say the investigation has not been closed because independent witnesses allegedly are pointing to Lohan and Doyle as the thieves.
The website reports that detectives attempted to contact Lohan's lawyer today for an interview but the request was apparently rejected.
Probe: Police questioned Lindsay and several guests at the scene of the Hollywood Hills home
It comes just days afte r TMZ reported that Lilo's father, Michael Lohan talked directly with the owner of the house who made the initial accusations.
'After personally speaking with the homeowner, there was NOTHING stolen from his home,' Michael told the website.
'Lindsay has no involvement and the owner has told the cops that.'
The owner of the home had invited the actress to the all-night house party.
She is believed to have arrived with her brother Coy, her assistant and two unnamed gentleman.
Change in tune: The news comes just two days after it was reported that the homeowner had recanted his story
The star was said to have left the residence at approximately noon on Monday after police questioning and had been'very cooperative' with law enforcement officers.
The actress was famously charged with shoplifting a necklace from a Venice jewellery store in February last year.
She was charged with misdemeanour theft and probation violation, and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and 480 hours of community service.
Second case: Police are also said to be keen to talk to Lohan following her crashing her Porsche (pictured) last June
If Lohan violates the terms of her probation she could face jail time.
Lohan's representative declined to comment when contacted by Mail Online.
Meanwhile, it has also been claimed that a second police division are requesting to talk to Lohan following claims she lied during a police interview.
According to TMZ.com, Santa Monica police are doing their best to get in touch with Lohan regarding an incident last June which saw her car crash into a rig on the highway.
It has now been reported that police believe Lohan may have been the driver of the vehicle, not the passenger as she previously claimed.
Lying to police carries a sentence of one year in jail, and the case has now been referred to prosecutors.
The website also claims that Lohan's lawyer Shawn Holley has now called Santa Monica police to ask them to deal with any issues through her and not with the actress directly.
Showbiz Roundup! Sharon leaves AGT and Harry shows his... responsible side...In this tutorial we will control two DC brushed motors using MSP430 Launchpad (MSP430G2553) and L293D Motor Driver IC (Robot Shield). L293D is a quadruple high-current half-H driver IC which can be used for controlling DC brushed motors,solenoids,relays etc.The IC contains 4 half H drivers which can be combined together to create two full H bridge circuits for controlling two DC brushed motors.The L293D is designed to provide bidirectional drive currents of up to 600-mA at voltages from 4.5 V to 36 V,Here we will be running the motors at 12V.
In this tutorial we will be using MSP430 Motor Control Booster Pack (also known as RobotShield V1.0) which contains a L293D Motor driver IC as well as a RS485 Driver chip which can be used to control the motors remotely or to build a Robot.
The shield is designed to be used with the MSP430 Launchpad (MSP430G2553) development board from Texas Instruments.You can purchase the booster pack from here.The figure below shows the shield along with the MSP430 Launchpad.
Sourcecodes
All the C source files and Circuits used in this tutorial can be downloaded from our GitHub Page.
Please use the codes in the " MSP430-Booster-Pack-DC-Motor-Control " Folder in the Repository.
Videos
Intro into L293D Motor Driver Chip
In this tutorial we are going to control a DC brushed motor using the L293D motor driver chip on the MSP430 Robot shield board.The L293D contains 4 half H bridge drivers that can be combined together for bidirectional control of two Motors.L293D operates on a 5V supply(VCC1,Pin16) and has a seperate input for the Motor supply (VCC2,Pin8).The motors I am using are rated at 12V so i am connecting the VCC2 pin of L293D to 12V input and VCC1 to 5V (supply for the chip L293D).In the case of Motor Control Booster Pack, just connect the 12V input to Screw terminal P2 (bottom left connector on the green board above),the 5V volt is automatically generated by the onboard voltage regulators.Please ensure that the polarities are correct while connecting 12V to P2.
The above figure shows a simplified block diagram of the L293D chip.Here the two Orange triangles on the top represent a pair of half H bridge drivers which are combined together to control the Right Motor M1.The Green triangles at the bottom represents the other two half H bridges (L293D has 4 half H bridge drivers) that are combined together to control Motor M2.
The Pins 1A,2A,1&2_EN,3A,4A and 3&4_EN are TTL logic compatible pins that are connected to the microcontroller pins for controlling the Motors while the Pins 1Y,2Y,3Y and 4Y are high voltage (12V to 36V),high current pins (upto 600mA ) which are connected directly to the motor coils.The L293D has integrated diodes to prevent back EMF's so no external diodes are required.
Controlling the Motor
A single L293D chip can be used for the bidirectional control of two DC motors (Start,Stop,Clockwise rotation,AntiClockwise rotation).In the above case of Motor M1 a full H bridge is formed by using the 2 half H bridge drivers (Orange triangles) controlled by pins 1A and 2A.
The enable pins of the drivers (Orange triangles) are connected together and brought outside the chip as a single pin 1&2_EN. Making the enable pin 1&2_EN logical HIGH would enable both the drivers and making it logical LOW would disable the two drivers. When the enable pin (1&2_EN ) is disabled ie at logical LOW the Motors connected to Pins 1Y and 2Y are disabled irrespective of the logic levels of 1A and 2A.
Rotational direction of the motor connected to L293D ic controlled by changing the direction of the current flowing through the motor pins (1Y,2Y or 3Y,4Y).
If you make 1A High and 2A Low,current will from 1Y to 2Y and motor will rotate in one direction.If you make 1A LOW and 2A HIGH,current will from 2Y to 1Y and the motor will rotate in the opposite direction.
When both 1A and 2A are at the same logic levels ie both 1A and 2A HIGH or LOW,no current flows and the motor stops.The enable pin of the corresponding half H bridges should be high(in this case 1&2_EN =1) for the actions said above to have any effect.
The following table shows the logic levels of 1A and 2A and the actions associated with it.Here H means logic High,L means logic Low and X means Dont care.The directions Forward and Reverse are relative and is intented to show that motor rotates in opposite directions.
For controlling the second Motor ie Motor Left (M2) just replace
1A with 3A,
2A with 4A,
1Y with 3Y,
2Y with 4Y
and
1&2_EN with 3&4_EN in the above table
Circuit Diagram
The Port 2 of MSP430G2553 (on Launchpad) is interfaced with L293D motor control chip on the Robot Shield.P2.0 is used to enable the 1&2_EN pin of L293D and P2.6 is used to enable the 3&4_EN pin of L293D.Since by default P2.6 is used for crystal input you have to select port functions in the Port selection register to use P2.6 pin of MSP430.
All the Port 2.0 pins that are used for controlling the L293D chip are also connected to LED's so that you can see the status of all the control pins which makes debugging quite easy.
Complete circuit diagram of the Motor Control Booster Pack can be downloaded from here.
Code
The code for controlling the motors using Robot Shield is written in embedded C and is compiled using IAR embedded workbench for MSP430.The zip file containing the code contains two C files one for controlling a single motor (L293D-Single-Motor-Control.c) and other for controlling the two motors simultaneously (L293D-Dual-Motor-Control.c).Here we are going to discuss the first one ie controlling a single motor.
The program will run the motor connected to MOTOR_L (Connector P9) in clockwise direction for a few seconds,stop,rotate the motor in opposite direction and stop.Here we are going to use the half H Bridge drivers associated with pins 3A and 4A as shown in the below figure.In Robot Shield the connection 3Y and 4Y are terminated at terminal block connector P9 or MOTOR_L.
MSP430G2553 is connected to the L293D as shown in the below figure.Please note that only a section of the connection relevent to the program is shown (connection between MSP430 and L293D for controlling LEFT MOTOR),the full circuit is available here.
3Y and 4Y are terminated at the connector P9 or MOTOR_L.
The code for controlling the Left motor is given below.
#include "msp430g2553.h"
void main()
{
WDTCTL = WDTPW + WDTHOLD; // Stop the Watchdog
void Delay(int j);
P |
at the event revealed that Microsoft has opened up the Windows Phone camera settings so that Smart Camera - or, indeed, any other photography apps you download - can be set as the default camera program on your handset.
That's a noteworthy change in platform openness from Microsoft. And it's one that Nokia won't be the sole beneficiary of, the rep confirmed.
Setting the standard
Aside from cameras and photo apps, the other area in which Nokia undoubtedly has the advantage over other Windows Phone vendors is build quality. Suffice it to say, Nokia has continued its fine tradition in this department with the Lumia 925.
Indeed, the metal finish around the Lumia 925's edge lends this device something of a premium feel. In terms of finish, it's on a par with Samsung's Ativ S, though the Lumia 925 has a far slicker contemporary design than Samsung's Windows Phone device.
According to Nokia, the Lumia 925 boasts its brightest display to date, too.
As ever, the Windows Phone power, camera, and volume buttons feel a little too loose for my liking here. That aside, though (and despite the switch from a coloured coating to a more 'traditional' one), the Lumia 925 looks like one of the slickest phones on the market.
On first look, there's nothing really here that suggests existing Windows Phone owners will wish they'd held out for the Lumia 925, but maybe that's not the point.
The Lumia 925 feels like the most traditional, mainstream device the Finnish giant has produced for some time.
At a time when many potential consumers are seemingly put off by what they deem to be Windows Phone's radical UI, perhaps something a little more'safe', a touch more conservative is just what it'll take to win them over.A 2005hp Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera twin-turbo by Underground Racing recently set a new world record at the infamous UNLIM500+ drag races, hitting a top speed of 263mph and completing the mile in just 21.852 seconds.
The record-breaking run took place during a Training day and for now, just one video of the run has been released. However, if the videos of this insane 1700hp Nissan GT-R are anything to go by, we can expect a full video run very shortly. In the meantime have a look at the incredible record breaking run!
Update: Dragtimes.info reports the Twin-Turbo Gallardo did the 1 Mile in just 21.852 seconds. The top speed measured was 265.2 Mph at the 1 mile point! This is the new all time record for the Moscow UNLIM500+.FARGO - When it comes to the prices people pay for marijuana, North Dakotans are getting skunked.
A recent post by Forbes data journalist Frank Bi ranked all 50 states by the price people pay for marijuana. Not surprisingly, states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use sit at the top the list of the cheapest states.
North Dakota sits at the bottom of that list, paying on average $387 for an ounce of high-quality marijuana. South Dakotans pay $360 an ounce, Minnesotans pay $341 and Montanans pay $266.
Oregonians pay the least. On average, they pay $204 for an ounce of marijuana. Prices in Washington, Colorado and Alaska, the other states that have legalized recreational marijuana use, are $232, $243 and $294, respectively.
Bi used data from the website priceofweed.com, a site where users can anonymously submit the cost of marijuana they have purchased, either legally or illegally.FOOTBALL: Recruiting - 2019 Signing Day Recap Bronco Mendenhall comments on early signing day for the 2019 class. Thu, Dec 20, 2018
FOOTBALL: Belk Bowl Media Day All-Access A behind-the-scenes look at Bronco Mendenhall's trip to Charlotte for Belk Bowl Media Day. Thu, Dec 13, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Carla Williams Interview - Part 2 Athletic Director Carla Williams sits down with Jeff White to discuss the 2018 Football season. Wed, Dec 12, 2018
VSTV Student Series: Football - The Edwards Family The VSTV special student-produced feature on the amazing Edwards family. Family first, last, always. Sat, Dec 1, 2018
FOOTBALL: Virginia Tech - Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall. Fri, Nov 23, 2018
FOOTBALL: Virginia Tech Highlights The Cavaliers fall to the Hokies in overtime. Virginia Tech Fri, Nov 23, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/19/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Virginia Tech. Mon, Nov 19, 2018
FOOTBALL: Georgia Tech - Bronco Mendenhall Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall following the OT loss in Atlanta. Sat, Nov 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Georgia Tech Highlights The Cavaliers fall 30-27 to the Yellow Jackets in overtime. Georgia Tech Sat, Nov 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Joe Spaziani Feature Senior Joe Spaziani - from quarterback to long snapper. Thu, Nov 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Liberty The 'Hoos extinguish the Flames for victory #7. Mon, Nov 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Liberty The 'Hoos extinguish the Flames for victory #7. Mon, Nov 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/12/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Georgia Tech. Mon, Nov 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/5/18 Jordan Mack, Bryce Hall, Eli Hanback and R. J. Proctor address the media prior to the game against Georgia Tech. Mon, Nov 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Liberty - Player Post Game Comments from Joe Reed, Jordan Ellis, and Juan Thornhill following the victory over the Flames. Sat, Nov 10, 2018
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall Liberty Postgame Coach Mendenhall breaks down the win against Liberty with the media. Sat, Nov 10, 2018
FOOTBALL: Liberty Highlights The Cavaliers take down Liberty 45-24 on senior day. Liberty Sat, Nov 10, 2018
ORANGE&BLUE: Football - Liberty Scouting Report The Voice and The BallHawk stop by to breakdown the Flames' potent passing attack. Fri, Nov 9, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/5/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Liberty. Mon, Nov 5, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/5/18 Lester Coleman, Chris Peace, Evan Butts and Joe Spaziani address the media prior to the game against Liberty. Mon, Nov 5, 2018
FOOTBALL - Coach Mendenhall Pitt Postgame Coach Mendenhall wraps up the loss to Pitt. Fri, Nov 2, 2018
FOOTBALL: Pitt Highlights The Cavaliers fall to the Panthers 23-13. Pitt Fri, Nov 2, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - Pitt Scouting Report Get ready for Friday Night Lights with Dave and the Ball Hawk! Fri, Nov 2, 2018
FOOTBALL: P K Kier Feature Running back P K Kier exemplifies Family First, Last, Always. Thu, Nov 1, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - UNC The VSTV cinematic recap of the Oldest Rivalry in the South. Mon, Oct 29, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/29/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Pittsburgh. Mon, Oct 29, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/29/18 Rob Snyder, Joey Blount, Dillon Reinkensmeyer and Hasise Dubois address the media prior to the game against Pitt. Mon, Oct 29, 2018
FOOTBALL: UNC - Player Post Game Comments from Evan Butts, Olamide Zaccheaus, and Chris Peace following the victory over the Tar Heels. Sat, Oct 27, 2018
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall UNC Postgame Coach Mendenhall breaks down the UNC victory with the media. Sat, Oct 27, 2018
FOOTBALL: UNC Highlights The Cavaliers are postseason eligible as they take down the Tarheels 31-21. Sat, Oct 27, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - UNC Scouting Report The Voice and The Ball Hawk breakdown the Oldest Rivalry in the South. Fri, Oct 26, 2018
FOOTBALL: De'vante Cross The VSTV feature on the offensive and defensive player. Fri, Oct 26, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Duke Exclusive angles from the win over the Blue Devils in Durham. Mon, Oct 22, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/22/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against North Carolina. Mon, Oct 22, 2018
FOOTBALL: Duke - Post Game Comments from Bronco Mendenhall following the victory over the Blue Devils. Sat, Oct 20, 2018
FOOTBALL: Duke Highlights The Cavaliers take down the Blue Devils on the road 28-14. Duke Sat, Oct 20, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - Duke Scouting Report The Voice and The Hawk break down the Devils. Fri, Oct 19, 2018
FOOTBALL: Juan Thornhill & Joey Blount Defensive backs Juan Thornhill and Joey Blount discuss the DB's, Miami game and looking ahead. Fri, Oct 19, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Miami The extended highlights of the 'Hoos win over the 'Canes. Mon, Oct 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/15/18 Coach Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Duke. Duke Mon, Oct 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/15/18 Marcus Applefield, Chris Peace, Evan Butts and Eli Hanback address the media prior to the game against Duke. Duke Mon, Oct 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Miami - Player Post Game Comments from Juan Thornhill and Jordan Ellis following the win over the Canes. Sun, Oct 14, 2018
FOOTBALL: Miami Highlights The Cavaliers take down #16 Miami 16-13 on homecomings weekend. Miami Sat, Oct 13, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - Miami Scouting Report Dave Koehn and Ahmad Hawkins break down the Canes' formidable defensive front. Fri, Oct 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Charles Snowden The VSTV feature on the talented OLB. Fri, Oct 12, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/8/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Miami. Mon, Oct 8, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/8/18 Bryce Perkins, Juan Thornhill, Zane Zandier and Charles Snowden address the media prior to the game against Miami. Mon, Oct 8, 2018
FOOTBALL: Hasise Dubois The VSTV Special Feature on the Junior wideout. Fri, Oct 5, 2018
FOOTBALL: NC State - Bronco Mendenhall Post Game Comments from the head coach following the game in Raleigh. Sat, Sep 29, 2018
FOOTBALL: NC State Highlights Virginia falls to NC State, 35-21. NC State Sat, Sep 29, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - NC State Scouting Report Ball Hawk and The Voice breakdown NC State's high-flying aerial attack. Fri, Sep 28, 2018
FOOTBALL: Zane Zandier Feature Sophomore Zane Zandier is coming on strong at inside linebacker. Fri, Sep 28, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Louisville An exclusive cinematic look at the victory over the Cards. Mon, Sep 24, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/24/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against N. C. State. Mon, Sep 24, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/24/18 Chris Peace, Jordan Ellis, Marcus Applefield and Eli Hanback address the media prior to the game against N. C. State. Mon, Sep 24, 2018
FOOTBALL: Louisville - Player Post Game Comments from Bryce Perkins, Charles Snowden, and Joe Reed following the win over the Cards. Sat, Sep 22, 2018
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall Louisville Post Game Coach Mendenhall breaks down the big ACC win over the Cardinals. Sat, Sep 22, 2018
FOOTBALL: Louisville Highlights The 'Hoos open up ACC play with a 27-3 win over Louisville. Louisville Sat, Sep 22, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - Louisville Scouting Report Dave Koehn and the Ball Hawk breakdown the Cardinals. Fri, Sep 21, 2018
FOOTBALL: Bryce Perkins Feature Quarterback Bryce Perkins followed a long road to land at Virginia. Fri, Sep 21, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Ohio The VSTV exclusive look at the 'Hoos win over Ohio. Mon, Sep 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/10/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Louisville. Mon, Sep 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/17/18 Bryce Perkins, Olamide Zaccheaus, Darrius Bratton and Joey Blount address the media prior to the game against Ohio. Mon, Sep 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Ohio - Bronco Mendenhall Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall following the win over Ohio. Ohio Sat, Sep 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Ohio Highlights Virginia's strong offensive output leads to a 45-31 victory over Ohio Ohio Sat, Sep 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: The Ohio 'Hoos CJ Stalker and Chris Glaser bring a Buckeye State work ethic to the Cavaliers. Fri, Sep 14, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/10/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Ohio. Mon, Sep 10, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/10/18 Chris Peace, Dillon Reinkensmeyer and Mandy Alonso address the media prior to the game against Ohio. Mon, Sep 10, 2018
FOOTBALL: Indiana Highlights The Cavaliers fall in a close battle on the road at Indiana. Sat, Sep 8, 2018
FOOTBALL: Indiana - Bronco Mendenhall Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall following the Indiana game. Sat, Sep 8, 2018
FOOTBALL: Marcus Applefield The VSTV special feature on the versatile grad transfer. Fri, Sep 7, 2018
FOOTBALL: Victory Monday - Richmond The VSTV exclusive look at the Hoos' season-opening win over Richmond. Mon, Sep 3, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/3/18 Malcolm Cook, Jordan Mack, Jake Fieler, and Hasise Dubois address the media prior to the game against Indiana. Mon, Sep 3, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/3/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the game against Indiana. Mon, Sep 3, 2018
FOOTBALL - Richmond Post Game Press Conference Bronco Mendenhall Sat, Sep 1, 2018
FOOTBALL: All-Access - Richmond Week Step into the McCue Center as the 'Hoos prepare to face the Spiders. Fri, Aug 31, 2018
FOOTBALL: Richmond Highlights The Hoos dispatch the Spiders in the season-opener. Sat, Sep 1, 2018
ORANGE&BLUE: Football - Richmond Scouting Report Dave Koehn and Ahmad Hawkins visit the VSTV studios to breakdown the season-opener against Richmond. Fri, Aug 31, 2018
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 8/27 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media leading into the first game against Richmond. Mon, Aug 27, 2018
FOOTBALL: Richmond Week Press Conference - Players Cpmments from Bryce Perkins, Jordan Ellis, Bryce Hall, and Eli Hanback as they prepare to face the Spiders. Tue, Aug 28, 2018
FOOTBALL: Richmond Week Press Conference - Bronco Mendenhall Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media prior to the season-opener. Mon, Aug 27, 2018
THE ROAD HOME: Joe Reed THE VSTV special feature on the third year wideout and his hometown Charlotte Court House, Virginia. Mon, Aug 20, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: 2018 Fall Camp - Scrimmage #2 Highlights and commentary from Scrimmage #2. Sat, Aug 18, 2018
FOOTBALL: 2018 Fall Camp - Practice #2 The 'Hoos hit the field for practice #2 of camp. Sat, Aug 4, 2018
FOOTBALL: 2018 Fall Camp - Practice #1 Virginia opens fall training camp for the 2018 season. Fri, Aug 3, 2018
FOOTBALL - ACC Kickoff Press Conferences The Cavaliers discuss the upcoming season with the media in Charlotte. Fri, Jul 20, 2018
FOOTBALL: ACC Kickoff Chris Peace and Olamide Zaccheaus join Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall in Charlotte for the annual ACC Kickoff. Thu, Jul 19, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT: Football - Final Spring Practice Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall wraps spring practice following Saturday's scrimmage at Scott. Sat, Apr 28, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT: Football - April 27, 2018 Dave Koehn talks with DL coach Vic So'oto on the eve of the final spring practice. Fri, Apr 27, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - Offensive Line The line is grinding as spring ball is underway. Sun, Apr 22, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - Ricky Brumfield The new Special Teams Coordinator in his own words. Fri, Apr 13, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT: Evan Butts The senior tight end discusses the first two weeks of spring football. Fri, Apr 6, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - Mandy Alonso The freshman is the epitome of earned not given, as he and his teammates look to earn their positions during spring ball. Fri, Apr 6, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Spring Football - Kelly Poppinga Dave Koehn gets some early impressions of the Cavalier D by OLB Coach Kelly Poppinga. Wed, Apr 4, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - Joey Blount The safety has a long tradition of excellent mentor ship that he will draw from as he enters his second season with the 'Hoos. Fri, Mar 30, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE: Football - Jason Beck The QB coach talks signal callers with Dave Koehn. Wed, Mar 28, 2018
FOOTBALL: Bronco Mendenhall Media Availability - 3/27/18 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media following the first spring practice of 2018. Tue, Mar 27, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - 2018 Pro Day Nine Cavaliers worked out for over30 NFL scouts at Virginia's annualPro Day. Thu, Mar 15, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - 757 Pipeline Former UVA standouts are training for the NFL back in their hometown. Fri, Mar 9, 2018
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Football - Shawn Griswold The new Director of Football -
Development & Performance in his own words. Thu, Feb 15, 2018
FOOTBALL: Signing Day Press Conference - February 7, 2018 Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall wraps up the 2018 class and discusses offseason work. Wed, Feb 7, 2018
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - 2018 Football Schedule Release Dave Koehn and Jeff White stop by to breakdown the 2018 slate. Wed, Jan 17, 2018
FOOTBALL: Military Bowl - Post Game Post game comments with highlights following the loss in Annapolis. Thu, Dec 28, 2017
FOOTBALL: Military Bowl Media Availability - Players Benkert and Blanding comment on bowl prep. Sat, Dec 16, 2017
FOOTBALL: Military Bowl Media Availability - Bronco Mendenhall Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall prior to bowl prep week. Sat, Dec 16, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 12/4/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media after being selected to play in the Military Bowl against Navy. Mon, Dec 4, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Blanding & Kiser Career highlights of two Cavalier greats. Fri, Dec 1, 2017
FOOTBALL: Virginia Tech Highlights The Cavaliers fall to the Hokies 10-0. Sat, Nov 25, 2017
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall Post VT Press Conference Coach Mendenhall comments after the game against Virginia Tech. Fri, Nov 24, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - VT Preview Quin Blanding and Kurt Benkert discuss the matchup with the Hokies. Tue, Nov 21, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability 11/20/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game against Virginia Tech. Mon, Nov 20, 2017
FOOTBALL - Miami Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall following the loss at Miami. Sat, Nov 18, 2017
FOOTBALL - Miami Highlights 'Hoos upset bid comes up short in South Florida. Sat, Nov 18, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE - Miami Scouting Report Ahmad Hawkins joins Dave Koehn to breakdown the Hurricanes and their turnover chain. Thu, Nov 16, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability 11/13/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game at Miami. Mon, Nov 13, 2017
FOOTBALL - Louisville Highlights Cards down the Cavaliers 38-21. Sat, Nov 11, 2017
FOOTBALL - Louisville Post Game Comments from Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall following the loss at Louisville. Sat, Nov 11, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Andre Levrone The victory over GT was picture perfect for the senior wideout. Thu, Nov 9, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - Andrew Brown The senior stops by the studio to discuss the bowl eligible Cavaliers. Wed, Nov 8, 2017
FOOTBALL - GT Thank You Thank you Wahoo Fans! Tue, Nov 7, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 11/6/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game at Louisville. Mon, Nov 6, 2017
FOOTBALL: Georgia Tech Highlights The Cavaliers become bowl eligible with their win over the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech Sat, Nov 4, 2017
FOOTBALL: GT Post Game - Players Comments from Benkert, Levrone, Kiser, and Blanding after the wild win over GT. Sat, Nov 4, 2017
FOOTBALL - UVA vs. GT Bronco Mendenhall Postgame Coach Mendenhall wraps up Virginia's thrilling win against Georgia Tech to become bowl eligible. Georgia Tech Sat, Nov 4, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE - GT Scouting Report Ahmad Hawkins joins Dave Koehn to breakdown GT's triple option attack. Fri, Nov 3, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Evan Butts The redshirt junior tight end has quietly become a key component of the Cavalier offense. Fri, Nov 3, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/30/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game against Georgia Tech. Mon, Oct 30, 2017
FOOTBALL - Pitt Post Game Comments from Bronco Mendenhall following the loss in Pittsburgh. Sat, Oct 28, 2017
FOOTBALL - Pitt Highlights Virginia falls to the Panthers in Pittsburgh. Sat, Oct 28, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE - Pitt Scouting Report Jeff White and Dave Koehn break down the Panthers. Fri, Oct 27, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/23/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media before heading to Pitt. Mon, Oct 23, 2017
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendehall Post BC Press Conference Coach Mendenhall discusses the loss to BC. Sat, Oct 21, 2017
FOOTBALL: Boston College Highlights The Cavaliers get their first ACC loss from the Eagles. Boston College Sat, Oct 21, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - So'oto's Line The first-year defensive line coach discusses his energetic teaching style. Fri, Oct 20, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Bryce Hall This student of the game is a crucial piece of the Cavaliers secondary. Fri, Oct 20, 2017
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall UNC Postgame Coach Mendenhall wraps up the win against UNC. Sat, Oct 14, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - Marques Hagans Coach Hagans stops by the studio to dicuss the Cavalier's wide receivers and his former teammate, Chris Long. Wed, Oct 18, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/16/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game against Boston College. Mon, Oct 16, 2017
FOOTBALL - UNC Highlights The 'Hoos improve to 5-1 with a victory over the Heels in Chapel Hill. Sat, Oct 14, 2017
FOOTBALL - UNC Players Postgame Hear from Virginia players after the road win in Chapel Hill. Sat, Oct 14, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - UNC Scouting Report Jeff White and Dave Koehn check in to breakdown the Heels. Fri, Oct 13, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Jordan Mack The sophomore is showing he has football in his blood, as he's leaving it all on the field for the 'Hoos. Thu, Oct 12, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/9/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game at North Carolina. Mon, Oct 9, 2017
FOOTBALL: Duke Highlights The Cavaliers open up conference play with a 28-21 win over the Blue Devils. Duke Sat, Oct 7, 2017
FOOTBALL - Bronco Mendenhall Duke Postgame Press Conference Coach Mendenhall discusses the home victory over Duke. Duke Blue Devils Sat, Oct 7, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - Duke Scouting Report Jeff White and Dave Koehn breakdown the Blue Devils. Fri, Oct 6, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Chris Moore The true sophomore is the "Chris-army knife" of the Cavalier defense, Fri, Oct 6, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 10/2/17 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the game against the Duke Blue Devils. Mon, Oct 2, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Brenton Nelson The playmaking redshirt Freshman came to UVA for track but has excelled on the gridiron. Fri, Sep 29, 2017
FOOTBALL: Boise State Highlights The Cavaliers are 3-1 after handing the Broncos their worst home loss in 17 years. Boise State Sat, Sep 23, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - OL Graduate Transfers Brandon Pertile and John Montelus have added strength and stability to the Cavalier line. Thu, Sep 21, 2017
FOOTBALL: Boise State Post Game Press Conference Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media following the victory against Boise State Boise State Fri, Sep 22, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - September 20, 2017 Kurt Benkert stops by to discuss his record-setting day. Wed, Sep 20, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/18/17 Head coach, Bronco Mendenhall, and players, Jordan Mack, John Montelus and Andre Levrone, address the media prior to the game at Boise State. Mon, Sep 18, 2017
FOOTBALL: Bronco Mendenhall UCONN Postgame Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall discusses today's win vs. UCONN UConn Sat, Sep 16, 2017
FOOTBALL: UCONN Highlights 9/16/17 The Cavaliers dominate the Huskies at Scott Stadium. Sat, Sep 16, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE: Chris Peace The Redshirt Junior from Newport News relies on his now solid foundation for development. Fri, Sep 15, 2017
ORANGE & BLUE REPORT - UConn Scouting Report Dave Koehn and Jeff White stop by to break down the Huskies. Fri, Sep 15, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/11/17 Head coach, Bronco Mendenhall, and players, Kurt Benkert, Andrew Brown, and Jack English, address the media prior to the game against UCONN. Mon, Sep 11, 2017
FOOTBALL: Bronco Mendenhall Indiana Postgame Bronco Mendenhall discusses the loss to Indiana. Sat, Sep 9, 2017
FOOTBALL: Indiana Highlights - 9/9/17 The Cavaliers fall to Indiana 34-17. Indiana Hoosiers Sat, Sep 9, 2017
UNCOMPROMISED EXCELLENCE - Doni Dowling The Senior wideout from Richmond plays for more than himself every Saturday. Fri, Sep 8, 2017
ORANG & BLUE REPORT - Indiana Scouting Report Dave Koehn and Jeff White stop by the studio to discuss the 'Hoos-Hoosiers matchup. Fri, Sep 8, 2017
ORANG & BLUE REPORT - Indiana Scouting Report Dave Koehn and Jeff White stop by the studio to discuss the 'Hoos-Hoosiers matchup. Fri, Sep 8, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 9/4 Head coach, Bronco Mendenhall, and players, Quin Blanding, Brandon Pertile and Daniel Hamm, address the media leading into the game against Indiana. Mon, Sep 4, 2017
FOOTBALL: William & Mary Highlights The Cavaliers begin the season 1-0 as they take down the Tribe. William & Mary Sat, Sep 2, 2017
FOOTBALL: W&M Post Game Press Conference Coach Mendenhall's press conference following the season-opening victory against William & Mary. W&M Tribe Sat, Sep 2, 2017
CUE: Football - Tim Harris The Chasing Uncompromised Excellence special feature on the cornerback who's looking to make a comeback in his final season. Fri, Sep 1, 2017
FOOTBALL: Media Availability - 8/28 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and players address the media prior to the first game of the 2017 campaign. Mon, Aug 28, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - Final Day Hear from Quin Blanding as the 'Hoos break camp to prepare for William & Mary. Wed, Aug 23, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - McCue Report Week #3 Jeff White and Dave Koehn return to the VSTV studios to breakdown the 'Hoos defense. Tue, Aug 22, 2017
FOOTBALL: Bronco Mendenhal August 21l Media Availability Coach Mendenhall discusses camp and the roster. Mon, Aug 21, 2017
FOOTBALL: Fall Camp Practice #19 The Hoos get an early one in at Scott Stadium Sat, Aug 19, 2017
FOOTBALL: River Day The team gets a break from Fall Camp with a day on the river. Thu, Aug 17, 2017
FOOTBALL - 2017 Season Ticket Delivery The 'Hoos hit the road to deliver 2017 season tickets! Thu, Aug 17, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 FALL CAMP - PRACTICE #16 The 'Hoos made the trek to Lambeth Field for Practice #16. Tue, Aug 15, 2017
FOOTBALL: Bronco Mendenhall - Media Availability 8/15 Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall addresses the media following Tuesday's practice at Lambeth. Tue, Aug 15, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - McCue Report Week #2 Jeff White and Dave Koehn drop in to the VSTV studios to discuss the Cavaliers' skill position players. Fri, Aug 11, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - Practice #12 Another practice down in the books at Lambeth Field as the Hoos continue to prepare for the upcoming season. Thu, Aug 10, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - Practice #10 The offense and defense trade big plays at Lambeth Field during practice #10.
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Tue, Aug 8, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 FALL CAMP - Practice #8 A DAY AT LAMBETH FIELD Sat, Aug 5, 2017
FOOTBALL: The McCue Report - Week 1 Jeff White and Dave Koehn break down the 'Hoos' first week of Fall Camp '17. Fri, Aug 4, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 FALL CAMP - Practice #6 Big plays highlight the 'Hoos' Thursday morning practice. Thu, Aug 3, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 FALL CAMP - Practice #4 Pads on as the Cavaliers hit the field early Tuesday morning for practice #4. Tue, Aug 1, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 FALL CAMP - Practice #2 Kurt Benkert Discusses the beginning of Fall Camp 2017 Sat, Jul 29, 2017
FOOTBALL: 2017 Fall Camp - Practice #1 Sights and sounds from the the McCue Center as the Cavaliers opened 2017 Camp. Fri, Jul 28, 2017
FOOTBALL - ACC Kickoff Kurt Benkert, Quin Blanding, and Coach Mendenhall meet with the media at ACC Kickoff. Fri, Jul 14, 2017
FOOTBALL - 2017 Spring Festival Sights and sounds from Scott Stadium as the Cavaliers wrapped up Spring Football. Sat, Apr 29, 2017
CUE: Football - Cook's Comeback The CUE special feature on the redshirt senior from Richmond and his fight to get back on the field. Thu, Apr 27, 2017
CUE: Football - Spring Football Benkert The CUE feature on the Quarterback leading the way for the offense. Fri, Apr 21, 2017
CUE: Football - Coach Matteo Go all-access with the newest member of the Cavalier coaching staff, Student Assistant Jackson Matteo. Thu, Apr 13, 2017
CUE: Football - Micah Kiser Student of the Game The CUE special feature on the senior captain and his desire to leave his legacy on Grounds. Fri, Apr 7, 2017
CUE: Football - Spring Practice #1 Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall discusses the opening of 2017 Spring Football practice. Thu, Mar 30, 2017
CUE: Football - Going Hamm The "Jack of all trades" is looking to make his mark in the upcoming season. Fri, Mar 24, 2017
CUE: Football - 2017 Pro Day The CUE feature on the training that went into the 2017 Virginia Football Pro Day. Fri, Mar 17, 2017
CUE: Football - USMC Training Day The Chasing Uncompromised Excellence feature on the final day of Virginia Football's Winter Campaign. Fri, Mar 10, 2017
CUE: Football - Jordan Ellis The CUE feature on the junior back poised to hit the ground running in 2017. Fri, Mar 3, 2017
CUE: Football - Rising Reed The Chasing Uncompromised Excellence special feature on |
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The details of both the first and second round of experiments are contained in a paper posted on the Internet at http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 and submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics. In response to reports that some members of the Opera group had refused to sign a preliminary version of the paper in September, Dr. Ereditato said of the new paper, “They all signed.”
Physicists said the new paper had answered some of the questions about the experiment, but many remain: for example, about how the clocks were synchronized between Geneva and Gran Sasso, and how the distance between them was ascertained. “It does appear that they have done a good job,” said John Learned, a neutrino physicist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who was not involved in the experiment. But, he added, “If there is a deep systematic error in the calculation of expected time difference, this remains.”
Alvaro de Rujula, a CERN theorist, said there were two interpretations of the experiment. “One is that they have stumbled upon a revolutionary discovery; the other, on which I would place my bet, is that they are still making and not finding the very same error.”
In the meantime, Einstein sleeps peacefully.
Asked if he had seen any interesting theoretical explanations of how neutrinos could violate the speed of light among the papers that have been flooding the internet these past two months, Dr. Ereditato demurred. “That’s not our business,” he said. “A good experimentalist tries to be as cool as possible.”
Dr. Learned and Dr. de Rujula both said there were no convincing theories out there yet. “The theory papers are amusing in that it more and more points out how very much trouble this result will cause, if verified,” Dr. Learned said in an e-mail.
He added, “Fun!”Siren has been rated for PlayStation 4
After a long wait, Sony has fulfilled their promise and have begun PlayStation 2 support for PlayStation 4. Backwards compatibility is a huge thing so it’s nice to see Sony finally jumping into it. There are several PlayStation 2 games available now, with the list set to grow as months pass by.
There’s no survival horror games available yet, but that’s soon to change. The ESRB has rated Siren for release on PlayStation 4. This means the game could be part of the next batch of PS2 releases, which will also include Wild Arms 3, Primal, Okage: Shadow King, and Ape Escape 3.
Hopefully the release of Siren opens the gates for even more classic horror games to come flooding through.
[Source]Zaxby's will be the latest chicken chain to open at 425 Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta.
KFC built a restaurant adjacent to Taco Bell and around the corner from Pizza Hut (fellow Yum! Brands), but closed nearly two years ago. In their place, Church's re-entered the market, having closed a unit nearby many years before. Church's renovated the interior and painted the exterior and will be the latest chicken chain to open at 425 Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta.KFC built a restaurantbut closed nearly two years ago. In their place, Church's re-entered the market, having closed a unit nearby many years before. Church's renovated the interior and painted the exterior and opened in late 2011, before closing this past December. Now, Athens-based Zaxby's will demolish the building to erect a new structure for their restaurant. Demolition should begin in a couple weeks with the potential for the new restaurant to be open by late summer / early fall.
Zaxby's opened new locations on Roswell Road in north Buckhead in 2011 and another on North Druid Hills Road near North DeKalb Mall earlier last year. Zaxby's also finally opened their long delayed restaurant on Peachtree Boulevard in ChamHaven late last year. The restaurant broke ground in October of 2011 and sat partially built for many months before finally opening this past November.
Personally, I would have loved to have seen a Bojangles' on Ponce, but hey, ya' take what you can get. New construction and real estate that does not stay on the market long are good things.Electricity at the Iowa Stored Energy Park will be generated by wind turbines. Excess wind will drive a compressor and be stored in sandstone underground for later use. 2008 HowStuffWorks
The ISEP concept was first proposed in 2003, when members of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities (IAMU) formed a study committee to explore how wind energy could be used in creative ways to supplement the state's power production.
Iowa is the third largest producer of wind energy in the United States, just behind California and Texas. To advance its leadership position in wind production even more, the IAMU study committee knew that another large wind farm -- even one containing state-of-the-art, super-efficient turbines -- would not be enough all by itself. They needed a mechanism to store energy. The committee proposed a power plant that would integrate two key elements: a 100-megawatt wind farm and a compressed air energy storage facility.
The idea behind ISEP is based on two successful CAES facilities already in operation -- one in Huntorf, Germany, operated by Nordwest Deutsche Kraftwerke since 1978; and another in McIntosh, Ala., operated by Alabama's Electric Cooperative since 1991. Both of these facilities store compressed air underground. The Huntorf plant uses salt caverns as its storage reservoir. The McIntosh plant uses preexisting mines.
The ISEP planning committee wanted to experiment with storing compressed air in an aquifer. An aquifer is an underground layer of rock that is capable of holding water. The rock can do this because it contains millions of tiny spaces between rock and gravel particles. These little spaces trap water and hold it. As it turns out, this highly permeable rock can also be filled with air. In fact, if you pump air into an aquifer under great pressure, it acts like a giant bubble and displaces the groundwater. A few months after it initiated the study, the committee found an aquifer near Fort Dodge, Iowa, that seemed ideal. The aquifer was close to the electric transmission grid and a gas pipeline. However, the site eventually proved unsuitable for a variety of reasons.
As the team began screening other sites, it also went through some organizational changes. In 2005, the IAMU committee passed responsibility for ISEP to the Iowa Stored Energy Park Agency (ISEPA), an Iowa corporation representing more than 130 municipal utilities in Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Two years later, in January 2007, the agency finally completed its screening process and settled on a site just west of Dallas Center in central Iowa. The site is ideal for a few reasons. The aquifer, 3,000 feet (914 meters) below the surface, is deep and wide, which means it can store a large amount of air. Another appealing feature is the site's geology. The aquifer is comprised of layers of sandstone capped by dense shale. Sandstone is very porous and holds both air and water well. Finally, the site is within 30 miles (48.3 km) of downtown Des Moines, which is good for economic development. The agency hopes that ISEP will become a tourist destination, and being close to the state capital could bring in more traffic.
The Dallas Center site is not, however, the best wind area in Iowa. As a result, ISEPA is investigating the possibility of a remote wind farm. The agency could build the farm or it could contract with an existing privately owned wind farm. Either way, wind is a critical component of the project. In fact, using wind as an energy source is one of the main ways in which the ISEP is different from the Huntorf and McIntosh plants. Both Huntorf and McIntosh use off-peak electricity from traditional nuclear or coal-burning power plants to run the compressor that pumps air underground. ISEP will use wind-generated electricity to run the compressor and will direct any excess energy back to the grid. By using CAES and wind power together, ISEP will be able to provide an environmentally friendly, alternative energy source for homes and businesses.
In the next section, we'll look at how exactly ISEP will make electricity.Anyone remember that one time where Yuuka used a baton when bombing in Mystic Square? No? Well, neither are probably all of the artists, because I've never seen Yuuka with her baton. I know the umbrella is more iconic, but nothing wrong with bringing out the small guns every now and then.And since Orange uses a baton, I like to think that the two get together and do whatever you do with batons every now and then. Cheerleading probably? Somebody need to draw Yuuka in a cheerleader's outfit. Ok they probably exists, but I don't know if she uses batons there.I had this idea for a really long time. As long as the time that I did my previous artwork. Which was actually really long ago. I got sidetracked. Now it's a completely different month, and I'm in a completely different place. I hate time.I tried experimenting with different techniques for this one. The artwork started out on paper, and then I found out that pencil doesn't photocopy. So I decided why not and inked the drawing with a pen. The black lines on the artwork right now are actually pen drawing, scanned into pdf. Which makes for interesting textures. I think I now know how that one guy who drew mlp comics did the texture while having no idea how to use a drawing tablet. I could check right now if he is still alive, but I'm too lazy. I feel like there's a statically significance between artists and mental illnesses, and a lot of them like to drop off the face of the earth because fuck 30,000 subscribers/followers/watchers they are just numbers. I don't know why I choose 30,000, I guess it's big enough to be moderately successful but not large enough to be world famous.Where was I? Oh right, the techniques. Orange's design is slightly more simple than Yuuka's. It might not be noticeable at first glance, but I used 30% opacity clipping mask all black for Orange's shadows, while I used actual colors for Yuuka's shadows. I use a dropper tool to copy the color schemes of better artist's artworks, because I have no idea how to choose colors. I'm pretty sure real artists uses reference charts, so what I'm doing is a more inelegant version of what I should be doing.This comic took around 3 days of on and off work, but took a week to actually be done because I was busy with things and stuff. I think I should be doing something very important, but it's the weekend so I finally have free time. Ever get the feeling that you are missing something important? Really annoying, you never know if it's legit or excessive worrying.I would write more about how Starbow Dream, Sleeping Terror, and Cute Devil - Innocence all have the same leitmotif, what I like to call the "dream" motif, but this description has gone long enough and this has nothing to do with the artwork and I need to upload it before I accidentally close the browser or something. ZUN owns TouhouMeridian Police Chief Benny Dubose tells WTOK authorities found guns, ammo, bomb-making supplies, bullet proof vests and a flame-thrower inside Mariner Durant's house while investigating his apparent suicide.
Durant was found dead in the woods near his house on 14th Avenue Monday. Lauderdale County Coroner Clayton Cobler says the fatal gunshot wound appears to self-inflicted.
Investigators also recovered an AR-15 rifle and a suicide note. A bomb squad cleared the area and removed some type of an explosive device.
Chief Dubose also confirms state and local authorities swept local polling places Tuesday morning and deemed them safe. The chief says the sweep was done as a precaution following the suicide and what was recovered in the investigation.
Durant was a Libertarian candidate for mayor until early May when he withdrew from the race. Durant dropped out of the race before the May primary citing "safety reasons."
Multiple law enforcement agencies are assisting the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is the lead agency.
Dubose says the MPD assisted in helping remove bomb making materials from the home Monday and waited for a bomb squad.
Newscenter 11 reached out to Durant's family. Members told us off-camera that Durant's death is still fresh and the family is grieving together. The family asked for prayer. No plans for funeral arrangements were immediately announced. Residents of the area offered their condolences.New Jersey will soon have the largest rooftop solar power plant in North America…again. The plant, known as Riverside Renewable Energy (RRE), is located atop the Gloucester Marine Terminal’s refrigerated warehouse on the Delaware River. This isn’t the only time we’ve heard of solar rooftop power being laid down down in this state, but it certainly looks to be the most impressive plan to date, even dwarfing this 17,700+ panel project we wrote about a few months back.
The RRE costs $42 million and will cover 1.1 million square feet atop the terminal. The 9 megawatt project will contain 27,528 photovoltaic rooftop solar panels and generate enough energy at capacity to power the equivalent of 1,500 homes. Despite the size, only 80 percent of the terminal’s energy demands will be met by the panels, though it will still offset 9,500 tons of carbon dioxide, which is roughly equivalent to planting 400,000 trees.
RRE is a joint venture between the Holt Family, who owns the Gloucester Marine Terminal, and Sun Power. Sun Power is supplying the T5 Solar Roof Tile system. It combines solar panels, frame and mounting system into a single, pre-engineered unit.
Financing is being led by Rabobank, a global bank and financier of renewable energy projects. The project will also rely in part upon “federal Investment Tax Credits that supply tax incentives to spur the development of green energy sources systems nationwide; and the continued support of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) created through the New Jersey Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which also enhances the economic viability of the project. Riverside will sell the SRECs and environmental benefits associated with the system.”
Construction is said to be underway and should reportedly be completed by the fall.Vegan Mocha Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel drizzle. How to make a Moist Mocha Cake. Drizzled with vegan salted caramel. Vegan Recipe. Jump to Recipe
Long weekend is almost over.. Some needed rest, good food, random shopping( hubbs picked up a skate board), movies and now back to this weeks posts. The weekend was a pizza day with friends, with 2 Pizza options on my home made wheat crust, some spinach and tomatoes and vegan cheese on one and Tempeh Tikka masala, onion, jalapeno, cilantro on the other.
This easy cake has wheat, oat and almond flours, melted chocolate and coffee. Serve it with
More chocolatey options from the blog
Print Vegan Mocha Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel drizzle Prep Time 15 mins Cook Time 30 mins Total Time 45 mins How to make a Moist Mocha Cake. Drizzled with vegan salted caramel. Vegan Recipe. MY LATEST VIDEOS Course: Dessert Cuisine: American, Vegan Keyword: Chocolate and caramel, easy cake recipe, vegan chocolate cake Servings : 12 servings Calories : 181 kcal Author : Vegan Richa Ingredients Vegan Mocha Chocolate Cake Wet: 1/4 cup oil I used organic canola
2 Tbsp agave or maple syrup
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk or non dairy milk plus a few drops of vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
1.5 Tablespoon instant coffee or substitute the 1/4 cup water above with 1/4 cup brewed coffee- preferably strong
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup raw sugar
2 Tablespoons flaxmeal
1/3 cup dark chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips Dry: 2 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 cup Wheat flour
1/2 cup Oat flour Use wheat flour or AP flour for less crumbly cake
1/4 cup raw Cashew ground
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 tsp salt Vegan Salted Caramel Sauce: 1/4 cup raw sugar ground you can also use other sweeteners like coconut sugar
1 teaspoon virgin coconut oil melted
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon coconut milk or almond milk or non dairy milk US Customary - Metric Instructions Vegan Mocha Chocolate Cake Preheat the oven to 365 degrees F. In a bowl, add all of the wet ingredients, mix and warm in the microwave, or on stove top until just about hot to touch. Add in the chocolate chips or bar, and whisk until chocolate melts and is well combined. Let sit for 2 minutes. In another bowl, mix all the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. whisk well. Add the dry to the wet. Mix until just about combined. Pour batter in greased or parchment lined 8 inch pan. Bake at preheated 365 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick from the center comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes, then remove from pan. Cool completely before slicing. Before serving drizzle liberally with warm salted caramel! Vegan Salted Caramel Sauce: inspired by Chef Chloe's recipe In a small saucepan, over medium heat, combine all ingredients( 1 Tablespoon coconut milk). stirring frequently. Once mixture comes together, increase heat to medium-high for 1 to 2 minutes, until it begins to boil and the bubbles move into the center of the caramel and it thickens just a little(a few more seconds). Remove from heat and let cool. Then pour this insanely delicious caramel over everything! Recipe Notes Nutritional values are based on one serving Nutrition Facts Vegan Mocha Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel drizzle Amount Per Serving Calories 181 Calories from Fat 81 % Daily Value* Total Fat 9g 14% Saturated Fat 2g 10% Sodium 58mg 2% Potassium 119mg 3% Total Carbohydrates 23g 8% Dietary Fiber 1g 4% Sugars 13g Protein 2g 4% Calcium 3.6% Iron 7.2% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
I think I am getting a chocolate addiction also because of the new Molten Chocolate Cakery in town.
They have this amazingly gooey, vegan dark chocolate, Take-n-Bake Molten Chocolate cake in a mason jar. Just take the lid off, bake and serve/eat. They also have vegan salted caramel in a jar, which is what I have been drizzling on my mocha cakes, and adding a dollop to the the batter some days too."Texas, Our Texas" is the official state song of Texas. It was written in 1924 by William J. Marsh, who was born in Liverpool, England, and emigrated to Texas as a young man, and Gladys Yoakum Wright, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, and selected as the state song by a concurrent resolution of the Texas Legislature in 1929 following a statewide competition. Older songs, such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "Dixie", were also considered but ultimately it was decided a new song should be composed. At times, there have been movements to replace "Texas, Our Texas" with the better known "The Eyes of Texas".
The first word of the third line was originally largest, but when Alaska became the largest state when it was admitted to the United States in 1958, the word was replaced with boldest.[1]
This song was sung in group by elementary students in Texas at the beginning of their school classes during the 1950s. At that time "largest" started the third line of the first verse. As of the 1980s, this song was still sung before classes in some schools, along with the pledge to the U.S. and Texan flags, but with "boldest" instead of "largest".
Lyrics [ edit ]
Texas, Our Texas! All hail the mighty State! Texas, Our Texas! So wonderful so great! boldest and grandest, withstanding ev'ry test O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest.
(chorus)
Texas, O Texas! your freeborn single star, Sends out its radiance to nations near and far, Emblem of Freedom! it sets our hearts aglow, With thoughts of San Jacinto and glorious Alamo.
(chorus)
Texas, dear Texas! From tyrant grip now free, Shine forth in splendor your star of destiny Mother of heroes, we come you children true. Proclaiming our allegiance, our faith, our love for you.
(chorus)
Chorus:
God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong, That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.Eight-year-old Stephane Lin had a cough that she couldn’t quite seem to kick.
One day, Stephane’s coughing was the worst it had ever been, and it kept her up through the night. Eventually, she was having trouble even breathing. That’s about when her memory stops for a while.
When Stephane came to later that night, she was sitting in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires, watching her mother, Ruuzhi Chen, crying in a chair next to her.
Luckily, it was far from the worst a trip to the emergency room can be. The diagnosis was asthma. But the bad news was that the doctor warned attacks such as this would only get worse, unless Stephane adopted some sort of physical activity. He didn’t make a specific demand, but he made it clear something had to change. Nobody in the room could have seen just how far that change would take her.
None of the Lin children had grown up playing sports. Ruuzhi did not push it on them, and their father, Haide Lin, is a violinmaker who owned a shop on University Avenue. When looking for ideas on what activity to take up, they had to look outside their immediate family.
So it was time for a trip to Guangzhou, China, to see Stephane’s grandfather.
Stephane’s grandfather was a passionate senior tennis player, who had developed a relationship with the Chinese Women’s National Team, who played on a court close to his home. Stephane was reluctant to begin playing tennis, but her grandfather dragged her to the courts on which the national team practiced. Whatever time was not spent playing the game with her grandfather and other teachers was spent watching the national team practice just a few courts over.
Watching tennis at the national level is a very special thing. Tennis is a game of emotions and attitude, and professional players consistently say that playing for one’s country raises the stakes of the game more than any individual competition does.
Being able to watch the national team imparted the pride of the game upon Stephane at such an early age. But that’s not to say things came easy for Stephane immediately.
“I took my first swing and I did a 360 (turn) and the ball ended up behind me,” Stephane remembers with a laugh. “So at first I was like, OK, I’m giving up now. But I couldn’t give up on my health … and I always like a challenge.”
The family stayed in Guangzhou for about a month before heading back home, and Stephane felt she had to quickly make a decision about what her focuses were going to be. She played violin, cello and flute, and it seemed nearly impossible to juggle all of those if she was intent on pursuing tennis seriously. You might think her violin-making father would have preferred that she kept her passion for music going, but that’s not the way Stephane remembers it.
“My dad would tell me, ‘Would you rather have three (dull) knives or one sharp knife?’” Stephane recalls. “He loved our interest in music, but he knew I had to choose what was better for me because of my health.”
Given the chance to go with the knife of her choice, Stephane happily picked the tennis racket.
The sharpening process did not take long. She had already started playing in USTA Tournaments when she turned 9, and by 12, she was dominating them. At about the same time, her physical conditioning had also improved her breathing to the point that her asthma became an afterthought. Her commitment to the game had solved the problem it was initially meant to address, and she was being rewarded with win after win.
Stephane’s older brother George Lin ended up going to school at UC Berkeley, just down the road from their father’s shop, and only a 30-minute drive away from their home in Pinole, California. George picked up tennis along with Stephane, albeit not as seriously as she did. Still, George’s time at UC Berkeley brought Stephane down to the campus two or three times a week to play at Willard Park and occasionally even at the Hellman Tennis Complex.
Improving her game at Berkeley and breezing through middle school USTA tournaments, Stephane arrived at Pinole Valley High School as a top college recruit. High school tennis simply wasn’t going to be much of a challenge for her.
“People didn’t take tennis as seriously as I did,” Stephane says. “They didn’t spend the time like I did, so it really wasn’t even fair for them to play against me.”
Stephane came to an arrangement with her high school coach. She would play matches but did not have to practice with her team — she was better served training with her private coach. She still came to practice once a week but more as an assistant coach than a player. Stephane racked up wins and awards, such as a NCS Division 1 girl’s singles title and East Bay girl’s tennis Player of the Year. Even with all that extracurricular activity, Stephane managed to find the time to be valedictorian of her graduating class.
A five-star, top-100 recruit, Stephane received plenty of scholarship offers from top tennis schools. Cal head coach Amanda Augustus had recruited Stephane with a walk-on position for the Bears, and Stephane had her heart set on UC Berkeley — which is unsurprising, considering how familiar she had become with the school. With a full academic scholarship to go along with the walk-on offer, she enrolled. She did not, however, take the spot.
I didn’t feel at home when I was visiting (other) schools,” Stephane says. “And I shouldn’t have accepted them if I didn’t feel like I was home. Berkeley was my top school. l didn’t even think about playing on the varsity team my first year. I was a little bit scared, and my parents said to focus on my academics.”
Because even the best college players in the nation don’t generally go off to pro careers, education was still the focus for Stephane in the college process. Even if she wasn’t going to be on the court for the Bears, being a Bear was still important.
That didn’t mean Stephane was going to stop playing tennis entirely. She joined the club team upon arriving on campus. Unfortunately, the competition she encountered on the club team did not turn out to be much tougher than what she found in high school. And just like in high school, Stephane dominated. Blasting through the season with ease, Stephane propelled the team to a championship at the 2014 USTA Tennis On Campus Championships in Surprise, Arizona.
“They only practiced two times a week, and I just felt like it was not enough for me,” Stephane says. “They took it as a fun club thing, and I breezed through my matches. I thought I needed something more challenging, because I want to be the best I can be and push my limits everyday.”
The championships took place before summer break, and Stephane’s summer plans proved pivotal. Stephane went back to the same spot in China where she had first learned to play and ended up actually training with the Chinese Women’s National Team. And once again, it was the team’s discipline and passion that propelled Stephane to make her next big move.
“They train so hard in the heat,” Stephane says, “it made me think if I can play through this, America is going to be a lot easier.”
Stephane and Augustus were in contact throughout her freshman year, so for Augustus, it may not have been much of a surprise to see Stephane ultimately reach the point where she wanted to take on the extra challenge of joining the varsity team.
“I was just checking in with her, as I do with other freshmen,” Augustus says. “It was an ongoing conversation. Just as people try to find a major or an interest, it can change with your time on campus as you find your passion.”
Stephane wrote an email to Augustus at midnight the day she got back from China, explaining that she was ready to take on the commitment that joining the varsity team demanded from her. At 6:30 a.m., an email was waiting in Stephane’s inbox. Her spot on the team was still waiting.
A week later, they made it official. Stephane was a varsity tennis player.
With a winning record in singles through one and a half years of her career on the team, her success is undeniable. 12 years removed from taking up the game as a medical necessity, Stephane is making a name for herself and thriving on one of the premier women’s tennis programs in the nation.
“Everybody finds the sport in their own unique way, and I’m just happy she found the sport,” Augustus says. “She loves to play and she loves to compete, and she’s a really good teammate. However one finds their way to tennis, I’m supportive of it.”
Contact Andrew Wild at [email protected]Knowmad Society explores the future of learning, work, and how we relate with each other in a world driven by accelerating change, value networks, and the rise of knowmads.
Knowmads are nomadic knowledge workers –creative, imaginative, and innovative people who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere. The jobs associated with 21st century knowledge and innovation workers have become much less specific concerning task and place, but require more value-generative applications of what they know. The office as we know it is gone. Schools and other learning spaces will follow next.
This book explores the future of learning, work and how we relate with each other in a world where we are now asked to design our own futures.
Key topics covered include: reframing learning and human development; required skills and competencies; rethinking schooling; flattening organizations; co-creating learning; and new value creation in organizations.
In this volume, nine authors from three continents, ranging from academics to business leaders, share their visions for the future of learning and work. Educational and organizational implications are uncovered, experiences are shared, and the contributors explore what it’s going to take for individuals, organizations, and nations to succeed in Knowmad Society.
Nine co-authors with perspectives from three continents
John W. Moravec (editor, co-author, USA): John is the founder of Education Futures, a network of subject matter experts, big dreamers, and change agents. His research and action scholarship agenda are focused on building positive futures for human systems which are approaching an increasingly complex and ambiguous era.
(editor, co-author, USA): John is the founder of Education Futures, a network of subject matter experts, big dreamers, and change agents. His research and action scholarship agenda are focused on building positive futures for human systems which are approaching an increasingly complex and ambiguous era. Thieu Besselink (co-author, Netherlands): Thieu is the founder of The Learning Lab, a think-tank for social change. He is a learning innovator, researcher, philosopher, and social entrepreneur. He teaches social entrepreneurship, action research, system innovation, and leadership learning at Amsterdam University and Utrecht University.
(co-author, Netherlands): Thieu is the founder of The Learning Lab, a think-tank for social change. He is a learning innovator, researcher, philosopher, and social entrepreneur. He teaches social entrepreneurship, action research, system innovation, and leadership learning at Amsterdam University and Utrecht University. Edwin de Bree (co-author, Netherlands): Edwin is an organizational survival guide, and helps companies survive the post-hierarchic network society. He is a co-founder of the hybrid project, Entrepreneurial Organizations, and is also co-founder of the De Koers Sudbury-type school in the Netherlands.
(co-author, Netherlands): Edwin is an organizational survival guide, and helps companies survive the post-hierarchic network society. He is a co-founder of the hybrid project, Entrepreneurial Organizations, and is also co-founder of the De Koers Sudbury-type school in the Netherlands. Cristóbal Cobo (co-author, Chile): Cristóbal is a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. He coordinates research on innovation, open educational practices and the future of the Internet (EU-FP7), and blogs at e-rgonomic.
(co-author, Chile): Cristóbal is a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. He coordinates research on innovation, open educational practices and the future of the Internet (EU-FP7), and blogs at e-rgonomic. Christel Hartkamp-Bakker (co-author, Netherlands): Christel is co-founder of De Kampanje, a Sudbury-type school in Amersfoort, Netherlands. She has been actively involved in the European Democratic Education Community as a council-member, and developed her expertise on the wide variety of approaches that exist between democratic schools. In 2014, she co-founded Newschool.nu, a Sudbury-type democratic school.
(co-author, Netherlands): Christel is co-founder of De Kampanje, a Sudbury-type school in Amersfoort, Netherlands. She has been actively involved in the European Democratic Education Community as a council-member, and developed her expertise on the wide variety of approaches that exist between democratic schools. In 2014, she co-founded Newschool.nu, a Sudbury-type democratic school. Ronald van den Hoff (co-author, Netherlands): Ronald is co-owner of CDEF Holding BV, and maintains a portfolio of companies active on the borderline of hospitality industry and the world of social media. CDEF operates innovative, disruptive Blue Ocean formulas such as the co-working and meeting centers Seats2meet.com, the virtual eco-systeem Mindz.com, the Internet communication company Cyberdigma BV and the Meeting Plaza convention centers.
(co-author, Netherlands): Ronald is co-owner of CDEF Holding BV, and maintains a portfolio of companies active on the borderline of hospitality industry and the world of social media. CDEF operates innovative, disruptive Blue Ocean formulas such as the co-working and meeting centers Seats2meet.com, the virtual eco-systeem Mindz.com, the Internet communication company Cyberdigma BV and the Meeting Plaza convention centers. Christine Renaud (co-author, Canada): Christine is a Montreal-based social entrepreneur who is passionate about self-directed learning and community-based learning. As the CEO of E-180, she is responsible for managing the educational direction, sales, funding, partnerships, and the community building behind E-180.
(co-author, Canada): Christine is a Montreal-based social entrepreneur who is passionate about self-directed learning and community-based learning. As the CEO of E-180, she is responsible for managing the educational direction, sales, funding, partnerships, and the community building behind E-180. Pieter Spinder (co-author, Netherlands): Pieter is the founder of Knowmads Business School Amsterdam, where young people investigate and pursue what drives them in life. In addition to the one-year program, he is interested in entrepreneurial behaviour, creativity, and leadership.
(co-author, Netherlands): Pieter is the founder of Knowmads Business School Amsterdam, where young people investigate and pursue what drives them in life. In addition to the one-year program, he is interested in entrepreneurial behaviour, creativity, and leadership. Bianca Stokman (co-author, Netherlands): Bianca has a background in organizational psychology, human resource sciences, and also studied voice at the Conservatory of Utrecht. In 2011, she started her own business, Messing & Groef, as a trainer and coach for personal and leadership development. She is fascinated by the biological foundations of human behavior and learning.
(co-author, Netherlands): Bianca has a background in organizational psychology, human resource sciences, and also studied voice at the Conservatory of Utrecht. In 2011, she started her own business, Messing & Groef, as a trainer and coach for personal and leadership development. She is fascinated by the biological foundations of human behavior and learning. Gary Hart (afterward contributor, USA): Gary has been extensively involved in international law and business, as a strategic advisor to major U.S. corporations, and as a teacher, author and lecturer. Gary Hart represented the State of Colorado in the United States Senate from 1975 to 1987. In 1984 and 1988, he was a candidate for his party’s nomination for U.S. President.
(afterward contributor, USA): Gary has been extensively involved in international law and business, as a strategic advisor to major U.S. corporations, and as a teacher, author and lecturer. Gary Hart represented the State of Colorado in the United States Senate from 1975 to 1987. In 1984 and 1988, he was a candidate for his party’s nomination for U.S. President. Martine Eyzenga (layout/design, Netherlands): Martine is a graphic artist and information designer. Her creative work is featured in the core designs of the PICNIC Festival, Project Dreamschool, and Operation Education social innovation platforms.
(layout/design, Netherlands): Martine is a graphic artist and information designer. Her creative work is featured in the core designs of the PICNIC Festival, Project Dreamschool, and Operation Education social innovation platforms. Symen Veenstra (cover illustrator, Netherlands): Symen (Enkeling) is an Amsterdam-based visual artist. His work is focused on illustration, typography, and portraiture.
Print edition and read online at Education FuturesFormer Senator Sam Nunn has a new gig. He’s a Steering Committee memberfor the “Campaign to Fix The Debt,” which is advocating for economy-killing austerity.
This week he appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box as a guest host. He was joined by fellow Campaign to Fix The Debt committee member David Cote, a billionaire CEO who has said he wants a zero percent corporate tax rate. Nunn laid out his case for cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age:
COTE: When you recommend something like that you raise the retirement age by a year 75 years from now when my grandchildren will already be retired — and the outcry begins — say this is ridiculous […] N |
major Anopheles vectors of human malaria parasites and review of resistance status for the Afrotropical region.
The distribution of pyrethroid resistance in African malaria vectors was described in a 2011 article in this journal []. At this time, pyrethroid-resistant populations of Anopheles gambiae were prevalent in western and central Africa but were rarer in southern and eastern countries of the continent. Pyrethroid resistance is now widely spread across the continent with An. gambiae in Kenya, much of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe resistant to this insecticide class. Data remain scarce for much of central Africa, although reports are emerging of pyrethroid resistance across the Democratic Republic of Congo []. In summary, although An. gambiae populations fully susceptible to pyrethroids are still present in 2015 [e.g., in parts of Angola, Madagascar, and Mozambique ( http://www.africairs.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Multi-Country-Profile-of-Insecticide-Resistance-on-Malaria-Vectors.pdf )] they are becoming increasingly outnumbered by resistant populations ( Figure 1 A).
Changes in Pyrethroid Mortality in Major African Malaria Vectors Over Time. Percentage mortality of (A) Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l.) and (B) Anopheles funestus s.l mosquitoes exposed to 0.05% deltamethrin (blue) or 0.75% permethrin (orange) in World Health Organization (WHO) susceptibility bioassays. Data from 1995 to 2015 were extracted from IR Mapper
An online tool for mapping insecticide resistance in major Anopheles vectors of human malaria parasites and review of resistance status for the Afrotropical region.
Keeping track of the spread of insecticide resistance is a challenge for malaria control programs, with many lacking the resources or expertise to conduct regular monitoring and/or the databases to store and access this data []. Two global databases have been established (IR Mapper [] and VectorBase []), with the WHO also planning to establish their own global database []. These databases face difficulties in ensuring the timely and comprehensive inclusion of quality-assured data from all sources but an even greater obstacle for countries is using the available resistance data to make informed decisions on malaria control. With just one chemical class available for LLINs and two MoAs for IRS, limited budgets, and widespread resistance already circulating, preserving the susceptibility of malaria vectors is probably beyond the reach of most control programs. As a result, decisions on changes in insecticide use are generally precluded by evidence of control failure with existing tools. A greater understanding of the link between resistance bioassay results and the protective efficacy of LLINs or IRS is important to facilitate this decision making and also to predict the future prospects for malaria control in an era of widespread resistance.
Implementation of the global plan for insecticide resistance management in malaria vectors: progress, challenges and the way forward.
An online tool for mapping insecticide resistance in major Anopheles vectors of human malaria parasites and review of resistance status for the Afrotropical region.
Implementation of the global plan for insecticide resistance management in malaria vectors: progress, challenges and the way forward.
Most An. gambiaepopulations remain susceptible to carbamates ( Figure 3 A) and organophosphates ( Figure 3 B), although reports of resistance to these two classes [which share the same mode of action (MoA)] are increasing and may be expected to rise further in areas where IRS programs are replacing pyrethroids with these insecticide classes in response to pyrethroid resistance (see below). Of particular concern are populations that show resistance to all four classes of insecticide available for malaria control, this has been reported in several countries including Côte d’Ivoire [] and Mali [].
The Distribution of Carbamate (A) and Organophosphate (B) Resistance in Africa. Maps were created from data extracted from the IR Mapper
An online tool for mapping insecticide resistance in major Anopheles vectors of human malaria parasites and review of resistance status for the Afrotropical region.
What Is the Impact of Insecticide Resistance on Malaria Transmission?
randomized controlled trials to assess the impact of resistance, these would be unlikely to yield answers in the time frame necessary for action. Below we review some of the alternative approaches to assessing the impact of pyrethroid resistance. Box 1 Challenges in Assessing the Impact of Resistance on Malaria Transmission • 45 Jones C.M. et al. Aging partially restores the efficacy of malaria vector control in insecticide-resistant populations of Anopheles gambiae s.l. from Burkina Faso. 29 Kleinschmidt I. et al. Design of a study to determine the impact of insecticide resistance on malaria vector control: a multi-country investigation. Resistance is a variable trait. The phenotype is influenced by, for example, the age and physiological status of the mosquito [], the rearing conditions of the larvae before the assay, and the temperature and humidity in the testing room []. This introduces large variability into bioassay data, making significant trends difficult to detect.
• Bioassays do not capture the lifetime impact of insecticide exposure. Routine surveillance typically assesses resistance on the basis of 24-h mortality responses. However, if resistant mosquitoes have reduced fitness after surviving exposure to LLINs, the impact of resistance on parasite transmission may be reduced.
• LLINs provide a physical and chemical barrier to mosquitoes. Intact LLINs may still provide a high degree of personal protection even when most mosquitoes are resistant. Yet, once holes appear or insecticide efficacy declines with net age, resistant mosquitoes will have a greater competitive advantage. Studies should evaluate the performance of LLINs that have been in use for a minimum of 1 year under field conditions.
• 46 Sparks T.C. et al. The role of behaviour in insecticide resistance. 47 Rivero A. et al. Insecticide control of vector-borne diseases: when is insecticide resistance a problem?. The interactions between mosquito behavior and insecticide resistance are very poorly understood. Does resistance impact the mosquitoes’ ability to detect a blood meal? Are resistant mosquitoes less likely to avoid an insecticide-treated surface? Resistance should be evaluated for its impact on all of the key behavioral traits that influence vectorial capacity [].
• The role of multiple vectors is overlooked. Most studies look at resistance in the species that is easiest to collect (typically Anopheles gambiae s.l.) and ignore the role of other major or minor vectors.
• The perfect study to assess the epidemiological impact of resistance is probably impossible to implement. For example: resistance is a constantly evolving trait and cannot be randomized; for ethical reasons it is not practical to withhold an intervention from one study arm to assess the level of protection added by insecticides; and the lack of longitudinal data on resistance generally precludes robust assessments of the changing impact of interventions as resistance emerges. Extrapolating from bioassay data indicating that insecticides are killing a smaller proportion of mosquitoes to estimates of the impact of this resistance on malaria control tools is not straightforward. Some of the potential challenges and confounding factors include the following. Measuring the public health impact of insecticide resistance is critical for assessing the changing dynamics of malaria transmission across Africa and mobilizing resources to tackle resistance. There are major challenges in quantifying this relationship ( Box 1 ) and even if it were possible to design and implement appropriateto assess the impact of resistance, these would be unlikely to yield answers in the time frame necessary for action. Below we review some of the alternative approaches to assessing the impact of pyrethroid resistance.
Experimental hut data could provide information on the impact of resistance on both the personal protection (via blood-feeding inhibition) and the community protection (by increased mosquito mortality) afforded by insecticides, if comparable studies were conducted in areas differing in their resistance phenotype. A recent systematic review of experimental hut studies evaluating LLIN performance demonstrated a small but significant impact of pyrethroid resistance on these entomological indicators [ 23 Strode C.
et al. The impact of pyrethroid resistance on the efficacy of insecticide-treated bed nets against African anopheline mosquitoes: systematic review and meta-analysis. 24 Briet O.J.
et al. Effects of pyrethroid resistance on the cost effectiveness of a mass distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets: a modelling study. 25 Randriamaherijaona S.
et al. Do holes in long-lasting insecticidal nets compromise their efficacy against pyrethroid resistant Anopheles gambiae and Culex quinquefasciatus? Results from a release–recapture study in experimental huts. 26 Asidi A.
et al. Loss of household protection from use of insecticide-treated nets against pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes. data could provide information on the impact of resistance on both the personal protection (via blood-feeding inhibition) and the community protection (by increased mosquito mortality) afforded by insecticides, if comparable studies were conducted in areas differing in their resistance phenotype. A recent systematic review of experimental hut studies evaluating LLIN performance demonstrated a small but significant impact of pyrethroid resistance on these entomological indicators [], but most studies included in this review were conducted before the most potent pyrethroid-resistance mechanisms were widely established and hence may underestimate the current situation across Africa. Mathematical models of malaria transmission can be used to translate entomological outcomes from experimental hut trials into estimates of the number of additional malaria cases due to resistance. A study employing this approach found a positive correlation between insecticide susceptibility status and protection against blood feeding by LLINs [] and concluded that LLINs would avert up to 40% fewer episodes of malaria in the most resistant areas compared with areas with a fully susceptible population. More recently, modeling of the outcomes of a study in which susceptible or resistant mosquitoes were released into experimental huts containing holed LLINs concluded that the impact of LLINs on reducing malaria transmission was dependent on the level of resistance in the population []. A similar conclusion resulted from an earlier study measuring entomological indicators in households using LLINs in areas of Benin where the vectors were either susceptible or resistant to pyrethroids. Sleeping under a LLIN was no more protective than sleeping under an untreated net, regardless of its physical condition, in areas with high pyrethroid resistance [].
27 Gnanguenon V.
et al. Evidence of man–vector contact in torn long-lasting insecticide-treated nets. 28 Donnelly M.
et al. Identification, validation and implementation of molecular diagnostics for insecticide resistance in malaria vectors. A further indicator that resistance may be compromising the efficacy of control tools is provided by studies reporting the collection of sporozoite-infected mosquitoes either resting on walls newly treated with IRS or inside LLINs []. An extension of this approach is to test for association between insecticide resistance markers and Plasmodium infection in wild-caught mosquitoes. If resistance is enabling mosquitoes to survive repeated insecticide exposure, the prevalence of sporozoites would be expected to be higher in mosquitoes containing insecticide-resistant alleles; the development of further molecular markers of resistance will facilitate studies of this nature [].
29 Kleinschmidt I.
et al. Design of a study to determine the impact of insecticide resistance on malaria vector control: a multi-country investigation. Under operational settings the impact of insecticide resistance on malaria transmission will be influenced by a large number of factors including those unrelated to the vector itself (e.g., the efficacy of case management approaches, drug resistance). Ongoing observational studies are attempting to assess the impact of resistance by comparing malaria transmission across areas where vector populations differ in susceptibility to insecticides []. However, the challenges of this approach are manifold, particularly due to the confounding effect of differing transmission intensity and vector ecology across sites.
30 Barnes K.I.
et al. Effect of artemether-lumefantrine policy and improved vector control on malaria burden in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 31 Trape J.F.
et al. Malaria morbidity and pyrethroid resistance after the introduction of insecticide-treated bednets and artemisinin-based combination therapies: a longitudinal study. Longitudinal studies, with accurate records of malaria transmission and resistance levels, may provide the best opportunity to observe the impact of resistance. The most widely cited evidence for the impact of resistance comes from such a study in KwaZulu Natal, which demonstrated a correlation between the emergence of pyrethroid resistance and a spike in malaria cases that was later contained by the reintroduction of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) []. More recently a similar conclusion was reached in Senegal, where reduction in LLIN efficacy was attributed to resistance, although the absence of longitudinal resistance data makes this conclusion difficult to validate []. Unfortunately, the opportunity for initiating new studies of this nature, at least for pyrethroid resistance in Africa, may have passed, unless good historical data sets already exist.
32 Kigozi R.
et al. Indoor residual spraying of insecticide and malaria morbidity in a high transmission intensity area of Uganda. slide positivity rates was observed [ 32 Kigozi R.
et al. Indoor residual spraying of insecticide and malaria morbidity in a high transmission intensity area of Uganda. Figure 4 Improvement in Malaria Indicators in Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, Ghana. Data were collected between 2010 and 2013 after a switch in insecticide class from pyrethroids to organophosphates for indoor residual spraying [President's Malaria Initiative (2015) Ghana Malaria Operational Plan FY 2015 ( http://www.pmi.gov/docs/default-source/default-document-library/malaria-operational-plans/fy-15/fy-2015-ghana-malaria-operational-plan.pdf?sfvrsn=3 )]. Arrow indicates when spraying with the organophosphate Actellic CS was introduced. RTD, rapid diagnostic test. Indirect evidence that insecticide resistance is impacting malaria transmission can be obtained from retrospective analysis in countries that have changed insecticide class in IRS programs (usually in response to either reports of resistance or increases in malaria cases) and seen an improvement in control. As an example, DDT and pyrethroids were being used for IRS in Uganda despite the known presence of resistance []. When these insecticides were replaced with the carbamate bendiocarb, a marked improvement inwas observed []. Similarly, in Ghana, pyrethroid resistance triggered a switch to the use of the organophosphate insecticide Actellic (primiphos-methyl) for IRS that was associated with a noticeable impact on key indicators of malaria transmission such as the number of children with parasitologically or clinically diagnosed malaria ( Figure 4 ) ( http://www.pmi.gov/docs/default-source/default-document-library/malaria-operational-plans/fy-15/fy-2015-ghana-malaria-operational-plan.pdf?sfvrsn=3 ).Suits: Appaman Mod Suit in Mist | Photo: from PetitePARADE Kids Fashion Week by John Parra via Annex Magazine
Growing up, I was the constantly dirty, skinned-up and bruised girl in boy’s clothes just trying to have a little fun and maybe catch a couple lizards to stick in a jar. I also grew up with a mother who was adamant that I wear a dress for any occasion, whether that was a formal event, church, picture day, or going over to a relative’s house. These dresses were usually stiff affairs, all crinoline and lace that itched more than any clothing item should ever, ever itch. And don’t even get me started on Christmas dresses. They were, to put it lightly, a nightmarish torture contraption to my child brain, and not to be tolerated without at least an hour-long battle.
So when Meg asked if I’d like to head up a Tomboy Flower Girl Roundup, I jumped on it. Not because I was some kind of fashionable child genius who knew how to dress myself better than my parents, but I remember what I liked then, and what I wanted: comfort, mobility, and nothing itchy. I’m pretty sure that today’s tomboys want pretty much the same. I remember that the only time I would wear anything remotely dress-like was if it looked at least somewhat like a tutu, and then I would only wear it if I could wear leggings under it (and sneakers, or boots). I’d always liked how the older ballerinas in my dance school looked wearing leggings and tutus, twirling around without a care. Probably because they knew they weren’t accidentally flashing people every time they did a grand écart.
But every tomboy is different. Some girls just don’t want to wear pink, but dresses are fine; while others aren’t going to touch a dress with a ten foot pole, but will wear pink or lace or whatever you want. There are girls who want to dress exactly like their brothers, and girls who could care less what you put on them, so long as they can run, jump, climb, and move in every possible direction (like me). Of course it goes without saying that you can always pick up a suit from the boys department, if that’s what floats your flower girl’s boat. But for today, we’ve pulled together a few outfits that will, fingers crossed, keep your flower girl and your Nana happy alike. (These are obviously for inspiration. Your local Target, or Sears, or wherever you shop will carry similar looks at a variety of price points).
1. Girls’ Tissue Oxford Academy Shirt available at J. Crew ($29.50) 2. Washed Velvet Shorts available at Boden USA ($25.50) 3. Glitter Suede High Tops available at J. Crew ($118) 4. Leggings available at Boden USA ($18)
1. Jeweled Collar Oxford Shirt available at J. Crew ($59.50) 2. Wool Blazer available at Boden USA ($68) 3. Sperry Top-Siders available at J. Crew ($75) 4. Corduroy Leggings available at Nordstrom ($135) 5. Slim Fit Twill Pants available at Nordstrom ($34)
1. Schoolboy Blazer in Velvet available at J.Crew ($190) 2. Pretty Pointelle T-Shirt available at Boden USA ($14.40) 3. Foil Leggings available at Nordstrom ($21.44) 4. Silver/Glitter Ballet Flats available at H&M ($6.45)
1. Lace Cardigan available at The Children’s Place ($17.95) 2. Wow Tutu available at Boden USA ($60) 3. Short Suede Boots available at Boden USA ($70) 4. Kids Nylon Tricot Legging available at American Apparel ($21)
For my father’s remarriage, I was a flower girl, and I was given a tiny white wedding dress to wear that I turned my nose up at (at first). It had a train, but was shorter in the front, hitting me at the knees. Because of this (and my five-year-old sister’s fondness for flashing people) we got to wear white bike shorts under our dresses. I found this to be an acceptable compromise because then the crinoline didn’t itch my legs, saving my dad and stepmom an hour of fighting with me over why pretty dresses aren’t a tool of the devil. I took off my fancy white Mary Janes after the group pictures, and spent the rest of the day in sneakers. And skinned knees, of course. It was a good day.
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For more tomboy flower girl looks, head over to our Pinterest board.Vandals spray paint over Irish language Mid Ulster Council sign BelfastTelegraph.co.uk The Irish language portion of a sign erected by the Mid Ulster District Council has been spray painted over within days of it being erected. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/vandals-spray-paint-over-irish-language-mid-ulster-council-sign-36442286.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article36442300.ece/69c2a/AUTOCROP/h342/image-28-12-17-05-16.jpeg
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The Irish language portion of a sign erected by the Mid Ulster District Council has been spray painted over within days of it being erected.
The new sign had been put in place at Portglenone Bridge to mark out the entrance to the council district, which was established in April 2015.
Ahead of the establishment of the district authority, a vote by the council - which has a nationalist majority - opted to place Irish above English on its own signs and logos.
The vandalism was noticed by Sinn Fein councillor Sean McPeake, who told the Belfast Telegraph it came to his attention on Christmas Eve.
"The new signs are marking out the new district council area, where the one council area ends and where the other one begins, so it’s gateway signage for the district," he said.
"There was a number of new signs erected around the district in the last few days. It is just disgusting to see it defaced so quickly."
Cllr McPeake said he believed the issue has to be taken seriously.
"I do believe it is a hate crime," he said. "It is not as if other signs are being attacked; this sign is being attacked because there is an Irish language on it and it is the Irish language element that has been defaced."
The PSNI confirmed it had received a report of damage caused to a sign in the Portglenone area, and that enquiries are ongoing.
Irish-language signage has previously proven a controversial point in the Mid Ulster council area.
After the Tullaghoge Fort ancient site reopened in the summer of 2016 following a £500,000 redevelopment, the Irish language portion of its sign was targeted by vandals on four separate occasions.
In September of this year a row broke out over a scheme in place that allows members of the public to apply to have their signs in Irish and English.
At the meeting of the council's environment committee, members were asked to consider the street signage of a new residential development.
DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson proposed that residents should be asked to make a contribution to the cost of dual language signage. The proposal was put to a vote, and with three voting for and 10 against, the proposal fell.
Accusing the council of following the route of "non-inclusive politics," Mr Cuthbertson said that "the dual language street signs had been forced amongst the minorities in Mid Ulster".
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SEATTLE -- Michele Anderson was convicted Friday of first-degree aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of six members of her family in their Carnation home on Christmas Eve 2007.
She faces life in prison without parole, the only sentence possible under the charge. The death penalty in this case was removed some time ago.
Last year, Anderson's former boyfriend, Joe McEnroe, was convicted of first-degree murder in this case and is serving a life sentence.
The jury in Anderson's trial began deliberations in the case late Wednesday.
During the course of the trial, prosecutors played the audio of an interview Anderson had with police shortly after the bodies were discovered. She first told detectives she and her McEnroe were on their way to Vegas on the night six of her family members were murdered.
But halfway into her two-hour interview with detectives, Anderson broke down and admitted to killing her parents, Wayne and Judy Anderson, her brother Scott, her sister-in-law Erica and their two children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan.
“As soon as I shot the gun, I felt so bad, like what the hell have I done? I`m a monster, I turned into a monster. I told Joe to lie to cover up what I did,” Anderson said in the taped confession.
Brewing with anger over money she said was owed her, Anderson says she planned out the Christmas Eve murders for two weeks.
“My brother owes me a lot of money and he refused to pay any back, he knows we`ve been struggling,” Anderson said.
Anderson says they shot her parents first, hiding their bodies in a backyard shed. Then the couple waited for her brother`s family to show up.
“He (her brother) was trying to rip the gun out of my hand while I was shooting him; I shot four shots into Scott with the revolver and two into Erica. I ran out of bullets; that`s why he (McEnroe) shot the kids,” Anderson said.
She says she ordered McEnroe to shoot her niece and nephew. In her desperate attempt to save her kids, Erica tried to call 911.
“She lunged over the couch even though she, she had been shot twice. I don`t know how she did that,” Anderson said.
They grabbed the phone from Erica, turning the gun on the kids.
Anderson says they killed the kids to get rid of witnesses but also because she wanted to spare them from living with the horror they witnessed.
“They were clinging to their mom screaming. I just thought if they saw their parents dead, that they would be scarred for life,” Anderson said.
Anderson showed little emotion in court while listening to her own confession.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Anderson’s attorney told the jury that she admitted she killed some of her six family members, but that it wasn’t premeditated and instead was the sudden consequence of a troubled life.
“Father was abusive; Scott, her brother, was abusive; and she went crazy. She suffers from depression and anxiety,” said Colleen O’ Connor, Anderson’s attorney.
Anderson broke down as her attorneys detailed her childhood and sobbed for several minutes as her lawyer spoke about the crime.
However, prosecutors painted a much different picture.
Prosecutor Scott O’Toole held up each photo of the Anderson family for the jury and said Anderson laid a careful plan to murder six members of her family, including her parents, her brother and sister-and-law and their two kids.
“She is the reason why this happened. It was her hatred of her family,” added O’ Toole.
Prosecutors have argued that Anderson slaughtered her family because her parents were going to start charging her rent and because she claimed her brother owed her money.
“All of the evidence cries out, Michele Anderson, is the person who did this and this is pure premeditated, cold-blooded murder as you will ever see,” added O’Toole.
Anderson never took the stand at her trial.And this is the kind of evangelical voice we need. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been paying attention.
And it may be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has made it into an entirely different zip code.
Bob Vander Plaats is the Iowa-based president of the conservative Family Leader group. He initially endorsed Ted Cruz, but like so many other evangelicals, lost the will to fight and choked out an endorsement for Donald Trump before the election (Please see update).
It seems he has found his voice again, and spoke out this week against Anthony Scaramucci, after the new communications director’s vile tirade from the New Yorker made the rounds.
"Silence equals assent." @POTUS must model and demand a higher standard. @Scarramuci should be fired immediately. https://t.co/M3HT7xoUG7 — Bob Vander Plaats (@bobvanderplaats) July 28, 2017
Silence equals assent.
Not consent, where you just agree to allow something, but assent – approval or acceptance.
I’ve already covered it here, but the word that has come forth since Scaramucci proved himself to be little more than a New York sewer rat in an expensive suit is that Trump very much approved of the outburst against Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus.
It amuses Trump to see blood drawn by those clamoring to present themselves his most loyal toady. Priebus proved himself unworthy because his failure to fling globs of fecal matter back at Scaramucci didn’t provide the tense drama that makes for good reality TV.
Vander Plaats went further in a post to his website:
“Mr. President, it is time to look in the mirror, accept responsibility, apologize to the American people, and declare an end to this behavior immediately,” he wrote. “While what I’m urging may not be the “Trump” brand, it is the brand of a leader. We need a leader. You must lead!” “I suggest you lead by first washing out Mr. Scaramucci’s mouth with a bar of soap,” he continued. “After a thorough rinsing, strip his credentials and escort him personally off the White House grounds.”
As long as the Mooch is willing to wallow in the mud for an opportunity to get next to the president, you’re not likely to see that happen.
I actually checked to see if any of the other evangelical “leaders” who backed Trump had spoken out against Scaramucci being part of the administration after last week.
Silence. Not even a passing mention from any I’d checked.
Vander Plaats made a valiant effort at calling for leadership in this matter, but he’s directing his calls to a man who has spent more time Twitter-raging, golfing, and plotting turmoil among his staff to do much leading in any area.
Vander Plaats may be seeing what some of us knew was coming.
Trump has failed to do his job. He’s passed no meaningful legislation. He has done nothing to draw a coalition together, in order to work through a repeal bill and make it happen. North Korea and Iran become bolder and more brazen, each day.
All this, and the man is playing his staff like puppets.
And as Newt Gingrich pointed out, Scaramucci makes Trump happy, because they’re the same kind of person.
A model who was once stuck at a table with Trump said during an interview later that he was the most vulgar man she’d ever known. If that’s true, Scaramucci’s behavior and Trump’s approval shouldn’t be a shock.
For some of us, it is not.
New York values, and all.
Still, I applaud Vander Plaats for the effort. He’s already done more than so many others.
We are at a crisis point in our nation. The Body of Christ needs to rise up and lead, because our politicians will not do it. They can’t. They’re too busy jockeying for position and power.
Other evangelical leaders need to speak. Christians who supported Trump and those who did not need to stress how the atmosphere Trump and his new clinger are creating is not representative of us or our nation.
It most certainly should not be allowed to stand as representative of the kind of behavior Christians tolerate or accept.
Party needs to be put aside. This isn’t a political issue, any longer. This is a test of heart.
Silence equals assent.
UPDATE:
I recently heard from Drew Zahn, communications director for Bob Vander Plaats organization, the Family Leader.
Mr. Zahn wanted to make it clear that Mr. Vander Plaats did not, at any time, endorse Donald Trump.
I apologize for the confusion and applaud Mr. Vander Plaats all the more, now.Protect Your Stuff 2-year protection plan: $9.99 Buy Now
HyperX CloudX Pro Gaming Headset is designed for Xbox and tested and approved by Microsoft. It works with the Xbox Elite Wireless controller and other Xbox One controllers with a 3.5mm stereo headset jack and provides connectivity from the headset to console and mobile devices¹. With additional Windows compatibility, it comes with a 2M PC extension cable with stereo and mic plugs.
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Tested and approved by Microsoft, HyperX CloudX works with Xbox Elite wireless controllers and other Xbox One controllers with a 3.5mm stereo headset jack. With additional Windows compatibility, it comes with a 2M PC extension cable with stereo and mic plugs.
In-line audio control
Conveniently adjust volume and mute microphone right on the cable, with no need to go into console settings to adjust headset sound.
Hard shell carrying case
HyperX CloudX comes with a handy, hard shell carrying case to protect it and make it easy to take with you, wherever you game.
Award-winning total comfort
Its 100% memory foam ear cushions with padded leatherette headband give you the ultimate in comfort, even when you’re gaming for hours on end.
Immersive in-game audio
Lose yourself in the game with HyperX Cloud’s award-winning audio performance featuring crystal-clear low, mid and high tones and a closed cup design for environmental noise isolation. HyperX Cloud is HiFi capable, with 53mm drivers.
Detachable noise-cancellation microphone
The removable microphone boom is easy to plug in for gaming or unplug to listen to music. Its flexible design allows for custom mic positioning.
Durable aluminum frame
Its solid aluminum frame gives HyperX Cloud long-lasting stability and durability.
Interchangeable ear cups
Two sets of cushions allow for different textural comfort against the ear. The velour cushions provide breathable comfort and open sound, while the leatherette cushions reduce surrounding noises.
Shipping Note: Shipping to Alaska and Hawaii is not available for this item.
A physical address is required for delivery. No Military or PO Box shipments available
Warranty: 90 Day HyperXNew research may have helped to unearth secrets of the megalodon (C. megalodon), a giant shark that swam the world’s oceans more than two and a half million years ago.
Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) were able to deduce a swim speed for the gigantic extinct shark – estimated to measure twice the length of a killer whale at 20 metres, and weigh approximately 48,000kg – by using a mathematical model and data from 26 species of shark tracked in the wild.
Cruising speeds of shark species estimated from tracking data.
The team estimated the minimum speed for the vast, highly predatory megalodon at over five metres per second, blowing other shark species out of the water. By comparison, a large 1,000kg great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), thought to be the closest extant relative of the megalodon, cruises at speeds of approximately two and a half metres per second.
Published in Biology Letters, the paper examines cruising swim speeds of sharks required to maintain respiration, and explores the relationship between swim speed, body size and metabolic rate. The speed sharks travel is driven by many factors such as prey dynamics, temperature requirements and different behavioural strategies.
Lead author Dr David Jacoby, Researcher with ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, said: "The megalodon was an enormous apex predator that appeared to cruise the oceans at speeds unrivalled by any shark species present today. The mathematical model not only allows us to estimate the speed of this super-predator, but also helps us to predict the movement characteristics of other elusive marine sharks, such as many deep-sea species."
ZSL’s researchers found that the relationship between the sharks’ body size and swim speeds were directly related to the minimum oxygen levels needed to maintain metabolism.
Growing up to 15-20 metres in length, megalodon, meaning “big tooth”, was an apex predator which swam the oceans between 15.9 – 2.6 million years ago.
ZSL's scientific research
Read the full paper
Jacoby D, Siriwat P, Freeman R, Carbone C. (2015). Is the scaling of swim speed in sharks driven by metabolism? Biol. Lett. 20150781. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/12/20150781In a bizarre attempt to provide “clarification” over the mixed signals on how Xbox One will handle used games, Xbox evangelist Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb has issued a statement meant to clarify the company’s stance. The statement does not succeed in doing that.
Here’s what he passed along:
“The ability to trade in and resell games is important to gamers and to Xbox. Xbox One is designed to support the trade in and resale of games. Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete. We will disclose more information in the near future.”
This conversation about used games as we become digital consumers was coming, and it was only a matter of which hardware manufacturer pulled the trigger first. Why, though, would Microsoft decide to stick its foot into the used games discussion without specific answers for consumers? There’s no room for half measures with used games. You are taking away some consumer rights, and if consumers are gaining anything in this transaction, Microsoft needed to make that clear from the very beginning.
Now, it's backpedaling. Now, it's trying to clarify. That means you've already lost the messaging war.
It’s possible there’s actually a pretty reasonable situation where players have the ability to turn in digital licenses for purchased games in exchange for Microsoft Points to spend on the Xbox Marketplace and used games continue to exist at GameStop and other retailers. Since the details of those arrangements is clearly changing, the onus would be on Microsoft to make the coming changes abundantly transparent.
Microsoft didn't, and it wants to pretend it's not its fault.
The statement itself is a joke, too.
“Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete.”
Microsoft is the one who put its executives and representatives in front of the press earlier this week, and presented increasingly conflicted information. The problem has been getting anything remotely resembling a clear answer out of them. The press hasn’t mangled Microsoft’s message, it’s that Microsoft has very little to say, and wants to point the blame at someone else with the wave of a hand. It won't work.
Sorry, Microsoft. It’s your problem, not mine. Try a little honesty next time?A group of internally displaced people, who fled the besieged city of Donetsk, unload |
"identify abnormalities and unusual behavior in order to address possible hacking or intrusion activity."
Developers looking to get start can find out more at www.artik.io and will be able to take advantage of dev tools and Samsung's IoT software stack.Connecticut prison population at 23-year low
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, shown here in a 2015 visit to the Hartford Correctional Center, has led efforts to divert non-violent offenders from prison. The inmate population reached a 23-year low on Thursday. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, shown here in a 2015 visit to the Hartford Correctional Center, has led efforts to divert non-violent offenders from prison. The inmate population reached a 23-year low on Thursday. Photo: John Woike / Hartford Courant Photo: John Woike / Hartford Courant Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Connecticut prison population at 23-year low 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Connecticut’s prison population reached a 23-year low on Thursday, with a total of 13,871 inmates in the system, thanks in large part to an overall decrease in crime, youthful offenders in particular.
The record-high population level was 19,900 inmates in 2008.
“Fewer and fewer people are coming in the front door,” said Michael P. Lawlor, undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning in the state Office of Policy and Management. “There are fewer people under 40, between 25 and 30, and under 21. A lot of that has to do with reforms of the last 10 years. Schools, police, and community organizations are doing a better job of reaching out to them when they act out.”
In 1996 there were more than 6,000 juveniles arrested, for all offenses. Last year there were 960. Also in 1996, there were 881 juveniles arrested for stealing motor vehicles. Last year there were 281, according to state crime statistics.
kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCTYENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Kidnappers in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region released three Dutch nationals held since May 4, Anka Mustapha, a spokesman for Bayelsa state’s Joint Task Force, which includes the military and police, told Reuters on Saturday.
The kidnapping of expatriates by armed gangs seeking ransom money has been rife in the oil-producing Delta region, although it has tailed off since a 2009 amnesty was signed with militant groups there. Foreign companies have also improved their security.
“Yes they have been rescued (released) and handed over to their country’s ambassador,” Mustapha said. He declined to give further details.
Nigeria has Africa’s largest population and it has become the biggest economy on the continent, overtaking South Africa.
It ranks as one of the worst countries in the world for kidnapping, a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise. Abductions occur most frequently in the southern oil states, but sometimes in Lagos and the southwest as well.
Last month, Islamist rebels in the northeast kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in an attack that has stirred global outrage.Disney has been struggling with the marketing for Andrew Stanton‘s John Carter, which opens in a couple weeks but still seems to face an uphill battle establishing itself even for audiences that should be pretty receptive to an old-school sci-fi film based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.
There have been a couple trailers now and quite a few clips released, and while each has various charms no one trailer or clip has really hammered home what the movie is.
So a fan took a lot of the released footage and cut a non-official trailer. It’s a lot better than any of the others, both from the perspective of laying out the story, and for showing the scope of the film. After the break, you can see this John Carter edit, as well as a quick fan-made teaser for a live-action version of Akira.
That’s via Badass Digest.
Meanwhile, there is this fan-made trailer for a theoretical live-action version of Akira. Since the Warner Bros. version isn’t going to happen any time soon, and could still end up not happening at all, so if you’re curious about what Katsuhiro Otomo‘s vision of telekinetic power run amok might look like in live-action, you’ll have to settle for this.
Fabien Dubois directed this teaser, starring Baptiste Amann and the voice of Pierre Scarland. More info is available at the teaser’s Vimeo page. Really, until the final shot I thought this felt a lot more like an alternate version of Chronicle than Akira. And, sure, there are indisputable similarities between those two stories, but I’d like something a little more specifically Akira. You may get more out of it. [Twitch]On the night of the summer solstice, I sat on my co-op’s lower roof with my new housemate Emily as we stared off into the fading sunset, admiring the rainbow haze that lingered after a long, overwhelming day of sun.
Although Emily and I had only interacted a few times before, we knew we were similar in obvious ways. In addition to our East Asian heritage, we also shared the appearance of having unconventional, “give your grandma a heart attack” facial piercings — I have a septum nose ring and she has a medusa lip ring.
Our similar aesthetic provided an immediate connection, sparking a conversation about which stereotype belonged to a pierced Asian. Maybe we were seen as badasses or just Asian hipsters. Whatever it was, we definitely weren’t seen as the type that was good at math.
Emily took out a cigarette and began lighting it with one hand, shielding the flame from the wind with the other. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, she spoke with a tone of acceptance as well as a hint of remorse. “My mom said that she felt sorry for me, that in this American society I could never truly fit in with white people or with my own group of Asian people — Koreans.”
The truth of these words struck a chord with me, and I nodded in eager affirmation. Although I am Chinese, our identity crises as “Americanized” Asians were so unique yet similar that it felt like we were long lost twins.
Perhaps it was her attentive posture or the serious expression on her face that conveyed her genuine interest and care, but from her validation, I felt comfortable enough to reveal personal moments of weakness, shame and internalized hatred.
I learned to give preference to white people partly through my immigrant parents: Their idea of success meant conforming to the dominant culture in the white suburbs of Northern Virginia. Conforming meant going by the name “Maggie” instead of my Chinese name, which I refused to reveal out of shame. Conforming meant rejecting my Asian features, deeming them as ugly compared to my round-eyed, tall-nosed peers. Conforming meant silencing myself while appealing to those whom I saw had more power and privileges than I could ever attain.
Addressing race as a person of color involves being vulnerable. It involves talking about our negative self-image and our depressing place in the world. This trauma can be easily understood by all communities of color; much of our self-doubt is eliminated when there is no need to explain the source of our oppression.
Trying to explain the source of oppression, let alone the validity of how it makes us feel, to a white person is always awkward. When privileged, white people say they can talk about race but become uncomfortable or disengaged in the face of truth, it transfers a message to the person of color to pick up the blame, as if their discomfort is now our responsibility. This is also known as white guilt, a defense made by white people to still feel “progressive” for having the conversation while feeling entitled to our already limited energy.
Person-of-color-only circles are healing and necessary because of how inherently supportive and affirmative they are. Sharing experiences with people of a similar background reaffirms that we aren’t alone in our experiences of oppression. Without feeling the need to protect white people’s feelings, the conversations in POC-only spaces flow more freely and misconceptions within our own communities can then be addressed.
In my conversation with Emily, we came to an understanding as to why people of color in white spaces could easily fall blind to their own oppression. After all, why would you fight to recognize your differences when everyone’s goal is to be treated like a white person?
The fight for equality means that people of different backgrounds should be given the same opportunities. Part of this means that those with unfair advantages should have their privileges stripped away, and part of it means giving basic rights to people who never had them.
The mutual frustration I shared with Emily was a confirmation that a systemically racist ideology is what dictates our society; we couldn’t be alone in our struggles if our wounds were cut so similarly. Talking with her made me realize that I wasn’t at fault for my internalized racism, and with conscious effort, these seemingly ingrained biases were something I could overcome.
My healing process involves self-love, but it also at times involves the painful process of removing myself from oppressive relationships. I want to give priority to people who don’t discount my very real struggles. I want to give priority to people who will help me understand who I am and who I need to be.
I’m thankful for the healing spaces that have existed for me in the Andres Castro Arms, the Berkeley student cooperative for people of color. From simply recognizing my passivity to leading my first POC circle this past week, I am proof that transformations can happen from being included in supportive and understanding spaces.
Maggie Lam writes about reclaiming the Asian-American narrative surrounding the immigrant experience.Mylan may have violated antitrust law in its EpiPen sales to schools, legal experts say
Schools across the country keep EpiPens in their nurses’ offices in case a student has a severe allergic reaction. For years, Mylan Pharmaceuticals has been selling the devices to schools at a discounted price, giving them a break from rising costs. But the program also prohibited schools from buying competitors’ devices — a provision that experts say may have violated antitrust law.
Mylan’s “EpiPen4Schools” program, begun in August 2012, offers free or discounted EpiPens to schools. Over 65,000 schools receive free EpiPens through the program; an unknown number of schools buy the epinephrine auto-injectors at a discount. Laws in at least 11 states require schools to stock epinephrine, and keeping a stockpile is incentivized by federal law across the country.
As of last year, the EpiPen4Schools discounted price was $112.10, according to company documents. That is about a quarter of the cost charged to pharmacies at the time, according to data from Elsevier’s Gold Standard Drug Database.
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However, in order to qualify for that price, schools had to agree they would “not in the next twelve (12) months purchase any products that are competitive to EpiPen(R) Auto-Injectors,” the agreement stipulates.
A Mylan spokesperson said this requirement is no longer part of its program. STAT found such language on EpiPen4Schools order forms dated August 2014 and June 2015, and on one order form signed by a school district official in North Carolina dated April 28, 2016.
Later, Mylan told STAT and Congress that the requirement was eliminated in July 2016. A link to the order form on the EpiPen4Schools website was removed on July 1, a Mylan spokesperson said. The form was publicly available on the website through late August, and removed during the course of STAT reporting. A Mylan spokesperson said that the order form should not have been available online after July 1.
The Mylan spokesperson added that there have never been purchase requirements to receive the free EpiPen auto-injectors.
In a statement, Mylan said “the program continues to adhere to all applicable laws and regulations.”
“It is illegal to issue a discount on the condition the customer not acquire a competitor’s goods — if the effect may be to substantially lessen competition,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a University of Iowa law professor and antitrust expert.
At issue is the notion of an exclusionary contract, which requires a customer to promise not to deal with a competitor. Exclusionary contracts are a common tactic for keeping a lock on a market, Hovenkamp said.
But using such a contract while also having a dominant market share may hinder competition, which he explained can be an antitrust violation. Last year, EpiPen made up 89 percent of the epinephrine auto-injector market, according to IMS Health, a market research firm.
Schools might have to buy more auto-injectors in that 12-month window for a variety of reasons: they might use the auto-injectors and need to replace them, or the devices might reach their expiration date.
Earlier this week, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) called on the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate possible antitrust violations in the pricing of the EpiPen.
In response to Klobuchar’s letter, an FTC spokesperson said that “the Commission takes seriously its obligation to take action where pharmaceutical companies have violated the antitrust laws, and it will continue to closely scrutinize drug market competition on consumers’ behalf.”
The fact that Mylan used to have such a stipulation may still be problematic, said Harry First, a professor at the New York University School of Law, who specializes in antitrust matters.
“It’s like the bank robber saying ‘Don’t worry, we don’t rob banks anymore,’” First said. “But if you make such a change, it casts doubt on why you needed to have such a requirement in the first place.”
The inflation-adjusted list price of EpiPens has increased by about 450 percent since 2004, according to Elsevier data. That rising price has become an issue for schools. John Torre, public information officer for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, said that the district is worried that the price of EpiPens sold through Mylan’s discount program might change.
Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia’s largest district with over 180,000 students, orders about 1,100 EpiPen 2-Paks each year at the discount price offered by Mylan, Torre said.
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The district also receives about 400 EpiPen 2-Paks for free each year from the company. These agreements contain no restriction on a district purchasing auto-injectors from other companies.
Torre said that the district is “closely monitoring the Mylan situation” and “actively exploring alternative vendors to meet our needs for the annual supply of epinephrine.”
At least 11 states have laws mandating that schools stock epinephrine, according to the advocacy group Food Allergy Research and Education (which receives funding from Mylan). As of July 2016, all other states — except Hawaii — allow, but don’t require, schools to stock epinephrine that can be used for any student experiencing anaphylaxis.
This post has been updated to include comment from Mylan and from a North Carolina school district.
Correction: A previous version of this story included an incorrect timetable for the availability of the school contract online.The Saints linebacker carousel continues with another addition imminent.
Per ESPN's Adam Caplan, the Saints will be signing outside linebacker Phillip Hunt on Monday.
The Saints have rotated linebackers on and off the roster with key injuries this year to Dannell Ellerbe, Ramon Humber, and Hau'oli Kikaha. Kikaha did return to the lineup last game.
Hunt went undrafted out of Houston in 2009. He eventually landed in the CFL after being cut by the Browns before the season started. After two years in Canada, Hunt caught on with the Eagles where he spent three seasons. He sat 2014 out after not making the Colts roster and appeared in two games this season for the Lions. He was released from Detroit on Oct. 8.
Hunt has 23 career tackles and four sacks in his three year career.
RELATED: Brandon Browner's penalty troubles nothing newThis article was originally published in the December ’14 issue of The Union Hall Times. It is republished here with the warm permission of its author:
Biking in the ‘Burgh, even in the winter
By Sara Cole
“You’re insane.” “I couldn’t do that.” Or, more straight-forwardly, “Aren’t you cold?”
This is what people say when they find out I’m still commuting seven miles by bicycle each morning during the harsh Pittsburgh winter.
While I do feel a bit chilled sometimes, I’m not insane — at least not by any clinical standards — and winter cycling is within the realm of possibility for others who already commute when it’s warmer. That said, I wouldn’t encourage newer cyclists to start commuting for the first time during the winter months. Those who already have a certain level of confidence commuting in more agreeable weather would be surprised at how pleasant winter cycling can be. The keys to successful winter riding are dressing properly, increasing your visibility, and taking extra precautions.
Attire and gear: Dress in layers. You’re going to be colder at the beginning and will likely want the option of shedding some bulk if you start to overheat during your ride. Pittsburgh winter temperatures often fluctuate pretty wildly between morning, afternoon, and evening, so layers will help negotiate the temperature differential between your ride to work and your commute home.
A pair of well-insulated, yet easy-to-grip gloves is one of the most important items. Your ride magnifies the windchill, and you’ll want gloves that make it comfortable for your hands to remain on the handlebars to navigate steering and braking without any difficulty.
I’d also recommend a balaclava, or face mask. Most of them are made of lightweight, Lycra-type material that is both warm and fits easily under a helmet. Because you’re breathing into an enclosed space when wearing a balaclava, it generates and retains warmth around your head and face.
A couple pairs of leggings or tights and thick, ski-type socks should help keep your lower half warm. Others recommend some sort of foot covering over your usual cycling shoes, including using bread bags to keep moisture out, though I’ve never felt the need for more than a decent pair of sneakers. In disgustingly inclement weather, a pair of rain pants does wonders in keeping you dry. Rain pants can be found in most stores that sell bicycle accessories, and usually have the added bonus of being windproof as well as waterproof.
A good headlight and rear light with a flashing setting are clutch. Winter drivers are already distracted, and because it gets dark so early, you’ll want to be visible as possible. Any other reflective clothing or accessories help, too.
Consider investing in waterproof panniers or a small, waterproof book bag to keep any changes of clothes or materials you bring to and from work dry, and if you typically travel on thin road tires, you’ll want to consider swapping them out for thicker, studded tires in the winter — especially if it’s snowy and slushy out.
Routes: The way you ride should also change in the winter. Some of the things you might consider doing in the winter might even seem counterintuitive. For example, ride on well-traveled main roads that you’d typically avoid during better weather. These roads tend to be plowed and salted more often, and the increased traffic flow will also help melt a lot of ice and give you tire tread-worn paths to ride on when many of the bike lanes remain unplowed and icy. You’ll also want to give yourself more time, ride slower and ride more loosely. You can ride more defensively if you’re riding slower, and by not riding in a rigid position, your body absorbs slips, slides and bumps easier. You’ll also fall slower and more gracefully than if you were riding quickly and rigidly. When parking your bike, seek out shelter. There are a number of parking garages Downtown — specifically the ones on Smithfield Street and Penn Avenue — that offer covered bicycle parking to help keep your bike out of the elements while you’re at work.
Finally, don’t do anything that makes you feel like you resent the ride or feel like a bike martyr. This might mean driving part of your commute or putting your bike on the bus one way. It also might mean walking your bike up gnarly hills if you just don’t feel up to it, or breaking up your ride with a warming beverage — I’m partial to stopping at Espresso a Mano on Butler Street in Lawrenceville on my way home. One of the reasons for riding year-round is to enjoy the different challenges and sights each season brings. Have fun and be safe.
Sara Cole is an educator, a connoisseur of delicious treats and a dedicated cyclist.
Photo credited to Flickr user macwagon.Threats, passionate protests and accusations of theft were all on tap at Saturday’s Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee meeting, where Donald Trump backers protested what they said was an attempt to “steal” rightful delegates from the GOP front-runner.
“I’ve been told two are truly Trump delegates and five are pretend delegates,” Trump Senior Adviser Barry Bennett told NBC News after the committee approved its listed of appointed delegates who will represent the state at the Republican National Convention in July.
At issue were the state’s remaining 14 at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, which were appointed Saturday by the Tennessee GOP Executive Committee. From the results of the primary, which Trump won by 14 points, he was due to receive 7 delegates from the 14.
But the Trump campaign says five of the appointees slated to vote for Trump have loyalties “to vote for the establishment,” and if a contested convention goes to a third ballot — the round of voting in which Tennessee unbinds its delegates — Trump will likely lose the backing of his own.
The state GOP’s executive director Brent Leatherwood acknowledged that the Trump campaign believes “that they should have the say over all the slots” but countered “that’s not the reality of the situation or the reality from our bylaws.”
“If I’ve got a campaign fretting about that, then it’s a campaign that may understand it’s not going to be the nominee,” Leatherwood said. “That’s the bigger story if they can’t get 1237 on the first ballot.”
Trump’s campaign earlier this week met with the state GOP chairman to outline its preferred slate of delegates, but the final slate only included a portion of the people the campaign proposed.
Darren Morris, state director of Trump’s campaign in Tennessee, told The Tennessean newspaper that Tennessee GOP Chairman Ryan Haynes on Wednesday agreed to appoint all seven of the Trump campaign’s proposed delegates.
That prompted claims from the Trump campaign that “a small group of Tennessee establishment insiders” were trying to “steal” votes from Trump supporters, according to a tweet from Trump senior adviser Dan Scavino.
“They want to appoint people who support Jeb Bush, John Kasich and others to represent the delegate slots that Donald Trump won on March 1 FAIR AND SQUARE,” he tweeted.
Haynes said he made no such promise to the Trump campaign — “I’m not in the business of cutting deals.”
He said the Tennessee GOP bylaws only require that the executive committee take into consideration the campaigns’ proposed delegates, but ultimately they have final say over the 14 at-large delegates.
“What we try and do is we also try and recognize individuals that have done exemplary work for candidates, or dedicated a lot of their time and energy to pushing back on liberal policies. We try to make sure they get an opportunity to go to Cleveland and participate in the party process,” he said.
Haynes noted that the delegates proposed by the executive committee are voted on as a full slate, and so the committee must take into account whether the slate can pass. He pointed to one of Trump’s proposed delegates — Mark Winslow, who sued the Tennessee Republican Party three years ago — as an example of a delegate who wouldn’t pass muster with the full committee.
But Scavino’s tweet, and a warning sent out by Morris on Friday night, activated an impassioned network of Trump supporters in Tennessee, many of whom showed up to the meeting bearing signs pledging their support for Trump. Videos tweeted from inside the gathering showed an at times contentious meeting, with members shouting over one another.
The Tennessee GOP hired extra security for the meeting because of a number of threats sent by Trump supporters on social media. And Haynes said his cell phone was flooded with calls from angry Trump supporters, to the point that he now has to get a new phone.
He suggested the act was one of “intimidation.”
“That’s not something we would do to any of our campaigns. We’re not in the business of trying to harass or intimidate anyone here at the Tennessee Republican Party — we’re in the process of putting forward solutions to our nation’s problems,” Haynes said.
The Trump campaign dismissed those charges, with Trump Senior Adviser Barry Bennett saying the backlash should come as no surprise.
“They changed the slate last-minute — they shouldn’t be surprised that the public’s angry,” he said.
But Trump himself indicated he was happy with at least one of the delegates he was appointed at the state executive committee meeting on Saturday, tweeting out his satisfaction.
Great honor to have @GOP General Counsel, #JohnRyder as a Trump delegate in TN. RNC meeting well worth it! Unifying the party! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2016
Still, the controversy highlighted a broader issue within the Trump campaign — its struggles to understand and operate within the sometimes arcane rules that govern delegate allocation at the state level. Those struggles have set him back in the delegate fight in Louisiana and potentially Colorado.
That’s become hugely important for the remaining campaigns as it’s become increasingly likely that the GOP primary will head to a brokered convention, where delegates will engage in multiple rounds of balloting until a candidate can cobble together a majority.
If Trump is unable to win the nomination outright on the first round of voting, many of his and other candidates’ delegates will be released and can vote for whomever they please. With that in mind, each of the candidates are jockeying to get their loyalists elected at the state level as delegates to the national convention.
In Tennessee, delegates are bound on the first two rounds of voting, and then set free. But Bennett said the Trump campaign is also concerned about ensuring Trump supporters get appointed to a handful of key committees that decide the rules governing how a candidate qualifies for the nomination.
“Some of the establishment guys who were on the ballot as delegates for Rubio and [Jeb] Bush — now they suddenly are Trump delegates or Cruz delegates, and so they could potentially change the rules so an establishment guy can get nominated,” he said.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com.As the United States and other Western nations prepare to withdraw their military forces from Afghanistan, China is growing nervous about the prospect of chaos after they have left.
So, after years of standing in the background, Beijing is starting to show signs of closer engagement with its strife-torn neighbor in a bid to ward off disaster, say Chinese and foreign analysts.
When Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao here on Friday, they will raise their countries’ bilateral relations to a “new strategic level,” an Afghan official told reporters in Kabul this week.
Though it is still unclear what that will mean in practice, the step reflects Beijing’s feeling that “it is urgent that China strengthen its relationship with Afghanistan,” says Zhang Li, an expert on South Asia at Sichuan University in Chengdu.
“Afghanistan’s security situation will have a direct impact on China’s security,” he adds. The Western military pullout “clearly presents China with more problems than opportunities.”
China to the plate
Some observers here believe it is time that China stepped up to the plate. “It is not rational to rely on a distant and remote country to provide security for the region,” says Hu Shisheng, an analyst at the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations, referring to the United States. “China has to take more responsibility.”
But after leaving things to the Americans for so long, warn others here, Beijing may not be well placed to exert influence. “We cannot play a significant role because we do not have a sufficient presence in Afghanistan,” cautions Ye Hailin, an Asian affairs analyst at the China Academy of Social Sciences, a government-linked think tank in Beijing.
The one thing China will not be doing as Western soldiers leave Afghanistan is get involved militarily there itself. With scarcely any experience of peacekeeping operations abroad, the Chinese Army “would be stepping into uncharted territory in a potentially very kinetic situation,” points out Raffaello Pantucci, a scholar who follows China’s relationship with Central Asian nations. “It would be a huge jump for them.”
“We are not qualified to play a military game in Afghanistan,” adds Mr. Ye. “Only empires can do that, and neither the British, nor the Soviet Union, nor the Americans have won.”
The security question
Closer ties with Kabul could bring more aid, more infrastructure projects, and more training for Afghan policemen and soldiers, say Chinese observers. That security support, they suggest, could come through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group of Asian nations led by Beijing and Moscow at whose summit here this week Afghanistan is expected to be admitted as an observer.
Beijing is also likely to step up its tentative diplomatic involvement in the Afghan conflict, suggests Professor Zhang, after it hosted a first trilateral meeting with Afghan and Pakistani officials last February that “showed China’s intention of strengthening its influence in Afghan security issues.”
At that meeting, Chinese diplomats reportedly sought to convince the Afghan and Pakistani governments to work more closely together to regain control over their borderlands. Armed Uighur separatists, fighting for the independence of China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, which abuts Afghanistan and Pakistan, are believed to have set up camps in North Waziristan. (See map here.)
“Stability in those tribal regions is of utmost national security importance to China,” says Mr. Hu.
Why China cares
If Western troops leave the Afghan Army and the Taliban still locked in combat, China is worried that the Uighur “East Turkmenistan Independence Movement,” which Beijing regards as a terrorist group, might find refuge in Taliban-controlled zones. Officials here also fear an upsurge of drug smuggling through Xinjiang.
More frightening, though, is the prospect that continued fighting and possible Taliban gains would spill over into Pakistan, China’s closest regional ally. “A disaster in Afghanistan could undermine China’s strategic bulwark in the region,” points out Andrew Small, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Washington who is writing a book about China’s relationship with Pakistan.
At the same time, a security vacuum in Afghanistan could prompt a proxy conflict there between regional rivals India and Pakistan, further complicating China’s position.
“If Afghan troubles spilled into Pakistan, that could turn our alliance into chaos,” warns Ye. “China has the same interest as the Americans in preventing Pakistan from becoming a nest of terrorists.”
Indeed China’s interests in Afghanistan coincide strongly with Western interests, says Mr. Pantucci. “They want a stable, peaceful, prosperous country that they can trade with and build roads through and where they can seek natural resources,” he says. “Stability in Afghanistan would contribute to stability in Central Asia, and that would help Beijing develop Xinjiang, its biggest and poorest province.”
For the past decade, China has not played a significant role in Afghanistan. Its state owned companies have built roads and invested $3.5 billion in a copper mine, but according to the Chinese Embassy in Kabul, Beijing has contributed only $246 million in aid over the past decade; that is less than one-tenth of Japan’s aid, or half of South Korea’s.
Until now, concerns in Beijing about the proximity of NATO bases to Chinese territory have been offset by relief that at least somebody else was dealing with the problem in Afghanistan.
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Now, says Zhang, “China has to face the fact that a withdrawal timetable has been confirmed and we have to focus on all the new problems that may crop up.”
In the US, adds Ye, “a lot of people may think that after their military withdraws in 2014, Afghanistan is not their business anymore. We, on the other hand, see 2014 as a very crucial year for Afghanistan, but we don’t see it as the end of anything. We are going to have to live with that.”Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward called out the media for “binge drinking the anti-Trump Kool-Aid.”
Woodward said, “Stick to the reporting. Stick to the reporting. You have done a great job. Of course, one of the realities here is that we’ve got an old newspaper war going between The New York Times and The Washington Post. Some very powerful stories. At the same time, I think it’s time to dial back a little bit about because there are people around — certainly not you, certainly not the reporters at the Post — who are kind of binge drinking the anti-Trump Kool-Aid. And that is not going to work in journalism. Let the politicians have that binge drinking.”
(h/t Daily Caller)
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN(These remarks were presented recently by Dr Prannoy Roy at the RedInk Awards in Mumbai where he was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mumbai Press Club)
I have accepted this award because of the immense respect I have for the Press Club of Mumbai. This award is essentially not for me - it's for the person who started NDTV and who is the driving force behind NDTV's vision, growth, editorial direction and ethics: my partner and my inspiration, Radhika Roy. It is also an award for the entire team at NDTV - simply the finest, most talented and most fun team to work with. And I'm so proud that many present and past members of this greater NDTV team - are being awarded tonight. As far as we are concerned - you never left NDTV, you still have the same DNA and you're all still part of the NDTV extended family.
I was given my first Lifetime Achievement award about 10 years ago - and I took it as a not-so-subtle message, saying, "Prannoy, it's time to pack up". After a couple of more such messages - which pointed to the sunset - I decided to avoid Lifetime Achievement awards. Things reached a climax when - and this is absolutely true - the head of a very prestigious TV award organization - called me up and asked me to accept an "Award for being India's Most-Trusted Anchor". A few days later he sent me a formal letter, which confirmed the phone call, except, he left out the "T" in "trusted anchor"!
You may still be wondering why on earth this "rusted anchor" has accepted this award - well, as you know, "we journalists may not be the most important people in the country - we are certainly the most self-important".
So, apart from being self-important, what is the true state of journalism in India? Where are we at? What is to be done?
May I just give you a quick anecdote that shows how far we have come since the first-ever private news was telecast in India - it was a daily half-hour news bulletin produced by NDTV called The News Tonight for Doordarshan in 1995. It was the first night - I was anchoring - (and like all anchors, I decided to show off a little - all anchors basically have "show-off" engraved into their DNA) - and I said as I glanced at my watch, "Good evening, it's 8 o'clock and this is the News Tonight coming to you live". LIVE? Someone in the PM's office heard the word LIVE - and reacted to it like a 4-letter word. He immediately phoned the I&B Ministry and yelled at them to take us off air - or at least stop this private news from being live. Well, nightly news that's not live might as well be dead news. How did we get around this? We changed the clocks. There was Indian Standard Time and there was NDTV time. Everywhere in the NDTV studios, we had two clocks - one showing NDTV time that was 10 minutes ahead of India Standard Time. We bought a large capacity hard drive, which could store 10 minutes of Video. So we would start our nightly news at 8 o'clock sharp NDTV time - the video would go into the hard drive - and automatically regurgitate itself 10 minutes later - at exactly 8 o'clock Indian Standard Time. So no censorship was possible, no editorial interference by the government - but, technically it wasn't live. We have come a long way since then, right?
In fact, I would characterize India's media as the most crucial ingredient of this, our third phase of India's democracy. Let me explain. In the first phase, we voted like sheep: 80% of governments (state and central) were voted back into power. The second phase - which I call the "angry, volatile" phase - 80% of governments - good or bad - were thrown out of power. Now in Phase 3 - the last 12 years - I call it the "informed' phase - in which voters have unparalleled access to media - 50% of governments, generally the better ones, are voted back, while 50%, normally those with a poor performance, are voted out. In the first two phases, voters would see their candidate once every 5 years - at campaign time. Now every time politicians leave their homes, there are dozens of mics stuck under their noses. How things have changed - and all of you in the media are a crucial part of this positive change in our democracy.
So it's wonderful to see how far India's media has come. But there are some worrying trends that need course correction - now, before it's too late.
Proud as we are about our news channels in India, may I list 3 or 4 things that need to change:
First - perhaps the biggest danger we face today is the tabloidization of our news. Every advanced country with a developed, mature media has a wide spectrum of news - from credible and serious journalism to the tabloid - in England, from The Times and The Economist to the Sun and the Mirror; in the United States, from The New York Times to the New York Post; and in television news, from BBC and CNN to Fox News.
But in India there is this dangerous slide to one end of the spectrum. Why has every news channel - English, Hindi or Regional - turned tabloid? Why are we trying to emulate Fox News? And why does every news anchor want to be another Bill O'Reilly? We have so many Bill O'Reillys. It would make O'Reilly proud... and some have gone so far, it may even make him a tr |
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