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. Human nature, on this view, can be fully explicated in physical-chemical terms. Thoughts, values, and emotions are specific types of material activity, no more.
If everything is matter, then humans are purely physical beings. When they produce goods or services, they do so exclusively by means of manual labor. Who, on this view, creates wealth? Is it the entrepreneurs and the capitalists who invent products or finance their production? Or is it the workers in the factories and the fields—the men and women who use their hands to physically make the goods?
On the premise of materialism, it is the latter. The workers create the goods—but the capitalists own them. This, says Marx, is unjust.
The owners grow wealthy by exploiting the labor of the workers. The owning class is, therefore, the inveterate enemy of the working class. Human society, especially under capitalism, is permeated by social-economic injustice.
Further, the owners use their economic power to buy political influence and thus control the state. They pass laws protecting private property, their ill-gotten wealth that properly belongs to the workers. The workers have no legal recourse by which to recover what is rightfully theirs.
Capitalism, Marx concludes, is a system of institutionalized exploitation. There is but one means to redress the injustice: The workers must rise, a la the Paris street mob of the French Revolution; they must seize the wealth that properly belongs to them, and they must obliterate the capitalists. The owning class will be incarcerated and/or killed. “We have no compassion,” stated Marx. “When our time comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”2
The essence of Marxist theory is unremitting class warfare. Because these economic classes are groups, not individuals, it is the group—whether the owning class or the working class—that is the unit of moral value....The Mexican government says it is now a matter of "historical truth" that 43 college students who have been missing since last September were murdered by drug traffickers who believed they were members of a rival gang.
Attorney General Jesus Murillo told reporters Monday investigators were now certain the students, all men, were abducted by corrupt police officers in southern Guerrero state and handed over to members of Guerreros Unidos. He said the gang took the students to a garbage dump and killed them, then burned the bodies and dumped the remains in a nearby river.
The bodies were so thoroughly burned, however, that only one of the missing students has been positively identified. Murillo said investigators reached their conclusions based on forensic evidence collected from the crime scene, as well as statements from a number of witnesses, including a confession by a member of Guerreros Unidos arrested nearly two weeks ago.
Dozens of people have been arrested in the case, including Jose Luis Abarca, the mayor of the city of Iguala, where the students disappeared. Authorities believe Abarca and his wife ordered police to abduct the students.
The disappearance of the students led to massive street protests across Mexico against President Enrique Pena Nieto, accusing him of failing to address the country's chronic crime and insecurity problems.BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) reached a deal on migrant policy with her conservative Bavarian allies on Sunday, removing a major obstacle to pursuing talks on a coalition with other parties.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a meeting of her conservative CDU's youth organization, the Junge Union (Young Union), in Dresden, Germany, October 7, 2017. REUTERS/Matthias Rietschel
In an apparent concession, Merkel agreed to put a number on how many people Germany would accept per year on humanitarian grounds, namely a net total of around 200,000 individuals.
The CDU and Christian Social Union (CSU) reached the migrant deal after about seven hours of talks and later adjourned their meeting. It was unclear whether they had agreed on other issues, such as Europe and pensions. Further details will be made available at a news conference on Monday.
Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in a Sept. 24 election but was weakened by heavy losses to the far right.
She wants to build a coalition between her conservative bloc and two other parties, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens, which are far apart on issues from tax and energy to Europe.
First, however, she must get her own house in order and overcome some major differences between her CDU and the CSU, its sister party in Bavaria, a state that accounts for 15 percent of Germany’s population.
The two parties have formed a parliamentary bloc together for decades, but have diverged over migrant policy since Merkel left the border open to a huge wave of migrants in 2015, most of whom entered the country through Bavaria.
The CSU has demanded a cap on refugees, but Merkel has resisted that, arguing it would breach Germany’s constitution, which guarantees the right of asylum to anyone facing political persecution.
Under the face-saving compromise brokered on Sunday, Germany would accept a net of about 200,000 people a year on humanitarian grounds, including families of refugees already in Germany. Authorities will not turn people away at the border, however, and the parties avoided using the term “upper limit” that Merkel has consistently rejected.
“We want to achieve a total number of people taken in for humanitarian reasons (refugees and asylum seekers, those entitled to subsidiary protection, family members, relocation and resettlement minus deportations and voluntary departures of future refugees) that does not exceed 200,000 people a year,” states the agreement.
CLIMBDOWN
The leaders also agreed they wanted to set up centers where asylum seekers would stay until decisions on their applications were made. Rejected asylum seekers would be returned to their home countries.
They also agreed to declare Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as countries of safe origin, meaning Germany can return rejected asylum seekers there more easily.
“It is a good day for the conservatives and a good day for Germany,” CSU General Secretary Andreas Scheuer said after the talks.
Setting a number is a climbdown for Merkel and may not be acceptable to the Greens.
“This is an agreement between the CDU and CSU and far from the result of exploratory talks for a coalition with the FDP and Greens,” said Greens co-leader Simone Peter.
The target looks achievable, however, given that the number of people arriving in Germany fell to about 280,000 last year from 890,000 in 2015. A further drop is expected this year.
In addition, the two parties agreed to push for an immigration law that would give priority to migrants with skills to plug gaps in the labor market. There is broad support for that from the FDP and Greens.
Fearing heavy losses to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a state election next year, the CSU has dug in its heels on the issue of a cap to the number of migrants.
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The stakes are high for the CSU’s combative leader, Horst Seehofer, who is fighting for his political survival after a poor election performance. The CSU slumped to 6.2 percent, measured nationally, from 7.4 percent in 2013.
Once the CDU and CSU have agreed on all their policies, they can start exploratory talks with the FDP and Greens.
It could still take months to get a full coalition deal and investors are concerned about the prospect of a policy standstill in Europe’s biggest economy. If no deal is reached, the prospect looms of either a minority government or new elections.La Plata County / Courtesy photo
Farmers on the Navajo Nation continue to have problems in the wake of the recent spill of 3 million gallons of toxic waste into the Animas River.
The newest issue: Some in and around Shiprock, where water from the San Juan River still hasn’t been cleared for use, say a private company the EPA paid to deliver water brought contaminated liquid in used oil barrels.
“The barrels are not clean,” Farm Board Representative Joe Ben Jr. was quoted by KUNM radio in Albuquerque as saying. “They are from oil drilling operations.” Advertisement
The toxic waste from the Gold King Mine in Southern Colorado, which sparked this disaster, flowed through the Animas into the San Juan last week and is making its way past the Navajo Nation. The EPA inadvertently triggered the spill at the mine.
“Disaster upon catastrophe” is how Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chilli” Yazzie described on Facebook the EPA’s attempt to deliver water. As farmers “started to take water from the tanks for their corn and melons,” they noticed some of the water was “rust colored, smelled of petroleum and slick with oil.”
“The hopes of the farmers of actually being able to save some of the precious crops were obliterated in an instant with the tainted water. The farmers refused to use the water,” Yazzie wrote. “Crops are getting thirsty, it is reaching critical stage. Pray for rain.”
According to KUNM, “There are about 450 farmers in the Shiprock area, which is the agricultural hub of the Navajo Nation.”
The Farmington Daily Times wrote about a Monday meeting of the farmers:
Ben said he notified the EPA about the tanks and asked for certification that the tanks were in good condition to haul water. He said Monday that no one had responded to his requests. During the emergency farmers meeting at the chapter house, Ben explained the situation to farmers and residents. Sitting on a table were five plastic containers holding water samples — varying in color from yellow to brown — that Ben said were collected from the tanks.
Meanwhile, the Denver Post illustrated what’s at stake:The epidemic of empty shelves has some members of the Soviet Parliament talking about the possibility of famine this winter. Some people in this city of 9 million say they fear that the food shortages could lead to rioting in the streets, and Western nations are taking more and more initiatives to supply emergency food aid to this beleaguered nation.
"The situation couldn't be worse," said Valentina Titova, a 60-ish civil servant with a bad leg, as she waited at Food Store No. 19. "There's nothing available now."
The store had no eggs, milk, butter, sausage, cheese or fish, although it did have some sugar, mainly because the Moscow City Council has ordered that it be rationed.
Government officials and store managers say shortages should in theory be no worse than the usually bad situation of recent years because the amount of food produced this year is about the same as last year. Hoarding Is Blamed
Mrs. Bogdanova, the store manager, speculates that hoarding is the reason for the shortages. As soon as her employees put on display a new shipment of a commodity like sausage or butter, shoppers descend on her store like locusts.
"We're getting the same amount of food delivered as we did last year," Mrs. Bogdanova said. "A truckload of sausage or meat that used to take a week to sell now might be sold out in two or three hours."
Increasingly Muscovites, and people throughout the Soviet Union, are directing their anger at President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for not figuring out how to set things right.
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About 10 days ago, Soviet lawmakers, having seen the desperate shape of their hometowns during a legislative break, demanded some explanations and action from Mr. Gorbachev. He responded with a plan to reshape the Government and promised an emergency plan to deal with the food crisis. Starvation Threat Denied
He and other Government officials say there is no threat of starvation, and they contend that critics are crying famine to score political points. Nonetheless, Mr. Gorbachev is quietly lobbying for emergency Western food aid and an overall eocnomic aid package to help stabilize the desperate situation in the short term, with plans to take the bold, painful steps needed to build a market economy after the shortages are alleviated.
"There's an urgent need to stop an explosion by the people," said Aleksandr Levikov, a longtime Soviet economic journalist. "If people don't get food, they could take to the streets and put an end to perestroika, glasnost and everything."
Economists here say hoarding has reached the worst level in decades because people fear that economic and other chaos could erupt as a result of the tug of war between Moscow and the Soviet republics and the stumbling, half-hearted moves toward a market economy. Besides, since the Government has repeatedly hinted that it will someday loosen price controls, Muscovites are snapping up everything they can before prices leap.
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One shopper talked about how his daughter one day lugged home a dozen one-kilogram (2.2 pound) bags of oatmeal because she passed a shop that had just received a shipment. A professor said that he had bought a second refrigerator, even though he really could not afford it, to store more meat. No Shortage of Suspects
Muscovites are too conspiracy-minded to believe that hoarding alone explains the shortages. Some people suggest that old-line Communists are scheming to keep food off the shelves to make Mr. Gorbachev look bad. Others blame it on an economic "mafia," a group of speculators or middlemen who putatively get their hands on food that was destined for state shops, then sell it at much higher prices in the Western-style farmers markets, where there are no price controls and where food supplies are abundant.
"A lot of this food is taken by the mafia," said Tamara Artemyeva, who worked at a cashier at a delicatessan that had only one thing for sale: cabbage. "I don't know whether they destroy it or sell it on the black market. But I'm sure they do something that's profitable for them."
Many Muscovites are convinced that clerks at state shops are selling their goods out the back door more than ever before. Such corruption, a longstanding practice here, pays off better than ever now because the difference between the fixed prices at the state shops and the unrestricted prices at the food markets is larger than ever. A kilogram of meat sells for 2 rubles at the state shops, and 25 rubles in Moscow's markets. The average Soviet citizen earns 280 rubles a month.
At Food Store No. 19 one afternoon not long ago, shoppers nearly began a scuffle when they discovered that employees had stashed away some milk that was supposed to be sold to the public. 3 or 4 Hours in Line
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Although shortages seem ubiquitous, shoppers say they somehow scrape by. Pensioners, who receive about 130 rubles a month, say they sometimes wait on line three or four hours a day in state stores to purchase what they and their children need.
To avoid lines, consumers can shop at the well-stocked farmers markets, but not everyone has the money. "The prices at the market are just too high," Svetlana Palgina said as she waited in a 45-minute line at a fish store.
Economists see other basic reasons behind the bare shelves. The old Communist distribution system has largely fallen apart, while no smoothly running system has replaced it. Moreover, the system of trade among the Soviet Union's 15 republics has deteriorated as some republics, including Byelorussia and Estonia, restrict exports of their products to other republics.
"These goods are not sent along normal trade channels any more, and in Moscow and Leningrad, the situation is probably the worst," said Vladimir M. Mashchits, a reform-minded economist. Leningrad to Ration Food
This month Leningrad's City Council voted to begin food rationing on basic foods during December. To make sure there are enough basics for everyone, the Moscow City Council is considering rationing foods other than sugar.
Some free-market council members instead support liberalizing prices, which should make more foods available in the city. At the same time, they would increase subsidies for the poor.
Another major reason for the empty shelves, economists say, is the nation's gigantic budget deficit, expected to represent more than one-fifth the budget. The Government is printing tens of millions of rubles to finance this deficit, thus putting far more rubles into people's hands while the amount of goods remains stable.
This excess money would normally cause inflation, but because most prices are fixed, it instead contributes to shortages. People are using this excess money to vacuum up everything they see.
For every 100 rubles in circulation, there are less than 15 rubles worth of goods in stores.CLEVELAND—The band of Republican delegates mounting a last-ditch effort to snatch the nomination away from 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 claiming a last-minute victory in a push to force every delegate to vote on the party's rules on the convention floor.
Delegates Unbound, a group of delegates that support unbinding the delegates to free them from their pledge to vote for Trump, announced Monday afternoon it had secured enough support to force that roll call vote.
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The delegates aim to vote down the rules package in its entirety in order to force the party back to the drawing board under pressure to unbind delegates. But the effort will likely only gum up the process, as it remains extremely unlikely the effort can find the 1,237 delegates needed.
“Despite every obstacle thrown in our way, the movement of all the stakeholders involved in this effort have gained a majority of the delegates in 10 states," said Dane Waters, co-founder of Delegates Unbound, in a statement released just before the convention began.
"Now we take this fight to the floor."
The group needed majorities in seven states in order to force that roll call vote, so the effort appears to have eclipsed that mark. But that's still far short from the majority needed.
There was initial confusion over whether the group was able to successfully file the petitions with the Republican National Committee leadership in order to force that vote. On the convention floor, those loyal to the effort frantically checked their phones for Twitter updates or text messages to confirm whether the signatures were submitted in time.
One delegate involved in the effort confirmed to The Hill the group successfully turned in the petition, setting up the Hail Mary vote.
In most years, rules are confirmed with a perfunctory voice vote that takes little time. But it appears that the group will move to force the time-consuming change of plans to query each delegate.
It's the last breath of the "Never Trump" movement, which lost a series of efforts during last week's rules committee meetings aimed at unbinding convention delegates. In addition to the "Never Trump" faction, the group also wants to attract those who want to decentralize power from the Republican National Committee and restrict primaries to registered Republicans.
--This report was updated at 4:02 p.m.According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, Andre Iguodala has signed with the Golden State Warriors for 4 years $48 million. This is a deep blow to the Denver Nuggets.
Andre Igoudala has reached agreement with Golden State on a four year, $48 million deal with the Warriors, league source tells Y! Sports. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 5, 2013
What do the Nuggets do now? Who knows. After putting all their eggs in Iguodala's basket it seems like they are floating about a bit. Wondering what to do next.
Are there viable replacements on the market? Or will the team commit to rebuilding? There are many many questions yet to be answered in this saga. In the meantime say goodbye to Andre Iguodala in the way you see fit. Keep it clean as possible.
Nuggets, according to Sam Amick had refused to do a sign and trade for Iguodala with the Warriors.
But this much is clear: Iguodala remains a possibility only if those deals can be made, as his former Denver Nuggets team strongly rebuffed the idea of cooperating in a sign-and-trade with a Warriors team that upset them in the first round of the playoffs, and the Rockets are clearly worried about the threat the Warriors pose to land Howard.
Will this come back to haunt the Nuggets next season?
Exclusive update for Denver Stiffs:
According to a league source, Iguodala was offered 5 year full gaurantee for same money per year at Golden State, or the option for a 5 year partial guarantee that would have netted more money from the Nuggets.August 8, 2013 at 9:55 PM
Two hikers — a woman from Bellingham and a man from California — are credited with setting speed records this week for hiking the 2,655-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.
Josh Garrett, 30, a Santa Monica track coach, fitness instructor and animal-welfare activist, completed the hike just before 9 p.m. PDT Thursday, averaging nearly 45 miles a day for 59 days, 8 hours, 59 minutes.
His finish came less than a day after Heather “Anish” Anderson of Bellingham completed the hike in 61 days and about 17 hours.
Both hikers surpassed what had been the previous record off the 64 days, 11 hours, and 19 minutes set by distance hiker Scott Williamson in 2011. And although Anderson’s record was bested by Garrett, it remains the fastest time recorded for a female hiker, enthusiasts say.
While no agency formally tracks such records, Jack Haskel of the Sacramento-based Pacific Crest Trail Association said he has great respect for Anderson and Garrett and has no reason to doubt their accomplishment.
“I consider this to be leaps and bounds more physically trying than any other endurance sports I know of. It’s just incredibly hard,” Haskel said.
On her Facebook page, Anderson said trail hiking changed her life. “I was an overweight child, a bookworm who sat with her nose in an adventure book and daydreamed. I never exercised and couldn’t make it around the track without walking.”
Garrett is backed by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, said Gary Smith of California-based Evolotus Public Relations, handling publicity for the hike.
Garrett, who became a vegan about two years ago, has said he’s making the hike to call attention to cruel and inhumane practices used in the raising and slaughtering of animals for food. He is seeking funds for a national animal-rights group, Mercy for Animals.
Mackey, who has hiked with Garrett, said in a prepared statement that “Josh is not only a very nice person, but is also the strongest hiker I have ever had the privilege to hike with.” He called Garrett’s Pacific Crest trek an “absolutely extraordinary accomplishment, by an extraordinary man.”Stacia Robitaille met Donald Trump in an elevator close to 20 years ago, and on Tuesday she shared her account of his “aggressive” and inappropriate behavior.
The wife of former NHL great Luc Robitaille this week became the 20th woman to step forward and accuse Trump of acting in a sexually inappropriate manner. The accusers span across decades and tell stories that range from Trump aggressively fondling and kissing them without their consent to making inappropriate advances.
Stacia Robitaille recalled meeting Donald Trump in an elevator at Madison Square Garden when her husband was playing for the New York Rangers in the late 1990s. Trump, who was married to second wife Marla Maples at the time, told Stacia that she was coming home with him.
When Stacia responded that she was married to a member of the New York Rangers, Trump responded by bragging that he made more money than her husband.
Though Robitaille’s tweet was made late on Monday, it started to gain traction on Tuesday as media outlets began to pick up on her account. USA Today picked up on her account, noting that it came amid a groundswell of support for Trump’s many accusers. Four of the women who have accused Trump of sexually inappropriate behavior have called on Congress to investigate their allegations, and a group of Democratic Senators led by New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand have called on Donald Trump to resign.
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After her allegation against Donald Trump, Stacia Robitaille fought off allegations that she was just making up her story for attention. Robitaille responded to one Twitter user that she felt bad keeping the story to herself.
The 54-year-old wife of the former NHL great has a number of acting credits under her belt as Stacey Toten and in recent years has gained a reputation for her charitable work. Stacia Robitaille is the co-founder and CEO of Echoes of Hope, a non-profit organization that helps families that have been torn apart by devastating circumstances, including natural disasters.
Donald Trump has steadfastly denied all allegations against him, calling his accusers liars. The White House has also said it can produce eyewitnesses proving the women’s accounts are fake, but has not yet done so.
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Donald Trump has not yet responded to the allegation from Stacia Robitaille.Worker Cooperatives
With the concept of inequality returning to economic and political discourse, people have been exploring both new and old ideas to deal with this age-old economic dilemma. However, much of the debate is focused on redistribution – Thomas Piketty’s main suggestions were to increases taxes, especially wealth taxes – and as such there has been little discussion of the sources of inequality and how we might solve the problem of inequality at a fundamental level. Worker cooperatives could be one such solution.
To see why worker cooperatives might reduce inequality, at least in theory, one must remind themselves of Marx’s theory of surplus value. Regardless of whether you subscribe yourself to the labour theory of value or subjective theory of value, it’s reasonable to suggest that the amount of value created during production is often a lot greater than the amount those workers actually receive. This ‘surplus value’ is retained by those who own the enterprise, often in the form of profits. There is also a lack of incentive for the workers employed to work any more efficiently than they need to be to remain employed. Although many firms now offer some form of commission or bonus to more productive workers, this still does not represent the total amount of value, nor does it deal with the lack of incentive for others within the business.
Worker cooperatives can potentially resolve this. Worker cooperatives are firms which are owned and managed by their workers, those who have an internal relationship with the firm, unlike investors, customers or the state all of which hold an external relationship with the inner dealings of the firm. As owners of the company, the workers essentially become the shareholders, who are consequentially responsible for the distribution of the surplus value they create. This also resolves the issue concerning individual incentives: in order to receive a higher net-income (wages plus profits), workers are more likely to work more efficiently and in some cases are more likely to develop innovative techniques and technologies using the tacit knowledge they have developed (Smith, 1994).
Worker cooperatives are also inherently democratic. Although larger cooperatives still require management to make decisive decisions, these managers remain democratically accountable to all worker-members of the firm. Market discipline is also present, ensuring that employees don’t give themselves excessive wages via higher prices, or by failing to take often unpopular decisions, such as enabling labour-saving technologies that will otherwise threaten the firm’s competitiveness.
However, there are potential problems. As ownership of the firm is tied entirely to the workforce, the enterprise cannot offer equity in return for investment. As worker cooperatives are thus unable to facilitate investment (e.g. via the stock market), they have to find investment through other channels. Existing worker cooperatives have found numerous ways to address this: the John Lewis Partnership, the UK’s largest employee-owned firm, offered investment bonds to workers and customers in order to facilitate investment (BBC News, 2011). Another example is the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which established its own financial institution to offer investment capital to new or existing worker cooperatives in its company. If a worker cooperative economy is to develop, it must develop the financial institutions that are not currently in place to facilitate investment.
Although worker cooperatives are no panacea for solving the issue of rising inequality, they could provide an interesting alternative to the many ills of the contemporary capitalist firm. Please see the additional materials below, that highlight other potential benefits and limitations of worker cooperatives that we have not had time to discuss. Next times blog will focus on Islamic Finance, however, in the meantime please post your thoughts on worker-ownership, or perhaps other alternative business models.
Additional Material
BBC News. (2011) John Lewis to offer customers investment bond. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12659718
Mayfield, C., Purnell, J. and Davies, W. (2012) ‘Why aren’t there more companies like John Lewis?: The difficulties of breaking the stranglehold of shareholder capitalism’, Public Policy Research, 18:4, pp. 216-221.
Pencavel, J., Pistaferri, L. and Schivardi, F. (2006) ‘Wages, Employment, and Capital in Capitalist and Worker-Owned Firms’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60:1, pp. 23-44.
Smith, S. C. (1994) ‘Innovation and market strategy in Italian industrial cooperatives: Econometric evidence on organizational comparative advantage’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation, 23, pp. 303-320.
Vanek, J. (1970) The General Theory of Labour-Managed Market Economies. London: Cornell University Press.With a $1.7 million bounty on his head, former (I think we can say that now) Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is now being hunted by not only the rebels but also the host of NATO ISR assets involved in the fight and possibly British SAS commandos.
UK Defence Secretary, Liam Fox announced yesterday that "NATO is providing intelligence and reconnaisance assets" to hunt members of Gadhafi's regime. I'm willing to bet that many of these ISR assets are U.S. military aircraft.
While Pentagon spokeswoman Wendy Snyder couldn't provide a breakdown of the specific ISR birds being used in the Libyan fight, she confirmed that there are more than 70 manned and unmanned U.S. military aircraft flying everything from ISR missions to refueling and strike sorties over Libya.
We do know is that the U.S. Air Force's big E-3 AWACS jets and E-8 Joint STARS ground scanning radar planes have been on scene as well as it's RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude spy drone. The Global Hawk is equipped with IR cameras and, like the E-8, a synthetic aperture radar that allows it to take high resolution snapshots of the ground or track moving targets like enemy trucks that the dictator may be riding in. (The E-8's radar has even been used in Afghanistan to identify disturbances in the Earth where IEDs have been planted.) The AWACS, meanwhile, could look for any attempts to fly Gadhafi out of the country.
We also know that RC-135 Rivet Joints have played a key role in intercepting the communications of Gadhafi's forces. This info has been used in conjunction with the Global Hawk's radars to pinpoint Gadhafi's fighters and cue strike missions against them. Snippets of these intercepted conversations between Gadhafi's troops complaining about a dire lack of supplies were also provided to rebels by NATO in order to boost their morale.
The Air Force jets have been joined in Libya, at times, by the Navy's own P-3 radar and EP-3 Aries signals intelligence planes. Some P-3s have a similar radar as the E-8s that allows them to scan the ground for moving targets while others can scan the ocean's surface to ID any of Gadhafi's henchmen that may be trying to conduct a maritime assault (or smuggle the ex-strongman out of the country).
Don't forget the Predator drones that, in addition to performing 102 airstrikes as of today, have no doubt been used to ID Gadhafi's troops and heavy weapons that have been hiding among the civilian populations in Libyan cities.
And finally, there are the allied fighter jets themselves, like the French air force's Rafale's which are using the Areos photo reconnaissance pod to take day and night pictures of the battlefield and instantly beam them to command centers. The fast movers can use their recce pods to track potential targets (like a fleeing dictator) and quickly kill them if need be.
All these airborne assets are being used in conjunction with the commandos of the British 22 SAS Regiment who are on the ground disguised as rebel fighters in their hunt for the Krazy Kolonel; a man officially wanted "dead or alive" by the rebels' National Transitional Council.
From The Telegraph (UK):
For the first time, defence sources have confirmed that the SAS has been in Libya for several weeks, and played a key role in coordinating the fall of Tripoli.
With the majority of the capital now in rebel hands, the SAS soldiers, who have been dressed in Arab civilian clothing and carrying the same weapons as the rebels, have been ordered to switch their focus to the search for Gaddafi, who has been on the run since his fortified headquarters was captured on Tuesday.
Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) said Gaddafi was wanted “dead or alive” and promised an amnesty to any of his inner circle prepared to betray his whereabouts.
Nato still has no idea where the despot is holed up, and on Wednesday he taunted his opponents by claiming in a television interview that he had secretly toured the streets of Tripoli without being spotted.As a gamer and hardware enthusiast that spends a lot of time in various PC gaming communities, one of the longest on-going debates has been the best choice for CPU when it comes to gaming; Intel or AMD.
While there are users on both sides claiming their favorite brand is the best, we’ve noticed quite a bit more on the side of Intel. You might ask, why? – Well, that’s pretty easy, Intel is faster. That’s right, we’ve said it. When it comes to raw CPU performance there’s no question that Intel’s newer manufacturing processes, and better overall IPC is definitely faster in the majority of tasks. However, with all that said we still believe that AMD isn’t being given a fair shake. Especially in the gaming communities where their lower prices should seem much more attractive to gamer’s on tight budgets.
So, today we’re going to be doing a real-world gaming test running a variety of popular games, across multiple graphics configurations with real-world resolution and graphical settings. If you’re looking for max settings at 800×600-1024×768, you may want to stop reading now. The components we’ll be testing are the FX-8370 from AMD, and Intel’s current enthusiast flagship the Core i7 5960X,
TECHNOLOGY X TEST BENCH
We’d like to thank AMD, Intel, ASRock, Crucial, ADATA, EVGA and DeepCool for providing vital components without which this report would not be possible. Check out our review of the Intel Core i7 5960X, ASRock X99 OC Formula, the Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-2666 memory kit, and the DeepCool Captain 360 CPU Cooler and Thermaltake Core v51 chassis used in this report.
INTEL TEST SETUP
AMD TEST SETUP
SHARED COMPONETS
TESTING METHODOLOGY
In today’s report we’ll be doing a simple real-world gaming comparison between the FX-8370 and Intel Core i7 5960X. We’ll be testing both CPUs at their stock speeds as well as overclocked to 4.4GHz (Intel), and 4.6GHz (AMD). We chose these clock speeds for our overclocks simply because they’re the highest overclock we could achieve on each processor without much hassle. Yes, we could have pushed both chips even further with a bit more tweaking, however we wanted to test with a scenario we believe most gamers might be in, so quick and dirty overclocking it is.
For graphics, we’re going with three different configurations ‘Mid-range’, ‘High-end’ and ‘Ultra High-end’ in which we’ll be using the following graphics card configurations.
Mid-Range: EVGA SSC GTX 960 2GB
High-End: ASUS STRIX GTX 970
Ultra High-End: 2x ASUS STRIX GTX 970s in SLI
We’ll be testing only actual games, no synthetic benchmarks at all. Performance for each game was monitored using the utility Fraps, and then analyzed using FRAFS. In order to accurately measure the gaming experience, we’ve decided to forgo the use of minimum and maximum FPS in our results. This is because these values do not accurately represent the actual experience, or ‘smoothness’ of the game’s performance. Instead, we’ll be using the average FPS, as well as the average of the lowest 1%, and 0.1% of results. We believe these results will better showcase the variance in performance.
All games were tested at resolutions of 1080p, 1440p and 4K depending on the graphics card configuration. The titles tested include: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DoTA 2, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, The Witcher 3, Grand Theft Auto V and Project CARS.A cloture vote on fast-track trade legislation—known formally as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA)—is expected Tuesday. A vote on TPA itself could come as early as Wednesday. Whether it passes or fails depends on whether the pro-TPA alliance between most Senate Republicans and the 14 Democrats who voted for TPA a month ago can stick together. At the moment, odds are in favor of passage.
That original vote of 62-37 was just two more than needed. For the grassroots coalition that has been lined up against fast-tracking for more than a year, shifting enough votes to keep TPA from passing again is going to be a very difficult struggle. Changing minds may well depend on whether at least three Democrats find they cannot trust Republicans to carry through on their promise to pass another trade bill reauthorizing the program of workers' aid legislation called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).
TAA provides job training, some financial assistance and healthcare coverage for workers displaced by trade agreements. Some left-of-center critics say TAA, which has accompanied trade agreements since 1974, does far too little to aid workers displaced by trade agreements and that it's just not good enough to pass fast-tracking, which may lead to trade pacts that displace those workers in the first place. |
One (later) myth, attributed to Pindar, states that the festival at Olympia involved Heracles, the son of Zeus: According to Pindar, Heracles established an athletic festival to honor his father, Zeus, after he had completing his labors.
The games of previous millennia were discontinued and then revived by Lycurgus of Sparta, Iphitos of Elis, and Cleisthenes of Pisa at the behest of the Oracle of Delphi who claimed that the people had strayed from the gods, which had caused a plague and constant war. Restoration of the games would end the plague, usher in a time of peace, and signal a return to a more traditional lifestyle.[19]
The patterns that emerge from these myths are that the Greeks believed the games had their roots in religion, that athletic competition was tied to worship of the gods, and the revival of the ancient games was intended to bring peace, harmony and a return to the origins of Greek life.[20]
Since these myths were documented by historians like Pausanias, who lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the AD 160, it is likely that these stories are more fable than fact. It was often supposed that the origins of many aspects of the Olympics date to funeral games of the Mycenean period and later.[21] Alternatively, the games were thought to derive from some kind of vegetation magic or from initiation ceremonies. The most recent theory traces the origins of the games to large game hunting and related animal ceremonialism.[22]
History [ edit ]
A torch race
The Olympic games were held to be one of the two central rituals in ancient Greece, the other being the much older religious festival, the Eleusinian Mysteries.[23] The games first started in Olympia, Greece, in a sanctuary site for the Greek deities near the towns of Elis and Pisa (both in Elis on the peninsula of Peloponnesos). The Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia housed a 13-metre-high (43 ft) statue in ivory and gold of Zeus that had been sculpted by Phidias circa 445 BC. This statue was one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. By the time of the Classical Greek culture, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, the games were restricted to male participants.
The historian Ephorus, who lived in the fourth century BC, is one potential candidate for establishing the use of Olympiads to count years, although credit for codifying this particular epoch usually falls to Hippias of Elis, to Eratosthenes, or even to Timaeus, whom Eratosthenes may have imitated.[24][25][26] The Olympic Games were held at four-year intervals, and later, the ancient historians' method of counting the years even referred to these games, using the term Olympiad for the period between two games. Previously, the local dating systems of the Greek states were used (they continued to be used by everyone except the historians), which led to confusion when trying to determine dates. For example, Diodorus states that there was a solar eclipse in the third year of the 113th Olympiad, which must be the eclipse of 316 BC. This gives a date of (mid-summer) 765 BC for the first year of the first Olympiad.[27] Nevertheless, there is disagreement among scholars as to when the games began.[28]
The exedra reserved for the judges at Olympia on the north embankment of the stadium
The only competition held then was, according to the later Greek traveller Pausanias who wrote in AD 175, the stadion race, a race over about 190 metres (620 feet), measured after the feet of Hercules. The word stadium is derived from this foot race.
The Greek tradition of athletic nudity (gymnos)[29] was introduced in 720 BC, either by the Spartans or by the Megarian Orsippus, and this was adopted early in the Olympics as well.
Several groups fought over control of the sanctuary at Olympia, and hence the games, for prestige and political advantage. Pausanias later writes that in 668 BC, Pheidon of Argos was commissioned by the town of Pisa to capture the sanctuary from the town of Elis, which he did and then personally controlled the games for that year. The next year, Elis regained control.
The Olympic Games were part of the Panhellenic Games, four separate games held at two- or four-year intervals, but arranged so that there was at least one set of games every year. The Olympic Games were more important and more prestigious than the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian Games.
The games were in decline for many years but continued past AD 385, by which time flooding and earthquakes had damaged the buildings and invasions by barbarians had reached Olympia.[30] In 394 Theodosius I banned all pagan festivals, but archeological evidence indicates that some games were still held.[31]
Culture [ edit ]
The " Discobolus " is a copy of a Greek statue c. 5th century BC. It represents an ancient Olympic discus thrower
The ancient Olympics were as much a religious festival as an athletic event. The games were held in honor of the Greek god Zeus, and on the middle day of the games, 100 oxen would be sacrificed to him.[12] Over time Olympia, the site of the games, became a central spot for the worship of the head of the Greek pantheon and a temple, built by the Greek architect Libon, was erected on the mountaintop. The temple was one of the largest Doric temples in Greece.[12] The sculptor Pheidias created a statue of the god made of gold and ivory. It stood 42 feet (13 m) tall. It was placed on a throne in the temple. The statue became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.[12] As the historian Strabo put it,
... the glory of the temple persisted... on account both of the festal assembly and of the Olympian Games, in which the prize was a crown and which were regarded as sacred, the greatest games in the world. The temple was adorned by its numerous offerings, which were dedicated there from all parts of Greece.[12]
Artistic expression was a major part of the games. Sculptors, poets, painters and other artisans would come to the games to display their works in what became an artistic competition. Sculptors created works like Myron's Diskobolos or Discus Thrower. Their aim was to highlight natural human movement and the shape of muscles and the body. Poets would be commissioned to write poems in praise of the Olympic victors. Such victory songs or epinicians, were passed on from generation to generation and many of them have lasted far longer than any other honor made for the same purpose.[32] Pierre de Coubertin, one of the founders of the modern Olympic Games, wanted to fully imitate the ancient Olympics in every way. Included in his vision was an artistic competition modeled on the ancient Olympics and held every four years, during the celebration of the Olympic Games.[33] His desire came to fruition at the Olympics held in Athens in 1896.[34]
Politics [ edit ]
The Parthenon in Athens, one of the leading city-states of the ancient world
Power in ancient Greece became centered around the city-state in the 8th century BC.[35] The city-state was a population center organized into a self-contained political entity.[36] These city-states often lived in close proximity to each other, which created competition for limited resources. Though conflict between the city-states was ubiquitous, it was also in their self-interest to engage in trade, military alliances and cultural interaction.[37] The city-states had a dichotomous relationship with each other: on one hand, they relied on their neighbors for political and military alliances, while on the other they competed fiercely with those same neighbors for vital resources.[38] The Olympic Games were established in this political context and served as a venue for representatives of the city-states to peacefully compete against each other.[39]
In the first 200 years of the games' existence, they only had regional religious importance. Only Greeks in proximity to the mountain competed in these early games. This is evidenced by the dominance of Peloponnesian athletes in the victors' rolls.[40] The spread of Greek colonies in the 5th and 6th centuries BC is repeatedly linked to successful Olympic athletes. For example, Pausanias recounts that Cyrene was founded c. 630 BC by settlers from Thera with Spartan support. The support Sparta gave was primarily the loan of three-time Olympic champion Chionis. The appeal of settling with an Olympic champion helped to populate the colonies and maintain cultural and political ties with the city-states near Olympia. Thus, Hellenic culture and the games spread while the primacy of Olympia persisted.[41]
The games faced a serious challenge during the Peloponnesian War, which primarily pitted Athens against Sparta, but, in reality, touched nearly every Hellenic city-state.[42] The Olympics were used during this time to announce alliances and offer sacrifices to the gods for victory.[12][43]
During the Olympic Games, a truce, or ekecheiria was observed. Three runners, known as spondophoroi, were sent from Elis to the participant cities at each set of games to announce the beginning of the truce.[44] During this period, armies were forbidden from entering Olympia; and legal disputes, and the use of the death penalty, were forbidden. The truce — primarily designed to allow athletes and visitors to travel safely to the games — was, for the most part, observed.[44] Thucydides wrote of a situation when the Spartans were forbidden from attending the games, and the violators of the truce were fined 2,000 minae for assaulting the city of Lepreum during the period of the ekecheiria. The Spartans disputed the fine and claimed that the truce had not yet taken hold.[43][45]
While a martial truce was observed by all participating city-states, no such reprieve from conflict existed in the political arena. The Olympic Games evolved the most influential athletic and cultural stage in ancient Greece, and arguably in the ancient world.[46] As such the games became a vehicle for city-states to promote themselves. The result was political intrigue and controversy. For example, Pausanias, a Greek historian, explains the situation of the athlete Sotades,
Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans.[12]
Events [ edit ]
332-333 BC, British Museum Three runners featured on an Attic black-figured Panathenaic prize amphora.332-333 BC, British Museum
Events at the Olympics Olympiad Year Event first introduced 1st 776 BC Stade 14th 724 BC Diaulos 15th 720 BC Long distance race (Dolichos) 18th 708 BC Pentathlon, Wrestling 23rd 688 BC Boxing (pygmachia) 25th 680 BC Four horse chariot race (tethrippon) 33rd 648 BC Horse race (keles), Pankration 37th 632 BC Boys stade and wrestling 38th 628 BC Boys pentathlon 41st 616 BC Boys boxing 65th 520 BC Hoplite race (hoplitodromos) 70th 500 BC Mule-cart race (apene) 93rd 408 BC Two horse chariot race (synoris) 96th 396 BC Competition for heralds and trumpeters 99th 384 BC Tethrippon for horse over one year 128th 266 BC Chariot for horse over one year 131st 256 BC Race for horses older than one year 145th 200 BC Pankration for boys
Apparently starting with just a single foot race, the program gradually increased to twenty-three contests, although no more than twenty featured at any one Olympiad.[47] Participation in most events was limited to male athletes except for women who were allowed to take part by entering horses in the equestrian events. Youth events are recorded as starting in 632 BC. Our knowledge of how the events were performed primarily derives from the paintings of athletes found on many vases, particularly those of the Archaic and Classical periods.[48]
Running [ edit ]
A section of the stone starting line at Olympia, which has a groove for each foot
The only event recorded at the first thirteen games was the stade, a straight-line sprint of just over 192 metres.[49] The diaulos (lit. "double pipe"), or two-stade race, is recorded as being introduced at the 14th Olympiad in 724 BC. It is thought that competitors ran in lanes marked out with lime or gypsum for the length of a stade then turned around separate posts (kampteres), before returning to the start line.[50] Xenophanes wrote that "Victory by speed of foot is honored above all."
A third foot race, the dolichos ("long race"), was introduced in the next Olympiad. Accounts of the race's distance differ, it seems to have been from twenty to twenty-four laps of the track, around 7.5 km to 9 km, although it may have been lengths rather than laps and thus half as far.[51][52]
The last running event added to the Olympic program was the hoplitodromos, or "Hoplite race", introduced in 520 BC and traditionally run as the last race of the games. Competitors ran either a single or double diaulos (approximately 400 or 800 metres) in full military armour.[53] The hoplitodromos was based on a war tactic of soldiers running in full armor to surprise the enemy.
Combat [ edit ]
Detail from an Attic red-figure c. 490-480 BC, Pankration scene: the pankriatiast on the right tries to gouge his opponent's eye; the umpire is about to strike him for this foul.Detail from an Attic red-figure kylix BC, British Museum
Wrestling (pale) is recorded as being introduced at the 18th Olympiad. Three throws were necessary for a win. A throw was counted if the body, hip, back or shoulder (and possibly knee) touched the ground. If both competitors fell nothing was counted. Unlike its modern counterpart Greco-Roman wrestling, it is likely that tripping was allowed.[54]
Boxing (pygmachia) was first listed in 688 BC,[55] the boys event sixty years later. The laws of boxing were ascribed to the first Olympic champion Onomastus of Smyrna.[54] It appears body-blows were either not permitted or not practised.[54][56] The Spartans, who claimed to have invented boxing, quickly abandoned it and did not take part in boxing competitions.[54] At first the boxers wore himantes (sing. himas), long leather strips which were wrapped around their hands.[55]
The pankration was introduced in the 33rd Olympiad (648 BC).[57] Boys' pankration became an Olympic event in 200 BC, in the 145th Olympiad.[58] As well as techniques from boxing and wrestling, athletes used kicks,[59] locks, and chokes on the ground. Although the only prohibitions were against biting and gouging, the pankration was regarded as less dangerous than boxing.[60]
It was one of the most popular events: Pindar wrote eight odes praising victors of the pankration.[54] A famous event in the sport was the posthumous victory of Arrhichion of Phigaleia who "expired at the very moment when his opponent acknowledged himself beaten."[54][54]
Pentathlon [ edit ]
The pentathlon was a competition made up of five events: running, long jump, discus throw, javelin throw and wrestling.[54] The pentathlon is said to have first appeared at the 18th Olympiad in 708 BC.[61] The competition was held on a single day,[62] but it is not known how the victor was decided,[63][64] or in what order the events occurred,[54] except that it finished with the wrestling.[65]
Equestrian [ edit ]
Horse racing and chariot racing were the most prestigious competitions in the games, due to only the wealthy being able to afford the maintenance and transportation of horses. These races consisted of different events: the four-horse chariot race, the two-horse chariot race, and the horse with rider race, the rider being hand picked by the owner. The four-horse chariot race was the first equestrian event to feature in the Olympics, being introduced in 680 BC. It consisted of two horses that were harnessed under a Yoke in the middle, and two outer horses that were attached with a rope.[66] The two-horse chariot was introduced in 408 BC.[67] The horse with rider competition on the other hand, was introduced in 648 BC. In this race, Greeks didn't use saddles or stirrups, so they required good grip and balance.[68]
In AD 67, the Roman Emperor Nero competed in the chariot race at Olympia. He was thrown from his chariot and was thus unable to finish the race. Nevertheless, he was declared the winner on the basis that he would have won if he had finished the race.[69]
Famous athletes [ edit ]
Ancient list of Olympic victors of the 75th to the 78th, and from the 81st to the 83rd Olympiads (480–468 BC, 456–448 BC)
Olympic festivals in other places [ edit ]
Athletic festivals under the name of "Olympic games", named in imitation of the original festival at Olympia, were established over time in various places all over the Greek world. Some of these are only known to us by inscriptions and coins; but others, as the Olympic festival at Antioch, obtained great celebrity. After these Olympic festivals had been established in several places, the great Olympic festival itself was sometimes designated in inscriptions by the addition of Pisa.[78]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev are two of the best in the world at what they do. Sergey Kovalev is an unparalleled knockout puncher, who either puts his opponents away or hurts them so badly that they have no choice but to enter survival mode. Andre Ward is one of boxing's greatest scientists, a poised and intelligent fighter who specializes not only in neutralizing his opponents, but in changing his own style at will. Ward can brawl, he can box, he can counter, and he can swarm. What he cannot do, however, is overlook Sergey Kovalev.
In this video I have laid out what I see as the three essential keys to victory for Andre Ward in this fantastic boxing event. Watch it. Enjoy it. And if you happen to be Sergey Kovalev: I mean nothing by it, honest. Please don't hurt me.
For more like this, subscribe to MMA Nation and my own account on Youtube.Thinking of moving to Detroit? There should be plenty of new places to choose from in the coming years. Downtown is seeing a massive construction boom right now, and that momentum is starting to move outward. They're still mostly apartments, with a few condo developments in the works.
The map is organized by timeline. We know a few will be open soon, many want to be ready in 2018, and some are just big plans that should pick up the pace fairly soon.
Keep in mind a few things:
Yes, most of the development is within the 7.2 square miles around downtown.
For every development we list here, there are so many more renovations of single-family homes, duplexes, lofts, and smaller apartment buildings around the city.
We started with just the new construction, but then added major renovations. It really took off after that.
Some are soon opening, while others are still in the planning phases.
There's a lot more in the pipeline. This will be a busy year.
A few smaller ones to note: these lofts along the riverfront, more lofts in Milwaukee Junction, and these condos in Brush Park. As always, feel free to comment and send more tips our way.Cab Drivers
$1.00 + Change
Borough to borough: A trip to Brooklyn is $2.00 plus change.
Airports: $3.00 plus change. This way, he'll take your bags out of the trunk, making you look like a boss.
Deli Guys
$0.00
Delivery Guys
$2.00 + Change
Waiters
20%
Bartenders
$1.00 Per Drink
Bathroom Guys
$1 The First Time You Go
Bouncers
$0.00
Pizza Guys
$0.00
Baristas
$1.00
Street Vendors
$0.00
Door Men
$5.00 Per Cab Hailed
Bellboys
$2.00
Parking Attendants
$1.00 If You Drive A Nice Car
Building Supers
$40.00 at Christmas
Hairdressers
$5.00
Laundry Guys
$20.00 at Christmas
Coat Check
$1.00
Masseuses
$10.00 (or $30.00 for Happy Ending)
Hookers
$0.00
Homeless People
$0.00
Tipping is one of the most asinine things in American culture. Unfortunately, however, it is a necessity. This is because most of these service industry low-lives are getting compensated like minors, and count on your tips to pay the rent. Also, stiffing certain people will guarantee disaster for you later. However, you don't want to feel ripped-off because you tipped too much.These are not be-all-end-all tipping rules, but rather the best way to get by in NYC in my experience. Since I am not a wealthy socialite frequenting day spas and operas, I may have left some of those high-end tipping etiquettes off my list. Here we go...So, if the fare is $9.70, you give him $11.00. The reason these Pakistanis tear through the streets, running red lights to get you to your meeting on time, is that they want a tip. Well, that, and they want more customers to get more tips.It's not an easy job and the NYC cab drivers are usually on point: knowing the best shortcuts and tactics to save you time (which is probably why you're taking a taxi anyway). They make the city run, and ensure less traffic on the streets. This is not a negotiation: even if he drives slow or goes the wrong way, he's probably just new.There are two exceptions:Yes, the deli guy has a tip jar, but it's only for suckers. Even if he hooks you up with a monster sandwich, he doesn't expect a tip. He is being paid a fair amount already, and, let's face it - he has an easier job than his delivery guy compadres.The exception to this rule is if you frequent the deli. If this is your deli, and you get sandwiches at least twice a week, it's best to drop a dollar in the jar every 3 or 4 sandwiches. Be sure, however, that the deli is not packed with other customers, and that his back is not turned. He must see you drop the dollar in his jar.A good rule of thumb is tipping the deli you frequent only when it's dead. This is important because he will be sure to make your sandwiches first and remember your stupid requests.You have to tip these guys. This is the worst job in the food industry.They bust their ass walking up stairs, finding impossible locations, and riding their bike through NYC traffic while wearing a silly neon vest. Not to mention, although they don't remember the apartments that tip, they do remember the apartments that don't. If you stiff the delivery guy, be prepared to wait an hour next time you order from that place.Bad weather = $4.00 plus change.I don't care if it's the worst service you ever had, tip that bastard 20%.If he was a true asshole, he wouldn't have a job in NYC as a waiter. Maybe he's having a bad day? Maybe he's busy? Who cares?Waiters are the life blood of the city. Believe it or not, most of them have aspirations besides serving you lousy pasta. These are the actors, singers, artists, and musicians that make New York great, and they count on your tips to keep doing the things they love to do.Not to mention, if you forget your bag in the restaurant, that tip is going to guarantee he puts it in the lost and found.Some people would say: Only tip the bartender for your first drink. But they are complete buffoons.If you tip $1.00 per drink, you'll get a free drink for every five you order. Therefore, you're actually saving money. Not to mention, if a fight breaks out, wouldn't you want the staff on your side?Speaking of free drinks - if the bartender gives you a free drink: the rule is the same. $1.00. Not $2.00. Not $3.00. $1.00 for every drink that goes into your hand. Period. (Unless you're really drunk and forgot what money is)The exception to this rule is a packed dance club: If you just paid a $35 cover, and are now paying $14 for a mixed drink, there is no need to tip. They won't remember you anyway.Unlike bartenders, the bathroom guy should only be tipped the first time you go.Sure, their job sucks (quite possibly the worst job in the service industry), but let's face it - they're not really going anywhere with their lives. They've basically given up. You shouldn't feel bad for them at all.Stiffing these guys is not cheap. Did you ask this bastard to turn on the faucet? Did you ask him to hand you a towel? No. But he did it anyway. It's actually more awkward than anything.He will, however, remember your face. It's best to throw him a dollar the first time you piss, to make a good first impression on the off-chance you need a drunken favor in the bathroom later (no homo, I'm talking about letting you do coke).If you have to pay off the bouncer to get inside of a club, it's probably not a good idea to even enter. You don't fit in and there's a reason you're not invited.Any decent bouncer wouldn't take your measly $20.00 anyway.If you really must get into that club, and aren't with any hot chicks, why not get creative? Have your buddy run a diversion while you scope out the names on the list. Then return later, saying your name is the one you spied.Quite often, the guy putting your pizza in the oven is the owner of the shop. This means that he is probably making more money than you do. So why give him even more?Even if he is not the owner, putting pizza in an oven and taking it back out is not qualitative work. No one says "Damn, that pizza guy really knows how to throw a slice in the oven!" This job is the same across the board. No one pizza guy is better than another at it, which negates the entire purpose behind tipping.Tipping these guys would be like tipping an assembly line worker.(Note: Scummy Chinese food joints and other ethnic/culturally specific "joints" do not need tips either)This one is tough. Normally I'd advise not to tip these slackers, but convention has defeated me.If you don't tip in trendy coffee shops, you will look like a complete asshole to everyone else in line. To me, the dollar is worth it. Not to mention, if you plan on hanging out there and using their wi-fi like a yuppie you might want the barista to fix it if it goes down.The exception, obviously, is chain coffee. I have no idea why someone would tip at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts. All that does is encourage the government to lower minimum wage.You'd think this would be obvious, but I've actually seen these guys with tip jars lately.Ok, so, the guy hands you a pre-heated hot dog. He is selling it for $2.00. He then tries to rip you off on water by also selling that for $2.00. You will never see him again in your life, and even if you do, there is no way he would ever remember you. He has no boss and pockets all his profits.Oddly enough, they have dollars in their jars. Tipping street vendors is about as low as you can go.If you're staying at a New York hotel, the doorman will hail you a cab. When he does, give him $1.00. That's the understanding.If you live in a building with a doorman, ask the neighbors what the custom is. Often, the neighbors will take up a collection and then divvy it up amongst the staff at Christmas time. If they don't do that, you live in the ghetto, so you should give each guy $20.00 the week before Christmas. They will remember you and let you have wasted friends over anytime.Only an idiot would give him a dollar each time he opens the door. That is just his normal job. Everything else he does is extra, and worth the money.If you're too lazy to carry your own bags, be prepared to tip, or avoid the lobby for the rest of your stay.Some say you should tip bellhops $1.00 per suitcase, but I say that is too much, unless you have a bag of bricks or something.If you're staying in a hotel, the bellhop will assume you are from out of town, and don't know the procedure. Giving him $2.00 is meeting him halfway. He probably gets $5.00 from some guests, and $1.00 from others. $2.00 is that sweet spot where you can feel like a decent member of society, but also feel like you weren't ripped-off.(Note: If you're staying in the hotel for a few days, you might wish to leave $5.00 for the maid when you leave in the morning to ensure a clean room, but this is unnecessary. The room will not be any cleaner for your tip.)According to the Internet, parking attendants make only $23,000/year. But guess that? Parking in NYC costs $23/hour. No one wins.The rule is simple: if you drive a nice car - and by nice I mean a car that is currently worth $25,000 or more, you should tip the parking attendant $1.00 upon arrival. You can probably afford a dollar to ensure it won't get scratched.If you drive a p.o.s., tipping is completely optional - you're already paying more money than you have to these vampires.(Note: It should go without saying that fancy valet guys get $1.00 per car move regardless)If you live in a co-op like most New Yorkers, and your neighbors don't take a collection at Christmas, get ready to lose $40.00. The good news is that if you have a roommate, you can split it.Your building supervisor is one of the most important assets you have. What if the toilet overflows on a Sunday? What if the heat goes out in the middle of the night? Who's phone call do you think he'll answer?These guys are typically hard-ass veteran New Yorkers, and will probably never be your friend, but you don't want to make them your enemy. Sure, they're annoying as fuck, talking your ear off about pipes and cracks and blah, blah, blah, but you need them on your side. Do you really want to get yelled at for flicking cigarette butts on the front steps?The week before Christmas, pick up a family-oriented Happy Holidays card, and write "Happy Holidays to (name) and your family." Then include a compliment. Perhaps "Thank you so much for fixing my sink last May. It's worked great ever since!"...or... "My apartment is always the right temperature, and the hallways are always so clean. Thank you for keeping our building in great shape!" Then put $40.00 inside, seal it, and put it under his door.I can't really speak for women who get $300 hair coloring, but in my experience, a simple handshake/hand-off of a five dollar bill goes a long way.The reason tipping is a must here, is that if you like your haircut, you will return to that salon. If you happened to stiff them the last time, why would they give a shit this time? You'll end up looking like a suburban for the next month if they don't put any effort into the cut.Work it out, if you get very expensive haircuts, tip even more, but this is one person that needs to be tipped for your own sake.(Note: I have never had a manicure/facial/etc, but I assume the exact same rules apply)This is the guy who washes the cum stains out of your socks and then matches them one pair at a time. He knows more about you than most.The week before Christmas, go to Duane Reade and pick up a Happy Holidays card. Put $20.00 inside and a handwritten "Thank You".Or would you rather him "lose" your favorite jeans and bleach your work shirts?Coat check actually depends on where you are, so look out for a tip jar. If you see a jar, put a dollar in it.Some places with huge amounts of traffic, like museums, won't have a jar, so don't tip them. Don't make the embarrassing move of trying to hand them money.Why tip the coat check you ask? Well, in a small venue, they are probably friends with the owner, and volunteering their time to do it, hoping to at least get a few bucks for their trouble. Carrying your coat through a party makes you look like a fuck-up, so just pony up like everyone else and give them the dollar.(Hint: do this when you arrive, not when you leave, which would miss the point of them guarding your shit)To be honest, they probably only expect a $5.00 tip, but just think about how much that job would suck: Sweaty, hairy men turn up at all hours of the night and moan and groan and order these women where to rub them next.Most of them are probably victims of human trafficking, and have no real skills or choice in the matter, so why not give them a little sense of achievement in their lives?If you get a happy ending out of the deal, give her an extra $20.00, making $30.00.These days, there aren't many prostitutes roaming the streets of New York: it's all done online.Since you'll be calling to arrange the rates and directions anyway, it's best to sort out the tip over the phone as well. When they say the rate, act like it's too expensive and you aren't sure you can afford it -- then ask, "Does that include tip?" They will say it does. This way there's no confusion.Tipping a hooker is absolutely pointless, anyway, unless you plan on seeing them again (which is just plain creepy). It's all done via barter system, and you'll simply get what you pay for. Just be sure that when you show up, you have the exact rate in cash in your wallet. Hide your cab fare, or they might ask for it as a tip.Every once in awhile in New York, some homeless guy will hold a door open for you, sing for you, or try to wash your windshield, and then expect money for it.Fuck. That.Giving these outcasts money is worse than flushing it down the toilet. At least flushing it doesn't cause more harm. These people need serious help, and buying more Old English won't solve their problems.If he opens the door for you and you feel bad, buy him a bag of chips. Buy him a coffee. But do not give him money. He will buy beer and then piss in the trash can in front of children.Chinese Official Blows Public Funds on Gaming Addiction
An official in China faces 11 years in prison after he embezzled 2.6 million yuan ($424,247) in public funds to support his addiction to a role-playing video game. The local official, identified only as Chu, was responsible for allocating taxpayer money in the Neighborhood Cooperative Economic Administration Center in Nanjing City. But in 2005, he got hooked on a multiplayer online role playing game called Zhengtu, a Chinese game similar to the immensely popular and notoriously addictive World of Warcraft. After spending 10,000 yuan ($1,633 USD) on in-game equipment for his avatar and 100,000 yuan ($16,327 USD) on two Zhengtu premium accounts, he soon dried up his savings. Within the year, Chu began dipping into public funds to fly himself and fellow players to meet up or attend Zhengtu-related events across the globe. After five years, his wife left him due to his obsession. By 2012, Chu finally turned himself in after having blown through millions of yuan in taxpayer money and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. A blogger on Sina Weibo, a Chinese site similar to Twitter, says: “A neighborhood official can do this kind of messy thing for six years without being caught!” China has taken steps to curb its widespread problem of gaming addiction. Initiatives include campaigns launched earlier this year to diagnose the condition, and to intervene with kids' Internet use.The terms sleeper and breakout candidate are often used interchangeably by writers and podcast hosts, leaving fantasy owners somewhat confused on what is the difference between the two types of players.
For the sake of this article, a sleeper is someone who is a relatively unknown by the masses and currently ranked out of the top 150 on our consensus rankings. A breakout candidate can be a well-known and established player that based on recent trends or other variables, is poised to deliver a breakout season.
A sleeper can also be a breakout candidate, based on the fact that they are a relatively unknown player ranked out of the top 150 poised for a breakout season. But an established player like Brandon Belt, who is breakout candidate commonly known in fantasy circles, should not be referred to as a sleeper.
Try the only fantasy baseball draft software that syncs with your draft >>
The following are six breakout first base candidates to keep an eye on in drafts this spring.
Brandon Belt (1B – SF)
A perennial breakout candidate in each of the past three seasons after grabbing the starting |
4Liberty) May 14, 2017
Normal people: Happy Mother's Day, I miss my mom every day. She was the greatest.@joss: Glad you're dead mom so you don't see Pres Trump. — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) May 15, 2017
Get some help! Politics 24/7 has led you to tweet one of the sickest tweets ever! I HATED Obama, but I didn't let it consume me FFS. — Lisa (@Flyingright1) May 15, 2017
Just a few weeks ago, Whedon had promised to “be quiet for a bit” on the social media platform after he made a sexual joke at the expense of a group of young cancer survivors who had met with House Speaker Paul Ryan. The director said he had “inadvertently offended everyone except” the people he had been trying to offend, and apologized.
But that incident was hardly the only time the director has found himself in hot water over his Twitter messages.
In January, Whedon wrote on Twitter that he wanted Paul Ryan to meet an unfortunate end at the hands of a rhinoceros, and also compared Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, to a breed of dog. In April, the director expressed fear that the Trump administration would begin arresting and murdering gay people based on their sexual orientation, as is currently happening in Chechnya.
Whedon — who produced possibly one of the most widely-viewed anti-Trump commercials during the 2016 campaign with help from Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson —had deleted his Twitter account in 2015 after feminists derided the portrayal of Black Widow (Johansson) in his film Avengers: Age of Ultron.
He re-joined Twitter in September 2016 to launch his anti-Trump campaign ad and related “Save the Day” PAC.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaumA new scanning technique developed by Danish and US researchers reveals how susceptible patients with aggressive brain cancer are to the drugs they receive. The research behind the ground-breaking technique has just been published in Nature Medicine.
Each year sees 260 new cases of the most aggressive type of brain cancer in Denmark. Some patients survive only a few months, while others survive for 18 months. Only very few, 3.5%, are alive five years after their diagnosis. A new scanning technique can now reveal how the brain tumour responds to the drug administered:
"We have developed an MRI technique which reveals how a patient will respond to the treatment that inhibits the growth of new blood vessels to the tumour. The technique allows us to only select the patients who will actually benefit from the treatment and to quickly initiate or intensify other treatments for non-responding patients," says Kim Mouridsen, Associate Professor at Aarhus University and head of the research group Neuroimaging Methods at MINDLab, Aarhus University.
He has developed the new technique together with researchers from Harvard Medical School.
Brain architecture providing important knowledge
Aggressive brain cancer is usually treated with drugs that inhibit the growth of new blood vessels, as the most aggressive brain tumours are constantly trying to produce new blood vessels to get oxygen. The treatment alleviates the symptoms, but it also increases the efficacy of radiation therapy because it improves oxygenation.
According to Kim Mouridsen, the new technique - Vessel Architectural Imaging - is an important step towards better treatment:
"Getting more knowledge about what the blood vessels in the tumour look like will also give us a better understanding of the mechanisms which are decisive for the efficacy of the treatment. And understanding these mechanisms is precisely what we need to be able to develop and improve the treatment of brain tumours in general."
###
Read more
Read the scientific article 'Vessel architectural imaging identifies cancer patient responders to anti-angiogenic therapy' here
The study receives funding from the Danish Research Foundation and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Further information
Kim Mouridsen, Associate Professor, PhD
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine, Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and MINDLab
Tel.: +45 7846 4404 / +45 2980 5090
kim@cfin.dkA LITTLE smile rises across David Nugent’s face when he fields questions in the media suite at Middlesbrough’s Rockliffe Park training headquarters. He had just been reminded that he could have been sat in the same room eight years ago.
Nugent is 30 now. Since leaving Preston North End in the summer of 2007 he has played for Portsmouth, Burnley and Leicester. Yesterday, after plenty of times trying, he finally became a Middlesbrough player.
The man from Huyton, Merseyside, could have moved to the Riverside before now, having previously caught the eye of Gareth Southgate during his time in charge. More recently Aitor Karanka had previously attempted to land him, although it has taken until August 2015 for him to head to Teesside.
“It was in my Preston days,” said Nugent, after confirmation had arrived that the striker has signed a three-year deal at Middlesbrough after a £4m fee was agreed with Leicester City.
“That was where I started and made my name for myself and I made my England debut at Preston, so there were a lot of clubs interested but I chose Portsmouth in the end. I had a few years there in the Premier League but it didn’t really work out.
“I dropped back down again with Leicester, worked my way back up and I have dropped back down again to Middlesbrough. I am hoping to have one season in the Championship and get back into the Premier League again. I knew Boro were interested a few years ago but it never got to the stage of coming up here. This is the first time.”
Middlesbrough are not thought to have met Preston’s £6m valuation eight years ago, although Sunderland are known to have pulled out of a deal at that time for Nugent after agreeing to pay the demanded fee.
Boro chairman Steve Gibson has given the go-ahead to pay Leicester the asking price and Nugent, who could be on the bench against Bolton this afternoon, can’t wait to get going.
“I am genuinely excited. I can’t wait,” said the one-time England international. “This club is showing a lot of ambition and I spoke to the manager here a couple of times before I signed.
“He was keen to get me here and it is always nice to feel wanted which is why I chose Middlesbrough. I know what the league is about, it’s a tough league and hard to get out of and I just hope I can be part of the team that gets promoted to the Premier League.
“It feels like a Premier League club here, the manager is really passionate and I could hear that in his voice speaking to him on the phone. He was desperate to get me here and I just hope I can repay his faith and do the goods on the pitch.”
At £4m he represents a much cheaper option than Blackburn’s £15m-rated Jordan Rhodes, even though Nugent brings greater experience and an impressive Football League goalscoring record with him.
Karanka claimed before Nugent had entered the media suite that his new recruit would always have been his first choice striker to come in had he known the circumstances earlier – and that he was available.
Nugent said: “That is massive for me, knowing he wants me as a player, it means I can come here and start playing and bang the goals in. If I am his number one target I am happy with that and hopefully I can repay him.
“No-one’s place is guaranteed in the team, if selected I will always give 110 per cent in my game anyway and if I come off the bench I will play with a lot of passion.
“That’s my game, I love closing down defenders and running in behind, and hopefully that can be a factor in getting the fans on our side and getting into the Premier League.”
Nugent scored 20 league goals and created 12 during his last season in the Championship as Leicester won the division in 2013/14, so he is confident he can handle the pressure of expectation at the Riverside.
He said: “Experience teaches you to deal with it, in my last four seasons in the Championship I have scored 15-plus goals and that has to be my aim again. If I can do that I will see it as a bonus. You need a 20-goal striker if you want to go up and hopefully I can be that man for Middlesbrough and get the goals to get them promoted.”One of the best parts about the NFL Scouting Combine is that you get to see all the future NFL stars before they hit it big. Some players you know right away are going to be great, while others may surprise you down the road.
Take New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski for exampe, who may very well be the best tight end to ever play the game. His size and strength make it virtually impossible for defenders to take him down alone, and as a two-time Super Bowl champion, Gronk has all but punched his ticket to the Hall of Fame.
But not many people predicted Gronk would be the all-time great he is. Take a look at the below 2010 NFL Combine video of Gronk over on YouTube.
Also, take a look at his combine profile below from NFL.com. It’s interesting that the last line says Gronk could be a “quality” starting tight end. I think that’s the understatement of the century.
Gronkowski made an immediate impact when he arrived at the University of Arizona and has been a standout tight end when he has been healthy enough to stay on the field. Unfortunately he has missed a total of 16 games over the past two years due to injuries or illness. He has an elite combination of size, speed and athleticism for the position and while he lacks great downfield speed he can be an effective receiver at virtually all levels of the passing tree. He is a tough, no nonsense type of blocker but still needs some work on his blocking techniques. If he can stay healthy he could provide a team with a quality starting tight end.
Finally, here’s a description of Gronk’s main weakness. It’s interesting to see this because injuries and durability have been an issue of late with Gronk in his career. He’s had multiple surgeries, including back surgery this past December that ended his year.Code change that is removing Wormhole functionality and reducing total coin supply is ready for release.
This change is simple in terms of coding but complex in terms of testing and deployment.
As EMC2 coin is available on some of the biggest exchanges and 3rd party services, all of them must update during the same time frame.
We are working with them on defining a maintenance window for upgrade.
At the same time we are also doing extensive blockchain testing.
Final test results and confirmation from exchanges are needed before the final push.
We are getting very close release but the HF initially scheduled for October 6th must be rescheduled to insure network security and exchange synchronicity.
Next target is block 1640530 which will occur approximately on October 25th.
The countdown is coming.
We will share more information as soon as we can.
EMC2 Dev Team.As first reported by Tom Knox of Columbus Business First, Ohio State sued Verizon Wireless back in 2015 in effort to resolve a dispute over a contract signed in 2012 that was supposed to deliver wi-fi to Ohio Stadium by the time Hawai'i came to Columbus for the football season's home opener.
That obviously didn't happen.
Gene Smith pushed a plan earlier this month to bring wi-fi to Ohio Stadium and the Schottenstein Center by 2018. Those plans were shelved by an "unusually tense" trustees meeting on June 8.
That plan wouldn't have been needed if Verizon had fulfilled obligations in the 2012 contract, according to the university.
Verizon disagrees and essentially accuses of Ohio State of trying to grift the corporation into building a free wi-fi system throughout a nearly century-old structure.
From Columbus Business First:
“Some two years into the contract, Ohio State has suddenly demanded that Verizon
Wireless gift to the university a campus-wide Wi-Fi system, at a cost in excess of $15
million,” Verizon’s lawyers said last year in asking a judge to rule on the case in its favor. “Ohio State’s extraordinary and unprecedented demand has no basis whatsoever in the parties’ contract.” There’s only one reference to Wi-Fi in the contract agreement, Verizon said, and it doesn’t mention cost or Verizon’s commitment to install it. Ohio State was specific in every other aspect of the contract, including with financial figures. “Certainly if the parties had intended to obligate Verizon Wireless to reimburse the
university for installation of a Wi-Fi system — a $15-million-plus bill — they would have clearly spelled out that extraordinary financial obligation,” Verizon said in the 2016 filing. Emailed statements from non-attorney Verizon employees after the contract was signed are irrelevant, Verizon argued, as it’s the contract that’s in question, not “lay statements.”
The two sides appear for a protracted battle in federal court. Whatever the outcome, the loser will be Ohio State football fans who are still without functional wi-fi on game days.
Follow Eleven WarriorsFacebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTubeThroughout the summer, Taliban and Haqqani fighters fired on this observation post regularly, hitting it with 82-millimeter mortar rounds and 107-millimeter rockets, and sometimes with machine-gun or rifle fire, too.
“For two months we basically received contact daily or twice daily,” said Capt. Craig A. Halstead, who commands Company B, Second Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, which rotates platoons through the post.
In the month of August, the company’s data shows, there were only two days when the outpost was not under fire. The fighting continued through Sept 8.
On Sept 9, the hills were quiet. The company took no fire.
On Sept. 10, the soldiers intercepted radio chatter, including the voice of one of the fighters talking to others about the harvest. “We will not shoot for 15 days so the people can collect pine cones,” the voice said, according to the translated transcript.
Photo
By then, Afghan villagers were visible on the slopes that surround the post.
For three weeks, using long poles that end in hooks to pluck each cone, local men filled sacks with their harvest and brought them down the hills for sale in Orgun, the nearest city, or to Afghan buyers who canvass the harvesters in their villages.
Throughout this time, not a single shot was fired at Observation Post Twins.
Why the Taliban and Haqqani fighters decided to hold their fire is not fully understood.
There are two theories, which are not mutually exclusive.
Captain Halstead said one assumption was that the fighters did not want to start firefights or indirect-fire duels, drawing mortar and artillery barrages, endangering the pine-cone pickers.
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The observation post, built late this spring, overlooks the so-called Naka bowl, a small and low-lying agricultural area where several Taliban and Haqqani commanders were born. The insurgent commanders, Captain Halstead said, appeared to be concerned about alienating their neighbors, who did not want to be caught in the daily cross-fire while busy harvesting.
“Our reporting indicates that they are losing the bowl as a safe haven,” he said. “So what do they need? Civilian protection. They don’t want to risk losing it.”
This analysis, and the underlying assumption that Taliban and Haqqani commanders had met with villagers to coordinate the fighting and harvesting schedules, found currency among many of the soldiers.
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“They didn’t want anyone to get hit while they were in the mountains, and didn’t want an open war,” said Specialist Elijah D. Nott, a medic. “That was actually really interesting. They were showing some concern.”
Another factor behind the cease-fire, the soldiers said, was rooted in temporary manpower shortages.
Many of the fighters are local men, the soldiers said, as are many of those who support them. With the harvest demanding as many hands as possible, fewer men were available to plan attacks, to fight, to carry ammunition, or to serve as spotters to watch the Americans’ movements and protect the fighting cells.
The labor demands of the pine-cone harvest were evident in late September in another insurgent-controlled area, the Charbaran Valley, where another infantry company landed by helicopter and swept the valley and some of its slopes. In tents throughout the forests, entire families were encamped with saws and picking poles.
The men’s hands were blackened with dirt and pine sap, and the soldier’s traffic stops often found tractors stacked high with sacks of cones. The infantry company, as it moved, was fired on only once in two days.
Photo
A similar pattern has been visible in Afghanistan’s poppy-growing provinces.
Fighting in and near the poppy fields is often intensive in midspring, as vegetation grows thick and temperatures climb. In late spring, in these same places, local men and migrant laborers crowd the fields for the poppy harvest. Fighting can all but stop.
A few weeks later, the poppy harvest is over, the migrant workers are gone, and fighting often erupts.
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The labor demands for the pine-nut harvest are similarly high.
Mir Jhan, an elder in nearby Zerok, beside a larger American post, said that that the three villages that make up Zerok had 5,000 people each and that “all of our people are involved in pine nuts.”
The mountain forests, he said, are divided by local agreements and tradition into separate tracts, where each village and each family has plots to harvest.
The nuts, once removed from the cones, fetch 1,500 Pakistani rupees per kilogram, he said, or roughly $17. (In much of eastern Paktika Province, people use the currency of Pakistan, not Afghanistan.)
Mr. Jhan was guarded about discussing why the fighting had abruptly stopped.
“It’s a good question,” he said. “But the civilian people, especially me, we don’t know about the fighters.”
But he also suggested that the fighting could soon resume. “Right now, the pine-nut season is ended. It had its one-month time, when everyone was in the mountains, and now it is over.”
Up on the observation post, for several days, the slopes no longer were crowded with pickers. Captain Halstead said that soon he expected the old patterns would return.
The observation post is kept alive by helicopters, which bring the soldiers’ supplies. When one of the helicopters arrives in the days ahead, he said, the insurgents’ mortar and rocket crews were likely to fire again, trying to time the impact of their munitions with the aircraft’s landing.Pilot season is here, meaning the networks are taking stock of their needs for 2014-15 and getting the ball rolling toward filling any gaps. With development season about to get really interesting — meaning it’s time to start booking actors for these wannabe series! — we thought it might help to round up the current crop, and well as define some of the lingo that gets tossed around.
RELATED | Renewal Scorecard: What’s Cancelled? What’s Coming Back? What’s on the Bubble?
For easy access: Review the list of pilots for ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox and NBC, and we urge you to bookmark this constantly-updated page for the latest pickup/casting intel.
PILOT | You really want get basic, eh? When a network orders (or “picks up”) a pilot, they’re asking its writers/producers/studio to cast and produce a close facsimile of what their series’ first episode will look like. Each pilot is reviewed by network brass, then typically put into testing before a decision is made on whether it’ll land on the schedule (for fall or midseason).
PLANTED SPIN-OFF | Also called a “backdoor” pilot, this is an episode of an existing series that sets up a prospective offshoot. For example, The Vampire Diaries aired an episode last April focused around Klaus, Elijah and Hayley in New Orleans, and that was a planted pilot for the spin-off The Originals. Free History Lesson: That Brady Bunch episode with new neighbor Ken Berry adopting three orphans? That was a(n ill-fated) planted pilot for a spin-off to be called Kelly’s Kids.
DRAMA/COMEDY PRESENTATION | Occasionally, due to time or budget restraints, a network won’t order a full pilot but a “presentation” of a not-quite-complete drama or a taste of what a sitcom would look like.
CAST-CONTINGENT/CAST CONTINGENCY | Sometimes a network will order a pilot with the caveat that production can’t start until a suitable (usually “name”) actor has been cast in the starring role. (A possible translation: “The premise is iffy, but a big star could really help sell us.”) So you’ll sometimes hear that with the casting of so-and-so, “the cast contingency has been lifted” on a pilot. (The sorta flip-side is an “if-come deal,” meaning the major players are pre-signed and rarin’ to go the instant the network OKs the pilot itself.)
SECOND POSITION | These are perhaps the two words that makes fans of “bubble” shows most nervous each spring, as stars from underperforming series start booking pilots (provided they get the OK from their current bosses). The term literally means that the pilot role is in second position (or priority) should their current show be renewed. Example: In spring 2011, Damon Wayans Jr. booked a lead on Fox’s New Girl, but when ABC renewed Happy Endings, New Girl had to replace his character. An actor booking a second position gig doesn’t always mean his/her current show is doomed… though it often tends to. Variation: A “safe second” means the pilot’s bosses have been discreetly all-but-assured that the actor will be available.
UPFRONTS | This is the week in mid-May when the networks take turns unveiling their schedules for next season — including the pilots that have been ordered to series. With rare exception, if your show doesn’t make the cut here, it’s (gulp) officially a goner.
And now, our running update of pilots ordered for the 2014-15 TV season, going network by network….Newcastle businessman Lemuel Page. The 48-year-old's business history came to light this month after he was sentenced to at least eight months in jail for giving his friend a fake diamond ring. Page told the victim he could source him a diamond worth $200,000-$250,000 for a wholesale price of $85,000. Page eventually delivered the ring to his friend's fiancee in 2011. However the soon-to-wed couple discovered Page had a cubic zirconia fitted into an engagement ring rather than the real deal. Page was sentenced to at least eight months' jail on July 6 but released on bail pending an appeal.
According to a trustee report compiled by Geoffrey McDonald in August 2015, Page claimed he had no real estate interests, one car that he owned money on and a string of failed investments. At that point he only had $200 cash to his name, the report detailed. Page, who was behind the failed bid to redevelop the Newcastle's Lynch Prawn site in 2010, told the trustee a property in Ashfield, in Sydney's inner-west, was in his grandmother's name. A sprawling block of land in Mayfield was bought in a four-person agreement, Page claimed, but the property was later repossessed by the bank. The Newcastle apartment he lived in is owned by a trust controlled by his ex-wife Fiona Page. A Mercedes SL55K had also been moved into his ex-wife's name and he still owed $35,367 on a Toyota Hilux.
This was of little comfort to the people – including a childhood friend, real estate agent and tradesman – he befriended before leaving them thousands of dollars out of pocket. Much of the debt Page accumulated came after he invited friends to invest in shares that were likely to pay high returns, or in developments in which he was involved. According to another report in 2015, compiled after a meeting with creditors, there was a general belief Page had tied his valuable assets up in trusts. "... It is apparent that the debtor has, for several years structured his financial affairs by way of trusts," the report stated. "This is reflected in the lack of real property and asset holdings in his name.
"Further access to information from these entities, which are not or were not controlled by the debtor, is limited for that reason." An unsecured creditors list from August 2015 showed Page owed $5.8 million to Sydney cosmetic dentist Dr Angelo Lazaris, $2.7 million to a locksmith and $2.8 million to a man named Donald Munro. However, little detail is provided about what those loans or investments were for. When Fairfax Media emailed Dr Lazaris for a response on Thursday, he replied that he was not available for an interview. A district court judgment from 2010 revealed how Mayfield businessman Steve Josifovski came to invest tens of thousands of dollars with Page, a friend from primary school.
After crossing paths as adults in Newcastle in the early 2000s, Page told his former classmate he was "doing very well" as a share trader and property developer. Mr Josikovski provided $137,521 to Page, after being told the developer had received returns of up to 200 per cent on share transactions. Mr Josifovski also invested in developments in which Page claimed to have an influential foothold. In one case, Page convinced Mr Josifovski the redevelopment of the South Sydney Hospital site was a "goer". He even took him on a walk-through at the site. It was only in the lead up to Mr Josifovski's lawsuit against Page that the ripped off investor learned the site he toured was actually disused and no firm development proposal existed.
Page falsified business documents, using outdated company names on letterheads and incorrectly dated invoices, in an attempt to create a paper trail of Mr Josifovski's investments. But on August 18, 2010, Judge Margaret Sidis ruled in Mr Josifovski's favour and ordered Page pay Ms Josifovski and his company almost $250,000 plus legal costs. Loading As of 2016, Mr Josifovski was one on a long list of people Page still owed money to. Last November, Page signed a $180,000 personal insolvency agreement that saved him from debt toppling over the edge into bankruptcy.The rise of AI now seems inevitable with many experts, including Stephen Hawking, stating the invention of smart machines will be the biggest ever impact on humanity. However, there has been a lack of clarity about when and how the takeover of machines will occur, but one leading researcher has now mapped out AI’s future progress. Arend Hintz, assistant professor of integrative biology & computer science and engineering at Michigan State University, says the rise of AI truly began in the 1990s with “reactive machines”. Mr Hintz said that the most basic types of AI are neither able to form memories or learn from past experiences, pointing to IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer, Deep Blue, which managed to beat chess world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
GETTY AI will one day rule the world
While Deep Blue was able to identify the pieces on a chessboard and know where to move them, it had no concept of learning from past games to improve. Mr Hintz wrote in an article for The Conversation: “This type of intelligence involves the computer perceiving the world directly and acting on what it sees. It doesn’t rely on an internal concept of the world.” The next stage, or Type II, will have limited memory.
GETTY Garry Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue
Some self-driving cars already have the ability in the form of observing other cars’ movement and speed, which cannot be done in a single moment as it needs to measure the criteria against other objects for reference. The scientist writes: “But these simple pieces of information about the past are only transient. “They aren’t saved as part of the car’s library of experience it can learn from, the way human drivers compile experience over years behind the wheel.”
GETTY Driverless cars are a form of AI
Then comes the theory of mind stage, which is where some researchers believe the development of AI should halt. Robots in this stage “not only form representations about the world, but also about other agents or entities in the world”. This is a psychological concept which is the understanding that beings in the world can have thoughts and emotions which influence their own behaviour – something that scientists state was essential in humanity becoming the most dominant race on Earth. Mr Hintz: “This is crucial to how we humans formed societies, because they allowed us to have social interactions.
GETTY Humanoid robots are the future
“Without understanding each other’s motives and intentions, and without taking into account what somebody else knows either about me or the environment, working together is at best difficult, at worst impossible.” He adds that if AI is to ever walk among us, it will have to understand that other beings have thoughts and emotions too. The final stage would be self-awareness, which would see robots designed with consciousness.
Real sex dolls in pictures Tue, April 4, 2017 A sex doll (also love doll or blow up doll) is a type of sex toy in the size and shape of a sexual partner for aid in masturbation. We take a look at the most life like dolls available in the world. Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 20 Catalan nanotechnology engineer Santos poses beside Samantha, a sex doll packed with artificial intelligence providing her the capability to respond to different scenarios and verbal stimulus, in his house in RubiOn December 17, 2011, Mary Doering
presented a Rug and Textile Appreciation Morning program on “Children’s Clothes from Europe and North America, 1750-1950.
Title Slide
Mary is a noted costume collector and independent curator who also teaches at the university level at The Smithsonian. She gave a recent RTAM program on “waist coats.” In this session, she said she would hit the highlights on the 200 years of children’s clothes in North America and Europe between 1750 and 1950.
She began with a lecture illustrated with projected images. Here, below, is a virtual version of that lecture, followed by Mary’s examination of some items she and others had brought in.
Children’s clothing, during the period she treated, are often documented in paintings and publications with known dates such as the one below.
P1
This beautiful life-size painting (1742) of four Graham children is of the by William Hogarth.
It shows Daniel Graham’s three children by his second wife, Mary Crisp, and Mary’s daughter, Henrietta, by her first marriage. The children are (from left to right) the infant Thomas sitting in a gold-leaf gilded go-cart (age 2); Henrietta in a blue dress holding two cherries (age 9); Anna Maria in a flower-print dress (age 5); and Richard who plays the sérinette or bird organ (age 7). Hogarth was a patron of the Foundling Hospital in London and painted portraits of many of the children there. His skill led to commissions such as this one.
The painting shows the tendency of the time to dress children like “little adults.” The girls stand straight, indicating that they are wearing corsets.
A second item was from a museum exhibition.
P2
Chinese Silk Child’s Dress ca. 1750 from the FIT Exhibition, The Age of Innocence
Although the Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) is known for its cutting edge exhibitions that largely focus upon contemporary or 20th century fashion, the museum has mounted historically themed exhibitions. Such was the case with “The Age of Innocence” that explored the clothing worn by children during the 18th through 20 centuries. The show was guest curated by Cora Ginsburg, the well known New York collector and dealer.
The scene shown here depicts a Colonial era christening with the older child dressed in a dress constructed of Chinese silk ca. 1750.
This dress has a history of having been worn in America; it descended in the Scovil family of Connecticut. It is displayed with a stomacher and quilted petticoat borrowed from other sources.
The next Item was a set of child’s linen stays, ca. 1775 (MDD Collection)
P3
In the 18th century women and girls wore “stays” or corsets. In addition to insuring that a young girl’s back would be straight, corsets and stays also provided support to the torso when carrying heavy things such as children, milk buckets, cast iron cooking pots, firewood, etc. They also created the desired silhouette for the time period.
As we saw in the Hogarth painting above, girls started wearing corsets when quite young. The corset pictured here dates from the period of the American Revolution. and would be called “stays”. These stays were made for a young girl aged eight to ten.
P4
Mann and Elizabeth Page By John Wollaston ca. 1755 (Virginia Historical Society)
Image Source: Personal Postcard
As with the Hogarth painting earlier, both Mann and Elizabeth Page are dressed as miniature adults in this painting. For most of the eighteenth-century children were dressed as young adults.
Mann is wearing a three piece suit that is similar to what his father might have worn, including the metallic lace trim.
Elizabeth’s dress was worn over a pair of stays whose rigid silhouette is clearly visible. The dress appears to be back lacing which was traditional for young girls before the age of puberty.
In her lap she is holding a fashionably dressed doll that looks too elegant to be a child’s toy. Fashionably dressed dolls were dispatched across the Atlantic to provide information about the latest English styles.
The next item was a waistcoat.
P5
Whitework embroidered linen waistcoat, ca. 1750. About age 5 or 6 boys began to wear waist coats. It was a kind of “rite of passage.”
Here is a closer detail.
P5a
Further comments on P5:
Boys in frocks, was usual in the 18th century.
P6
James Badger By Joseph Badger ca. 1750 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
This charming portrait of the artist’s son illustrates the androgynous nature of clothing worn by very young girls and boys. Both girls and boys were dressed in frocks until the age of four or five, when their garments began to reflect traditional adult gender differences. The design of this young boy’s frock references both male and female influences as reflected by the deep cuffs and the wide skirts.
Wool Embroidered Linen Child’s Mid 18th Century Dress (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
P7 front
The wool embroidery on this young child’s dress echoes the designs that were worked on a range of domestic textiles, from pockets to bedhangings. Unlike expensive silk thread, wool was an affordable and plentiful commodity. The embroidery was most likely applied to the textile after the garment had been put together, which the symmetry of the design strongly suggests. The appearance of this charming little dress is also similar to contemporary embroidered men’s waistcoats. Its survival is quite amazing, and it provides strong evidence of the love bestowed on young children in the eighteenth-century.
Here is a look at its back.
P7 back
Toward the end of the 18th century, styles in children’s clothes turned to greater comfort and naturalism. The painting below conveys this new emphasis.
P8
The Shelly Children ca.1791-92 by Sir William Beechey (Museum of the Shenandoah Valley)
Further comment on this new emphasis and on P8: Boy’s clothing began to follow the exterior outlines of their bodies more explicitly
One item of clothing that did this was called a “skeleton” suit. The next two images below are of boy’s skeleton suits.
Boy with A a Finch ca. 1800 Attributed to John Brewster (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
P9
Right: Boy’s Early 19th Century Nankeen Cotton Skeleton Suit
P10
Skeleton suits buttoned at the waist and the legs went down to the ankles.
In the period of the later 18th – early 19th century young boys’ dress began to adopt trousers.
P11
The Children of Martin Anton Heckscher:
Johann Gustav Wilhelm Moritz (1797–1865), Carl Martin Adolph (1796–1850), and Leopold (born 1792)
by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (German, Haina 1751–1829
P12
Boy’s Early 19th Century Nankeen Cotton Skeleton Suit
Additional comment on the comfort and naturalism movement of children’s cloth styles:
In the early years of the 19th century children’s clothing began to exhibit a “classical” influence.
P13
The Classical Influence
The Nathanson family, 1818, by C.W. Eckersburg (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen)
The white gowns some of the girls wear were considered easy to wash.
An example of this classical influence is provided by the girl’s dress below.
P14
Girl’s Embroidered Cotton Dress ca. 1810 (MDD Collection)
Although the detail of the fabric and embroidery of this dress cannot be seen in the image above, we can see that the classical influence included short sleeves, puffed at the shoulders, a square neck opening and a skirt that was less full and followed the outline of the body more closely.
As can be seen in image P14 above, the Classical influence included the introduction of pantalettes, a leg-divided garment worn by girls under a skirt
P15
Fashion Plate, 1810, Costume Parisien (Private Collection)
Here are some additional examples.
P16
Cotton Pantalettes ca. 1815 (MDD Collection)
P17
Child’s Combinations ca.1820 (Manchester City Museums, UK)
Sometimes the pantalettes were part of a more comprehensive garment.
Young girls matured still wearing pantalettes. About 1825 adult women began to wear them.
Now, we’re well into the 19th century. Here are some children’s clothes shown in |
incomprehensible “protesters” with their oddly well-worded “signs,” the rest of us see our own concerns reflected back at us and understand perfectly. Turning off mindless programming might be the best thing that ever happens to this polity. Hey, occupiers: You’re the new news. And even better, by refusing to explain yourselves, you’re actually changing what’s reported as news. Because it takes a tremendous mental effort to refuse to see that the rich are getting richer in America while the rest of us are struggling. Maybe the days of explaining the patently obvious to the transparently compromised are finally behind us.
By refusing to take a ragtag, complicated, and leaderless movement seriously, the mainstream media has succeeded only in ensuring its own irrelevance. The rest of America has little trouble understanding that these are ragtag, complicated, and leaderless times. This may not make for great television, but any movement that acknowledges that fact deserves enormous credit.The official website of the Majestic Prince anime project revealed a synopsis on Thursday for the television anime's new 25th episode, revealing that the episode will center on the upcoming film's Team Forn. The episode will air on September 29 as the culmination of an ongoing rebroadcast of the television anime. The synopsis, from Anime Consortium Japan's ANIME NOW! website, is as follows:
Four boys and girls were watching the vicious battle between the GDF (Global Defense Force), Team Rabbits, and the Wulgaru on television. Members of Team Forn Sei, Chris, Yui, and Ahn had been going through rigorous training at Gurantseere Academy, dreaming of being able to one day be deployed onto the battlefield like their beloved Team Rabbits in their new AHSMB robots. Suddenly, during their time in training, it was decided that the GDF would participate in a dangerous battle to destroy a Wulgaru base. Along with their other fellow cadets, Team Forn awaits the announcement of their assignment for the operation...
In addition, the site revealed the mecha of Team Forn.
Ahn Medikum's Orange Seven (AHSMB-007)
Yui Magalanes' Silver Eight (AHSMB-008)
Sei Yuzuriha's Green Nine (AHSMB-009)
Chris Solfelino's Magenta Ten (AHSMB-010)
The cast includes:
Sōma Saitō as Sei Yuzuriha, Team Forn's Control who likes to talk a lot.
Tsubasa Yonaga as Chris Solferino, Team Forn's Boost who loves speed.
Sora Amamiya as Yui Magalanes, the cool beauty who is Team Forn's rifle attacker.
Aina Suzuki as Ahn Medikum, Team Forn's Forward who's a bit of an airhead.
Tomokazu Sugita as Sugita, Team Forn's instructor who works at Granseere City Academy.
The the tentatively titled Gekijōban Ginga Kikōtai Majestic Prince (Ginga Kikōtai Majestic Prince The Movie) film will open in Japan on November 4 for a limited two-week engagement. Keitaro Motonaga is returning from the television anime series to direct the film, Hisashi Hirai is returning to design the characters, and Takaaki Suzuki is returning as military history and science-fiction adviser. Eiji Inomoto is additionally returning as the CG producer, and Toshiyuki Watanabe is returning to compose the music. Yoshitaka Shishido (Supernatural: The Anime Series, Photo Kano), who is writing the Ginga Kikōtai Majestic Prince Hajimari no Shōjo, Yakusoku no Rasen original light novel, is writing the screenplay. Reiko Yoshida, who handled the series composition for the Majestic Prince television anime series, is serving as script supervisor.
The anime's official site took suggestions for the film's subtitle until August 31, and will announce the subtitle this month. If a fan's subtitle is chosen, the fan's name will be listed in the credits of the film.
Source: ANIME NOW! (Sarah Nelkin)World's costliest cities: Sydney and Melbourne ranked in top 10 by Economist magazine
Updated
Sydney and Melbourne rank among the top six most expensive cities in the world to live, according to the Economist's latest Worldwide Cost of Living Survey.
The bi-annual survey, carried out by the business magazine's intelligence unit, ranked Sydney as the fifth-most expensive city in the world, with Melbourne one spot behind in equal sixth.
Singapore took the dubious honour of top spot, followed by Paris, Oslo and Zurich.
Perth and Brisbane shared 21st spot while Adelaide came in at 37th.
The survey of 131 cities assessed costs by comparing more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services.
These included food, drink, clothing, household supplies, rents, transport, utility bills and recreational costs.
Currency fluctuations and rising prices can have a big impact on results.
A 40 per cent rise in the Singapore dollar over the past decade, for instance, saw the city sweep to the top of the rankings.
Ten most expensive cities in the world 1. Singapore
2. Paris
3. Oslo
4. Zurich
5. Sydney
6. Melbourne
6. Geneva
6. Caracas
6. Tokyo
10. Copenhagen
"As well as Singapore, there have been sustained increases in the cost of living for Australian cities driven by the long-term appreciation of the Australian dollar," the survey notes.
Despite a slow decline in the value of the Australian dollar in the past year, Sydney and Melbourne continue to maintain their lofty positions in the global rankings due to ongoing price hikes.
By comparison, New York clocks in at the relatively modest position of 26th most expensive.
At the other end of the scale, the least expensive cities include Kathmandu, Jeddah and Riyadh.
Mumbai in India is the world's least expensive city.
Bucharest in Romania is Europe's one member in the bottom 10, and Panama City the lowest-ranking member from the Americas.
"Within Asia the best value for money is in the Indian subcontinent," the report says.
Ten least expensive cities in the world 1. Mumbai
2. Karachi
3. New Delhi
4. Damascus
4. Kathmandu
6. Algiers
7. Bucharest
7. Panama City
9. Jeddah
10. Riyadh
However, it comments drily that "outside India, bargain hunters may be put off put off by the security risk in many of the countries in which the world's cheapest cities are found".
"Pakistan, Nepal, Syria and Algeria all feature in the bottom 10, but have had well documented security issues or domestic unrest."
However, one example that points to a degree of uncertainty in the methodology of how the Economist draws its conclusions is the case of Caracas.
By current calculations the Venezuelan capital is joint sixth most expensive with Melbourne, Geneva and Tokyo.
However, this is entirely based on using the beleaguered Venezuelan government's official exchange rate for its currency, the bolivar.
"The current official valuation of the bolivar, at 6.29 to the US dollar, is undermined by black-market rates valuing the currency at less than one-tenth of this amount," the report says.
"As a result, adopting any parallel rate for the bolivar would immediately place Caracas as the world's cheapest city rather than the current deceptive position it has as the joint sixth most expensive."
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, community-and-society, money-and-monetary-policy, australia
First postedDeveloper EcoMerc has made a nifty Gmail app for Windows Phone, appropriately called ‘Gmail’. What makes this app unique is it’s reportedly based off of “…the exact same codebase as the official Gmail for iPhone/iPad”, meaning this will feel kind of like a true app for Windows Phone users.
We know many of you have wisely switched to Outlook.com for your email, but for some, either due to legacy or workplace requirements, Google’s Gmail is a necessity. While you can certainly add Gmail natively to Windows Phone, there’s no doubt that it lacks all of Google’s punch.
Indeed the app Tile is very bold and dare we say, fits in nicely with our Start screen. Launching the app there is a small delay as the device pulls in data (about 5-7 seconds for us), but once loaded it acts like you’re in a full-fledged Gmail client, including access to labels, settings, archiving, mute and report spam, to name a few. It's quite impressive.
The app itself is completely free with only a single ad in the About page, meaning you never really see it. What’s really clever is for $0.99 you can remove that one ad and get push notifications—now that is something we haven’t seen before.
We’re not going to pull punches here: if you need Gmail on your Windows Phone, including all of Google’s more advanced management tools, then this app is all you need. It’s been working well on our end during testing and is laid out quite nicely.
You can pick up Gmail by EcoMerc for free in the Store here or opt for the $0.99 version with push notifications here. Windows Phone 7.x and 8 supported.
(As a side note, please try to keep the anti-Google comments to a minimum. For one, no one really cares, and two, it's not helpful. Kthxbai!)The company behind Britain’s first privately run hospital said it planned to pull out of its contract to run Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire as it emerged that A&E performance across NHS England had plunged to a record low.
Circle Healthcare blamed funding cuts and increased demand for A&E services at Hinchinbrooke as it emerged A&E performance across the NHS in England sank to its worst level ever last week with just 79.8% of patients treated within four hours over the New Year break. The NHS constitution states that 95% of all A&E patients should be dealt with within four hours.
Circle Holdings issued a statement to the London Stock Exchange blaming funding cuts, a surge in demand for accident and emergency services and a failure to deliver “joined-up” reform between health and social services. It said the company had entered into discussions with the NHS Trust Development Authority “with the view to ensuring an orderly withdrawal from the current contract”.
The statement lobbed a politically charged hand grenade into the election campaign with Labour’s health spokesman, Andy Burnham, criticising the government for agreeing a “risky” business model with Circle, and his Conservative opposite number, Jeremy Hunt, accusing Burnham of “playing politics” with the issue.
Hunt highlighted Labour’s role in deciding to hand the hospital to the private sector. Burnham inherited the decision to call in the private sector at the troubled hospital when he became health secretary in June 2009 but was in office when a shortlist of three providers, including Circle, was drawn up in March 2010 on the eve of the general election. Circle was selected as the preferred bidder in November 2010 by the coalition and awarded the contract a year later.
Hunt tweeted: “Disappointing news on Hinchingbrooke, but @andyburnhammp must stop playing politics – he signed off decision to allow private sector operator.”
The health secretary defended the government’s decision to use the private sector to improve services. He added in a tweet: “This [government] makes no apology for seeking solutions for failing hospitals. We won’t be deterred from tackling poor care & driving up standards.”
The prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “There is disappointment that Circle has made this decision. The priority and the focus now is to make sure that patient care is not affected while the trust development authority transfers the running of the trust.”
The figures released on Friday by NHS England also show a sharp escalation in other problems experienced by the service over the festive period, especially in the week including and just after the new year.
A total of 29,388 ambulances had to queue for at least 30 minutes outside an A&E unit in England in the three weeks between 15 December and 4 January, and were unable to discharge the patient in the back to A&E staff, because the emergency department concerned was so busy.
That was more than double the 12,615 such incidents in the comparable three weeks in the winter 0f 2013-14.
Similarly, far more planned operations such as hernia repairs and cataract removals had to be postponed over the last three weeks because of the huge pressure hospitals were under. In all, 3,771 elective procedures were called off, compared with 2,016 such surgeries the year before.
The number of patients that had to be diverted from one A&E unit to another because the hospital they initially arrived at was so busy also rose year-on-year from 39 to 75.
Bedblocking also reached new record levels. Over the past three weeks, 43,426 beds were occupied by mainly frail, elderly patients who could not be safely discharged, despite doctors having passed them as medically fit to go, because of a lack of social care provision. That was also significantly up on the 33,055 delayed transfers of care seen in the same three-week period last winter.
However, despite A&E units coming under intense, sustained pressure recently, none has had to close temporarily, a situation that sometimes occurs when a hospital cannot cope. Two A&Es have had to shut their doors to patients this winter, though none since 11 December.
The weekend of 2-4 January, just after the New Year celebrations, saw some of the worst-ever performance by the NHS on these other performance indicators.
That may reflect the fact that many GP surgeries were closed or that hospital staff were on holiday or other factors.
For example, over those three days a total of 4,848 ambulances had to queue outside A&E units for at least half an hour, while 33 hospital trusts experienced what NHS England calls “operational problems” trying to cope with demand.
Circle’s threat to pull out compounds the headache for the Conservatives posed by worsening A&E performance across England because it focuses more attention on the government’s reorganisation. The company said that funding for Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS trust had been cut by about 10% for the current financial year and that the company had spent £4.84m to support the trust. Circle is allowed to withdraw from the contract if it spends more than £5m.
A report by the Care Quality Commission’s new regime is expected to be highly critical of the hospital. The Circle statement said the report’s conclusions, which follow a preliminary report last year, would be unbalanced and that it would contest many of them. In preliminary findings released in September, the CQC reported that patients at the hospital were being neglected, hygiene was inadequate and Hinchingbrooke was facing staffing problems.
Steve Melton, Circle’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Like most hospitals, over the past year, Hinchingbrooke saw unprecedented A&E attendances and not enough care places for healthy patients awaiting discharge.
“At the same time, our funding has been cut. We also believe that inconsistent and conflicting regulatory regimes compound the challenge for acute hospitals in this environment. This combination of factors means we have now reluctantly concluded that, in its existing form, Circle’s involvement in Hinchingbrooke is unsustainable.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The entrance to Hinchingbrooke. Circle said its franchise to operate the hospital trust was not sustainable. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
The statement by Circle Holdings goes to the centre of many of the issues highlighted by Labour as it seeks to place the NHS at the heart of the election debate. The statement by Burnham was carefully phrased – and lacked his usual robust language attacking the government – because Labour knows it is vulnerable to the charge that it set in train the process that allowed Hinchingbrooke to become Britain’s first privately run hospital.
Burnham said: “Patients who rely on Hinchingbrooke will be worried about their hospital following this announcement and ministers must provide urgent reassurance and set out a plan to ensure the continuity of services at the hospital in this uncertain time. It was the decision of the coalition in November 2011 to appoint Circle and they must take responsibility for this mess.
“The government were explicitly warned two years ago about the risky business model Circle were operating, but failed to take any action. Given that these risks were known at the outset, ministers must explain why they judged Circle a safe choice to run this hospital. They must also set out today how long they have known about the problems at Hinchingbrooke.”
Burnham would like to focus attention on the coalition’s decision to pick Circle to run Hinchingbrooke and on the deal that was agreed after it was named the preferred bidder in November 2010.
Circle said in a statement: “We believe that solving the problems facing Hinchingbrooke can only be achieved through joined-up reform in Cambridgeshire across hospitals, GPs and community services. We fully support the vision of NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens’s Five Year Forward View, but these proposed reforms are too far into the future. If reform in the region develops fast and a new role for us does become clear, we are happy to play our full part.”Uriah Phillips Levy (April 22, 1792 – March 26, 1862) was a naval officer, real estate investor, and philanthropist. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and the first Jewish Commodore of the United States Navy.[note 1] He was instrumental in helping to end the Navy's practice of flogging, and during his half-century-long service prevailed against the antisemitism he faced among some of his fellow naval officers.
An admirer of Thomas Jefferson, Levy purchased and began the restoration of Monticello in the 1830s; he also commissioned and donated a statue of Jefferson that is now located in the Capitol Rotunda; it is the only privately commissioned artwork in the Capitol.
Early years [ edit ]
Levy was born on April 22, 1792, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Michael and Rachel Phillips Levy.[1] He had two older siblings. Uriah Levy was close to his maternal grandfather, Jonas Phillips, who had emigrated to the United States in 1756 from Germany, and fought with the Philadelphia militia in the American Revolution. His maternal great-great grandfather, Dr. Samuel Ribeiro Nunes, a Portuguese physician, was among a group of 42 Sephardic Jews who escaped the Spanish Inquisition of the early 16th century and migrated to England, where they settled. Descendants of that group sailed from London in 1733 and helped found the city of Savannah, Georgia, where they lived for generations.[2]
Levy's younger brother was Jonas Phillips Levy, who became a merchant and sea captain. He was the father of five, including the Congressman Jefferson Monroe Levy.
Family stories[citation needed] have it that Levy ran away from home at the age of ten and ended up serving on various vessels as a cabin boy, returning home to Philadelphia at age 13 for his bar mitzvah.
Naval career [ edit ]
In 1806, he apprenticed as a sailor and was a cabin boy. Later he became a sailing master in the U.S. Navy,[3] and fought in the Barbary Wars.
At the age of 21, he volunteered for the War of 1812 and was commissioned as a sailing master on October 21, 1812. He was a supernumerary sailing master on the Argus, which interdicted British ships in the English Channel. The Argus seized more than 20 vessels before being captured on August 14, 1813; her captain was killed, and the crew, including Levy, were taken prisoner.[4] They were imprisoned by Great Britain for sixteen months until the end of the war. During his captivity, Levy had difficulty obtaining a subsidy and parole because his status as a supernumerary was not understood by the British Transport Board.[5]
Upon returning to the United States, Levy served aboard the Franklin as second master. Levy was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1817. This commission was a rare feat, given that he started as a cabin boy and worked his way to being a sailing master.[3] He became a master commandant in 1837, and captain in 1844.
During his service in the U.S. Navy, Levy faced considerable antisemitism.[3] He reacted to slights and was court-martialed six times, and once demoted from the rank of Captain.[3] Twice, he was dismissed from the Navy, but reinstated. He defended his conduct in his handling of naval affairs before a Court of Inquiry and in 1855 was restored to his former position.
Later,[specify] Levy commanded the Mediterranean Squadron. As a squadron commander he was given the title of commodore, then the highest position in the U.S. Navy.
Levy was instrumental in abolishing flogging in the U.S. Navy, although his position was considered controversial at the time. He also helped gain the support of the U.S Congress in passing an anti-flogging bill in 1850.[6]
Levy spent only 16 years of his 49 year naval career in active service. The rest of time, he was listed as "waiting orders", meaning that he could be called to serve at anytime. Although Levy served during the first year of the American Civil War, he was not given an active assignment at that time.
Levy became wealthy by investing in New York City's real estate market.[7]
Philanthropic activities [ edit ]
Levy undertook various philanthropic endeavors, many of which were in support of Jewish-American life. In 1854 he sponsored the new Jewish seminary of the Bnai Jeshurun Educational Institute in New York.
In 1833, New York City gave Levy the Key to the City after he presented the city with a patinated plaster statue of Thomas Jefferson, the one used to cast the bronze version he gave to the U.S. Congress.[8] Before the statue was set up in New York City Hall, Levy installed it in a building on Broadway and charged admission to view it. The proceeds were used to buy bread for the city's poor.[8]
Monticello [ edit ]
Levy's mother's grave
Levy was a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson:[9]
I consider Thomas Jefferson to be one of the greatest men in history, the author of the Declaration and an absolute democrat. He serves as an inspiration to millions of Americans. He did much to mould our Republic in a form in which a man's religion does not make him ineligible for political or governmental life.
The Monticello estate had been owned by more than one person since Jefferson's death, and considerable property had been sold off. In 1834, Levy paid $2,700 for the 218-acre (88 ha) Monticello—which is equivalent to $67,800 in today's dollars. Levy undertook to have the long-neglected home repaired, restored, and preserved. He also bought hundreds of additional acres that had been part of the plantation, to add to what was left.
Levy used Monticello as a vacation home. From 1837 to 1839, his widowed mother Rachel Levy lived there until her death; she is buried along Mulberry Row, the main plantation street adjacent to the mansion.[10]
Upon his death in 1862, Levy left Monticello to the American people to be used as an agricultural school for the orphans of Navy warrant officers. Because of the American Civil War, Congress refused to accept the donation. The Confederate government seized and sold the property; lawyers for Levy's estate recovered the property after the war.
Following two lawsuits by family members over Levy's will, with 47 parties to the suit, in 1879 his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy bought out the other heirs for $10,050, and took control of Monticello.[11] He had it repaired and restored. He sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which has renovated and restored the property as a house museum.
Statue of Jefferson in the Capitol.
The Levy family's role in preserving Monticello was downplayed by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation through much of the 20th century, which Urofsky suggests was due to anti-Semitic views among some of its board and members.[12]
In 1985, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation restored the gravesite of Rachel Levy and honored descendants of the family in a ceremony at Monticello.[13] The Foundation also celebrates the roles of Uriah P. Levy and Jefferson Monroe Levy in helping preserve and restore Monticello, including on-site information about their roles.
Jefferson statue [ edit ]
In another tribute to Jefferson, Levy commissioned a bronze statue of the President while studying naval tactics in France; he donated it to Congress in 1834. The statue, which once stood on the White House North Lawn from 1834–1873 and currently stands in the Capitol Rotunda, is the only privately commissioned piece of artwork in the Capitol.[9]
Personal life [ edit ]
Levy's brother, Jonas Phillip Levy, served as the fifth president of the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, DC from 1857-1858.[citation needed]
At the age of 61, Levy married his 18-year-old niece Virginia Lopez, whose father had recently died.[9][14][15] According to biographer Marc Leepson (Saving Monticello, 2001), Levy "was following an ancient, if obscure, Jewish tradition that obligates the closest unmarried male relative of a recently orphaned or widowed woman in financial difficulties to marry her." (See also letter, levirate marriage)
Levy died on March 26, 1862, and was buried in Beth Olam Cemetery, Ridgewood (Queens),[1] associated with the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.[9] He was one of the ranking officers of the Navy at the time of his death.[16]
Sailing Master – 21 October 1812
Lieutenant – 5 March 1817
Master Commandant – 9 February 1837
Captain – 29 March 1844
Legacy and honors [ edit ]
The Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland Wall-hanging in Commodore Levy Chapel, Naval Station Norfolk
Published works [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
^ At the time, Commodore was the highest rank in the U.S. Navy; it would be roughly equivalent to the modern-day rank of Admiral
References [ edit ]
Specific citations
Bibliography
Further reading [ edit ]Nearly two-thirds of voters view 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 as responsible for the violence at his rallies, but an overwhelming majority believe that the protesters are also to blame, a new national poll finds.
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A new Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday found that 64 percent of voters think the GOP front-runner causes the incidents that have occurred at his campaign events, compared to 34 percent who don’t believe he’s responsible.
The poll also finds that 78 percent of voters blame the protesters at Trump’s rallies, compared to 70 percent who think the violence is caused by the real estate mogul’s supporters.
The survey comes amid a string of violent incidents and protests that have grabbed headlines at Trump's events. Earlier this month, a rally in Chicago was called off due to major protests outside of the arena. At a different rally, a man was charged with assault and battery after video surfaced showing him punching a man in the face.
“Donald Trump may say hired instigators have brought violence to his rallies, but 64 percent of American voters are laying the blame squarely on the candidate, while 78 percent are blaming the protestors [sic],” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.
The poll was conducted from March 16 to 21 and surveyed 1,451 registered voters via phone. The overall margin of error was 2.6 percentage points.She says she planned to feed the meter, but wanted to feed her crying baby first.
After that, the St. Catharines mom says, she and her family planned to head into Victoria Park to see the Holly Roller Sherman tank and have a picnic.
Instead, they left London with a “horrible taste” in their mouths after a parking officer ticketed them as she breastfed her baby in her van outside the park.
“I was appalled,” said Maria Marques, who was in London for a specialist’s appointment at University Hospital Tuesday and planned the picnic with husband Jeff, their five-year-old son and 13-month-old girl.
“Of course, we were going to pay,” she said Thursday. “We had every intention of paying. But my daughter was hungry, I wanted to console her,” she said.
Snacks packed, the family pulled into a park-facing metered spot on Clarence Street at noon, Marques said.
It was scorching hot, already 29C.
When the baby began fussing, Marques opted to breastfeed her in the air-conditioned van before heading out.
“My car was still running because we still wanted the air conditioning while I fed her,” she said.
She’d been nursing the baby a few minutes when she and her husband saw enforcement officers issuing tickets. Thinking they were safe, with their vehicle running and planning to pay in a minute, they were unconcerned.
Then the officers motioned to the meter, asking if they’d paid. Jeff Marques jumped out of the van.
“I said, ‘My wife is breastfeeding right now and then we’re going to the park,’ ” he recalled. “He could’ve just waited to make sure we got out and paid.”
Instead, the officer said he was ticketing them and put his head down as he set about it, Jeff Marques said. “I’m going (to others walking by), ‘Can you believe this man? My wife’s breastfeeding and he won’t give us a chance to finish up.’ “
“I’m not paying that,” he said he told the officer who handed him the $25 ticket.
The family drove straight to the court and disputed the ticket. But they got a call Thursday saying the fine stands since the commissionaires reported the people said they weren’t going to pay the meter.
Jeff Marques said it was all “disappointing” to a family looking forward to a great day in what they thought was a great city.
“My wife had just said, ‘this seems like a great city to live in. Then we got to the park and there’s a tank in the park and I thought it would be cool to go see the tank with my son.”
Instead, they left the park and the city $25 in the hole. “It’s disgusting,” he said.
City hall doesn’t discuss tickets with the media, said Annette Drost of parking and licensing enforcement.
But Coun. Josh Morgan, who chairs city council’s protective services committee, said he encourages the family to file a complaint with the city.
His first reaction, he said, is that “it seems really odd for someone to be ticketed while they’re in their vehicle,” although it would be “highly inappropriate” for any councillor to comment on a specific case.
“If they had a bad experience, I encourage them to submit a complaint,” he said. “We do want to give the impression London is a nice place.”
— With files by Dan Brown, Free Press reporter
jennifer.obrien@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/obrienatlfpressCOLUMBUS, Ohio The mood is upbeat these days around the Columbus Blue Jackets front office. The NHL draft is a week away and the club has the No. 4 pick in the first round along with seven other selections. New coach Scott Arniel is settling into the job after being hired last week. And prized left wing Nikita Filatov is making plans to attend training camp this fall after spending most of last winter in his native Russia. General manager Scott Howson credited the prospect of getting new prospects for the bounce in his step. "The draft is an exciting time," he said on Thursday. "It's one of the only days in the season where you feel like you've gotten better without giving up anything. It's an exciting day and this is a really important draft for us." The Blue Jackets, who took a step back in missing the playoffs last season after making the postseason for the first time a year earlier, have taken some calls from teams wanting to acquire their first pick. The serious talk won't come until next week. Regardless, Howson has no plans to trade the selection. Taylor Hall, a quick and talented forward out of Windsor of the Ontario Hockey League, and OHL rival Tyler Seguin, a center for Plymouth, are considered the top two players available. Edmonton has first dibs, followed by Boston, then Florida. "The draft itself is deep in that there's many good players throughout," said Don Boyd, the Blue Jackets director of player personnel. "There's fewer dropoffs." Potential players the Blue Jackets might tab in the first round include defensemen Cam Fowler and Erik Gudbranson and forwards Brett Connolly, Brandon Gormley, Ryan Johansen, Jeff Skinner and Nino Niederreiter. Fowler, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound puck-mover who was a teammate of Hall's last winter, is the consensus choice to go to Columbus. The Blue Jackets took defensemen with four of their first five picks a year ago <emdash /> including John Moore at No. 21 of the first round <emdash /> but that should have no bearing on this year's draft. The Blue Jackets also have two picks in the second round (Nos. 34 and 55), two picks in the fourth (Nos. 94 and 102) and one in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds. Like a lot of NHL teams, Columbus could use some depth at center and right wing on the big club and in its farm system. But that doesn't mean the Blue Jackets will try to fill those holes at the draft June 25-26 in Los Angeles. "You draft the skill and you trade (for) the position," Boyd said. In other words, teams take the best player available, regardless of position. Filatov was impressive with four goals in an eight-game trial during the 2008-09 season, putting up three goals in one game. He made the team out of camp last fall but foundered over the next month. His playing time was limited by coach Ken Hitchcock, and Filatov had difficulty finding his way. The sixth overall pick in the 2008 draft, he had just two goals in 13 games for the Blue Jackets. Only 19 years old, he was frustrated and homesick. Eventually, the Blue Jackets loaned Filatov to CSKA Moscow of the Continental Hockey League. Hitchcock was fired on Feb. 3 and the 47-year-old Arniel was hired a week ago after spending the last four seasons developing players at Manitoba of the American Hockey League. Now Columbus is certain that Filatov will be in preseason camp and might even arrive sooner for conditioning work. He would be a huge addition <emdash /> if he grows into his lofty expectations and becomes a two-way player <emdash /> for a team that was 28th of the 30 NHL teams in goals. The Blue Jackets should also be a bidder for free agents. Howson is around $10 million under the cap right now. "We'll kick some tires," he said of the search for reinforcements. "I don't think we'll be overly aggressive as we have been in the past, but we'll certainly be aware of what our needs are. And we'll be out there." 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 moreOnce upon a time, the land of Hollywood North was in despair, fighting the evils – a high dollar! tax issues! – of the local production industry.
At Vancouver Film Studios, last January was especially dire: Only three of their 10 stages were occupied, largely owing to the cancellation of the Syfy series Eureka last year.
Then Prince Charming appeared in the form of pilot season. Nine pilots rode into town, eight of which went to camera – including Beauty and the Beast, which requested VFS's last two available stages, and even took over the administration's desks to accommodate production.
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But, alas, a fairy-tale ending was not to be.
Beauty and the Beast did not get picked up (a different show with the same name did, however). And now that both the Canadian and American networks have revealed their fall lineups, B.C.'s production industry is assessing some less than inspiring results: Of the pilots shot in Vancouver, the U.S. networks have picked up only four: Arrow; Emily Owens, MD; Cult and Red Widow. Meanwhile, Alcatraz, The Secret Circle and the Canadian sci-fi series Sanctuary were cancelled. Fringe was put on notice that it would just one more season on Fox.
Coupled with a disappointing number of features, none of this is what the industry needs to calm fears over its future. And with a high Canadian dollar, the imminent disappearance of the film-friendly HST, and – the real evil stepmother in this story – a lack of parity on tax credits, the B.C. production industry is now looking to protect its billion-dollar industry. One step is lobbying the province on tax credits. Another: aiming at a national film strategy.
Certainly, any talk about the film and TV industry in B.C. is bound to lead to tax credits: the provincial tax credit on foreign film production is 33 per cent on B.C. labour, compared with the far more attractive offers in Ontario and Quebec: 25 per cent of the overall spend. As a result, work has gone east.
"I think it's quite good," B.C. Film Commissioner Susan Croome says. "We lost three, but we gained four. We're net up one... so we're holding our own."
It's not quite good enough to calm fears about B.C.'s production industry. The level of feature work is a concern, even with the big budget Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters shooting in town.
"They're shooting a feature called Pacific Rim in Ontario," says Peter Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of Vancouver Film Studios, referring to the Guillermo del Toro film shot in Toronto earlier this year |
-to-54-year-old category in 2004. Over all, four of five people who commit suicide are men. (For men 45 to 54, the five-year rate increase was 15.6 percent.)
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Veterans are another vulnerable group. Some surveys show they account for one in five suicides, said Dr. Ira Katz, who oversees mental health programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. That is why the agency joined the national toll-free suicide hot line last August.
In the last five years, Dr. Katz said, the agency has noticed that the highest suicide rates have been among middle-aged men and women. Those most affected are not returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, he said, but those who served in Vietnam or right after, when the draft ended and the all-volunteer force began. “The current generation of older people seems to be at lesser risk for depression throughout their lifetimes” than the middle-aged, he said.
That observation seems to match what Myrna M. Weissman, the chief of the department in Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology at New York State Psychiatric Institute, concluded was a susceptibility to depression among the affluent and healthy baby boom generation two decades ago, in a 1989 study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. One possible reason she offered was the growing pressures of modern life, like the changing shape of families and more frequent moves away from friends and relatives that have frayed social support networks.
More recently, reports of a study that spanned 80 countries found that around the world, middle-aged people were unhappier than those in any other age group, but that conclusion has been challenged by other research, which found that among Americans, middle age is the happiest time of life.
Indeed, statistics can sometimes be as confusing as they are enlightening. Shifts in how deaths are tallied make it difficult to compare rates before and after 1999, C.D.C. officials said. Epidemiologists also emphasize that at least another five years of data on suicide are needed before any firm conclusions can be reached about a trend.
The confusion over the evidence reflects the confusion and mystery at the heart of suicide itself.
Ms. Cronin explained in a note that she had struggled with an inexplicable gloom that would leave her cowering tearfully in a closet as early as age 9. After attempting suicide before, she had checked into a residential treatment program not long before she died, but after a month, her insurance ran out. Her parents had offered to continue the payments, but her sister, Kelly Gifford, said Ms. Cronin did not want to burden them.
Ms. Gifford added, “I think she just got sick of trying to get better.”" Real Time" host Bill Maher criticized Fox News on Friday while discussing the violent rally in Charlottesville, Va. saying that the news network was partly to blame for the attacks because they "reanimated" Nazis.
"They are the 'Jurassic Park' that took the DNA of the Nazis and reanimated it," Maher said during a panel discussion on his evening program on HBO. "I believe that without Fox News for years giving the kind of poison they give over their airwaves, putting it into people's heads, and then the Internet, I think, which you know — people say they get radicalized on the Internet. Before, if you were a neo-Nazi, unless you found somebody in a coffee shop — now you can find someone on the internet. And then, the president gave permission to them."
Maher also called out President Trump, saying he has been a racist his "whole life."
The "Real Time" host then insinuated that Trump is a pawn for Fox News, pointing out that Trump used jargon during his impromptu press conference on Tuesday that came from the networks anchors.
"He watches Fox News all the time!" Maher exclaimed. "Over the last 20 years, I've encountered so many people, usually older people — older white men — who I thought were normal people, and they suddenly were saying things at Hollywood cocktail parties like "Obama purposely ruined America.' Purposely!"This is an amazing book. Published by a Brit, there’s no whining and wincing when it comes to discussing fermented and potted meat. Published on thick cardstock pages, held together with a durable cover, this book has great recipes for everything from the salted, spiced, dried, smoked, potted, pickled, and even raw.
The book is written in a familiar tone and the photographs are done by the author in her own kitchen. While to some, this would make for a unprofessional, unpolished work, this author hits it out of the park.
Lindy Wildsmith covers cooking from cultures all around the world, looking at both contemporary and historical culinary practices originating from Japan, ancient Rome and Greece, contemporary Europe and various Native American techniques.
Nurturing flavour over days, weeks or even months is a unique way to prepare food, producing mouth-watering results every time. Home-cured delicacies taste even better for having been patiently prepared and eagerly anticipated. The widespread revival of the ‘Slow Food’ movement is testament to the intense flavours yielded by salting, marinating, spicing, drying and smoking. Cured is the ultimate guide to this exciting culinary sub-culture.A new paper was just published which provides a glimpse into the future of wildfires. The paper is titled “Extreme fire season in California: A glimpse into the future?” It was published as the second chapter of “Explaining Extreme Events of 2014” which is from by the American Meteorological Society and it is available here. The lead-in summary to the article is very much to the point. It states,
The fire season in northern California during 2014 was the second longest in terms of burned areas since 1996. An increase in fire risk in California is attributable to human-induced climate change.
The authors, Jin-Ho Yoon and colleagues make the point that California has been under drought conditions since 2012 and that the drought worsened recently. As is obvious, drought exacerbates the threat from wildfires. Last year, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection saw many more fires than have occurred in the prior five-year averages.
While the influence of drought and wildfires may be obvious, the authors bring some important and sometimes subtle insights. For instance, in a warming world, we also expect more rainfall. So it stands to reason that fires may actually decrease. So which effect wins out? The warming or the wetting? Also, how do the decreasing snowpack or early snowmelt factor in?
The authors pursued their investigation by comparing satellite images from burned areas with a drought index. The drought index (Keetch-Byram Drought Index, or KBDI for short) is created from both observed and calculated daily precipitation and surface temperatures. In the investigated region of northern California, both the drought index and the regions of extreme fire risk have increased steadily since 1979. In both measures, 2014 was top for northern California, but also for the entire state. The authors also note that the two largest burned areas in northern California in the last 18 years occurred in 2012 and 2014.
The authors then project into the future and ask what the current trends portend over the next few centuries. The predicted results are striking. We can expect to see increases in the drought index, the area under extreme threat of fires, and the days of fire danger. The following statement from the report provides a great summary.
The increase in extreme fire risk is expected within the coming decade to exceed that of natural variability and this serves as an indication that anthropogenic climate warming will likely play a significant role in influence California’s fire season.
But, what we do now will affect how bad things get in the future. By taking actions like President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, we can lower our threat to a more manageable level.Police said a drunk Iowa City man couldn't tell officers what he had been up to Saturday night.
Or, more importantly, why he didn't have any clothes on.
Around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Iowa City police officers took a complaint of a naked man walking around the area of 1100 Jefferson St. Police found the man, 55-year-old Alan J. Ryan, asleep on the porch of a Jefferson Street residence.
Police said Ryan woke up as officers approached. He smelled of alcohol, was unsteady and disoriented and refused a breath test, police said.
Ryan found his clothes and was placed under arrest. Police said he could not offer an explanation for where he had been earlier in the night or why he was walking around naked. He was charged with public intoxication, a simple misdemeanor.The U.S. Muslim Brotherhood isn’t the only Islamist group funding American universities. The Iranian regime has done the same thing on a massive scale through its New York-based front, the Alavi Foundation. The Foundation’s website openly lists 30 “academic institutions” in the U.S. and Canada it has awarded grants to.
The Alavi Foundation is accused of funneling money to an Iranian bank linked to the nuclear program. The president of the Foundation, Farshid Jahedi, pled guilty to destroying evidence before it could be submitted to the grand jury. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigations chief, Adam Kaufmann, said “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation.”
The case has yet to be resolved.
The Foundation’s purpose is not only to launder money for the regime, but to become subtly engaged in the ideological war. U.S. officials told the Washington Post that the Foundation “promotes Tehran’s views on world affairs.” The communications director for the Iranian-American Community of Northern California, Hamid Azimi, says it is part of the regime’s “propaganda machine.”
This alleged component of Iran’s “propaganda machine” has invested heavily in academia. According to the Alavi Foundation website, 30 colleges and universities in North America have received its financing. The objective is to “offer courses on Persian language, Iranian studies and the Islamic culture with a focus on Shi'ite studies.”
The named 30 are listed below, organized by state alphabetically and additional notes. The Canadian institutions are listed at the end. All monetary figures were taken from the Alavi Foundation's own financial reports.
As the investigation continues into the Alavi Foundation, U.S. and Candian officials need to also investigate the influence the Iranian regime has had on academia through its vast amounts of money.Donald Trump’s views on nukes may be the scariest thing about his candidacy. But how does Potus launch an attack at a moment’s notice? And what happens when you send the codes to the dry cleaners by mistake...
In a speech in San Diego recently, Hillary Clinton asked: “Do we want his [Donald Trump’s] finger anywhere near the button?” She was doubtful that her Republican rival was really the guy you wanted to unleash America’s arsenal of nuclear warheads which has thousands of times the destructive force of the weapons that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki 71 years ago this month.
Certainly, her opponent’s nuclear strategy, if that’s not too strong a word, is nothing if not maverick. “Somebody hits us within Isis, you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” Trump asked in March. He was also reported as saying of nuclear weapons: “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” On an interview with MSNBC in March, his interviewer told Trump that nobody wanted to hear that “a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons”. To which Trump replied: “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?”
This sort of stuff has been too much, for some Republicans. One of them is John Noonan, who worked for many years as a Minuteman III nuclear launch officer under the Wyoming tundra, hoping never to receive a particularly urgent call from presidents Bush or Obama. He is not voting for Trump because he thinks the Republican is too irrational and doesn’t understand nuclear deterrence strategy that, in his view, has spared the world from destruction since 1945. “The very point of nuclear weapons is that they are never used,” wrote Noonan in the LA Times earlier this month. “We have them to dissuade hostile powers from attacking us, and vice versa.
“I sat at my post believing, through both the Bush and Obama administrations, that the president was fundamentally rational and would never ask me to do my terrible duty. Not unless the country was in the direst of national emergencies. With Trump as president, the young men and women who are assigned to our nuclear forces will have no such assurances.”
To be fair, maybe Trump does understand something of the mind-boggling, games-theory-based logic underpinning deterrence strategy. He was asked on CBS in March when should the US use nuclear weapons. “Well, it is an absolute last stance. And, you know, I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable.” The corollary? If you’re too predictable, then the enemy can get the nuclear jump on you.
In another interview, Trump was asked if he would nuke Europe. “Europe is a big place,” he replied airily. “I’m not going to take cards off the table.”
What Clinton must have known better than most when she made her San Diego speech is that Donald Trump will never get his fingers on the nuclear button. Not because the polls suggest she will trounce him in November, but rather because it is merely a figure of speech. In a 1980s Spitting Image sketch, Ronald Reagan had two buttons at his bedside. One was labelled “nurse”, the other – inadvertently pressed – labelled “nukes”. In reality, there is no such thing as the president’s nuclear button.
Is there a bit of Donald Trump in all of us? | Oliver Burkeman Read more
Every US president since John F Kennedy has been equipped with a nuclear biscuit and a nuclear football. It’s what the US president does with them that decides whether the rest of us should plan for tea or armageddon.
The so-called nuclear biscuit is a credit-card-sized piece of plastic containing the codes the president needs to order the launch nuclear weapons. The president is supposed to carry the biscuit at all times, though there are reports that in the 1970s Jimmy Carter inadvertently lost his when a suit was sent to the dry cleaners.
Worse was to happen 20 years later under Bill Clinton’s presidency when, according to General Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, “the codes were actually missing for months”. Shelton wrote in his memoir Without Hesitation: “That’s a big deal – a gargantuan deal.” You think? Indeed, one of Clinton’s former military aides, Lt Col Robert “Buzz” Patterson, recalled that the morning after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke, he asked the president for the card so that he could supply an updated version. The president couldn’t find it.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A military aide carries the nuclear football. Photograph: Joshua Roberts / Reuters/Reuters
“He thought he just placed them upstairs,” Patterson wrote in his memoir Dereliction of Duty: Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security. “In my experience, nuclear launch codes are usually in the last place you saw them. We called upstairs, we started a search around the White House for the codes, and he finally confessed that he in fact misplaced them. He couldn’t recall when he had last seen them.” These were, we realise in hindsight, perturbing hours for humanity, since it is only when the Pentagon and nuclear launch officers hear these codes that will they know for certain that the person on the line is really the president rather than, say, an Obama impersonator working for Kim Jong-un.
There may be some of you already suspecting that humanity’s best hopes for surviving a Trump presidency is to send his suits for dry cleaning before he gets to empty the pockets, or tuck the nuclear biscuit down the back of an Oval Office sofa while the president is distracted arranging his hair.
As for the nuclear football, it comes into active service when the president leaves the White House. It is the nickname for a large leather, aluminium-framed briefcase weighing 20kg which is hefted by a military aide who shadows the US commander in chief.
It is, as former Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs calls it, “the ultimate power accessory, a doomsday machine that could destroy the entire world”. The late Bill Gulley, a former director of the White House Military Office, described what’s inside the nuclear football in his 1980 memoir Breaking Cover. “There are four things in the football. The Black Book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or 10 pages stapled together giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five inch card with authentication codes.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The nuclear football in Red Square during Reagan’s visit. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
The nuclear football has an antenna protruding from it, likely indicating that inside there is a communication system with which the president can maintain contact the Pentagon’s National Military Command Centre which monitors worldwide nuclear threats and can order an instant nuclear response. “The football,” says Dobbs, “also provides the commander-in-chief with a simplified menu of nuclear strike options – allowing him to decide, for example, whether to destroy all of America’s enemies in one fell swoop or to limit himself to obliterating only Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing.” Or, presumably, Milton Keynes.
One of Ronald Reagan’s aides even carried the nuclear football across Red Square during a presidential visit to Moscow. In principle, Reagan could have ordered a first strike on the Soviet Union at that moment. In any case, Reagan’s Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, was also accompanied during the visit by a military aide holding a very similar bag, known in Russian as the chemodanchik, or “little briefcase.”
Over the years there have been several nuclear footballs, all manufactured for the White House by Zero Halliburton, the Utah firm that also supplied aluminium briefcases for movies like Men in Black II, Air Force One and perhaps less reassuringly, Dude, Where’s My Car? and Spy Kids. Today, visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington can see a retired nuclear football and, if so minded, salute its gallant contribution to global security.
The nuclear football came into active service after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when President Kennedy worried how the Pentagon and nuclear launch officers would be sure that it was really the president ordering a strike. Declassified documents reveal his concerns: “What would I say to the Joint War Room to launch an immediate nuclear strike?” Kennedy asked. “How would the person who received my instructions verify them?”
Now, long after the end of the cold war, the man bag still shadows the president on his or her travels. There are in fact three nuclear footballs – one kept near the president when they leave the White House, another for the vice-president and a third kept in storage in the White House. The nuclear football is not handcuffed to aides, as some have claimed, but has a leather cinch strap that can be looped around the wrist.
Why is the briefcase nicknamed the nuclear football? According to former US secretary of defence Robert McNamara, it was so-named because it was part of an early nuclear war plan code-named Operation Drop Kick.
In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 nuclear black comedy Dr Strangelove, there is also an Operation Drop Kick. It denoted a nuclear exercise that goes wrong when the unhinged US general played by Sterling Hayden orders a first strike on the Soviet Union. All the president’s men strive to recall the bombers to prevent nuclear politics. As you know (spoiler alert!), they fail and the film concludes with Major TJ “King” Kong played by Slim Pickens, dropping from Russian skies astride a nuclear weapon.
In reality, happily, Operation Drop Kick hasn’t resulted in nuclear catastrophe. That said, there have been nuclear-football fumbles. Peter Metzger, a former marine who was one of five military aides charged with carrying the nuclear football for Reagan, recently recalled that once a colleague steered him into a different lift from the president and tricked him into thinking he had missed the motorcade. Metzger said his heart was racing “like a gerbil in a cage” until he realised his colleague was playing a practical joke.
Metzger said that carrying the nuclear football is a worrisome responsibility. “The result of a decision the president would make is so grotesquely horrible – it would change the face of the earth, it would change humanity, it would change mankind,” he said. “I guess when you’re on duty, you try not to think of the import of that. But you are fully prepared to do so if you have to.”
Robert Patterson, who carried the football for Clinton, said: “You’re always kind of on edge. I opened it up constantly just to refresh myself, to always be aware of what was in it, all the potential decisions the president could possibly make.”
Last year, one of the nuclear football’s trusty carriers, ex-marine John Kline, even used footage of the bag in a TV ad to help his campaign for re-election to Congress. “In this briefcase lies the fate of the world,” went the voiceover. “It contains top-secret codes to launch a nuclear strike. Two presidents – one from each party – trusted a young marine named John Kline to safeguard it.” It’s not clear how key that ad was to his successful campaign, but it probably didn’t hurt.
Aides who carry the nuclear football have extensive psychological evaluations to assess whether they’re up to the task. Metzger discloses that he underwent extensive vetting by the Defense Department, the secret service and the FBI before he was given the job. The incoming president, whether it is Trump or Clinton, will undergo no such checks as to their mental stability. There is, though, one consoling thought. Even if Trump did nuke Europe, he’d probably spare part of Aberdeenshire – he wouldn’t want to destroy his golf resort.
• This article was amended on 23 August 2016. An earlier version said that George C Scott played the unhinged US general who ordered an attack on the Soviet Union in the film Dr Strangelove. The general, Brig. General Jack D. Ripper, was played by Sterling Hayden.A derby draw could suit both teams but Mourinho is unbeaten in the league since October and would clearly love to make life even more miserable for Guardiola
The race is not always to the swift, according to Ecclesiastes, although as Damon Runyon and thousands of others subsequently pointed out, that is never the way to bet.
Picking the winners and losers in this season’s title and top-four race has been an unusually fraught business, mainly because Chelsea dropped so far out of the running last time out.
While it was not hard to predict that they would improve on 10th place this season, having begun the process before the end of the last one, runaway leaders for most of the campaign would have been a bold prediction to make in August.
Pep Guardiola needs time to prove naysayers wrong at Manchester City | Jacob Steinberg Read more
Back then it appeared Manchester City would be setting the pace, which they did for a short while after winning their first six matches to get off to a storming start. Even Liverpool, who beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester in the first month and drew at Tottenham Hotspur, were struggling to stay in touch, though they briefly climbed to the top of the table in October and spent the next couple of months in second or third place.
Both Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola would have been quite reasonably aspiring to be in the title mix until Chelsea went on the 13-match winning run that put them firmly on top in the new year, though even then both Liverpool and Manchester City seemed set fair for a top-four finish.
It could be argued they still are, sitting as they do in third and fourth place respectively, but the picture has altered subtly in the last week or so.
Liverpool’s home defeat by Crystal Palace – it seems a long time now since Klopp was setting his sights on winning every game until the end of the season – has left the German’s side vulnerable. Liverpool are third only by virtue of having played two games more than the teams below them and they could now be overtaken by both Manchester clubs depending on what happens in Thursday’s derby.
City would go third with a win, though that is probably the result Liverpool will be hoping for as it would make it much more difficult for Manchester United to crack the top four. A win would be a sensational result for United, without necessarily spelling the end of City’s challenge, yet Guardiola in particular can scarcely afford to follow Saturday’s Wembley disappointment with derby defeat at the Etihad. The ignominy would be unbearable for a club that very publicly set their sights much higher and, while Guardiola deserves more than a season to prove himself, he would be under pressure as never before should the possibility of City finishing outside the top four raise its head.
A draw would suit both Manchester clubs, even if it would be regarded with suspicion on Merseyside. Such a result would still leave United’s destiny in their own hands, they could still finish higher than Liverpool without Klopp and his players being able to do much about it, and it would preserve the remarkable unbeaten sequence that José Mourinho has quietly managed to supervise.
The words quiet and Mourinho are not frequently seen in the same sentence but, partly due to the high number of draws and the fact that United have taken up semi-permanent residence just outside the top four, an unbeaten run of 23 Premier League games has perhaps not received the credit it deserves.
United have been the tortoise in the race all season, though there are now signs that at least a couple of the top-four hares are tiring and all Mourinho’s team need do is keep inching along.
Liverpool are no longer scoring goals for fun and their defensive problems are starting to find them out quite regularly. Klopp was saying a month or so ago that it might be a good idea for both managers to attend post-match press conferences together, as has been known to happen in Germany, so that if one makes a contentious statement the other has an immediate chance to counter it. This arrangement would have been quite uncomfortable on Sunday for the German, one feels, had he been sitting next to Sam Allardyce as the Crystal Palace manager went into detail about the best way to beat Liverpool. There is little doubt Allardyce would not have been shy in such a situation and Liverpool supporters would have been interested, to say the least, to hear what Klopp had to say in his defence.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kevin De Bruyne celebrates opening the scoring for Manchester City in their 2-1 win at Old Trafford in September. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Guardiola’s response to losing to Arsenal at Wembley was to reiterate that City would come back stronger next year. They might, of course, but it would be silly to imagine that Chelsea, Tottenham, United and the rest are not thinking the same thing. Anyone can spend money but the point about Guardiola was supposed to be that he can introduce a new and successful way of playing.
Almost a year in, the signs are not auspicious. City’s main idea at Wembley seemed to be to turn the ball back to Yaya Touré all the time to see what he could come up with, which is very much the old way of playing. While Guardiola may have been unlucky to lose Gabriel Jesus, John Stones and Ilkay Gündogan to injury, plus David Silva on the day, the fact still remains that Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sané did not make the anticipated impression and City once again let a lead slip without making any attempt to try to protect it.
United, it ought to be conceded, are not in great shape either. They have lost their top goalscorer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, for the rest of the season and have problems at centre-half. But – insert drum roll here – they must be able to smell an opportunity that a few months ago seemed unlikely to present itself. Had the Manchester derby taken place on its original date at the end of February, City would have been strong favourites. They were playing at home, they would just have scored five goals against Monaco to boost their Champions League hopes, they were second in the table and knew they had outplayed United at Old Trafford. Confidence would have been high but the derby was postponed through United’s involvement in the EFL Cup final and the intervening couple of months have not been kind to Guardiola and his players.
Mourinho is now the one with the unbeaten run and a trophy on his sideboard in his first season in Manchester, while Guardiola cannot win anything. Though losing Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a blow, United seem to have Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford finding form at the right time.
Wayne Rooney at risk of going out at Old Trafford with a whimper | Daniel Taylor Read more
City are coming into the game on the back of a jarring defeat; United have some momentum. Who should be the most confident now? Anything can happen in derbies, as both sides know only too well, but United have a manager who seems to be able to work out a plan to win any given game.
Not in the sense of one game after another but, if there is a single game that must be negotiated, a result to be obtained, Mourinho’s track record of coming up with a plan is excellent. He famously did it against Guardiola’s Barcelona when Internazionale were down to 10 men in the Champions League semi-finals in 2010. He did it just a couple of weeks ago in England when United prevailed against barely recognisable league leaders.
Mourinho, for about a million reasons, would dearly love to cross town and make life even more miserable for Guardiola. United and their supporters would probably enjoy that even more than reaching the Europa League final. Never mind that London is set to claim the major prizes, in Manchester the crux of the season has arrived.
Two clubs, two managers, two long and eventful campaigns, all boiled down to one game. Mourinho keeps dutifully bigging up the Europa League as a potential trophy, even though he dislikes Thursday night football and has said so. He might find he is not quite so averse to the Premier League version. As Thursday nights go, this could be the one to remember.'I tell you I've written a great book," DH Lawrence informed his publisher Edward Garnett, after sending him the manuscript of Sons and Lovers in November 1912. "Read my novel – it's a great novel." Lawrence's immodesty is forgivable: the book had been through four drafts, and after two years of struggle he was hugely relieved to have it finished. The sense of elation didn't last long. He worried about the title (he had originally called the book "Paul Morel"). He worried whether it might benefit from a foreword (and belatedly posted one to Garnett). He worried about the dust jacket, and arranged for a friend, Ernest Collings, to design one (like the foreword, it wasn't used). Beneath these worries lay a deeper worry, about the text itself: "I am a great admirer of my own stuff while it's new, but after a while I'm not so gone on it," he admitted. He was already on to the next thing (a draft of what would become The Rainbow), and had "scarcely the patience" to correct the proofs. But he was proud when a finished copy reached him in Italy. And the word he used to Garnett recurred, in letters to friends. "It is quite a great novel"; "I remember you telling me, at the beginning, it would be great. I think it is so."
Lawrence was right. Sons and Lovers is a great novel. A century of readers have reached for the same adjective. FR Leavis did, when he enrolled Lawrence in the "great tradition" of the English novel, comprising Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad. And Philip Larkin did so, too, describing Lawrence as "England's greatest novelist" and Sons and Lovers as his finest achievement: "Cock me! Nearly every page of it is absolutely perfect." The perfection wasn't apparent to those close to Lawrence at the time, including his childhood sweetheart Jessie Chambers, his editor Garnett, and his wife-to-be Frieda, all of whom suggested improvements and left their mark on the finished text. But the reviews were good, and 100 years later the novel's reputation holds up, despite the recent dip in Lawrence's critical standing.
To anyone of my generation, that dip is a puzzle. In the early 1970s, when I was studying at Nottingham University, Lawrence was hot. (I can't pretend that my main reason for choosing to go to Nottingham was that Lawrence had been there before me, but I'd been a fan of his work since filching a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover from my mother's bedside cabinet at the age of 14.) Partly it was the films: Ken Russell's Women in Love appeared in 1969, Christopher Miles's The Virgin and the Gypsy in 1970. Partly it was his pertinence to feminism: Kate Millett's Sexual Politics put him at the centre of undergraduate debates about misogyny, patriarchy and the myth of the vaginal orgasm. Partly it was his politics: was he a hero of the sexual revolution or a fascist and colonialist? The attacks on him grew fiercer as the years went by, but to me the difficulties he posed were evidence that he mattered. From Nottingham I went on to write an MA thesis about him at McMaster University in Canada, which boasts a Lawrence archive. The thesis doesn't bear rereading, but the best of Lawrence, including his poetry, travel books and essays, remains as fresh as ever. Surely he cannot remain unfashionable for long.
For those new to his work, Sons and Lovers is the place to start. Though it came after The White Peacock and The Trespasser, it reads like a first novel. This isn't only because it's life writing, recreating scenes from the author's own experience. Nor is it because the story concerns childhood and adolescence and all that go with them, including fear, shame, self‑consciousness, emotional hypersensitivity, sexual awakening, and the hubristic certainty that (as Paul Morel puts it) one is "going to alter the face of the earth in some way". There's also the freshness and intensity with which Lawrence presents the Morel family – as if this was the only family in the world where the parents don't get on, the father drinks, the mother resents her son's girlfriends, money is short, art and literature become a refuge, and so on. At 27, Lawrence was well-educated and widely read, but the style of Sons and Lovers is wonderfully unknowing – no distancing English irony breaks the spell. Irony wasn't in Lawrence's nature, and at the time he wrote the book he didn't have the leisure for it anyway.
He began drafting the novel in October 1910 and completed it just over two years later; in between, he ended his long relationship with Jessie Chambers, became engaged to then broke with another girlfriend, Louie Burrows, lost his mother to cancer, fell seriously ill with pneumonia, gave up his teaching post in Croydon, returned to Nottingham, and fell in love and eloped to Europe with Frieda Weekley, the wife of one of his professors. All these crises fed into the novel. Few texts have been more "over-painted". As Frank Kermode has pointed out, this is what Lawrence wanted, for his novel to be organic and open to experience, "liberated from the burden of finality and completeness placed on it by his enemies, the novelists who, in his opinion, mistook structure for life, and novelistic custom for natural law". But by the standards of the time, Sons and Lovers was in danger of seeming loose and discursive, which is why, when he sent the typescript to Garnett, he insisted "it has got form – form", and why Frieda felt obliged to add a postscript to Lawrence's letter making the same point ("any new thing must find a new shape, then afterwards one can call it 'art'").
Mother load … Sarah Lancashire and Rupert Evans and Gertrude and Paul Morel in a 2003 TV adaptation of Sons and Lovers
To the 21st-century reader, the anxiety over possible formlessness seems odd. At times Sons and Lovers is almost too deliberate, too symbolic, too controlled. The episodes in which the three most important women in the novel, Mrs Morel, Miriam Leivers and Clara, respond to flowers, for instance, and thereby reveal their different characters, are so carefully patterned as to risk losing the "felt life" that Leavis thought Lawrence's greatest gift. (Mrs Morel is practical-minded about flowers – "Now, just see those … Haven't they done well"; Clara the sensualist thinks they look better growing in the wild than when picked; the possessive Miriam faints and fawns: "To her, flowers appeared with such strength she felt she must make them part of herself.") But such structural patterns are rarely as simple as at first appears.
The novel, Lawrence explained to Garnett, "follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so the children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers – first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother – urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them."
The sexual bond between mother and son is established early on. "Paul loved to sleep with his mother," we're told. When she accompanies Paul to the interview for his first job, at Jordan's factory, she behaves "like a sweetheart" and both of them feel "the excitement of lovers having an adventure together". "Why can't a man have a young mother?" he exclaims, "I'll never marry while I've got you." The incestuous undercurrents come to the surface in chapter eight, with a "long, fervent kiss". If we're unsure what to make of the kiss, the drunken Walter Morel, returning home, leaves us in no doubt: "At your mischief again?" he snarls. In the aftermath, father and son nearly come to blows. But Mrs Morel forestalls them by fainting, and while Paul comforts and revives her Walter stumbles off to bed. "Don't sleep with him, Mother," the son pleads, and in doing so recognises that |
in procurement decisions, which are handled by the main campus and the University of California system."
Another situation cited by Rutgers officials is different only because of the ubiquitious nature of the products involved.
Mary Klawe earns $250,000 serving on Microsoft's board on top of her base salary of $400,000 as President of Harvey Mudd College.
Unsurprisingly, the private college does business with the corporation, which pays its President 62.5% as much as the school does.
According to spokeswoman Judy Augsberger, Harvey Mudd, "uses Microsoft products in the normal course of business and obtains these products through the same channels and with the same pricing as any other college or university."
"President Klawe discloses her relationship with Microsoft every year on both the Harvey Mudd College conflict of interest form and the Microsoft conflict of interest form. The audit committees at Harvey Mudd College and Microsoft review their respective forms," said Augsberger.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a private college, confirmed through a spokeswoman that their president, Dr. Theresa Jackson, is a member of the Board of Directors of IBM, FedEx, and PSE&G, but did not confirm or deny whether the institute does business with those entities.
"Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the corporations on whose Boards Dr. Jackson serves, have policies and procedures regarding conflicts of interest. Dr. Jackson follows those policies and procedures," said spokeswoman Allison Neuman.North Carolina Looking Into 'Black Tax' At Charlotte's Ritz-Carlton
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jim R. Bounds/AP Jim R. Bounds/AP
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has directed his Department of Consumer Affairs to look into reports that some African-American customers at the Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte were recently subjected to unwarranted fees.
We reported last week that the Ritz-Carlton had imposed a 15 percent surcharge for patrons in its Lobby Bar during the CIAA — Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association — tournament. The event involves basketball teams from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) from around the region and brings tens of thousands of people each year to Charlotte.
They come to cheer for their teams, party, dine out and enjoy mini-reunions with friends from their own and rival colleges. The Charlotte Regional Visitor's Authority says CIAA week has infused almost $50 million into the local economy in recent years.
So some Ritz patrons were surprised to discover the hotel was adding a CIAA service charge to the bill in the Lobby Bar.
Local media and NPR called the Ritz for an explanation and eventually received this statement:
"We would like to apologize to any guests we may have offended by the addition of a service charge we implemented at a recent event in our lobby lounge. The service charge was not intended to single out any particular group or organization and we deeply regret any misunderstanding this may have caused. It is important for all guests to feel welcomed at our hotel and for them to receive the highest level of service, respect and hospitality we strive for every day."
The response didn't satisfy local authorities or media. On Tuesday, Special Deputy Attorney General Harriet Worley sent an inquiry to the Ritz-Carlton that her office shared with us.
"We've received a couple of complaints from consumers about this today," Public Information Officer Noelle Talley told NPR via email. Attorney General Cooper's office is encouraging consumers who may have paid the 15 percent fee to contact their office and fill out a complaint.
On Thursday, Charlotte City Council Chairman Michael Barnes expressed his disappointment with the surcharge, and the editorial page of the Charlotte Observer weighed in, calling for the Ritz-Carlton to take steps to "repair the service charge damage."
Patrice Wright, whose Ritz-Carlton receipt went viral, says she finally had a brief conversation with the hotel's manager this week. It felt, she says, more like an effort at damage control than a sincere apology. And Wright says it's up in the air whether she and her friends who used to make the Ritz-Carlton a regular stop will return.
We'll keep you posted.It’s easy to get stuck in ruts when looking for new ideas. Sometimes it’s tempting to seek inspiration in the same places over and over again simply because they’ve worked in the past. But as we often talk about here in AC world, to experience “creative accidents” you need to develop the habit of regularly putting yourself in dangerous intersections.
Need an insight now, but the juices aren’t flowing? Here are a few places I’ve personally found especially effective in triggering new creative insights.
The Local Bookstore
They still exist? Sure! While it’s nice to have access via ebook readers to any book in less than a minute, online shops cannot compare to the stimulus-rich environment of a real life brick-and-mortar bookstore. I like to peruse topics and sections that have little to do with the problem I’m trying to solve and see if inspiration strikes. This sometimes happens from book titles, or from cover designs, or even from the unique groupings of titles that bookstores sometimes put on a table display.
If you have the luxury of getting out of the office, I recommend taking about an hour – with your most pressing problem top of mind – to peruse your local bookstore and see what it sparks.
A Good Flick
Just a way to kill a few hours? No way. Movies can also be a good source of narrative, motive and escape. More than once I’ve found my mind wandering during a movie because a new thought or idea was sparked by the dialogue or location. I’ve also left in the middle of a movie to make an urgent call to set things in motion for a new initiative.
By ceasing the act of staring at the problem and giving your mind a bit of time to decompress and experience something new, beautiful serendipity often appears. (And believe it or not, though they’re not my personal preference,sometimes silly comedies work best as they let you unwind and laugh a bit.)
City Walk
It can be tempting to keep your head down and avoid eye contact when navigating the city streets, but by playing “tourist” (a dangerous game, I know) you can see a lot that may otherwise go unnoticed. Make a game of looking for things that seem out of place, or that you’ve not noticed before. Be conscious of your surroundings. Your mind is wired to weed out irrelevant information to prevent stimulus overload, so you’ll need to be mindful of potential serendipity.
Keep your head up, bring your notebook, and don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation.
Dollar Stores / Discount Outlets
A repository of junk nobody wants? Maybe, but you can often find interesting product ideas and new ways of thinking about messaging by perusing discount shops and outlet stores. You’ll encounter products that you don’t often see on the shelves of most stores, some of them a little off-beat and priced to move. This can also be a great place to purchase inspiration and stimulus for team idea sessions.
As a bonus exercise, take your entire team to a dollar store and give each person a budget of $3 to purchase something to inspire new thoughts for a project. Bring the items back to the office and use them to generate ideas for your work.
Again, these are just a few methods I’ve used over and over to prevent staring at the problem and hoping a solution will appear syndrome.
Add some to the list! Where do you look for ideas when you need them?NEW DELHI: At least 56 IAS officers have left their central postings prematurely for their respective state cadres since May 2014 when the Narendra Modi-led BJP government took office. Most of the officers who have opted for repatriation are senior – in the rank of joint secretary and above. This 'back-to-the-parent-state' movement is rare. According to details available on the department of personnel and training (DoPT) website, just three IAS officers left the Centre prematurely in 2013 and only one between August and December 2012. The numbers spiked to 13 between January and May 2014, in the lead-up to the Lok Sabha polls which resulted in a regime change.A top DoPT official argued that the "exodus" did not necessarily signal an unwillingness to serve under the Modi regime which has sought to change the way the government functions. "It may have been to take up assignments at senior levels, including as chief secretary, in the state," he said.An examination of DoPT's repatriation orders shows that seven officers went back to take up chief secretary's position in their respective states.A source the defence ministry said at least four joint secretary-rank officers had left for their parent cadre because it had become difficult for them to put in the "hard work" required under the present dispensation.Normally, after reaching a certain level of seniority, officers tend to stay in Delhi where there are more avenues of advancement.The problem for the government is not about vacancies alone. Few from the states appear to be eager to take up senior openings being created in Delhi by the increase in repatriations. As against the 30 vacancies in the joint secretary rank this year, only four IAS officers have come forward; and of them one has picked Bengaluru as her preferred choice of posting.Also, delays in empanelment – the threshold officers of all central services need to cross to be eligible for the rank of joint secretary and above – has shrunk the available pool. Non-IAS officers are usually reluctant to take up assignments at the Centre as they often have to work under IAS officers two to five batches their junior."Indian Telecom Service is the only significant catchment area left, that too because the government has been attempting to downsize their service and merge them in BSNL and MTNL," a non-IAS officer said.A review of additional secretary rank posts in the central ministries show they are all occupied by IAS officers, despite the fact that 26 non-IAS officers have been empanelled in the last two years and have offered their services. It's the same at the joint secretary level. Out of the 30 slots available, 23 are occupied by IAS officers.Non-IAS officers often complain about the "hegemony" of the IAS, saying it runs contrary to the emphasis periodically placed on having specialists helm positions requiring domain knowledge.The 2012 opening of the Hilton Columbus Downtown marked the culmination of a years-long goal: to put the city in contention for major events, such as political conventions, that require a large number of rooms in full-service hotels connected to its convention center. The publicly financed Hilton, which cost $140 million, is credited with helping to attract and keep a number of major conventions in Columbus.
The 2012 opening of the Hilton Columbus Downtown marked the culmination of a years-long goal: to put the city in contention for major events, such as political conventions, that require a large number of rooms in full-service hotels connected to its convention center.
The publicly financed Hilton, which cost $140 million, is credited with helping to attract and keep a number of major conventions in Columbus. But its 532 rooms � plus the 631 in the Hyatt Regency attached to the Greater Columbus Convention Center � still aren�t enough to make Columbus truly competitive with many other cities, hospitality and convention experts say.
And the several small boutique hotels in the Downtown area that have recently opened or will open in the coming months can�t take the place of a 1,000-room property, they add.
�The smaller hotels are good, but they don�t fill the need,� said Dirk Bengel, chairman of the Columbus Lodging Council and a board member of Experience Columbus, the city�s convention and visitors bureau.
So the discussion about adding a major convention-focused hotel Downtown has begun again in earnest. No plan is in place, Bengel said, but �we�re discussing what the options are.�
The issue was discussed at Experience Columbus� Wednesday board meeting at the Reeb Avenue Center on the South Side. The issue arose again after a trip to Pittsburgh arranged by the group�s Strategic Development Committee; the visit highlighted that city�s struggles with the same issue.
Pittsburgh�s hotels command a higher room rate than those in Columbus: $119 compared with $102 in 2016 through August, according to Smith Travel research. And Pittsburgh�s convention center, which opened in 2003, attracted widespread attention and praise for its design.
Yet the latest Smith Travel report shows that Pittsburgh�s hotel-occupancy rate has declined 10.3 percent this year, which happens to correlate with the percentage of rooms added to the downtown area during that time. Those new rooms have been in smaller hotels, which do not tend to attract big groups that increase overall business for everyone.
�Occupancy is taking a huge hit,� said Brian Ross, CEO of Experience Columbus. �They haven�t brought in enough new business to fill up the additional rooms.� He said this shows the need for another large convention hotel in Pittsburgh � and in Columbus.
Jason Fulvi, executive vice president of Visit Pittsburgh, said in a phone interview that smaller, limited-service hotels of the type that have proliferated in Pittsburgh and Columbus have a completely different business model than full-service hotels: They don�t book large blocks of room at a discount, a key part of the convention business, he said.
That�s why it�s not a question of quantity but of quality, and why more rooms of the right kind are needed even amid an overall surplus of rooms.
�The smaller hotels don�t bring in the large groups. You�re going to have a decline in occupancy if you add rooms without adding that kind of new business.�
Two �escalators to nowhere� on one side of Pittsburgh�s convention center are a stark reminder that the city has long hoped for a big new hotel. The escalators were built on a surface parking lot controlled by the sports and exhibition authority in anticipation of an attached hotel being added. Proposals for such a hotel have been solicited, and various plans are being considered, but that hotel hasn�t materialized.
Fulvi said no developer has emerged as willing to shoulder the cost of building a 1,000-room hotel. He said the major hotel companies are looking for big subsidies.
It�s a chicken-and-egg issue, he said: �Some groups won�t (book rooms) in a hotel until it�s all done. But in order to build it, a developer wants a guarantee of business.�
Two ideas that have been floated in Columbus over the years have been to add to the Hyatt, which has extra land at the corner of North High Street and Nationwide Boulevard, or to add to the newer Hilton. Neither has gotten past the discussion phase.
mrose@dispatch.com
@MarlaMRoseDespite the anti-Russian sanctions drive, the US DoD opposes American lawmakers in wanting to buy Russian-made helicopters for the Afghan forces, said Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport.
“Despite the protests from the congressmen, suggestions of American-made alternative options, the Pentagon-level US officials are insisting on buying the Russian helicopters,” Rosoboronexport deputy head Igor Sevastyanov told journalists on Thursday.
He added that some people in the US military told the Russians that they would prefer some of the Russian arms, including helicopters, to be used by the US troops if it were possible, but it's not due to political reasons.
The US and Russia signed three separate contracts for supplying a total of 70 Mil Mi-17V5 helicopters to Afghanistan. Afghan pilots favor them for reliability and a record of deployment in the country dating back to the Soviet military campaign in the 1980s. Russia has delivered 45 aircraft, and a possible extra order is on the table.
Some US lawmakers have been campaigning to derail the supplies, with tension intensifying in February 2014, when the US and Russia had a major fallout due to the political crisis in Ukraine.
Washington targeted a number of Russian companies with its sanctions, including those selling arms. This put on hold a contract with the Russian Weapons Company, the importer of authentic Kalashnikov-family small weapons from Russia. The plan before the sanctions were imposed was to deliver up to 200,000 units annually, sparking a hike in demand for the legendary weapons in the US.a case of medical luddism
One of the most successful medical programs in history is under attack from fear and ignorance.
One would think that when public health officials are worried about a dramatic rise in cases of infectious childhood diseases because parents aren’t vaccinating their kids, it’s time to stop taking your medical advice from celebrities and conspiracy theorists. However, as is the case with most things we don’t really understand very well, people are getting more and more afraid of the same medical technology that wiped out smallpox and polio just a few generations prior with stunning success. And that’s quickly turning into a huge health hazard which is only being made worse by woefully misguided celebrities on a mission.
The story sold by the anti-vaccine movement has all the elements of a made for TV drama. Evil medical conglomerates on a mission to make money at any cost. A rogue researcher who took it upon himself to reveal their evil ways only be to be attacked by Big Pharma henchmen afraid to see their vaccine empire crumble before their eyes. It even has big name celebrities attached to the cause. A small problem with all this however, is the fact that the anti-vaccine movement started out with a case of medical and research fraud by a doctor who was working for a lawyer trying to sue vaccine makers for “causing autism.” Even after the reality behind Dr. Wakefield’s infamous research was made public, the anti-vaccine movement insists that his studies must be true and the reporter who exposed them must be a hatchet man for the medical industry.
Why are the anti-vaxxers (to borrow a term from Phil Plait) so insistent to sticking to their guns despite overwhelming proof that vaccines work? Because to them it’s not about the vaccines or the science. Rather, it’s about their distrust of big companies and attempts to pin the blame for what seems to be an epidemic of autism. And this is where Wakefield’s study gives them one of those perfect excuses to attach their legitimate concern to their favorite villain. The popularity of alternative medicine dealt a major blow to modern medical science. It’s practitioners needed to overcome Big Pharma’s supremacy in the healthcare industry and they decided that the best way to do it was to create a PR narrative where the likes of Merck, Eli Lilly and Pfeizer weren’t the guardians of our health but greedy monsters who wouldn’t think twice about selling poisons to us and our children if it will net them an extra dollar.
Of course medical corporations exist first and foremost to create shareholder value, like every commercial entity, and that very reason is why they would’ve adopted any alternative medicine that could be proven to work. It costs around $800 million to take a new pill from the lab to the pharmacy counter. If some random plant root could be bottled up into a pill and was a lot more effective than anything they could make in the lab, they would be the first in line to use it. Why? It drops R&D costs, speeds up time from lab to clinical trials and to the market and generates a better ROI since their “natural” pill is on the market longer and enjoys the protection of a patent for an extra few years. In fact, Big Pharma uses a wide variety of natural substances like venoms and plant leaves when developing new drugs. And contrary to alternative medicine claims, you certainly can put a patent on a plant extract and sell it in pill form.
However, people’s mistrust of authority and big corporations gives alternative medicine plenty of pity points and the idea that Big Pharma is evil has taken deep roots. Now we can blame trace amounts of mercury in a long discontinued vaccine preservative for autism and accuse a giant evil industry of poisoning us for profit because after all, so many people are saying that a huge pharmaceutical company would do that to protect its oligopoly on healthcare. We can even try to question the effectiveness of vaccines with straight faces despite all the diseases they helped to suppress and the fact that when we stop giving them and sabotage herd immunity, all those diseases start coming back. It’s culture vs. science and the facts don’t really matter anymore. I understand that parents of autistic children are frustrated. I’ve seen how difficult it is for them and I know it’s tempting to find a villain and feel like we’re on the verge of preventing a flood of autism, but the reality is much more complex.
The big question the anti-vaxxers pose is why there’s an outbreak of autistic children. Well, the answer to that is not very clear cut. You can’t just take a blood sample and determine whether a child has autism based on a chemical analysis. It’s a very complex condition that carries with it a whole host of problems doctors are still trying to understand. A diagnosis could be more of a bureaucratic matter than a medical one. Some experts believe that earlier versions of the DSM, the guidelines by which conditions are diagnosed by psychologists, were restrictive in what can constitute autism and the condition was under-diagnosed. The subsequent revision had a less restrictive definition and there are concerns that we may be over-diagnosing autism and since the condition is so complex and requires a whole lot more research, we don’t have that great of a handle on exactly how many cases of autism there are. To boil down this complex problem to a few simple shots is like trying to solve an integral calculus problem on the back of a napkin. It can be done, but you better be very knowledgeable about calculus before you try it.
And yet anti-vaxxers can’t be bothered to do a little reading on the subject they try to pretend they understand. They insist on solving a calculus problem with arithmetic and when it doesn’t work or make things worse, they blame the evil calculus lobby for undermining their efforts in the name of profit. Worse yet anti-vaxxers deny that they’re the primary cause behind a major decline in vaccinations and the resurgence of measles and mumps. “Oh, we don’t say that kids shouldn’t be vaccinated,” they shrug, “don’t look at us.” No, of course they don’t. They just say that if you vaccinate your kids, evil pharmaceutical companies will inject them with toxins that cause autism and that vaccinations should be a personal choice. I wonder how anyone wouldn’t rush to get their kids vaccinated after that, even though the diseases being suppressed by the aggressive regiment of vaccines are not extinct and are just waiting for a chance to come back should herd immunity drop. This is exactly what happened in the UK and exactly what can and will happen in the U.S. when a cover of Playboy becomes more important than a medical degree in a scientific debate over a developmental condition.Expand Security forces clash with protesters in this frame grab taken from September 28, 2009 footage. © 2009 Reuters
(New York) – An in-depth investigation into the September 28, 2009 killings and rapes at a peaceful rally in Conakry, Guinea, has uncovered new evidence that the massacre and widespread sexual violence were organized and were committed largely by the elite Presidential Guard, commonly known as the “red berets,” Human Rights Watch said today. Following a 10-day research mission in Guinea, Human Rights Watch also found that the armed forces attempted to hide evidence of the crimes by seizing bodies from the stadium and the city’s morgues and burying them in mass graves.
Human Rights Watch found that members of the Presidential Guard carried out a premeditated massacre of at least 150 people on September 28 and brutally raped dozens of women. Red berets shot at opposition supporters until they ran out of bullets, then continued to kill with bayonets and knives.
“There is no way the government can continue to imply the deaths were somehow accidental,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This was clearly a premeditated attempt to silence opposition voices.”
“Security forces surrounded and blockaded the stadium, then stormed in and fired at protesters in cold blood until they ran out of bullets,” added Gagnon. “They carried out grisly gang rapes and murders of women in full sight of the commanders. That’s no accident.”
A group of Guinean military officers calling themselves the National Council for Democracy and Development (Conseil national pour la démocratie et le développement, CNDD) seized power hours after the death on December 22, 2008, of Lansana Conté, Guinea’s president for 24 years. The CNDD is headed by a self-proclaimed president, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara.
Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for full support for, and speedy implementation of, the international commission of inquiry into the violence as proposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to be led by the United Nations and with involvement from the African Union. Criminal investigation leading to fair and effective prosecutions of the crimes – through domestic efforts, but failing that, international efforts – is essential, Human Rights Watch said.
A four-member team of Human Rights Watch investigators interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses in Guinea from October 12 to 22. Among those interviewed were victims wounded during the attack, witnesses present in the stadium, relatives of missing people, military officers who participated in the crackdown and the cover-up, medical staff, humanitarian officials, diplomats, and opposition leaders.
Killings at the Stadium on September 28
According to the accounts of numerous witnesses, a combined force of a few hundred Presidential Guard troops known as “red berets,” gendarmes working with the Anti-Drug and Anti-Organized Crime unit, some members of the Anti-Riot Police, and dozens of civilian-clothed irregular militias entered the stadium around 11:30 a.m. on September 28, sealing off most exits, following the firing of tear gas into the stadium by Anti-Riot Police. The stadium was packed with tens of thousands of peaceful pro-democracy supporters protesting the military regime and Camara’s presumed candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections.
There had been limited violence between opposition supporters and security forces during the course of the morning. In several deadly incidents, security forces fired at opposition members in an attempt to stop them from reaching the stadium. In response to one such lethal shooting, enraged opposition supporters set fire to the Bellevue police station.
However, witness accounts and video evidence obtained by Human Rights Watch showing the stadium crowd just before the shooting shows a peaceful and celebratory atmosphere with opposition supporters singing, dancing, marching around the stadium with posters and the Guinean flag, and even praying. Human Rights Watch has not seen any evidence that any opposition supporters were armed, and no security officials were wounded by opposition supporters at the stadium, suggesting that there was no legitimate threat posed by the opposition supporters that required the violence that followed.
Witnesses said that as soon as the Presidential Guard entered the stadium, its members began firing point-blank directly into the massive crowd of protesters, killing dozens and sowing panic. The attackers, particularly members of the Presidential Guard but also gendarmes attached to the Anti-Drug and Anti-Organized Crime unit, continued to fire into the crowd until they had emptied the two clips of AK-47 ammunition many of them carried. Since most of the exits had been blocked and the stadium was surrounded by the attackers, escape for the trapped protesters was extremely difficult, and many were crushed to death by the panicked crowd.
One opposition supporter, a 32-year-old man, described to Human Rights Watch how the red berets entered the stadium and began firing directly at the protesters, and how the killings continued as he tried to escape:
“They first began to fire tear gas from outside the stadium – many canisters of tear gas were fired into the stadium. Just then, the red berets entered from the big gate to the stadium. As soon as they entered, they began to fire directly at the crowd. I heard a soldier yell, ‘We’ve come to clean!’ I decided to run to the gate at the far end. As I looked back, I could see many bodies on the grass. I decided to try and run out of the stadium. At the far gate, one of the doors was open but there were so many people trying to flee, I decided to climb over the closed door… “I ran toward the perimeter wall. Near the basketball court, a group of red berets and gendarmes from Tiégboro [Captain Moussa Tiégboro Camara, secretary of state in charge of the fight against drug trafficking and serious crime – no relation to the CNDD president, Dadis Camara] were chasing us. They fired on a group of eight of us, and only three of us were able to get away alive. Five of us were killed, shot down near the wall facing the [Gamal Abdel Nasser] University. “We couldn’t get out there, so we ran back to the broken wall near Donka road. A group of red berets was there waiting for us, two trucks of them. They were armed with bayonets. I saw one red beret kill three people right in front of us [with a bayonet], so I wanted to run back. But my friend said, ‘There are lots of us, let’s try and push through,’ and that is how we escaped.”
One of the opposition leaders described to Human Rights Watch how he watched in disbelief from the podium as the killing unfolded below them:
“We went up to the podium and when the people knew the leaders had arrived, many more people came into the stadium, filling it up. We were just preparing to leave the stadium and tell people to go home when we heard gunshots outside, and then tear gas was fired. The soldiers put electric current on the metal doors by cutting down the electric wires overhead and encircled the stadium. “Then they entered the stadium firing. They began firing from the big entry gate to the stadium. We were up on the podium and could see people falling down; it was just unbelievable. When everyone ran away, there were bodies everywhere and we remained on the podium.”
Witnesses also described the killing of many more opposition supporters by the Presidential Guard and other security forces on the grounds surrounding the stadium, which is enclosed by a two-meter-high wall. As protesters tried to scale the walls to escape, many were shot down by the attackers. The opposition supporters said they were also attacked by men in civilian dress and armed with knives, pangas (machetes), and sharpened sticks.
The evidence collected by Human Rights Watch strongly suggests that the massacre and widespread rape (documented below) were organized and premeditated. This conclusion is supported by the evidence, both from witnesses and video, that the security forces began firing immediately at the protesters on entering the stadium, and that the opposition protest was peaceful and did not represent a threat requiring a violent response. The manner in which the massacre appears to have been carried out – the simultaneous arrival of the combined security force, the sealing off of exits and escape routes, and the simultaneous and sustained deadly firing by large numbers of the Presidential Guard – suggests organization, planning, and premeditation.
Ethnic Dimension
During interviews, many Guineans expressed shock at the apparent ethnic nature of the violence, which threatens to destabilize the situation in Guinea further. The vast majority of the victims were from the Peuhl ethnic group, which is almost exclusively Muslim, while most of the commanders at the stadium – and indeed key members of the ruling CNDD, including Camara, the coup leader – belong to ethnic groups from the southeastern forest region, which are largely Christian or animist.
Witnesses said that many of the killers and rapists made ethnically biased comments during the attacks, insulting and appearing to target the Peuhl, the majority ethnicity of the opposition supporters, and claiming that the Peuhl wanted to seize power and needed to be “taught a lesson.” Human Rights Watch also spoke with witnesses to the military training of several thousand men from the southeast forest region at a base near the southwestern town of Forécariah, apparently to form a commando unit dominated by people from ethnic groups from the forest region.
Many of the Peuhl victims reported being threatened or abused on account of their ethnicity. For example, one woman who was gang raped by men in uniform wearing red berets described how her attackers referred repeatedly to her ethnicity: “Today, we’re going to teach you a lesson. Yes, we’re tired of your tricks… we’re going to finish all the Peuhl.” A young man detained for several days in the Koundara military camp described how a red beret put a pistol to his head and said, “You say you don’t want us, that you prefer Cellou [the leading Peuhl opposition candidate, Cellou Dalein Diallo]… we’re going to kill all of you. We will stay in power.”
Death Toll and the Government Cover-Up
Human Rights Watch’s research confirms that the death toll of the September 28 massacre was much higher than the government’s official toll of 57 dead, and is more likely to be about 150 to 200 dead. According to hospital records, interviews with witnesses and medical personnel, and the records collected by opposition political parties and local human rights organizations, at least 1,000 people were wounded during the attack on the stadium. Human Rights Watch found strong evidence that the government engaged in a systematic attempt to hide the evidence of the crimes. During the afternoon of September 28, members of the Presidential Guard seized control of the two main morgues in Conakry and prevented families from recovering the bodies of their relatives.
In the hours that followed, witnesses and family members said, soldiers, most wearing red berets, removed bodies from the city morgues and collected bodies from the stadium, then took them to military bases and concealed them. Human Rights Watch investigated more than 50 cases of confirmed deaths from the massacre and found that half of those bodies had been taken away by the military, including at least six that had initially been taken to the main Donka Hospital morgue.
For example, the body of Mamadou “Mama” Bah, a 20-year-old student killed on September 28, was transported to Donka morgue by the local Red Cross. The body disappeared and has not been recovered. Bah’s father described what he experienced to Human Rights Watch:
“The Red Cross took the body to Donka Hospital morgue, and I followed them myself. At the hospital, I spoke to the doctors and they told me I should come back the next day to collect the body. But the next day, the morgue was encircled by red berets who refused anyone access. We tried to negotiate with them, but they refused. On Friday, I went to the Grand Fayçal Mosque when they displayed the bodies from Donka morgue, but his body wasn’t there. It had disappeared.”
Hamidou Diallo, a 26-year-old shoe salesman, was shot in the head and killed at the stadium. A close friend, who was wounded, watched the red berets remove Diallo’s body from the stadium and take it away to an unknown location. Despite an extensive search of the morgue and the military bases, the family was unable to find Diallo’s body.
One witness inside the Almamy Samory Touré military camp described to Human Rights Watch how in the hours after the massacre, the military brought 47 bodies from the stadium to the camp, and then later that evening went to the morgue that he was told was at the Ignace Deen Hospital and collected an additional 18 bodies. The witness further stated that the 65 bodies were taken from the military base in the middle of the night, allegedly to be buried in mass graves.
Widespread Rape and Sexual Violence
The Presidential Guard, and to a lesser extent gendarmes, carried out widespread rape and sexual violence against dozens of girls and women at the stadium, often with such extreme brutality that their victims died from the wounds inflicted.
Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 27 victims of sexual violence, the majority of whom were raped by more than one person. Witnesses described seeing at least four women murdered by members of the Presidential Guard after being raped, including women who were shot or bayoneted in the vagina. Some victims were penetrated with gun barrels, shoes, and wooden sticks.
Victims and witnesses have described how rapes took place publicly inside the stadium, as well as in several areas around the stadium grounds, including the nearby bathroom area, the basketball courts, and the annex stadium. In addition to the rapes committed at the stadium, many women described how they were taken by the Presidential Guard from the stadium and from a medical clinic where they had sought treatment to private residences, where they endured days and nights of brutal gang rape. The level, frequency, and brutality of sexual violence that took place at and after the protests strongly suggests that it was part of a systematic attempt to terrorize and humiliate the opposition, not just random acts by rogue soldiers.
A 35-year-old teacher described to Human Rights Watch how she was gang raped at the stadium:
“After the shooting began I tried to run, but the red berets caught me and dragged me to the ground. One of them struck me twice on the head with the butt of his rifle. After I fell down, three set upon me. One whipped out his knife and tore my clothes off, cutting me on the back in the process. I tried to fight but they were too strong. Two held me down while the other raped me. They said they would kill me if I didn’t leave them to do what they wanted. Then the second one raped me, then the third. They beat me all the while, and said again and again they were going to kill all of us. And I believed them – about three meters away another woman was being raped, and after they had finished, one of them took his bayonet and stuck her in her vagina, and then licked the blood from his knife. I saw this, just next to me… I was so terrified they would also do this to me.”
A 42-year-old professional woman who was held in a house and gang raped for three days described her ordeal to Human Rights Watch:
“As I tried to run from the firing, I saw a few red berets raping a young woman. One of them put his gun in her sex and fired – she didn’t move again. Oh God, every time I think of that girl dying in that way… I can’t bear it. As this happened, another red beret grabbed me hard from behind and said, ‘Come with me, or I will do the same thing to you.’ He led me to a military truck with no windows. In it were about 25 young men and about six women, including me. After some distance they stopped and the soldiers told three or four women to get out. Later they stopped at a second house where they told the women who remained to get out. I was immediately led into a room and the door was locked behind me. “Some hours later three of them came into the room – all dressed in military and with red berets. One of them had a little container of white powder. He dipped his finger in it and forced it into my nose. Then all three of them used me. They used me again the next day, but after a while others came in, two by two. I didn’t know how many or who. I felt my vagina was burning and bruised. I was so tired and out of my head. The first three of them were watching each other |
LibreOffice - two closely related suites of open source office productivity tools - should overcome their schism and unite to compete with the ubiquitous proprietary alternative, urges Daniel Brunner, head of the IT department of Switzerland's Federal Supreme Court. Merging the two projects will convince more public administrations to use the open source office suite, he believes.
The current division between the two groups risks creating more instead of less incompatibilities, Brunner warned last week, speaking at the LibreOffice conference, which took place in the Swiss city of Bern. "I had to test this presentation in both suites, to see if it would work."
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court uses OpenOffice, but according to Brunner would benefit from the improved document filters that are available in LibreOffice. However, the former suite is more stable and is available on mobile computing platforms, he says, while the latter benefits from a bigger community of developers, introducing more new features.
Prerequisites
The court is one of the country's prime examples of a public administration using free and open source solutions. The court has about 460 desktop PCs, all running OpenOffice. The court moved to using open source following an IT strategy that originally only specified the use of open IT standards, Brunner told the conference attendees.
Three months ago, the court's IT department included a few requirements specific to open source in its strategy, Brunner said. Software solutions must be independent from IT vendors. "We want to be able to switch from one Linux distribution to another." The court also demands that open source solutions must be common: "We do not want to be locked in to a specialised open source application."
The Supreme Court's IT system is built on top of Red Hat Linux server, running Zimbra for email, instant messaging and calendar. The IT department uses Thinlinc, based on Tigervnc for sharing applications across desktops. Desktop tools include the Mozilla Thunderbird email client and Mozilla Firefox web browser.
Anonymous
The court also develops its own software, which it makes available as open source. One example is a service that removes identifying particulars or details from the legal documents. The court makes extensive use of document templates, which are developed in the XML specification for the Open Document Format, enabling automated document generation services. Another tool lets users create PDF documents from documents received by email.
Public administrations that consider open source, need to make sure its management understands the advantages of this type of software, Brunner said. "If they don't see the benefits, don't even start." For end users, the switch must bring new possibilities, adding value. "This offsets small problems they encounter elsewhere."
Unity makes strength
Should OpenOffice and LibreOffice unite? Will a unified OpenLibreOffice bring more public administrations to replacing the proprietary alternatives? What do you think?
Please add your comments below.
More information:
Presentation by Daniel Brunner (PDF, German)
Presenation by Daniel Brunner (video, German)
Conference presentations
Inside IT news item (in German)
Earlier OSOR news itemOpinion by Edward J. Blum, special to CNN
(CNN) - Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly sparked outrage this week by insisting that Jesus and Santa Claus are both white, saying it's "ridiculous" to argue that depicting Christ and St. Nick as Caucasian is "racist."
"And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white," Kelly said, "but this person is arguing that we should also have a black Santa."
Kelly was responding to an article in Slate that said St. Nick needs a makeover from fat, old white guy to something less "melanin-deficient."
The Fox News host would have none of it.
"Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change," Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure; that's a verifiable fact. As is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy, in the story, and change Santa from white to black?"
Arguing about St. Nick, who was originally Greek before Currier & Ives got their hands on him, is one thing. But as for Jesus, people have been arguing about his skin color since the earliest days of American history. You might even call it an American tradition.
What's new about this latest brouhaha is how swiftly Kelly’s remarks were attacked. Thousands of people have rebuked her through blogs, articles, Twitter posts and Facebook updates.
Comedian Jon Stewart accused Kelly of "going full Christmas nog."
“And who are you actually talking to?" Stewart said on "The Daily Show." "Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 o’clock at night, yet innocent enough to still believe Santa Claus is real — yet racist enough to be freaked out if he isn’t white?”
It seems that now, if you want to call Christ — or even Santa — white, you should expect a fierce fight.
The immediate and widespread rebuttal showcases how much America has changed over the past few decades. The nation not only has a black president, but also has refused to endorse the Christian savior as white.
Since the earliest days of America, Jesus was thought of as a white man.
When white Protestant missionaries brought Bibles and whitened images of Jesus to Native Americans, at least a few mocked what they saw.
Taking the imagery seriously, the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh asked future President William Henry Harrison, “How can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came upon the earth you kill’d and nail’d him on a cross.”
It was not until around 1900 that a group of white Americans explicitly claimed Jesus was white.
Concerned that large numbers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, especially Jewish immigrants, were “polluting” the nation, anti-immigrant spokesmen like attorney Madison Grant asserted the whiteness of Jesus to justify calls for exclusionary legislation.
READ MORE: From science and computers, a new face of Jesus
Making Jesus white was a means to distance him from Judaism.
“In depicting the crucifixion no artist hesitates to make the two thieves brunet in contrast to the blond Savior,” Grant wrote in his xenophobic best-seller "The Passing of the Great Race."
“This is something more than a convention,” Grant continued, and suggested that Jesus had “Nordic, possibly Greek, physical and moral attributes.”
Even Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that Jesus was white, after being asked why God created Jesus as a white man.
King responded that the color of Christ’s skin didn’t matter. Jesus would have been just as important “if His skin had been black.” He “is no less significant because His skin was white.”
READ MORE: Turkish town cashes in on Saint Nick legacy
Challenges to Christ’s whiteness have a long history, too.
Famed evangelist Billy Graham preached in the 1950s, and then wrote emphatically in his autobiography "Just As I Am," that, “Jesus was not a white man.”
But Graham was far from the first American to contradict the whiteness of Jesus. That honor goes to Methodist and Pequot Indian William Apess.
In 1833, he wrote to white Christians, “You know as well as I that you are not indebted to a principle beneath a white skin for your religious services but to a colored one.”
Almost 100 years later, the Jamaican born, “back-to-Africa” spokesman Marcus Garvey told his followers, “Never admit that Jesus Christ was a white man, otherwise he could not be the Son of God and God to redeem all mankind. Jesus Christ had the blood of all races in his veins.”
In our age, the color of Christ has become both politically dangerous and the butt of jokes.
In 2008, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s words “God damn America” and “Jesus was a poor black boy” almost derailed then-Sen. Barack Obama from winning the Democratic primary.
Now, Kelly bears the brunt of attacks and, in no surprise, was pilloried by comedians like Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Few Americans went on public record against King when he asserted Jesus had white skin in the 1950s. Today, thousands upon thousands from virtually every race and tribe of Americans have taken Kelly’s words seriously and seriously disdained them.
All the chatter about Jesus being white (or not) shows how much America has changed. There used to be “whites’ only” restaurants and schoolrooms. Now, even Jesus cannot be called white without repercussions.
What the debate hides, however, is what Jesus of the Bible actually did and how he related to people.
The gospels are full of discussions about Jesus and bodies. He healed the blind and those who suffered from disease. He touched and was touched by the sick. His body was pierced by thorns, a spear and nails. And he died.
READ MORE: What all those Jesus jokes tell us
The phenotype of Jesus was never an issue in the Bible. Neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke, nor John mentioned Christ’s skin tone or hair color. None called him white or black or red or brown.
Obsessions about race are obsessions of our age, not the biblical one. When asked what mattered most, Jesus did not say his skin tone or body shape. He instructed his followers to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
Maybe this Christmas season, we can reflect not so much on whether or not Jesus was white and instead consider what it meant for him to be called the “light” of the world.
Edward J. Blum is the co-author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. He can be followed on Twitter @edwardjblum. The views expressed in this column belong to Blum alone.If Forged Battalion does its job, you should be able to tell a lot about how someone likes to play games based on the armies they create. Do they have a min-maxed RTS army? Are they focusing on swarm units?
Me? I took all the unit mods that sounded fun and named the resulting fodder dumb things like ‘Angry Freddy’ or ‘Dhumpus’.
Such was my time with the Faction Creator—the central hook of Forged Battalion—where players can customise their units to create unique factions, all Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts-style. It feels like a more approachable version of Command & Conquer, which makes sense. Forged Battalion is the newest project from Petroglyph Games, a studio formed by ex-Westwood developers, best known for their work on games like—you guessed it—Command & Conquer. At some as yet indeterminate point in the future, Forged Battalion will release as an Early Access game, but I got some hands-on time with an early build at Petroglyph’s Las Vegas office.
In Forged Battalion, rather than playing with a faction or race designed around a certain set of ideas, players craft their own armies—categorised by infantry, light vehicles, heavy vehicles and aircraft. Each category supports four unit types, and how powerful they are can define your strategy. Your aircraft, for instance, could all use deadly late-game tech, catapulting you to air superiority in the closing minutes of a skirmish. Alternatively, you could stack your barracks full of cheap, low-tier units, and try to catch your opponent off-guard with an early rush.
Unit customisation is limited to weapons, armour, and (in some cases) mobility. So you could make a tank that would be recognisable in a modern-day army base, or a hover tank that fires globs of glue. Petroglyph says that there is a crazy amount of possible army configurations, which reminds me of the way Borderlands’s gun system was first pitched to the media. There are technically more possibilities than stars in the sky, but I suspect a proportion of that value comes from identical armies with one variation. The team plans to let players share configurations, but only if they can figure out a profanity filter that makes sense.
It’s a sci-fi game, set in a “lighthearted post-apocalypse”, so every infantry unit rocks an exoskeleton suit, the aircraft units are drones and the world has gone to the darkly comic dogs. The battle economy focuses on harvester units, which run loops between resource nodes and foundry buildings. You’ll want to build foundries near resources so harvesters can make faster loops, and you’ll need power plants to keep everything running, but building management never goes far beyond those basic points.
Unit options are locked behind a tech tree, which (along with most of the game) was still at a very early stage. Nodes in the tech tree are unlocked through research points earned through battles, even ones you lose, which makes every battle a learning experience. Since we were operating on limited time, the dev team unlocked the whole tree for me, although I found myself splitting the difference between real-world and sci-fi weapons. It’s not like you directly wield any of these tools in an RTS but there’s still something comforting about old-fashioned machine guns and rocket launchers.
I don’t know how battles will actually play out in the full game. I took my new army into two AI matches: one on easy, to get a feel for the game, and one on normal once I had a better grip on combat. In both, the AI tried to rout me on the same thoroughfare, so I responded by forming a wall of early-game units between the road and my base. Call me Patton, because that strategy was unbeatable.
Eventually, I built enough heavy vehicles to crush the enemy base, so I pointed my comically large army in the right direction and let them do what they were born to do. It was a joy to watch my units swarm over the paltry enemy forces. Laser blasts were popping off in every direction—before I knew it, victory was in my grasp. Marring the victory only slightly was the fact that my success was less due to flawless manoeuvring and more the fact that the AI hasn’t been fully programmed yet.
First draft
In the final game, AI that you fight in the one-off skirmishes will be able to pull behaviour data from characters you’ll encounter in the campaign mode. So if you want to relive a fight against a memorable enemy without any of the story trappings, you’re able to create a custom AI match and play against that same character on different maps.
As my time in Vegas winds down, Petroglyph president and cofounder Michael Legg told me the team was nervous about this appointment. They told publishing partners Team17 that Forged Battalion wasn’t ready, and that it needed more time before Petroglyph could show it off to press. I think Legg was correct in his assessment. I don’t think Forged Battalion looks bad, especially for a pre-alpha build, but it’s too early for me to say whether it looks good, either. There’s a gulf of difference between your standard polished vertical slice and what I was shown at the Petroglyph offices, to the point where it’s hard to form any kind of value judgement as a result. Yes, the bones of the Faction Creator are there, but the UI isn’t finished, the last third of the tech tree is missing, and the battles feel more like a proof of concept.
The Faction Creator is still one hell of an idea, though. It’s what makes Forged Battalion unique, theoretically turning the game into an RTS where the moment-to-moment combat hinges entirely on what the player likes doing. Do you want an army full of high-damage glass cannons that you can spawn almost as soon as the game begins? How about some tough early-game infantry that will hold the line until you can start production on the late-game tanks that you’ve chosen to round out the rest of your army? It can be done. The game encourages unorthodox play and out-of-the-box thinking, which is incredibly my thing.
There’s still the question of balance, which is why Forged Battalion will launch in Early Access: so the team can develop alongside their community. “We’ve had situations in the past where players will say, ‘This is an unbeatable combination,’ and then a week later, somebody will go, ‘No it isn’t,’ and prove them wrong,” Forged Battalion senior game designer Patrick Pannulo says. “But in the cases where there is an unbeatable combo, we’ll go in and tweak those upgrades. We have lots of ways to do that: we can push it up a tier so it becomes a late-game upgrade, decrease the damage, change the costs, etc. There’s always a flavour of the month in every game, but sometimes that’s driven by the perception of the players and not by the numbers.”
“I’d definitely second that,” says producer Ted Morris. “[In previous games,] I’ve seen our fans come up with this one-size-fits-all playstyle, but when someone says that…”
“Someone takes that as a challenge!” Legg interjects.
“Yeah, they’ll all work to debunk the other guy,” Morris says.
Westwood's ghost
The entire Petroglyph executive team are expats from Westwood Studios. The team is so committed to its Westwood origins that, when it came time to form Petroglyph, Legg convinced Kroegel to register the old Westwood phone number. “You could take my old business card from 1997 and still call me,” Legg says.
I suspect that long-term dedication to the RTS is what drives Forged Battalion and its unique hook. “People think older developers can get very set in their ways or not trying to advance the genre, but we’re always thinking of ways to get more people to play [RTS games],” Legg says.
If that was the impetus behind Faction Creator, it worked. I want to mess around with that system more. It’s too early to tell how battles will feel in the full game, but Petroglyph has made a strong pitch for the Faction Creator. Any system that gives players room for improvisation should be heartily encouraged, regardless of how the rest of the game might turn out.
Forged Battalion launches on Steam Early Access in 2018.About: Hello, I'm Bruce. I'm a student in Belgium. I have a wide variety of interests: electronics, computers, technology,... In my spare time I spend a lot of time on: projects, exploring the internet, cycling....
When I needed to make a pulley for a sumo robot I was building. I didn’t quite find the all in one solution I was searching for, I just needed the DXF of a specific tooth profile for a specific number of teeth.
So I could import this in Fusion 360 to make the custom pulley I want.
I found out about a parametric pulley designer on thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16627 but I couldn’t edit them in Fusion 360 to my needs.
I found a workaround on a site: http://rasterweb.net/raster/2012/07/16/openscad-t....to export the tooth profile as a dxf.
And I simplified the complete workflow into one scad file. So you could easily generate a custom pulley with a specific: number of teeth, tooth profile and shaft diameter.Technology has arrived that completely undercuts the pretense of Gun Control
Gun Control advocates have long contended that gun control’s main objective is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Of course, we know that as a lie because the notion that a criminal will follow gun control laws is woefully naive at best. The only people who follow gun control laws are the law abiding and it is they who suffer their rights being infringed.
But the technology has finally arrived that blasts the Gun Controllers cover story to pieces.
You may have heard of 3D printed guns. Originally they were guns made of plastic created on a 3D printer where all you need is a program and some plastic. Known as the Liberator this plastic gun was as ugly as it was ineffective.
While it would shoot, its longevity was closer to a one-off than a reliable long lasting firearm. Yet even with the liberator, the defense of gun control was shaken, for sometimes a criminal only needs one bullet, depending on his crime. It also set the foundation for the technology to improve.
Now, the little toy gun that could, has been taken to the next level by a company in Austin TX called Solid Concepts. Solid Concepts have successfully printed the first working all metal gun.
So what does this mean for gun control? It means that instead of being a skilled gunsmith who needs a lot of materials, equipment and space to build handguns, a criminal can get rich by buying a 3D printer, blocks of metal and downloading some software and just pump these things out like wedding invitations.
The question now becomes; why would criminals even THINK about going through all the rigamarole of buying a legal gun illegally when they can just print one out with no paper trail, no background checks, no serial numbers etc.
At this point the only legitimate reason would be cost. While the Liberator was designed to be made by a persons home 3D printer, Solid Concepts printer is more industrial which makes it is more expensive.
But do I envision every banger on the street to become a DIY gunsmith? Of course not. Rather, I see a new niche market emerging where an enterprising criminal, or cabal of criminals, will pool their money and buy the industrial machine in order to start the black market business.
No doubt the controllers will think to start requiring licenses and background checks for purchasing 3D printers. But much like their utter failure with controlling guns, so too will they fail at this. Criminals will simply steal the printers and set up their cottage industry in a basement or a walk in closet and no one will be the wiser.
Working, functioning, all metal guns has sounded the death knell for gun controls plausibility. No doubt it will stick around because of the gun control zealots fevered dream of controlling people but any ground they still had to stand upon when arguing WHY we need gun control to sane people has just crumbled beneath their feet.
Personally, I think the 3D gun is great. Every time the government is pushed back from the idea that they can micromanage and control the lives of the people is a win for the people.
Below is a piece from Solid Concepts showing their metal printed gun with some test firing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ZYKMBDm4M
Related articlesAt 2:50 PM on Monday, April 15, I was sitting in my Cambridge office, separated from the finish line of the Boston Marathon by 2.5 miles of parks, city streets, and the iconic Charles River. Around 3:00 PM, I started receiving what would soon become a flood of messages—texts, emails, and Facebook chats, from friends, family members, and high-school classmates: “Are you ok?” “Are you safe?” “You’re not at the marathon, are you?”
This is how I learned what else happened at 2:50 PM. This is how I learned that mere miles away, two home-made bombs had detonated, killing three people and wounding 183 more. And this is what led me to pace the halls of my building, knocking on every door; to contact, in any way possible, friends I knew were there, at that finish line; to make sure that these people—my people—were safe.
In times of distress and unease—of apparent attack—it’s easy to think in us-vs-them terms: to care only about our people, our city, our country.
But if these attacks were perpetrated against any “us,” it was the “us” of humankind. The official list of marathon participants includes more than 23,000 athletes: males and females ranging in age from 18 to 83; runners, handcyclists, and wheelchair operators; citizens of 96 different countries and 6 of 7 continents (only Antarctica—which is not home to any permanent human residents—was not represented). They were us. And they were diverse.
The bombs exploded at a site celebrating this magnificent diversity—along the home stretch of the Marathon, a section of Boylston Street lined with the flags of each participant’s native country. This diversity was also displayed by the injured, and the dead—an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old restaurant manager, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student.
This was, and is, a tragedy. There is no denying it.
But in the midst of this tragedy, there also was—and is—an unmistakable beauty.
In the immediate aftermath of the explosions—even as debris continued to fly through the air—countless people ran not away from the blasts, but towards them. These people had no way of knowing whether or not there would be more explosions, no way of knowing whether or not they were putting their own lives in danger; they simply saw others in need and immediately rushed to help. At the same time, more people—many of them marathoners who had just completed a draining 26.2 mile test of endurance—began to rush en masse to nearby Massachusetts General Hospital, seeking to give their own blood for the hundreds of wounded that would soon follow. In fact, so many people showed up that the hospital was forced, multiple times, to turn away would-be donors; there were simply too many people trying to help.
These overwhelming displays of helping—of selflessness and what psychologists call “prosocial behavior”—are beautiful in and of themselves. But they are even more beautiful because they transcend us-vs-them ways of thinking. These actions were not reserved for members of one group, one city, or one country; they were enacted without preference or prejudice, directed at victims of every color, creed, age, and gender. And they are still more beautiful because of their immediacy. These actions were not the result of carefully considered decisions, of weighing the pros and cons of each possible behavior; they were virtually instantaneous, seemingly born of a raw, instinctive urge to help those in need. In the face of overwhelming tragedy, people sought to help the “us” of humankind—immediately, prodigiously, and with little regard for their own safety.
A long tradition of research in social and evolutionary psychology tells us that this behavior doesn’t make sense. That people operate according to fundamentally selfish instincts, and that these selfish instincts can be found in every organism, every cell, and every gene. According to this tradition, thinking of any “us” at all can be explained as a means to the end of preserving one’s own physical and psychological well-being, living to see another day, and producing children that have a reasonable chance of doing the same. Ostensibly altruistic behaviors—everything from sharing resources to laying down one’s life to save others—can be explained by fundamentally selfish motives like reputational concerns (the desire to be seen in a positive light), kin selection (the desire to preserve one’s genetic material, sometimes even at the cost of one’s own life), or simply a desire to ease the personal discomfort that comes along with viewing others in distress. In short, people help others to help themselves.
But other research tells a different story. When people find “lost” letters on the sidewalk, they tend to mail them to the intended recipients, even though this good deed will receive no recognition or reward, does nothing to further their own genetic legacy, and probably does not relieve much personal distress. People make anonymous financial donations, and as many as 32% are even willing to anonymously donate their own internal organs—while still living—to complete strangers. Even children who are four years old spontaneously help others with no apparent concern for approval from friends and/or authority figures, personal benefits, or moral (good/bad) imperatives. Examples such as these provide a counterargument to the selfish view of human nature that has long dominated psychological research. They suggest that people may help others with little or no thought for their own well-being; people may help others simply because they need to be helped.
Of course, it could be that these heartwarming actions can also be explained by selfish motives, ones that are simply more difficult to pin down. Or it could be that these actions represent the outcome of hard-fought battles pitting conscious control against selfish core impulses—victories for virtue, yes, but ones that require continuous effort and are likely to be surrendered as soon as people are unable or unwilling to continue overriding their selfish impulses. It could be that when caring for others threatens people’s own welfare, they will retreat into increasingly smaller moral circles—from caring for the “us” of humankind to the “us” of their families, friends, and ingroup members; from caring about this restricted “us” to only caring about themselves. It could be that, when people are put to the ultimate test, self-preservation will always win out.
The Boston Marathon bombings put people to this test. The attack created chaos, pain, and destruction; it destroyed lives and landscapes. It destroyed pretense. Those on the scene were immediately forced to face the jarring reality of those who had already been injured—a reality that represented both these victims’ need for help and the possibility that providing help could result in personal injury from further explosions. In this situation, people had neither the time nor the resources to override impulses or think strategically; they could only react, behaving intuitively and emotionally.
It is in these reactions that I see beauty. In the initial movements of the helpers—the first responders, the blood donators, the countless men and women who rushed in to do anything and everything they could to fix the gaping hole left by those Monday afternoon explosions—I see an extreme example of the human capacity for selflessness. I see evidence that people tend to intuitively, instinctively, and perhaps automatically reach out to others in times of need. I see that extreme situations can cause people to transcend us-vs-them thinking, uniting diverse peoples into the “us” of humankind.
In the few days since the bombings, the intervening events—continued loss of life, a night filled with sirens and shootouts, a day spent in “lockdown,” the capture of a 19-year-old, and the heartfelt displays of appreciation for law enforcement—have threatened to prematurely relegate the explosions on Boylston Street to the past. Similarly, the delayed reactions of some—actively seeking a “them” to set up in opposition to “us”—have threatened to overshadow the immediate and selfless reactions shown by those at the scene. Taken together, these actions and reactions show that people are complex, confusing, and often self-contradictory. However, they also highlight the immense capacity for human goodness present in the midst of this complexity.
They offer the hope, at least, that the good in people will always overcome the bad.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.× Olympia woman not fooled by fake gun, fights back against robber
OLYMPIA — A man tried to pull what turned out to be a pellet gun on woman in downtown Olympia. When she wasn’t fooled, he’s the one who ended up running to police for help.
“I was mad,” says Kimberly Guajardo. “You just don’t get to do things like that to people.”
Most people would probably be scared or upset if someone pulled a gun on them, but not Guajardo.
Last night she stopped by the China Clipper bar downtown. She says when she stepped out to smoke, a young man approached her and asked her if she had an extra cigarette.
“I had left everything inside and just stepped outside. So I said no. He kept pushing, I said I really don’t.”
That’s when the young man pulled what appeared to be a gun.
“I knew it was fake as soon as he pulled it out, because I have a little boy,” she says. “Then I just got angry.”
Without thinking Guajardo grabbed the gun, threw it over a nearby fence, and started hitting the man.
“Then he ran down the street, crying and freaking out.”
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22 year old Kevin Lesher ended up at the Olympia Police Department a few blocks away, where he was arrested for attempted robbery in the first degree. Guajardo says her friends can’t believe what she did.
“I probably didn’t react the way my dad would want me to. But I just reacted the way I did,” she says. “I live in Olympia and I go downtown a lot and it sucks. You can’t go to the bar and have a drink?”
Guajardo’s not the only one taking a stand against would-be criminals in the South Sound. This weekend, a Pizza Time employee in Lacey fought back during a robbery attempt. In that case, the gun was real and it did go off.
“I guess it hasn’t registered for me,” says Jordan Raudenbush, “that I could have gotten shot in the face.”
Guajardo knows she’s also lucky she wasn’t hurt. But she says she’s glad she got at least one criminal off the streets of Olympia.
“Hopefully I taught him a lesson.”
The Olympia Police Department released this statement: While we are very happy this incident turned out so well, we are always concerned when people act on their own in dangerous, unpredictable situations, especially those involving weapons. Our advice is to always call 911, if at all possible.A First Nation leader, who went to jail defending his community's traditional territory in northern Ontario, is warning other activists about the risks of government spying posed by Bill C-51.
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Chief Donny Morris already has the documents to show that the RCMP and government officials were spying on his community during a mining dispute in 2008.
He filed an access to information request on Thursday to discover the extent of the surveillance and called on other First Nations to do the same.
"Eventually if you're categorized as a terrorist, you're going to be spending the rest of your life in prison and for myself, spending time in jail for our action, I didn't really appreciated that," Morris told CBC News. "It was humilating."
Morris and five other leaders of Kitchenuymaykoosib Inninuwug were jailed for more than two months for protesting against a mining company operating on the community's traditional lands. The Court of Appeal eventually ordered their release and Ontario bought out the company's claims in the area.
'Am I going to be allowed to travel?'
The experience has left Morris wary of government powers and worried about travelling outside his remote community, 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
"I always am afraid that my phone is tapped," he said. "At times I feel for my safety. Going through airports, if I have to go through security, am I going to be allowed to travel? I feel threatened too."
Despite his fears, Morris decided to accept an invitation to speak about his experience and his concerns in Toronto on Thursday, during a forum on Bill C-51. People need to know that just because their actions are peaceful, they are not immune to government spying, he said.
An excerpt of an RCMP document obtained through access to information requests shows the police were keeping tabs on Kitchenuhmaykoosib, and that they were aware of the peaceful nature of the protest. (CBC)
"To co-exist in peaceful harmony as our elders taught us, that's the thing that leads us most," Morris said. "We don't go out blocking roads or burning things up. We are peaceful."
Last month Morris wrote a letter to his MP, Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford, asking him to withdraw his support for Bill C-51.
"The legislation is clear: our security agencies can only target those who pose a risk to Canada, and not those engaged in legitimate dissent," a spokesperson for Rickford told CBC News in an email at the time.If the founder of computer giant Acer has his way, Taiwan will be jumping into the smart city fray backed by public-private partnerships.
An article by iTech Post reports on recent comments by Stan Shih that urged Taiwan toward further smart city development through collaboration with the private sector.
Shih was speaking at a seminar on the advancement of smart cities hosted by the Industrial Technology Research Institute.
Shih urged the Taiwanese government to foster more smart city projects by fully embracing the potential of public-private partnerships.
He said that Taiwan’s smart cities initiatives are strongly positioned to take advantage of the thriving technology ecosystem offered by the country’s private sector.
Specifically he highlighted the country’s advanced position in such fields as information and communications technology, software and administration design. This technological advantage in the private sector should feed into collaborative efforts by the government to build out its smart city strategy.
One of the key outcomes that these smart city initiatives should be that there is greater support for the country’s youth, says Shih. This can be done by backing industrial clusters and innovative business models that allow the talent of tomorrow to succeed.
Taiwan smart city efforts are building
Shih’s comments come against the backdrop of a recent report that suggests cities in the U.K. could access nearly $7 billion in funding if they were better able to access private capital.
“Cities around the world are increasingly engaging in smart development to improve efficiency of local services, enhance sustainability, improve the lives of their citizens and develop their competitiveness,” said Chris Wilkinson of Siemens Financial, which prepared the report. “Private sector asset finance allows cities to make the full range of SmartStart technology investments in a timely manner.”
The Acer founder’s vocal support of greater smart city support follows news this spring that Taiwanese investment firm Fu Hwa Securities is launching a $625 million global investment fund that focuses on Internet of Things (IoT).
Fu Hwa said its new fund will target the plethora of opportunities that are emerging from IoT technologies such as self-driving cars, big data, smart logistics, cloud computing and advanced manufacturing. As well, It added that it will be exploring investments in such sectors as pharmaceuticals, energy, environmental and biotech.An artist's illustration of the superhot plasma around a spacecraft like NASA's Apollo command module that can block communications and cause a radio blackout during the critical re-entry of a spacecraft.
When future spacecraft re-enter the atmosphere, a new kind of antenna might help them keep in contact with ground control, despite the fiery sheaths of superhot plasma around them, researchers say.
The technology might also help keep communication lines open to other hypersonic vehicles, such as military planes and ballistic missiles.
When a vehicle travels at hypersonic speeds — that is, five or more times the speed of sound — an envelope of hot, ionized air develops around it. This so-called "plasma sheath" acts as a mirror against electromagnetic signals under most conditions, cutting off radio communications with anything outside the vehicle. [Photos: US Military Tests Hypersonic Craft]
As NASA's Apollo 13 crisis revealed in 1970, this radio silence can be fraught with extraordinary tension. As the crippled spacecraft plummeted back toward Earth, the communications blackout lasted more than a minute longer than expected, |
EU residence permits and citizenships, Henley & Partners, has declined to be involved with the Hungarian program. “We select those [programs] we believe have a good value proposition for our clients and those that pass our own very strict due diligence,” said a company spokesperson.
György Schöpflin, an MEP from Fidesz, Orbán’s party, dismissed criticisms of the program, arguing that the number of permits granted was insignificant compared to larger immigration flows.
“It’s a totally minor program, and it’s following the European mainstream, such as Latvia, Malta,” he said. “I would say if I were your news editor that it’s a chickens--t issue.”The Pentagon on Friday acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria carried out an airstrike in a western Mosul neighborhood and that it is “looking into” reports that the bombing left more than 100 civilians dead.
“We are aware of reports on airstrikes in Mosul resulting in civilian casualties,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement to Fox News. “The Coalition conducted several strikes near Mosul and [coalition forces are] looking in to these reports. The Department of Defense takes all reports of civilian casualties very seriously and assesses all incidents as thoroughly as possible.”
The suspected civilian body count underscores the problems that Iraqi troops face in their weeks-long campaign to drive out the Sunni militant group from the densely urban part of Iraq's second-largest city.
Residents of the neighborhood where the airstrike occurred, known as Mosul Jidideh, told a team of Associated Press reporters at the scene that scores of residents are believed to have been killed by a pair of airstrikes that hit a cluster of homes in the area earlier this month.
"Over 137 people were inside. The entire neighborhood was fleeing because of missiles that hit, so people were taking refuge here," said Ahmed Ahmed, one of the residents of the neighborhood.
One airstrike hit the residential area on March 13, followed by a second strike four days later, the residents said.
The Department of Defense takes all reports of civilian casualties very seriously and assesses all incidents as thoroughly as possible. — Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman
Faced with their most difficult fight yet against ISIS, Iraqi and the U.S.-led coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Iraq.
As of March 14 of this year, the U.S. alone has carried out over 7,700 airstrikes in Iraq -- many centered around the ISIS stronghold in Mosul – while coalition forces have conducted an additional 3,634 airstrikes in the war-plagued Middle Eastern nation. The military intervention against ISIS – dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve – has involved almost 19,000 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq since 2014.
The Pentagon’s announcement on Friday comes two days after it reported it was investigating claims that a U.S. military airstrike recently hit a school in northern Syria and allegedly killed dozens of civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that at least 33 bodies were pulled from the rubble at the school, which had housed at least 50 families fleeing violence elsewhere in the war-torn nation.
Dozens of civilians were also purportedly killed last week when a strike on an al-Qaida target blasted a prayer hall in the town of Jinah, in Syria’s Aleppo province. While the Pentagon, which opened an investigation into the bombing, said that numerous al-Qaida fighters were killed in the strike, local residents claim the dead were civilians who had gathered for a religious class.
The Pentagon, which has yet to release casualty figures from last month's fighting, has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since its campaign against ISIS began in 2014. Independent monitoring groups, such as the London-based Airwars, put the casualty figures much higher, at just over 2,700 killed by coalition strikes since 2014.
The U.S. is conducting strikes on IS daily from bases in Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere in the region. U.S. military commanders have also raised the prospect of sending additional forces into the region to be ready to assist in accelerating the fight in either Syria or Iraq.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.I'll admit I was late to the HTTPS party.
But post Snowden, and particularly after the result of the last election here in the US, it's clear that everything on the web should be encrypted by default.
Why?
You have an unalienable right to privacy, both in the real world and online. And without HTTPS you have zero online privacy – from anyone else on your WiFi, from your network provider, from website operators, from large companies, from the government. The performance penalty of HTTPS is gone, in fact, HTTPS arguably performs better than HTTP on modern devices. Using HTTPS means nobody can tamper with the content in your web browser. This was a bit of an abstract concern five years ago, but these days, there are more and more instances of upstream providers actively mucking with the data that passes through their pipes. For example, if Comcast detects you have a copyright strike, they'll insert banners into your web content … all your web content! And that's what the good guy scenario looks like – or at least a corporation trying to follow the rules. Imagine what it looks like when someone, or some large company, decides the rules don't apply to them?
So, how do you as an end user "use" encryption on the web? Mostly, you lobby for the websites you use regularly to adopt it. And it's working. In the last year, the use of HTTPS by default on websites has doubled.
Browsers can help, too. By January 2017, Google Chrome will show this alert in the UI when a login or credit card form is displayed on an unencrypted connection:
Additionally, Google is throwing their considerable weight behind this effort by ranking non-encrypted websites lower in search results.
But there's another essential part required for encryption to work on any websites – the HTTPS certificate. Historically these certificates have been issued by certificate authorities, and they were at least $30 per year per website, sometimes hundreds of dollars per year. Without that required cash each year, without the SSL certificate that you must re-purchase every year in perpetuity – you can't encrypt anything.
That is, until Let's Encrypt arrived on the scene.
Let's Encrypt is a 501.3(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by the Linux Foundation. They've been in beta for about a year now, and to my knowledge they are the only reliable, official free source of SSL certificates that has ever existed.
However, because Let's Encrypt is a non-profit organization, not owned by any company that must make a profit from each SSL certificate they issue, they need our support:
As a company, we've donated a Discourse hosted support community, and a cash amount that represents how much we would have paid in a year to one of the existing for-profit certificate authorities to set up HTTPS for all the Discourse websites we host.
I urge you to do the same:
Estimate how much you would have paid for any free SSL certificates you obtained from Let's Encrypt, and please donate that amount to Let's Encrypt.
If you work for a large company, urge them to sponsor Let's Encrypt as a fundamental cornerstone of a safe web.
If you believe in an unalienable right to privacy on the Internet for every citizen in every nation, please support Let's Encrypt.The Tdap vaccine guards against whooping cough as well as tetanus and diphtheria.
The number of whooping cough cases in California has officially reached epidemic proportions, the California Department of Public Health reported.
Whooping cough, known to doctors as pertussis, has experienced a resurgence this year with more than 3,400 new cases reported between Jan. 1 and June 10, according a statement released by the department.
The department said whooping cough is cyclical, peaking every three to five years. The last big spike in cases was in 2010.
Los Angeles County has experienced about 350 new cases so far this year with Long Beach being hit especially hard. The city has seen more than 90 new infections, making up nearly 20 cases per 100,000 people.
Pertussis is a highly infectious bacterial disease that can be spread by coughing. Symptoms of the disease vary by age group.
Adults can find themselves beset with respiratory problems that can last for weeks, while infants who are too young to be vaccinated are in danger of serious illness or death. The common name for the disease comes from the “whooping” sound children can make when experiencing the violent coughing attacks associated with the disease.
Infants may not have typical pertussis symptoms and may have no apparent cough. Parents describe episodes in which the infant’s face turns red or purple.
The organization said two-thirds of pertussis hospitalizations have been in children aged 4 months or younger. Two infant deaths have been reported.
“Preventing severe disease and death in infants is our highest priority,” said Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the department, in the statement. “We urge all pregnant women to get vaccinated. We also urge parents to vaccinate infants as soon as possible.”
The Tdap vaccine, which also guards against tetanus and diphtheria, can be administered to pregnant women to protect infants who are too young to be vaccinated.
In addition, the department said infants should be vaccinated as soon as possible, which can be as early as 6 weeks of age.
Older children and adults are also recommended to be vaccinated especially if they are regularly around newborn babies.
While Chapman said vaccination does not offer lifetime immunity, he stressed that it was still the best defense against the potentially fatal disease.North Korea on Tuesday threatened the United States and South Korea over joint naval drills taking place this week in tense Yellow Sea waters ahead of a Washington summit by the allies' leaders.
In a highly conditional warning, the section of the Korean People's Army responsible for operations in North Korea's southwest said it will hit back if any shells fall in its territory during the drills, which began Monday and will end Friday. Should the allies respond to that, the statement said, Pyongyang's military would then strike five South Korean islands that stand along the aquatic frontline between the countries.
The area includes waters that are claimed by both countries, and is the most likely scene of any future clash between the rival Koreas. North Korea disputes a boundary unilaterally drawn close to its shores by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the war, and has had three bloody naval clashes with the South since 1999.
Highly critical language is standard from North Korea during what the allies call routine military drills that they stage over the course of a year. Tuesday's statement was softer than the bellicose rhetoric Pyongyang unleashed with regularity during two months of larger-scale joint military drills by the allies that ended one week ago. That included threats of nuclear and missile strikes on Washington and Seoul.
Still, this new warning comes at a time of tentative diplomatic maneuvering on the divided Korean Peninsula, which is still technically in a state of war, as the three-year Korean War ended 60 years ago in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The threat also came hours ahead of a summit by U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye. They hope to present a strong front against North Korea during their meeting Tuesday at the White House, but also want to leave the door open to talks with Pyongyang.
There are concerns that any skirmish or shelling between the Koreas could escalate into war. Two attacks blamed on Pyongyang in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans, and Park has repeatedly said Seoul would respond aggressively to another attack from the North.
If Pyongyang conducts an attack similar to the 2010 shelling of an island that killed four South Koreans, "We will make them pay," Park told CBS in an interview aired Monday.
Inter-Korean relations are particularly strained amid North Korean anger over U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.N. sanctions in March that sought to punish the North over its February nuclear test, the country's third.
Last week, South Korea pulled out its last remaining citizens from a joint factory park in North Korea after Pyongyang withdrew all of its 53,000 workers earlier. The park is the last symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement.
Despite the allies' claims that the military drills are routine, Pyongyang calls them invasion preparation and is especially sensitive to the inclusion of any U.S. nuclear-capable assets. Washington in March responded to rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula by making the unusual announcements that it had sent nuclear capable B-52 and B-2 bombers to participate in the drills, prompting a harsh North Korean rhetorical response.
Nuclear-powered U.S. carriers routinely come to South Korea around this time of year as part of drills aimed at enhancing naval cooperation, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said Monday in a briefing. But Seoul wouldn't discuss whether any U.S. nuclear capable assets were participating in this week's drills, and U.S. military officials declined to comment on operations.
On Tuesday, Kim denied North Korea's claim that South Korea's military this week conducted live-fire artillery drills near the disputed Yellow Sea waters.
Kim also said the South Korean military is keeping an eye on any movements of a North Korean mid-range missile on the east coast that's capable of potentially hitting Guam. South Korean officials said last month that the North was prepared to test the missile at any time.
Kim said Seoul would confirm if North Korea completely withdraws the missile, which officials earlier said the North seemed poised to test. He said he couldn't share any other details.The update is currently only available on Steam to ensure that no major bugs or crashes slipped in. Steam is the easiest platform to update, so I can fix any issues very quickly this way. The update will be rolled out to other platforms in the coming days, with iOS and Playstation taking the longest since they require approval from their respective companies.
PATCH NOTES:
- All NPCs and the player character have new graphics.
- Battle backgrounds have new graphics.
- Added a new option to the game under "Battle Speed": Ultra Turbo Mode. Enabling this option allows you to hold down the confirm button to automatically cycle through battle commands.
- Added 12 new creatures to the game. These can all be obtained from the original "Creature Tier" ugprades.
- Added 12 new legendary crafting materials to the game.
- "Crown of Haste" now also works in realms.
- Added a new app icon.
- More optimizations to make the game run more smoothly on low-end devices.
- Several bug/crash fixes.It turns out that even some folks within Huffman’s own agency were none too happy with his staunch defense of the coal industry before a hearing of a Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee.
Behind the scenes, a respected biologist at the WVDEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management responded with a strongly worded memo that challenged Huffman’s statements and urged agency officials to make sure the secretary “will be better informed the next time he represents our agency’s current state of knowledge to federal authorities and elected representatives.”
Doug Wood, a biologist in the water division’s watershed assessment section, wrote his memo on June 30, less than a week after Huffman appeared in Washington at a hearing on a bipartisan bill that would end the coal industry’s practice of burying hundreds of miles of streams with waste rock and dirt (the stuff that used to be mountains).
Wood’s memo showed up in my mail, packaged in an envelope without a return address. I’ve posted a copy of it here. I tried to reach both Huffman and one of Wood’s direct supervisors to ask about it, but haven’t heard back from them this week.
Updated, 4:20 p.m. Friday — Randy Huffman called me back, and said he had not seen this memo … we’ll have more on this development in Saturday’s Gazette-Mail.
The memo’s worth taking a look at, both for the way it directly contradicts specific statements Huffman made in his Senate testimony, and for its broader implications — and especially because Wood makes clear that biologists at WVDEP support the scientific findings of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others that mountaintop removal is having dramatic effects on the state’s water resources.
For example, Wood writes:
With valley fill discharges, especially those from very large valley fills, we can expect the negative impacts to last for centuries, just as deep mine discharges have remained toxic for centuries. Such long-lasting adverse impacts are indeed significant.
Recall that the Senate hearing featured devastating testimony from EPA and from independent scientists like Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland, who told lawmakers:
The impacts of mountaintop removal with valley fills are immense and irreversible.
But, Huffman — West Virginia’s chief environmental protection officer — gave the Senate committee a staunch defense of the coal industry generally and mountaintop removal specifically.
For example, Huffman said:
West Virginia and the nation need jobs and coal.
And, Huffman testified:
Coal production is the leading revenue generator for West Virginia, and many in the State are concerned about losing the opportunities for future economic development associated with mountaintop mining.
Or, he added:
The greater concern for the Department of Environmental Protection, however, as protector of the State’s water resources, is the unintended consequences of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent actions that have the potential to significantly limit all types of mining.
In his memo, Wood singled out Huffman’s testimony regarding a widely cited study by EPA scientists Greg Pond and Margaret Passmore, which detailed their findings that mountaintop removal was killing aquatic life — an indication of its broader damage to water quality and the entire ecosystem.
Just as the coal industry has done, Huffman tried to make out like the Pond-Passmore study was the only justification for any effort by the Obama administration to toughen regulation of mountaintop removal — ignoring, as the industry also does, all of the other scientific evidence of the damage being done.
According to Huffman:
The WVDEP does not believe that this study justifies the sweeping change in regulatory approach the EPA is making. Without evidence of any significant impact on the rest of the ecosystem beyond the diminished numbers of certain genus of mayflies, the State cannot say that there has been a violation of its narrative standard.
Interestingly enough, the new FACES of Coal group said something remarkably similar in one of its “Fact Sheets” on mountaintop removal, issued this week:
In short, the EPA contends that the absence of mayflies, an ultra-sensitive insect, is an indicator of impact on water quality, and that any impact from mining, no matter how subtle, is not allowable.
But in his memo, Wood explained what the EPA study means to a biologist who studies water quality and aquatic life (also interesting is his use of the term “quarries” instead of “mines”):
We know have clear evidence that in some streams that drain mountaintop coal quarry valley fills, the entire order Ephemeroptera (mayflies) has been extirpated, not just certain genera of this order. We also have evidence that some streams no longer support the order Plecoptera (stoneflies). Some genera of stoneflies are particularly sensitive to high total dissolved solids just as some mayfly genera are. So, in streams below valley fills where stoneflies have survived, that order’s diversity has been diminished. There are other genera and species of other orders of benthic macroinvertegrates that have been negatively impacted by streams draining mountaintop coal quarries, not just a few “genus” [sic] {Note — the “sic” is Woods correcting Huffman’s choice of words} of mayflies The loss of an order of insects from a stream is taxonomically equivalent to the loss of all primates (including humans) from a given area. The loss of two insect orders is taxonomically equivalent to killing all primates and all rodents through toxic chemicals. Such adverse ecological impacts are most certainly significant, and they prevent affected streams from meeting their designated aquatic life uses.
Wood goes on to say:
Salamanders, the top predators of headwater stream ecosystems have also been significantly negatively impacted by mountaintop coal quarries. Our searches consistently show no salamanders or only one species out of four or five expected stream salamander species immediately below valley fills until stream stretches below un-quarried tributaries are reached. The one salamander species complex most frequently encountered nearest to valley fills is the two-lined salamander (Eurycea bislineata/cirrigera) well-known for its ability to survive in disturbed aquatic environments.
Wood also responded specifically to Huffman’s comment that EPA lacks “evidence of any significant impact on the rest of the ecosystem beyond the diminished numbers of certain genus of mayflies,” saying:
… There is ample evidence that mountaintop quarrying in general has had significant adverse impacts on many geological/pedalogical and hydrological components of both lentic (still water bodies) and lotic (flowing water bodies) aquatic ecosystems.
Streams below valley fills, Wood says:
… usually score marginal or poor in our rapid habitat assessments of sites we visit …
Wood also noted:
The developmental abnormalities found in fish in the Mud River reservoir have been attributed in part to selenium toxicity. As you know, we are finding high selenium concentrations in more streams below valley fills with each new field season.
Wood sent his memo not directly to Huffman, but up through the chain of command at WVDEP — to his bosses, Jeff Bailey, John Wirts and Pat Campbell. Woods made it clear that he has written “numerous memoranda and reports” since at least 2002, but yet noted that “it appears that Secretary Huffman is unaware of the findings of our efforts to understand the effects of mountaintop coal extraction to ecosystems in West Virginia.”
In conclusion, Wood wrote:AT&T has entered the legal fracas over whether court warrants are required for the government to obtain their customers' cell-site location history.
The telecom, while not siding one way or the other, said Monday the courts should adopt a uniform policy nationwide. As it now stands, there's conflicting appellate rulings on the matter. The Supreme Court has yet to decide the issue.
The Dallas, Texas-based company told [PDF] the following to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering the issue:
The government orders at issue—and tens of thousands like them annually—seek detailed records that can reveal the location and movements of the user of a particular mobile device, often over a relatively lengthy period. In many cases, the government can use that information to track the ongoing movements of particular targeted individuals, building a detailed understanding of the target’s patterns of behavior and social and professional contacts and activities. Network, application, and other technological developments are making that location information ever more detailed and precise. Considerable legal uncertainty surrounds the standards the government must satisfy to compel the production of location information, and achieving legal clarity is essential to protecting consumer privacy, defining the scope of legitimate law enforcement interests, and ensuring the efficient operation of companies operating in various sectors of the digital economy.
The case before the appeals court involves a Florida man, Quartavious Davis. He was sentenced to life for a string of robberies. His 2012 conviction rested largely on mobile phone records pegging his location near six of seven heists. The Atlanta-based appeals court, ruling in Davis' case in June, concluded that warrants were required.
But President Barack Obama's administration urged the court to rehear the case: [PDF]
On the merits, it is not persuasive to hold that cell site data is always within the subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy—no matter whether the information in question pertains to a single phone call spanning a few seconds or thousands of phone calls spanning a few years, no matter whether the subscriber makes a call in plain view in a public place or from the privacy of his own home, and no matter how explicit the warning incorporated into the customer’s service contract.
The government also noted that the court's decision conflicted with other appellate decisions. The appeals court decided to rehear the case at a yet-to-be-determined time.
Davis successfully argued that the public maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy that their public movements won't be catalogued for the government unless a probable cause warrant is issued by a judge. The authorities did not get a warrant in Davis' prosecution.
"Thus, the exposure of the cell site location information can convert what would otherwise be a private event into a public one. When one’s whereabouts are not public, then one may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those whereabouts," the court ruled. (Because the court decided to rehear the case, the decision is no longer case law.)
At least three other federal circuits, there are 13 altogether, have ruled differently from the 11th Circuit. In all of the cases, the authorities argued that so-called cell-site records are not constitutionally protected and are business records that telcos may hand over if the government asserts there are reasonable grounds to believe the data is relevant to an investigation.
The stakes are high. The government is embracing warrantless cell-site tracking as a surveillance tool in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that said the authorities needed a warrant to affix GPS trackers to vehicles. In that case, the justices ruled that the actual installation of a GPS device on a vehicle was the equivalent of a search usually requiring a warrant. Mobile phones, usually in a suspect's pocket or purse, don't require any government installation.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Democracy & Technology also weighed in to the case with a filing Friday. They said a massive amount of information was at stake:
As of December 2013, there were 335.65 million wireless subscriber accounts in the United States, responsible for 2.61 trillion annual minutes of calls and 1.91 trillion annual text messages. Cell phone use has become ubiquitous: more than 90 percent of American adults own cell phones and more than a third of US households have only wireless telephones.
The National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers also took the ACLU's and CDT's side, filing its own brief [PDF] Friday.I would like a test runner that detects when I have changed tests/code, and runs the relevant tests.
— Daniel Watkins (@Odd_Bloke) January 31, 2013
This "test harness" is actually a bash snippet which relies on inotifywait This "test harness" is actually a bash snippet which relies on, a command-line program which blocks until it detects an inotify event on the files it is watching, and is incredibly simple:
while inotifywait -e close_write -r $CODE_DIRS --exclude=".*sw[px]"; do $TEST_COMMAND done
while
inotifywait
$TEST_COMMAND
inotifywait
$CODE_DIRS
inotifywait
-e
close_write
file or directory closed, after being opened in writable mode
modify
move
create
-e
-r
inotifywait
-r
--exclude
Recently, I tweeted about my desire for a change-aware test runner:I haven't quite come up with that (though I do now have a half-finished blog post prognosticating on it), but I do have a solution which covers some of the bases: I determine what tests I want to run, and the test harness runs them whenever my code changes.Thisloop is simple. When thecommand stops blocking (and with exit code 0, which it will unless something unusual has happened to the files you're watching), we run. You can put whatever you want there, so you could limit the number of tests you run that way.Now let's break thatcall down.can be any number of directories or files that you would liketo watch.narrows down the events that we should unblock on; we don't want to run the tests every time we open a new file.triggers on (to quote the man page):vim triggers this when I save, so it works for me. You might also want to listen for(file or directory contents were written),(file or directory moved to or from watched directory) and(file or directory created within watched directory). Multipleoptions are comma-separated., as with many commands, tellsto watch directories recursively. This will mean that all directories under those that you specify will trigger your tests. I normally just run this command pointing at the top-level directory of my project. It's worth noting thatapplies to all directories that you pass.Finally,takes a regular expression of files to exclude from your watch. As a vim user who hasn't configured swap files to be stored out of my tree, I want to ignore them (otherwise my tests run every time I open a file because vim writes out a swap file).A quick disclaimer: as this uses inotify, this will only work on platforms that support it (which, I think, is only Linux). Mac users might want to examine this StackOverflow question. Windows users might find this answer useful. +Murali Suriar has helpfully pointed me to kqwait on IRC, which will help out any Mac/BSD users.Theater owners in the U.S. balked at the bold plan to debut the movie simultaneously on Netflix and in Imax; China is a different story, where the sequel opened to a strong $21.3 million on the big screen.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny will play in only 10 to 15 Imax theaters in North America when it debuts Feb. 26, a year after Netflix and Imax left cinema operators furious when partnering on the release of the long-awaited follow-up to Ang Lee's 2000 martial-arts blockbuster.
At the time, most theater owners who operate Imax screens said they would not carry the film since it is debuting simultaneously on Netflix and on the big screen. They haven't softened, resulting in a very limited Imax footprint.
Nor did it help matters when Sword of Destiny was pushed from Aug. 28, 2015 — a relatively quiet corridor for Imax after the summer crush of tentpoles — to February, when Imax is committed to playing other titles, including Deadpool.
The Weinstein Co. produced the film with a number of partners, including the China Film Group and Netflix.
There are roughly 400 Imax theaters in the U.S.; Imax itself owns only four or five, while the rest are joint ventures. It's not clear how many screens Netflix and Imax originally had intended to play Sword of Destiny on; Netflix insiders say it was always going to be a limited number. However, other sources say it was originally intended to be far more than just 10 to 15 locations.
Over the weekend, Sword of Destiny debuted at the box office in China to a pleasing $21.3 million, coming in No. 2 behind Chinese sensation The Mermaid. However, as Netflix isn't available in China, Imax didn't face the same issues in the country that it does in the U.S., and is carrying the movie on hundreds of screens in the Middle Kingdom. Sword of Destiny is playing in regular 3D theaters as well.
Produced by TWC, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2 was directed by Yuen Wo-Ping, also a martial-arts master. Michelle Yeoh reprises her role as Yu Shu-Lien, while Donnie Yen also stars.Democratic voters awarded Byron W. Brown a convincing primary victory Tuesday and an all-but-guaranteed fourth term as mayor of Buffalo in November, giving their stamp of approval to the city’s rejuvenation under his leadership and rejecting the challenge of two well known opponents.
Just one of four registered city Democrats turned out for the primary. Brown scored 51 percent, easily dispatching City Comptroller Mark J.F. Schroeder who had 35 percent and County Legislator Betty Jean Grant who had 13 percent. That was with 97 percent of the vote counted.
Though Brown scored an impressive primary victory over two veterans of city politics, Schroeder surprised some observers with an unexpected strong showing.
Schroeder still has a spot on the November ballot by winning the primary of the obscure Reform Party. But Brown’s Democratic victory in heavily Democratic Buffalo effectively guarantees similar results in the November general election, especially because he faces no Republican candidate.
That means Brown will become only the second chief executive among his 61 predecessors in Buffalo history to win four terms. The only other was the late James D. Griffin, who began a 16-year stint with his first victory in 1977.
Brown greeted supporters at his downtown headquarters shortly after 11 p.m. in an outdoor celebration.
Schroeder’s operation expressed confidence as just a few hours before the polls closed at 9 p.m. His supporters cited relatively strong turnout in the comptroller’s home turf of South Buffalo, as well as low turnout in the mayor’s East Side base. But Schroeder never was able to translate his optimism during the campaign into the votes he needed to unseat a powerful incumbent.
At his Tewksbury Lodge headquarters in the Old First Ward, he told supporters he had given it his best.
“I’m glad we stood up for all of Buffalo,” he said. “We ran on real issues.”
Stephen T. Banko III, a one-time aide to former Mayor Anthony M. Masiello and a veteran of several citywide campaigns, said Schroeder may have scored points on his argument that Brown should have retired after three terms.
“The only thing Byron had was an issue of shelf life, even though good things are happening in town,” Banko said of a relatively strong Schroeder showing. “Mark had some really effective commercials, and if people were paying attention, that could account for it.”
Brown’s primary victory Tuesday was not as strong as his three previous primary victories. He won 68 percent of the primary vote against Bernard A. Tolbert in 2013 (though against just one opponent). In 2009 he scored 63 percent against Michael P. Kearns, and in his first primary in 2005, he tallied 61 percent against two opponents — Kevin P. Gaughan and Steven A. Calvaneso.
Throughout the campaign, Brown enjoyed every advantage. A veteran of more than two decades in elective office, he relied on an experienced political machine that once more rallied to his cause.
Besides his huge financial advantage, Brown also earned backing from Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner’s Erie County Democratic organization. He also earned endorsements from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand. Brown, who enjoys a close political relationship with Cuomo, also serves as the governor’s state Democratic chairman.
Schroeder garnered political support from only one elected official — Legislator Patrick B. Burke, a South Buffalo ally.
Though the 2017 primary never generated much excitement among voters, it sparked a discussion of issues involving three, high-profile Democrats. Schroeder and Grant never denied the city’s rejuvenation downtown, on the waterfront, or at burgeoning areas like the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and Larkinville.
But they charged Brown and his administration ignored neighborhoods, especially on the East Side, and that Buffalo continues to rank as one of the nation’s poorest cities. Schroeder concentrated much of his campaign in the mayor’s African-American base that he claimed Brown had lost.
The comptroller decried Brown’s long career in politics, and charged the mayor was the subject of investigations because subpoenas connected to his long-time political club — Grassroots — had been served in City Hall. Brown denied those charges.
Schroeder also boasted the best financed campaign of any primary opponent to ever face Brown. The latest campaign finance report showed him spending well over $300,000. But Brown outspent him by about 2 to 1, pushing total expenditures for the three-way campaign over the $1 million mark.
The money Schroeder raised since declaring his candidacy in March allowed him to mount an extensive television and radio campaign and possibly the most professional and high-profile one to ever challenge Brown.
Most observers believed, however, that Schroeder failed to make his case to voters feeling optimistic about the future of the city. And Grant never was able to mount any effort beyond her own African-American base thanks to a paltry campaign treasury.
Throughout the city earlier on Primary Day, voters waiting at polling places seemed to reflect each candidate’s ethnic and geographical base. Outside St. Martin of Tours church in South Buffalo, Molly McCarthy, 43, a human resources manager, said she voted for Mark Schroeder.
“He’s very involved, very down to earth,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s time for a change.”
Terry Coster, 51, said she did not trust Grassroots, which she accused of “a lot of pay to play.”
“And I can’t lie,” Coster said. “I do like that he’s a South Buffalo guy. We’ve been ignored a little too long around here.”
Outside C District police station at the corner of East Ferry and Fillmore on the city’s East Side, Lynn Quicksey, 52, voted for Byron Brown.
“I voted for the mayor because I like the work he’s doing,” Quicksey said. “The city has been neglected for so long it’s nice to see he’s taking care of all of us.”
But Ronnie Moore, 58, voted for Schroeder, echoing the challenger’s clams that neighborhoods were overlooked under Brown.
“You don’t hear from Byron Brown until election time, and then when he wins the election, he goes back into hiding,” Moore said.
Outside Lafayette High School on the West Side, Melanie Goulding, who is 22 and works for a software company, said she likes Brown’s revitalization of downtown and Canalside.
“I think the experience he has with Buffalo and the relationship he has with the people, he really knows what he’s doing,” she said.
Louis Watson, 57, retired superintendent for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, also voted for Brown.
“It’s nice to see a lot of changes, especially around here,” Watson said of efforts like the reconstruction of Niagara Street.
Brown will also face opposition in November from Conservative Anita L. Howard, who is not expected to wage an active campaign.
News reporter Jay Rey contributed to this story.Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Donna Brazile was told not to “cuss out” young, emotionally fragile Hillary Clinton campaign aides, according to her new book.
Clinton campaign adviser Minyon Moore, “always elegant in her manners, had another delicate piece of advice for me about dealing with the smart young people in Brooklyn,” Brazile wrote in her new book “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”
Minyon told Brazile, “Donna, you cannot cuss these kids out because it will shut them down,'” referring to the “smart young” staffers on Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“‘What the fuck?’ I said. Damn! They picked the wrong woman for the job,” Brazile wrote.
Brazile’s book released Tuesday and has sparked a firestorm, pitting her against former Clinton campaign staffers. Brazile highlighted a secret financial agreement reached between the DNC and Clinton campaign.
She also criticized President Barack Obama for leaving the DNC in debt, and for leaching the party “of its vitality.”
“We had three Democratic parties: The party of Barack Obama, the party of Hillary Clinton, and this weak little vestige of a party led |
for young African Americans. Sanders presents fixing unemployment as the systemic solution to the problem.
Many racial justice advocates don't see it that way. They see racism as its own systemic problem that has to be addressed on its own terms. They feel that it's important to acknowledge the effects of economic inequality on people of color, but that racial inequality isn't merely a symptom of economic inequality. And, most importantly, they feel that "pivoting" to economic issues can be a way for white progressives to present their agenda as the progressive agenda and shove black progressives, and the issues that matter most to them, to the sidelines.
So Sanders's performance at Netroots confirmed the frustrations that his critics felt. And Sanders's supporters' reaction to the criticism was just as predictable.
Yes, Sanders marched with MLK. But his critics know that already.
Whether you agree with Sanders's claim that he's been "fighting for civil rights for 50 years" depends on whether you think he's doing enough in his Senate career to put civil rights on the agenda. But the "50 years" part is true: He has admirable civil rights movement cred. Sanders was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which helped coordinate much of the nonviolent action of the early 1960s, and he participated in the famous March for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Today, Sanders's supporters bring up his record in the civil rights movement in response to basically any criticism of his actions on racial equality. And when Sanders started catching criticism for his Netroots performance, the supporters were ready with their history. As comedy podcaster Roderick Morrow — who started the satirical #BernieSoBlack Twitter hashtag on Sunday — told Vox: "It seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there's just all these people who, I don't know if they're just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, saying the same things over and over to you."
But the civil rights movement references aren't actually an answer to his critics. No one is arguing that Sanders literally doesn't see race, they're saying that Sanders sees racial inequality as less important than economic inequality and shouldn't. And as Vox's Andrew Prokop has written, even in the 1960s, Sanders didn't view race as the fundamental problem many of his fellow student activists did:
Even as a student at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, influenced by the hours he spent in the library stacks reading famous philosophers, he became frustrated with his fellow student activists, who were more interested in race or imperialism than the class struggle. They couldn't see that everything they protested, he later said, was rooted in "an economic system in which the rich controls, to a large degree, the political and economic life of the country."
To Sanders's critics, the "but the civil rights movement!" response isn't just irrelevant, it's insulting. "It's like they're almost trying to outblack us," says Morrow. "'Oh, you're a black person, what could you possibly understand about our candidate? He was marching before you were even born!' That's cool, but you gotta stay on top of it."
So Morrow made a joke:
If I see one more Bernie acolyte mention that he marched with MLK, I'm going to burn the Internet to the ground. @EdDescault @Eclectablog — Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) July 19, 2015
Hold up! Bernie Sanders marched with MLK? This changes EVERYTHING! — Rod TBGWT (@rodimusprime) July 19, 2015
#BernieSoBlack HE teaches you how to Cha Cha Slide! https://t.co/3CJorwWn9b — Rod TBGWT (@rodimusprime) July 19, 2015
Morrow wrote a few more tweets and then went off to record his podcast. When he returned, he saw the hashtag was trending nationwide. "I thought this [harassment from Sanders supporters] was only happening to a few people," he says. "Apparently it was happening to a lot of us."
This isn't about the presidential campaign, it's about the progressive movement
Of course, as always happens on Twitter, some progressive defenders of Sanders — both white and black — used the hashtag to point out that Sanders marched with MLK (thus making critics' point for them); to argue that Sanders' economic agenda would help black Americans; or to contrast Sanders with Clinton. (Others endorsed the #BernieSoBlack jokes but urged people to go after Clinton next.) The latter is a reflection of one of the two main reasons Sanders's supporters are so frustrated by the criticism.
To their minds, Sanders is clearly a more progressive candidate for president than Clinton — so they don't understand why anyone would direct their criticism at the better candidate. After all, Clinton didn't even show up to Netroots.
That isn't how Sanders's critics see it, though. It's worth noting that #BlackLivesMatter organizers haven't been primarily focused on the presidential primary, even as other progressives have turned in that direction. To them, this is about the progressive movement. Bernie Sanders — and, more importantly, the pressure they feel to embrace Bernie Sanders as a progressive champion — is just the latest illustration that some white progressives aren't listening to black progressives when deciding what the "progressive agenda" really is, and who its champions are. If Sanders were polling at 0 percent (like O'Malley) instead of polling in the mid- to high teens, it's unlikely that #BernieSoBlack would have become a popular hashtag. It's exactly because Sanders is being treated as a progressive champion that the activists who challenged him Saturday, and made jokes about his blackness Sunday, feel that, yet again, they're being asked to put their own concerns aside and fall in line with what white progressives want.
And this is why it's not clear whether Sanders can appease his critics. He has spoken about mass incarceration and police violence already. And he does, in fact, have specific policies he's suggested to improve police accountability.
His campaign has even tried to respond to the demands protesters were making Saturday — though there's still something of a learning curve. Morrow told Vox that the campaign had used the #SayHerName hashtag, but named one woman and two men who died in police custody — when the point of the hashtag is to focus on women. (The campaign deleted the tweet.) In a speech in Dallas Sunday, he mentioned Sandra Bland by name. "Thank you for saying her name!" shouted one attendee.
"Maybe I'm being foolish, but, hey, they're hearing. They're receptive," Morrow said of the Sanders campaign. On the other hand, he said, "I'm more hopeful for the campaign than I am for his defenders."
This is a demand on white progressives that goes far beyond Bernie: that they treat racial inequality with the same seriousness that they treat economic inequality. That's not a demand that Bernie Sanders, himself, could fulfill even if he tried. It's a demand on his supporters. And as Morrow points out, it's up against "hundreds of years of history" of people ignoring "a lot of voices, if they don't like what folks are saying. There will always be a struggle, even in progressive spaces. How can you support each other without turning on each other?"MONTREAL — Avi Chaudhuri was an academic star at McGill University who had completed his PhD under a Nobel laureate at UC Berkeley and held a prestigious James McGill professorship recognizing his “scholarly excellence.”
In 2008, when questions were raised about his spending of research money, the psychology professor had little patience for the university-hired auditors who came nosing around.
“I am not going to tell some twirp with an accountancy diploma who my professional colleagues are so that he can call around and embarrass me,” he complained to his dean in December 2008.
“I will also be telling [the auditors] that I feel I have co-operated enough with their process and that I must now devote myself to scholarly work, including finishing up a major book for publication this summer.”
Seven months later, McGill fired Mr. Chaudhuri, and it was the accounting “twirps” who were largely responsible, digging up $159,500 in improper spending. In a decision rendered March 1, Quebec’s labour relations commission upheld his dismissal, agreeing with the auditors’ finding that the professor “intentionally misused funds in order to obtain personal benefits.”
Mr. Chaudhuri’s downfall began at a time of personal trauma. His mother in Toronto had suffered a debilitating stroke, and in 2004, Mr. Chaudhuri arranged for her to be flown to India so she could die in her homeland. A month before the flight, he used his McGill purchasing card to buy a $19,500 mattress designed for people with limited mobility.
He said he had shipped the mattress with his mother to be used in a study on stroke victims in India, denying that he had actually bought it for his mother. But the adjudicator hearing the case, Jean Paquette, concluded there was no evidence that Mr. Chaudhuri had ever planned a stroke study. When first questioned, Mr. Chaudhuri initially said the mattress was in a warehouse in India, but he later acknowledged to his dean that it was in an apartment owned by his family in Calcutta.
‘Chaudhuri’s version contains too many inconsistencies and implausibilities to be credible and preponderant’
The university also examined 14 trips to India that Mr. Chaudhuri made between 2006 and 2008. He charged the university and funding agencies a total of $140,000 for the trips, but the auditors questioned the legitimacy of the expenses.
The adjudicator concluded that rather than conducting research related to his university position during his travels, Mr. Chaudhuri was working on behalf of PAC Med Biotech, a private consulting company he runs with family members.
“[Mr.] Chaudhuri’s version contains too many inconsistencies and implausibilities to be credible and preponderant,” Mr. Paquette wrote.
In advising him of his dismissal, McGill principal Heather Munroe-Blum accused Mr. Chaudhuri of misappropriating funds, misrepresenting his activities and showing “blatant disregard” for university rules.
“All of this leads to an irreparable breach of trust upon which the academy is founded and upon which the collegial relationship of professors to their universities depends,” she wrote.
Jim Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said it is rare for a tenured professor to be dismissed in Canada.
The CAUT supported Mr. Chaudhuri’s legal challenge and Mr. Turk said Tuesday that he is troubled by the labour relations commission’s decision. He said Mr. Chaudhuri is currently in India and does not wish to comment on his case. The CAUT are “reviewing what options there are for him at this point,” Mr. Turk said, adding that “the consequences are devastating” for Mr. Chaudhuri.
He said pressure on scientists to combine academic and commercial work has led to a blurring of the lines, and Mr. Chaudhuri’s case was anything but clear-cut. “There have to be the kind of clear guidelines that there haven’t historically been about how you separate it,” he said.
National Post
• Email: ghamilton@nationalpost.com | Twitter: grayhamiltonA British House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report has today "condemned" Google's failure to adequately respond to the issue of online piracy and its refusal to block "infringing" websites on the grounds they might also carry legal material. Citing the recent successful prosecution of a streaming site admin, the committee also calls for punishment in such cases to be extended to 10 years imprisonment.
During the last couple of years entertainment companies have heavily criticized Google for linking to copyright-infringing material in its search results.
Google has responded by removing many millions of links but apparently that’s just not enough. In the past couple of weeks the world’s largest search engine has become a punching bag for the music and movie industries and today they find themselves battered again, this time by a British House of Commons report.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee comprises MPs from several parties including those from the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government and Labour opposition. Today in a new report aimed at supporting the creative economy, the Committee dedicates an entire section to copyright and piracy issues. It has many targets for criticism but begins with a swipe at the UK’s leading Internet rights groups.
Open Rights Group
“The relationship between the strength of Britain’s creative industries and robust copyright laws is acknowledged by the Open Rights Group which aims radically to liberalise the use and sharing of copyrighted content.
“While we share the Open Rights Group’s attachment to freedom of expression via the internet, we firmly repudiate their laissez-faire attitudes towards copyright infringement,” the Committee says.
Repeating industry claims that film and music piracy results in lost annual sales of £400 million (while noting it could be well in excess of £1 billion) the report says the Open Rights Group’s “quibbles” that the figures “were not based on exact science” should not detract from the damage piracy causes the creative economy.
IP Crime Unit and site blocking
The report goes on to mention the creation of a new City of London Police unit dedicated to cracking down on intellectual property crime and reveals that a first-of-its-kind conference is being planned “to bring players from across the world to London” to discuss enforcement issues.
On the blocking of infringing websites by ISPs the Committee said there were signs that the courts are making it easier, citing comment from the MPAA supporting “improvements to the justice system” to allow site blocking orders to be obtained more efficiently.
“We encourage businesses to use the current law to bring claims wherever it is feasible for them to do so. There nonetheless remains a systemic failure to enforce the existing laws effectively against rife online piracy,” the report notes.
But inevitably the big guns were turned on the messenger.
Google in the firing line again
The Committee begins by quoting Google itself, who at the time were removing around 9 million URLs from its indexes every month at the request of copyright holders. This was countered with information provided by the BPI who said that despite Google’s alleged algorithm changes, the instances of infringing sites turning up in the top 10 results had fallen only marginally, from 63% in August 2012 to 61% a year later. Clearly the Committee are unimpressed.
“We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites,” the report states in emphasized bold type.
“We are unimpressed by their evident reluctance to block infringing websites on the flimsy grounds that some operate under the cover of hosting some legal content. The continuing promotion by search engines of illegal content on the internet is unacceptable. So far, their attempts to remedy this have been derisorily ineffective,” it continues.
“We do not believe it to be beyond the wit of the engineers employed by Google and others to demote and, ideally, remove copyright infringing material from search engine results. Google co-operates with law enforcement agencies to block child pornographic content from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible answer as to why it cannot do the same for sites which blatantly, and illegally, offer pirated content.”
Turning up the heat further still in an attempt to have Google held accountable through the reporting of a government office, the report has more proposals.
“We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office’s annual reports include an assessment of the degree of online copyright infringement and the extent to which identified search engines and other internet services facilitate this. We further recommend that the Government consider how it might incentivise technology companies to hinder access via the internet to copyright infringing material.”
Of course, while “carrots” are offered to do something about infringement, no document of this nature could conclude without a recommendation to bring out the sticks.
10 years in jail for “serious” online infringement
Citing the successful prosecution of SurftheChannel owner Anton Vickerman, the report notes that while large scale copyright infringement in the offline world can result in harsh penalties, online those punishments are limited to two years. To sidestep this issue a decision was made to prosecute Vickerman on counts of Conspiracy to Defraud which ultimately secured a four year jail sentence. In future the Committee would like to see such maneuvering become unnecessary.
“We recommend that the maximum penalty for serious online copyright theft be extended to ten years’ imprisonment. Criminal offences in the online world should attract the same penalties as those provided for the physical world by the Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002,” the Committee notes.
Digital Economy Act
Finally the report criticizes the delay in implementing the controversial Digital Economy Act, stalled now for the best part of three years. In particular, the issuing of warning notices to infringers should come sooner rather than later.
“We recommend that a copyright infringement notification system envisaged by the Digital Economy Act be implemented with far greater speed than the Government currently plans. By targeting information letters to the worst infringers, early implementation will, we believe, serve an important educative purpose which could percolate more widely,” the report states.
However, if the government can’t get its act together, a voluntary scheme between ISPs and copyright holders should be put in place.
“We are encouraged by the progress that has been made towards instituting a voluntary system of warning letters following discussions involving internet service providers and rights owners. If this can be achieved by mutual cooperation rather than legislation, it will be a major step forward.
“However, should voluntary initiatives such as this prove unsuccessful then the Government should ensure that the equivalent measures in the Digital Economy Act are promptly put into effect,” the Committee concludes.NEWARK -- We're here at Prudential Center for Stanley Cup Finals media day, and while most were swarming Jeff Carter and Mike Richards during Los Angeles Kings media availability, I had a chance to sneak in some one-on-one time with Simon Gagne.
He's yet to play in the postseason thus far, and while he's been cleared to play at this point, I unfortunately didn't have a chance to ask him about his concussion problems this season before I had to run. In any event, Gagne and I talked about the similarities in the Kings' organization versus with the Flyers and how he feels about the Flyers organization after two years away from home. A full transcript of our brief but fulfilling talk is below.
BSH: Obviously there's a lot of Philadelphia flavor here. How similar are things off the ice in terms of the structure of the organization?
GAGNE: It's pretty similar. Every time you go to a new place, a new team, it takes some time to get comfortable. To get used to people. I almost felt like I knew pretty much the whole staff, you know, when I got here. Hexy was upstairs, Dean Lombardi was upstairs. Even Luc Robitaille was not with the Flyers but I knew Luc from playing against him and seeing him at a couple events in the summer and stuff like that. I felt really welcomed right away with those guys.
At first, John Stevens is still here, but Terry Murray was the head coach at first so all that made the transition a lot easier. It almost felt like I was in Philly but playing in Los Angeles. It felt like that at first but you still see some resemblance between the two organizations, that's for sure.
The Devils are a team you're familiar with, obviously. What's been different about them this year as opposed to in other years? They definitely play a bit of a different style. What have you seen?
I got really surprised. Sure, I was watching what the Flyers were doing and they had to face the Devils in the second round. I got really surprised. I thought Philly was really good in the first round against Pittsburgh and I was thinking Philly was going to go all the way at that point. I just got really surprised the way Jersey outplayed them everywhere. They were faster. They were stronger on the puck. They spent almost half of the game in [the Flyers] zone.
At that point I said "Jersey are pretty scary," and you could see the way they played against New York it was almost too much for New York to handle. They're a team that if I remember last year when I was in Tampa, even if they didn't make the playoffs, the last push of the season they almost made it. I remember playing them and that was a really different team than the start of the season.
So all of that from last year, I think that push that they did got them ready for this year and maybe a similar season like us -- not a great start but a really strong ending and playing their best hockey at the best time of the season. They're gonna be a dangerous team for sure.
You said you still keep up with what the Flyers are doing a little bit?
Yeah. I was there for 10 years, so it's not something that you push it away and it's over. I still have fans there and there are still people working there that I spent 10 years of my life with. They're still part of me so it's something that's still gonna be part of it when I'm done playing. I had some good times there, that's for sure, but now I'm having a chance to be with L.A. in the Stanley Cup Final for the second chance in my career so I'm happy about that.
If there's anything you could say to fans in Philadelphia after a couple of years now...?
Whatever happened the last two years -- I didn't really have a chance to say thanks to them for what they did or whatever the Flyers did for me. When I came back that first game last season, that standing ovation was definitely something that I'll remember for the rest of my life. Just thinking about it sometimes and watching the video again, I get some chills, that's for sure.
It was something that I've never tasted in my life -- you know, having a standing ovation just for yourself. Usually it's for the whole team. That was definitely on the top of all the things I've tasted in my life as a hockey player and they're great fans.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Follow @BroadStHockeyLife was limping back to normalcy in the communal violence-hit areas of West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district as paramilitary forces marched on the streets, and internet and WI-FI services remained suspended in the affected pockets on Thursday.
There were no reports of violence from Baduria, Banstala and Tetulia -- the worst affected areas in sub-division, where some roadside shops opened and public transport commenced plying. Train services on the Sealdah- line, which were disrupted over the past two days due to blockades, also normalised, a railway spokesman said.
However, a clash broke out between supporters of the ruling Congress and BJP-RSS activists outside a government-run hospital here following the death of an injured patient from earlier in the day.
The and RSS leadership claimed the deceased - an active worker - was killed, allegedly during the communal trouble.
A police officer said the Basirhat resident died due to multiple stab injuries, but did not confirm it was linked to the communal violence.
Some leaders including actor turned politician Locket Chatterjee were stopped by a mob from entering the hospital to meet his family.
Later in the day, a mob surrounded the cars of state BJP president Dilip Ghosh and party's General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and demanded they go back from the place.
Claiming the agitators were "Trinamool-backed hooligans", Ghosh said they were being forcibly stopped from meeting the deceased's family and some of their activists were "severely beaten up".
Police said a scuffle had broken out between the and BJP-RSS activists. "The car of former BJP MLA Shamik Bhattachary was vandalised. No case has been lodged yet. No one has been detained," said a police officer.
Meanwhile, BJP chief Amit Shah formed a three-member delegation of MPs to look into incidents of communal violence in the state.
The delegation, headed by senior party leader Om Mathur, and comprising New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi and Baghpat MP Satyapal Singh, will visit the violence-hit areas on Friday to take stock of the ground situation.
The Left and the Congress also decided to send teams to the areas on Friday. The Left delegation would be led by politburo member Mohammad Salim, while state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury would spearhead the party delegatrion.
Amid the hectic political activity, the two-day old stand-off - in the aftermath of the violence - between Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi and the Mamata Banerjee government took a fresh twist with a senior state BJP leader calling him a "dedicated soldier" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's brigade.
" Congress thinks that bad-mouthing the Governor would bottle him up. But they are making a mistake here. He is a dedicated soldier of the 'Modi Vahini'. So, he will keep walking the path of truth," BJP Secretary and former state President Rahul Sinha told reporters here.
The Trinamool was quick to latch on to Sinha's comments.
"There is nothing left to be said. He is the ignorant chief of an ignorant group," State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said about Tripathi.
"Today, the cat is out of the bag. We've been saying for the last few days that the Governor's house has been transformed into a BJP office and the Governor himself is involved in the process. The statement of Rahul Sinha officially certifies our claims," he added.
Rushing in to control the political fall-out of Sinha's remarks, Vijayvargiya said no one should doubt Tripathi's potential and scholarship, and accused the state government of attacking the Governor to divert people's attention from their failure in maintaining law and order.
In Basirhat, the roads were mostly deserted and the few locals who came out on the road said they wanted peace to be restored in the affected areas.
"We all want peace to be restored. People of all communities have been staying together for ages here. We want things to be that way," a pedestrian said while talking to a news channel.
"No fresh incidents of violence have been reported. There are enough police personnel and security forces deployed to avert any untoward situation," a Baduria police station officer told IANS.
Armed paramilitary personnel were seen marching on the streets while a large number of state police personnel kept vigil at check posts and pickets.
Clashes had broken out after a Facebook post by a local youth went viral earlier this week.
Though the youth was arrested and the post deleted, trouble broke out and spread to several areas as trees were felled to put up road blockades, vehicles, including those of the police, torched and houses and shops damaged.
A number of police personnel sustained injuries during the clashes.
The central government has rushed 300 paramilitary personnel to control the situation.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Share. Share value falls below 1,000 Yen for the first time in nearly three decades. Share value falls below 1,000 Yen for the first time in nearly three decades.
On the eve of Sony’s much-awaited PlayStation-centric press conference at E3 2012 comes some stunning news: Sony’s stock fell below 1,000 Yen (or $12.79) for the first time since 1984 during trading in Japan on Monday.
CNBC Tweeted the ominous news, noting the information in a brief “Market Flash.” Reuters expanded upon the news, stating that although Sony’s stock did indeed fall below the 1,000 Yen threshold, it “eased 1.3 percent” to bring it back up to 1,000 Yen before trading ended.
Bad news has been flowing about Sony’s financial health all year. Its credit and debt ratings were downgraded in February on the heels of a massive quarterly loss. Such a financial reality caused Sony to outline new plans for the future while planning to layoff 10,000 workers. The maelstrom of bad news caused the New York Times to declare that Sony is in the fight of its life.
Although the PlayStation brand is considered healthy, poor sales of the PSP’s successor, the PlayStation Vita, have called into question how to measure the new handheld’s success. Meanwhile, the financial downturn Sony has encountered forced the company to shutter two of its 15 fully-owned development studios in 2012, a historic move considering Sony only shuttered one of its development houses total since PlayStation premiered in Japan in 1994. BigBig Studios, the UK-based studio responsible for the Pursuit Force franchise on PSP and Little Deviants on Vita, closed in early January. Soon thereafter, Zipper Interactive, the American developer best-known for the SOCOM franchise, as well as MAG and Unit 13, was also closed.
Whether or not Sony’s announcements at E3 help bring the stock price back up or not remains to be seen, though investors will certainly be watching the company’s plans concerning its valuable PlayStation brand eagerly to see what’s in store.
Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.A third wave of a cyber attack was underway on Friday afternoon, Dyn officials told CNBC's Eamon Javers, who then broke the news on NBC Connecticut News at 4. (Published Friday, Oct. 21, 2016)
What to Know A DDoS attack crippled domain name server company Dyn Inc on Friday morning, and a fresh attack started Friday afternoon
The attacks rendered sites like Spotify, Twitter and SoundCloud difficult or impossible to reach
The White House says government agencies are looking into what happened
A third wave of denial-of-service attacks on a key piece of internet plumbing was resolved by late Friday, said the company that was targeted.
Internet infrastructure company Dyn Inc. told CNBC earlier in the day that the third wave was underway, causing more disruptions after dozens of the world's most popular websites were taken largely offline Friday morning.
The White House said it was aware of the situation and that the Department of Homeland Security was looking into it; a senior law enforcement official told NBC News that the FBI has been investigating as well. U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News Friday afternoon that they did not know who was responsible for the attacks, though one source said involvement by North Korea had been ruled out.
Dyn, which runs domain name servers, said on its website that it was subject to a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack. Domain name servers translate website names to the numeric Internet Protocol addresses behind them. Dyn, headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, is one of the larger companies in that business.
Major internet services including Spotify, Twitter, Paypal, Reddit, the PlayStation Network, Netflix, SoundCloud and a number of media websites were difficult or impossible to reach early Friday.
A live outage map for the payments website PayPal shows widespread disruptions as of 12:45 p.m. ET on Friday, Oct. 21, 2016, following an attack on Internet infrastructure company Dyn.
Photo credit: DownDetector.com
DownDetector.com, a popular website for checking internet outages, showed a sharp and simultaneous spike in users reporting sites being inaccessible just after 7 a.m. ET and again around noon.
Service providers including Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and AT&T were also affected.
Dyn told CNBC that it was being hit by "tens of millions of IP addresses" Friday afternoon, around 4:15 p.m. ET. They said one of the sources of the attack is devices like DVRs, printers, and other appliances that are connected to the internet, collectively known as the "Internet of Things."
Dyn said normal service was restored just over two hours later. But on its website it reported a new attack as of 11:52 a.m. ET that was still underway a half hour later.
"(We) have begun monitoring and mitigating a DDoS attack against our Dyn Managed DNS infrastructure. Our Engineers are continuing to work on mitigating this issue," the company said on its status update page.
Later Friday, Dyn released a statement saying the third attack "has been resolved."
The extent of the effect was not clear as the attacks unfolded — Twitter experienced partial outages throughout the day.
"The earlier issues have resurfaced & some people may still be having trouble accessing Twitter," the company wrote on its support account at 12:55 p.m. ET. "We’re working on it!"
After four and a half hours of problems, Twitter reported that Dyn had mitigated the attacks and that Twitter was once again available to all its users.
Dyn said it was "still investigating and mitigating the attacks on our infrastructure," though a monitoring issue was resolved, it tweeted shortly after 3 p.m. ET.
On social media, people reported renewed difficulty accessing Spotify in Europe, as well as problems with photos and video on Twitter. DownDetector showed fresh spikes in outage reports for sites including PayPal, Netflix and Pinterest.
The attacks immediately renewed fears about the security of the Internet's core infrastructure, particularly with the presidential election - already the subject of hacking concerns - less than three weeks away.
(Comcast is the owner of NBC parent NBCUniversal.)
Top News Photos: R. Kelly Leaves Jail After Paying BondApple will begin selling AirPods in its retail stores starting on Monday, December 19, according to a retail source that shared the news with MacRumors. Apple is currently informing stores about the imminent launch and shipping product to retail locations.Apple previously announced that AirPods would be in stores next week, but did not give specific information on when the in-store launch would take place. In addition to retail stores, carrier stores and Apple Authorized Resellers will also be receiving stock.AirPods first went on sale online on Tuesday, December 13, but supplies were highly limited. Delivery estimates slipped to four weeks within an hour and a half, and orders placed now won't ship out for six weeks.Customers who were lucky enough to be able to place an AirPods order right when they became available will start to receive shipments early next week, but for those who weren't able to make an order, in store purchase will be the only option for getting AirPods in time for the holidays. Apple has already started charging credit cards and shipments have already started going out in Australia ahead of December 19 delivery dates.Given how quickly AirPods sold out online, in-store supplies are likely to be limited, but Apple says its retail locations will be receiving regular AirPods shipments going forward.It’s a classic high school conundrum: Women want female companionship, but definitely don’t want a so-called friend to try and steal their partner. Or, in scientific parlance:
For women, forming close, cooperative relationships with other women at once poses important opportunities and possible threats—including to mate retention. To maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of same-sex social relationships, we propose that women’s mate guarding is functionally flexible and that women are sensitive to both interpersonal and contextual cues indicating whether other women might be likely and effective mate poachers.
In a paper published on Thursday (Jan. 14) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, psychologists from Arizona State University studied women’s efforts to guard their mates from other ovulating women.
The team conducted four studies with a total of 478 heterosexual engaged or married women. All participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing online marketplace. In each study, the women were shown photographs of a series of women, and were asked how willing they would be, on a seven-point scale, for the women to befriend their partner.
Participants were significantly more likely to want to create distance between the photographed woman and their partner when the woman shown in the photograph was ovulating.
The women were not told which women were ovulating and, in all likelihood, they didn’t consciously consider the idea. But humans seem to be subconsciously aware of various physical cues that indicate when women are more fertile, as found by several studies.
“Research across species demonstrates that social perceptions and behaviors do temporarily shift in response to ovulation.”
“Research across species demonstrates that social perceptions, cognitions, and behaviors do temporarily shift in response to ovulation, and that these shifts may enhance individuals’ reproductive fitness,” write the authors. “Similarly, psychological research on humans has demonstrated that (a) women’s perceptions and behaviors shift across their own cycles and (b) men respond to these cyclic shifts.”
As the tests continued, the psychologists found that women were especially protective when subjects viewed their mate as desirable, and when the woman in the photograph was physically attractive.
Besides creating physical distance, the authors note that women employ other tactics designed to keep their partners close: “Specifically, women with desirable partners reported that they would show increased sexual interest in their partners after viewing a high-fertility target, regardless of how attractive that target was.”
According to the researchers, however, there’s no evidence from the study that “mate guarding” is all that effective. Another caveat: the study relies on composite photos of strangers. In real life, when socializing with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, women may well choose to trust their friends and worry less about ovulating threats. After all, even if this mate-guarding is strategic, it sounds pretty exhausting.THE fall-out from the attempt to damage First Minister Nicola Sturgeon blew up in the face of Westminster yesterday when it was revealed a Scotland Office official wrote a "false" memo claiming she wanted David Cameron to remain prime minister.
The leaked UK government document alleged the first minister had "confessed" to the toxic political claim, but the suggestion was denied by the two French diplomats who were in the room with her.
Pierre-Alain Coffinier, France's consul general in Edinburgh, told this newspaper he had told a "friend" at the Scotland Office about the Sturgeon meeting, but refused to name them.
The UK's most senior civil servant launched a probe yesterday after Sturgeon demanded an inquiry into how a "second hand and inaccurate account" of the meeting came out.
The row was triggered after an account of a February meeting between Sturgeon and Sylvie Bermann, France's ambassador to the UK, was leaked to the Daily Telegraph.
The memo was written by an unnamed UK government official and was based on a conversation with Coffinier, who had attended the meeting.
It said Sturgeon "confessed that she'd rather see David Cameron remain as PM" and claimed she "didn't see Ed Miliband as PM material".
The allegation is politically explosive as Sturgeon has repeatedly said she wants to see Miliband as prime minister, not Cameron.
However, the memo came with a caveat: "I have to admit that I |
fully realize the seriousness of the challenges that arise, the complexity of the problems to be solved, and the danger of misusing the power that sciences and the technologies of life put in our hands.... let me remind you that the sciences and technologies are made for man and for the world, not the man and the world for science and technology. They are at the service of a dignified and healthy life for all, now and in the future, and make our common home more liveable and supportive, more careful and guarded”. (Catholic Ecology)
In 2015, the Pope also offered a similar message to the Dalai Lama’s thoughts on self-proclaimed religious practitioners engaged in violent industries, declaring that those in the arms dealing trade couldn’t call themselves Christians.
See more
The Dalai Lama says world in for 'century of suffering' if science isn't used to create peace (SBS)
Dalai Lama graces conference on science and religion (Phayul)
Pope Francis: The purpose of science is to serve (Catholic Ecology)Imaging technologies as depicted in science fiction movies like Star Wars are a step closer to reality with a new invention by scientists from The Australian National University (ANU).The miniscule device creates holographic images with a higher quality than has ever been achieved.
Lei Wang, the lead researcher on the project and his team produced intricate holographic images in infrared with the invention. They hope to develop the device further with industry partners. Wang, a PhD student at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, reminisced about how he discovered the concept of holographic imaging from the Star Wars movies as a child. He finds it cool that he now has the opportunity to work on a device that employs the principles of holography that were depicted in those movies.
Holograms work on the principle of manipulating light. This complex operation permits the storing and then the reproduction of all info carried by light in 3D. Computer monitors and standard photographs are only able to capture and display a part of 2D information.
Wang noted that although the research in holography is often focused on the development of augmented reality devices and futuristic displays, his team is currently working on many other applications such as lightweight and optical devices for satellites and cameras.
The new device could potentially replace bigger components, which will in turn enable cameras to be miniaturized. As this would reduce the weight and size of optical systems on spacecraft, it would save costs in astronomical missions.
Dr Sergey Kruk from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering and the co-lead researcher explained that the device consisted of many tiny silicon pillars, each nearly 500 times thinner than a human hair. As the material is transparent, it loses negligible energy from the light, yet is able to do complex manipulations with light.
Being able to structure materials at the nanoscale enables the device to attain new optical properties that go past the properties exhibited by natural materials. The holograms that the device was able to produce highlight the potential of the technology to be applied in a wide range of applications.
The full study was published in the journal Optica.If you needed evidence of why the FCC’s crackdown on ISPs is necessary, Comcast is once again providing it in spades. Two days ago, Sony announced that HBO’s streaming service, HBO Go, is now available on the PS4. The app launched on the PS3 a year ago, but hasn’t been available for Sony’s latest console until now. Unfortunately, Comcast customers apparently can’t activate the service. The comment thread for the announcement is full of complaints from Comcast users angrily noting that the service can’t be used on either the PS3 or PS4 if you’re a Comcast subscriber.
As Techdirt notes, this has been an ongoing issue for Comcast users, but the company’s justification for the problem has changed. Last year, when asked why the PS3 or Roku couldn’t use HBO Go, Comcast hand-waved technical issues and a need to work with partners to ensure compatibility.
This year, the company’s description of the situation is even more curt: “HBO Go availability on PS3 (and some other devices) are business decisions and deal with business terms that have not yet been agreed to between the parties. Thanks for your continued patience.”
Roku eventually got approval last December, but Sony devices are still locked out.
The empowered consumer fallacy
It’s not clear to me if the Title II regulations proposed by the FCC would explicitly prevent Comcast from blocking HBO Go. One thing that likely will help, however, is the FCC’s move to preempt municipal broadband limits. Increased local competition and the availability of Google Fiber could collectively help break the logjam.
Comcast’s belief that it can cast its refusal to provide HBO Go service to customers as a business decision illustrates one of the most serious failures of Internet governance. Today, it’s perfectly legal for Comcast to refuse to provide a service that its customers pay for. Sony customers have been complaining for a year that Comcast won’t provide HBO Go, and HBO has apparently been less-than motivated to solve the problem. Thus, we have a situation where the consumer has paid Sony for the PlayStation, paid HBO for the right to stream content, paid Comcast for the right to have an Internet connection, and yet is disallowed from using that service under the guise of “business decisions.”
While it’s true that giving consumers a choice between various Internet providers isn’t the same thing as mandating consumers have the right to consume any legal service that they pay for, it still provides additional protection. Customers who have a meaningful choice between equivalently fast ISPs can at least choose to change providers. In the current system, however, Comcast wields all the power — and the company knows it.Copyright by WCBD - All rights reserved A judge sentenced 40-year-old Heather Schmidt on Wednesday for the death of Dylan Thorne three years ago.
Copyright by WCBD - All rights reserved A judge sentenced 40-year-old Heather Schmidt on Wednesday for the death of Dylan Thorne three years ago.
WBAY Staff - WAUPACA COUNTY, WI - A Waupaca County woman who struck and killed an 18-year-old man will spend his birthday in jail, as well as the anniversary of the day she hit Dylan and every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, for the next 10 years.
A judge sentenced 40-year-old Heather Schmidt on Wednesday for the death of Dylan Thorne three years ago.
Prosecutors say Schmidt's blood-alcohol level measured twice the legal limit after she hit Thorne's car, killing the recent Iola-Scandinavia graduate. She pleaded no contest to homicide while driving under the influence, which could have carried up to 25 years in prison.
The judge said Schmidt needs to suffer punishment, and sentenced her to one year in jail followed by 10 years on probation, followed by the next nine birthdays, anniversaries and Christmases.
After her release from jail, Schmidt will report back to the jail every February 10 - Thorne's birthday - and July 19 - the date of the crash. She won't be allowed work-release privileges on those dates.BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Brunswick County Attorney Huey Marshall has decided to retire after deputies cited him on drug charges.
Brunswick County spokeswoman Amanda Hutcheson said Marshall will retire effective August 1. She says Marshall made the announcement yesterday.
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Brunswick County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Emily Flax says at about 7:32 p.m. Wednesday Marshall pulled into a driver license checking station deputies had set up in the Supply area near Stone Chimney and Turnpike roads. Flax says officers noticed the strong odor of marijuana coming from Marshall’s car, which led them to search the car and find the drug. She said Huey had less than half an ounce of marijuana and two pipes. They cited Marshall with possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
Marshall is due in court August 21, Flax said.
Hutcheson said Marshall, who has been county attorney since May 1996 and is currently paid $149,247 a year, has not been suspended or faced any other change in his employment status since the charge.
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Marshall did not immediately return a call to his office Friday afternoon.Trump’s political rallies may be packed, but Trump-branded properties are increasingly empty, according to Foursquare. In analyzing data from the time that Donald Trump announced his candidacy last June to now, location technology firm Foursquare noticed a significant decrease in foot traffic to the entrepreneur’s hotels, casinos, and golf courses located in the U.S. Last month, visits to Trump’s properties’ appeared to be down 14 percent from the same time last year, with the overall decrease hovering around 10 percent year-over-year.
In looking at visits in red states versus blue states, the difference is even more apparent. His brand’s properties in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii have taken a dip of about 20 percent, with those facing the most significant dips being Trump SoHo, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, and the Trump Taj Mahal, which is no longer owned by Mr Trump. Mr. Trump is, to be fair, doing his part to prop up the Trump property brand, spending campaign money where he can with companies that bear his surname. According to July campaign filings, Trump’s team spent over $145,000 at Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, Trump Restaurants, Trump Parc at Central Park South, and Trump National Golf Club.
The Foursquare data also highlighted that women, a demographic frequently marginalized by Trump’s campaign, contributed disproportionately to the decrease in traffic to these locations.
It’s not the first time that Trump’s politics have been linked to a dip in his business success, as Priceonomics noted that bookings at Trump hotels plummeted 59 percent in the spring.
Foursquare’s analysis doesn’t account for all those visiting Trump establishments for the sole purpose of flipping them off, a trend Vocativ noticed back in March. Several protests have also been held at Trump’s properties over the course of the past year, organized by both striking laborers and political activists, which could still be propping up the numbers.I've played all the Assassin's Creed games minus the spin-offs and Assassin's Creed Origins is one the of the best of in the series. It compares to the likes of Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood, and Black flag. Graphics: I have a PS4 Pro and the graphics are amazing on a 4k TV. Not as good as Horizon Zero Dawn's graphics but it comes close. Gameplay: The combat has been revamped is more akin to The Witcher 3 then the Batman Arkham games which in my opinion is for the better. Positive changes made to the game is not having to hold down the right trigger to run and being able to freely aim and move with a projectile weapon (the bow and arrow in this game) just by holding down the left trigger. This was not possible in the previous games. Swimming has improved and the character is now able to dive and explore under water. The free running (parkour) is pretty much the same as the previous games. Basic RPG elements from previous Ubisoft games like the Division, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Far Cry have been applied to this game. There is a skill tree to unlock new abilities which is earned by completing mission, side mission and defeating enemies. Also there is a loot system for different weapons and sheilds. Weapons, shields and armor can be upgrade by collecting materials. The eagle vision has been removed and is replaced with an actual eagle who can be controlled to survey an area to mark enemies, location, activies, etc. Also there are a variety of animals that can be hunted. Many of which will attack the player if approached or provoked. The map is huge, beautiful, and varied!!!! There is plenty of activities and random to do so the world does not feel empty. The negative things I have to say about the game is the AI isn't really that smart and stealth mechanics need to be improved. The stealth is decent but for a game about assassins, being stealthy it is not as fun as just running straight into battle. Being in combat can get tense from being surrounded by multiple enemies who are aggressive especially on the higher diffculty settings. Stealth scenarios for me usually turn out with me waiting in high grass, a bush, or hay while waiting for the enemy to pass by to assassinate. Ubisoft should have the developers of Splinter Cell work on the stealth. Story: As for the story, I really enjoyed it and was better then expected. If you want to know about the story then..................play the game or watch it on youtube. I don't like spoilers and would not want to spoil it for anyone else. Conclusion: With everything said this is a great game and is definitely worth a buy.
Read moreWith so many conflicting views in the media about whether a vegan diet is healthy or not, I thought some of you may be interested to see how my blood test results looked after becoming vegan. Of course, please keep in mind that there are MANY kinds of ways to eat as a vegan so not everyone’s levels of nutrients will look the same. However, including a variety of whole, plant foods in your day-to-day meals will help you reach optimal levels of almost every nutrient your body needs. The exceptions, however, are B12 and vitamin D. I take a vegan B12 supplement to ensure I have enough. For vitamin D, I get plenty of sunshine and use almond milk fortified with vitamin D. If you are eating a vegan diet and are not feeling your best, you should get your levels tested to see if there is a nutrient you should eat more of. There is no reason to be eating animal products when we can be at our optimal health eating plants! ☺
I highlighted some of the nutrients I thought people might find most important. Protein seems to be everyone’s favorite because everyone is always asking, “Where do vegans get their protein?!”. Contrary to popular belief, we can get plenty of protein just from eating a variety of vegan foods. Some of my favorite foods that are high in protein are beans, chickpeas, broccoli, tofu, peanut butter, vegan protein powder, spinach, lentils, and quinoa. Do not worry about ever being protein deficient, it is not possible unless you simply are not eating enough calories. I also highlighted calcium because everyone thinks we need cow’s milk to reach out calcium needs. This is definitely not true at all! Why would we ever need another animal’s milk in our body? I get plenty of calcium by incorporating plenty of vegetables, beans, and legumes into my diet. I also like to use non-dairy milk in my smoothies, cereals, protein shakes, and oatmeal. Almond milk, soy milk, and other nondairy milks are often fortified with calcium and other nutrients (sometimes even b12!).Are you sitting down? Okay, good. If you have even the slightest iota of love for the late ’80s/early ’90s family sitcom, Full House, then this information might just send you over the edge. Eldest Tanner daughter, D.J. and boyfriend, Steve Hale, went to prom together – in real life. Candace Cameron Bure, who played D.J. on the show, posted a throwback picture on her Instagram yesterday showing her with Scott Weigner, who played her onscreen boyfriend, at her real life high school prom.
Bure captioned the pic, “#TBT to my real life senior prom with @scottweinger. Yup, this really did happen (Awwwww.) Should DJ and Steve be together or is this ancient history? #TeamSteve #TeamMatt The drama continues on Season 2 of #FullerHouse coming to @netflix December 9!! Who’s ready?!”
UMM, WE ARE.
And obviously fans are freaking the freak out.
Instagram / Candace Cameron Bure
We’re sobbing, actually.
Instagram / Candace Cameron Bure
Cute? More like ARE WE JOKING THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING!
Instagram / Candace Cameron Bure
Hey! This is a Full House forum! But we do agree that this pic is “serious goals.”
Bure and Weigner once again star side-by-side in the Netflix Full House spinoff, Fuller House, playing their OG characters. The former high school romance between D.J. and Steve was momentarily rekindled in the first season of Fuller House, but was thwarted by D.J.’s new romantic interest, Dr. Matt Harmon. In the season finale, D.J. was left with a choice between pursuing a relationship with Steve or one with Matt.
Netflix
Perhaps the show will drag out the tension between the much anticipated Steve/D.J. relationship throughout Season 2 because they know fans want it so bad. But come on, Steve and D.J. have to end up together eventually right?
RIGHT?
We suppose there’s only one way to find out. We’ll have to tune into Netflix on December 9th to see if the IRL prom king and queen of our hearts will finally be together once again.White-bellied sea eagle euthanased after found starving, wounded by shotgun pellets
Updated
The shooting of another eagle in Tasmania has sparked outrage from wildlife experts and the wider community.
A white-bellied sea eagle was found unable to fly with a badly injured wing at wetlands in the Hobart suburb of Gagebrook on Monday.
The bird was captured later that day by independent wildlife biologist Nick Mooney.
Mr Mooney said the bird was likely shot more than a week earlier and had been slowly starving.
He took the animal to a vet hoping it could be saved, but the bird had to be euthanased after X-rays showed extensive injuries and shotgun pellets lodged in its body.
"Shotguns are a very common firearm. Unfortunately, they are that common that they get into some idiot's hands," Mr Mooney said.
"There is no conceivable reason someone would have a rational reason to shoot one of these birds. It's just really stupid.
"I suspect it was shot just as a matter of opportunity — someone had a gun and couldn't help themselves.
"The shooting is completely unnecessary and highly illegal."
Mr Mooney has reported the incident to the authorities.
Ranger identify weapon type
The environment department's head wildlife ranger Luke Bond said the bird had suffered terribly.
He said investigators knew what type of firearm was used and were talking to local residents.
"We will prosecute any offenders that are involved in shooting protected or threatened wildlife and we'll prosecute them to the full force of the law," he said.
"This type of criminal and cruel behaviour only destroys the state's natural assets."
Mr Bond said the shooting was a criminal offence and appealed for public help to catch the offenders.
"This is conducted by a criminal and we need to identify who that person is because not only do they pose a risk to the public, if they can do this what else can they do with firearms."
Outrage over 'heartless' act
After Mr Mooney posted news of the bird's death on Facebook, many people expressed their dismay and outrage.
"It's a special kind of hell I pray exists for wasters like this. It's so pointless and so tragick [sic]. I was only admiring one circling above the township of Huonville. It was massive and glorious. I felt something strong when I saw it and was bothered that I had to keep driving. I just wanted to stop and watch it," posted Trent Griggs.
"I'm sick of heartless 'people' doing these repulsive things. Makes me sad and angry," wrote Linda Kings.
The bird's death prompted some debate on gun laws.
"Gun laws need to be tightened to stop the slaughter of our beautiful wildlife. Morons with guns kill," wrote Libby Douglas.
"This has nothing to do with gun laws. If this was done by a LAFO [law-abiding firearm owner] I'd be mighty surprised. I think you'll find just about every law abiding firearm owner would be just as outraged by this behaviour as anybody," wrote Oliver Perkins.
According to Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, there are fewer than 200 breeding pairs of white-bellied sea eagles in Tasmania.
The protected species is threatened by shooting, poisoning, tree felling, accidents at fish farms and disturbance of breeding from residential development and recreational activities.
In May, a wedge-tailed eagle died after being shot with a shotgun.
Topics: animals, animal-welfare, human-interest, law-crime-and-justice, gagebrook-7030, tas
First postedFor a number of years now, Apple has been implementing "Activation Lock" and "Find my iPhone" to deter the theft of iOS devices. According to some statistics, this effort has had some success. But with millions of users carrying devices costing $500 and more loosely secured in their pockets, mobile devices far exceed the value of an average wallet.
Activation Lock links a device to a user's iCloud account. If a user configures a new device, the user is asked for iCloud credentials or offered to set up a new iCloud account. A device can not be activated without providing this information. If you sell or pass on a device, deleting the data from the device is not sufficient, but you will also have to remove the link to your iCloud account, for example by turning off "Find My iPhone." Changing the setting always requires at least a password (and if configured two-factor authentication). Biometrics can be used to unlock the phone, but it can not be used to remove the iCloud link.
But iOS devices are still being stolen, and thieves have come up with some rather ingenious methods to unlock them:
1 - Phishing E-Mails
If you lose track of an iOS device, you have the option to register it as stolen via "Find my iPhone." Once the device is found, you will receive an e-mail or a pop-up on another iOS device. Thieves have used this technique to phish the owner's iCloud credentials. If they are aware of the owner's phone number or e-mail address (it is often displayed as part of the "Lost Phone" message), then they will send a "Found" e-mail to the address or an SMS to the phone number claiming that the phone has been found. The user is then sent to an iCloud look alike site which is asking the user to log in. The attacker will then use the harvested credentials to unlock the phone. [1]
2 - Purchase Offer
Making an offer to buy your device is probably the most brazen approach. The "finder" of the phone will contact the displayed phone number, and offering you to buy the phone from you. Making a purchase offer is in particular popular if the phone was found in a foreign country and the owner is already back home. Shipping the phone back to the owner would often be quite expensive. The finder then asks the owner to unlock the phone before payment is received to "proof" that the owner is legitimate.
3 - Password Resets
In many cases, your phone is critical to reset your password because you configured various sites (including iCloud) to use SMS messages to your phone for reset codes. On a locked phone, SMS messages may still appear on the screen, so will many messages from other applications (like iMessage, Whats App). An attacker can also remove the SIM card from a phone and plug it into another phone to receive messages unless your SIM card is secured with a PIN code.
How to Secure Your Devices
- Set up two-factor authentication
Apple offers two-factor as well as two-step authentication. If you enable it, make sure you keep the recovery code in a safe place. Apple does not offer a way to "turn off" two-factor authentication if you lose your recovery options. This can be the case in particular if your iPhone is lost/stolen and the only device you configured for two-factor authentication. Try to setup multiple devices to receive the code so you have a backup. [4]
- Enable "Find my iPhone."
This will allow you to locate a lost device if the device is connected to a network (WiFi or Cellular). You should also configure the feature to transmit its location before the device runs out of power.
- Limit messages displayed on the lock screen
You can configure what is displayed on the lock screen for each application. It may be ok to see things like news items, but you should not display e-mail content, SMS messages or output from other messaging applications like Skype.
- Protect your SIM card with a PIN
I find that in the US, most SIM cards arrive unlocked. In Europe, SIM cards are often locked via a PIN. But even if your SIM card is not locked, you can usually configure a PIN for it. Before you do so, make sure that you have the current PIN code (usual default is 1111 or 234) and the PUK code, which can be used to recover a locked card. In many cases, you can look it up on your carrier's website, or it may be included with your SIM card. Write the PUK down and keep it in a safe place. Your phone will allow you to configure a new PIN (but the PUK is fixed). Now you will have to enter the PIN whenever you power up the phone or whenever you remove the SIM cards and plug it into a new phone.
- Test "Lost my iPhone."
It is important to test the "Lost my iPhone" feature to make sure you have it setup correctly. See this article at Macrumors for more details [3].
[1] https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/cybercriminals-phish-icloud-credentials-victims-iphone-ipad-theft
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sin-card-how-criminals-unlocked-stolen-iphone-6s-renato-marinho?trk=pulse_spock-articles
[3] http://www.macrumors.com/guide/what-to-do-if-your-iphone-is-lost-or-stolen/
[4] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204152
---
Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D.
STI|Twitter|LinkedIn
I will be teaching next: Intrusion Detection In-Depth - SANS Madrid March 2019Law enforcement plans “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” and “Click it or Ticket” Campaign over holiday weekend
The Naperville Police Department announced they will be conducting special patrols this St. Patrick’s Day holiday to crack down on drunk drivers and unbuckled motorists.
“We are reminding everyone this weekend to Driver Sober or Get Pulled Over and Click It or Ticket,” said Sergeant Al Trotsky. “If you plan on drinking alcohol, designate a sober driver before the party begins. Be responsible or risk being arrested for DUI.”
“Too often, St. Patrick’s Day can be a deadly and dangerous time on our roadways because of drunk driving,” said Sergeant Al Trotsky. “That is why starting Thursday March 13th and running through March 17th, we will be increasing patrols to catch and arrest anyone who is driving drunk.”
In addition to looking for drunk drivers, The Naperville Police Department will be stepping up seat belt enforcement particularly at night when seat belt usage rates are lowest.
Sergeant Al Trotsky said always designating a sober driver and not letting friends drive drunk are just two simple steps to help avoid a tragic crash or an arrest for drunk driving. Other important tips include:
If you are hosting a St. Patrick’s Day party:
Remember, you can be held liable and prosecuted if someone you serve is involved in a drunk driving crash;
Make sure all of your guests designate a sober driver in advance or help arrange ride-sharing with other sober drivers;
Serve lots of food and include lots of non-alcoholic beverages at the party;
Keep the phone numbers for local cab companies handy and take the keys away from anyone who is thinking of driving drunk.
If you are attending a St. Patrick’s Day party:
Designate a sober driver before the party begins and give that person your car keys;
If you do not have a designated driver, ask a sober friend for a ride home, call a cab, sober friend or family member to pick you up or just stay where you are and sleep it off until you are sober;
Never let a friend leave your sight if you think they are about to drive while drunk;
Always buckle up – it is still your best defense against a drunk driver.
“Driving drunk is a deadly decision and it is against the law. We will show zero tolerance,” said Sergeant Al Trotsky. “So remember, designate a sober driver before the party begins and always buckle up.”
The St. Patrick’s Day Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over Crackdown is funded by federal traffic safety funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and administered through IDOT’s Division of Traffic Safety.”Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is attending the UN General Assembly, has publicly acknowledged Nazi crimes against Jews. His speech at the UN focused on Tehran’s nuclear program and sources of violence in the Middle East.
The acknowledgement of the Holocaust came in an interview Tuesday evening the new Iranian president gave to CNN.
"I am not a historian and when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust it is the historians that should reflect," Rouhani told CNN. "But in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime the Nazis created towards the Jews, is reprehensible and condemnable.”
Rouhani’s words differentiate him markedly from his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who on several occasions publicly denied that the Holocaust ever happened. It was the latest in a series of his moves, which are apparently aimed at reducing tensions between Iran and Israel.
The Iranian president’s speech at the General Assembly was less surprising. Rouhani stated that nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran’s security doctrine in a sweeping speech, which also condemned the use of drones in the Middle East, as well as the enforcement of harmful and “violent” sanctions on Tehran.
"These sanctions are violent, pure and simple," he told the assembly, comparing them to the punitive measures against Iraq under late Saddam Hussein rule. "The negative impact is not nearly limited to the intended victims of sanctions," which means normal people, not political elites, ended up suffering because of these sanctions, Rouhani added.
The Iranian leader also addressed President Obama’s earlier UN address, and expressed hope for implementing a framework to manage relations with the US while expecting a “consistent voice” from Washington.
‘Iran seeks to resolve problems, not to create them’
Rouhani also indicated that his country was ready to immediately engage in result-oriented talks over its nuclear program, which Israel has consistently believed to be aimed at producing weapons.
“Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran's security and defense doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical convictions,” Rouhani said, adding that it’s in Iran’s national interest to remove “any and all reasonable concerns about Iran's peaceful nuclear program.”
But that objective, he said, cannot be reached without “acceptance of and respect for the implementation of the right to enrichment inside Iran and enjoyment of other related nuclear rights.” It is “unrealistic” to believe that the “peaceful nature” of Iran’s nuclear program – which has already reached “industrial scale” – can be “ensured through impeding the program via illegitimate pressures.”
Among other topics touched on by the Iranian President in an often accusatory speech was the alleged "assassination" of his country's nuclear scientists. “For what crimes have they been assassinated? The United Nations and the Security Council should answer the question: have the perpetrators been condemned?”
Despite what some analysts believe has been a marked change in Iran's posturing since the election of Rouhani, who is thought to be more of a reformist than his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israel largely signaled its rejection, with the country's delegation walking out of the UN chambers during the Iranian President's address, as has been the custom in prior UN General Assemblies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly dismissed Iran’s newly conciliatory stance on its nuclear program, labeling it as a ruse designed to buy the Islamic Republic more time.
"Iran thinks that soothing words and token actions will enable it to continue on its path to the bomb," Netanyahu told reporters in New York.
On Tuesday rumors had swirled that the Iranian leader might meet with his American counterpart, though hopes for such a high level encounter were dashed after statements made by White House officials, who said that the Iranian delegation responded that such an encounter would be “too complicated."
‘Nowhere in the world has violence been so deadly and destructive as in North Africa and West Asia’
The human tragedy in Syria represents a painful example of catastrophic spread of violence and extremism in the region, Rouhani noted.
“From the very outset of the crisis and when some regional and international actors helped to militarize the situation through infusion of arms and intelligence into the country and active support of extremist groups, we emphasized that there was no military solution to the Syrian crisis. Pursuit of expansionist strategies and objectives and attempts to change the regional balance through proxies cannot be camouflaged behind humanitarian rhetoric.”
Rouhani also touched the topic of “structural violence” against Palestinian people.
“Apartheid as a concept can hardly describe the crimes and the institutionalized aggression against the innocent Palestinian people,” he said.
‘Military option on the table’ – illegal and ineffective contention
Rouhani called for the UN to enact an environment in which peace would prevail over what he termed coalitions for war, likely in reference to ongoing conflict over Iran’s nuclear program.
“Securing peace and democracy and ensuring the legitimate rights of all countries in the world, including in the Middle East, cannot – and will not – be realized through militarism,” Rouhani said.
Although terrorism is “a violent scourge and knows no country or national borders,” Rouhani said the violence and extreme actions “such as the use of drones against innocent people in the name of combating terrorism should also be condemned.”
People all over the world are “tired of war,” Iranian leader said, inviting the world leaders, international organizations and civil institutions to join the World Against Violence and Extremism project.Gluten sensitivity is a state of heightened immunological responsiveness to ingested gluten in genetically susceptible people. 1 It represents a spectrum of diverse manifestations, of which gluten sensitive enteropathy (also known as coeliac disease (CD)) is one of many. 2 We describe three patients who were diagnosed and treated for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), but investigations years after the original presentation and diagnosis led to the correct diagnosis of gluten sensitivity and treatment with a gluten-free diet.
CASE REPORTS
Case 1
A 20 month old girl presented with poor weight gain, intermittent malaise, and sweating. She was a normal delivery at term. She had chicken pox at the age of 4 months, which coincided with the onset of her symptoms. Weight gain was poor, but motor development was normal. She was intermittently sleepy and irritable, with tantrums and breath holding attacks. On examination she was pale and irritable, with mild flexural eczema. She was on the third centile for height and weight. Abnormal results included a raised erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) of 70 mm/1st h, weakly positive antinuclear antibodies (ANA), IgA deficiency, positive smooth muscle antibodies, and raised anticardiolipin antibodies. Urine analysis and complement levels were normal. Her parents reported a facial rash, attributed to sun exposure.
On the basis of the available evidence a diagnosis of SLE was made, and treatment was started with steroids. There was some improvement in her overall clinical state, but the ESR continued to fluctuate. At the age of 4 she was noted to have poor enamel on her teeth and required teeth extractions. At the age of 6 she developed steroid related side effects and azathioprine was started. While receiving steroids and azathioprine, ANA, double stranded DNA (dsDNA), and extractable nuclear antibodies (ENA) were negative.
At the age of 17 she was referred to an adult SLE clinic. On examination she had a psoriatic palmar skin rash but nothing else of note. Immunological testing disclosed negative ANA and ENA, dsDNA of 92 IU/ml (0–60), ESR of 29 mm/1st h, IgA deficiency, and normal C reactive protein (CRP). The possibility of gluten sensitivity was considered on the basis of the history and immunological profile. She tested positive for IgG antigliadin antibodies, and a subsequent duodenal biopsy confirmed gluten sensitive enteropathy. A gluten-free diet was started, azathioprine was stopped, and the steroids withdrawn. Six months after the introduction of the diet she was asymptomatic and receiving no drugs. Her ESR was normal and the skin rash had resolved.
Case 2
A 53 year old woman developed blurred vision, headache, and generalised weakness at the age of 20. She improved spontaneously within several weeks. A year later she presented with identical symptoms and was treated with a course of adrenocorticotropic hormone. Three years later she was admitted with a history of recurrent severe headaches, heaviness of her legs, and asthenia. Investigations disclosed a normal computed tomography (CT) brain scan, visual evoked responses, and cerebrospinal fluid examination, a slight increase of anticardiolipin antibodies, raised rheumatoid factor, and dsDNA, but no ANA. An iron deficiency anaemia was attributed to menorrhagia. A brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan showed extensive white matter abnormalities not typical of multiple sclerosis. In view of the immunological picture and the presence of circulating anticardiolipin antibodies a diagnosis of SLE associated with antiphospholipid syndrome was made. She was given aspirin but remained symptomatic with episodic headaches and asthenia.
A few years later she complained of generalised arthralgia. There was no evidence of active synovitis. She was treated with steroids and methotrexate. She continued to complain of fatigue and headaches, which tended to be unilateral and very severe. Examination showed a left sided cataract with a divergent squint, mild left hemiparesis, and gait ataxia. Repeat MRI showed extensive white matter abnormalities with mild generalised atrophy. An immunological profile showed IgA deficiency, raised dsDNA antibodies, a minimal rise in anticardiolipin IgG antibodies, no ANA or ENA, and normal inflammatory markers (ESR and CRP). She had circulating IgG antigliadin antibodies and the HLA typing DQ2, which is seen in 90% of patients with gluten sensitive enteropathy. A subsequent duodenal biopsy was normal.
She was diagnosed as having gluten sensitivity with neurological manifestations (gluten ataxia, headache, and white matter abnormalities on MRI).3 She was advised to start a strict gluten-free diet. Six months after the introduction of a gluten-free diet her headaches subsided and the methotrexate was stopped.
Case 3
A 54 year old woman originally presented at the age of 40 with persistent headaches. She was found to have a raised ESR (60 mm/1st h) and mild neutropenia. Temporal artery biopsy was normal as was a |
material procedures, if a judge grants it, evidence in a case will be heard behind closed doors and claimants would not be allowed to hear the secret evidence against them.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Lord Neuberger said courts should be closed to the public only in certain circumstances. ‘You should not be making any privacy or confidentiality orders unless you as the judge are satisfied that there is no alternative, that justice could not be done without confidentiality or privacy orders,’ he said.
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MPs have backed proposals for secret courts under the Justice and Security Bill. Providing the entire Bill is formally passed later this week, it will mean some civil cases could be heard in secret for the first time to protect sensitive information.
Ministers say the power is needed to allow security and intelligence agencies to defend themselves against civil claims without airing details of national security in public.Joseph Samuels is an Iraqi-born resident of Santa Monica, Calif.
For more than 10 years, the United States has served as a gracious host to thousands of Iraqi Jewish artifacts discovered by the U.S. military in Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters during the Iraq War. The trove, which includes 2,700 books, Torah scrolls and prayer books, and thousands of documents dating to the 1500s, represents the lost history of a once thriving, two-millennia-old Jewish community in Iraq.
Despite the U.S. government's valiant effort to preserve and restore this treasure, the State Department is preparing to return the artifacts to Iraq in September 2018 in accordance with an agreement made with the Iraqi government under the Obama administration.
But these artifacts belong to the Iraqi-Jewish community and their descendants. Returning the trove to Iraq is tantamount to returning stolen treasure to a thief. President Trump and the State Department should do all that they can to prevent such an injustice.
I was born in 1930 in Taht Al Takia, the Jewish quarter of the old city of Baghdad. Baghdad was my home, and Iraq was my country. But my sense of national identity was shattered when Muslim mobs looted and burned Jewish homes and businesses, murdering hundreds of Jewish men, women and children in the 1941 pogrom known as the Farhud.
I was 10 years old. There was nowhere to run, and no country to take us in.
After the failed Arab war against Israel in 1948, the Jews of Iraq and other Arab countries faced anti-Semitism and open hostility. We suffered arrest, torture, public execution and confiscation of property. The Iraqi-Jewish artifacts are a rare example of what was stolen from more than 850,000 Arab Jews and the historical Jewish presence that Arab regimes are attempting to erase. At present, there are only about 3,000 Jews living in Arab countries who are continuing our story.
Decades later, the Baath Party, led by Hussein, looted and confiscated public and personal items from synagogues, Jewish schools and community properties. On May 6, 2003, the U.S. Army uncovered these artifacts hidden in a flooded basement of the Mukhabarat (Iraqi secret service) headquarters.
With the approval of Iraq's provisional government, the U.S. military rescued the damaged items and brought them to this country. The U.S. government has since spent more than $3 million to restore the archive, exhibiting it across the country. The artifacts brought tears to my eyes when I first visited the collection at the Nixon Library. It's almost as if my lost history in Iraq came back to life.
The hearts of the Iraqi Jewish community are filled with gratitude toward the heroic teams who rescued and restored this collection. Thanks to the United States, we have preserved these pieces of history for present and future generations.
But Iraq has proven itself an unreliable custodian, and we fear these historical treasures could be lost forever. Trump has the chance to be remembered as the preserver of our history, just like Moses who brought the Hebrews from Egypt and kept their message alive for future generations. I implore the administration, on behalf of all Jews from Arab lands and our descendants, to keep our icons of history from being sent back to those who stole them from us.× Grand Rapids police Lt. Janiskee fired for handling of drunk driving case
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A Grand Rapids police officer has been fired for his role in a drunk driving incident involving a Kent County assistant prosecutor.
The City of Grand Rapids announced Friday afternoon that Lt. Matthew Janiskee has been terminated retroactive to January 27th, when he was suspended without pay.
Three officers, Sgt. Thomas Warwick, Officer Adam Ickes, and Lt. Janiskee were all suspended for their handling of Assistant Prosecutor Joshua Kuiper’s drunk driving incident which happened in November 2016. Kuiper was found driving the wrong way down a one-way Grand Rapids street, after crashing into a parked car, injuring one person. Crews who responded to the crash gave Kuiper a ticket, but did not give Kuiper a breathalyzer test.
All three officers were recommended to be fired, but only Janiskee is losing his job. After earlier termination hearings, Ickes accepted a 30-day suspension without pay and Warwick accepted a 160-day suspension without pay and a demotion.
Janiskee has filed a federal lawsuit against the city for violation of privacy issues in regards to a call to an “unrecorded” line the officers used the night of the incident to discuss how to handle the case. Janiskee was the only one of the three who was not on the scene of the crash.
In an audio recording from the night of the crash, Ickes describes Kuiper as being “hammered.” Kuiper resigned from the prosecutor’s office after the incident.
The city says that Janiskee has the right to file a grievance if he believes his firing is in violation of the police union contract.Star Oregon receiver Darren Carrington was suspended indefinitely by Ducks coach Willie Taggart following his arrest Saturday morning in Eugene on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of intoxicants.
Darren Carrington
Carrington, 22, was arrested at 3:15 a.m. Saturday after allegedly colliding with a pole in the drive-through at a McDonald's at 659 E. Broadway near downtown Eugene, according to Eugene police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin.
After receiving a call of a possibly intoxicated driver, a Eugene police officer observed a Honda Accord make an improper right turn from the McDonald's parking lot and stopped the car at Mill Street and Eighth Avenue, McLaughlin said.
The officer suspected the driver was impaired, and arrested Carrington for DUII. He also has been cited for careless driving and improper right turn, according to McLaughlin.
A full police report will not be made available until the case is fully adjudicated.
Carrington was booked into Lane County jail at 5:28 a.m. and left at approximately 6:30 a.m. after bail of $590 was posted on his behalf, according to jail officials.
Through a UO spokesman, Taggart said Saturday morning that UO has indefinitely suspended Carrington "from all football team activities after his arrest last night.... We are continuing to gather the facts in this matter."
With his NFL draft prospects hazy in December, Carrington elected to return for his senior season and was energized by what he called "this new era of duck football." Seven months later, however, it's unclear whether Carrington will be afforded another opportunity to take part in it.
Shortly after UO issued its statement Saturday morning, Carrington posted a photo to his Instagram account with the caption, "Thanks for everything I'll truly miss my brothers love y'all."
Carrington is scheduled to appear in Eugene Municipal Court July 21.
Carrington was Oregon's most established receiver and, after averaging 17.1 yards per catch for his career, its most likely to produce a big play through the air. After a junior season where he caught a career-high 43 passes for 606 yards and five touchdowns, was expected to be a big-play target for UO quarterback Justin Herbert in the fall. He has caught 112 career passes for 1,919 yards and 15 touchdowns.
His workload in Taggart's "Gulf Coast offense" now could be spread among receivers such as senior Charles Nelson, sophomore Dillon Mitchell and sophomore Malik Lovette.
Carrington missed the 2015 College Football Playoff national championship game while serving a suspension for reportedly failing an NCAA-run drug test. That penalty rendered him ineligible for the first half of the following season, as well, and while serving that suspension he was cited by Eugene police for an open container violation in September 2015. Last fall, in October, a UO graduate accused Carrington of breaking his arm following Oregon's victory against Arizona State, though Eugene police never charged Carrington.
Taggart has been clear on his policy for punishing those who stepped out of line with the program's standards upon his hiring in December.
"Someone is going to try me," Taggart said in December, weeks after his hiring. "It hasn't failed yet, and I hate to say make an example of them but it is what it is. I explain it to you Day One and you know how it is. That's how it's going to go. I don't want to hear, 'Oh I forgot' or anything; there's no forgetting, you better know if this is where you want to be."
Determining the severity of Carrington's discipline going forward will mark a second major decision for Taggart.
He received his first test in January, when former co-offensive coordinator David Reaves was arrested on DUII, among other charges. Within hours of Reaves' arrest, UO said it planned to fire him. He eventually resigned in early February. Two months later, he pleaded no contest to multiple charges and was ordered to enter a diversion program.
-- Andrew Greif
agreif@oregonian.comI thought I’d moved on from No Man’s Sky after reaching its disappointing ending, but today I wanted to discuss an aspect of the game that you hear almost nothing about, as players discuss all the features it lacks: the plot. Yes, No Man’s Sky actually does have a plot, or at least “lore,” which is probably a more accurate description.
Given that you’re not really “looking” for anything in this game other than bigger ships, better multi-tools and wacky wildlife you can post on YouTube, the game gives you some breadcrumbs of a few actual stories to follow. Some will spill their tale freely, others require you to learn an alien language to better understand them.
But given that most players will probably give up on No Man’s Sky out of boredom or frustration before they track down all the pieces of these stories, I thought it would be useful to compile them all in one place so you can experience the mysteries of the infinite universe without actually having to play the game for a thousand hours. By understanding them, it actually makes the game better, in my opinion.
By my count, there are effectively three types of mysteries in No Man’s Sky. 1) the history of the three alien races; 2) the “abandoned building” stories; and 3) Atlas. Some of these weave in and out of each other, but they’re distinct in terms of how you find them.
For the races, we know roughly that the Gek = traders, Korvax = scientists and Vy’keen = warriors, but each has a pretty lengthy history told in about 30-35 passages, each found on plaques and alien monuments scattered around pretty much every world in the system. I’m not going to copy and paste all the entries, but I’ll give you a rundown on who exactly these races are, and why they’re more complicated than they appear. An infinite universe of spoilers follow.
The Gek
You think they’re: Happy frog people who love trading
But they’re actually: Bloodthirsty world conquerors and slavers
Relevant Passage: “All who hear our words know of our might. Those who oppose us are broken to our will. Behold the power of the Gek First Spawn. Galaxies lie at our FEET. We are ETERNAL. Through time and space the First Spawn endures, eternally, ever watchful, unyielding over its dominion. Each foe will be CRUSHED. ONLY the Gek will remain.”
In Summary: “First Spawn” Gek evolved and purged the lesser “Minor Gek,” allowing them to begin their galactic power expansion. They let the Vy’keen fight the Sentinels as they secretly grew in power. The Gek’s first invasion was to destroy the Korvax homeworld, Korvax Prime. They severed their electronic connection to their homeworld and enslaved the race. Periodically, “electronic rebellions” among the Korvax have flared up, but they have been put down with extreme force.
Read the full story here (scroll down).
The Korvax
You think they’re: Daft Punk robot-people who like science stuff
But they’re actually: A peaceful race who lived alongside the Sentinels and are determined to learn from Atlas. They were enslaved by the Gek, but eventually brought the race down from the inside.
Relevant Passage: “The Gek destroyed worlds. The Sentinels struck back. The technology of the Korvax was used to destroy the machines we venerated. There was endless disconnection. The Convergence shook with great despair. The Entities of the Korvax were forced into chains of silence, but the Korvax Convergence that linked their souls could never be subdued. It endures, forever seeking new formulas to solve the equation of eternal enlightenment. The probability of success is unknown.”
In Summary: The Korvax studied the Sentinels and Atlas before the Gek destroyed their homeworld and enslaved them. But the race shared a collective consciousness that could not be bound by the Gek, and despite being in chains, they began to infect the Gek with their own devotion to Atlas, creating the Cult of Atlas among the First Spawn Gek. Eventually, the Gek grew to realize their own folly and insignificance, and it allowed the lower born Gek to rise up and overthrow the First Spawn, freeing the Korvax who now can resume the path of Atlas once more. The Gek now are the peaceful traders we know today because of this Korvax-influenced alteration to their race.
Read the full story here.
The Vy’keen
You think they’re: Bloodthirsty warriors who yell “death!” a lot
But they’re actually: Bloodthirsty warriors who yell “death!” a lot
Relevant passage: “Grah! The Sentinel hordes were pushed back. The oppressors fled into the sanctuary of the cosmos. The spirit of Hirk surveyed the field of battle, and saw that the Vy'keen victory was glorious and just. The automatons became silent as the nation of Hirk feasted upon grahgrah. The songs of the victorious echoed to the edges of the galaxy. And thus the Sentinel horde congregated in the dark places of the void. There they watched in the in-between nothingness. The blackness of space. They waited beyond the limits of the Outer Edge. As millennia passed they replenished, growing a force to return their order for countless ages.”
In Summary: Most of Vy’keen lore has to do with an ancient named “Hirk” who began the war against the Sentinels, which is practically never-ending and continues to this day. The Vy’keen believe in letting the “travelers,” i.e. the players, proceed on their important exploration missions, and they believe killing Sentinels helps with that. The Vy’keen observed the Gek destruction of Korvax Prime with disdain, but were too weak to do anything about it at that point. The Vy’keen hate the Gek, whose galactic conquest allowed for the Sentinels to return and infest almost every world, but they now live in relative peace with the Gek and Korvax.
Read the fully story here (scroll down).
The Abandoned Buildings
There are three separate stories told by the logs in abandoned buildings. They are:
The Crimson Orb: A very Lovecraft-ian story about a traveler who discovers a red orb and the mangled remains of an unrecognized alien race. The red orb is likely Atlas, as when we see it in its final form, that’s how it appears, a pulsing red orb like it’s described in the story. The tale treats Atlas likes it’s a living, breathing thing, wondering what it eats, for instance.
The Sentinels: A brief exploration of the Sentinels, where a story is relayed about a lost race who rose up against them before the Vy’keen, and as they escalated the war, the Sentinels grew exponentially in force and wiped the race out as a lesson to the rest of the galaxy. The story speculates that the Sentinels are avatars of the monolith, of Atlas, who can simply will them into existence around the galaxy. It also wonders if they are from a precursor race of space-travelers that predates all others.
The Perfect Glass: More Lovecraft, a story about experiments being performed on a “drone” that eventually was turned into some sort of looking glass oracle, babbling in alien languages. The experiment turned on its tormentors and merged their flesh with metal, creating the monstrosity of goop you see in all these abandoned buildings.
Read all these stories here.
Atlas Translation and the Simulation Theory
One of the hardest to decipher mysteries in the game is what Atlas is saying every time you see it on the path. You learn Atlas words incredibly slowly, and you can learn duplicate words, making translation very difficult. But someone has translated all his passages, and the result is a bit disappointing. Here’s one entry:
“Suns die and world are made ashen, yet we remain. The ending is no end. Existence is unbounded and languor engulfs the darkness. Bring us our meaning, if you are capable.”
And another:
“You are bonded to this act. Obedience brings certainty. Your enlightenment lies within the cage of your duty. Do not fail us. We will see with your eyes.”
And the final one:
“We will reward the totality of your devotion. Your gift is a glimpse into our ceaseless actuality. Come to us. Do not turn away. Know our inescapable truth, and despair.”
So yeah, these lines are pretty much the same sort of cryptic gobbily-gook that make up the entire questline, and almost none of them seem to point to any sort of specific truth or grand reveal (read all the translations here).
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some secret truth to Atlas.
Near the end of the game, your character seems to realize what he is:
“I have become automata, I am the experiment and the observer. This universe was created for my journey. It is built about the path that I follow."
The theory here is that Atlas has created the universe as a simulation, and you are the vessel through which he navigates and expands it. This ties into some pretty deep real life philosophical concepts about how it’s possible that we’re all living in a giant simulation, a theory put forth most recently and famously by tech pioneer Elon Musk.
In the “create a star” ending to the Atlas path, your character says this:
“A new star has been created at the edge of the Galaxy. A new traveler will awaken there. I'm released, free to explore now. I can see the fabric of space, this simulation and black holes within it. Perhaps I'll find answers there."
While most players are focused on how dumb it is that you create a star system you can never see or go to, the lore implication is what counts here, that you, a traveler following the path of Atlas, create a new star for another traveler to begin their journey. Then they will follow the path and do the same for another traveler. You are a tool of Atlas, helping to build and expand the simulation in an infinite loop. It sucks from a gameplay perspective, but if you study all this lore, it’s actually kind of cool.
Honestly, I really do like a lot of this story detail that the game hides away. Yes, No Man’s Sky still has a zillion problems with core gameplay, but knowing the context for portions of the universe is surprisingly interesting. The history of the three races is a pretty solid sci-fi tale, and the true purpose of you and Atlas is a little bit mind-blowing, albeit completely overshadowed by the lackluster ending which explains exactly none of this, and kills your drive to continue playing.
I don’t know, this is one aspect of the game that I feel Hello Games did pretty well. It’s too bad that most people will never get to experience this, as discovering all the pieces to all these stories would take hundreds of hours, most likely, but that’s why I wrote this post. Share it with a jaded friend, and it might make them appreciate the game just a tiny bit more.
Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novels, The Last Exodus, The Exiled Earthborn and The Sons of Sora, which are now in print, online and on audiobook.
What other games will follow in Pokémon GO's AR footsteps? Find out below:This story first appeared in WIRED 13.02 published in February, 2005.
For a lock picker, the world is a different place. Take, for example, a typical suburban house, with a bicycle in the front yard and a five-pin Weiser bolting the front door—a basic pin-and-tumbler lock, employed by millions of home owners.
When most people see that lock, they see security. But a lock picker sees a game. And maybe 15 seconds with a rake pick and a tension wrench. As for the bike Kryptonited to the railing out front? Please. Ten seconds, tops, with a Bic Round Stic ballpoint.
Or take a jewelry store on Main Street. The world sees the shatterproof Lexan windows and stone walls. Sure, you could melt the Lexan with a lighter or turn that wall into lava with a few strokes of a battery-powered thermal lance, but that's not fair, that's forced entry. Besides, why bother when you can go through the door? The dimpled 437-rated high-security lock, the one Underwriters Laboratories considers a 20-minute pick job? A 12-year-old with a bump key could hack it in 20 seconds.
To understand how, drive two hours north of Amsterdam, to a small brick building in the Dutch village of Sneek. The Sneek Wigledam Youth Hostel appears to be nothing special, just bunk beds and a bar-and-breakfast space of unpainted wood and colorful furniture—something like an Ikea Gulag. But to a lock sports aficionado, this is Wimbledon.
Arthurmeister, the Master of the Universe
It's 20 hours before the third annual Dutch Open lock-picking competition will begin, but the room is already packed with 50 or so men and women wielding burglar tools and representing the international steel bolt-hacker diaspora. By the kitchen you'll find Jean-Marie, a debonair French military "surreptitious entry" instructor in a black commando sweater, chatting with a lock enthusiast about his collection of Abloy disc tumblers. At the door is Barry Wels, the event's host and a coinventor of the CryptoPhone. He's hacking an expensive, high-security, dimpled Mul-T-Lock using only a filed key and a steak knife handle. Behind the bar, a pair of locksmiths are speculating about which of the newbies is really an undercover cop. By the pool table, a gaggle of Dutch programmers probes the latches of a combination padlock with a broken tape measure, while behind them a German cyberpunk sells a hand-milled Kryptonite skeleton key to an American satellite engineer: 100 euros - cheap.
Arthur Bühl, the Dutch Open lock-picking champion. Charles Graeber
Standing above them all, with a beer stein in one hand and a cigarette in the other, is Arthur Bühl, a private dick from Hamburg and one of the most successful lock pickers of all time. Even in this crowded, smoky room, you can't miss him—he's the one standing 6'5" in snakeskin boots, with a kidney-length mullet cascading over the broad shoulders of his double-breasted zoot suit. Bühl's Fabio-the-Barbarian look stands out. So does his record. Although he's never won a Dutch Open, he's won most everywhere else, earning him Germany's ultimate lock-picking accolade: Master of the Universe.
"Arthurmeister!" booms Arthurmeister. Across the room, beer mugs chink at the cry of his name. The Master of the Universe ranking reflects his cumulative lock-picking score—it's a title that the lock sport commissioners bestow on the world points leader. If Bühl wants to keep it, he has to keep winning. Tomorrow, his sights will be set on toppling the current Dutch Open champion—a slight, mustachioed man in a T-shirt and acid-washed jeans named Julian Hardt. Back in Germany, Hardt works as a rainmaker, piloting his twin-prop to seed thunderheads with silver iodide.
"For me, a lock is an intellectual puzzle, like chess!" Julian the Champ yells in Bavarian-accented English. He yells because two men behind him have started pithing a steel safe with a cobalt-tipped drill. "But when you break a lock, when you crack that first puzzle, when you feel pins click and the cylinder go - it's like a drug," he continues. "So then you want to try a harder one!"
Arthurmeister throws an arm around Julian the Champ and laughs as only a Master of the Universe should. "Ja, life is good," he declares. "But tomorrow, you are mine."
Hardt smiles in concession. His eyes level at Arthurmeister's chest hair. "Arthur, tomorrow is tomorrow." Hardt says. "Why not have another beer today?"
'Death is a fantastic motivator.'
Marc Weber Tobias is the author of Locks, Safes, and Security: An International Police Reference, a two-volume, 1,400-page compendium referred to here as De Bijbel. Last summer, Tobias' report on how to use a ballpoint pen to hack tubular locks—locks with circular key interfaces, like those made by Kryptonite—made headlines coast to coast. Much to the company's horror, Tobias publicly ridiculed their bike lock as an overpriced horseshoe. "Those people are unbelievably arrogant," he says with a smirk. "I can't wait to break their next design and destroy that company."
Tobias shrugs off the notion that by publicizing the vulnerability, he's creating a crime wave. "People are just mad because they wasted 50 bucks," he says. "People trust their lives and safety to these locks. But most locks are garbage. Look around, they're easy to open. Not knowing that doesn't make you safer." Tobias rolls his eyes and waggles his head incredulously. "I mean, what do people want—security through ignorance? Wake up."
This rumpled 59-year-old ur-nerd isn't in Sneek to compete. He's staying in this "godawful miniature prison" to give a PowerPoint presentation ("Vulnerabilities of Master Key Systems") and to videotape the newest attacks against the latest locks. So he's perfectly happy to offer a few friendly tips to a fellow American who's new to the sport and struggling to learn the ropes.
"You're retarded," Tobias says, watching the neophyte wrestle with the pins. Tobias takes the lock and looks inside to make sure it isn't broken. It's fine. "I'll tell you how they teach it in covert-entry camp," he says, laying a hand on the poor picker's shoulder. "First, I stick you in a cage. Then I lock the door." Tobias straightens and smiles. "End of story. Trust me, it works," he says. "Death is a fantastic motivator."
The Master of the Universe Is Ready to Rock
Diamond picks, snakes, rakes, combs, shallow picks, and handmade tension wrenches of black spring steel—the tools are readied for battle. It's 10 o'clock the next morning in the tournament hall. The competitors sit before their instruments.
The rules are old-school, head-to-head. Each person gets a different lock. Eight minutes to open your lock, then switch locks across the table and begin again for another eight. That's a round. At the end of each round, whoever has a shorter combined time is the winner. The rounds continue until it's only two, then one.
It's locksmith against space engineer, programmer against undercover cop, French commando against American college student. Julian the Champ, who grips the lock in one hand as he picks it with the other, dries his fingers on his pant leg and tries to remain calm. Arthurmeister prepares his vise. Amazingly, although last seen at 4 am manning the keg and shouting his own name, Arthurmeister is downstairs looking fresh in a double-breasted suit and vest, a key insignia on his red silk tie. His meaty hands are shaking and his eyes are bloodshot, but the Master of the Universe is ready to rock.
"Three, two, one, go!" The pickers grab their tools and begin. Most combine the tension wrench with a rake—a tool with multiple heads that can be dragged quickly over all the pins at once. As they work, they stare down at the table or into space. They're visualizing, using the pick like a catfish uses its whiskers, mapping the dark recesses by feel. It's a cold hard world inside the keyway. There are special pins, mushrooms, telescopes, wedges. Pins designed to foil people, pins that don't cooperate. And always, there's the pressure of the clock.
"This isn't pressure," Tobias says. "Try real-world covert entry. Either you pick the lock fast or you get shot or arrested. End of story."
"Open!" says Julian the Champ.
"Open!" yells Arthurmeister.
It's Like Chess, But Without a Chessboard
Round after round, the competitors fall away, until finally, inevitably, only these two remain. They sit down across from each other at a table. The spectators and fallen competitors gather around.
A lock is placed in front of the Champ. He scoops it up and squints into its mysterious darkness. It's a Lips 8042C, a five-pin cylinder with a straight keyway. It's tough, but fair.
Arthurmeister receives its sister lock, the Lips 8362C. It's a six-pin high-security model. Several of the pins are mushroom-shaped. Working them with a pick is difficult, made all the more so by the keyhole. It's paracentric, shaped something like a thalidomide lightning bolt, and expressly designed to hinder the motion of a picker's tools. In technical terms, the 8362C is a bitch.
Arthurmeister stubs out his cigarette and tightens the demon lock in his vise. Then he rubs his hands and leans over his challenge like a hungry giant. Go! The opponents wedge in their tension wrenches and begin.
Not much is happening at the tables. It's like watching a chess match, only without the chessboard. But to a knowledgeable lock picker, this is an epic showdown. "Intense!" whispers Tobias.
Hardt works his picks in his cupped hand as if he's applying lipstick to a hand puppet. Arthurmeister scrapes away at the monster in his vise like a dentist on Benzedrine. The tools of the trade look like toothpicks in his oversize mitts.
"Open!" cries Arthurmeister. He smooths his plumage back and sits upright in his throne, triumphant.
The other lock pickers gasp. Someone claps. Arthurmeister has picked the 8362C in only 20 seconds. It was a rake pick on a supertough lock, an opening that uses luck almost as much as skill.
Meanwhile, Julian the Champ can't pick his lock at all. The clock runs out at eight minutes.
Julian looks up through his tangled eyebrows. "Oh, Arthur," he sighs. He sucks his teeth and grimaces like a beaver. They switch locks. The Champ has to beat Arthurmeister's time or he loses. It's almost impossible. Julian works at the 8362C intensely, but 20 seconds is not time enough. It's over. He stands, defeated. His opponent inhales him in a bear hug.
The crowd claps and hoots. "Arthurmeister!" they yell.
"Beer!" Arthurmeister booms back. The Master of the Universe lopes to the bar to celebrate, more, again. And a new Dutch Open champion is born.Conservative leaders took aim at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), saying it’s a radical left-wing hate group masquerading as a civil-rights organization.
Forty-seven prominent conservatives penned an open letter warning the media — which is 97% liberal — against using the SPLC’s “hate group” list to target innocent people and organizations. The SPLC is funded by anti-American leftist billionaire George Soros, who also bankrolls alt-left Antifa thugs and Black Lives Matter.
“The SPLC is a discredited, left-wing, political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a ‘hate group’ label of its own invention and application that is not only false and defamatory, but that also endangers the lives of those targeted with it,” the letter stated.
The Southern Poverty Law Center rose to fame by prosecuting legal cases against the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded by the Democratic Party in 1865. While its early work was commendable, the group has since devolved into “an attack dog of the political left,” the letter noted.
“Having evolved from laudable origins battling the Klan in the 1970’s, the SPLC has realized the profitability of defamation, churning out fundraising letters, and publishing “hit pieces” on conservatives to promote its agenda and pad its substantial endowment (of $319 million). Anyone who opposes them, including many Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and traditional conservatives is slandered and slapped with the “extremist” label or even worse, their “hate group” designation.”
The SPLC recently released an overly broad list of “hate groups” that included numerous peaceful organizations, including the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group.
CNN hires Trump-hating leftist reporter who yelled at Sarah Huckabee Sanders
The SPLC even defamed HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson — a world-renowned black neurosurgeon — by labeling him an “extremist” because of his Christian beliefs. The SPLC eventually took Dr. Carson off its hit list amid outcry over its vicious slandering of the mild-mannered physician.
Watch the latest video at <a href=”//video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>
The Southern Poverty Law Center is being sued by numerous individuals and groups after falsely labeling them as “hate groups” or “extremists.” Case in point: The SPLC condemned Dutch-American activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who has spoken out against radical Islam.
It is being sued for doing the same thing to British activist Maajid Nawaz, whom it defamed as an “anti-Muslim extremist.” Nawaz, a former jihadi-in-training, preaches against radical Islam.
So basically, if you’re a conservative of any color, a white person, a Christian, or if you’re a liberal who opposes radical Islam, the SPLC considers you an extremist who’s promoting hate. Let that sink in.
We are now in a very dangerous time where anyone can be falsely accused of being a “racist” or an “extremist” simply because radical leftists don’t agree with your views. This type of fascistic liberal tyranny has to stop.
NFL Hall of Famers say they would not have tolerated Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem dissThe Great Plains, with all that flat, wide-open and sparsely populated land, has long had the most generous — or audacious — speed limits in the country. Cross the Minnesota border into South Dakota, and the default statewide speed limit on the interstates there, as of this spring, is now 80 miles an hour.
Idaho, Wyoming and Utah have also pushed their legal limits that far. Texas, meanwhile, has a toll road that tops out at 85. Which, as we all know, means there are drivers there traveling 90. The Missouri River, as it turns out, is a kind of speed-limit fault line: Most states west of it consider legal what Virginia, Ohio and Illinois would call "speeding."
The above map, from MetricMaps, illustrates that abrupt division using local speed limit data collected by Navteq (which powers a lot of in-car navigation tools) and provided by the mapping platform Caliper. That map shows the maximum local speed limit for any local roads or highways in each Census block group in the U.S. (that's a unit of geography smaller than many neighborhoods). If a highway passes by your house, in other words, your neighborhood may look dark blue.
The nationwide contrasts are striking, but so are the local ones: Zoom in to an individual city like Los Angeles, and the darker arteries effectively outline highways.
Zoom into Washington, D.C., and low-speed local roads dominate. Even massive highways that run through the city, like Interstate 395, are relatively slow at 40 miles per hour. Outside the city, the outline of the Beltway emerges:
New York City, which lowered its default speed limit to 25 miles per hour last year (after this data was collected), is also mostly composed of slower local roads :
Contrast that picture with Houston, where even the slowest parts of town aren't that slow, relative to New York or D.C.:
These maps, through the lens of speed limits, reflect the hierarchy of how we build roads, from local residential streets, to busier boulevards, to limited-access arterials and high-speed highways. Each environment demands different standards. But this national map also raises a question central to "vision zero" campaigns trying to end pedestrian deaths and make roads safer: Does it make sense that a residential neighborhood in Houston would allow faster traffic than a residential neighborhood in Brooklyn?
Sure, there are cultural differences between one part of the country and another, as well as contrasts in topography and development patterns. But the cost of collisions — what happens when someone is hit at 25 miles per hour vs. 30 or 40 — holds constant across the country.Advertisement
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the security services was insidious. If the opportunity came up to depress the self-confidence of Scots, then the opportunity was taken."
Asked if she believed the SNP and the wider Yes movement was currently infiltrated, she said: "Of course the security services have people in the SNP."
Crispin Black, a former intelligence adviser to ex-prime minister Tony Blair and the Joint Intelligence Committee, said he believed MI5 would monitor the independence debate: "My guess is that MI5 would have the referendum on its radar, primarily to ensure its fairness. There's definitely a national security angle to Scottish independence that the security services would be aware of, but my sense is that they would be stopping dirty tricks, rather than trying to initiate them."
He added that MI5 would have a concern about the knock-on effect of independence on Northern Ireland.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government declined to comment.
At the Home Office, which handles enquiries about the Security Service, a spokesperson said the department would not comment on private correspondence.New developments in his legal case suggest that the outcome is wide open
This American Life‘s popular Serial podcast bills itself as “one story, told week-by-week.” For the uninitiated, it’s the story of a reporter investigating the case of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999. The host, Sarah Koenig, is still reporting, and she insists that she’s not much further ahead than her listeners. The feeling of being on the cutting edge of an ongoing investigation is exhilarating to fans, and one favorite pastime is debating the extent to which its storytelling is truly open-ended. Despite the show’s conceit, does Koenig already know how the story is going to end?
New developments in Syed’s legal case suggest that the outcome is wide open. The UVA Innocence Project is poised to ask a court to test an old physical evidence recovery kit (PERK) that was used on Lee’s body to test for possible sexual assault in 1999 but was never tested for DNA. Serial producer Dana Chivvis confirmed that reporting is ongoing for the podcast, which averages a million downloads per weekly episode. But the reporting is not strictly chronological. It’s not always clear to the listener whether a piece audio was recorded in the previous week, or months ago.
The show has already mentioned the kit’s existence, but the legal process to test it for DNA is unfolding right now.
“We could learn something, and the whole story could take a sharp left turn, and there’s a different ending than the one we are envisioning,” Chivvis said in an interview with CJR.
According to UVA Innocence Project director Deirdre Enright, her group and a pro bono lawyer in Maryland are about to file a motion to have the kit tested for DNA “as soon as possible.”
Koenig’s unpublished reporting inspired UVAIP to launch its own independent investigation into the Syed case, Enright said, adding that one of her students came across a case on a police cold-case website in which an Asian woman had been raped and murdered in Baltimore County shortly after Lee’s death.
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The police had a suspect in that case, Enright says. They confronted him about the rape and murder of the other woman, and he committed suicide in prison shortly thereafter. After he died, the police ran his DNA and got hits for several other unsolved rapes.
“[The detective] gave us enough things out of the dead guy’s file that we could file a motion to test [Lee’s PERK kit] in Maryland,” Enright said.
Serial listeners reached out to the Innocence Project to suggest a second alternative suspect, and his name is listed on the motion as well, Enright says. She did not name the second suspect in the interview.
“A court has to decide to grant this, but I think we have sufficient grounds,” Enright said. She argues that if Lee’s kit came up positive for the DNA of another man, that would exonerate Syed. Under Maryland law, the court must order the DNA test if it deems that the results could exonerate the convicted person requesting it.
There’s no guarantee that the court will allow the kit to be tested. Even if the court allows a test, there might not be any male DNA in the kit, as the original swab tested negative for sperm cells, and investigators found no other evidence of sexual assault. If there were male DNA and it matched that of the dead rapist or the other suspect, that would exonerate Syed, but if the DNA matched his, that would make his guilt more likely.
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Lindsay Beyerstein is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn and the co-host of the Point of Inquiry radio show and podcastAP Photo/Patrick Semansky
ASHBURN, Va. — The moment turned into internet gold.
The Washington Redskins had just defeated the Green Bay Packers 42-24 on November 20, and Kirk Cousins, the quarterback in limbo, found Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan on the sideline. "How do you like me now?!" he shouted. "How do you like me now?!" McCloughan reached for a celebratory handshake but instead received a robust hand-slap and head-rub.
A more private moment from earlier that week revealed much more about what it's like to be Cousins this season.
The quarterback and McCloughan crossed paths in the hallway at Redskins Park.
"Can we catch up for a minute?" Cousins asked.
"Sure. Let's go in my office," McCloughan replied.
What followed was a discussion similar to others the quarterback and general manager have had since March, when the Redskins decided to place the franchise tag on Cousins instead of giving him a long-term contract.
Cousins, who will be out of term on his contract again at the end of the season, was playing well. But he couldn't be sure whether that was enough.
"Where do things stand?" he asked.
"You are a football player," McCloughan told him. "I'm looking for football players—guys who have strong character, work hard and put the team first. If you keep doing that, good things will happen."
The words were reassuring. Cousins knew from studying McCloughan's style that they weren't empty.
"He's one of the biggest reasons why I feel great about being a Redskin," Cousins says. "He's the biggest reason, along with Coach [Jay] Gruden, that I'm playing in the first place. He had to make a tough stand to say, 'I think we should play Kirk.' He's always been in my corner, and that's a really good thing for me."
For Cousins to remain in Washington beyond this season, McCloughan and Gruden will have to stay in his corner. And that appears to be a given.
Cousins has thrown for the second-most yards (4,360) in the NFL. His passer rating (98.3) is the sixth-best. It would be difficult for the Redskins to find a better quarterback. Joe Theismann and Matthew McConaughey are among many who have endorsed him.
But as the Redskins lost three of their last four games, Cousins' future remained unsettled. He had one of his worst performances of the season Monday in a loss to the Carolina Panthers. The 7-6-1 Redskins will need help making it to the playoffs.
So whether Cousins has support from high in the Redskins organization remains to be seen. It is team president Bruce Allen who makes sure every one of Dan Snyder's pennies is well spent. And it is Snyder, who has governed more like a fan than an owner at times, who could overrule all on a whim.
All that Cousins can do about it is beat the Chicago Bears and New York Giants. And hope.
After practice, Cousins walks out to the players' parking lot. He steps into his 16-year-old GMC Savana conversion van, parked a few spots away from a Bentley Bentayga, a Maserati Ghibli Q4 and a Mercedes S 65 AMG. He bought the van from his grandmother for $5,000 a couple of years ago. He also has a pickup truck as part of an agreement with a local dealership, but he likes driving the van.
Courtesy of Virginia Tire & Auto
He dreams about buying a nice car one day.
He drives five minutes to a townhouse he rents from former Redskins offensive tackle Chris Samuels. His lease is for one year.
The place is fine for a quarterback in limbo. The living room gets a little cramped when Cousins has teammates over for Thursday night Bible study, though. And Cousins' wife, Julie, would like a fenced-in yard so Bentley, their goldendoodle, can run. Someday, they hope soon, they will need a little more space if their family should grow.
For about a year now, Kirk and Julie have been studying nearby areas where they might buy. They search Zillow together and think about options. What do they want in a house? Where can they find the type of house in which they would be happy for a long time? Which school systems are best? Can they get to where they frequently need to go easily enough? What are the demographics of each neighborhood?
It could be any one of the Virginia towns of Ashburn, Reston or Leesburg.
Or maybe their next home will be hundreds of miles away. Imagine following the path of Robert Griffin III and going to the Cleveland Browns. The Jets should be in the quarterback market. Broadway Kirk? Cousins grew up in a suburb of Chicago—might he return home to the Bears? Could he envision living in Silicon Valley and wearing San Francisco 49ers colors?
Kirk and Julie like Northern Virginia. And Cousins has immersed himself in being a Redskin. When he was drafted in 2012, he wanted to know everything he could about his new team. His uncle Bill McClaren knows a lot about football, so Cousins asked him if he could research Redskins history for him.
Now Cousins can talk to you about George Preston Marshall moving the team from Boston in 1937, about Slingin' Sammy Baugh, the Over-the-Hill Gang and the Hogs. He's heard the story about President Nixon allegedly calling a play, and he knows all about Joe Gibbs winning three Super Bowls with three quarterbacks.
It would be something for Cousins to one day be mentioned with Billy Kilmer and Sonny Jurgensen as part of this team's rich history.
"To go somewhere, you have to know where you come from," Cousins says. "I'm a history guy to begin with. That's another reason I love being in D.C."
He also values the guidance he gets from Gruden, play-caller Sean McVay and quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh. He trusts McCloughan will continue to build the Redskins into a power.
"I do like this team," Cousins says.
Rob Carr/Getty Images
And he's connected with many of his teammates. "I feel really good about him being my quarterback," Redskins tight end Jordan Reed says. "I'm excited to grow with him and be even more comfortable playing with him. He has been everything to me. When you don't have a quarterback who can get you the ball, you can't do so well. His ball placement, for me, is perfect a lot of times."
Reed and Cousins have ascended together, a testament to the power of two. If not for Cousins' play last year, Reed might not have been given a five-year, $46.75 million contract extension last May.
Cousins has talked about the benefits of becoming a "mature" team as he continues to work with teammates like Reed. But for the maturity to continue, Cousins will have to get his.
His purgatory could continue for another year. Or even another two years. The Redskins could tag him again this offseason at a cost of $23,943,600, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. They could even tag him a third time, but that would run them $34,478,784. And in 2019, at the age of 31—in the prime of a quarterback's career—Cousins would be free to sign with whomever he chooses.
Cousins is going to be well off no matter what happens. He already is, as his 2016 salary of $19.9 million should mean he is set for life.
But it doesn't feel that way to the quarterback.
He'd like one of those luxurious massage chairs, but he refuses to spend the $8,000. When his bedroom mattress needed to be replaced, he called his marketing agent to see whether he could swing a deal to get a free one. He and Julie keep a Word document on their computer with all of their tax deductions. And he absolutely plans on deducting that $4.75 Wendy's meal he ate on a business trip.
His biggest recent expenditure was giving his offensive linemen custom-made suits for the holidays. Those who are close to him will tell you he spends freely that way.
This is about money. It always is. But it's also about more. It's about security. And about wanting to be wanted. Again.
Not so long ago, Cousins was told he was not good enough to play on the sixth-grade "A" football team. He had nary a scholarship offer as a high school senior until late in the process, until all of the most sought-after recruits had committed. Michigan State tried to replace him—first with Nick Foles and then with Keith Nichol. On draft day, Cousins was expecting to go in the second round. Then the third. But not the fourth.
"My story has always been one of feeling a need to prove myself," he says. "I'm in the same place now, always trying to prove myself."
Norm Hall/Getty Images
He knows he would be wanted if he became an unrestricted free agent. In March, the Houston Texans gave Brock Osweiler a four-year, $72 million contract with $37 million guaranteed after just seven career starts. You think Cousins took note of that?
Cousins knows it is best if he puts it out of his mind. But he can't.
The 28-year-old is a contemplative man. Earlier in his career, he often found himself in the grip of "anticipatory stress" before games. He's dealing with that better this season, having learned to relax more. But worrying about next year is something else.
"I do worry about what's going to happen," he says. "Where am I going to go? That's where my faith becomes such a big part of my life. I have to remind myself that I claim to be a Christian. That means the Lord is in control of my life. He says in Matthew 6, do not worry. He's going to take care of me. He's going to provide. To worry is a lack of faith. Even when people say, 'How can you have peace?' The Bible says I need to have peace. I want to be a testimony to that on a daily basis and not display worry but to display calm and peace amid what many perceive to be a very uncertain situation."
Julie is the perfect companion to guide him through his period of uncertainty. She is as calm as he is anxious, and they are partners for a reason. She gets him to walk when his instinct is to run.
"My wife handles it better than me," he says. "The stress or the demands of the league, she flies above it. She loves the adventure. She's up for the challenge. So I get a ton of support from her. She doesn't ride the roller coaster, which has been a huge benefit to me."
That ride has more drops and hairpin turns to come. Cousins knows the Redskins' final two regular-season games could affect the rest of his NFL career.
"Ultimately, this is about wins and losses," the quarterback in limbo says. "We all know these last games will tell a big part of the story."
Cousins walked into the Redskins locker room after a November victory over the Minnesota Vikings. He closed his eyes and yelled in a high pitch, "Oooooweeee!"
This, understand, is a motivated individual. And he has no qualms about spinning the roulette wheel and putting all of his chips on No. 8.
"He enjoys playing on a one-year deal," Julie says. "He plays with a chip on his shoulder. And he plays better, I think. He's always going to be a passionate guy, but when there is a lot at stake, that's when he really just grinds and yells, 'Oooooweeee' on the sidelines and rubs people's heads. That's when the real Kirk comes out, when he's doubted."
Cousins never was supposed to be looking at a contract that could earn him $24 million per year and make him one of the NFL's highest-paid players. He was the afterthought quarterback, chosen by the Redskins in the fourth round exactly 100 picks after they took Griffin.
But it turned out RG3 was a one-hit wonder, and the coaches and execs who were tied to him were fired. Last season, the new regime—led by McCloughan and Gruden—decided to give Cousins a chance. He played so well that the Redskins couldn't let him go when his contract expired. But they weren't ready to make a long-term commitment to him.
Hence the franchise tag and the continued evaluation of a quarterback who has been on Washington's campus for nearly five years.
After the Redskins lost the Wild Card Game to the Packers last January, Cousins and Gruden walked from the locker room to the parking lot together. They talked a little about the game, a little about the season. It was mostly small talk. But Gruden said one thing that stuck with Cousins.
Kirk Cousins' career stats Year W-L Yds TD-INT Rating 2012 1-0 466 4-3 101.6 2013 0-3 854 4-7 58.4 2014 1-4 1710 10-9 86.4 2015 9-7 4166 29-11 101.6 2016 7-6-1 4360 23-10 98.3 Pro-Football-Reference.com
"Remember, Kirk, this is only Year 1," Gruden told him. "You are only going to get better. You're not going to stay the same. You're going to keep improving."
So this year, Cousins went through his first NFL offseason as a starter, getting all the first-team reps in OTAs, minicamp and training camp and having the offense catered to his skill set for the first time.
The result?
"He's improved in every way," Gruden says.
In particular, Gruden said Cousins is making better decisions and throwing more accurately—in fact, he uses the word "elite" to describe Cousins in those areas.
Cousins has also become a better deep passer, as McVay has mixed in play action with "shot plays" effectively. Cousins has 58 completions of 20 yards or more, according to STATS. Only Matt Ryan has more, with 61. Last year, Cousins had 27 all season.
Those long completions aren't just a lot of screen passes that become big gains. He has 59 attempts on passes of 21 or more air yards and a passer rating of 119.2 on those throws. Nine of his 23 touchdown passes have been on such throws.
Cousins has even improved before the snap.
"He has gotten better in terms of drawing guys, dragging it out to get a tip to what the defense is doing, quick counts, changing the tempo up and running no-huddle," Gruden says.
There is more room for growth too. He can get better at handling blitzing, like he saw against the Arizona Cardinals. His red-zone passing has been inconsistent. And he can continue to improve on off-schedule plays.
After being mostly dormant for the first three years of his career, Cousins is still a developing quarterback.
Patrick Smith/Getty Images
"Unless you are actively taking the reps and working and learning from the mistakes you make and the things you do well, it's hard to develop," Gruden says. "People don't understand that about him. I laugh when I hear people say, 'Draft a quarterback and let him sit on the sidelines for four or five years, and then he'll be Aaron Rodgers.' I think you develop by playing, competing, learning from mistakes."
There is another way to try to be Rodgers. It's through continuity, commitment and patience.
Cousins can't worry about that. He can't look beyond his next pass.
This is what it's like to be in limbo.
Dan Pompei covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danpompei.Even Kazmir's father thought the former All-Star's career might be over. Dustin Snipes for ESPN
THE LOST PITCHER had many needs. He had lost so much: his old fastball, the slider that repelled bats and the brashness that sustained both. Somewhere inside him he knew they were alive but inert, lying in wait, existing in an extended state of torpor. To wake them, he had one need that rose above all others: silence.
He needed silence as an asylum from judgment and expectation. He needed to be alone with his doubts and embarrassment and confusion, to retreat from the well-meaning cacophony of advice, away from the Angels' stadium parking attendant who told him he needed to keep his front side closed a bit longer, away from the usher who thought his stride was too short, away from even his father, who said he'd be every bit as proud of his son if he never threw a baseball again. Yes, Scott Kazmir needed the noise -- the infinite chirping of an infinite number of birds -- to cease. He needed the only voice in his head to be his own.
The lost pitcher was just 27 years old, released and adrift, a former American League All-Star and strikeout champion. Jobless and verging on hopeless, he had no idea where any of this would lead. He just knew it would lead nowhere if the noise continued.
Silence can be a challenge. The world is a discordant concert of pings, alerts and notifications, each representing validation and reassurance. Someone out there cares. Silence can be easily mistaken for ostracism. Silence is an indictment.
Now, attempting to find anchorage, Kazmir stood on the mound he had built in his suburban Houston backyard. It was early morning, somewhere in the half-dark middle ground between night and day. He stood out there in the thick Texas air and threw, sometimes closing his eyes between pitches, waiting for the old synapses to reconnect, for the body to reorganize and remember.
There was something about the stillness, the remove, the separation from the rest of the world. In the meditative peace of his own thoughts, it was just him and the catcher's mitt, the silence broken only by the sound of ball hitting leather.
It was here, in the offseason of 2012, that Kazmir could evict the self-loathing and self-doubt. It was here that he could add links to a chain that might propel him forward, back to his old self. The right leg spiked the air like the whip of a reptile's tail, just like the good days. The hands broke and the arm swung and the body accelerated down the mound with a gymnast's grace. In the quiet, he listened to nothing at all.
HE WAS LIKE an amnesiac retraining himself to perform basic tasks. Everything that used to happen so easily was suddenly foreign. How did this happen? How did one of the best left-handed starters lose every single bit of it -- velocity, command, feel, confidence? It's nearly unprecedented: in the big leagues by 20, a two-time All-Star by 24, out of the game by 27 with no obvious injury to blame.
Kazmir had always been something of a physiological mistake. He seems a better fit for soccer or swimming, or maybe dentistry. Barely 6 feet, around 185 pounds, his body was like a tight spring, uncoiling down the mound in double time to release a ball with easy force. He threw three straight no-hitters at the highest level of Texas high school baseball and, he says, barely missed a fourth. He became a cult figure for self-flagellating Mets fans after the team that made him the 15th pick of the 2002 draft traded him two years later to Tampa Bay for immediately forgettable Victor Zambrano. In Tampa, he became a good pitcher on a bad team, then a good pitcher on a World Series team, before being traded to the Angels during the 2009 season.
He was not known for a particularly cerebral approach to pitching. "When I got in trouble, I just tried to throw harder," he says with a shrug.
If he didn't know what he was doing when he was doing well, how was he supposed to know how to fix himself? In 2010 with the Angels, the slide began. He was 9-15 with a 5.94 ERA, striking out 93 and walking 79 in 150 innings. It's difficult to overstate how quickly and thoroughly Kazmir disintegrated. His fastball velocity dropped -- from 91 mph to 87 in two seasons -- as his control worsened. Advice came at him like a constant wind. Something about Kazmir's boyish look made people desperate to help him. "It was all really good stuff to tell someone," he says. "But at the time, it felt like information overload."
"I don't know if you have time for all of it," Kazmir says of the almost unparalleled arc of his career. Dustin Snipes for ESPN
His agent, Brian Peters, and his trainer, a plainspoken Texan named Lee Fiochi, sought professional help. Kazmir got permission from the Angels to visit Ron Wolforth, a pitching iconoclast who operates out of a 20-acre ranch in the swamps and pines of the Houston exurb of Montgomery. To exorcise pitchers' demons, this Col. Kurtz-like man employs funky techniques in his Quonset hut laboratory, set back off an unlit, winding road. Kazmir, in what he terms his denial stage, couldn't quite wrap his conventional mind around the unconventional drills. After an introductory session, Kazmir decided Wolforth's plan wasn't for him.
After a disastrous spring training, Kazmir made one start for the Angels in 2011: five runs, five hits, two walks and two hit batters in 1 2/3 innings on April 3 in Kansas City. He ended up in Triple-A, where he threw 15 1/3 of the worst innings ever: 20 walks, six hit batters, five wild pitches and a 17.02 ERA. On June 15, he was released.
"It was almost a relief," Kazmir says.
He had fooled himself into thinking he was close, that with a tweak here and there he'd be fine. He continued to throw throughout the summer of 2011 and decided to go to the Dominican Republic for winter ball in December. The result? One start, one out. "Another disaster," he says.
He went home, took his boat out onto Lake Conroe and told his father, Ed, that he and his friends were welcome aboard under one condition: no baseball talk.
Ed Kazmir, a factory supervisor, agreed but told his son: "You done great. Family's proud of you. You've had a good career. Lot of guys haven't done half of what you've done. You pitched in a World Series, led the league in strikeouts. You've made enough money to retire."
It was a father's way of telling a son that it was OK to walk away from a lost cause. Sometimes, in the interest of self-preservation, it's best to get out of the way. Maybe it was just gone, Ed Kazmir seemed to be saying. Poof -- no more 97, no more wipeout slider. Maybe it just took this long for physiology to win. The case of Scott Kazmir seemed to be no cause and all effect. Nobody knew anything. The son nodded at his father but didn't listen. "I almost felt like I wanted to give up," he says. "I wanted to be able to accept it, but there was no way."
THE 55-YEAR-OLD man with the Quonset hut looks a little like Phil Simms and talks a little like Tony Robbins. Ron Wolforth is something of a general contractor, specializing in rebuilding broken-down pitchers through guidance, motivation and the occasional straight shot of tough love. He studies biomechanics yet despises absolutes, which results in a teaching approach that relies more on suggestion than dogma.
Wolforth is a former low-level college pitcher who runs the Texas Baseball Ranch, the closest thing baseball has to a cult. Down a winding country road, there's the 20-acre ranch with a faux barn office, that open-ended corrugated steel hut and a makeshift diamond. It is, as Wolforth admits with a laugh, underwhelming digs for a cult leader.
His followers, though, are rabid. The first time Angels lefty C.J. Wilson came to the ranch, he was so excited that he got off a plane at 10 p.m. and called Wolforth to tell him he was on his way. Wolforth tried to dissuade him, telling him he should wait until daylight, but Wilson insisted.
Because baseball is a hidebound institution, some devotees of the Ranch hide the affiliation. Wolforth's clients have been known to do his eyebrow-raising drills in hotel rooms rather than in bullpens, where such tools as the shoulder tube -- used for warm-up drills that can resemble baton twirling -- might raise a skeptical eye. "It scares baseball a little bit," Wolforth says. "It's like they think I've got some Kool-Aid in the back, so if it doesn't go well you can go back there, drink it and end it all."
About four months after Kazmir's June 2011 release, Wolforth received another call from Fiochi; Kazmir's trainer, as desperate as the pitcher himself, wanted to re-enlist Wolforth's help in an unlikely resurrection. With more time available to him, Wolforth approached the Case of the Lost Pitcher like a forensics expert. Gimme everything you got on Kazmir. He looked at videotape from high school. He dissected film from Tampa Bay, where Kazmir peaked in 2007 with a 13-9 record and an American League-best 239 strikeouts. And like a connoisseur of horror films, he pored over video of Kazmir's work in his 35 starts with the Angels.
Almost immediately, Wolforth saw that Kazmir had lost contact with everything that had brought him success. Simple tasks were a struggle. He was so unsure of his delivery -- and so desperate to remember -- that he started his motion with the ball in his hand, separated from his glove, and slapped the ball against the glove when he thought it seemed time to break his hands. Whenever he tried to throw hard, he yanked his front side open so violently that the ball would sail into the right-handed batter's box.
"He had no confidence," Fiochi says. "He didn't know his head from his ass."
WOLFORTH'S EXPERIENCE WITHs with pitchers has taught him a few ironclad truths: They lie. They deny pain. They refuse to leave games when they know better. They risk long-term health for short-term gain, all to avoid being marked with the vilest label: soft.
Kazmir denied pain. Wolforth expected as much. "It's like asking a marathon runner: 'Do your legs ever get tight?'" he says. Of course they do. Prodded, Kazmir started to remember. He strained his triceps in 2007, just before the All-Star Game, and he changed his delivery to compensate. As a result, he strained his groin. He pitched through it, shortening his stride to offset the pain. His fastball lost a few feet, but his changeup got better and he reeled off six straight wins. But each change created the need for more change. It was as if he were shoving the wrong pieces into a puzzle and convincing himself it matched the picture on the box.
In early 2011, Kazmir was kicked around, then demoted to Triple-A. The Angels cut him that June. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Wolforth put Kazmir through core-strengthening workouts and gave him drills to loosen his hips and increase leg drive. "If you've got a flat tire," Wolforth says, "I don't care how big of an engine you've got."
A scout told Kazmir that he should reinvent himself as a LOOGY -- a left-handed one-out guy. You aren't you anymore, the scout was really saying. Deal with it.
"I know what I'm capable of doing," Kazmir replied. "I know what my body feels like, and I have more in the tank than even during my best years."
He knows how delusional that must have sounded back then, the guy with a high school fastball he couldn't control telling everybody he can be better than the guy who threw 97 mph and led the league in strikeouts. Scouts and coaches treated him like the slow kid who tells his parents he wants to become a doctor. "They'd give me a little half-smile," Kazmir says, "as if to say, Yeah, Scott, just keep telling yourself that."
Maybe what baseball people say is true, Kazmir thought: Velocity lost is never regained. Maybe former Angels teammate Dan Haren was right when he said, "Whether it was him not accepting he doesn't throw hard anymore or still trying to figure out how to pitch at 88 mph, it never came together for him." Maybe reinvention was the only way back.
Then one spring day in 2012, Wolforth showed up for a workout at Kazmir's house carrying a radar gun and a challenge.
"All right, Scottie," he said. "It's time to hit the gas."
THE RADAR GUN represented judgment and expectation. It was a proxy for every scout, every pitching coach, every general manager who had a say in his future. A boss had entered the room. "He was in a dark mood," Wolforth says. "That's a painful reminder of what he used to be."
Velocity has become pitching's lingua franca. As a young pitcher throwing in the mid- to high 90s, Kazmir benefited from baseball's genuflection toward the radar gun. As a reclamation project throwing in the mid-80s, he faced a harsh reality. "You can have the best location and best movement in the world," Kazmir says, "but if you're not lighting up the gun, you're not impressing people."
And there before him stood the proof: Wolforth, gun in hand, expecting backlash.
"That thing doesn't tell whether you can get big league hitters out," Kazmir said.
"I don't doubt that," Wolforth responded, "but big league teams see you as damaged goods at 88. You were Moon Valley prom queen, and now you're trying to tell them you have a good personality?"
Kazmir threw the first pitch.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Eighty-two," Wolforth said.
Kazmir swore and snapped the return throw out of the air.
Convinced that Wolforth's old-school gun was wrong, he bought his own, a state-of-the-art Stalker. Before a bullpen session a few days later, he gave it to his girlfriend, Kim Seitler. After one pitch he thought, That one came out good, so he asked Seitler what it said.
"Eighty-three," she told him.
"You know what?" he said. "Just put that away and go inside. We're good."
Something happened, though: The gun became an opponent, a stand-in for every hitter he'd ever sent back to the dugout, and the lost pitcher began to find himself. With every uptick -- 86 by the end of the first day -- he started to feel the old connections. His normal 25-pitch bullpens became 100-pitch marathons. He improved his diet. He threw early-morning sessions in the backyard. In the evenings, he'd hop the fence of a nearby baseball complex like a little kid. "He didn't want to stop," says Kevin Poppe, his sessions catcher. "That's when I knew it was going to happen."
About a month after Wolforth shattered the serenity with the radar gun, Kazmir threw a fastball and the readout flashed a magical number: 90. There was a celebration in a minor key, fist bumps all around, and Ed Kazmir says: "Wish I'd been there. I'da cracked open a beer."
Roughly three months after the appearance of the gun, Kazmir signed with the independent Sugar Land Skeeters. In a start at Bridgeport, Conn., he found himself staring into a radar-gun readout directly behind home plate. "I didn't even have to turn around and look for it," Kazmir jokes.
He sat at 88 to 89 through the first couple of innings. He threw a first-pitch fastball to a lefty and saw 92. "Through the rest of the at-bat," Kazmir says, "I saw 95, 95, 95."
The radar gun, friend turned enemy, once again became a friend. He stood on the mound, took a deep breath and tried not to smile.
THE RESURRECTED PITCHER had gained so much: perspective, maturity, humility. "I don't know if you have time for all of that," he says. He doesn't own the words to explain the psychological side of it, the control and focus he never knew he could take to the mound. He used to look away throughout his windup and find the target as his front foot landed. Now he locked in on the mitt and never let go. A bad pitch would give birth to three or four more; now it was corrected immediately. He could take no more noise, and when he silenced the radio static playing ceaselessly in his head, he discovered the one quiet voice he'd been ignoring all along: his own. Kazmir earned a spot in the Indians' rotation in 2013 as a nonroster invitee and went 10-9 with a tremendous second half. The Athletics, whose front office is known for foresight, keen analytics and a nose for a bargain, signed him to a two-year, $22 million contract in the offseason.- Following reports that Justin Gabriel quit WWE over the weekend, the sports-entertainment organization announced Sunday that he has been |
to New York despite not being particularly wanted there. Her odd-couple scenes with Prior are some of the more unexpectedly touching in the film’s latter half.
Bottom line: celebrate Meryl Streep’s birthday the right way by watching Angels in America today.
[You can stream Angels in America on HBO GO.]Angela Kelly, the Queen's dresser and personal assistant, came up the idea of crystal trimmings for the glasses
Queen wears 3D glasses … but one must still have one's bling
When it comes to the Queen, a pair of ordinary 3D glasses just won't do. For her visit to Pinewood Toronto Studios, her majesty brought her own customised set with Swarovski crystals forming the letter Q on the sides.
Angela Kelly, the Queen's dresser and personal assistant, came up with the extra trimmings for the glasses during the state visit to Canada.
The Queen watched a short scene set during the early 19th century being filmed. It was directed by Deepa Mehta, and consisted of a group of dancers in period costume gyrating to loud Asian Bhangra music for a few minutes.
The Queen then moved into another part of the large warehouse, where a screen had been set up to show the 3D footage which had just been filmed.
John Reeve, a stereographer with the Toronto-based firm 3D Camera Company said afterwards: "I told the Queen how the camera works – they are very large in order to mimic the space between the human eyes – 65mm."
Reeve added: "I think the Queen liked the glasses and the Duke seemed more interested in the crane holding the camera. He spent more time watching that than the dancers during the filming."Paris’ 150 year-old newspaper kiosk could be considered one of the most “charming” little features of its urban landscape. A nostalgic reminder of simpler and more romantic times, largely unchanged over the years since they first appeared in 1857 during Baron Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Just like London’s iconic red telephone booth, the Parisian kiosk is regarded as a nice way to preserve some of the city’s history, but no longer quite as “relevant” to modern society. But here’s why that’s just not true– and why on the eve of the most crucial French elections in recent history, we need them more than ever.
There is a unique law that exists in France which requires all its newspaper kiosks to carry all newspaper titles. As a member of society, when you go to your local kiosk, you’ll see all the headlines, whether they’re from the left or right of political opinion– which is something we’re desperately lacking on the internet. In other words, by law, a Parisian kiosk cannot make the decision to only sell radical news, clickbait and cat videos, for example.
When we scroll our Facebook or Twitter newsfeeds, where the people we’re “friends” with or “following” predominantly think the same way as we do and share similar interests, there’s very little chance of us encountering an article of a differing opinion than our own. That’s just the way the algorithms currently work. Facebook was noticeably criticised for this following the outcome of the last US elections.
But let’s say we don’t get our online news from Facebook shared articles. Don’t we still go directly to the same news sites everyday? Ones that reflect similar values and opinions to our own? It’s so much harder to see the whole spectrum of ideas from behind a computer screen because in actual fact, we end up only seeing what we want to see…
We simply don’t have the same choice that we might find, for example, when we walk up to a newspaper kiosk; its racks filled with headlines from every corner of the spectrum…
Whether or not you’re able to see eye-to-eye with the opposition, is it not important to at least see it? If only to be aware that it exists, and to not shield ourselves from what is being said and thought outside of our bubbles.
(There’s another very good law in France that applies to French television news channels, stating all political candidates must receive the exact same amount of air time throughout the course of an election season, from the littlest-known candidates to the most famous front-runners).
If we always get our news and information from the same online sources, will we ever really be able to get out of comfort zones and better understand the roots of the opposing thought? The fact is, despite content now being so easily shareable and accessible online, we’re still not exposed to the vast majority of news and content.
And that’s why these kiosks and their laws to sell all press, are crucial to modern society. A kioskeur, which cannot express his or her political views through its platform, is probably one the most valuable resources of information for achieving a more balanced society. We just need to use it more!
Despite reports in recent years that the kiosks are in danger of disappearing, there’s good news! It was announced by the city of Paris that in the next two years, 360 new kiosks will be deployed in the capital. They’re even going to be given a new design to reflect the times, as revealed on the city hall website.
Coffee machines, beverage counters and postboxes will soon be a part of the Parisian’s morning press review. Interactive screens will also be installed on the kiosks’ exteriors for browsing newspaper headlines 24-7.
But not anyone can become a kioskeur and there are many requirements for the job, including having a clean criminal record and extensive previous experience. These requirements are a reflection of the responsibility they have to remain one of society’s most impartial news providers.
Hard-working and unafraid of the low pay, they are held in high regard by their loyal Parisian customers. The news sellers pay a subsidised rent for their kiosks of about 120 euros per month– which is not that expensive, but it’s a tough job, involving drastic schedules to be on site at the crack of dawn for the delivery of all that printed media– representing all opinions, of course.
So I’m off to my local kiosk now to look at some news. Because as we all know, ignorance is not bliss.
Vive le kiosque!
All the archive imagery of Parisian kiosks used to subliminally encourage us to get our news from impartial news outlets, was sourced at the National Library of France and Paris en Images.Marguerite - movie review
Sometimes you might tell a little white lie because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. But the lies often end in tragedy.
This is the theme of the French film Marguerite, now in American theaters. Marguerite offers a sometimes amusing but ultimately painful “the emperor has no clothes” tale of a would-be singer who is so shielded from her own lack of talent that the ending can only be opera-tragic.
Singer with no talent
The film, based on a true story, opens in France in 1920 where a private charity recital is being staged at the chateau of wealthy Baroness Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot, playing a character whose name seems borrowed from Groucho Marx’s hapless leading lady). As the patron of the local Amadeus society, she has put herself on the program to sing to raise money. She butchers the “Queen of the Night” aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. She doesn’t know how bad she is; she really can’t hear herself.
We gather her audience has been exposed to such travesties before, but she is the patron and it is for a good cause. They dutifully applaud her. Her husband, a developer facing financial problems, makes sure he has car problems as an excuse for arriving only after the terrible screeching ends.
Lucien Beaumont (Sylvain Dieuaide), a newspaper reviewer, and his artist friend Kyrill Von Priest (Aubert Fenoy) have snuck into the invite-only affair and witnessed the farce. But writing a bad review seems too easy. So at Kyrill’s urging, Lucien decides to praise her to the skies. She’s a great new voice!
Opera is Marguerite’s love, her life. She has a thousand musical scores. She has her trusty butler and piano accompanist Madelbos (Denis Mpunga) photograph of her with costumes and props she has collected from her favorite works. He knows she can’t sing but is devoted to protecting her from ridicule.
Nihilism destroying values
When Marguerite reads Lucien’s review she is thrilled and visits him and Kyrill with thoughts of taking her singing into the wider world. Lucien is having second thoughts about the encouragement he’s given her, but Kyrill invites her to perform at a gathering he’s arranging at a small club. Why would he do such a thing?
Kyrill has pulled together an audience of businessmen, workers, solders, and a general cross-section of society. He comes on stage to loudly denounce every group represented there. As some boo and begin walking out, he has Marguerite come out in a white robe on which he projects a movie of World War I’s carnage as she does a horrendous rendition of the “Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.
Those familiar with Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead will see the similarity between the nihilist Kyrill, who wants to destroy all values, and that novel’s character Ellsworth Toohey. The latter villain, who like Lucien writes a newspaper column, wants to tear down the great and the beautiful, and does so by praising the mediocre and the ugly.
But Marguerite does not see this. And Lucien, while feeling guilt, cannot bring himself to tell her the truth. She thinks the problem was the audience and decides to book an opera house and give a recital for Paris sophisticates.
Will no one tell the truth?
Though her husband is hardly faithful or attentive to her, he has enough love for her to dread the thought of her making a fool of herself before the world. But he finds it difficult to tell her the truth. He hopes a voice coach he convinces her to bring in to help her prepare for her recital will tell her how awful she sounds. However, in part because Madelbos has blackmailed the coach to take the job, the voice coach will not tell her the truth, either.
What will happen when she performs before an impartial audience? Can anything show her the truth?
Marguerite faces reality
Marguerite is eccentric, but she is essentially innocent of major self-deception because she really can’t hear how bad she sounds. Her love for opera and singing is admirable, and she is a generous benefactress. And while some who shield her from the truth have base motives, her husband, Madelbos, and, in the end, Lucien, do care about her. They are torn every step of the way between destroying her aspirations themselves or letting her aspirations and her sense of self-worth be destroyed by the derisive laughter and ridicule of an objective crowd. They are morally weak.
This film shows that it can be terribly painful to be honest with the ones you love, just as it can be painful to be honest with yourself. But refusing to face reality will not change the facts. Just as refusing to acknowledge a physical ailment can delay treatment and lead to the death of the body, so refusing to acknowledge facts about one’s self or others, including limitations, can lead to the death of the soul.
If you appreciate that being truthful can be hard, you will find the film Marguerite a thought-provoking way to fortify your own soul.The Philadelphia Eagles haven’t beaten the Washington Redskins since the 2014 season. They’ve lost five matchups in a row since then.
The Eagles are looking to break that streak as they open their 2017 season with a road game against the Washington Redskins.
Bleeding Green Nation already took some time to chat with Bill-in-Bangkok from Hogs Haven on Wednesday in order to preview this Week 1 tilt.
Today, we're back with three reasons why each team might lose. This format forces us to consider each own team's weaknesses, rather than just think of why each team is awesome.
So here are three reasons why Washington could lose, as written by Bill. Stay tuned to Hogs Haven to see why I think the Eagles could lose.
Reason 1 — 36.5%
Thirty-six point five percent… that’s the result you get when you divide 19 by 53.
Nineteen players. Out of 53. Thirty-six and a half percent of the players on the Redskins final roster have never lined up for a regular season snap as a Washington Redskin before.
Just think of that number for a moment. This past weekend, right after roster cuts were finalized, I can imagine the ice-breaker in the first team meeting. Jay Gruden stands up and says, “Fellas. Look at the man on your left. Now look at the man on your right. Chances are, one of the three of you has never been in a regular season game for this team before. I’d like you to shake hands and introduce yourself to that guy.”In reality, it’s even worse than that. Three of the returning players make up the ‘special teams’ portion of the Redskin roster, so the percentages for the team’s offensive – and especially defensive units – are obscenely high.
In fact, 42% of the defensive players on the squad have never played in a regular season game wearing Redskins burgundy and gold, while exactly 1/3 of all the offensive players are new to the team. At practice, they’re still wearing “Hi, my name’s…” stickers on their jerseys. There’s no way these players will be in sync come Sunday afternoon. It takes time to come together as a unit. Timing, communication, trust… basically, the ability to play ‘instinctual’ football… it’s all built on familiarity. The Redskins don’t have it, and aren’t gonna get it before Sunday. The late disappearance of Su’a Cravens – one of the few returning defensive players – didn’t help the situation, either. Neither did the season-ending injury to Phil Taylor in the third preseason game. Nor did the loss of starting OLB Trent Murphy in the first preseason game. Same for safety Deangelo Hall, who was injured last year and is starting 2017 on the PUP list.
More than a third of the team is new. As a fan base, we don’t really know our own team. Hell, the starting center versus Philly is gonna be a 6th round draft pick who played center for only one season at Wyoming. He’ll be holding down the fort while starter Spencer Long recovers. Yes, you’re right; the Center does call the protections for the offensive line. The guy doing that for the Redskins is 24 years old and taking the field for his first regular season snap as a professional this Sunday afternoon.
The Redskins lose because they just don’t know each other very well.
2. Regression to the mean and opening week blues … it’s science
There are two trends that are in play here. First, I think we all know that the Redskins have won 5 straight games against Philadelphia, dating back to 2014.
Let’s face it; that kind of streak can’t go on for very long in today’s NFL (outside the AFC East where the Patriots own the Bills & Jets, or the AFC Central where the Browns make anything possible). Philly has to break through at some point, and there’s one key trend that says that this is the week when they do. Significantly, the Redskins have lost every season opener since Jay Gruden became the head coach (and even 2013 when Shanahan was still here), and playing at home doesn’t help:
2013 (home) Philly 33 Redskins 27
2014 (away) Redskins 6 Texans 17
2015 (home) Dolphins 17 Redskins 10
2016 (home) Steelers 38 Redskins 16
Under Jay Gruden, the Redskins are slow starters; Jay just doesn’t seem to know how to prepare a team to come out of the gate snarling.2017 will look just like Jay’s first 3 years as a head coach: Redskins start 0-1.
Redskins lose because the odds and trends say they will. It’s science.
3. The Running Game
Let’s look at the pedigree of Washington’s 4 running backs:
Rob Kelley – Lead Back; 2nd year undrafted free agent – Tulane
Chris Thompson – 3rd down back; drafted 5th round 2015 – Florida State
Samaje Perine – backup (expected short-yardage back); Rookie - drafted 4th round – Oklahoma
Mack Brown – backup – Undrafted (2015) – Florida
In 2016 the Redskins, with largely the same group of runners, tied for 7th place in Yards per Attempt, but only 21st in total rushing yards. The problem for the Redskins rushing attack last year wasn’t so much that the plays themselves were failing, or that the running backs were ineffective, or that the OLine didn’t do its job; the main problem was that the coaching staff didn’t commit to or believe in the running game.
Well, our play caller from last year, Sean McVay, is the Rams head coach now, so there’s a chance that Jay Gruden shows more commitment to the run. His history as OC in Cincinnati suggests that he may just be able to do that, but the running game was anemic in this preseason, with the Offensive Line looking distinctly weak in run blocking. In fact, it was significantly worse than it had been in 2016. The Redskins tallied just 3.3 yards per carry in the preseason, with Rob Kelley – our lead dog – averaging 3.1, and Samaje Perine – our new bruiser – averaging a measly 2.8 yards per carry. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the Redskin defense finished the 2016 season ranked 24th against the run, giving up 119 yards per game, and 19 rushing touchdowns (good for 4th worst in the league). Obviously there’ve been a lot of changes in the Redskins run defense; most notably the additions of Zach Taylor (ILB), Jonathan Allen (DT) and Ryan Anderson (OLB), but until they start making real tackles on real players in real games, these are all just paper improvements.
The Redskins lose because, when it comes to running the ball, our offense can’t do it, and our defense can’t stop it.
There you have it… three reasons why the Washington Redskins – for the fifth consecutive year – put a pin in the hopes of the fan base by dropping the season opener. This year will be a triple-blow: (i) the loss, (ii) inside the division, and (iii) in front of the home fans (and if history is any guide, probably an equal number of Philly fans). What a gut punch! Traveling to LA to play the Rams in Week 2 will be a welcome getaway from the embarrassment.PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Eagles' recent spending spree -- which resulted in new contracts for Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz, Vinny Curry and Brent Celek -- has not exhausted the team’s salary cap flexibility.
That’s the good news. Depending on exactly where the 2016 salary cap lands, the Eagles should have somewhere between $20 and $30 million of space. By cutting a few high-priced veterans -- Jason Peters ($6.2 million cap savings), Mark Sanchez ($3.5 million) and DeMeco Ryans ($3.5 million), for example -- the Eagles could create another $10 to $13 million in space.
With $35 to $40 million in space, the Eagles would be in the top 10 of teams with the most space in the NFL.
The bad news is that the Eagles also have a gaping hole where the franchise quarterback should be. In 2015, Sam Bradford counted for just under $13 million against the Eagles’ salary cap. To use the franchise tag would mean committing $20-25 million of cap space to Bradford this year.
The Eagles could use the franchise tag on Sam Bradford, or they could sign him to a long-term deal. James Lang/USA TODAY Sports
But the Eagles’ current cap space would allow them to work out long-term contracts with Bradford and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox. Those contracts could be structured to keep the cap hits reasonable in 2016.
Last year, for example, the Dolphins signed defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to a six-year contract worth $114 million. That’s a lot of money. But the cap hit for 2015 was only $6.1 million. It balloons to $28.6 million for 2016, but that just shows how contracts can be tweaked to fit the team’s salary cap situation.
Cox already counts against the Eagles’ 2015 cap for $7.7 million because the team used its fifth-year option to extend Cox’s rookie deal. Using a structure similar to Suh’s contract, the Eagles could lock Cox up for the long term without raising his salary cap number in the short term.
The four contracts the Eagles did last month added about $16 million, total, in salary cap charges for 2016. Those deals also give the Eagles stability with four players while the cap continues to go up every season.
If the Eagles try to work out a deal with Bradford, the market is very pricy. Quarterbacks have gotten some very big deals in the past few years. But many of those deals -- Colin Kaepernick's, Andy Dalton's and Ryan Tannehill's among them -- also feature language that allow the team to get out of the deal after two or three years without serious cap damage.
A deal like that would allow the Eagles to spend two years finding out how good Bradford can be in coach Doug Pederson’s offense while maintaining the ability to move on if he doesn’t live up to the contract.
That is the kind of contract the Eagles should have done with Bradford last year, at the time they traded for him. Bradford has more leverage now because free agency is beckoning, but the Eagles could still use the franchise tag as an incentive to bring Bradford to the bargaining table.Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, The Times’ letters editor, and it is Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. If you seek only consoling words after Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, stop reading now. Those with the stomachs for more digestion of President-elect Trump’s gut-wrenching victory, read on.
Here’s a look back at the week in Opinion.
Reacting the night Trump appeared to be on his way to upsetting Hillary Clinton and stunning the world by winning the White House, our political op-ed columnist Doyle McManus offered this warning: Get ready for a rough ride, America.
The president-elect made promises he cannot possibly keep and threatened to upend the world order, having pledged on the campaign trail to rip up longstanding trade agreements and reevaluate American alliances with European nations. McManus summed up Trump’s daunting to-do list now that he will soon be the most powerful person in the world:
Begin with the economy. Trump’s first challenge is likely to be a slump in the financial markets; on Election Night, Dow futures plunged as his victory became clear. Can the New York mogul find the words and actions to persuade investors that he’s not the bad news they think he is? Move on — quickly; he’ll have no choice — to foreign policy. Vladimir Putin may be celebrating, but that’s little comfort. U.S. allies in Europe are worried; will Trump reaffirm our ties with them, which are vital to combating international terrorism, or allow them to deteriorate? China has warned that Trump’s promise to impose sanctions on its economy (for “currency manipulation” that experts say Trump is wrong about) will prompt swift reprisals; will the president-elect tell Beijing he was only kidding? Last but not least, consoling the American people. Fewer than half of all voters actually chose Trump; will he reach out to those who fear or loathe him? Minorities, including Latinos and African Americans, decisively rebuffed his purported outreach in their direction; does he care? Trump does have some assets as he approaches a job he has done little to prepare for. He will likely have majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, giving Republicans control of a one-party government for the first time since 2006. In the hands of a more conventional politician — a Mitt Romney, a Marco Rubio — this would be a golden opportunity to pass legislation to advance conservative goals, including lower taxes and tighter federal budgets. But Trump is no mainstream Republican. To take just one glaring example: Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ted Cruz have all argued that the only way to rein in the federal budget is by trimming future growth in Social Security and Medicare spending. Trump disagrees, emphatically. Trump’s fiscal campaign promises simply don’t add up. He’s said he will balance the budget and cut taxes, but expand Social Security and increase military spending. That can’t be done. He’s promised steel workers in the Rust Belt and coal miners in Appalachia that he’ll bring their old jobs back; that’s not likely to happen, either. Still, some of his agenda can be achieved through legislation. He can repeal Obamacare, President Obama’s health insurance program — and leave the details of what should replace it to Congress. He can almost certainly win funding to deport more undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the southern border— the cost of which, he says, will be reimbursed by the Mexican government. (Mexico says it will do no such thing.) And many of Trump’s biggest promises on trade, immigration, national security and foreign policy can be achieved through executive action... He could follow through on his campaign promise to renegotiate the NAFTA trade treaty with Mexico and Canada — and, if the talks went poorly, he could carry out his threat to leave the trade pact. He’s also floated the idea of withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, an action which could set off an international trade war and financial panic. He could attempt to renegotiate U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, reducing our military commitments in Europe if the allies don’t spend more on defense. And, since he says the threat of climate change is a hoax, Trump could keep his pledge to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and undo regulations that reduce U.S. carbon emissions. The problem with all of those unilateral moves is that they could well cause retaliation by other countries — a factor President Trump won’t be able to control. His early months will be a test of his ability as a crisis manager. » Click here to read more.
The Times’ editorial board stridently opposed Trump’s candidacy. Now it is coming to grips with his presidency. In the early morning hours Wednesday after the election outcome became clear, an editorial pondered the question, “How did this happen?” Later, the editorial board, still asserting its disapproval of Trump’s agenda, congratulated the president-elect but warned he should not misinterpret his narrow victory as a mandate to implement his sweeping policy proposals. In another editorial, the board wrestled with how Democrats can work with a president whose campaign politics were as toxic as Trump’s.
RIP, Earth’s climate. Forests are withering. Wildfires are raging. The seas are rising. Up until Tuesday, the global community appeared ready to unite and take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, sparing us from the worst effects of climate change. But then Americans elected as their president a man who has called climate science a hoax and promised to “cancel” the Paris agreement. He cannot actually do that, notes the editorial board, but he can take the world’s second-largest emitter of global-warming gases and walk away. Let’s hope Trump wakes up to reality on this one. L.A. Times
Surprise, surprise, the out-of-touch plutocrat lost. Political and media elites were gobsmacked by Trump’s victory — but they shouldn’t have been. Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes that Hillary Clinton represented much of what liberals once abhorred and what working-class voters were ready to reject: a wealthy, Wall Street-backed, media-enabled plutocrat who believed her presidency to be inevitable. No wonder the nation elected Trump instead. L.A. Times
Here’s a phrase Clinton knows well: It’s the economy, stupid. Pundits and politicos may have been shocked by Trump’s victory, but economists weren’t. Based on their models, a Trump presidency was virtually assured long before the first ballot was cast, writes economics professor Brad Schiller. He lays out the basic formula: “If the economy has been good, people don't seek out change; they are content with the party in power. On the other hand, if the economy isn't delivering the growth and jobs that people expect, they want a change in leadership — a different party in the White House.” L.A. Times
Journalists should have called Trumpism what it was: white supremacy. Erin Aubry Kaplan, who calls herself an “angry black voter,” notes it wasn’t just whites in the South and rural parts of the Midwest who supported Trump; those in Massachusetts, Vermont and other supposedly liberal bastions were on his side too, and their anxiety over the economy got loads of media attention. Kaplan asks: Where was the coverage of black anxiety? L.A. Times
No, Californians, you don’t get to secede or move to Canada. The Times editorial board has a message for angry California voters: “Friends and neighbors, hand back the #Calexit petitions. Your state will not be seceding, and you don’t want it to. The nation belongs to you at least as much as it belongs to any of those red states. You will not surrender it.” L.A. Times
And why would Angelenos leave when they voted for so much great stuff on Tuesday? Here in L.A., the editorial board notes, voters approved the construction of new housing for the homeless, funds to build and maintain parks and, perhaps most dramatically, a plan to massively build out the local transportation infrastructure — rail lines, freeways, bike lanes and all. The lesson: “When voters are given well-thought-out and credible opportunities to make a meaningful difference in their communities — such as road and transit improvements, more and better parks, housing for the homeless and mentally ill — they will support higher taxes. That message should be taken to heart in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.” L.A. Times
Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.comUkip leader calls for battle for hearts and minds of Muslims after Paris attacks and claims EU imperils UK because of risk of terrorists posing as migrants
Some British Muslims are “conflicted in their loyalties” between the UK way of life and what some elements within their faith are telling them, Nigel Farage has said in a speech.
In an incendiary intervention in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, the Ukip leader said there must be a battle for hearts and minds within the Muslim population.
Farage said there was “a problem with some of the Muslim community in this country” and that research suggested that British Muslims experienced a “tremendous conflict and a split of loyalties”.
A senior Ukip source said Farage was referring to polling earlier this year that suggested more than 90% of Muslims approved of the British way of life, but 27% had sympathy for the motives behind the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks.
The same poll showed that 11% said that organisations that publish images of the prophet Muhammad deserve to be attacked, and 68% said that acts of violence against those who publish images of the prophet can never be justified.
“The thing that makes me angry about what happened in Paris is frankly the fact that it was so utterly and entirely predictable,” said Farage. “I think we’ve reached a point where we have to admit to ourselves, in Britain and France and much of the rest of Europe, that mass immigration and multicultural division has for now been a failure.”
The fight against Islamophobia is going backwards | Matthew Goodwin Read more
Ukip claimed the speech was “the most important intervention from a mainstream politician in the UK on the subject of Syria and the UK’s security situation”.
Farage claimed that the European Union was “seriously imperilling our security” because of the risk of terrorists posing as migrants. Initial reports suggest one of the Paris terrorists had a passport belonging to a Syrian refugee.
He said the EU’s principle of free movement of workers had resulted in the “free movement of Kalashnikov rifles, the free movement of terrorists and the free movement of jihadists”. “I have tried again and again and again over the course of the last few months to argue that we must not let our compassion imperil our civilisation,” he said.
Speaking to MPs in parliament on Monday, the home secretary, Theresa May, said the Paris terror attacks were “nothing to do with Islam”.
“British Muslims and indeed Muslims worldwide have said very clearly these events are abhorrent,” she said. “The attacks have nothing to do with Islam which is followed peacefully by millions of people around the world.”
The former shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper – who is currently Labour’s spokesperson on the migration crisis, said the attacks in Paris were too serious to be used for such political purposes.
“Isis twists, distort and undermines Islam, they attack Muslims, Christians and anyone who gets in their way,” she said. “As Nigel Farage knows, people from Muslim communities across Britain and Europe have condemned the vile attacks in Paris.
“This is not the time to divide and denigrate our communities – that is what the terrorists want. Nigel Farage should retract these irresponsible and shameful remarks immediately.”
The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, described Farage’s comments as “grubby politics of the worst kind and sadly the type Farage does so often”.
He said: “For a man who talks a lot about patriotism, he now seeks to play community against community. These comments will be deeply offensive to millions of hard-working, proud and community-minded citizens.
“I think the only ‘conflict’ is in Farage’s head between being a rational politician and spouting lines like this,” he said.
The Green party’s former leader and only MP, Caroline Lucas, said: “Cynical attempts to use these atrocious terror attacks to divide our communities are beneath contempt.
Nigel Farage: British Muslim ‘fifth column’ fuels fear of immigration Read more
“We know that Isis aim to destroy multicultural societies and drive a wedge between people of different faiths and beliefs. The vast majority of people in Britain – from all religious groups and backgrounds – find Isis’s beliefs abhorrent.
“We must not play into the hands of the terrorists by using their attacks as justification to undermine the multicultural communities in which we live.”
Mary Honeyball, the Labour MEP for London, said Farage was “completely wrong” in suggesting that British Muslims were conflicted in their loyalties.
“There are over two-and-a-half million Muslims in Britain and the overwhelming majority are law-abiding citizens and completely loyal to the country in which they live, as Nigel Farage is well aware,” she said. “Suggesting that the community is in some way divided is not only completely prejudiced but also disgracefully inflammatory.”
During the election campaign, Farage controversially claimed that half a million Islamic extremists could cross the Mediterranean and gain access to the UK as a result of EU policies to address the migrant boat crisis.
He also claimed there was rising public concern about immigration partly because people believed there were some Muslims who wanted to form “a fifth column and kill us”, and that there had never before been a migrant group that wanted to “change who we are and what we are”.
Ukip won just one seat at the election, but the party won 13% of the overall vote and is hoping to play a big role in the EU referendum campaign.About Hand of the Gods
The Gods Await Your Command
The Gods are at war. And YOU must lead them to victory.
Hand of the Gods: SMITE Tactics is a turn-based strategy game from from Hi-Rez Studios. Build a card deck from a large roster of mythological gods and creatures from SMITE like Zeus, the Greek God of the Sky, and Odin, the Norse Allfather. Then wage war in competitive multiplayer matches or single-player campaigns. It's up to you to command your Gods, strategically position your forces to take advantage of the terrain, and unleash divine powers to defeat your foes.
Hand of the Gods is currently in active development. Register now to be one of the first to play the game!
The alpha for Hand of the Gods began on November 17, 2016. The game went into closed alpha on January 3, 2017. It entered open beta in July, 2017. Hand of the Gods was released into Early Access on Steam on September 13, 2017.ADELAIDE United will take on La Liga club Malaga this month as Adelaide Oval welcomes the world game in blockbuster fashion.
The Advertiser understands Adelaide Oval staff who had intended to take leave over the mid-season AFL break have been told they will be required to work a major event on Friday, July 25, at Adelaide Oval.
A July clash is the perfect off-season preparation for European clubs and the Reds, who host Melbourne Victory on October 17 at Adelaide Oval.
Neither AFL clubs Adelaide or Port Adelaide play at Adelaide Oval in the last weekend of July.
Adelaide United’s former Barcelona youth coach Josep Gombau enjoys a bulging contact book from Argentine great Lionel Messi to the greats of Spain’s golden generation.
However, it is Gombau’s links with La Liga officials that stand to deliver a slice of overdue football heaven.
South Australia was outflanked by eastern states and Canberra who will host Tim Cahill’s Socceroos in Asian Cup fixtures through January 2015.
The Spanish government is using glamour La Liga clubs to spread its “culture and brand”.
This month’s exhibition game could lead to Adelaide’s possible inclusion in a Spanish-run LFP World Club summer tournament.
Malaga could also play against Perth Glory this month.
Luring one of the Spanish big three, Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid would be an outlandish coup.
However, high calibre outfits such Javi Gracia’s Malaga would pack a venue that has been restricted to cricket and AFL fixtures since the completion of a $535 million, tax-payer funded upgrade.
Malaga — supported by many English expats along the “coast of the sun” — boast the likes of former Bayern Munich and Manchester City striker Roque Santa Cruz, and Liverpool loan forward Luis Alberto on the books.
Gombau has spent the off-season in Catalonia where he met with La Liga officials and searched for players and expertise to bolster the Reds.
Landing La Liga opposition for the Reds in a one-off or ongoing arrangement would provide a massive boost at Hindmarsh and game in general.
Gombau is preparing for a busy pre-season, appointed to steer the A-League All-Stars against Italian powerhouse Juventus at ANZ Stadium on 10 August.
A La Liga side taking on the |
abotage in the years since. In 2006, ELF activists burned a house under construction in Guelph, Ont., and ALF claimed responsibility for freeing 28 beagles from the veterinary faculty of a Madrid university. Both actions were dedicated to the memory of William “Avalon” Rodgers. In 2008, ELF activists torched a row of new, multi-million-dollar homes in the Street of Dreams subdivision in the Seattle area. ALF activists vandalized four fur stores in the Vancouver area on a single night in 2012. This spring a West Vancouver shop, owned by Real Housewives of Vancouver star Jody Claman, was splattered with black paint and ALF graffiti. Still, Ferreira doubts a group as large and destructive as the Elves will rise again. “To create another sophisticated, autonomous cell like what they were doing is difficult now,” he says. “Nobody trusts each other, because everybody is snitching on each other.”
Barbarash says his own views have evolved. By the time he resigned as North American spokesman for the ALF in 2003, he could no longer agree with the movement’s mantra that property destruction was a non-violent act. It does, he concedes, cause psychological, if not physical harm. “I began to feel that, in fact, I was participating in a movement that was putting a lot of—it sounds kind of New Agey—but putting negative energy out into the world.” That said, he says he doesn’t regret any of his actions, nor does he condemn those who continue in the cause. He doesn’t know if Rubin has changed her views, but to portray her as a terrorist “is one of the most ludicrous concepts out there,” he says. “I understand the nature of her actions: they’re political, they involve fire, arson. I understand where that terrorist label is coming from,” he says. “But if you just look at the individual, and you look at what a real terrorist is like—someone who places bombs at a marathon or flies planes into buildings—you know, it’s as black and white as you can get.” Even Quimby draws a vague line between the Elves’ attacks on businesses and property and those that target human life. “I think in the overall scheme of things now, you look at the type of terrorism that’s taking place in the country, it kind of puts it in a little different perspective,” she says in an interview following the deadly Boston Marathon bombing.
How then do you define a woman who can both rescue a wounded chicken and allegedly slip across the border to burn buildings in the dead of night? “Why do you feel they are so incongruent?” Barbarash asks. “They’re both activities that come from the same place. The actions are extremely different but the source of compassion is still the same.”
Donaldson, the Vancouver lawyer, doesn’t speak for Rubin on this, but her actions caused him to reflect on the “complexities” of animal rights. How many diabetics are alive today because the co-discoverers of insulin, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, experimented on dogs, he asks. “Is there a greater good? I don’t know,” he says. “If it’s testing cosmetics, maybe not. If it’s discovering insulin, I think you can make a pretty good pitch, right?” He says Rubin and others got swept up in “misguided activism. It’s not the beliefs that are wrong, it’s the means.” Somewhere in all that smoke the message got lost. “You can take a certain moral high ground when it comes to releasing caged animals that you can’t take when it comes to destroying pubic property on a serious scale,” says Donaldson. “You just can’t.”
And yet the radical fringe remains an active and revered strike force for those who see corporations as the true terrorists—and fire and sabotage the only weapons they understand. The Internet is aflame with those who see the actions of the Elves as heroic. Among them is Roslyn Cassells, a former Vancouver park board commissioner, and Canada’s first elected Green Party member. She calls Rubin, who she met years ago, “a kind and gentle person who has devoted her life to standing up for those who have no voice, the animals and our beloved Earth.” In a series of emails with Maclean’s, Cassells argues such acts are a last resort. “One thing you should consider is how many of the eco-activists behind bars tried many tactics before direct action to make positive change for animals,” she writes. “Direct action is one of many tactics used by those fighting to make this world a better place for all. It forms a continuum together with other tactics such as educating, public campaigns, letter writing, protesting, legal actions, etc.”
Maybe Rubin believes those things, too. Or maybe she did. Or maybe, as Quimby thinks, she was a follower, a relatively minor player swept along in the vortex of the movement—one who didn’t realize that 9/11 was “a game-changer” that hardened social attitudes and fixed the government, and its agencies, with a terrible resolve. There was no more patience for those playing Robin Hood in the forest. No rest and no mercy.
In the end Rubin proved one of the strongest and most elusive of the Elves. The shadow woman who stole through the night to free wild horses now sits in a cage. But no one else is in jail because of things she said. No one lost their freedom because of Rebecca Rubin. Except Rebecca Rubin.$ 39.99
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“I’ll be honest: a big reason we’re doing this is that I wanted to have one of these for myself!”
-Tetsuya Mizuguchi // President and CEO, Enhance Games
Enhance Games’ most-requested item has always been a physical disc version of Rez Infinite for PS4 / PSVR, and we’ve partnered with them to deliver on that wish!
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15 years after the original Rez won hearts and blew minds on the PS2, its unique blend of shooting-rhythm-action returns as Rez Infinite -- infinitely improved and evolved for a new generation of hardware, and a new generation of gamers.
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Neuroimaging studies have shown that seeing others in pain activates brain regions that are involved in first-hand pain, suggesting that shared neuromolecular pathways support processing of first-hand and vicarious pain. We tested whether the dopamine and opioid neurotransmitter systems involved in nociceptive processing also contribute to vicarious pain experience. We used in vivo positron emission tomography to quantify type 2 dopamine and μ-opioid receptor (D 2 R and MOR, respectively) availabilities in brains of 35 subjects. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, the subjects watched short movie clips depicting persons in painful and painless situations. Painful scenes activated pain-responsive brain regions including anterior insulae, thalamus and secondary somatosensory cortices, as well as posterior superior temporal sulci. MOR availability correlated negatively with the haemodynamic responses during painful scenes in anterior and posterior insulae, thalamus, secondary and primary somatosensory cortices, primary motor cortex, and superior temporal sulci. MOR availability correlated positively with orbitofrontal haemodynamic responses during painful scenes. D 2 R availability was not correlated with the haemodynamic responses in any brain region. These results suggest that the opioid system contributes to neural processing of vicarious pain, and that interindividual differences in opioidergic system could explain why some individuals react more strongly than others to seeing pain.
Introduction
Capacity for vicarious experiences is a fundamental aspect of human social behavior. For example, seeing others in pain often triggers in the observer strong unpleasant sensations resembling first-hand pain. Neuroimaging studies have established that some of the brain circuits involved in nociceptive processing are also engaged during vicarious pain (Singer et al. 2004, 2006; Jackson et al. 2005, 2006; Lamm et al. 2011) (but see also Krishnan et al. 2016). Both experiences are typically associated with activation of brain regions that are related to the affective component of pain, namely anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and anterior insulae (Rainville et al. 1997; Price 2000; Lamm et al. 2011), and sometimes also somatosensory cortices related to the sensory dimension of pain (Singer et al. 2004). Moreover, haemodynamic activity in anterior insulae and ACC correlate with the observer's empathic concerns (Singer et al. 2004; Saarela et al. 2007), whereas activity in the somatosensory regions may relate to vicarious simulation of the intensity of observed pain (Bufalari et al. 2007). Such vicarious simulation of others’ emotional and bodily states presumably mimics the negative emotional experience associated with pain, which may promote understanding others’ painful feelings and facilitate helping behavior (Hein et al. 2010).
The similarities of haemodynamic activity during first-hand and vicarious pain experiences suggest that their neurochemical bases might also be similar. Endogenous opioid system and especially the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) is intimately involved in the modulation of emotions (Nummenmaa and Tuominen 2017) and pain (Heinricher and Fields 2013). Human positron emission tomography (PET) studies have shown that noxious stimuli activate the MOR system, most consistently in ventral striatum, thalamus, and amygdala (Zubieta et al. 2001, 2002, 2003; Bencherif et al. 2002; Smith et al. 2006; Scott et al. 2007, 2008; Wager et al. 2007). Furthermore, the magnitude of MOR activation in thalamus and dorsal ACC (dACC) correlates with negative emotional experiences associated with pain (Zubieta et al. 2001), suggesting that differences in opioidergic neurotransmission in these regions may explain interindividual variation in pain perception. The endogenous opioid system could also affect how humans respond to seeing others in pain. Opioid antagonist naltrexone increases pain ratings and unpleasant experiences when seeing others in pain (Rütgen, Seidel, Silani et al. 2015). Similarly, placebo analgesia that is supported by the opioid system (Peciña and Zubieta 2015) reduces the negative emotional experience of the observers, and this reduction is also reflected as attenuated brain responses related to pain's negative affect (Rütgen, Seidel, Riečanský et al. 2015; Rütgen, Seidel, Silani et al. 2015).
In addition to the opioid system, the endogenous dopamine system and particularly the type 2 dopamine receptors (D 2 R) are also involved in nociceptive processing. In rats, pharmacological facilitation of the striatal D 2 R system suppresses, and its blockade increases, pain behavior (Lin et al. 1981; Magnusson and Fisher 2000; Taylor et al. 2003). In humans, PET studies have revealed enhanced dopaminergic processing in dorsal striatum during first-hand pain (Scott et al. 2006, 2007, 2008; Wood et al. 2007). Dopamine release in striatum correlates with both sensory and affective components of pain (Scott et al. 2006; Martikainen et al. 2015), and striatal D 2 R availability correlates negatively with pain sensitivity (Hagelberg et al. 2002; Pertovaara et al. 2004; Martikainen et al. 2005; Scott et al. 2006). Despite its well-established role in nociceptive processing, the role of the D 2 R system in vicarious pain remains unexplored.
In sum, several lines of evidence suggest functional similarities between brain mechanisms underlying first-hand and vicarious pain. Even though both MOR and D 2 R are involved in first-hand pain, it remains unresolved whether they also support vicarious pain. Here we tested this hypothesis using multimodal neuroimaging. We used PET with radioligands selective for MOR ([11C]carfentanil) and D 2 R ([11C]raclopride) to estimate neuroreceptor availability in vivo. Subsequently, the subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), during which they watched videos of humans experiencing varying levels of pain. We found that seeing others in pain activates several brain regions involved in nociception, including secondary somatosensory cortices (S2), thalamus and anterior insulae, as well as prefrontal cortices (PFC) and superior temporal sulci (STS). Critically, baseline cerebral MOR availability was negatively correlated with haemodynamic responses to others’ pain in sensorimotor regions, anterior insulae, and STS. Positive correlations were found in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In contrast, we found no connection between D 2 R receptor availability and brain responses to others’ pain. Our data suggest that MORs, but not D 2 Rs, contribute significantly to vicarious pain.
Materials and Methods
Participants
The study protocol was approved by the ethics board of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland, and the study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. We studied altogether 36 women (mean ± SD age: 44 ± 10 years, range: 19–58 years). One subject was removed from the sample because her MRI revealed a previously nondiagnosed neurological disease. Exclusion criteria were lack of compliance, alcohol consumption exceeding 8 weekly doses, substance abuse determined by interview and blood tests, a history of or current psychiatric or neurological disease, current medication affecting the central nervous system, as well as standard PET and MRI exclusion criteria. Each subject participated in 3 imaging sessions. The 2 PET scans were separated, on average, by 4 days, while the PET and MRI scans were separated, on average, by 3 weeks. The subjects signed ethics-committee-approved informed consent forms, and they were compensated for their time and travel costs.
PET Imaging and Analysis
Figure 1 shows an overview of the experimental design and data analysis. PET data were acquired with the GE Healthcare Discovery TM 690 PET/CT scanner in Turku PET Center. Radiotracer production has been described previously (Karlsson et al. 2015). After a bolus of intravenous radioligand injection (251 ± 10 MBq of [11C]carfentanil and 251 ± 24 MBq of [11C]raclopride), radioactivity in the brain was measured with PET for 51 minutes with increasing frame length (3 × 1 min, 4 × 3 min, 6 × 6 min) using in-plane resolution of 3.75 mm. The [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride PET scans were performed on separate days. The subjects were lying in supine position throughout the studies. Data were corrected for dead-time, decay and measured photon-attenuation, and dynamic PET scans were reconstructed with vendor-provided standard MRAC and MRP methods (Alenius and Ruotsalainen 1997).
Figure 1. View largeDownload slide Experimental design and overview of the PET–fMRI fusion analysis. (a) Subjects watched 102 short movie clips depicting humans in painful and painless situations. (b) Dynamic pain ratings (mean ± SEM across subjects) for the stimulus array were obtained in a separate experiment. (c) The mean pain rating was first used to predict subjectwise BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in the general linear model. Regional [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride binding potentials were then used to predict the voxelwise regressor coefficients between pain ratings and BOLD to evaluate the contribution of MOR and D 2 R on vicarious pain.
Figure 1. View largeDownload slide Experimental design and overview of the PET–fMRI fusion analysis. (a) Subjects watched 102 short movie clips depicting humans in painful and painless situations. (b) Dynamic pain ratings (mean ± SEM across subjects) for the stimulus array were obtained in a separate experiment. (c) The mean pain rating was first used to predict subjectwise BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in the general linear model. Regional [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride binding potentials were then used to predict the voxelwise regressor coefficients between pain ratings and BOLD to evaluate the contribution of MOR and D 2 R on vicarious pain.
Anatomical MR images (1 mm3) were acquired with Philips Gyroscan Intera 1.5 T scanner using T1-weighted sequences. PET images were realigned frame-to-frame and coregistered with the anatomical and functional MR images (see below). Subject-specific regional time–activity curves (TACs) were then calculated for each region of interest (ROI; see below). Medial occipital cortex and cerebellum were used as reference regions in [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride analyses, respectively. To ensure that the ROIs would not contain nondisplaceable binding, voxels whose signal did not exceed mean reference tissue signal intensity were also excluded from the ROIs.
Simplified reference tissue model (SRTM; Lammertsma and Hume 1996) was used to model the tracer kinetics. Tracer binding was expressed in terms of BP ND, which is the ratio of specific to nondisplaceable binding. ROI-level modeling was performed using an in-house implementation of SRTM. Voxel-level fitting was done using the basis-functions implementation of SRTM (Gunn et al. 1997); the parameter bounds for θ 3 (θ 3 min(carfentanil) = 0.06/min, θ 3 max(carfentanil) = 0.6/min; θ 3 min(raclopride) = 0.082/min, θ 3 max(raclopride) = 0.6/min) were chosen so that averaging over voxel-level BP ND -estimates within a ROI would produce the same result as first calculating a ROI-specific TAC and then fitting the model to that.
ROI Selection
Tracer binding was quantified in 13 anatomical ROIs involved in nociceptive and socioemotional processing (Singer et al. 2004; Lahnakoski et al. 2012; Karlsson et al. 2015): amygdala, caudate, dACC, rostral ACC, thalamus, anterior insula, posterior insula, posterior STS, putamen, nucleus accumbens, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, and OFC. The ROIs are visualized on top of tracer-specific mean binding potential maps in Figure 2. Specific [11C]raclopride binding is low in many of these regions; we nevertheless included them in the analysis for the sake of consistency. The ROIs were derived separately for each subject using FreeSurfer (http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/); such ROIs yield consistent estimates with those delineated manually (Johansson et al. 2016). Posterior STS was delineated manually because FreeSurfer does not segment it, and because corresponding anatomical ROI does not exist in atlases.
Figure 2. View largeDownload slide The regions of interest (ROIs) used in the study overlaid on study-specific mean binding potential maps of [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride. AMY, amygdala; CAU, caudate; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; rACC, rostral anterior cingulate cortex; THA, thalamus; AINS, anterior insula; PINS, posterior insula; STS, posterior superior temporal sulcus; PUT, putamen; NACC, nucleus accumbens; PRECG, precentral gyrus; POSTCG, postcentral gyrus; and OFC, orbitofrontal cortex. The ROIs are shown in MNI space for visualization purposes, in actual analyses the ROIs were obtained separately for each subject using FreeSurfer.
Figure 2. View largeDownload slide The regions of interest (ROIs) used in the study overlaid on study-specific mean binding potential maps of [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride. AMY, amygdala; CAU, caudate; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; rACC, rostral anterior cingulate cortex; THA, thalamus; AINS, anterior insula; PINS, posterior insula; STS, posterior superior temporal sulcus; PUT, putamen; NACC, nucleus accumbens; PRECG, precentral gyrus; POSTCG, postcentral gyrus; and OFC, orbitofrontal cortex. The ROIs are shown in MNI space for visualization purposes, in actual analyses the ROIs were obtained separately for each subject using FreeSurfer.
fMRI Data Acquisition and Analysis
Experimental Design and Stimuli
The experimental design has been previously described in detail (Lahnakoski et al. 2012) and is summarized in Figure 1. In brief, the stimuli consisted of 102 video clips (mean duration 12 s; to shorten the experiment we dropped 35 videos from the original design) extracted from mainstream Hollywood movies. The videos contained humans involved in painful and painless situations, as well as filler scenes without humans (scenery, inanimate objects, etc.). The clips were presented without breaks in a fixed order, and the total duration of the experiment was 21 minutes. During the fMRI scan, the participants were asked not to move and watch the videos attentively as they would be watching a movie or TV.
Dynamic ratings for the intensity of vicarious pain seen in the videos were obtained in a separate condition from 17 participants (10 females) not participating in the neuroimaging study. Pearson correlation coefficient between mean male and female ratings was 0.96, and consequently ratings from both sexes were used in this study. While viewing each video clip, the participants used a mouse to move a small cursor at the right side of the screen up and down to indicate how much pain (from “not at all” to “highest imaginable pain”) the character in the clip was experiencing. Ratings were sampled at 5 Hz, averaged across subjects, downsampled to one TR and finally convolved with the canonical HRF to provide regressors for the general linear model (GLM) analysis. The online rating tool is freely available at https://version.aalto.fi/gitlab/eglerean/dynamicannotations.
To control for low-level sensory confounds, we computed moment-to-moment mean luminosity and sound intensity from the video and audio tracks in 200 ms time windows using root mean square of the raw luminosity and sound intensity for each time window. These time series were convolved with HRF and further downsampled to one TR, orthogonalized with respect to the vicarious pain regressor, and finally included in the model as nuisance covariates (see below).
Image Acquisition and Analysis
Whole-brain functional data were acquired with T2*-weighted echo-planar imaging sequence, sensitive to the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal contrast (TR = 3300 ms, TE = 50 ms, 90° flip angle, 192 mm FOV, 64 × 64 reconstruction matrix, 62.5 kHz bandwidth, 4.0 mm slice thickness, 33 interleaved slices acquired in ascending order without gaps). Altogether 390 functional volumes were acquired. Anatomical images (1 mm3 resolution) were acquired using a T1-weighted sequence (TR 25 ms, TE 4.6 ms, flip angle 30°, 280 mm FOV, 256 × 256 reconstruction matrix).
Functional data were preprocessed with FSL using the FEAT pipeline: slice-time correction, motion correction, 2-step coregistration to MNI 152 2-mm template, and 8-mm spatial smoothing using Gaussian kernel. Low-frequency drifts in data were estimated and removed using a 240-s-long Savitzky–Golay filter (Çukur et al. 2013). To control for head-motion confounds, motion parameters were regressed out (Friston et al. 1996).
GLM was fitted to the data using SPM12 (version 6225; http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/). The design matrix consisted of 3 regressors: moment-to-moment ratings of i) seen pain in the videos, ii) brightness of the video track, and iii) intensity of the audio track. Subjectwise contrast images were generated for main effect of vicarious pain intensity. The contrast images were then subjected to a second-level analysis to reveal at the population level brain regions processing vicarious pain. As it has been recently argued that typical parametric statistical inference methods may produce inflated false-positive rates in neuroimaging (Eklund et al. 2016), we used nonparametric inference as implemented in SnPM13 toolbox (http://warwick.ac.uk/snpm).
PET–fMRI Fusion Analysis
To test for the contribution of MOR and D 2 R on vicarious pain, the voxel-wise BOLD responses were modeled with ROI-wise [11C]carfentanil and [11C]raclopride binding potentials in each ROI separately using linear regression analysis (Fig. 1). We also investigated whether global MOR and D 2 R availabilities, calculated as the within-subject mean binding potentials for both tracers (i.e., averaged across the ROIs shown in Fig. 2), predict haemodynamic responses during vicarious pain. In all analyses, 10 000 permutations were used to estimate the null distribution, primary threshold was set to P = 0.05, and only the clusters surviving FWE-correction (P < 0.05) are reported. In a complementary methodological approach, we also extracted subjectwise BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in the 13 ROIs described above. Subsequently, MOR and D 2 R availabilities in these ROIs were correlated with the regional BOLD responses to characterize the regional interactions between MOR, D 2 R, and BOLD responses while seeing others in pain. This enabled visualizing in which regions binding potential estimates best predicted the BOLD responses.
Results
Main Effect for Vicarious Pain
We first modeled the BOLD data with the vicarious pain intensity regressor to reveal brain regions activated when seeing others in pain. This analysis (Fig. 3) replicated our prior results using the same protocol (Lahnakoski et al. 2012), revealing bilateral activation clusters in regions including anterior insulae and S2 that are related to both first-hand and vicarious experiences of pain (Singer et al. 2004, 2006; Jackson et al. 2005, 2006; Hein et al. 2010; Lamm et al. 2011; Morelli et al. 2014). Additional clusters were observed in primary motor cortices, as well as in PFC and STS that are linked to empathy and intention representation in general (Nummenmaa and Calder 2009; Morishima et al. 2012; Rameson et al. 2012). The unthresholded t-map is available at http://neurovault.org/collections/BHAGGQLK/.
Figure 3. View largeDownload slide Brain regions whose responses were linearly dependent on the intensity of pain seen in the movies. The data are thresholded at P < 0.05, FWE corrected at cluster level. Colourbar indicates the t-statistic range. The results are shown on fsaverage pial surface from FreeSurfer.
Figure 3. View largeDownload slide Brain regions whose responses were linearly dependent on the intensity of pain seen in the movies. The data are thresholded at P < 0.05, FWE corrected at cluster level. Colourbar indicates the t-statistic range. The results are shown on fsaverage pial surface from FreeSurfer.
Fusion Analysis of PET and fMRI Data
We next tested how regional MOR and D 2 R availabilities influence BOLD responses to seeing others in pain. In the full-brain GLM analyses, regional MOR availabilities in caudate, OFC, posterior insula, postcentral gyrus, STS, putamen, and rostral ACC were negatively correlated with the BOLD responses in thalamus, sensorimotor regions (S1, S2, M1, paracentral lobule, SMA), anterior insulae, lateral PFC, and STS (Figs 4 and 5a; see http://neurovault.org/collections/BHAGGQLK/ for the unthresholded t-maps). Results using the global MOR availability closely mirror these findings (Supplementary Fig. 1). These effects overlapped most clearly with the main effect of vicarious pain in anterior insula, somatosensory cortex, thalamus, STS, and striatum (total overlap 28%; see Supplementary Fig. 2). Positive correlations did not exceed the a priori statistical threshold in any region. However, at more lenient thresholding (P < 0.05 uncorrected, cluster size >1000) MOR availability in thalamus was correlated with the BOLD responses in OFC (Fig. 5b). While not found using the global MOR availability, this effect was also detected in the a priori ROI analysis (see below). Finally, D 2 R availability did not predict BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in any brain region, even when more lenient statistical threshold (uncorrected P < 0.05, cluster size >3000) was used.
Figure 4. View largeDownload slide Cumulative maps showing the number of ROIs (out of 13) whose [11C]carfentanil BP ND was correlated (P< 0.05, FWE-corrected at cluster level) with BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in each brain area. White outline shows regions where BOLD signal correlated with the intensity of vicarious pain (Fig. 3). PFC, prefrontal cortex; S1, primary somatosensory cortex; S2, secondary somatosensory cortex; M1, primary motor cortex; SMA, supplementary motor area; STS, superior temporal sulcus. The results are shown on fsaverage pial surface from FreeSurfer.
Figure 4. View largeDownload slide Cumulative maps showing the number of ROIs (out of 13) whose [11C]carfentanil BP ND was correlated (P< 0.05, FWE-corrected at cluster level) with BOLD responses to seeing others in pain in each brain area. White outline shows regions where BOLD signal correlated with the intensity of vicarious pain (Fig. 3). PFC, prefrontal cortex; S1, primary somatosensory cortex; S2, secondary somatosensory cortex; M1, primary motor cortex; SMA, supplementary motor area; STS, superior temporal sulcus. The results are shown on fsaverage pial surface from FreeSurfer.
Figure 5. View largeDownload slide (a) Brain regions showing negative correlation between MOR availability in putamen and BOLD responses during vicarious pain (P < 0.05, FWE-corrected at cluster level). PCG, precentral gyrus. (b) Brain regions showing positive correlation between thalamic MOR availability and BOLD responses in orbitofrontal cortex during vicarious pain (P < 0.05, uncorrected, cluster size >1000). The scatterplots show least-square regression lines with 95% confidence intervals. Data are shown for thalamus and putamen because MORs are abundantly expressed in these regions and because there BP ND had consistent associations with the BOLD responses. The results are shown on MNI-152 template mni152_2009bet.nii.
Figure 5. View largeDownload slide (a) Brain regions showing negative correlation between MOR availability in putamen and BOLD responses during vicarious pain (P < 0.05, FWE-corrected at cluster level). PCG, precentral gyrus. (b) Brain regions showing positive correlation between thalamic MOR availability and BOLD responses in orbitofrontal cortex during vicarious pain (P < 0.05, uncorrected, cluster size >1000). The scatterplots show least-square regression lines with 95% confidence intervals. Data are shown for thalamus and putamen because MORs are abundantly expressed in these regions and because there BP ND had consistent associations with the BOLD responses. The results are shown on MNI-152 template mni152_2009bet.nii.
These results were corroborated by the ROI-wise correlation analyses (Fig. 6), which revealed that cerebral MOR availability (particularly in caudate, putamen, and rostral ACC) correlates negatively with BOLD responses (e.g., in postcentral gyrus, posterior insula, and precentral gyrus) to seeing others in pain. In addition, cerebral MOR availability correlated positively with the BOLD responses in OFC. This association pattern was remarkably consistent across the ROIs in which [11C]carfentanil BP ND was estimated in (Fig. 6). Again, D 2 R availability was not correlated with BOLD responses.
Figure 6. View largeDownload slide Results of the ROI analysis. Rows show ROIs for PET data, columns for fMRI data. Colourbar indicates the correlation between the regional BP ND and BOLD-fMRI-betas for each region. Statistically significant associations are shown in boldface and black outline. AMY, amygdala; CAU, caudate; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; NACC, nucleus accumbens; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; POSTCG, postcentral gyrus; PRECG, precentral gyrus; PUT, putamen; rACC, rostral anterior cingulate cortex; THA, thalamus; AINS, anterior insula; PINS, posterior insula; STS, superior temporal sulcus.
Figure 6. View largeDownload slide Results of the ROI analysis. Rows show ROIs for PET data, columns for fMRI data. Colourbar indicates the correlation between the regional BP ND and BOLD-fMRI-betas for each region. Statistically significant associations are shown in boldface and black outline. AMY, amygdala; CAU, caudate; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; NACC, nucleus accumbens; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; POSTCG, postcentral gyrus; PRECG, precentral gyrus; PUT, putamen; rACC, rostral anterior cingulate cortex; THA, thalamus; AINS, anterior insula; PINS, posterior insula; STS, superior temporal sulcus.
Discussion
Our results show that haemodynamic responses during vicarious pain depended on cerebral MOR but not D 2 R availability in regionally selective manner: MOR availability was negatively correlated with BOLD responses in sensorimotor (S1, S2, M1, paracentral lobule, SMA) regions as well as in parts of the emotion circuit (insula, thalamus), whereas positive correlation was found in OFC that is involved in multiple socioemotional functions, such as mentalizing and social bonding (Powell et al. 2012; Schurz et al. 2014; Nummenmaa et al. 2015). These data provide the first in vivo evidence about the neuromolecular pathways involved in processing of vicarious pain, suggesting that MORs but not D 2 Rs contribute to the vicarious experience. Even though recent studies suggest that the functional (as measured with fMRI) neural bases of first-hand and vicarious pain experiences differ (Krishnan et al. 2016), our study suggests that they however rely on the same neurotransmitter system.
Opioidergic Basis of Vicarious Pain Experience
Intensity of seen pain in the videos correlated positively with BOLD signals in thalamus, anterior insulae, S2, superior PFC, as well as precuneus, occipital cortex and pSTS, thereby replicating our previous findings using the same experimental setup (Lahnakoski et al. 2012). The results also accord with prior work showing that these regions are consistently engaged during vicarious pain (Singer et al. 2004; Jackson et al. 2005; Saarela et al. 2007). Thalamus, insula, S2 and PFC are also activated by noxious stimuli (Tracey and Mantyh 2007) and may underlie the affective mirroring of pain. On the contrary, PFC and STS are important regions linked to empathy and representing others’ internal states in general (Morishima et al. 2012; Rameson et al. 2012).
Our main new finding is the negative correlation between cerebral MOR availability and BOLD responses to seeing others in pain, observed in sensorimotor regions (S1, S2, M1, SMA, paracentral lobule), anterior insula, posterior insula, PFC, and STS. This pattern was consistent across the ROIs where MOR availabilities were estimated, likely reflecting the widespread |
, it reported on additional ecological impacts ranging from compromised food systems to harm done a wide range of critical living networks.
The core problem is “global weirding,” an escalating, unpredictable ecological instability. “A breakdown of food systems,” the loss of low-lying cities, ocean acidification, the death of coral reefs, the decline of critical land-based flora and fauna, and the decimation of critical ecosystems are all part of an increasingly poisonous package. The idea that somehow more CO2 will yield more crops is counteracted by the toll taken by temperature spikes and the loss of certain insects, combined with the increased predations of others — and much more we simply do not understand.
There are always dissenters. But at Prince William Sound in Alaska we see the consensus on warming joined by yet another global terror: petro-poisoning.
A quarter-century after the 1979 Valdez disaster, Exxon and its allies are sticking with their “see no evil, pay no damages” denials.
But the hard evidence shows a wide range of local sea life has failed to return. Residual oil is still globbed along the shoreline.
And, in what NPR has called a “Eureka moment,” scientists have confirmed that the “long-lasting components of oil thought to be benign turned out to cause chronic damage to fish hearts when fish were exposed to tiny concentrations of the compounds as embryos.”
The impact is confirmed by parallel heart problems reported by Bloomberg to tuna harmed in the Gulf of Mexico’s far more recent 2010 BP disaster.
If the petro-toxics from these spills can do such damage to larger fish, what are they also doing to all others that occupy this ecosystem? If trace poisons spewed 25 years ago are still ripping through the embryo of Alaskan fish, what must they also be doing to the starfish, the krill, the phytoplankton, the algae and so many other microorganisms?
It’s long been known that the particulate matter from burning coal over the centuries has killed countless humans.
But what, in turn, is all that doing to the global ecosystem and all its even more vulnerable creatures, warmed or otherwise?
Since the Valdez’s 25th anniversary last month, two more major spills have poisoned the waters off Galveston, Texas, and Michigan. As Greg Palast has reported at Truthdig, our single certainty is that in a world dominated by no-fault corporations, the fossil industry will pour ever-more lethal poisons into our air and water, land and crops, and all else on which we depend.
The same is true of atomic energy. A new scientific report about Chernobyl warns that in at least some of the forests saturated with radiation leaked from that nuclear plant, the natural cycle of decay has all but ceased.
Like cancer cells that refuse to die, the fallen vegetation won’t go away. “Decomposers — organisms such as microbes, fungi and some types of insects that drive the process of decay — have also suffered from the contamination,” Rachel Nuwer writes on Smithsonian.com. “These creatures are responsible for an essential component of any ecosystem: recycling organic matter back into the soil.”
Sooner or later, that massive pile of inert detritus will catch fire. Gargantuan quantities of accumulated fallout will pour into the atmosphere. Those clouds will circle the globe. They’ll merge with all those other isotopes blown into the sky from Chernobyl for the past 28 years, and from all the other reactors and A-bomb tests dating back to New Mexico, 1945.
Meanwhile, Fukushima continues to pour 300 tons or more of radioactive effluent into the Pacific every day. The first of its cesium isotopes have been found off Alaska and will come to California this summer.
But the harm precedes the actual arrival. All 15 tuna taken in one recent study off the California coast tested positive for Fukushima contamination.
The eerie disintegration of starfish along the West Coast may have been caused by petro-pollution rather than Fukushima’s radiation. But each is clearly capable of doing the job alone.
Reports of a “dead zone” in the Pacific and of an epic disappearance of other marine life should be terrifying enough to make us act on both.
Burning coal and fracking gas release significant quantities of deadly radiation, as well as other pollutants and the matter at the root of climate change. Nuclear power heats our oceans and atmosphere, while spewing out still more eco-lethal doses of atomic emitters.
This is where tragedy and farce merge and mutate.
Our choice is not between nuclear power and fossil fuels. Either is sufficient to kill us outright or strand us alone on a dead planet.
Those who would work for human survival should long ago have embraced the truth that all living beings are interdependent, and so are the dirty corporate technologies that kill them.
We can no more survive on a planet burned and poisoned by fossil fuels than we can on one mutated and heated by atomic energy.
Time is short and the two movements must make their peace.
We have the means. Now we need the will.TF Finklea, center, chairman of the Dillon County Council, tours the SC Inland Port in Greer Wednesday morning. To his left is Byron Miller, a vice president with the State Ports Authority, and to his right, Marlon Jones, manager of international distribution, International Paper. (Photo: Rudolph Bell)
GREER – The Port of Charleston is “going on offense” in its never-ending competition with the Port of Savannah by planning a second so-called “inland port” along Interstate 95 in Dillon, according to one expert.
KC Conway, a senior vice president with SunTrust Bank in Atlanta and an expert in ports and logistics, said adding the freight-handling facility in Dillon could help the Port of Charleston capture cargo business moving out of North Carolina along CSX rail lines that might otherwise go to the Port of Savannah.
“This is a really, smart strategic move,” said Conway, a former chief economist with Colliers International, the big real estate brokerage.
The South Carolina State Ports Authority announced the plan for Dillon Wednesday during a press conference at its existing, 2.5-year-old inland port in Greer.
Following the press conference, members of Dillon County Council inspected the Greer facility, as did a representative of at least one potential customer of the proposed Dillon facility, International Paper.
Marlon Jones, a Memphis-based manager of international distribution for International Paper, said his company is interested in the possibility of using the Dillon facility to move cargo from its mill in Riegelwood, North Carolina, through the Port of Charleston and on to customers in the Far East.
Jim Newsome, president of the Ports Authority, said it would study the Dillon plan together with CSX over the next nine months.
While he sees a sufficient cargo base in the Dillon area, including a Harbor Freight Tools distribution center, “the devils in the details,” Newsome said.
Dean Piacente, a CSX vice president, said the Dillon facility would expand transportation options in South Carolina, lower shipping costs for South Carolina businesses and improve competitiveness.
Ports officials say business in Greer has exceeded expectations since the South Carolina Inland Port opened there in November 2013.
It uses cranes to move cargo containers between trucks and trains, offering overnight rail service to and from the Port of Charleston. Norfolk Southern is the only rail provider at the Greer inland port.
NEWSLETTERS Get the Top 5 newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong The five biggest headlines in your inbox each morning Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-736-7136. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Top 5 Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters
Newsome said he expected it to take five years before the Greer facility reached a volume of 100,000 “rail lifts” but it reached that level after two and a half years.
The customer base began with BMW, which exports most of the cars it makes at its plant in Greer, but has grown to include Michelin, Eastman Chemical, Adidas and Dollar Tree, among others.
Newsome said he still expects to expand the Greer facility.
“But right now we want to focus on Dillon."
Read or Share this story: http://grnol.co/1WdWKi0We are entering the age of robotics. Robots will soon be assisting us in our homes; stacking our warehouses; driving our cars; delivering our Amazon purchases; providing emergency medical care; and generally taking our jobs. There’s lots to ponder as they do so. One obvious question — obvious at least to lawyers — is whether the age of robotics poses any unique challenges to our legal system?
That’s a question Ryan Calo tries to answer in his article “Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw”. He does so by considering the lessons learned from the last major disruptive technology: the internet. When it was originally introduced in the late 80s and early 90s, the ultimate fate of the internet was uncertain (and still is, to an extent). Nevertheless, it clearly created new opportunities and new challenges for the law. Some of those challenges have been dealt with; some have not.
Robots are distinct from the internet. Although they may be integrated into it — and thus form part of the ever-expanding internet-of-things — they have a number of unique technological properties. Still, Calo thinks there is something to be learned from the internet era. Over the next couple of posts, I want to see what he has to say.
I start today by looking at his take on the distinctive properties of robots vis-a-vis the distinctive properties of the internet. This takes the form of a compare-and-contrast exercise. I start by considering Calo’s take on the three key features of the internet, and the challenges and opportunities created by those three features. I then follow-up by looking at his take on the three key features of robotics, and the challenges and opportunities they pose. I won’t offer much in the way of evaluation and criticism, except to say that I think there is much to mull over in what Calo has to say. Anyone with an interest in the social implications of robotics should be interested in this.
1. Three Key Features of the Internet and the Challenges they Pose(d)
There are a number of technical and not-so-technical definitions of the “internet”. A technical definition might say that “the internet switches ‘packets’ of data between nodes; it leverages a set of protocols to divide digital information up into separate containers and to route those containers between end points for reassembly and delivery” (Calo 2014, 106). A not-so technical definition might talk in terms of “information superhighways” or the creation of “cyberspaces” in which information is exchanged.
Whatever the definition you use, the internet (according to Calo) has three distinctive features:
Connection: The internet allows for “promiscuous and interactive flows of information” (Calo 2014, 107). Anyone, anywhere can access the same sorts of information as anyone else. What’s more, this can be done at low cost (much lower than old systems for information exchange), and the system enables people to be information producers, as well as consumers. For example, the internet allows me to produce this blog and for you to read it.
Collaboration: The internet allows for the creation of shared virtual meeting places. Within these virtual spaces people can collaborate on various projects, e.g. producing text, video, software and so on. These meeting places also serve as salons for debate, discussion and other kinds of collaborative conversation. For example, this blog creates a virtual salon, though the volume of debate and discussion is relatively minimal in comparison to other forums (e.g. more popular blogs; discussion boards; reddit).
Control: The internet allows for either new forms of control and manipulation, or more exquisite versions of existing forms of control and manipulation. In other words, people now have a medium for controlling certain aspects of their lives with more precision or in a manner that wasn’t previously available to them. A simple example of this would be the way in which the internet facilitates shopping. With online shopping I am given much more freedom and control over my shopping experience (time, product, place etc) than is the case with traditional high-street shops. Another example, would be how virtual learning environments (like Blackboard and Moodle) allow me to create and share information about the courses I am teaching with the students I teach in a much more user-friendly and expansive form.
These three features bring with them a set of opportunities and challenges. The challenges are particularly important from a legal perspective because they tend to stretch traditional legal rules to breaking point. That may be a good thing, if the rules protect interests that don’t deserve to be protected; but it might also be a bad thing, if legitimate interests are protected by the rules but the rule is ill-equipped for the characteristics of the internet. There’s no point talking about this in the abstract though. Let’s go through each of the challenges and opportunities.
First, with regard to connection, it’s clear that this has tremendous potential for the sharing, copying and production (“democratisation”) of information. I, for one, am very glad to have all the knowledge of the world at my fingertips. It makes research, writing and dissemination of my own work so much easier to do. Likewise, in the commercial context, it allows for nimble, internet-savvy startups to take over from the lumbering behemoths of the corporate world. But it is clearly not good news for all. The internet makes it easy for artists to create and promote their work, but difficult to protect their property rights in that work. This is because the traditional intellectual property rules were not designed to deal with a world in which information is so readily copied and shared. Indeed, it is not clear that any set of legal rules can effectively deal with that problem (though there are some models, e.g. creative commons, DMCA). Likewise, the promiscuous flow of information makes it much harder to protect rights to privacy. We all now leave digital “trails” through cyberspace that can followed, stored and manipulated. This is something that is subject to increasing scrutiny, and some laws are in place to deal with it, but again the technology stretches the traditional regimes to breaking point.
Moving on to collaboration, it is pretty obvious how this could be positive. Creating communities that allow for collaborative work and conversations can benefit individuals and society. But it also creates problems. Legally, the sorts of collaborative work done online can create issues when it comes to responsibility and liability. For example, who is responsible for creating defamatory publications (videos/text) when they are produced through some online (often anonymous) collaborative endeavour? Or who is responsible for defective non-commercial software? To some extent, we follow traditional legal rules in relation to authorship and control, but it’s not clear that they are always appropriate. Another obvious problem with collaboration is that the internet allows groups to work together for good and ill. Criminals and terrorists can create sub-regions within cyberspace in which they can promote nefarious ideologies and plan coordinated attacks.
Finally, in relation to control, there are obvious benefits to be had here in terms of autonomy and individual choice. We can now do more things and access more goods than we ever could before. But at the same time, technological elites (including both corporate and governmental entities) can use the same technology to monitor and control our activities. This creates problems when it comes to individual and collective rights (e.g. tradeoffs between individual choice and state security). These are issues that have surfaced repeatedly in recent years.
2. The Three Key Features of Robotics and the Challenges they Pose
Calo argues that robotics has three key features too and that identifying them can help to illuminate the challenges and opportunities of the robotics era. I’ll talk about those three features in a moment. First, I must note some of the restrictions Calo imposes on his own analysis. It is common in philosophical and futurist circles to discuss the classic science fiction questions of whether a robot could be conscious, whether it could possess human-level intelligence, whether it could qualify for personhood and so on. These are fascinating issues, no doubt about it. But Calo avoids them. As he likes to put it, he is a conservative about the technology and a radical about its social implications. In other words, he thinks that robotics technology doesn’t have to reach the level of sophistication required for potential personhood (or whatever) to have major social implications. Much more mundane robots can pose challenges for the legal system. He wants to focus on those more mundane examples.
With that in mind, we can look at the three key features of (more mundane forms of) robotics technology:
Embodiment: Robots will be mechanical agents that perform actions in the real world. Unlike artificially intelligent software programs that send outputs to some screen or digital signalling device; robots will have a more diverse set of actuators that allow them to do things in the real world. For example, a military drone can actually fly and deliver a payload to a target; a robot vacuum cleaner can move around your house, sucking up dirt; a robot worker like Baxter LINK can lift, sort and otherwise manipulate physical objects. The list goes on and on. You get the basic idea.
Emergence: Robots will not simply perform routine, predictable actions. The gold-standard from now on will be to create robots that can learn and adapt to circumstances. This will result in “emergent” behaviour. Emergent in the sense that the behaviour will not always be predicted or anticipated by the original creators. Calo prefers the term “emergent” to the more commonly-used “autonomous” because the latter is too closely associated with human concepts such as intent, desire and free will.
Social Meaning: This is a little more obscure than the other two. Calo points out that humans will have a tendency to anthropomorphise robots and imbue them with greater social meaning, perhaps more than we do with various software programs. He cites Julie Carpenter’s work on attachment to bomb disposal robots in the military as an example of this. Carpenter found that operators developed relationships with robots that were somewhat akin to the relationships between humans and beloved pets. More generally, robots threaten to blur the object-agent distinction and may belong in a whole new ontological category.Ghostface Killah hasn't been happy with Action Bronson. The two have been tied together since the younger, portlier rapper came out at the beginning of this decade. Bronson's nasally delivery--and sometimes his free-associative writing style--recalled the Wu-Tang legend, and for a while, they both took the comparisons in stride. But when Bronson suggested on ESPN that Ghost had lost his magic touch, all bets were off. Where some rappers have spent the summer tweeting and dancing around one issue or another, Tone hit the younger Gotham MC with one of the harshest things ever filmed with a vertical camera. More recently, at Sean Price's memorial in New York, Popa Wu of all people confronted Bronson over his ESPN comments. So who would guess that a relative unknown from Minneapolis would be the one to find for the giants some common ground?
That's exactly what Manny Phesto did this weekend at the Summer Set Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin. The young rapper was playing on Sunday, but he made the trek early to catch the two before their Friday sets. (Bronson was playing solo, while Ghost had teamed with BADBADNOTGOOD to play songs from their Sour Soul collaboration.) Phesto had each MC pose with the mock election signs that he's been using to promote himself and his website. Even if they aren't in the frame together, Bronson and Ghost united for the greater good is what the country needs in these uncertain times. Manny is best known for his local hit, "Cedar Ave."Tommy Bowe could yet have some part to play for Ulster in tomorrow’s Heineken Cup quarter-final against Saracens after being named among the replacements for the match at Twickenham.
The Ireland international has not played any rugby since December but returns to the fold following a successful operation on a knee ligament injury.
“Tommy has trained very well,” Ulster coach Mark Anscombe said this morning. “He is chomping at the bit to get out there – he has missed a lot of rugby and he wants to play. We want to accommodate him because he is a world-class player. It is a credit to our head of strength and conditioning, Jonny Davis, and to Gareth Robinson, Alan McCaldin and the rest of our medical staff that he is ready.”
John Afoa, who only returned to training yesterday after travelling home to New Zealand for the birth of his third child, is drafted straight back into the front row while Iain Henderson is named at number six instead of Robbie Diack.
The only other change to the side that beat Leinster on their own patch last weekend sees Luke Marshall come back to the Ulster midfield after he missed the trip to the RDS with concussion.
“We're playing in the quarter-final of a great competition, at one of the best grounds in rugby, against the side leading the Aviva Premiership and there's going to be a big crowd,” Anscombe added. “It doesn't get any better than that.”
Saracens coach Mark McCall has included Brad Barritt, David Strettle, Schalk Brits, Matt Stevens, Alistair Hargreaves and Kelly Brown in his selection with the former Ulster centre wary of the threat the visitors will pose.
“Ulster have players all over the pitch who are capable of winning games on both the domestic and international stage,” he said. “In the past two seasons, they have been one of the form teams in Europe and of course, reached the final of this competition last season – so we are fully aware of the size of the challenge ahead of us.
“We go into the game in a good place in both the Premiership and a home quarter-final in Europe. Twickenham is a familiar venue as many of our squad have played here frequently in recent years and of course, several of the team were also in action here just a few weeks ago in the Six Nations – so everyone is really looking forward to the occasion.”
Saracens: A Goode; C Ashton, J Tomkins, B Barritt, D Strettle; O Farrell, R Wigglesworth; M Vunipola, S Brits, M Stevens; S Borthwick, A Hargreaves; K Brown, W Fraser, E Joubert. Replacements: J Smit, R Gill, P du Plessis, M Botha, J Wray, N de Kock, C Hodgson, C Wyles.
Ulster: J Payne, A Trimble, D Cave, L Marshall, C Gilroy, P Jackson, R Pienaar; T Court, R Best, J Afoa; J Muller, D Tuohy; I Henderson, C Henry, N Williams. Replacements: R Herring, C Black, R Lutton, R Diack, R Wilson, P Marshall, S Olding, T Bowe.Nurses work at the palliative care unit of the AP-HP Paul-Brousse Hospital in Villejuif near Paris March 4, 2015. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
PARIS (Reuters) - France’s lower house of parliament passed a bill on Tuesday allowing patients near the end of their lives to stop medical treatment and request deep sedation until they die, a move that critics say is effectively a form of euthanasia.
The draft law, which polls show is backed by most French, passed in the lower house of parliament with 436 members voting in favor and 34 voting against. It is expected to get the final approval from the upper house in May or June.
It builds on Socialist President Francois Hollande’s legacy as a social reformer after he pushed through a controversial law legalizing gay marriage in 2012, and widened education on gender equality in primary schools.
The government is defying critics that range from religious leaders to medical professors and pro-life advocates who argue the new bill ushers in a form of euthanasia in disguise.
Allowing doctors to put patients within “hours or days” of their death under deep sedation until they die, as the law foresees, differs only from euthanasia in that precise time of death cannot be determined, they argue.
A Socialist senator warned the bill could alienate socially conservative voters, including Muslims, weeks ahead of local elections on March 22 and 29 in which the ruling party is seen losing ground to the far-right National Front.
“With this bill, the government is taking the risk of alienating yet more Muslims from the Socialist party,” said Bariza Khiari ahead of the vote.
“There is a risk of massive abstention which could really hurt us in the next local election.”Sigur Rós have just released “Varðeldur”, the latest video in their Valtari Film Experiment. This is the thirteenth installment in the series. Sigur Rós devised the competition in Summer 2012, asking fans, film makers and video directors to create a video for songs from their latest album Valtari. Check out the latest video directed by Clare Langan.
Comments from Director Clare Langan:
“the film explores the fragility of the human condition, frozen somewhere between life and death. shot with a high-speed camera, a human figure and water defy the laws of gravity. there is no clear distinction between dream and reality and the space that the film and the music create becomes a submersive world.”
"original, disturbing and simple" the winner of our film competition, fjögur píanó by anafelle lui: http://t.co/p4rKrjOG — sigur rós (@sigurros) October 15, 2012
another of the runners-up in our film competition: ekki múkk by caroline fisher http://t.co/bEkBEqOl details: http://t.co/p4rKrjOG — sigur rós (@sigurros) October 18, 2012
the 13th video in the valtari film series, varðeldur by clare langan: http://t.co/KGYjI0z8 details: http://t.co/3CfkWVVS — sigur rós (@sigurros) October 22, 2012
People’s Choice video:
Sigur Rós will be on tour in November making stops in Iceland, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.
[Archived Link / Sigur Rós @ Hollywood Forever Cemetery on 8/12/12]Story highlights Donald Trump was asked Wednesday about a Tuesday report from Dutch investigators that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in 2014 by a Russian-made rocket
But Trump later said the culprit was "probably" Russia and pro-Russian fighters
Washington (CNN) Donald Trump doesn't believe there is enough evidence to blame pro-Russian separatists for last year's downing of a commercial airliner over Ukraine -- despite the fact that the U.S. intelligence community believes "with confidence" that pro-Russian separatists shot it down.
"That's a horrible thing that happened," he said. "It's disgusting and disgraceful but Putin and Russia say they didn't do it, the other side said they did, no one really knows who did it, probably Putin knows who did it. Possibly it was Russia but they are totally denying it."
Trump was responding to a question from CNN noting that the U.S. government assesses that the several points of available evidence all point to Russia.
The question from CNN came after Trump was asked on MSNBC Wednesday about a new report from Dutch investigators that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a Russian-made rocket and warhead -- and asked what he would do as president to hold Russia accountable.
U.S. intelligence determined with confidence soon after the attack that a Russian-supplied missile brought the jet down from territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. U.S. intelligence continues to stand by that assessment.
Read MoreWhenever there is a terror attack in which Muslims kill a bunch of non-Muslims, it seems that there is a cottage industry of university professors, journalists and other habitual leftists who go on television and wring their hands about the possibility of anti-Muslim backlash. The theory, I suppose, is that the thing we need to be concerned about is not the regular, ongoing violent attacks against Muslims towards non-Muslims, but rather that non-Muslims might say a mean thing against the Muslims.
We’ve already been treated to a special species of this moronic jackassery courtesy of our own Secretary of State John Kerry, who suggested that the newspaper employees killed during the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo had it coming because they insulted Muslims. The United States media is dutifully following suit, reporting an “anti-Muslim” backlash that includes unverified reports of such horrors as the Eiffel Tower being spray painted on a Mosque, along with “threatening phone calls” being placed to a mosque in Florida.
Meanwhile, no actual acts of violence whatsoever against Muslims in either Europe or America have been reported since the Paris attacks.
You know what there have been? Several more violent attacks by Muslims against non-Muslims, including the suicide vest attack in Paris last night (by a woman who was surely a three year old orphan, or at least a widow), and another terrorist plot in Paris last night that was narrowly averted thanks to a violent raid by French police.
While there has been no evidence of Europe’s Christian/Jewish population engaging in violent acts against Muslims, there’s quite a bit of evidence that Europe’s Muslim population has been inspired by the awesomeness of ISIS into engaging in copycat attacks against Christians and Jews:
Three young men on scooters — one of whom wore a T-shirt bearing “an ISIS symbol” — stabbed a Jewish teacher Wednesday evening, Marseilles prosecutor Brice Robin said. The assailants insulted the teacher, threatened to kill him and stabbed him in the stomach, arms and legs, the prosecutor said. The attackers carried a phone with a photo of Mohammed Merah, who was responsible for a series of 2012 attacks on soldiers and schoolchildren in Toulouse and Montauban. They fled the scene, and police are looking for them, Robin said.
The news media and other assorted liberals have a vested interest in pretending that the violence here is a two-way street, and that the attacks between Muslims and non-Muslims are roughly equivalent so that they can tsk tsk and blame the whole thing on “religious violence” in general as opposed to “the violence of one religion which happens to be Islam.”
Look, without forgetting the obvious fact that most of the world’s billion or so Muslims aren’t terrorists, it is an absolute fact right now that the violence is one-sided and is coming exclusively from people who claim Islam as a religion. While that doesn’t mean all Muslims should be regarded as terrorists, nor is it information that should be completely disregarded.
People use shorthand information to develop “heuristics” that help them make sense of the world. The reality we have is that we don’t have the time or ability to get to know well every single person we interact with on a daily basis – sometimes we have to make snap judgments about, in particular, what constitutes a threat and what does not. And the non-stop barrage of television coverage of violence committed by Muslims around the globe in the name of their religion is increasingly becoming part of the heuristic of people who have fought it for a long time.
And with good reason10. Season 2 Episode 5:
Brody finds himself prisoner again, but this time it’s on American soil. Meanwhile, Carrie is forced to play second fiddle after her rash judgment call at the hotel as Estes is busy keeping Jessica off their trail. Dana’s relationship with Finn goes to the next level when their date night turns deadly serious.
9. Season 2 Episode 2 – Beirut is Back
Against the advice of her family, Carrie becomes involved in an operation that may rid the world of Abu Nazir once and for all. Brody’s handler presses the Congressman into service, as his relationship with Jessica takes a hit. And Captain Mike Faber questions the nature of the events surrounding the shooting of Elizabeth Gaines.
8. Season 2 Episode 11: In Memoriam
Dangerously close to exhaustion, Carrie continues her hunt for Nazir and begins to suspect there is a mole in the CIA. Roya reveals her true colours under interrogation and Saul finds himself fighting to save his career under unexpected circumstances. Meanwhile, the Brodys struggles to maintain anything close to a state of sanity.
7. Season 1 Episode 6:
Reeling after losing key players in Nazir’s plot against America, the CIA orders polygraphs on everyone who came in contact with them, including Brody, which Carrie sees as an opportunity to finally learn the truth, results mostly in personal disclosures from Saul and David. Saul requests a transfer to the New Delhi Station, hoping to rekindle his relationship with his wife. Carrie’s relationship with Brody becomes more personal. The lovers are on the run and being pursued by more than just the CIA.
6. Season 1 Episode 12:
While Carrie is near catatonic and confined to bed, Saul investigates the unsettling implications of her timeline; Walker secures a perch for his mission; Brody makes his final preparations for the Vice President’s policy summit at the State Department.
5. Season 2 Episode 3: State Of Independence
Fresh from her adventures in Beirut, a restless Carrie prepares for what she hopes will be a triumphant return to the CIA. Meanwhile, Brody learns that the Gettysburg bomb maker is on a terrorist watch list and in danger of imminent discovery. With no time to lose, Brody attempts a last minute ex-filtration. And Jessica takes risks of her own as she steps into the political limelight.
4. Season 1 Episode 9: Crossfire
After his attempt to sever ties with Abu Nazir, Brody finds himself reliving his captivity and recommits to his mission; Carrie finds herself in the middle of a public relations nightmare on the heels of the mosque shooting.
3. Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot
When former Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody is rescued after being held in captivity for eight years in Afghanistan, CIA operations officer Carrie Mathison believes he has been turned into a sleeper agent by Al-Qaeda after previously receiving intel that an American prisoner had been turned.
2. Season 2 Episode 6: A Gettysburg Address
Dana visits the hospital and is shocked from the aftermath of the accident. Faber gets tangled up with the CIA when he asks one too many questions about his old friend Tom Walker. Brody agrees to work with Carrie and Quinn to stop an attack on America, but his loyalty to the United States is questioned when Gettysburg once again becomes a battleground.
1. Season 2 Episode 12: The Choice
Carrie must decide where her heart really lies; Brody shares a drink with Faber to consider the future of his family; Saul is tasked with a secret mission; and Quinn makes a decision that may change everything, however it is an explosion that changes everything.The NFL, beleaguered by player protests during playing of the national anthem that have angered many fans and lowered TV ratings for its games, has doubled down on liberal politics.
As you’ve probably heard by now, the league proposed last week to join players in donating nearly $100 million to what ESPN called “causes important to African-American communities.”
But in reality, the proposal is nothing more than a political stunt designed to score brownie points with the mainstream media – from ESPN and Sports Illustrated, to the New York Times.
The NFL wants to partner with the Players Coalition, which represents players “protesting social injustices and racism,” along with a pair of liberal nonprofits – the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Dream Corps.
According to ESPN: “The NFL hopes this effort will effectively end the peaceful-yet-controversial movement that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started when he refused to stand for the national anthem last season.”
Don’t be fooled. The NFL’s donation isn’t about “social causes” or “racial equality.” It’s about America’s favorite football league caving to left-wing activists.
Both the UNCF and Dream Corps, which have been critical of President Trump, would each receive $25 million under the NFL proposal. The Players Coalition would get the rest of the money to make charitable contributions to other organizations.
As soon as the news broke, ESPN praised the “donation to social justice organizations” in the enduring “push for racial equality.” Sports Illustrated claimed the plan would “address social justice issues” that will “help in African-American communities.” The New York Times seized on the proposal, saying it will “aid social causes.”
Don’t be fooled. The NFL’s donation isn’t about “social causes” or “racial equality.” It’s about America’s favorite football league caving to left-wing activists.
Just follow the money, which would ironically come from the NFL owners who many liberals have vilified as “racist” for denying Kaepernick a job he doesn’t deserve. Kaepernick has not been hired by another team this season, after leaving the 49ers.
The UNCF has criticized President Trump’s education budget in recent months. The Dream Corps is a nonprofit advocacy group founded by CNN commentator Van Jones, who called President Trump’s election victory a “whitelash.”
Dream Corps is essentially a promotional vehicle for Jones, featuring his new book and other racially charged political commentary. One of the group’s top issues is an “inclusive green economy” to “lift people out of poverty” – because there’s nothing low-income Americans need more, of course, than stricter environmental regulations.
Moreover, Dream Corps sponsored the anti-Trump “We Rise Tour” and provides catchy posters for its ongoing “Anti-Fascist War.” One reads: “Real Men Rep the F-Word #Feminist.” Another proclaims: “No Ban. No Wall. Sanctuary for All.”
You get the picture. Instead of bringing Americans together around a national pastime, the NFL is standing with multimillionaire anthem kneelers and funding the anti-Trump resistance movement. Some way to market to President Trump’s 63 million supporters!
The NFL would be better off appeasing its loyal fans than liberal activists. All three of the league’s Thanksgiving games saw double-digit drops in viewership from the previous year. Meanwhile, NFL merchandise sales have fallen by 20 percent in recent years. People are changing the channel and their shopping habits.
The same goes for ESPN, which has inundated Americans with pro-Kaepernick and anti-Trump coverage for months. The network recently laid off 150 more employees, bringing the total number of 2017 layoffs to 250 workers.
Memo to the sports industry: Stick to sports – or face extinction.The Conservatives’ lead may not last. It is probably a short-term reaction to the party’s annual conference and the prime minister’s well-received speech. Even so, the fact that YouGov has put the Tories ahead for the first time in more than two and a half years – and done so twice, which suggests it is real and not a sampling fluke – suggests that we face much drama and uncertainty in the runup to next year’s general election.
However |
for the Witcher series, and not just because they’re academy award nominated. They were the team responsible for ALL the Witcher cinematics. People who have played the game know the Witcher cinematics are second to none, and already feel movie quality despite being only brief glimpses into the world. Witcher is popular here, but across the pond it has an intense cult following. Imagine the dedication of Harry Potter fans with less quidditch and more swords, basically that. Platige has shown a deft understanding of that rabid fan base, and are very good at keeping them satiated. If the Witcher series is fully CGI animated, which it could very well be, (nobody knows yet, and the official Netflix page is frustratingly vague) this studio will knock it out of the park. Do yourself a favor and look at some Platige’s beautiful work here.
2) The Expanse Production team
“The Expanse” is a sprawling space opera that dwarfs most other Sci-Fi series. It shows strong influences from Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, and even Firefly. It was also based on a series of books with an intense cult following by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The series is incredibly well-executed, and the production team did a phenomenal job of ensuring the world is rendered beautifully and believably. Sean Daniel and Jason Brown were both executive producers on the series, and they will be lending their talents to the Witcher. While the Sci-Fi elements may seem to contrast thematically with Witcher, there are more similarities than differences. Both universes were based on incredibly deep novels with complex storytelling and cult fan bases. There’s also a deal of realism in both series, and Daniel and Brown have proven themselves to be more than competent and keeping that physical and emotional weight, even in a world that is often in zero gravity. With this kind of skill behind the production team the creative artists at Platige and the source material of Sapkowski are in highly capable hands.
1) Tomek Baginski – The visionary director
With the amazing story, talented artists, and capable production team, the deck is completely stacked in the Witcher’s favor. But Netflix’s real trump card is their director, Tomek Baginski. Baginski directed all the Witcher opening cinematics, and Andrzej Sapkowski credits Baginski as the reason he signed onto the project in the first place. We dug up a Sapkowski interview, originally in Polish, but the translation of Sapkowski’s statement on the choice of Baginski is that it was, “Very strong. Its hard to find a stronger one. If not for Tomek, there wouldn’t be this project at all.”
In more ways than one, the creation of the Netflix series is really thanks to Baginski. His cinematic work on the games is a huge factor in their popularity. He has read the entire series and has a tremendous appreciation for the original work. Baginski said in an interview: “There is a moral and intellectual depth in these books which goes beyond genre. It is a story about today and today’s challenges, hidden under a fantasy cover. It is a story about us, about the monster and the hero inside all of our hearts.”
Baginski has proven himself up to the challenge of bringing that story to life. His For Honor cinematic trailer still gives us chills. Even more encouraging, he has experience working with Platige Image on multiple projects. The biggest pitfalls in series and silver screen adaptations are creative differences between studios, production teams, writers, and directors. Luckily for Witcher fans, the Netflix series will have none of those issues. Unfortunately, there is precious little information about the series for now. The studio hasn’t given a release date and there is endless speculation about who will play main character Geralt. Fans can stay hyped by watching Witcher 3’s launch cinematic, while tearfully clutching a miniature Geralt to their chests, its what we’ll be doing.The W19, also called Katie, was an American nuclear artillery shell, derived from the earlier W9 shell. The W19 was fired from a special 11-inch (28 cm) howitzer. It was introduced in 1955 and retired in 1963.
The W19 was 11 inches (28 cm) in diameter, 54 inches (140 cm) long, and weighed 600 pounds (270 kg). It had a yield of 15-20 kilotons and was, like its predecessor the W9, a gun-type nuclear weapon.
W23 Edit
The W19 nuclear system was adapted into a nuclear artillery shell for the US Navy's 16 inch (406 mm) main battery found on the Iowa-class of battleships, the W23. Production of the W23 began in 1956 and they were in service until 1962, with a total of 50 units being produced.
The W23 was 16 inches (406 mm) in diameter and 64 inches (160 cm) long, with a weight given variously as 1,500 or 1,900 pounds (680 or 860 kg) in reference sources. As with the W19, yield was 15-20 kilotons.Dear Readers: I’ve stepped away from my column for a week while I put the finishing touches on my new book, which will be published in the fall. Please enjoy these “Best of” columns in my absence. I’ll be back with your fresh questions and answers next week.
Dear Amy: The other night my large family (seven children, plus my wife and I) went to dinner at a local restaurant.
We made reservations for a family of nine. Upon our arrival, we had to wait for the table to be set up. As we were waiting, my children were eager to be seated.
As the waiter came to seat us, I overheard a patron saying to the hostess, “Please don’t seat them by us,” meaning my children.
I went back to the waiting area and confronted this man. I asked him if there was a problem with my children that he didn’t want to sit by them? When the hostess saw me confront this man, she ushered me to the table, saying that everything was okay.
Amy, everything was not okay. I wanted to leave, but my wife didn’t want to make a scene. Was I wrong to react as I did?
Proud N.Y. Dad
Proud N.Y. Dad: I have a confession to make. I don’t want to be seated next to your children, either. Much of the time, I don’t want to be seated with my own.
Your children are lovely, I’m sure. But picture this: I’ve just hired a sitter, leaving my own kids at home to have a rare intimate dinner with my spouse. I don’t want to sit next to your children.
Or I’ve just scored a meeting with my client who’s passing through town. I don’t want to sit next to your children.
Or I’ve got my elderly mother with me, and she doesn’t hear so well. Yup. No kids for me, please.
You say you overheard this gentleman speaking to the hostess. I assume he didn’t deliberately direct his comment to you. You shouldn’t have confronted him. I would even say that, in this instance, you set a poor example for your children. If I had been your dinner partner, I would have suggested that you might want to simmer down and let the restaurant hostess do her job, in order to enjoy your own evening out. — May 2007
Dear Amy: I have been married for more than 17 years.
My husband has worked throughout those 17 years, but he has never worked consistently on any one job for more than a year.
On the other hand, I have kept and maintained the same job with the same company for 20 years.
I even have a part-time job.
How do I get my husband to look for more serious employment, so that when we retire we can have more than just my retirement to live on?
I’ve never been able to take a real vacation.
Don’t say that I should talk to him about it. Done that.
Don’t say that I should try to find others who are in the position to help him out, because I’ve done that.
Don’t say that I should find a job for him to apply for, because I’ve also done that.
Tired and Weary
Tired and Weary: I love it when people surgically remove my ideas before I even have a chance to suggest them.
Now I’ve got to get creative.
I’m going to suggest the hardest thing of all. It doesn’t involve your changing or fixing your husband.
My suggestion is that you either figure out what he does well and appreciate him for that or mosey along.
Does your husband maintain the home, do yard work or volunteer in the community? Does he maintain the car, cook and do housework? If you have children, is he a good father?
Many husbands accept being the primary breadwinners for their households when their wives are working at home or working part time.
Perhaps you would feel better in this relationship if you acknowledged that you are the primary breadwinner. If your husband isn’t contributing much financially to the household, then he should definitely contribute in other ways.
If you are not able to change the way you feel about the balance in your marriage or about your husband’s contributions to your family, then you should consider leaving the relationship. A therapist could help you sort this out. Marriage counseling was not on your list of things I can’t suggest. It might work for you. — April 2007
Amy’s column appears seven days a week at washingtonpost.com/advice. Write to Amy Dickinson at askamy@tribpub.com or Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.In sports, teams and their fans take their opponents very seriously. The competition of sport itself can breed a heated dislike for other teams and in many cases, certain players. Hockey is clearly no exception. The scenario may be the culmination of two organizations whose arch-rivalries have brewed over decades and fermented into full blown hatred for one another. Or perhaps, one dirty hit took place in garbage time years ago between two teams who would normally be very civil and sportsmanlike to one another, and that moment remained in fans memories ever since; festering into something much more. Mental notes are taken, payback lists get made, and before you know it, a player can find himself to be one of the most hated in the entire league to a particular fanbase.
Before we get started, something should be made clear. Just because these players have landed themselves on Colorado’s (poop) list, doesn’t take anything away from their time in the NHL (with the exception of maybe one- I think you all know who I’m talking about). All of the players mentioned had great hockey careers and the numbers speak for themselves. I’m sure some of them are also among some fanbases favorite all-time players.
But without further ado, here is a look at the 5 most hated opposing players in Colorado Avalanche history:
5. Eric Lindros
In the 1991 NHL draft, The Quebec Nordiques drafted Eric Lindros and were quickly snubbed by the eventual NHL All-Star. Popular opinion was that Lindros refused to play for a franchise in a small market and would have much rather preferred belonging to a team where his stardom would shine brighter; such as New York or Los Angeles. Others said the decision had more to do with national pride and that Lindros did not want to play for a province that at the time appeared to be moving in a different direction than the rest of Canada. Quebecers were furious with Lindros and he ended up going back to play for his minor league club, The Oshawa Generals. Of course, Eric would have had no idea that the franchise would have eventually been relocated to Colorado four years later, but the damage was done to his reputation among many. The Nordiques did end up getting a good deal out of the trade with the Philadelphia Flyers however, acquiring talent such as Peter Forsberg, who will be inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame in November.
4. Brad May
Brad May was the man that “put out the bounty” on Avalanche player Steve Moore after Moore punished Vancouver Canucks captain Markus Naslund with a hard (but perfectly legal) hit. What resulted because of May’s threatening declaration would end up being one of the most disturbing and uncalled for incidents in league history (but more about that later). May was involved in numerous incidents both on and off the ice; including a 20 game suspension for slashing the face of Steve Heinze of the Columbus Blue Jackets, adding to his polarizing notoriety among fans of the league. When Colorado added May a few years later to it’s own roster, much of the dislike was squashed, but many fans remained salty and he still received collective jeers at home games for a time.
3. Jeremy Roenick
In the 1996 Western Conference Semifinal Series between the Avalanche and the Chicago Blackhawks, Jeremy Roenick and Patrick Roy went back and forth with each other via media interviews. Roenick had made it known that he felt he should have been awarded a penalty shot after being brought down on a breakaway late in the 7 game series. Roy replied stating that he would have made the save regardless. That didn’t sit well with Roenick, as he was quoted saying he’d “like to know where Roy was in Game 3 … probably trying to get his jock out of the rafters.” Roy provided a rebuttle in a way that only he could, saying “I cannot really hear what Jeremy says because I’ve got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ear.” The Avs went on to win the series and eventually the Stanley Cup. In January of 2014, Roenick (now an NHL analyst) was doing a segment on Matt Duchene for NBC. The Denver media asked Roy, who got two more rings after the famous 1996 series, if he could hear anything Roenick said to Duchene during the visit.
“I had the other two rings in my mouth so, I couldn’t say anything to him,” Roy said. The entire war may have been a verbal one, but with the help of the media, it was one that Avalanche fans would forever remember.
2. Darren McCarty
In the heated Colorado Avalanche/Detroit Red Wings rivalry, the images that come to most fans’ minds are those of the ice littered with equipment and pads, every player involved in either handing out a beating to their foes or receiving one themselves. Two players that always seemed to find each other in the midst of the chaos, were Darren McCarty of Detroit and Claude Lemieux of Colorado. After Lemieux had delivered a heavy blow to Kris Draper in a previous game, McCarty was out for revenge on March 26, 1997 (a night that was nicknamed “Fight Night at the Joe”). Lemieux fell to the ground after a punch from McCarty, and Darren resumed throwing blow after to blow to Lemieux’s head. The two went on to engage in multiple fights with each other in games following; sometimes waiting only until the puck was first dropped. Fans of both sides learned to hate the player clad in the opposing colors and in Colorado, McCarty was public enemy #1 for a long time … until another player relieved him of his post …
1. Todd Bertuzzi
On March 8, 2004, in the third period of a game that was over in terms of the score (Colorado beat Vancouver 9-2), Todd Bertuzzi went onto the ice and tried to instigate a fight with Steve Moore of the Avalanche. Moore refused to oblige, so Bertuzzi pursued Moore, slugged him in the jaw from behind, and drove him headfirst into the ice. Moore lay motionless on the ice for about ten minutes, unconscious. The injuries to Moore included three fractured neck vertebrae, a concussion, and various facial scratches. The video shown below speaks for itself:
Moore’s hockey career was ended and his life was changed forever. Bertuzzi was officially charged with “assault causing bodily harm.” He was given 80 hours of community service, and 1 year of probation. Other lawsuits were brought upon Bertuzzi as well. He was banned from the NHL for a period of time and returned to the Canucks in 2005-2006. When Bertuzzi played games at the Pepsi Center in Colorado, the boos were almost deafening. Personally, I hope no man ever tops Todd Bertuzzi on this list because frankly, I don’t even know what a player would have to do to become more unliked by Colorado fans than Bertuzzi.
Obviously, this lineup is arguable and many players not mentioned could have been named. Reflecting back on the franchise’s brawls with Detroit at the end of the last millennium, this list probably could have gone twenty players deep. I should also note that all of these players have since retired, making way for a new generation of players to work their way into the club of Avalanche antagonizers.
Next week: a look at the 5 most adored Avalanche players/alumni. I’d like to hear from you about your opinions on them!About
Dear Friends of the Ocean,
I’m Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence, and I want to share with you some of what I’ve learned over the 50 years I’ve spent under and on the ocean - about it’s health - and therefore our health. We are at a critical crossroads. The next ten years are the most important of the next 10,000 years: the best chance that our species will have to protect what remains of the ocean, a vital part of the natural systems that gives us life.
We used to believe the ocean was so vast that we could never truly affect it. Yet, the pristine ocean that Columbus sailed on was very different from the one we are passing on to our children. Today -- in a world of overfishing, shark finning, bottom trawling, oil spills, rampant pollution, ocean acidification, severe population declines and species extinction -- we now understand the power of humanity to affect our ocean.
We have an immense power to harm only equalled by our power to heal.
Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet’s blue heart.
In this Kickstarter campaign, our goal is to create a unique and beautiful book that bring millions of people underwater with the power of the press...to ignite emotional support for protecting our planet’s most precious resource.
If we can reach our goal together, our campaign will unlock the power of National Geographic to publish a book filled with beautiful images and inspiring quotes about the beauty -- and distress -- in our oceans. With only 5% of the ocean seen by human eyes, this 300 page, large-format book will bring millions of readers under the waves. If our Kickstarter campaign is successful, National Geographic has agreed to donate an additional $100,000. All funds will go to create, print, promote and distribute Blue Hope: Voices in Praise of the World’s Oceans. Proceeds from book sales go to Mission Blue and National Geographic.
We are crowdsourcing this project because we want Blue Hope to be a collaborative effort - with you. So many ocean lovers have captured absolute magic with their lenses. Are you inspired to write about your feelings about the ocean? And then have your work side-by-side with the best photographers and writers?
Subject to National Geographic standards, the best submissions will be included in the final copy of the book. And all submissions will be included on a special page on our Mission Blue website. We can't wait to see what you send to us at sylviaealliance@gmail.com!
This is an all-or-nothing campaign, so we’ll only receive your donations if we reach our goal. And you will only be charged if we reach our goal. Help us leverage the power of National Geographic to publish this book. This beautiful and engaging book will not only be a work of art in itself but will act as an instrument to raise critical awareness about the ocean. Please support by contributing what you can.AWFUL. Vile #BlackLivesMatter Racist Hijacks Orlando Vigil – Goes Off on Whites (VIDEO)
DISGUSTING!
The University of Missouri held a vigil for the #Pulse Club Massacre victims on campus this week.
Unfortunately, a Black Lives Matter activist took over the microphone and started spewing racist insults at the white students on campus.
For some reason this is acceptable on campuses across the US today.
Total Frat Move reported:
On Monday, the University of Missouri held an on-campus vigil for the Orlando terrorist attacks. The tragedy touched everyone across America. In an effort to show support, the vigil at Mizzou was supposed to be a peaceful time, where everyone came together as a community. Instead, a Mizzou race activist had to make it about race. Just when you think Mizzou has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, they go out and do something like this. This chick just stomped all over what supposed to be a nice tribute to the 49 victims and their families who lost their loved ones. Instead, you had to make it about yourself. And the people who are cheering are just as bad as this self-centered girl.Almost a quarter of Americans in the prime of their working lives are out of a job - and millions have given up trying completely, new figures show.
Data published by the Senate Budget Committee revealed the extent of unemployment in the United States, saying that 28.9million US citizens aged 25-54 are out of a job - 23.2 per cent of the total.
The information, published by Republican lawmakers, show a 3.5million increase compared to 2007.
Stark: The stats, from Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee, show widespread joblessness in the US
The rate differs from the Department of Labor's official unemployment figure of 6.1per cent because the Budget Committee figures also include people who have been unemployed so long they no longer count as part of the 'labor force' used to calculate the regular rate.
A release under the name of Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator, said the figures show 'deep, profound and pervasive' problems in the U.S. economy.
The figures cut against the regular unemployment figures, which have been steadily falling since a high of 10 per cent in 2010.
Unemployment: The statistics cut against recent improving unemployment statistics. Pictured are would-be workers in New York queuing for jobs
He said: 'Nearly one-quarter of this group - 28.9 million people, or 23.2 percent of the total - is not currently employed.
'They either became so discouraged that they left the labor force entirely, or they are in the labor force but unemployed. This group of non-employed individuals is more than 3.5 million larger than before the recession began in 2007.'
'Those attempting to minimize the startling figures about America’s vanishing workforce — workplace participation overall is near a four-decade low — will say an aging population is to blame.'
'But in fact, while the workforce overall has shrunk nearly 10 million since 2009, the cohort of workers in the labor force ages 55 to 64 has actually increased over that same period, with many delaying retirement due to poor economic conditions.'
'In fact, over two-thirds of all labor force dropouts since that time have been under the age of 55.Apr 2, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Wizards guard John Wall (R), Wizards center Marcin Gortat (M), and Wizards center Kevin Seraphin (L) celebrate on the bench against the Boston Celtics in the fourth quarter at Verizon Center. The Wizards won 118-92 and qualified for the NBA playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
With the Washington Wizards’ season coming to an abrupt end Thursday night against the Indiana Pacers, it is now time to discuss what the coming offseason entails. The national media narrative is that such a young team to make it this far is a terrific accomplishment, and that they have plenty of time to build on this playoff experience. However, there’s a lot more nuance to the Wizards future than that, and many questions still remain.
First of all, the team actually is not all that young. While they have a dynamic young backcourt in John Wall and Bradley Beal, they have 8 players aged 26 or older. 5 of those players are over 30. Aside from the two guards, it is safe to say that the rest of this team has either hit their prime or is past it. This means that a lot of the future will depend on the improvement of Wall and Beal.
Even then, it is safe to question whether the regression of some of the declining players on the team will offset the progression of the guards. Nene is 32 and is visibly losing athleticism and showing age. Marcin Gortat is 30 and while he hasn’t played many minutes in the NBA, bigs typically decline after that age. Trevor Ariza is 28 coming off a career year that is very difficult to replicate for players his caliber.
Of course, this is all assuming Ariza and Gortat are brought back. Both of them are unrestricted free agents, adding even more questions to the Wizards’ future. Should the Wizards preach continuity and bring back the same team, hoping Wall and Beal’s natural progression offsets any kind of regression from the older players? Should the Wizards let both walk and hope they can swing the fences on a star like Chris Bosh or a young player like Greg Monroe? Should they willingly take a step back next year in order to keep flexibility to add a star in the future?
All of these questions make Washington’s future even more uncertain. This is why it is not so easy to say that the team will “build” on the playoff experience. This might not be the same team next year, and even if it is, there are many factors that could lead to stagnation or even regression next year. This is probably the most important summer Ernie Grunfeld has had as the Wizards manager, and no one option stands out as the best.
Here’s to a successful offseason.Pretty Little Liars: “A” Identity Revealed Two Years Ago
Speaking to E! News, King reveals she first knew CeCe was "A" back in Season 3, and before penning the reveal episode she went back and watched all of CeCe's scenes throughout the series for clues. "There are clues that are dropped so many times, like going back I was like we are so bold," King says. "I can't believe we are doing this!" That's when King realized "A" was revealed in an episode two years ago, titled, "Crash and Burn, Girl!"
"It's after the big fire at the lodge and they think they see Ali and someone flew in that plane—and now we know it was Sara Harvey—but we literally say in an episode that the plane was rented by Cece Drake," King reveals. In case you forgot, in that episode Toby and Caleb learn CeCe rented the plane. You'd think they would've been able to crack the identity of "A" back then. So there you have it, proof that the show had a plan and didn't just pull this "A" identity out of thin air!We have sequels and franchise reboots or remakes up the wazoo this summer, but it feels like it has been forever since we had a movie spin-off. I know there are tons of them on television these days, but TV spinoffs seem to be a necessity, especially with shows like “Law & Order” and “CSI.” We’re gonna have “Law & Order: Los Angeles” in the fall, proving the cancellation of the original “Law & Order” never ended anything. Personally, I’m waiting for “Law & Order: Barstow” and “CSI: Chico.” Now those would be the ones to really shake things up!
In fact, the last time we had a movie spin-off was “US Marshalls” which took Tommy Lee Jones’ character of Sam Gerard from “The Fugitive” and gave him his own movie. Looking back, it was more of a remake of “The Fugitive” than anything else.
Now we have “Get Him To The Greek” which takes Russell Brand’s character of spaced out rock star Aldous Snow from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and has him starring in his own movie movie. Give Hollywood some credit here for being a little more creative than usual. By making a movie based on a supporting character from another, they show an air of confidence they usually only pretend to have.
Whereas Aldous was drug free in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” he is shown to haven fallen off the wagon big time in this one as we watch him suffering the after effects of a horrible song he wrote and recorded called “African Child.” The song was declared to be the worst song of the decade, and it places second to apartheid as the worst thing to happen to Africa. The love of his life, Jackie Q (Rose Byrne from “28 Weeks Later”), ends up leaving him along with their son Naples, and he proceeds to go on one drinking/drug binge after another as his life goes from worst to intolerable. Then he hits rock bottom, but this doesn’t stop his spiral any.
Several years later, a record company intern named Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) brings up at a meeting how it is coming up on the 10 year anniversary of when Aldous performed a concert at the Greek Theater, one which resulted in one of the best-selling live albums of all time. After Aldous confirmed with Aaron’s boss, Sergio (Sean Combs), that he will do a new show to celebrate this occasion, Sergio sends him out to England to fetch Aldous and to make sure he makes it to the concert on time.
Judd Apatow is of course behind this one as a producer, and the setup reminded me a lot of his movie “Funny People.” Big fan meets his celebrity idol, discovers being where the celebrity is can be the loneliest place of all, and they somehow connect at the end in a way they never thought possible. But this one is just a flat out comedy and has none of the dramatic edge of “Funny People.” Its humor is vulgar and crude, but like all good Apatow productions, it also has a heart.
Like “Knocked Up,” “Get Him To The Greek” exists in the entertainment world. Hearing Aaron talk about how a new concert will spur large revenue for the record company, allowing them to re-release Snow’s back catalog in new remastered editions with bonus material struck a cord with me. I always fall for this stuff myself; remastered CD’s which make you actually feel like you’re in the room with the band as they jam together. I have been an addict of these remastered editions ever since I bought the one for Eric Clapton’s “Behind the Sun.”
This is not to mention all the cameos from artists like Pink and television personalities including Meredith Vieira from the “Today” show. You even have Mario Lopez and Kurt Loder poking fun at their public perception, something they probably would not have done ten years ago. “Get Him To The Greek” does not take place in some fairy tale world where everything ends up all nice and tidy. The laughs end up stinging much more here because they remind us of all those celebrity controversies the media thrusts at us every single day.
Russell Brand’s own drug addled past has been chronicled for some time now, so part of the fascination with watching him here is figuring out where he ends and Aldous Snow begins. Regardless of how out there he may seem in the media, there is something about his personality that makes us watch his every move. Not once does he do anything to hide his character’s hedonistic ways, and he scores one solid laugh after another. I’m not sure what to say about him as an actor because I haven’t really seen him in anything else, but watching him again as this character was indeed worthwhile.
Jonah Hill also was in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” as a waiter, but here he plays an entirely different character. From “Superbad” to “Funny People,” he’s been basically playing the same kind of role over and over again. Here, he plays his most grown up character to date. As Aaron Green, he also gets to lose his trademark hairdo which makes him look like Little Orphan Annie. Clearly, his high school days are behind him, and he has us laughing at the most insane and compromising positions his character keeps stumbling into. Hill even has a great “Pulp Fiction” kind of moment, but I leave it to you to discover it for yourself.
But while Brand stole every other scene in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” he has this movie stolen from him by Sean Combs. That’s right, Puff Diddy is in this movie as record company executive Sergio Roma, and it allows him to parody his own image as a hip hop entrepreneur. What I loved about his performance is you never get the feeling he was trying to be funny. The more serious he gets, the more gut-bustlingly hilarious he becomes, and no one sells the term “mindfuck” the way he does here. It’s easy to fall into the trap of playing for laughs instead of playing the scene, but Combs never falls victim to it here.
You also have some nice supporting performances from actors like Colm Meaney, the “Star Trek” journeyman actor who plays Aldous’ father Jonathan, and he makes this man anything but a father figure. Having used his drug addicted son for his own gain, it is very surprising these two actually bother to be in the same room together. Rose Byrne also has some great moments as the love of Aldous’ life, Jackie Q, and her own music is ridiculously controversial in its own terms.
“Get Him to The Greek” was written and directed by Nicholas Stoller who also helmed “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Stoller does good work here, but he does let the pace drag towards the end to where there are lulls where you are waiting for the next big explosion of laughter. All the same, comedy is hard work, so you have to give him credit for the loud laughs he does get out of us.
Is this as good as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? Not quite. In fact, “MacGruber” was a funnier movie in retrospect, regardless of its audience not showing up when it was released. The plot itself is no different from a lot of road trip comedies, and you could compare this one a bit to John Hughes’ “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” when you think about it. Still, I had a lot of fun with it, and it is easily more fun than a “Geoffrey.” Trust me; just see the movie and then you will know what I am talking about. I’m sick of giving away the best parts of movies anyway.
* * * out of * * * *
AdvertisementsPosted on 07. Jun, 2011 by Robert Steers in ecommerce
We have been doing a number of installs on Magento and WpEcommerce and we thought it would be good to do a head to head on the two ecommerce systems. Both are very different systems that started out in different arenas, but because of the way open source ecommerce software goes, both systems are converging on the same market. That market is the small to medium business market.
These two systems are aimed are two different types of users, Wp eCommerce for novice users and Magento for enterprise solutions, however sometimes these two areas converge.
So with that in mind we thought we would write this from the point of view of our largest customer base, medium business owners who want to maintain their own ecommerce platform, and may have a developer on board for the difficult parts. We are not going to list all the features side by side because that is a little meaningless. Also we are going to mostly talk about what comes out of the box, as there are plenty of add ons for each system, and with the right gumption, you could easly add features to both system to make them match.
The short story
WP eCommerce: Good for small sites, using PayPal, selling small ticket items with shipping through the postal service. Good if you are customising yourself.
Magento: Good for larger sites, using local bank as payment gateway, selling bigger items with several shipping and payment methods.
The similarities.
Both are open source software that anyone could download and install right now. Both have active communities that help with problems, make updates and maintain the code in a general fashion. Both systems support most of the major functions you would want in an ecommerce platform including SSL, newsletters, buyer sign up, multiple gateways and a range of product options.
There are many HUGE differences between the systems, but the key one from a user point of view is that Magento focusses on the customer, and how they are managed. WP eCommerce focusses on the products and how they are managed/styled.
How the systems are built.
The two systems fundamentally could not be more different. Magento started as a build for larger customers and has an enterprise option that is implemented by big corporate customers. It is a complete solution in itself and is based on the Zend framework. WP eCommerce is a plugin for WordPress and started life just as a shopping cart.
The size of the systems is also different. WordPress and WP eCommerce are very lightweight, and could easily come in under 40MB and low bandwidth. Magento on the other hand needs about 250MB of space and much higher bandwidth to operate. For some this could be a deal killer if your host will not allow this amount of space to be used.
The code.
WordPress and WP eCommerce are a mash of PHP built over a long period of time by a lot of people making many additions. This makes the code a little unwieldy and ends up with massive files that are a complete mess. Magento, by contrast, uses multiple files across a huge tree of folders to control individual parts of the process. The upside for WpeCommerce is that there are only a few files that need changing at any one time, and being in PHP, almost anyone can get a handle on it. The downside is that one small change can cause almost anything to go wrong. For Magento the upside of its code is that it is very tightly controlled, changes are unlikely to break the whole system and development happens a lot quicker. The big downside is that the code is complex, and getting up to speed as a developer takes a little longer.
Back end useability.
WordPress and Wp eCommerce win this hands down, basically because WordPress has been written to allow mums and dads to blog, so the same user interface carries over. Magento is a little more complex. As an example, Magento has several places that control product pricing rules. Then if you are looking to change rules for different styles of products, you have to set up a different type of product for each style. Adding pages and products with WP eCommerce |
For many months, EFF has been working with a broad coalition of advocates to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new Open Internet rules that would survive legal scrutiny and actually help protect the Open Internet. Our message has been clear from the beginning: the FCC has a role to play, but its role must be firmly bounded.
Two weeks ago, we learned that we had likely managed the first goal—the FCC is going to do the right thing and reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, giving it the ability to make new, meaningful Open Internet rules. But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”
According to the FCC's own "Fact Sheet," the proposed rule will allow the FCC to review (and presumably punish) non-neutral practices that may “harm” consumers or edge providers. Late last week, as the window for public comment was closing, EFF filed a letter with the FCC urging it to clarify and sharply limit the scope of any “general conduct” provision:
[T]he Commission should use its Title II authority to engage in light-touch regulation, taking great care to adhere to clear, targeted, and transparent rules. A “general conduct rule,” applied on a case-by- case basis with the only touchstone being whether a given practice “harms” consumers or edge providers, may lead to years of expensive litigation to determine the meaning of “harm” (for those who can afford to engage in it). What is worse, it could be abused by a future Commission to target legitimate practices that offer significant benefits to the public... Accordingly, if the Commission intends to adopt a “general conduct rule” it should spell out, in advance, the contours and limits of that rule, and clarify that the rule shall be applied only in specific circumstances.
Unfortunately, if a recent report from Reuters is correct, the general conduct rule will be anything but clear. The FCC will evaluate “harm” based on consideration of seven factors: impact on competition; impact on innovation; impact on free expression; impact on broadband deployment and investments; whether the actions in question are specific to some applications and not others; whether they comply with industry best standards and practices; and whether they take place without the awareness of the end-user, the Internet subscriber.
There are several problems with this approach. First, it suggests that the FCC believes it has broad authority to pursue any number of practices—hardly the narrow, light-touch approach we need to protect the open Internet. Second, we worry that this rule will be extremely expensive in practice, because anyone wanting to bring a complaint will be hard-pressed to predict whether they will succeed. For example, how will the Commission determine “industry best standards and practices”? As a practical matter, it is likely that only companies that can afford years of litigation to answer these questions will be able to rely on the rule at all. Third, a multi-factor test gives the FCC an awful lot of discretion, potentially giving an unfair advantage to parties with insider influence.
We are days away from a final vote, and it appears that many of the proposed rules will make sense for the Internet. Based on what we know so far, however, the general conduct proposal may not. The FCC should rethink this one.A Mississippi restaurant chain, Georgia Blue LLC, is being sued for failing to accommodate a server’s religious requests.
In October 2015, Kaetoya Watkins was hired to work as a waitress by the eatery. It was after she received the job offer that Watkins, a devout Apostolic Pentecostal Christian, learned of Georgia Blue’s dress code requiring servers to wear blue jeans.
FLORIDA WHATABURGER SUED FOR 'ONLY WHITE' HIRING POLICY
Watkins does not wear pants because of her religion. After accepting the job offer, “Watkins notified Georgia Blue of her Apostolic Pentecostal religious belief that women should wear only skirts or dresses and requested the reasonable accommodation of wearing a blue skirt," the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleges in a lawsuit filed Monday.
After she reached out to the company about her dress code needs, Watkins said she received no response and reported to work in a jean skirt. She was sent home for the violation, the Associated Press reports.
According to the suit, the restaurant, which has several locations around Mississippi, later denied Watkins’ request and told her “the owner” would “not stray away from” the company dress code. Watkins’ job offer was then rescinded.
"Under federal law, employers have a duty to provide an accommodation to allow an employee to practice his or her religion when the employer can do so without undue hardship on the operation of the company,” Delner Franklin-Thomas, district director of the EEOC's Birmingham District Office, said.
"Most religious accommodations are not burdensome, such as allowing an employee to wear a skirt instead of pants," said EEOC Birmingham Regional Attorney Marsha L. Rucker, whose jurisdiction includes Mississippi. "It would have been simple to allow Ms. Watkins to wear a long skirt at work. No worker should be obligated to choose between making a living and following her religious convictions."
The alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964, which requires employers to provide reasonable religious accommodations to employees, the suit states.
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J. William Manuel, a lawyer for Georgia Blue LLC., released a statement yesterday denying that the company discriminated against Watkins’ Pentecostal religious beliefs.
The company “does not discriminate on any basis,” Manuel said.
Georgia Blue plans to defend itself against the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction “prohibiting Georgia Blue from discriminating against employees who need religious accommodations, as well as lost wages, compensatory and punitive damages, and other affirmative relief for Watkins.”Former PM says he wants to see market-driven energy prices which would mean coal wouldn’t need any subsidies because it’s cheap
Tony Abbott has used the second anniversary since losing the top job to declare he’s intent on looking forward, not backward – and has again weighed in to the government’s fraught energy debate to call for an end to all subsidies.
The former prime minister told 2GB on Thursday he welcomed signs from Malcolm Turnbull that the government was moving away from the clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist to what he is characterising as a “100% reliable energy target.”
For energy security, the failing Liddell coal plant is the last thing we need | Ben Oquist Read more
“I welcome these signs that we are moving away from a clean energy target to a reliable energy target, and, frankly, nothing less than a 100% reliable energy target will do because we’ve got to keep the lights on all the time... if we are to be a first-world country,” Abbott said.
Abbott declared the government should end all subsidies for renewable energy, and that would mean there was no need to subsidise coal.
Despite leading the successful political campaign to scrap the former Labor government’s market mechanism, the carbon price, Abbott declared on Thursday afternoon: “I don’t want to see subsidies, I want to see a market”.
“I say let’s not subsidise anymore renewables, and if we don’t subsidise anymore renewables, we won’t need to subsidise coal, because coal in a normal market is the cheapest way of providing reliable power.”
“It is vastly cheaper than wind and solar and considerably cheaper than gas.”
And while acknowledging that he signed Australia up to the Paris climate agreement while prime minister, Abbott now argues we are not obliged to abide by the commitments made in the international accord.
Abbott said there was no need to walk away from the Paris agreement, because the emissions reductions commitments contained within it were not binding on Australia.
The former prime minister’s public intervention on Thursday afternoon followed an effort by Labor in question time to portray Malcolm Turnbull as being completely indistinguishable from Abbott on energy policy.
With a focus on the second anniversary since Turnbull took the Liberal party leadership, Labor asked Turnbull what had been the point of deposing Abbott from the prime ministership.
To Abbott’s obvious amusement, Turnbull told the chamber he had built on “the outstanding work of the member for Warringah” and said he had delivered jobs and economic growth as prime minister.
The government this week has made it plain that its new investment framework for energy policy will be favourable to coal.
In question time on Thursday, Turnbull said the new policy would ensure all technologies were utilised “including coal”.
The clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist Alan Finkel was modelled at a level where coal would not get certificates, but the Nationals have been making it clear for months that keeping coal in the mix would be the price of their support for any policy change.
As it moves towards crunch point, the government is making it clear the new investment framework, which it wants to resolve before the summer parliamentary recess, will need to be geared to reliability and affordability as well as to emissions reduction, and encompass all technologies.
Earlier in the day, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Audrey Zibelman, told a parliamentary committee she favoured the creation of a day-ahead market – a system where the market operator identifies the energy demand for the next day, hour-by-hour, then generators bid in to supply the market.
She said a day-ahead market would create more certainty and stability in the system, and also allow tools like demand management to be deployed in the event there was insufficient dispatchability in the system.
Zibelman said the market operator was looking for the Turnbull government to make key decisions in the next few months in order to have new market rules up and running by 2018, and she noted players in the energy market were currently “quite anxious” given the current lack of clarity.
She said market conditions worked against building new base-load power, and the future would be more focussed on flexible energy sources, such as peaking gas power.
The Aemo chief said investors in the national electricity market wanted the clean energy target. “I think any investor wants to have policy certainty that’s very important for any investor because they need to make their decisions”.
But while endorsing the clean energy target from an investor standpoint, she said her organisation was more focused on ensuring system needs were met.
Zibelman said there were incentives in the market to pull forward renewable energy investments, but the market had to also signal that reliability was important. She said the answer was a “portfolio solution”.
A major industry group also stepped up pressure on the Turnbull government to pull its gas export control trigger. The government has argued this week there is no immediate reason to move because more gas has been made available to the domestic market since the threat of creating a domestic reservation.
But that view has been rejected by the Ai Group. “Industry remains deeply worried about the state of the gas market,” said the group’s chief executive, Inness Willox.
He said the government needed to speed up the process and determine that 2018 is a shortfall year under the export control arrangements. “Despite some recent improvement, our industrial members have become alarmed by the extraordinary rise in the price, and reduction in the availability, of contractable gas”.Police said four people were sent to hospital after a truck collided with a taxi cab Wednesday morning.
The crash happened at St. Anne’s Road and Fermor Avenue.
One woman in her 20s was seriously injured.
Police tweeted around 9:30 a.m saying the area will be shut down until later in the day.
Motorists have been asked to avoid the area and find alternate routes.
Closures are expected for the greater part of this afternoon. Please find alternative routes. Thank you. https://t.co/LQoyauumrh — Winnipeg Police (@wpgpolice) December 13, 2017
We are investigating a major car accident at St Annes at Fermor and traffic will be blocked in all directions for some time; please avoid the area. WPS Staff Sergeant Bob Chrismas — Winnipeg Police (@wpgpolice) December 13, 2017
PHOTO GALLERY: view images taken at the scene of the crashHarvard Law Professor Crowdfunds $1 Million, Launches Presidential Bid
Enlarge this image toggle caption Fadi Alassaad/Reuters/Landov Fadi Alassaad/Reuters/Landov
Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig met his self-imposed goal of crowdfunding $1 million by Labor Day, and Sunday on ABC announced he's running for the Democratic nomination for president.
Lessig, an activist with a grass-roots following among some progressives, says he's running on a singular platform — the Citizen Equality Act of 2017. It would expand voting access, ban gerrymandering and institute campaign finance reform.
"I think I'm running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room," Lessig said Sunday on ABC. "This stalemate, partisan platform of American politics in Washington right now doesn't work. And we have to find a way to elevate the debate to focus on the changes that would actually get us a government that could work again, that is not captured by the tiniest fraction of the 1 percent who fund campaigns."
As NPR's Peter Overby reported last month for our It's All Politics blog, Lessig's presidential bid —and campaign strategy — seem to be a long shot.
"The plan sidesteps the biggest growth area in political money: superPACs and so-called social welfare organizations that raise unlimited sums for 'independent' efforts to promote candidates. This unregulated money, some disclosed and some anonymous, is constitutionally protected by recent court decisions, including the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010."
This latest entrant brings the number of candidates on the Democratic side up to six.
Should Lessig beat the odds and win the White House, he would not be there very long, if things go according to his plan. Once the Citizen Equality Act is signed into law, he's vowed to vacate the Oval Office and hand over power to his vice president.
Visitors to Lessig's website can vote on a number of people they'd like to see as his running mate (and, in theory, eventual president), including astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, former Daily Show host Jon Stewart and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
While Lessig's campaign is unconventional, as Politico reports, it's not his first foray into politics.
"Last year, he raised $10 million for a super PAC dedicated to backing candidates who support campaign finance reform, but came away with little to show for it. Undeterred, he launched a presidential exploratory committee earlier this year and said he'd run if he could raise at least $1 million, a goal he's met. The next hurdle: attracting enough support to make into the Democratic presidential debates."
Lessig would need to reach 1 percent in national polls to make it to the party's first debate next month.At my company, we recently started to implement a JavaScript client for one of our new APIs. We had only limited experience in the domain of JavaScript client frameworks. Since we use Ruby on Rails on the backend side, we decided to implement the first draft in Ember. It builds on MVC and convention over configuration principles, just as our beloved Rails. However, after implementing something more sophisticated than the cookie cutter Ember example, we found that some things about Ember just felt weird. We thus started looking for alternatives and decided to try React.
In this post I try to describe why we feel React is a better fit for our use-case. Since we came from Ember, there will be frequent comparisons of React to Ember.
Before we start though, let me make some things clear. This is not intended to be a post hating on Ember. We just found that React fits our use-case better, which might not necessarily be true for your use-case. Ember remains a viable alternative for writing JavaScript clients for APIs.
Also, this post is not intended to explain the entirety of Ember and React. I assume you have some basic knowledge of both frameworks. But you don’t have to be an expert in either one of the frameworks to be able to follow the post.
Having said that, let’s look at what we are trying to implement.
Some context
Our client app is a pure JavaScript app that gets delivered as static assets. There is no server side rendering involved. We felt that this was better than delivering the JavaScript through our Rails backend, because this more cleanly separates concerns. It is also easier to cache static assets, which should improve page load times.
The job of our application is to forecast time series data. Clients can upload historic data to the backend, which stores it in the database and then processes it asynchronously. The job of the JavaScript client is to merely display nice looking graphs depicting the historic and forecasted time series. It is basically just a master-detail view containing a list of items on the left (the time series’ names) and the selected time series on the right. The time series data we process is usually aggregated to 15 minute intervals. You can view the time series in that interval, or alternatively in day, week or month intervals. The conversion into the other intervals is done by the backends database, since SQL can do this much faster than JavaScript or Ruby.
This should be enough context to get our points across, so let’s delve right into the aspects of Ember that made us look for alternatives.
Ember.js shortcomings
Complexity
Before explaining why I think some parts of Ember are unnecessarily complex, let me quote Wikipedia on what complexity is.
Complexity is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways.
Now that we are clear on what I mean by complexity, let’s take a look at a very simple Ember template.
<h1> {{greeting}}, {{user}}! </h1>
So, where do the values of the bindings come from? You can’t know without looking at other files. But there must be something setting the model, which is usually the route:
App. IndexRoute = Ember. Route. extend ({ model : function () { return { user : "Mario", greeting : "Greetings" }; } });
So that works and renders Greetings, Mario! on the page. Until you choose to introduce a controller into the mix.
App. IndexController = Ember. Controller. extend ({ greeting : Ember. computed ( 'user', function () { var user = this. get ('model.user' ); if ( user === 'Mario' ) { return 'Hello' ; } else { return 'Greetings' ; } }) });
Now, it renders Hello,!. Because we introduced a controller, Ember uses the controller properties instead of the model properties. So to get it to work, you have to change it to this:
<h1> {{greeting}}, {{model.user}}! </h1>
After that, it renders Hello, Mario!. Great, but why does defining a controller that was not there before change the behavior of the template? Templates in Ember have a lot of implicit, invisible context that they depend upon. This is exactly what defines complexity, and the bigger this grows the more of a pain it becomes.
Convention over Configuration
The example we just saw is also great at showing the disadvantages of convention over configuration. You must know the conventions to be able to figure out what is going on. I already said earlier that we use Rails in our backend. And we like Rails. But in Rails, the conventions used are simpler, and more to the point. In a view template, I always have the controller as context. You don’t have a mix of controller and some other object, depending on which objects are defined. The context is not suddenly changed when you introduce a new route.
Nevertheless, having to learn such conventions over again makes you question whether they’re worth it. It’s hard to see these drawbacks if you already know all the conventions, because then it is just convenient, even if it might increase the overall complexity of the application.
Ember Data
When starting out with Ember, we used Ember Data to handle stuff that comes from the server and transform that into models. In theory, it sounded quite great. You just define your models and Ember Data knows how to handle RESTful APIs to query and create those resources. This works fine for APIs that comply with the expectations of Ember Data. Our API does not, and it has good reasons not to do so. To fix this, you have two options. The first is to implement a custom serializer that maps the actual object to the expected object. The second is to not use Ember Data.
For the endpoint that retrieves the time series data, we decided to do the latter. Since that endpoint returns a lot of data, we wanted to keep it as efficient as possible. So we just used plain AJAX requests in our Route to retrieve the data. This worked, but we did not like the inconsistency of sometimes using Ember Data and sometimes not using it. In retrospect, it would have been better to just not use Ember Data at all, but it seemed like a best practice when starting out with Ember.
Performance
We expect customers to have up to a couple dozen items in the master view. Assuming that the customer wants quick access to specific time series, we added a client side search box for live filtering of the time series.
Unfortunately, the performance Ember delivered on this was absolutely horrible. Typing in the search box never felt snappy, but it started lagging noticeably with just a mere 100 elements in the list. These elements were plain list elements containing a text. The search algorithm was also just a mere toLowerCase combined with an indexOf. What made the UI feel so sluggish was the Ember DOM updating. For some reason, this is incredibly inefficient in current Ember versions.
Now I know the Ember team is working on improving this by using the same virtual DOM approach that React is using, but I don’t want to wait for that to happen.
Enter React.js
Having outlined what we did not like about Ember, let’s take a look at why we chose React to address those shortcomings. But first, let me explain roughly how we structured our app.
We have all state in a global, mutable variable and keep all components as pure functions. If the global state is changed, events get fired and the view gets re-rendered. Since React is smart, it does that in an efficient manner. As a third element, we have Actions. Actions are basically just functions that are called from the React components. This way, the components can be completely focused on the view concerns. They do not have to know anything about how to change the state or what to do when a certain element is clicked. They just call the corresponding action function, that function handles all the work and mutating the global state, which in turn triggers a re-render. You could go one step further and use events instead of function calls to have even more decoupling of components and actions. But we figured our app is not that big yet and is better off with just calling the actions. We could change this at any time though, should the need for more decoupling arise.
The data flow in our app look something like this:
You are probably wondering right now why someone would be so crazy to introduce global, mutable state into an application. Not to do that is one of the first things you learn as a software developer. But saying it is always wrong is overly simplified. Let me explain to you why.
We borrowed a lot of ideas from the functional programming world. In that world, you try to make everything immutable if possible and practical. But user interfaces are constantly changing their state by definition. So in this case, we need mutable state. But why make it global? It could be local to every component. But then your components would not be pure any more. It makes more sense to push all mutability to the edge of the system, having it in one place only. To make sure that not every single component can see the entirety of the application state, we use cursors. Cursors are basically an updatable window into a portion of the application state. They are inspired by functional zippers. That way, every component is a pure function and only sees the part of the global app state that it requires itself. The global state variable is also an immutable data structure, meaning that you can detect changes to it with a mere reference equality check.
This approach (or a slight variation of it) was originally observed in a ClojureScript framework called Om, which itself interfaces with React. It got so popular that this approach is now backported to plain JavaScript in the form of various JavaScript libraries. We used Omniscient to get cursors for the global, mutable app state and events for when that state changes.
Now comes the good part; Let me explain why we think React and the structure outlined above fit our needs much better.
Freedom
React is not a full stack framework. It just handles rendering of DOM elements, which gives you complete freedom on how to handle other concerns in your app. Facebook uses the Flux architecture with React, but you aren’t forced to do this yourself. I already mentioned we borrowed some inspiration from the ClojureScript community. We decided to use the Om approach for application state handling, because it seemed to be very simple yet scalable nonetheless. But we weren’t forced to do so. We could have decided to do something completely different. This gave us the opportunity to choose a structure for our app that felt like a good fit to our problem instead of having to do what the framework dictates.
Simplicity
The React approach to rendering the DOM is just genius. You declaratively describe your components, pass them some data and React figures out how the DOM should look based on that. If the underlying data changes, everything is re-rendered. This is really easy to grasp and when you’re looking for a bug in your UI, you will have a much easier time figuring out what exactly is happening.
You can even go the extra mile and ensure all your components depend on is external properties instead of internal state. That way you also get a very high level of isolation. How would that earlier Ember example look in React?
var HelloComponent = React. createClass ({ greeting : function () { if ( this. props. user === 'Mario' ) { return 'Hello' ; } else { return 'Greetings' ; } }, render : function () { return < h1 > { this. greeting ()}, { this. props. user }!< /h1>; } });
First of all, to render that component, you would have to either call React.render somewhere with it, or use it in another component that gets rendered. Using that component would look like this:
< HelloComponent user = "Mario" />
Note that we are passing the user into the component. The component does not have any implicit context at all. It doesn’t know of any other objects or classes in your code. You can of course make it so that it has dependencies, but those dependencies are all explicit. And more importantly, the dependencies get passed in. It does not reach out to other objects on it’s own to grab a property or something.
In Ember, even when considering the simplest case possible, we had to look at least at two files that contained different objects. With React, we can truly encapsulate our view components.
I know some of you hate the thought of having template code and JavaScript code in the same file. But I think the degree of encapsulation that React offers is worth a lot more than a warm feeling coming from your markup and JavaScript being in separated files. After all, there is no real objective reason to keep them in separate files in the first place, or is there?
Another big advantage of modelling your view components like this is that there is no reliance on observation or mutable state. In Ember, your templates can change properties on the controller, so you have to deal with mutating state. To make the templates update accordingly, templates must observe controllers, a controller’s computed properties in turn need to observe other properties on the controller or the model. Although the framework handles most of this observation and syncing for you, it still introduces a lot of complexity into your app. Every time some object observes another object, that creates invisible links between those object.
With React and the Om approach though, you don’t really care. Every change to application state rerenders the whole view anyways. So there is no need for any view components to observe other objects or sync state. And thanks to the virtual DOM, this is fast anyways.
Handling data
As I already said, React only handles the view layer of your application. Since we already had a bad experience with Ember Data, we decided to get data with plain AJAX requests and directly use the returned JSON. This proved to be a good decision for our app. We made one class that contained the functions that talk to the backend. That class returned Promises that get resolved with the result of the call. We use this class from our actions and update the global state in the callback from the returned promise. To our surprise, hand-coding the AJAX requests was not even that much work. And since we had a lot more control about what was happening, we even felt like it was less work to do edge cases like error handling.
Performance
You probably know already that the re-render-everything approach that React uses is implemented in a really smart way. Normally, that approach would be horribly slow. But since React uses a virtual DOM to figure out the smallest set of updates to perform against the real DOM, updating the UI is blazingly fast. I mentioned earlier that Ember was lagging considerably when filtering a list of about 100 elements in our app. Doing the exact same thing with React, we could not notice any lag until we went up to about ~800 elements. If we have a list that long, we probably want to do something more sophisticated than a simple real-time filtering anyways.
Testing React components
React also comes with some nice test utilities. While the Ember test utilities are also good, we never tested the templates in Ember with unit tests. Most people use integration tests for that, and that is fine. However, in React you can really unit test the view layer quite easily if you write your components as pure functions, like we did. Let me show you how one would test that example component from earlier (with Jasmine).
describe ( 'HelloComponent', function () { it ( 'greets Mario with Hello', function () { var TestUtils = React. addons. TestUtils ; var greeter = TestUtils. renderIntoDocument ( < HelloComponent user = 'Mario' /> ); var header = greeter. findRenderedDOMComponentWithTag ( greeter, 'h1' ); expect ( React. findDOMNode ( header ). textContent ). to. equal ( 'Hello, Mario!' ); }); it ( 'greets everyone else with Greetings', function () { var TestUtils = React. addons. TestUtils ; var greeter = TestUtils. renderIntoDocument ( < HelloComponent user = 'Some guy' /> ); var header = greeter. findRenderedDOMComponentWithTag ( greeter, 'h1' ); expect ( React. findDOMNode ( header ). textContent ). to. equal ( 'Greetings, Some guy!' ); }); });
You just render the component and pass it some data. Then you check what was rendered, which is the return value of the component’s render function. This feels very much like unit testing a function in the first place. I really like that approach! Although the syntax for finding elements in the rendered DOM could be improved. I’d like something more jQuery-like for assertions on DOM elements. Still, the approach itself is very good.
Minor stuff we like
There are some smaller things that we like about working with React. These are not game-changers when deciding for a framework, but I figured they are worth mentioning.
Webpack
There are lots of options on how to get all of your JavaScript files mangled into one big bad bundle. We used Ember-CLI before, so we had no experience with any of the options we had for React. We opted for Webpack, which so far has been a good choice.
With Webpack, you just use require to access code in other files or libraries. Webpack than figures out how to put your bundle together for you. If a library you want in your project uses RequireJS, AMD or no module system at all, Webpack also has you covered, but it requires a little extra configuration. Although all those require statements can take up quite some space, we do like to explicitly state what other components are required in a file.
You can also use things like SASS, CoffeeScript, Babel and so on by using loaders. Loaders can process a file before requiring it. That way, they can transpile the required files into a form that is compatible with JavaScript. Also, for React, there is a plugin called react-hot-loader that can reload your React components on your page when you change them, without performing a full page reload. This might be just a gimmick, but it can come in really handy when trying to test things on multiple devices, like phones and tablets.
React warnings
There are some things in React that are easy to forget, especially when you’re just learning. But React tries to save you by spitting out really helpful warnings when you do something wrong. For example, when you render a list of items, you should give each item in the list a key property. React needs that property to be able to optimize the DOM rendering. What happens when you forget to set a key property? You get this in your console:
“Each child in an array should have a unique "key" prop. Check the render method of ListComponent. See http://fb.me/react-warning-keys for more information.”
This makes learning React easier and saves you from making stupid mistakes. I like it when a framework puts a little extra effort into being easier to learn. Also, those warnings are disabled in production mode, so you don’t have to sacrifice performance for this.
Final verdict
So I told you why we like React so much, and I hope you agree with me on most of it. There was some minor stuff that is nice to have, but the biggest drivers really are simplicity and freedom. I find simplicity to be one of the most important properties of software systems. As long as a system is easy to grasp and the number of parts that interact with each other is kept low, you can always refactor to get the other properties. If you have a hard time understanding what a system is doing though, you’re gonna have a hell of a bad time. Also, the freedom to choose a structure for your application that you think is good should naturally guide you towards simpler solutions.
If this post intrigued you, I recommend that you give React a try yourself. There is also a lot of new stuff coming out regularly. The latest kid on the block is React Native, which got released by Facebook just a little while ago. It is a library to build native iOS apps using JavaScript and React. This enables you to apply the same approach React uses for rendering to your iOS apps, too.
In case you are an Angular person but still find React interesting, there is also a library for using React components in Angular applications. Should you happen to be a functional programming person, you really should look at ClojureScript and libraries like Om or Reagent.
Even if you disagree with me, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to have a discussion about this. I for one am very excited about using React productively and seeing how it’s ecosystem will evolve.The Suffering Creator Would “Definitely” Return to the Series
In our upcoming interview with Richard Rouse III, Director/Designer/Writer of Paranoid Production’s The Church in the Darkness, we learned a little bit more about the state of The Suffering franchise.
When asked if he thinks we’ll ever see the series again and who holds the rights to the series, Rouse told us that he suspects Warner Brothers does due to their acquisition of Midway’s assets in 2009.
“I haven’t done a ton of research into this, but it’s my understanding Warner Bros acquired the rights when they bought a bunch of Midway assets,” Rouse said. “So who knows if a new game can ever happen.”
But he then went on to tell us that he’d be all for working on a third entry to the splatter fest that was Torque’s tale of redemption (or damnation).
“But if the circumstances were right and I felt we were able to make a good game that lived up to the legacy of the series, I would definitely be up for doing another game in the franchise.”
When I first spoke to Richard for his Defining Horror entry, I had asked about The Suffering and inquired with Warner Brothers shortly after if they could confirm they indeed had the rights. My request was submitted to the appropriate parties, but I never received an answer. Maybe one day we’ll the series resurface. At least I hope so.Today Alt 98.7 premieres “Hallelujah” - the first track from Panic! at the Disco’s forthcoming 5th studio record - due out in 2015.
It's Hard to believe, but it’s been a decade since Brendon Urie and co. released their debut album.
In that time they have experienced all sorts of success, releasing 4 studio albums and touring the world. However, the decade hasn’t been without change. Three of the original four members of Panic! have left - prompting Billboard to call Urie the “last man standing”.
Late last week I had the chance to speak with Urie and it’s the first time he goes in depth on the band’s new song “Hallelujah”, the status of the new record, the departure of drummer (and original member) Spencer Smith and how the band (and their audience) has grown in the last decade.
Enjoy and share with fellow Panic! at the Disco fans!
It should be no surprise that the Alt 98.7 Best Music Discovery EVER... This Week is "Hallelujah" by Panic! at the Disco.
Hear it - Monday through Friday this week at 12:40p, 3:10p, 6:10p and 10:10p.
Or...simply stream the track below!The TweetSentiments.com API is now available for developers who are interested in Twitter related sentiment analysis.
Support Vector Machines TweetSentiments.com sentiment analysis is based on a machine learning method called Support Vector Machines(SVM). SVM is one of the most efficient supervised learning algorithms. We are using LIBSVM – a popular implementation of SVM developed at Taiwan National University.
SVM is very computational intensive and LIBSVM is implemented in C++ for performance. For Ruby and Rails, a gem called libsvm-ruby-swig is available on Github; you can install it by running “gem install libsvm-ruby-swig”. Currently, it only runs on the Linux platform.
For large scale text classification, LIBLINEAR is much more efficient. You can use the liblinear-ruby-swig gem with Ruby and Rails.
Currently three API calls are available:
– Sentiment on tweets http://data.tweetsentiments.com:8080/api/analyze.json?q=<text to analyze>
– Sentiment on topics http://data.tweetsentiments.com:8080/api/search.json?topic=<topic to analyze>
– Sentiment on users http://data.tweetsentiments.com:8080/api/search.json?user=<twitter user to analyze>
The sentiment analysis API is available either as web service (at http://data.tweetsentiments.com:8080) or |
which establishes the Village locale, though devoid of the teeming life typical of Kirby's spreads, capitalizes on Kirby's monumental sense of scale: we see the Prisoner wandering the deserted Village streets in the early morning, walking stiffly, dwarfed by the architectural setting of the Village square. The sheer scope of the drawing underscores the Prisoner's aloneness, and the apparent lifelessness of the Village, while Kirby's rendering summons a dark, threatening atmosphere. Clotted shadows, thick crosshatching, and distinctive details (e.g., cobble- stones, shingles) give the Village a rough, weather-beaten look, somehow more akin to the Eastern European settings of The Demon or FF #84-87 than to the quaint holiday resort (Portmeirion, North Wales) used in the TV series. Though Kirby's Village square is modeled on the original (indeed, the fountain and columns are exact copies), it seems more dense, more claustrophobic, and less cheery. Here the sinister aspects of Village life are all too apparent at first glance, while the absurd aspects, underscored in the TV series by the colorful location, banal music, and other comic details (e.g., the marching band, the striped awnings), are less pronounced. Kirby's Village is nightmarish, but lacking in irony. Besides the opening spread, other stock Kirby devices also contribute to the story's intensity. For instance, an extreme close-up of the Prisoner's face, one eye glaring from the shadows, signals the beginning of the crucial flashback sequence; the staring eye and the densely shadowed face are pure Kirby. The scene of the resignation itself, on the following page, takes its cue from the thunderclaps heard in the TV show's main title, but gives the device a Kirbyesque twist: the scene is lit by flashes of lightning, signified by a storm of crackling Kirby dots! Kirby in fact takes every opportunity to increase the visual drama of the piece without inserting gratuitous action. When the Prisoner is gassed, we see the shadow of his crumpling figure, hand clutching his throat, obviously struggling to stay conscious. When, later in the story, the Prisoner hears the phone ring inside his appointed house, his stance is pure Kirby: legs spread, knees bent almost to a crouch, body tense with alarm. The next panel shows him bolting toward the door to answer the phone, his figure a study in torsion and momentum. All the mannerisms of Kirby in action are here, even when the story's action is subtle. Throughout, one senses that Kirby's ferocious energy has been turned inward, resulting in a quiet yet restive piece of work which reflects the Prisoner's own plight. Repeatedly we are reminded of the Prisoner's powerlessness, as if Kirby felt the need to justify the character's apparent passivity. "There's no way out," the Prisoner realizes as No. 2 demonstrates the power of his unseen masters; moments later, his anger gives way to resignation, as he ruefully admits, "I could be considered a captive audience!!" Urged to join No. 2 on a helicopter survey of the Village, No. 6 responds blandly, "Since I must accompany you, there is little reason to refuse." Because the power which oppresses him is subtle, The Prisoner himself must be subtle in his efforts to escape; thus Kirby's too-brief episode ends in mid-air, the tension not at all dissipated, the intensity not at all dispersed by violence. In an impressive close-up in the final panel, the Prisoner seems like a caged tiger, anxious to escape - and you can sense this in Kirby as well. The "next issue" blurb, overeager to please, promises a story with the blood-pumping title "Kill Me If You Can!" replete with "new revelations... and new gimmicks!" The incongruity of this blurb, after a story as measured, as controlled, as the one we've just read, suggests that Kirby wanted to balance philosophical depth with hard-hitting action, much like the original series - who knows where he would have gone with it from here, or how wild the ride would have been? In any event, The Prisoner pushes Kirby's action-adventure formula to its limit, daring to depart from convention with a long, slow build-up. The series' premise demands such deliberate treatment, yet one can sense Kirby's impatience to take the material and run with it. Design-wise, The Prisoner invokes the original series yet remains very much a Kirby comic. The landscape, gadgets, and characters, though patterned after the original, are rendered with Kirby's usual energy and freedom. Only the likeness of No. 6 himself (i.e., the face of Patrick McGoohan) gives Kirby problems, as indeed one might expect, given Kirby's well-known impatience with reference photo-graphs. The opening splash, in particular, does not suggest McGoohan at all: the Prisoner is too gaunt, his nose not round enough, his expression too old and careworn. Yet by page 4 a stable likeness emerges, one which remains fairly distinct throughout the tale - the face is not precisely McGoohan's, but close enough for recognition. I'm tempted to attribute the improved likeness to the good offices of Royer (who, for example, later "fixed" the details in Kirby's strip adaptation of The Black Hole), but, no, the face remains consistent, and indeed becomes even more McGoohan-like, in the later pages, uninked by Royer. During No. 6's interview with No. 2, Kirby produces a number of drawings which are startlingly close to the original. This interview scene, pages 10-15, is the story's most obviously "Kirbyesque" sequence. Departing from the original series somewhat, Kirby allows his Prisoner to see the high-tech gadgetry which his so-called "keepers" use to monitor the Village; indeed, he transforms the interior of No. 2's headquarters, "the Georgian house," into "a maze of technical wonders." Whereas the cameras and other devices used in the series were hidden from No. 6, behind a quaint household facade, Kirby turns the entire setting into a futuristic playscape, rife with high-tech detail. Thankfully, he preserves many essential design elements from the TV series: No. 2's large, bubble-like chair; the enormous seesaw-like monitoring device in the control room; the streamlined telephones, now dated but then futuristic; the badges bearing the penny farthing symbol; the homey little details such as teacups and dishes; and even the pint-sized butler (a nice likeness of actor Angelo Muscat on the bottom of page 12). Yet in Kirby's hands No. 2's office goes from a huge, austere circular room (the design of the original) to a complex, architecturally-cramped setting filled with Kirby's distinctive abstractions. The only other full-page panel in the tale (aside from the opening splash) comes when No. 6 encounters No. 2, and it surrounds the latter with a riot of detail. Screens, buttons, and glyphs are everywhere; geometric forms, shadows, and metallic highlights transform the backgrounds, in panel after panel, into a claustrophobic Kirby wonderland, reinforcing the text's initial description: "It is as if the present has been gulped down into the dark maw of a threatening future." (page 11) In contrast to the openness and weathered look of the first few pages, the sequence inside the Georgian House is a clutter of beautiful shapes. Yet this clutter is dramatically effective, reinforcing rather than distracting from the narrative, because Kirby uses his abstract forms to guide the eye. For example, a panel on page 13 shows a head shot of No. 2, against a swirling, circular pattern of techno-stuff, as, in the extreme foreground, the Prisoner's accusing finger points directly at him. Thus the composition focuses everything on No. 2, reinforcing his words, "Haven't you realized there is no way out?" Similarly, on page 15, dark, circular patterns of machinery surround and contain the small figures of No. 2 and No. 6, as the latter declares, "You won't hold me!!" Altogether, pages 10 through 15 demonstrate Kirby's extraordinary ability to organize gobs of visual detail into dramatic compositions.
Uninked pencils for page 15 of Jack's adaptaion of The Prisoner Fallout? Yet there is more than visual craft at work in The Prisoner. These seventeen pages have a peculiar resonance - indeed, it's tempting to read them as an allegory of Kirby's own professional situation in the mid-'70s. As Chris Harper has observed, Kirby's version of No. 6 resembles himself, sometimes remarkably so. That Kirby's hero should be square-faced and rugged is hardly surprising, yet the resemblance between the Prisoner and the artist goes beyond this in its specificity. The brooding eyes and taciturn mouth recall McGoohan, of course, but the face and figure also recall Kirby's familiar self-image: broad-nosed, compact, pugnacious. More importantly, the story - about a man resigning his position as "a matter of principle," only to find that he is once again in the grip of an unprincipled power - seems to echo Kirby's departure from Marvel, the frustration of his ambitions at DC, and his return to Marvel under a new set of editorial restraints. Such conjectures, of course, fascinate us precisely because they cannot be confirmed or unconfirmed, only pondered. On the face of it, it makes no sense to read so much into what is, after all, only a licensed TV adaptation. Yet The Prisoner, finally, remains a remarkable Kirby artifact - both because its theme and tone are distinctly personal, and because its quiet tension pushes Kirby to new limits. Though the adaptation can't be called a complete success - the scripting is inconsistent, sometimes labored, and, again, the premise demands more than seventeen pages can give - Kirby's Prisoner offers much: ingenious breakdowns, startling compositions, and a subtle, carefully sustained mood. Hopefully, the entire story will one day be printed in complete, authorized, and legible form - and recognized as an extraordinary response to an extraordinary series. Thanks to Chris Harper, Mark Nevins, and especially John Morrow for research help. Published sources include Alain Carrazé and Hélène Oswald's The Prisoner: A Televisionary Masterpiece (Barnes & Noble, 1995) and Roger Langley's The Making of The Prisoner (Six of One, 1985, enclosed in the BAM-Caruso LP, Prisoner Themes, 1986).
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Click here to download our new Fall-Winter catalog (2mb PDF file)Let's say you're reading an article about a man who raised a pit bull for the purpose of entering it in dogfights. He teaches it to be mean, to attack mercilessly. He makes it strong, feeds it red meat. And then one day this pit bull mauls him. Would you have any sympathy for that man?
This is not a charitable way of looking at the conservative #NeverTrump movement, but it's what I keep returning to when I think about why it's been so unsuccessful. It's a movement led by conservative opinion leaders, media personalities, and Republican consultants -- the people who really run the GOP, or at least did before Donald Trump came along. The base they've stoked has turned on them, and they're upset. But they'd be a lot more sympathetic if they'd cop to the fact that they are largely responsible for his rise.
Whether you're right or left, there are endless reasons to oppose Trump. Remember that he is, among many other things, a vaccine truther. So you'd think that conservatives would have better luck standing up to him. Movement conservatism is a pretty coherent governing philosophy, and it's easy to see where he's deviated from the scriptures handed down by the likes of Burke, Friedman, Hayek and Buckley. The problem is no one, or rather very few people outside Washington's many right-wing think tanks, seem to be getting all that exercised about his heresies.
Who would Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pick as potential running mates?
Shouldn't this produce a little soul searching on the right? You'd hope so, but we've seen very little of it. They've lost control of a party they've dominated for decades, but #NeverTrump, broadly speaking, doesn't seem all that curious as to why. The conclusions, they suspect, would be uncomfortable, so better to focus on devising new ways to hit Trump.
Having failed at stopping Trump from securing the nomination, now they're looking for a new candidate. Or that's what they're saying, anyway, even as this supposed search for an acceptable conservative alternative looks less and less like a serious effort and more like a publicity vehicle for "Weekly Standard" editor Bill Kristol. Does anyone really think this independent option has a chance of coming together? That you can dust the mothballs off Mitt Romney and suddenly turn him into a contender, or that voters are itching for a kamikaze candidate to act as a spoiler?
"Trump is a closet leftist!" they yell. Okay, fine. Now tell me how you let him beat you -- explain how the base vulgarian, the poster child for crony capitalism, the shock-jock-loving misogynist who barely even bothers to pretend he's a Christian took your party away.
Oh, is it the media's fault? He does get a lot of coverage, but it's rarely flattering. The conspiracy theory du jour is that the media propped him up through the primaries just to tear him down in the general. For one thing, this gives the media a lot of credit: we're not that competent, and certainly not that organized. For another, it really underestimates the loathing much of the press corps has for Hillary Clinton. And last time I checked, there's no shortage of conservative outlets that could've stood in Trump's way. Many of them tried. It didn't work out.
Ivanka Trump on family business, changing "working woman" narrative
Interestingly, a conspiracy theory like that reflects a certain anti-elite paranoia among conservatives, a tendency that's become particularly pronounced in the Obama years. There's been an idea pushed by conservative media -- sometimes overtly but more often by implication -- that the president is actively trying to undermine the country. That he hates America and wants it to fail.
Like a lot of paranoid fantasies, it's seductive: my enemies are real, they're evil, and that's the reason bad things happen. It was also a very dangerous idea to inject into the public, this notion that the elites aren't just incompetent but actually traitorous. But many professional conservatives helped disseminate it, out of the mistaken belief that all that anti-elite animus would benefit them. And then Trump came along with a similar but more appealing message -- Obama is out to get you, but so was George W. Bush, and so are all those fuddy-duddy Republicans in Washington. They're all out to screw you. I'll protect you. Vote Trump.
With perhaps the exception of Ron Paul, Trump was the first Republican politician on the national stage to really attack Bush's legacy. He said Bush was a start-to-finish calamity, and voters agreed. Before that, right-wing critiques of Bush had been mostly tepid: he spent too much, all these wars abroad were launched with the best intentions but may be regrettable in hindsight, etc. He wasn't really conservative enough, and neither was Congress, and that's why we need to primary all these damn RINOs ("Republicans in name only"). Millions flowed to groups like the Club for Growth, which looked to make any compromise with Democrats a fireable offense.
The resulting polarization and gridlock was supposed to help Republicans, the party that insists that government doesn't work. Instead, fed-up voters looked to Trump, despite the efforts of groups like the Club to oppose him. The government doesn't work, Trump says, but he can make it work again. He won't try to take away your entitlement programs like Bush did. He'll just fix them somehow.
It's a nothingburger of a platform. What does #NeverTrump propose as an alternative? Essentially warmed-over Bushism with an extra emphasis on entitlement reform, a cause in search of a constituency to support it. Or at least that's what Republican #NeverTrump Sen. Ben Sasse basically laid out in his much-ballyhooed Facebook post declaring that he wouldn't support his party's nominee.
Donald Trump to meet with Henry Kissinger for foreign policy advice
That might be giving Sasse's mini-manifesto too much credit, as it was really just a collection of rote conservative talking points combined with an appeal for more civil discourse. It's a message voters keep turning down -- the GOP last won the popular vote in 2004, and before that they hadn't won it since 1988 -- yet most of the movement conservative apparatus seems convinced that they're just selling it all wrong.
Maybe. Or maybe it's time for the professional conservatives opposing Trump to have a serious discussion about how they got here. To reckon with how they've done business and whether they still have a message with mass appeal. To reexamine their thinking, confess their sins, and seriously ask why ideas that are supposedly so beneficial to everyone -- from free trade to social security privatization -- just don't seem to resonate with the electorate.
Or they can stick with their #NeverTrump hashtag activism, dreams of media persecution, and insistence that the voters botched this one but will happily return to the fold in 2020.
At this point, we should assume they'll go with the latter option, which is a shame. A group of people standing up on principle against impossible odds is supposed to be compelling. This is not. In fact, it's getting dull.Not to be confused with The Dakotas
The Dakota, also known as the Dakota Apartments, is a cooperative apartment building located on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Its construction was completed in 1884. The Dakota was the home of John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, from 1973 until his murder in the archway of the building in 1980.
History [ edit ]
The Dakota was constructed between October 25, 1880, and October 27, 1884.[3] Henry Janeway Hardenbergh's architectural firm was commissioned to create the design for Edward Cabot Clark, head of the Singer Manufacturing Company. (Hardenbergh's firm also designed the Plaza Hotel.)
The building purportedly was named The Dakota because at the time of its construction, the area was sparsely inhabited and considered remote from the inhabited area of Manhattan, just as the Dakota Territory was considered remote. The earliest appearance of this story, however, was in a 1933 newspaper interview with The Dakota's long-time manager. This was quoted as follows in Christopher Gray's book New York Streetscapes: "Probably it was called 'Dakota' because it was so far west and so far north". Gray believed that the building's name stemmed from Clark's fondness for the names of the new western states and territories.[4]
The Dakota was designated a New York City Landmark in 1969.[5] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972,[1] and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976.[2][6]
The building's facade was renovated in 2015.[7]
Features [ edit ]
The Dakota c. 1890; at the time, this area of Manhattan was sparsely developed and remote from the core of the city's population
Elevation (south, the front of the building)
The building's high gables and deep roofs with a profusion of dormers, terracotta spandrels and panels, niches, balconies, and balustrades give it a German Renaissance character and an echo of a Hanseatic town hall. Its layout and floor plan, however, were strongly influenced by French architectural trends in housing design that had become known in New York City in the 1870s. High above the 72nd Street entrance sits the face of a Dakota Indian.[8][9]
The Dakota is a square building built around a central courtyard. The arched main entrance is a porte-cochère large enough for the horse-drawn carriages that once entered and allowed passengers to disembark sheltered from the weather. Many of these carriages were housed in a multi-story stable building built in two sections between 1891 and 1894, at the southwest corner of 77th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where elevators lifted them to the upper floors. The "Dakota Stables" building was in operation as a garage until February 2007, when it was slated to be transformed by the Related Companies into a condominium residence.[10] Since then, the large condominium building The Harrison occupies its spot.[8][9]
The general layout of the apartments is in the French style of the period, with all major rooms connected to each other, in enfilade, and also accessible from a hall or corridor. The arrangement allows a natural migration for guests from one room to another, especially on festive occasions, yet gives service staff discreet separate circulation patterns that offer service access to the main rooms. The principal rooms, such as parlors or the master bedroom, face the street, while the dining room, kitchen, and other auxiliary rooms are oriented toward the courtyard. Apartments thus are aired from two sides, which was a relative novelty in Manhattan at the time. Some of the drawing rooms are 49 feet (15 m) long, and many of the ceilings are 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The floors are inlaid with mahogany, oak, and cherry.[8][9]
Originally, The Dakota had 65 apartments with four to 20 rooms, no two apartments being alike. These apartments are accessed by staircases and elevators placed in the four corners of the courtyard. Separate service stairs and elevators serving the kitchens are located in mid-block. Built to cater to the well-to-do, The Dakota featured many amenities and a modern infrastructure that was exceptional for the time. The building has a large dining hall. Meals also could be sent up to the apartments by dumbwaiters. Electricity was generated by an in-house power plant, and the building has central heating. Beside servant quarters, there was a playroom and a gymnasium under the roof. In later years, these spaces on the tenth floor were converted into apartments. The Dakota property also contained a garden, private croquet lawns, and a tennis court behind the building between 72nd and 73rd Streets.[8][9]
All apartments were let before the building opened, but it was a long-term drain on the fortune of Clark, who died before it was completed, and his heirs. For the high society of Manhattan, it became fashionable to live in the building, or at least to rent an apartment there as a secondary city residence, and The Dakota's success prompted the construction of many other luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan.[8][9]
An entrance to the 72nd Street station of the New York City Subway's B and C trains is outside the building.[11][12]
Notable residents [ edit ]
Notable residents of The Dakota have included:
Although historically home to many creative or artistic people, the building and its co-op board of directors were criticized in 2005 by former resident Albert Maysles. He attempted to sell his ownership to actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, who were rejected by the board. Maysles expressed his "disappointment with the way the building seems to be changing" by telling The New York Times: "What's so shocking is that the building is losing its touch with interesting people. More and more, they're moving away from creative people and going toward people who just have the money."[45] Even before this, Gene Simmons,[46] Billy Joel,[47] and Carly Simon[48] were denied residency by the board. In 2002, the board rejected Dennis Mehiel, the corrugated cardboard magnate and Democratic Party nominee for lieutenant governor of New York.[49]
Cultural significance [ edit ]
The south entrance of the building was the location of the murder of John Lennon. It is prominently featured in Andrew Piddington's 2006 film The Killing of John Lennon, although The Dakota was only used for exterior shots. In Roman Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby, The Dakota was used for exterior shots of "The Bramford", the apartment building where several of the characters lived.[50] The building is also referenced in the Netflix and The CW television show Riverdale.[citation needed]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
The Dakota in the snowCompanies set up Facebook Pages to market themselves. But until now, they’ve only had fairly blunt instruments–like the number of Likes–to measure how well they’re doing. Now Facebook is releasing a new set of tools that the social network says will give marketers better insights into how well their Pages are reaching Facebook users–and ultimately make those Pages more useful to brands.
Among the tools Facebook is releasing today in conjunction with New York’s annual Advertising Week are a new dashboard to measure the reach of individual Page posts, an API to allow third-party agencies build their own tools on top of this new Facebook data, and a new ad unit that allows companies to create ads out of their Page posts.
The tools reflect the company’s increasing emphasis on driving sharing among users–an area of focus CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this summer, saying that the company now views the amount that people share on Facebook as a stronger indication of the value of the network than the previous metric, which simply measured the total number of users.
“With the new Page Insights, Facebook is emphasizing the importance of sharing on Pages, because this increases a brand’s reach,” the company said in a press release.
The new dashboard, called Insights (pictured, right), appears as a tab on the company’s Page and is only available to adminstrators of the Page. The Insights tab lists the Page’s total number of fans (“Total Likes”) and the total number of other people reached via those fans (“Friends of Fans”). It also offers a ticker to show whether those numbers are going up or down.
With the Insights tab, Facebook is launching a new metric: “People Talking About This,” which doesn’t just measure how much people are talking about the Page in the conventional sense (such as a user commenting on a post on the brand’s Page). It also includes all the activities that Facebook considers a “conversation”–things that indicate a user is in some way engaged with the brand.The Environmental Health Division of the city's Department of Health and Human Services inspects restaurants using a checklist form with more than 100 items, deducting anywhere from one to four points for each violation. A single four-point violation related to hygiene, food preparation, drainage or sewage is an automatic failing grade. Any restaurant with a score below 80 faces an automatic re-inspection. The state's public health code requires food-service establishments maintain a minimum score of 80 — a B in the Hartford system. Restaurant with an A in the Hartford system received a score of 90 or above.The city of Hartford has not yet inspected all restaurants using the new system. Restaurants with more than one inspection listed in the database have been re-inspected. To search the database of the 250+ restaurants which have been inspected under the new system, choose one or more restaurants by name or type in a partial address. To see a list of all restaurants currently in the database in a sortable table, leave the restaurant name and address fields blank and click SEARCH.A senior prosecutor has indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be heading toward an indictment in one of the corruption cases he faces.
Speaking at a legal conference on Thursday, prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari appeared to dismiss Netanyahu’s main defense in the graft probe dubbed “Case 1000,” in which police are investigating expensive gifts given to Netanyahu and his family. The Netanyahus have long said these were just normal gifts friends give each other.
But Ben-Ari, of the Tel Aviv District Prosecutor’s finance and tax department, who was recently appointed to head the legal team overseeing the probe, said this was difficult to accept.
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“Friendship is a claim that comes up a lot in cases and it is a real defense, but it can’t explain every gift,” Ben-Ari said.
“When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of shekels that are given to a public servant, it’s difficult to accept that it is solely a gift of friendship. No one demands hundreds of thousands of shekels from friends,” she said.
“The types of friendships have to be examined on a case-by-case basis, when did they start, how big were the gifts, etc.,” she said without specifically referring to the Netanyahu case.
Police are probing expensive gifts allegedly given to Netanyahu and his family by US-Israeli movie mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, and whether any actions subsequently taken on their behalf amount to graft or conflicts of interest. The gifts were reportedly valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars and included expensive cigars, champagne, meals and hotel rooms.
A second investigation, dubbed “Case 2000,” concerns the prime minister’s recorded discussions with the publisher of the Yedioth Ahronoth daily Arnon Mozes about a quid pro quo deal to restrict the activities of a rival newspaper through legislation. No such deal was ever implemented.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that the gifts and discussions under investigation were illegal.
Communications Minister Tzachi Hanegbi from Netanyahu’s Likud party criticized Ben-Ari for making such comments in public.
“These kinds of things should remain within the investigation and should not be spoken of in public until official announcements are made,” he told Army Radio on Friday, noting that in the end only the attorney general decides on whether to prosecute.
This is not the first time Ben-Ari has led an investigation into a prime minister. She was a prosecutor in the so-called Holyland Affair, a corruption case involving a high-rise real estate project of the same name in Jerusalem that led to the conviction of former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Olmert was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in the corruption case — others included former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski — which officials have characterized as among the largest graft cases in Israel’s history. Olmert’s conviction in the affair was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court, though Olmert was imprisoned for other corruption offenses.
Last month reports said that police were “unequivocally” planning to recommend that prosecutors indict Netanyahu for Case 1000.Rep. Steve King (Iowa) came under fire from fellow Republicans on Monday for racially charged remarks that were praised by white supremacists.
In a tweet on Sunday, King lauded far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a critic of Islam who supports curbing immigration in his country.
“Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny,” King wrote. “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO — Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017
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Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, told King in a tweet to “get a clue.”
“Diversity is our strength,” she said. “All looking alike is such a waste. A travesty. I wanna be me. All others are taken.”
That sentiment was echoed by Sen. Tim Scott Timothy (Tim) Eugene ScottSenate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Senate approves border bill that prevents shutdown Senate passes bill to make lynching a federal crime MORE (R-S.C.), one of only three black senators, and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), a Cuban-American from South Florida.
“What exactly do you mean?” Curbelo asked in a tweet. “Do I qualify as somebody else’s baby?”
Democrats joined the pile-on. Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), called King’s remarks “vile racism” that have “no place in decent society, much less in the U.S. Congress.”
“It’s no accident that communities across America have been threatened by emboldened racists,” Hammill said in a statement. “The GOP Leadership must stop accommodating this garbage, and condemn Congressman Steve King’s statements in the strongest and most unequivocal terms. Speaker Ryan and the House Republican Leadership must decide whether white supremacy is welcome in the GOP ranks.”
Asked about King’s remarks, an aide for Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) said the lawmaker “clearly disagrees and believes America’s long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths.”
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) added that “being American is about embracing our country’s founding principles of liberty and personal responsibility, not where someone’s ancestors came from.”
“Legal immigration is an integral part of the American dream,” Scalise said.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer, asked by The Hill for President Trump’s reaction to King’s statements, said he would look into it and provide a response.
King, meanwhile, stood by his remarks.
“I meant exactly what I said,” King said on CNN’s “New Day.”
The eight-term Republican lawmaker said the U.S. and Western European countries “need to get our birth rates up” to avoid being “entirely transformed.”
He tied his argument to illegal immigration, saying that those who come to the country illegally refuse to “assimilate into American culture.”
“I’d like to see an America that’s just so homogenous that we look a lot the same, from that perspective,” King said.
“This is an effort on the left, I think, to break down the American civilization, the American culture, and turn it into something entirely different. I’m a champion for Western civilization and, yes, our English language is a big part of it. It’s a carrier of freedom.”
King’s remarks were praised by white nationalist leaders such as Richard Spencer and featured on racist websites.
“Just in case you were thinking about moving, sanity reigns supreme in Iowa’s 4th congressional district,” tweeted David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
King is among the most strident immigration hard-liners in Congress and has stirred controversy with racially charged remarks in the past.
During the Republican National Convention last summer, King said on MSNBC that Western civilization had contributed more to society than any other group of people.
“I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about? Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?” King asked.
When King was asked by MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes whether he was referring to “white people,” he responded that he was talking about “Western civilization itself.”
“It’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world,” King said. “That’s all of Western civilization.”Jesse Puljujarvi, the projected third-overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, told NHL.com Thursday he will not participate in this weekend’s NHL Scouting Combine’s fitness testing.
The 18-year-old Finnish right wing sustained an injury to his left knee playing for Karpat in Liiga on March 4 and underwent surgery in May.
“I don’t like [that I can’t participate],” Puljujarvi told the site. “But it’s good, it’s good. It’s feeling better and better.”
Puljujarvi did participate in Thursday’s functional movement screening test and has been interviewed by 11 teams.
The Columbus Blue Jackets hold the No. 3 selection in the draft.
Puljujarvi led his country to a gold medal at the 2016 World Junior Championship with seven goals and five assists in seven games. He was named the tournament’s best forward and most valuable player.Around 200 anti-capitalist protestors, many affiliated to the Occupy movement, gathered outside parliament late Monday in a demonstration against government cuts.
There was brief unrest when police moved in to move the demonstrators — many of whom were wearing Guy Fawkes masks — back from the main parliament gates and onto the grass at Parliament Square.
Demonstrator Cian, 19, said: “I just want to be part of a protest against the government, against the cuts when they are spending billions of pounds on war.
Student Kree Love, 18, explained: “People have come to this protest because it is central and it is the best way to get our point across.”
Police can forcibly remove any protesters that set up camp in Parliament Square under legislation passed last year.Evander Kane, the Winnipeg Jets' fourth overall pick in 2009, is a 22-year-old 30-goal scorer, and is locked into a fairly team-friendly $5.25-million a year contract through 2017-18. As such, it would appear that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff has a significant building block around whom he can form some semblance of a winning team.
Yet, as the offseason rumor mill churns, Kane's name is repeatedly mentioned as a potential trade candidate, as confirmed once again Saturday by Gary Lawless of the Free Press.
While Lawless contends the talk is "over-hyped right now", he added "his name is out there" and that Kane could indeed be acquired, albeit at a heavy price.
Chevy and #nhljets would want a young top 6 F or young top 4 D in return for Kane. Player must be coming of age or in prime and locked up — gary lawless (@garylawless) June 21, 2014
Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun echoes a similar sentiment, saying Kane could be had, "but the price tag is going to be steep, as it should be."
Wiebe writes that Kane is a rare talent:
Thirty goal scorers that can kill penalties, skate like the wind and play a physical game don’t exactly grow on trees. No, Kane hasn’t reached his potential in three seasons with the Jets, but he hasn’t had the benefit of regular linemates or been given much first-unit power-play time either. I remain of the belief that Kane could become a more consistent game-breaker if used frequently on a line with Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler. However, |
between where she stands and where all these Republicans, these wannabes running around.”
He took particular aim at the lawsuit from many Republican governors and attorneys general challenging President Barack Obama’s immigration executive actions, calling their position “at best troglodyte, and at worst, un-Christian.”
All the more reason, Brown said, to focus on the fight with the other party, and not within his own.
“There’s some big differences, and they’re more with the Republicans. So let’s have the debate and let’s see where America wants to be,” Brown said. “I don’t think running some couple of Democrats would illuminate the process.”
Brown didn’t meet with Obama, who was in Los Angeles on Friday, or with Vice President Joe Biden, who’s vacationing in the Virgin Islands.
This article tagged under: Hillary Clinton
Jerry BrownAdam Schefter says that Matthew Stafford's new contract will be north of $25 million per year on average and explains how it'll help reset the QB market as players like Kirk Cousins, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers are nearing the end of their contracts. (1:14)
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Matthew Stafford will become the highest-paid player in NFL history with the five-year deal he has agreed to with the Detroit Lions, sources told ESPN on Monday night.
The deal will have an average annual value of $27 million, a source said, putting Stafford ahead of the five-year contract that pays $25 million annually to Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, which Carr signed last month.
A source told ESPN's Adam Schefter that Stafford's deal is expected to guarantee him a record $92 million, including a $50 million signing bonus. The previous record for guaranteed money issued to an NFL player was $87 million for Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts.
Under the deal, Stafford will be guaranteed $60.5 million at signing and $86 million by the start of Year 2 of the contract, which starts next March, a league source told Schefter. The full $92 million is guaranteed upon Year 3, the source told Schefter.
The Lions announced the five-year deal Monday night but did not disclose financial terms. The deal keeps the 29-year-old Stafford, the Lions' franchise leader in almost every passing category, with the team throughout the prime of his career.
Top Lions receiver Golden Tate and Stafford's wife, Kelly, took to Instagram to congratulate the quarterback.
When daddy and mommy whispered to us we would be spending 6 more years in detroit... hope y'all are as excited as we are! #golions #thankyoudetroit #home A post shared by Kelly Stafford (@kbstafford89) on Aug 28, 2017 at 7:37pm PDT
Stafford made $110,778,969 in his first eight seasons with the Lions, according to Spotrac, and was due another $16.5 million in cash for this season before signing the extension. It's not immediately clear whether that number will change with the extension agreement.
In April, Stafford made it clear he wanted to remain with Detroit. He and his wife lived in the area year-round while she was pregnant, and she gave birth to twin daughters Sawyer and Chandler in March.
The Lions and Stafford made that long-term possibility a reality Monday. This deal won't necessarily be Stafford's last, either. When it was suggested in April that he is past the midway point of his career, he scoffed a bit and said he wants to continue playing for a long time.
Stafford was the No. 1 overall draft pick out of Georgia in 2009, and he was a star at Highland Park High School near Dallas, where he was a teammate of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw -- who just happens to be the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball this season at $33 million.
Stafford has started 109 games for the Lions, compiling a 51-58 record. After an injury-plagued first two years in Detroit, Stafford has started every game at quarterback for the Lions since the start of the 2011 season.
He has completed 2,634 of 4,285 passes (61.5 percent) for 30,303 yards, 187 touchdowns and 108 interceptions. He has been sacked 242 times, has thrown for 1,515 first downs, and owns a career passer rating of 86.8. He has also rushed 242 times for 851 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Stafford has posted three of the best seasons of his career under Lions head coach Jim Caldwell, including a Pro Bowl year in 2014 and two playoff berths. Under Caldwell, Stafford has had three of his four best completion percentage years and the three lowest interception totals of his career (when he has played more than three games).
Stafford has already become a top-50 quarterback, statistically, in NFL history, ranking No. 39 in completions, No. 47 in attempts, No. 44 in yards, No. 49 in touchdowns and No. 23 in passer rating.Submitted by Peter Korzun via Strategic-Culture.org,
On December 16, US tanks and armor vehicles arrived in the Netherlands to be deployed in a storage depot located in the province of Limburg. The facility, the former Eygelshoven military base near Kerkrade, will be used to keep and maintain tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery pieces for a US armored brigade combat team. In January, the US Army in Europe is due to deploy a total of 4,000 American troops and around 2,000 military vehicles on a rotational basis to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic nations. NATO forces will move to the Baltic States in early spring. In an overtly provocative move, an American battalion will be stationed in Poland near the border with Kaliningrad, Russia’s Baltic enclave.
The US Army is implementing the annual defense authorization act which approved a $3.4 billion spending plan to boost NATO forces, including reopening or creating five equipment-storage sites in the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and two locations in Germany. In September, the US Army began to assemble more Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) for permanent storage in Europe. The additional combat equipment will give the Army the option for another heavy armored brigade. Presently, it has only two light brigades in Europe: 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.
The US military has over 62,000 permanently assigned service members in Europe.
According to Lieutenant General Frederick Benjamin «Ben» Hodges, the US Army Commander in Europe, the prepositioned stocks would give US leaders a range of options to respond to a developing crisis. Pulling out the equipment from the Eygelshoven warehouses and putting it on a train toward a trouble spot could be a sign of American resolve that could help diffuse a crisis. The US forces plan to conduct more than 90 maneuvers with NATO allies and European partners next year, including Swift Response 17 in July to test the NATO rapid response units. The Swift Response exercise is designed to demonstrate NATO's ability to respond to a crisis «within 18 hours of notification».
The deployment breaches the Russia-NATO Founding Act (1997). By signing the document NATO pledged not to seek »additional permanent stationing of substantial ground combat forces» in the nations closer to Russia «in the current and foreseeable security environment». Signed 20 years ago, the agreement appears all but dead amid the alliance's push to beef up its military presence on its eastern flank.
The argument that the forces are being deployed on temporary basis holds no water. Every combat unit goes through rotation; each has its own operational cycle. The plans in question are nothing else but a permanent military presence of substantial forces.
There are other provocative plans to boost NATO’s presence near Russia’s borders.
NATO is pushing ahead with its military «Schengen zone» in Europe to do away with travel restrictions on the movement of NATO forces and equipment across the continent. There will be no need to ask for permissions while crossing national borders. The sovereignty of member states will be reduced to facilitate cross-continent operations.
Meanwhile, 300 US Marines are moving to their new home in Norway. They will be deployed at the Værnes military base near Trondheim to bolster the readiness of new pre-positioned tanks and weaponry stored throughout the year in underground caves. Værnes lies about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the Russian-Norwegian frontier.
The October 26-27 NATO defense ministers agreed to boost the Black Sea presence. Romania and Bulgaria will host forces designed to carry out surveillance missions over the Black Sea. The UK, Canada and Poland will send aircraft to be based in the Romanian southeastern Mihail Kogalniceanu air base. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are also expected to come forward with a plan to increase naval and air patrols in 2017. The US supports Romania’s initiative to establish a multinational naval brigade in the region.
With the naval brigade on the agenda, Bulgaria has agreed to participate with 400 troops in the multinational brigade in Romania. The unit is intended to facilitate the deployment of reinforcements. Georgia and Ukraine will be fully involved in the plans.
Non-Black Sea NATO members cannot stay in the Black Sea more than 21 days, according to the Montreux Convention. Bulgarian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Georgian navies have limited capabilities. It brings to the fore the possibility of major NATO sea powers hand over some of their own warships to them. The ships could be reflagged under the three Black Sea members’ flags to beef up permanent naval capabilities in the theater. Lumping NATO and non-NATO ships under one operational control is a highly provocative step towards Russia.
US destroyers and cruisers visit the Black Sea from time to time to provide NATO with long range first strike capability. The Black Sea is on the way to become a region of uncontrollable arms race.
In addition, Romania already hosts a ballistic missile defense (BMD) with the plans underway to have another operational BMD system deployed on Polish soil in 2018. The Romania-based Aegis Ashore BMD system uses the Mk-41 launcher capable of firing Tomahawk long-range precision-guided missiles against land assets in violation of the INF Treaty.
These systems will be upgraded. After the nuclear agreement with Iran was reached, the US Defense Department awarded a contract to Boeing to «define a concept» for a multiple-kill vehicle or multiple-object kill vehicle (MKV). According to the plans, the vehicle is to engage multiple targets at once, including decoys. The Pentagon aims for the MKV to go online by 2020.
The US decision to increase military presence in Europe comes along with the rise of Donald Trump, who has disparaged the NATO alliance as a drain on US resources.
NATO undertakes one provocative step after another with Western media spreading around concocted stories about “Russian aggression”. The European security is greatly threatened. A spark is enough to kindle a big fire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would take countermeasures in response to NATO expansion. He noted that he was «concerned» about what NATO is doing and put into question the bloc’s decision-making process. The president emphasized that NATO members could hardly resist the pressure of the United States.
In September, Russia came up with a proposal to reach an agreement of flight safety in the region with all military planes flying with their transponders on, emitting an identifying signal in response to other radio signals. The proposal was rejected by NATO.
It was reported in late November that Russia had deployed Bastion mobile coastal defense missiles to Kaliningrad. It is to deploy S-400 air missile defense systems and Iskander mobile short-range surface-to-surface missiles in that region.
With tensions running high, there is an urgent need to address these burning problems. With Donald Trump in office, there is a hope to address the issue of European security in a positive way.
In November, a group of European states supported Germany’s initiative to launch discussions with Russia on a new arms control agreement. German Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, nominated to become German president next year, called for a deal to avoid an escalation of tensions in Europe.
In 2009 the Western powers rejected Russia’s proposal to discuss a new European Security Treaty. Now reality makes them reconsider their stand. The rejection of the plans to boost the US military presence in Europe would be a sign that Europe is serious about the arms control talks. But if the US continues its plans to beef up military presence to threaten Russia, Europe will find itself plunged into an uncontrolled arms race. NATO has to make a choice.LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivians voted on Sunday in an election that is almost certain to hand a third consecutive term to President Evo Morales, a former coca farmer who promises to consolidate leftist reforms that have expanded the role of the state in a booming economy.
Voters lined up early outside polling stations La Paz where police patrolled in large numbers and observers said they had seen no sign of fraud in the voting process.
Morales’ folksy appeal and prudent spending of funds from a natural gas bonanza to finance welfare grants, roads and schools have won the 54-year-old wide support in a country long dogged by coups and political instability.
“I voted for Morales,” said Flavia Nunez, a 50-year-old office clerk, in central La Paz. “These other right-wing candidates would take us back in time. I don’t want that.”
Morales, the Andean nation’s first ethnic Aymara leader, voted in a steamy jungle region where he grew coca as a young man. He urged all Bolivia’s roughly 6 million registered voters to cast their ballots “to show the country’s unity.”
His campaign billboards ran the slogan “With Evo we’re doing well”. Opinion polls ahead of the vote showed Morales, who never finished high school, thrashing rivals to win outright in the first round with 60 percent of the vote.
His closest rival, cement tycoon Samuel Doria Medina, who trailed by more than 40 percentage points going into the election, claimed the polls had a margin of error of 33 percent - roughly the swing he needed to force Morales into a run-off.
“This is why we’re still optimistic,” Doria Medina said after voting in a southern La Paz district.
Morales, who rails against capitalism but has won plaudits from Wall Street for running a fiscal surplus, will become Bolivia’s longest-serving president if he wins. Another term would see Morales in office until January 2020.
He has delivered eight years of economic growth averaging above 5 percent annually since he assumed office in 2006, nationalizing key industries including oil and gas and using the windfall to finance his brand of “indigenous socialism.”
Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina of the Democratic Unity (UD) party prepares to vote in La Paz, October 12, 2014. REUTERS/Diego Herculano
The number of Bolivians living in extreme poverty has fallen to one in five from more than a third of the population of 10 million in 2006.
CORRUPTION AND COCAINE
Morales’ rivals accuse him of using his power to control the courts and of violating the constitution which limits a president to two consecutive terms.
Last year, the Supreme Court decreed his 2006-2009 period in office should not be counted as a first term as it preceded the adoption of the new constitution. Opponents blasted the decision.
Guatemala’s former president, Alvaro Colom, who headed an observer mission by the Organisation of American States said voting was going smoothly.
“There hasn’t been any incident of concern. From what I see this is going to be a normal process,” Colom said.
Bolivia’s opposition is fragmented. Doria Medina, easily beaten by Morales in the last two elections, promised to clean up a judiciary he says is corrupt if he prevailed.
Jorge Quiroga, a conservative who was president in 2001-2002, pledged to tackle organized crime in the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine if he won.
“It’s time for change. This government has had two terms and I don’t like it when a small clique lingers on in power,” said economist Miguel Angel Perez, 53, who voted for Quiroga.
To avoid a second-round runoff, Morales needs to win 50 percent of valid votes, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin over his nearest rival.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Voters are also electing lawmakers. Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party is expected to keep its grip on Congress.
Voting ends at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) and preliminary results based on 70 percent of the vote are expected later on Sunday.Here's some good news for PlayStation VR: Sony has suggested that it's not looking to profit on the initial hardware launch. We've been saying for a while now that if the headset has any shot at succeeding, the platform holder needs to eat the cost on the peripheral – and that's exactly what Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has suggested that it will be doing.
"We tend to price hardware not to make money from it but to get as many install base so that content can be sold," he told Digital Spy. "This is the same kind of thinking in the way that we are approaching PlayStation VR." In other words, the manufacturer's trying to get the install base as high as it possibly can, with its business model enabling it to hopefully recoup costs from software sales.
Of course, on the surface this appears to contrast with comments made by SCE president Andrew House, who seemed to indicate that the headset would cost the same as a new console. But perhaps what the British businessman was really trying to say is that it's adopting the same strategy as a new system with the add-on, by pricing the hardware low and making money elsewhere.
None of this rules out a robust RRP, sadly, but it at least gives hope that the Japanese giant's going to go as low as it possibly can. Honestly, we reckon that any more than $200 will restrict the add-on to a very niche audience – but if it can hit that or go lower, then there's enormous potential here. Sadly, that's a pretty big 'if', isn't it?10 Of The Best Icon Packs For Android [Roundup]
By Rajesh Pandey
One of the key advantages to Android’s openness is the ability to customise the look of the OS to your liking. With third party launchers, widgets and themes, you can give your Android device a beautiful new look with just a few taps. No wonder third party launchers like Nova, Apex, and GoLauncher are among the most popular apps on the Play Store.
These launchers also support icon packs, allowing that extra level of customization. If you’re bored with the stock icons of your Android device, you can use icon packs to give your device a brand new look within minutes. Considering that there is no shortage of beautiful icon packs in the Play Store, we’ve chosen ten of the best to get you started.
If you are not a fan of flashy icons, and are looking for something simple then the SMPL White icons might just be perfect for you. The icons are etched on a white background, and have a transparent look. The icon pack consists of more than 1200 icons, with over 4500 icons themed. It also contains a theme for Go Launcher users.
If you are not particularly fond of white, the developer also has icon packs available in different colors and shapes (square or round).
Love the Sense 5 icons or trying to achieve the Sense look on your Android device? Sense 5 icons consists of more than 100+ icons that are inspired from the stock Sense 5 icons on the HTC One. The developer has also included a couple of Sense 5 wallpapers to help you achieve the Sense look on your Android device.
MeeUI icon pack consists of more than 200 icons that are inspired from the MeeGo UI as last seen on the Nokia N9. For Apex launcher users, the icon pack also contains the beautiful Nokia font.
The developer also has a paid version of the icon pack available that contains higher quality HD icons.
MIUI is a very popular custom ROM based on the Android source code, but looks similar to iOS. UI wise, it can be argued that MIUI looks much more polished than even stock Android. If you are looking for a MIUI inspired home screen, MIUI 5 icon pack from tung91 is exactly what you need.
The icon pack consists of more than 300+ icons, all inspired from icons from the MIUI ROM.
Tersus contains more than 900 custom icons with full HD resolution for extra clarity even on extremely high resolution devices like the Nexus 10. The icons are squarish in nature, and while they don’t look like stock icons, they still have the essence of the stock icons. This allows you to recognise your apps instantly from their icons. The icon pack works across a range of launchers including Nova, ADW, Apex, Action Launcher and Holo launcher.
The developer has also bundled some wallpapers that should go along very well with the icon pack.
While I am not particularly fond of them, DcikonZ is among the most popular icon pack available on the Play Store. The icon pack is among the largest on the Play Store with over more than 2000 HD icons and growing. Unlike some other icon packs in this article, DcikonZ does not keep the essence of the stock icons. Instead, all the icons look very much different from the stock icons of their respective app.
Considering the price of the theme (free) and the wide variety of launcher it supports, DcikonZ is a must have.
It can be argued that some of the icons in the Stark icon pack look very familiar to Minimal UI icons, but then there is a limit to how much icons of the same shape (square) can differ in their looks, while not deviating too much from the stock look.
Even then, Stark includes some beautiful icons that make it worth a buy.
Looking for an icon pack in which the icons are smaller than stock? Tiny White icon pack is what you need then. The icon pack consists of more than 1000 icons; each made in white, and are much smaller than the default icon size generally used in Android devices.
Holo Icons follow the Android design guideline to deliver a “simple, flat and unobtrusive design that can be seen throughout the UI”. The icon pack consists of more than 350 icons, and has been made only for XHDPI (Nexus 4 and other 720p) devices, so they might not look that sharp on the HTC One and other Android devices with 1080p resolution screen.
Minimal UI is hand down the most popular, and stunning icon pack available on the Play Store. The icon pack was earlier known as Minimal MIUI, but was removed from the Play Store due to some copyright issues with the name.
Minimal UI packs more than 600+ icons, with a resolution of 96*96 each, so they all look super sharp even on the Galaxy S4, HTC One or the Nexus 4. If there is one icon pack you must have on your Android device, Minimal UI is the one.
So, which icon pack do you prefer? Did I miss a must have icon pack in this list? Drop in a comment and let us know!The Formula 1 engineers have a love/hate relationship with Circuit de Catalunya; it is the track they know the best from the pre-season testing that has been held there for many years, but it is an enigmatic circuit, always changing with temperature and wind conditions. A car, which flies in the morning, can be uncompetitive in the afternoon, without anything being changed on the car itself.
As the first European race of the season it is also a track where teams bring their first major technical update package to the car, which will have taken 10-12 weeks of wind tunnel development. So teams always have high expectations, which do not always come to fruition and that can add another layer of frustration.
The track has a bit of everything in terms of corner types and is a very good test of a car’s aerodynamic efficiency. The most important sector of the lap is the final one, which features low speed corners. The most lap time gain and loss is here. Performance in the final sector this weekend is often taken as an indicator of how well a car will go at the next race in Monaco.
The Pirelli medium and hard tyres will be used this year – last year it was the soft and hard. This single step between compounds should make the strategies more evenly balanced, as we shall explain. Pirelli has changed the specification of the hard tyre so it is closer to the 2012 model, while the company is also supplying an extra set of these tyres to each team for use on Friday so they can gain more mileage and knowledge.
Track characteristics
Circuit de Catalunya; 4.65 kilometres. Race distance: 66 laps = 307 kilometres, 16 corners in total, considered the best test of an F1 car’s aerodynamic efficiency due to combination of medium and high speed corners.
Aerodynamic setup – High downforce. Top speed 317km/h (with Drag Reduction System active on rear wing) - 305km/h without.
Full throttle – 60% of the lap. Total fuel needed for race distance: 154kg (quite high). Fuel consumption: 2.34 kg per lap.
Time spent braking: 12% of the lap (quite low). 8 braking zones. Brake wear: Medium/low.
Total time needed for pit stop: 19.8 seconds.
Fuel effect (cost in lap time per 10kg of fuel carried): 0.40 seconds (high)
Form Guide
The Spanish Grand Prix is the fifth round of the 2013 FIA F1 World Championship.
Qualifying has historically been critical in Barcelona; the last 12 races on this track have been won from pole position. The arrival of DRS rear wings has meant a significant improvement in overtaking, which was always a problem at this circuit.
The form guide so far shows two poles and two wins for Red Bull Racing, a win and three podiums for Lotus, with two poles and two podiums for Mercedes and a win and a podium for Ferrari
Barcelona is likely to see many teams bring through some major car developments; front and rear wings, floors and improvements around the exhaust area. A good Barcelona update should be worth around three to four tenths of a second per lap.
As far as drivers’ form is concerned at Barcelona, Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, Pastor Maldonado, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber are all previous winners. Lewis Hamilton has never won the event.
Weather Forecast
The long range forecast looks good with temperatures around 20 degrees and a low chance of rain.
The wind is often a significant factor at this track, sudden gusts and crosswinds can upset the balance of the cars, particularly in the final sector.
Likely tyre performance and other considerations
Pirelli tyre choice for Spain: Hard and Medium.
Catalunya is a tough track on tyres, with the long Turn 3 the most difficult corner. It is taken at 240km/h and the corner lasts for four seconds, which puts a heavy load on the left front tyre. The surface is also quite abrasive.
Last year Pirelli brought the hard and soft tyre while this year they have brought hard and medium. The Hard tyre has been changed after the first four races of the season and is now similar to the 2012 hard tyre, which was the preferred race tyre in Spain last year. The predicted temperatures for the weekend should mean that the hard is in its ideal operating window.
The difference between the medium and the hard should be around 0.5s to 0.8s per lap.
Friday practice will be vital in establishing how long a set of each compound of tyres will last in the long runs in particular. This will dictate qualifying strategy, with teams looking to preserve new sets of their preferred race tyres.
With some high energy right hand corners, the limitation will be with the tyres on the left side of the car, particularly the front; when their performance starts to drop off it will be time to pit.
Number and likely timing of pit stops
With essentially the same hard tyre as last year and the 2013 medium tyre, it is likely that we will see a mixture of two and three stop strategies.
To make a two-stop work a team needs to be able to get to lap 14 or 15, while a three stopper will come in for the first time around lap 10.
Three stops is likely to be the preferred route, with stops on roughly laps 10, 26 and 44.
Chance of a safety car
There have been 5 Safety Car periods in this race since 2003, and 4 of those were for first lap incidents.
Recent start performance
At 730 metres, the run from the grid to the first corner at Barcelona is the longest of the season. So a fully functioning KERS is vital.
Starts are crucial in race strategy and can make or compromise a race.
As far as 2013 start performance is concerned drivers have gained (+) or lost (-) places off the start line this season, on aggregate, as follows –
Gained
+9 Van der Garde
+7 Perez
+6 Button
+6 Gutierrez
+5 Maldonado
+4 Alonso
+4 Sutil***
+4 Hulkenberg**
+2 Chilton
+2 Bianchi
+1 Pic
Held position
Vettel
Di Resta
Lost
-1 Bottas
-1 Massa
-2 Rosberg
-2 Webber*
-3 Hamilton
-3 Raikkonen
-4 Ricciardo
-5 Grosjean
-7 Vergne ****
*Webber dropped from second to seventh after a clutch problem in Australia ** Hulkenberg did not start in Australia *** Sutil suffered puncture from contact with Massa in Bahrain ****Vergne retired following collision.
Pit Stop League Table
Of course good strategy planning also requires good pit stop execution by the mechanics and we have seen tyre stops carried out in two seconds by F1 teams.
The league table below shows the order of the pit crews based on their fastest time in the Bahrain Grand Prix, from the car entering the pit lane to leaving it.
Worth noting is how close it has become with just over a tenth of a second separating the top four teams and 1.5s separating the whole field.
1. Red Bull 21.031s
2. Ferrari 21.123s
3. McLaren 21.161s
4. Mercedes 21.183s
5. Lotus 21.556s
6 Sauber 21.656s
7. Toro Rosso 22.028s
8. Force India 22.099s
9. Williams 22.066s
10. Caterham 22.252s
11. Marussia 22.552s
The UBS Race Strategy Briefing is written by James Allen with input and data from several of the leading teams' strategy engineers and from Pirelli as well as JA on F1 technical adviser Mark GillanI ran across this ad recently for an amazing new product, promoted by my own favorite science fiction author, Isaac Asimov.
Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer turned my dreams into a reality. Now I can take the power of a true computer with me wherever I go.
— Isaac Asimov
The marketing guys chime in a few paragraphs later.
And it can also function just like a calculator — something a desktop computer can’t do.
— Radio Shack
Wait, what!? With a standard calculator included in just about every phone that I can think of, it is hard to imagine a desktop computer ever existing without that ability. Crazy, right? Now that I think of it, it wasn’t too far in the distant past that desktop computers couldn’t be used for voice communications, something a simple phone could do. So what does $169.95 actually get you?
From Dave Dunfield’s old computer page:
The machine was actually a Radio Shack branded version of the Sharp PC-1211, which features: Sharp SC43177/SC43178 4-bit CPU running at 256khz
1×24 character LCD display
57 key “Qwerty” keyboard
1.5k of RAM for user program storage
Pizoelectric buzzer
Be sure to check out the full breakdown at Dave’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer page
As a point of comparison, here are a few highlights of Motorola’s Droid 2 tech specs:
1 GHz processor
480×854 Pixel display (Characters displayed depends on the font)
QWERTY keyboard
8GB flash (expandable to 32GB)
Support for stereo bluetooth (not sure if actual speaker is stereo or not)
100’s of other features like camera, video capture, streaming video, and get this includes the ability to make phone calls. Sadly though, it can’t make you breakfast… yet.
Let me whip out my calculator on my i7 Desktop Computer! The Droid 2 has a 3,906.25 times faster processor (just based on clock rate, not actual computational power) and has 5,592,405.33 times more storage. That seems crazy right? The TRS-80 pocket computer came out in 1980, about 20 years ago. I wonder how people will feel about our state of the art smartphones in 2020? That is assuming we haven’t been taken over by robots gone wild, destroyed ourselves with nukes, or succumbed to a raging nano-plague. But that is all just science fiction.Help and Support This is a place to get help and support for OSMC. Please post in the category you are running OSMC on, unless it is a generic issue.
Feature Requests Discuss what you'd like to see in future iterations of OSMC, or how we can help the community and make OSMC even better!
General Discussion Discuss anything (including non OSMC related topics) here. If you need help or support with OSMC, please post in that category instead.
HowTo This section has been provided for users to provide useful [HowTo] instructional posts for the benefit of the community as a whole.
Testing Help shape the future of OSMC.
Development Learn more and get involved with the OSMC development process. This serves as a way of tracking issues and the discussion surrounding them.
News Keep track of the latest OSMC news and announcements here.Trump is facing right-wing backlash for the budget deal, and these tweets are likely designed to placate those conservative critics and shift the blame to Democrats. But Trump seems to have overcorrected by demanding a shutdown, a demand that could haunt him later. The president is constantly borrowing political capital against future earnings, making bold promises about the future, but at some point, that political debt might come due—and there’s no corporate bankruptcy in politics.
If ever there were a moment for a dealmaker in the White House, this would be it. The shutdown and near-misses during the Obama administration were sometimes blamed on that president’s allegedly poor negotiating skills. Republicans found him aloof and difficult to deal with. (Democrats told a different story, of Republicans leaders who could not control their caucuses enough to negotiate effectively.) Trump promised to fix that with his business experience. But despite his constant boasting about his negotiating prowess, the eagerness for a shutdown suggests a reluctance to roll up his sleeves and actually cut some deals.
As Trump’s tweets point out, any budget package that is not revenue neutral requires 60 votes for passage. Historically, most legislation required just a simple majority, but the increasing use of the filibuster has produced bipartisan frustration at a de facto 60-vote threshold for all legislation. With Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, the Senate demolished the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees. But senators have not shown a similar appetite for eliminating the legislative filibuster.
Alternatively, Trump could try to get to 60 votes by courting Democrats. But the president has shown no interest in doing that, either substantively, by offering them enticements, or rhetorically. During a Saturday night speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump ridiculed Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Democrats in Congress have no leadership. They are rudderless. Senator Schumer is a bad leader. Schumer is weak on crime and wants to raise your taxes through the roof. He is a poor leader—I’ve known him a long time—and he is leading the Democrats to doom. It is sad to see for our country what is happening to the Democrat Party.
Trump also recently attacked Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, mocking her as “Pocahontas” for claiming Native American ancestry.
Meanwhile, Trump seems to be only slightly closer to congressional Republicans, who are bridling against him for demanding votes at certain times and for critiquing legislation, such as the health-care plan currently in progress in the House, from afar.
This approach to relations with both parties in Congress makes for good political theater, but it is not the sign of a man who is interested in dealmaking—nor is the plea for a shutdown.QuanticCinergy Profile Blog Joined June 2011 United States 37 Posts Last Edited: 2012-10-07 03:39:49 #1 "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." –Ben Franklin
With all the recent discussion resulting from the Valencia Congress, player compensation, and industry health overall, I've given our current state of affairs more thought and discussion, and being from the Technology sector I, like my co-owners, tend to view things through the lens of a technology start-up company. One benefit of looking at things in this regard, after having myself only learned of the prior eSports false-starts second-hand, is that we look at things in comparison to the tech bubble, the rise of Silicon Valley, diffusion theory, and behavioral change as both a driver and an indicator for market adoption of new products and services.
With that parallel in mind, I want to draw an analogy between the lifecycle of birth, growth, adoption, and subsequent market development in technology as a backdrop to the same lifecycle phases and indicators for eSports, with my goal being to deliver a message of unity in purpose and method for advancing this thing we love through a concept I’m calling “eSports Open Source”.
“The Internet is what happens when all of the computers in the world speak the same language” is what I used to tell folks when speaking at industry events almost a decade ago. But alas, it isn’t quite that simple. The Internet and software that powers it share their origins in the education and government sector, both from a university/state agency, and military-industrial perspective, and would have never been possible without the combined collaboration and self-governance of many institutions, agencies, and corporations, all working together. All the great things we enjoy today, especially those which we would all agree on as having produced lasting positive advancement through technology, largely hail from the halls and minds of |
, healing abilities (used by the Good Sadako only; see the article on Ring 0 for more info), and even the ability to cheat death, in a way. Incidentally, Sadako from the books cannot kill people by simply willing it like film Sadako can. Book Sadako can evidently manipulate the Ring Virus at will, and psychically infect anyone she chooses.
(psychic photography), and it was hinted that she had prenatural senses, clairvoyance, and mind control abilities. This is nothing compared to the Sadako in the films, who is tremendously powerful beyond all limits. Aside from nensha and clairvoyance, the Sadako from the movies possesses ultra-psychokinetic powers, teleportation, remote vision and travel, regenerative powers, healing abilities (used by the Good Sadako only; see the article on Ring 0 for more info), and even the ability to cheat death, in a way. Incidentally, Sadako from the books cannot kill people by simply willing it like film Sadako can. Book Sadako can evidently manipulate the Ring Virus at will, and psychically infect anyone she chooses. The true villain of the books is not Sadako herself, it is the Ring Virus, which was created when Sadako's dying will and psychic powers were fused with the smallpox virus. The smallpox virus mutated into a conscious virus capable of spreading via psychic means. In the film, it is Sadako's vengeful shade that is wreaking havoc although it is worth noting that in the book the virus was born from a fusion of Sadako's hate towards society, her psychic abilities and the smallpox virus, despite it not being Sadako herself who causes people to die.
The cursed videotape remains a constant fixture in the Ring film franchise, while in the books, the curse evolves into other formats: from the tape, to the Ring Report, to the Sadako clones, to the Ring novel published by Asakawa's brother, and ends with the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus.
Ryuji did not have a hint of ESP intuition in the book, although it is hinted that Asakawa gains a minor form of psychic awakening after raising Sadako from the well. In the final section of the book as Asakawa bids farewell to Ryuji at a train station, Asakawa notices a pain in his chest and the faint smell of citrus (the same symptoms Shizuko was said to experience during a premonition). Also, Ryuji was never attributed with ESP but was said to have very sharp intuitive skills naturally and Shizuko herself states that all humans are endowed with a small amount of power.
Ryuji's genius and cognitive talents were never really emphasized in the film.
The cursed tape in the novel is far different from the one in the movie. The book-version was much longer and more complicated. Also, the tape in the book has a message at the beginning and the end. The message at the beginning is something along the lines of, "Watch until the end, you will be eaten by the dead...", of which Asakawa thinks to mean, "Watch until the end, or else you will be eaten by the dead...." He was probably wrong. The message at the end: "The one who saw these images is destined to die in one week at this time. If you do not wish to die, do what will be said from now on. That is...", the rest of the end message is taped over, and it isn't until the end that Asakawa realized that the rest of the message was about copying the tape and showing it to someone else. These messages were not in the tape in the movie. The line that says: "If you keep doing nothing but shoumon, boukon will come." a.k.a. "Frolic in brine, goblins be thine" ( Shōmon bakari shite iru to, bōkon ga kuru zo ( しょうもんばかりしていると、亡魂が来るぞ ), lit. "If you keep doing nothing but playing in the water, a monster will come for you.") is one of the lines uttered by the old lady in the book, while it's a subliminal message of the Towel-Headed Man scene in the film's videotape. There are, however, shared elements, such as the moon-like view of Sadako's murdered from the well which is in the beginning of the film tape and in the end of the novel tape, immediately before the final written message.
you will be eaten by the dead...." He was probably wrong. The message at the end: "The one who saw these images is destined to die in one week at this time. If you do not wish to die, do what will be said from now on. That is...", the rest of the end message is taped over, and it isn't until the end that Asakawa realized that the rest of the message was about copying the tape and showing it to someone else. These messages were not in the tape in the movie. The line that says: "If you keep doing nothing but, will come." a.k.a. "Frolic in brine, goblins be thine" (, lit. "If you keep doing nothing but playing in the water, a monster will come for you.") is one of the lines uttered by the old lady in the book, while it's a subliminal message of the Towel-Headed Man scene in the film's videotape. There are, however, shared elements, such as the moon-like view of Sadako's murdered from the well which is in the beginning of the film tape and in the end of the novel tape, immediately before the final written message. In the film, it is Sadako's father, Heihachiro, that kills Sadako by braining her with a machete and pushing her in the well (though it is later revealed that Sadako didn't die right away, and was actually alive for about 33 years in the well, dying only a year before the events of the first film). In the book, Sadako is assaulted and raped by a doctor working at the facility her father is being treated at (for tuberculosis), who then tosses her into the infamous well. In the book she starved to death in the well full with hatred (although this was not revealed in the book 'Ring').
Sadako is intersex in the book. She has Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, meaning she has testes, rather than ovaries, but her body does not respond to testosterone. No mention of CAIS is made in any of the films, and presumably she is not intersex in the film.
Sadako in the book also had a younger brother that died during infancy.
In the book, an incident is mentioned where Shizuko (Sadako's mother) recovers a statue of En no Ozunu (an ancient ascetic rumoured to possess supernatural power) that had been tossed into the sea during the American occupation period. After she recovers the statue, her psychic powers are awakened. Incidentally, it is rumoured that En no Ozunu might be Sadako's actual father. Furthermore, in the films, it is hinted that Heihachiro might not be Sadako's true father, but that her real father was something inhuman. One scene in Ring 0 subliminally suggests that Sadako's father is the sea (or something from it).
In the film, Tomoko has her friend Masami staying over when she dies at the beginning. In the book, Tomoko dies alone.
In the film, Tomoko is last seen in the kitchen but her corpse is found in the closet in her room, with her mouth wide open. In the book, she is also last seen in the kitchen but that is also where her corpse is found, with her hands pulling her hair in fear.
In the film, the victims of the videotape die with their mouths widely open. In the book, they die of heart failure and most commonly appear pulling their hair in fear.
In the film, Reiko gets a hint of where the videotape could be located by the fact the urban legend points to the Izu peninsula and to the first four victims' photographs she obtains using Tomoko's receipt that show their faces blurred after a night in Cabin B4 on the Izu peninsula. In the book, the Cabin B-4 is on the South Hakone peninsula, part of the Villa Log Cabin resort, and the lead that takes Kazuyuki there is a Villa Log Cabin membership card found in Tomoko's room that she had borrowed from a friend of hers.
In the film, the cursed video is slightly over a minute long and starts at the very beginning of the tape. In the book, it is about 20 minutes long (according to Ryuji's breakdown list) and starts about 20 minutes into the tape (Asakawa says that at the end of the video, the tape is at 1/3 of its length, and it is a 120-minute tape).
In the film, the investigation starts the day after Tomoko dies and is prompted by the death of Tomoko and the existing urban legend about the cursed video. In the book, it starts a month later and is prompted by a taxi driver explaining to Asakawa about the death of Shuuichi Iwata who died while on his motorbike at exactly the same time Tomoko died. There is no urban legend in the book.
In the film, Sadako appears to Ryuji the day after he watches the videotape (but is not identified as such). This does not happen in the book but does in the 1995 TV movie.
In the film, Sadako appears to Ryuji when he dies, crawling out of the TV set. In the book, Ryuji merely sees a reflection of himself horribly aged in the mirror. However, in the 1995 TV movie, Sadako also appears, albeit not crawling out of a TV set, instead she merely materializes to out of thin air as Ryuji is slowly dancing with Mai Takano, and is only visible to Ryuji (we see it cutting to Mai's POV for a while and we see that the place where Ryuji seeks Sadako is empty).
The well in the book is a stone well that looks like a "pile of rocks", making in closer in appearance to the wells in The Ring Virus (1999) and The Ring (2002), than to the well in the 1998 film.
In the film, it's Shizuko that predicted the 1950s Mt. Mihara eruption. In the book, it was Sadako that predicted it.
In the book, Shizuko's public ESP demonstration involved predicting the out come of two rolling dice but she was unable to do it correctly because of the combined negative will of all the people present. Sadako, however, had much more powerful ESP and saw the dice, hence why the dice also appear on the cursed video. In the film, however, Shizuko has to predict the kanji written on a sealed piece of paper and write them down, and she actually does it correctly, but is branded a fraud for no apparent reason, and Sadako kills the reporter responsible for that, something that does not occur in the book.
In the film, the phone only rings at the Izu cabin, which leads Reiko and Ryuji back there. In the book it is initially not made clear but the Loop novel subsequently makes it clear that the phone rang for everyone. What leads Kazuyuki and Ryuji back to South Hakone is finding out, by means of Yoshino's investigation, and their interrogation of the man who raped and killed Sadako that it happened there, when in place of the Villa Log Cabin resort was still a sanatorium where Ikuma was being treated for tuberculosis. This is in turn prompted by Kazuyuki's intuition that to find Sadako they should work their way backwards from where Kazuyuki watched the tape, in order to find out why the tape appeared exactly there. And that was because their original attempt to work their way forwards from Sadako's birth reached a dead end because no one knew of her whereabouts after her disappearance from the Hisho Acting Troupe.
References [ edit ]
Kalat, David (2007). J-Horror: The Definitive Guide to The Ring, The Grudge and Beyond. Vertical Inc. ISBN 978-1-932234-08-4.Swine flu deaths rise to 17 in Bay Area
(01-14) 17:11 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The number of reported deaths linked to swine flu in the Bay Area rose to 17 Tuesday after public health officials reported new deaths in Solano and San Mateo counties.
There have been four flu deaths in Santa Clara County, three each in Alameda and San Mateo counties, two each in Marin and Sonoma counties, and one each in San Francisco, Solano and Contra Costa counties.
Many of the deaths are attributable to a strain of influenza that has targeted the relatively young and healthy. One victim in Sonoma County, Matthew Walker, was only 23.
The vaccine is well-matched to this year's flu season and protects against all strains of influenza that have been identified in patients. The primary strain circulating this year is Type A, subtype H1N1 - also known as the "swine flu," which caused a global outbreak in 2009.
People age 65 and older appear to have some protection against H1N1, which tends to strike younger adults - even those who are otherwise healthy - harder than most influenza strains. Symptoms of the flu include high fever, body aches and a sudden onset of illness.
Even after people are vaccinated, it's important they take other steps like regularly washing their hands or covering coughs and sneezes to keep themselves, and others, healthy, public health officials say. Those who are sick should not go to work or school.
The flu vaccine takes about two weeks to become fully effective, so public health experts recommend people get it now if they haven't already. To get the vaccine, call your health care provider, or go to http://flushot.healthmap.org to find the nearest supplier.Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) questions former CIA director John Brennan during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on May 23 on Capitol Hill. Gowdy is now chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Rep. Trey Gowdy secured one of Congress’s most powerful investigative posts last week. But it remains unclear how — or if — he’ll use it to investigate President Trump.
Voted in as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gowdy (R-S.C.) possesses nearly boundless jurisdiction to probe executive branch misdeeds and abuses.
[Trey Gowdy poised to seize House Oversight gavel after Jason Chaffetz departs]
His predecessor, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is retiring from Congress next week, had taken some halting steps to investigate Trump — requesting, for instance, memorandums written by former FBI director James B. Comey about his meetings with the president and documents related to Trump's downtown Washington hotel.
But there are signs that Gowdy, a former state and federal prosecutor who led the rancorous House probe into the 2012 Benghazi attacks, may defer those inquiries to other congressional investigations and to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × A look at President Trump’s first year in office, so far View Photos The president’s term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the news media. Caption Scenes from the Republican’s beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
“The last thing he’ll want to do is impede any sort of investigation,” Chaffetz said of Gowdy. “But we also have duties and obligations in the House. I trust that he’ll find the proper balance to that, and it’s a tricky one. It’s not easy.”
[Chaffetz will leave Congress June 30; Gowdy favored as next House Oversight chairman]
Gowdy’s office declined requests for an interview last week, citing an ongoing review of the committee’s staff and agenda. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Saturday, Gowdy said he saw his tenure as a “rare opportunity to depoliticize oversight” and said he had confidence in Mueller to lead the criminal probe into Trump’s orbit. He said he would prefer the committee focus on issues such as the federal workforce, the coming 2020 Census and drafting reform legislation.
A GOP aide acknowledged last week that Gowdy had conversations with other committee chairmen in recent weeks about their potentially overlapping jurisdiction.
“Rep. Gowdy respects the jurisdiction of each committee and has had similar conversations with all committee chairs,” the aide said. “House rules clearly lay out the jurisdiction of each committee.”
Any decision to bow out of probing Trump could spark a partisan battle on the Oversight Committee, angering Democrats who watched Chaffetz and Gowdy vigorously pursue politically damaging probes into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ahead of last year’s election.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), the second-ranked Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said any move to have the panel step aside from Trump probes would be a “recipe for very serious friction on the committee.”
“We are increasingly going to demand robust oversight on what we consider to be one of the most serious threats to American democracy,” he said.
Several Republican members and aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe Gowdy’s thinking before he publicly unveils his oversight priorities, said the 52-year-old South Carolinian is mindful of staying in his investigative lane.
Gowdy not only conducted criminal investigations before joining Congress, but he also now sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees — both panels with pending oversight interests in the Trump administration. Gowdy will be wary, the Republicans said, of treading on his colleagues’ turf or interfering with Mueller’s probe.
Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), who is leading the Intelligence panel’s investigation into alleged Russian election interference and possible Trump links, said last week he “had some brief conversations” on the subject with Gowdy.
“I think Trey and I will work well together,” he said. “Obviously, he’s got two hats, and so I trust him to be able to manage that.”
Democrats have little patience for the notion that the Trump probes might be left to other committees. They pointed to multiple Obama administration issues in which the House Oversight panel conducted its own — often higher-profile — investigations of matters that were also being probed by other committees of jurisdiction.
Four other House committees — Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Judiciary — also probed the Benghazi attack, for instance. The Ways and Means Committee probed reports of the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative nonprofit groups before then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) took the lead, and Issa’s rigorous investigation into the Justice Department’s handing of Operation Fast and Furious impinged on the Judiciary Committee’s turf.
“We had hearings on Benghazi. We had hearings on the IRS. That never stopped us before,” Connolly said. “Both Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz were more than willing to entertain conflict with other committees in order to engage in their own oversight and make their own imprint on the topics. So why would this to be an exception to that rule?”
Gowdy has yet to meet as chairman with the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who has been recovering from heart surgery last month.
In a statement, Cummings said he hoped to talk to Gowdy about continuing bipartisan oversight initiatives on prescription drug prices and other issues, and also about exercising the panel’s “unique jurisdiction over White House officials, which includes the vetting system, the security clearance process, and the compliance with ethics rules.”
Chaffetz himself emphasized the breadth of the Oversight panel’s portfolio and said Gowdy will have considerably leeway to pick his targets.
“The beauty of the Oversight Committee is you have far-and-wide reach of jurisdiction,” he said. “There’s nothing that really holds you back. He’s very collegial and will want to work closely with the other committees, but he can still do it if he wants to.”
Treading on others’ turf can be treacherous in terms of the internal politics of the House, however, and Gowdy is widely seen among his GOP colleagues as a team player who is unlikely to rock boats for his own aggrandizement.
[Why is Jason Chaffetz, who is quitting Congress, suddenly the face of its investigation into Trump?]
Chaffetz was not always seen in that light, and his quick move earlier this year to seek Comey’s memos raised some hackles, according to several members and aides.
“That’s water under the bridge,” Conaway said, acknowledging the tensions. “I have great confidence in Trey.”
Gowdy is a conservative Republican, but he also has few personal or political ties to Trump. He endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida during the presidential race, and took heat from the Trump for the endorsement. “His hearings were a disaster,” Trump said of Gowdy on Fox News in December 2015, referring to the Benghazi probe. Earlier this year, Gowdy returned donations from a pro-Trump super PAC, and he said in the Wall Street Journal interview that he has made an assiduous attempt to keep his distance from the president.
There are pending committee inquiries into Trump matters that Gowdy now inherits. In late May, for instance, the FBI responded to Chaffetz’s request for Comey’s memos by citing Mueller’s appointment and saying it would undertake “appropriate consultation to ensure all relevant interests implicated by your request are properly evaluated.”
“How [Gowdy] deals with that, what he does, I don’t yet know,” Chaffetz said of the special counsel. “It’s up to him.”
Even if Gowdy were to give Mueller a wide berth, Democrats say he still has plenty of space to explore other Trump allegations — particularly whether the president is violating his hotel lease and potentially the Constitution by continuing to own major assets while in office.
[Meet Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Democrat fast becoming the face of opposition to President Trump]
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who also served with Gowdy on the Benghazi panel, said he hoped Gowdy would “show the same diligence about looking into this administration as they did looking into the last one” and cited the constitutional prohibition on accepting foreign gifts or “emoluments.”
“There certainly appear to be violations of the emoluments clause on a pretty daily basis, and somebody needs to investigate those,” Schiff said. “Those are not within the purview, for the most part, of the Intelligence Committee. They are directly under the purview of Government Reform.”
[Top Democrat on intelligence panel accuses White House of trying to distract Congress from Russia investigation]
Read more at PowerPostLONG POND, Pa. -- There's going to be a Party in the Poconos, NASCAR style.
The June 9 Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway will be named the Party in the Poconos 400 following the results of a fan vote sponsored by Walmart.
Walmart teamed up with Pocono Raceway to offer fans a chance to suggest names and vote via Walmart's local Facebook page. They can also name a signature concession. Fans will have the opportunity to vote between three different types of pierogies, starting April 9.
Walmart partnered with the track to offer $25 tickets for all concourse level tickets for the June 9 race. The track made 16,000 seats available at the price.
More than 1,600 races names were suggested, including the "I hope Brad Wins! 400," submitted by reigning Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski.Mental Health Problems among Children of Alcohol and Drug Abusers
Mental health encompasses a person’s psychological, emotional and social well-being.
Our mental health dictates how we feel, think and act. It determines how we handle stress, make choices and relate to other people.
In children, mental health means achieving emotional and developmental milestones, learning social skills and learning ways to cope with problems. Mentally healthy children are able to function well at home, in school and in the community. Negative changes in the way children usually behave, the way they learn, or the way they handle their emotions can be indicative of mental health problems.
Effects of Parental Substance Abuse on a Child’s Mental Health
It’s no surprise that parental substance abuse (alcohol and/or drugs) has detrimental and enduring behavioral, emotional, cognitive and psychosocial consequences for children. Studies indicate that these children have an 8-fold risk of developing a substance use disorder. Another study indicates that 66% of school-aged and adolescent children of cocaine or opiate-abusing mothers exhibit at least 1 psychiatric diagnosis. They are at higher risk for internalizing and externalizing disorders.
In other words, parental substance abuse negatively affects a child’s mental health. Some examples of childhood mental disorders associated with having substance-abusing parents are:
These mental health disorders are generally categorized as 2 types:
Behavioral problems that are directed outward – these include ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. Outward behavioral disorders are more common in boys. Behavioral problems that are directed inward – these include anxiety and depression. Inward behavioral disorders are more common in girls.
Children of Alcoholics (COAs)
COAs are at higher risk of mental health problems compared to non-COAs. How severe these problems develop in the child depend on how deep the family dysfunction is and how much other family members can compensate. Male COAs tend to be more stressed and anxious compared to other boys and have a higher likelihood that they will also start drinking alcohol or using other substances to cope with their feelings of anxiety. COAs have lower self-esteem and tend to be more impulsive and aggressive than non-COAs. Preschool COAs tend to be shy, perhaps due to a home situation that inspires fear and uncertainty. This link between alcoholism and childhood mental health disorders may very well be because alcoholism prevents healthy parenting or simply because COAs are genetically predisposed to psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric disorders are more common among COAs where both parents are alcoholic as compared to just one.
Children of Illicit Drug Users
Children whose parent(s) are drug abusers or who are under treatment for drug abuse are more likely to demonstrate immature, irresponsible or impulsive behavior; have lower IQ; have more absences from school; and have behavioral problems, anxiety and depression. They tend to be aggressive, disobedient and withdrawn. These are especially true if the drug-abusing parent is the mother. They are less confident in their ability to make friends and thus have fewer friends and are more likely to be avoided by their peers.
Not all children living with alcohol or substance-abusing parents suffer from mental health problems. It is important to point out that certain factors exist in families with drug-dependent parents, such that parenting is disrupted and the children often suffer as a consequence. One study showed that parenting problems accounted for 49% of the variance in behavior problems among children in families where substance abuse is present.
With the right counseling, children of drug abusing parents can make the necessary adjustments to live normal lives. However, avoiding a situation where children end up dealing with substance abusing parents is obviously best. Fortunately, many counseling services exist for parents to help them break the cycle of substance abuse and give their children the chance for a more normal upbringing.
For a confidential consultation, or to find out more about our Atlanta rehab centers, please contact us anytime at (877) 958-0778. We’re here to help.
Lena Butler is a health blogger and customer service representative for TestCountry, a San Diego based point of service diagnostic test service provider that offers a wide range of laboratory and instant drug and general health testing kits.PAIN POINTS
Chaos is horrible for business—unless your business is shadowrunning. The Big Ten megacorporations of the Sixth World are reeling, with scandals, disasters, and crippling attacks coming at them from all angles. NeoNET is scrambling to maintain AAA status, Ares is trying not to let the secret rot at the heart of the corp become public, while Aztechnology, fresh from taking on a dragon in Amazonia, is looking at a facedown with another great dragon. And that’s not all—every corp is a pile of schemes, turmoil, upheaval, and teetering chaos, because that’s how they operate.
Market Panic runs down the state of the Big Ten for Shadowrun, providing the background, story developments, and plot hooks players and gamemasters need to add excitement, intrigue, and Sixth World flavor to their adventures and campaigns. If you’re going to run for or against the big megacorporations—and that includes all shadowrunners—this is critical information to have so you know what you might get thrown into, who you’re going up against, and how you might obtain enough intel to survive. Market Panic is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.Ships identified as Chinese dredging vessels are seen in Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this US Navy image.
No country likes having enemies on its borders. Big powers seek to dominate their neighborhoods. Recognizing this drive is essential to understanding the world.
The United States assured its security in North America long ago. Native Americans were suppressed and big-power rivals faded. Vast oceans protect us from most adversaries. We are blessed with what geo-politicians call strategic depth.
Few countries appreciate the value of strategic depth — and the cost of its absence — better than Russia. It has long experience with European invaders, from Napoleon to Hitler. The desire to prevent further invasions led the Soviet Union to subjugate countries in Eastern Europe after World War II. Americans interpreted these moves as the beginning of a Soviet drive for global power. Above all, they were aimed at establishing a band of subservient buffer states to protect the Soviet Union from attack.
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Russia still views the world through this lens. It saw NATO’s decision to position military forces along its borders in the 1990s as highly threatening. Today, more able to resist, Russia insists on preventing American troops and nuclear weapons from being deployed in other neighboring states. That is why it is ready to use all means necessary to prevent Ukraine and Georgia from joining NATO. Any Russian leader who did otherwise would be reviled for undermining national security and exposing his country to danger.
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China also recognizes the importance of strategic depth. Its efforts to secure the South China Sea are aimed at giving it a corridor of power beyond its own mainland. The United States sees these efforts as aggressive and expansionist. We react by redoubling military support for China’s neighbors and helping them resist Chinese ambitions. That weakens those neighbors’ willingness to accommodate China’s interests, which they might feel inclined to do if we were not subsidizing their defense budgets.
Iran’s policies in the Middle East are another example of the strategic depth doctrine in action. Most Iranians are Shi’ite Muslims. Militant groups in Iraq and Syria consider Shi’ites to be infidels and want to kill every one. Waiting patiently until these groups — ISIS and Al Qaeda — approach the Iranian homeland would be unwise. That is why Iran supports groups fighting against militants in Iraq and Syria. Americans are told that this is part of an Iranian effort to take over the Middle East. It is better understood as forward defense against sworn enemies.
This is a classic security dilemma. Countries take steps to protect themselves, but those steps appear threatening to others. That sets off a spiral of escalating tension. Much of US-Russia, US-China, and US-Iran tension is a result of this spiral. Secure in our own neighborhood, with nothing on our borders but Mexico, Canada, and declining fish stocks, we do not always recognize other countries’ drive for strategic depth.
Machiavelli famously observed that enemies must be either conciliated or annihilated. Translated into modern terms, this means that countries may secure strategic depth by raw power where possible, but where it is not, they should seek to reduce threats by peaceful means. That requires negotiating with adversaries who exercise power on or near their borders.
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Turkey and Israel face this challenge. Leaders of both countries see existential threats on their borders: Turkey from Kurdish nationalists, Israel from the Palestinians. Like leaders of all strong states, they want strategic depth. Years of conflict with Kurds and Palestinians, coupled with social and demographic reality, suggest that those threats cannot be suppressed by force. The best way for Turkey and Israel to guarantee their long-term security is through negotiation. Trapped in the paradigm of conflict, however, they pursue policies of confrontation that threaten the strategic depth they legitimately seek to secure.
In his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine more than a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that the United States would use “international police power” to crush any regime in the Western Hemisphere that defied the United States. Other countries act in accordance with the same principle. Rather than see them only as threatening global order, we should recognize that they have reasons to want to keep enemies away from their borders. The United States long ago secured its strategic depth. We should understand why others seek to do the same.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzerUnfazed by the island's dire financial problems, a new wave of Puerto Rican artists are creating, collaborating, and keeping the party going. If you drive past the U.S. territory's well-photographed beaches, resorts, and palm trees and head inland, you'll discover world-class art galleries, event spaces and a close-knit creative community, many of whose members have grown up together. Included in Phaidon's Art Cities of the Future, a massive tome on emerging art capitals, San Juan's lively arts scene can be found everywhere from the cobblestone streets of the old neighborhood to the nascent micro-communities found in industrial, artist-centric Santurce. But whatever the setting, local creatives are proving that the a certain DIY spirit -- long gone from more established art capitals -- is thriving in Puerto Rico. Below, we take a look at twelve key players in the city's scene.
[Photo courtesy of the artists]
[Photo via Roberto Paradise]
3) Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Artists
[Photo by Adal Maldonado]
Through their design studio and creative agency, Muuaaa, art historian, curator, and editor Celina Nogueras and architect Miguel Miranda have been an active part of San Juan's scene and are credited with nurturing Santurce's renaissance, which many have compared to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the '90s. Currently Muuaaa works on everything from brand strategy to collaborations with the local government on pop-up art events. Nogueras is also known for creating and running Circa, a prominent art fair that ran from 2006-2010 and in 2011, the international spotlight shown on her when she edited(Actar). Today she directs a popular design fair called Boom that specializes in furniture, interiors, and installation design.A polyglot artist, working with mediums ranging from oil paint to wooden planks, Radamés "Juni" Figueroa is one of Puerto Rico's most illustrious rising stars. Based in San Juan, Figueroa has exhibited everywhere from the Sculpture Center and The Whitney in NYC to MedellÃn, Colombia, where he created a "triangle eucalyptus for meditation" at 43 Salon Inter-Nacional (2013). Drawing inspiration from his tropical upbringing, Figueroa is known for incorporating rum fountains, pineapple centerpieces, fruit adorned with liberty spikes, and even whole tree houses into his immersive, site-specific work. Figueroa is also fresh off his inclusion in the Biennial of the Americas in Denver, and took part last year in a residency at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latino Americano de Buenos Aires), where he created this delightful video Quite possibly Puerto Rico's best known artists, this (married) pair have drawn significant attention to the island's developing creative scene, while questioning their home's political link to the United States, a link that includes the territory's history as a military base, a legacy that can still be seen in unexploded bombs and tanks littering the island. Playful yet pointedly political, their 2011 contribution to the United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale included a U.S. Olympic athlete jogging on a treadmill that powered the wheels of an upside-down military tank. Their hybrid works -- often a unique mix of sculpture, photography, performance, sound, and video -- explore both the real and conceptual act of "mark-making," and the relationships between object and meaning, humor and seriousness.Their work has brought them to the Dallas Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and residencies at P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Allora and Calzadilla were also short-listed for the Guggenheim Museum's prestigious Hugo Boss Prize in 2006. Up next, they will be creating an immersive exhibition for the Dia Foundation called, which will bring an 8' high Dan Flavin sculpture titled "Puerto Rican Light (To Jeanie Blake) 2" to PR, by placing it inside Cueva Vientos cave in the southern region of the island. Flavin's sculpture will also be lit each day from noon to 6pm via solar panels placed outside of the cave. Art lovers with plans to visit PR, have no fear: the project will run for 2 years, from noon to 6pm each day.After the 2008 economic crisis, many of the contemporary art galleries in San Juan were forced to shut down. Today, the San Juan scene has rebounded and is experiencing a new wave of growth -- powered mostly by young artists, curators, and gallerists who have known and supported each other for decades. Founded in 2011 by Francisco Rovira Rullán, Roberto Paradise has been called "an art world trailblazer," luring magazine editors and collectors to the Caribbean in the hopes of scouting the next big thing. For several years the gallery served as a reliable incubator for fresh young talent with Rullán identifying and raising young Puerto Rican artists from the start of their careers before launching them into the international waters of global art fairs like Basel and NADA in New York and Miami. Today the gallery represents artists José Luis Vargas, Timothy Bergstrom, Katherine Bernhardt and more.Called " one of Latin America's most important conceptual artists of his generation," Jesús "Bubu" Negrón has already been included in scores of international shows, exhibitions, and projects, with installation sites ranging from |
in the state.
Sue Brown, who owns 370 acres near Cheboygan, Mich., was bombarded with offers. “Landmen swooped in on this area like hornets out of hell,” Brown says. “They’d be waiting in my driveway, completely paranoid that I was going to sign with somebody else.”
That month, she and her husband were among the earliest farmers to sign a lease with a local broker working on behalf of Chesapeake. They received a $500-per-acre bonus.
Brown’s contract featured a non-disclosure clause, forbidding her from revealing her offer to neighbors. She had no idea Chesapeake was behind it. The lease has been honored, she says.
As the frenzy intensified in June 2010, some Michigan bonuses rose to $3,000 an acre, up 200-fold from before the boom. Chesapeake’s decision to remain hidden may have been a legitimate attempt to keep prices from going even higher, some experts say.
“It’s common to take leases through a shell corporation or through a landman company,” says Lowe, the professor of energy law at SMU’s Dedman Law School in Dallas. “If you’re a farmer or a rancher and you see a big, deep-pocketed oil company pull up in your driveway, then your price goes up.”
‘DRY HOLE,’ ABRUPT SHIFT
After prices surged in Michigan, EnCana decided in July 2010 to pare back its leasing effort, a company spokesman says. According to allegations in several lawsuits against Chesapeake, CEO McClendon looked to take advantage of the opening.
He began to aggressively renegotiate or delay the completion of his own Michigan deals, the lawsuits allege.
The lawsuits by Michigan land owners also suggest a specific reason why Chesapeake’s interest cooled: Through an affiliate, Chesapeake drilled an exploratory well in Michigan last July that came up dry. Chesapeake has not publicly disclosed the drilling results and declined to comment on the matter. But in the weeks after the exploratory well was drilled, Chesapeake’s shell-within-a-shell - Northern - began rejecting leases en masse, letters sent to land owners show.
In some cases, Northern claimed that land owners missed a signing deadline, even though landmen had told them when to sign. Leslie and Sarah Schrier, a farming couple in their 80s who live near Brutus, Mich., had their lease voided weeks after a landman and a notary public drove to their farm to watch them sign ahead of the deadline, they say.
Also affected was John O’Hair, a former judge and chief county prosecutor in Detroit. He leased his 140-acre family farm in Antrim County, Mich., to O.I.L. in a contract that offered an $84,000 signing bonus. If successful wells were drilled, the O’Hairs would receive 12.5 percent royalties.
O’Hair had leased the same land to O.I.L. a few years earlier without a hitch. This time, months passed and no bonus check arrived.
O’Hair complained to O.I.L.’s president, Dwain Provins. The response: O.I.L. was working for another firm, whose name and role were secret, O’Hair recalls. That firm had voided the lease, he was told, because one of O’Hair’s in-laws appeared to own a stake in his property. Provins declined comment.
“It was a completely bogus claim,” says O’Hair, 82. “I’d leased the land previously to O.I.L. with no issues.”
More months passed before O’Hair learned the truth from lawyers he had hired: O.I.L. was doing the bidding of Northern and Chesapeake.
By August 10, 2010, transcripts from court hearings show, at least one of Chesapeake’s middlemen in Michigan seemed regretful that he had entered into business with the company.
The broker, David W. McGuire of O.I.L. Niagaran, voiced concern about Chesapeake’s directives, court records indicate. He told McClendon that Chesapeake was asking O.I.L. to default on contracts that Chesapeake never intended to pay, according to the court records.
McGuire told McClendon that he had “never been put in a position like this,” court records show. His comments were recounted in court this month by lawyers representing land owners.
McGuire did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
LETTERS CONNECT SHELL, CHESAPEAKE
By mid-August, Northern began sending out rejection letters to land owners. Many were signed by the man listed as Northern’s “senior landman,” David W. Bolton. He also was a landman for Chesapeake itself. In an email exchange with local brokers, he used the address dave.bolton@chk.com - a Chesapeake address. He’s also on a 2010 list of Chesapeake employees.
Bolton did not respond to email or phone messages requesting comment.
The lease-termination letters from Northern were a giant ruse, says Kevin Koonce, a landman who worked for a Chesapeake contractor in Michigan.
Koonce says he worked in Michigan from September to November 2010. He wasn’t there to lease land. By the time he arrived, Koonce says, Chesapeake’s strategy was to abandon leases it had already signed.
“Our instructions were to flunk the title if there was a word misspelled,” Koonce says. He says he decided to speak publicly about the situation because he objected to the approach.
Emails reviewed by Reuters show Koonce’s firm was fired in December 2010 for not signing any land owners to drilling leases in another state. He has filed an affidavit on behalf of Michigan land owners who are seeking to collect on their leases.
Koonce says his instructions to flunk leases came from a supervisor at another broker working for Chesapeake in Michigan. Koonce says he and eight other brokers participated in a conference call on October 27, 2010, with the supervisor. During the call, he says, they were ordered to speed up the rate of lease cancellations.
Neither the supervisor nor the other brokers on the call responded to emails requesting comment, and Chesapeake declined to comment on Koonce or his allegations.
One land owner whose lease was rejected was Mildred Lutz, a 93-year-old widow who lives near Alanson, Mich. She says she was told her $97,000 bonus wouldn’t be paid because her late husband didn’t sign the lease and the family trust, which owned the land, is in both her name and her husband’s. Never mind that the landman drafted the lease in July 2010 - a month after her husband’s death.
“He knew my husband had passed away and I would be the sole owner of my property,” Lutz says. Chesapeake’s lawyers have said the Lutz lease had clear formatting and title flaws.
In its letters to land owners, Northern offered several reasons for voiding leases: disputes over property ownership; improper formatting of leases; and claims that properties fall outside a geographic target area.
In some cases, Northern claimed that land owners had missed a signing deadline, even though they signed leases at a time and place specified by the company’s leasing agents.
In scores of other letters, Northern says leases were void because of “unsubordinated” mortgages on property. That means a property - like the approximately 70 percent of U.S. real estate that is mortgaged - isn’t owned free-and-clear.
In a written statement, Chesapeake general counsel Henry Hood says a mortgage is a valid title defect “if the mortgage pre-dates the lease and is not expressly subject to and subordinate to the lease.” In previous filings with the SEC, Chesapeake said it generally scrutinized titles late in the process, before drilling, and not before paying out bonuses.
Chesapeake’s main competitor in Michigan, EnCana, told Reuters that it honored the vast majority of leases it signed in the state and has faced no lawsuits that allege it reneged on any leases there.
EnCana “very rarely” voids any lease it has signed, spokesman Alan Boras says.
LOW PRICES, GOOD DEALS
As Northern continued to reject leases, another company emerged in late October and went on a Michigan land-buying spree.
The hundreds of rejected leases had depressed land prices from the summertime high, and a company called Crystal Lake Resources became one of the top buyers of public land at a state auction on October 26, 2010.
The state land up for auction was also in the Collingwood Shale formation, not far from the land that Northern no longer wanted to lease from private land owners.
According to records from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Crystal Lake bought drilling rights on 30,000 acres for $20.97 an acre. That’s a 99 percent discount on the price promised to some land owners whose leases were canceled by Northern.
Incorporation records show Crystal Lake was formed on October 25, 2010, a day before the public auction. Its Lansing address is the same as Northern’s, the Chesapeake shell company that had been canceling private leases.
Slideshow (11 Images)
In a response to one Michigan lawsuit, Crystal Lake Resources is identified as a lease buyer for Northern.
In the months since its Michigan buys, Crystal Lake has also been busy signing land leases in at least one North Dakota county.
There, in Hettinger County, clerk Sylvia Gion says Crystal Lake’s leases have been assigned to one company: Chesapeake.How will testing fail America? As the country becomes more standardized in the classroom, it risks eradicating difference among students, said Kevin Carey, New America’s Education Policy Program Director, cultivating classrooms of robots rather than unicorns. One of the key points The Test makes, according to Carey, is that minimizing difference isn’t necessarily the same thing as minimizing ignorance.
Kamenetz diagnoses two major flaws in America’s testing boom: the lack of transparency about the content of the tests themselves (which she says stifles a robust public discussion about their efficacy) and the punitive dimensions of high-stakes testing. As she put it, "There are some carrots in the No Child Left Behind law, but mostly there are sticks."
Yet for Maurice Sykes, author of Doing the Right Thing for Children: Eight Qualities of Leadership, pursuing equality in education isn’t about finding the right way or wrong way to test kids—it’s about reconsidering how society envisions children overall. Based on the current obsession with testing, "our vision of children is that we can assess their development like an assembly line," declared Sykes, who advocates instead for "multiple ways of measuring intelligence." Unfortunately, even with the advent of the more recent Common Core Standards, says Kamenetz, not much has changed when it comes to testing. The Common Core tests are more difficult, but they offer little room for improvement over No Child Left Behind because the format of the tests themselves isn’t substantially different—for example, neither test higher-order thinking like problem solving or critical thinking.
Sykes also raised the thorny issue of the purported "achievement gap," or persistent disparity of educational measures across race, class, and gender lines. For Kamenetz, this disparity is a "tautology masquerading as a problem." Citing a study of students in North Carolina that indicated 85 percent of variation in test scores could be predicted by family income, she asked, why—if income is such a strong predictor—do "we need to administer a test to define what’s happening to these children?"
High-stakes testing has failed as a stand-alone measure of performance for students, teachers, schools, and districts, according to Kamenetz, but the question of useful alternatives is complicated and without an easy answer. The Test, for instance, documents the growing movement of parents who "opt out" of testing. "People leave when they feel that they’re not getting what they want," explained Kamenetz. At the same time, though, numbers continue to wield enormous power. "How many people in this room remember what they got on their SATs?" Kamenetz asked the audience, to a show of at least a dozen hands. Rather than dismissing the validity of "our thirst for metrics and data," which she recognizes is profoundly compelling to parents, Kamenetz said The Test makes a simple argument: "Your analytics are only as good as your underlying data. So let’s really peel back the curtain and see what we really have here."Check out Dead Man’s Hand, a new anthology from editor John Joseph Adams featuring stories of the Old West infused with elements of the fantastic. Dead Man’s Hand is available May 13th in the U.S. and May 30th in the U.K. from Titan Books!
From a kill-or-be-killed gunfight with a vampire to an encounter in a steampunk bordello, the weird western is a dark, gritty tale where the protagonist might be playing poker with a sorcerous deck of cards, or facing an alien on the streets of a dusty frontier town.
Dead Man’s Hand contains twenty-three original tales produced specifically for this volume by many of today’s finest writers. Included are Orson Scott Card’s first “Alvin Maker” story in a decade, and an original adventure by Fred Van Lente, writer of Cowboys & Aliens. Other contributors include Tobias S. Buckell, David Farland, Alan Dean Foster, Jeffrey Ford, Laura Anne Gilman, Rajan Khanna, Mike Resnick, Beth Revis, Fred Van Lente, Walter Jon Williams, Ben H. Winters, Christie Yant, and Charles Yu.
Below, read an excerpt from Alastair Reynolds’ story, “Wrecking Party.”
Wrecking Party
Arizona Territory
1896
We caught him wrecking the horseless carriage on Main Street a little after two in the morning. It was a hard rain that night, the kind that keeps most folk indoors. Hardly ever rains in Arizona, but when it does it comes down like something Biblical. Our wrecker must have thought he had the town to himself. But Doctor Hudson was abroad, returning late from attending a birth at the ranch in Bitter Springs. He had already attempted to remonstrate with the wrecker. This earned him a powerful swing from an iron bar, the kind gangers use to lever up railroad tracks. The Doctor dodged the bar, and after scrambling up out of the mud he came to my office, where Tommy Benedict and I were sipping lukewarm coffee and wondering if the roof would hold against the rain.
I buckled on my holster and revolver, leaving Benedict in charge of the office.
“You recognize this man, Doctor Hudson?”
“Haven’t seen him before, Bill. Looks like a wild man, come down from the hills. Smells like he’s got half a gin house inside of him, too. He’s riled up about something.”
It didn’t take us long to find the wrecker still at work in front of Quail’s saloon. The horseless carriage was already in a sorry state. Under the violence of the bar, the machine clanged like a cracked bell. Pieces of it were already in the mud. One of its lamps had buckled, turning it squinty-eyed. I couldn’t help but think of a dog being beaten, cowering against the next blow. It was stupid because the horseless carriage was just a thing, made by men from metal and rubber and leather. It didn’t have a soul or a mind. But it looked pathetic and whimpering all the same.
“Be careful,” Hudson warned as I neared the scene.
Mindful of what had nearly befallen the Doctor, I drew my revolver and held it up to the sky, the barrel catching the rain like a chimney spout. “This is the Town Marshal!” I shouted. “Stop what you’re doing!”
But he didn’t stop, not even when I’d fired a warning shot. The man just kept swinging away at the machine, seemingly more enraged with each strike. One of the mudguards had come off now.
I told Hudson to go back to the office and summon Tommy Benedict. I circled around the wrecker, peering through the rain as it curtained off the brim of my hat like Niagara Falls itself. Not that it excused the wrecker’s actions, but it was a fool thing of Parker Quail to leave his horseless carriage out there like that, in the mud and rain, letting everyone know he was rich enough to own that fancy German toy.
I kept a wary eye on both the wrecker and the saloon. I didn’t want Parker Quail or his men getting mixed up in this. Chances were good they were all sound asleep after a heavy evening of drinking and carding. But I watched the windows all the same.
If I could just time things, get that bar off of him. But I wasn’t quick on my feet these days. Even less so on a cold wet night, when the bullet in me started wriggling around.
I took a lurch for the bar and missed. My leg buckled under me, and I went down in the mud. Lightning flashed, lighting everything up in black and white. The wrecker really did look like a wild man, all rags and beard and crazy long hair. Enraged by my attempt to spoil his fun, he lunged at me with the rod. Thinking fast, Doctor Hudson grabbed my shoulder and tugged me sharply out of harm’s way, my posterior skidding on the mud.
“That wound playing up again, Bill?”
I pushed myself to my feet, now just as muddy as the Doctor. “You did the best you could for me. Dig any deeper, you’d have come out the other side of my leg.”
Hudson nodded—we both knew I was lucky to have kept that leg at all, after that Union bullet went into me in ’62. Better men than me were walking around on pegs. But on a damp night that Yankee shot sure did like to remind me it was there.
Thankfully, Benedict was quicker than either the Doctor or me. Before he signed on as deputy, he’d wrangled cattle. Now he came with his rope and had it around the wrecker on the first try, like they were both part of the same circus act. Hudson seized the chance to scoop up the iron bar. Benedict and I got hold of the wrecker and hauled him like a sack of horse oats back to the office. He put up a struggle all the way back, and Benedict and I lost our footing more than once. By then it really didn’t matter how much more mud we had on us.
I thanked the Doctor and told him to go and get some shut-eye.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked the wild man when we were indoors and Benedict was fetching the keys to open the cell. “What has Parker Quail done to you?”
“Never heard of no Quail,” mumbled our man. Inside the office, the fight had gone out of him. He was slumped down in the chair we’d pushed him into. He seemed more worn out than angry now, all his rage gone from one moment to the next, the way it often did with drunks. He gave off a stench like a barrel of vinegar.
“You were smashing private property,” Benedict said evenly, opening the cell. “That horseless carriage belongs to Parker Quail, as if you didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t matter who it belongs to,” the man said resignedly. “Had to smash it. That’s what you do. You smash ’em. Smash ’em to pieces, so they can’t move, can’t do nothin’. Smash them before they smash us. It’s just another kind of war, just like the one between the States.”
I tried to gauge the man’s years. “You fought?”
“Sure I fought. Did you?”
I nodded. “Hampton’s Legion, under Hood’s Brigade. My war only lasted ’til Antietam, though. Guess I was lucky to get out of it with just a limp.”
“You were Legion?”
“What I said.”
“I was Legion as well.”
I looked at him skeptically. “This far west, that’s some coincidence.”
He truly did look like a wild man come down from the hills. Hair so long and straggly it fell all the way down his face, so you couldn’t tell where hair ended and beard began. No hat, and clothes that were half way to shreds. Boots that were hanging off his feet. Smelled like he hadn’t been near any kind of water, warm or otherwise, in years. Hard to guess his age, too. The grey hair made him look old, but the eyes that looked through the hair, where it allowed, were sharp and attentive. They were clear, too. If he had been Legion, he couldn’t be much younger than me. But the war between the States was thirty years gone.
All of a sudden, I felt a shiver of recognition.
“You got a name?” I asked, with a tingling feeling going right through me.
“You know who I am, Bill. Didn’t realise it was you, ’til you mentioned the Legion. But what are the odds of two southern boys fighting in the same infantry unit, windin’ up in the same one-horse town in the Arizona Territory? Unless we came here together?”
“Abel,” I said quietly, almost as if I didn’t want Benedict to hear me. “Abel McCreedy.”
“Been a while, Bill.”
Benedict sauntered over. He had splashed his face in the basin and washed most of the mud off. “You two acquainted, Bill? Thought you didn’t recognize him.”
“I didn’t, at first. But it’s been—what—twenty odd years?” For Tommy Benedict’s sake I added: “Abel and I shipped west after the war was done. Tried to make a living as bounty hunters. When that didn’t work out, we signed on with the Pinkertons. Later, I ended up deputizing for a marshal in Eloy. Abel stayed with the Pinks… least, that was the last thing I heard.”
“Worked out for a while,” Abel said philosophically. “But you know how it is. Always been better on my own. Tried to go freelance.”
“And?”
“Got myself into some trouble, Bill. Big trouble.” He raised his filth-caked hand slowly, and pushed the hair away from his face. He still had the beard, but there was no doubt now. I was looking at my old partner.
Big trouble. I guess it had to be.
“You’re in a whole heap more of it now,” I said.
“I got carried away out there,” Abel said. “But I had my reasons, Bill. I’m as sane as the day we parted.”
“What brought you into town now, after all this time?”
“Things built up. I guess I was kind of hopin’ our paths would cross, Bill—figured you’d help out an old friend. But then I saw that man’s horseless carriage and it all boiled up inside me and I couldn’t stop myself.”
Benedict was watching us, arms folded. Abel’s story about not recognizing me was obviously a lie, if he’d been looking for me from the outset. “Want to lock him up yet?”
“Hear me out,” Abel said. “Then do what the hell you want.”
I nodded to Benedict. “Stroll over to Quail’s saloon. If no one’s awake, leave it that way. Otherwise, do what you can to placate ’em.”
“And if Quail decides to send some of his friends over to have a word with the man who smashed up his horseless carriage?”
“They’ll be breaking the law.”
“Ain’t stopped them in the past, Bill.”
“McCreedy’s in custody now. That’s all Parker Quail needs to know. Any problem with that, he can take it up with me.”
I waited until Benedict was out of the office. Parker Quail was a constant thorn in our sides. He had made a lot of money from his gambling and whoring businesses, money that he liked to flaunt as often as possible—the horseless carriage was a prime example. He also had a streak of mean in him that would have made a pit viper timid. On two occasions, Quail’s men had broken into the Town Marshal’s office and busted men out of jail. Once to free an associate, another time to enact brutal justice on a man who had crossed Quail. Neither of those things had been during my time as marshal, and I was not going to let it happen on my watch.
Still, I cast a wary glance at our new fortifications, the improved locks and reinforced window bars. Would someone be able to get in?
“For your sake, Abel, you might be better off in the cell. At least until tempers have died down.”
“I don’t care about… who’d you say the man was?”
“Parker Quail,” I said slowly. “You mean this really wasn’t about getting back at him?”
“Told you, Bill. It was about the machine, not the man. It’s always about the machines. They’re all that matter now.”
“Wrecking Party” © Alastair Reynolds, 2014On June 23, users of Microsoft's Lync Online unified communications service were reporting connection problems as of at least 11 am ET.
A number of those affected took to Twitter to ask for a status update on the Microsoft cloud service, which is available both standalone and as part of Office 365. (There's also an on-premises version of Lync.)
Around 3:30 pm ET, the Microsoft Lync account on Twitter acknowledged that "some Lync users in North America are experiencing issues, we are working to resolve." (This was a retweet of an earlier @Office365 acknowledgement of the issue.)
Lync combines voice over IP (VOIP), corporate instant messaging, presence, meetings and video conferencing. Lync is the "inside the firewall" cloud communications service from Microsoft; Skype is the "outside the firewall" complement. Microsoft is working on federating Lync and Skype. Video integration between the two is slated to happen soon (mid-2014), if Microsoft sticks to its schedule.
@MMSInfoTech (Modular Mining Systems IT) claimed that Lync's outage was caused by "a migration of a datacenter by Microsoft" and had resulted in "intermittent connection errors."
"Preliminary Root Cause of Lync Issue: A portion of Microsoft network infrastructure which routes network traffic is in a degraded state," said @MMSInfoTech on Twitter.
I also see users outside of North America -- in Chile and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) on Twitter saying they cannot connect using Lync. One user claimed he was unable to sign into Office 365 or repair the issues.
I asked Microsoft for an update on what is causing the Lync problems and when resolution is expected. No word back yet.
Update (4:50 pm ET): Here's Microsoft's statement about what's going on, from a company spokesperson:
"Some users in North America are experiencing issues with Lync Online due to network routing infrastructure issues. In response, engineers have routed a portion of network traffic to an alternate datacenter which has restored service for some of our customers. We are committed to fixing this issue as quickly as possible and expect the service to be restored for all customers soon. Customers can get the latest Lync Online status through the admin Service Health Dashboard."The Toronto Star is donating more than one million vintage photographs — the contents of the Star’s entire photo archive — to the Toronto Public Library. The images span the years 1900 to 1999, and offer a unique glimpse into how the city has changed and developed throughout the last century.
In one of the iconic photos from the Star’s photo archives donated to the Toronto Public Library, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau appears reluctant to share Queen Elizabeth’s umbrella during a 1977 royal visit in Ottawa. ( Jeff Goode / TORONTO STAR )
Gallery: Highlights from the images spanning the years 1900 to 1999 Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank says the Toronto Public Library is “an extraordinary city institution,” and will be a great place for the collection. “These remarkable photos will now be easily available to students, researchers and all the people of Toronto,” said Cruickshank. “We believe this collection will help all Torontonians better understand our past and appreciate our future.”
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John Honderich, chair of Torstar Corp. and a former publisher of the Toronto Star, said the collection includes “some of the most iconic photographs of the city.” “They capture both the times of triumphs and the times of despair over a century in the life of Toronto,” said Honderich.“The donation is part of the deepening ways that the Star is working with other great institutions in the city to create a lasting legacy for the people of Toronto.”
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By July 7, the majority of the images will be publicly available in the Marilyn & Charles Baillie Special Collections Centre at the Toronto Reference Library. Some of them will also be available on the library’s digital archive in the near future. Toronto’s outgoing chief librarian, Jane Pyper, said the library is thrilled about the donation. “This photo archive is believed to be the only complete archive of Canadian news photographs spanning the entire 20th century,” Pyper said. “We are proud that we can now make this freely available at the library.” The donation will complement the already extensive collection of the Toronto Public Library, which includes historical manuscripts, photos and works of art documenting Canada’s cultural heritage.Here’s an idea, what if the universe and everything we see around us is actually inside a black hole?
Whenever I’m asked this question, what folks typically have in mind is that the universe began as an infinitely dense point, just like the singularity of a black hole, and because of cosmic expansion there’s a limit to how far we can observe, so maybe that’s like the event horizon. While it’s an interesting idea, things aren’t quite so simple.
To begin with, the universe did not begin with an explosion from a single point. It was definitely very hot and dense in its early period, but it didn’t begin as a singularity. In fact there is debate whether black holes themselves have singularities. So while there are similarities between the two, we can’t simply equate them.
The limit of what we observe (the size of the observable universe) also doesn’t match up with the hypothetical event horizon of a “cosmic” black hole. For any mass you can calculate what is known as the Schwarzschild radius, which is the radius of a simple black hole of that mass. The mass of the observable universe is on the order of 1054 kg, which gives a Schwarzschild radius about 5 times larger than that of the observable universe.
So maybe we’re just in a really big black hole, and we just see a part of it. Not really. Just because you can calculate a Schwarzschild radius that doesn’t mean an object is a black hole. Even if the Schwarzschild radius encloses all of your mass, it still isn’t necessarily a black hole. On a basic level the density of the observable universe is pretty uniform. If you don’t worry about cosmic expansion, then the radius of the observable universe increases at the speed of light with age, so the total mass of the observable increases with time. This is true in an expanding universe as well, but that’s a different story. The thing is, the Schwarzschild radius increases linearly with mass, but the enclosed mass of the observable universe increases with the radius cubed. As the observable universe increases over time, then the Schwarzschild radius eventually grows faster than the radius of the observable universe.
For a true black hole you can’t just calculate its size. You have to look at the overall structure. Our universe isn’t collapsing in on itself, it’s expanding at an ever increasing rate. So it doesn’t have the necessary structure to be the interior of a black hole. But there are some models that do propose that our universe was formed by the black hole of another universe. These models are very speculative, but generally propose that the super-dense interior of a black hole could create a “baby universe” that expands to become its own universe. Technically you could say this new universe is “in” the black hole that spawned it, but because of the bendable nature of space and time that’s not particularly meaningful. The new universe would in no way be limited by the size of the black hole, and would exist on its own once it formed.
So it’s an interesting idea to speculate about, but there is no evidence to support the idea that our universe is in a black hole.TECHNOLOGY has helped Stephen Hawking in many ways, and now it might allow him to communicate using thought alone. The cosmologist is trialling a device that monitors brain activity with the ultimate aim of transforming it into speech.
Hawking has motor neurone disease – nerve decay that has left him almost completely paralysed. He currently communicates using a series of cheek twitches to select words from a screen. “It is a very, very slow process,” says Philip Low at Stanford University in California, who is founder of healthcare company NeuroVigil.
As Hawking loses control of his cheek, Low hopes he might instead communicate using his company’s portable device. The iBrain records brain activity from a single point on the scalp. An algorithm then extracts useful information from this activity.
In a preliminary trial, Low’s team asked Hawking to imagine moving his hands and feet while wearing the device. They were able to identify what movement he was imagining through changes in his brain activity.
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It was possible to identify what movement Hawking was imagining through changes in brain activity
They now hope to develop the technology to enable Hawking and others to use the imagined movements to instruct a computer to write or speak words. Low presented the work at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference in Cambridge, UK, on 8 July.Fifty-one percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers hide their sexual orientation and gender identity from co-workers, a report from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released this week showed.
The report, called “Degrees of Equality: A National Study Examining Workplace Climate for LGBT Employees,” examined work experiences of LGBT individuals and found that while attitudes toward LGBT people in the workplace have improved, a significant number of LGBT employees report working in a negative workplace environment.
LGBT employees who are not open to anyone at work about their identity may face negative work outcomes, such as strained professional relationships, retention and productivity.
For example, 54 percent of workers who are not open about their identity reported lying about their personal life in the past 12 months as opposed to only 21 percent of workers who are open to their co-workers about their orientation.
Thinking about the past 12 months, about how many times has the following happened as a result of working in an environment that is not always accepting of LGBT people?
The biggest reason LGBT employees gave for not disclosing their orientation/gender identity was that it was no one’s business. Making people feel uncomfortable and being stereotyped were also top reasons for LGBT workers to keep sexual orientation a secret at work.
Are any of the following reasons why you personally are not out to anyone at work?
According to the report, LGBT workers report that derogatory comments and jokes said at work are a major indicator that it is unsafe to disclose sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace. Fifty-eight percent of employees at companies with an Equal Employment Opportunity policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity said someone at work has made a joke or derogatory comment about LGBT. Nine percent has heard a direct supervisor make a discriminatory comment.
How often does the following happen at work? How often do people at work do the following? Has your supervisor ever made negative comments about LGBT people?
To see more from this report, you can go to www.DegreesOfEquality.orgPinky and the Brain is an American animated television series. It was the animated television series to be presented in Dolby Surround and the fourth collaboration of Steven Spielberg with his production company, Amblin Television, and produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The characters first appeared in 1993 as a recurring segment on Animaniacs. It was later picked up as a series due to its popularity, with 66 episodes produced. Later, they appeared in the series Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain.
Pinky and Brain are genetically enhanced laboratory mice who reside in a cage in the Acme Labs research facility. Brain is self-centered and scheming, Pinky is good-natured but feebleminded. In each episode, Brain devises a new plan to take over the world which ultimately ends in failure: usually due to Pinky's idiocy, the impossibility of Brain's plan, Brain's own arrogance, or just circumstances beyond their control. In common with many other Animaniacs shorts, many episodes are in some way a parody of something else, usually a film or novel.
Premise [ edit ]
Many of the Pinky and the Brain episodes occur in the 1990s at Acme Labs, located in some large American city underneath a suspension bridge. Several episodes take place in historical times, with Pinky and the Brain in the laboratory of some scientifically-minded person, including Merlin,[2] H.G. Wells,[3] and Ivan Pavlov.[4] There is very little continuity between episodes outside of the common fixtures of the mice, though some plans for world domination from early episodes are subsequently referred to in later seasons for example, Brain's human suit used in "Win Big"[5] reappears when Brain faces his rival Snowball in "Snowball".[6]
The bulk of every episode involves one of Brain's plans for world domination with Pinky's assistance and the ultimate failure of that plan, with some exceptions. One centers on Snowball's plan to take over the world using Microsponge (a parody of Microsoft).[6] Another episode features Brain's single day where he tries to do anything but take over the world: in the end, a group of people vote that he should take over the world on the one day he does not want to.[7]
Both Pinky and the Brain, white mice kept as part of Acme Labs' experimentation, have undergone significant genetic alteration, per the show's title lyrics, "their genes have been spliced" which gives the two mice amplified intelligence over that of a typical mouse, the ability to talk to humans, and anthropomorphism. "Project B.R.A.I.N." suggests that the gene splicing occurred on September 9, 1995,[8] which is coincident to the first full episode of Pinky and the Brain. The episode "Brainwashed" states that the gene splicing was done by Dr. Mordough, along with Snowball the hamster and Precious the cat, using the Acme Gene Splicer, Bagel Warmer, and Hot Dog Steamer.[9]
Although Pinky and the Brain plan to conquer the world, they do not show much animosity. In a christmas special, Pinky even wrote to Santa that Brain had the world's best interests at heart |
'm almost 60, and soon I won't be able to climb the Tianshan Mountains," he said.
"So I really hope that an organization will have people study and protect the Ili Pika."Ozamataz Buckshank wrote:
Thecommander236 wrote:
Charlie would actually make a good Stupidworlder if he could find some way to switch over. I wonder now... If Charlie and Parson actually do make a truce, maybe Parson will bring Charlie back with him. Then Charlie would have a fixed up body, get a job, and join in on Parson's gaming group. That's an ending for Charlie that I could accept.
Uh, if Charlie can't fix what's wrong with him in a world where everyone is restored to perfect health at dawn, with literally magical healers for when that's not good enough, and with access to a type of magic that can significantly improve the magical healers' abilities when that's not good enough, what makes you think Stupidworld has what it takes to fix him?A whole lot has been written lately about the alt-right, that insurgent, Internet-born identity movement that seems dead-set on swallowing the Republican party whole. The mainstream press has tried to define it. The alt-right press has tried to defend it.
But over the past five days or so, we’ve also heard from a different demographic all together: The ordinary Internet foot soldiers of the alt-right are attempting to explain themselves to normies on Twitter. (Normie, for you normies in the audience, is derogatory image-board slang for safe, mainstream people — presumably, the exact sorts who haven’t embraced the movement.)
24 hours in the life of the #AltRightMeans hashtag (Indiana University)
Since August 24, more than 50,000 tweets have been sent on the hashtag #AltRightMeans, according to the Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University. In terms of pure post rate, the hashtag peaked ahead of Hillary Clinton’s alt-right speech Thursday, as members of the movement readied for a new wave of outside scrutiny. But the hashtag remained hyperactive over the weekend, serving as a sort of messy, public manifesto for a group that has thus far defined itself largely in opposition to and isolation from the American mainstream.
[The alt-right’s take on Clinton’s speech]
There isn’t a cohesive or overarching philosophy here — we’re talking tens of thousands of tweets. But the most popular tweets, the ones that have been shared hundreds or thousands of times, tend to repeat three related themes. There’s an overwhelming frustration with concepts like feminism, multiculturalism, political correctness and (especially) white guilt/privilege, which members of the alt-right describe as having jeopardized their own identity or social standing.
#AltRightMeans I don't have to be ashamed of my heritage. pic.twitter.com/rWMHdgekRx — Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) August 25, 2016
#AltRightMeans you recognize that all civilizations pillaged and conquered, and don't feel shame because your ancestors were better at it. — Walt Bismarck (@WaltBismarck) August 25, 2016
There is, very similarly, an enormous annoyance that anyone would conclude such a belief is racist, misogynistic, or otherwise problematic; such criticisms are generally framed as hysterical responses to the alt-right’s “logic.”
https://twitter.com/cristinalaila1/status/768958718226468864
#AltRightMeans facing an argument with facts, instead of crying "racist" and running away. pic.twitter.com/QBSkOlOHfJ — KGB Agent Elizabeth (@MissLizzyNJ) August 25, 2016
At any second, a Muslim may decide to follow Allah's commands 2 kill me, yet it's "Islamophobic" for me to point this out?#AltRightMeans — Amy Mek (@AmyMek) August 25, 2016
#AltRightMeans you don't get to avoid criticism by calling me islamophobic, racist, anti-semitic, xenophobic, or misogynistic Doesn't work — Watch Clinton Cash (@JaredWyand) August 25, 2016
#AltRightMeans Hillary wants to label Trump's working class base racists for opposing her plans to kill our jobs. pic.twitter.com/i7yq3mRe2x — American Hank (@_HankRearden) August 25, 2016
Finally, there are also a lot of fairly conventional attacks on Hillary Clinton, albeit attacks with a conspiratorial tinge — that she has accepted money from foreign interests, is secretly ill, or is “crooked,” for instance.
#AltRightMeans pointing out that a woman who accepts hundreds of millions from a country that treats women like crap isn't a "feminist". — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 25, 2016
What does this tell us about the alt-right that an avalanche of analyses and explainers haven’t? I mean, these themes are pretty predictable — the alt-right’s aversion to things like multiculturalism is pretty well documented. But the accounts sending these tweets, or at least the most popular and conventional ones, are sometimes surprising. As common as it’s become to dismiss alt-righters as teenage 4chan trolls with anime avatars, a lot of them look like … well, fully grown normies.
An analysis of the network around the #AltRightMeans hashtag, which maps the users who were most influential on the hashtag, turns up handles like @Cernovich, @PrisonPlanet, @JaredWyand and @magnifier661 — all adult men with nary a Pepe avatar between them. And according to Demographics Pro — a firm that uses predictive analytics to infer the demographics of Twitter users — the vast majority of tweets on #AltRightMeans have come from married white men between 40 and 60 years old.
A network map of the most influential users on the #AltRightMeans hashtag. (Indiana University)
That’s not a definitive analysis, mind you — this is an inference, after all, and the hashtag has been picked up well outside the alt-right community — but it complicates the easy dismissal of alt-righters as disenfranchised, neckbeard teens. For better or worse, the alt-right’s ideas about race, gender and diversity would appear to resonate with a slightly more varied cross-section of the electorate than many imagine.
All of which might help clarify what #AltRightMeans … but only complicates the movement’s larger cultural implications.
Liked that? Try these!The case concerns Migron, a settler outpost near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Migron is one of the largest of dozens of small enclaves that have a different status under Israeli law than the 120 full-blown settlements in the West Bank.
Although the larger settlements, home to about 330,000 Israeli Jews, are considered in violation of international law by a vast majority of foreign governments, Israel views them as legitimate; not so for the smaller outposts, which Israel views as illegal because they went up without its authorization. Despite that status, most of the outposts have been provided with basic infrastructure by the government.
Nearly a decade ago, Israel promised the United States that it would dismantle a number of the outposts in preparation for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians want to build a state on land that is now partly occupied by the settlers. But almost no outposts have actually come down, and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are frozen.
Meanwhile, Migron stands out among the outposts because its land is not simply part of a theoretical future state of Palestine but also because it has been shown to belong to private Palestinian owners. The state did not dispute that finding, although the settlers say that no proof of ownership was provided.
Palestinians represented by an Israeli lawyer took the case to the Supreme Court, along with Peace Now, a left-wing Israeli group that opposes the settlements. The case dragged on for years, but last summer the court said the outpost had to be dismantled by the end of March 2012, a deadline the new ruling extends to Aug. 1.
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The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is a strong defender of the settlers and wanted to avoid a confrontation, suggested a compromise — let the residents of Migron remain until a new authorized community could be built nearby where they could relocate upon its completion in 2015.
The plaintiffs returned to the court last week and told the court that to accept such a deal would be to flout the rule of law.
One of the three justices who heard last week’s arguments, Salim Joubran, indicated the court’s leanings at the time: “You say the outpost will move in three years, but I know this type of behavior. Three years will inevitably turn into eight.”
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Right-wing legislators said Sunday that they would introduce legislation to legalize Migron and other outposts. Dani Dayan, a leader of Israel’s settler movement, said that the court’s ruling would empower the violent extremists in his community who have long argued that there was no point in seeking compromise.
Tzaly Reshef, a founder of Peace Now and a lawyer, said the decision would not change the fact that “supporters of the settlements remain in power.” But he called it “very meaningful in terms of the constitutional system in Israel.”
Mr. Reshef said that had the case been decided the other way, “it would have been almost the end of the existence of the courts as the protectors of the rule of law in this country, as well as the ultimate victory of the settlers.”
He continued, “The government, threatened with violence if it tries to remove settlers, tried to convince the court that it should pull back from its decision, which is based on the basic right of ownership of private property.”
The next test, Mr. Reshef said, would be whether the government is “able to change facts on the ground.”
Mr. Netanyahu said the government would honor the court’s decision and uphold the rule of law.ISIS murders another US journalist, Steven Sotloff
By Mike Head
3 September 2014
A repugnant video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), purporting to show the beheading of an American journalist, Steven Sotloff, has already been seized upon by Washington and its allies to justify further intensifying the military intervention in Iraq, with Syria the likely next target.
Sotloff’s barbaric murder was the second by ISIS of a freelance US journalist in as many weeks, following that of James Foley. It was accompanied by a threat to kill a British hostage, David Haines.
The footage shows Sotloff, 31, who was kidnapped in northern Syria just over a year ago, dressed in orange and on his knees in a desert landscape. As in the previous video of Foley, this one then shows Sotloff’s severed head resting on his corpse.
The young man, originally from Florida, had worked for several publications, including Time, the Christian Science Monitor, World Affairs Journal and Foreign Policy, reporting from many parts of the Middle East, including Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, and finally Syria. Former colleagues, associates and editors paid tribute to his courage and dedication.
Sotloff’s family yesterday said they were aware of the video, which was yet to be verified by the US administration, and were grieving privately. He was executed despite a televised plea a week ago from his mother, Shirley, to the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to spare his life.
The family had known of Sotloff’s capture for a year, as had the US government, but his plight was not made public until he was shown on the video of Foley’s murder. A masked killer threatened his life in the event of further US airstrikes against ISIS.
As with Foley’s beheading, ISIS justified the heinous act as retaliation for the US bombing campaign in Iraq, referring this time specifically to the air strikes around the Mosul Dam and the northern Iraqi town of Amerli, previously under siege by ISIS. Over the past month, the US has conducted more than 120 bombing raids in Iraq.
On the video, Sotloff’s executioner declares: “I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State… So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”
To murder individual journalists for the ongoing crimes being committed by their country’s government—which are opposed by millions of Americans—underscores the reactionary outlook of ISIS and other Al Qaeda-linked groups.
These atrocious killings, together with those of captured Syrian soldiers, have nothing to do with the aspirations of the oppressed masses of the Middle East for liberation from imperialist violence and domination. ISIS represents the interests of disaffected sections of the Arab and Muslim bourgeoisie, which seek to exploit the predatory drive of the US for hegemony over the energy-rich region, and whip up sectarian divisions, for their own capitalist agenda.
In turn, this barbarity is being seized upon by the Western ruling elites and their media outlets to overcome the broad hostility of their populations to the launching of a renewed war in the Middle East.
Even before the video of Sotloff’s beheading was verified, the American media and political establishment ratcheted up the drumbeat of demands for the Obama administration to escalate its military campaign and extend it into Syria. Referring to Obama’s comment last week that his administration did not yet have a “strategy” for Syria, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said Sotloff’s killing would heighten pressure on Obama to devise a strategy to combat ISIS.
Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would introduce a bill giving Obama authority to order air strikes in Syria. Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for more aggressive action against ISIS. “Working with key allies, the United States needs to be acting urgently to arm the Kurds on the ground who are fighting them, and targeting ISIS from the air with drone strikes,” he said.
There was no immediate response from Obama, who was about to leave for a weeklong trip to Europe and a NATO summit meeting, focussed on the escalating confrontation with Russia over Ukraine.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the video depicted an “absolutely disgusting, despicable act.” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the killing “demonstrates that we are dealing with pure evil” and “abundantly justifies what Australia and other countries are doing to assist people who are threatened by this murderous rage.”
Such statements are hypocritical to the core. The roots of the emergence of ISIS, formerly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, lie in the US financing and backing of the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The organisation emerged in Iraq in the midst of sectarian violence encouraged by the US occupation, expanding into Syria as part of the US-backed regime change operation against President Bashar al-Assad.
As long as ISIS was carrying out its beheadings and other atrocities in Syria, directed against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the US and its partners remained silent on the barbarity of the Islamists, because they were supposedly fighters for “freedom” and “democracy.” It was not until ISIS swept into Iraq, taking advantage of the utter devastation and sectarian divides produced by the US occupation, that ISIS’s crimes were suddenly denounced as “terrorist” slaughters.
Now, the horrific murders of journalists are being turned into a pretext for another full-scale war of aggression in the Middle East, driven by the same underlying agenda—to exercise unchallenged US domination over the entire region.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Many theater professionals have expressed their disdain for North Carolina's controversial House Bill 2, which prohibits transgender people from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity and restricts cities from passing non-discrimination laws.
Days after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill into law on March 23, "Wicked" composer Stephen Schwartz vowed to deny the production rights to all of his musicals, including "Godspell" and "Pippin," until HB 2 was rescinded. The rights holders of “West Side Story” and the musical adaptation of “Footloose” followed suit shortly afterward.
Schwartz is slated to join fellow composer Jeanine Tesori, along with a bevy of musical theater talents, at New York's Cutting Room on June 13 as part of a benefit concert aimed at fighting House Bill 2. "Broadway Voices for NC" will feature performances by Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, "Hamilton" singer-actress Ariana Debose, Melvin Tunstall of "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" and Lindsay Northen from "Wicked."
Most of the evening's stars originally hail from North Carolina. The night will include a keynote speech by transgender advocate Vivian Taylor, who is also a Tar Heel State native, and will be hosted by model and activist Geena Rocero.
"Broadway Voices for NC" was organized by Broadway performers Laurel Harris and Rob Marnell, both of whom are Raleigh natives. The couple met while performing in a production of "Cinderella" at Raleigh Little Theatre and say they remain close to their North Carolina roots.
Courtesy Photo Organizers Laurel Harris and Rob Marnell met while performing in a Raleigh production of "Cinderella."
Harris, who has been seen in "Wicked" and the 2012 revival of "Evita," told The Huffington Post that she sees the show as an opportunity to "introduce the world to the North Carolina I know." Her home state, she said, is vastly different from what the media has portrayed in the wake of HB 2.
"It's easy to feel powerless," she said. "I wanted to create a story about North Carolina that we could actually be proud of, and to get Gov. McCrory's attention in the process. By having Stephen jump on board, along with Jeanine Tesori and other incredible Broadway performers -- most of whom are fellow North Carolinians -- we thought we could send a very powerful message all the way from New York."
Both Harris and Marnell hope the message of "Broadway Voices for NC" will resound beyond the Big Apple, so they've opted to donate proceeds from the show to Equality North Carolina, a local LGBT advocacy organization, as well as other queer-relevant groups whose members have been affected by HB 2.
Harris said she "applauds" Schwartz and other show business figures who have scrapped performances in North Carolina since the passage of the bill, but also understands that canceled shows only end up hurting many people who don't support anti-LGBT legislation.
As to what she'd tell McCrory if she had the chance, she said, "Please stop deciding which individuals have rights and which don’t. I want to be a proud North Carolinian again and as long as this bill is in effect, I am ashamed and embarrassed to call myself one."ROUGH RIDE: Jay-Z and Kanye West ride the destroyed Maybach in their video for Otis.
Rap stars are known for their love of fast, flashy cars - but superstar duo Kanye West and Jay-Z have taken that obsession to a new level.
The rap stars have created their very own piece of automotive memorabilia using high powered tools and a lot of imagination to hack apart a $1 million uber-luxury Maybach limousine.
The car - as seen in the duo's recently released single Otis - has had its roof and doors removed, with two of the doors having been welded to the rear of the car to give it a Transformers-style look.
The bonnet and boot have been switched around, front and rear wheel arch extensions have been added on, and it's all topped off by a flame-throwing exhaust.
The clip sees Kanye behind the wheel of the most expensive Mercedes model, with Jay-Z reaching across to hold on to the steering wheel at one point, seemingly to stop himself falling out of the car.
Four females are seen sitting in the backseat, holding on tightly to the pillars of the car and each other (though to the eager-eyed it is clear they are all strapped into harnesses).
The clip ends with a statement saying the car will be auctioned off with all proceeds going to the East African famine.
The video has racked up more than four million YouTube hits in just four days.
The rappers, who released their hyped joint album Watch the Throne to rave reviews earlier this week, were rumoured to have fallen out over escalating production costs for their upcoming tour.
Hip-hop fans have been waiting impatiently for Watch the Throne since Kanye West first mentioned it on Twitter almost a year ago.
The wait has apparently been worth it. Allhiphop.com gave it 9 out of 10 stars, calling it "a creative victory at worse and at its very best, a paradigm shift for hip-hop".
The album also features guest appearances by Beyonce, Frank Ocean and Mr Hudson, as well as vocal work from late soul singers Otis Redding and Curtis Mayfield.
Check out the video for Otis below:Lt. John Pike with the University of California, Davis police department pepper sprays a line of Occupy Wall Street protestors at the campus on Nov. 18. Photo: Louise Macabitas Dorli Rainey, 84, is helped off after being hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest on Nov. 15. Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Seattlepi.com via AP Police pepper spray Elizabeth Nichols during an Occupy Portland demonstration on Nov. 17. Photo: Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian Civil Rights protestors demanding an end to segregation in Birmingham, Alabama's public facilities, are hit with high-pressure firehoses in this photo from 1963. Photo: Charles Moore/Black Star
After months of loosely composed images of tent encampments, bad pictures of clever signs and flat portraits of rag-tag protestors, some of the first iconic images have come out of the Occupy Wall Street movement by way of recent pepper spray photos. 84-year-old Dorli Rainey photographed in Seattle by Joshua Trujillo. Elizabeth Nichols in Portland by Randy L. Rasmussen. And the line of UC Davis protestors by Louise Macabitas.
These call to mind an atmosphere similar to Charlie Moore’s Life magazine photo of young African American protestors getting sprayed with high-pressure water hoses back in 1963 during the Civil Rights movement. The protesters, who were demanding an end to segregation of Birmingham’s public facilities, turn their backs as they are pounded into a nearby brick wall.
“The best still images, they just nail you, you remember them,” said Life photographer Bill Eppridge in a recent Raw File interview. These new photos have that effect.
Iconic is not a word I use lightly. But in both Moore’s photo and the pepper spray photos there’s something striking about protestors who are willing to put their bodies on the line for what they believe in. (To be fair, we should also recall the images of the Iraq vet Scott Olsen being carried away after a shot to the head with a tear gas canister and the young man in a wheelchair trying to escape a cloud of tear gas — both from the Occupy Oakland protests.)
Moore’s Birmingham photo has become so powerful because it acts as a reminder, a trigger, to help us recall what it took to overcome. And now the Occupy protestors are suddenly not a bunch of dirty hippies, or hipster college students, but people who are serious enough about economic reform that they’re willing to get their asses kicked. Willing to go to the hospital. Not willing to run away.
I’m not suggesting the Occupy encampments are the new Civil Rights movement. Just that images like these help to solidify an anger that millions of people around the country are feeling but only a relative few are sacrificing their bodies for.
The pepper spray photographs, many of which went viral, are out there creating discussions, prompting debates and undoubtedly effecting the outcome of the Occupy protests — the same way Moore’s photo played a role in the outcome of the Civil Rights movement.
I’m not completely convinced we’ll come across them when we flip through retrospectives 50 years from now. I am certain, however, that millions of people who have witnessed or taken part in the protests will always recall these photos when they think back and the reaction they prompted. And to me, that’s what makes a photo iconic.
Disagree with my choices? Let us know what images from Occupy have been iconic for you in the comments.Anil Kakodkar alleged the ministry adopted “too casual a process for such an important activity” and that he “can’t be a party to it”.
In a scathing criticism of the process adopted by the Human Resource Development Ministry for the recent selection of directors of three Indian Institutes of Technology, nuclear scientist and chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT-Bombay Anil Kakodkar said he quit the board as he could not be party to “wrongdoing”.
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Speaking to Shekhar Gupta on Walk the Talk on NDTV 24×7, Kakodkar alleged the ministry adopted “too casual a process for such an important activity”. He also, for the first time, publicly rebutted the ministry’s claim that he had re-joined the selection process.
[related-post]
A member of the selection committee and chairman of the Standing Committee of the IIT Council, Kakodkar had resigned on March 12 following a “disagreement” over the choice of an IIT director. The ministry, however, did not accept his resignation, with HRD Minister Smriti Irani requesting him to withdraw it.
Speaking at Express Adda last month, HRD Minister Smriti Irani had dismissed a report, first published in The Indian Express, about Kakodkar’s resignation.
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The selection committee, chaired by Irani, was reaching a consensus on the choice of directors for IIT-Patna and IIT-Bhubaneswar, but there was no agreement on IIT-Ropar, and the process involving 12 candidates was later cancelled. All 37 candidates in the original shortlist were called for a fresh round of interviews on March 22, which was not attended by Kakodkar. Directors for all three IITs have now been appointed.
Asked if the earlier selection process had been set aside without discussion, Kakodkar said, “It looks like that.”
“The point is you can’t be deciding that choice of IIT director or three IIT directors among 36 in a six or seven hour process. If you set aside everything and then you decide like that, then you are running a lottery,” Kakodkar said.
Asked if he had tried to reason with Irani, Kakodkar said, “Actually when the process began, I argued this at length and actually we had this process of group discussion and shortlist, but then something happened and the whole thing was set aside.”
“So I had to remain aside. There are good bureaucrats, not so good bureaucrats, good political leaders. There are not so good political leaders. So the important thing is the system. After all, these are all public funded institutions and I think we should respect it. But there is also a huge importance to autonomy and so the external environment should become more a facilitator rather than a controller…,” he said.
Asked whether the pressure had come from civil servants or the minister, Kakodkar said, “Well, you know it, why you are asking me?”
However, he later said he thinks “it’s not as if there was pressure” but “the question was a particular process was set aside and then you look at all of them”.
“This is too casual a process for such an important activity and at least I can’t be a party to this,” he said.
Asked if he was back in the committee, Kakodkar said, “I haven’t joined that process back, but certainly I still continue to be a responsible person. If I am a chairman of IIT Board till May, by virtue of that if I have to do other things, I will do.”
He added that following his resignation in March, “the minister, as she was good enough, so she called back and said no, no, I don’t accept your resignation”.
He added, “So I am continuing till May and by virtue of that there are other IIT processes, I will carry on, but I cannot be a party (to) wrongdoing.”
Kakodkar also came out in support of IIT-Delhi director R Shevgaonkar, who resigned last December amid reports of pressure from the ministry. “I feel very sorry for him… He is a well-respected academic. I think students, faculty colleagues, his peers, they will all vouch for him and such a person who has to come to the conclusion to quit is…,” he said.
“Obviously his self-respect is severely hurt, undeservingly so, and I understand he wanted to go and I think he should be given an honourable way. So although it would be a loss to IIT-Delhi and I know IIT-Delhi, all colleagues there are strongly behind him, so that’s it. I think it’s very sad.”
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Asked if Shevgaonkar was willing to change his mind, Kakodkar said, “The question is, I think, all of us have some minimum self-respect and in his case it was severely hurt.”Ever wondered which countries provide the most rapid Internet experience? The map above shows the world according to average connection speed in Mbits/s, as recorded by Akamai - the content delivery network (CDN) responsible for serving between 15 and 30 per cent of all web traffic.
The figures relate to the first quarter of 2015 - follow this link for full details on how they are calculated, or this one to download a more recent (2015, Q3) report.
A couple of places appear surprisingly high up. The Norwegian island pairing of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, for example, has an average connection speed of 36.5Mbits/s - the highest of all. But it only has one unique IP address, so the result is somewhat skewed. The lofty positions of The Vatican (3rd) and Antarctica (27th) are also due to the low number of readings.
Akamai's official rankings only take into account countries or regions with a unique IP count of at least 25,000, which gives South Korea the true top spot, followed by Ireland, Hong Kong, Sweden, The Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland. Norway, Latvia and Finland complete the top 10.
Scandinavian countries took several of the top 10 spots
The 10 countries with the fastest internet speeds
South Korea Ireland Hong Kong Sweden Netherlands Japan Switzerland Norway Latvia Finland
The UK is 23rd in the ranking, the US 20th, Australia 50th and China 111th. The world average is 5mbps, according to the report. The majority of the worst performing countries are in Africa, the South Pacific, the Middle East and South America.
Akamai also calculates the average peak connection speed. In this ranking Singapore comes out on top (98.5Mbits/s), followed by Hong Kong (92.6Mbits/s), South Korea (79Mbits/s), Kuwait (76.5Mbits/s) and Romania (71.6Mbits/s). The UK comes 27th (51.6Mbits/s) and the US 22nd (53.3Mbits/s).
More ways to see the world
Where in the world is safe for Britons?
Terror threat around the world
The world's booziest countries
Where a natural disaster is most likely to strike
The world according to life expectancy
Which countries have the most World Heritage Sites?
The world's most – and least – crowded countriesNew Mexico signs law becoming first state to require all law enforcement...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico on Thursday became the first U.S. state to require all local and state law enforcement agencies to provide officers with antidote kits as the state works to curb deaths from opioid and heroin overdoses.
Surrounded by advocates and parents who had lost children to overdoses, Gov. Susana Martinez signed legislation that was approved unanimously by lawmakers during their recent session.
The former prosecutor and two-term Republican governor said she has seen firsthand what drug abuse can do to families and communities.
“We’re making progress but it’s never enough,” she said. “We have to keep working hard at this problem and reducing the number of overdoses. Signing this bill is an important step to fight the scourge of drug abuse and overdose fatalities.”
New Mexico has been working for years to curb what has only recently been identified by the highest levels of the federal government as a national epidemic.
The state was the first in 2001 to increase access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and a few years later it led the way to release people from legal liability when they assist in overdose situations.
New Mexico also was the first state to allow pharmacists to dispense naloxone without a prescription in an effort to expand access to the life-saving drug.
Other measures enacted by New Mexico in recent years include requiring all licensed clinicians to undergo extra training for prescribing painkillers and the creation of a system to track prescriptions for pain medication so addicts cannot obtain new prescriptions from unsuspecting doctors.
Martinez said the comprehensive approach is starting to show results.
In 2014, New Mexico had one of the highest overdose death rates in the nation, second only to West Virginia. More recent health statistics show the state is now ranked 44th.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 33,000 deaths nationally in 2015.
“This doesn’t discriminate,” said state Rep. Sarah Maestas Barnes, the Albuquerque Republican who sponsored the legislation with Democratic colleagues.
“Every community, every county, every ethnicity, every socio-economic status, everybody is affected by this epidemic and that’s why this bill is critically important,” she said after the signing ceremony.
Advocates call the legislation cutting-edge, saying it targets those who are most at risk.
Joanna Katzman, a neurologist and director of the University of New Mexico Pain Center, was instrumental in helping craft the legislation after years of working on the problem.
She said expanding access to anti-overdose medication saves lives and increases recovery opportunities for addicts.
Aside from outfitting first-responders with anti-overdose kits, the legislation requires federally-certified addiction treatment centers to provide patients with education plus two doses of naloxone and a prescription for the antidote.
The state’s prisons and jails will be required to do the same for at-risk inmates upon their release as long as funding and supplies are available.
While the bill does not include any new funding, public safety officials said each police force in New Mexico receives annual state funding per officer to help with training, equipment and supplies.
A portion of that can be used to purchase naloxone kits, which cost roughly $70 each. It can be administered with a nasal spray or via injection.
Grant funding will also be sought to fully implement expanded access, Barnes said.
In New Mexico’s largest city, law enforcement is already gearing up. Albuquerque city councilors recently voted to equip at least half of the city’s police vehicles with naloxone by the fall and the rest by the end of this year.
In northern New Mexico, which has some of the highest overdose rates, Santa Fe County deputies began carrying naloxone in 2015. State police officers in at-risk areas also carry the drug and more will have access by the end of the year.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.I’ll be away from the internet all week, so perhaps it’s time to post something long, meandering and potentially offensive. Full disclosure: this post features discussion which may offend some people; however, any offense is completely unintentional, as this blog is meant to foster an open and respectful discourse, etc.
While there may be strange things done in the midnight sun, the strangest biography you’ll likely read on allmusic.com belongs to David Allan Coe. What follows is a list of some of the highlights of Sandra Brennan’s allmusic.com biography of Coe. Best known for penning the 1977 Johnny Paycheck hit “Take This Job and Shove It,” Coe “never spent more than a handful of months outside of a correctional facility” for twenty years following his being sent to a reform school at age nine. After his release from the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1967 Coe moved to Nashville and lived in a hearse parked in front of the Grand Ole Opry, while struggling as a songwriter. Though his stage show often featured Coe riding “on-stage astride his enormous Harley, [and] swearing at the audience,” Brennan expresses seeming astonishment that Coe “couldn’t break into the mainstream.” Later, after Coe acheived some degree of success and/or noteriety, the IRS seized his Key West home, and Coe lived in a Tennessee cave for a time. (Read the article in its entirety here.)
David Allan Coe, “If That Ain’t Country” (1977)
One of the highlights of Coe’s songwriting career, “If That Ain’t Country” is also one of his most controversial. The song starts out as a fairly catchy portrait of the rural working class reminiscent of the Shel Silverstein penned “Boy Named Sue” in both tone and rhythm. But then the chorus hits, and Coe drops an n-bomb. Through the casual use of that single word my relationship to this song is completely altered. Viewing this (or nearly any) of Coe’s songs on YouTube, you are subjected to a slew of racist comments and opinions. Songs such as this seemingly designate a rallying point for racist opinions, so why give the song (or Coe) any credit? Though I am morally repulsed by the use of this word for any purpose other than deconstructing its violent history, the use of the word rings true within the context of the rural working class that this song depicts. In the town where I grew up, and in the town I live now, I’ve heard plenty of white working class people use that word, reprehensible as it is. If nothing else, this song is a paean to the rural working class, and the casual use of that word sounds in that register.
In the song itself, the word plays very little part. (Which might not be said about some of Coe’s disgusting “novelty” songs.) “If That Ain’t Country” relies on the conceit |
idea…”
Tim: Right and that’s like how I’m saying there’s very little distance between Joan of Arc and my life because like, if anyone asked you to quickly describe your life, you couldn’t be like, “Well, sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m hungry, sometimes I’m sleepy, sometimes I’m a dick to people, sometimes I’m very friendly.” Joan of Arc just became this more multi-dimensional, deeper thing that can contain any aspect of who we are as people.
Analphabetapolothology by Cap’n Jazz
So obviously when you play shows with Joan of Arc, it’s such a different type of performance than Cap’n Jazz. Can you talk a bit about what goes into mentally preparing yourself for a Cap’n Jazz vs what you might normally do otherwise in 2017?
Tim: Um… you know honestly it doesn’t feel that different? My mind goes blank the moment we start, and then it’s like, I wake up when its over. And that’s true of Joan of Arc and Cap’n Jazz. If that doesn’t happen for any reason that means there’s some sort of problem. There was this Joan of Arc show in Portland on our last tour, where after the show, my bandmates were all like “that was crazy that you changed that string and you didn’t even stop the song while you were changing the string.” And I was like, “that happened?!” And they were like, “remember you broke a string and changed it while were playing?” And I was like, “oh! yeah, right, I did!” And that’s a weird thing! I’m not like, some master guitar string changer — I still think that’s a clumsy process for me — but when I’m like, in the show, I am just on autopilot and can change a string while still playing and not notice.
So one of the shows Cap’n Jazz is playing is Riot Fest, which has a pretty amazing lineup, especially with the Jawbreaker reunion. Is there anyone in particular that you’re looking forward to seeing?
Tim: Jawbreaker for sure. I was a huge fan as a kid. And actually the stage we’re playing, the lineup goes us then Dinosaur Jr then Jawbreaker on that stage. I was sitting with Mike when we got the schedule and he got like, weepy. He was like, “is this real?!” He seriously teared up and he was like “I feel like we’ve made it.” Like those were the biggest bands in the world to us when we were in high school, when Cap’n Jazz actually existed. So yeah, I’m excited for Dinosaur Jr though I’ve seen them 100,000 times at this point. Jawbreaker I’m excited about, I know I have some friends who are playing that I’m excited to see, I like the Downtown Boys a lot.
What’s next for you after the Cap’n Jazz reunion ends? Back to Joan of Arc?
Tim: Yeah, we have a new Joan of Arc record that we recorded last spring and early summer that we’re working on editing and mixing over the next couple of months. That’ll probably be out next fall. We’re hoping to tour a little bit — like at least do New York and LA, a couple museums — with that live soundtrack thing I was talking about. And I did this side project 15 years ago called Friend/Enemy and so… I made what feels like my first guitar-rock record of my songs — I know there was a second Owls record a couple years ago but I haven’t made a guitar-rock record of my songs in a lot of years — so I named that Friend/Enemy even though it’s mostly a different group of people. So that comes out in like February, I’m really excited about that.
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Cap’n Jazz — 2017 Tour Dates
Sep 15 Bottom Lounge Chicago, IL
Sep 17 Riot Fest Chicago, IL
Sep 23 Brooklyn Steel Brooklyn, NY w/ The Van Pelt
Nov 07 Moth Club London, United Kingdom
Nov 08 Electric Ballroom London, United Kingdom
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American Football — 2017 Tour Dates
Nov 18 Howard Theatre Washington, DC*
Nov 19 Brooklyn Steel Brooklyn, N*
Nov 20 Union Transfer Philadelphia, PA*
Nov 21 Royale Boston, MA*
* – w/ Pure Bathing Culture
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Related Miscellaneous Tour Date
Nov 09 Oslo London, UK – Owen (Mike Kinsella), Birthmark (Nate Kinsella), Tim Kinsella, Victor VillarrealHomo sapiens idaltu (Afar: Idaltu; "elder" or "first born"[1]), also called Herto Man,[1] is the name given to a number of early modern human fossils found in 1997 in Herto Bouri, Ethiopia. They date to around 160,000 years ago.[2]
Paleoanthropologists determined that the skeletal finds belong to an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens who lived in Pleistocene Africa. In the narrow definition of H. sapiens, the subspecies H. s. idaltu falls under the umbrella of Anatomically modern humans.[3] The recognition of H. s. idaltu as a valid subspecies of the anatomically modern human lineage would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name H. s. sapiens. Because of their early dating and unique physical characteristics, they represent the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans, as suggested by the Out-of-Africa theory.[1][4]
Discovery [ edit ]
The fossilized remains of Homo sapiens idaltu were discovered at Herto Bouri near the Middle Awash site of Ethiopia's Afar Triangle in 1997 by Tim White, Giday WoldeGabriel and Berhane Asfaw, but were first unveiled in 2003.[1] Herto Bouri is a region of Ethiopia under volcanic layers. According to radioisotope dating, the layers are between 154,000 and 160,000 years old. Three well preserved crania are accounted for, the best preserved being from an adult male (BOU-VP-16/1) having a brain capacity of 1,450 cm3 (88 cu in). The other crania include another partial adult male and a six-year-old child.[1][5]
Morphology and taxonomy [ edit ]
The Omo fossils differ from those of chronologically later forms of early Homo sapiens, their morphology has features that show resemblances to African fossils, such as huge and robust skulls, yet have a globular shape of the brain-case and the facial features typical of H. sapiens.[1][6]
Anthropologist Chris Stringer argued in a 2003 article in the journal Nature that "the skulls might not be distinctive enough to warrant a new subspecies name".[7][8]
Location of discovery
These specimens represent the direct ancestors of modern Homo sapiens sapiens which, according to the "recent African origin (RAO)" or "out of Africa" model, developed shortly after this period (Khoisan mitochondrial divergence dated not later than 110,000 BCE) in Eastern Africa. "The many morphological features shared by the Herto crania and AMHS, to the exclusion of penecontemporaneous Neanderthals, provide additional fossil data excluding Neanderthals from a significant contribution to the ancestry of modern humans."[1]
A 2005 potassium-argon dating of volcanic tuff associated with the Omo remains showed them to date from around 195,000 years ago. At the time of the dating, this made these fossils the earliest known remains of anatomically modern humans, older than the idaltu specimens.[9] In 2013, comparative craniometric analysis of the Herto Homo idaltu skull with ancient and recent crania from other parts of Africa found that the specimen was morphologically closest to the Pleistocene Rabat fossil and Early Holocene Kef Oum Touiza skeleton. A later study found that Herto man and his contemporaries were cranially similar to Oceanians, with Northern Melenesians being the closest.[10]
See also [ edit ]Like other complex activities, poker is easier to learn when you build skills in the right order.
So I’ve compiled the top 23 cognitive mistakes that make people play bad poker. I’ve listed these roughly in order of priority. In other words, if you don’t fix the ones near the top, it won’t really matter if you’re doing fine with the ones further down! You should think of this as the roadmap of errors that are preventing you from becoming a better poker player.
Ignoring evidence
Inattention is the tendency to fail to concentrate on information that could be useful for future decision making. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. Focusing effect is the tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome. Availability heuristic is estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples.
Not knowing the math (Innumeracy)
Neglect of probability is the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Base rate neglect is the tendency to base judgments on specifics, ignoring general statistical information.
Attitude problems
Loss aversion is people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Self-serving bias is the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests. Overconfidence is the state of being more certain than is justified, given your priors and the evidence available. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as “99% certain” turn out to be wrong 40% of the time. Negativity Bias is paying more attention to and giving more weight to negative rather than positive or neutral experiences. Optimism bias is the tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions.
Superstition
Clustering illusion (Apophenia) is the tendency to see patterns where none exist. Illusion of control is the tendency to overestimate one’s degree of influence over external events. Gambler’s fallacy is the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. Just-world phenomenon is the tendency for people to believe that the world is just and therefore people “get what they deserve.”
Frustration
Irrational escalation is the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Pessimism bias is the tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them. Projection bias is the tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values.
Mis-remembering reality
Outcome bias is the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made. Hindsight bias is sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened. Consistency bias is remembering one’s past attitudes and behavior as more similar to one’s present attitudes. Primacy effect is the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events. Peak-end rule is how we judge our past experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how they ended.
AdvertisementsSixty-five civilians, including 40 children, were killed in a NATO assault on insurgents in eastern Afghanistan earlier this month, according to findings of an Afghan government investigation released Sunday.
Tribal leaders had alleged that dozens of civilians were killed in the operation in Kunar province, which involved rocket and air strikes, but NATO has not confirmed any civilian deaths.
The incident inflamed tensions between the Afghan government and NATO forces, and both sides opened investigations.
Civilian deaths have been increasing in recent months as insurgents appear to become more indiscriminate in their targets, attacking banks, supermarkets and sporting events. At least three separate attacks Sunday, including one targeting spectators at an illegal dog fight, killed nine Afghan civilians and two NATO service members, officials said.
But allegations of civilian deaths from NATO forces — who pledge to protect the population — often cause much more anger.
NATO has said that video of Kunar operations on Feb. 17 — the main event of more than three days of fighting — showed troops targeting and killing dozens of insurgents, not civilians.
However, the Afghan team investigating the incident found that 65 civilians had been killed, including 40 children age 13 and under, said Shahzada Masoud, one of the investigators. The group presented its findings Sunday to President Hamid Karzai.
Investigators said they compiled a list of names and ages of the victims, and planned to release them but were not prepared to do so Sunday.
Karzai's office said he was concerned by the findings.
The team reached its conclusions after four days of interviews with local authorities, residents, hospital officials and security forces, said Masoud, who is Karzai's tribal affairs adviser.
They did not visit the scene of the attack but had people from the villages come to the provincial capital to be interviewed. The main area — called Helgal — is considered very dangerous and is rarely visited by government officials.
Masoud said the dead had already been buried, but that he had reports of 75 graves.
The team did not look into the number of militants killed or consider the NATO footage since it was only asked to identify civilian deaths, Masoud said.
The team shared its findings with NATO investigators in Kunar, but could not reconcile the differences. "They (NATO officials) told us that there might be civilian casualties as a result of this operation but not the high number we have found," he said.
A NATO spokesman, Rear Adm. Vic Beck, said Sunday that according to preliminary findings, seven to nine civilians may have been injued. "For any civilian casualty that occurred as a result of operations, we are deeply sorry and will work to make amends to the families involved," he said.
A recent U.N. report documented 2,412 conflict-related civilian deaths in the first 10 months of 2010. More than three-quarters of them were caused by militant activity, a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2009, the report said. At the same time, civilian casualties attributed to pro-government forces, including those from the NATO coalition, decreased.
A spate of insurgent attacks in recent weeks have killed scores of civilians, weakening the Taliban's assertion that they try to avoid civilian casualties in their attacks on government and NATO forces.
In Sunday's deadliest attack, twin blasts in southern Afghanistan killed eight people who had gathered for an illegal dog fight.
The explosion in Kandahar province's Arghandab district also wounded five police who had gone to break up the group, said district Police Chief Niaz Mohammad. Though dog fights are against the law in Afghanistan, they are still common and often ignored by the authorities.
It was unclear who the target of the attack was, though a witness said it was unlikely that it was the police. "The Taliban also don't allow dog fighting," said Ismail Alokozai, a bystander who helped some of the wounded.
Also in the south, a NATO service member was killed by a bomb blast, the international military coalition said. Another was killed in an insurgent attack in the east. The force did not provide the nationality of the victims or other details. Thirty troops serving with international forces have been killed so far this month.
Officials in Kandahar city said that a NATO vehicle there hit a roadside bomb and that either dead or wounded were carried away in a helicopter, though it was not clear if this was the same incident. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kandahar city blast.
In the western city of Herat, a roadside bomb that appeared to be targeting a passing police vehicle killed a 10-year-old boy, said provincial spokesman Shafiq Ahmad Behrood. No police officers were killed, he said.
In a separate development, the Canadian government said a Canadian tourist visiting Afghanistan is missing.
Emmanuelle Lamoureux, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa, said Sunday that Canadian officials are working with Afghan authorities to secure the release of the citizen.
Lamourex said Canada strongly advises against travel to Afghanistan.
The Taliban said in an e-mailed statement that they are holding a Canadian whom they detained in the city of Ghazni, southwest of the capital.
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Khan reported from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt contributed to this report from Kabul.Story highlights Small town near Melbourne, Australia, has fought McDonald's plans for two years
Locals cite environmental, crime concerns over proposed site of new restaurant
McDonald's says it has been "diligent" in addressing concerns of community
It seems that in at least one part of the world, the golden arches have lost a little luster.
The reason lies in a proposal by U.S.-based fast food giant McDonald's to build a restaurant in Tecoma, a small Australian town in the lush foothills of the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne.
The corporation's move has sparked a two-year battle with locals, who say they resent the influx of an international restaurant chain and feel that the restaurant will spoil an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Under the banner "No Maccas in Tecoma," residents of the town of 2,000 have held several protests against the proposed restaurant, such as the one depicted in this iReport in early March, shot by Tim Smith and sent in by resident Kerry Furnell.
Why such anger over one burger joint? The reasons are manifold, says campaigner Garry Muratore.
"For me, personally, I will be living only 400 meters from the proposed development, so the issues were litter and traffic," he said.
"For young families, it is the fact that it will be built almost opposite a primary school and kindergarten. For the local doctors, it's about health, while others are concerned it will be only 800 meters from a national park."
McDonald's, which says it has kept in regular contact with the local media, community and interested parties over the restaurant plans, has 780 restaurants across Australia, employing about 85,000 people. Amongst the values listed on its website is the promise "we give back to our communities."
A spokeswoman for McDonald's said in a statement that it had been "diligent" in addressing concerns of the community, altering the external design of the restaurant to reflect "the aesthetic of the area" and consulting third-party traffic engineers to ensure minimal impact.
Furnell said that the Dandenong Ranges were an iconic place for Australians and that many were "horrified" McDonald's could think such a development would be appropriate.
She also said increased traffic, vandalism and crime might affect her children.
"The presence of a 24-hour restaurant will mean (an) increase of littering, vandalism and worse and the leaving of items such as used condoms or broken bottles, meaning children are more likely to be injured or harmed in some way," she said.
For a small campaign, its reach has been extraordinary. Campaigners have been quick to engage in a PR war, harnessing the power of social media, developing a website punningly titled Burger Off to promote their cause and creating a Facebook page with almost 6,000 likes.
More than 75 local volunteers have also pitched in, with one academic spending eight weeks wading through three years worth of local newspapers in the state library to tally up incidents of crime purportedly involving McDonald's restaurants.
Others have helped with fundraising, developed contacts with similar campaigns across Australia or attended peaceful occupations of the proposed site, where a community garden was built.
In February, protesters held a garden gnome "invasion" of the McDonald's headquarters in Collingwood, a Melbourne suburb, where hundreds of the garden ornaments were placed on the office steps.
But despite an increasingly fraught battle on both sides, campaigners have stressed that it is the corporation and its franchise holders they have an issue with, not staffers, who they say are just doing their job.
What they are angry about is what they describe as a lack of dialogue.
"(McDonald's) say they look forward to engaging with us, so we say come and meet, and they won't return our calls," Muratore said. "They speak with both sides of their mouth."
The McDonald's statement said the company was "proud to contribute to the local community everywhere we operate" through creating jobs, offering training opportunities and providing financial benefits to local businesses and sporting clubs through sponsorships.
"We have absolutely followed established legal processes to ensure that the restaurant is afforded the same rights and privileges as any other business looking to settle in the area," the spokeswoman said.
It is not the first time such a burger battle has been fought on Australian soil. In 2011, a proposal by McDonald's to build a fourth restaurant in Port Macquarie, north of Sydney, was rejected by the Land and Environment Court, local media reported.
Residents had argued that the site was in a residential area and was an environmental concern.
In Tecoma, after councilors initially rejected the plan, McDonald's appealed to a planning court. In September, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found in favor of McDonald's, and the Tecoma campaigners say they do not have the funds to take the case to the Supreme Court.
After months of court battles, site occupations, meetings, allegations and counterallegations, the original McDonald's franchisee backed out of the project this month.
A new one has stepped in, but the small success has emboldened the protesters, who feel that victory in this battle could lead to winning the overall war.
"It's a case of dollars over democracy, and that's the heart of any issue that involves communities and large businesses," Muratore said.
"Our community is not a cookie-cutter suburb; it's unique. All those on the campaign want the same: We don't want a multinational fast food outlet."Glass Bulls: The U.S. Economy is no Safer From a Recession Today Than it Was Prior to 2008
As U.S. markets continue to surge to all-time highs both because of and in spite of the unexpected election of Donald Trump, I asked an experienced financial advisor some questions about the state of our economy heading into the new administration.
Jackie Thornhill Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 18, 2017
Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s unexpected, narrow electoral victory I sat down with Nusheen Javadizadeh, a financial advisor with seventeen years of experience from Long Beach, California for a wide-ranging conversation on a variety of topics. For over an hour we discussed everything from corporate tax rates to Glass-Steagall and peak oil as we looked to the future of our economy heading into what promises to be one of the most unorthodox Presidential administrations of the modern-era.
Particularly concerning was her admission that our economy today is not necessarily any better or worse off, any more or less insulated from the sort of recession-caliber financial crisis that occurred in 2008 than we were in 2006. While she believes that regulations will likely prevent a similar crisis from occurring in the housing market with collateralized mortgage obligations or banks from becoming “too-big-to-fail” again, Nusheen said she recalled reading articles just prior to the 2008 crisis about how 1929 would never happen again because of Glass Steagall and other regulations. Additionally, the incentives are undoubtedly ripe for smart investors to let their greed get the best of them and make short-term gains at the risk of wreaking long-term havoc, especially with the prospect of potential deregulation under a Trump administration.
We also discussed how expectations may have begun to diverge from reality when it comes to what the markets seem to be assuming Trump will be able to do as President. Investors betting on lower tax rates is one thing, but to assume that huge infrastructure projects are looming while fiscal conservatives still wield considerable power on capitol hill might be wishful thinking. That wishful thinking could end up being costly, considering how much the value of raw materials, steel, and other industries which would stand to benefit from increased infrastructure spending have already been essentially “priced to perfection”.
Nusheen pointed out that when the institutional investors have been in it for a while, the end might be near — admitting in our interview a month ago that there has been talk the current run might be “overly blown”, however with the (arguably arbitrary) Dow Jones industrial average recently flirting with 20,000 and currently on a record run, things don’t seem to be slowing down just quite yet. Potential infrastructure which may or may not happen aside, Nusheen also asserted that one of the best things President Trump could do would be to lower our high corporate tax rate — something President Obama proposed but never saw realized, and the driving factor of corporate inversions which were a hot topic in the 2016 race.
One question I raised was regarding the concept I’d read about as ‘Hubbert’s Peak’, or what Nusheen described as ‘peak oil’ — the idea that there will be an inevitable global peak in oil production, both in terms of a peak price and a peak in overall production. I was surprised to hear her argue that she thinks we may have already reached a peak oil price at $110 a barrel, and that it very well may never go that high again. She did point out that natural gas and overall production is a different story, nevertheless the ramifications of humanity having already hit a peak oil price alone will prove to be massive in the future — particularly for resource cursed, oil rich nations who failed to diversify. On renewables and electric cars, she agreed that environmental concerns are genuine but was skeptical that large-scale change will take place in the next ten to fifteen years given the failure of companies like Tesla and Solar City to turn a profit, as well as the reality that most of the world is still powered primarily by fossil fuels.
Additionally, a dominant theme in our discussion was the prominent role that psychology tends to play in markets — evidenced particularly by the differing responses of stock markets to a potential ‘Grexit’, an unexpected Brexit, and the surprise election of Donald Trump. While Greece exiting the European Union wouldn’t exactly have sent financial tidal waves rippling throughout the global economy, the ramifications of Britain exiting as well as the variety of potential economic impacts a Trump administration could have stand to effect markets much more in the years to come. Yet despite markets responding disproportionately to Grexit based on the principle that it brought uncertainty and uncertainty is bad, investors have somehow been able to ‘reassure’ themselves through the uncertainty that comes along with Brexit and Trump — a reality which seems to defy logic and begs questions regarding the balance of actual analysis and pure psychology in determining valuations.
Below is a transcript of the bulk of my interview with Nusheen:
What do you do, in a nutshell?
I am actually a money manager, or some people they call it a stock broker — some people call it a financial advisor, there’s different terms for it. Essentially what I do is I communicate with clients to set up a game plan for whatever their financial needs are and their investment goals so that we can meet those goals. If they want to retire in twenty years, for example, we have to come up with a game plan for how they’re going to retire, how they’re going to make enough money in those twenty years and put away enough money so that they’re going to have a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. And that’s assuming a lot of different variables including inflation and different variables, so in a nutshell that’s what I do. I do it for individuals, for companies, so if a company has multiple employees I do 401k plans for them. In some cases, I manage it completely where they give me the autonomy to do that, in other cases I may call the client and we discuss my idea — or their idea, if they have an idea and then we come to the decision of what we’re going to do.
Looking to the future, particularly in terms of potential policy changes — how do you think that might affect the markets? What do you make of everything?
Well, as of today which is about six weeks after the election approximately-
The electoral college just voted today.
Yeah, the 19th — so let’s say its six weeks out from the election, the market has already given you indications that he will reduce corporate tax rates which, they actually in my opinion need to be done because I don’t know how much you know about corporate tax rates –
Didn’t President Obama want to reduce corporate tax rates, if I recall correctly?
(In 2012 he proposed an overhaul of corporate taxes which would have lowered the rate from 35% to 28%)
Maybe, but I don’t think it was on the top of his agenda because it didn’t get done. So the background on corporate tax rates is that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate of any industrialized nation.
Doesn’t that encourage inversions?
It encourages inversions, which you know, all the candidates were upset about. But listen, if you don’t have a very nice policy here then it forces people to do other things because the bottom line is all of these companies want to make more money every year for their shareholders, that’s the goal. They won’t be able to do that if they have a competitive disadvantage against competitors in other countries. Let’s say there’s a U.S. based company and a U.K. based company and the tax rate is markedly different, the U.K. company is going to have a competitive advantage so if the whole goal is to be competitive then U.S. companies need to do something — that’s legal, it was totally legal, they just didn’t like it.
It’s just like tax rates, a lot of the really wealthy people in this country have left the country and have chosen to submit their U.S. passport, turned it in basically and became a resident of Monaco. Why? Because they don’t have any taxes there! If you keep doing this stuff to people, it forces them to alternatives and they do have alternatives. The same thing happens with companies and that’s why they do these inversions. Now whether it’s ethical or whatever, it doesn’t matter — it’s totally legal. They’re not doing anything illegal. So by reducing the corporate tax rate, it will make our companies more competitive with companies around the world, especially the industrialized countries like Japan, Ireland, Germany, etc. Because that is probably inevitable that he will reduce it, either to 15% or 20%, whatever that talked about number is — even at 20% that would be great, 15% would be extraordinary but I don’t know if he can go that far. Then the market realizes that these companies are going to make more money, therefore the prices have all really gone up in the past five or six weeks.
Same thing with infrastructure, he talked about infrastructure, so his talk is — whether he does it or not, doesn’t matter — his talk is that ‘I’m going to rebuild roads’ ‘I’m going to fix the bridges’ and all the things that are so ancient which, they are ancient, they do need to be redone. But they need bonds, voters have to approve these bonds, and no one ever wants to approve anything that costs money so they always get turned down. The same with schools, and all this other stuff — that’s why everything is in such bad repair because we leave it to the voter. Anyway, I don’t know what he can do but if he can do that, well there’s hope that he can do that, that would not only create jobs but it would also improve the companies that are involved directly with that. Crane operators and companies, Caterpillar, steel — all the raw materials have gone up a lot, copper and all these companies. But they already priced them to perfection.
That begs the question then, considering that tax cuts can at least be considered inevitable in this Republican Congress, but infrastructure — that’s hard to do — saying infrastructure is one thing but doing it is another. So if the market assumes this is going to happen and the prices start to reflect an anticipation of this coming infrastructure, could that mean the market is getting ahead of itself?
Oh, the market always gets ahead of itself. So in a market it’s kind of like the story of Goldilocks — the porridge is either too hot or too cold and it’s rarely just right. That’s the same thing that happens with the market, it gets overly exuberant which it is right now, it’s pricing it like they’ve already done all these projects when they haven’t even started, they anticipate. They can get overly pessimistic too, I’m trying to think of cases, like for example when Greece was failing — well Greece doesn’t matter to us. They export olive oil and they are high on tourism, they rely on tourism dollars. If Greece didn’t exist anymore it wouldn’t matter to the U.S. But depending on what time these things happen and what the market environment is, sometimes they will let it impact the markets when it’s not really rational too.
Do you think there was a disproportionate amount of hype in the responses to the Greece problem and Brexit in terms of the actual effects they might have? Did markets really respond to Brexit in a significant way? It seems like they freaked out a lot more over Greece.
They did. I think it was just the psychology at the time in the market and the sentiment, like I said it doesn’t matter if Greece exports olive oil or not it won’t make a difference to us. They don’t make a difference. In fact, not to go on a tangent but they are a member of the European Union and I tend to think that they never should have been included because you are only as strong as your weakest member. They are by far the weakest member, so they never should have been included because they just pull down the whole group.
That’s a side note — but back to Brexit, the reason the market reacted so strongly to Brexit, just like the election is that it was so unexpected. The polls all said that they weren’t going to exit and they did. Same thing with Donald Trump, he wasn’t going to win and he won.
So the market freaks out initially — didn’t it almost bottom out after Trump won?
Yeah, election night the futures did but then by the morning it was already back so you didn’t even have a chance to react to it.
That’s weird. That’s a weird thing.
It is weird, I think maybe that people were thinking that this is like Brexit. If you go back to Brexit which was in June, because it was unexpected our market also was effected — well we’re more independent, they’re an important member, they’re not like Greece they do have a lot of exports and imports, it matters to us — within a week the U.S. markets recovered all that they lost from the Brexit. It was the hugest buying opportunity ever. But this is what happens with the market, just psychology in general of a market, when it hurts in the pit of your stomach because you see this thing is plunging like crazy and you almost want to throw up — I don’t want to say that — but when I’m doing this job, that’s what my dad always said, my dad does this job too and he’s been in it for a long time.
He said to me, “they’re never going to ring the bell at the top and they’re never going to ring the bell at the bottom to tell you to buy.” There’s no bell. So he said, “The only gauge you can count on is your feelings.” Now I’m pretty resilient, I don’t get emotional about investing I just look at all the numbers and facts then I make my decision, so I’m — most women are very emotional — I could be at certain times but in this particular instance I’m very rational and I have no emotion about anything. Just take it all out. That’s the only way you can make a good decision in this case, I have people calling me saying “I can’t stand Wal-Mart. I’m not going to buy them, they put my parents out of business.” You know, their little mom and pop store, and I’m like okay but it could be a great investment. You’re going to let your emotions keep you from making money. That’s why I try to steer people off of this stuff, but if they’re really adamant I say fine there’s always other opportunities but you might miss out on one really good one — you know it may not be Walmart, I’m just saying as an example.
So the only way you can tell it’s time to buy, by my gauge, is if you feel like you’re going to throw up on your desk and I hate to say that but it’s true. It takes a lot for me to have to do that, and I’ve only ever felt that way — I’ve been doing this for seventeen years — even before I did it for other people I still did it myself because I had an interest from a really young age so I’m aware of it. But I never really had that feeling that I was so sick to my stomach except maybe only twice. That was the 2001 dot-com crash, even though I didn’t have any of it but I just saw that these things were getting wiped out like crazy and then of course the financial crisis. By far that was the worst. Then when you feel really good and you start adding up all the accounts, how much they’re making and everything, that’s exactly when you should sell. I’ll tell you, it’s almost there because things have gone up so much in six weeks. The market is like a tide, okay, it doesn’t go straight up and it doesn’t go straight down. There might be little periods of time where it does, but in general its like a tide — the tide goes in, the tide goes out, and it may retrace the same ground but eventually it is going much higher. There are times to unload or lighten up and then times to buy, but that’s if you’re a real trader and I don’t really propose that to people because it’s very hard to time that.
That phenomenon of how the markets have reacted to these extreme events, they seem to dip and then they reassure themselves — I feel like that gets at a lot of the psychology that’s involved in it. Do you think markets will always reassure themselves regardless of — I mean is there a limit to that? They say they like stability, certainty, and there’s a lot of uncertainty in, say, trade deals that haven’t been renegotiated, yet the markets have already decided the results of Brexit. Or Trump has yet to take office, but the markets have already decided the results of his election. Will the markets just reassure themselves no matter what happens?
Well, there will come a point — and there is a little talk that since this has had such a big run and nothing has happened, there’s no infrastructure projects since he hasn’t even started, there is some talk that this might be overly blown. The valuations of things are getting really pricey |
as in Hegel's, the resolution of the dialectical contradiction comprehends not only the destruction and transcendence of thesis and antithesis but also their preservation: for Marx, one thing in particular which should survive the destruction of the existing social order is the communitarian essence which, according to him, the State, despite its alienating aspect, expresses. In Bakunin's vision of the contradiction, however, the Positive and the Negative mutually destroy one another, leading to the transcendence of both but preserving nothing of either. Thus Bakunin, in his revolutionary exhortations, foresees no aspect of existing society, based on the institution of the State, to survive the universal insurrection.
Bakunin's dialectic acquires substantive meaning in his 1842 article, when he sociomorphizes the Positive into social reactionaries and the Negative into social revolutionaries; and here his anarchist rejection of compromise with bourgeois opponents has its origin. The reactionaries, Bakunin explains are composed of two trends: the consistent ones and the compromising ones. The consistent reactionaries flee from the present conflict by taking refuge in he past, although it is mistaken to believe that the historical totality of the past, which existed before the emergence of the revolutionary movement, can be recreated. The compromising reactionaries, on the other hand, do not unconditionally reject the revolutionary movement: “… they maintain that two opposing trends are as such onesided and therefore untrue; but, they argue, if the two members of the contradiction are untrue when taken abstractly in themselves, then the truth must lie in their middle, and so one must intercorrelate them to arrive at the truth.”[12] Thus the compromisers wish to prohibit to the Positive the act of excluding the Negative, thus they desire to rob the contradiction of its vitality. The articles “The Hypnotizers” and “La Montagne and Mr. Coullery,” among others, find Bakunin inveighing against the bourgeois socialists—compromising Positives—who wish to prohibit to the workers the act of excluding the bourgeois world. The uncompromising revolutionaries, however, of whom Bakunin undoubtedly was one, are animated by “the energy of [the contradiction's] all-embracing vitality,” itself the source of the “pure fire” of the Negative, which, “through this storm of destruction, powerfully urges sinful, compromising souls to repentance.”[13]
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Bakunin's anarchist attitude toward political participation, one of the most salient questions of revolutionary tactics, reflects his refusal to compromise. He viewed acceptance of universal suffrage as participation in the bourgeois world and hence compromise with it.[14] In contrast to Bakunin, Marx and Engels encouraged proletarian participation in bourgeois politics. Believing the proletariat to be the class that would inevitably comprise the vast majority of humanity, they had no complaint about majoritarian balloting. Engels called the democratic republic “the highest form of the State,” because it “officially knows nothing anymore of property distinctions.” It was, he wrote, the only form of the State in which “the last decisive struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie can be fought out.”[15] Said Engels contra Bakunin in 1871:
Complete abstention from political action is impossible. … Living experience, the political oppression of the existing government compels the workers to occupy themselves with politics whether they like it or not, be it for political or for social goals. …
We want the abolition of classes. What is the means of achieving it? The only means is the political domination of the proletariat.[16]
Bakunin believed, on the contrary, that the workers should strive to create their future world in the very heart of the existing bourgeois world, alongside but altogether separate from it. As he explains below in his article “On Cooperation,” it was up to the workers themselves to create cooperative organizations, which would replace the erstwhile political distribution of goods and services with a more just social distribution of them.
Establishing cooperatives was thus one tactic the workers could use in their struggle to resist the deleterious influences of the bourgeois world. Another was the strike, which Bakunin discusses in “Geneva's Double Strike.” In a pamphlet he wrote in 1870, Bakunin argues that strikes facilitate the work of socialist-revolutionary propagandists.
Strikes are necessary … to such an extent that without them it would be impossible to rouse the masses to the social struggle, nor would it be possible to organize them.
Strikes awaken, in the masses of the people, all the socialist-revolutionary instincts that reside deep in the heart of every worker … [and] when those instincts, stirred by the economic struggle, are awakened in the masses of the workers, who are arising from their own slumber, then the propagation of the socialist-revolutionary idea becomes quite easy. For that idea is simply the pure and faithful expression of the instincts of the people. If it does not correspond fully to their instincts, then it is false; … if that idea represents the genuine thought of the people, then it will quickly and unquestionably take hold among the popular masses in revolt; and once it so infuses the people, it will not hesitate to triumph in reality.[17]
This “theoretical propaganda of socialist ideas [is spread] among the masses” by “the International[, which] prepares the elements of the
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revolutionary organization but does not fulfill [that role].”[18] Thus whereas Marx's activities as well as his writings suggest that he conceived the International to be a sort of federation, the general line of which would unite different national parliamentary workers' parties in their electoral struggles with their respective national bourgeoisies, Bakunin saw the International as the midwife of an uncompromisingly revolutionary movement in the form of an alternative society of the world of the workers, unpolluted by bourgeois intrusions and institutions.
[Part] II
Bakunin's interpretation of history suggests two principal elements of his anarchist political philosophy: (l) that the essence of the State is first and foremost coercive; and (2) that the modern State, being the contemporary form assumed by coercion, is a child of the Reformation, or, as he wrote elsewhere, “The State is the younger brother of the Church.”[19] These two tenets conflict fundamentally with two of Marx's most basic ideas about the State: (1) that the essence of the State is not coercion but alienation; and (2) that the modern State, being the contemporary form assumed by alienation, is a child not of the Reformation but of the French Revolution.
Bakunin explicitly disconnects the creation of the modern State from the ascendance of the bourgeoisie in his “Three Lectures to Swiss Members of the lnternational.” These lectures are the most concise and careful survey of the history of Western Europe, from the Reformation through the Paris Commune, to be found in his writings. Bakunin believed that the most significant characteristic of the era prior to the French Revolution was the usurpation, by the State, of the power of the Church and feudal lords: the raging battle between the Pope and the crowned sovereigns having been decided in favor of the latter, they claimed their titles directly by divine right, without the intercession of religious authorities.
According to Marx, however, the “so-called Christian State” of the Middle Ages was only the “constable of the Catholic Church.” In such a State, Marx continues, “what counts is … alienation”;[20] this tendency is developed further, he concludes, when the French Revolution alienates private property from the community in the creation of the modern State. Marx interpreted the Constitution of the French bourgeoisie as the “independent form of the State, divorced from the real interests of the individual and community.” The State became “a separate entity beside and outside civil society” by virtue of “the emancipation of private property from the community.”[21] Because he felt that inheritance would disappear naturally in the future with the establishment of communism, which he had defined in 1844 as the “positive overcoming of private property,”[22] Marx opposed the abolition of the right of inheritance, in the 1860s, as unnecessary.
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With that position Bakunin disagreed. His interpretation of history led him to regard the right of inheritance as one of the foundations of social inequality: thanks to it, human beings are unequal at birth. The minoritarian founders of even the most primitive State bequeath to their offspring superior social status and all its concomitant advantages, including the “right” to exploit. The “Report of the Committee on the Question Inheritance” and the “Speeches to the Basle Congress” in this volume illustrate this perspective, according to which the bourgeoisie, in seizing State power by toppling the monarch, did not change the coercive nature the State but rather became its new usufructuaries.
These differences between Bakunin and Marx, over the basic notion the State, are rooted in their divergent understandings of Hegel. Both me believed that Democracy was the motive force of history, the real form, Hegel's world-historical Spirit; but that is as far as their agreement went on the issue. According to Hegel, Monarchy was the generic form of the State Bakunin agreed, and in his analysis Monarchy and Democracy opposed each other, with the result that the State had to be destroyed in a general conflagration. For Marx, however, the essence of the State was Democracy itself; he conceived Democracy to be embodied in a constitution hierarchically superior to other political forms, and therefore concluded that the State had to be realized to its highest degree.[23]
Bakunin the Left Hegelian had written in 1842, “Democracy not only stands in opposition to the government and is not only a particular constitutional or politico-economic change, but a total transformation of the world condition and a herald of an original, new life which has not yet existed in history.”[24] In his eyes, social emancipation did not exist in degrees; either it existed or it did not. For Bakunin the anarchist, therefore, all forms of government were merely various forms of Monarchy, that is, different forms of the despotism of some small number exercised again the vast majority. Political constitutions could not be differentiated more or less democratic.
If for Marx the carrier of Democracy was the German proletariat, for Bakunin this was the Russian peasantry. Bakunin always had faith in the instincts and the inclinations of the Russian people, believing that they merely needed appropriate inspiration to break into revolt. “The Russian people,” he wrote in 1845, “are altogether democratic in their instincts and habits [and] … they still have a great mission to perform in the world.”[25] He was aware, however, that the Russian people would not rise spontaneously against the Tsar, whose “unlimited will” is the “[only] law in Russia” and whom we may consider to be, according to Bakunin's reading of Hegel, the perfect monarch, “uniting all political powers in his own person, free from any control.”[26]
In a speech in Paris in November 1847, Bakunin declared that Russia “is everywhere a synonym for brutal oppression and slavery,”[27] and
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reasoned that Polish and Russian peasants have a common interest to free themselves from the Tsar's oppression. (This idea reappears in the article here on “Panslavism.”) Uniting the themes of Polish nationalism and Russian democracy, Bakunin conjures for his audience a situation in Russia where the army, the peasants, “a very numerous intermediate class composed of quite diverse elements,” and the enlightened aristocratic youth are all on the verge of open rebellion. (See “On Russia” and “A Few Words to My Young Brothers in Russia.”) What is needed for them to break into revolt, he concludes, is a Russo–Polish revolutionary alliance, which would foretoken the deliverance of all Slavs from the Tsar's domination, and announce the arrival of democracy for all the peasants of Eastern Europe and Russia.
The reconciliation of Russia and Poland is a great cause and worthy of our wholehearted devotion. It means the liberation of sixty million people, the liberation of all the Slav peoples who groan under a foreign yoke. It means, in a word, the fall, the irretrievable fall, of despotism in Europe.[28]
At the Slav Congress (1848) in Prague, Bakunin tried unsuccessfully to form an international revolutionary committee to foment an insurrection in Bohemia, where he hoped to strike the spark that would inflame the Slavs in a way rolling eastward to Russia. Whenever Bakunin called for an uprising of the Poles or other Slavs in the 1840s, more for one of the Spanish or the Italians in the 1860s, this was in the hope that such an insurrection would spread, and in the belief that if it spread far enough, it could catalyze the revolutionary sentiments of the Russian essence. In 1851, Bakunin recalled his attitudes at the Congress three years earlier:
It is true that without Russia Slav unity is not complete and there is no Slav strength; but it would be senseless to expect salvation and assistance for the Slavs from presentday Russia. What is left for you? First, unite outside of Russia, not excluding her but waiting, hoping for her liberation near at hand; and she will be carried away by your example and you will be the liberators of the Russian people, who in turn will then be your strength and your shield.[29]
It is useful to interpose here Engels's critique of Bakunin's Appeal to the Slavs, for it also contains his criticism of democratic Panslavism more generally. Writing in 1849, Engels argued that the Slavs cannot be revolutionary.
[Panslavism] … has in reality no other aim than to give the Austrian Slavs … a basis of support ….
… [T]he Southern Slavs [are] necessarily counterrevolutionary owing to the whole of their historical position ….
Peoples which have never had a history of their own … are not viable and will never be able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. …
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper.[30]
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This criticism is based not only on the premise that bourgeois capitalist development is a prerequisite to the formation of a nation-state, but also on a not always latent German nationalist undercurrent.
[If the Panslavist program were realized,] the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn Czechs and Slovenes …[31]
Bakunin's mature anarchism was built on a foundation of international, not just Slav, revolution; his advocacy of Panslavism in Prague in 1848 is perhaps best understood as an aspect of this developing cosmopolitanism, a stage evolving from his strictly Polish sympathies of the mid-1840s. Nevertheless, there are continuities with his later period. Bakunin's Appeal to the Slavs of 1848, as well as the three papers he submitted to the Prague Congress, on which the Appeal is based, express his belief (1) that although the future hopes of revolution lay with the working class, both peasantry and proletariat, still the peasantry, especially the Russian would prove the decisive force in bringing about the final and successful revolution; and (2) that the Austrian Empire had to be broken up and a federation of free Slav republics established in Central and Eastern Europe, based on common ownership of the land. These arguments undergird his discussion of events in his 1869 article, “The Agitation of the Socialist-Democratic Party in Austria.”
It is easy to misinterpret the contrasts between this practical revolutionary program, proposed by Bakunin, and that of Marx's, because the social classes each man conceives have, as a set, contrasting and different relationships to the concept of social revolution that he holds. By the time of the revolution, according to Marx, society will have been dichotomized into “two great hostile camps”: the bourgeoisie, who are the “owners of the means of production and employers of wage-labor”; and the proletariat who are reduced by the former “to selling their labor-power in order to live.”[32] As for the peasants, “their natural ally [is] the proletariat, whose task is the overthrow” of the bourgeois order.[33] Despite Marx's admission late in life that even in Germany “the majority of the ‘toiling people’ … consists of peasants, and not of proletarians,” the world-historical role of the proletariat remained for him an article of faith; and he believed that, since the peasantry would cease to exist because of the inevitable universalization of the condition of the proletariat, the peasants' only hope was to forsake their own interests and to identify with those of the proletariat.[34] Bakunin objected to this very idea, foreseeing “nothing more nor less than a new aristocracy, that of the workers in the factories and towns, to the exclusion of the millions who constitute the proletariat of the countryside and who … will become the subjects in this great so-called People's State” proclaimed in the name of the urban proletariat.[35] Bakunin considered the
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proletariat to comprise the urban-industrial workers and the rural-agricultural workers together; their union he often simply referred to as “the people.” Moreover, the workers and the peasants—to call them that—had, in Bakunin's eyes, not only common but also interdependent interests.
Bakunin agreed with Marx that the workers had a more highly developed revolutionary consciousness than did the peasants, and he affirmed that the peasants needed the workers' guidance. But he stressed that no revolution could succeed without an uprising by the people, of whom the peasantswere the vast majority. “There is more thought, more revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat of the cities, but there is more natural force in the countryside.”[36] These are the main themes of his article on “The Policy of the International.”
In “All-Round Education” Bakunin discusses what he calls the “equalization of classes” with respect to knowledge. It is because Bakunin did not believe that the proletariat would become a universal class, and so put an end to history, that he used that phrase in preference to Marx's “abolition of classes.” By the equalization of classes, Bakunin meant equalizing not so much the classes themselves as the individuals who compose them; Marx, however, appeared to interpret the phrase in the former, more abstract sense. “The equalization of classes,” Marx wrote,
… results in the harmony of capital and labor, so obtrusively preached by the bourgeois specialists. The great goal of the International is not the equalization of classes, a logical contradiction, but on the contrary the abolition of classes, the real secret of the proletarian movement.[37]
But “the proletariat … presented as class, and not as mass” seemed to Bakunin not only to exclude the peasantry but also to fail to recognize as individuals the individuals who compose it. [38] The issue for Bakunin was the death of the bourgeoisie as a separate class, as a political body economically separated from the working class—not the death of an aggregation of individuals who, as individuals, could join the proletariat by following the program set out in “The Policy of the International.” His analysis of this situation may be found in “The International Working-Men's Movement.”
Because Bakunin and Marx disagreed over the nature of the principal ill of the existing social order, they meant different things when they wrote of “classes.” In brief: (1) Marx defined classes by their relation to the means of production, and (2) he characterized political power as “merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another,”[39] from which (3) he concluded that the proletariat's economic appropriation of the means of production would constitute the foundation of a new political order. By contrast, (1) Bakunin saw the bourgeoisie's political power as having resulted from their denial of political liberty to the people, whose poverty made freedom a fiction for them and licensed to the bourgeoisie alone that
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liberty,[40] which (2) he believed they obtained through their own revolt against the monarchy, in which they seized State power in the name of the people, whence (3) he concluded that economic relations between politically defined classes did not change when merely the form of government was altered.
[Part] III
The programs of revolution espoused by Bakunin and by Marx are superficially similar; each man believed that the productive forces of society, reappropriated by revolution, would sustain social life thereafter. Each man also believed that transformation of the productive forces of society into collective property to be a conditio sine qua non of the revolution. The difference between them lies in the fact that, whereas that transformation did not serve Bakunin as a characteristic definition of social revolution, it did so serve for Marx.
Bakunin would have been a partisan of any spirit or any power that could have realized a genuine and wholehearted revamping of social conditions. The violence or peacefulness of the transformation was less important than its immanence and thoroughgoingness. This he asserted as early as his 1845 letter to La Réforme in Paris, and it accounts for his willingness (which disappeared after 1863) to allow the Tsar a role in accomplishing the social transformation. Following his imprisonment in the 1850s and subsequent escape from exile, Bakunin, in 1862, wrote and published a pamphlet in which he examined three possible forms that he then conceived a revolution in Russia could take: a bloodless revolution sponsored by the Tsar, a peasant uprising such as Pugachev's, and an insurrection modelled on the Decembrist movement.[41] Discounting a revolt of the intelligentsia as incapable of bringing about a true revolution, Bakunin confronted the same tactical choice as a decade and a half earlier.
In To Russian, Polish, and All Slav Friends,[42] another pamphlet he wrote in 1862, Bakunin renovated, from the perspective of his experiences in 1848–49, his belief that a peasant revolution in Russia could be catalyzed by the right combination of national insurrections in Europe. Acting on this belief the following year, he left London for Poland, where a widespread rebellion was being heralded, joining an eclectic legion of sympathizers who sailed to reinforce the insurgents. The insurrection, however, was suppressed before the brigade reached Poland, and the ship docked instead in Sweden. From there Bakunin moved to Italy, where he spent the middle years of the decade of the 1860s: first in Florence, where he formed a circle called the Brotherhood (really a discussion group in which he propagandized future Italian socialists), and later in Naples, where he created a new society which he called the International Brotherhood. The program that Bakunin wrote for the latter, the “Revolutionary Catechism,”
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was the first document in which he outlined the program of his mature anarchism.[43]
Leaving Italy in 1867, Bakunin attended, in September of that year, the First Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), in Geneva. He spoke to the assembled delegates and joined the organization's Central Committee, which accepted the program he outlined in the brochure Federalism, Socialism, and Anti-Theologism.[44] At the League's Berne Congress the following year, however, Bakunin found himself accused of communism by the rank-and-file bourgeois delegates when he introduced a resolution concerning “the economic and social equalization of classes and individuals.” He defended himself as a collectivist and not a communist:
I am not a communist, because communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State, whereas I want the abolition of the State[.] … I want to see society and collective or social property organized from below upwards, by way of free association, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatever. … That is the sense, gentlemen, in which I am a collectivist, but not a communist.[45]
Bakunin's motion was nevertheless defeated, and after the Congress finished its business he withdrew from the League with his associates. With them he then founded the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, which considered itself a branch of the International Working-Men's Association (IWMA) and, applying to the latter's General Council for corporate admission, accepted its statutes. The Council refused this application, contending that an international body within the IWMA would create confusion, and citing its refusal of a similar application which Bakunin had convinced the LPF Central Committee to make. The General Council of the IWMA declared null and void those articles of the Alliance pertaining to their mutual relations, but allowed the individual sections of the Alliance to become sections of the International after the Alliance had altered its statute on the “equalization of classes” to read “abolition of classes” and had dissolved itself as a corporate organization.
From the fact that Bakunin tried to merge, with the IWMA, first the League of Peace and Freedom and then the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, it can be claimed (as many have done) that he was seeking to take control of Marx's organization. This interpretation is one-sided, betraying an insufficient degree of comprehension of Bakunin's tactical program. The purpose that Bakunin gave the Alliance was to provide the International with a real revolutionary organization. In order to understand fully the logic of this tactic, it is necessary to recall Bakunin's philosophical orientation, particularly the conception of dialectical contradiction as he discussed it in his 1842 article.
Briefly put, Bakunin respected Marx's scholarship but believed the man to be, in the language of “Reaction in Germany,” a compromising
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Negative. Marx's advocacy of participation in bourgeois politics, including parliamentary suffrage, would have been proof of this. It would have been Bakunin's duty, following the script defined by his dialectic to bring the IWMA to a recognition of its true role. His desire to merge first the League and then the Alliance with the International derived from a conviction that the revolutionaries in the international should never cease to be penetrated to every extremity by the spirit of Revolution. Just as, in Bakunin's dialectic, the consistent Negatives needed the compromisers in order to vanquish them and thereby realize the Negative's true essence, so Bakunin, in the 1860s, needed the International in order to transform its activity into uncompromising Revolution.
Why did the revolutionary organization itself, within the International, have to remain secret? Bakunin argues that it would otherwise divorce itself from the life of the people and become a new State by imposing on them (like a “vanguard” party) its thenceforth authoritarian will. A secret organization was essential to the revolution, but wide participation by the masses was necessary to its success. Still, even the most widespread insurgency would accomplish nothing unless it were skillfully organized and prepared; therefore the secret revolutionary organization draws its strength from the life of the people. Its members “go to the people.”[46] The “powerful but always invisible revolutionary collectivity” leaves the “full development [of the revolution] to the revolutionary movement of the masses and the most absolute liberty to their social organization, … but always seeing to it that this movement and this organization should never be able to reconstitute any authorities, governments, or States and always combatting all ambitions collective (such as Marx's) as well as individual, by the natural, never official, influence of every member of our Alliance.”[47] Animated by the secret revolutionary organization, the International would provide a base of operations for stirring popular sentiment, taking on the crucial role of disseminating propaganda. Bakunin's conception of the revolutionary role of the International, and of its tactics, is elaborated below in the very important text, “The Organization of the International.”
Both Bakunin's Panslavism and his anarchism were democratic. It is worthwhile to recall, in this connection, how he first conceived Democracy under the influence of German philosophy, in his 1842 article: “Democracy is a religion[; its partisans should be] religious, that is, permeated by its true principle not only in thought and reasoning, but true to it also in real life down to life's smallest manifestations ….”[48] When Bakunin concluded that “we must not only act politically, but in our politics act religiously,”[49] he meant that action must be permeated, penetrated through and through, by the principle of Democracy. In the same way, the members of the secret revolutionary organization were to be penetrated by the spirit of Revolution, which would transmit itself, through them, among the people.
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Many observers find it difficult to reconcile the democratic current in Bakunin's thought with the seemingly authoritarian streak inferred from passages such as the following, which dates from 1851:
I thought that in Russia, more than anywhere else, there would be necessary a strong dictatorial power [vlast′] exclusively concerned with the elevation and public education of the masses; a power with a free spirit, free to follow any path, but without parliamentary forms; with the printing of books free in content, but without the freedom of printing; surrounded by like-minded persons and enlightened by their advice, strengthened by their free assistance but not limited by anyone or anything. I told myself that the whole difference between such a dictatorship and monarchical power was that the former, through the spirit that sets it in place, strives to render its own existence unnecessary as soon as possible, having in view only the freedom, independence, and progressive maturation of the people; monarchical power, on the contrary, must endeavor to prevent its [own] existence from ever becoming unnecessary, and therefore must maintain its subjects in unalterable childhood.[50]
Such a notion is fundamentally different from Marx's “dictatorship of the proletariat.” In the midst of a popular upheaval, Bakunin explained in the early 1870s, the members of the secret revolutionary organization, “firmly united and inspired with a single idea, a single aim, applicable everywhere in different ways according to the circumstances,” would disperse themselves “in small groups throughout the empire.” The “dictatorial power” of the secret revolutionary organization, democratic in this immanent sense, would have for its chief aim and purpose to “help the people towards self-determination, without the least interference from any sort of domination, even if it be temporary or transitional.”[51] In this respect, the contrast with Marx's vision of the dictatorship of the proletariat could not be more clearly drawn. Bakunin seemed instinctively to recognize that prerevolutionary organizational tactics are imprinted on post-revolutionary social relations.
If we now understand, first, that the revolution, according to Bakunin, will be animated by a secret revolutionary organization immanent in the people—one that “goes to the people” and draws its strength from their life, acting as lightning rods to electrify them with the current of Revolution; and, second, that the members of the secret revolutionary organization, animated by the same revolutionary spirit and working with similar purpose, organize the people of every region around the local issues closest to them, assuring nonetheless that each local uprising take on the character of the true popular revolution into which, erupting universally, they will all merge: then the ideational nexus of (1) the secret revolutionary organization with (2) its own anti-Statist “dictatorship,” which is in fact (3) immanent in the people, ceases to resemble the incoherent ravings of a “demon of pan-destruction”[52] and takes on the appearance of the nucleus of a structured system of thought which the vagaries of the history of Bakunin's time aided in obscuring, and which the vagaries of historiography since then have not much helped to clarify.
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It is incorrect to believe that, because Bakunin was an anarchist, he was opposed to all laws. He detested man-made law, but natural law was something else again. “All things are governed by laws that are inherent to them[, that] … are the natural and real processes … through which everything exists.”[53] Human society being a thing of nature, it follows immanent natural laws. “In obeying the laws of nature, man … only obeys laws which are inherent in his own nature.”[54] Animated by the spirit of Revolution, the members of the secret revolutionary organization catalyze the appearance of the real laws which are inherent in the life of the people but which are obscured by artificial laws. Where human beings oppose man-made law that has been forced on them by others, and attempt instead to follow their own inherent human nature, there Revolution is itself nothing less than natural law.
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Notes
[Note 1]. Bakunin's connection with Nechaev is therefore not directly addressed here, although it is contemporaneous with this period; but Bakunin himself kept that connection separate from his other activities. The Bibliographies in this volume may guide the interested reader to English-language and other materials on this matter and on other matters.
[Note 2]. Of the items not appearing in these two newspapers, one was published in a workers' almanac in French Switzerland, one is from another newspaper, and one was given as a series of lectures in a public hall. Full information on sources may be found in the Comment on Texts and Translation.
[Note 3]. Isaiah Berlin, “Herzen and Bakunin on Individual Liberty,” in Joint Committee on Slavic Studies [of the ACLS and SSRC], Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought, ed. with introd. by Ernest J. Simmons (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955), p. 473; Amédée Dunois, “Michel Bakounine,” Portraits d'hier, no. 6 (1 June 1909): 146.
[Note 4]. Cited by Carlo Cafiero and Elisée Reclus, “Editor's Preface” [sic], in Bakunin, God and the State (Boston, Mass.: B.R. Tucker, 18833), p. 4. An acquaintance of Bakunin's from this period has left a description of his “bizarre method of writing, which was itself a function of his complete lack of order”:
[Bakunin] usually began with a letter to one of his neophytes; little by little the letter became as long as an article for a review, which article then took on the dimensions of a pamphlet. Sometimes, even in this context, his vagabond thought was unable to find a home, and a rather thick tome emerged. The first pages would have been long ago set in type and corrected when, upon finishing the manuscript, he would say that there was no money to publish it; the printers' proofs were arranged on shelves, awaiting more favorable circumstances. Another time, a subsidiary question came to his mind while he was in the middle of writing; Bakunin then abandoned what he had begun and concerned himself to develop the issue. What was left unfinished or unpublished was certainly not lost; Bakunin drew liberally on his archives and used old writings for new literary enterprises. Moreover, this was facilitated by the fact that all his cogitations, whatever he wrote, came back to a single thought: the worldwide revolution had to be set off and collectivist anarchism installed. His phraseology, a direct heir to Hegel, easily adapted itself to the most diverse subjects.
… He announced to me in one of his letters that he proposed to write a pamphlet polemicizing against me; but to publish it he needed 300 francs, which he asked me to lend him. This insolent manner of borrowing money from an adversary in order to assail him seemed so original to me that I sent it to him. But this brochure too failed to see the light of day; the money, apparently, was necessary for other “needs” of the propaganda.
G.N. Vyrubov, “Revoliutsionnyia vospominaniia” [Revolutionary Reminiscences], Vestnik Evropy, 48 (February 1913): 56–57.
[Note 5]. A chronological table of Bakunin's life may be found in the list of Milestones, based on
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and expanded from N.M. Pirumova, Bakunin (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1970), pp. 394–96.
[Note 6]. E.H. Carr, Michael Bakunin (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1961), p. 20.
[Note 7]. M.A. Bakunin, Sobranie sochinenii i pisem [Collection of Works and Letters], ed. by Iu.M. Steklov, 4 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel′stvo vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politkatorzhan i ssyl′no-poselentsev, 1934–36), I, 328–29; translated in Arthur Lehning (ed.), Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings (London: Jonathan Cape, 1973), pp. 34–35.
[Note 8]. Bakunin, Sobranie sochinenii i pisem, II, 70.
[Note 9]. The two articles are reprinted together in ibid., II, 317–85.
[Note 10]. “Reaction in Germany,” in Lehning (ed.), Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 49.
[Note 11]. Ibid., p. 48.
[Note 12]. Ibid., p. 36.
[Note 13]. Ibid., pp. 49–50.
[Note 14]. Hence Bakunin's opposition, at the Basle Congress (1869) of the International, to the notion of “direct legislation” which is now a commonplace known as the referendum.
[Note 15]. Frederick Engels, “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in One Volume (New York: International Publishers, 1968), p. 514.
[Note 16]. Engels, “Apropos of Working-Class Political Action,” in ibid., p. 314.
[Note 17]. Bakunin, “Vsesvetnyi Revoli |
it must be correct. But sadly, the GRE test makers are far ahead of you when it comes to setting up traps within answer choices.
It very so often happens that there is some sort of mistake or an assumption in the other 10% of the answer choice that you thought was perfect. But out of excitement and anxiety, and not to mention the clock that is always sprinting, you overlook that one part of the answer, and select it as right. Little do you know that the remaining 10% contains something that is blatantly wrong, and thus it invalidates the entire answer option.
This is why we at CrunchPrep use the Rotten Tomato Technique. Picture this: When you are buying tomatoes from the market, what do you do? You inspect each tomato 100%, and only if you are sure that the entire tomato is healthy, you purchase it. If you find any dark spot, or a rotten part, then no matter how small it is, you put it back. This is the same strategy you should use to check if an answer option is suitable or not. If ever there is one thing – even if it is a single word – that doesn’t seem right, or dilutes the entire sentence, then you should treat the answer option as invalid, and move on to the next choice.
So, the next time you are solving questions on Reading Comprehension, remember that the Rotten Tomato technique gives you healthy results.
13. Pause and Play
Sometimes when you are reading a long Reading Comprehension passage, your eyes feel glazed and watery. If you feel glazed eyes starting to set in, look away from the passage. By just turning your eyes in a different direction, you will be, in a way, hitting a reset button on your brain. When you look away from the screen, or close your eyes for a few seconds, you should also take a few deep breaths, and get some oxygen up to the brain. Just a few seconds of rest will make a huge difference to your performance, and you can then return to the passage.
Don’t start thinking about wasting seconds here. Your state of mind is far more important than time, and if you really think your mind deserves a few seconds of rest, then maybe should give it some rest.
14. Don’t Read Too Fast
Don’t read too much too fast. Your brain has a natural tendency to block off too much information at a time, and when you read too fast when you are under pressure, your brain simply blocks things off. This is a bit similar to how when you forget someone’s name, you cannot recollect it no matter how hard you try, but you get it at a later point when you are doing something else. Whenever too much information is being thrown at your brain, it cannot take it all at once. And this is why it shuts off for a few seconds, or even minutes, and you can’t get anything into your head for a while.
This will only waste your time during the test, and will increase pressure on your brain even further. So it is best for you if you can read at a steady pace. If you would like to read faster, you should understand that speed reading cannot be achieved overnight. It comes with a lot of practice, and you should start doing it right now. We have discussed about Speed Reading techniques in great detail. Take a look at the final chapter if you would like to know more.
15. Identify Signaling Words
Every Reading Comprehension passage has a few to many key words and phrases. These are also known as signaling words. Words like “First, second, third, furthermore, on the other hand, for example, namely, for one thing, in addition, nevertheless, for these reasons, proponents believe, critics believe, but, however, whether/if, according to, therefore, consequently, In contrast, claims, goes so far as to claim, others argue”, etc.
This list is far from comprehensive, but you get the idea. As you work through more and more Reading Comprehension passages during practice, you will start to think like the test makers, and develop a sense for where the test makers are likely to draw questions from. This will be of great advantage to you, because if you can anticipate the oncoming question, you will be mentally ready with the answer, as you read through the passage.
16. Focus is Key
The passages on Reading Comprehension are more often than not dull, boring, and concern subjects you either find uninteresting or are completely alien to. But that is not something you should worry about, because you are not alone. The test makers select passages as to make everyone feel uncomfortable; not just you. So, if you find a passage unfair or super hard, remember that it is the same for everyone else. Every test taker is in the same boat as you are.
Don’t beat yourself up over not having read up on the Nazi culture or quantum theory or the lifecycle of dolphins. The test givers don’t expect you to have any expertise on such abstruse subjects. They are only testing your ability to read quickly, to extract and process information efficiently and to draw inferences and make logical connections even when you know nothing about the material. So, all you need to do is settle down, take a deep breath, accept the challenge, and start reading. Maintaining focus is key. Which is why we ask students to take down notes as they read the passage. You are writing notes primarily to help you to focus on the text.
17. Practice Active Reading
It is very important to read actively, not passively. Passive reading is for knowledge, or for pleasure, but not to score high on a competitive test like the GRE. You need to actively extract information, instead of passively absorbing it. Focus on the main points. Be strategic. Get used to reading only certain parts of a passage carefully.
These include: the opening paragraph, the conclusion and the opening and closing sentences of each paragraph. They help you answer straightforward questions like: What is the author’s main point? Why is the author writing this? What is the author’s writing style?, What is the author’s attitude towards the topic?, etc.
18. Unhear That Song Already
It is extremely common that you always have that one song in your head during the entire time you take the test. You are not alone; research shows that close to 90% of us have this phenomenon, popularly called as an earworm. While this is completely natural, and there is nothing wrong in it, it may be one of the reasons your brain cannot give its 100% during the test. The more activities your brain does, the lesser it spends its focus on the test.
So, before you go into the test center, you will have to cleanse your brain off the song that’s stuck inside. Use Unhear It or similar websites, and get that song out of your head before you leave for the test center, or even better, before you enter the testing area. We have tested this, and it seems to work fine most of the time.
19.Rephrase the Original Question
If you thought that you will be safe once you finish reading the dreadful passage, you should probably hold that thought for a while. The questions that follow the passage are equally deceitful, and they will never be straightforward. You should always be on the lookout for troubling questions which include double and triple conceptual questions. This means, if the author has included more than one concept or scenario, there might be questions that are complex and lengthy in nature. These questions may also include double negatives, or double trigger words just to confuse you further.
One way to solve these questions, is to break down the question part by part, and analyze it. This is a really effective strategy, but it takes time for you to break down questions, and then find answers to each part separately from the passage. Instead, you can simply read the questions thoroughly and carefully, and then based on what you understood, you can rephrase the question in your own words. This is make the question sound simpler, and it will be easy for you to go back to the passage in search of the answer if the question is easier to understand.
20. Check the Number of Questions First
Before you decide how much time you should be vesting on a Reading Comprehension passage, you should see how many questions there are in total. Before you even begin reading the passage, check to see how many question are given, and then decide on the time you would like to spend on the passage. If there are too many questions and you think it would take a lot of time, then it is better to mark it and skip to the rest of the section. If you don’t do this, you’ll risk reading the entire passage and then find out that you want to skip it altogether. This means, you will have wasted around 4-5 minutes without any outcome. So, make sure you check the number of questions before you start reading.
21. Be Careful With Multiple Select Questions
When you are answering Multiple Select questions, you should remember to treat each answer option separately. Sometimes, it is easy to get lost in the details, and students assume that if they are asked to select multiple answers, then it must mean that both option A and B, for example, must be true in order for the answer to be correct.
No, that is not how it works. You should be treating every answer choice separately, on its own. If you are reading option A, don’t bother about the other options. See if A fits as the answer, and if does, select it. Only then should you be moving to option B. When reading option B, forget about the other choices, including A. Two answer choices cannot be combined to form one answer, and hence you should treat them separately.
22. Embrace the Passage
As much as you wish it were true, you know that there won’t be any Reading Comprehension passages on your favorite TV shows. All Reading Comprehension passages are designed to trouble you with new concepts, new information, and new questions. But, if you are a smart reader, you would not get bogged down by the sheer length or depth of questions and paragraphs. Instead, what you should do is, embrace the passage completely.
Yes, you read it right. Embrace the passage as if it were your friend. Appreciate it for its uniqueness, greatness, and its wealth of information, but also embrace it for its stupidity, stubbornness, and its strangeness. Just as with your best friend, you should understand that a Reading Comprehension passage has its own flaws, and keep in mind that it is always looking to trouble you, and waste your time.
Embrace the passage as if it were your friend.
While embracing the passage and its pluses and minuses, you should also learn to love it despite what it is. Sometimes, it is really difficult to keep your focus on the passage, because no matter how much you try, you hate to learn about orangutans or about the science behind natural reflexes. What you can do, however, is try and fall in love with the subject. Tell yourself that today you really want to know why stars die, or why Rasputin led to his own downfall. You should learn to fake your love for the passage, deceive it with your fake enthusiasm, and then destroy it when it finally surrenders to your relentless pursuit. That is how you master boring passages. It sounds evil, but you can’t help it.
23. The Tone of the Author Is Never Negative on the GRE
This is a very important point you should remember. The GRE being an internationally acclaimed test, doesn’t ever include essays or paragraphs that are negative in nature. The test makers select the passages and design the questions so carefully that there won’t be much room for negativity.
Hence, you can say that the tone of the author is either neutral (which is mostly the case), or positive or praising in nature. Now this doesn’t mean the author does not criticize anything in the passage. Yes, there will be a lot of criticism, but most of it is constructive. Meaning, the author says that something is wrong, but he/she also gives the necessary reasons behind their stance. So, this qualifies the tone as neutral.
Sometimes, the author advocates for a particular reason or a cause, in which case, he/she is being positive about the topic. But there will not be many essays where the author severely criticizes and demeans someone or something in the passage. Hence, while answering questions related to the tone of the author or the writing style, you should remember to automatically eliminate answer choices that hint that the author is being completely negative. If an answer choice implies that the author has used drastic or extreme language to criticize the topic he/she writes on, then you should automatically disqualify that answer choice, and move on.
24. Pay Utmost Attention to Tough Reading Comprehension Passages
These are very difficult to understand, especially because the author uses several traps to confuse you. You will find satiric comments which look like praises but are in fact criticisms, you will see multiple comparisons where the main idea is compared to other similar scenarios so as to confuse you about which of them is the main idea.
Often times, the author camouflages his/her opinion in the form of others’ opinions. The passage has opinions of other people, but not the authors. You should be really careful here, and see whether the author is supporting or disapproving their opinions. When you think things are going beyond your control, stop reading. Mark it for review, and come back later with a fresher mindset. Maybe you will crack the code later. Why waste time now?
Be very careful when you see twisted questions. Sometimes you will be asked to provide analogies, or situations that are similar to the ones mentioned in the passage. These are some of the dangerous questions you will see, because every situation seems like an analogy to a beginner. So, you should practice such questions rigorously, and be ahead of the curve.
25. Make Notes Intelligently
You can use several techniques to take down notes in an intelligent manner. Most students, when asked to make notes, write down a few sentences altogether. But think about it. Why do you take notes? So you can save time. But if you are writing down a few sentences every time you read a paragraph, are you really saving time, or wasting it even further?
If you really want to save more time, you should not keep writing sentences. Instead, you should try and keep the notes as small as possible. Now you may ask, how do you store lots of information with only a few words?
By being smart, is the answer. Identify the most relevant information. Write down the key words or phrases that are most relevant to the topic at hand — things like dates, names, theories, definitions — only the most important details should make the cut. Eliminate all the filler words and secondary details. Replace all the tough-to-remember language with easy, and simple words. Paraphrase with exaggeration. Write whatever you want, as long as it fits the main theme, and you understand it.
Also, use shorthand, or texting lingo. Replace should with ‘shd’, question with ‘ques’, communicate with ‘comm’, etc. This is really helpful because, if you’ve ever noticed, writing is a lot slower process than typing. So, use shortened versions of words, and try writing what you have understood, instead of repeating sentences from the passage.
And, who said you have to use only words? You can use illustrations, symbols, tree diagrams, relationships, arrows, etc. This will significantly shorten the information you need to write, and will maximize efficiency.
26. The Best Time Saving Strategy
Students often use answer grids in order to save time. But did you know that there is an even better time saving strategy?
Using an answer grid while solving a Reading Comprehension question means you should keep shifting your focus while reading answer options on the screen, and while striking off options on the scratch paper. So moving your eyes off the screen and off the scratch paper repeatedly leads to lack of focus. It takes time to read, and then strike off options on the paper. Why waste time when there is a better alternative?
We usually recommend our students to use their left hand (or right, if you are a southpaw) and fold fingers as they eliminate each answer option. Confused? Don’t be.
It is pretty simple. Assign options to each of your fingers, (A = thumb, B = index, C = middle, etc.) and fold fingers as you eliminated each of the options. This method is not only much simpler to apply, but it is much, much faster than any other method. Since you don’t need to write anything on the paper, you don’t need to look down, and you can keep your eyes on the screen!
We have asked our students to test this method during their practice tests, and on an average, they have saved 5-6 seconds per question! Now, 6 seconds might not seem like a lot to you, but they are invaluable. Don’t believe me? You do the math: there are about 20 Reading Comprehension on the GRE. That’s 20 questions multiplied by 6 seconds = 120 seconds, or two minutes. Which means, you will have enough time to solve another two questions! And that should give you a chance to increase a couple of points on your final score.
So, those are the various tips and strategies that you can use effectively, to completely annihilate the Reading Comprehension section. Other guides usually end here. But we at CrunchPrep want you to get yourself acquainted with some of the most advanced techniques that you can use on the GRE. These advanced speed techniques will help you solve Reading Comprehension questions at the blink of any eye, and you can brag about your newly acquired skills with your friends.This story can be republished for free ( details ). This story also ran on CNN
Updated Oct. 1, 4:30 p.m.
Houston workers who checked the fine print said they weren’t sure whether they were joining an employee wellness program or a marketing scheme.
Last fall the city of Houston required employees to tell an online wellness company about their disease history, drug and seat-belt use, blood pressure and other delicate information.
The company, hired to improve worker health and lower medical costs, could pass the data to “third party vendors acting on our behalf,” according to an authorization form. The information might be posted in areas “that are reviewable to the public.” It might also be “subject to re-disclosure” and “no longer protected by privacy law.”
Employees could refuse to give permission or opt not to take the screen, called a health risk assessment — but only if they paid an extra $300 a year for medical coverage.
“We don’t mind giving our information to our health care providers,” said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, which objected so strongly along with other employees that the city switched to a different program. “But we don’t want to give it to a vendor that has carte blanche to give that information to anybody they want to.”
Millions of people find themselves in the same position as that of the Houston cops. As more employers grasp wellness as the latest promised solution to soaring health costs, they’re pressuring workers to give unfamiliar companies detailed data about the most sensitive parts of their lives.
But whether or not that information stays private is anything but clear, an examination by Kaiser Health News shows.
In many workplace wellness programs, “it seems by taking the health risk assessment you are waiving your privacy rights,” said Jennifer Mathis, director of programs at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
At worst, shared information about sensitive conditions could support discrimination by employers, banks, life insurance companies and others. Wellness data is already escaping into what one expert calls “the great American marketing machine” that pitches products according to your diseases and lifestyles, privacy scholars say.
Wellness vendors charge employers a per-person fee to assess workers’ health and motivate them to exercise, eat well, see doctors and take pills. Companies push workers to participate with gift cards, insurance discounts and other rewards or penalties.
As employers flock to the wellness parade, corporate wellness vendors make up what research firm IBISWorld predicts will be a $12 billion industry by 2020 — six times its estimated size in 2011.
Privacy advocates see a void of regulation or even voluntary standards to ensure the information is used as intended. By all accounts the amount of worker wellness data being collected — through the Web, company surveys, wearable devices, gym records and lab tests — is exploding.
“The privacy issues are profound,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, an advocacy group. “If people are being asked to wear a biometric electronic device, or use a mobile app or work within a wellness program, that data can be used in ways that may be very, very surprising to people.”
Numerous wellness vendors say flatly that privacy is critical to their reputation and that they don’t share information on individual workers with employers, data brokers or marketing companies. But as the Houston employees found out, the fine print isn’t so plain or reassuring.
— Few workers know that wellness contractors are often unbound by the strict privacy law, known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), that restricts doctors and hospitals.
— A review of privacy policies shows that many wellness vendors adopt policies allowing them to share identifiable data with unidentified “third parties” and “agents” working to improve employee health.
— The industry boom has drawn a widening network of fitness centers, websites, app publishers, wearable device makers and other affiliates working with wellness plans to collect employee health information — each with its own complicated privacy policy. That boosts chances data will be misused, privacy advocates say.
— Wellness companies and their contractors routinely share almost completely unregulated “de-identified” data showing group heath results with employers, researchers and others. Scientists have shown such information can be “re-identified” and used for marketing, potential credit screening and other purposes.
Wellness vendor Audax Health, whose work with Houston resulted in “an overwhelming number of employees who were uncomfortable with the privacy statement,” according to a city statement to employees, said it keeps information strictly confidential. Audax’s online portal for employees is called Zensey.
“We do not sell or resell personal health information to anyone,” including marketing companies and data brokers, David Sclar, Audax’s chief privacy officer, said through a spokesman. “We do not allow third parties to market to Zensey users.”
But Audax’s own fine print contradicts the second part of his statement, saying the vendor may direct marketing pitches from third parties to wellness members based on “attributes” it collects from those employees. Audax is majority-owned by insurer UnitedHealth Group.
Other big wellness vendors, including venture-capital backed Welltok, include similar language in their disclosures. Welltok says its CaféWell portal might “target certain advertisements to your browser,” without identifying the user.
That permission “may be broader than needed,” said Welltok spokeswoman Erica Morgenstern. Welltok does not target ads at users and might change the language the next time it revises the disclosure, she said.
Welltok co-founder Jeff Cohen said the company doesn’t “use and sell and share the data from our platform about users to third parties.”
Primary wellness vendors such as Audax and Welltok aren’t the only ones collecting employee health data. Wearable device makers, test labs, gym chains, data centers, workout-app publishers are also part of the gold rush.
As frequent partners of employers and wellness providers, each of those companies also gathers worker information of varying sensitivity — often with employers pushing workers to participate — in what amounts to a widening wellness data web.
The most advanced employee wellness programs can even “ping your cell phone when you’re at the gym” to record your visit through a geo-location app, said Erick Hathorn, a consultant to wellness companies and contractors. “Or they can ping it 30 minutes later to know you stayed.”
Lose It!, one of the most popular diet apps for smartphones, works with employee wellness plans to track your calories and weight via a wireless scale.
The app’s privacy policy assures users of Apple products that information on their weight and eating habits won’t be used for “advertising or other use-based data mining purposes” except for health research. Results for non-Apple users, on the other hand, might be given to “advertisers and potential business partners” with the identities removed.
That’s a lower level of protection, even without identification, lawyers said.
Nobody at Boston-based Lose It! was available to answer questions about corporate wellness and privacy, a spokeswoman said.
“What are the vendors doing with the data they collect? They aren’t telling us,” said Ifeoma Ajunwa, who teaches health law at the University of the District of Columbia. “Are they selling it? I would be surprised if they’re not selling it, because it’s valuable.”
Two years ago Under Armour bought MapMyFitness, another app promoted for use in corporate-wellness programs, and turned it into an ad vehicle for its athletic apparel.
The app records workout routes, times and speeds and shares data with wellness vendors and Under Armour itself, according to a disclosure statement. Users see ads for Under Armour gear and other products on their smartphones and computers.
Data from MapMyFitness and other apps bought by Under Armour “is going to be extraordinary,” company CEO Kevin Plank told industry analysts this year. “This will help us sell more shirts and shoes,” he has repeatedly said.
An Under Armour spokeswoman referred a reporter asking about data policies and wellness programs to MapMyFitness’ privacy statement.
More than 13 million Fitbits and other wearable health devices will be used in corporate wellness plans by 2018, ABI Research has projected. Data gathered by the Fitbit can include height, weight, heart rates and sleeping and exercise patterns.
“Now Fitbit has that information and the wellness program has it,” said Robert Gellman, a privacy consultant and former congressional staffer. “I don’t know of any best practices from wellness industry [to handle the data]. It’s the Wild West.”
Fitbit did not respond to several requests to discuss privacy. The company won’t “sell any data that could identify you” and shares information only when necessary to provide the service, when the data are anonymous or with user permission, its written policy says.
Employer wellness programs even follow you to the supermarket.
A firm called NutriSavings assigns health grades to thousands of food products and lets grocers record member shopping. Stores report scores — but not specific purchases — to the wellness vendor, says NutriSavings. Members get rewards from their employer based on what they buy.
Wellness information isn’t just valuable for selling stuff. Privacy advocates especially worry that the results might be shared with data brokers who crunch information and sell it to banks and other financial firms.
“That’s where the data then moves into other parts of the economy — lending decisions, credit decisions, mortgage decisions,” said Scott Peppet, a law professor and privacy specialist at the University of Colorado. “Once these data are in the hands of a data broker, they can be blended into any kind of formula.”
Credit-card companies could raise rates for employees that wellness programs reveal to be couch potatoes, inferring that they are more likely to default. Life insurers could deny coverage or raise prices based on unhealthy wellness results. Insurer John Hancock has already started offering discounts to life insurance customers who agree to wear a Fitbit, share data and attain certain scores.
No one knows whether data brokers are getting workplace wellness information. But despite what many employees believe, not all wellness information is protected by HIPAA, which authorizes only doctors, insurance plans and others close to a patients’ care to see their medical data.
“People assume all their health information is covered by HIPAA and that’s just not true,” Gellman said. “Wellness programs are on the border. Some are and some aren’t. How can a mere mortal tell? A lot of information can escape into the great American marketing machine, which is desperate to get information on a person’s health.”
Wellness vendors are supposed to obey HIPAA restrictions if they’re part of an employer’s insurance plan. But it’s far from clear what that means.
The National Committee for Quality Assurance, a respected health care certification group, asks workplace wellness groups it accredits to observe HIPAA rules and require the same from third parties they work with.
Outdated embed removed.But NCQA recognizes only about 30 wellness vendors out of hundreds. Even a “HIPAA-compliant” program could induce workers to waive their rights without knowing it, consumer advocates said.
Nor does HIPAA protect the de-identified health information that wellness providers routinely share with employers and other, unidentified outside parties, according to their privacy policies. De-identified data might include blood pressure, cholesterol, drug use and disease history.
Researchers have shown that such information can be linked to the subject by combining it with voter lists, credit-card records and other databases. Harvard investigators used birthdays and zip codes in a de-identified genetics survey two years ago to figure out who more than a fifth of the participants were.
Until recently, Audax’s policy stated that the company could use de-identified employee data “for any business purpose.” It removed that language after KHN inquired about privacy.
Fitbit and Limeade, a wellness provider in Bellevue, Wash., forbid third parties using their anonymized data from trying to re-identify the users.
But that policy — the kind recommended by Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill and others — is unusual among wellness providers, KHN’s review shows.
“We haven’t really stepped into regulating this or decided if to regulate this,” said Peppet, who favors employer wellness efforts despite his concerns about confidentiality. “I’m expecting over the next couple of years we’ll probably see some problems.”
Julie Appleby contributed to this story.
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Note: This story was updated to reflect Welltok’s most recent privacy policy.TNT and TBS, the television channel equivalents of the bro who’s also in show choir and the guy who always shows up to the party a little too early, are getting makeovers. Kevin Reilly, the president of both networks, took to the television upfronts to hold court about the channels’ new directions, a process that, as Deadline reports, mostly involves some new shows and a little of the old rebranding magic. Reilly referred to TNT’s change as merely an “evolution,” whereas TBS’s shakeup is a full-on “revolution,” presumably implying the imminent death by firing squad of every current member of the TBS family. Let’s look at what’s in store for each of them, shall we?
TNT is being molded into a home for “edgier original programming,” a nice way of saying the channel is getting tired of Rizzoli And Isles. To that end, it has picked up some shows meant to be totally full of edges, man. That starts with an adaptation of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, an event series we recently reported would be directed by True Detective helmsman Cary Fukunaga. It’s about a doctor in turn-of-the-century New York City, back when hard edges were everywhere. He uses the newly emerging field of psychology to track a serial killer, thus setting the stage for nearly every subsequent American ripoff of Sherlock Holmes.
The channel also picked up two shows that began life elsewhere. First is the series Animal Kingdom, a project that began life years ago at Showtime, but is only now finding a home with the proper degree of edginess. Based on the 2010 movie of the same name, it’s a family crime drama, set in a “gritty surf community,” where edges abound because tough surfer types don’t like smooth surfboards. The network also picked up Will, about the adventures of a young William Shakespeare. It’s from Baz Luhrmann’s longtime writing partner, so naturally it’s a period drama with a cutting-edge soundtrack and gonzo production design, because that’s all that Baz Luhrmann and associates know how to do. Also, nothing says “edgy” like the absolute center of the canon of Western literature.
TBS, on the other hand, will be getting a complete rebranding by the end of 2015, a change so radical and antiestablishment that Reilly could barely contain himself when explaining the nature of his corporate marketing strategy. “The new TBS will have a huge slate of awesomely in-your-face and effortlessly diverse programming,” he crowed, presumably as prelude to announcing the inclusion of Poochie in every new show. After all, revolution begins at home, because that’s where there are Big Bang Theory reruns that singlehandedly delivered your channel’s best numbers.
Reilly said that more than 15 scripted and unscripted series will be coming to the channel over the next two years. This bevy of in-your-face awesomeness begins with Wrecked, a comedy series about the aftermath of a plane crash on a remote island. The flaming wreckage of a jet should contain sufficient fiery blasts of gas explosions to singe off their cast members’ skin, thus getting quite literally into their faces.
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Reilly also announced several other new comedies, because it is very funny, regardless of evidence to that end. The Group is about alien abductees, and comes from Conan O’Brien and The Office creator Greg Daniels. It will presumably involve alien probes that entered people’s noses rather than the ever-popular rectal probe, the better to maintain fidelity to faces, and getting in them. There’s also the new comedy Angie Tribeca, starring Rashida Jones; The Detour, which stars former Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones (nothing’s more in your face than people with the last name of Jones); and a series in development set to star Jones’ wife, Samantha Bee.
TNT is also launching something called Separation Anxiety, which is being described as “a relationship-based game show with a unique twist.” Hopefully, the twist is that the anxiety is generated by people being separated from their faces, so that their significant other can actually step into them, thus fulfilling Reilly’s promise of awesomeness and the visages that will be gotten into.Everybody wants to be successful. And if you've ever told anyone that you're writing a novel (or screenplay, short story, comic book, rondel, etc.) you'll find out that most people you know are writing or planning on writing or want to write something too. This means there are a lot of people who want to be successful writers out there.
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Image of Tor slush pile by [Cory Doctorow] Creative Commons License
But getting published is hard. Basically, new writers have to be better than the people already published. When I read slush as an intern at big publishing company, my instructions were to give the editors the pretty amazing pieces so they could write personal rejection letters. And even if a book does make it out of the slush and into the hands of an editor, writers are often asked for major revisions and rewrites with no guarantee of purchase or publication. If a book makes it past these hurdles it will still be 1-2 years before it hits the shelves. So it's understandable that people might want to skip the whole publishing thing. I wouldn't want my fate in the hands of an unpaid college intern if I could help it either.
This leads a lot of people to self-publishing. Once a sign of slightly deluded grandiosity, self-publishing now looks like a reasonable move for writers. For some, it's better than reasonable. Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox just bought the rights to Wool a self-published sci-fi novel by Hugh C. Howley. That's pretty successful any way you slice it.
50 Shades of Gray by E.L. James started life as Twilight fan fic before being self-published and becoming a huge success. Amanda Hocking's self-published YA fantasy titles have earned her millions of dollars.
Readers of the Kindle Boards, a website for Kindle enthusiasts, have put together a list of [145 self-published authors ] who have sold more than 50,000 books on Amazon. This list is probably incomplete, as it is unofficial and doesn't include stats from other self-publishing venues like Barnes and Noble or iTunes. Some of these authors sell as many as 50,000 books a month which would be a very solid month for many best-selling authors. Just last month Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos, [told shareholders]
"More than a thousand [self-published] authors now each sell more than a thousand copies a month, some have already reached hundreds of thousands of sales and two have already joined the Kindle Million Club."
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Amanda Hocking, queen of the self-published.
In case you're wondering, the Kindle Million Club's self-published members include Amanda Hocking and John Locke, who is not the philosopher but a thriller writer from Kentucky. Most of the Kindle Million Club, however, is made up of traditionally published authors like George R.R. Martin, Stephanie Meyer, and James Patterson.
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There are very successful self-published authors of science fiction and fantasy out there. Aside from Amanda Hocking, whose 17 titles have sold more than a million virtual books here's a list of some of the most popular authors:
Heather Killough-Walden whose 500,000 sales of her paranormal romances garnered her a book contract.
J.R. Rain, a fantasy author, who has sold some 400,000 copies of his novels.
Tina Folsom's 14 paranormal romance titles sold 300,000 copies in 2011 alone.
B.V. Larson, who writes both sci-fi and fantasy, has sold some 250,000 copies of his 25 titles.
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H.P. Mallory has sold 200,000 copies of her paranormal romances.
David Daglish's fantasy novels have sold 175,000 copies.
Ellen Fisher, whose first book was published traditionally before she struck out on her own, has sold 100,000 copies of her paranormal and normal romance novels.
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Michael Sullivan's historical fantasy novels have sold 90,000 online copies and have now been republished by Hachette.
There are others, like 16-year-old Rachel Yu who has sold or "rented" out 60,000 copies of her offbeat children's books. Paranormal romance writers Denise Grover Swank, Penelope Fletcher and Sarra Cannon have each sold about 60,000 copies. Much like in traditional publishing, romance novels (including the paranormal kind) sell best.
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Proponents of self-publishing like to point to these numbers as an encouraging sign that the market is strong, readers will gladly ignore copyediting errors (thank god they mostly do on the internet), and that big publishing is bad for authors. Successful authors like Amanda Hocking, Hugh Howley and E.L. James eagerly fled for traditional publishing as soon as they had the chance. We may see people return to being strictly self-published in the future, but right now it seems that the marketing power, editorial assistance, PR savvy and dare we say legitimacy of traditional publishing has a stronger lure than getting to set your own price. When asked why she moved to a traditional publisher Hocking said she
"wanted to reach more readers."
Quite the statement from someone |
one end is the standardized test approach to teaching, which may be physically realized in a traditional forward-facing classroom—where the teacher stands at the front of the room and lectures to a class of forward-facing students. On the opposite end, is the exclusively design-thinking schools where project-based learning requires open spaces with flexible, moveable pieces that can section off areas, can be written on, and will be used in different ways each day depending on the topic being explored.
Between the two are a myriad of teaching and classroom alternatives that are just now being explored in new school designs. These will all likely include some mix of fixed and flexible classroom resources that respond to each school’s vision and program. Regardless of where a school stands on this spectrum, these experiments in rethinking the learning environment will play an important role in teaching students in the years to come. The thinking about these spaces will continue to evolve and change as some fail. And that’s something we can learn from and build on.
Peter Pfau, FAIA founding Principal of Pfau Long Architecture in San Francisco, is a modernist who balances conceptual rigor with a love for building.The nation's capital came alive after 11 p.m. on election night, as thousands poured into the streets to celebrate a victory that everyone was calling historic. Car horns blaring, whooping and shouting, high fives all around, multi-racial crowds celebrating joyously. Historic it is, most obviously in the election of an African-American president, in a country where millions of black people could not even vote when the new president-elect was born. The rapper Jay-Z elegantly expressed the Obama campaign's connection to the long struggle for equality, along with the enthusiasm that it generated: "Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. Obama's running so that we all can fly."
But there is another sense in which this election will likely turn out to be historic. For nearly four decades this country has been moving to the right. Unfortunately we must include the Clinton years in this right-wing trajectory: with such major regressive structural changes as welfare reform, the World Trade Organization, and NAFTA, the Clinton administration continued the country's rightward drift on economic if not social issues. In other words, it continued using the government to make rules that would redistribute income, wealth, and power towards the upper classes. (These are generally described somewhat inaccurately as "free-market" or "free-trade" policies.)
The right's ascendance began with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, who rode into office on a backlash against the social movements of the 1960s, especially the civil rights and anti-war movements. Nixon's infamous "Southern Strategy" deployed a coded racist appeal that would help make the South Republican and ensure that no Democratic presidential candidate would get a majority of white voters (they didn't from 1968-2004).
Reagan continued this strategy but also initiated a counter-revolution on the economic front, decimating organized labor and cutting taxes for rich. It was an economic failure by any objective measure but it succeeded in drastically changing the ideological climate on economic issues. By the end of the Reagan (and George H.W. Bush) administrations in 1993, the typical Democratic member of Congress was far to the right of Richard Nixon on most economic policy.
The impact of this economic counter-revolution on the living standards of the majority of Americans can hardly be over-emphasized. Prior to the Reagan years, the United States was on its way to becoming more like Europe, with a welfare state and social safety net that would allow the vast majority of its citizens to enjoy the benefits of a developed, high-income economy. When Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, it was widely believed that insuring the elderly and the poor, respectively, were just the first steps toward universal health insurance.
The assault that began with Ronald Reagan's firing of 12,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981 set the nation on a very different path. By the time George W. Bush took over, he was even able to go after Social Security, the bedrock New Deal anti-poverty program whose beneficiaries include about one-sixth of the population. Bush lost that battle to a grass-roots groundswell of opposition. But the fact that he could even launch such a privatization effort, where Ronald Reagan would not even dare to tread, showed how far America had fallen from the economics, social norms, and basic ethical principles that prior generations had taken for granted.
The end result of America's long right-wing experiment was perhaps the most massive redistribution of income and wealth in our history. Over the last 35 years, there has been virtually no increase in real wages for the majority of the labor force. At the same time the top 1 percent of households (with earnings of more than $1.2 million) saw their real incomes more than triple. A new "gilded age" of gross class inequalities became the norm; workers without a college degree (still more than 70 percent of the labor force) could no longer have the same expectations of landing a job that would allow them to afford a home and a family.
Now that long journey into darkness has finally come to an end. My own view is that the 2006 Congressional elections may have been the turning point. It was then that Democrats regained the Congress on the basis of a more populist appeal by some of their candidates, and a mass revulsion with the war in Iraq. Even if McCain had won the presidency, he would have faced great obstacles in pursuing a right-wing agenda, but he could have taken a lot of people to their graves trying. His best bet for saving the Republican party from a long walk through the political wilderness would have been the one threatened by Vice President Dick Cheney and other fellow neoconservatives: more war, most likely beginning with a military strike against Iran. This is how they retained the Congress in 2002, when the economy was also bleeding jobs after the bursting of the stock market bubble and the consequent recession of 2001. From August 2002 until the November election, the build-up for the Iraq war pushed all of the voters' most important concerns out of the news. It worked.
This time they couldn't pull it off, and Obama's election has saved us from a repeat of these kinds of crimes. One of the most interesting things about this election is that it also showed how the Democrats could have avoided most of this long nightmare of right-wing rule by simply appealing to the class interests of the key swing demographic, which is white working class voters. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, their way back to Kansas was right in front of them all this time. Non-college-educated whites with household income between $30,000-$50,000 voted for George W. Bush by a margin of 24 percentage points; for those with income between $50,000-$75,000 it was 41 percentage points (70-29). Obama did not make the kind of appeal that would really clinch this demographic, which includes many "Reagan Democrats;" but Wall Street did it for him. The financial crisis that exploded in mid-September sealed the outcome of this election. The Republicans' fake populist appeal to these swing voters, painting the Democrats as an "elite" who did not respect their culture or religion, rang hollow in the face of millions of mortgage foreclosures, job losses, collapsing retirement savings, and a shrinking economy. The politics of deploying "weapons of mass distraction," including the so-called "war on terror," had finally run its course.
But foreign policy will remain the Democrats' Achilles' heel for some time to come. This is also a mostly self-inflicted handicap. The most important Democratic leaders promote the same assumptions about foreign policy as the Republicans: that terrorism is practically the most important threat facing our country; that extremism and anti-U.S. sentiment in the world has nothing to do with our foreign policy; that America is really defending itself, or promoting "democracy" when it invades other countries or de-stabilizes foreign governments. If this is really the state of the world, then there is some logic to voting Republican. Why not vote for the guy who is willing protect us by any means necessary from these unavoidable, mortal dangers?
And someone who won't be constrained by a political base that includes peace activists and others who might shrink from the violence necessary to defend ourselves? Of course there are millions of Democratic party activists and primary voters who see right through the charade, and vote Democratic with the hope that the jingoistic campaign rhetoric is just for show. But unfortunately there are a lot of voters who believe the hype from both parties, which is often reinforced in the media. Thus, on the eve of this election, John McCain still had a 14 percentage point edge over Barack Obama on "national security," while trailing on almost every other issue. (Interestingly, the people of Washington DC and New York City, the prior victims and most at-risk of any future terrorist attack, are practically deaf to the right's fear-mongering --McCain lost DC by 93-7 %; while the most receptive audiences live in places like Wyoming and Oklahoma where they are more likely to be hit by a meteor from outer space than to get hurt by a foreign terrorist. This is another indicator of how far removed the politics of "national security" are from any real threats.)
This time none of that stuff mattered, because the economy was going down the drain. However, until the Democrats present a more reality-based program on foreign policy, they will still be vulnerable to external events and the hyping of foreign threats, even if they are ridiculously exaggerated, of our own making, or altogether imaginary.
For now, though, the domestic economy will occupy center stage as the new government faces the worst recession in decades, and one that is just beginning -- the housing bubble that caused this recession is only about 60 percent deflated. The people have voted for change, including expanded health care coverage and -- as they did in 2006 -- an end to the Iraq war. How much change we will actually see will depend more than anything on how much pressure there is from below.The causes of A.L.S. are still largely unknown; about 10 percent of cases appear to be linked to genetic flaws, while the other 90 percent are a persistent mystery. In an exchange of e-mail messages before the interview, Dr. Olney explained that he was first drawn to the disease as a field of study after becoming a neurologist.
"I found out that the daughter of my favorite teacher in junior high died from A.L.S.," he said. Having also trained as a psychiatrist, he said he was "much more comfortable than most neurologists in relating to patients with fatal disease."
He also liked the fact that people with A.L.S. remained mentally sharp. And, he said, in the early 1990's, "advances in molecular biology suggested that A.L.S. might become very treatable during my career."
Then he got the disease himself. Dr. Olney began noticing problems in July 2003: his right leg was becoming a little stiff, and his movement and coordination were slightly impaired. An extensive neurological evaluation turned up a protruding disk that compressed his spinal cord, and so he underwent back surgery in September of that year. For a month afterward, he seemed to be getting better, but by November, "I was obviously getting worse," he wrote. "The possibility of A.L.S. was raised, and was my expectation, as I underwent another round of testing."
Those tests revealed a large herniated disk that put pressure on the spine, and so he and his doctors continued to hope that he had a spinal problem that could be cured with surgery. He had two more operations, in December 2003 and March 2004.
Then, in mid-May of last year, Dr. Olney said, he noticed mild stiffness and slowness developing in his right arm. He gave himself a common test for A.L.S.: counting how many times he could tap his fingers in 10 seconds. From experience, he knew that he could usually tap 65 times but now he had slowed to 55.
"I knew I had A.L.S. then," Dr. Olney recalled.
On June 11, Dr. Lomen-Hoerth gave him the official diagnosis.
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It was, in a way, helpful, said Mrs. Olney, his wife of 30 years, who is a nurse.
"At least you know what you're dealing with, so you're not chasing rainbows any more," she said.
Dr. Olney's condition deteriorated rapidly; he is now in the middle stage of the disease.
He gets around in a $23,000 motorized wheelchair, and sleeps on a special $10,000 bed that tilts him from side to side so that he does not have to wake his wife to turn him over. The costs are covered by insurance.
While his once-crisp speech has become labored and indistinct, he is capable of a slow, tentative smile. And he does smile, often.
For a time, his breathing weakened as well, and he expected to have less than a year to live. That deterioration appears to have leveled off for now.
Losing the ability to breathe independently is the boundary line for A.L.S. patients: they have to decide whether to endure a tracheostomy and let a machine do the breathing for them, or to let their lives end when they can no longer breathe on their own. A ventilator can extend life for years, but more than 90 percent of patients refuse it because of medical complications and greatly increased requirements of care.
Dr. Olney said he did not want the ventilator -- a decision that he made in 1993 when he completed a medical form known as an advance directive.
"My primary focus should be on quality of life," he said without sentiment or apparent sadness.
There has already been so much of that. Dr. Olney's mother died last month of congestive heart failure. Paula Olney's mother died last summer of pancreatic cancer; the family had moved her into their home to spend her final days together.
After Dr. Olney's diagnosis, the couple's grown children, Nick and Amy, moved back into the family home to help care for their father.
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Nick, who is 27, had graduated from the University of California, San Diego with degrees in biochemistry and theater, and was planning to go to medical school. Amy, who is 24, graduated from the University of Washington in 2003 and had entered a master's program in occupational therapy at the university; she transferred her studies to a college in Oakland.
"A.L.S. brings out either the best or worst in a family," Dr. Olney said. "Usually the best."
What are the odds that an A.L.S. researcher will get the disease that he has devoted his life to studying?
In fact, Dr. Olney explained, A.L.S. is not as uncommon as people think. The lifetime chance of getting what is commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease is actually 1 in 1,000, or about the same as getting multiple sclerosis.
The difference is that A.L.S. kills so quickly that the number of living patients at any one time is relatively small -- which also means that there is not a large population of victims to agitate for research and relief.
Only one drug, Rilutek, has been approved specifically for the disease, and it extends life, on average, only by a couple of months.
As a researcher, Dr. Olney proposed a study on two drugs, already on the market, that had shown promise in mice. One, Ritonavir, is used to treat H.I.V. patients; the other, hydroxyurea, is used in leukemia and sickle cell anemia.
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Since the drugs are available for other diseases already, it would be a simple matter for Dr. Olney to get a prescription. Instead, he has opted to join the clinical trial, with the very real possibility that he will receive a placebo instead of a real drug.
Since Dr. Olney set up the trial, he has enough clues to know whether he is in the group testing Ritonavir or hydroxyurea, but he says he does not know whether he is taking the real pill or the placebo.
Clinical trials with placebos offer the best way to judge a drug's effectiveness, and Dr. Olney said he hoped his act would inspire others to take similar risks.
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"It's the only way we'll ever make incremental progress," he said.
Dr. Lomen-Hoerth echoed this view.
"He's setting a great example," she said.
And not just for patients. A colleague at the medical school, Dr. Arnold R. Kriegstein, said Dr. Olney's illness was already serving as an inspiration to young researchers, who tend to view the field as depressing and unpromising.
"This is going to be a terrifically motivating event in the lives of clinicians and investigators whose lives he has touched over the years," he said.
Dr. Kriegstein, who spoke at a symposium that the university held in December in Dr. Olney's honor, is a leading researcher in stem cells. He is working to help develop techniques that will allow the versatile cells to replace those ravaged by the disease.
But that, and other promising therapies, are at least 10 years away, Dr. Kriegstein admitted. Dr. Olney, he said, "is, in a sense, fading away as the research effort is really building up."
Mrs. Olney puts it more bluntly. "If Rick lives long enough to finish the trial he started, that will be pretty amazing."
Earlier in the day, the Olneys visited the Neurofit center, one of the few centers in the nation devoted to exercise for patients with neurological disorders.
Albert Seligman, the trainer, put Dr. Olney through sessions on specialized equipment to fight the spasticity that would otherwise stiffen the limbs and to ease Dr. Olney's breathing.
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The exercise room is tiny -- just 200 square feet carved out of former hallway space, with a stunning view of Golden Gate Park and the Pacific Ocean.
While Dr. Olney strained against the machines, Mrs. Olney walked a brisk three miles on the treadmill.
It was almost like old times.
Until he became ill, the couple led an energetic life, exercising together. They often hiked 8 to 10 miles on Sundays or took 25-mile rides on their mountain bikes.
As they left the building, they ran into one of Dr. Olney's colleagues, who apologized for not having come by for a visit. He explained that he had had a busy schedule of travel, including a recent trip to Switzerland.
"Lucky you!" Mrs. Olney said with a tight smile.
"That used to be our life," she said. "We used to fly all over the world talking about A.L.S. Now we have it."
Paula Olney said she valued the time she had left with her husband, who used to keep such a packed work schedule that they spent time together only on Sundays.
"We have a lot of time to prepare for his passing," she said. "It's not like he cracked up on the freeway, which is how I always thought he would die."
So, she said, "I'll take him any way I can have him, as long as I can have him, but I think he's prepared to die, and I'm prepared for him to die."
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In the meantime, she said, "We eke out a little pleasure in every day."
One night, she recalled, they had gone out to dinner and their van broke down. With no wheelchair-accessible cabs in the area, Dr. Olney decided to make the trip of a few miles back to the house in his motorized wheelchair, which has a range of 20 miles. The journey, he said, "was kind of fun."
As Dr. Olney's fame grows, the offers of advice and help increase in number -- and in strangeness. Mrs. Olney recalled that one letter writer urgently demanded six of Dr. Olney's neck hairs -- "and two from my forearm," Dr. Olney interjected -- to prove that the disease was caused by an overabundance of selenium.
Another correspondent offered to adjust his Chi.
"I need to drink my own urine," Dr. Olney said with a smile, remembering another suggestion.
Mrs. Olney said it was a shame that her husband fell ill now, when otherwise he would have had so many productive years ahead of him.
"Too bad he's famous for dying from this disease instead of finding something to help it," she said.^ Forrest J. Ackerman; Brad Linaweaver (2004). Worlds of Tomorrow: The Amazing Universe of Science-fiction Art. Collectors Press, Inc. p. 12. ISBN 9781888054934. He was Uncle Forry. He made a career out of understanding that the eye is the window to the soul. He was the atheist with a sense of wonder and a love of childhood. He felt the same emotions as deeply religious and sentimental people, which was an unusual quality for the true materialist.
^ "I am a radical Atheist..." Adams in an interview by American Atheists [1]
^ Spirituality, Halo or Hoax - Javedakhtar.com, Spirituality, Halo or Hoax, 26 February 2005. "There are certain things that I would like to make very clear at the very outset. Don’t get carried away by my name – Javed Akhtar. I am not revealing a secret, I am saying something that I have said many times, in writing or on TV, in public...I am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I don’t believe in spirituality of some kind. Some kind. "NDIA TODAY CONCLAVE - Saturday, February 26, 2005", retrieved April 4, 2012"
^ "Ben Allah'a inanmam, ben öldüğümde cesedimi yakın, küllerimi savurun. (Eng. I don't believe in God, when I die, burn my remains and scatter my ashes.)
^ Socialist Review November 2006 (accessed April 22, 2008). "It is well known that I am not a religious person, I grew up and remain an atheist [...]". Tariq Ali, Interview: Tariq Ali November 2006 (accessed April 22, 2008).
^ Here Lies, 208). A confirmed atheist, he heard himself saying, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' " Michael Barber: 'Ambler, Eric Clifford (1909–1998)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2007 "Once, filming in Italy with the American director John Huston and a US army crew, Ambler and his colleagues were shelled so fiercely that his unconscious 'played a nasty trick on him' (Ambler,, 208). A confirmed atheist, he heard himself saying, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' " Michael Barber: 'Ambler, Eric Clifford (1909–1998)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, January 2007 [2] (accessed April 29, 2008).
^ "His son Martin, who led the ceremony, said: "His relationship with the Christian God was not entirely frictionless. In 1962 (the Russian poet) Yevtushenko asked him 'Are you an atheist?'. He replied: 'Well, yes - but it's more that I hate Him'." " John Ezard, 'Secular send-off for an 'old devil' who did not wans too much fuss over his funeral', The Guardian (London), October 23, 1996, p. 8.
^ Moyers and Company, 6 July 2012, Appleman described himself as "not just an atheist but a humanist." On, 6 July 2012, Appleman described himself as "not just an atheist but a humanist."
^ Dismemberment in Drama/Dismemberment of Drama - Chapter Two - The Dismembered Body in Antonin Artaud’s Surrealist Plays. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-01. [3] "Artaud’s theories are phrased in a strongly poetical language that betrays an acute awareness of modernity’s disenchanted life-world, but, at the same time, is obsessed with reviving the supernatural. His profoundly atheist religiosity (if we may call it so) obviously presents great problems to scholarship." Thomas Crombez:. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
^ "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it... I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." Isaac Asimov in "Free Inquiry", Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9 ( See Wikiquote.)
^ "Last week, looking through a book about 15th-century painting in Italy, I began to wonder why I loved these paintings so much. Almost all of them are illustrations of religious subjects, and I have been an atheist almost since the day I was confirmed in the Christian faith by the Bishop of Norwich in 1931. To describe the atheism first: it originated in a certainty that I was going to start breaking the rules as laid down by the god I'd been taught about, followed by a suspicion that if his rules were so easy to break he couldn't be all that he was cracked up to be. Then came its firmer base: the observation that many of the most hideous things done to each other by human beings have been done in his name. It can be argued that this is our fault, not God's. But the god we Europeans are supposed to believe in a) created us as well as everything else that is; b) is omnipotent; c) is Love. In which case, one must assume from the evidence rammed down our throats for century after century that he is liable to fits of serious derangement during which he is Not Himself." Diana Athill, 'I'm a believer - but only in a good story', The Guardian, January 21, 2004, Features Pages, Pg. 5.
^ "Rather than tackle Baldwin's atheist stance, Malcolm found a point of departure on the question of identity, stating that he was "proud to be a black man."" Herb Boyd, Baldwin's Harlem: a biography of James Baldwin (2008), page 75.
^ Welch, Frances. "All Praise and Glory to the Mind of Man". Ballard confesses to being an atheist, but adds: "that said, I'm extremely interested in religion... I see religion as a key to all sorts of mysteries that surround the human consciousness."
^ "I'm an evangelical atheist so I'm not into supernatural effects - I hated The Exorcist - but John Carpenter's remake of The Thing is different." 'I was a brain-eating zombie... As the scary season descends [...] famous horror experts choose their most terrifying screen experiences', The Daily Telegraph, October 30, 2004, Arts Pg. 04.
^ "Maclean's interview: Julian Barnes". Maclean. October 29, 2008. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Writer Julian Barnes talks to Kenneth Whyte about his atheism and saints, his parents and what makes for a best death.
^ Huberman, Jack (2007). The Quotable Atheist. Nation Books. p. 31. ISBN 9781560259695.
^ "Evil and Me", Benford; in 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, ed. Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 157-60.
^ The Comfortable Pew, in which as a lifelong atheist he attacked status quo religiosity, outraged churchgoers. But the wider public came to expect to be challenged by Berton's views." Cathryn Atkinson, 'Obituary: Pierre Berton', The Guardian, December 7, 2004, p. 27. "Berton's book,, in which as a lifelong atheist he attacked status quo religiosity, outraged churchgoers. But the wider public came to expect to be challenged by Berton's views." Cathryn Atkinson, 'Obituary: Pierre Berton',, December 7, 2004, p. 27.
^ "Wilfred Scawen Blunt was notorious as an atheist, a libertine, an adventurer and a poet. Somehow he also found time to be a diplomat - one of the earliest in this country to make a real attempt to understand Islam - and an anti-imperialist, becoming the first British-born person to go to jail for Irish independence." Phil Daoust, The Guardian, March 11, 2008, G2: Radio: Pick of the day, p. 32.
^ " "What song would you like played at your funeral?" "We'll Meet Again. I'd like the congregation to join in. As a devout atheist, I should make it clear there are no religious connotations." " Rosanna Greenstreet, 'Q&A: William Boyd', The Guardian, February 3, 2007, Weekend Pages, Pg. 8.
^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online (accessed August 1, 2008). "Passionate and enthusiastic, Lily was converted to atheism, pacifism, and feminism by Georg von Gizycki, whom she married in 1893."'Braun, Lily ',(accessed August 1, 2008).
^ James K. Lyon; Hans-Peter Breuer, eds. (1995). Brecht Unbound. University of Delaware Press. p. 120. ISBN 9780874135374. With Stravinsky and Brecht we are juxtaposing an avowedly apolitical artist, rather reactionary in most phases of his life, and a practicing Russian Orthodox with a Marxist and atheist.
^ Reviewing a production of The Romans in Britain, Charles Spencer wrote: "It strikes me as an exceptionally powerful study of the human need for belief in a higher power, notwithstanding the fact that Brenton himself is an atheist. And the dramatist examines the nature of Paul's faith with both sympathy and insight." 'A powerful and thrilling act of heresy', The Daily Telegraph, November 10, 2005, Reviews, Pg. 30.
^ Reviewing Mark Polizzotti's Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton Douglas F. Smith called him, "[a] cynical atheist, the poet, critic, and artist harbored an irrepressible streak of romanticism."
^ Surrealism and Painting. Quotations by the poet: Andre Breton "To speak of God, to think of God, is in every respect to show what one is made of.... I have always wagered against God and I regard the little that I have won in this world as simply the outcome of this bet. However paltry may have been the stake (my life) I am conscious of having won to the full. Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!" - André Breton, taking from a footnote from his book,
^ Gilson, Étienne (1988). Linguistics and philosophy: an essay on the philosophical constants of language. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-268-01284-7. Breton professed to be an atheist...
^ Browder, Clifford (1967). André Breton: Arbiter of Surrealism. Droz. p. 133. Again, the atheist Breton's predilection for ideas of blasphemy and profanation, as well as for the " demonic " word noir, contained a hint of Satanism and alliance with infernal powers.
^ Black Ship to Hell (1962)] endeavoured to formulate a morality based on reason rather than religion—Brophy described herself as 'a natural, logical and happy atheist' (King of a Rainy Country, afterword, 276)." Peter Parker: 'Brophy, Brigid Antonia [married name Brigid Antonia Levey, Lady Levey] (1929–1995)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2006 "It [her non-fiction book(1962)] endeavoured to formulate a morality based on reason rather than religion—Brophy described herself as 'a natural, logical and happy atheist' (, afterword, 276)." Peter Parker: 'Brophy, Brigid Antonia [married name Brigid Antonia Levey, Lady Levey] (1929–1995)',, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2006 [4] (accessed April 29, 2008).
^ Reviewing Brownjohn's Collected Poems, Anthony Thwaite wrote: "Brownjohn is 75 at the moment of publication. He has been on the literary scene - publishing, reviewing, judging, chairing, tutoring, giving readings - since the 1950s. He has also been a London borough councillor, a Labour parliamentary candidate (Richmond, Surrey, 1964), very much what I think of as decent, persistent, dogged "Old Labour" - sensitive but solid, inclining towards the puritan (though a self-confessed atheist in matters of religion) - and a strenuous campaigner for serious radio and television, anti-muzak, anti-destruction of libraries, for the proper traditional cultural concerns of the British Council, et al." 'Poetry: The vodka in the verse', The Guardian, October 7, 2006, Review Pages, Pg. 18
^ "For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our education system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."--Charles Bukowski, Life (magazine), December 1988, quoted from James A. Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief.
^ Dan Barker (2011). The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God. Ulysses Press. p. 170. ISBN 9781569758465. An essayist who popularized the American romantic view of nature, Burroughs wrote, “When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God.'" In his 1910 journal, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all-that has been my religion."
^ New Jersey Jewish News, September 20, 2007 (accessed 21 April 2008). Bush describes himself as "an atheist who has nevertheless worked intimately in Jewish religious institutions as a writer and editor for much of my adult life." The rabbi and the atheist, September 20, 2007 (accessed 21 April 2008).
^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 "By this time she had become an atheist and socialist." Nathalie Blondel: 'Butts, Mary Franeis (1890–1937)',, Oxford University Press, 2004 [5] (accessed April 30, 2008).
^ "Though an atheist, Cabral had a deep, atavistic fear of the devil. When his wife died in 1986, he placed an emblem of Our Lady of Carmen around her neck, saying, in his mocking way, that this would make sure that she went directly to heaven, without being stopped at customs." 'Joao Cabral: His poetry voiced the sufferings of Brazil's poor', The Guardian, October 18, 1999, Leader Pages; p. 18.
^ He stated in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students: "Most students... wish to know whether I believe in the existence of God or in immortality, and if so why. They regard it impossible to leave these matters unsettled – or at least extremely detrimental to religion not to have the basis of such conviction. Now for my part I do not find it impossible to leave them open.... I can describe myself as no ardent theist or atheist." - Henry Cadbury, "My Personal Religion", republished on the Quaker Universalist Fellowship website.
^ Cf. "Political Autobiography of a Young Man" and "Objective Biographical Notice" in Hermit in Paris, 133, 162
^ Paul Malmont (2011). The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown: A Novel. Simon and Schuster. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-4391-6893-6. For, even though John W. Campbell was an avowed atheist, when the most powerful ed at Street & Smith lost his temper, he put the fear of God into others.
^ David Simpson writes that Camus affirmed "a defiantly atheistic creed." Albert Camus (1913–1960), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006, (Accessed June 14, 2007).
a b Haught, James A. (1996). 2,000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt. Prometheus Books. pp. 261–262. ISBN 1-57392-067-3.
^ Biagini, Mario, Giosuè Carducci, Mursia, 1976, p. 208.
^ "All the mythic versions of women, from the myth of the redeeming purity of the virgin to that of the healing, reconciling mother, are consolatory nonsenses; and consol |
ari’s business dealings that we can make one expose every week. We are also gathering information about other political leaders and plan to divulge it during the election campaign.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel arrives at the Pentagon for his first day at work
Shortly after his swearing-in as defence secretary, Chuck Hagel has said the US should engage with the world rather than dictate to it.
Mr Hagel told Pentagon employees that the US must lead with its allies.
He made the remarks a day after the Senate approved his appointment following a bruising nomination battle.
Also on Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee delayed a vote on whether to approve President Barack Obama's nominee for CIA director.
Mr Hagel was confirmed by a 58-41 vote after Republicans stalled his nomination, questioning his past positions on Israel and Iran and his qualification for the job.
He replaces Leon Panetta, who was confirmed unanimously in June 2011.
Use resources 'wisely'
In 15 minutes of remarks at the Pentagon, Mr Hagel called for the US to continue building strong relationships with old and new allies.
"We can't dictate to the world, but we should engage with the world," said the nation's 24th defence secretary.
Hagel has stirred up a sudden storm in a chai glass here, with past suggestions that India has been using Afghanistan as a'second front' against its old rival Pakistan
He added that the US was a "force for good" and that the US military should use its resources around the globe "wisely".
The former Republican Nebraska senator arrives at the Pentagon two days before $46bn (£30bn) in across-the-board cuts are set to hit the military.
On the budget cuts, Mr Hagel thanked staff for working to figure out how to deal with the reductions. But he said the real danger was the "uncertainty of planning, the uncertainty of commitment".
The new defence secretary also said he was committed to making sure that both US troops and civilian workers were treated fairly and equitably.
Two weeks ago, Republicans delayed a vote on Mr Hagel's confirmation.
But they dropped the filibuster stalling tactic, the first time it had ever been used to delay confirmation of a defence secretary, on Tuesday after a week-long recess.
President Barack Obama's Democratic Party holds a 55-45 edge in the chamber, and Mr Hagel ultimately only needed 50 votes to be confirmed in the final vote.
Republican Senators Thad Cochran, Rand Paul, Richard Shelby and Mike Johanns voted in favour of Mr Hagel's appointment.
Also on Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee delayed a vote on White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, whom Mr Obama has nominated as the next director of the CIA.
The panel's top-ranking Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss, said a vote would be rescheduled for Tuesday but did not explain why it had been delayed.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have expressed concern over the government's use of unmanned drones to carry out "targeted killings", and have suggested a vote on Mr Brennan should be delayed until the committee can review certain secret documents relating to the programme.Three suspects are now facing federal charges after allegedly stealing around 50 firearms from a gun shop in Safford, Alabama.
According to the affidavit, the suspects allegedly pried open a metal door, broke an interior door window and crawled into Safford Tire and Hardware early in the morning on May 10.
The suspects–later identified through surveillance video as Jabriel Bell, Fortune Hoppins, and Stanley Young–then stole around 50 firearms from the store and fled the scene. All three had outstanding state arrest warrants for bank robbery.
Officers arrested Bell at the Travelers Inn in Selma on May 11. Bell then admitted to burglarizing the store with Hoppins and Young and told ATF agents he had left a stash of the stolen guns in the woods where he had briefly hid near the store.
ATF agents then tracked down and recovered 23 of the firearms based on Bell’s story. All of the recovered weapons listed in the affidavit were semiautomatic pistols.
Hoppins has also been arrested and officers were still trying to locate Young. A three suspects have been charged with stealing firearms.The professional who is specialized in the collection of all drugs, choosing the very best of each simple or compound, and in the preparation of good remedies from them following the most accurate methods and techniques as recommended by experts in the healing arts.
Al-Biruni’s definition of the pharmacist could have been written today. Along the road from sympathetic magic and shamanism to scientific method, much trailblazing was carried out over a few centuries by scholars, alchemists, physicians and polymaths of the Muslim Middle East, and their rules, procedures and expectations are, to a great extent, practiced almost universally today.
Pictures From History / Bridgeman Images Flanked by figures indicating his tutelage from master physicians (the figure on the right may represent first-century Greek physician Dioscorides), a saydalani—as an early pharmacist was called in Arabic—is shown at work in his dispensary, in which hang a variety of vessels for alchemical production. The illustration comes from 12th-century Iraq.
“In the West and the Middle East, early medicine as a whole was primarily a fusion of Greek, Indian, Persian and later Roman practices that had progressed over the better part of a millennium. Texts on medications were common, but most of these materia medica were simply lists of plants and minerals and their various effects. By the start of the seventh century ce Europe and much of the Near East had weakened culturally, and those achievements of Hellenistic arts, sciences and humanities that had not been erased were on an intellectual endangered-species list.
“By mid-century, the rise of Islam brought with it a new thirst for knowledge. This openness to discovery began the saving and, eventually, the expansion of much of what the classical world had lost. Nowhere was this truer than in the field of health, where medical practitioners took guidance from several hadiths (hah-DEETH), or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, such as this related by Bukhari: “God never inflicts a disease unless He makes a cure for it.” Similarly, Abu Darda narrated that the Prophet said, “God has sent down the disease and the cure, and He has appointed a cure for every disease, so treat yourselves medically.” Such words placed the responsibility for discovering cures squarely on the medical practitioner.
Within a century of the death of the Prophet in 632 ce, one of the earliest systematic approaches to drugs was under way in Damascus at the court of the ruling Umayyads. Snake and dog bites, as well as the ill effects of scorpions, spiders and other animals, were all causes of concern, and the poisonous properties of minerals and plants such as aconite, mandrake and black hellebore were exploited. As with most most areas of medicine at the time, Greek physicians Galen and Dioscorides were considered the ancient authorities, and building off their works, Muslim writers discussed with particular interest poisons and theriacs (antidotes).
Sudden death was not uncommon in royal courts, and it was frequently attributed, often erroneously, to poison. Not surprisingly, fear of poison convinced Umayyad leaders of the need to study them, detect them and cure them. As a result, much of early Islamic pharmacy was done by alchemists working in toxicology.
The first of these was Ibn Uthal, a Christian who served as physician to the first Umayyad caliph, Mu’awiyah. Ibn Uthal was a noted alchemist who had conducted a systematic study of poisons and antidotes. He was also reported to be Mu’awiyah’s silent executioner, and in 667 he was himself poisoned in an act of vengeance by the relatives of one of his alleged victims. Another Christian physician-pharmacist, Abu al-Hakam al-Dimashqi, served the second Umayyad caliph, Yazid.
Pictures From History / Bridgeman Images This depiction of an early European apothecary appeared in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 14th-century Latin translation of Ibn Butlan’s 11th-century Taqwim al-Sihah (Maintenance of Health). Pictures From History / Bridgeman Images This page from Kitab al-Diryaq (The Book of Antidotes), a 13th-century guide to medicinal plants, also from Iraq, highlights the role of botany in early Islamic pharmacy.
Yazid’s son, Khalid ibn Yazid, took particular interest in alchemy, and he employed Greek philosophers who were living in Egypt. He rewarded them well, and they translated Greek and Egyptian books on chemistry, medicine and astronomy into Arabic. A contemporary of Khalid’s was Jabir ibn Hayyan, called Geber in the West, who promoted alchemy as a profession, laying early foundations for chemical and biochemical research.
These early Islamic alchemists proved to be meticulous and persistent in their experimentation, and they made careful written observations of results. They designed their experiments to gather information and answer specific questions, and through them “scientific alchemy” arose. Avoiding
unproven belief (superstition) in favor of the compilation and application of procedures, measurements and demonstrated trials that could be tested and reproduced, their work represented the true advent of the scientific method.
The role of scientific alchemy cannot be overemphasized. By the ninth century, the trend, approach and type of information that circulated in Arabic alchemical manuals represented some of the best work in this field. The careful methodology the alchemists developed served all fields, including pharmacy.
In the process of experimenting in making amalgamations and elixirs, important mineral and chemical substances were used, such as sal ammoniac, vitriols, sulphur, arsenic, common salt, quicklime, malachite, manganese, marcasite, natron, impure sodium borate and vinegar.
Among simples of botanical origin, they used fennel, saffron, pomegranate rinds, celery, leek, sesame, rocket, olives, mustard and lichen. Significant gums such as frankincense and acacia were used, as well as animal products including hair, blood, egg white, milk (both fresh and sour), honey and dung.
Biblioteque De L'Arsenal / Archives Chamet / Bridgeman Images A French manuscript from the 14th century depicts alchemists at work. Some 500 years later, French chemist Henri Moissan was shown at work in his lab at Paris’s l’Ecole de pharmacie, below.
Laboratory equipment consisted of pots, pans, tubes, retorts, alembics, crucibles and various distilling apparatus; covering platters, ceramic jars, tumblers, mortars and pestles (often made of glass or metals); as well as tripods, scales and medicinal bottles. The range and scope of alchemical operations included processes often used today: distillation, sublimation, evaporation, pulverization, washing, straining, cooking, calcination and condensation (the thickening of liquid compounds).
While translation of Greek, Persian and Indian scientific books into Arabic had begun under the Umayyad caliphate, it blossomed in the ninth century under the Baghdad-based Abbasids. Hunayn ibn Ishaq, with his superlative knowledge of Syriac, Greek and Arabic, was probably the greatest of the translators, and his works included most of the corpus of Hippocrates and Galen. Intellectual ferment, reinforced by support from the highest levels of government, paved the way for some 400 years of achievements. Methods of extracting and preparing medicines were brought to a high art, and these techniques became the essential processes of pharmacy and chemistry.Bomb squads were dispatched in regards to an IED planted under a Mclennan County bridge Tuesday night.
ATF EOD teams used a water cannon on the container found just outside Rosebud, Texas- about forty miles outside of Waco.
Combustible liquids and shotgun shells were found inside the container, according to USA Today. Sheriff Parnell Mcnamara said the IED was designed in such a way that it would have dispersed shrapnel and would have been “extremely dangerous” had it gone off.
“Someone had made this to create lots of damage and harm,” McNamara said.
No injuries were sustained in the removal of the roadside bomb, which had its contents sent to the lab for analysis. No motives or suspects have been named at this time.
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On an emotional day for Bills fans, the players were every bit as fired up. Knowing football is an emotional game, Miami WR Mike Wallace felt he and his Dolphins teammates just couldn’t match the intensity of the Bills Sunday.
“We have to have more intensity,” said Wallace. “We didn’t have enough intensity out there. Those guys were fired up on every single play. Every single play. You heard them screaming and yelling. They were fired up and we were quiet. You’re not going to win like that. I understand if trash talking is not your thing, but when those guys are fired up like that, you have to show emotion back and take it to the same level as them.”
When asked why they came out so flat, Wallace couldn’t put his finger on it.
“They had a lot of intensity. We weren’t close to their intensity,” he said. “That’s why they won the football game. They did a good job of playing football, but their intensity was so much higher than ours that I think that’s why they won the game honestly. They were riled up. Telling each other, ‘Let’s go!’ Talking crazy to us. Some people feed off that. Even if it was a guy not making the play, but he’s fired up and he’s getting his teammate fired up. I think you might’ve had to be on the field. It was crazy.”
Tags: Bills-Dolphins Posted in Inside the BillsPresident Trump on Tuesday defended the controversial $1 trillion-plus budget deal heading for a vote – as he and congressional Republicans face conservative anger at what critics see as a cave to Democrats on everything from sanctuary cities to funding for Planned Parenthood.
“The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there!” Trump tweeted, adding that the solution is to elect more Republican senators in 2018 "or change the rules" of the Senate filibuster.
The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017 either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
He added a warning shot: "Our country needs a good'shutdown' in September to fix mess!"
Republican and Democratic lawmakers made the budget deal, announced Monday, in order to fund the government through September and avoid a shutdown later this week. But despite Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, the deal is widely perceived as benefiting Democratic interests and priorities, while sidelining some of the items on Trump's wishlist.
Heritage Action, an outside conservative group, on Tuesday urged a "no" vote on the package, with Heritage Foundation analysts claiming it "woefully fails the test of fiscal responsibility and does not advance important conservative policies."
The plan has no funding for Trump’s much vaunted border wall, though it includes $1.5 billion for border security.
While the deal does include an increase in military spending as requested by Trump, it does not reduce funding for so-called “sanctuary cities” – jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal immigration law – and continues to fund abortion provider Planned Parenthood.
Non-defense spending also sees an increase, and Democrats managed to kill 160 Republican riders on issues such as environmental regulations. The deal also includes a $2 billion increase in spending for the National Institutes of Health.
At a White House ceremony to award a trophy to the Air Force football team, Trump again hailed parts of the deal, saying it secured the "single largest increase in border security funding in 10 years" and noted that it broke the Obama-era "parity rule" -- that every increase in military spending must be matched by an increase in domestic spending.
"That's not happening any more, I can tell you...you're going to have the money we need and the equipment we need," he said. "Our military is going to be taken care of, that I promise you."
But Democrats reacted with glee to a supposed victory pulled out of the embers of a brutal November election defeat.
“I think we had a strategy and it worked,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate were closer to one another than Republicans were to Donald Trump.”
Conservatives took to media outlets and TV to express their anger, aimed particularly at congressional Republicans and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
“DEMS CELEBRATE 'REPUBLICAN' BUDGET!” declared the top headline on the Drudge Report Tuesday morning, accompanied by a grinning picture of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Another headline read: “MORE PAGES THAN OBAMA STIMULUS”
“We do not have a Republican Party on Capitol Hill that can get its act together,” Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.
“I don’t know how you would carry water for this," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Monday. "Not that I want to; don’t misunderstand. I’m just coming up with new ways to explain what a sellout, disaster, betrayal — whatever you want to call this — it is."
At a House GOP leadership press conference Tuesday morning, however, Speaker Ryan and other top Republicans defended the package. Ryan touted the “down payment on border security” and dismissed what he called Democrats’ “PR machine” playing up their end of the bargain.
“Don’t look at the press releases, look at the bill,” Ryan said, adding there are “a lot of conservative wins here.”
Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., touted pay raises for military service members and cuts to “areas where we’ve seen government run out of control” like the EPA.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus predicted conservative opposition in Congress.
"Money goes to Planned Parenthood, as you said. Money continues to go to sanctuary cities, but no money for the border wall," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in an interview with CNN.
"I think you're going to see a lot of conservatives against this plan this week."
Even before Trump’s tweets, some Republicans looked to defend the bill. They noted that Trump got the defense spending priorities he asked for, while pointing to other victories such as no new money for Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, a 50 percent increase for abstinence education, increased funding in the fight against opioid addiction, and another cut for the EPA’s budget.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer noted that the deal includes $1.5 billion secured for enhanced border security and detention capabilities, and called it a “down payment” on the border wall, which he reiterated is going to get built during Trump’s time in office.
"Make no mistake, the wall is going to be built," he said. "We have five months left in this fiscal year, we're getting $1.52 billion for border security, there's a lot that can be done with that."
But some conservatives say passing a bill funding Democratic priorities will hurt Republicans down the road in the 2018 midterms.
“I find this to be so demoralizing, disappointing and I think they’re going to have hell to pay for this budget,” Ingraham said.
The bill is expected to go to the House floor Wednesday, and to the Senate Thursday, ahead of the shutdown deadline on Friday.
Fox News’ John Roberts and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.On Thursday Night, General Manager Todd Kelman welcomed back Neil Francis as bench coach to the club he has been a part of for nearly 20 years. Francis also explained his new role as Director of Hockey Operations, a role that will see him working closely with the coach on player recruitment and team management throughout the season.
Francis announced that Andrew Lord would be the player coach for the Devils for the upcoming season and that he was already working away on building his team.
The appointment of Andrew Lord means that Dave Whistle will not be back as Head Coach next season. Kelman who won 3 championships playing under Whistle, first in Bracknell then in Belfast, said it was a very tough decision but one that fits with the plan for the team this season.
“The rebuilding process requires a lot of changes and this was one that we felt was necessary to ensure we had the best opportunity to improve the on ice product,” explained Kelman.
“At this time, we wanted to ensure that our money was spent on the ice and although this was a very tough decision, it was one that had to be made.”
“I obviously hope Dave lands on his feet, which I am sure he will. He is a great coach and has had a lot of success in UK hockey and we wish him well.”
Photograph by Richard Murray: (left to right) Todd Kelman, Neil Francis and Steve King.President Obama says government will have to build the nation out of the economic trough.
"We're the country that built the intercontinental railroad," Obama says. "So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads?"
Ironic that he mentions the Chinese. Progressives used to complain that to build the railroad, bosses abused Chinese workers—called them "coolies" and treated them badly. Now this is big success?
I guess Obama doesn't know that the transcontinental railroad was a Solyndra-like Big Government scandal. The railroad didn't make economic sense at the time, so the government subsidized construction and gave the companies huge quantities of the best land on the continent. As we should expect, without market discipline—profit and loss—contractors ripped off the taxpayers. After all, if you get paid by the amount of track you lay, you'll lay more track than necessary.
Credit Mobilier, the first rail construction company, made enormous profits by overcharging for its work. To keep the subsidies flowing, it made big contributions to congressmen.
Where have we heard that recently?
The transcontinental railroad lost tons of money. The government never covered its costs, and most rail lines that used the tracks went bankrupt or continued to be subsidized by taxpayers. The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific—all those rail lines we learned about in history class—milked the taxpayer and then went broke.
One line worked. The Great Northern never went bankrupt. It was the railroad that got no subsidies.
We need infrastructure, but the beauty of leaving most of these things to the private sector—without subsidies, bailouts and other privileges—is that they would have to be justified by the profit-and-loss test. In a truly free market, when private companies make bad choices, investors lose their own money. This tends to make them careful.
By contrast, when government loses money, it just spends more and raises your taxes, or borrows more, or inflates. Building giant government projects is no way to create jobs. When government spends on infrastructure, it takes money away from projects that consumers might think are more important.
When government isn't killing jobs by sucking money out of the private sector, it kills jobs by smothering the private sector with regulation. I talked to Peter Schiff about all this. Schiff is a good authority because he was one of the few people to warn of the housing bust. Now he's had a run-in with the federal government over job creation.
Schiff, who operates a brokerage firm with 150 employees, recently complained to Congress that "regulations are running up the cost of doing business, and a lot of companies never even get started because they can't overcome that regulatory hurdle."
Schiff claims he would have hired a thousand more people but for regulations.
"I had a huge plan to expand. I wanted to open up a lot of offices. I had some capital to do it. I had investors lined up. My business was doing really well. But unfortunately, because of the regulations in the security industry, I was not able to hire."
So if he wants to hire an analyst, he can't just hire him?
"I had to get permission to publish their research, which I didn't get for years. And so I can't pay analysts if I can't sell their research.
People don't appreciate the number of regulations entrepreneurs face. Schiff pays 10 people just to try to figure out if his company is obeying the rules.
"You can't just act very quickly, because everything has to be done through this maze of compliance. Even my brokers... find out that maybe 20 percent, 30 percent of their day is involved in compliance-related activity, activity that is inhibiting their productivity.... All around the country, people are complying with regulations instead of producing, instead of investing and growing the economy. They're trying to survive the regulations."
This is no way to create jobs or wealth. Keynesian pundits and politicians can't understand why businesses sit on cash rather than invest and hire unemployed workers. It's really no mystery. Government is in the way.
John Stossel is host of Stossel on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of Give Me a Break and of Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.
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DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COMMANY parents who picked up their children from Park View School on June 9th took home something else too: an official report excoriating the school. Ofsted, England’s schools inspector, had downgraded the largely Muslim institution to “inadequate”, saying it had failed to protect children from extremism. But parents outside the gates were less alarmed at this than cross about the report and the disruption it was causing. “If he messes up his GCSEs, I’ll hold David Cameron personally responsible,” said an angry father, pointing at his son.
A few months ago Birmingham City Council received a letter purporting to advise Muslim militants how to take over a state school. The letter might be a hoax, but it struck some as painfully accurate. Stories appeared of staff pushed out by hard-line governors (elected amateurs who appoint head teachers and set schools’ strategic direction). As the row grew, the government ordered snap inspections of 21 schools. Some of their findings are damning. But British Muslims—many of whom are Pakistani—have damned the government.
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Ofsted and the Education Funding Agency, which oversees quasi-independent state “academies” like Park View, found much that was objectionable. Inspectors turned up examples of schools refusing to teach about sex, teaching only Islam in religion classes while telling the few pupils studying Christianity to do their own research, and inviting an extremist preacher to address an assembly. Loudspeakers are said to have broadcast the call to prayer across Park View’s playground. One of the schools banned raffles and tombolas at a fete on the ground that they are un-Islamic. None of the schools inspected is supposed to be a religious school.
A teacher who recently left one of the condemned schools confirms some of this. Anti-gay comments were excused on the basis that homosexuality is forbidden by Islam, he says. Some members of staff failed to call on girls in class: “If you weren’t male and you weren’t Muslim, you were unhappy at that school.”
The government, after some internal wrangling about who had overlooked extremism (see Bagehot), has responded forcefully. Academies found inadequate will lose their funding. Ofsted may be allowed to inspect schools without giving notice: at present it normally warns them a day or two in advance. From September all schools will be required to promote British values such as freedom, tolerance and the rule of law (at present they must merely respect them). Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has called for mandatory training for governors. More schools are hurriedly being inspected.
The trouble is that many Muslims, in Birmingham and beyond, trust neither the inspectors’ reports nor the government. When last inspected, some of the schools in Birmingham were judged outstanding, which suggests to some that inspectors went back into them with an agenda. The Park View academy chain has staged a vigorous defence, in which non-Muslims are prominent. Conspiracy theories abound. “People can’t take a school in Alum Rock with Asian kids doing better than grammar schools,” suggests a young man who left Park View two years ago.
The Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella group for Islamic outfits, is only a little more delicate. Muslim schools have been tarred by allegations of extremism on scant evidence, it says. It adds that some of the criteria on which Birmingham’s schools are judged to have failed, such as how well they prepare pupils for life in modern Britain, seem to be applied only to Muslim-dominated schools.
Ofsted is certainly muddling the distinction between religious conservatism and the kind of extremism that feeds violence. Inspectors criticise schools for failing to raise pupils’ awareness of extremism and for engaging insufficiently with the “Prevent” programme, which is part of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. Such criticisms call forth the spectre of terrorism to condemn behaviour that is no such thing. That is both misplaced and strategically unwise. The more things the state describes as extremist, the more it risks angering many ordinary Muslims and turning them against it.
Sweden, which inspired Britain’s free schools, separates the two issues more cleanly. School inspectors are not specifically tasked with rooting out violent extremism; the government has a separate process to deal with that. Some of the problems thrown up by religious conservatism, such as Muslim parents removing their daughters from gym classes, are dealt with by means of sex-equality rules. Still, even the much-lauded Swedes struggle at times. In 2011 inspectors found a Muslim free school that insisted on prayers and barred menstruating girls from joining in some activities.
And Britain faces a bigger problem than does Sweden. English cities like Birmingham contain numerous conservative Muslims, many of them Pakistani and more-or-less shaped by that country’s growing fundamentalism. Nudging them towards the British mainstream will be both hard and perilous. The state has tried permitting a few formally Muslim state schools; it has apparently tried overlooking the takeover of supposedly normal schools. Now it is trying a different option: dramatically raising the noise level about Muslim extremism in education. Whether this works or not, it will echo for a long time.Want to get the latest Fantasy Tips and Updates? Follow Us!
Gameweek 18 proved to be another successful one for the Bookies’ Advantage squad with a 66 point haul. This was mainly thanks to the efforts of captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic (30) and Eden Hazard (10).
Read on as we present the clean sheet and anytime goalscorer odds for Gameweek 19 in order to help you with your transfer, squad selection and captaincy decisions…
Defensive odds
Team Best clean sheet odds Implied chance of a clean sheet Man Utd 1.75 57% Chelsea 1.8 56% Southampton 2.05 49% Arsenal 2.1 48% Everton 2.38 42% Tottenham 2.45 41% Burnley 2.75 36% Leicester 2.9 34% Sunderland 3.3 30% Bournemouth 3.5 29% Swansea 3.6 28% Liverpool 3.8 26% West Ham 4.33 23% Man City 4.5 22% Hull 4.5 22% Watford 5 20% West Brom 5 20% Middlesbrough 8.8 11% Stoke 9.6 10% Crystal Palace 11 9%
Manchester United sit top of the bookies’ defensive rankings for the second gameweek in succession with a 57% chance of shutting out Middlesbrough at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon. The Red Devils have kept 2 clean sheets in their last 4 outings, whilst Aitor Karanka’s men have only scored 7 in their 9 away games so far, blanking in both of their last 2. Phil Jones is the cheapest starter in United’s back line and makes our XI.
Chelsea are hot on United’s tails in the rankings with a 56% chance of a clean sheet when Stoke visit Stamford Bridge on Saturday. The Blues have the best defence in the division, conceding just 11 goals in 18 games, and have recorded 8 clean sheets in their last 10 games. The Potters have scored 9 goals in 9 on their travels this term, including in each of their last 6, but the return of N’Golo Kante from suspension should shore up Antonio Conte’s back line even further. Marcos Alonso continues to offer attacking threat from his left midfield berth and starts for our squad.
Southampton (49%) and Arsenal (48%) rank third and fourth for Gameweek 19 when they entertain West Brom and Crystal Palace respectively. The Saints, prior to last night’s game against Tottenham, had the second best home defence in the league, conceding just 5 times in 8 matches, including clean sheets in each of their last 3 at St Mary’s. Opponents West Brom have scored just 7 times in 9 on the road, blanking in their last 2. Arsenal, meanwhile, kept their first clean sheet at The Emirates since October in Gameweek 18, and will be looking to add to that when Crystal Palace visit on New Year’s Day. However, with the Eagles currently the fourth best away attack in the top flight (17 scored in 9 games), the Gunners’ defence will have to be at their best to register successive shutouts. Fraser Forster and Gabriel offer security of starts and value respectively, seeing both make our starting XI.
To fill the remainder of our defensive slots, we opt for Stoke’s budget friendly Lee Grant (£4.0m – 10%) as our backup keeper, with Everton’s Mason Holgate (£4.0m – 42%) and Burnley’s Ben Mee (£4.5m – 36%) taking the second and third spots on our bench respectively.
Before moving onto our analysis of the bookmakers attacking odds, a quick look at the bottom rungs of the clean sheet ladder tells us that defensive assets from Middlesbrough (11% – away to Man United), Stoke (10% – away to Chelsea) and Crystal Palace (9% – away to Arsenal) should be avoided this weekend.
Attacking odds
Player Best anytime goalscorer odds Implied chance of scoring Diego Costa 1.7 59% Alexis Sanchez 1.8 56% Olivier Giroud 1.91 52% Zlatan Ibrahimovic 1.95 51% Michy Batshuayi 2.15 47% Harry Kane 2.18 46% Eden Hazard 2.2 45% Theo Walcott 2.3 43% Romelu Lukaku 2.3 43% Sergio Aguero 2.45 41% Callum Wilson 2.75 36% Daniel Sturridge 2.8 36% Fernando Llorente 2.8 36% Islam Slimani 2.9 34% Jermain Defoe 2.9 34% Sadio Mane 3.1 32% Henrikh Mkhitaryan 3.1 32% Sam Vokes 3.1 32% Son Heung-Min 3.1 32% Divock Origi 3.15 32% Gylfi Sigurdsson 3.2 31% Willian 3.2 31% Paul Pogba 3.25 31% Riyad Mahrez 3.3 30% Sofiane Boufal 3.3 30% Dele Alli 3.35 30% Roberto Firmino 3.4 29% Andy Carroll 3.4 29% Nathan Redmond 3.4 29% Dusan Tadic 3.4 29% Joshua King 3.5 29% Nolito 3.65 27% Mesut Ozil 3.65 27% Kevin Mirallas 3.75 27% Christian Eriksen 3.85 26% Kevin de Bruyne 4 25% Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 4 25% Troy Deeney 4.2 24% Salomon Rondon 4.2 24% Ross Barkley 4.35 23% Victor Anichebe 4.4 23% Christian Benteke 4.5 22% Andre Ayew 4.5 22% Michail Antonio 4.5 22% Dimitri Payet 4.5 22% Yaya Toure 4.7 21% Raheem Sterling 4.7 21% Gerard Deulofeu 5 20% Junior Stanislas 5 20% Wilfried Bony 5.6 18% Robert Snodgrass 5.75 17% Nacer Chadli 5.8 17% Alvaro Negredo 6 17% James Milner 6 17% Bojan 6 17% Jonathan Walters 7 14% Andros Townsend 7.5 13% Emre Can 7.75 13% Cristhian Stuani 8 13% Etienne Capoue 8 13% Wilfried Zaha 8 13% Matt Phillips 8 13% Ryan Mason 8.5 12% Gaston Ramirez 10 10% Adama Traore 12.5 8%
Diego Costa returns from suspension and returns to the top of the bookmakers’ attacking ranks with a 59% chance of finding the net against Stoke on Saturday. The Premier League’s top scorer (13 goals) takes on a Stoke Side that have conceded 15 times in 9 away games, including 7 in their |
times this year and, as I said, just as an outsider looking in, I didn’t see a lot of help going his way.
“I could tell at press conferences, media days, and this is just me talking, he didn’t look real comfortable in front of the cameras on his own.
“To be thrust in as a captain at such a young age, and so much expectation on yourself, it’s a hard job. People don’t understand what a hard job it is.”
Moylan is unlikely to play any part in the Panthers’ finals series after being granted indefinite leave on Monday.
Following speculation the 26-year-old was on the outer at Penrith, club general manager Phil Gould said Moylan had struggled with the pressure of captaincy and form but had a long-term commitment to the club.
Ben Ikin, Nathan Ryan and Ben Glover are joined by Nate Myles to discuss his recent move to the Storm and look at what needs to change for the bottom seven in 2018.
You can also subscribe via iTunes or for Android users, listen on the iPP Podcast Player app.
Panthers great Mark Geyer believes Moylan should not be captain in 2018. “I don’t think the captaincy sits well with Matty,” Geyer told Triple M Sydney on Tuesday.
“I think he needs to be a bit of a free soul on the footy field.
“At the moment, him having that extra burden as captain has stifled his play.”
Geyer, who played 135 games for the Panthers, said he agreed with Moylan’s decision to take leave if he wasn’t “committed in mind, body and soul”.
The Panthers face Manly in an elimination final on Saturday.
“As a Panthers fan, I’m disappointed our best player won’t be running out this Saturday night but... I just hope he gets himself right,” Geyer said.
Gould said Panthers officials would discuss the prospect of Moylan retaining his leadership role when he returned.
The former NSW State of Origin star was into his second year as club captain.MinimalismVille is the first 50-hour mapping challenge I have run. It will not be the last!
It contains 21 entries and a bonus map.
The focus of this theme was to use a little as possible. The mapper decided what was “little”.
Basic Details
Title: MinimalismVille
MinimalismVille Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-thc17-c2-minimalismville
hl2-ep2-sp-thc17-c2-minimalismville Size : 142MB
142MB Author: ESToomere, Mark A.K.A. Strontvlieg, November, Crowbar, Tiop, ethosaur, Event Horizon, HighFire, ThatsRidonkulous, Rob Martens, DarenDark, Dirk Destiny, 1upD, Sockman, Mista Heita, Builderpro, Niker107, BlueASIS, TurretCube, Ian Spadin AKA Idolon, Frag, Klems
ESToomere, Mark A.K.A. Strontvlieg, November, Crowbar, Tiop, ethosaur, Event Horizon, HighFire, ThatsRidonkulous, Rob Martens, DarenDark, Dirk Destiny, 1upD, Sockman, Mista Heita, Builderpro, Niker107, BlueASIS, TurretCube, Ian Spadin AKA Idolon, Frag, Klems Date Released: 05 May 2017
Download Options
Download to your HDD 142MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
Manual Installation Instructions
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
Copy the hl2-ep2-sp-50hmc-minimalismville folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\Sourcemods\ folder.
Start or restart Steam
RTSL.50HMC.MinimalismVille should now be listed in your “Library” tab.
50-Hour Mapping Challenge
One day an idea suddenly appeared in my head (like one of those light bulbs from the cartoons).
I decided to announce it and see what happens. I had no idea if it was going to be successful or a complete failure.
21 entries suggests I should run it again and I will.
Entrants had 50 hours to build a map.
Often, mappers get too ambitious and either never release the map or change it so much that it’s not as good as they had hoped.
With the 50-Hour deadline, I hoped that mappers would simply select a simple idea and build it.
It seems to have worked.
IMPORTANT NOTE
After the first entrant-only release, it became clear that there was an issue with brightness in some maps played after other maps.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank DarenDark for creating a guide to fix the issue and Rob Martens for actually fixing all the maps.
Without either of them the release would have been delayed by weeks.
Theme Details
Detail is wonderful. When it is appropriate. Empty space, sometimes called “negative space”, is as important as the content. Change the space between notes of a song and you change the whole feel.
As a level designer, it’s important to be able to know how much or how little to use of something.
We believe that this challenge will allow you to make careful and interesting use of the games assets. It will focus your attention on what is truly important when creating interactive levels.
Therefore, we would like you to create a map that uses the concept of “minimalism”. This could mean a limited number of enemies (maybe even one), weapons, one piece of ammo, one room, one area, a limited number of brushes, textures or models. Dev textures are allowed. Visuals are NOT the focus of this challenge, although great looking maps always give the right impression.
What is it that is essential for your map? Remove anything that isn’t necessary.
One word of warning: Simply creating an area with infinitely respawning enemies is NOT what we are looking for. That is not minimalism.
The winning map will be the one that is fun to play and presents its idea in a creative way.
GOOD LUCK!
Entries
Listed as they are displayed in the mod itself, which were randomized after the deadline.
Refinery by ESToomere
Downsized Escape by Mark A.K.A. Strontvlieg
Abstraction by November
Antguard by Crowbar
Shut Up by Tiop
The Test by ethosaur
Rooms by Event Horizon
Destroy The Generator by HighFire
Antichamber by ThatsRidonkulous
Defense in Depth by Rob Martens
Nova Perspektive by DarenDark
Gauntlet by Dirk Destiny
Contrast by 1upD
Warp by Sockman
The Mal Omals KY by Mista Heita
Grey Assault by Builderpro
Color Cues by Niker107
Loss by BlueASIS
Cuboid by TurretCube
Cluster by Ian Spadin AKA Idolon
FRAGGED by Frag
BONUS: Reporter by Klems
Reviewing
If you decide to use the Per-Map Opinion Images, please either watch the video below or use the VilleReviewTemplate.txt file. Thank you.
Winners
We are pleased to announce that Abstraction by November & Nova Perspektive by DarenDark both won MinimalismVille – congrats to them
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is the prize but both winners will be awarded a prize of equal value.
Judges
Phillip and DolmoTheDouglas are the judges for this challenge.
RTSL Community Voting
Which are your favourite top 5 maps from MinimalismVille? BONUS: Reporter by Klems (8%, 21 Votes)
FRAGGED by Frag (2%, 4 Votes)
Cluster by Ian Spadin AKA Idolon (2%, 6 Votes)
Cuboid by TurretCube (2%, 6 Votes)
Loss by BlueASIS (4%, 10 Votes)
Color Cues by Niker107 (14%, 34 Votes)
Grey Assault by Builderpro (2%, 5 Votes)
The Mal-Omal's KY by Mista Heita (6%, 16 Votes)
Warp by Sockman (6%, 14 Votes)
Contrast by 1upD (2%, 5 Votes)
Gauntlet by Dirk Destiny (1%, 3 Votes)
Nova Perspektive by DarenDark (10%, 24 Votes)
Defense in Depth by Rob Martens (2%, 4 Votes)
Antichamber by ThatsRidonkulous (13%, 32 Votes)
Destroy The Generator by HighFire (1%, 2 Votes)
Rooms by Event Horizon (3%, 7 Votes)
The Test by ethosaur (11%, 28 Votes)
Shut Up by Tiop (2%, 5 Votes)
Antguard by Crowbar (3%, 8 Votes)
Abstraction by November (4%, 9 Votes)
Downsized Escape by Mark A.K.A. Strontvlieg (2%, 4 Votes)
Refinery by ESToomere (2%, 4 Votes) Total Voters: 64
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Menu Music
Brane Scan by Kelly Bailey from Half-Life 2
Release Versions
V1 – Entrants only version.
v2 – Updated entrants only version
v3 – This version. First public release. No custom gridview images.
Credits
The RunThinkShootLive.Com introduction video was made by Jeff Muñoz (ThatoneJeff)” and he also significantly helped with logo design – thanks Jeff, you ROCK!
Rob Martens for converting the RTSL introduction video and my intro video into.bik format.
Custom Gridview Images
This release contains no custom gridview images. Futures versions may.
General Mapping Challenge Rules
Maximum two maps per mapper per competition.
The map must be original and not have been released publicly before.
The map must run in system with only Ep2 installed
By entering the competition you grant PlanetPhillip.Com & RunThinkShootLive.Com the right to release the map as part of the Ville Mod.
Maps must not appear before the release and for one month after the release of the mod.
No assets from retail games other than HL2, HL2: Ep1 or HL2: Ep2 are allowed.
Other assets are allowed with written permission from their original authors, which MUST be included in the entry.
Phillip’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into about it.
The map MUST have a proper name.
The map MUST have a proper filename: MapName_ABC.bsp (ABC is replaced with the code for the mapping challenge)
All entries must be sent to: planetphillip@gmail.com no later than the deadline.
Sponsor
This challenge was partly sponsored by Nodecraft – High Performance Game Servers.
Videos
Coming Soon.
Screenshots
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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Jump to a reviewThe unloved Apartheid-era Pass Laws act of 1952 insisted that blacks over the age of 16 had to carry a passbook. That policy ended in 1986, and Section 21 of the South African Constitution enshrines freedom of movement. Yet in the Western Cape city of Worcester, the local police recently implemented a green card system that forced informal workers to register with a station. Not only was this illegal, it revived an ancient and hated system of tracking and managing black men who hoped to work inside white neighbourhoods. The dompas has made a comeback. But not just in the Western Cape—it’s in Gauteng, too, and its enforcers aren’t who you’d think they’d be. By RICHARD POPLAK.
The city of Worcester, the early stomping ground of South Africa’s only living Nobel Literature laureate, recently dragged a chunk of history into the maelstrom of the present. J.M. Coetzee’s old hometown—or more specifically, the part of his hometown designated as Sector 4—was outed last week by the Daily Voice for issuing “green cards” to itinerant workers hoping to work in better (AKA wealthier) neighbourhoods. The cards are little more than a strip of green laminate emblazoned with a mug shot, a date of birth, and an expiry date.
And yet they are much, much more than that.
Now, we could waste the rest of the week counting the ways in which this new card is similar to the old dompas, the most obvious element in the Apartheid-era system that forbade black South Africans from moving around the country unless their itinerary was signed off by a baas. We could point out how the green card is a gross violation of Section 21 of the South African Constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement to all citizens regardless of race or economic status. But I’d rather consider the implications of an e-mailed press statement pinged off late last Friday afternoon, one that was bound to get lost in the beer and braaivleis fumes already engulfing this distracted, distractable nation.
Issued by DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Community Safety Kate Lorimer, and written in perfectly piqued Democratic Alliance-ese, the statement began, “I am horrified at Gauteng Community Safety MEC, Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane’s letter in The Star on Friday which set out an unacceptable recommendation to deal with rural safety issues in Gauteng.”
Photo: Gauteng Community safety MEC Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane has been accused of violating the Gauteng legislature’s code of conduct and ethics. Photo: eNCA / Lenyaro Sello
The letter that so appalled MEC Lorimer was titled, “Holistic strategy needed to make rural communities safe.” Sent to the paper by MEC Nkosi-Malobane, and published in The Star last Friday afternoon, it detailed the ins-and-outs of a Rural Safety Summit convened the previous weekend by the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, the National Civilian Secretariat for Police, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Agri S.A, the African Farmers Union of South Africa, Agri Gauteng and the Farmers Workers Union. This is about as Rainbowish an agglomeration of humans as the Earth has ever seen—the very essence of the new New South Africa is contained within this gathering. But don’t get excited just yet: take a look at the summit’s recommendations, and keep in mind where the (bolded by yours truly) dompas bombshell sits in an otherwise anodyne and non-specific list of to-dos and never-will-happens:
Establishment of rural safety unit per rural station
Plot numbering linked with the cell number of the farm owner, so as to ensure safety on the farms and improve accessibility for policing
Allocation of proper rural vehicle for rural policing
Constant communication between SAPS Rural Safety Coordinator(s) and Rural Safety Forum Chairperson
Safety Forums to incorporate municipality as per the area’s needs
FARMERS MUST HIRE LEGAL AND DOCUMENTED WORKERS AND CREATE PROFILE CARDS TO BE VERIFIED AT LOCAL STATIONS
Induction of both farmers and workers on labour law by the Department of Labour, to minimise abuse of workers
Farmers working together across racial lines
Government must build or improve on social services such as schools, clinics and recreational facilities in rural areas
Education and awareness drive on the Criminal Justice System in rural areas.
Education and awareness drive on AgriBEE, so as to empower workers
So during a weekend of talk-shopping and consensus building, South Africans from across the ideological, social, racial and economic spectrum, on their own and without any obvious prompting from History’s muse, came up with—drum roll!— the dompas. Ideologues and boers and politicians and farm workers and union hacks and coffee stirrers and aides and aides aides—they all agreed that a pass book for informal workers would be a splendid idea.
The French make pastries, the Italians make pasta, the Saudis drill oil, the Brits produce willowy princesses with eating disorders.
South Africans? We make oppression.
* * *
You don’t have to be Director General of the Bob Woodward School for Investigative Journalism to scheme that the timing of the Gauteng MEC’s letter to The Star jibed ever so seamlessly with the Worcester story. Because Lorimer unwisely issued her press statement on a Friday afternoon, no outlet picked it up, and so it was just about lost to the sands of time. But there were questions. Why, I wondered, would the Gauteng community safety minister and a long-time member of the ANC get behind a list like this in the first place?
So I asked her—numerous times, with great insistence—but no one at her office got back to me. Lorimer, however, did. When I spoke with her on Tuesday afternoon, she told me that she raised the issue in the Gauteng legislature during her St. Patrick’s Day address (she went on about “Human Rights Day”, but who was she kidding?)
As is mandatory for all speeches made in all legislatures by all DA lawmakers, Lorimer quoted Helen Suzman. Then she said, “Profile cards are an infringement of a person’s constitutional right to dignity, to freedom of movement and the right to equality. They are also a fundamental contradiction to the ANC’s own founding document. This recommendation must be condemned and withdrawn.”
According to Lorimer, MEC Nkosi-Malobane was not present for most of the session, but popped up like a fairy godmother in a huff to dispute the fact that she’d ever advocated for the profile cards she’d clearly advocated for. (Nkosi-Malobane is not, how shall we say, particularly engaged.) “She was clearly blindsided by the issue,” Lorimer told me. “That workshop held about rural safety happened the week before the whole thing blew up in Worcester. It makes you think that someone has put the profile card issue on the table—the SAPS, the ANC, someone.”
Ah, the mysterious “someone”.
And yet, Lorimer may have a point. Given half a chance Helen Zille would have Robocops shooting laser-guided microchips up the butts of every last human in this country, but in this case she can take no credit for the incremental implementation of the Surveillance State—the Worcester green card “programme” was initiated by the Sector 4 Community Policing Forum and signed off by a sector commander named Sergeant Julian Plaatjies. The ANC tried to score some cheap political points by bleating on Twitter, “Members of SAPS are called upon not to allow racist bigotry of the CPF & DA run Municipality to trample the freedoms our people fought for.” But this careful sophistry did nothing to hide the fact that the blame for the unwelcome resurgence of the dompas might land squarely at the ruling party’s feet.
Which it most certainly has, at least in Gauteng.
I spoke briefly with Zakhele Mbhele, the DA Deputy Shadow Minister for Police and a member of the Police Portfolio Committee, who told me that he was present last Wednesday at a committee meeting presided over by National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega. In an e-mail, Mabhele wrote that the commishioner claimed to have looked into the Worcester debacle, and found that it had been “initiated by the Sector 4 Community Policing Forum (CPF) in collaboration with the local SAPS. The CPF plan had been agreed to in July 2014 by an acting Sergeant in command at the time.”
This should surprise no-one, given the SAPS’s propensity for shooting taxpayers with taxpayer-bought bullets from taxpayer-bought guns. Mabhele says he isn’t sure if there is a de facto link between the Worcester green card debacle and the Gauteng Rural Safety Committee proposal, but that hardly matters, because the conceptual link requires is so plainly obvious. “The fact is that such extreme measures are gaining currency because the SAPS suffers longstanding under-resourcing, under-staffing and skills deficiencies on the ground to ensure effective crime prevention and crime-solving,” wrote Mabhele. “I imagine that local SAPS management in some areas is only too happy to co-operate with community-based security initiatives that they think can compensate for their being left in the lurch by their senior management.”
* * *
It’s kind of odd that South Africans—of all configurations, from all walks of life and over the course of many centuries—keep finding ways to invent Apartheid. Let’s break this recent episode down into its constituent parts: because they can’t, and therefore won’t do their jobs, a highly dysfunctional police service came up with the brilliant idea of registering itinerant workers seeking employment in the wealthier neighbourhoods of a Western Cape city with a long history of brutal, racial repression.
On the other end of the country, an alphabet soup of government institutions and special interest groups, led by the provincial ANC government—among their number those who claim to be the political descendants of the drafters of the Freedom Charter—decided that a great way to increase safety in rural areas beset by crime was to “create profile cards to be registered at a local station.”
It occurred to very few people, in either Worcester or Gauteng, that freedom of movement is enshrined in the Constitution, which is really another way of saying that the Constitution isn’t enshrined in the governing framework of those who lead this country. And if the old Apartheid was a means of creating an underclass by enforcing racial segregation, this new Apartheid is a means of maintaining that underclass by enforcing economic segregation.
Sometimes people ask me whether South Africa will look like Zimbabwe in twenty years, and I try not to laugh my ass off. No, friendo, South Africa will not look like Zimbabwe in twenty years, but Cape Town now—or Sandton, or any place in the country that functions as a core of impenetrable wealth ring-fenced by poverty. In other words, South Africa already looks like what South Africa will look like in twenty years—we’re just in the process of formalising it.
And these two dompas proposals certainly help the cause.
The future’s here, baby! That it looks very much like the past is because the past was perfect. It was the perfect way to run a surveillance state that maintained racial distinctions in the service of Almighty Capital. That the dompas is currently unconstitutional doesn’t make it illogical. No, it’s the height of logic: it makes no sense to allow poor black saps into clean white neighbourhoods unless there is some means of tracing their movements in case they get all murdery after trimming hedges for R7 an hour. Why did the Gauteng ANC, the local SAPS in two provinces, a community police outfit and a range of special interest groups on two ends of the country reinvent the passbook simultaneously?
Sixty-nine people lost their lives protesting pass laws in Sharpeville in 1960—Apartheid’s early death knell—and yet here we are again. The dompas is written into the DNA of this place. DM
Main photo: Dompas ver 1.0 and 2.o
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Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.The Sunday Herald, a newspaper in Scotland, has pictured and named the footballer allegedly linked to a "superinjunction" by users on Twitter.
Its front-page features the face of the accused footballer, his eyes covered by a black-bar with the words "censored" across it.
A footballer with a privacy injunction prohibiting name-publication, is involved in proceedings against former Miss Wales and ex-UK Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas, along with The Sun newspaper.
The alleged footballer's identity has been freely bandied around on social networking site Twitter, which has led to requests by lawyers to find out the identities of those who have posted his name.
The newspaper says it took extensive legal advice and went ahead with publication on the grounds that the injunction only applies to England and no copies of the paper are available for sale out of Scotland. The paper says it is not accusing the player of misdeed and they are only participating in the debate over the freedom of information in a growing internet-based society.
source: data archiveJuly 21, 2017 – Savoir-faire Linux releases the stable version of Ring: Ring 1.0 – Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Ring is a free/libre and universal communication platform that preserves the users’ privacy and freedoms. It is a GNU package. It runs on multiple platforms; and, it can be used for texting, calls, and video chats more privately, more securely, and more reliably.
About Ring
Ring is a fully distributed system based on OpenDHT technology and Ethereum Blockchain. It means, it does not need any central authority, an enterprise or even a server to function. Therefore, it avoids keeping centralized registries of users and storing their personal data. In addition, Ring is based on standard security protocols and end-to-end encryption. Therefore, it prevents decryption of communications over the network and consequently offering a high level of privacy and confidentiality.
Key Functionalities and Features
– Encrypted Audio/VideoHD/InstantMessaging Communications (ICE, SIP, TLS)
– Screen Sharing and Conferencing (Win32 and GNU/Linux)
– Support of Ethereum Blockchain as Distributed Public Users’ Database
– Distributed Communication Platform (OpenDHT)
– Platform Support on GNU/Linux, Windows UWP (Windows 10 and Surface), macOS (10.10+) and Android (4.0+)
– Distributed under GPLv3+ License
– Parts of Ring can be used as a building block in any Internet of Things (IoT) project
Ring: An Impactful and Inspirational Social Innovation
Ring is based on the state-of-the-art technologies (OpenDHT) and follows strict ethical guidelines. Together, a mix of free software technologies, and ethical rules offers end-users: leading edge privacy and anonymity, confidentiality as well as security of conversations. In addition, its stable connectivity and innovative standard functionalities over multitude of platforms make it a suitable choice for an everyday communication.
Important Links
> Download Ring
> Contribute to Ring
> Technical documentationWASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today took action against Equifax, Inc., TransUnion, and their subsidiaries for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and actual cost of credit scores they sold to consumers. The companies also lured consumers into costly recurring payments for credit-related products with false promises. The CFPB ordered TransUnion and Equifax to truthfully represent the value of the credit scores they provide and the cost of obtaining those credit scores and other services. Between them, TransUnion and Equifax must pay a total of more than $17.6 million in restitution to consumers, and fines totaling $5.5 million to the CFPB.
“TransUnion and Equifax deceived consumers about the usefulness of the credit scores they marketed, and lured consumers into expensive recurring payments with false promises,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Credit scores are central to a consumer’s financial life and people deserve honest and accurate information about them.”
Chicago-based TransUnion and Atlanta-based Equifax are two of the nation’s three largest credit reporting agencies. TransUnion and Equifax collect credit information, including a borrower's payment history, debt load, maximum credit limits, names and addresses of current creditors, and other elements of their credit relationships. These generate credit reports and scores that are provided to businesses. Through their subsidiaries, TransUnion Interactive and Equifax Consumer Services, the companies also market, sell, or provide credit-related products directly to consumers, such as credit scores, credit reports, and credit monitoring.
Credit scores are numerical summaries designed to predict consumer payment behavior in using credit. Many lenders and other commercial users rely in part on these scores when deciding whether to extend credit. No single credit score or credit score model is used by every lender. Lenders use an array of credit scores, which vary by score provider and scoring model. The scores that TransUnion sells to consumers are based on a model from VantageScore Solutions, LLC. Although TransUnion has marketed VantageScores to lenders and other commercial users, VantageScores are not typically used for credit decisions. Scores Equifax sold to consumers were based on Equifax’s proprietary model, the Equifax Credit Score, which is an “educational” credit score that also is typically not used by lenders to make credit decisions.
TransUnion, since at least July 2011, and Equifax, between July 2011 and March 2014, violated the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act by:
Deceiving consumers about the value of the credit scores they sold: In their advertising, TransUnion and Equifax falsely represented that the credit scores they marketed and provided to consumers were the same scores lenders typically use to make credit decisions. In fact, the scores sold by TransUnion and Equifax were not typically used by lenders to make those decisions.
Deceiving consumers into enrolling in subscription programs: In their advertising, TransUnion and Equifax falsely claimed that their credit scores and credit-related products were free or, in the case of TransUnion, cost only “$1.” In reality, consumers who signed up received a free trial of seven or 30 days, after which they were automatically enrolled in a subscription program. Unless they cancelled during the trial period, consumers were charged a recurring fee – usually $16 or more per month. This billing structure, known as a “negative option,” was not clearly and conspicuously disclosed to consumers.
Equifax also violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires a credit reporting agency to provide a free credit report once every 12 months and to operate a central source – AnnualCreditReport.com – where consumers can get their report. Until January 2014, consumers getting their report through Equifax first had to view Equifax advertisements. This violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which prohibits such advertising until after consumers receive their report.
Enforcement Action
Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB is authorized to take action against institutions engaged in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, or that otherwise violate federal consumer financial laws. Under the consent orders, TransUnion and Equifax must:
Pay more than $17.6 million in total restitution to harmed consumers: TransUnion must provide more than $13.9 million in restitution to affected consumers. Equifax must provide almost $3.8 million in restitution to affected consumers. The companies must send notification letters about the restitution to affected consumers.
Truthfully represent the usefulness of credit scores it sells: TransUnion and Equifax must clearly inform consumers about the nature of the scores they are selling to consumers.
Obtain the express informed consent of consumers: Before enrolling a consumer in any credit-related product with a negative option feature, TransUnion and Equifax must obtain the consumer’s consent.
Provide an easy way to cancel products and services : TransUnion and Equifax must give consumers a simple, easy-to-understand way to cancel the purchase of any credit-related product, and stop billing and collecting payments for any recurring charge when a consumer cancels.
: TransUnion and Equifax must give consumers a simple, easy-to-understand way to cancel the purchase of any credit-related product, and stop billing and collecting payments for any recurring charge when a consumer cancels. Pay $5.5 million in total penalties: TransUnion must pay $3 million to the Bureau’s civil penalty fund. Equifax must pay $2.5 million to the Bureau’s civil penalty fund.
The full text of the CFPB’s Consent Order against Equifax is here: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_Equifax-consent-order.pdf
The full text of the CFPB’s Consent Order against TransUnion is here: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_Transunion-consent-order.pdf
More information about credit scores can be found here: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/what-you-need-know-understanding-why-offers-your-credit-score-are-not-all-same/
###
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit consumerfinance.gov.Slipknot’s lead singer Corey Taylor was not pleased when he caught a fan texting at his show.
Related: Epic Celebrity Stage Falls
In a video posted to the heavy metal band’s official Facebook page, Taylor was seen knocking the mobile phone out of a fan’s hands, who appeared distracted looking down at his phone. Taylor then pointed to the fan, who didn’t seem to be upset, pointing back up to the singer.
He later tweeted, “If you’re going to text, stay home.”
If you're gonna text, stay home. https://t.co/w8BLHWci5n — Jalapeno Throat, LLC (@CoreyTaylorRock) July 10, 2016
Taylor has previously spoken about his dislike of phones being used at his shows, saying “People need to unplug and realize that they’re missing their lives.” The heavy metal frontman has also warned fans against bringing selfie sticks into his venues, adding that he would “beat the s**t out of you with a cricket bat.”The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
According to Hegel, history is idea-driven. According to almost everyone else, this is foolish. What can “idea driven” even mean when measured against the passion and anguish of a place like Libya?
But Hegel had his reasons. Ideas for him are public, rather than in our heads, and serve to coordinate behavior. They are, in short, pragmatically meaningful words. To say that history is “idea driven” is to say that, like all cooperation, nation building requires a common basic vocabulary.
Rational choice philosophy promulgates a clear and compelling moral imperative: increase your wealth and power!
One prominent component of America’s basic vocabulary is ”individualism.” Our society accords unique rights and freedoms to individuals, and we are so proud of these that we recurrently seek to install them in other countries. But individualism, the desire to control one’s own life, has many variants. Tocqueville viewed it as selfishness and suspected it, while Emerson and Whitman viewed it as the moment-by-moment expression of one’s unique self and loved it.
After World War II, a third variant gained momentum in America. It defined individualism as the making of choices so as to maximize one’s preferences. This differed from “selfish individualism” in that the preferences were not specified: they could be altruistic as well as selfish. It differed from “expressive individualism” in having general algorithms by which choices were made. These made it rational.
This form of individualism did not arise by chance. Alex Abella’s “Soldiers of Reason” (2008) and S. M. Amadae’s “Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy” (2003) trace it to the RAND Corporation, the hyperinfluential Santa Monica, Calif., think tank, where it was born in 1951 as “rational choice theory.” Rational choice theory’s mathematical account of individual choice, originally formulated in terms of voting behavior, made it a point-for-point antidote to the collectivist dialectics of Marxism; and since, in the view of many cold warriors, Marxism was philosophically ascendant worldwide, such an antidote was sorely needed. Functionaries at RAND quickly expanded the theory from a tool of social analysis into a set of universal doctrines that we may call “rational choice philosophy.” Governmental seminars and fellowships spread it to universities across the country, aided by the fact that any alternative to it would by definition be collectivist. During the early Cold War, that was not exactly a good thing to be.
Leif Parsons
The overall operation was wildly successful. Once established in universities, rational choice philosophy moved smoothly on the backs of their pupils into the “real world” of business and government (aided in the crossing, to be sure, by the novels of another Rand—Ayn). Today, governments and businesses across the globe simply assume that social reality is merely a set of individuals freely making rational choices. Wars have been and are still being fought to bring such freedom to Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Grenadans, and now Libyans, with more nations surely to come.
At home, anti-regulation policies are crafted to appeal to the view that government must in no way interfere with Americans’ freedom of choice. Even religions compete in the marketplace of salvation, eager to be chosen by those who, understandably, prefer heaven to hell. Today’s most zealous advocates of individualism, be they on Wall Street or at Tea Parties, invariably forget their origins in a long ago program of government propaganda.
Rational choice philosophy, to its credit, made clear and distinct claims in philosophy’s three main areas. Ontologically |
donors prodding him to quit paid staff saying dont — Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 9, 2016
Sen Bill Nelson (D-FL) on MSNBC: "Trump will win Florida by double digits." #welp — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) March 9, 2016
2:55: Dalai Lama asked about Trump. He’s diplomatic–says some of his personal attacks seem “cheap” but he says that can be said of all politicians:
WATCH: The Dalai Lama shares his views about Donald Trump with ABC's @danbharris: https://t.co/wRICuOGhtbhttps://t.co/PdlLzxBaLW — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 9, 2016
2:50: Win or go home for Rubio:
I've been here before. Once again in Florida, I face an opponent ahead in the polls who is not who he says he is.https://t.co/uMAGuO4Hhm — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 9, 2016
2:45: Kasich campaigning in Illinois:
Ohio Gov. John Kasich is now holding a rally in a Palatine gymnasium in suburban Chicago. pic.twitter.com/VwNpE9cNvj — Bill Ruthhart (@BillRuthhart) March 9, 2016
2:35: Nancy Reagan’s hearse arrives at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA:
The casket of Nancy Reagan has arrived at @Reagan_Library. pic.twitter.com/C6sKkJ9WwP — Tara Finestone (@tarawallis) March 9, 2016
Firefighters stand as Nancy Reagan's hearse passes by freeway en route to Simi Valley https://t.co/rXe3SCQpnu pic.twitter.com/ofY2MSOjDO — KTLA (@KTLA) March 9, 2016
2:25: Jeb! meeting with all of the remaining candidates except for Trump
Jeb! is meeting with Rubio today, Cruz and Kasich tomorrow — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 9, 2016
2:18: Clinton: Iran should face sanctions for missile test:
2:07: RNC Chair Reince Priebus wants more of a G-rated debate this week. He reveals on CNN that the network may not even mic audience in order to get a calmer debate.
2:02: Even the Washington Post‘s resident dunce/useful dunce says it’s time for Rubio to fold (Rubio would have had a better chance in the primary had she opposed his candidacy from the outset).
2:00: Immigrant Hispanic Uber driver in Miami likely for Trump. Credit this NBC reporter for actually Tweeting something that goes against the mainstream media’s conventional wisdom about Trump:
A Peruvian immigrant uber driver from Miami says he'll likely vote Trump, agreeing largely with the candidate's immigration policies. 1/2 — Danny Freeman (@DannyEFreeman) March 9, 2016
The man says he likes Rubio but thinks he's too young and should stay in the senate. "Putin would eat him alive!" — Danny Freeman (@DannyEFreeman) March 9, 2016
[Tony Lee: I never understood the arrogant comments made by out-of-touch Romney campaign officials about campaign embeds during the 2012 election cycle. Embeds are nowhere near as biased as the regular mainstream media journalists and are better sources for what goes on on the trail. They do invaluable and often thankless jobs and it says a lot about Romney’s incompetent 2012 campaign officials that they would look down on them.]
1:52: A glum Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton’s press secretary, says they always knew that Michigan would be close. But he says “this is a delegate contest” and Clinton moved closer to securing the nomination yesterday with her landslide win in Mississippi. When CNN’s Blitzer questions Fallon’s about Clinton’s stance on trade, Fallon claims that Sanders has mischaracterized Clinton’s record even though Clinton has tried to have it both ways on trade. Fallon says Sanders will try to parlay Michigan’s success into other wins but even in the rosiest scenario, Clinton will still come out on top in the delegate count yet again next week.
1:50: Strong Cruz ad in North Carolina:
Ted Cruz's is now on the air in Mar. 15 states, pitching himself to North Carolina's "truck drivers & steelworkers." pic.twitter.com/ryrHv6xM03 — Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) March 9, 2016
1:45: Sen. Heller (R-NV), a Rubio supporter, pessimistic about Rubio’s campaign:
Rubio-backer Sen Heller (R-NV) on Rubio's path forward: "I think he's going to have to really rethink moving forward after Florida." — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) March 9, 2016
1:35 – The unnamed donor saying Rubio may drop before Florida is not Paul Singer, according to Gasparino:
Billionaire hedge fund manager and @marcorubio supporter Paul Singer prods candidate to tough it out until after Fla vote @FoxBusiness 140pm — Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 9, 2016
1:33 – Bombshell claim on Fox News:
Top @marcorubio donors say barring a positive poll, the Senator will suspend his campaign prior to the Fla primary.https://t.co/IRJSkevDD0 — Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 9, 2016
1:19 – From the Associated Press:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager says despite the loss in Michigan, she is moving closer to the number of delegates necessary to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Robby Mook says in a call with reporters that while Clinton would have liked to win Michigan, she still ended the night with more delegates that rival Bernie Sanders because of her overwhelming victory in Mississippi. He says that Clinton will compete hard in the five states that hold contests next week: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. And Mook says the campaign is confident that they’re nearing the point where their delegate lead will “effectively become insurmountable.” The campaign notes that Clinton still holds a pledged delegate lead of more than 200 as the race enters mid-March.
12:50 – Rush Limbaugh says Rubio, Kasich have no chance to be the GOP nominee.
@rushlimbaugh : @marcorubio & @JohnKasich have no chance to be the nominee- no matter how the nominee is chosen #CruzCrew — WallMan (@MarcusMmcintire) March 9, 2016
12:40 – Sacha Baron Cohen: “Fairytale ending” that Trump gets AIDS in his movie.
12:10 – OUCH. Kasich, who hasn’t won a state, effectively says Rubio is out of the running:
Kasich, in Illinois, suggests it's a three-man race: He tells crowd that in remaining states, "Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and I are dead even" — Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) March 9, 2016
12:05 – Former chief of staff to San Diego Mayor Bob Filner writes an “open letter” asking women to come forward and accuse Trump of sexual harassment.
An open letter to Donald Trump's sex harassment victims https://t.co/99v9pEUbqq pic.twitter.com/LavHB2daAp — HuffPost Contributor (@HuffPostContrib) March 9, 2016
12:02 – Patterns.
Trump has won every state with an unemployment rate above 5% and where more than 8% of the population is black https://t.co/jzPhhJ2OgU — Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) March 9, 2016
12:00 – Cruz is holding a press conference after Fiorina’s endorsement rally.
Cruz says both Rubio and Kasich "need to assess their prospects. It's a question of math" — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 9, 2016
11:59 – Pop culture coolservatism.
Kasich now talking about The Hobbit and Gandalf — Sam Levine (@srl) March 9, 2016
11:52 – More professional journalism: “tell us if you had dreams about Donald Trump.”
A professional analyzed some of your Donald Trump dreams and I'm sorry to report they mean you should get a divorce.https://t.co/Ffcs1nTLVv — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 9, 2016
11:41 – Professional journalism.
https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/707607022783631360/photo/1
11:40 – Cruz in Florida poking fun at the Trump “infomercial” from last night:
"I don't have any steaks to sell you. I don't have any wine. I don't have any cleaning products." _ Ted Cruz in Miami — Katie Zezima (@katiezez) March 9, 2016
11:39 – Updated delegate math in all three Florida/Ohio scenarios:
Rubio & Kasich winning FL/OH would really help block Trump from getting 1,237. Much easier lift for DT if he wins: pic.twitter.com/Qzhdu6hqu4 — Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 9, 2016
11:23 – Axelrod: Cruz is “out to croak” Rubio in Florida.
Whatever value @CarlyFiorina endorsement of @tedcruz has, the fact that it took place in Miami is meaningful. He'a out to croak @marcorubio. — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) March 9, 2016
11:12 – Critically. Important.
https://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/707599749185204224/photo/1
10:57 – RNC files suit to obtain Hillary Clinton’s State Department records.
10:52 – Adding insult to injury, Trump won the Michigan county that includes Romney’s home town
Trump dominated Oakland County Michigan, which includes Mitt Romney’s hometown. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/wcsBcbFz7h — Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 9, 2016
10:40 – Carly Fiorina endorses Ted Cruz
“Carly Fiorina is a strong, principled leader and woman of faith,” said Cruz. “Our campaign is stronger with her leadership and her voice. Her story embodies the promise that in America anyone can start as a secretary and become a Fortune 50 CEO. Carly speaks the truth with courage, doesn’t back down to the Washington powerbrokers, and terrifies Hillary and the Democrats. We are blessed to have her support, and together I am confident we will continue to unite conservatives so that every American has the opportunity to achieve the unimaginable.”
10:10 – Illegal immigrant arrested after murder spree
A man suspected of killing five people across Kansas and Missouri was arrested early Wednesday after an extensive manhunt, the Missouri Highway Patrol said. Highway Patrol officials told the Kansas City Starthat Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino was arrested in Montgomery County, Missouri. He was found lying on a hill just north of Interstate 70 and no shots were fired, according to The Star. “He looked exhausted,” Sgt. James Hedrick said.
9:47 – Q-Poll shows Trump has EXPANDED his lead in Florida
New Q poll shows Trump’s lead over Rubio expanding in Florida: Now: 45-22 Feb. 25th: 44-28https://t.co/GYmbDQWKfD — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 9, 2016
9:37 – It might be two weeks late but Rubio is finally getting the heckling he deserves from the media
this is going exactly as planned for Team Rubio https://t.co/Ld8qgKKVjB — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 9, 2016
9:06 – Keith Olbermann: I can’t stand to live in a Trump building anymore
9:04 – Rubio gets zero delegates after disastrous primary performance
8:57 – Dearborn, top Arab-American U.S. city, just voted for Donald Trump.
Dearborn houses the Arab American National Museum and several large mosques — unlike the Chaldean Christian Arab community in nearby Sterling Heights, “the Dearborn community is overwhelmingly Muslim,” says Michigan Radio. And Dearborn Republicans voted for Donald Trump, the candidate pledging to close U.S. borders to Muslims, 39 percent to 30 percent for nearest competitor John Kasich.
8:53 – Trump scores a historic first
Donald Trump is the first Northern Republican to sweep the Deep South https://t.co/DzfFhyE3oj — Dylan Baddour (@DylanBaddour) March 9, 2016
8:50 – Cruz okay with a contested convention against Trump
Ted Cruz is okay with a contested convention — just as long as it’s only the top two candidates.
Cruz was asked by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, in a pre-released clip before the full interview airs Wednesday night, if he would be okay with a contested convention if it’s a two man race by July and both Donald Trump and the Texas senator haven’t amassed the required 1,237 to win the nomination. “A contested convention is a different thing where you go if nobody gets 1,237 and you’ve got two front-runners. Look, Reagan and Ford battled it out in a contested convention. That’s what conventions are for,” Cruz said. “If you’re fighting with the candidates that have earned the votes of the people and it’s the delegates at the who elected to do that, that’s the way the system works.”
8:40 – Oscar winner Jon Voight endorses Donald Trump.
8:25 – UK’s New Statesman cover: “American Psycho: Donald Trump and the downfall of a great nation”
UK’s New Statesman cover: “American Psycho: Donald Trump and the downfall of a great nation” pic.twitter.com/R8hNze7ffO — Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) March 9, 2016
7:55 – Top Romney strategist breaks with #NeverTrump? No.
—
Twitter not great for subtlety.Great admirer of John but our views of what below means takes us down different paths https://t.co/roxbO61wSw — stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) March 9, 2016
—
This might end up being a very, very important point & a question that should be asked. Really smart. https://t.co/M3S3WH40Pd — stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) March 9, 2016
7:41 – CNN polls show Trump up +5 in Ohio; Trump up +16 in Florida
Ohio: Trump 41%, Kasich 35%, Cruz 19%, Kasich 5%
Fla: Trump 40%, Rubio 24%, Cruz 15%, Rubio 7%
It is hard to imagine how Kasich’s third place showing in Michigan helps him in Ohio next week. Are people really going to surge for someone who has won zero states and, outside of a stolen convention, has zero chance of winning the nomination?
7:36 – Head-to-head, Clinton beats Trump 50% to 41% in a new ABC News poll. Important context is the fact that for the last 10 days, Trump has been under withering fire from the GOP Establishment/DC Media Death Star.
7:32 – After his three-state triumph, Trump is all over the morning news shows offering an olive branch to the Republican Establishment. “If the Republican Party unites, instead of spending $30 million on ads against me, we will beat Hillary in Michigan and other states no one imagined.”Brian L. Golsby's criminal behavior started as a teen.
At 14, he threatened his mother with a knife. At 17, he was ordered to undergo a "sex offender assessment," court records show. At 23, he served six years after a plea deal in a rape case. He was released in November.
On Monday, Golsby, now 29, stood in Franklin County Municipal Court, charged with the rape and murder of 21-year-old Ohio State University student Reagan Tokes. A judge ordered him held without bond.
Columbus detectives interviewed at least one of the victims from a series of violent robberies of women in German Village to see if Golsby was responsible.
“We’re investigating all possibilities,” said Denise Alex-Bouzounis, a spokeswoman for Columbus Division of Police.
Tokes' body was found Thursday near the entrance of Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City. She disappeared Wednesday night after she finished work at the Bodega restaurant in the Short North. Authorities say Golsby abducted Tokes in the Short North, forced her to withdraw money from an ATM, and took her to Grove City, where he raped and shot her.
On Saturday, police arrested Golsby at his South Side home based on DNA found on a cigarette left in Tokes' car, according to court records. He faces charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and rape.
"We will get through this," Tokes' father, Toby, told reporters after Monday's arraignment.
Golsby waived his right to a preliminary hearing and the requirement that an indictment be presented before a grand jury within 10 days. Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said his office and investigators will use the additional time to review evidence and decide whether to seek a death-penalty indictment.
Golsby's first encounter with the criminal justice system occurred in 2001, at age 13, when he was found to be an unruly minor "beyond the reasonable control of his parent," according to Franklin County Juvenile Court records. Soon after, he was charged with a delinquency count of petty theft for shoplifting from a Schottenstein's department store.
At 14, he was accused of threatening his mother with a knife and telling her "she'd better not mess with him" after she caught him breaking the lock off her bedroom door and stealing cigarettes and tapes, records show.
His chronic unruliness caused the Juvenile Court to remove him from his mother's home and place him in the custody of Franklin County Children Services, which placed him in foster care. The records also show that he spent time at Buckeye Ranch in Grove City and in a boot camp for juvenile offenders.
Golsby did stints on probation for delinquency offenses that included criminal damaging and theft from a Meijer store and a Kroger store.
In 2006, at age 17, he was committed to the Ohio Department of Youth Services for a minimum of six months or until his 21st birthday after he was found delinquent for receiving stolen property. Court records don't indicate how long he was held in a youth prison.
As part of the sentence, a magistrate ordered Golsby to "complete a sex-offender assessment." The document doesn't give a reason.
In 2010, Golsby was accused of raping a woman at knife-point in front of her 2-year-old son outside an apartment complex in Grove City. He also was charged with robbing another woman in the same parking lot two weeks later. He told the second woman he had a gun beneath his shirt.
In May 2011, Golsby pleaded guilty to attempted rape and robbery in a plea agreement. The six-year sentence, imposed by Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye, was recommended by prosecuting and defense attorneys as part of the agreement, court records show.
Both victims agreed to the pleas that resolved the cases, O'Brien said.
"The prosecutor handling the case negotiated the six-year prison sentence based on the rape victim's desire not to testify at a trial in open court," he said. "The robbery victim deferred to the wishes of the rape victim in agreeing to the six-year sentence."
Until his photo showed up this weekend in the news, Sheila Merwin had blocked out the memory of Golsby's hands grabbing her throat in 2010. She was outside her Grove City apartment at sunset getting the mail when she was robbed of $84. Now, she doesn't check the mail when it’s dark.
"I do not believe or like the death penalty, but I certainly think it would be life in prison or the death penalty at this point," Merwin, 71, said.
Merwin said her neighbor, who was sexually assaulted by Golsby, never returned to the apartment.
"To have taken Reagan's life, it's just so sad," she said. "I feel so bad for her parents. She had accomplished so much. To be taken like that is just horrid."
State officials had no indication that Golsby had violated terms of his November release from prison. He was required to have three face-to-face meetings with parole officers each month.
Golsby had a job and was staying at a community house for offenders re-entering society who would otherwise be homeless, said JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
“All contact standards were made during his brief period of supervision,” she said.
Tokes, from the Toledo area, was a psychology major at Ohio State. She expected to graduate in May.
"When I found out it was him, I was really sorry," Merwin said. "We never think anything is going to happen that close to us. But to know what Reagan went through the last couple hours she was alive, it's really sad."
Dispatch Reporters Alissa Widman Neese and Theodore Decker contributed to this story.
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@johnfuttyA tribute to Raja Ram – 75 years young
Raja Ram celebrates his 75th birthday today (December 18th, 2015), and the Trancentral crew is more than honored to present with a tribute to the one and only, the godfather of trance, RAJA RAM!
Raja was born as Ronald Rothfield in Australia. He started engaging with music in an early age, learning to play a flute and then studying Jazz music in NYC. The big apple was where he founded the psychedelic rock band “Quintessence”, playing at the first two Glastonbury Festivals (then ‘fayres’) in 1970 and 1971. After that, Raja quited music for a while.
Here are some words by Raja from the “Quintessence” days:
His Hippie trail led him back to music in the beginning of the 80`s, as he was fascinated by the emerging musical genre- Electronic music. And what an impact he made on this genre…
Raja influence on psychedelic electronic music is simply enormous. First, he was one of the first ever to produce what we call today psychedelic trance. In the early 90`s he founded together with Graham Wood the group “The Infinity Project” (T.I.P.), with Martin Freeland of Man With No Name producing together with them occasionally.
Raja Ram and TIP Records
In 1994 Raja Ram and Graham Wood started Tip Records with Ian St Paul and Richard Bloor. During these years he started DJing, and TIP Records started producing parties around the world. Couple of years later Raja formed Shpongle, together with another electronic music legend, Simon Posford (Hallucinogen). Shpongle is to this day one of the most influential bands on Downtempo music, fusing Eastern ethnic samples (by Raja) with the Western contemporary psychedelic synth music (by Simon).
Check out their legendary debut album, “Are You Shpongled?”
On 1998 Raja formed TIP World together with Richard Bloor. About a year later Raja teamed up with DJ Chicago and Riktam & Benji of GMS to form 1200 Microgramms, another psychedelic trance act.
Putting all this together, Raja ram is responsible for countless psychedelic music tunes, from downtempo and psybient, to music for peaktime party moments. Here is a playlist that captures some of his musical journey throughout his years:
“Without love we’re nothing. Without giving love you’re nothing, without receiving love you’re nothing. There are so many ways of loving; loving the world, loving yourself, loving your brothers and sisters… going through life with that attitude and it’s amazing because that’s what the parties are about.
They’re ‘love-ins’ – they’re ways of meeting people, like-minded people, people get married at parties, people forge lifelong friendships from parties and what you’re left with after you go home – when you turn out the lights and you’re left quivering, with this wonderful ecstatic, blissful feeling that you’ve had a glimpse of this world of love and you’ve given love and taken some love and there is nothing like it.
It is the pursuit of the absolute and that is LOVE and it is why we are still going to parties and why we are still making this music!”
Raja is always about more than just music, and more than just a musician in the psytrance world. He is a true ambassador of psychedelic music and love (as shown in the quote above), spreading his vibes whenever a chance occurs, with live music or simply by words.
We gathered some of his best interviews, quotes, and live clips from around the world into one playlist. Watch it here:
So, to conclude, thank you very much Raja Ram, about many fantastic moments with your music in our heads, for you inspiring insights and life wisdom, and for spreading love and psychedelia all over! Happy birthday!
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commentsAbout
What is Makeout Map?
In short Makeout Map is an app which helps couples quickly find secluded romantic locations. If this is successfully funded the app will be launched on Android, ios, and Windows Phone on the same day.
Why Kickstarter?
I need two things to make this project happen, money and an audience. First I need money, I need to buy a server, an ios device, an android device, and developers licenses just to name a few. Not only do I need money but I also want to make sure there is an audience for this. An app like this relies on a large database to be successful. I want to make sure there are users who will help me build that database.
The app.
The app will be free with advertisements. Users are encouraged to submit their own romantic locations, and if they do, the advertisements will be removed for that user. Users can rate locations, submit pictures, and even add comments. All backers will get the app ad free. Since I own a Windows Phone, I've started mockups for the Windows Phone version.
Who am I?
My name is Ryan. I'm a Junior attending Portland State University majoring in Graphic Design. I would l love to see this app in existence, I just need your support.
You can contact me though
Twitter
Facebook
or email me at RyanRothweiler@gmail.comAN archaeological society has made new discoveries in Blaenau Gwent.
Aberystruth History and Archaeology has found two new prehistoric sites and new farms that previously were unknown since obtaining a £37,000 Heritage Lottery Fund last year.
Last September, they obtained the grant for a four year project to record the history and archaeology of the Cwmcelyn Valley.
Ian Fewings, the charity’s founder and secretary, said: “We are on the research stage at the moment and we are discovering new things all the time.
“Since we started the project in October, we have found two new farms, a new level and incline that dates back to the early 1800s.
“We have also found a new Bronze Age ring cairn and a Prehistoric site which is possibly a Bronze Age temple.
“A lot of the archaeology and history has never before been recorded - we will be the first society to record the archaeology and history of the valley.
“We knew this would be a good project but it’s turning out to be very exciting.”
Mr Fewings said that they know people have been living in the Cwmcelyn Valley for the past eight thousand years as they have found flint form the Mesolithic period.
“We also know people have been living in the valley because of a Bronze Age hut circle we found back last year in the Valley,” he said.
The charity, which was set up three years ago, has more than 300 members from across the world, including from America and Australia.
A group of American members is planning on visiting the site this year as part of their trip to the UK.
He said:”It all started on a course with the University of South Wales.
“One day I said to a couple of people if they would be interested in setting up the group. We had 10 people in that first meeting.”
The group is looking for new members and membership is £6 a year. Membership forms are available via email at aberystruth.h.a.s@gmail.comOr: How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love.MHX2
So I just had a major breakthrough (I’m hoping!) with my NPC interactions. I had glanced once or twice at the work Thomas@MakeHuman had been doing, but in my earlier, more sleep deprived days of DaddyDev, I never quite grasped the concepts he was working on.
Ye gods, I’m so freakin’ thrilled I went back to take a second look.
I took one of my MakeHuman characters (the subway token booth clerk) and, after installing the.mhx2 files in Blender and MakeHuman; I re-exported him put him into Blender. Granted, I had to grasp there was an advanced options switch on the Blender import side – but once I activated the face shapes, I was blown away.
I had visemes (phonemes) already plugged in. I could export expressions from MH. Once I added the MakeWalk addon, I could import Mo-Cap.bvh files and apply them to my rig. Delving into the online manual (and a profound thanks to the dev who still does written manuals, I’m sure I will rant yet again about how much I hate video tutorials) I saw there were even more options to smooth out the mo-cap motions, edit the location / rotation of bones and once I figure it out, append other.bvh files. What really blew me away was the ability to import MOHO (.dat) lipsync files from Papagayo. And I loaded visemes ON TOP of the already loaded.bvh!
With the ability to make a character walk, talk and emote, suddenly a whole new facet of story telling opened up for me. Since I’m not big into programming, I’ve been using Playmaker to handle some of the basic interactivity; and after seeing the dev who made the wonderful Rift demo, ‘Coffee Without Words‘ made an asset that mimics human eye movement – my NPCs came alive.
Be forewarned, my demo video is NSFW; I made a MH woman with some extended clothing assets, I didn’t realize the bathrobe was translucent, so you see some breasts.
Lastly, after having tinkered with this for a bit, I got an email saying that Adobe had released Fuse, a character creation that tied in with Mixamo and the Mechanim animation system Unity now favors. I tried Fuse, made a character, got a walk animation added and plopped it in Unity (and Blender too, just to see what it would do, if I needed to tweak it)
The character worked, it did its walk cycle and looked ok after I changed its skin shader from transparent to opaque. I did notice that it can be lip-sync’ed, but only with a $35 additional purchase, and a new piece of software to learn and try to integrate. When I pulled the Fuse character into Blender, it was huge, distorted and had no face-rig that I could discern.
So Fuse wasn’t all that tempting, considering I’d have to shell out $$ for SALSA, and I suspect Adobe will be quickly adding a subscription fee like all its other products, I’d like to keep my dev budget as free and OSS as possible. Perhaps I’ll just create and export a bunch of random characters to populate my subway scene with, since MakeHuman doesn’t have the widest range of clothing options, the Fuse NPC’s will shake things up a bit visually.
Now I have to sit and watch about 2,000.bvh animations to find what actions I think will go well with my actors…Participants from different countries will team up to read around 50 works by Russian writer Anton Chekhov in Russian as part of Google's online dramatized reading, called “Chekhov Is Alive”, which will be held on September 25.
More than 500 people, including actors, musicians, politicians and athletes will take part in a dramatized reading marathon called Chekhov Is Alive. The organizers of the project – Google, the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater and the Russian Book Union – have selected around 50 works. The reading will take place on September 25 at different venues around the world: from Harvard to Hong Kong and Sakhalin Island. The continuous online broadcast will last about 24 hours.
The project is part of the Year of Literature program in Russia. It also coincides with the anniversary of Chekhov’s birth, which was 155 years ago this year.
“There is a lot of talk that people are reading less and literature is not in demand,” said Oleg Novikov, vice-president of the Russian Book Union. “[But] new technology is enabling us to find new and in-demand formats for popularizing literature and reading.”
Last year saw the project Karenina: Live Edition. For the first time in the world, more than 700 people from different cities and countries read the famous novel Anna Karenina live on Google+ and YouTube. Fyokla Tolstaya, the great writer’s great granddaughter, managed the project, which lasted 30 hours in total.
“People spend a lot of time online these days, especially the younger generation,” explains Dmitri Kuznetsov, Google Russia’s marketing director. “With this project we wanted to show that the Internet isn’t just a jumble of assorted information; it is somewhere you can join really important, relevant, remarkable projects – including ones focused on reading.” He added that the project got its title because the organisers believe that Chekhov never loses his importance.
According to Kuznetsov, the organizers have largely taken their inspiration from Karenina: Live Edition, but the new project will be slightly different. He said that the format of the new action was dictated by the very “nature of Chekhov's works.”
“The broadcast can be seen live on YouTube. The recording will remain available on the website after the broadcast, it will be possible to watch, listen to and relive it again,” Kuznetsov added.
To take part in the readings at the project, you need to take the test to discover which one of Chekhov’s characters you are on the website g.co/chekhov, record an excerpt of one of the works on video and send it via the online form. Applications will be accepted until August 10.
This is an abridged version of an article by RIA Novosti.
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.Story highlights Peter Moskos: Enough. It's too easy to disassociate words from horrible actions. But words have power to inspire, inflame, provoke.
He says after shootings by and of police, both sides must tone it down and find common ground to solve crisis of violence
Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer, is an associate professor in the department of law and police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He is the author of "Cop in the Hood" and "In Defense of Flogging." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) Enough.
It is too easy to disassociate words from horrible actions. But words have the power to inspire, inflame, provoke. Or else we wouldn't say them. When words inspire others to kill, however deranged those others might be, we must see the consequences.
Five police officers in Dallas are dead, killed during an otherwise peaceful protest over the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Peter Moskos
When those on the political right speak against immigrants, Muslims or abortion, those on the left are quick and correct to observe that words inspire crimes of hate and violence. Similarly, when those on the left speak against police officers -- not just bad ones, but all police officers -- this, too, can have consequences.
No matter one's beliefs, we all need to call out extremism and hate, especially given American's absurdly easy access to guns. No matter how many good people have guns, they cannot always stop a bad person with a gun. An armed society is clearly not always a polite society, so we need to tone it down.
Read MoreOn Tuesday, the AP reported the withdrawal of Q.R. Markham’s Assassin of Secrets spy novel by his publisher, Little, Brown and Company after they discovered that the writer had “lifted from a variety of classic and contemporary spy novels.”
Released in paperback last week, the publisher asked that stores return copies of the novel. Customers who purchased the book will receive a refund for the purchase of the book. The two-book deal that Little, Brown signed Markham to has been canceled:
“We take great pride in the writers and books we publish and tremendous care in every aspect of our publishing process, so it is with deep regret that we have published a book that we can no longer stand behind,” said Little, Brown president Michael Pietsch. “Our goal is to never have this happen, but when it does, it is important to us to communicate with and compensate readers and retailers as quickly as possible.”
The previously published novels Markham is said to have plagiarized include Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and works by Robert Ludlum and Charles McCarry.
According to the Associated Press, the publishers “declined to offer examples of passages in question and would not say how [they] learned of the similarities.” However, blogger Edward Champion of Reluctant Habits has posted a comparison of Markham’s excerpts and those he is said to have taken from:
Markham, p. 13: ‘His step had an unusual silence to it. It was late morning in October of the year 1968 and the warm, still air had turned heavy with moisture, causing others in the long hallway to walk with a slow shuffle, a sort of somber march.’ Taken from p. 1 of James Bamford’s Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency: ‘His step had an unusual urgency to it. Not fast, but anxious, like a child heading out to recess who had been warned not to run. It was late morning and the warm, still air had turned heavy with moisture, causing |
unes during the 2012 truce.
“When you see the profile of the people that have been transferred, you will see that it’s not just anyone,” Blacky continued.
The Snarf List
On September 1, 2016, a state intelligence agent visited the maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca to interview one of the defendants of the MS13 who was serving a sentence in a cell designated for gang members.
Oswaldo Vladimir López López is known in the Escalantes clique of the MS13 as “Snarf.” His ID registers his residence in Colonia El Coco, a small urban area adjacent to the wider Colonia Escalante, in the Mejicanos suburb of San Salvador. And Snarf has a colorful criminal record.
In 2006, he was sentenced to 100 years in prison for three aggravated homicides. Four years later — due to his degree of danger and his leadership within the gang — he was sent to the maximum security prison of Zacatecoluca.
In September 2016, after an intelligence agent finished interviewing Snarf, the agent wrote a report to send it to his superiors, to which El Faro gained access.
The document states that Snarf “reveals the existence of many compelling reasons for the MS13 to split. He states that the division in the MS13 is imminent and that sooner or later it would happen, and that he could contribute to that break of the structure if he is transferred to the Ciudad Barrios prison with all of his henchmen, 26 leaders that have a say and bind together several factions at the national level.”
According to the intelligence agent, Snarf promised almost immediate results if the government agreed to move them. He asserted that he and his henchmen would be able to fracture the gang in three to six months, “and not only in Salvadoran territory, but in all places [where] the international criminal structure exists.”
Snarf offered the agent a list with the names of 26 gang members, whom he said were leaders who were dissatisfied with the historic leadership of the gang and who held sufficient sway and could force the division of the criminal structure. All the members on the list were held in the Zacatecoluca maximum security prison, and belonged to a large number of cliques distributed throughout the country. But most belonged to the Fulton Locos Salvatrucha, which brings together several cliques in northern El Salvador.
“The possibility of the MS13’s fragmentation should be evaluated.”
The intelligence agent also states in the report that Snarf and his henchmen’s plan is to dethrone current gang leaders held in specially designated areas of the Zacatecoluca prison with extraordinary security measures. According to the report, they also tried to assassinate 30 mid-level commanders, who are considered key members and are housed in standard prisons.
“As a result of this, there would be approximately 30 deceased gang members who are the strong arms of the current rank and file,” the agent said.
Three months after this report circulated through the different state intelligence systems, the government transferred four gang members from the Zacatecoluca prison to a lower security prison: Ciudad Barrios. The transfer was made under a legislative decree that authorizes prison authorities to make transfers with full autonomy in prisons where extraordinary measures have been implemented. The four gang members were part of Snarf’s list: Luis Zelada, alias “Duke of Acajutlas”; Joel de Jesús Campos, alias “Largo”; Jorge Durán, alias “Payaso”; and the fourth gang member transferred was Oswaldo himself.
A month later, on January 22, 2017, three gang members locked up in sector 3 of the maximum security prison stabbed and killed a member of the MS13 while he distributed food in the cells. The prosecution blamed Raul Garcia, alias “Fulton Gasper”; Edwin Juárez, alias “the Dwarf”; and Damián Zelaya, alias “Fulton Skinny.”
Three days after the assassination, the government transferred at least 13 other members of the MS13 to the Ciudad Barrios prison. They were all Snarf’s henchmen and were on the list he had given to the intelligence agent, including “Fulton Gasper” and “Fulton Skinny,” accused of the recent murder.
In the course of a month, the authorities transferred at least 17 gang leaders from the maximum security prison to Ciudad Barrios, including a man with two escapes from prison and two clashes with the police on his record, and two other men who had stabbed another prisoner just three days earlier inside the jail where the most dangerous prisoners are held.
The last part of the intelligence agent’s report lays out three recommendations. The first says, “The possibility of the MS13’s fragmentation should be evaluated.”
‘We Are the Ones Who Have Come From Zacatecoluca’
During the second week of August 2017, El Faro obtained a video filmed inside a prison of 22 people who identify themselves as members of the MS13. Among them is Snarf and 16 other gang members he identified as his henchmen. There are five other inmates whose gang names or nicknames do not appear on the list Snarf turned over to the intelligence agent, including one claiming to be from a New York clique.
In the video, the inmates appear to be the group that has just “come down” from the Zacatecoluca prison and is dissatisfied with the way the gang is being managed. It is very likely that the video was filmed in the Ciudad Barrios prison, one of the prisons where extraordinary measures to tighten prison control and restrict movement within and outside the cells have been implemented.
(Courtesy of El Faro)
One of the prisoners, who serves as a ceremonial master, makes the introduction.
“The Big MS13! Greetings to all of the homeboys in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and all of the United States. We are part of the homeboys that have just come down from Zacatecoluca. There are certain things that we don’t share about what’s going on inside the neighborhood. Here we’re one, homeboys, and each one of us is going to give his nickname so that you all know who is here,” he said.
Then the rest of gang members — all shirtless, showing tattoos and some wearing a bandage that reads 503 — are presented one by one saying their nickname and the faction to which they belong. The third to speak, who was identified as “Starchy” of the Big Cracy clique, promises to the audience that there will soon be more videos.
“The thing is that after this, a video and an audio will come out where we’re going to express more clearly and in more detail.”
These images raise the number of gang members transferred from the Zacatecoluca prison to 22. Not all appear on the list that Snarf turned over to the intelligence agent, but they all seem to have one thing in common: their discontent with the gang’s leadership. On July 6, six months after being in the Ciudad Barrios prison, all these gang members were transferred as a unit to the most recently incorporated section of the Izalco prison.
El Faro contacted a mid-level commander within the MS13 gang structure belonging to an influential clique in western El Salvador. He sides with the historic leadership of the gang and says that the gang assumes the government wants to promote a change in the MS13’s leadership or promote the creation of a new faction within its leadership. From his perspective — which according to him is the prevailing perspective within the gang — the current rank and file will fulfill its promise to boycott the electoral campaigns of the governing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional – FMLN), and for that reason the government is trying to change the leadership or weaken its territorial control.
“The government wants to win the elections at our expense. They’re getting rid of, so to speak, the pawns who do not serve them. They’ve already sat down [with the gangs] and turned their backs on us. Now they are getting hold of people who are giving them privileges, they’re kicking out people who are condemned for life,” he said.
According to the gang member, the government is trying to capitalize on discontent within the MS13.
SEE ALSO: Videos Show FMLN Leaders Offering El Salvador Gangs $10 Mn in Micro-credit
The gang members driving the 503 movement “did not agree on certain arguments” about the truce requirements with the government, “but it also still bothers them that the government did not take them from Zacatecoluca last time. So today they have flipped the coin, and the government has taken advantage of that,” he said.
From July 20, El Faro explained each of the elements mentioned in this article to presidential spokesman Eugenio Chicas throughout several conversations and exchanges: the exchange of messages with Blacky, the intelligence report with Snarf’s list, the succession of transfers from Zacatecoluca and the video filmed and broadcast from jail.
Chicas has insisted that the FMLN is not strategizing to divide the MS13 or take sides in its internal conflicts. He said that the official analysis is that a division within the gang could cause a spike in murders, although he admits that he cannot explain the transfers from Zacatecoluca.
“That’s weird,” he said simply.
During the last week of July, Chicas promised to make arrangements for Justice and Public Security Minister (Ministerio de Justicia y Seguridad Pública – MJSP) Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde to meet with El Faro to discuss the topic.
“He has to deal with you because it is his responsibility to explain this, and if he does not take care of it, put his finger on it,” he suggested.
Since that time more than three weeks ago, he has not answered El Faro’s calls or messages.
The government of President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, accused of having won the elections through an electoral agreement with the gangs, has wanted to systematically disassociate itself from any type of dialogue with these criminal organizations, and has extensively insisted that the only measure against the gangs is something very similar to war.
National Civil Police (Policía Nacional Civil – PNC) Director Howard Cotto attributed the uptick in murders in June to the divisions within the MS13.
“MS13 gang member deaths have increased this June due to the internal division of the MS13 and MS503, which has led us to separate them in prison, because there’s already one internal conflict between one faction of the gang and another, which is why most of the murders this month are of this criminal structure,” he said.
The intelligence agent who interviewed Snarf in September 2016 and proposed that the government consider the option of strengthening the MS503 faction also made a warning in his report.
“The potential fragmentation within the MS13 brings with it [the possibility of] an increase in homicides of its members and internal struggles to maintain territorial and economic control.”
As of August, El Faro could not corroborate whether or not the efforts of the handful of dissident gang members and the benefits offered by the government had born fruit in terms of consolidating a dissident leadership or in the creation of a new gang.
*This article was translated, edited for clarity and length and published with the permission of El Faro. It does not necessarily represent the views of InSight Crime. See the Spanish original here.It was the most Phil Mickelson shot ever.
Mickelson has always been creative and daring on the golf course, and another chapter in that book was written during the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open on Friday at Torrey Pines.
Mickelson sliced his second shot on the par-5 18th of the North Course — his ninth hole of the day — and his ball came to rest next to a boundary fence. But of course Mickelson found a way to play it.
Lefty went around the fence — since it was a boundary fence he did not get free relief — and hit the ball with the toe of his hybrid while standing on the asphalt.
He knocked his ball into a bunker, which wasn’t bad given the circumstances, but he ended up three-putting for a double-bogey and dropped to 1-under for the tournament.
RELATED: Leaderboard | Phil Reprimands Teen for Talking Money Game
You can watch the shot below, courtesy of the PGA Tour. And make sure the volume is on to hear the “clank!”Kudos to Bloomberg for continuing to hammer away at this story of all the ailing banks out there. Yesterday Jonathan Weil wrote about the big problems at Regions Financial, and today they put together numbers showing that at least 150 publicly-traded banks may have a deadly toxic asset problem.
Specifically, Bloomberg looked for banks that had non-performing assets equal to at least 5% or more of their assets, a leve seen as crucial
The number of banks exceeding the threshold more than doubled in the year through June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as real estate and credit-card defaults surged. Almost 300 reported 3 percent or more of their loans were nonperforming, a term for commercial and consumer debt that has stopped collecting interest or will no longer be paid in full.
The biggest banks with nonperforming loans of at least 5 percent include Wisconsin's Marshall & Ilsley Corp. and Georgia's Synovus Financial Corp., according to Bloomberg data. Among those exceeding 10 percent, the biggest in the 50 U.S. states was Michigan's Flagstar Bancorp. All said in second- quarter filings they're "well-capitalized" by regulatory standards, which means they're considered financially sound.
Altogether the 150 banks had assets of $193 billion, which as Bloomberg notes, is 15x the FDIC's entire insurance fund.
"These numbers are off the charts," said Blake Howells, an analyst at Becker Capital Management in Portland, Oregon, referring to the nonperforming loan levels at companies he follows. Banks are losing the "ability to try and earn their way through the cycle," said Howells, who previously spent 13 years at Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp.
Read the whole thing >Getty Images
As the Redskins continue to reel from a stream of reports regarding dysfunction in the organization, questions persist regarding the source(s) of the stories.
Veteran receiver Santana Moss strongly believes that the leaks aren’t coming from the locker room.
“We’ve talked about it as a team, and since Coach Shanahan’s been here, we haven’t had that problem, so I don’t understand this year why there’s a problem with people getting our information that we hadn’t had a problem with,” Moss told LaVar Arrington and Chad Dukes of 106.7 The Fan in D.C. “I remember before we had a lot of those guys, and I don’t think we have a lot of those guys on the team no more. We clearly don’t have a lot of those old players on the team anymore, so it....”
“So it’s not players then,” Arrington said.
“I don’t know where it’s coming from,” Moss said. “It can’t be players.”
“So it’s coaches,” Lavar asked. “I mean I’m not putting words in your mouth, but I’m saying, I’m taking and owning that, that it’s gotta be coaches because [Shanahan’s] job is on the line this year. It didn’t happen last year because his job wasn’t on the line last year. It didn’t happen the year before that because his job wasn’t on the line.”
“To be honest with you, this is the ultimate highest that I can rank anything, because I’ve never been a part of anything to the point that, you know, you just see it ripping away,” Moss said earlier in the segment regarding the current environment within the team. “Every moment you get, it’s more, it’s more, you know like, you’re able to deal with so much as a player, especially when it’s not containing you. So you kind brush a lot of things away but, when it’s like okay, I brushed that away, now you’re bringing back more.”
The things Arrington said, and the things Moss didn’t say, mesh with the widespread belief in league circles that the latest, and most jarring, report was leaked to ESPN by coach Mike Shanahan or someone close to him. And that has set the stage for the sudden game of chicken between Shanahan and owner Daniel Snyder, with Shanahan apparently wanting to be fired so that he can collect $7 million for 2014 and Snyder wanting Shanahan to quit so that the team will owe Shanahan nothing.WINTER GARDEN, Florida (CBS DFW) – Texas is weeks away from the first legal sale of medical marijuana.
Two years after lawmakers legalized the drug for epilepsy patients, the state has licensed a company operating as Knox Medical to dispense the drug.
CBS11 travelled to Winter Garden, Florida, where the company has already broken ground as one of the first medical marijuana dispensaries there.
“I never thought in a million years, I’d be growing marijuana,” admits Bruce Knox, the company’s COO and chief cultivation officer.
A half hour’s drive from Disney World, hundreds of marijuana plants are growing in the greenhouse he oversees.
“I grew up extremely… with conservative values, and I’d never even seen a cannabis plant prior to getting into this,” said Knox.
His late parents, both retired law enforcement officers, founded Knox Nursery in 1962.
In 2015, Knox teamed up his family business with Cansortium Holdings to create Knox Medical.
“I was fortunate enough to go ask my dad about two weeks before he passed what he thought about this,” recalled Knox. “He said that I never thought that it should be legal.”
In September, Texas awarded a new branch of the company, Cansortium Texas the state’s first license to dispense. Customers will see it operate and sell products under the same Knox Medical name it uses in Florida.
MORE: Read the full story at CBS DFWWindows Phone 8.1 will officially be shown to the world at Build 2014 in San Francisco on April 2nd. We do have a sneak peek of the update thanks to a leak of the Windows Phone 8.1 beta SDK. There isn’t going to be a drastic overhaul to the design language started in Windows Phone 7, but Windows Phone 8.1 will bring a few aesthetic differences. Visually compare and contrast Windows Phone 8 versus Windows Phone 8.1 after the break!
In messaging you’ll see ‘text’ dropped and an extra icon in the app bar.
Not much has changed for the jump list in Windows Phone 8.1. The globe icon is colored though.
The multitasking view hasn’t changed much. You’ll see the updated Word icon and you’ll be able to swipe the card down to close the app. Something Windows Phone 8.1 learned from Windows 8.1.
The people hub has some new options. In Windows Phone 8.1 you’ll be able to only show contacts with phone numbers.
Here’s a settings page for contacts. This is where you’ll toggle to only show contacts with phone numbers in Windows Phone 8.1.
Settings for the photos+camera hub get updated. In Windows Phone 8.1 you can have the Start tile for the hub cycle through various photos.
On a limited internet plan? You can now select the level of compression for web pages served up through Data Sense on Windows Phone 8.1.Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.
The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.
It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.
The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.
A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.
Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.
“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.
“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.
“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.
He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.
“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”
A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.
“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.
“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”The Water Rights Protection Act passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday along a mostly party-line vote. The bill prevents federal agencies from securing privately obtained water rights as a condition of leasing public land.
Offered by Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, the measure prohibits the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture from requiring the transfer of acquired water rights to the federal government as part of permits to use federal property.
The bill was spawned by the ski industry, which sued the Forest Service when it initiated a water clause requiring resort operators to transfer water rights as part of a ski area permit.
Conservation groups argued that the bill was too broad and could impact recreational by-flow agreements that add water to river flows for recreational and environmental issues.
House Democrats on Thursday argued that the bill could hinder federal land managers’ ability to allow and restrict water use on federal land, which could allow private water users to drain essential flows from rivers and streams.
Tipton applauded the House’s 238-174 vote on the bill and urged Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, to support the bill as it moves to the Senate.
Tipton repeated the mantra of Colorado and the West: “Water is our lifeblood.”
“This is something we need to protect. We need to make sure our state law is protected,” he said. “This is not a partisan, political issue.”
Tipton, who celebrated the inclusion of agricultural and municipal water interests in his bill, said the Forest Service rule lacked certainty.
“This bill provides a certainty for something we all thought we could count on and that is the private-property right of water in our state, our state law and our priority-based system,” he said.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasontblevinsTuesday was the opening of the Korean Queer Cultural Festival in Seoul. This is what its closing parade looked like last June.
But when participants showed up for the opening ceremonies this year, this is what they found.
The anti-LGBT protesters had set up in front of the Seoul city hall hours before the event was due to take place.
Turnout for the kickoff was sparse, in large part because organizers had discouraged people not directly involved in organizing it to attend citing concerns about the outbreak of the respiratory illness known as MERS. But anti-LGBT activists have mounted an all-out campaign to shut down the Queer Cultural Festival, including successfully blocking the group's application to hold a pride parade by filing competing permit requests for the parade route.(CNN) The long-awaited Congressional Budget Office analysis of the American Health Care Act is out and the news isn't terribly good for Republicans hoping to avoid major electoral losses in 2018.
According to the CBO, the AHCA will ensure 23 million fewer people than Obamacare by 2026. That's broadly consistent with the 24 million number the earlier health care legislation pushed by Republicans -- but never voted on -- produced.
In a bit of good news for Republicans, the AHCA is expected to reduce the deficit by $119 billion, less than the $151 billion estimated in the original bill but still a significant chunk of change.
But, it's important to remember that the average person has NO idea what the CBO is or does or what its "scoring" means. The public pays only passing attention to these sorts of things that so captivate political Washington. What the average person does care about is bottom lines. And, on that front, Republicans look likely to lose.
There are two big bottom line numbers in this CBO report: 23 million and $119 billion. The question is which matters more: The delta between how many people Obamacare is covering and how many Trumpcare is projected to cover OR the money the country is saving on the debt.
One of these things is an esoteric number. The other is a real-world one. And the latter beats out the former every single time in campaigns.
Consider that for the average person our national deficit is a very, very hard concept to grasp. Sure, we owe lots of money. And, sure, owing that money -- particularly to China! -- is a bad thing. But, the size of the deficit is not something that has a day in, day out impact on most peoples' lives. In fact, I'd be willing to wager a large sum of money that the vast majority of people in the country don't think about the federal deficit more than once a year -- if that.
Health care -- particularly access to it -- is something that touches large swaths of the country on a weekly or monthly -- if not daily -- basis. It's something that every single person in the country has experience -- and often frustration -- with. The idea that 23 million people who would have health care if President Trump and Congressional Republicans do nothing will lose it under Trumpcare is going to be an extremely difficult case to make.
Add to that the fact that House Republicans passed the bill without even knowing how much it would cost or how many people it would leave uninsured makes it all the worse politically speaking.
Imagine this ad running against and endangered House Republican who voted for the AHCA: "Congressman X voted for Donald Trump's health care plan before he even knew what the bill would do. Now, a non-partisan budgeting agency say the legislation will eliminate health care options for 23 million people."
Pretty damning, right?
Republicans can -- and already are -- pushing back against the CBO. "The CBO has a long track record of being way, way off in its modeling, with predictions often differing drastically from what actually happens," Republican National Committee spokesman Mike reed said in an email sent to reporters shortly after the CBO release.
The problem is that the numbers are the numbers. Not everyone likes the CBO, but they are the gold standard when it comes to analyzing costs and impacts of legislation.
And remember that, in politics, the shortest and most succinct argument almost always wins. The Democratic argument goes like this: "The AHCA will leave 23 million more people uninsured." The Republican argument? "Well, that number is produced by a group known for not being totally accurate in its predictions and plus we are going to reduce the deficit by some too!"
It's not even close. That's a loser for Republicans. And a massive gift for Democrats looking to take back the House -- and hold their ground in the Senate -- next November.
CORRECTION: This piece has been updated to correctly state the AHCA's originally estimated deficit reduction.Deities in paradise, souls suffering in hell, jealous demigods and flying spirits, mortals gathered for debate—all these and more are depicted on the “Cosmic Buddha,” an extraordinary life-size sculpture on view in the Freer Gallery. Keith Wilson, a curator at the Freer, considers “Cosmic Buddha” the centerpiece of “Promise of Paradise,” the gallery’s exhibition of early Chinese Buddhist sculpture.
The “Cosmic Buddha” was probably made in northern China between 550 and 600 A.D., a period of great vitality for Chinese Buddhism during which the faith enjoyed imperial patronage and believers came from all strata of society. The painstakingly crafted scenes of "Cosmic Buddha” reflect the growing sophistication of Buddhist art; their layered landscape elements, diagonals and vanishing points convey a sense of space receding into the distance.
Every inch of the "Cosmic Buddha" is filled with intricate relief carvings that depict a “conceptual map” of Buddhism’s Six Realms of Existence, from the heavenly realm of the devas at the top to the hot and cold hells of the dead at the bottom. Although the sculpture looks like a human figure dressed in robes, Wilson believes that the surface scenes should be interpreted not as textile patterns but as "emanations from within," in keeping with Vairochana's cosmic nature. This explains why the scenes mingle contiguously, organically, with no clear boundaries between them.
Traditionally an object like "Cosmic Buddha" could only be studied through direct observation, rubbings of the surface or, later, photography; the new imaging method, by contrast, retains the work's 3D character, is completely noninvasive, and allows researchers to see things that cannot be observed with the naked eye.
"With the scanning process, I'm able to map the entire surface," says Wilson. "It's allowed me to see what the boundaries of the scenes were, analyze what the content specifically is... and make the information accessible to visitors and scholars."
Some aspects of the sculpture remain shrouded in mystery. No one knows who commissioned it, where it was carved or discovered, how the hands and head were lost. But with the help of 21st-century technology, scholars will be able to see more of its ancient universe than ever before.
At this point, Wilson believes that "Cosmic Buddha" was a teaching sculpture, likely used in a monastery. "The scenes are so complicated and the sources are so diverse [that] they really require a narrator to explain what’s being shown," he says.
Let us, with Wilson’s help, be your narrator. Click on the icons in the image above to learn more about the scenes depicted on the “Cosmic Buddha.”
This video was the result of the work by the Smithsonian’s 3D imaging team, who have been scanning the sculpture since fall 2011, registering every nook and cranny to create precise 3D views from every angle. These images were stitched together digitally and loaded into software that will allow users to move, light and manipulate the object in ways that are physically impossible.Republican Matt Bevin defeated Democrat Jack Conway by more than 84,000 votes to become only the second Republican Kentucky governor in four decades.
Bevin took the lead early in Tuesday's election, and he never let it go. Earlier in the day, he told a crowd of reporters that he felt a shift was coming in the race, and while it was ultimately up to the voters, he said he felt good.
"I believe I'll win but votes will decide," he said. "Momentum has shifted; it is on our side. The enthusiasm is there. Really turns out to be who turns out to vote."
About 30.6 percent or 982,259 of Kentucky's 3,201,852 voters turned out to vote, according to the secretary of state's office.
The Louisville businessman received 511,771 votes, pushing him well past Conway's 426,944 votes. Independent Drew Curtis was a distant third with 35,629 votes.
Jack Conway, the state's attorney general, didn't say a whole lot when he took the stage just before 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Frankfort Convention Center to make his concession speech.
"Tonight was not the result that we had hoped for, but it is a result we respect," he told the crowd.
Conway said he called Bevin to congratulate him. He said he was obviously disappointed, but he said he was "honored by the support I received from so many Kentuckians who shared my commitment to the issues that matter to hardworking families."
"I ran for governor because I believed in fighting for the values and the interests of Kentucky’s working families, and it’s been an honor to serve as a strong voice for so many in this election," he said. "I also want to thank the people of Kentucky for allowing me the tremendous honor of serving as the 49th Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Whether in public or private life, I look forward to always working to improve our Commonwealth."
Conway didn't say much about what's next except this, to his two daughters: "Eva, Alex...daddy's going to be home a lot."
In Louisville, Bevin took the stage after several other Republican candidates who were also celebrating victories. Kentucky Lt. Governor elect Jenean Hampton, the state's first African-American to hold a statewide office, briefly addressed the crowd before Bevin was introduced. She said it was "amazing."
Bevin reiterated that as he headed to the stage.
"It feels outstanding, it's a good day for Kentucky," he said.
Bevin addressed the crowd, thanking his wife, his children and his parents. He acknowledged that there is a challenge ahead, but he said he was prepared to lead the state.
"We need a fresh start," Bevin said. "I do want us to remember that the task before us has only just begun."
Bevin talked about uniting the state's leaders, crossing party lines to achieve their goals.
"This is a call out to everyone in Kentucky," he said. "Whether you voted for me or not. This is your Kentucky."
Republicans have dominated federal elections in Kentucky, but moderate Democrats have maintained control of state government. Bevin's election gives Republicans control of the executive branch along with a commanding majority in the state Senate. Democrats still have an eight-seat majority in the state House of Representatives.
Focus will almost immediately shift to the state House elections in 2016, where U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has vowed to flex his powerful fundraising muscle to Republicans to take over the only southern state legislative body controlled by Democrats.
Voters elected someone to replace a two-term Democrat in a race that has turned on health insurance for 500,000 people, marriage licenses for same-sex couples and public education for preschool children.
The three gubernatorial candidates contrasted sharply in a race watched closely for its proximity to the 2016 presidential election and for its competitiveness in one of the nation's last two-party states.
The two major-party candidates and their allies have spent more than $14 million to air more than 41,000 TV ads in Kentucky, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. That does not include direct mail or ads on radio or local cable systems.
The governor’s race was considered to be one of the top tickets in the country. The race was featured Tuesday in the New York Times.
Last spring, Bevin won a nail-biter of a primary -- just 83 votes -- over James Comer. That wasn't the case this time around.
Conway had been considered, in polls, to be the frontrunner. Bevin appeared to have an uphill battle.
Steve Robertson, spokesman for the Kentucky Republican Party, said it would be a close race.
Both sides have spent a lot of money, Robertson said. Bevin has been outspent recently, but Robertson says everything is "even-Steven now."
"It is a jump ball, anybody's ball game," he said. "Both campaigns have really been going at it. Matt Bevin is in a good position."
Meanwhile, Curtis said social media was a big part of his campaign. In a column published Tuesday by Wired, Curtis said the Internet has made it possible for a third-party candidate to win an election.
"Basically whatever I'm going to clock in, I've done with nothing. So if you add that effort plus an honest-to-God political campaign, you could see some pretty big results," Curtis said.
Curtis cast his vote Tuesday morning alongside family in Versailles. He spoke to reporters and acknowledged that his chance of winning was slim.
Curtis said there is value in his campaign because it brings up topics that might not have been discussed, such as the pension system, tax reform and restoring voting rights for felons.
"If nothing else happens other than that, that's going to be a huge boon to the state just by itself," he said. "So yeah, being able to bring more complicated subjects to the table than people otherwise would have talked about."A new report says more than a quarter of the people living in Boston in 2014 were born outside the United States.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority report says the number of foreign-born residents of Boston increased by 19 percent from 2000 to 2014.
Of the city's 656,051 residents in 2014, 177,461 were foreign born.
Of Boston's foreign-born residents, about half — 49 percent — are naturalized U.S. citizens.
The Dominican Republic has surpassed China as the top country of origin for Boston's foreign-born, with Haiti the third-largest source. Thirteen percent of Boston's foreign-born population came from the Dominican Republic, topping the 10.6 percent that came from China, per the report.
The top 10 countries of origin for Boston's foreign-born population in 2014 (Courtesy BRA)
The city's East Boston neighborhood had the highest percentage of foreign-born residents at just over 50 percent, followed by Mattapan at 36 percent, downtown at 33 percent and Dorchester at 32 percent.
According to the report, from 2000 to 2014 the percentage of residents 5 years or older speaking a non-English language at home increased from 33 percent to 37 percent. Spanish is the most common non-English language.
The city's foreign-born population is less likely to hold a bachelor's degree, and more likely to work in service occupations, the report added.
With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR NewsroomKONNA, Mali/PARIS (Reuters) - French and Malian forces fighting Islamist rebels took control on Saturday of the rebel bastion of Gao, the biggest military success so far in an offensive against al Qaeda-allied insurgents occupying the country’s north.
The United States and Europe back the U.N.-mandated Mali operation as a counterstrike against the threat of radical Islamist jihadists using the West African state’s inhospitable Sahara desert as a launching pad for international attacks.
In an overnight assault on Gao backed by French warplanes and helicopters |
soulless capitalist pig, I bought the ALAN a couple years ago with the intent to sell off some of the heinously mismatched components to make moolah to build more ugly bikes. I did pretty well off of it and started my terrible addiction to buying enormous piles of bike-tat.
An enormous pile of bike-tat.
The frame is in pretty shitty condition generally and had sat in my shed since then. There’s a massive gouge out of the driveside chainstay, the (Italian, eugh.) bottom-bracket shell was in pretty bad shape and the headset cups had clearly wiggled about for years and one can now hand-press the cups in.
The frame is however quite nice. After a cursory email to ALAN, I discovered the frame was very likely a ‘for race only’ model supplied to the team in the mid nineties. As such, it’s really very light and a quite lovely ride.
But suffering from a condition that allows me only to ride ugly or ironic bikes, my 'what-is-that-behind-that-shelf-in-my-dank-shed’ build has brought the bike down to a suitable level of un-suitableness.
Highlights include scuffed crabon flat bars, the ugliest and most ridiculously oversized quill stem ever* and really nice 6500 hubs laced to admittedly quite worn Open-Pro’s. Which aren’t even mine.
So pulling up to the line at last weeks John Muir Wintercross, I was visibly nervous and embarrassed by my dorky mountain bike helmet and ugly bike.
There’s very little point in writing a full break-down of the race, as I lasted two laps before remounting at the barriers opposite the finish line where my appalling** single bolt seat post promptly esploded, leaving me with the option of public amateur castration or DNF'ing.
I chose the later, banking on the successes of not falling off at the start line, staying almost a full minute ahead of Matthew on my second lap, despite his fancy crabon crossing cycle and hoping to palm off my failure as a conceptual art piece titled 'The Gentrification of Cyclocross and the Counter-Culture of Remounting.’
None of this worked and the median of post race abuse was more evenly balanced between me and Matthew than usual.
Despite these publicly shaming events, making an appearance at any cycling event in central belt Scotland out of the question, I’ve slightly fallen for the bike.
Public shame.
I’m quite proud to admit that this is my first ever foray into the world of single speed douche-baggy-ness and I’m perhaps a little sold. The simplicity is nice and all, but what’s got me a little hooked is being able to tell everyone I ride a single speed.
We all know cyclocross has nothing to do with enjoying yourself. Nobody likes lathering them selves in chamois cream yet having a crack full of grass and cow shit to keep things slick for you. Nobody likes cleaning filthy, broken bikes. And nobody really likes hanging around in freezing, muddy fields, riding in small circles and feeling sick.
No, cyclocross is about egotistical posing, as thinly veiled as one of your French girls as poetic-suffering for the sake of the sport. And I’m totally ok with that.
Single-speed riding is about as productive as one could be if poetic-suffering is your goal. Not only do you have the physical suffering to bank on, but the tirade of abuse and questions from your peers about your gear deficiency will only add to your overwhelmingly enlarged ego.
And when cycling really is about posing in stretchy-pants, you couldn’t do better.
So what does this mean for the ALAN? It’ll likely stay in this guise for a short while before it’s inevitably stolen from the mean streets of the west end of Edinburgh. Until then, I’ll secretly enjoy riding it and try my best not to become that SS guy.***
* Trying to make a quill stem laterally stiff truly is the ultimate test in futility. Like pissing into hurricane.
** Completely my own fault.
*** How do you tell someone rides a single-speed? Don’t worry, they’ll let you know.Synopsis
Gordon Walker has escaped from prison, and tracks down Bela after he finds out she had been working with the Winchesters. Although he threatens to shoot her, she only reveals their whereabouts when Gordon gives her a priceless mojo bag.
Sam and Dean are hunting a vampire who has killed two people. They find a third victim still alive, and Dean captures the vampire and subdues her by injecting her with dead man's blood. When Sam and Dean interrogate the vampire, Lucy, they find out she was picked up in a club by a guy called Dixon who spiked her drink with vampire’s blood. He took her back to his place, but she escaped and started killing people to feed. She is unaware of what's happened - she thinks she is on a drug high and can't come down. Seeing no alternative, and with Sam's approval, Dean kills her.
Meanwhile, Gordon and Kubrick interview Lucy's third victim in the hospital and find out that the Winchesters were the ones who saved him. Sam and Dean visit the club where Lucy had her drink spiked. They see a man who fits Lucy's description leaving with a woman and they intervene as the man is about to feed her vampire blood. Just as Sam and Dean start to fight Dixon, Gordon and Kubrick appear and start shooting at the boys. While Dean draws their fire to give Sam a chance to escape, Dixon knocks Gordon out and kidnaps him.
Gordon wakes up to find himself bound to a bed frame. Nearby two young women are restrained – Dixon is turning them into vampires. Dixon explains to Gordon that hunters killed his nest, including his daughter. Dixon had been planning on using Gordon to feed the girls he is converting, but as Gordon continues to taunt him, Dixon snaps and instead cuts Gordon and bleeds onto the wound.
Dean has worked out that Bela betrayed them to Gordon and he calls her, threatening to kill her next time they meet. In order to placate him, Bela uses a Ouija board to contact a spirit and find out where Gordon is. She passes the information on to the boys, along with the spirit's warning that the boys should stay away from Gordon.
When Sam and Dean arrive at Dixon’s place, they find Gordon gone and Dixon distraught. The two young women are dead, their heads ripped off by Gordon – now a vampire. Gordon visits Kubrick, revealing he is now a vampire. He tells Kubrick to let him live long enough to use his new improved strength and senses to kill Sam. Nevertheless, Kubrick attempts to kill him and so Gordon rips his heart out.
Dean and Sam search for Gordon to no avail. Dean declares he will go after Gordon on his own but Sam protests and confronts Dean about his attitude since he made the deal with the crossroads demon. Dean denies he is scared but Sam persists, saying that what he really wants is to feel like Dean is his brother again. Dean agrees that he will stay, and they prepare to wait out the night.
Gordon calls the boys and tells them he has a young woman he will kill if they don’t meet him. When Sam and Dean arrive they rescue the woman, but as they are leaving, a roller door closes, separating them. Trapped in the darkness, Sam is at a disadvantage to Gordon's enhanced sight. Outside Dean fails to open the door, and then has to use the Colt, as the young woman they rescued turns out to be a vampire and attacks him.
Dean locates where Sam and Gordon are fighting, but Gordon throws him aside and then starts to bite him. Sam pulls Gordon from Dean and manages to grab some barbed wire which he wraps around Gordon’s neck. Sam garrotes Gordon until he is decapitated. Later, on the side of the road, the boys have a beer while Dean works on the Impala. He starts to explain to Sam what’s wrong with the engine, and asks him to try fixing it. When Sam asks why, Dean replies that he is doing what a brother should do – showing his little brother the ropes.
"Seven Minutes in Heaven" by Dave Feldstein
(plays when Dean and Sam exit Spider and look for the vampire)
"Crazy Circles" by Bad Company
(plays at the end as the boys work on the car)
Quotes
Gordon: Sam Winchester's the Antichrist.
Sam Winchester's the Antichrist. Bela: Mmm. I'd heard something about that...
Gordon: It's true.
Bela:...from my good friend, the Easter Bunny, who'd heard it from the Tooth Fairy. Are you off your meds?
Gordon: The world hangs in the balance. So you go ahead and be a smart-ass, but tell me where they are, or I shoot. The world hangs in the balance. So you go ahead and be a smart-ass, but tell me where they are, or I shoot.
Gordon: This woman has a very dangerous virus.
This woman has a very dangerous virus. Man: What? She bit me in the neck!
Kubrick: The bite doesn't matter. You have to actually ingest the blood to be infected.
Gordon: Good thing, too. We'd have had to kill you. Good thing, too. We'd have had to kill you.
Dean: That bitch. Hi, Bela.
That bitch. Hi, Bela. Bela: Hello, Dean.
Dean: Question for you. When you called me yesterday, it wasn't to thank me for saving your ass, was it?
Bela: No. Gordon Walker paid me to tell him where you were. No. Gordon Walker paid me to tell him where you were.
Dean: Bela, if we make it out of this alive, the first thing I'm gonna do is kill you.
Bela, if we make it out of this alive, the first thing I'm gonna do is kill you. Bela: You're not serious.
Dean: Listen to my voice and tell me if I'm serious. Listen to my voice and tell me if I'm serious.
Sam: Yeah, I know. We've got to kill him.
Yeah, I know. We've got to kill him. Dean: Really? Just like that? I thought you would have been like, 'No, we can't, he's human, it's wrong.'
Sam: No, I'm done. I mean, Gordon's not gonna stop until we're dead... or till he is. No, I'm done. I mean, Gordon's not gonna stop until we're dead... or till he is.
Dixon: I was desperate! You ever felt desperate? I've lost everyone I ever loved. I'm staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?
Dean: Well, there's Hell.
Gordon: You have to let me do one last thing first.
You have to let me do one last thing first. Kubrick: What?
Gordon: Kill Sam Winchester.
Kubrick: Gordon...
Gordon: It's the only... it is the one good thing to come out of this nightmare. I'm stronger, I'm faster – I can finish him. It's the only... it is the one good thing to come out of this nightmare. I'm stronger, I'm faster – I can finish him.
Sam: You know what, man? I'm sick and tired of your kamikaze trip
You know what, man? I'm sick and tired of your kamikaze trip Dean: Whoa, whoa, kamikaze? I'm more like a ninja.
Sam: That's not funny.
Dean: It's a little funny. It's a little funny.
Sam: Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just...
Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just... Dean: What?
Sam: I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... just 'cause. I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... just 'cause.
Sam: What's with the auto shop? What, you don't mean you want—
What's with the auto shop? What, you don't mean you want— Dean: Yeah, I do. You fix it.
Sam: Dean, you barely let me drive this thing.
Dean: Well, it's time. You should know how to fix it. You're gonna need to know these things for the future. And besides, that's my job, right? Show my little brother the ropes? Put your shoulder into it. Well, it's time. You should know how to fix it. You're gonna need to know these things for the future. And besides, that's my job, right? Show my little brother the ropes? Put your shoulder into it.
Trivia & References
DaDa. "Fresh Blood" is the title of a song by Alice Cooper from the album
Dean: All right, listen, Wavy Gravy. It's not going to stop. You've already killed two people, almost three. Wavy Gravy was a hippie and peace activist, as well as "official" clown for the Grateful Dead. All right, listen, Wavy Gravy. It's not going to stop. You've already killed two people, almost three.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy Westenra was an unknowing victim of the vampire, Dracula. Likewise, the Lucy in this episode is an unknowing victim of Dixon.
Minutiae
Dixon's hunting ground was the "Spider" bar, on Jefferson St.
The neon sign outside the warehouse where the vampire is holed up says "Trade Co."
The factory where the final fight takes place is "on Riverside, off the turnpike."
When the fight is over with Gordon Dean stands next to a sign that says "183 Days" - possibly a reference to how long he has left on his deal.
Sides, Scripts & TranscriptsI always find discussions with feminists enlightening. For a group of people who want people to listen to them, they tend to be very poor listeners. For a group of people who do not want others to take their critiques personally, feminists tend to take any criticism about them and their views very personally. I am fascinated by this because feminists, like most ideologues, fail to see the irony in their actions.
Take, for example, Jamie Utt’s reaction to the criticism his piece 10 Ways Men Can Combat Sexist Entitlement in Public. The piece received a far amount of criticism, some of which Utt deleted. He then responded to the criticism:
Most generally, I find it really troubling and somewhat telling that so many people are towing the “not all men,” “this is really an issue of basic respect for all people,” and “women do some of this stuff too” tropes throughout the comments. While yes, all of these relate to basic issues of respect, there is a reason that the post is so directly targeted at men: men disproportionately express entitlement in public spaces. The very fact that some of you are demanding “evidence” of this is an expression of this exact entitlement, as the cumulative voices of the women around us are not enough. Just take one day to listen to the ways that women express having had their bodies touched and their space violated, and we can see that this is an issue men must take up. Again, this is not to say that women or non-binary people do not act in entitled ways that violate others’ space, but it is wholly incomparable to the ways men do this. If that’s not evident, then I would encourage some reflective listening.
I found this logic problematic and commented on it:
Your response is a fine example of circular logic and argumentum ad populum. Asking for evidence of a general argument is basic element of science, be it physical or social science. If you claim that something occurs, it is reasonable for people to ask for evidence supporting that claim. However, the evidence cannot simply be “the cumulative voices” you know. That you know many people who experience something does not prove that thing occurs all the time.
Likewise, listening to women talk about their experiences would not prove it an issue men should take up anymore than listening to men talk about their experiences would prove it an issue women should take up. It would only demonstrates that this is an issue that affects some women, which no one denies.
More curious is why people should engage in “reflective listening” to women but men. Why should we not listen to men when they say the same thing happens to them?
As for your claim about consent, I have yet to read a single article by you suggesting that women and girls should ask for “clear, healthy” consent from men and boys, or that boys and men should expect that girls and women should ask for their consent. That implies you either do not consider it necessary to tell females to respect males’ boundaries, that females do not have to respect males’ boundaries, or that males have no boundaries to begin with.
Regarding your comment about deleting comments, I agree it is not censorship, however, it does demonstrate that you do not want anyone to challenge your views. Attitudes like that are part of the reason I became an advocate for male survivors, so #IAmNotSorryYourAreNotSorry.
The last portion refers to this part of Utt’s comment:
There are a host of other things that I likely could or should respond to in these comments, but I just don’t have time to cover it all! That said, if I interpret your comment as abusive or if it’s just repeating crap that others are already saying in the comments, it will get deleted. People cry censorship, but this is my space, and you don’t have a right to say whatever you want in my space. #SorryNotSorry
In other words, do not question Utt’s views. I understand his position from an ideological perspective. He attempts to mount a defense of his arguments, but he cannot actually support his position, so the only option is to shut down dissent.
He did, however, respond to my comments:
The problem with your reply is that you assume that the cumulative voices of women who are calling for this type of entitlement to end (which have led to this piece being viewed 155,000 times in less than a week) is not evidence, as you seem to believe that there are only certain types of evidence that meet your scientific standard. Yet these voices are evidence. And yes, the voices of men who experience the entitlement of male and female abusers also need to be lifted up. The project of this piece, though, is to deal very specifically with that one type of patriarchal entitlement, and the evidence is in the stories of nearly every single woman I have ever talked to about these issues. It’s not that we shouldn’t listen to men who say that things like this happen to them. It’s about refusing to allow men to derail the conversation which should be about men’s behavior by saying, “But women can be jerks too!” You’re right... I never write articles that highlight the need for EVERYONE to incorporate enthusiastic consent into their relationships [he lists links to various articles] If you don’t like the way I deal with comments on my blog, then don’t come to my blog. I’m glad that you’re an advocate for male survivors. I simply hate the way you conduct your advocacy, which is why I don’t go to your site and comment all over your ‘ish. #sorrynotsorry
And of course, he then blocks me from commenting on his blog. That is fine. I can respond here:
As I stated, complaints by some women would only establish that this issue affects some women, which no one denies.
I think the disconnect is that you are arguing from an ideological standpoint. I am uninterested in feminist doctrine. I am interested only in whether you can empirically demonstrate your argument that “#YesAllMen are socialized to feel and act entitled in society.” You cannot simply use thousands of tweets as evidence for the same reason I cannot simply use men’s complaints as evidence. All that would do is tell us that the acts occur.
Coincidentally, you seem to reject the number of complaints coming from men as valid evidence. To this extent, I am only holding you to your own standard.
As for the argument about derailing, if you argued that both sexes engage in “entitlement,” but for this particular article you want to focus on “male entitlement,” I would agree that mentioning male experiences would derail the conversation. However, you framed the situation as if only men engage in “entitlement,” while women only “get super entitled about how their drink was made a at a coffee shop.” In that instance, mentioning male experiences only corrects your misrepresentation.
Regarding the articles, the first appears neutral, however, specific references to people violating someone’s boundaries always portray the abuser as male and the victim as female. The second article frames sexual violence as something that essentially only happens to “straight, cisgender women.” It then blames male victims for their own abuse by claiming it was caused by “a system of patriarchal oppression,” which male victims are incidentally complicit in. The rest of the article frames sexual violence as something only men do to women. The third article mentions consent, but only in the context that boys should ask for their partners’ consent. The article never mentions that boys should ensure their consent and boundaries are respected. The fourth article was not written by you and only once mentions getting consent. The article focuses on teaching girls that they should enjoy sex too. The fifth is an actually gender neutral, albeit incredibly impractical, list. The sixth again blames male victims for their own abuse.
Having worked as an advocate for over ten years, spoken to hundreds of male survivors, and being a male survivor myself, I find your articles more likely to further traumatize male survivors than help them. The articles fail to address the issues male survivors actually face.
I fully disagree with your view that men and boys cause, contribute to, or benefit from their own abuse as a result of “a system of patriarchal oppression.” Likewise, I fully disagree with your view about “entitlement.” I do not think you can address behavior that both sexes engage in by only focusing on what one sex does.
As for you final comment, attacking the work I do, which I do not discuss on my blog, is rather petty and, while ironically revealing, does you no favors.
I find Utt’s responses comical and childish. His attitude is precisely why so many men felt compelled to offer counter examples of “female entitlement.” Utt is dismissive, passive aggressive, and ironically a poor listener. These are never qualities one should have if one wants people to listen to one’s advice.
Utt states that his post receives 155,000 views. I wonder how many of those views came from non-feminists or men and how many were just scores of feminists clicking on an article that simply says what they want to hear. An echo chamber is not proof that your views are right. It is only proof classical conditioning.By Scott Horton
Special to the Huffington Post
Two investigating judges from the Spanish national security court, the Audiencia Nacional, are asking the U.S. Justice Department for details about the role played by Bush Administration lawyers in the development and approval of torture practices that were apparently applied to a number of Spanish subjects held in Guantanamo.
The judges have asked for responses by the end of October, setting up another major test for Attorney General Eric Holder. This time, the question is whether Holder will choose to oblige or stymie international criminal investigations of Bush officials for torture, in the absence of any domestic efforts in that direction.
Holder has thus far threaded the needle between torture critics and torture apologists by launching a narrowly tailored preliminary inquiry into a small group of incidents that exceeded Justice Department guidances in place at the time.
Had he launched a more wide-ranging investigation, the Spaniards would almost certainly have abandoned theirs, which is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction when it comes to such things as war crimes.
The Spanish authorities are deciding whether to continue with a criminal investigation targeting the so-called Gonzales Six -- former attorney general Alberto Gonzales; former Justice Department officials Jay Bybee (now a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) and John Yoo (now a law professor in Berkeley, California); David Addington, the former chief of staff to vice president Cheney; former undersecretary of Defense for Planning Douglas Feith, and former defense department general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer with Chevron).
The two separate cases involve Judges Eloy Velasco and Baltasar Garzon and arise out of related facts -- one coming of out of a complaint brought by a Spanish human rights organization on behalf of abused Spanish nationals held at Guantanamo, the other stemming from a failed effort by Judge Garzon to prosecute those same prisoners. A conviction initially secured by Judge Garzon was overturned in a later decision of the Spanish Supreme Court, which found substantial evidence that the prisoners had been tortured. The Spanish Supreme Court labeled Guantanamo a "legal black hole," forbade Spanish prosecutors to rely on evidence secured by American interrogators there and directed a more detailed investigation into the prisoner's claims that they had been tortured.
In the course of the last week, I interviewed a number of figures involved in these two cases in Madrid, including lawyers practicing before the Audiencia Nacional and court investigators, in order to get a sense of their likely trajectory. I learned that the two judges were closely monitoring developments in the United States, and particularly Holder's decision to appoint career prosecutor John Durham to conduct a preliminary inquiry into a group of ten or more incidents in which the CIA's inspector general concluded that the conduct of CIA interrogators exceeded the guidelines they were given by the Justice Department.
Under Spanish law, the opening of a criminal investigation covering the same matters by the United States would probably lead to the termination or suspension of a case in Spain grounded on universal jurisdiction. However, the Spanish authorities tentatively concluded that suspension of their cases was not warranted at this point because Holder had placed so many limitations on Durham's work and because it does not appear that Durham is being asked to examine the cases involving the Spanish subjects who were held at Guantanamo.
Judges Garzon and Velasco are also clearly focusing their inquiries on the roles played by the Gonzales Six, whereas Holder appears to have structured the Durham probe to limit any investigation into the role that Justice Department lawyers and others played in the matter. The Spanish authorities will probably reassess if the Durham preliminary review leads to a more formal criminal investigation. If they conclude that Durham is also examining the potential culpability of the Gonzales Six, that would likely lead to a suspension of the Spanish proceedings.
The Spanish investigators are now hoping for detailed responses to the questions they sent the U.S. Justice Department in the form of "letters rogatory" -- the customary method of obtaining judicial assistance from abroad in the absence of a treaty or executive agreement. The questions focus on the treatment of the Spanish subjects held at Guantanamo and the specific authority and approval for that treatment. They also probe in more detail into the role played by Gonzales, Bybee and Yoo in the process, reflecting a view that the U.S. Justice Department was itself the locus of much of the criminal conduct connected to introduction of a system of torture and cruel treatment of Spanish subjects, in violation of the Spanish criminal code using its universal jurisdiction arm.
The government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, which has held confidential discussions with the Obama Administration, has strongly opposed the inquiries. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido, a member of Zapatero's cabinet, instructed his representatives attached to the Audiencia Nacional to seek their termination. On April 17, Conde-Pumpido gave a press conference at which he ridiculed suggestions that attorneys could face any liability for torture, saying that only those who were present in the room when the torture occurred faced liability. However, in Spain, unlike the United States, criminal investigations are pursued not by the attorney general and his staff, but by judges who are independent of political structures. Neither of the two judges has, so far, agreed with Conde-Pumpido's position. Moreover, his analysis of potential liability for torture was squarely rejected in one interim decision of the court, which concluded that legal culpability for torture rested principally with the "intellectual authors" of the program, rather than those who administered the program.
The Zapatero government, with support from its political opposition, recently steered legislation through the Spanish parliament modifying Spain's universal jurisdiction statute to limit the sorts of foreign cases that the Audiencia Nacional could handle. The legislative change does not, however, affect the proceedings involving the Gonzales Six, since cases in which Spanish subjects are victims of torture remain within the core competence of the court, regardless of where the acts of torture occurred or whatever other governments may have been involved.
On Saturday, the Spanish newspaper El Publico reported that Judge Garzon had agreed to expand his case by admitting a number of human rights organizations and a political party as parties who would have a right of participation in any trial. Huffington Post blogger Andy Worthington offered a summary of the Publico piece with some updates.
It is unclear how the Holder Justice Department will react to the Spanish court's request. Lawyers attached to the Audiencia Nacional state that during the Bush years, the U.S. Justice Department was not forthcoming in answering requests for information, even with respect to counterterrorism prosecutions the Spanish undertook with U.S. prompting. Holder, noting that this concern was broadly expressed by European law enforcement authorities, has pledged in several appearances in Europe to introduce a new spirit of cooperation with the European on counterterrorism matters. However, the case of the Gonzales Six presents an unusual challenge since former personnel from the Justice Department are clearly in the prosecutorial cross-hairs.
Spanish authorities expressed particular puzzlement over Holder's decision not to release a study prepared by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility that looks into the conduct of Yoo, Bybee and their successor, Steven G. Bradbury. This report has been five-years in the making. "This report probably contains a good deal of the information that is being sought in the interrogatories," one court investigator told me.
British law professor Philippe Sands, whose expert testimony was a key factor in the Audiencia Nacional's initial decision to accept the case involving the Gonzales Six, takes the view that the Spanish cases will now go forward. Sands told me:
The effect of Mr Holder's important first decision to appoint a special prosecutor on a limited number of cases involving the CIA means that there will not be, for the time being at least, any sort of investigation (as required by the Torture Convention), of the real authors of the abuse, including the lawyers. Ironically, the decision means that those who made implicit threats with drills that were never used may be investigated, whereas those who authorized, ordered or carried out waterboarding, sexual humiliation, stress positions and the use of dogs will not be. Hardly a logical approach, and not exactly consistent with the scheme under the Convention. That's a bright green light for continued foreign investigations. I have no doubt that the DoJ will, in due course, do the right thing and respond to the letters rogatory. What the response might contain, however, is a matter of some interest.
For the moment, however, the attention is focused on the U.S. Justice Department. Will it treat the Spanish criminal investigation seriously? Or will it continue the Bush Administration's practice of turning a cold shoulder to any such queries? It is, yet again, a question of change versus continuity.
About Scott Horton
Scott Horton is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, where he writes on law and national security issues, an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches international private law and the law of armed conflict, and a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, where he currently serves as a trustee. Scott recently led a number of studies of issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror, including the introduction of highly coercive interrogation techniques and the program of extraordinary renditions for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also an associate of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, Center on Law and Security of NYU Law School, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He co-authored a recent study on legal accountability for private military contractors, Private Security Contractors at War. He appeared at an expert witness for the House Judiciary Committee three times in the past two years testifying on the legal status of private military contractors and the program of extraordinary renditions and also testified as an expert on renditions issue before an investigatory commission of the European Parliament.Originally posted on Wedinator a site dedicated to showcasing wedding photo disasters from around the world, the image has now been reposted on hundreds of blogs across the web.
The unnamed woman, believed to be Russian, is shown getting out of a limousine wearing a white dress, the top half of which consists of two small, strategically positioned semicircles over a dramatic embonpoint.
Predictably the internet’s fashion commentators have not been uniformly complimentary. One, the author of a blog post called “The Five Sluttiest Wedding Dresses”, describes it as “the equivalent of the groom wearing a codpiece”.
Others have wondered whether the choice of a white dress is perhaps misleading, while others make the inevitable puns: “They make a lovely pair” seems to be the most common.
Wedinator, which has been running since February, includes among its other catastrophic nuptials a video of a public proposal gone hideously wrong, and CCTV footage apparently showing a bride cheating with the groom’s best man during the reception.Throughout the month of February, Saturday Dinette chef Suzanne Barr is posting images of famous and forgotten figures throughout black history on the restaurant’s Instagram account (@SaturdayDinette) in hopes of educating diners of the trailblazers that shaped history. But Barr isn’t just focusing on the past; she created the Saturday Dinette program that trains aspiring female cooks to enter an industry dominated by men.
Throughout the month of February, Saturday Dinette chef Suzanne Barr is posting images of famous and forgotten figures throughout black history on the restaurant’s Instagram account (@SaturdayDinette) in hopes of educating diners. ( Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star )
We spoke with Barr on being the only female black cook in the kitchen and what she’s doing to change that. Read more: Female chefs still hitting ‘Pyrex ceiling’
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Saturday Dinette owner Suzanne Barr offers up her buckwheat pancake recipe Why are you posting about Black History Month on social media? Black History Month comes every year and a lot of the time, we think of the icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. Being in the position I am — a leader, teacher, mother and woman of colour — it’s important for me to educate people on the past and not only pay homage to the icons, but so many others that we don’t know about. Who were Edna Lewis (chef and cookbook author on southern cuisine) and Bessie Stringfield (the first Jamaican-American woman to motorcycle across the U.S.)? This is my contribution to black history. Throughout your cooking career, how diverse were the kitchens you worked at? I met some chefs in Paris when I was working as a private chef and it was predominately white men, but you’d find Africans in the back working the dish pit or as prep cooks. You might see some working the line and you might find a few women in pastry. Is that why you started The Dinettes program? When I opened the restaurant, I wanted to hire women in the kitchen, train them to get their skills strong so that they can leave me and work in any kitchen in any city. It’s a passion project and I’m thrilled that word is getting out there to bring in these young ladies from different backgrounds, whether it’s young women coming in from another industry, or someone with no experience at all but will give them the skill to travel the world.
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I paired myself with organizations such as the Massey Centre, which focuses on teaching young single moms, and restaurants like Hawthorne Food and Drink. These ladies go through our programs, which start with basic things like knife skills, how to buy a knife and where to find kitchen-appropriate shoes. We do seminars in addition to hands-on experience. It’s not just about cutting onions and carrots in the kitchen. It must be an encouraging sight for aspiring female chefs to see you, another woman, running this. Seeing other women in the kitchen is such an uplifting joy. I know the experience of being the only woman there. Whether it’s hearing the locker room talk or you’re just having a day, you want to be able to look at someone and say, “Do you feel me?” You want to look at someone and have them understand you. It’s one thing to be the only woman, but to be a black woman and not see another black person. What do you think needs to happen to make a kitchen a better working environment for everyone? Being sensitive to your teammates and coworkers. Being aware and conscious that if someone next to you is the only person of that race or sex amongst everyone else, you have to realize they must be internalizing something if something inappropriate is said or done. It’s the social internalizing of racism and sexism that we forget about. We overlook it by saying we’re all the same by working these long hours together, but the truth is that person’s story is quite different from yours. Not to say we need to have Kumbaya sessions, but it’s as easy as just checking in with someone to see if they’re OK. If someone is in a position of hiring, hire people of different ethnic backgrounds in all positions, not just the same Sri Lankan dishwashers or Chinese prep cooks or female pastry chefs, diversify your team. Interview edited for length and clarity. karonliu@thestar.caThe Balochistan government on Tuesday claimed to have apprehended the suspected mastermind of several major terror activities in the provincial capital, DawnNews reported.
Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, while addressing a press conference in Quetta, informed media that two colleagues of the alleged mastermind were also arrested by the security agencies.
“The main suspect is the commander of a banned militant group,” he added.
During a video confession, played for journalists at the |
, Confirmation has some impossibly big shoes to fill. It doesn’t quite succeed. Despite a transfixing performance from Kerry Washington and some promising supporting casting — on paper, “Greg Kinnear as Joe Biden” has as much potential as “John Travolta as Robert Shapiro” — Confirmation feels conventional and slight in comparison to the pulpy, 10-hour sprawl of O.J. But I still think it’s an important movie to watch and, even better, talk (and tweet and text) about. Confirmation, which premiered on Saturday, continues a conversation that O.J. (and Sarah Paulson’s masterful portrayal of Marcia Clark in particular) started, in which millennial viewers are given a chance to reevaluate, on their own terms, some of the most heavily scapegoated female figures of the ’90s. As a preteen in those days, I absorbed more jokes about Marcia Clark and Anita Hill than actual information, and even decades later, my perceptions of them are clouded by the institutionalized sexism I wasn’t old enough to identify or challenge when I was hearing their names on the nightly news. I know I’m not alone in this: I’ve had this conversation with countless friends in their 20s and early 30s since The People v. O.J. Simpson aired, and I saw the sentiment all over Twitter while searching the #Confirmation hashtag. “I do remember thinking at the time that Anita Hill was super-brave,” the writer Stacia L. Brown tweeted. “That much was obvious at age 11.” I really thought I was over ’90s nostalgia, but this current strain feels a lot more heartening than, you know, another stylishly disaffected rock band saying that "Nevermind changed our lives, man." Our cultural elders love to shame millennials for not knowing stuff, and I’m sure that as I type this someone is compiling a blog post about teens at Coachella tweeting variations on “who the f is Axl Rose?” But the great thing about O.J. and Confirmation is that they’re giving younger viewers a space to say, “I never knew the full story, but now I’m old enough to understand it, and wow, it is way more fucked up than I realized.” The internet makes that process of discovery and comprehension visible, and (as the #MarciaClark Tumblr tag can attest) it’s pretty fascinating to behold. Women like Clark and Hill were ridiculed in the ’90s mainstream media for things like their haircuts or their sex lives, but they’re receiving a lot more sympathetic treatment from the next generation, which is much more likely to think of those things as petty and irrelevant. (Further proof: a 2014 article in Slate pointed out that millennials aren’t even that scandalized by the Monica Lewinksy affair.) These pop-cultural revisionist histories don’t exactly erase the scorn these women endured in the past, but at least they make you feel a tad more hopeful about the future. So who will be the next ’90s bogeywoman to get an internet feminist reappraisal? Do I hear the words “American Crime Story: Lorena Bobbitt”? I mean, I’d watch. Ringer illustration Getty Images Bring Me a Higher Love: Five Observations From the NBA Playoffs’ Opening Weekend By Jonathan Tjarks Well, it wasn’t the greatest opening weekend. Half of the games were decided by at least 28 points. But the postseason is a marathon, and there were some promising wrinkles on display. Here are five things we learned: 1. Kevin Love is thriving at the 5. Feeling the pressure from the Pistons, who were shooting the lights out from 3 and going blow-for-blow with the Cavaliers, Tyronn Lue made the first big positional adjustment of his playoff coaching career. Love's move to the 5 shifted him from having to guard a scorching Marcus Morris, forced the Pistons to spread out their defense, and opened the Cavs big man for pick-and-pop 3s against Andre Drummond. Love finished with 28 points and 13 rebounds, and Cleveland was lights-out in his 12 minutes at center, with a 126.1 offensive rating and 90.9 defensive rating. 2. There is a clear hierarchy out West. The Warriors won by 26, the Thunder won by 38, and the Spurs won by 32. Those blowouts aren’t a huge surprise, considering the top three seeds in the West averaged 65 wins and the bottom three averaged 42. The good news for fans of the underdogs is those teams don’t have much to lose. They can play loosely and experiment with various combinations of players, because just avoiding a sweep would be an accomplishment. 3. Postseason Paul George is back. After missing almost all of last season, George made a strong case for being the second-best player in the East during his playoff return. He dominated DeMar DeRozan in every facet, and stuffed the stat sheet to the tune of 33 points, four rebounds, six assists, four steals, and two blocks. When the lower-seeded team has the best player on the floor, the upset is always in play. 4. The Hawks do have stars. Atlanta was lauded for its starless approach in Year 2 of the Mike Budenholzer era, but Year 3 has made it clear that the Hawks’ success is incumbent on their two big men. Al Horford and Paul Millsap are two of the most versatile bigs in the league, excelling inside and out on both sides of the ball. They combined for 38 points, 19 rebounds, five assists, and five blocks in their Game 1 win, presenting a ton of matchup problems for a Celtics roster full of one-way big men. 5. The Heat look good. Miami was easily the most impressive Eastern team in the first weekend, running the Hornets off the floor in a 32-point blowout. The Heat have reinvented themselves after losing Chris Bosh, becoming a pure four-out team that spreads the floor, moves the ball, and rains in 3s. Talent matters: With a surplus of wings, an All-Star-caliber point guard in Goran Dragic, and one of the league’s most talented big men in Hassan Whiteside, they are as dangerous an opponent as anyone in their conference. Poncho The Bot Next Door: What the Helper Revolution Means for You By Molly McHugh We’ve reached peak bot. Last week at F8, Facebook’s developer conference, the social network introduced its very own bot plan. Since that’s what everyone’s doing right now — Kik, Telegram, Microsoft — the bots keep coming. A quick word on bots: They’re pieces of software that automate things. The most recent examples come to us in the form of chatbots — talk to them, and they’ll accomplish common tasks for you. Some say bots aren’t displacing people and their jobs. Though that’s exactly what scares the world about AI: Technology will eventually get so good, so smart, so human, that it will replace workers. But that’s the future. The bots of right now are just adding a layer of interactivity and efficiency that we didn’t have before. While introducing chatbots to messaging apps like Kik and Facebook Messenger is the new, hot thing, there have long been people essentially doing what the new class of bots is doing. Live chat support, while not uniformly available, has been a popular feature operated by real, live humans. While chatbots are certainly not a new commodity, their capabilities and sudden popularity are. So could they — and should they — replace live chat operators? They’re already starting to. Living Actor is a system that uses a combination of bots and live chat operators to help customers with support needs. CEO Benoit Morel says that sites that use Living Actor first engage customers with chatbots. Eventually, if the bots can’t help them, they’re moved to real people to better assist them. “Almost all of our customers started out with phone or live-chat customer support,” Benoit says. “But because it costs so much, they are using a combination now. It cuts down on training costs and email.” One client, Toshiba, was using call centers in different countries for customer support, a costly endeavor. Now that it’s switched to Living Actor, Toshiba has cut costs by nearly 50 percent, according to Benoit. Benoit is quick to point out that this does not cause a sizable reduction in human jobs. “The goal is not to replace people, it’s just to do all the low-value actions.” Timur Valishev, CEO of the live chat client JivoChat, has different ideas about the value of chatbots. “I don’t think that we’ve reached the point where we can use computers’ cognitive abilities to solve problems on the same level as a human operator,” he says. “So to compare live chat with bots is like comparing humans with websites. Until a robot passes the Turing test, bots are not more than just another UI paradigm.” Valishev does say, however, that he thinks the combination of chatbots and human support has promising possibilities. Another thing about bots: They’re essentially re-creating one of the biggest problems we have with customer service. It’s maddening to call one number for this, chat with someone on another site for that — and none of that is changing. You still have to chat with the CNN bot for news, the 1-800-Flowers bot for flowers, the Domino’s bot for pizza. If anything, it’s worse: It’s not just iOS vs. Android, it’s Microsoft vs. Facebook vs. Slack vs. Telegram vs. Kik, and on and on. There’s no centralized system for your needs, no megabot that routes your questions, just like there’s no person who takes your calls or chats, decides who or what you need, and connects you to those essential messages. (There used to be, but we’ve been out-innovating 411 for a while now.) Bots are new and novel — hell, I think a cat that Facebook-chats me the weather every morning is just as fun as the next person! But this sudden influx is similar to the initial flood of apps, and we’re going to face the same problems with bots: too many of them, and not enough interoperability. Instead of installing too many bots, like we do with apps, you’ll have too many chat screens across too many platforms. It’s going to be a mess. All is not lost. There’s already a search engine for bots, an equivalent of the App Store, called BotList. But problems with fragmentation remain: Just because you can find a bot doesn’t mean it will be available everywhere. While one of BotList’s creators, Ben Tossell, says some bots are making sure they’re cross-platform (like Poncho the weather cat, even if he is a liar), that’s not going to be the case for most. “We are at the complete infancy,” he says. “Bot commands have been around for ages, but to bring it to consumer level, it’s still very early.” Most reviews of Facebook’s first bots aren’t great; they just aren’t useful enough yet. Tossell feels the same way, though he thinks things will get better. Imagine a bot, he suggests, that adds Uber to a chat you’re having with a friend so you can request a car without leaving that conversation — and then, when the car arrives, the bot sends you a quick, human-like message. What’s not helpful, Tossell says, is having to open Messenger, search for a bot, start a chat with the bot, and work around its conversational scheme. And that, for the record, is how the chatbots work now. Haralabos Voulgaris and Katie Baker
Bill Simmons preps for the NBA playoffs with Haralabob, then Katie Baker joins to break down the NHL playoff picture. NFL Draft Podcast
The Rams are on the clock. Mallory and Mays make sense of the blockbuster trade that gave Los Angeles the top pick in the draft. The 2016 PGA Tour is Young
Catch up on the season with Geoff Shackelford and Joe House, including Jordan Spieth's meltdown at the Masters.
Share | SubscribeTurkish U-18 basketball team crowned European champions
RIGA
Turkey's U-18 basketball squad has won the Eurobasket championship, held in Latvia, beating Croatia 81-74 in the final. Photo by FIBA
Turkey’s U-18 basketball squad has won the Eurobasket championship, held in Latvia, beating Croatia 81-74 in the final on July 28.Having knocked strong favorites Spain out of the competition at the semifinal stage, the Turkish youngsters won the FIBA U-18 European Championship for the first time.Playmaker Kenan Sipahi won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, averaging 9.7 points and 4.9 assists per game in Latvia. The Tofaş guard put on another star performance in the final, where he scored 19 points and set up six assists. He was ably assisted with the 12 points of Okben Ulubay and the 11 points of Metecan Birsen.Lovro Mazalin’s 15 points and eight rebounds were not enough for the Croatians, who were outplayed during the second half of the game.Turkey’s highlights included Sipahi’s exceptional performance and a prolific bench that contributed a total of 39 points, while 22 turnovers, eight more than the opponent, helped ensure Croatia’s downfall.“Turkey’s calm and collected nature throughout this tournament carried them to a deserved gold on Sunday night,” said FIBA’s website.Croatia got off to a good start with fast breaks and rebounding dominance, leading 14-5 five minutes into the game and 22-16 after the first quarter.Turkey came back with a 9-0 run in the second period and reached half time with a one point advantage, 38-37.The second half saw Sipahi adopt a more offensive game, scoring 11 points, as Turkey’s bench added 18.The Turkish team had a six-point lead going into the last 10 minutes, before raising it to 11 midway through the quarter.Although not free of nervous moments, Turkey’s late-game performance proved enough to take the game and the championship.Meanwhile, Spain defeated Latvia 57-56 to take the bronze medal.Turkish youngster Sipahi was added to the All-Tournament team, along with Croatians Paolo Marinelli and Domagoj Bosnjak and Latvia’s Kristaps Porzingis and Anzejs Pasecniks.Character details are scarce, but sources say Bokeem Woodbine joins Michael Keaton and Logan Marshall-Green as a bad guy.
Bring on the bad guy.
Bokeem Woodbine has joined the cast of Spider-Man: Homecoming — the Sony and Marvel Studio's reboot of the movie franchise featuring the web-swinging superhero.
The feature began shooting this week in Atlanta.
Character details are scarce, but sources say Woodbine joins Michael Keaton and Logan Marshall-Green as a villain.
Jon Watts is behind the camera for the movie that stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a story that takes the character back to his high school roots.
Big names in the cast include Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Robert Downey Jr. and Donald Glover.
Woodbine was most recently seen in season two of Fargo. Other credits include Riddick and the Total Recall remake.According to a report by Mac Rumors, developers are already playing around with early builds of the next major version of Safari.
Safari 4 will include the SquirrelFish JavaScript engine being developed by the WebKit team. Apple is touting SquirrelFish as "the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever." In addition, Safari 4 will also include a feature to create site-specific browsers, or SSBs, from any webpage. The functionality is not unlike that offered by Mozilla Labs' Prism project or the highly-regarded Fluid for Mac OS X, which create a desktop app that is basically a browser with minimal UI to directly access a web-based app. And, Safari should incorporate CSS-based graphics improvements by the WebKit team, including CCS-based gradients, masks, and reflections.
These features make perfect sense in relation to not only increased use of Web2.0 apps like Google Mail or Flickr, but with the new MobileMe service that Apple announced yesterday. Given its reliance on JavaScript to mimic desktop app functionality, eking out every bit of performance from the JavaScript engine is a must for reasonable performance. And a site-specific browser for accessing MobileMe's services can make an even more transparent user experience. If cloud computing becomes the standard, the transition for Mac users will be seamless. The CSS-based graphics simplify many common effects and improve performance by relying on rendering code compiled into the browser. It brings a richer graphical experience to web apps akin to Apple's polish on the desktop.
Though we've heard that Snow Leopard should ship in about a year, Safari 4 could come much sooner. Mac Rumors notes that there are multiple versions "specifically for Windows, Tiger and Leopard." The projected performance improvements of JavaScript alone would be appreciated by MobileMe users. All in all, Safari looks to gain yet more speed and will be ready for the cloud as more people move their data online.The long wait is finally over. It's been almost a year now since Frank Underwood was sworn is as President, and Netflix subscribers the world over sat awestruck at the sight of him unfurling over his new desk in the Oval Office. After two seasons of lying, cheating, scheming, smoking, killing and eating ribs, Frank had finally swept aside all before him and taken his seat as the most powerful man in the free world. His trademark two knuckle taps on the table cutting straight to black, as this Macbeth for the modern age brought the curtain down in typically powerful fashion. Whilst Frank's long and bloody climb to the top - and ultimate revenge on the administration who double-crossed him - has been the show's driving force since it premiered in 2012, the collateral damage alone has left characters in states of ruin, purgatory, isolation, prison, and power going into Season 3 - and that's before you even consider life in the White House. With the trailer offering a mouth-watering look at what's in store this February, there are still huge questions marks hanging over from where the show left everyone at the inauguration. Though the show has made a habit of throwing expectations under a fast-moving subway train in the past, there are a number of cliffhangers and open questions that should finally be resolved in the third season, having kept every House of Cards fan awake over the last 12 months...Getty Images
As we continue to wait (and wait... and wait) for the Hall of Famers other than Dan Fouts who are opposed to putting Terrell Owens in the Hall of Fame to stand up and be identified, a new Hall of Famer who has four other receivers he’d like to see in Canton acknowledges that he’d thinks Owens should be there — flaws and all.
“I believe, A, he’s a Hall of Famer,” Warner said on a Wednesday visit to PFT Live. “What he did between those lines you can’t argue. There’s nothing you can argue about, and I believe he will get in.”
The position wasn’t unequivocal, however.
“The other part of it is when I’ve always thought of the Hall of Fame I think, yeah, great between the lines in regards to statistics and how you played your game but I also have always thought of it as a level of prestige,” Warner said. “That it’s about the way you represented the game and the impact that you had on the game as a whole and I’m speaking just based on here say because every time I’ve been around T.O. I loved the guy. He’s been great to me and I love his personality but I believe that’s the perception or reality that’s there is that the voters fully believe he belongs in due to his numbers and will get in.
“But there’s a prestige factor that maybe wasn’t matched with T.O. based on the different things that we hear and that we’ve seen and that’s really the only caveat right there [for him] and guys like Charles Haley. Same way, right? He belonged in the Hall of Fame way before he got in but there was a part to it that says, ‘We believe that the Hall of Fame is more than stats.’ It’s not just stats there’s something else extra to it and then you have to weigh that with guys like myself. You know you got T.O. and myself and you try to weigh the two and balance them out and I think it was just a matter of, ‘Okay we weighed this one a little bit heavier than T.O. yet T.O. I believe without question because he’s earned that right with the way he played the game.’”
That’s a fair, reasoned assessment of the situation. The problem, though, is that some of the voters seem to be sufficiently entrenched to keep T.O. in his time out chair for a third year and beyond. Hopefully they’ll: (1) listen to other voices like Warner’s (and Steve Young and Bill Parcells); and (2) they won’t continue to refuse to induct Owens due either to spite or to the fact that Owens has seen fit to defend himself and, in turn, challenge a process that clearly could be improved.(Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist trying to open Iran after years of sanctions, and his allies carry the hopes of many Iranians for greater freedoms on Friday when the country holds elections for parliament and the Assembly of Experts.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau
Rouhani is expected to win re-election to the assembly, the body that chooses the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader. On the same day, his allies are seeking to wrest control of parliament from hardliners bent on blocking an increase in Western influence after a 2015 nuclear deal Rouhani orchestrated with major powers.
The contests have proven testy, with bad-tempered accusations traded and the mass disqualification of moderate candidates by a hardline-controlled vetting body.
Hardliners close to conservative Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have accused moderates of being under Western influence, a charge Rouhani has said insults the intelligence of Iranians who, he argues, are just hungry for economic development.
“Verbal abuse, accusations and insults are beneath the dignity of the Iranian nation and the country. It is not worth it to undermine the Islamic Republic and the government for a seat in the parliament. Instead of making insults and accusations, we have to pursue higher goals,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by his website on Wednesday.
The former nuclear negotiator has a track record as a conciliator: In his 2013 election, he secured the vote of pro-reform Iranians politically muzzled for years but also drew support from some in Khamenei’s circle thanks to his impeccable background in Iran’s clerical establishment.
He hopes to repeat something of the same on Friday, bolstered by the deal with world powers under which Iran curbed activities that might have been applied to developing nuclear bombs and secured a lifting of economic sanctions in return.
Rouhani has insulated himself from hardline critics of the talks by keeping the support of Khamenei, who backed Rouhani’s efforts, although in Khamenei’s view this was purely to improve the parlous state of Iran’s economy and not to mend fences with the West.
To prevent Rouhani’s allies from being rewarded at the ballot box, however, hardline watchdog body the Guardian Council has blocked thousands of mostly moderate candidates from running in the two elections.
The assembly elected on Friday will sit for eight years and may choose the successor to Khamenei, who is 76 and rumored to be in ill health. The supreme leader wields immense power, controlling the judiciary, the security forces, public broadcasters and foundations that own much of the economy.
AN INSIDER
Rouhani, 67, has an unblemished background in Iran’s clerical establishment. Khamenei praised Rouhani’s election in 2013 as the “selection of a worthy individual who has more than three decades of service to the system of the Islamic Republic”.
He went into exile with the late founder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, before the revolution and was appointed representative to the Supreme National Security Council shortly after Khamenei took power in 1989.
In that role, he presided over the talks with Britain, France and Germany that led to Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment-related work in 2003, and resigned after hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.
Some analysts and officials say any success for the moderates’ in Friday’s vote could be seen as a challenge to Khamenei’s authority.
“Hardliners are worried about Rouhani’s popularity and the support he gets from moderates and people. A powerful Rouhani might harm the delicate balance of power in Iran’s political system,” said a former senior Iranian official.
On the other hand, he said, “if hardliners win more seats in the votes, they will put more pressure on Rouhani and his government to make him a lame-duck president.”
Influential former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is also running for an assembly seat, and the grandson of Khomeini, Hassan, who was barred from entering the race, are close allies of Rouhani.
Hardliners trying to preserve the status quo have tried to thwart Rouhani’s attempts to bring political pluralism at home after his success with Iran’s foreign relations.
Many Iranians who supported Rouhani’s 2013 election, meanwhile, remain frustrated, fearing that Rouhani’s focus on boosting Iran’s economy has overshadowed his promises on internal reforms and improvements in human rights.
However, “if Rouhani wants to win the 2017 presidential vote, he needs to improve the economy as well as making tangible social reforms,” said political analyst Hamid Farahvashian.In its present form, the subprocess.Popen implementation is prone to dead-locking and blocking of the parent Python script while waiting on data from the child process. This PEP proposes to make subprocess.Popen more asynchronous to help alleviate these problems.
Further exploration of the concepts covered in this PEP has been deferred at least until after PEP 3156 has been resolved.
This can be dealt with in the bug tracker. A specific proposal is attached to.
A search for "python asynchronous subprocess" will turn up numerous accounts of people wanting to execute a child process and communicate with it from time to time reading only the data that is available instead of blocking to wait for the program to produce data. The current behavior of the subprocess module is that when a user sends or receives data via the stdin, stderr and stdout file objects, dead locks are common and documented. While communicate can be used to alleviate some of the buffering issues, it will still cause the parent process to block while attempting to read data when none is available to be read from the child process.
There is a documented need for asynchronous, non-blocking functionality in subprocess.Popen. Inclusion of the code would improve the utility of the Python standard library that can be used on Unix based and Windows builds of Python. Practically every I/O object in Python has a file-like wrapper of some sort. Sockets already act as such and for strings there is StringIO. Popen can be made to act like a file by simply using the methods attached to the subprocess.Popen.stderr, stdout and stdin file-like objects. But when using the read and write methods of those options, you do not have the benefit of asynchronous I/O. In the proposed solution the wrapper wraps the asynchronous methods to mimic a file object.
I have been maintaining a Google Code repository that contains all of my changes including tests and documentation as well as blog detailing the problems I have come across in the development process.
I have been working on implementing non-blocking asynchronous I/O in the subprocess module as well as a wrapper class for subprocess.Popen that makes it so that an executed process can take the place of a file by duplicating all of the methods and attributes that file objects have.
There are two base functions that have been added to the subprocess.Popen class: Popen.send and Popen._recv, each with two separate implementations, one for Windows and one for Unix-based systems. The Windows implementation uses ctypes to access the functions needed to control pipes in the kernel 32 DLL in an asynchronous manner. On Unix based systems, the Python interface for file control serves the same purpose. The different implementations of Popen.send and Popen._recv have identical arguments to make code that uses these functions work across multiple platforms.
When calling the Popen._recv function, it requires the pipe name be passed as an argument so there exists the Popen.recv function that passes selects stdout as the pipe for Popen._recv by default. Popen.recv_err selects stderr as the pipe by default. Popen.recv and Popen.recv_err are much easier to read and understand than Popen._recv('stdout'...) and Popen._recv('stderr'...) respectively.
Since the Popen._recv function does not wait on data to be produced before returning a value, it may return empty bytes. Popen.asyncread handles this issue by returning all data read over a given time interval.(This essay is biased–as we all should be–toward the family man, the working man–a real man—as opposed to the State and its minions.)
A king of men was killed by boys in blue, or rather by deputy sheriffs, Barney Fife’s types. But these Barney Fifes, while just as insecure as he of Mayberry, are on steroids and their AR’s have banana clips full of bullets, verses one in the pocket. And they unloaded these magazines into the torso of a king.
On that murderous evening the venerable Idahoan rancher and logger Jack Yantis, age 62, was having dinner with family and a friend when he received a call from the sheriff dispatcher informing him his prized 2,500-pound black Gelbvieh bull had been hit by a Subaru station wagon outside his ranch gate. The bull’s rear leg was shattered by the collision. When Jack arrived at the scene the deputy sheriffs had already been taking pot shots at the bull from a safe distance away with no effect other than to enrage it. Jack probably displayed both sorrow for his bull and disgust with the hapless deputies. A enraged, hurt bull is a dangerous, unpredictable animal, but Jack went up close to the bull and with courage and skill pointed the rifle at the sweet spot of the head for the coup de grâce. Jack was about to pull the trigger when a deputy grabbed him from behind and spun him around. The deputy then pushed Jack Yantis, who began falling and tried to regain his footing. One deputy began shooting at Jack and then the other. They had AR-15’s among there arsenal. Jack’s wife, Donna, and a nephew were also at the scene and screamed at the deputies to stop. The Three Marks of Man... Dr. G. C. Dilsaver Best Price: $9.69 Buy New $13.21 (as of 03:45 EST - Details)
Shot in the chest and abdomen, Jack Yantis fell to the ground. Neither deputy went to check on him, but rather intercepted Donna and the nephew who were running toward him. “And then they (the deputies) threatened me and my nephew … threw us on the middle of Highway 95, searched us and handcuffed us, and wouldn’t let us go take care of Jack,” Donna said. The nephew said one deputy pointed his gun at his head. Donna Yantis had a heart attack right then and there. A friend who had been having dinner with the Yantises had been near the wrecked car when the shooting started and ran toward Jack. The deputies handcuffed him as well. Jack died alone in the road without so much as a loved one by his side. Some time later, Donna was taken by ambulance and helicopter to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, where she was hospitalized.
A few days later Jack Yantis’ daughter Sarah stood with her husband and children at the scene outside the Yantis ranch and made a statement:
“This is the exact spot where my dad Jack Yantis was brutally gunned down and murdered by the Adams County deputies. Though it has been washed twice, and it rained for a night and a day, his blood still remains here on the road. I believe this is where his blood is going to stay until he receives justice for the tragic and needless murder. My father did not receive any care, including medical care, prior to my arrival. And he was shot and left for dead like common roadkill….While my father’s blood stains this pavement, the officers that murdered him are on paid leave. What has America come to? It’s no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
The sheriff of Council, Idaho, Ryan Zollman, said the right things to get elected in this fiercely independent region. But it also turns out that Zollman has been playing footsies with the Feds and homeland security.
“Official government documents from the Adams County, Idaho Council meetings which reveal that the Adams County Sheriff’s Department participates in multiple classes given by the federal U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. Current Sheriff Ryan Zollman was present at the meetings. The Sheriffs were required to take both online and in-person classroom DHS courses….This is in sharp contrast to the bluster uttered by Sheriff Zollman in 2013, in which he vowed to stand up to the feds.” http://libertyfight.com/
Is Sheriff Zollman a Federal plant or just an opportunistic pig? In any case he failed to instill in his deputies the right attitude of respect for the citizenry and failed to pick men with prudence, failed to pick men who could appreciate human dignity much less kingly dignity. Zollman should be impeached because it is his responsibility. As we learned in the Marine Corps, the officer in command is accountable (in the now so called “Marine Corps” accountability is identifying a sacrificial fall guy, usually a politically incorrect man, a real warrior). The culture in the Adam’s County Sheriff’s Department is clearly one of disdain for all who are mere civilian mundanes. Zollman, who has been unwilling to take any responsibility, is no king, much less a man, and most likely a traitorous quisling.
But Jack Yantis was indeed a king among men. No not because of ancient lineage, though surely his royal character has to do with the fact that his parents too were blue-collar royalty. But this royalty is the true royalty that is earned and based on the man himself, his character and his deeds. Jack was an elite lumber jack and a cowboy. He was the man the federal employees would call when a tree was too dangerous for them to fell. Lumber-jacking is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and ranching and farming are close behind (whereas law enforcement is relatively safe). Jack was a king among men, and not because of some stinking badge or because he was a minion of the satanic-state. Imago Dei Psychotherap... Dr. G. C. Dilsaver Best Price: $45.96 Buy New $49.95 (as of 03:15 EST - Details)
Like all true kings Jack had an attitude, an attitude based on his character. It wasn’t the false attitude of street thug bullies, be these bullies gang members or arrogant cops. Jack’s attitude was based on deep humility and true courage. It has been brought up by the newspapers that Jack had gotten popped twice for DUI. Jack worked hard, harder than cops and bureaucrats, and he could handle a drink or two and still drive. (In saner times it used to be legal to drink a beer while driving in neighboring Montana.) It has also been brought up that Jack once was charged with obstructing a cop in his duties, that is, Jack always had an attitude. Indeed Jack’s type of attitude is something most often lost at a young age (similar to the castration of young bulls). The satanic-state and all in league with it would rather have had Jack be a castrated metro-sexual on antidepressants than a real testosterone-fueled cowboy, lumberjack, and man. Jack’s attitude was that of deep character, was that of a real man, indeed that of a king among men. Jack’s attitude was the polar opposite of the superficial attitude of the punk, be that punk a kid with his pant’s falling off or a cop with his gun going off.
Jack had the manly and kingly attitude that comes from the deep recesses of a free man’s heart. Such an attitude is that of the magnanimous man. Magnanimity is based on humility. Only a humble man very in touch with reality both outside himself and about himself could fell trees the way Jack Yantis did. Jack at the time of his murder was in the fullness of his manhood and was taking full responsibility for that under his domain, be that his family, or land, or livestock. He was not a teat-sucking citizen or employee of the nanny state. Jack’s attitude was the polar opposite of the spoiled ghetto thug on crack, or the wannabe skinhead on meth, or the video-addled wimp on psychotropics; or indeed the combination of all these punks which is the composite and so politically correct profile of America’s police force and governmental management. Yes, punk’s lives matter, but lives of men like Jack matter more! No, they don’t matter more intrinsically; however they absolutely matter more to family and community and thus society, than do those of selfish, superficial, and cowardly punks.
When punk minions of the State kill men like Jack Yantis they are filled with nothing less than a demonic audacity. In killing men like Jack they are striking at the heart of the West, both the Cowboy West and what is left of Western Civilization. But Jack has brothers and sons that span across Adams County, across Idaho, across the Redoubt, across America, and indeed across the WORLD. It is time for these brothers and sons to rise up. Indeed it is the very last chance before the total bondage of the satanic-state descends in a suffocating totalitarianism. (Also see William Norman Grigg’s Justice for a Murdered Rancher.)
The Best of Dr. G.C. DilsaverWhile some people might say that you need a website to get started with web marketing for your law firm, I’m going to suggest some alternative approaches. If you stop reading here and taking nothing else away from this post, what you really need to get started is a place to publish web content and a couple ways to distribute that content to your audiences.
A Place To Publish Content
First, you need a place to publish content. Traditionally, this might have been a website. The problem with many of the |
the past few decades, the South has become a hub of manufacturing for the world.
This much, too, is self-evident: If the South is so racist, why are so many black people moving back here?
This I know for sure: My adopted state of Mississippi has better race relations than my old home state of New Jersey. It has more integration in its schools and in daily life. Indeed, my old home state has some of the worst segregation imaginable. Large swaths of the state’s suburban public schools are filled with white kids, while others — particularly the poorest and most dangerous urban areas such as Camden, Newark, and Jersey City — are filled with mostly poor minority children. No law compels it. The people in New Jersey choose to live that way.
Contrast that with my daughter’s fourth-grade class in Oxford, where you see large numbers of black and white kids seated together. More than 25 percent are African Americans. My new home state has more elected black officials than any other state does — not just more per capita, but more, period. It’s proudly progressive Massachusetts that now has the fewest elected African-American officials per capita.
You won’t ever see or hear any of the above stories covered in any depth in the media. They’re too busy recounting negative stories about the South’s past — stories that no doubt need telling — to notice the progress.
But if some inquiring journalists bothered to ask the people who moved why they did it, those transplants would paint a very different and much more positive picture of the South. People don’t go through the stress and change of a big move unless they’re hopeful about the place they’re moving to.
In the downtown square of my hometown of Oxford sits a bronze statue of our local literary hero, William Faulkner. “The past is never dead,” he once wrote. “It’s not even past.”
If I’d told him when he was alive that a Japanese auto company would be making American cars in Tupelo or that the great German manufacturer Mercedes would be making cars in Tuscaloosa, he’d have called me crazy. If I’d told him that Mississippi would one day have more African Americans holding public office than any other state in America did, he’d have called me delusional.
The fact is, white people and black people from all over America, and businesses from all over the world, are investing in the South. Some are doing it with their capital, and others with an even more precious asset — their lives and their families.
And all because we see something here that Faulkner would never have imagined possible and that most writers, academics, and media types can’t see — or don’t want to see.
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The future.
— Lee Habeeb is the vice president of content at Salem Radio Network. He lives in Oxford, Miss., with his wife, Valerie, and daughter, Reagan.Last week, the promise of consequence-free sex was waved under the noses of Telegraph readers - which, perhaps unsurprisingly, struck a chord.
Aaron Hamlin's compelling piece on the male contraceptive pill argued that men can expect a revolution in over-the-counter options within a decade. In many ways, he's correct.
And yet, although big scientific strides have certainly been made in this field, there is still plenty of behind-the-scenes resistance which, essentially, means the production staff at Durex won't be losing sleep over this particular pipe-dream any time soon.
Don't believe me? Here are the five (perhaps surprising) stumbling blocks to the arrival of the male pill: the greatest thing we've never had.
1. Drug companies think it's too risky financially
Yes, it's big business once you're onto a winner - but, unlike other industries, the task of drug companies bringing a new pharmaceutical product to market is uniquely epic. And risky.
The process goes a little something like this: after scientists make their initial lab discovery, bio-tech partners create a compound to prove it won’t wreak havoc on the body’s other cells. A prototype is then made for human drug testing, which is a three-stage, ten-year process conducted under strict medical supervision. Only then, if nobody dies or grows an extra limb, can it be considered for commercial use. At this point, a marketing plan must be devised to ensure the end product doesn’t flop. And even then it’s a gamble, especially when - in the case of the male pill - it can only be used by half the population (rather than, say, statins which are good for all).
To date, the likes of Bayer, Organon and Schering-Plough (all major players in the sector) have looked into a male pill, but got cold feet at the last minute.
But why?
‘It’s to do with maths,’ says Dr Allan Pacey, Chair of the British Fertility Society and Senior Lecturer in Andrology at the University of Sheffield’s Medical School. ‘The methods are there - it’s now about convincing the venture capitalists to step up, but it’s extremely expensive,' he says. ‘It will take one of the smaller pharma companies [who are constantly looking for that competitive edge and have less to lose] to take the plunge,’ he says.
Even legendary Austrian-American scientist Carl Djerassi, the guy dubbed the father of the female pill, said in a 2014 interview: "This [resistance] has nothing to do with science; we know exactly how to develop [the male pill], but there’s not a single pharmaceutical company who will touch it – for economic and socio-political, rather than scientific, reasons.’ he said. "Their focus is on diseases of a geriatric population: diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular, Alzheimer’s. Male contraception is nothing compared with an anti-obesity drug."
Photo: Universal Pictures
2. Men aren't demanding it in huge numbers
After years of being nudged out of the discussion on gender issues, men have long lost their voices on some of the big issues - especially when it comes to demanding things for themselves. With a Twitter mob always on-hand to take offence at something, they fear it'll appear sexist or self-serving to dip a toe into the gender debate, so let the women get on with it.
But, annoyingly, this public silence is subjects such as contraception is misread by pharmaceutical companies as a lack of interest, so they fear they'll invest time and money into a product which, a bit like the Sinclair C5, will be a massive flop because there's no consumer demand.
Forget sperm and egg, this is chicken and egg. Which is precisely why we need a Minister for Men's Health - male or female - to champion these things legitimately and in parliament.
Even if just to break the deadlock.
• Alternative view: More than half of men 'can't wait' to take the male contraceptive Pill
Photo: Roger Taylor
3. Although imperfect, current methods work just fine for most men
Granted, women have the lion's share of greater (and more refined) contraceptive choices - but, aside from abstinence, the ones men do have work just fine as far as most of us are concerned.
In fact, they have plenty of plus-points: vasectomies - although increasingly being sidelined by the NHS - are long-term solutions which simplify sex in a single snip. This means that, unlike a male pill, it can't be forgotten, misplaced or tampered with in the heat of the moment, making it a watertight option.
Meanwhile, condoms are cheap, simple to use and portable. More importantly, they also remain relevant - after all, they don't just stop unwanted pregnancies - they also halt the spread of STDs, which is a whole other ball game...
Photo: Alamy
4. It could fuel our misplaced panic about STIs
Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise, with new strains reportedly appearing in (nether) regions across the world at a rapid rate - in part, some say, thanks to hook-up apps such as Tinder.
So, naturally, there are concerns that a male pill would open the floodgates. But would it really?
"Actually, that’s a red herring," says Rebecca Fleming, head of press at London’s Family Planning Association. "Many women on the pill have unprotected sex because they’re on the pill – and that hasn’t stopped it being a success. STIs are a separate, ongoing issue to men managing their fertility and shouldn’t be used to derail their options."
Good point. Just because the female pill controls pregnancy – and not STIs – doesn’t make it any less of a success. Nor is it any less of a money-spinner: millions of women take the pill, earning a fortune for drug company bosses in the process. The same would apply to a male pill.
"In fact," Fleming adds, "countless men call the FPA’s helpline because they frequently find unplanned pregnancies 'devastating'. Our statistics show that half of all pregnancies are unplanned. We know these can be as distressing for men as they are for women, but it only strikes men at this point. And, once a woman is pregnant, they have no say on whether she keeps it or not."
5. Many feminists don't like the idea
At the risk of having faecal matter posted through my letterbox, one of the other big barriers to the male pill has been feminism.
Granted, we're talking big, sweeping generalisations here, but history speaks for itself.
See, while the latest scientific breakthroughs may be new, the general concept of a male pill is not.
In the 1970s, Brazilian endocrinologist Dr Elsimar Coutinho developed one of the first ever male pill prototypes. Made from all-natural cottonseed, it didn’t go down too well with pharmaceutical companies for obvious reasons (hardly a money-spinner if the local health shop can produce a no-frills version for half the price), but it also suffered social resistance.
When launched at the 1974 World Health Conference in Budapest, religious groups voiced concern and feminists staged a boycott, storming Coutinho’s presentation and demanding that only women – not men – should be making choices about parenthood.
Think attitudes have changed? Don't be so sure. Not long ago feminist site Jezebel dubbed the idea "whore pills for men", while Angela Phillips wrote in The Guardian that "the bigger issue behind the development of a contraceptive pill for men is that women risk losing control of conception".
She added: "While we are transfixed by the idea that men might at last be able to share the loss of libido, weight gain, and general grumpiness which so often accompany pill-taking for women, we are in danger of losing track of the bigger issue: control. The pill gives women control of the fertility tap. She decides when to turn it off but just as important she decides (after discussion we hope) when to turn it back on."
Which, funnily enough, is precisely why men need their own version. Wouldn't it be better if pregnancies were planned by both parties, all the time, rather than "control" resting solely with women? That really shouldn't be such a bitter pill to swallow.
Peter Lloyd is the author of Stand By Your Manhood, which is available for £2.99 on Amazon KindleSt. Charles Coun. Shawn Dobson says he's still opposed to putting an addictions treatment centre in his ward, even though he has been assured it will operate on a non-profit basis.
Dobson, Mayor Brian Bowman and other members of council attended an informal briefing Tuesday about the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, a 50-bed treatment centre proposed for the site of the old Vimy Arena.
The centre, named after broadcaster Scott Oake's late son, who died of a heroin overdose in 2011, would offer long-term treatment options for men suffering from addiction. The mayor supports transferring city land to the Bruce Oake Memorial Foundation in order to establish the centre, but Dobson has complained he and his constituents have been left in the dark about the plans.
After attending a Tuesday meeting, the councillor said his primary issue with the project has been put to rest.
"The biggest thing I could say was that it was a not-for-profit, and that was the biggest concern for me, of course, for profit changes the whole dynamics of it," Dobson said Tuesday at city hall.
"It's a great idea that Scott Oake is bringing forward here and it would be good for the city, [but] I still have some misgivings of it being in that site because my residents don't want it."
Dobson said he expects a plan to transfer the land to the province and then over to the Oake foundation will come before council in December.Pivot tables are hidden gems in Google Analytics reports.
They are extremely powerful data summarization tools and are commonly used in spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel.
Through pivot tables you can quickly summarize data in desired format and detect data trends that you can’t determine otherwise.
Even being so powerful, they are not the default table views in Google Analytics reports which is a shame.
This guide consists of following sections:
Getting Started with Pivot Tables in Google Analytics. Five Components of Pivot Table Pivot Table Case Study Using Pivot Tables with Custom Segments Using Pivot Tables with Filters Using Pivot Tables with Custom Reports
Getting Started with Pivot Tables in Google Analytics
Pivot tables are available as ‘table view’ option in several reports in Google Analytics.
To see data in pivot table format, head to a report like ‘Source/Medium’ (under Acquisition > All Traffic) in your GA view and then click on the ‘Pivot’ button:
The Six Components of a Pivot Table
A pivot table in Google Analytics is made up of following 6 components:
1. Primary Dimension
2. Secondary Dimension
3. Pivot By…
4. Pivot Metrics
5. View Columns Buttons
6. View Rows Buttons
1. Primary Dimension
It is the first column of your pivot table:
The primary dimension selected in the chart above is ‘source / medium’.
2. Secondary Dimension
It can become the second column of your pivot table, if you select a dimension from the ‘secondary dimension’ drop down menu:
By default no secondary dimension is selected.
3. Pivot By…
By default Google pivot the data by the primary dimension you selected.
Since the primary dimension in our case is ‘source/ medium’, the table has also been pivoted by ‘source/ medium’:
You can however pivot your data by any other dimension found under ‘Acquisitions‘, ‘Behavior‘, ‘Technology‘, ‘Users‘ etc:
4. Pivot Metrics
By default only one pivot metric is used in a pivot table:
However you can select the select pivot metric from the ‘select…’ drop down menu (as shown above).
There are 4 categories of pivot metrics available in Google Analytics Standard reports:
Summary Pivot Metrics Site Usage pivot Metrics Goal Pivot Metrics E-Commerce Pivot Metrics.
4.1 Summary Pivot Metrics
% new sessions, goal 1 completion, Transactions etc are examples of ‘Summary Pivot Metrics’.
To view the summary pivot metrics, you first need to click on the ‘Summary’ tab of your report:
And then click on the drop down menu next to ‘Pivot metrics’:
Note: Summary pivot metrics are available by default only when you are viewing your report in ‘Summary’ explorer in Google Analytics Standard reports.
4.2 Site Usage Pivot Metrics
% new sessions, avg. session duration, bounce rate etc are examples of ‘site usage pivot metrics’.
To view the site usage pivot metrics, you first need to click on the ‘Site usage’ tab of your report:
And then click on the drop down menu next to ‘Pivot metrics’:
Note: Site usage pivot metrics are available by default only when you are viewing your report in ‘Site Usage’ explorer in Google Analytics Standard reports.
4.3 Goal Pivot Metrics
Goal1 conversion rate, goal2 conversion rate, per session goal value etc are examples of ‘goal pivot’ metrics.
To view the Goal pivot metrics, you first need to click on the ‘Goal set 1’ or ‘Goal set 2’….. tab of your report:
And then click on the drop down menu next to ‘Pivot metrics’:
Note: Goal pivot metrics are available by default only when you are viewing your report in ‘Goals’ explorer.
4.4 E-Commerce Pivot Metrics
Revenue, transactions, average order value etc are examples of ecommerce pivot metrics.
To view the E-commerce pivot metrics, you first need to click on the ‘e-commerce’ tab of your report:
And then click on the drop down menu next to ‘Pivot metrics’:
Note: E-commerce pivot metrics are available by default only when you are viewing your report in ‘E-commerce’ explorer.
5. View Columns Buttons
Through these buttons you can navigate to other columns of your pivot table.
However you can view only 5 columns at a time:
6. View Rows Buttons
Through these buttons you can view up to 5000 rows of your pivot table at a time.
Its functionality is similar to the row buttons you normally use in your analytics reports.
Pivot Table Case Study
The usage of pivot tables is extremely broad and depends upon the insight you want to get.
Let us suppose that you run various marketing campaigns on international level and you want to determine, how various marketing channels are performing in each country.
Follow the steps below:
Step-1: Navigate to the all traffic sources report and then click on the ‘pivot’ button.
Step-2: Select ‘country/territory’ from the ‘Pivot By’ drop down menu. In this way you can pivot the table by ‘country’
Step-3: Set the first pivot metrics to ‘sessions’ and the second pivot metrics to ‘bounce rate’ to determine the quality of traffic of various marketing channels for each country.
Step-4: Set the ‘secondary dimension’ to ‘user type’ so that you can determine the behavior of new and returning users.
You pivot table should now look like the one below:
You can now easily compare sessions and bounce rate of various marketing channels for each country and for each user type (new and returning visitors).
This can help you in understanding and comparing the volume and quality of traffic generated by different marketing channel for each of your international target market.
You can’t get such type of data summarization in Google Analytics reports without using pivot tables.
Using Pivot Tables with Custom Segments
Custom segments can add many more dimensions to your multi dimensional pivot table and thus can make your pivot tables much more robust.
For example, in order to truly understand the performance of various international campaigns, you may need to know how many sessions included conversions and how many sessions included e-commerce transactions for each marketing channel and for each user type.
You can determine this by applying following two ‘default custom segments’ to your pivot table:
‘Sessions with conversion’ ‘Sessions with transactions’:
Now you can get better understanding of the quality of traffic generated by different marketing channels for each country and user type.
Using Pivot Tables with Reporting Interface Filters
The various filters available on the reporting interface make it easier to analyze large data sets.
For example, if I just want to analyze the traffic from various Google properties (organic, paid, referral, images etc) then I can filter out such data by applying following filter:
Using Pivot Tables with Custom Reports
Pivot tables become extremely useful when you use them in custom reports and apply filters and custom segments.
The biggest advantage of using pivot tables with custom reports is that you can choose the pivot metrics you really want in your pivot table:
I generally use pivot tables in custom reports to analyse the data.
Such type of data summarization is not possible in Google Analytics standard reports.Back in 2009, an anonymous person busted into the Bar No'ar LGBT youth club in Tel Aviv and opened fire. One of the youth instructors and a 16-year-old girl were killed and several others were severely injured. The heinous crime shocked Israeli society and the Israeli Police couldn't find a lead for several years.
In June 2013, the police thought they finally found the perpetrator, thanks largely to witness testimony. The man was arrested and questioned about the crime. However, using technology from a supplier, detectives managed to restore deleted WhatsApp messages found on the suspect's phone which cleared him of suspicion.
The tech used in the case is thought to be that of local security company Cellebrite, though its execs won't be drawn on whether their products were involved.
Cellebrite was formed in 1999, based on a need that emerged at the time among cellular operators — to bulk copy contacts information between different types of cell phones. Cellebrite developed a device for that purpose, called UME, and sold it to large mobile players including AT&T, Verizon, and Nokia.
Cellebrite's copying product is now found in over 150,000 points of sale and service around the world. During its 15 years of existence, Cellebrite has updated its product to be able to copy various types of information, going from just copying contacts to handling photos, files, and messaging data, as in the case above.
Recently, Cellebrite has shifted focus to diagnostics, allowing UME to aid operators and mobile sales outlets to fix problems in users' phones in real time, saving the costs associated with having the customer send in their phone for repairs.
Digital forensics are also a part of its business, thanks to how law authorities are using its product. "In 2005-2006 we noticed that some of the customers who are buying our original product are law enforcement bodies, and that they are actually using it to pull data out of cellular phones," Leeor Ben-Peretz, VP of mobile forensics products and business development at Cellebrite, told ZDNet.
"So in 2007, we launched a dedicated system for them including a hardware solution called UFED (the acronym for Universal Forensics Extraction Device), that ran on Windows CE – and it spread like wildfire. As of today, we have sold 25,000 UFED systems in a hundred countries around the world," Ben-Peretz said.
"Our customers are many bodies that investigate white collar crimes, drug trafficking, customs and borders control, antitrust, SEC oversight bodies, and even prisons. The amount of vertical markets that we are involved in is great."
How does UFED work?
"We started in 2007 with a very basic product that allows for any law enforcement agency to access any device [including tablets, smartphones, and GPS]. We were cross-vendor right from the beginning," Ben-Peretz said
"We use APIs, Obex, and direct access to the operating system, whatever the data is on the SIM card or the onboard memory, while the NAND or NOR contain a whole lot of information. We extract all the logical data that the operating system can give us. Back in 2007, it was a great solution. But in 2009, we went out with a new product that allowed us to go beyond the API and the operating system, down to a level that allowed us to access the entire memory array," the Cellebrite VP said.
"Instead of asking the operating system for record after record, we are asking the entire file system. We created a research department, which finds ways to go past the API and talk to the operating system directly.
"The technological challenge was that that smartphones are simply not designed to allow this action. Our systems allow reaching the unallocated space, where you can find all the files that the operating system deleted. We call that physical extraction," Ben Peretz said.
In order to make the data extracted from the phones usable, Cellebrite employs three teams: extraction, decoding, and analysis.
"When you extract raw data, a binary file which is a copy of the physical memory or the file system, you need to make it usable. That's what our decoding group is doing. If you look at different phones, Android or Nokia [for example], you get different things. The entire decoding process is more complex because there is no one standard. It's a very complex process, and we started out with hundreds of types of file systems... We fiddle with different encryptions and compression levels, and in the end we give our end customer the information in an accessible form, hoping to put the bad guy behind bars."
The third field is analytics. "We are talking about gigabytes of information, almost infinite. For example, take a phone with 120,000 text messages, or go and browse through 30,000 pictures — it would take you forever to find your smoking gun. We develop the analytics capabilities, to use the time constants of an investigation to their fullest. It can find you a keyword in three extractions and get you relevant information in seconds for search a term like'money'," Ben Peretz said.
"The second element of analytics is connection mapping," Ben Peretz says. The company can find out who is connected to who, how connected they are, conversations they've had, across multiple communication services — be it Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, text messages and calls — and gather that information a number of different devices. Ben Peretz noted that one of the company's customers once was investigating a particularly cautious suspect with 50 burner phones.
"The mapping of connections shortens investigation times, by using time limits. For example, if you don't want to screen 75,000 messages, but only the ones on 1 July, we are down to 3,000 messages. You apply a keyword watch list and we are down to 10 messages. You can map past events by graphs, vectors, hours, locations and communication cross references."
Ben Peretz says that the average criminal documents his activity in ways he is unaware of, and has one simple tip for a would-be wrongdoer: if you're planning a crime, get rid of all your digital devices right now.
Read more on security$\begingroup$
Although there are already many answers here, I wanted to strongly advocate AGAINST MAC-then-encrypt. I fully agree with Thomas' first half of the answer, but completely disagree with the second half. The ciphertext is the ENTIRE ciphertext (including IV etc.), and this is what must be MACed. This is granted.
However, if you MAC-then-encrypt in the straightforward way, then you are completely vulnerable to padding-oracle attacks. by the "straightforward way", what I mean is that you call the "decrypt" function, and afterwards the "mac verify". However, if you get an error in the decrypt function, then you return this straight away, as a padding error. You have now just got a full blown padding oracle attack and you are dead. You can now hack the API and give a single error message only, but the time it takes to return the error has to be the same, whether it's a MAC error or a padding error. If you think that this is easy, then look at the Lucky13 attack on SSL. It's really really really hard (and much harder than just MACing all of the ciphertext).
The argument by Schneier and Ferguson for MAC-then-encrypt has no formal basis at all. The definition of authenticated-encryption is met by encrypt-then-MAC and is NOT met by MAC-then-encrypt. Furthermore, most implementations of MAC-then-encrypt are actually completely vulnerable to padding oracle attacks and so are actually broken in practice. Don't do this!
Having said all of the above, my recommendation is to not use any of this. You should be using GCM or CCM today (GCM is much faster, so use it as long as you are sure that your IV won't repeat). A combined authenticated-encryption scheme, with a single API call, and now you won't get in trouble.FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2010 aerial file photo, taken through the window of an airplane, the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel is seen. The Israeli branch of McDonald's says it won't open a restaurant in a Jewish settlement to protest Israel settlement policy. Irina Shalmor, spokeswoman for McDonald's Israel, said the owners of a planned mall in the Ariel settlement asked McDonald's to open a branch there about six months ago (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — The McDonald's restaurant chain refused to open a branch in a West Bank Jewish settlement, the company said Thursday, adding a prominent name to an international movement to boycott Israel's settlements.
Irina Shalmor, spokeswoman for McDonald's Israel, said the owners of a planned mall in the Ariel settlement asked McDonald's to open a branch there about six months ago. Shalmor said the chain refused because the owner of McDonald's Israel has a policy of staying out of the occupied territories. The decision was not coordinated with McDonald's headquarters in the U.S., she said. In an email, the headquarters said "our partner in Israel has determined that this particular location is not part of his growth plan."
The Israeli branch's owner and franchisee, Omri Padan, is a founder of the dovish group Peace Now, which opposes all settlements and views them as obstacles to peace. The group said Padan is no longer a member.
The decision by such a well-known multinational company to boycott the West Bank deals settlers an unwelcome blow.
It also adds the name of an important international brand to a movement that has urged businesses to stay out of the West Bank. International companies like Caterpillar, France's Veolia and others have faced pressure from a global network of pro-Palestinian activists to sever links with the settlements.
The activists have also pushed consumers to shun products made in settlements. Israeli academics and unions have also been boycotted because of Israel's settlement policies and European countries are considering stepping up efforts to label settlement-made products sold in Europe.
The Palestinians want the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, as part of their future state. Israel captured those areas, along with the Golan Heights, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians and most of the international community consider Israel's West Bank settlements illegal or illegitimate.
The mall's owners, settlers and politicians who back them chided McDonald's for its decision.
"McDonald's has gone from being a for-profit company to an organization with an anti-Israeli political agenda," said Yigal Dilmoni, a leader of the Yesha Council, a settler umbrella group. He urged Israelis to think twice before they buy a meal at McDonald's following its decision. Pro-settler lawmaker Ayelet Shaked said she would boycott the fast food chain.
Tzahi Nehimias, a co-owner of the Ariel mall, said an Israeli burger chain, Burger Ranch, had offered to take McDonald's spot. He also said Burger King had shown interest, but Miguel Piedra, a spokesman for Burger King Worldwide Inc. said the company had no plans to re-enter Israel. The company closed its restaurants in Israel in 2010 and turned them over to Burger Ranch.
Nehimias said other international companies who were asked to open a branch at the mall also declined, but none cited the mall's location in a settlement as a reason. He declined to identify the other companies. Some 19,000 Jewish settlers live in Ariel and it has a large student population.
Peace Now welcomed McDonald's decision.
"We totally understand and support people who think settlements are bad for Israel's interests," said Yariv Oppenheimer, who heads Peace Now. "They don't want to take an active role by opening a business there and helping to expand and to contribute to the settlement idea."
Rafeef Ziadah of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement said McDonald's move "will encourage other corporations to end their complicity in Israel's occupation."
This is not the first time McDonald's has stirred controversy in Israel. The company didn't open a branch in Israel until 1993 due to the Arab League boycott of the country.
A year later, McDonalds built a branch near a memorial to Israel's Golani military brigade, and Israelis objected to the large double arches sign there, saying it desecrated the site. The sign was later made smaller. In 2004, McDonalds was criticized for telling its Arabic and Russian speaking staff not to speak those languages at work.
___
Associated Press writers Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem and Candice Choi in New York contributed reporting.“So are we in solidarity with each other, or are we united?”
This question came up yet again on Monday night, at the final coalition meeting for May Day that included people from organized labor, immigrants’ groups and Occupy Wall Street. It came in the midst of a debate about whether or not we should designate separate zones for various coalition partners during our joint evening march. Trying to mash everyone into one giant group might create a sense of unity, but then the groups’ individual needs might not be met. Occupiers whispered to each other about how the lack of a defined OWS zone would mean the unions would end up marshalling our contingent. In the end, everyone agreed that separate zones were most appropriate; true solidarity with one another meant recognizing our diverse methods of organizing and tactics for resistance.
Achieving apparent unity is easy; whoever shouts the loudest or lobbies the hardest typically wins over the group. It is solidarity — respecting each other’s particular methods and skill sets — that is truly revolutionary. Trying to impose unity over the entire action would leave no one satisfied, and it would actually serve to divide us. This solidarity-versus-unity struggle has been playing out inside OWS as a whole for a while now, as well as in our May Day planning meetings. After months of trying to impose decisions upon each other, which was serving only to divide us, the May Day planning committee has quietly moved away from unity and towards solidarity. It’s about time.
The call to help organize a national general strike on May Day had no lack of interested parties in New York City from a diverse cross-section of activists. The first call to meet as an “exploratory committee” brought together around 75 people back in January, including radicals from Occupy Wall Street and across New York City, alongside seasoned labor organizers and others. This diversity has persisted throughout the planning process, resulting in some incredible breakthroughs and synergy, as well as deep reflection and sometimes painful challenges.
Anarchists like myself are accustomed to striving to create “safer spaces” where we do our best to check our privileges of every kind at the door. This compels us to develop particular strategies to raise up marginalized voices by adhering to consensus process and respecting each other’s autonomy to make our own tactical and strategic choices. Becoming accustomed to these ways of interacting with one another can make it difficult for anti-authoritarians to organize in other types of spaces, where people are more used to organizing hierarchically. The first few OWS May Day meetings were well-populated with radical feminists, queer anarchists, insurrectionists and others from the New York anarchist community. As has been happening in OWS as a whole, many of these people began feeling uncomfortable and marginalized in those meetings and, by and large, stopped attending. But many of us did remain in the project and continued working with an ever-growing coalition of OWS folks, labor and immigrant worker justice groups. This coalition, in itself, is historic.
Our coalition partners wanted to set up a “4×4” steering committee with four representatives from each of the four groups: organized labor, the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, community-based organizations and Occupy Wall Street. But since the Occupy movement tends to operate on the core anarchist principles of horizontality and consensus, having formal representatives of any kind at the 4×4 wouldn’t work for us. We informed our partners that we would feel more comfortable using a spokescouncil at these meetings. This would mean that as many OWS folks as wished to attend would be welcome, and the four people empowered to speak at a given time would act as non-autonomous spokes, reflecting to our partners the will of the group seated behind them. For large decisions, we would need to take a brief break and come to consensus as a group before reporting back to the coalition.
Our partners were very receptive to us operating in this manner, and it even seemed like a bit of our horizontally rubbed off on them. When it was time to open up the process and call large meetings to plan the details of the solidarity march, they at first suggested that each group should get only one vote — total. OWS balked at this, and an agreement was reached to use a two-thirds-majority, modified-consensus system. This means that, first, we check for full consensus from the group, and if there are people opposed, we hear them voice their concerns before moving to a vote. Whether these processes will have a long-term effect on our partners remains to be seen, but it is something of which I am very excited and proud to have been a part.
Many of the radicals who stopped attending the early meetings moved on to work with Strike Everywhere, an autonomous group of anti-authoritarians who were agitating for a general strike in New York, outside of OWS. This model of working with exclusively like-minded folks was appealing to many of the anarchists in the OWS group, many of whom had started to feel similarly disenfranchised. A lot of the remaining anarchist organizers began working almost exclusively in clusters that featured a distinctly anti-authoritarian bent, with names like Action, Mutual Aid or Strike. Over time, as the character of each became more well-defined, all the various clusters in the project began to respect each other’s autonomy, unique skills and interests. Once we stopped constantly trying to make decisions for each other, our meetings became much more cohesive, and coordination went much more smoothly.
Meanwhile, both of the main decision-making bodies in OWS — the Spokes Council and the General Assembly — gradually became non-functional and were disbanded. Movement-wide projects are now being organized in more decentralized ways, with various groups simply coordinating with one another rather than trying to make decisions together. While some see this as a failure of process, I think it’s really one more stop in the movement’s ongoing experimentation toward a directly-democratic society. Trying to impose “unity” over the movement with the GA and Spokes led to infighting and marginalization. Being in solidarity with one another allows different groups with different backgrounds to work together effectively without trying to control one another.
Despite the struggles and the experimentation, the successes of the May Day planning group and the larger coalition are undeniable. A broad coalition of labor, immigrant worker justice groups, community organizations, Occupy assemblies and students has been forged. Through a decentralized action model, there will be dozens of simultaneous direct actions across the city, creating time and space between ones that are family-friendly and others that are more aggressive. Thousands of people will be sharing resources and skills, practicing and learning about mutual aid in Bryant Park and Union Square. Students will be walking out of their schools and opening a free university. Workers will be occupying their workplaces, kicking out exploitative bosses and managing the businesses for themselves. A call for a general strike was made, and endorsed by the largest labor organization in New Jersey, the Industrial Labor Council. Ways have been found for other labor groups to participate without breaking laws against striking, by calling for a “99 Pickets” action that will aim to shut down the flow of finance capital in Midtown on the morning of May Day.
I’m proud to have worked beside hundreds of others on this project, and I am confident that the effects of May Day will bellow out across the globe |
Genetic Information System (AEGIS), where the four canonical nucleobases adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine (forming the base pairs A-T and G-C, respectively) are replaced by different purine and pyrimidine residues that mediate as hydrogen bond donors and acceptors (Benner, 2004; Yang et al., 2011) (Fig. 2), or even systems including non-natural hydrophobic nucleobases (Leconte et al., 2008).
FIG. 2. The AEGIS that follows closely the geometry and hydrogen bonding architecture of natural nucleotides. The various hydrogen bonding patterns are named pu (purine-like) or py (pyrimidine-like), depending on the heterocyclic ring system, with hydrogen bond donor (D) and acceptor (A) groups listed starting in the major groove and ending in the minor groove. Reprinted with permission from Benner (2004), copyright 2004 American Chemical Society. Color images available online at www.liebertonline.com/ast
Polymerases have proven to accept nonstandard components of DNA only inefficiently (Horlacher et al., 1995), and tools such as rapid sequencing methods are unavailable to most synthetic genetic systems (Yang et al., 2011). Reversed-chirality sugars within nucleotides or different residues constituting the DNA backbone are not recognized by natural DNA polymerases at all, yet even the presence of single unconventional bases in putative extraterrestrial nucleic acids may be sufficient to stop the polymerization reaction due to the lack of matching substrates among the reaction components (Fig. 3), making both conventional PCR or any sequencing-by-synthesis approach futile.
FIG. 3. Nucleotide incorporation through the DNA polymerase during a PCR reaction. The synthesis of a new DNA strand can only proceed if the enzyme can resort to the matching nucleotides as reaction substrates (left); in the case where these are not available, the polymerase breaks off, and the elongation terminates (right). Color images available online at www.liebertonline.com/ast
3. Hypothetical Universal Blueprint for Genetic Information Carriers in Water
Despite the multiplicity of possible modifications that are in principle possible (i.e., different backbone, alternative nucleobases, or combinations of both) and that can concur to make established molecular biological tools useless for most extraterrestrial genetic systems, genetic information carriers may still remain privileged targets for the detection of biomolecules and life signatures on other planets due to the fact that some of their elementary characteristics are conceivably universal because of physical and chemical constraints (Benner, 2004). It can safely be assumed that any molecule encoding genetic data will be organized in the form of a linear biological polymer that uses the sequence of its monomer subunits to store the hereditary information. In polar solvents like water, repeating charges carried by the backbone are the key for such a molecular system to support high-fidelity copying through inter-strand interactions, as they force the strands to contact away from the backbone (in the case of DNA at the Watson-Crick edge of the heterocycles) rather than in a random orientation. The charged backbone dominates the physical properties of DNA so that replacement of single nucleobases during Darwinian evolution has only a marginal effect on the physical behavior of the molecule and does not affect its replication properties; a flexible polyanion or polycation is more likely to adopt the extended conformation needed to function as a template than a neutral polymer. The repeating charges favor solubility in water and keep strands from folding, as happens, for instance, with proteins, whose backbone is electrically uncharged and in which a single amino acid change can dramatically affect their secondary structure and, by consequence, their functionality (Benner et al., 2004).
4. Nanopore-Based Detection of Nucleic Acids
Nanopore-based sensing devices may take advantage of the fundamental constraints of genetic information carriers in watery systems to detect and possibly analyze them without further a priori assumptions about their chemical composition. A nanopore is a hole of a few nanometers in diameter that is enclosed in an insulating membrane between two chambers containing an electrolyte solution. The most commonly described biological nanopore is the heptameric protein α-hemolysin (αHL), which is constituted from a transmembrane β-barrel of about 5 nm in length that has a limiting aperture of about 1.5 nm at its narrowest point. This setup can be used to detect and analyze different types of molecules by measuring the ionic current flowing across the membrane as they are translocated electrophoretically through the αHL pore (Fig. 4). As the diameter of the individual DNA duplex can vary between 2.4 and 2.0 nm, depending on whether the double helix assumes the less common A-form or the biologically more relevant B-form, respectively, the central constriction allows only single-stranded (but not double-stranded) DNA to be driven through the nanopore. Due to their length, these biopolymers require extensive times to translocate across the membrane, which results in a characteristic signal composed by a population of hundreds to thousands of ionic current blockades that is clearly distinguishable from those produced by other types of molecules, as low-molecular-weight compounds cause only minor sporadic disruptions in the current flow, whereas larger molecular debris in a sample are simply excluded from the nanopore (Fig. 4). All four natural nucleobases can be identified both in DNA and RNA by measuring their differential effect on the current flowing across the membrane as the strand moves through the αHL pore (Stoddart et al., 2009; Ayub et al., 2013). This channel was used in the first experimental demonstration of nucleic acid detection and analysis and still remains a choice for third-generation DNA sequencing. Other bacterial proteins, such as porin A of Mycobacterium smegmatis (MspA), show improved single molecule sensitivity and extreme resolution in base recognition with respect to αHL and are able to resolve single base modifications such as the presence of an additional methyl group on cytosine (Laszlo et al., 2013; Schreiber et al., 2013). MspA is currently being investigated as a potential candidate for improved nucleic acid analysis with the use of biological nanopores (Manrao et al., 2011).
FIG. 4. A biological nanopore such as αHL can be used to detect and analyze target molecules by measuring the ionic current after setting a voltage across the electrically resistant membrane bilayer in which the protein is embedded. (A) When no analyte passes through the nanopore, the ionic current (represented by the gray arrows) can flow freely. (B) Small molecules translocate quickly through the nanopore, causing a reduction in current intensity of relatively short duration and small amplitude that can be approximately related to their size. (C) Bigger molecules that cannot enter the nanopore cause an almost complete blockade in the ionic flow, resulting in a sharp drop of the signal. (D) Single-stranded nucleic acids barely fit into the channel and require more time to translocate through the biological nanopore due to their length. This results, respectively, in a reduction of the current intensity that is both large and of extended duration. As the molecule is transferred through the nanopore, the ionic flow across the membrane is modulated by the transiting nucleotides into an electric signal that can be eventually decoded to reveal, at least in the case of DNA and RNA, the sequence of its monomers. Color images available online at www.liebertonline.com/ast
A nonbiological alternative that has been explored for solid-state nanopores is graphene (Garaj et al., 2010), one of the crystalline forms of carbon, where atoms are arranged in a one-atom-thick layer with a repeating hexagonal pattern. With respect to the biological alternatives, graphene has the advantage of a reduced membrane thickness that can be adjusted to closely match the distance between neighboring bases in a DNA strand, tolerating only one nucleotide at a time in the nanopore and thus simplifying measurements in single-nucleotide steps (Wells et al., 2012). Furthermore, graphene permits a precise sculpting of the membrane surface, which enables the production of nanopores with a wide range of diameters (Song et al., 2011), a fact that may allow not only for the targeting of single-stranded nucleic acids but also detection of double-stranded molecules (Garaj et al., 2010). This may also allow discrimination of other biopolymers with alternate chemical and sterical properties such as widened DNA (yDNA) (Lu et al., 2009) or expanded DNA (xDNA) (Lynch et al., 2006), which are constituted by nucleobases that are modified by the addition of an extra benzene ring (Fig. 5).
FIG. 5. Minor groove views of yDNA (left) and xDNA (right) compared to the B-form of conventional DNA (center). Structures of modified nucleobases are shown above the space-filling models at the example of widened and expanded adenine analogues and their base pairing with thymine. Adapted with permission from Lu et al. (2009) and Lynch et al. (2006), copyright 2006 American Chemical Society and 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Color images available online at www.liebertonline.com/ast
A nanopore-based sensing device could be inserted in the payload of a planetary mission to Mars, Europa, or Enceladus for in situ detection of extraterrestrial biopolymers that serve as genetic information carriers. A multicell design could be implemented to evaluate molecules comparable to single-stranded DNA and modifications thereof by using different pore diameters. Opposed polarities could be alternatively applied to the two sides of the graphene membrane to test for the translocation of both negatively and positively charged biopolymers. This approach would allow the detection of a broad variety of genetic information carriers without virtually any further conjecture about the chemistry of their basic building blocks other than the electrically charged linear biopolymer blueprint (Benner et al., 2004). Since there are practically no naturally occurring nonbiological polymers that have these characteristics, any signal coming from an extraterrestrial sample would be highly significant and would represent a compelling indication for the presence of present or past biological processes. Moreover, under ideal conditions, molecules identical to DNA or RNA would readily be identified and possibly sequenced on the basis of the protocols currently in development for third-generation sequencing of Terran microorganisms, whereas exotic biopolymers and unconventional nucleic acids could be detected, modeled with computer simulation (De Biase et al., 2014), synthesized, and tested empirically in identical devices in laboratories back on Earth to interpret their structure.
5. Possible Issues
Despite having achieved sufficient portability, as in the case of the MinION device, which is currently distributed to early users by Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, there are still several challenges to be solved before nanopore-based sensing instruments are fully mature to be embarked on a planetary mission to these watery worlds. One of the major analysis-related problems that, to date, has to be tackled is the high electrophoretic speed of nucleic acids, which makes low-noise measurements of the small electric current variations caused by the free movement of single-stranded DNA through the αHL nanopore very difficult (Bashir, 2013). A promising approach employed for regulating the translocation speed of nucleic acids is through the use of processive enzymes like polymerases or exonucleases coupled with the biological nanopore; this allows the controlled translocation of individual DNA strands at speeds suitable for accurate single-base reads in the order of tens of milliseconds (Cherf et al., 2012) or the detection of the individual bases cleaved off from the polymer (Clarke et al., 2009), respectively. However, due to their specificity to Terran nucleic acids, biological nanopores and processive enzymes would not be the best choice for the detection and analysis of alien genetic information carriers, but other approaches based on solid-state nanopores combined with purely physical speed-controlling factors such as temperature, salinity, and viscosity of the buffer, or the voltage applied across the nanopore, would be preferred (Peng et al., 2011). A further option would be to attempt to couple these unknown target biopolymers with other molecules through nonspecific electrostatic forces like ionic bonds so as to slow their passage through the nanopore by reducing their overall charge or by simple steric hindrance (Kowalczyk et al., 2012).
The extreme dilution of the target molecules in the collected samples will certainly be a factor negatively affecting the chances of detection of any biopolymer or genetic information carrier that may be present, but the same applies also to any methods based on nucleic acid synthesis as, obviously, at least one target molecule is needed in the reaction to obtain a genuine amplification signal. Though PCR is theoretically capable of detecting a single copy of a target DNA, a copy number per reaction of at least 10 is commonly specified as the lowest target level that can be reliably quantified when using PCR applications. Nevertheless, these figures apply in earthly laboratories, under extraordinarily favorable settings and with perfect knowledge of the matching template sequence, which would most probably not be the case when looking for extraterrestrial life signatures. Since in a nanopore device translocation and recognition of nucleic acid are recorded in real time on a molecule-by-molecule basis, even a single translocation event is in principle detectable with this technology, although the average capture rate is ultimately dependent on the analyte concentration, the pore shape and cross sectional area, the applied electric voltage, and the temperature (Meller and Branton, 2002; Peng et al., 2014).
Radiation protection and device stability during extended missions will also be issues; in order to arrive at a destination with a fully functional nanopore device, it will be essential to study how high-energy particles from the Sun combined with extreme vacuum and low temperatures of space will affect its components during a typical mission profile, and to provide the necessary shielding. In the case of a mission to Europa, surviving within Jupiter's radiation belts will be an additional concern. It can be argued, however, that the simple design of a solid-state nanopore device, combined with its reduced requirement for chemical and biochemical reagents with respect to biological nanopores or sequencing-by-synthesis approaches, will make this technique less vulnerable to radiation damages.
6. Conclusions
Current technology allows the sending of robotic chemistry laboratories to other Solar System bodies to search for life signatures. The jovian moon Europa, Saturn's moon Enceladus, and the everlasting Mars are the targets of choice if we consider life based on liquid water. In such environments, it is reasonable to assume that genetic information carriers would present themselves in the form of electrically charged linear biopolymers that are not necessarily identical to DNA or RNA but are consistent with the same general blueprint and may display chemical variations both in the backbone as well in the nucleobases.
The latter fact devalues any attempt to detect and eventually sequence these molecules by using replication or cleavage approaches, as most enzymes that perform these tasks are highly discriminating with regard to the type of templates and substrates accepted. In contrast, upcoming approaches that are not directly dependent on the chemical structure of the analyte, such as nanopore-based sensing devices, could maximize the chances of the detection of alternate genetic information carriers and maintain the possibility of detecting conventional nucleic acids fully intact, which makes these the methods of choice for future planetary probes. Conceivable mission concepts could possibly include sampling of surface or subsurface ice probes or, in the case of Europa and Enceladus, even direct in-orbit sampling of the watery material vented from the interior of the icy moons (Tsou et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2014).
Acknowledgments
The author wants to thank the members of the research group Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology at ZHAW Wädenswil (http://www.iunr.zhaw.ch/EGSB) for the fruitful discussions and their support; the authors of the artwork included in Figures 1, 2, and 5 for the kind permission to reproduce the images and for providing the original high-resolution files; two anonymous reviewers and the editorial team of Astrobiology for their help in improving this manuscript; and the crowd-researched project Objective Europa (http://www.objective-europa.com) for the inspiration that lead to the elaboration of this article.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Abbreviations
αHL, α-hemolysin; AEGIS, Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System; MspA, Mycobacterium smegmatis; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; xDNA, expanded DNA; XNA, xeno-nucleic acids; yDNA, widened DNA.Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and his fiancée, Kristin Cavallari, have announced that they have selected a wedding date. How exciting! More important, however, are the newly revealed details of how Cutler proposed to his wife-to-be. Here's how Cavallari described the magical moment to E! Online:
It was so silly. I was in the airport, leaving Chicago. We had just spent however many days together and we were texting and somehow it came up, like, "Oh, shall we get married?" We're like, "Yeah, OK." And then he sent my ring in the mail. So I actually had my ring sitting at home for a couple of weeks before I put it on.
It's impossible to think of Cutler proposing in a way that would be more fitting of his bored-trust-fund-baby persona. I like to imagine that he sent Cavallari that text message while sitting on the toilet and thumbing through an old issue of Playboy.
Related: Ladies, Chad Ochocinco's Marriage Proposal Will Have You Sopping Wet
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[E! Online]The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a New York town could continue its practice of starting public meetings with a prayer. In a 5-4 decision, the court cited tradition as one reason for allowing the prayers. Our Running Debates this week takes on the similar topic of whether group prayer is appropriate at the start of a running race.
Yes. It's not a waste of time, and it's not unconstitutional.
By Jim Warrenfeltz
There are a number of criticisms of pre-race prayer. Here are a few of the most common, and why I believe they don't hold up.
To those who say it makes them uncomfortable: Does it make you uncomfortable when people wish you good luck? Or that they hope you do well? Because a prayer before a race really is just about the hopes and wishes of a community, for a good race, strong times and everyone to stay healthy. A public prayer may not be how you would express such wishes, but not everyone has to conform exactly to how you would do things. Enjoy it as local flavor, instead of being offended as a personal attack. It's not about you.
To those who say it is unconstitutional: You are incorrect. Unless the running race is publicly funded, it is not covered under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as people often like to claim it is.
To those who say it is a waste of time: Perhaps, but let me introduce you to Pascal's Wager, which basically says "But what if I'm wrong?" Even if there is no God, your pre-race prayer hasn't cost you anything but a couple minutes of time. And, those minutes may not have even been completely lost; multiple studies have found that meditation and visualization can help improve race performances, and a bit of enforced quiet contemplation just before a race is the perfect time to clear the pre-race jitters and focus on the core goals of the race.
No. It offends more than it accomplishes, and might water down the value of prayer.
By Scott Douglas
I'll start by noting that I'm a seminary graduate, so I hope those with an open mind will believe I've spent a lot of time thinking about the role of religion in public life. I'll also note that one of the things I most value about my 35 years as a runner is how our sport spurs questioning conventional notions, whether that's what constitutes fun, what a 50-year-old man should look like, or what non-running ceremonies are appropriate at races.
I'm not sure what mandated public prayer outside of a religious setting achieves that's not possible via individual prayer, while I am sure it potentially offends many people. There are, after all, many agnostic and atheist runners, as well as many who consider prayer a private matter. As runners, we rightly celebrate our sport as a unifying force.
There's also a good theological argument against such prayers. The idea of God in various faiths is inherently different; otherwise, there wouldn't be different faiths. Many of the strongest opponents of practices such as school prayer are religious leaders, because they think the necessary broadness of enforced public prayer waters down the concept of deity to near meaninglessness.
Alberto Salazar once said, "Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards." If prayer is appropriate or useful in that context, let's leave the decision to individual runners rather than a race committee.
Your Response
We tallied up your votes and found that most of you – 62% to be exact – say races shouldn't begin with a group prayer. 1,550 voted no, 983 voted yes.Adam "Ademo" Mueller, a journalist and co-host of radio show Free Talk Live, is facing 21 years in prison for reporting on police brutality toward students at a Manchester, N.H. high school.
Mueller, also founder of CopBlock.org, has been charged with three felony counts of wiretapping, each of which carries a 7-year maximum penalty. CopBlock.org is an online project that, according to its site, seeks police accountability and "curtail the all-too-common rights-violations and unaccountability that today exists."
Last October, video surfaced on CopBlock.org of 17-year-old Frank W. Harrington being lifted from his seat in the school cafeteria by a school police officer and slammed face-first into a table.
At the time, Harrington took his sister's purse and said he was "just messing around." Although the West High School teen said his sister was largely unconcerned, school officials involved school resource officer Darren Murphy, who lifted Harrington off his seat, spun him around, forced him onto the table and arrested him.
Harrington was suspended for 12 days and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Michael Proulx, the 17-year-old junior at the school who recorded the incident, was also told by a school official that it's "illegal to film," and ordered to delete anything he had recorded. Proulx lied, saying he had only taken photos, and pretended to erase them.
In response, Mueller took to CopBlock.org to defend both Proulx and Harrington, noting in a report that "Murphy provides the misguided administrator an exact example why filming police is important -- oh, and it's not illegal at all." He also called the Manchester police department and the school seeking comment.
But he chose to record the conversations he had with a Manchester police captain, the Manchester High School West principal and a school secretary, and then included soundbites in a video post. The wiretapping indictments came a few months later, and he is accused of recording the conversations without the other parties' consent.
Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Michael G. Valentine could not be reached for comment by the Union Leader.
The state's wiretap law makes it a crime to record someone without permission if the speaker has "reasonable expectation that what he is saying is not subject to interception," according to the Union Leader. Mueller says, however, that he identified himself as being from CopBlock.org and sought comment about the incident.
Mueller has been offered a plea deal of a two-year suspended sentence, which he is refusing.
"Here's how I see the offer: it's a stellar deal if I actually thought what I had done was wrong," Mueller wrote in a post on CopBlock.org. "First, I can't go against my principles and sign a deal that says I acknowledge my actions as wrong or illegal. Second, I'm not a hypocrite. How can I advocate refusing plea deals and sign one myself? I don't judge anyone who has taken pleas because each case/charge is different. Third, I am confident I can show a jury, with facts and logic, that I shouldn't be caged for my actions.... Let the circus begin!"
A "Free Ademo" campaign has already launched to support Mueller, including attending Monday's jury selection at the local courthouse. New Hampshire recently passed a jury nullification law that permits defense attorneys to inform jurors of their right to vote on conscience and void bad laws through "not guilty" verdicts.Let me clear from the onset: according to the NFL’s own rule book, referees were right to take away a game-winning touchdown catch from the Steelers last week, costing them an important win against the AFC-leading Patriots.
In a video released following the game, NFL head of officiating Al Riveron said: “[Jesse James] loses control of the football, and the ball touches the ground prior to him regaining control. Therefore, the ruling on the field of a touchdown was changed to an incomplete pass."
But what does it say about the NFL rules when just about everyone watching the play, including CBS announcers Tony Romo and Jim Nantz (who said on air “there’s no doubt it’s going to hold up”), thought it was a catch?
Face it, NFL: the rule is bad. And it’s long. As The Ringers’ Rodger Sherman pointed out in the off-season, the section in the league’s rule book that defines a catch is 649 words long, features three lettered subsections, six numbered items and two notes.
The rule is mostly fine when it calls for a receiver to control the hall while it’s in the air and get both feet or another part of the body in bounds. It’s the whole “becoming a runner” caveat and the dreaded “player going to the ground” item that seem to cause the league most of its problems.
See more cartoons: Packers QB Aaron Rogers Returns, Dropping The Injury Laden NFC On Its Head
In 2015, Odell Beckham Jr.’s late-game touchdown catch against the Patriots was overturned due to the officials interpretation of the NFL’s overwrought rules. The same thing happened in 2014, when the rule cost the Cowboys a late touchdown in the divisional round of the playoffs when what appeared to be an amazing-but-obvious catch by Dallas wide receiver Dez Bryant was overturned because the ball bobbled slightly as he attempted to reach across the goal line.
The same thing happened back in 2010, when a terrific catch by Lions receiver Calvin Johnson was overturned because, as the official explained, the runner did not complete the catch during the process of the catch.
And on and on and on.
The thing is, the rule is fixable. One simple fix suggested by ESPN’s Bill Barnwell would be to get rid of the surviving the ground rule and stop taking away obvious touchdowns because a football wobbles slightly when it’s watched on a loop in slow-motion replay.
Another is to listen to former Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald and adopt his simple rewrite of the rule book: “If a receiver catches the ball with two feet on the ground and turns to run with it, that should be a catch. If he gets the ball stripped, that should be a fumble.”
Seems simple enough, right? It might lead to more fumbles than incomplete passes, but fumbles are always an exciting part of the game, so that’d be fine with me.
One way to know for sure would be to take up ESPN’s Kevin Seifert’s suggestion to test out new rule changes involving catching the football in the Pro Bowl. That way, the league would discover and contend with any objectionable side effects that might crop up in attempting to fix its terrible rule.
Or, we could just keep stealing away exciting, game-winning touchdown catches, because fans love when a game is decided by the officials. - Rob Tornoeinjera and several kinds of wat (stew) is typical of This meal consisting ofand several kinds of(stew) is typical of Ethiopian cuisine.
Ethiopian cuisine (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ምግብ) characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes. This is usually in the form of wat, a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread,[1] which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour.[1] Ethiopians eat most of the time with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes.[1].
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church prescribes a number of fasting (tsom, Ge'ez: ጾም ṣōm, excluding any kind of animal products, including dairy products and eggs) periods, including Wednesdays, Fridays, and the entire Lenten season, so Ethiopian cuisine contains many dishes that are vegan.[2]
Overview [ edit ]
kita herb bread Ethiopianherb bread
A typical dish consists of injera accompanied by a spicy stew, which frequently includes beef, lamb, vegetables and various types of legumes, such as lentils. Gurage cuisine also makes use of the false banana plant (enset, Ge'ez: እንሰት inset), a type of ensete. The plant is pulverized and fermented to make a bread-like food called qocho or kocho (Ge'ez: ቆጮ ḳōč̣ō), which is eaten with kitfo.[3] The root of this plant may be powdered and prepared as a hot drink called bulla (Ge'ez: ቡላ būlā), which is often given to those who are tired or ill. Another typical Gurage preparation is coffee with butter (kebbeh). Kita herb bread is also baked.
Pasta is frequently available throughout Ethiopia, including rural areas.[1] Coffee is also a large part of Ethiopian culture and cuisine. After every meal, a coffee ceremony is enacted and coffee is served.
History [ edit ]
Restrictions of certain meats [ edit ]
Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims avoid eating pork or shellfish, for religious reasons. Pork is considered to be unclean in both Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Many Ethiopians would abstain from eating certain meats, and would mostly eat vegetarian and vegan foods.
Traditional ingredients [ edit ]
korarima, berbere, a basic ingredient in many Ethiopian dishes. Ajwain or radhuni nigella and fenugreek (clockwise, from top) are used with chilis and salt to make, a basic ingredient in many Ethiopian dishes.
Berbere, a combination of powdered chili pepper and other spices (somewhat analogous to Southwestern American chili powder), is an important ingredient used in many dishes. Also essential is niter kibbeh, a clarified butter infused with ginger, garlic, and several spices.[4][5]
Mitmita (Amharic: ሚጥሚጣ, IPA: [mitʼmitʼa]) is a powdered seasoning mix used in Ethiopian cuisine. It is orange-red in color and contains ground birdseye chili peppers (piri piri), cardamom seed, cloves and salt.[6] It occasionally has other spices including cinnamon, cumin and ginger.
In their adherence to strict fasting, Ethiopian cooks have developed a rich array of cooking oil sources—besides sesame and safflower—for use as a substitute for animal fats which are forbidden during fasting periods. Ethiopian cuisine also uses nug (also spelled noog, also known as "niger seed").[2]
Dishes [ edit ]
Wat [ edit ]
A typical serving of wat
Wat begins with a large amount of chopped red onion, which is simmered or sauteed in a pot. Once the onions have softened, niter kebbeh (or, in the case of vegan dishes, vegetable oil) is added. Following this, berbere is added to make a spicy keiy wat or keyyih tsebhi. Turmeric is used instead of berbere for a milder alicha wat or both spices are omitted when making vegetable stews, such as atkilt wat. Meat such as beef (ሥጋ,[7] səga), chicken (ዶሮ,[8] doro or derho), fish (ዓሣ,[9] asa), goat or lamb (በግ,[10] beg or beggi) is also added. Legumes such as split peas (ክክ,[11] kək or kikki) and lentils (ምስር,[12] məsər or birsin); or vegetables such as potatoes (ድንች,[13] Dənəch), carrots and chard (ቆስጣ) are also used instead in vegan dishes.
Each variation is named by appending the main ingredient to the type of wat (e.g. kek alicha wat). However, the word keiy is usually not necessary, as the spicy variety is assumed when it is omitted (e.g. doro wat). The term atkilt wat is sometimes used to refer to all vegetable dishes, but a more specific name can also be used (as in dinich'na caroht wat, which translates to "potatoes and carrots stew"; but notice the word "atkilt" is usually omitted when using the more specific term).
Tibs [ edit ]
"Tibs" redirects here. For other uses, see Tibs (disambiguation)
Meat along with vegetables are sautéed to make tibs (also tebs, t'ibs, tibbs, etc., Ge'ez: ጥብስ ṭibs). Tibs is served in a variety of manners, and can range from hot to mild or contain little to no vegetables. There are many variations of the delicacy, depending on type, size or shape of the cuts of meat used.
The mid-18th century European visitor to Ethiopia Remedius Prutky describes tibs as a portion of grilled meat served "to pay a particular compliment or show especial respect to someone."[14] This is perhaps still true as the dish is still prepared today to commemorate special events and holidays.
Kinche (Qinch'e) [ edit ]
Kinche (Qinch’e) is a very common Ethiopian breakfast, its equivalent of oatmeal. It’s incredibly simple, inexpensive, and nutritious. It is made from cracked wheat, Ethiopian oats, barley or a mixture of those. It can be boiled in either milk or water. The flavor of the Kinche comes from the nit'ir qibe, which is a spiced butter.[15]
Oromo dishes [ edit ]
tibs (waadii) dish at a restaurant in Yod Abyssinia, ) dish at a restaurant in Yod Abyssinia, Addis Ababa
Waadii – also known as tibs ; specially seasoned
– also known as ; specially seasoned Anchotte – a common dish in the western part of Oromia (Wallaga)
– a common dish in the western part of Oromia (Wallaga) Baduu – also known as aybe
– also known as Marqaa – also known as genfo
– also known as Chechebsa – also known as kita
– also known as Qoocco – although also known as kocho, it is not the Gurage type of kocho but a different kind; a common dish in the western part of Oromia (Wallaga)
– although also known as, it is not the Gurage type of kocho but a different kind; a common dish in the western part of Oromia (Wallaga) Itto – also known as wat ; comprises all sorts of wat, including vegetables and mea
– also known as ; comprises all sorts of wat, including vegetables and mea Chuuco – also known as besso; a sweet flavor of whole grain, seasoned with butter and spices
Chuko, barley conserved with butter, is traditional food of Oromia region in Ethiopia. It is traditionally made by women from barley powder mixed with a sufficient amount of distilled butter, along with ginger, onion, salt and spices. Chuko is easy to prepare in a short time, and is full of protein because of its barley content. To make it, first barley is husked and then roasted over a fire. It is then pounded into a powder. Over this powder, a sufficient amount of butter and spices is added, and mixed to create the finished, piquant product. Individual portions of chuko vary between 2 and 5 kg. Chuko can be stored for up to a year without spoiling.
Chuko is both a part of the everyday diet and prepared for special events. It is popular among those on long journeys or away at university because of its long shelf life. It is also prepared for holidays and festivals. It is traditionally related with Oromo weddings, served by the bride’s parents to the groom’s best men. Chuko is mainly produced for home consumption, but can also be found at local markets.
Production of chuko is totally dependent on the production of barley. Therefore, in times of drought or bad harvests, production subsequently decreases. It is also becoming more difficult for many families to prepare due to the high price related to the large quantity of butter required. It is also slowly losing its importance related to wedding customs, and is being replaced by imported products new to the market, meaning fewer people are left who know how to and continue to prepare chuko.
The traditional products, local breeds, and know-how collected by the Ark of Taste belong to the communities that have preserved them over time
Chororsaa – a common dish in western part of Oromia (Wallaga)
Gurage dishes [ edit ]
Kitfo [ edit ]
Another distinctively Ethiopian dish is kitfo (frequently spelled ketfo). It consists of raw (or rare) beef mince marinated in mitmita (Ge'ez: ሚጥሚጣ mīṭmīṭā a very spicy chili powder similar to the berbere) and niter kibbeh. Gored gored is very similar to kitfo, but uses cubed rather than ground beef.
Ayibe [ edit ]
Ayibe is a cottage cheese |
nods, a bit surprised at how suddenly his fortunes have changed, and he suggests that they talk in private.
- Heading back to the Silver Lion, Olric explains that he was once the commander of the 1st Damaran Dragoons, a heavy cavalry unit in the service to King Virdin, the last Damaran King. Even though the Battle of Goliad was lost, Olric managed to save those he could. Many of the Dragoons disbanded, but a core have remained with him and they will fight for coin. Griffin is intrigued but he has seen few fighting men in Valls. He asks if they are in Valls and Olric says that some are here, but many are not. He could gather them swiftly if required.
- They talk - Griffin senses that Olric is an honest man and he decides to trust him that their destination is Bloodstone and their mission to destroy the bandit army there. At this news, Olric agrees that this is a worthy cause. They speak briefly of money and Olric seems happy that the gold that Griffin has will be more than sufficient to buy their services. They seal the deal with a firm handshake, and Olric says that he will return shortly with men to protect Griffin while the others gather as swiftly as they can. Griffin laughs and says that he can defend himself, to which Olric says “Of that I’m sure, my Lord.”
- That evening, Griffin relays the good news to Rook. He advises Rook that he’s recruited a unit of cavalry that used to be part of the Damaran army. Griffin tells Rook that he likes Olric, and he mentions of Olric’s resemblance to their old school teacher. He hopes to be ready in two, possibly three days.
- Not long after their contact, Griffin eats a hearty dinner at the Silver Lion. A minstrel plays a happy tune and Griffin finds himself humming along. There is a pretty lady in a red dress at another table whom he makes eye contact with. He finds himself staring and she blushes. Alas, the evening is spoiled when another patron sits down at Griffin’s table without asking, and asks of his business in Valls. The man has thick fingers and wears far too many gold rings. Griffin takes an instant dislike to him. The man claims to be in the service of Duke William. He praises Griffin for his quick actions in saving the town from the circus creatures and politely asks whether Griffin could remain in town while the circus is here, just in case. Griffin agrees to this (even though he’s not sure he will honour this promise). The man presses further, and ventures that a man ‘like Griffin’ could be very useful to His Lordship. He asks what brings Griffin to Valls and whether His Lordship might be able to find him some employment.
- Griffin smiles at this. The lady on the next table has glanced over again, and he finds himself rather pleased with this situation. He introduces himself as Griffin to the man who has joined him, and the man introduces himself as Riccard. Griffin thanks Riccard for the very generous offer and asks for his regards and appreciation to be conveyed to the Duke. Griffin says that he would be most gratified if a suitable offer of employment became available (although he has no intention of accepting employment, he figures it might be wise to keep the Duke onside whilst he is in Valls.) Riccard is pleased, and he wishes Griffin a good evening.
- Griffin returns to enjoying the music until the minstrel retires late in the evening. The pretty lady in the red dress glances at him when she chooses to leave, and Griffin follows her when she pauses outside. He’s almost certain that she is in Riccard’s employ or this is an attempt to rob him, but she is quite alluring and he is curious as to how this will play out. As Griffin joins her, she comments that he is very bold given that he’s been staring at her on and off for some time. Griffin offers an apology but says that she is the most beautiful woman that he’s seen in a long time. Her lip curls a fraction and she replies that it is nice to be thought in such a way. She proposes that they walk a little - she would prefer the company as sometimes the streets are not safe.
- Griffin chuckles and agrees. He jovially asks whether he should be expect to be attacked on this block or the next and she matter-of-factly asks if it really matters. Her eyes tell him that it is indeed a trap so he offers to take her arm “so that she gets home safely”. She laughs at that, and says that she will make it home whatever happens. However, he can feel that she’s not as confident as she sounds.
- The ambush takes place only two blocks away. A crossbow bolt is fired from a rooftop, but it shatters on Ethan’s dragonshield as he turns away from it. The lady is thrown off-balance by this and Ethan offers an apology and suggests that she step back. Three groups of thugs approach him with swords and axes. She wishes him luck in a detached sort of voice, and she steps away as the thugs attempt to rush him. The battle is swift, and again, brutal. Within two minutes there are fifteen dead bodies in the street - Griffin has killed them all with his rapier and one of their axes. Even the assassin on the rooftop was hauled down to street level with a sorcerous pull (Force pull) and then hacked.
- The lady in red says nothing. She simply steps back to Griffin, takes his arm again and says that her home is not far away. Griffin escorts her to her house in the village but declines when she invites him inside. Griffin says pleasantly that he has no wish to have his throat slit in the night, and wishes her a good evening. He returns to the Silver Lion and rests for a bit - but there is no further trouble that evening.
Part 10 - Arrival and Gathering (Day 3)
- The next morning, Griffin finds that four soldiers of the Olric’s Dragoons are already waiting for him at breakfast time. They’ve heard about what happened the previous night. One of them, Jol, explains that Olric has sent word to the others, but they have been ordered to stay with Griffin until they are ready to depart. Griffin asks Jol more about the Dragoons and is impressed by what he hears - the group sounds very professional and they are taking their duties very seriously. Jol suggests that Griffin leave with them when ready as it’s not possible for them to organise themselves adequately within a town crowded by refugees. Olric has organised a mustering area outside of town for the Dragoons to assemble - when they are fully gathered, they will ride for Bloodstone Pass.
- Griffin finds himself wondering about the lady he met the previous night. Was she a simple courtesan or an assassin? He never even learned her name. But such thoughts are fleeting as he begins organising additional supplies to go with the Dragoons. He also organises a horse for himself, and an axe to use in battle whilst on horseback (a rapier is hardly appropriate). Then he goes with Jol and the others to join the Dragoons and the gathering army.
- On the same day, Rook and the two boys arrive in the Bloodstone Pass. They land a few miles from the township and continue the last few miles on foot. Garlen and Garvin promise Rook to keep his secret that he can shapeshift and fly.
- Rook is taken to the Inn of the Clowns and is welcomed by Stephan, its owner.
GM Observations (Part 2)
- Some words on the combats fought during this session - eg: Grant beating a dragon physically into submission, Ethan dealing with multiple monsters simultaneously. Firstly, Grant and Ethan are very powerful at this point. Even 3 years into the time compress, they are nearing 300 points. What would be a challenge for Superior or Paragon ranked individuals is less of a challenge for them. Yes, the Legendary Realm scales up the power levels of these critters, but Grant is physically strong enough to flip a charging rhino (or landshark), jump like the Incredible Hulk and outfight anything short of a demi-god; Ethan is powerful enough to crush any normal individual’s Psyche, fend of a dozen normal sorcerers and, like either, outfight anything short of a demi-god.
- Hence most monsters are simply ‘speed-bumps’ to ranked PCs (especially given how formidable Grant and Ethan are). Even a powerful adversary will likely have a ‘glass jaw’ to Grant and his Dominant Ranked Warfare, armed with Gorgorin, and using Umbra to find the weaknesses in the combat.
- Nevertheless, the Circus creatures were dangerous. The landshark could have crushed many people in the crowd if it was not stopped quickly. The Chimera would have dived into the crowd and terrorised as many as it could before fleeing with the Nightmare (who was the brains behind the escape). The Storm Dragon was very powerful and very strong - but Grant did the unexpected whilst it was still ‘powering up’. Even the Foxwoman’s unearthly beauty was a distraction to Ethan, but his Psyche was such that he could withstand it.
- When designing this sort of adventure, it’s important to work out which encounters should just be ‘speed bumps’ and which should not. Speed bump combats can still be mentally challenging to the players but the PCs should trounce their adversaries. Often it’s a lot of fun to play through the speed bump fights because they reaffirm in the players’ minds that their characters are vastly superior to most of the individuals that they run across. They are special. They are the superheroes of the game. It can be a negative to only pit the PCs against individuals who have Attributes and Powers equivalent to their own - it makes them feel less special. It’s better to use such challenges sparingly.
- In this specific combat, the challenge was twofold - firstly there were multiple adversaries with very different powers, and secondly, there were defenceless civilians. If the PCs had dithered, the creatures would have killed many in the crowd and this would have been their failure.
- One of the challenges with playing games at this level is that the PCs’ Warfare vastly exceeds the players’ own Warfare. For example, Grant has Dominant Rank Warfare - even if David (the player) can’t think of a plan, Grant can. More than that, the plan that Grant devises is likely to be successful, and the best plan that could be thought of. Hence when David decides that Grant needs to tackle the landshark first because David thinks it is the greatest threat, the GM then decides that Grant has assessed the situation and determined that the landshark is the greatest and most immediate threat because it is really is. That is, don’t fight the players - the GM simply modifies the scenario and runs with it. That’s very different to most other games.
- Anyway, hopefully these musings are useful to some of you...With the completion of week fourteen in the Liga MX, just three weeks remain in the regular season. The Liguilla is beginning to take shape. The cream has risen to the top and the other stuff is left below feeling bitter and angry. With three remaining matches for the majority of the league there's a wide range of mathematical possibilities for the table's final resting place. However, a realistic look at the current standings reveals a fairly clear picture of where this thing is headed. Competing for a Trophy: Club America is the only club that has mathematically clinched a Liguilla spot, and it would take a calamity of epic proportions to keep Atlas out of the playoffs. It's also safe to include Toluca and Tigres in postseason play. Toluca has a rough schedule down the stretch (@Tijuana, America, @Tigres) but will likely only need a point or two to guarantee a spot. The same could be said for Tigres. The current form of both clubs suggests a collapse is unlikely. The Rayados of Monterrey should be counted as playoff locks at this point as well. There's nothing quite as reassuring as a game in hand when that game in hand is a home match with Chivas. This means that there are realistically only three spots truly up for grabs. Let's first look at who will not be competing for them... Not This Time: Veracruz and Puebla could still technically reach the postseason. This just won't be happening. Chivas have heavier things to worry about than simply missing out on another Liguilla. The Leones Negros put in a respectable showing for their first season in the top division. They will be fighting to get that descenso percentage above the "point per partido" and taking solace in not being Morelia. The Monarcas need this season to end. On the cusp: This leaves eight clubs with a chance to grab one of those final three spots. Some are on the cusp on grabbing a playoff spot, while others are headed to something a bit more dismal. A study of the three remaining fixtures provides some insight in to how this mess will likely end. Chiapas (21 pts.) On the cusp of... legitimacy Chiapas sit in decent position to qualify for postseason play. However, they don't face the easiest schedule the rest of the way. Home matches with fellow bubble teams Cruz Azul and Queretaro will likely be tightly contested and a trip to the Tec in Monterrey probably won't be. Jaguares have an underrated homefield advantage; they will need every bit of that advantage to find their way in to the Liguilla. The upcoming match with Cruz Azul will be critical for each team. If either find a way to get the three points, it will more than likely put one team in and keep the other out. Pachuca (21 pts.) On the cusp of... consistency Pachuca has followed their title season with an erratic one. A mediocre road record has been matched by their mediocre home record. One week Pachuca look like world beaters and the next they look like the beaten. Luckily, for the Tuzos the remaining schedule is favorable. Matches with Puebla and Veracruz should yield six points for Pachuca. This will be more than enough to lock down a playoff spot. Cruz Azul (19 pts.) On the cusp of... turmoil Cruz Azul has followed their Superlider season and Concacaf Champions league title campaign with one of disappointment and concern. Other than in their demolition of Club America, Cruz Azul has looked consistently mid-table. This is where they now sit and will likely sit when all is said and done. The remaining schedule is not necessarily frightening for La Maquina. However, a look at their scoring woes indicates that there are likely draws on the horizon. Additionally, Cruz Azul finds itself in the company of the woeful Morelia and the road-incapacitated Tijuana as the only teams unable to secure a road win this season. Cruz Azul need just that and are unlikely to get them. On the plus side, Cruz Azul should have more time to prepare to get embarrassed in the Club World Cup. Queretaro (18 pts.) On the cusp of... a narrow miss Queretaro sit on 18 points with one home match remaining. Seeing as that match is with Morelia, we could go ahead and move the Gallos to 21 points. However, their two road matches have them going to the Volcan and Chiapas. I could see a clear scenerio where that week 17 match with Chiapas could be a de facto play-in game. I also envision them playing themselves out. Sorry, Dinho. Leon (18 pts.) On the cusp of... shenanigans If this were any other team sitting on eighteen points with their remaining schedule (Atlas, Puebla, @Tijuana), I'd be inclined to dismiss them without another thought. However, we know how this team and the Liguilla in general operates. It wouldn't be shocking to see Leon rip off three straight wins and cruise in to the playoffs with a full head of steam. Yet, I still would bet on the other side. I believe this time Leon will be coming up just short with the Xolos spoiling their chances in week 17. Santos (18 pts.) On the cusp of... a shock run Now, here is the team about to pull it off. I normally wouldn't place much trust in Santos or their manager in big spots. However, the schedule is sitting quite nicely for the team down the stretch. Road matches with the Leones Negros and Puebla are both winnable and a home battle with the erratic Pachuca could mean an additional three points. I believe Santos will be making the improbable run to the Liguilla and probable opening round trouncing at the hands of a stronger side. Tijuana (17 pts.) On the cusp of... monotony Home for Toluca. At Atlas. Home for Leon. Ouch. Sorry, Xolos. Not this time. UNAM (17 pts.) On the cusp of... normalcy Pumas don't have the toughest road down the stretch (Veracruz, @Cruz Azul, Monterrey), but they probably just have too many teams ahead of them at the moment. Pumas will likely make it interesting, but I don't think postseason play is in the cards this time around. When considering the recent past for Pumas, this season still shouldn't be looked at as a failure. And so... If everything plays out to form (and why wouldn't it), here are your eight Liguilla clubs: America Atlas Monterrey Toluca Tigres Santos Pachuca Chiapas ** photo used under creative commons license from Javier MoralesStory highlights There was a firefight on the ground in which seven enemy fighters were killed
The university has become a target of Taliban-linked insurgents in recent weeks
Washington (CNN) A few days after an American and Australian were kidnapped from American University in Kabul last month, US Special Operations Forces from SEAL Team 6 attempted to rescue them but failed to find them at the location they went to, according to three administration officials.
There was a firefight on the ground in which seven enemy fighters were killed, according to the officials.
The US was never certain the professors were at the site, or if they were, when they had been moved. Some electronic media was recovered indicating the identities of those who were holding them.
SEAL Team 6 used a HALO jump, which is a high altitude jump from an aircraft, in the operation. A HALO is generally only attempted when there is no other option.
The American University in Afghanistan opened in 2006. It's the only private, nonprofit, coed university in that country and has about 1,700 full- and part-time students. The school is regarded as a symbol of cooperation between Afghanistan and the United States.
Read MoreInfamous: Second Son isn't the most original game in the world, but it is a very pretty one that serves as the best demonstration yet of the PlayStation 4's powers. To that end, Sony-owned developer Sucker Punch Productions decided to include an unprecedented photo mode that lets players capture and share moments from Seattle's streets, sweeping vistas, and superhero action.
Photo modes are common in racing games, but Second Son's stands out because of the realistic urban setting. With options for color processing, camera angles, and almost infinite flexibility with depth of field, playing the game feels like a new, virtual form of street photography where raising the viewfinder to the eye is replaced by a click of the L3 button.
The mode streamlines the techniques used by Duncan Harris, aka Dead End Thrills, who captures similar artistic "photographs" within games. It's a feature that comes alive with the PS4 controller's Share button; you can instantly save photos and post them to Facebook and Twitter without needing to deal with complex menus or USB storage. Here's hoping other developers see the same potential from here on out.
We've collected a few of our favorite shots we've taken; please feel free to share your own best efforts in the comments below!European Commission Press release Making citizens' rights a tangible reality: 500 Information Centres inform citizens across Europe Today, Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission and Othmar Karas, Vice-President of the European Parliament launched a new generation of "Europe Direct Information Centres". The new network will extend possibilities for citizens to get practical information and advice on exercising rights in the European Union. There are now 500 centres in Europe, for the 500 million people in the European Union. Croatia will join the network later in 2013. The announcement comes as representatives from the centres are gathering in Brussels for the Annual General Meeting of the Europe Direct Network. "Europe Direct Information Centres are our frontline - the public face, the eyes, ears and mouth of our policies and of the rights of citizens on the ground," said Vice-President Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. "The figures are staggering: the Centres received over a million questions last year alone. So today we are extending the network so the centres may continue to play their part in answering citizens' questions and helping to stimulate a European debate at local level." The new centres were selected by the European Commission for a five-year period on the basis of an open competition. Successful candidates, co-funded by the European Commission, can now use the label of a "Europe Direct Information Centre". Most centres are run by regional or local authorities, associations or chambers of commerce. The first generation of centres was launched in 2005. People across Europe have been using them more and more ever since. Just for the past four years of the second generation, centres received as many as about 3.3 million personal enquiries, organised more than 41,000 events and answered more than a million e-mails. The Europe Direct Network has a crucial role to play in providing a direct link to people in their own country, speaking to them in a way that is both relevant and understandable to. Today's announcement comes during the 2013 European Year of Citizens, a year dedicated to European citizens and their rights. As part of the outreach efforts, throughout the year 2013, Vice-President Reding and her fellow Commissioners will join forces with national and local politicians in holding debates with citizens all across Europe – to listen to them and answer their questions. Background The Europe Direct information Network was first launched in 2005. The centres in the Member States are one of the European Commission's means of providing outreach for the general public at local level. The services of the centres are free to the general public. The centres are co-financed and receive a maximum of 25,000 EUR per year from the European Commission for their EU information activities. The total EU budget for all centres remains unchanged at a maximum of 11.4 million EUR per year. Four different services are available for people under the umbrella of “Europe Direct”. All of them serve citizens, all of them are free of charge. The Europe Direct Contact Centre (EDCC) offers an EU-wide phone and mail information service on all EU matters;
Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs) are local contact points. They provide information and answer questions on all kind of European matters. And they answer in person and taking account of the local context. Well-trained staff engages with people by organising events in schools, debates with local and regional politicians and present Europe at fairs. With over a million enquires every year, European decision-makers also have a chance to learn directly about peoples’ needs and concerns.
European Documentation Centres promote education and research on EU integration. They offer a wide range of documents on European affairs and encourage the academic community to engage in the debate on Europe.
Team Europe speakers on EU affairs. Specialists in different EU related topics, they speak at conferences, in universities and schools on European matters. For more information Direct link to Europe Direct: http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm Map with all "Europe Direct Information Centres": http://europa.eu/europedirect/meet_us/interactive_map/index_en.htm Debates with citizens on the Future of Europe: http://ec.europa.eu/european-debate European Year of Citizens: http://europa.eu/citizens-2013 Homepage of Vice-President Viviane Reding, EU Justice Commissioner: http://ec.europa.eu/reding Follow the Vice-President on Twitter: @VivianeRedingEU Contacts : Mina Andreeva (+32 2 299 13 82) Natasha Bertaud (+32 2 296 74 56) ANNEX 1. The new generation of Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs) Number of EDICs per Member State (2013-2017) Member State Number of EDICs Belgium 12 Bulgaria 15 Czech Republic 13 Denmark 5 Germany 55 Estonia 9 Ireland 8 Greece 19 Spain 47 France 50 Italy 48 Cyprus 3 Latvia 9 Lithuania 10 Luxembourg 2 Hungary 20 Malta 3 The Netherlands 14 Austria 11 Poland 31 Portugal 19 Romania 31 Slovenia 7 Slovakia 12 Finland 8 Sweden 20 United Kingdom 18 Total 499 2. Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs) activities in 2012 Activities of Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs) per Member State (Indicative statistics for 2012) Member State Number of EDICs selected for 2009-2012 Number of personal contacts (visits, email requests, telephone calls etc.) Number of publications produced (reports, leaflets newsletters, leaflets, audio-visual material etc.) Number of events organised Austria 11 12647 215 38 Belgium 10 8324 194 151 Bulgaria 14 48906 315 335 Cyprus 2 2832 25 1 Czech Republic 11 5504 315 132 Denmark 4 5531 75 9 Estonia 8 9097 123 56 Finland 23 35742 122 105 France 56 123256 750 505 Germany 59 163959 867 459 Greece 18 12437 250 32 Hungary 18 23685 159 214 Ireland 7 11104 60 55 Italy 49 179731 894 695 Latvia 9 9099 224 125 Lithuania 10 17933 160 28 Luxembourg 2 5022 1 1 Malta 2 3003 31 16 The Netherlands 13 25721 267 59 Poland 27 58624 590 612 Portugal 16 8124 195 84 Romania 31 36643 901 257 Slovak Republic 12 6610 66 68 Slovenia 6 19847 106 121 Spain 47 102657 912 402 Sweden 19 30731 258 175 United Kingdom 16 70184 172 167 TOTAL 500 1036953 8247 4902 3. Over a million personal contacts in 2012 - Breakdown 1036953 personal contacts (visits, email requests, telephone calls etc.)A string of cost nearly $8 million.
A News 13 investigation requested the numbers from the National Forest Service, and looked into the status of the cases.
The wildfires were intentionally set in the Nantahala National Forest from October until December of last year.
"THE CLOSER IT GOT, THE SCARIER IT GOT"
In the heart of the Nantahala National Forest, sit gorgeous, peaceful views that were nearly wiped away.
"It is coming back, but there are still reminders, for sure," Linda Dills said of vegetation in the woods around her property.
Dills' husband has lived on the property on Wesser Creek Road for decades. But last fall, she ended up packing her most treasured items and leaving as the flames got closer.
"It came right here to the corner of the house," Dills recalled.
Dills said even though it was more than six months ago, she still feels uneasy about the fire that wrapped around her property.
"We knew that it was on its way. I was anxious, I started... it was hard not knowing what was going to happen. The unknown is the most terrifying thing, I think," Dills said.
Blackened trees still show exactly where the fire reached on the ridge above Dills' property. She said even though some of the vegetation has grown back, and the ash has cleared, most of the wildlife is gone along with plenty of trees.
"It's awful. I hate it to see the damage that has occurred," Dills said.
BUSINESSES BOUNCING BACK
Five minutes away, the Nantahala Outdoor Center is gearing up for a big summer, after a big scare last fall.
"This area was very smoke filled and definitely kept people away for a while, but now I think people are trickling their way back," William Irving said. "So, it's been positive to see them come out."
Irving is the President of the Nantahala Outdoor Center, which was forced to close for about a week last fall as the flames got closer.
Now, the green has already replaced the black.
Irving said, adding that businesses in the Nantahala Gorge want tourists and residents to know the fires are long gone.
"It has given a rebirth to the forest and we are seeing some new flora and fauna," Irving explained.
Irving said the worst part is knowing someone intentionally scorched the forest that so many value.
"We take pride in taking care of the land and knowing someone would purposefully go out and set this fire, it was painful because we all felt it endangered peoples homes, it endangered businesses for no real reason behind it," Irving said.
UNSOLVED CASES
All 22 of the arsons were assigned to Special Agent Brian Southard with the National Forest Service. He said the fires were sparked in various sections of the Nantahala, Cheoah, and Tusquitee districts of the National Forest.
Some were quickly contained while others, like the Tellico Fire, burned more than 10,000 acres.
"It was a very strange fire season, and I don't know what to attribute it to," Southard said.
Southard walked News 13 crews through the charred remains of one of the largest blazes -- the. He showed exactly what he looks for as he investigates each arson.
"You can tell the fire started from this direction because all your char patterns on are this side," Southard explained.
He said finding where the fire started is usually easy, but finding what sparked it and who's behind it is much more difficult.
"We don't have the time to spend to keep on and on when there isn't anything there to really look at," Southard said.
Which is why all but two of the cases are essentially closed.
"We have exhausted a lot of our investigative leads on all those at this time."
, but the other cases have grown cold.
Southard believes different people started the fires, people who most likely live in the area.
WHO PAYS?
The fires also exhausted plenty of resources. News 13 requested the cost for each arson fire in Western North Carolina last fall.
The National Forest Service said the total is about $8 million.
"For us here, we do not spend $8 million a year fighting fires, so it's hard to believe it's in your own backyard," Brian Browning, with the National Forest Service, said.
Browning said that covers pay, and room and board for the approximately 600 people who came to fight the fires from all over the country.
"To know you're spending that kind of money it can be a hard pill to swallow."
He said it's a huge cost that ultimately falls back on taxpayers.
"Well, it's like everything else for the government, it's taxpayers. We are allocated so much money for fire suppression," Browning said.
The Forest Service said the money comes out of a national fund that looks at the average annual cost for fire suppression over 10 years. They said it's all done on the federal level, so North Carolinians don't pay more for more fires in North Carolina.
But Browning said it still ends up costing our residents since Forest Service employees were busy with the fires, and other jobs got delayed, like timber sales and land line maintenance.
For Dills, the cost hurts, but what's even worse than losing beautiful land is losing justice.
"I would like to think they will be adjudicated, found guilty, but I doubt that will happen, and that's even more upsetting," Dills said.
The fiscal year for the fire service actually begins on October 1, so the string of arson fires will be part of this year's budget.Breitbart Sports will be providing live updates and reaction from fans and media all throughout Super Bowl LI, from NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
LATEST UPDATES ON TOP (TIMES CST)
********************Highlights********************
Grady Jarrett’s 3rd sack of Brady forces New England to settle for a field goal.
Donna Hightower gives the Patriots life by forcing a fumble. Which New England recovers.
Falcons defense continues to swarm Brady after Atlanta turnover.
Malcolm Mitchell converts a huge 3rd & 11 to keep Patriots drive going.
Brady finds Amendola for a 6 yard touchdown. Patriots try for 2 and convert.
9:36pm
What an amazing comeback and win by the Patriots. Tom Brady, Bob Kraft and Coach B are total winners. Wow! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
9:32pm
9:31pm
Move over General Sherman — Tom Brady just burned down Atlanta all over again. — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 6, 2017
9:30pm Dylan Gwinn: James White, who could well be the MVP of the game, stretches out for the touchdown and completes the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. New England wins 34-28.
9:19pm Dylan Gwinn: Patriots win the toss and elect to relieve as we begin the first overtime in Super Bowl history!!
9:08pm
This game has completely turned since the Gaga show. — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 6, 2017
9:07pm
Tom Brady. Greatest quarterback ever. There can be no doubt anymore. — Frank Schwab (@YahooSchwab) February 6, 2017
9:06pm
9:02pm Dylan Gwinn: Okay, I was a post too early. Edelman is the new David Tyree. Wow. Huge catch.
8:50pm Dylan Gwinn: That catch from Julio Jones is right up there with David Tyree, Mario Manningham, and Santonio Holmes. In terms of clutch catches. Unreal.
8:35pm Dylan Gwinn: Belichick has forgotten more about football than I will ever know. But going for a field goal there seemed like surrendering to me. Anyway, 28-12. Falcons.
8:08pm Dylan Gwinn: James White, who somehow is the Patriots leading receiver, catches the touchdown from Brady. 28-9 Atlanta.
8:05pm Half Time Show KPRC2/Click 2 Houston
7:57pm Dylan Gwinn: These commercials have been a bonanza of leftist activism: two immigration commercials, a feminist commercial, now an eco wacko commercial? Am I missing anything?
7:48pm Dylan Gwinn: Here’s how Audi does “equality” on their executive team. Twitchy.com
7:42pm
Not your mother's Mr. Clean. — Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 6, 2017
7:41pm
Note to self, never buy an Audi. For if they lie like that in their commercials, they'll lie everywhere else, too. — Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) February 6, 2017
7:40pm Dylan Gwinn: YUGE stop by the Patriots. Force a 3 and out to start the second half and then get a 34 yard return from Edelman on the ensuing kick.
7:33pm
7:26pm Dylan Gwinn: I will retract this if needed. But so far a patriotic song on the roof and a shout out to the family. Not too shabby.
7:11 pm Dylan Gwinn: Shocker Huffington Post
7:03pm Dylan Gwinn: Patriots finally get on the board thanks to a Gostkowski field goal. 21-3. Almost Gaga time.
6:48pm
PICK 6! 82 yards! Falcons take a 3-TD lead! It’s Tom Brady’s first pick 6 thrown in a Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/zmyjNvp5Pj — NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) February 6, 2017
6:47pm Dylan Gwinn: And just as it appeared the Falcons secondary was going to cost them points. The Falcons secondary gets points. Pick 6! 21-0 Atlanta.
6:44pm Dylan Gwinn: Everyone will say the refs are keeping this drive alive. But these are all legit penalties on the Falcons.
6:41pm
Gronk about to come out the tunnel like pic.twitter.com/4eTIi90PQS — Not Robert Griffin (@Pseudo_RGIII) February 6, 2017
6:38pm
6:27pm Dylan Gwinn: Resurfaces? How about you crawled back under the rocky surface you came out from Huff Po.
George H.W. Bush resurfaces to toss out #SuperBowl coin following hospitalization https://t.co/Pfd6XNMeBG pic.twitter.com/BATbZfih5J — Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) February 6, 2017
6:24pm
6:19pm Dylan Gwinn: Patriots defense looking like they’ve never seen a running back before. Unbelievable cutting ability from Freeman. Touchdown Atlanta. 7-0.
6:12PM Dylan Gwinn: Demonstrating my grasp of the obvious here, but that’s exactly what Atlanta needs to win this game. Turnovers. Second opportunities. Huge strip sack by the defense there.
6:08pm Dylan Gwinn: What a joyless person. Avoid these people at all costs:
If the oil industry has money to run super bowl ads they probably don’t need all those tax breaks — Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) February 6, 2017
6:03pm
Live of everyone who bet the under. pic.twitter.com/YgEbKMMSyO — Fake SportsCenter (@FakeSportsCentr) February 6, 2017
5:59pm Dylan Gwinn: We are fast approaching the point where it makes no sense for Atlanta to pass the ball. They’re getting everything they want on the ground.
5:58pm Dylan Gwinn: Okay, that Skittles commercial is winning everything so far.
5;56PM
Rare to see a coverage |
competition engaged in a war of words had only heightened the anticipation for their showdown this year.
“I’m sure they have mutual respect, but they don’t particularly like each other,” said John Watterson, the sports editor for Isle of Man Newspapers. “They will push it. I hope they don’t hurt themselves doing it.”
Hutchinson, 37, of West Yorkshire, England, won the Superbike race on Sunday, improving his TT win total to 15.
Dunlop, 28, from Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, has won 13 races at the TT. He descends from a racing family with a history at once proud and tragic: He is the son of Robert Dunlop (five TT wins) and the nephew of Joey (the most decorated TT racer, with 26 wins), both of whom were killed in racing crashes. Michael Dunlop famously competed in a race only two days after his father’s death in 2008 — and won.
“He’s a maverick,” said Moore, the radio commentator. “He just rides the thing like a lunatic — in control, but sometimes not where he should be. But he’s a hell of a rider.”
Last year, Dunlop set a single lap record, at 16 minutes 53.929 seconds, averaging a blistering 133.962 miles an hour. “You think you know everything, but you can always ride harder and harder and get faster and faster,” Dunlop said.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The Crematorium: The TT’s Eerie Neighbor
The ashes of Christine Cowley’s brother Paul were heavier than she expected — more like coarse sand than, say, the ash from a burning cigarette. He had told family members where he wanted his ashes spread if he were to die racing. They never thought they would have to do it.
After the funeral at Douglas Borough Crematorium — located, rather ominously, a few hundred feet from the finish line — Christine Cowley walked out to Quarterbridge Road, the spot where she and Paul had used to watch the races with their father. She and her mother awkwardly scooped his ashes with the cap of a medicine bottle. They kept losing their footing on the soft ground, and soon bits of ash were getting under their fingernails. They began to laugh, which felt strange. But it also felt good.
Paul Cowley was a sidecar passenger, like his dad. He died in 2004, after losing his grip on a practice lap near the ninth milepost. He was 22 years old and engaged to be married. His baby girl, Shauna, was born four months after his funeral.
For two years after his death, Christine Cowley left the island during the races, trying to shelter herself from the memories. Each time, though, she found herself following the results and gossip online. The third year, she stayed, and though it was tough, she enjoyed it, too. The race, she realized, was part of her DNA.George W. Bush as governor of Texas rapidly incorporated the provisions of Charitable Choice into Texas policy and politics. It was in Texas that the first state Faith Based Liaison positions were created. But there was opposition to the charitable choice proposals by the members of the Texas Faith Network which is made up of more than 400 clergy. Rabbi Peter Berg of Temple Emanuel in Dallas Texas asked “Who will decide which churches or synagogues, which denomination or sect, will be funded and which will be excluded?” There was clearly a lack of accountability on one hand and the unconstitutional lack of separation of church and state on the other. Thus although faith-based groups certainly play an important role in provision of social services, it is still necessary that they remain independent from the government. Taxpayers through the faith-based initiatives program end up financially supporting religious activity, but with no accountability or transparency for how that money is spent. There are strings that come with governmental money and also poor people are compelled to practice a faith that is not their own just to get services.
In 1995, George W. Bush’s first year as governor of Texas, Teen Challenge a Christian based drug treatment program was threatened with closure by a state regulatory agency, The Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. Although Teen Challenge did not receive any government funds, it did offer treatment to drug users and therefore fell under the state’s regulatory powers. The Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (TCADA) threatened to close the doors of Teen Challenge for violations of its regulations in April 1996. Roloff Homes was also a program supported by George W. Bush and it was also in violation of basic health and safety regulations. So two programs who were in trouble with the state of Texas for dangerous treatment practices were publicly defended by religious right leaders. Bush publicly defended these programs and changed state law to protect them even at the expense of quality of care and public safety.
In the mid 90s, Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (TCADA) attempted to close down the San Antonio branch of Teen Challenge, a residential Christian program that relies solely on faith-based methods to treat drug abuse. According to a TCADA spokesperson, the organization violated Texas state policies, procedures and licensure standards. There were problems with hiring practices, not meeting training requirements for counselors, client grievance procedures, release of confidential records. Teen Challenge was also charged with disregarding state standards for the screening, orientation, treatment and discharge of follow-up of clients (Austin American Statesman, July 2, 1995).
In June 1995, TCADA suspended Teen Challenge’s license based violations that may even cause a potential danger to the residents. Bush intervened publicly on behalf of the faith-based program, saying TCADA was following procedure and stating publicly that he strongly supported the faith-based programs. (World Magazine 1995).
On Bush’s urging and other outside pressures, TCADA postponed judgment of the organization, dropped licensure demands, and agreed to wait until the legislature considered bills that would change the rules for faith-based organizations. According to the Houston Chronicle, the flap about Teen Challenge made the organization-a cause celebre among the religious right, placing Teen Challenge to the forefront of the faith-based self-help movement. Support came not only from Christian leader Pat Robertson, who featured the group on his 700 Club television show, but also from the conservative policy crowd (Houston Chronicle, December 1, 1995)
On May 2, 1996 Governor Bush in a show of continuing support of such organizations, Bush vowed to assembled an Advisory Task Force made up of 16 clergy and volunteer leaders and charges the Task Force with 2 objectives: (1)survey Texas legal and regulatory landscape to identify obstacles to faith-based groups and (2)recommend ways that Texas can create an environment in which these groups can thrive, free of regulations that dilute the faith factor.
On August 22, 1996 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act is signed in law (PL 104-193). Section 104 of this federal welfare reform legislation - authored by then-Senator John Ashcroft - opened the door to so-called Charitable Choice provisions that allow states to contract with faith-based and community-based organizations for the provision of welfare services. This provision has been interpreted to apply to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Social Security Income (SSI), food stamp and Medicaid programs.
In 1997 legislation was passed exempting religious child care and drug treatment facilities from health and safety regulations.
For more than two decades, the Roloff Homes which was a group of faith-based homes for troubled teens - had been the subject of allegations of severe abuse. Efforts in the 1980’s by the Texas Attorney General’s office to force the homes under state regulation led to a long legal battle. The organization’s founder, Lester Roloff, was a fundamentalist and leader of the People’s Baptist Church in Corpus Christi who maintained that the state had no right to license his homes (Houston Chronicle, March 13, 1999). The Roloff Homes became a high-profile cause among religious right circles, with one minister even chaining himself to the Texas Supreme Court doors in protest.
The case found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the homes had to be licensed by the state or close down. In 1985, rather than accept state oversight, the homes closed down and moved to Missouri-where they stayed until invited back to Texas by Gov. Bush to receive licensing under his newly created alternative accreditation agency - the Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies (TACCA).
The first facility to apply for and receive accreditation from TACCCA was one of the Roloff Homes. According to the Washington Post, TACCCA is supposed to inspect the facilities once and year and make sure they meet minimum requirements (Washington Post, April 11, 2000). April 10, 2000 Texas authorities arrested men connected to Roloff Homes for allegations of severe abuse of juveniles in their care. Two weeks later, the Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies (TACCCA) re-approves the Roloff Homes license. April 15, 2000 Wiley Cameron, the head of Roloff Homes, resigns from his position on the accreditation committee of TACCCA.
Teen Challenge might not have survived without the help of then Governor George W. Bush. Because Teen Challenge claimed it did “treatment”, it thus needed to abide by state regulations regarding having persons who were qualified with academic degrees and a certain amount of clinical expertise. Teen Challenge did not hire counselors based on those criteria because Teen Challenge promoted the view that addiction is a sinful behavior prompted by a lack of religious commitment. Claiming spectacular results –which turned out to false- they demanded that the investigator be fired and the laws changed.
The supporters of Teen Challenge viewed this as infringement of their rights as a religious organization, so the shutting down of the organization by the government offered a ripe opportunity to question the rightness of church-state separation. These objections to the shutdown of Teen Challenge created the political support for the creation of the broader faith-based initiatives. George Bush created a Governor’s Advisory Task Force on Faith-based Community Service Groups, changed the course of faith-based public policy by creating a redefinition of faith-based practices in Texas and a report in December 1996, called “Faith in Action: A New Vision for Church-State Cooperation,” and George W. Bush announced it personally with enormous fanfare at a ministry in San Antonio. This report had concrete policy recommendations to exempt Teen Challenge from state licensure and oversight. In 1997 the Teen Challenge Bill which changed the role of the TCADA to one of just registering the names of programs in a single one page document (name, address, and what they do). By granting Teen Challenge in 1997, a crucial exemption, Governor George Bush went against Texas State regulators. With the governor's exemption, Teen Challenge and other faith based addiction programs are allowed to call themselves treatment facilities. That, exempted Teen Challenge counselors so they didn’t have to get the 270 hours of clinical training and thousands of hours of supervision, as was required of non faith based treatment programs. As exempt faith-based drug treatment centers, Teen Challenge facilities are not required to have licensed chemical dependency counselors, conduct staff training or criminal background checks, protect client confidentiality rights, adhere to state health and safety standards, or report abuse, neglect, emergencies and medication errors.
But there are critics, who argue that the drug counselors need this kind of professional training. This legislation removed Teen Challenge from any governmental regulatory oversight. Teen Challenge would then claim to be an exclusively religious program not a blend of religious and medical treatment. A medical model program would require governmental regulation and therapeutic clinical records. So in order to be exempt from governmental supervision and oversight, these programs had to be purely religious ministries designed to help people with addiction problems through religious devotion.
Teen Challenge in Texas was exempted from licensing and inspection regulation. The arrangement between governmental financial support and Teen Challenge meant that Teen Challenge was not required to meet regulatory health and safety standards, and their facilities were not inspected even though Teen Challenge received taxpayer funds. Amidst all the media coverage over Teen Challenge child abuse and without this influx of federal funding from faith based initiatives, the centers would surely have lost clients and probably closed.Some college students are demanding professors put warning labels on courses and books that might offend. And many profs are offended by that.
This Feb. 5, 2014 file photo shows a statue of a man sleepwalking in his underpants, called "Sleepwalker," which was part of an exhibit by sculptor Tony Matelli, surrounded by snow on the campus of Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Mass. A student started an online petition to have it moved indoors because it had become “a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault.” (AP)
Should college student assigned "The Great Gatsby" be forewarned that it contains scenes of “gory, abusive, misogynistic violence”? Should undergrads reading "Huckleberry Finn" get a boldprint warning label of racism - and permission to duck it? A new push on college campuses is calling for “trigger warnings” up front on potentially disturbing readings and more. Advocates say it’s to protect the vulnerable. Critics say it’s hypersensitivity run amuck and a veiled attack on free speech, robust scholarship. This hour On Point: Trigger warnings, and what American college kids can handle.
-- Tom Ashbrook
Guests
Jennifer Medina, Southern California / Nevada correspondent for the New York Times. (@jennymedina)
Raechel Tiffe, visiting assistant professor of gender and communication, public communication and mass communication at Merrimack College.
Laurie Essig, associate professor of sociology and women's and gender studies, Middlebury College. (@LaurieEssig)
Charles Mitchell, executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives.
Justin Peligri, managing director of the GW Hatchet. (@JustinPeligri)
From Tom's Reading List
New York Times: Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm -- "Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as 'trigger warnings,' explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans."
Chronicle of Higher Education: Trigger Warnings Trigger Me — "Trigger warnings are a very dangerous form of censorship because they’re done in the name of civility. Learning is painful. It’s often ugly and traumatic. How different my life would be if I hadn’t read Crime and Punishment because it’s misogynist and violent. How terrible my teaching would be if I hadn’t spent years researching spectacle lynchings and eugenics and freak shows in order to teach courses on race and American culture."
GW Hatchet: Why we need trigger warnings on syllabi -- "Nobody is arguing that controversial topics should be omitted from discourse in college classrooms. Faculty are right to be concerned when they sense that their ability to speak candidly and fearlessly about heart-wrenching topics could be blockaded."
William Bowen To Haverford College Graduates: "This Was No Victory For Anyone Who Believes In Mutual Respect"
William Bowen, President Emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University
Transcript Of Bowen's RemarksPotential. It’s a word that haunts my most private thoughts and causes me immense personal anguish. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been told that I had it. For some people, hearing that they have potential would probably be reassuring. Whenever I hear it, though, it sounds like a disease. To know that others are thinking about how good you CAN be, feels an awful lot like they’re condemning you for not having achieved that success already. When I look at the coworkers surrounding me during my 8-hour stints in that soul crushing penitentiary known as work, I can’t help but think, “Am I truly the same as these people?”
Friends and family who know me well assure me that I’m better than my station in life, and they’re quick to point out that I have something my coworkers don’t: potential. Apparently, it’s been growing inside me for decades, but my insurance can’t cover it’s removal. I want this potential excised. I want it removed from my body. Even now, as I think about it, my chest tightens. Maybe that’s where it is. In my chest. The only way to put this potential behind me, they say, is to fully realize it. Whatever that means.Juventus midfielder Arturo Vidal has denied reports that he has signed a contract extension with the Serie A champions, while revealing it is “an honour” to be linked with a move to Real Madrid.
Arturo Vidal is happy at Juventus.
- The pocket dynamite
Vidal, 26, joined Juve in 2011 and went on to play a vital role in helping the club claim back-to-back Scudetto titles.
Such form has led to speculation that the Bianconeri had offered the Chile international a new deal that he had accepted
However, Vidal told Gazzetta dello Sport: “There has been no renewal but I do have a contract at the club so let’s see what happens.”
Elsewhere, there has been talk that Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has identified the former Bayer Leverkusen man as a possible addition to the club’s midfield, with rumours mounting that Xabi Alonso could be leaving the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
“It is an honour when a big club want to sign you. Real Madrid is a club that fascinates every footballer,” Vidal told Canal 24 horas.
But despite being flattered by Madrid’s interest, Vidal was quick to point out that he was already at a big club and happy to stay there “for many years”.
The midfielder also took time to express his excitement at one of Juve’s new arrivals, saying: “Tevez can help us triumph in Europe.”Photo By Chris Graham
The new video for “Burnstick” by Saskatoon’s dreamy, atmospheric Close Talker begins with singer and guitarist Matthew Kopperud setting a paper plane on fire and letting it go. That launch starts off a slow-mo spin that sets bicycles, the actual earth, instruments, and even the band alight. The backdrop—a post-apocalyptic looking British Columbia wilderness, adorned with clear skies and shooting stars—is painted a stunning, stark monochrome as the world spins faster and faster and the band ascends to the sky. Directed by Nathan Boey, this isn't the first time he's created a colourless world for Close Talker’s dramatic dream-pop—working on the video for the band's first single, “Heads”, off their latest album Flux.
"We shot the video from 8PM to 8AM in rural British Columbia,” the band says about the process. “We didn't know what to expect, but having worked with Nathan Boey before, we were very excited. We got to play with fire, jump on trampolines, and wear rubber boots. Needless to say, the video went well. We're really pumped with how the video turned out.”
Close Talker is currently on tour in Europe:
April 29 – Stuttgart, Germany – Schocken
April 30 – Munich, Germany – Strom Linienclub
May 1 – Metz, France – Irish Pub
May 3 – London, UK – Notting Hill Arts Club w/ Communion XFM
May 6 – Luxembourg, Luxembourg – De Gudde Wellen
May 7 – Nancy, France – OFF Kultur
May 8 – Mons, Belgium – Le Bateau Live
May 9 – Ghent, Belgium – Trefpunt Concertzaal
May 10 – Lille, France - Café De La Sarthe
May 12 – Paris, France – Le China
May 14 – May 16 – Brighton, UK – The Great Escape
May 22 – May 24 – Liverpool, UK – Liverpool Sound City Festival
Matt Williams would like to set something on fire, too. - @MattGeeWilliams(CNN) — On the day the nation pays tribute to those who perished in the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona memorial will honor the man who was the ship's oldest surviving officer.
The day-long schedule can be viewed via a livestream feed at pearlharborevents.com/live-stream
Joseph Langdell attended the 2011 Pearl Harbor memorial ceremony. Marco Garcia/AP/FILE
Langdell, who was an ensign at the time, wasn't on board when the attack took place at the naval base in Hawaii but rushed back to help rescue survivors and collect the remains of his fallen shipmates.
The USS Arizona battleship was bombed and sunk during Japan's surprise morning attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the United States into World War II.
The remains of many of the 1,177 U.S. military personnel who died aboard the Arizona are still inside the submerged wreck. It was the greatest loss of life ever in an attack on a U.S. warship, the National Park Service says.
The memorial was dedicated in 1962.
As of two years ago some 2,000 to 2,500 Pearl Harbor survivors were believed to be still alive, according to Eileen Martinez, chief of interpretation for the USS Arizona Memorial
The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, will be closed until at least June 4 after a dock to the memorial was damaged, the park service says. KHNL/KGMB reports
The USS Arizona Memorial site was closed May 27 for nine days after a dock at the memorial that sits atop the sunken ship was damaged in an accident. The National Park Service operates the memorial, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.
The damage that closed the site to visitors occurred when tugboats were "assisting" the USNS Mercy, an 894-foot-long hospital ship, navigate the harbor, the U.S. Navy Region Hawaii said in a Facebook post.Commentary: Postmodern clock tower a victim of the times
San Francisco's Historic Preservation Commission has approved coating the tower at 200 California St. with two shades of beige, making it blend in with nearby buildings. San Francisco's Historic Preservation Commission has approved coating the tower at 200 California St. with two shades of beige, making it blend in with nearby buildings. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Commentary: Postmodern clock tower a victim of the times 1 / 14 Back to Gallery
(02-14) 13:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- It's hard to imagine a future where people gaze upon the ruddy red sandstone and almost kitschy clock tower of 200 California St. and see an architectural gem - zirconium, maybe, but no diamond in the rough.
But it's still troubling that in a few months, we'll lose the chance once and for all.
That's when the six-story office building from 1989 will be neutered. The colorful masonry will be stained an innocuous beige. The crowning feature - the pert clock tower with a pointy hat that caps the rounded corner bay - will be lopped off.
The structure's crime is that it fell out of style.
No landmark in itself, 200 California's fate is troubling for what it shows about the cavalier treatment doled out to buildings that are yesterday's architectural news. Buildings that suffer the most often are the ones that most strongly reflect their time - structures of cultural value, for better or worse.
They stand out in a crowd. Because of that, they're vulnerable.
In this case, the structure at risk was built in 1989 by Home Savings of America, a now-defunct savings and loan. It stands at the entrance to the diminutive Front-California Conservation District, a masonry nook tucked between massive Embarcadero Center and 48-story 101 California St., a sawtoothed shaft of granite and glass.
Home Savings took pride in eye-catching architecture and artwork, so when it decided to build an outpost for itself in the Financial District - on a cable car line, no less! - the firm embraced the architectural spirit of the time. Postmodernism was the name, and faux history was the rage, especially in settings where older neighbors meant anything new should "assure maintenance of the character of the district," to quote the city's Downtown Plan from 1985.
An endangered species
The designer, Whisler-Patri Architects, pushed the stocky stone norm of the district by adding details that now look as dated as Joan Collins' shoulder pads. There's a rough stone base, big square windows and a cornice emphasized by gold trim in a solid line above the top floor. The circular clock tower concludes with a gaudy gold flourish that looks as though it were applied by the world's largest soft-serve ice cream dispenser.
These days, of course, sleek modernism is back with a glassy vengeance. PoMo is the embarrassing uncle who won't shut up about the first time he saw Depeche Mode.
San Francisco isn't the only city where postmodernism is out of vogue. The movement's endangered species list includes perhaps the most important example of all, Michael Graves' 15-story Portland Building. It opened in 1982 and set the stage for redone skylines across the country, but now the Oregon city that calls it home may tear it down because of the cost of deferred maintenance.
Meanwhile, 200 California is owned by a Vermont investor who wants to reposition the corner for deep-pocketed tenants. In December, the city's Historic Preservation Commission approved an alteration that, in essence, does away with everything that makes the structure distinct. Work should begin by early summer.
The walls of red sandstone and white limestone will be coated in two shades of beige - ostensibly to remedy a generation's worth of discoloration but also to match nearby buildings "of similarly understated coloration," according to the presentation by Huntsman Architectural Group. The same desire to join the crowd justifies the severed clock tower: Removing it "allows the building to blend better with the adjacent historic structures."
Planning staff had no problem with the change, going so far as to state in the department's review that the clock tower "is not a distinctive feature." Only architect Jonathan Pearlman voted no.
"If we as a city celebrate our architectural history," Pearlman said this week, "it's strange to wipe away a decent example of a recent period and turn it into a generic historic box just because we don't like it."
He's absolutely right.
Gawky but endearing
Honestly, I've never been a fan of 200 California. It's the garish embodiment of an era that treated mainstream architecture as drapery more than serious design.
But it has character, a gawky flair that (almost) makes it endearing. All involved had fun and turned up the aesthetic volume. Nor did they skimp on materials - limestone and sandstone aren't cheap.
Who knows? In a decade or two people might have viewed the corner with genuine affection, the same way Victorians were embraced by newcomers in the 1960s and '70s after a previous generation had dismissed them as ugly ducklings and razed them as blight.
No turning back clock
For all our late '80s towers with their funny hats and thin stone skins, San Francisco has few smallish buildings of note in the postmodern vein. There's plenty of stuff that never aspired to more than background status, but only a handful that tried at once to fit in and stand out.
And if theatrical postmodernism comes back into favor 25 years from now, tough luck. There will be no turning back the clock. After all, there won't be any clock.Federal prosecutors and the lawyer for Michael Sona and Crown prosecutors concluded a pre-trial conference in Guelph on Thursday with a suggestion from the judge that there might not be a trial.
Justice Norman Douglas said the lawyers will meet again Sept. 25.
“If there needs to be a trial, we’ll set the date at that time,” he said, an off-the-cuff remark that suggests the case could be heading for some other outcome.
Sona, who was communications director for Conservative candidate Marty Burke, faces one charge under the Elections Act in connection with a fraudulent election day robocall in Guelph, Ont., which sent hundreds of opposition supporters to the wrong polling station.
[np_storybar title=”Robocalls investigator ‘suspected that others were involved,’ Elections Canada sworn statement reveals” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/29/robocalls-investigator-suspected-that-others-were-involved-elections-canada-sworn-statement-reveals/”%5D
An Elections Canada investigator alleges in court documents that he suspected Conservative campaign worker Michael Sona was not the only person involved in misleading robocalls to voters in Guelph, Ont.
Sona, who worked as director of communications to Marty Burke, the Conservative candidate in Guelph, is the only person charged over automated calls that directed hundreds of voters to the wrong polling station on election day in May 2011.
Read more…
[/np_storybar]
If convicted, he could be fined $5,000 and face up to five years in prison.
Court documents released this week by Elections Canada investigator Allan Mathews allege that Sona admitted to involvement in the scheme, although Mathews also writes that he “suspected that others were involved as well.”
The sworn statement from Mathews includes long sections that can’t be published under a publication ban agreed to by the Crown and Sona’s lawyer. The Ottawa Citizen is considering challenging the ban.
Sona’s lawyer, Norm Boxall, said after the conference, that Sona has yet to decide whether to face a trial by judge or jury.
“The decision of election is not yet made,” he said. “Those are part of the ongoing discussions. The accused obviously has a choice in this case. As you can imagine in a case like this, there are a number of things continuing to go on, investigative-wise, and review-of-material wise.”
Federal prosecutor Croft Michaelson, who prosecuted the “Toronto 18” terror case, left the courthouse without comment.
Sona also said in his media interviews that Elections Canada told him in June that they cleared him of involvement and that our investigation was completed. These last statements are wrong
Sona, who was fired from his job working for Conservative MP Eve Adams when the robocalls story broke last year, says that he is innocent, and has said in several televised interviews that he is being used as a scapegoat by the Conservative Party.
In the documents made public this week, Mathews refers to interviews that Sona gave to Radio-Canada and CBC in the fall.
“Sona denied being Pierre Poutine and suggested that as a young staffer it would not have been possible for him to carry out such a vast scheme (possibly speaking of all robocall complaints, arising in over 200 electoral districts, rather than just Guelph).
“Sona also said in his media interviews that Elections Canada told him in June that they cleared him of involvement and that our investigation was completed. These last statements are wrong. In my March 2, 2012 telephone conversation with Sona, and in my conversations with his counsel, I have noted that I suspected that others were involved as well as Sona, but in each case I have been clear that I was asking Sona to provide a statement to me under warning.”
Mathews, who began investigating the fraudulent robocall since soon after the May 2, 2011 election, has detailed the steps he took in a series of court documents filed to order the production of documents from internet companies, phone companies and retailers.
Whoever made the call used the alias “Pierre Poutine,” covering his tracks with a disposable “burner” phone, paying with gift cards and cash, set up an anonymous email and Paypal account.
According to the documents, Conservative party officials have acknowledged that the party’s database appears to have been used to create the list of non-supporters who received the fraudulent call on election day.
Five Guelph campaign workers accessed the party’s database program, documents say. Sona was not one of them.
Elections Canada is also investigating reports of similar calls across the country, and in May, federal judge Richard Mosley ruled that “misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country,” likely using data from the Conservatives’ database program.
With files from Glen McGregor, Ottawa CitizenOppressor (Rogue)
The term assassin conjures an image of a black-hooded rogue slinking through the darkness, poised to put a dagger through the throat of his victim. These silent killers are hired when a murder must be committed without drawing undue attention, or when the one commissioning the deed would like to remain nameless.
Sometimes, however, a killing is meant to send a message to the living. Crimelords often make examples of lackeys who have failed in their tasks, and rulers frequently find it useful to display their intolerance for rabble-rousers and insurrectionists with special shows of force. Even churches sometimes use less-than-subtle methods to prove themselves worthy of their followers' faith and coin. Missions that involve making an example of the victim call for the special talents of an oppressor.
Oppressors specialize in brute-force assassinations, although many of their assignments are less deadly "legbreaking" missions. Members of this archetype know how to bloody their targets before killing them and how to intimidate bystanders into staying out of the fray. The brutal and violent methods of an oppressor invariably make a lasting impression on the minds of witnesses, who thereafter tend to consider opposing the oppressor's employer an unhealthy prospect.
The typical oppressor is a fulltime employee of a crime boss, thieves' guild, or local ruler. Independent agents are rare in this profession, primarily because the populartions that oppressors terrorize would certainly retaliate were the assassins not under the constant protection of their employers. A few oppressors are paid to root out their employers' enemies wherever they lurk or to serve as a symbol of their employers' power. Such agents generally find that traveling with others helps deter the wrath of those they terrorize.
Oppressors are almost universally scorned by the societies in which they work, but most of them never give this social ostracism a second thought. They love their work and get paid well for it, and that is enough for them. Oppressors do not expect the affection of others, nor do they seek it. Theirs is a lonely profession, but those who choose it know the consequences well in advance.
Keep Awake
Starting at 3rd level, whenever you would deal enough damage to reduce an opponent to 0 hit points, you may instead reduce them to 1 hit point and stun them. They are considered stunned until the end of your next turn. This ability does not affect undead or constructs.
Brutal Grappler
Starting at 3rd level, whenever you successfully land a melee weapon attack, and apply sneak attack damage, you may attempt to grapple the target as a bonus action. Additionally, you may apply your sneak attack damage to your unarmed strikes, even if you use your Strength to calculate your attack and damage rolls, so long as you are grappling your target.
Infamy
By 9th level, the oppressor can easily take advantage of their reputation. You now have advantage on Charisma (Intimidation) checks, but disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks, made in areas you are known as an Oppressor, if you are not attempting to disguise yourself.
Fighting Style
At 9th level, the oppressor may take a Fighting Style from the Fighter class list.
Intimidating Edict
Starting at 13th level, if the oppressor uses their Keep Awake ability on an opponent in full view of other creatures, they can cast Mass Suggestion on the crowd, as a 6th level spell. Targets have disadvantage on the save if the victim is a leader or someone respected by those being intimidated. The oppressor may only use this ability once per long rest.
Intimidating Presence
Beginning at 17th level, any creature with an Intelligence of 3 or higher that attempts to harm the oppressor must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + oppressor's Proficiency bonus + oppressor's Charisma modifier) or have disadvantage on all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks until the start of their next turn. Success means that they are immune to the Intimidating Presence until the end of their next long rest. If a target is immune to being Frightened, they are immune to this effect.
Credits
Flavor text and Concept: Dragon Magazine #312: "ASSASSIN: Specialty Prestige Classes" by Wil Upchurch
Artwork: Used without permission, from http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=24303&f=9
Conversion: whitemagetamCeline Sargis, Staff Writer
Walking into Crepe Daze, I had a clear vision in my mind of what it would be like: a typical French café, well, the American version of a French café. I imagined dark walls, little round table with two chairs on each side, and the smell of coffee in the air, kind of like a fancier Starbucks, but with a bitter short man at the counter with a funny mustache and an accent, rather than a middle aged hipster.
But as soon as I entered, I was oddly, but pleasantly surprised. The atmosphere was far from what I had expected. With its sky blue walls and large wooden tables, it felt more like someone’s home than a restaurant. The walls were decorated with a variety of artwork from local artists. I was so intrigued, I nearly forgot the reason I was there: the food.
I had no idea what the food was going to be like considering I had never eaten a crepe in my life, but I assumed if it was French, it was good. When I got up to the counter, I had to spend about five minutes looking at the menu, not because it was complicated (it was actually quite simple and straightforward), but because everything looked so good and appetizing; I didn’t know what to choose!
After much contemplation, I finally decided on a ham and cheese crepe, with a strawberry and Nutella crepe for dessert. At first, I was a bit shocked by the price of the crepes, but once I saw the size of them, I knew I’d be getting my money’s worth. I sat down at a table and waited for my crepes to be ready. I could see straight into the kitchen where they were being made. I got comfort in knowing my food was being prepared fresh.
While I was waiting, I took a look around the restaurant a bit more. There was a bookshelf with board games and books on it. It was a little old fashioned, but definitely added to the “home like” feeling. I also noticed two men on laptops next to a |
are a myth, according to Fairmount real estate broker Julie Welker.
One reason is that the World Meeting of Families is offering cheaper options as the event draws people from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. As of last week, 1,850 people have signed up to take in guests through the WMOF’s Host-A-Family program, which encourages hosts to charge a minimal fee. Some are charging nothing.
Others are making their own arrangements. A group of 400 people from Spain are staying at a YMCA campground in South Jersey, according to WMOF Executive Director Donna Crilley Farrell who said there is still a need for more housing.
However, it’s not clear those looking to rent their homes and apartments are going to see a windfall.
“I’m not hearing that the crazy prices are renting,” Welker said. “Prices within reason, I have heard of some success stories.”
Kim Zajak was motivated to list their Fairmount home when she heard an acquaintance of hers had rented out her place in South Philadelphia for $20,000 a few months ago.
We emailed her friend, Kristin Walsh to see if that was true. She wrote back saying no, and in fact, she hadn’t even listed her home.
“Not sure if there is a lot of demand,” she said.Samsung has announced its Galaxy A (2017) series, ahead of CES 2017. The line-up includes the Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017) and A3 (2017). The smartphones offer IP68 water and dust resistance. They support expandable storage up to 256GB via microSD card and Fast Charge technology. The Galaxy A (2017) series pack reversible USB Type-C port and Always on Display allowing users to quickly glance at the time and calendar without waking up the device.
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Samsung Galaxy A (2017) series features metal frame and 3D glass back. The smartphones will available in Black Sky, Gold Sand, Blue Mist and Peach Cloud colour variants. The devices support Samsung Pay that allows for secure mobile payments through Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Users can back up data and images through Samsung Cloud and separate private data and keep the contents safe in a Secure Folder which supports biometric authentication.
“At Samsung, we are always trying to ensure our customers have the most advanced products on the market. The latest Galaxy A series is a testament to this. We integrated our unique approach to design as well as the features Galaxy customers have come to love to provide added performance without compromising on style,” said DJ Koh, President of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics.
Samsung Galaxy A7 features a 5.7-inch FHD Super AMOLED display and runs Android 6.0.16 Marshmallow. The smartphone is powered by 1.9GHz octa-core processor coupled with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. It packs a 16MP rear camera with f/1.9 aperture and 16MP front camera with f/1.9 aperture. The Galaxy A7 is backed by a 3,600 mAh battery.
It supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v 4.2, ANT+, USB Type-C,and NFC (UICC, eSE). Sensors on the device include Accelerometer, Proximity, Geomagnetic, RGB Light, Hall, Fingerprint scanner, and Barometer. The dimensions of A7 are 156.8 x 77.6 x 7.9 mm.
Samsung Galaxy A5 comes with a smaller screen size of 5.2-inch. The display is FHD Super AMOLED. The smartphone runs Android 6.0.16 Marshmallow. It is powered by 1.9GHz Octa Core processor with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. The camera in Galaxy A5 is the same as Galaxy A7 i.e 16MP rear and 16MP front. It packs a 3,000 mAh battery. It is a Dual SIM device that supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v 4.2, ANT+, USB Type-C, and NFC. Sensors on the Galaxy A5 include Accelerometer, Proximity, Geomagnetic, RGB Light, Hall Fingerprint scanner, and Barometer. It measures 146.1 x 71.4 x 7.9 mm.
Samsung Galaxy A3 has the smallest 4.7-inch HD Super AMOLED display. The smartphone runs Android 6.0.16 Marshmallow. It is powered by 1.6 GHz Octa Core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. The rear camera in Galaxy A3 is 13MP with f/1.9 apertures. The front camera is 8MP with f/1.9 aperture. It is backed by a 2,350 mAh battery. It is a Dual SIM device that supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v 4.2, ANT+, USB Type-C and NFC. Sensors on the Galaxy A3 include Accelerometer, Proximity, Geomagnetic, RGB Light, Hall, Fingerprint Scanner, Barometer. It measures 135.4 x 66.2 x 7.9 mm.
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Samsung Galaxy A (2017) series will be available in Russia in early-January and in global markets later.Luis Enrique’s Barcelona opened up a six-point lead over title rivals Real Madrid a fortnight ago with an emphatic 4-0 thrashing at the Santiago Bernabéu.
At the time it felt like I was the only one who not only expected the defending La Liga and UEFA Champions League winners to win El Clasico last month, but to win convincingly.
Friends were all leaning towards Real Madrid and even the conversation below on Twitter with gamblers, they all favoured the home side:
As I stated in the conversation, I had a small bet on Barcelona to win El Clasico:
Having seen a lot of both Real Madrid and Barcelona this season, I had not been convinced by Rafa Benítez’s defencel on too many occasions they had been bailed out by goalkeeper Kaylor Navas.
The Costa Rican didn’t have a chance versus the best attack in the world, regardless of Lionel Messi starting from the bench.
Neymar and Luis Suárez were on fire heading into El Clasico and continued that during the match. In my opinion, those two and Messi are playing better than Cristiano Ronaldo right now.
So how far can Barcelona go this season? I think they will win the remaining four competitions they are involved in to add to the European Sup Cup they won at the start of the season.
La Liga
Barcelona have begun to blitz the league since a slow start to the season. Enrique’s side had won all four of their La Liga games by at least two goals prior to facing Real Madrid, and have beaten Real Sociedad 4-0 since, meaning they’re on a six-game winning streak ahead of their trip to Gary Neville’s Valencia this evening.
Ahead of Rea Madrid host Getafe and their trip to Granada late, Atlético Madrid in second place, four points behind the leaders. I respect the work Diego Simeone has done but I don’t see them being a serious title contender this season.
Both of these teams have also booked their place in the second round of this season’s Champions League. Atléti have already lost 2-1 at home to Barcelona in the league this season, so as the table goes by head-to-head record when teams are joint on points, you could say Barcelona are essentially four points ahead of the team below them and seven ahead of Real Madrid. League over?
FIFA Club World Cup
Without trying to sound too arrogant, the European club are going to be way too strong for the rest of the competition in Japan later this month.
Barcelona will have two games in Asia – the semi-final and then the final (OK if there’s a massive upset they could be in the third-place playoff instead).
The rest of the teams making up the numbers are River Plate (Argentina – 2015 Copa Libertadores winners), Club América (Mexico – 2014-15 CONCACAF Champions League winners), Guangzhou Evergrande (China – 2015 AFC Champions League winners), TP Mazembe (DR Congo – 2015 CAF Champions League winners) and Sanfrecce Hiroshima (Japan – 2015 J League winners) or Auckland City (New Zealand – 2014-15 OFC Champions League winners).
I’ve seen River Plate a couple of times this season and they’re not the team some people may imagine in their mind. They even finished 9th in the 2015 Argentine league, 15 points behind champions Boca Juniors.
Fatigue should not be a big factor – the final is on Sunday 20 December, the same day as La Liga’s final round of fixtures before the 10-day Christmas break. Therefore Barcelona have as long a break as the rest of the Spanish teams with only one extra fixture to fit in over the second half of the season.
Copa del Rey
Not a competition I pay much attention to I must admit, but Luis Enrique’s side were comfortable winners in last season’s final. The matches en route are two legs so I simply cannot see any team causing an upset to the reigning holders.
Real Madrid have been kicked out for fielding an ineligible player so Atlético Madrid are the only real challengers to Barcelona. Some may argue Athletic Bilbao and Sevilla, granted, but I’m not convinced.
Champions League
It’s a two-way race for the Champions League for me this season – Barcelona or Bayern Munich. Both are around 3/1 which is essentially an arb in my mind.
Bayern Munich have one massive advantage over Barcelona in terms of fatigue. The German side play four fewer league games, get a proper winter break and aren’t involved in the Club World Cup.
Pep Guardiola’s side have already got the Bundesliga title wrapped up too so they can afford to rest players either side of Champions League fixtures as they have been doing for the past couple of seasons.
The former Barcelona manager has yet to win the competition with the German giants though and was thrashed 3-0 in the first leg of their semi-final meeting last season.
Subject to some serious injuries between now and May, I’m favouring Barcelona to become the first team to defend the trophy in the Champions League era.
If you are a bookmaker, or know any offering odds on Barcelona to win all four of these trophies, please send me in that direction!OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending Finance Minister Bill Morneau's use of an ethics loophole to maintain ownership of shares in his family’s business, saying he was acting on the advice of the ethics commissioner, who cleared it.
CTV News exclusively reported Tuesday that Morneau continues to own shares in his family’s business Morneau Shepell through a corporate structure that keeps him from having to divest or put his shares in a blind trust.
"He followed all of her advice," said Trudeau, speaking about the advice Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson gave Morneau when he was elected, that a blind trust for his shares was not required.
Dawson told CTV News Tuesday that she interprets the law as it stands to refer to directly held stocks, and not indirectly held stocks, as is the case with Morneau.
Securities filings accessed by CTV News show that he owned as many as two million shares in Morneau Shepell in 2011 -- today worth more than $40 million, through a numbered company he set up in Alberta.
Morneau personally holds a one third stake in the Calgary-based company, with the remaining two thirds owned by another numbered corporation in Ontario that Morneau solely owns.
"We expect that when she gives advice to do something or behave in a certain way, we follow that," Trudeau said in Question Period, where he fielded questions from both the Conservatives and New Democrats over Morneau’s shares and potential conflicts of interest.
Trudeau did not say, when asked, when he found out that Morneau’s assets were not in a blind trust, and chalked the opposition questioning up to personal attacks.
In Question Period, NDP MP ethics and deputy finance critic Nathan Cullen accused Trudeau of not taking responsibility, and throwing the ethics commissioner under the bus.
Morneau's continued ownership of shares in the firm creates numerous conflicts of interest, the opposition charges, saying he, through Morneau Shepell, stands to benefit from decisions he makes as the finance minister; including the potential conflict Morneau has as the minister who tabled legislation that would impact pension transfers, something that would fall under Morneau Shepell’s purview.
On Tuesday, Morneau wrote to Dawson asking for a meeting discuss whether further steps, like putting his assets in a blind trust, would be appropriate. Morneau was not in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Opposition says Morneau's lost credibility
Earlier Wednesday, Conservative MPs said that Morneau has lost credibility as finance minister as a result of the controversy surrounding his personal finances.
"First of all he needs to come clean about what does he really have… and come clean with Canadians because he needs to restore the credibility and integrity of that office," Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu told reporters on her way in to Wednesday’s Conservative caucus meeting.
"He’s making decisions about pension plans and about things that benefit Morneau Shepell… it would be hard to imagine that he would not benefit from that money," said Gladu.
Conservative MP Tony Clement called it hypocritical for Morneau to use an ethics loophole, while going after business owners for using tax loopholes through the Liberal’s contentious tax reform that is receiving rolling tweaks this week.
"The stench of hypocrisy is quite strong on this and I think he’s lost all credibility, quite frankly," said Clement.
Ethics Commissioner noted loophole in 2013
Morneau has been able to maintain indirect ownership by using a loophole in the ethics law that Dawson says she flagged in 2013, when the Conservatives were in power.
Dawson first confirmed on CTV’s Power Play Tuesday that Morneau does not directly own the shares -- instead, he owns them indirectly through a holding company.
Generally, as the law operates now, if someone has stock, it’s a "controlled asset." Upon becoming a public office holder, the shareholder would be required to either divest or put them in a blind trust. However, shares that are held by a corporation are not considered to be directly held by the individual.
Dawson told CTV News that she interprets the law to refer to shares that are held directly, and not those held indirectly, as is the case with Morneau. This loophole is something she has previously advocated should be amended, to count shares that are directly and indirectly held.
When Morneau became finance minister, Dawson set up an ethics screen, where his chief of staff is responsible for making sure Morneau would not be involved in government business that could affect the company.
With files from CTV News’ Glen McGregorThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we end today’s show in California, where raging wildfires have killed at least 41 people and scorched more than 200,000 acres—roughly the size of New York City. The fires are now the deadliest in California since record keeping began. At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate, with about 75,000 displaced after their homes and businesses were destroyed.
More than 11,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, and a number of them are prisoners, including many women inmates. In this clip from the film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, an inmate with an all-woman crew describes being sent to fight a raging fire in Marin County.
INMATE FIREFIGHTER: My first day here, when I first got to camp, I got thrown on a fire. We had just got through orientation, and the horn went off. And I got thrown on the bus, and off we went, chasing the smoke. We’re driving up the mountain and seeing dirty burn everywhere. All of a sudden, there’s a 40-foot wall of flame on both sides of me.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from PBS’s Independent Lens, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes.
To find out more about these firefighters, we’re joined by two guests. In Fullerton, California, Romarilyn Ralston is with us, of California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the L.A. chapter, program coordinator for Project Rebound at Cal State University. Romarilyn experienced 23 years of incarceration. While she was incarcerated, she was a fire camp trainer and a clerk for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
And in Los Angeles, journalist and author Jaime Lowe is with us. Her recent story in The New York Times Magazine is headlined “The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires.”
Romarilyn, if you could start off by telling us who is on the front lines? People might be surprised to hear that prisoners, among them women prisoners, are fighting California’s wildfires right now.
ROMARILYN RALSTON: Good morning, Amy and Juan. Thank you for having me on the show.
Yes, the women who are on the front line are women who volunteer for the camp training program, or they’re assigned to the program because they have nonviolent offenses or are classified as minimum custody. So these are women who are able to leave the prison and be housed in one of the 43 conservation camps—I’m sorry, one of the three female conservation camps.
AMY GOODMAN: And how is it that this program started? Who are these incarcerated women who are fighting fires?
ROMARILYN RALSTON: Well, the program started many years ago, I think around World War II, where inmates became involved with fighting disasters within California, repairing roads and sandbagging floods and earthquakes, things like that. The first conservation camp for women was opened, I believe, in 1983, which is Camp Rainbow, which was formerly a male conservation camp. So, the firefighting program for female inmates has been around since 1983.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how much are they paid, compared to others who are fighting the fires on the front lines?
ROMARILYN RALSTON: Well, fire pay is typically about a dollar an hour. While you’re in fire camp training, some folks are paid zero for that training or up to $18 a month. And then, once you get to the classroom and you are part of the field training, then that pay escalates to a whopping $48 a month. If you’re a swamper, you may get paid $56 a month.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do women do it?
ROMARILYN RALSTON: Women do it for various reasons. Several reasons are to get closer to their kids, for day for day. You know, those types of jobs come with a huge reduction in sentence. So the credit bearing that you receive for fighting fires is worth putting your lives at risk between the time that you serve, so folks want to—
AMY GOODMAN: Are you saying that they get to see their children if they fight the fire?
ROMARILYN RALSTON: They get to see their children a lot sooner, because you get a reduced sentence. You earn a different credit. You earn day for day. You get to see your children in a visiting area at a camp, not in a prison, where there are less restrictions, where the environment is more park-like. Who doesn’t want that?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jaime Lowe, you wrote the article “The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires.” Could you talk about some of the people you interviewed and what you found?
JAIME LOWE: Sure. I talked to people who ranged in like many different sociological backgrounds. I found that their response to the program was anything from, you know, resenting the depth and the hardship of the work, because it’s intense physical labor, to a lot of appreciation for the responsibility of working within the community and doing something that was giving back to it. That said, I think that it was—you know, these women are putting their lives on the line for very little money. They make a dollar an hour when they’re actually fighting fires, two dollars a day in camp per day. And while the camps are a nicer place to experience prison, they’re still prison. They’re still prisoners.
AMY GOODMAN: What surprised you most in your research, Jaime, for this piece for The New York Times?
JAIME LOWE: Definitely that there was a real appreciation for the—for participation. I was shocked at how many women were really—one woman I talked to, Marquet, felt, I think, transformed by doing the work, but I think it was also just really hard for her. When she described being in the—like confronted with flames and confronted with the training, it was something she like had never experienced before. And her description of it was so visceral and so intense that it was something that just felt outside of the lines of incarceration in some ways. It’s not what you would expect. It felt more like an Outward Bound experience. It felt more like something—you know, these women are providing a service for the state, and—
AMY GOODMAN: Have any of the women, have any of the prisoners, who are fighting the fires, lost their lives?
JAIME LOWE: Yes. So, that’s how I was first sort of—not introduced, but that’s why I wanted to write about the program. I had never fully heard of it, and I read a small article about Shawna Lynn Jones, who passed away in February of 2016. And she was on one of the crews in the Malibu camp. There are three female camps. And it struck me that nobody really talked about who she was, how she got there, her background and how she ended up dead.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to continue this discussion, have you back on later in the week. This is a critical story, Jaime Lowe of The New York Times. We’ll link to “The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires,” has a new book out this week called Mental, and we’ll interview you about that.
Juan, you’re going to be speaking at Rutgers tonight?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in New Brunswick.
AMY GOODMAN: Check it out at democracynow.org. And, Romarilyn Ralston, thank you so much.Former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) leads GOP opponent Rep. Todd Young Todd Christopher YoungIndiana gets first national park Ivanka Trump to meet with GOP senators to discuss paid family leave legislation Trade official warns senators of obstacles to quick China deal MORE (R-Ind.) by 7 points in the competitive Indiana Senate race, a new Monmouth University poll released Wednesday finds.
Bayh is up 48 percent to 41 percent over Young for retiring Sen. Dan Coats Daniel (Dan) Ray Coats58 ex-national security officials rebuke Trump over emergency declaration DNC unveils new security checklist to protect campaigns from cyberattacks Overnight Defense: Trump to leave 200 troops in Syria | Trump, Kim plan one-on-one meeting | Pentagon asks DHS to justify moving funds for border wall MORE’s (R-Ind.) seat. Libertarian candidate Lucy Brenton gets 4 percent, while 7 percent are undecided.
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The poll also shows GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE topping Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE by double digits.
Republican voters in the Hoosier State are more willing to split their ticket than Democrats. Sixteen percent of Trump supporters said they will vote for Bayh, while only 3 percent of Clinton supporters will vote for Young.
“If Bayh can hold on, this will be a crucial pick-up in the Democrats’ effort to retake the Senate,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
While Bayh has higher name recognition than Young, some Indiana voters are questioning the former senator’s motives for entering the race at the last minute.
Forty-two percent of voters believe he’s running for his old seat for political gain, while 31 percent believe he wants to get back into public service.
The race between Bayh and Young has been upgraded to a toss-up by several nonpartisan election watchers as the race for the Senate majority heats up.
Democrats needs to net five seats — or four and retain the White House — to regain control of the Senate. They only need to defend 10 seats, while Republicans will need to defend 24.
Bayh entered the race with a huge war chest of $9 million and has already launched several TV ads. Indiana Republicans have hit back and are targeting Bayh for not spending enough time in the state after first leaving the Senate.
While Young has a smaller war chest, he’s already received outside help from Freedom Partners Action Fund, a super-PAC that spearheads the conservative donor network helmed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. The super-PAC launched a seven-figure ad buy targeting Bayh and backing Young.
The poll was conducted from Aug. 13 to 16 and surveyed 403 likely Indiana voters via phone. The margin of error was 4.9 percentage points.America’s top military research company, DARPA, is using foldable and autonomous robotic legs to help turn helicopters into an invaluable tool for tricky rescues and combat zones.
While helicopters traditionally need flat ground to land and take off from, DARPA and the Georgia Institute of Technology are looking into enabling helicopters to land on incredibly uneven ground.
Using a set of robotic legs attached to their underside, helicopters would be able to take off and land on uneven, irregular and even moving surfaces. As you can imagine, this greatly increases the usefulness of a helicopter in rescue situations.
The robotic legs automatically unfurl as the helicopter approaches land, “feeling” out for the ground below using an array of sensors. As each leg can move independently from the other, they can find stable footing for a safe landing. It’s unclear exactly how DARPA’s “Mission Adaptive Rotor robotic landing gear” technology works, but as you can see in the video below, it’s an incredible advancement for aircraft capable of vertical takeoff.
Video of MAR Robotic Landing Gear Demonstration
“The equipment – mounted on an otherwise unmodified, unmanned helicopter – successfully demonstrated the ability to land and take off from terrain that would be impossible to operate from with standard landing gear,” said DARPA program manager Ashish Bagai.
Helicopter pilots have an awful lot to deal with during takeoff and landing; handling downward resistance, uneven landings and weather conditions to name a few. Many helicopter crashes take place during landing attempts, with things going awry in stormy conditions or forced landings on uneven terrain. The addition of self-stabilising robotic legs would make a drastic difference to the safety of helicopter flight.
Bagai claims that robotic legs would give helicopters the ability to land on 20-degree sloping terrain or even craggy boulder-strewn landscapes, and ensure safe and stable landing on ships in violent seas.
Currently the system hasn’t been tested on a full-scale helicopter, used instead on a rather large remote-control hobby vehicle. But as the technology fundamentally works in the same way, there’s no reason to believe this won’t make its way onto full-sized helicopters in the future.THE NRL's investigation into Cronulla's 2011 supplement program is just weeks from climax, with the league's newly-formed integrity unit preparing to interview current and former Sharks staff in the coming days.
The Daily Telegraph has learned the NRL is committed to finalising the long-running saga before the end of the year, meaning that punishments - including bans and fines - are likely to be handed down within the next month.
Any sanctions from the NRL would only relate to proven corporate governance failures over the program, which has dragged 11 Sharks players into ASADA's widespread drugs-in-sport probe.
The NRL's response is unlikely to target players, whose fate will remain tied to the anti-doping authority's ability to prove that banned peptides were administered in 2011.
Instead, coaching staff and administrators who were ultimately responsible for the welfare of players will be in the sights of the NRL.
Over the past months the NRL has quietly registered more than 700 support staff across all grades, meaning coaches, physios, doctors and sports scientists are now answerable to the same code of conduct as players. As such, the NRL now has the power to punish staff for bringing the game into disrepute.
News_Rich_Media: Sonny Bill Williams admits his New Zealand side are feeling the pressure ahead of the Rugby World Cup quarter finals, but believes they will rise to the occasion.
The AFL used those powers to dish out unprecedented penalties against Essendon in late August.
An NRL spokesman declined to identify which persons would be required for interview.
Five staff were named by an independent investigation that was conducted at the behest of the club's previous board in February: head coach Shane Flanagan, football manager Darren Mooney, trainer Mark Noakes, physio Konrad Schultz and veteran doctor David Givney.
Mooney, Noakes, Schultz and Givney were all dismissed from their posts, while Flanagan was stood down, after the investigation identified "serious management failures" that allowed the program to continue for 11 weeks. Flanagan was re-instated a fortnight later, while Noakes returned in July following a review of the sackings by the club's new board. Mooney is also on the verge of being re-instated.
It's also likely the NRL would want to interview former strength and conditioning coach Trent Elkin, who approved and oversaw the 2011 supplement program.
Sharks chairman Damian Keogh last night responded to The Daily Telegraph's enquiries with a text that read: "Cronulla Sharks continue to work with the NRL on matters concerning 2011.
"We remain optimistic that issues relating to the club are dealt with prior to the start of the 2013 NRL season."Could enclosing parks in giant plastic bubbles help with Beijing's toxic air?
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As China struggles to deal with its ever worsening air quality, the creative minds at a London-based architecture and design company are dreaming of bubbles in Beijing.
Their project, still in the conceptual stage, would create outdoor green spaces covered by giant bubble-shaped domes in the Chinese capital or other places where adverse environmental conditions mean that people are unable to spend time outdoors without risking their health.
Bubbles would “allow people to be outdoors regardless of the weather in spaces that don’t really take anything away from the environment,” said Orproject co-founder Rajat Sodhi.
The bubbles would be built from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, or ETFE, a lightweight and resilient plastic. It is an excellent insulator and also resilient to dust, so a light rain would be sufficient to clean it, according to Sodhi.
He said that the inspiration for the project came from research on how veins grow in plants and animals, and a trip to pollution-racked Beijing.
“We were discussing the smog and decided we can’t really combat pollution in the developing world but if we could do something that could at least provide a form of public space where you could go out, that would be clean all year round, (where) the temperature and quality of air are controlled, that could make an impact,” he said.
The bubble would be incorporated into the surrounding neighborhood and might even provide resources to nearby buildings. Sodhi said solar cells could be integrated into the panels of the bubble, which could produce electricity to be used in other buildings. The bubble design, he said, “allows for buildings around it, and it becomes part of the urban structure.”
Bubbles would not necessarily be limited to covering parks or gardens; the project’s website suggests they could be used to cover playgrounds, school yards, or the atrium of a mall.
The technology has been used by other architects and designers around the world. The Allianz Arena in Germany was constructed with an exterior of ETFE panels, as was the Beijing National Aquatics Centre used for the 2008 Olympics. In the United Kingdom, the Eden Project in Cornwall is made up of ETFE domes which showcase different biomes and plant species.
According to contractors and engineers that Orproject has spoken to the project is financially feasible, with an estimated cost of £400 ($640) per square meter.
THE OBSTACLES
The main factor holding back the dream-like project is governmental building regulations: most local governments are not chomping at the bit to enclose a precious bit of outdoor space and turn it into indoor space. They see any building as “development,” which inherently takes away from the natural feel of an outdoor space.
“Usually, architecture is considered a profession that attacks nature, or is anti-nature,” said Sodhi. “This has become the typical role of architecture: you cut down trees, and build something else in that space.”
“Our idea for these bubbles is an enclosed space, but not an intrusive construction,” said Sodhi. “Why can’t architecture and nature co-exist without one replacing the other?”
While Orproject has no clients yet for the Bubbles project, they will construct a prototype in New Delhi, where they have an office and where air quality also is a problem, later this year.
Sodhi said that he and Orproject are not looking to solve pollution and climate change problems, but feel they can improve the lives of people facing those problems.
“As architects, one of the things we are asked about a project like this is ‘Do you think this is a way to battle climate change?’ We feel that’s a policy issue, which governments and scientists need to solve. We can only do our part,” he said.
Samuel Mintz is an AlertNet Climate intern.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.A bomb exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon seconds after Berti finished the race. Two days later, he was in Texas when he saw a fertiliser plant explode.
"I was just like, 'I can't believe this!'" said Berti, who said he had never witnessed an explosion before. Then he thought: "I just want to get out of here and get away from all these explosions."
Berti feels fortunate. He left both tragedies unscathed, while members of his running group and his wife - who was closer to the Boston explosion than he was - were also unhurt.
"It's a miracle," he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. "Not only do I not feel unlucky, but I feel blessed that my wife could be 10 yards from the explosion and not have a scratch."
Monday's bombings in Boston killed three people and left more than 180 wounded. Wednesday's explosion in West, Texas, killed at least five people and injured more than 160.
"We're grateful that God has been merciful to us," said Berti's wife, Amy. "We are just praying for the people who were so much less fortunate than we were."
Berti's road to the marathon started just a couple months ago, when he decided to run with a charity that helps kids with rare or undiagnosed disorders.
Near the end, the 43-year-old Berti felt his body shutting down, and his pace slowed. But he vowed to finish.
"I had just run to the finish line and like 30 seconds later I heard the first explosion, and then turned around and saw the smoke," he said. "I knew immediately that it was a bomb... Then the second explosion occurred, and I saw a wave of people running."
At that point, he said, he was so exhausted he couldn't run anymore. He worried about getting caught in a stampede. He was concerned about members of his running group who were behind him. He also thought about his wife, whom he was unable to reach and was probably wondering where he was. He told himself she was fine, because she was supposed to be at a restaurant.
"But then, I was like, 'She never listens to me, and she may have been at the finish line,'" he said.
Amy Berti and a friend were just a few yards from the first explosion. She had just taken a picture of Joe and was heading to the finish line to find him when the bomb went off. She and her friend were both hit by shrapnel. Amy was uninjured, and her friend was bruised.
But a woman next to Amy had her leg torn off from the knee down and lost all the fingers on her left hand. Amy Berti went to get help, and once that woman was being cared for, Amy's frantic search for her husband began.
His cellphone battery died. He wasn't on the bus. He wasn't in the medical tents.
"I had just watched him cross where that bomb was, so I didn't know if he made it through and I couldn't find him," she said. "I started to freak out a little bit."
After about an hour, the couple reunited at their hotel, both of them OK. They left Boston on Tuesday morning and returned to Texas, with every hope of getting back to life as normal with their two girls, ages 8 and 11.
Joe Berti went back to work. On Wednesday, he had a daylong meeting in Dallas. He was heading home on Interstate 35 and nearing Waco on Wednesday night when he saw black smoke up ahead to his left. As he drove closer, he saw - and felt - his second explosion in two days.
"You've got to be kidding!" he remembers thinking. He described the giant fireball as a massive force that shook his car. He said it looked like pictures of nuclear explosions.
He didn't know what he had just witnessed - but he pulled over and took a picture.
"My next reaction was to get out of there because something fell on the top of my car - some debris or something fell from the sky," he said.
As black smoke billowed over the highway in front of him, Berti held his breath and drove through it. After a few attempts, he was able to reach his wife - sparing her another round of worry.
"I'm like, 'Honey, what is with your luck? Why are you in all of these places?" Amy Berti said.
She joked, "We need to keep him moving. Maybe he just needs to stand in an open field."Thai skin whitening ad provokes race storm
BANGKOK – Agence France-Presse
An online advertisement by Thai cosmetics company Seoul Secret showing |
Small” scene that runs about one minute and offers multiple explosions, fire effects and a lot of A.I. usage. The basic CPU and graphics cards benchmarks have been completed already.
Far Cry 2 Benchmark: You can find more than 30 additional screenshots in the gallery Quelle: PC Games Hardware
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Google is getting ready to launch its own MVNO wireless service, according to a report by The Information.
Headed by longtime Google executive Nick Fox, the project, known as Nova, is said to have been in testing since at least last fall. Google will buy wireless access – voice and data — wholesale from T-Mobile and Sprint and sell it to its customers. This model, known as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), is widely employed in the US and worldwide – Republic Wireless and Tracfone are some well-known examples of MVN operators.
According to The Information, which cites three people familiar with the matter, Google sees Project Nova as an experiment and as a tool for forcing wireless carriers to offer better services or lower prices. Google will sell voice and data plans through an online store, probably the Play Store. At one point, the company considered bundling wireless plans with its Nexus smartphone, though it’s not clear what came of that plan. The project is likely to launch sometime this year, says the report.
It’s not the first time we’re hearing about Google’s ambition to become a MVN operator, in order to disrupt the telecom incumbents, which Google’s leadership perceives as slow to innovate and determined to preserve the status quo. The Mountain View company is doing something similar with Fiber, and, in the handful of markets where Fiber rolled out so far, competing providers did step up their offerings. It remains to be seen whether Google will manage to meaningfully disrupt the wireless industry.
What do you think of having Google as your carrier?Kara Spears Hultgreen (5 October 1965 – 25 October 1994) was a lieutenant and naval aviator in the United States Navy and the first female carrier-based fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. She died just months after she was certified for combat, when she crashed her F-14 Tomcat into the sea on final approach to USS Abraham Lincoln.
Youth [ edit ]
Hultgreen was born on 5 October 1965, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and raised in both Chicago, Illinois; and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hultgreen moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1981. She attended Alamo Heights High School and received a congressional nomination to the Naval Academy but did not win an appointment. She attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in Aerospace Engineering.[1]
Military career [ edit ]
Hultgreen was commissioned through the Aviation Officer Candidate School at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where she was a Distinguished Naval Graduate.[1]
Upon graduation she was assigned to Training Air Wing 4 at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, for primary flight training with VT-27 in the T-34C Turbomentor. Screened for the Strike Pilot training pipeline, she underwent follow-on training in the T-2C Buckeye and TA-4J Skyhawk II with Training Air Wing 3 at NAS Chase Field, Texas.
Following designation as a naval aviator, she received orders to fly EA-6A Intruders with Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 33 (VAQ-33) at NAS Key West, Florida.[2] Upon the Navy's integration of women in combat in 1993, LT Hultgreen was selected to be among the first female pilots to undergo F-14 Tomcat training at NAS Miramar, California.
While with Pacific Fleet F-14 Fleet Replacement Squadron, Fighter Squadron 124 (VF-124), Hultgreen failed her first attempt at carrier qualification. Hultgreen successfully carrier-qualified during a second period aboard USS Constellation in mid-1994, becoming the first "combat qualified" female naval aviator.[2] Upon completion of the VF-124 Category I fleet replacement pilot syllabus, she was assigned to the Black Lions of Fighter Squadron 213 (VF-213) and began preparations for deployment to the Persian Gulf.
Her call signs were "Hulk" or "She-Hulk", for her ability to bench-press 200-pound (91 kg), her 6-foot (1.8 m) frame, and a play on her surname of Hultgreen. Following a television appearance, in which she wore noticeable makeup, she received the additional call sign of "Revlon".[3]
Death [ edit ]
Video of F-14A-95-GR's crash from two angles
On 25 October 1994, Hultgreen died when her F-14A-95-GR, BuNo 160390,[4] coded "NH 103," crashed on approach to USS Abraham Lincoln. The incident occurred off the coast of San Diego after a routine training mission.[5] Finding herself overshooting the landing area centerline, Hultgreen attempted to correct her approach by applying left rudder pedal, which caused the nose to disrupt the airflow over the left (inside) wing, as well as the airflow to the left engine intake. The port engine suffered a compressor stall and lost power—a well-known deficiency characteristic of the F-14A's TF30-P-414A engine when inlet air was no longer flowing straight into it. For this reason, the F-14 NATOPS flight manual warned against excess yaw. Loss of an F-14 engine results in asymmetric thrust, which can exceed rudder authority, especially at low speeds.
After aborting the approach, Hultgreen selected full afterburner on the remaining engine, causing an even greater asymmetry. This, combined with a high angle of attack, caused an unrecoverable approach turn stall and rapid wing drop to the left. The radar intercept officer in the rear seat, Lt. Matthew Klemish, initiated ejection for himself and Hultgreen as soon as it was apparent the aircraft was becoming uncontrollable. First in the automated ejection sequence, the RIO survived.[citation needed] However, by the time Hultgreen's seat fired 0.4 seconds later, the plane had exceeded 90 degrees of roll, and she was ejected downward into the water, killing her.[6]:168-169
On 12 November, 19 days after the crash, the Navy salvaged the plane and recovered her body, still strapped into the ejection seat.[5] The wreckage was in 3,700 feet (1,100 m) of water. On 21 November, she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, with full military honors.
The F-14A lost in the mishap, BuNo 160390, had been one of the two involved in the Gulf of Sidra incident of 1981, when it was previously assigned to Fighter Squadron 41 (VF-41) at NAS Oceana, Virginia, and embarked with Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8) aboard USS Nimitz.
As with most approaches to a carrier landing, Hultgreen's incident was videotaped by two cameras. The tape shows an overshooting turn onto final, then apparent engine failure, followed by an audible wave-off and gear-up command from the landing signal officer. Segments shown on broadcast television concluded with the rapid sequence of aircraft stall, roll, crew ejections, and impact with the water.
Controversy [ edit ]
Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, a group that seeks to limit the roles of women in the military, suggested that Hultgreen "may have been the victim of a flawed policy," a policy that overlooked her mistakes in training, two of which were similar to those that caused her death.[7] The other pilot named by the center subsequently brought a suit for defamation against the CMR but lost because the court determined that, by virtue of her status as one of the first women to attempt to qualify as a carrier combat pilot, she was a "public figure" and had to prove malice on the part of those who published the charge of favoritism. She appealed but her appeal was denied with a statement that "Our conclusion about Lt. Lohrenz’s public figure status does not suggest that she was not a good Naval aviator trying to do her job, and it does not penalize her for acting with ‘professionalism.’"[8]
An Accuracy in Media reports others quoting CDR Tom Sobiek, commanding officer of Fighter Squadron VF-124, as saying of the four female pilots in his squadron, "The women are going to graduate regardless of how they performed" and that "the Navy was in a race with the Air Force to get the first female fighter pilot". It quotes Sobiek denying making any such statement. "That is a flat **** lie," he said. "And whoever told you that, if they were under oath, should be taken to task."[9]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Toronto Water’s ongoing efforts to complete a state-of-good-repair overhaul on the St. Clair Reservoir, under Sir Winston Churchill Park, could be described as both monumental and mundane.
Monumental, because the facility normally contains 220 million litres of fresh drinking water that is pumped up Russell Hill and accounts for fully 10% of the entire city’s storage capacity. (It provides supply and pressure to a part of the city that extends from Dupont south to College, and from west end Toronto to East York.)
Mundane, because the $25 million project, due to be finished in the summer of 2019, involves mostly routine engineering tasks, such as repairing cracks, replacing or fixing valves and managing all the topsoil on the reservoir’s roof.
But for the civil engineers tasked with completing the job, one particular detail stands out: the facility, which bears the city-building imprimatur of Toronto’s long-time works commissioner R.C. Harris, has been in service continually since it opened in 1931. This project, amazingly, marks the first time it’s been taken off line for repairs.
As Mike Brannon, Toronto Water’s manager of supply, put it during a tour of the construction site he gave to Spacing earlier this fall, “The concrete is in relatively good shape for 85 years.” Indeed, it would be difficult to identify many other pieces of public infrastructure that have functioned for so long without a trip to the shop for repairs.
Earlier this fall, Brannon and two engineers involved in St. Clair Reservoir project gave Spacing a tour of the construction site and a bit of a history of a civic works project that has played a largely unsung role in Toronto’s evolution.
“This site,” Brannon explained, “was really important for Harris.” In the late 1920s, as is well known, he was pushing to secure city council approval for a plan to build the new east end water filtration plant that would later bear his name (construction eventually began in 1932). But Harris, during his temporary stint as the head of the newly-established Toronto Transit Commission, had also played a key role in the development of the St. Clair streetcar line, and regarded that east-west thoroughfare as a venue for creating an integrated network of public spaces.
The St Clair reservoir, Brannon explained, was part of a larger set of projects that included the Spadina Road Bridge across the Nordheimer Ravine, and a green boulevard along St. Clair Avenue West. It mirrored the open-air Rosehill Reservoir, which dated to the 1870s, and was part of a broader effort to encourage the city’s northward development.
The site itself included a landscaped park on top, punctuated by the limestone and yellow brick head houses designed by Thomas Pomphrey, the architect of the water filtration plan. As part of the current project, Toronto Water’s heritage subcontractor, Clifford Restoration, will clean and re-point the brick on those structures, install a new copper roof and replace worn elements like finials, cornices and terrazzo flooring. “We’re keeping it true to the original state,” said Brannon, who pointed out that the project team closely studied original blue prints and archival images as part of their preparation.
Inside, the bulk of the work involves replacing the external water-proofing membrane, repairing old 48-inch valves on the large pipe leading into the reservoir and then undertaking all the routine maintenance work on the interior.
By design, the reservoir itself is divided into two self-contained tanks, for redundancy and to allow maintenance to occur without taking the entire facility off line. The eight-metre high roof is held aloft by 820 columns, each of which sits on eight-inch concrete slabs. The dim interior has the look of a vast, ghostly temple.
The floor is sloped slightly towards a drain that is covered with a platform meant to prevent vortexes and the problem of air bubbles forming in the fresh water pipe network fed by the reservoir. According to Brannon, the reservoir contains 11 km of expansion joints, all of which are being replaced.
All of it, of course, was built with techniques from the late 1920s – plumb and bob surveying tools, and the use of burlap sacks applied to the freshly poured concrete to assist in the curing process (see photo below). “Compared to other concrete structures of that age, the walls and columns are in great shape,” said Ken Koson, a senior City of Toronto project manager.
Once all the work is complete, Brannon said, the tanks are subject to an intensive cleaning and decontamination process prescribed by the Ministry of the Environment. The procedure begins with an extensive spray down with chlorine wash followed by further disinfectants and a week of monitoring and testing.
It’s worth noting that the City officials involved in this project have been clearly mindful of the reservoir’s rich history. The site scaffolding has been decorated with a series of archival photographs depicting the original building process. They told me they have also been inspired by the durability of construction and workmanship that was overseen by R.C. Harris almost 90 years ago.
How long will this set of repairs last? “Another hundred years,” said Koson. “Ultimately, you want to make this thing last indefinitely.”
top photo by Eric Parker; bottom photo from Toronto Archives; all other photos by John Lorinc“It’s fantastic news, Marc and I are overjoyed, a strong message has been sent that it’s time to legalize marijuana. It means that we should take a new approach ourselves and we will work on a Sensible BC campaign to legalize marijuana,” said Jodie Emery, wife of BC’s ‘Prince of Pot’.
She was in Seattle as a guest of New Approach Washington from November 5th-7th, where she watched as I-502 was voted into law, the same night Barack Obama won a second term as president.
She noted that just as American voters in two states chose to legalize marijuana, new laws in Canada took effect on November 7th, providing for a mandatory minimum six-month jail term for anyone caught growing six or more pot plants.
“We are going backwards,” said Emery.
As the news broke late at night on November 6th that voters in Washington and Colorado chose to legalize marijuana, pot activists and medical marijuana users, together with experts and seed sellers on both sides of the border reacted mainly with excitement.
In Washington, Initiative 502 passed with 55 per cent of the vote, and allows people over 21 to own a small amount of marijuana for personal use, removes the ban producing, processing, and selling marijuana, subject to licensing and regulation by the liquor control board, and DUI laws now include a drug-driving provision.
Meanwhile in Colorado, Proposition 64, which passed with 53 per cent voting ‘yes’, allows people to grow up to six mature marijuana plants privately in a locked space, buy it from licensed retailers, legally possess up to one ounce of pot, and give as a gift up to one ounce to other adult citizens.
As in Washington, drug-driving laws are included, and Proposition 64 is seen as more liberal than I-502 as it lets people to grow their own marijuana.
British Columbia next?
BC is the only Canadian province that allows popular referendums, and Emery is working with the Sensible BC Campaign to decriminalize marijuana, with a vote being scheduled for 2014.
Meanwhile Vancouver Seed bank owner Rebecca Ambrose said that legalization in America would encourage more Canadians to grow seeds, despite new, tougher drug laws north of the border.
“It’s proof that our drug laws don’t work,” said Ambrose.
She also said many Canadian tourists could head south to enjoy a legal joint, putting cash into state coffers, and make politicians realize how much money could have been saved – or even made – by ending marijuana prohibition.
“We’re pretty excited to be honest, especially as Washington borders BC. That’s a big deal, as whenever the Canadian government talks about modernizing drug laws we get an earful from the US about trade embargoes and they economically threaten us if we change them,” said Ambrose.
The previous Liberal government did want to reform marijuana law, but the Bush Administration forced them to back off, and today PM Stephen Harper is moving in the opposite direction with drug policy.
What Ambrose now wanted to see was support from American politicians and public in helping Canada reform its own drug laws, saying that US drugs policy had prevented both the Canadian and Mexican government from legalizing or at least decriminalizing marijuana.
“We’ve been suffering under American laws as Canadians for so long now,” said Ambrose.
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University of Oregon political science professor Alison Gash reacts to a recent surge in legislation attacking trans people’s rights to pee in peace.
Last week North Carolina became the first state to pass a law requiring transgender individuals (including students) to use only bathrooms that match their biological (rather than identified) gender. They did so in response to an ordinance passed in Charlotte that supported transgender bathroom choice.
Transgender students’ access to bathrooms is an increasingly active front for LGBTQ rights battles. Recent calls for safer bathrooms have inspired “shit-ins” at California Polytechnic and San Diego State, where transgender advocates asked student allies to use only gender-neutral restrooms.
In April last year, “urine” blockades confronted Berkeley students at Sather Gate, the main entrance to campus. Advocates filled plastic cups with fake urine and lined them up to greet students as they crossed the threshold into campus to protest inadequate restrooms for transgender students.
To a degree, these strategies have been effective. Courts, campuses and communities across the country have supported calls for transgender bathroom safety.
But in many cases, these efforts have launched a visceral backlash – now with North Carolina at its helm. It took state legislators only 12 hours to initiate, discuss and sign into law its prohibitions.
Why is bathroom safety so essential for transgendered individuals? And why is it greeted with such hostility?
Issues of physical, emotional safety
Studies show that transgender students can be harassed, sexually assaulted or subjected to other physical violence when they are required to use a gendered bathroom.
One survey, commissioned by the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA, found that 68 percent of participants were subjected to homophobic slurs while trying to use the bathroom. Nine percent confronted physical violence.
Seventy percent of transgender individuals surveyed in Washington, D.C. experienced verbal or physical assaults or were otherwise threatened when attempting to use the bathroom of their choice. Some experienced more than one form of such behaviour.
Yet another survey found that 26 percent of transgender students in New York were denied access to their preferred bathrooms altogether.
As a result, transgender students need to constantly weigh the trade-offs as they consider bathroom options.
As one University of Washington student articulates:
Do I choose physical safety or emotional safety? Do I choose physical health or mental health?
Bathroom policies
For some policy-makers, these facts are compelling. For example, University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State University and the University of Maine, among several others, have established policies that would permit transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.
K-12 settings too are making similar accommodations. For instance, California’s School Success and Opportunity Act requires that all K-12 students be able to access bathrooms or locker rooms that are consistent with their own gender identity.
The private sector is responding as well. Hours after North Carolina passed its bill, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and other high-profile organizations expressed their opposition. A Kroger grocery store in Georgia has gone one step beyond opposition and relabelled its bathrooms as gender-neutral.
Bathroom panic
But “bathroom panic” appears to be the new focus in the story of gay rights backlash.
Wisconsin is considering legislation that would impose significant burdens on schools attempting to support transgender bathroom safety. And in South Dakota, a bill that would have restricted transgender students’ use of restrooms, locker rooms and other gender-specific facilities was recently vetoed.
Incidents of backlash have surfaced in elementary schools as well. For example, an elementary school student in Stafford County, Virginia, was prohibited from using a bathroom associated with her gender identity after parents and politicians in the state spoke out against the student’s request.
Federal intervention too has sent out mixed signals. On the one hand, the Department of Education issued a letter to an Illinois school district stating that denying a transgender student’s rights to access a bathroom consistent with their gender identity is a violation of Title IX.
On the other hand, a federal court rejected a transgender student’s claim that his equal rights were violated when his university rejected his request to use a locker room that matched his gender identity.
Is it only about women’s safety?
So, why is there is there so much backlash against these moves to provide safe bathrooms?
Opponents say that they are concerned about the possibility of men using “women’s showers, locker rooms and bathrooms” or “sex offenders…follow[ing] women or young girls into the bathroom.” But these explanations are problematic.
Bathroom opposition tends to affect far more than just bathrooms. In many cases, so-called “bathroom bills” create obstacles for all LGBTQ individuals in a variety of different settings.
In Houston, voters threw out an entire ordinance outlawing LGBTQ discrimination (an ordinance that is now standard in over 200 cities and counties) because it would provide bathroom choice to transgender individuals. Similarly, North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” (HB2) prohibits all municipalities from passing any ordinance that protects LGBTQ individuals from discrimination.
These strategies suggest that something more than just concern for women’s safety is at play.
Furthermore, this opposition exists even when transgender advocates invoke the needs of students with disabilities, those who may need “family bathrooms” and students who have survived sexual abuse and are more comfortable with single-stall facilities.
Need for safety
At this point, for many transgender students, bathroom options are limited.
Either they have to travel quite a distance to get to the nearest single-stall gender-neutral bathroom, or change in an “alternative” locker room (often a faculty bathroom or custodial closet).
There could even be days when they go to class in their workout clothes or “hold it in.”
Such options have clear drawbacks and health risks. Urinary tract infections, depression and even suicide could be among them.
As a result, sometimes students see their best option as renting a house near campus so they can go home to use the bathroom.
One student in North Carolina has decided to fight HB2 – by using the letter of law. To anyone who might meet him, Charlie Comero is a man. But because his birth certificate lists him as female, Charlie must now use the women’s bathroom. To offset any confusion about his presence in the women’s bathroom, Charlie passes out cards with the following text.
I’m following a law that was passed on March 23. I am a transgender man who would rather be using the men’s room right now. This is likely uncomfortable for both of us. Please contact your legislature and tell them you oppose HB2.
To be sure, lawsuits have been filed and protests have ensued. But for now in North Carolina and elsewhere, transgender individuals (who are far more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of assault) will be forced to fend for themselves.
Alison Gash, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. -- Bagnell Dam opened 10 floodgates this morning at 4:30 a.m. The Osage River has risen five feet as a result.
The Lake Level is 660.50 as of 6 a.m., up 3.5 feet since noon yesterday.
At 6:30 a.m., Bagnell Dam widened six flood gates increasing total flow out of the Lake to 64,000 cubic feet per second. Further increases above 70,000 cfs are likely as flows into Lake of the Ozarks continue.
Property owners on Lake of the Ozarks are preparing for flood conditions, as the water level has not yet crested.
The forecast calls for rain through noon, today.
Lake Level Up Two Feet In 9 Hours To Near Full Pool, Floodgates Closed So Far
Published 10:05 PM, April 29
LAKE OF THE OZARKS, Mo. -- The Lake is up two feet since noon today, but the floodgates have not opened as of 9:45 p.m.
Bagnell Dam operator Alan Sullivan of Ameren Missouri, says there is uncertainty as to whether the gates may open on Sunday, after four inches of rain fell Saturday with another 2-3 inches anticipated before precipitation likely tapers off Sunday afternoon.
The Lake Level at 9:45 p.m. was 659.0, only one foot away from full pool.
Bagnell Dam has been operating at near full generation since Wednesday in anticipation of rain.
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The Osage River is 2.5 feet higher at 568.8 from Saturday's storm system.
Truman Lake is now more than five feet above its normal elevation for this time of year.
LakeExpo.com will update this report.The MTA and NYPD rescued two adorable kittens from the subway tracks early this evening after they caused huge headaches for Brooklyn commuters this morning.
An MTA worker, a plainclothes cop, and a uniformed officer captured the gray and white tabby, and a black kitten from the tracks after 6 p.m. at the Church Avenue station, placing them in a milk crate.
The two kittens were initially spotted on the tracks at the Church Avenue station with a black kitten shortly before 11:05 a.m., according to witnesses.
Power was shut off between Dekalb Avenue and Brighton Beach in both directions, and public service announcements were made.
One conductor said, “There is no service to Manhattan on the Q or B line because of cats and kittens on the tracks at Church Avenue.”
Riders had strong reactions when they learned why service was stopped.
A middle-aged, feline-hating straphanger who declined to give his name lost his temper. “Can you believe this? All for g——– cats! I hate cats!”
At least two MTA workers donning orange vests went down onto the tracks with a cat carrier, but the kittens ran off in opposite directions, according to witnesses.
Service was resumed two hours later, shortly before 1:10 p.m.
But the duo returned to the roadbed, and could be seen peacefully napping underneath the third rail next to several discarded iced tea bottles and batteries.
The cats showcased their nine lives by avoiding being struck by the train.
After 6 p.m., the B and Q began running local service– giving the MTA and NYPD a window for the kitty track rescue.Juan de Miralles, the first Spanish minister to the newly declared United States of America, is virtually unknown in United States today, despite his numerous and considerable contributions, his personal sacrifices and his close relationship with its founding fathers, including George Washington. His involvement with the founding fathers led to a high point in Spanish-American affairs that quickly evaporated following his death and that was never achieved again. It is possible that he is nearly unheard of because his nationality, mostly unwelcomed in the English world, have kept his name from the pantheon of other foreign heroes of the American Revolution, like Lafayette, Kosciusko and Von Steuben. Another reason he may be forgotten is that he met with an abrupt and unfortunate death before his work came to fruition. Had Miralles lived, his close relationships with the founding fathers of the United States may very well have changed the course of history between the two nations. For this reason, Miralles, a man whom Washington considered a close friend, deserves to be listed among those heroes, as well as for his diplomatic work in bringing together two polar cultures like Spain and America in a mutually beneficial way for nearly the only time in their long and troubled history.
Juan de Miralles was born in Petrel (or Petrer), a municipality of Valencia in the province of Alicante in the southeast of Spain, on July 23, 1713. His father, also Juan de Miralles (or Mirailles) was a native of the village of Monein, located in the southwest of France, near the Spanish border. He was an infantry captain in the army of Felipe V of Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession. His wife, Gracia Trailhon (or Trayllon), was a native of Arbus, also in the southwest of France. The son of French parents living in Spain, Miralles would have command of both languages.
Little is known of the early life of Miralles. It is fairly certain that he entered into merchant society, though his name is not found among the merchants or settlers of Alicante or Cádiz or in the French municipalities. However, by 1732, at the age of 19, it is certain that he was in Spain.[1] What exactly occurred in his life over the next eight years, though, is largely unknown. Miralles worked at the business firm of Aguirre, Aristegui and Company of Cadiz, which traded with the British and Spanish colonies in the Americas, and which allowed Miralles to learn the English language. It is likely that Miralles traveled the Atlantic Ocean for the company during this time.[2] Using the knowledge he acquired while working with the firm, Miralles established his own business in Havana, Cuba, in 1740. Here, Miralles dedicated himself to legitimate operations, as well as smuggling. Despite trade prohibitions between Spanish, French and British possessions in the New and Old Worlds, the illicit trade was a lucrative business. Far from the negativity associated with smuggling in today’s world, in the time of Miralles there was little shame or scandal brought upon those involved in this illegal trade. In fact, smuggling during this period was seen as a form of protest, liberty and independence. During these early years of Miralles’s enterprise, he trafficked in a variety of commercial items, including slaves.[3]
In 1740, when Miralles arrived in Cuba, he had 8500 pesos to his name. The sum, of unknown origin, was extraordinary for the time, and some historians have claimed that it must have come from the slave trade, as Miralles’s name did not appear amongst the successful merchants of Spain, and his family’s landholdings would not have produced such a sum.[4] Regardless of where his wealth originated, it allowed him to connect with the elite of Cuban society, and in 1744, he married into the influential Eligio de la Puente family. He married Doña Maria Josefa Eligio de la Puente y González-Cabello in La Iglesia del Espiritu Santo in Havana, Cuba, and moved into a house on Aguiar Street, near the port. The couple would go on to have eight children.[5] The prominence and connections of his wife’s family, as well as the small amount of riches she brought to the marriage, allowed Miralles to grow his trade and prosper significantly.
By many accounts, Miralles played a substantial role in the illegal slave trade between Havana and the Thirteen British Colonies of North America.[6] In the 1740s and 1750s, Miralles was involved in trading with Florida,[7] Charleston, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. The beginning of the Seven Years’ War in 1756 did not immediately affect Miralles’s commercial success, though it would do so before its conclusion. The conflict, truly a world war,[8] ensnared Miralles and ended his peaceful existence. Miralles, who had been working double duty as a businessman and spy (using the former as cover), prepared to move his operations to the island of Jamaica. In 1762, en route to uncover British plans, Miralles met with the British fleet, which was on an expedition to Cuba. He was captured at sea by the British advanced ships, and proceeded to watch from the rear as the British wrested control of the island from the Spanish. Once back on land, however, Miralles was given the freedom to resume his normal activities. There were some who, afterwards, questioned his loyalty, but it appears that these accusations were most likely furnished by envious competitors. His detractors pointed to the detail that he did not act against the English, and in fact continued to prosper under their rule. In reality, however, it would not have benefited Miralles’s work as a commissioned Spanish spy (or businessman) to draw the ire of the British. As further proof of his innocence of the traitorous charges, the Spanish government, once restored in Cuba, never initiated proceedings against Miralles, as it did with other suspected collaborators. Still, the rumors persisted about him for some time.[9]
After the war ended, in 1763, the Treaty of Paris returned Cuba to Spain, but the Floridas fell under British control. Under the circumstances, it was probable that the two nations would soon be at war again, for control not only of the Gulf or Caribbean islands, but also of the Mississippi River. Thus, the beginning of the American Revolutionary War provided a pretext by which Spain could regain the Floridas from the British, and protect her colonies; and Juan de Miralles became a key player in making that happen.
Part 2 of Series
[1] Ribes, Vicente. Presencia valenciana en los Estados Unidos (ss. XVI-XIX). Valencia, Spain: Biblioteca Valenciana, 2001, 14.
[2] Portell-Vilá, Herminio. Los Otros Extranjeros en la Revolucion Norteamericana. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1978, 25.
[6] Portell-Vilá and Ribes both make this claim, while other historians have mentioned or alluded to it.
[7] Florida was originally settled by both the French and Spanish. The French settled Fort Caroline (in present-day Jacksonville) in 1754, while the Spanish established a settlement at St. Augustine the following year. After the Seven Years’ War, the British gained control of the territory via a provision in the Treaty of Paris (1763). They divided the territory in to East Florida and West Florida, which were jointly known as the Floridas, a distinction which remained until the territory became part of the U.S. in 1819.
[8] The Seven Years’ War was a world-wide conflict involving the major powers of Europe. Among the major combatants, Spain and France were opposed to Great Britain. Eventually the British proved victorious, winning large concessions from the defeated nations.
[9] Los Otros Extranjeros en la Revolucion Norteamericana, 27; Ribes, 16; and Portell-Vilá, Herminio. Juan de Miralles, un Habanero Amigo de Jorge Washington. Havana: Sociedad Colombista Panamaricana, 1947, 8.
Image credit: New York Public LibraryAnd back again... The Lift is a carrier that quickly attaches to the front of the bike you already own. In under a minute, it transforms your bike into a front loading cargo bike.
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A TOUGH STEEL FRAME
The frame is constructed of TIG welded steel, primarily because it is tough. After all, it's what airplanes, earth movers and race cars are made of. But, it has other benefits, too. Steel has a natural ability to absorb shock. This means you can take the road less travelled and not feel every tiny bump. The steel will be protected with an extra |
Journal in July, Dodd-Frank is turning America’s largest financial institutions into “functional utilities” and is delivering the power to allocate capital to political actors in Washington.
Thomas Hoenig, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, gave a speech in 2011 in which he also described banking as a “public utility.” (What he actually said was, “You’re a public utility, for crying out loud.”) Six months later, Hoenig was appointed vice chairman of the FDIC.
If the megabanks are going to be true public utilities, they probably need to be publicly-owned entities, which capture profits and direct credit in a way that actually serves the people. If Dodd-Frank’s several thousand pages of regulations cannot create a stable and sustainable banking system, the regulatory approach has failed. The whole system needs to be revamped.
Restoring Community Banking: The Model of North Dakota
Even if the megabanks were to become true public utilities, we would still need a thriving community banking sector. Community banks service local markets in a way that the megabanks with their standardized lending models are neither interested in nor capable of.
How can the community banks be preserved and nurtured? For some ideas, we can look to a state where they are still thriving – North Dakota. In a September 2015 article titled “How One State Escaped Wall Street’s Rule and Created a Banking System That’s 83% Locally Owned,” Stacy Mitchell writes that North Dakota’s banking sector bears little resemblance to that of the rest of the country:
North Dakotans do not depend on Wall Street banks to decide the fate of their livelihoods and the future of their communities, and rely instead on locally owned banks and credit unions. With 89 small and mid-sized community banks and 38 credit unions, North Dakota has six times as many locally owned financial institutions per person as the rest of the nation. And these local banks and credit unions control a resounding 83 percent of deposits in the state — more than twice the 30 percent market share that small and mid-sized financial institutions have nationally.
Their secret is the century-old Bank of North Dakota, the nation’s only state-owned depository bank, which partners with and supports the state’s local banks. In an April 2015 article titled “Is Dodd-Frank Killing Community Banks? The More Important Question is How to Save Them”, Matt Stannard writes:
Public banks offer unique benefits to community banks, including collateralization of deposits, protection from poaching of customers by big banks, the creation of more successful deals, and... regulatory compliance. The Bank of North Dakota, the nation’s only public bank, directly supports community banks and enables them to meet regulatory requirements such as asset to loan ratios and deposit to loan ratios.... [I]t keeps community banks solvent in other ways, lessening the impact of regulatory compliance on banks’ bottom lines. We know from FDIC data in 2009 that North Dakota had almost 16 banks per 100,000 people, the most in the country. A more important figure, however, is community banks’ loan averages per capita, which was $12,000 in North Dakota, compared to only $3,000 nationally.... During the last decade, banks in North Dakota with less than $1 billion in assets have averaged a stunning 434 percent more small business lending than the national average.
The BND has also been very profitable for the state and its citizens. Over the last 21 years, the BND has generated almost $1 billion in profit and returned nearly $400 million to the state’s general fund, where it is available to support education and other public services while reducing the tax burden on residents and businesses.
The partnership of a state-owned bank with local community banks is a proven alternative for maintaining the viability of local credit and banking services. Other states would do well to follow North Dakota’s lead, not only to protect their local communities and local banks, but to bolster their revenues, escape Washington’s noose, and provide a bail-in-proof depository for their public funds.
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Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. Listen to “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.MMORPG: From what I understand, the Imperial City itself cannot be entered at this time. Is this intentional? Or will players be able to enter the Imperial City at some point?
Brian Wheeler: It’s intentional that you can’t enter the Imperial City at this time. That’s all I’ll say about it right now.
MMORPG: Are you looking to add more in-game tools for players to use in organizing forces in AvA?
Brian Wheeler: We have a very simple version of it right now where you can set waypoints as the group leader. You can click on the map and set a waypoint for everyone else in your group to see. Beyond that, we haven’t explored too much just yet.
It is something that we’re aware of that players have been asking for and while we want to add it, there are obviously many, many other features we need to get into the game as well. But there is at least some minimal waypoint placing for the time being within a group. We’re starting with that and then we’re going to go from there.
MMORPG: Can we ever expect something like Darkness Falls in ESO?
Brian Wheeler: Everybody always asks me that and all I can say is that, if we’ve given you everything you want so far for PvP massive scale feedback, just, you know, stay tuned. We’ll have more information on something that people have been asking for for a long time and I’m working on things that will try to give that same sense. Right now we have the caves, where you can go into them and kill people, but obviously people want things that are a lot more involved, like you guys said, like Darkness Falls.
In case anyone doesn’t understand what Darkness Falls is, the easiest way to describe it to people is a single PvE space that only one alliance has access to at a time. People have been asking for that for a long time. It’s stuff that’s on the radar, but I can’t go too much into when or how it will come into the game.
MMORPG: One thing that stood out to me in AvA is that I sometimes had trouble telling if I was hitting someone with my bow. Do you have any plans for a sort of hit indicator or something like that?
Brian Wheeler: Yeah, there’s actually some things we’re looking at internally right now, where we’re trying to give hitting both players and NPCs a little bit more impact. We have in there right now, if you show the health bars, it’ll do a little bit of a flash when you hit a target, but feedback has been asking for some more of that, especially for melee impact, so we’re looking at that right now. For the time being, if you turn on health bars, it’ll do a small little flash when you hit them to help out. It is tough to tell when you’re dealing with 40 or 50 people in front of you that are all enemies, but like I said, we’re trying to figure out some things for that now.
MMORPG: Can you explain how small groups make an impact in AvA?
Brian Wheeler: When we open up betas with people getting into PvP, their first initial tactics are stick with friends, go in numbers; that’s how you’re safe. What usually happens, this has happened the last three or four betas we’ve had where Cyrodiil has been active, is around the 24 to 36 hour mark, people start to break away from that mentality, they start to go, “You know, the zerg is cool and all, it’s safe, but I want to do some other things.” And that’s where the small group combat starts to kick in, and that’s where you start to see things like resources just getting flipped and nobody knew how that happened, nobody knew who did it, except that you see a message in zone chat going, “Ah ha! We got it!” Those small resources to take are great for small groups. They’re built for four players.
As betas have progressed, people have started to develop those tactics, where they break away from the zerg, they go over to these small objectives and capture them and then they actually can shut off transit for an entire keep if you take all three around a keep. So small groups can have a huge impact. There’s also the good ‘ol economic warfare, where small groups can go and Swiss cheese a keep. They don’t care about taking it over, because they know they can’t. They just want to blow up all the walls to make you spend all your Alliance Points on repair kits. There’s not just the direct taking over something you own, but a small group can have a huge economic impact on an enemy by blowing up all the walls on a keep, but never actually taking it over, because then they actually need to repair it.
And lastly, some of the other tactics I’ve seen, speaking of small groups, what’s famous now in one of the original Cyrodiil betas was something called the Chalamo. Chalman Keep was one of the Ebonheart keeps where a small group of defenders held off wave after wave after wave of enemy attackers. So, a small group can not only take objectives, but also defend a keep against larger groups, too.
MMORPG: Can you talk about PvE in Cyrodiil? For example, the various towns you can find strewn around the map.
Brian Wheeler: There’s five of those towns out there, Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Cropsford and Vlastarus. All right out of Oblivion. One of the funny things that I get asked about all the time is how is it possible that some of those towns existed back then but don’t exist now. If you look at the landmarks in Oblivion, we actually took a lot of them and made them either full-fledged keeps during our timeframe or made them towns that have still been thriving, they’re just smaller versions of them.
But those towns, they have repeatable PvE quests to do and if you want to go try and gank some people, that’s another place to go to kill them. You don’t have to go to keep, you don’t have to go to a resource or to a bottleneck, you can head to those towns and look for people to kill. Or, if nobody is there, you can go and get some quests done and get some experience.
MMORPG: Can you comment on the Cyrodiil level scaling concerns raised in Isarii’s Tamriel Foundry piece?
Brian Wheeler: The level scaling functions to adjust player stats up to that of around level 45-50 in average green gear with points spread between Magicka, Stamina and Health evenly. We are well aware of the issues with it and working on resolving them.
Michael Bitton / Michael began his career at the WarCry Network in 2005 as the site manager for several different WarCry fansite portals. In 2008, Michael worked for the startup magazine Massive Gamer as a columnist and online news editor. In June of 2009, Michael joined MMORPG.com as the site's Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter @eMikeBVice President Pence shared advice Wednesday with a group of students in Chicago on how to be a leader like President Trump, saying a leader must be humble and exercise self-control.
During a speech at the National Student Leadership Conference, Pence said in order for a leader to be like the president, they must listen, be humble, have a character people respect, work to serve others and learn from other leaders.
"I truly believe that to reflect humility is to approach leadership every day as a learner and as a listener," Pence told the students, according to a White House transcript of his speech.
Pence pointed to a meeting during Trump's transition into office, when the president-elect "listened intently" and probed "virtually all of the high-tech entrepreneurs and executives in America."
The vice president told the students they should strive to be "servant leaders" who work on behalf of others.
"I urge you to be servant leaders, driven by a calling to support and to serve others - not by selfish ambition - as the animating force of your career," he continued.
Pence also advised that they should "respect those who have been placed above you."
"Honor them. Learn from them. Follow their example. Give them the honor that they are due," he added.
And as his last piece of advice, Pence advised aspiring leaders to "practice discipline and to practice self-control" in order "to become the kind of woman and man that people will respect and people will follow."
Throughout the speech, Pence heavily praised his boss.
"Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, we are in the midst of a great national renewal. We are seeing the return of security and prosperity for our nation and our people," Pence told the students.
His effusive remarks about Trump's leadership comes at a time when reports say Pence appears to be distancing himself from the Trump administration.The rumor mill is abuzz with speculation, but we have the first full scoop on the GoPro HERO4.
As many have reported, the two big features that are appearing are 4K video recording at 30FPS and a built-in touch display.
Unfortunately, these two features won’t be appearing in the same camera. Instead, there will be two models: the HERO4 Black (shown above) and the HERO4 Silver (shown below).
HERO4 Black
The HERO4 Black is a powerhouse action camera that doubles the performance of the previous GoPro (yet again). Touted as “the most advanced GoPro ever,” it has improved image quality and a 2x more powerful processor.
The Black will capture 4K video at 30 frames per second, up from the 15fps of previous GoPros, allowing for extremely high-quality footage that’s much more usable for a wide variety of applications.
Here are the available resolutions and frame rates: 4K at 30fps, 2.7K at 50fps, 1440p at 80fps, 1080p at 120fps, 960p at 120fps, and 720p at 120fps. It appears these cameras are no longer capable of 240fps. [Update: These are actually the ‘key resolutions’. We’ve published a complete chart of available resolutions below]
For still images, you’ll be able to capture 12 megapixel photos at 30 frames per second.
Audio capture is also improved, with the new system capturing 2x the dynamic range.
On the front of the camera is an ultra-wide angle glass lens, and the camera can be set to three different field-of-view settings: Ultra Wide, Medium, and Narrow.
There will be new manual settings for both photography and videography — controls such as color, ISO limit, exposure, and more.
The camera is waterproof down to 131 feet (40m). Other features include built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, exposure settings for nighttime shooting, a “HiLight Tag” feature for marking key moments in footage, a QuikCapture feature for powering up and recording with one button press, and auto low light features.
Regarding the issue of backward compatibility, the Black and Silver will both be compatible with all GoPro mounts and accessories.
HERO4 Silver
The HERO4 Silver doesn’t offer 4K video recording at 30fps (it still does 15fps), but it’s the first GoPro to offer a convenient built-in touch display.
Users will be able to control the camera, frame shots, and review content simply by tapping and swiping the screen.
On the video side, the Silver will be able to capture 4K at 15fps, 2.7K at 30fps, 1440p at 48fps, 1080p at 60fps, 960p at 100fps, and 720p at 120fps. [Update: These are actually the ‘key resolutions’. We’ve published a complete chart of available resolutions below]
For still photography, the Silver will match the Black with 12 megapixel photos at 30 frames per second.
The other features (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HiLight Tag, QuikCapture, waterproofing) are pretty much the same as the HERO4 Black.
Other Accessories
Other accessories to be announced alongside the HERO4 include: a blackout housing that gives your camera a matte black finish for stealthy and low-glare shooting, a removable battery pack that gives your GoPro more juice, a dual battery charger for juicing two packs simultaneously, a wearable waterproof remote, and a grip that keeps your camera afloat.
Pricing and Availability
We haven’t heard anything in terms of pricing and availability, but our source tells us that the official announcement date for the GoPro HERO4 cameras will most likely be October 8th, 2014.
Update: Some of you have asked how reliable this information it. It should be 100% accurate, as we were given access to product photos and full spec sheets.
Update: We have learned that GoPro will also be announcing an entry-level HERO camera. Here’s our major leak on that camera.
Update: Whoops. The resolutions and frame rates we published earlier were only a subset of what will be available to users. Here are the full charts:
GoPro HERO4 Black
GoPro HERO4 SilverOAKVILLE -- The eastbound Queen Elizabeth Way has reopened following a fiery crash that killed two and injured another Tuesday night.
Ontario Provincial Police said the Toronto-bound QEW at Trafalgar Road reopened shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.
The roadway had been closed overnight and through the day for investigation into the four-vehicle crash and for repair, including repaving.
The OPP says two trucks and two vehicles were involved in the crash in the Toronto-bound lanes of the highway near Trafalgar Rd. The two killed were in an SUV and the driver of one of the tractor trailers was treated for minor injuries.
Const. Tracey Lacarte said one truck was an empty flatbed and the other was a tractor-trailer believed to be hauling car parts that burst into flames after the impact just after 9 p.m.
Investigators worked into the morning at the scene trying to piece together what caused the crash.
Police have not yet released the identities of the victims, as they are notifying next of kin.
Halton police are also reporting that the on ramps to the eastbound QEW will be closed at Third Line, Dorval Drive and Trafalgar Road until about 5 p.m.
Anyone with information is asked to call Const. Rob Conant, at the Burlington OPP Detachment at 905-681-2511.This morning, I received a rather odd email from a firm representing LeEco offering a "news update." It didn't seem to be an update at all, just re-confirming that on November 2nd the company's products would go on sale, and that there would be stupendous-amazing-wonderful discounts on them. Such as the Le S3 smartphone, powered by a Snapdragon 652 processor, which would be just $149 ($100 off), or the Le Pro 3, which would get you a Snapdragon 821 for a staggering $299. Or its 85" 4K smart TV, discounted to just $3999. LeEco said during its press conference that the prices would be good through November, and it was all part of its UP2U and LeRewards programs - no strings attached. Instant rebate. It all almost sounded too good to be true.
Turns out, it may well have been - at least effectively. When I read LeEco's news brief more closely, I came across something that immediately raised a red flag:
"These limited-time rebates expire as models sell out."
This was not mentioned, as far as I am aware, a single time during LeEco's press conference. It definitely was not mentioned in any of the product sessions I attended after the conference, either. I told LeEco that this feels like a bait and switch. They claimed it isn't. If it quacks like a duck...
LeEco is not commenting at this stage on how many units will be available at these sharply discounted prices, but suffice it to say, I have to think it's not that many. After all the initial flash sale stock sells out, the rebates expire. So, will they sell 10,000 Le Pro 3 phones for $299? 5,000? 1,000? 500? Who knows! And if LeEco decides never to tell us how many are available at those prices, there won't ever be clarity on this issue.
How many $4000 85" TVs do you think LeEco is going to offer up? 50? 100? Maybe? All in all, this really does reek of used car dealership "get you in the door" sales tactics. In addition, LeEco is strongly suggesting that if you're to have any hope of getting in on these highly reduced prices, you'll need to pre-register on LeMall.com for the LeRewards program before sales begin at 10AM on November 2nd. It doesn't explicitly say it's a requirement, but it's clear LeEco expects these products to go quickly.
Am I surprised? No. After its bizarre US launch event, LeEco could scarcely do anything that would truly surprise me at this point. But I do find myself feeling a bit misled.Rajon Rondo really likes Connect Four. He treats all those who dare challenge him to a game, including small children, with the same viciousness he exhibits on the court. He won’t even show mercy to an NBA Hall-of-Famer.
On Tuesday, someone at NBA TV had a fantastic idea. They put Rondo, Isiah Thomas, and Greg Anthony in a room together, handed them a Connect Four set, and started filming.
This video is nine minutes long, but I promise that you will enjoy every second of it. The best part is when Anthony, an initial non-participant, starts running his mouth about how he can see the angles Thomas doesn’t. You can see the contempt in Rondo’s eyes when he goes back two moves and challenges Anthony to take a shot.OAKLAND — BART’s cable car to the Oakland Airport keeps drawing more passengers.
The elevated AirBART tram that runs 3.2 miles from the Coliseum station to the airport had about 3,200 riders a day in June, a transit district spokesman said Thursday.
“Compared to AirBART ridership during the same time last year, it was about 35 percent higher,” said spokesman Jim Allison in an email.
The passenger count has kept growing since it opened in November 2014.
The tram — once controversial for its $484 million cost — is operated and maintained under a 20-year contract with Doppelmayr Cable Car at a cost to BART this fiscal year of $5.7 million.
The shuttle runs every five to 10 minutes 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. most days and every 20 minutes at other times. The one-way fare is $6.
Contact Andrew McGall at 925-945-4703. Follow him at twitter.com/AndrewMcGallWho is the most honest presidential candidate? Who is the most accurate presidential candidate? Which candidate primarily uses mostly false rhetoric to sway potential voters? Who has made the most factual errors? Who has made the least factual errors? Gingrich? Paul? Romney? Santorum? Obama?
By using PolitiFact to analyze the multitude of statements from each of the candidates, assigning accuracy values a numerical value and converting that value into a percentage, we can compare the accuracy and/or honesty of each candidate on an equal playing field (the exact methodology is described at the bottom of this article with an example).
Not to worry! Texas on the Potomac has already done the mathematical heavy-lifting. All you have to do, faithful reader, is enjoy the fruits of our labor.
In the race for the most truthful candidate (as judged by PolitiFact and determined by Texas on the Potomac), President Obama comes in first place. He earns the gold metal in validity with 65 percent accuracy based on 344 statements. Obama’s most ample category was the half-true category with 85 statements on his designated profile.
The silver medal is awarded to Ron Paul, who had 58 percent accuracy from 33 statements that were evaluated on their honesty and truth. Paul’s true and mostly true categories were the most plentiful, tied with seven statements in each.
In third place just behind Paul is Mitt Romney; 57 percent accuracy awarded Romney the bronze medal. PolitiFact analyzed 116 of his statements and his most abundant category was half-true statements with 32.
Honorable mention goes to Rick Santorum. He earned 49 percent accuracy from 29 statements that were analyzed by PolitiFact. Santorum’s half-true category was the most ample with nine statements.
Coming in last is Newt Gingrich with just 42 accuracy points. His 56 statements earned him a consolation prize of a personal fact checker to filter his inaccuracies. His half-true, mostly false and false categories each had 12 statements, for a three way tie for his most abundant categories.
Obama had the highest percentage of true statements with 24 percent, while Gingrich had the lowest with a mere 9 percent.
The highest percentage of half truths went to Santorum with 31 percent. Ron Paul had the lowest percentage of half truths with 18 percent.
Twenty-one percent of Gingrich’s statements were ranked false at the highest percentage, and the lowest percentage of false statements were to Mitt Romney with 14.655 percent.
The smallest percentage of “pants-on-fire” statements goes to Obama, with a mere 1.45 percent. On the other hand, Gingrich had the highest percentage with 18 percent of his statements considered “pants on fire” inaccuracies.
(Cue the chorus of “liar, liar, pants …” Well you know the rest.)
——————————————-
Here’s our methodology:
For each truth value, a numerical value was assigned (five points for each true statement, four points for each mostly true statement, three points for each half-true statement, two points for each mostly false statement, one point for each false statement and zero points for “pants on fire” statement.
Next, the number of statements in each category were multiplied by their designated truth value. For example, if a candidate had 20 true statements, 20 would be multiplied by five to give 100 accuracy points for the “true” category. If a candidate had 20 half-true statements, 20 would be multiplied by three to give 60 accuracy points for the “half-true” category. The same method is applied to each of the six categories.
Confused? Here is an example for you to follow: Barack Obama had 82 true statements (which we multiplied by 5 to get 410 true points), 77 mostly true statements (which we multiplied by 4 to get 308 mostly true points), 85 half-true statements (which we multiplied by 3 to get 255 half-true points), 42 mostly false statements (which we multiplied by 2 to get 84 mostly false points), 53 false statements (which we multiplied by 1 to get 53 false statements) and 5 “pants-on-fire” statements (which we multiplied by zero to get zero “pants-on-fire” points).
Once the accuracy points have been obtained from each category, they must be added together for a total accuracy score.
These numbers total 1110 points.
The number of statements must be added together and multiplied by five to obtain a potential accuracy score.
The total number of his analyzed statements was 344. The number was then multiplied by 5 to get 1720 potential truth points (had all of his statements been true, he would have 1720 points).
Divide the potential accuracy score by total accuracy score and multiply by 100 to obtain the final accuracy percentage, and round to the nearest whole number.
So 1720 is divided by 1110 (1110/1720) and the result (.645348) is multiplied by 100 (64.5348) and rounded to the nearest whole number to get 65 percent accurate.Walt Disney World Resort planning parking garages, new retail for Downtown Disney
Get ready for lots of new construction around the Downtown Disney district in Florida. Disney's just filed a slew of permit applications for infrastructure work in and around the Downtown Disney area. The work should add new retail space to the district, while addressing the parking traffic problems that have plagued the area in recent years.
A source tipped me to the project over the weekend, and yesterday, Park Rumors dropped a bunch of documents related to the project. If you're into civil engineering, you can find Disney's permit applications on the South Florida Water Management District's website. (Insider's tip: Although Disney famously lobbied the Florida Legislature to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District to allow Disney to oversee its own zoning and planning -- and thus, to avoid public filings on new projects -- Disney still has to file permits with the water district for any new construction that affects storm- or ground-water use. Which is just about every significant project in water-soaked Florida. So the water district's a great place to look for advance news about new construction at the Walt Disney World Resort.)
Disney's pitched new plans for Downtown Disney before, of course. The Pleasure Island nightclubs closed years ago, but now the much-publicized Hyperion Wharf replacement's gone, too. Whether Disney manages to sign up new partners for a retail expansion or not, this new project's gone to the permitting stage because, at the very least, Disney needs to do something about traffic and parking at Downtown Disney.
Which any recent Disney World visitor can tell you, is a mess. The new plans call for two multi-story parking garages, with one replacing the current surface lots south of the movie theaters and the other going in south of the World of Disney building. The surface lot south of Planet Hollywood would become a new bus station and the surface lots south of the old Pleasure Island would become a new retail area.
The new garages should add thousands of parking spaces to the area, even with the loss of several current surface lots. To address the persistent traffic jams on Buena Vista Drive, Disney's planning to build several overpasses, allowing traffic to flow into the new parking garages without having to hold so many cars at lights on BVD. The concept should be familiar to any recent visitors to Disneyland, where Disney in the late 1990s built an overpass above an existing street to ease access into a new parking structure.
And to address pedestrian congestion inside Downtown Disney, the plans include a footbridge spanning the bay between Fulton's and Cap'n Jack's.
So what new retail can we expect with this project? Concept art and notes suggest a World of Coca-Cola and an American Girl Place, as well as a makeover of Planet Hollywood into something called The Observatory. Park Rumors reported that the entire district would be renamed Disney Springs, while the new retail area would be called Town Center, the old Pleasure Island would be called The Landing, and the West Side and Village Marketplace would retain their names. No word yet on construction start or completion dates.
Thoughts?
Replies (13)
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.By Alex Fradera
Imagine you’re out one evening with someone you met recently – you take your date’s hand in yours, or compliment your date’s appearance, or you kiss him or her passionately. For each behaviour, how likely is it that you wanted to have sex with that person for the first time? Researchers have put this question to heterosexual women, then they’ve asked men how they would interpret a woman’s intentions if she had behaved in these ways. The contrast in their answers is striking: men judge woman’s sexual intent as much higher than women do.
We could conclude from this that men read sex into situations where it isn’t there. But another explanation could be that men aren’t far off – it’s just that women under-report their true intentions. Which is closer to the truth? And what about men’s own sexual intentions – do women get those right?
In a new article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, involving hundreds of US participants recruited online, Isabelle Engeler from IESE Business School and Priya Raghubir at New York University shine some light on the different ways men and women interpret the same dating behaviours.
The researchers asked some of their participants what their sexual intent would be if they acted in various ways on a date, and then to estimate the intent of another person of the same or opposite sex if they’d acted in those same ways. Consistent with past research, women’s ratings of their own sexual intention were 23 per cent lower than men’s average estimates of female intent based on the same behaviours and comments.
To find out if this might partly be due to women underestimating their own intentions, the researchers reversed the order of the questions for other participants – they first estimated other people’s sexual intentions based on a given set of behaviors, and only after this, stated their own intentions based on their display of the same behaviours. The idea behind reversing the questions is that you normalise the topic and relax the person into answering more honestly when you turn the focus to them (the researchers reasoned that women in particular might feel under pressure to answer in a socially appropriate manner, especially when the first question was focused on them).
With the question order reversed, women provided higher ratings of their own sexual intent – arguably because they were now answering more honestly. This shrunk the gap between their own and men’s perspective on their intentions to eight per cent. Based on a comparison of women’s answers depending on whether they were asked the question about their own intentions first or second, the researchers’ best guess is that around half of the perspective gap between genders is the result of women underreporting their intent, and the rest due to men’s overestimation.
What about men’s and women’s interpretation of men’s sexual intent? Some past studies suggested that women overestimate male sexual intentions, albeit to a smaller degree than men’s overestimation of women’s intent. In the current research, the standard question sequence reproduced this finding. But in the reversed question sequence, the gap closed, suggesting that any female overestimation of men’s intentions is “entirely (100 per cent) attributable to men underreporting their sexual intentions.” In fact, there was even an indication that women may be underestimating what men really want.
The results suggest that, at least in a heterosexual context in America, both sexes are wary of public revelation of their sexual intentions, and tend to downplay them. But women are fairly accurate at reading what men are really after. Men, by contrast, are prone to overestimate women’s intentions, in line with their own interests. Engeler and Raghubir conclude that “there seems to remain a substantial gap in how women and men interpret dating situations, which could lead to problematic misunderstandings between dating partners’ intentions in actually wanting to have sex.”
—Decomposing the Cross-Sex Misprediction Bias of Dating Behaviors: Do Men Overestimate or Women Underreport Their Sexual Intentions?
Alex Fradera (@alexfradera) is Staff Writer at BPS Research DigestLooking for news you can trust?
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In the heart of Florida’s industrial-scale fruit and vegetable fields, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has achieved the most tangible gains for US farmworkers since the glory days of the California-based United Farm Workers in the 1970s. CIW has methodically taken on large tomato growers and the giant corporations that buy their product, winning for themselves an extra penny for every pound of tomatoes they harvest, which amounts to a substantial raise; as well as code-of-conduct agreements between buyers and growers that set up a grievance process for alleged abuses and other protections.
But despite CIW’s burgeoning power, conditions remain rough in the area’s farm fields—especially on farms that haven’t signed the code of conduct. The group’s agreements so far only cover tomatoes; workers toiling in other crops remain underpaid and largely unprotected. And last week, the group reported Sunday, a worker from a nearby eggplant field walked into its office wearing a bloodied t-shirt. Here’s what happened:
He had been working at a vegetable packing house, packing eggplants, about 10 miles from Immokalee when a supervisor approached him. According to the worker, the supervisor criticized his work, and he, thinking the criticism unjustified, answered back. A discussion ensued when, according to the worker and a witness, the supervisor hauled off and punched him in the face. Staggered, he swung back, but was knocked to the ground by the supervisor before others in the area stepped in to pull them apart. The worker was told to go home, clean up, and return the next day. Instead, he went to the CIW’s office, and filed a police report. He then went to the hospital, where he learned that the supervisor’s punch had broken his nose.
For CIW, the incident was a haunting reminder of how things were in tomato fields in the mid-1990s, before the penny-per-pound campaign, when another young man walked into the offices wearing a bloody shirt:
He had been picking tomatoes in a field near Immokalee when he stopped to take a drink of water. A field supervisor accosted him, shouted “Are you here to work, or to drink water?”, and launched into him, leaving him badly bruised and bloodied—and determined to find justice. The young worker walked back to Immokalee, headed straight to the CIW office, and sparked a nighttime march of nearly 500 workers on the crew leader’s house. The marchers brandished his shirt as a banner, declaring “If you beat one of us, you beat us all!”, and helped launch a movement that changed Immokalee forever.
While I read CIW’s report, I thought about another place farmworkers are getting beat up: in the halls of the US Senate. Senators John Thune (R-S.D.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) have introduced what they call “common sense” legislation designed to squash new rules proposed by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis that impose new restrictions on employing children on farms. The proposed rules would prevent kids under 16 from handling pesticides, working in animal feedlots, among other things that most people wouldn’t want their kids doing.
The lawmakers claim that they are merely defending the right rights of family farmers to raise their kids as they please. “This is another example of the Obama administration initiating unsolicited regulations that would prohibit normal practices that have been carried out in rural areas for generations—not to mention limiting a desperately |
when they too went into terminal decline after the 1960s.
British spending in the North later grew in an attempt to offset economic decline and the effects of the Troubles.
Apart from mitigating the effects of violence and the absence of a political accommodation throughout the course of the Troubles, a secondary effect of the subvention has been to mask the true economic state of NI and its levels of dependence on the British exchequer.
The loss of manufacturing jobs, the dramatic shift towards service sector employment and the arrival of branch plants (which had diminished decision-making powers and few RD facilities or marketing operations) meant that the innovating skills of the local population withered.
Because of this Northern Ireland effectively lost its capacity to generate internally its own manufacturing growth.
The sheer scale of government intervention in the North’s economy dented rates of productivity.
The numbers in service industries rose as they fell in manufacturing, and it is often feared that the subsidising of Northern Ireland, added to the “branch-plant” character of local manufacturing, has blunted the region’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Indeed the Northern Ireland Economic Council, in its 1999 publication The Implementation of Northern Ireland’s Economic Development Strategy in the 1990s: Lessons for the Future, asked openly if the North’s economy was “addicted to state aid”.Main Menu Home (On Sale Items) Radios Flashlights Nuclear Protection Solar Products (Misc) Wind Power Bio-diesel Products Survival Tools Self Defense Composting Toilets Survival Foods Food Storage Grain Mills Kitchen Appliances Lighting Fans Stoves & Can Fuel Compass's Water Filters Water Storage Fire Starters Water Pumps Solar Water Pumps Laundry Tools First Aid Kits Fuel Storage Genrators Books Solar & Wind Power Solar Panels - Misc. Charge Controllers Wind Turbine - All Brands Wind Turbine - Eagle Wind Turbine - Eagle 1000 Wind Turbine - Eagle Grid-Tie Wind Turbine - Bergey Wind Turbine - Blades Wind Turbine - PMA's Wind Turbine - Towers Build Your Own Turbine Wire - Electrical Diversion / Dump Load Bio Diesel Inverters Batteries Battery Desulfators Ceiling Fans Wood Stove Fans Water Heaters DC Power Controls AC Power Controls
TIPS ON SEALING MYLAR BAGS
for Long Term Food Stoarge
Using a Clothes Iron with a Teflon Coated botton.
Buckets:
Please read "More Info" on the oxygen absorbers before attempting this job. Before placing your oxygen absorbers in the mylar bags on top of the food, manipulate the mylar bag so that it becomes flatened from the end down as close to the food as possible. The best way to do this is once your food is in the bucket pick up on the end of the bag and lift it with bucket and food slightly off the floor only holding on to the bag and shake it up and down a couple of times to get the food to the bottom of the bag giving you more mylar at the top. Then, pick the bucket up off the floor and slam it down on the floor a couple of times to get the food all the way down in the buckets bottom - do about two to three times. Next, grab the mylar on both sides close to the bucket and pull both sides at the same time to get wrinkles out. Make sure the portion above is also flat and relativley free of wrinkles. Then fold the mylar to one side of the bucket (flat side of mylar) and push down on the top of the food to get the air out of the mylar, then fold the mylar back to the other side and push down again. May need one or two more times then move the opening of the mylar directly up verically, then you will notice the mylar sitting almost flat on top of the food with a flat flap facing up (this minimizes air in bag before sealing). Now push the flat flap down to one side to ready it for sealing. Get all of your buckets ready this way. Now, open your oxygen absorbers and place the adequate quantity in the mylar bag on top of the food making sure you limit the quantity of buckets you are sealing to a 10 to 20 minute job. Now place your 30 inch "Full Round Wood Closet Rod" moulding (can be purchased at a hardware store or lumber yard - we do sell this as we are a lumber yard also) on the top of the bucket. Now pull the mylar tight from left and right at the same time and lay it flat on the rod so there are no wrinkles at the rod. With your teflon coated iron set at its highest heat setting, move it across the rod left and right till you have a sealed line (no wrinkles, none). Then move the iron up some to make the seal a little wider moving the iron side to side. Your done. Now put the lid on! Option: You may want to attach the closet rod to a 1x4 pc of wood to lay on the bucket to prevent it from rolling off or moving while sealing the bag. It is advised to do a few test seals before you try sealing your food so remember to get a couple extra bags to do this.
Using the commercial heat sealers we sell is much faster and the quality can be acheived much easier. The sealer will seal the whole bag within a few seconds and you don't have to worry about wrinkles like with the iron. Get some freinds together and pitch in for one of these, its well worth it.
BUCKETS: NOT USING MYLAR BAGS
Just place the adequate amount of oxygen absorbers on top of the food in the bucket and seal the lid. If after a few days you notice one of the buckets not having a vacum or the lid is not pulled down a little, you should re-do this one and use a new lid. Note that if you put your food all the way to the top the lid will not pull down much or at all under the vacum.
MYLAR BAGS ALONE
This job is best done with two people if you do not have a heat sealer. Even with a sealer it is better for two people to do this to limit the exposure of the oxygen absorbers (O2's). Have a 24" piece of wood closet rod at ready. Fill the small bags up about 3/4 full or enough that you can place the bag over the rod and food not be to close to the rod to get into the seal. The biggest thing is you do not want too many oxygen absorbers out waiting to be sealed up and waisting away. See "More Info" on oxygen absorbers before attempting this job. As with the bucket put your teflon coated iron to its hottest setting. Pull the wrinkles out of the bag and lay it over the rod. Make sure the rod is stabilized so it does not move when you are sealing the bag. Then run the iron back and fourth till you have a sealed line. Now, move the iron up slightly and move side to side agian making the seal wider. You do not want any wrinkles in the bag at all. Thats it. Do not have oxygen absorbers exposed for more that 20 minutes. It is better to limit them to 10 minutes. You may attatch the rod to a 1x4 pc of wood to stabilize it while sealing.
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is cheaper than CO2. The only difference is that weevils can live in low amounts of oxygen but are as active as the amount of oxygen that is left in the container. Inject nitrogen along with using the O2's for a overdone job. Inject the nitrogen right before you seal the bag for about 30 seconds. Now seal the bag. Remember the O2's are already in the bucket sucking oxygen so get the job done quickly. Don't go over 20 minutes.You, I, and every other American own 640 million acres of land in the U.S. We use it to hike, hunt, fish, raft, cycle, ski, and camp, and it produces hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that directly benefits our lives. It also makes possible our country’s massive $646-billion outdoor recreation industry, which is roughly a third larger than the auto industry.
And now it’s officially the Republican Party’s policy to steal all of that from you.
IndefinitelyWild IndefinitelyWild is a lifestyle column telling the story of adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there, and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. See the Archive→
This week at the Republican National Convention, the party adopted a platform that includes this language:
Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing for a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to states.
The phrasing is vague and has been misinterpreted by many. But it comes after a multi-year campaign by Republican lawmakers to transfer large swaths of national forest and other public lands to state control, thereby forcing their sale to private companies.
Do I sound like a crackpot to you? It’s hard to write about this heist without coming off as a conspiracy theorist or just someone who’s wackily partisan. But this really is happening at the initiative of the Republican party. Early congressional votes on the heist have been unanimously backed by Republican lawmakers—and unanimously opposed by everyone else. The craziest thing about all this is that we’re talking about the party which originally gave us these lands, and which protected them for us for over a century.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel pulls no punches on the issue, describing its backers as part of an “extreme movement to seize public lands.” She goes on to describe their plan as “putting lands that belong to all Americans at risk of being sold off for a short-term gain to the highest bidder.”
The short version of the story is that, while the public land heist is being promoted as a states' rights issue, that’s actually just smoke and mirrors. The states lack the financial ability to manage such large tracts of land (the fire-fighting budget alone would bankrupt many of them), virtually guaranteeing their sale. According to the Outdoor Industry Association, the plan is to “strip public lands of protection and turn them over for private exploitation.”
The Claims
How does the GOP justify the land heist? The platform reads:
These are public lands, and the public should have access to them for appropriate activities like hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting. Federal ownership or management of land also places an economic burden on counties and local communities in terms of lost revenue to pay for things such as schools, police, and emergency services. It is absurd to think that all that acreage must remain under the absentee ownership or management of official Washington.
The Facts
Those may sound like solid justifications, but the thing is, they’re all lies. Let’s start with the question of access. Historically, privatizing public land has been shown to reduce, or eliminate, public access. Right now we are free to enjoy these lands as we wish.
Would privatization improve, or even retain, public access? No, despite what the GOP would have you believe.
An economic burden created by the presence of public lands in local communities? They’re hypothesizing that turning the lands over to resource exploitation would create jobs for local people.
There are two problems with that: 1) It’s a tacit admission of the end goal of this heist—privatization. And 2) These lands are already responsible for millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide. Not only does federally managed mining, logging, and other activities occur on these lands—conservation is, by definition, managed use—but outdoor recreation employs 6.1 million Americans. How does that benefit local economies? In Nevada, for instance, outdoor recreation is responsible for 148,000 jobs and contributes $1 billion annually to the state in tax revenue. That sounds like an economic benefit to me—not a burden.
And the outdoor recreation industry is not the end of the story. In 2014, the Department of the Interior says over 400 million people visited the lands it managed, supporting 355,000 jobs and creating $25 billion in spending. Energy production on DOI lands created an economy contribution of $220 billion and was responsible for one million jobs. DOI water storage and delivery netted our economy $60 billion and supports 378,00 jobs.
Are public lands a burden on local economies? The GOP’s claim is false.
Absentee ownership and management? No one would argue that our public lands are managed perfectly, but we’re talking about a program that’s been in place since 1849, and when you take the long view, the management of our land has been so successful that it's the envy of the rest of the world. No other country on earth enjoys unfettered access to such a vast area of land, nor is able to keep it as pristine as ours. The Department of the Interior employs 70,000 people, and manages a volunteer force of 280,000. Its annual budget is $12 billion. In 2015, it spent $2.1 billion on fire fighting alone. Who else can apply those kind of numbers but the federal government? And who can do all that while creating a net financial benefit? The DOI adds $358 billion a year to the U.S. economy.
Are public lands neglected by the agencies tasked with managing them? Jewel herself admits the DOI, and specifically national parks, could use a greater budget, and there are plans in place to bring some corporate money in to provide that, but no, our land is successfully managed and has been for 167 years. The GOP’s claim is false.
The GOP’s justifications for stealing our public land holds no water. And the thing is: historically, the Republican Party would agree.
The preservation of parks, wilderness, and wildlife has also aided liberty by keeping alive the 19th century sense of adventure and awe with which our forefathers greeted the American West. Many laws protecting environmental quality have promoted liberty by securing property against the destructive trespass of pollution. In our own time, the nearly universal appreciation of these preserved landscapes, restored waters, and cleaner air through outdoor recreation is a modern expression of our freedom and leisure to enjoy the wonderful life that generations past have built for us. — Ronald Reagan
Read more on the public land heist:Key Points
Question Does prenatal antidepressant exposure increase the risk for autism spectrum disorders?
Findings This systematic review and meta-analysis suggests an association between increased autism spectrum disorder risk and maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy; however, it appears to be more consistent during the preconception period than during each trimester. The association was weaker when controlled for past maternal mental illness.
Meaning Maternal psychiatric disorders in treatment before pregnancy rather than antenatal exposure to antidepressants could have a major role in the risk for autism spectrum disorders.
Abstract
Importance Several studies have examined the links between prenatal exposure to antidepressants and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in children, with inconsistent results, especially regarding the impact of the trimester of exposure.
Objective To perform a systematic review of the literature and a meta-analysis of published studies to assess the association between ASDs and fetal exposure to antidepressants during pregnancy for each trimester of pregnancy and preconception.
Data Sources PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases up to May 2016 were searched in June 2016 for observational studies. For the meta-analyses, data were analyzed on RevMan version 5.2 using a random-effect model. For the review, studies were included if they had been published and were cohort or case-control studies, and for the meta-analysis, studies were included if they were published studies and the data were not derived from the same cohorts.
Study Selection We included all the studies that examined the association between ASDs and antenatal exposure to antidepressants.
Data Extraction and Synthesis Three reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, read full-text articles, and extracted data. The quality of the studies was also assessed.
Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcome was the association between antidepressants during pregnancy and ASDs. Secondary outcomes were the associations between antidepressants in each individual trimester or before pregnancy and ASDs.
Results Our literature search identified 10 relevant studies with inconsistent results. For prenatal exposure, the meta-analysis on the 6 case-control studies (117 737 patients) evidenced a positive association between antidepressant exposure and ASDs (odds ratio [OR], 1.81; 95% CI, 1.49-2.20). The association was weaker when controlled for past maternal mental illness (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.09-2.12). A similar pattern was found whatever the trimester of exposure considered (first trimester: OR, 2.09, 95% CI,1.66-2.64; second: OR, 2.00, 95% CI, 1.55-2.59; and third: OR, 1.90, 95% CI, 1.20-3.02. Controlled for past maternal mental illness: first trimester: OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.27-2.52, second: OR, 1.67, 95% CI, 1.14-2.45; and third: OR, 1.54, 95% CI, 0.82-2.90). No association was found when the 2 cohort studies were pooled (772 331 patients) for the whole pregnancy (hazard ratio, 1.26; 95% CI, 0.91-1.74) or for the first trimester. In addition, preconception exposure to antidepressants was significantly associated with an increased risk for ASDs (OR controlled for past maternal illness, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.49-2.09).
Conclusions and Relevance There is a significant association between increased ASD risk and maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy; however, it appears to be more consistent during the preconception period than during each trimester. Maternal psychiatric disorders in treatment before pregnancy rather than antenatal exposure to antidepressants could have a major role in the risk for ASDs. Future studies should address the problem of this potential confounder.
Introduction
Up to 15% of women have depression during pregnancy.1,2 Pregnant women with untreated depression are at increased risk for poor obstetric follow-up and complications, such as gestational diabetes, hypertension, and preeclampsia, and postnatal complications have been mainly reported.3 The impact on the child is also of concern, with a possible increased risk for premature birth and low birth weight.3,4 In addition, depression during pregnancy is the main predictor of postpartum depression,5,6 which is associated with possible serious impairment in mother-child bonding7 and child development,8,9 with behavioral problems10,11 and poor scores on social engagement and emotional regulation.12 Thus, treatment for prenatal depression appears essential for clinicians, with regard to both the mother and the infant.
Antidepressants are the treatment choice for major depressive disorders in the general population.13,14 Whereas only 2% of pregnant women were treated with antidepressants in the United States in 1996, more than 5% were receiving treatment by 2013.15 The rate of exposure increased from 0.2% in 1997 to 3.2% in 2010 in Denmark.16 The most commonly prescribed drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)17 known for their safety in the general population. Spontaneous abortions, congenital malformations (mainly cardiac defects3), prematurity, and low birth weight have been linked to antenatal use of antidepressants.18 A protective role of SSRIs with respect to preterm birth and cesarean delivery has been also described.19 Neonatal adaptation syndrome and persistent pulmonary hypertension have also been reported, both being outweighed by the risks of untreated depression.20
Animal in utero exposure to SSRIs has been found to induce long-lasting alterations in brain function and behavioral effects.21,22 The neurodevelopmental role of serotonin in the fetus has been established23 and the hypothesis of the role of serotonin in the onset of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) remains an open question.
First described in 1943, ASDs were reported to affect 1.46% of American children aged 8 years in 2012.24 Autism spectrum disorders are currently considered a multifactorial disorder resulting from interactions between genetic and nongenetic risk factors.25 Genetic factors have been found in 10% to 20% of individuals with ASDs. The concordance rate is approximately 70% in monozygotic twins compared with 3% in dizygotic twins.26 Several genes are thought to be involved. Advanced parental age, maternal diabetes, abnormal melatonin synthesis, zinc deficiency, prenatal viral infection, prenatal and perinatal stress, environmental factors, valproate, and various chemicals have been reported as risk factors.25,27
Morphological brain alterations, biomarkers of oxidative stress, mitochondrial and porphyrin metabolism dysfunctions, and epigenetic alterations have also been reported in ASD populations.28 In addition, blood and platelet serotonin levels are high in approximately one-third of patients with ASDs, suggesting the implication of serotonin in ASDs. Some authors have suggested that increased serotoninergic activity during fetal brain development may play a part in the onset of ASDs.29,30
Given the plausible links between in-utero serotonin dysregulations and ASDs, the question of the impact of antidepressant antenatal exposure on the occurrence of ASDs is crucial.
Two recent meta-analyses reported a significant association between antenatal antidepressant exposure and ASDs.31,32 In addition, recent studies have explored the issue of the trimester of exposure, providing contradictory results.33,34
We present here a systematic review of publications and an up-to-date meta-analysis of studies that have explored associations between fetal exposure to antidepressants and ASDs, focused first on the specific impact of trimester of exposure and second on associations between preconception maternal exposure to antidepressants and ASDs.
Methods
Search Strategies
A systematic literature search was conducted in June 2016 using PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases to search for articles published up to May 2016, using the combination of terms: antidepressant or antidepressants and pregnancy or fetal exposure and autism, including MeSH terms (whenever available) found below them in the MeSH hierarchy. References from articles retrieved were also considered. Three reviewers (F. Gressier, P.-A.L., and A.M.) conducted independent searches to identify potentially relevant articles.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
For the review, studies were included if they (1) had been published and (2) were cohort or case-control studies that examined the association between fetal antidepressant exposure and ASDs. Articles were excluded if they were case or case series reports. The following information was extracted: first author, publication year, study design, data source, sample size, inclusion/exclusion criteria, potential confounders considered, potential sources of bias, and outcome parameters (hazard ratios [HRs] and odds ratios [ORs]) and their corresponding 95% CIs.
For the meta-analyses, studies were included if (1) they were published studies and (2) the data were not derived from the same cohorts. Studies were excluded if they comprised no control group.
Risk of Bias and Quality Assessment of the Studies
The quality of the studies included in the meta-analyses was independently evaluated by the 3 reviewers using the STROBE statement.35
Data Analysis
Data were analyzed using the Cochrane Collaboration Review Manager Software (RevMan version 5.3). Both adjusted and nonadjusted results for maternal psychiatric disorders were considered. For each study, the log HR or OR and their SE were calculated on the basis of effect measures provided and their 95% CIs, and then entered into RevMan under the “generic inverse variance” outcome. A random-effect model, which takes into account between-study heterogeneity, if present, was used. Between-study heterogeneity was assessed using the χ2 test for fit and I2. A funnel plot was produced to evidence any selective reporting—the preferential publication of statistically significant results—by plotting the natural logarithms of individual study effect sizes. Finally, we performed sensitivity analyses on the trimester of exposure and on preconception exposure.
Results
Articles Retrieved
The PubMed database yielded 95 records. No additional record was identified from other sources. In all, 12 references were excluded on the basis of the title and abstract. Twenty-three full-text articles were assessed for eligibility (Figure 1). Thirteen were excluded: 3 were literature reviews,36-38 2 were meta-analyses,31,32 7 were editorial letters or commentaries,18,39-44 and 1 analyzed autistic traits.45 Finally, 10 studies were included in the review: 3 were cohort studies33,46,47 and 7 case-control studies (Table 1).33,34,48-53 Three studies from Denmark and 2 from Sweden used the same databases.46,47,49,51,52 In addition, 2 from the United States used the same Partners HealthCare electronic health record over the same period34,48 but used independent data for a replication study.34 All studies explored prenatal antidepressant exposure, but Rai et al51 assessed only antidepressant exposure at the time of the first antenatal interview (median 10 weeks’ gestation). Antidepressant exposure was determined using the available regional prescription databases. Only 1 study50 included both the mother’s self-report and prenatal medical record information. Autism spectrum disorders were determined using the available regional disease registries.
Details of the different studies are provided in the eTable in the Supplement and Table 1. The quality of the studies was high (Table 1).
Systematic Review
Boukhris et al33 reported an association between antidepressant exposure during the second and/or third trimester and ASDs. The association persisted after taking into account maternal history of depression. The risk was higher with combined treatments (≥2 antidepressant classes).
Results from the 3 studies on Danish population registries are contrasted.49,51,53 Hviid et al46 showed that ASDs were associated with antidepressant use 2 years to 6 months before pregnancy but not with use during pregnancy. In addition, this study also focused on the use of medication other than SSRIs during pregnancy: antipsychotic agents and mood stabilizer drugs were associated with ASDs. Autism spectrum disorders were also associated with maternal depression; schizophrenia and neurotic, stress-related, or somatoform disorders; adult personality or behavior disorders; eating disorders; and substance abuse, but they were not associated with maternal ASDs. Diagnoses were made in a psychiatric hospital or psychiatric unit.
Exploring the same registries, Sørensen et al47 found a significant association between prenatal antidepressant exposure and ASDs. However, this association did not remain significant when the analysis was restricted to the children of women with a diagnosis of affective disorder. These authors considered the mean dose of antidepressant, and both a low mean dose and a high mean dose increased the risk for ASDs (adjusted HR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.0-1.8 and adjusted HR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.3-2.4, respectively) compared with nonexposed patients. When the trimester of pregnancy was considered, exposure during the first trimester was significantly associated with ASDs, but not exposure during the second and third trimesters only.
Gidaya et al49 also performed an analysis on the same registries, but via a case-control study. They reported an association between ASDs and antidepressant exposure, during overall pregnancy and for each trimester, even after adjusting for history of maternal depression. However, SSRI use and the prevalence of depression were lower than reported in other Nordic countries. Assuming a prevalence of depression of 15%, the authors also estimated depression-stratified from simulation-based sensitivity analysis for nondifferential underreporting of SSRIs and depression in the register. The effect did not remain significant among mothers with depression (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.9-2.4).
Croen et al53 showed that antidepressant exposure during pregnancy and in each trimester was associated with an increased risk for ASDs. In this study, no association was seen between ASDs and a history of maternal depression or any other mental health disorder.
Rai et al51 showed that a history of maternal depression was associated with an increased risk for ASDs (adjusted OR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.08-2.08). In their subsample with available data on drugs, the association was confined to women reporting antidepressant use at the time of the first antenatal interview (median 10 weeks’ gestation) (OR, 3.34; 95% CI, 1.50-7.47). A similar pattern was reported for SSRIs and nonselective monoamine reuptake inhibitors. This association was stronger in cases of autism without intellectual disability. Further, prenatal antidepressant use for psychiatric indications other than depression was not statistically associated with ASDs in offspring. So, the significant association could therefore be due to depression requiring antidepressants rather than to antidepressant exposure. A previous study using the same database52 reported that antidepressants and the use of other psychoactive drugs (neuroleptics, sedatives, and sleep-inducing medications) during pregnancy in mothers of children with ASDs were more common than among the mothers of control participants (OR, 4.5; 95% CI, 2.19-9.05; P <.001 and OR, 4.4; 95% CI, 2.5-8.0; P =.003, respectively).
Harrington et al50 reported a highest prevalence of prenatal SSRI exposure in ASDs (5.9%) than in typical development children (3.4%), but with no statistically significant difference. Among boys, prenatal SSRI exposure was associated with ASDs, the strongest association occurring with first-trimester exposure. Findings were similar among mothers with an anxiety or mood disorder history.
Clements et al48 included a large number of children with ASDs (1377 aged 2 to 19 years matched with 4022 control children). In models adjusted for sociodemographic features, antidepressant exposure during both the first and second trimesters were associated with a higher risk for ASDs, but this association was no longer significant when each trimester was considered and after controlling for history of maternal depression (from electronic medical records). These results suggest that the risk for ASDs observed with prenatal antidepressant exposure is likely to be confounded by the severity of maternal mental illness. Finally, antipsychotic prescription during pregnancy was independently associated with a greater risk for ASDs than antidepressant prescription.
In a replication study,34 1245 children with ASDs (aged 2 to 19 years) were matched with 3405 children without neurodevelopmental disorders (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes of 299, 314, or 317-319). No increased risk for ASDs was reported in children exposed in the course of pregnancy, nor in each individual trimester, controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, birth year, insurance type, median income tertile, and past maternal depression. Exposure was identified in electronic health records, which record the number of pills and the frequency and number of renewals, enabling the calculation of the exposure period. However, an association was reported when prepregnancy exposure and prenatal psychotherapy were considered, suggesting the role of psychiatric disorders rather than of the medication itself.
Regarding antidepressant exposure and the different trimesters, 8 studies analyzed exposure in each trimester and 1 in the first trimester only.51 For the first trimester, 4 of 9 studies (1 cohort study47 and 3 case-control studies49,51,53) reported an association (adjusted ORs or HRs, even after adjustment for past psychiatric disorders, all studies except that of Sørensen et al47). For the second and third trimesters, 2 of 8 studies (1 cohort study that analyzed the second and third trimesters together33 and 1 case-control study49) reported a significant association, even after adjusting for history of maternal depression. The data analysis of trimester exposure for each class of antidepressant is presented in Table 1, showing contrasted results.
Five studies searched for an association between antidepressant exposure before pregnancy and ASDs.34,46,48,49,53 All reported a significant association.
No strong association between prenatal antidepressant exposure during pregnancy and ASDs was found in this review. The association between antidepressants and ASDs appears to be more consistent during the preconception period than during each trimester. Therefore, maternal psychiatric disorders in treatment before pregnancy rather than prenatal antidepressant exposure could have a major role in the onset of ASDs.
Meta-analysis
A summary of all the meta-analyses performed is provided in Table 2. For exposure during pregnancy, the meta-analysis on the 6 case-control studies (117 737 patients)34,48-51,53 showed significant associations between antidepressant exposure and ASDs (OR, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.49-2.20; I2 = 11%) (Figure 2). The ORs decreased but remained significant when maternal history was taken into account (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.09-2.12; I2 = 61%). No association was found when the 2 cohort studies were pooled33,46 (772 331 patients: HR, 1.26; 95% CI, 0.91-1.74; I2 = 67%).
The meta-analysis on the association between first-trimester exposure and ASDs (6 studies included34,48-51,53) showed an OR of 2.09 (95% CI, 1.66-2.64; I2 = 17%) (eFigure 1 in the Supplement). The association was weaker when ORs also adjusted for past psychiatric disorders were considered (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.27-2.52; I2 = 55%). No significant result was found for the pooled results of the 2 cohort studies.33,46 Similar results were observed for the meta-analysis on antidepressant exposure during the second trimester (5 studies included34,48-50,53; eFigure 2 in the Supplement). Regarding the meta-analysis on the exposure during the third trimester (5 studies included34,48-50,53), a significant association was found, but it did not remain significant when ORs adjusted for past depression were included, with heterogeneity across the study results (I2 = 73%) (eFigure 3 in the Supplement).
Four studies were included in the meta-analyses on preconception exposure34,48,49,53 (eFigure 4 in the Supplement). Both reported a significant association (OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.65-2.32 and adjusting for past depression, OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.49-2.09), with no heterogeneity between studies (I2 = 0%). A meta-analysis on results for the whole pregnancy including the same 4 studies showed the following: OR, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.30-2.24; I2 = 36% and OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 0.94-2.19; I2 = 69%, respectively (data not shown).
Discussion
Results from recent studies have suggested an increased risk for ASDs in children exposed to antidepressants in utero. These results have been widely reported by the media as a causal link underpinning incentives to discontinue antidepressants during pregnancy. A number of letters has been published in an attempt to address and mitigate this misinterpretation33 and especially to draw attention to the potentially harmful effects of discontinuing antidepressants in pregnant women. Indeed, inadequately treated prenatal depression can lead to adverse obstetrical and developmental issues, bearing also in mind the risk for maternal suicide. Nevertheless, clinicians are increasingly faced with the question of prescriptions to women wishing to quit their treatment during the perinatal period.
Based on our meta-analyses, there is a significant association between ASDs and prenatal maternal use of antidepressants. However, it appears to be more consistent during prepregnancy than each trimester. The association was weaker when controlled for past maternal mental illness. It is also interesting to note that the study with the highest weight49 reported results that contrasted with those of other studies on the same population.46,47 Furthermore, when the results of the 2 cohort studies were pooled, no association was found. Two meta-analyses on SSRI prenatal exposure and ASDs published recently underlined the role of maternal psychiatric condition as a major confounding factor.54,55
The public health implications of the possible risk for ASDs as a result of antidepressant exposure during pregnancy are difficult to assert or to refute, especially as we also observed an association with preconception exposure. The increased risk for ASDs in children exposed in utero could well be related to maternal depression or other psychiatric disorders rather than to antidepressant medications per se.
Limitations
Nevertheless, this review has some major limitations: (1) the small number of eligible studies in the literature; (2) the conflicting results of some studies, evidenced by marked heterogeneity in the meta-analysis on the adjustment for maternal history; and (3) the possibility of a publication bias. Some studies may not have been published because of a lack of results; however, the large registry-based studies should not have been affected by this phenomenon.
Several biases should be mentioned concerning the published studies. First, apart from 1 study,50 the studies included in our meta-analyses did not adopt a classic case-control design but were based on population registries. In fact, potential confounding effects for ASD detection should be mentioned, especially the fact that children with prenatal antidepressant exposure are possibly more likely to have a higher frequency of pediatric and psychiatric consultations compared with nonexposed children, which could lead to a higher rate of ASD detection. Second, most of the studies defined antidepressant exposure for 1 trimester even if the medication exposure overlapped other trimesters. Only 1 study49 assessed the duration of exposure for each trimester separately and dichotomized duration into 2 categories: use between 1 and 45 days and use for more than 45 days. In addition, 1 study analyzing prepregnancy exposure considered exposure 2 years to 6 months before pregnancy but not during pregnancy.46 Third, antidepressant exposure in most of the studies was ascertained from prescription databases. Analyses were carried out on the basis that women had received 1 antidepressant |
into account the pope from each country.
"I don't want to think about the disappointment of either Francis or Benedict cheering for the losing side," said Carlo Massarini, a 41-year-old security guard. "For many of us, soccer is like a religion, and so maybe we should keep it separate from real religion."
Oliviero Pantani, 31, a youth soccer coach, took a similar view.
"Ever since Italy was eliminated I stopped praying for any specific result and have just asked for good, clean, entertaining games," Pantani said. "I'm sure the two popes are above rivalries and that they pray for the same."
This will be the third time Argentina and Germany (West Germany at the time) met in the World Cup final.
In 1986, Argentina beat the Germans 3-2 led by the hot foot of famed striker Diego Maradona. Four years later, Maradona fell short and the Germans won 1-0 in a game played in Rome's Stadio Olimpico, just two miles north of the Vatican City.
Argentine fans celebrate with a picture of Pope Francis at the end of the semi-final football match between Netherlands and Argentina of the FIFA World Cup at The Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo on July 9, 2014. (Photo11: Odd Andersen, AFP/Getty Images)
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1mrOObZTravellers on Canadian airlines will be able to enjoy playing their favourite electronic games uninterrupted or delve into a racy e-book from gate-to-gate as soon as July, but shouldn’t hold their breath for in-flight calls anytime soon.
The federal government announced Monday that passengers will soon be able to use cameras, electronic games, tables and computers throughout a flight — as long as their devices are not transmitting a signal or accessing WiFi.
No longer will frequent-flyers in Canada be asked to “turn off their portable electronic devices” during takeoff, the climb, descent and landing for their own safety.
“We wouldn’t have approved this if we were concerned that it would affect either the safety of air travellers or of crews,” Transport Minister Lisa Raitt told a news conference at the Ottawa airport on Monday.
The change was meant to strike a better balance between safety and passenger comfort, she said.
The exemption goes into effect immediately, but each airline will determine when they are ready to implement the policy.
Canadian airlines welcomed the announcement, with spokesmen for both WestJet and Porter Airlines saying they estimated being able to implement the new policy by July.
This would allow time for the airlines to apply to Transport Canada for the exemption, receive an approval, then update their manuals and re-train their staff.
Air Canada said it expects to implement this policy “in the coming days.”
The transport minister’s announcement follows a similar decision by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority in October last year allowing the use of devices during all stages of flight under safe-flying conditions.
In November last year, the European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) announced it too would be changing its policy to allow the use of portable electronic devices in “airplane mode” during flight.
WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said there has been “high demand” from its passengers for the regulation change.
“This is something that our guests are looking for…. Eighty per cent of our guests are bringing their own devices on board,” he said in an interview. “So clearly, when you have to turn off your e-reader or tablet for takeoff and landing, it’s a bit of an annoyance.”
Full-size, heavy laptops will still need to be stowed away during take off and landing — similar to other baggage or briefcases — for safety, as they can become a projectile, Mr. Palmer said.
Porter Airlines spokesman Brad Cicero said it was a “logical decision” for the government to change the rules around portable electronics.
And for Porter, where many passengers are taking short-haul trips for business, that additional time during takeoff and descent is a large chunk of the flight-time, he said.
“People are often going specifically to do business and have a meeting,” Mr. Cicero said. “When it’s a relatively short flight like that, that time is something I think is very valuable to people.”
BlackBerry Ltd. welcomed the announcement, saying it would allow its users to “be even more productive” on their smartphones during takeoff and landing while in airplane mode.
The lifting of these restrictions comes as Air Canada begins rolling out WiFi connectivity on its North American fleet this month. WestJet said Monday it has already completed comprehensive testing of the electronic systems aboard its next-generation Boeing 737 fleet to support the expanded use of personal electronic devices.
This “sets the stage” to step away from built-in entertainment units on planes, said Tony Olvet, IDC Canada analyst and group vice-president of research.
“The view is we’re going to see less of the dedicated seat-back entertainment units, and have more portable devices…. If they can maximize the time the passenger can use those and are allowing WiFi, it’s sort of setting the stage to allow that to happen,” he said.
In Europe, however, airlines may loosen restrictions further. Last November, the EASA said it was “looking at new ways to certify the use of mobile phones on-board aircraft to make phone calls.”
This practice is banned in the U.S., and Ms. Raitt said the ban on sending or receiving emails and phone calls in flight would remain in Canada.
In-flight calls isn’t high on Porter Airlines’ list of priorities, Mr. Cicero said.
Mr. Palmer said WestJet customers don’t want the potential “cacophony” of voices during a flight.
“Generally, there doesn’t seem to be much much of an appetite because of the guest experience, which would most likely be quite poor,” Mr. Palmer said. “Can you imagine sitting next to someone who is talking on their phone for the whole flight?”
With files from The Canadian Press and ReutersThis site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use
BBC News reports the impending use of carbon nanotubes to create ultra-strong body armor. Far stronger than any known filament, carbon nanotubes are manufactured by scientists who roll a single-atom-thick stretch of carbon, in the form of graphite, into tiny tubes.
According to the report, carbon nanotubes are ideal for body armor because material made up of them would be good at absorbing energy from fragments striking them at high speed—fragments, perhaps, in the form of bullets and shrapnel.
The report also states that material made from carbon nanotubes “could also find applications in the area of hi-tech ‘smart’ clothing, bomb-proof refuse bins, flexible solar panels, and, eventually, as a replacement for copper wire in transmitting electrical power and signals.”Video transcript
Theres been a lot of talk about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) often referred to as "ObamaCare"; usually by those that are not a big fan of it. And my goal here is to not take any political sides, and hopefully give an overview of what all of the debate is about and what this 'Affordable Care Act' is all about. and I'm going to start with the most controversial part, and this is the 'Individual Mandate' And this is the idea that you either have to get insurance, or pay: a penalty; or a fee; or a tax. -Penalty- Which is now being referred to as a tax by many folks. And the idea here is that there are obviously many folks who are uninsured right now, and when they get sick especially when they get very sick they still get healthcare. In particular they will go to the Emergency Room. They will go to the E.R., and that is quite posiibly the most expensive part of the healthcare system to interface with. So there's kind of a moral argument here, that- 1) These people are getting sicker than they need to get if they had insurance. e.g. getting preventative care and not getting that sick. Then there's a financial or, I guess you could say, a fairness argument: that these people are getting sick, going to the E.R., and they have to be given care at that E.R. The Hospitals bear those costs, and then eventually recoup those costs by charging more for all sorts of other services. [These costs] go back to the people who are paying for the healthcare. So, if you have an Individual Mandate it will clear things up a little bit. People will have to essentially pay for the healthcare they are already getting. Now, the argument against the 'Individual Mandate' is that this is the Government putting into law that people *have to buy something*. In particular, that they have to buy health insurance. Now, the counterargument that many people make is that there is something similar going on with car insurance. If you want to drive in most states, you have to buy some type of car insurance or at least show that you have financial abilities to pay any liabilities you might have if you get into an accident. Now the 'Counter-Counter-Counter-Argument' to that is that, driving is something that someone chooses to do. That you do not have to drive, while in the case of health insurance, this is something that every person in the country is being forced to [purchase]. I'll leave it to you to decide where you sit on that, and what balances what other issue. Now, obviously, if you're going to decide whether you want insurance, or whether you are going to pay a penalty/tax, you have to figure out how high that penalty is going to be on you. Or if you want to figure out if this is a fair situation. You have to think about high that penalty is going to be. And the current provisions say that by 2016, which is when the full penalties take effect, you are going to have to pay the maximum of either 2.5% of your income, or $695 for an individual, or $2085 for a family. And there are exceptions, and this whole individual mandate won't apply to you if having/getting insurance will cost you more than 8% of your total income. or if you belong to a religion that does not participate in the healthcare system, then it doesn't apply. So you will never have to pay more than 8% [of your total income] to get an insurance policy. But these are the general penalties; If you made $100,000 and chose not to get the insurance, you would pay $2,500 (2.5% of income, and is greater than the minimum penalties). If your [family] makes $50,000, then the 2.5% [$1250] would be less than the [family] minimum, so you would pay $2085. Now the other provisions of the PPACA are based around the idea that, "If we want people to get insurance, - then we need to make it easier for them to get insurance" The biggest deal, at least in my mind, is this one covering Pre-Existing Conditions. Right now, if you have a Pre-Existing Condition, e.g. Cancer, and you do not have insurance, or your employer does not cover it - or perhaps you are unemployed - and if you try to get insurance on your own, you are likely to be denied. If you are offered insurance, it will be ridiculously expensive. This is because the insurance company knows that they're going to take a huge loss on paying all of your medical expenses. The PPACA says that you can no longer base the premiums, or whether you will or not give someone insurance based on Pre-Existing Conditions. People will be charged premiums, which what you pay to receive the policy, based on age and geography. So if you have two 40-year-olds, and one of them has the misfortune of having cancer, the other not having any pre-existing conditions; and they both live in, let's say, in Virginia. Under this, they will pay the exact same amount for insurance, the same premium. These other two points are just to make it easier to get insurance. Right now, if you've ever tried to get insurance, it can be really hard to compare and contrast policies, and to really understand what you're getting and what you're not getting. So this part of the Act says that every state will set up one of these Insurance Exchanges, which will allow for more transparency in terms of buying and selling policies. And then this final part here, -though this is just an overview, I'm not covering everything, not all the details- is the idea that the Government will also subsidize people getting policies, especially if they are in lower income brackets, or in more difficult financial situations. Now on top of this, if you're deciding whether or not you support things, if you're saying, 'This might be a good idea', or 'This is a bad idea' because you don't like the government forcing things like this, there is also the issue of the Cost. Now this whole thing, even thought there might be savings in terms of lower medical care, because people would get preventative healthcare, there is still a Net Cost to this. It will primarily be paid for by an increase to the Medicare Tax for high-income brackets. So it's really going to be larger Medicare taxes on people with larger incomes. This is estimated to generate about $200 Billion a year, (or $210 Billion, there are different estimates) but that's going to bear most of the costs, and on top of that, there are some extra fees on insurers, as well as what's called an 'Excise Tax', which tends to be a large tax on a specific type of policy, which are referred to as 'Cadillac' policies. These policies are very very very generous. This will be used to make up some of the cost of all this. Once again, I'm not going to take any political sides on this, but hopefully this gives some clarity about what people are actually debating.A strong high-pressure system over the nation's midsection built westward into California on Friday, baking inland areas of the southern counties in dry, triple-digit heat while raising wildfire danger in the parched region.
Day-to-day warming was expected to spread similar highs up the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys during the weekend, forecasters said.
Readings of 100-plus degrees stretched from the interior of Los Angeles County eastward through the inland counties to the Colorado River, where the Interstate 40 town of Needles sizzled at 115 degrees by 1 p.m.
Overall, the day's temperatures were expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above normal for the season.
"The hot conditions will result in an increased risk of heat-related illnesses, especially for the homeless, the elderly, infants, outdoor workers and those participating in outdoor activities," the National Weather Service said.
Some Southern California beaches simmered in the 80s.
Forecasters issued warnings until midnight for fire danger across the mountains of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys north of Los Angeles due to low humidity and gusty north to northwest winds.
Fire danger warnings were to extend until midnight Saturday on the south coast of Santa Barbara County. The area's infamous "sundowner" winds have often been involved in the dangerous spread of wildfires, sweeping down from the Santa Ynez Mountains to the populated south coast. Gusts in the 45 mph to 55 mph range were predicted.
The largest fire burning in Southern California was in northern San Diego County, where flames had scorched more than 3 square miles on the Marine Corps' sprawling Camp Pendleton. The fire was not threatening personnel or structures.
The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for Imperial and Riverside counties. Temperatures in those areas are expected to reach highs of 112 to 118 through midnight Saturday.
Try to avoid spending too much time out in the heat.
If you plan to hike or exercise outside, plan to do so early in the morning or late evening when it is cooler.
Consider wearing lightweight and loose fitting clothing.
Make sure to stay hydrated.
Keep children and pets out of parked cars in this heat as it can get to dangerous temperatures quickly.
Find a designated cool zone in San Diego here.
Download the free NBC 7 app to have weather updates on the go.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 7 San DiegoAuthor Message
longint
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:38 pm Post subject: Lurking around at the archlinux site it seems they are definitely worth to get a closer look...
dE_logics
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Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 7:31 am Post subject: Re: Looks like Gentoo is a sinking ship. dalek wrote: longint wrote: SlashBeast wrote: I see a lot powerusers leaving gentoo and going to distros like for example archlinux.
To which other distros do other users/dev tend to leave to? Is there any mainstream - is it archlinux?
Stumbled about this post lurking around what "other" distro is worth to check...
I read about people leaving Gentoo but after a while, they come back again. Is Gentoo a drug? I can't find myself leaving.
I don't think there is a specific distro. It seems it is always something different. Debian gets mentioned a lot but again, they come back.
I read about people leaving Gentoo but after a while, they come back again. Is Gentoo a drug? I can't find myself leaving.I don't think there is a specific distro. It seems it is always something different. Debian gets mentioned a lot but again, they come back.
Maybe they see Gentoo as a nice game. And nothing can be better working inside a game.
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My blog Maybe they see Gentoo as a nice game. And nothing can be better working inside a game._________________
Etal
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:01 am Post subject:
Thankfully ssuominen is back, which is a relief.
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“And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”– Yup, that's the topic of this thread this week. I guess it's been too quiet recently... can't have for too long that, can you?Thankfully ssuominen is back, which is a relief._________________“And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”– Hillary Clinton, Jan. 21, 2010
dalek
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:08 am Post subject:
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Cooler Master HAF-932 Case Yup. No point in having rules if people can choose not to follow them._________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
Ant P.
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:20 am Post subject: Etal wrote: Yup, that's the topic of this thread this week. I guess it's been too quiet recently... can't have for too long that, can you? :roll:
Thankfully ssuominen is back, which is a relief.
And just above it I'd posted
Some of these pen-pushing "developers" need to realise a "bleeding-edge" distro doesn't mean bury the edge of your fucking sword into the first person you see stepping out of line. Especially since gentoo isn't even a bleeding-edge distro with all the manpower it's been driving away for years. And just above it I'd posted this...Some of these pen-pushing "developers" need to realise a "bleeding-edge" distro doesn't mean bury the edge of your fucking sword into the first person you see stepping out of line. Especially since gentoo isn't even a bleeding-edge distro with all the manpower it's been driving away for years.
dalek
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:51 am Post subject:
I hate that it came to the council to begin with. Thing is, it did. The Council made a decision that renders other opinions mute. Some have forgot what the mute button means I guess. I wouldn't mind the argument if it was to get the council to reconsider but it appears it has got to the point of 'I'll have it my way or leave'. I've seen that before. They ended up gone and Gentoo continued right on.
Why is it that everybody thinks the world will stop spinning if they leave their job? Do we really think we are each that important?
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Cooler Master HAF-932 Case But as was pointed out in the bug, if a few can break that policy, can others break the policies they don't like too? Where does it end? Does it end when Gentoo can no longer compile portage itself or when people realize that there are some things that have to be done even if it isn't something we really like to do?I hate that it came to the council to begin with. Thing is, it did. The Council made a decision that renders other opinions mute. Some have forgot what the mute button means I guess. I wouldn't mind the argument if it was to get the council to reconsider but it appears it has got to the point of 'I'll have it my way or leave'. I've seen that before. They ended up gone and Gentoo continued right on.Why is it that everybody thinks the world will stop spinning if they leave their job? Do we really think we are each that important?_________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
Ant P.
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:25 am Post subject: dalek wrote: Where does it end?
I can't say for certain, but if Gentoo internals insists on being the FOSS world's own TSA then the end will be at someone else's less-user-hostile, less-volunteer-hostile distro.
But I'll leave it at that, because this is getting into OTW territory now.
PaulBredbury
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:57 am Post subject: dalek wrote: renders other opinions mute. Some have forgot what the mute button means
This is the grammar police. Raise your arms and step away from the keyboard slowly. You are guilty of multiple transgressions.
dalek
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:11 am Post subject: PaulBredbury wrote: dalek wrote: renders other opinions mute. Some have forgot what the mute button means
This is the grammar police. Raise your arms and step away from the keyboard slowly. You are guilty of multiple transgressions.
Not here. Council made a decision. No matter the opinion, people need to go by the rules. That's it.
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Cooler Master HAF-932 Case Not here. Council made a decision. No matter the opinion, people need to go by the rules. That's it._________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
aidanjt
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:15 am Post subject: dalek wrote: Not here. Council made a decision. No matter the opinion, people need to go by the rules. That's it.
Or, they could say 'f*ck you!' and walk off. Which apparently the heaviest committers are doing, thanks to incompetent governance.
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dalek
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:22 am Post subject: Ant P. wrote: dalek wrote: Where does it end?
I can't say for certain, but if Gentoo internals insists on being the FOSS world's own TSA then the end will be at someone else's less-user-hostile, less-volunteer-hostile distro.
But I'll leave it at that, because this is getting into OTW territory now.
Actually, I think people not following the rules would end up worse. Can you imagine what the tree would look like if 30 or 40 teams of people each did their own thing? Gentoo would become unusable to say it simply. Then this thread would be true.
When the Council makes a decision, people have to go by the rules. If not, may as well get rid of the council. If what they say means nothing, why should they say anything or make any decisions?
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Cooler Master HAF-932 Case Actually, I think people not following the rules would end up worse. Can you imagine what the tree would look like if 30 or 40 teams of people each did their own thing? Gentoo would become unusable to say it simply. Then this thread would be true.When the Council makes a decision, people have to go by the rules. If not, may as well get rid of the council. If what they say means nothing, why should they say anything or make any decisions?_________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
dalek
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:29 am Post subject: AidanJT wrote: dalek wrote: Not here. Council made a decision. No matter the opinion, people need to go by the rules. That's it.
Or, they could say 'f*ck you!' and walk off. Which apparently the heaviest committers are doing, thanks to incompetent governance.
That has been done before. Gentoo is still here. I hate to see anyone leave, especially if they are doing even a little bit, but rules are rules. After all, the devs elect the Council to lead Gentoo so why not listen to them? If someone chooses to leave, that is their decision. Most people leave at some point and Gentoo will move right along.
I might add, I been using Gentoo for years. I've seen people come and go. Gentoo has survived a lot and I'm sure it will survive this as well.
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Cooler Master HAF-932 Case That has been done before. Gentoo is still here. I hate to see anyone leave, especially if they are doing even a little bit, but rules are rules. After all, the devs elect the Council to lead Gentoo so why not listen to them? If someone chooses to leave, that is their decision. Most people leave at some point and Gentoo will move right along.I might add, I been using Gentoo for years. I've seen people come and go. Gentoo has survived a lot and I'm sure it will survive this as well._________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
aidanjt
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 1104
Location: Rep. of Ireland VeteranJoined: 20 Feb 2005Posts: 1104Location: Rep. of Ireland
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:35 am Post subject: It doesn't matter if Gentoo is still here when it's become a disgrace to itself. And what you're effectively saying is, if you don't like it, suck it up or leave. That makes the problem even worse.
_________________
juniper wrote: you experience political reality dilation when travelling at american political speeds. it's in einstein's formulas. it's not their fault.
phajdan.jr
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 1777
Location: Poland Retired DevJoined: 23 Mar 2006Posts: 1777Location: Poland
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:54 am Post subject: AidanJT wrote: Or, they could say 'f*ck you!' and walk off. Which apparently the heaviest committers are doing, thanks to incompetent governance.
Some people in this thread are saying that QA is bad, and what are our testing standards, and now are you saying we should allow everything just because lots of changes is somehow good in itself? We need to set some quality bar, and in my opinion it should be pretty high.
By the way, Samuli (ssuominen) is still doing useful work and has been nominated for the council, and Markos (hworang) is still doing useful work, and has accepted his council nomination: http://cia.vc/stats/author/ssuominen.
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http://phajdan-jr.blogspot.com/ Some people in this thread are saying that QA is bad, and what are our testing standards, and now are you saying we should allow everything just because lots of changes is somehow good in itself?By the way, Samuli (ssuominen) is still doing useful work and has been nominated for the council, and Markos (hworang) is still doing useful work, and has accepted his council nomination: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/elections/council/2011/council-201106-nominees.xml. They are still committing: http://cia.vc/stats/author/hwoarang _________________
dalek
Joined: 19 Sep 2003
Posts: 1336
Location: Mississippi USA VeteranJoined: 19 Sep 2003Posts: 1336Location: Mississippi USA
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:58 am Post subject: AidanJT wrote: It doesn't matter if Gentoo is still here when it's become a disgrace to itself. And what you're effectively saying is, if you don't like it, suck it up or leave. That makes the problem even worse.
So, are you saying that the Council makes a policy decision and nobody has to follow the policy? If that is your argument, that is disgraceful. To have a ELECTED Council that makes policy decisions that the very people that elected them won't follow. Yep, that's a good way to run a organization. I'm sure that will last a really long time and make for a really good distro. Correct me if I misunderstand something.
You are correct in what I am saying tho. If you don't like the policy, change it or find something else to do but don't break the policy. Yea, I do realize they are volunteers. That said, nobody forces them to stay. People leave for various reasons and people come to help for various reasons. This happens year around and it still works.
_________________
My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler
G.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 Monitor
WD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drives
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case So, are you saying that the Council makes a policy decision and nobody has to follow the policy? If that is your argument, that is disgraceful. To have a ELECTED Council that makes policy decisions that the very people that elected them won't follow. Yep, that's a good way to run a organization. I'm sure that will last a really long time and make for a really good distro. Correct me if I misunderstand something.You are correct in what I am saying tho. If you don't like the policy, change it or find something else to do but don't break the policy. Yea, I do realize they are volunteers. That said, nobody forces them to stay. People leave for various reasons and people come to help for various reasons. This happens year around and it still works._________________My rig: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 mobo AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU coolerG.SKILL 16GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GT-220 video card LG W2253 MonitorWD1600AAJS & WD2502ABYS hard drivesCooler Master HAF-932 Case
aidanjt
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 1104
Location: Rep. of Ireland VeteranJoined: 20 Feb 2005Posts: 1104Location: Rep. of Ireland
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 11:12 am Post subject: dalek wrote: So, are you saying that the Council makes a policy decision and nobody has to follow the policy? If that is your argument, that is disgraceful. To have a ELECTED Council that makes policy decisions that the very people that elected them won't follow. Yep, that's a good way to run a organization. I'm sure that will last a really long time and make for a really good distro. Correct me if I misunderstand something.
You are correct in what I am saying tho. If you don't like the policy, change it or find something else to do but don't break the policy. Yea, I do realize they are volunteers. That said, nobody forces them to stay. People leave for various reasons and people come to help for various reasons. This happens year around and it still works.
What you're talking about is totalitarianism. Rules should only be obeyed when they serve a useful purpose. If the government passed a law which says you must sacrifice your first born would you do it just because it's a rule? We have a councillor in my city who accused other councillors of 'popularism', ignoring the fact that he was elected by the people to represent |
the State Department into a pay-for-play tool for the corrupt Clinton Foundation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The clear and mounting evidence of pay-for-play and mishandling of classified information warrant a serious criminal investigation by an independent Trump Justice Department.”
To read more about Huma Abedin’s emails, click here.
###Instagram has 500 million users in posting 60 million photos a day. Based on the anecdotal evidence in our feed roughly 59 million of those photos get snapped in kitchens and restaurants. And to get anointed as one of the most ‘grammed eateries in today’s social media crazy world is almost certainly a golden ticket towards success. And this week Instagramm dropped the names of its most popular American restaurants (sorted by geotag). There are some new entries on the list, like New York's factory of grammable burgers and milkshakes, Black Tap as well as some repeats like the scene-y Perch in LA. And some, like Katz's delicatessen predate smartphones (actually Katz's almost predates phones, period). Check out the full list below to see how many places you’ve eaten at and ask yourself the all-important question if you have the photographic evidence to back it up.
1. Sugar Factory - New York
A photo posted by thesugarfactory (@thesugarfactory) on Nov 27, 2016 at 10:05am PST
2. Nobu Malibu - Malibu
A photo posted by @the_best_noms on Nov 21, 2016 at 9:26pm PST
3. Tao Downtown - New York
A photo posted by TAO Downtown (@taodowntown) on Nov 23, 2016 at 1:36pm PST
4. Katz's Delicatessen – New York
A photo posted by Katz's Delicatessen (@katzsdeli) on Nov 3, 2016 at 9:08am PDT
5. Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer - New York
A photo posted by Steven Thomas Sammut (@stevejststeve) on Dec 5, 2016 at 7:48pm PST
6. Bottega Louie - Los Angeles
A photo posted by (@c_hyeinsta) on Dec 1, 2016 at 7:33pm PST
7. San Pedro Fish Market and Restaurant – San Pedro, CA
A photo posted by San Pedro Fish Market (@sanpedrofish) on Dec 6, 2016 at 1:17pm PST
8. LAVO - New York
A photo posted by LAVO Restaurant & Nightclub NY (@lavony) on Dec 4, 2016 at 10:09am PST
9. La Marina - New York
Ok seriously I need these tacos in my life again they're soooo good!!! The sad part is you eat them in three bites and they're gone. (These were devoured after a night of dancing and drinking at #QueLoQue) A photo posted by m3_glam (@m3_glam) on Nov 27, 2016 at 7:56am PST
10. Perch – Los Angeles
A photo posted by Perch (@perchlosangeles) on Apr 25, 2015 at 12:46pm PDT
Related: The 14 Most Instagrammable Spots in the World
The World's Most Instagrammed Dishes Will Surprise You
These 11 Unbelievable Photos All Came from an iPhoneChina this week became the third nation to land a rover on the Moon, and experts believe the country will follow up with a manned mission to the lunar surface in just a matter of years. The country's rapidly improving program and America's perceived lack of direction could, years from now, lead to a new space race.
The spacecraft Chang'e 3 and its rover, Yutu, are only on the lunar surface to explore. But China's zeal for space is unmatched, and its program is developing fast — to the point that it can be recognized as a space power. Just what that means for the U.S. is up for debate.
"I'm not saying they're militarizing space, or occupying it or [that] they're going to claim the moon... but there's always that consideration in that relationship between countries," Paul Spudis, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, told Mashable.
For Spudis, the issue is not China's presence in the lunar region, but the United States' absence. He's worried a country that doesn't advocate for a free market could some day stifle how other nations and private businesses operate in space.
"I don't think it's anything to panic about," Spudis said. "It's something to think about seriously."
John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told Mashable that if China wants to play with the big powers on Earth, they had better play with them in space, too. That means, at some point, a manned trip to the moon.
China has launched several military satellites, which have also caused consternation among some U.S. officials. But Logsdon thinks China's program has caused undue alarm. What the Chinese have done is impressive, sure, but they're a long way from their own mission to Mars.
"People have very short attention spans," Logsdon said. "A year and a half ago we landed a remarkable rover on Mars, and it's producing all kinds of discoveries."
Pascal Lee, planetary scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, told Mashable he wouldn't disagree that America's program is superior. But he feels China's recent success needs to renew American interest in the space program because Beijing's progress has been steady for years, and their missions have so far been almost flawless.
What's more, China seems to have its eyes on tougher missions in the near future. Chang'e 3 is big enough to hold much more than the rover it deposited, meaning the Chinese could have fit a larger, more capable robot in there. With a few more upgrades, they might be able to squeeze in a person or two.
"The truth is these events are really remarkable and they need to get our attention," Lee said. "As soon as we see a Chinese astronaut walking on the moon, I think it's going to become a national interest of the U.S. to get back to the moon."
Image: Wikimedia CommonsThe Mariners would be the home team and play against Brisbane Roar, allowing them to pocket gate takings from fans travelling down to cBus Super Stadium at Robina.
It's understood the original approach was made by the Gold Coast City Council and the Roar to Central Coast, who are open to selling home games because of the club's financial situation, and will 'host' Melbourne Victory in an A-League fixture at Geelong's Simonds Stadium next month.
The Mariners declined to comment, but Brisbane Roar chief executive David Pourre said they would welcome any rival side wishing to bring more games to Queensland, where they remain the sole A-League franchise.
"Any other A-League club that wants to take one of their games to Queensland - the Gold Coast, Cairns, Sunshine Coast, wherever it may be - we would certainly do anything we could to help them," Pourre told AAP.
"Why wouldn't we? It'd be a fantastic advantage to our club and help lift the profile of football in this stage if we can get more football content.
"My job is to protect and grow the Brisbane Roar, but importantly I'm trying to grow the game as well."
Mariners chief executive Shaun Mielekamp told an audience at a pre-match function last week the club was looking at potentially taking home games to Canberra and other regional areas.
Previous plans to stage several matches per season in North Sydney were scrapped because of supporter discontent, but the prospect of just one match in a different market would be far more palatable for fans and indeed may become the reality for some clubs under the current A-League financial model.
If successful, the match would continue Gold Coast's slow and steady rebuild as a football region since the demise of the Clive Palmer-owned Gold Coast United in 2012.
The Gold Coast City Council last year appointed former Roar CEO Eugenie Buckley as a full-time consultant to help them build a strategy surrounding football, which led to Manchester City's pre-season training camp and sellout friendly match against Melbourne City, while Brisbane Roar staged their AFC Champions League home matches at Robina earlier this year.
The Palm Beach Sharks also recently rebadged their National Premier Leagues operation, taking on the name Gold Coast City with the intention of garnering broader support and bidding for National Youth League and W-League licences.“The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” Senator Bernie Sanders first said those words in 1974 and has been repeating them ever since. Senator Sanders is not alone in his belief. Three out of four Americans agree with the statement, “Today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.”
Senator Sanders is half right: the rich are getting richer. However, his assertion that the poor are becoming poorer is incorrect. The poor are becoming richer as well.
Economist Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institute showed that between 1979 and 2010, the real (inflation-adjusted) after-tax income of the top 1% of U.S. income-earners grew by an impressive 202%. He also showed that the real after-tax income of the bottom fifth of income-earners grew by 49%. All groups made real income gains. While the rich are making gains at a faster pace, both the rich and the poor are in fact becoming richer.
In addition to these measurable real income gains, decreases in prices have given the poor increased purchasing power, helping to raise living standards for the worst off in society. As a result of falling prices such as for groceries and material goods, along with gains in real income, Americans have more income left after basic expenses.
Technology has also become cheaper, improving our lives in unexpected ways. For example, consider the spread of cell phones. There was a time when only the wealthiest Americans could afford one. Today, over 98% of Americans have a cellular subscription, and the rise of smart phones has made these devices more useful than ever.
Unfortunately, progress has been uneven. In those areas of the economy where competition is hobbled, such as education, housing, and healthcare, prices continue to increase.
Still, the percentage of the population classified as living in relative poverty has decreased over time. Why then do three quarters of Americans, including Senator Sanders, believe that the poor are “getting poorer?”
A simple logical error underlies Sanders’ belief. If we assume that wealth is a fixed pie, then the more slices the rich get, the fewer are left over for the poor. In other words, people can only better themselves at the expense of others. In the world of the fixed pie, if we observe the rich becoming richer, then it must be because other people are becoming poorer. Fortunately, in the real world, the pie is not fixed. U.S. GDP is growing, and it’s growing faster than the population.
Poverty remains a pressing issue, but Senator Sanders is incorrect when he says that the poor are becoming poorer. In the words of HumanProgress.org advisory board member Professor Deirdre McCloskey,NIH complementary and integrative health agency gets new name
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is now the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
The National Institutes of Health agency with primary responsibility for research on promising health approaches that already are in use by the American public has a new name — the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).
The revision from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) was mandated as part of the omnibus budget measure signed by President Obama.
“We will continue to focus on the study of the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative interventions”
Large population-based surveys have found that the use of alternative medicine — unproven practices used in place of conventional medicine — is rare. Integrative health care, defined as a comprehensive, often interdisciplinary approach to treatment, prevention and health promotion that brings together complementary and conventional therapies, is more common. The use of an integrative approach to health and wellness has grown within care settings across the United States, including hospitals, hospices, and military health facilities.
“Since its establishment 16 years ago, the center has funded thousands of important research projects. Without this work, the American public would lack vital information on the safety and effectiveness of many practices and products that are widely used and readily available,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “This change by Congress reflects the importance of studying the approaches to health and wellness that the public is using, often without the benefit of rigorous scientific study.”
“The intent of an integrative approach is to enhance overall health status, prevent disease, and alleviate debilitating symptoms such as pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea, among others. However, the scientific foundation for many complementary approaches is still being built,” said Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., Director of NCCIH. “The mission of NCCIH will remain unchanged. We will continue to focus on the study of the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative interventions, and provide the public with research-based information to guide health care decision making.”
The name change is in keeping with the center’s pre-existing congressional mandate and is aligned with the strategic plan guiding the center’s research priorities and public education activities. Public comments on a revised name were invited in May and June 2014 and indicated overall support for the change.
The center’s research priorities include the study of complementary approaches — such as spinal manipulation, meditation, and massage — to manage pain and other symptoms that are not always well-addressed by conventional treatments. The center’s research also encourages self-care methods that support healthier lifestyles and uncovers potential usefulness and safety issues of natural products. The practices and products studied by the center are prioritized by four guiding principles: scientific promise, amenability to be studied using the highest quality research methods, use by the American public, and the potential impact on public health.
In 1992, the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) was established within the Office of the Director, NIH, to facilitate study and evaluation of complementary and alternative medical practices and to disseminate the resulting information to the public. In 1998, NCCAM was established by Congress, elevating OAM to the status of an NIH center. In February 2011, NCCAM released Exploring the Science of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Third Strategic Plan 2011–2015, which continues to guide NCCIH’s work.
To stay updated on NCCIH’s research and resources, http://nccam.nih.gov/news/name-change-faq.
NCCIH’s mission is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care. For additional information, call NCCIH’s Clearinghouse toll free at 1-888-644-6226.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®Lil Jon provides the soundtrack, and Lena Dunham, Fred Armisen and other celebrities explain why they will be "turning out" to vote this November in this ad from Rock The Vote. (Rock The Vote via YouTube)
Celebrities are less likely to vote in midterm elections, just like us!
Rock The Vote released a public service announcement last month with a parody of Lil Jon's "Turn Down For What" that featured public figures who explained why they planned to vote in the midterm elections, but according to public records, a number of them didn't vote in the last midterm election.
At least five who appeared in the PSA — "Girls" actress Lena Dunham, comedian Whoopi Goldberg, "Orange is the New Black" actress Natasha Lyonne, "Rich Kids of Beverly Hills" star E.J. Johnson, and actor Darren Criss — did not vote in the last midterm, records from Los Angeles County and New York City show.
The Washington Post was unable to locate voting records for six others who appeared in the PSA, including Lil Jon.
Rock The Vote makes sure its spokespeople are registered, but does not confirm whether they have voted in past elections.
"Rock The Vote's approach is forward-looking," said Audrey Gelman, a spokeswoman for the group, in an e-mail to The Washington Post. "The talent who participate in our campaigns are registered to vote and have pledged to turn out this Tuesday and in upcoming elections. We believe individuals who have missed opportunities to vote in the past should not be disqualified from committing to participate in the political process in the future, and helping spread a positive message of civic engagement."
Less than 1 in 4 voters ages 18 to 29 voted in the 2010 election, and according to a Harvard survey released last week, about the same number will vote Tuesday, although their partisan preferences have changed. In 2010, young voters favored Democrats by a 16-point margin, but today they favor Republicans by a four-point margin.Know what? You can read politics into too many things. Like this clown from the Daily Caller, who has decided that Bryce Harper is symbolic of some conservative rebirth, because he hustles and Jason Heyward is symbolic of liberalism because he’s lazy and complacent.
Normally that kind of construction is indicative of some sort of racism too — look at the industrious white man and the lazy black man! — but I think this guy is so enamored of seeing the political in everything that race isn’t even on his mind. No, his idiocy is pretty much monomaniacally political:
Bryce Harper is a conservative hero. The star rookie for the Washington Nationals has woken up Major League Baseball, and watching it unfold has reminded me of nothing so much as the collapse of the old political paradigms and the inevitable and upcoming rebirth of conservatism in November …
Harper is “scrappy” — yes, he uses the word scrappy — because he took an extra base when he hit a single to right against the Braves. Heyward is some old awful liberal because he was slow getting to the ball:
To me, the play carried even greater symbolic importance. Heyward’s bungle showed a complacency, if not indolence, that Harper threatens to destroy, but it also could be a metaphor for the collapse of the old liberal order. Heyward was like one of those public school teachers who, because they are a union member, can’t be fired and so are relegated to the “rubber room” to sit and read the paper and gather a check for the rest of their lives.
I don’t know if this is worse baseball analysis or political analysis, but it’s all kinds of bad either way.In attempts to reestablish communication with the lost Bluemars fleet, an echo of past transmissions was found. Retransmitting signals from years ago, these echoes give us a glimpse into the past.
Latest Communication
2016-04-28@15:08:42: Echoes now has a redundant server in Europe in addition to the one in North America routing listeners to the nearest location. This will help cut bandwidth costs, as well as make the streams quicker and more resilient for everyone. Thanks to traveler Tord and bylan.net for donating the server.
2015-12-20@15:55:21: A connection limit within Icecast was found to be causing track information to not be updated when there were 100 listeners, along with capping the the maximum number of listeners. This has been increased to 500 and can be increased further as needed. Thanks for listening, travelers.
2015-03-02@01:35:35: Echoes will be down for a maintenance window beginning 2015-03-08 at 18:00:00 UTC. The maintenance window is for 2 hours, but hopefully will be quicker. The maintenance will address some Xen security issues with the hosting provider. Thanks for listening, travelers.
2015-01-04@14:39:37: Echoes has now existed for a little over a year and as word has spread the response has been great. We're almost always over 50 concurrent listeners and have surpassed the 100 concurrent listeners threshold multiple times. The number of thank you emails I receive has been overwhelming and although I haven't always replied to all of them they all get read. It's great to know how many fellow travelers missed Bluemars as much as I did. Looking forward to continuing the journey in the new year. Thanks for listening.
2014-09-10@19:00:00: Echoes is participating in the 24 hour Internet Slowdown protest in favor of net neutrality. For more information please visit battleforthenet.com and do what you can to help.
2014-06-07@11:23:44: Echoes has been upgraded to a new server with 4x the RAM, twice the disk space, more bandwidth and is now running from SSD rather than spinning disk. Thanks for listening.
2014-05-18@16:59:40: replay_gain normalization has been disabled on the streams - I believe that's the cause of some cracking and clicking in some tracks, as the files sound fine by themselves. The downside is you may notice more of a volume difference between tracks now.
2014-01-12@17:18:40: Premonitions of the future have been added to each playlist page, showing the next 10 transmissions to be played.
2013-12-27@15:18:57: I've written a script to make it easier to replace tracks automatically with original sources as I get them, so this should pick up steam. More tracks have been replaced, though still only 6% of the Bluemars stream is from fresh sources. Cryosleep and Voices have yet to be tackled.
2013-12-23@18:22:58: The interval at which the playlists are reloaded to check for new tracks has been changed to only reload when there are changes. This will ensure that all tracks are played in a randomized order without playing a track more than once before all others have been played.
2013-12-08@19:59: Echoes now has Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can follow there for news and updates as well as on the website.
2013-11-30@13:42: I've begun tracking down alternate original sources to clean up transitions between tracks. So far only 2% of transmissions have been corrected, but many more will come.
2013-11-30@13:39: Replay gain is now used for all transmissions, to normalize volume tailored for the human ear.
2013-11-26@02:42: Current track and current/peak listener info is now live on each of the stream pages.
2013-11-26@01:52: I've fixed an issue with the.m3u extension being doubled in the stream URL which was causing problems for some players like iTunes. You may need to re-add the stream to your player after this change, but it should fix issues some were having listening in.
2013-11-24@17:48: Welcome, traveler. Echoes of Bluemars is live! I hope you enjoy this resurrection of the Bluemars ambient music streams and site style.Tomas Fitzgerald’s article “Sovereign risk fears around TPP are overblown” claims that critics of the investor-state dispute settlement clause in the latest leaked chapter of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) have not read the detail “in the sober light of day.”
As one who has published on ISDS and read the leaked chapter I found that the article makes some key omissions in its description of ISDS and about the information in that chapter.
ISDS enables foreign investors to sue governments for compensation in an international tribunal if they can claim that a change in law or policy has “harmed” their investment. No-one has claimed that ISDS provisions mean, as Fitzgerald claims, that national governments “are unable to legislate in the public interest”.
Critics do present evidence that, despite claimed safeguards, there are many recent examples of ISDS cases against health, environment and other public interest legislation. The US Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company is claiming hundreds of millions of dollars from the Canadian Government because of a Canadian court refusal to grant a medicine patent. The US Clayton/ Bilcon company has in March 2015 won a case for compensation yet to be decided from Canada because it was refused a mining license for environmental reasons.
The article’s description of ISDS omits the following facts:
ISDS has no independent judiciary. Arbitrators are drawn from a pool of investment law experts who can continue to practice as investment law act advocates. In Australia, and most national legal systems, judges cannot continue to be practising lawyers.
ISDS has no system of precedents or appeals, so the decisions of arbitrators are final and can be inconsistent. In Australia, and most national legal systems, there is a system of precedents which judges must consider and appeal mechanisms to ensure consistency of decisions.
This lack of an independent judiciary, precedents and appeals is not a matter of individual bias. It is a structural flaw in the ISDS system itself which has been acknowledged by many legal experts including Australia’s High Court Chief Justice French.
Fitzgerald’s claim that ISDS provisions “only allow an investor to sue a state for expropriation”, meaning seizure of assets, is not accurate. ISDS indeed began with claims for compensation for direct expropriation. But ISDS tribunals have developed the concept of “indirect expropriation” which can result from a change in law or policy.
This concept is not recognised in most national legal systems, including Australia, as our High Court found when it threw out the tobacco companies’ claim for compensation for indirect expropriation of trademark use through plain packaging legislation. But the Philip Morris tobacco company is using ISDS in an obscure Australia-Hong Kong investment agreement to sue our government for billions of dollars. Fitzgerald’s only reference to this case is that “the recouping of money would be reasonable” as compensation for loss of trademarks.
Fitzgerald quotes “safeguards” from ISDS claims in the leaked TPP chapter for “legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety and the environment”
However he fails to mention that the leaked chapter also contains a proposal from the Australian government (page55) which seeks to exempt from ISDS cases specific institutions like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Medicare Benefits Scheme, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. These exemptions are in brackets in the text, which shows that the proposal has not been agreed.
This proposal reveals that the Australian government does not believe that the general safeguards will protect these specific institutions. They also beg the question of what other Australian institutions need to be listed in order to protect them. What about institutions dealing with food regulation, in the wake of the contaminated berries scandal, or with environmental protection?
Fitzgerald claims that “merely because someone sues does not mean they are going to win.” The only evidence cited for this is that there has never been a successful claim against the US government.
However far more comprehensive figures from the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development indicate that of 356 known cases, 53% have been either been won by investors or settled. Settlement indicates that the state had to either pay some compensation and/ or withdraw the law or policy which was the basis of the case. US companies are the most frequent users of ISDS. The Howard Coalition government did not agree to ISDS in the Australia-US FTA. The TPP, which includes the US, would expose Australia to more examples like the Philip Morris case.
ISDS gives already powerful global corporations additional rights to sue governments over democratically decided public interest law and policy. The President of the World Health Organisation has documented how tobacco companies developed a strategy of using ISDS cases to discourage tobacco regulation. TPP governments would be foolish to expose themselves to more such cases by agreeing to ISDS in the TPP.Artwork Details Title: X-23 by Jay Anacleto Artist: Jay Anacleto (Penciller) Media Type: Pencil Art Type: Commission For Sale Status: NFS Views: 3,789 Likes on CAF: 1 2 Favorited on CAF: 2 Comments: 13 Added to Site: 4/1/2014 Comic Art Archive:
Description Pre-con commission sketch for ECCC 2014 on X-men #1 blank. CGC SS 9.8.
I've admired Jay's artwork for a while, so naturally I was very excited when Doug and Kirk presented me with a rare opportunity to get a sketch cover done by Jay in his studio to be picked up at ECCC where he was scheduled to appear.
I let Jay choose between X-23 and Domino for the subject of the drawing and he chose the former. Needless to say, I'm very happy with the result. Many thanks to Doug, Kirk and of course Jay!
P.S. The lighting in the photo doesn't do the drawing any justice, but it'll have to do until the book comes back from CGC.
Edit: This cover was voted 2014 Sketch Cover of the Year on the CGC boards. :) Social/Sharing Share this item on a blog/forum/website To share this item on your favorite blog, forum or website, just copy the html from the box below. X-23 by Jay Anacleto Click Here to visit my Art Gallery on comicartfans.com! [ click to close ]WASHINGTON ― European diplomats warned the Trump administration on Monday that Europe is prepared to block U.S. efforts to reimpose international sanctions against Iran as long as Tehran continues to comply with its obligations under the nuclear deal.
If the U.S. pulls out of the nuclear agreement ― known as the JCPOA ― and reapplies sanctions that target not only Iran, but other countries who do business with Iran, the European Union could take advantage of a statute dating back to the mid-1990s that would protect European companies from being penalized under the sanctions, EU ambassador to the United States David O’Sullivan said Monday.
“We have the blocking statute... which does offer legal protection to European companies which are threatened by the extraterritorial nature of U.S. sanctions in certain circumstances, Sullivan said, speaking at the Atlantic Center alongside French, British and German ambassadors. “I have no doubt that if this scenario materializes, which it’s not clear it will, the European Union will act to protect the legitimate interests of our companies with all the means at our disposal.”
Because Washington has virtually no trade relations with Tehran, U.S. sanctions against Iran aren’t an effective nuclear deterrent unless other countries join the effort. In the years leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal, European countries, as well as China and Russia, cooperated with U.S.-led efforts to choke off Iran’s economy in hopes of persuading Iran to negotiate restrictions on its nuclear program. But now that Iran has scaled back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, the countries that helped negotiate the JCPOA see no reason to cut off trade with Tehran again.
The warning from the EU ambassador came ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline, when President Donald Trump has to inform to Congress whether Iran is complying with the nuclear deal. That deadline is the result of legislation passed by Congress in 2015 that requires the president to make several certifications to lawmakers every 90 days.
Those certifications go beyond the technical requirements set forth in the JCPOA. One certification, for example, requires the president to confirm that providing sanctions relief to Iran is “vital to the national security interests” of the U.S.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the organization tasked with monitoring the use of nuclear technology, confirmed last month for the eighth time that Iran was complying with the JCPOA. But the subjective nature of the reporting requirements in the law passed by Congress means that Trump could opt to decertify Iranian compliance, even as the IAEA says Tehran is fulfilling its obligations.
If Trump does not certify Iranian compliance, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to fast-track legislation to reimpose nuclear sanctions, a move that Iran would likely claim is a violation of the agreement.
European countries face an awkward situation if the U.S. reimposes sanctions against Iran without definitive evidence that Iran has breached the nuclear deal. They will have to choose between breaking publicly with a key ally or losing credibility by failing to honor a diplomatic agreement.
Trump said last week that he had decided what he will do on Oct. 15, but he’s keeping his decision a secret ― even to U.S. allies who are party to the agreement. He met with British Prime Minister Theresa May for 50 minutes last week in New York but didn’t tell her whether the U.S. would continue to enforce the JCPOA, British ambassador Kim Darroch said Monday.
Trump has called the Iran deal an “embarrassment” to the U.S. and made clear his preference to scrap the agreement and replace it with one that also constrains Iran’s ballistic missile program and has indefinite restrictions on its nuclear program (some provisions in the current deal sunset after 10-15 years). The president has ordered an interagency Iran policy review as part of an effort to come up with an alternative to staying in the JCPOA. That review is still ongoing.
Amid this uncertainty, European diplomats have lobbied the Trump administration and lawmakers to continue providing sanctions relief in exchange for Iran abiding by strict caps on its nuclear program and allowing intrusive IAEA inspections.
They have said that they are interested in negotiating additional agreements with Iran to address its nonnuclear policies ― but they warn that scrapping the nuclear deal will only make it harder to constrain Tehran in other areas, including over Iran’s ballistic missile program, and its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
“In a sense what this administration has been saying since it came into office has changed the climate already for Iran,” Darroch said. “So it’s succeeding. And we would say let’s carry on with that, let’s intensify our discussion … take some decisions on the way forward on all these issues, but let’s keep the JCPOA.”
European diplomats were cautious on Monday not to criticize Trump, but it was clear they were frustrated by his insistence that it would be easy to reach a new agreement more favorable to the West.
“This was a multilateral agreement with difficult partners,” French ambassador to the U.S. Gérard Araud said, referring to Iran, China, and Russia, whose national interests are often at odds with U.S. and European interests. “Anybody who says we [could] get the perfect deal with those kinds of partners is just dreaming.”
The Europeans say they can’t tell if their lobbying efforts have been effective ― and they don’t expect to find out until the rest of the world does.The British Department of Health, after 3 month UK-wide consultation, has invited mass market retailers to adopt this type of nutrition labeling in the first half of 2013.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/10/nutrition-labelling/
Here you can find the system description, directly from the UK National Health Service (NHS) website:
“Traffic light colour coding
Some front of pack nutrition labels use red, amber and green (traffic light) colour coding.
Traffic light colour coding, as shown in the image above, tells you at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.
red means high
amber means medium
green means low
In short, the more green lights, the healthier the choice.
If you buy a food that has all or mostly green lights, you know straight away that it’s a healthier choice. An amber light means neither high nor low, so you can eat foods with all or mostly amber lights most of the time. But a red light means the food is high in fat, saturated fat, salt or sugars and these are the foods we should cut down on. Try to eat these foods less often and in small amounts.”
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx#Tr
It is important to stress that this will be a hybrid system, because the traffic lights shall be accompanied by the %GDA (Guideline daily amount), as shown in the image above. Anyway there are many discussions about using this labeling system.
Maybe it is more immediate for consumers, but not always the red light means that a food is not healthy: it also depends on the mode of consumption of the food, the amounts and the individual nutritional needs.
Up to now, many types of nutrition labeling have co-existed in UK. The Government’s attempt is to unify the nutrition labeling, in order to avoid further confusion among consumers.
Here you can find some samples of companies which were using different types of traffic light label, directly from Food Standard Agency website:
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/tladopters0110.pdfThe wife of a man who mentored the Kouachi brothers is living on state benefits in Leicester in the UK after deciding France was too strict on Muslims.
Sylvie Beghal, whose husband Djamel is suspected of training the men who attacked satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, lives rent-free in a four bedroom house after she left France in search of a more “Islamic environment”, the Telegraph reports.
Djamel is a former lieutenant of hate preacher Abu Hamza, who was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for terror offences in the US. He recruited another Cherif Kouachi while they were both in prison serving sentences for other terror offences. The two men remained close and were photographed in 2010 by French police playing football with other convicted terrorists.
Beghal also mentored Amedy Coulbaly and Hayat Boumeddiene, who held up a Kosher store yesterday, killing four hostages a day after killing a police woman.
Although he was excluded from the UK on national security grounds in 2009, his family have been allowed to stay.
Sylvie Beghal lives with her four children in the city of Leicester. Her landlord told the Telegraph: “She doesn’t have a job. She doesn’t even leave the house much.” If she claims the full housing benefit to which she would be entitled, she would receive more than £10,000 a year. As she has two children under 18, she would also be entitled to around £1,500 in child benefit.
If you add housing benefits to this, Mrs Beghal may have cost the British taxpayer more than £150,000 since she moved to the UK.
Mr and Mrs Beghal married in 1990 in France, before moving to Leicester in 1997 |
less Whisper with his debut solo album Faith, which catapulted him to super stardom in 1987.
All of the singer's albums have charted either No. 1 or No. 2 in the album charts.
(Image: PA)
(Image: Photoshot)
George has won three Brit awards, two Grammys and four Ivor Novello awards in his career spanning over three decades.
In April 1998, he was arrested for lewd conduct in the men's room of a public park in Beverly Hills. He was fined and ordered to pay community service, and late came out as gay.
He said hiding his sexuality made him feel "fraudulent" and his eventual outing was "a subconsciously deliberate act".
He later reenacted the scene in his music video for Outside in 1998.
In September of 2008 Michael was arrested in a public lavatory in London's Hampstead Heath area for drug possession.
He said: "I want to apologize to my fans for screwing up again, and to promise them I'll sort myself out.
And to say sorry to everybody else, just for boring them."
(Image: Rex)
(Image: Wireimage)
Last month George was reported to have rekindled his friendship with the man he declared the love of his life, Kenny Goss.
The couple were together for 13 years before the former Wham! Star's split from the Texan art dealer in 2009.
George nearly died from pneumonia in late 2011.
After receiving treatment in a Vienna hospital, he made a tearful appearance outside his London home and said it had been "touch and go" whether he lived.
(Image: PA)
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Doctors had performed a tracheotomy to keep his airways open and he was unconscious for some of his spell in hospital.
The singer collapsed at his home in May 2014 and was taken to hospital for emergency treatment.
His last tweet was in September, but last month a tweet on his Facebook page said he was "busy putting the finishing touches to his special documentary film ‘Freedom’."
Musician Nile Rodgers said on Twitter he had visited George just two days ago.
Meanwhile, Michael's 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 had been set to be reissued accompanied by a new film featuring Stevie Wonder, Elton John and the supermodels who starred in the video to his hit single Freedom! '90.
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The movie, with the working title Freedom: George Michael, was to be narrated by Michael and set to feature Mark Ronson, Mary J Blige, Tony Bennett, Liam Gallagher, James Corden and Ricky Gervais.
(Image: Mirrorpix)
The record was his second solo album, after the hugely successful Faith, and was arranged produced and almost entirely written by Michael, but did not feature him on the album cover.
It featured hits including Cowboys And Angels, Mother's Pride and Praying For Time and outsold Faith in the UK, where it went platinum four times but led to a court case with US record label Sony about Michael's frustration over how the album has been marketed.
Michael lost the case.
Celebrity reaction
Stars from the world of showbiz have paid tribute to the "truly brilliant" George Michael.
Pop stars from the former Wham! front man's heyday were joined by more contemporary names in declaring their sadness.
Boy George sent a message of love to his dear friend with a heartfelt post on Twitter.
The Culture Club star wrote: “I am thinking of @GeorgeMichael's family, friends and fans right now.
“He was so loved and I hope he knew it because the sadness today is beyond words. Devastating.”
The former The Voice UK coach continued: “What a beautiful voice he had and his music will live on as a testament to his talent.
“I can't believe he is gone. I hope the Buddha will hold him in his arms. NMRK.”
The two icons of the 1980s were rumored to have feuded over the years, but seemingly reconciled.
Pet Shop Boys also paid tribute to the late music legend.
Along with a picture with George, they wrote: "Dear George, gone too soon. It's so sad. Heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. Love, Neil and Chris x #PetText."
Sir Elton John was among the shocked celebrities paying tribute to the star on social media last night. He wrote: “I have lost a beloved friend – the kindest, most generous soul and a brilliant artist. My heart goes out to his family and all of his fans. @GeorgeMichael #RIP.
Martin Fry, lead singer and songwriter with Look Of Love band ABC, said on Twitter: "Absolutely devastated to hear of the loss of @GeorgeMichael Truly brilliant talent £sad £sad £sad."
Contemporaries Duran Duran referenced the so-called "curse of 2016" - which has seen the deaths of rock and pop behemoths David Bowie, Prince and Rick Parfitt, posted on their official Twitter account: "2016 - loss of another talented soul. All our love and sympathy to @GeorgeMichael's family."
80s pop star Howard Jones, known for the song I'd Like To Get To Know You Well, said: "Can't believe George Michael has passed....one of the greatest singers and writers the UK ever produced. I'm really saddened..a lovely man."
This year's X Factor winner Matt Terry said: "Noooooooooooooooo! I cannot believe this!!!! RIP George Michael".
Former X Factor winner Shayne Ward said: "Absolutely shocked to hear that one of my vocal idols @GeorgeMichael Has passed away. I adored his voice."
Matt Lucas, who worked with the singer during a sketch for BBC comedy Little Britain, said: "Well 2016, you had to just take one more, didn't you?"
Entrepreneur and television personality Duncan Bannatyne said: "George Michael has now been taken by the curse of 2016. Please make him the last. RIP."
While former Radio One disc jockey Tony Blackburn said: "Unbelievable, George Michael has died at the age of 53. RIP.This dreadful year goes on and on.So sad, a real talent."
Star Trek actor William Shatner said: "Is this year over yet? Too many people are passing away. Rest In Peace, George Michael."
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "Very sad to hear the news about George Michael. An incredible talent who brought joy to millions of us with his music."
Fellow politician Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, said: "This is just too awful. Such an amazing talent gone too soon. Wham was part of the soundtrack to my teenage years."
Singer and stage actress Pixie Lott said: "Grew up listening to the beautiful and talented @GeorgeMichael - my mama's favourite! was a pleasure to meet him so sad to hear the news."
Fellow pop star La Roux said: "Another one gone.... What a voice, what a songwriter."
Fans have today begun gathering outside his home to pay tribute to their music hero.
(Image: Rex Features)
(Image: Rex Features)NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Popular new technologies and services -- like daily group deals and wireless TV services -- also come with new frustrations. And consumer agencies are hearing all about them.
While these new complaints didn't make the Consumer Federation of America's top ten list for 2010, the 31 consumer agencies that the CFA surveyed to compile its report singled out nine new categories that have started to spark frustration in our lives.
Here are some of the issues consumers are complaining about now:
Group deals: Daily group deals from companies like Groupon -- which you can only purchase when a certain number of people sign up -- may look amazing when that e-mail pops up in your inbox. But many consumers have been surprised by unexpected limitations or expiration dates on the offers. Also among the new gripes: confusing or inadequate disclosures on group deals, the CFA found.
One agency received a complaint from a consumer who bought a coupon for a 90-day gym pass. The fine print on the coupon wasn't clear, so she thought she could begin using the pass any day before the expiration date and still get to go for the full 90 days.
But that wasn't the case, and the company said she couldn't use it after the coupon had expired. She complained to the Cambridge Consumers' Council in Massachusetts, which was able to get her $119 back.
Data breaches: From the Sony (SNE) hack that stole credit card information from 77 million customers and the Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) cyber attack that stole $2.7 million from more than 3,000 accounts, concerns about privacy are rampant. As a result of recent data breaches, the CFA received "barrages" of complaints from consumers worried about identity theft.
Last year, a series of data breaches at banks and credit unions in Montana incited a large number of consumers to call the Montana Department of Justice for help. Many states require companies to notify customers if personal data has been lost or accessed illegally, the CFA said.
Wireless TV contracts: With all the different wireless TV options cropping up, such as Apple TV and Google TV, consumers are complaining that the companies aren't yet accountable enough for their services. For the first time last year, the CFA received complaints about a lack of wireless television service contracts.
A consumer recently complained to a New Jersey consumer agency that he never received a contract with his wireless TV service. Instead, he said the salesperson got his signature on a handheld computer. Since the state law requires companies to present the return and cancellation policy of a product at the point of purchase and provide a sales receipt or contract to every customer, the consumer agency is working to ensure customers receive the proper information.
Confusing medical bills: Health care insurance has always been confusing, but consumers are apparently having an even harder time figuring out how much money to pay for medical procedures, and to whom. The CFA received complaints from consumers frustrated because their health service providers and insurance companies were disputing whether claims should be covered or were properly submitted -- leaving the consumer in the lurch.
A consumer agency in Virginia recently helped a consumer resolve a complaint where a medical practice had failed to properly submit bills to the patient's insurance agency, so it looked like the patient was the one who hadn't paid.
Timeshare recovery scheme: New to the complaint bin this year were "recovery services" that promised to recoup funds for consumers who lost money to timeshare resale companies.
A consumer agency in Florida, a timeshare hotspot, had always received plenty of complaints about companies promising to resell a consumer's timeshare that then failed to do so. But new complaints started surfacing regarding companies that promised to file disputes with the customer's credit card issuer to try to recoup the money charged by the timeshare resale company. Meanwhile, these so-called "recovery" services, would charge hefty fees to that same credit card for its services
"Grandparent scams": The CFA noticed new complaints last year about what it calls the "grandparent scam," where consumers receive calls or e-mails from someone claiming to be a friend or family member who is in trouble and needs help. That help, as you might guess, is needed in the form of a wire transfer and goes to someone they have never met.
The scam was so prevalent in Ohio last year that the Ohio Attorney General's Consumer Protection Section issued alerts warning Ohioans about the scheme, the CFA said.
Car-buying companies: Consumers have begun complaining about companies that offer to buy their cars but never pay off the liens on the vehicles or write checks to consumers that then bounce.
One Maryland car-buying company advertised that it would pay more for a consumer's car than the car dealer across the street would. But consumers said the checks this company gave them for their cars bounced and the loans they sold to the company were never paid off.
Tax "help": The CFA received a new crop of complaints last year about tax-related scams where companies send consumers letters offering to help them with tax-related issues that they could get elsewhere for a much lower price -- or for free.
In California last year, one scam offered to help homeowners reduce their property taxes. Other complaints involved official-looking notices that charged hefty fees for tax assistance when the government could have helped them for free.Olivier Giroud says he still doesn't know if he will be an Arsenal player next season. Olivier Giroud says he still doesn't know if he will be an Arsenal player next season.
Olivier Giroud has told Sky Sports News HQ he does not know if he will still be an Arsenal player at the start of the season.
Giroud started just 11 Premier League games last term and has since seen his chances of more regular football hit by the club-record purchase of France team-mate Alexandre Lacazette.
And despite Arsene Wenger's insistence this week that "our resolution is to keep him here", Giroud's future remains uncertain.
"I honestly don't know," the striker said when asked about his position. "At the moment I'm still an Arsenal player so I'll try to be professional like always and prepare well for next season.
"Obviously there will be more competition, even more than last year, but it's always nice for a striker to feel the pressure and I always deal with it.
"I've been through some difficulties these last years but always succeeded to bounce back, but this one I don't know. I don't know about my future so I can't tell you more. I'm focused on my pre-season."
Giroud, who is two short of 100 Arsenal goals having joined the club five years ago, signed a new contract in January but has been targeted by West Ham and Everton this summer.Symbol of Chaos
Symbol of Chaos
The Symbol of Chaos originates from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories and its dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern. In contrast, the symbol of Law is a single upright arrow. It is also called the Arms of Chaos, the Arrows of Chaos, the Chaos Star, the Chaos Cross, the Chaosphere (when depicted as a three-dimensional sphere), or the Symbol of Eight.
Alternative symbols of chaos (owing nothing to Moorcock) include The Sacred Chao of Discordianism and The Five Fingered Hand of Eris.
Overview [ edit ]
Moorcock has stated that he conceived this symbol while writing the first Elric of Melniboné stories in the early 1960s. It was subsequently adopted into the pop-cultural mainstream, turning up in such places as modern occult traditions and role-playing games.
There are a number of traditional symbols that have the same geometrical pattern as Moorcock's symbol of Chaos, such as any of various eight-pointed stars, the star of Ishtar/Venus, the Indian Dharmacakra and the Wheel of the Year, but none of these were symbols of chaos and their limbs are not arrows.
The '8' of Wands in Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck features prominently an eight-pointed star with arrows at the ends. Crowley described the card as representing "energy" scattering at "high velocity" that had managed to create the depicted eight-pointed figure.
Moorcock said about his version,[1]
The origin of the Chaos Symbol was me doodling sitting at the kitchen table and wondering what to tell Jim Cawthorn the arms of Chaos looked like. I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) – N, S, E, W – and then added another four directions and that was that – eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law. I have since been told that it is an "ancient symbol of Chaos" and if it is then it confirms a lot of theories about the race mind.... As far as I know the symbol, drawn by Jim Cawthorn, first appeared on an Elric cover of Science Fantasy in 1962, then later appeared in his first comic version of Stormbringer done by Savoy ISBN 0-7045-0226-7.
An even-more-chaotic asymmetrical representation was by Walter Simonson in the Michael Moorcock's Multiverse comic (and subsequent graphic novel: ISBN 1-56389-516-1).
Games [ edit ]
The symbol's first appearance in a commercial role-playing game (RPG) was in TSR's Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Deities & Demigods[2] which included the gods, monsters, and heroes from Moorcock's Elric books as one of 17 mythological and fictional "pantheons". Copyright problems led to its omission from later editions.[citation needed]
It then turned up quite naturally in Chaosium's Stormbringer RPG (one edition of which was published as Elric!).[3] The 1987 edition of Stormbringer was published jointly by Chaosium in the U.S. and Games Workshop (GW) in the UK.
Moorcock's eight-arrow symbol of Chaos was subsequently used by Games Workshop and used as a frequent graphic element in their own Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games and the related miniature figures, representing the forces of Chaos.
Star of Chaos appears as the penultimate boss of Gradius Gaiden, in the passage between one of the last bosses (Big Ducker) and Final Boss (He shuffles the Final Enemy of the other Gradius)
It has also appeared in Bungie's Xbox 360 game Halo 3: ODST as an emblem for playable multiplayer characters.
It also shows in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, in the home of Aleister Grout, the Malkavian primogen.
It further appears on an item called a "chaos device" in Heretic and HeXen.
In Warcraft II, the Orc side's target mouse cursor has the form of chaos symbol. The symbol also appears in several artworks, which can be seen in game's manual and during mission briefings. [4][5]
The Symbol of Chaos shows up in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth expansion Afterbirth as the item "Chaos".[6]
The Chaosphere is a pick-up in the open source twin-stick-shooter heXon with a variety of effects.
The symbol also appears in the background during a dialogue scene in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Hearts of Stone, an expansion to Witcher 3, located in the home of a professor attempting to ward off a malevolent demonic entity that plays a key role in the expansion's plot.
A variant on the symbol is seen on the foreheads of the Silent Monks in 2017's Divinity: Original Sin 2
Other modern uses [ edit ]
In modern times, the symbol of chaos as well as the chaos sphere has been used in a wide variety of settings, including the following:
Music:
It appeared in some of the cover artworks of the thrash metal band Testament.
It appears as the Logo of the Californian Grindcore Veterans Phobia.
The 3D Chaosphere appeared on the Swedish metal band Meshuggah's 3rd album entitled Chaosphere.
It frequently appears in the artwork of the albums of the British death metal band Bolt Thrower.
English cross-genre, experimental group Coil used the Symbol of Chaos as their logo.
It has also appeared in a lot of artwork by Shock Rock/Thrash Metal band GWAR. It has been featured on the cover of their album This Toilet Earth and in the inserts of other albums along with being used on much of their merchandise and early flyers.
It has also appeared as album artwork on the albums of black metal band 1349, including the album Liberation.
The American metal band Chimaira use a modified Symbol of Chaos logo that seems to be redesigned for every new album release.
A symmetrical Symbol Of Chaos was used as a logo (typically on LP record covers) by Roulette Records in the 1960s.
The symbol is used in the music video for "Ugly Boy" by Die Antwoord.
TV:
The TV series Sleepy Hollow (2013) uses the Chaos Star pattern in tattoo form as a mark of the Hessians, most notably on the center/back of the Horseman's Skull, as well as every Hessian's wrist.
The American television show, Community, uses a six-armed Chaos symbol as the centerpiece of their school flag. The school on the show however, refers to it as an anus.
The British television program Luther features a version of the Chaos Star that they refer to as a 'Bedlam Axis'.
A version of the Symbol of Chaos was used as the symbol of Jack the Clown in Halloween Horror Nights Orlando 2015 show, The Carnage Returns.
American chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain had a tattoo of the Symbol of Chaos on his right arm.
The character of Discord from the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic carries a cane adorned with the Symbol of Chaos in the season 5 episode "Make New Friends But Keep Discord", referring to his being the Spirit of Chaos in the show.
Other:
Chaos! Comics' logo was the Symbol of Chaos with a human skull in the middle.
The NXT Pro Wrestling stable SAnitY gear adorns several variations of the Symbol of Chaos.
A colorful version is used as the logo for the CentOS operating system distribution.
The symbol of Chaos is frequently used in chaos magic, as is its 3D analog, the Chaosphere.
A variant of the Chaosphere has been adopted by the Eurasian Youth Union and the Eurasia Party in Russia.[7]
The dust jacket of Foundations of Geopolitics by Aleksandr Dugin is emblazoned with the symbol.[8]
It is used as the logo for the National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents in Iran.[9]
See also [ edit ]After a week off due to Hurricane Irma and a lack of an internet connection, we’re back! Not many weeks left in the USL Regular Season, let’s take a dive into last week’s numbers.
Week 26 USL Matches
There were 16 games in USL action for Week 26, here are a few highlights from the stands:
FC Cincinnati played their last regular season match at Nippert and set another USL record with 30,417 against NYRBII. This brought their season average to an impressive 21,199.
Sacramento Republic posted their reliable sellout – number 13 on the season
Louisville City brought in 8,303 for a Friday night matchup against Bethlehem Steel
Phoenix Rising crossed the 6k mark again – nearly selling out against Real Monarchs
2017 USL Attendance: Through Week 26
In total, USL now sits at 1.76 million in attendance. There are 72 games left on the slate. Clubs will have to average around 3,400 in order to cross the 2 million mark for the season.
Reactions, points of clarity, analysis? Add your commentary on your club (or the league) in the comments below!Would it be bragging to say that I am famous among my circle of friends for this amazing chicken?
Would it be over the top to say that at least two vegetarians (ladies, you know who you are!) have ignored the tofu I had diligently fixed them when they saw this chicken presented to the rest of the guests? Vows were broken; chicken was devoured.
I could go on, but I won't.
This marinated, butterflied chicken is so addictive that a friend affectionately referred to it as "Heroin Chicken," and the name stuck.
Everyone needs a signature go-to dish, one that you can prepare for family and friends and know you're going to have a home run, and Heroin Chicken is that dish. This is the dish I bring to the new mother for her much-deserved dinner, or to a weekend collaborative dinner party...and it's always a hit. It's the little black dress of my cooking repertoire. I originally saw this in a Nigella Lawson book-love her!-and although the recipe has evolved into the addictive variation that it is, never would I have imagined how often I would make this, so: major credits to Nigella!
Enjoy this dish with a Sauvignon Blanc, a lovely arugula salad, and a your favorite potato dish. (Watch for mine, coming soon!)
Heroin Chicken
• One large roasting butterflied chicken (you can cut it yourself, but why, when the butcher is so happy to help?)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons black peppercorns, partially crushed
• 7 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 to 4 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed
• A couple handfuls of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Fresh juice from one lemon
• Salt: Maldon, kosher or whatever you prefer
• Optional: 2 tablespoons of sumac
Tip: Let this chicken marinate for 48 hours! It is a glorious thing to stick a chicken in this marinade on Friday night with plans to cook it on Sunday, and if the weekend hijacks your schedule and it doesn't get prepared on Sunday, it's going to be hella delicious cooked on Monday (and by the way, the leftovers from this particular dish are just as scrumptious).
Tip: When buying a chicken, you always have an option of a roaster or a fryer. I always get a large organic roasting chicken because they are more succulent and juicy.
Tip: To partially crush the peppercorns you can use a mortar and pestle. I have invested in a coffee grinder which I use exclusively for dried herbs, and it's practically my best friend. There is no need to ever wash it, just empty it when you're finished. You really don't want water in there-it's all about powdered spices.
After the chicken's been butterflied, wash it thoroughly so that it is super clean and ready to roast. Pat it dry with paper towel. Sprinkle liberally with salt, all over and inside the bird.
Make the marinade by combining the crushed peppercorn, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Place the bird skin-side down in a container that's snug, so it will be will be thoroughly covered by the marinade. Pour in half the marinade and half the parsley.
I distribute the marinade with bare hands so that every single place is drenched, and then flip the chicken so it's skin-side up and repeat. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. I like to flip it the over about once a day till I roast it.
Note: all ovens are different. 375 in my oven and 375 in your oven, may actually be two different temperatures; furthermore, the center of your oven is a very different place than the center of my oven. So watch your bird carefully the first time you make this dish. You will develop an instinct for the perfect amount of time, the perfect temperature, and the perfect color brown.
Here's what I do:
Roast the chicken skin-side up in a roasting pan at 375 to start. After 20 or so minutes, when it starts to brown, turn it down to 350. You can do nothing but stick it in the oven, but I like to watch it a bit. If you have a convection oven, I would suggest you use it for 15 or 20 minutes when you turn the oven down to 350 and then at the end for 5 minutes.
You want it nicely browned and you need to develop a sense for yourself in what that looks like, so you are learning to cook from instinct, smell and sounds rather than reading a recipe. Recipes are wonderful guides but if you are going to be a cook, you will have to learn to listen to your own voice.
The chicken takes about an hour but you will know when it's done because the legs wiggle and it's really brown and crispy. If you don't have a convection oven and it's not very brown at the end, you can turn up the heat to 375 or so for the last 5 minutes or until you can see it's the perfect color.Getting into a road rage fight can be a dangerous thing. You don't know what the person you're fighting with is capable of.
They can come at you with an aluminum bat.
Or a two-by-four.
Continue Reading
Or a tire iron.
Or a gun.
Or a sandwich.
Orlando Police say two men were involved in a road rage argument when one of the men suddenly attacked the other man with a sandwich.
According to police, 41-year-old Reggie Diaz was driving on South Semoran Boulevard near Leevista Boulevard in a 2013 Nissan shuttle bus when someone driving what looked like a 2010 Dodge Caravan sideswiped him from the rear.
Both vehicles pulled over to the side.
Diaz then stepped out of his shuttle bus when he was suddenly attacked by a sandwich.
Diaz says the other man launched the sandwich from his car, splattering it on the shuttle bus windshield. The impact of the sandwich sent pieces of it flying around, and Diaz, not exactly sure what the object was at first -- because who the hell goes around throwing sandwiches at people? -- ducked for cover.
It appears the sandwich was just a warning shot. Because someone who was sitting in Sandwich Man's passenger side got out of the car and pulled out a gun.
Diaz sprinted back to his vehicle. He then says the other car screeched away and fled the scene.
Orlando police have been searching for the man's vehicle but so far, nothing.
According to Diaz, Sandwich Man is Hispanic, about 25 years old, and five feet tall. His buddy, Man With Gun, is described in the same way. Except that he was wearing a dark shirt and used a gun to threaten Diaz, as opposed to Sandwich Man, who was wearing a tan polo shirt and used lunch to threaten Diaz.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to call Orlando Police.
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Follow @NewTimesBrowardSOUTH BEND, Ind. — Brian Kelly's spread offense at Notre Dame has yet to look like his spread offenses at earlier career stops. No matter, especially when you have the Irish on the doorstep of their first national title in 24 years.
But a ground-and-pound style can only take you so far against the nation's top rushing defense, and Kelly is aware that topping Alabama simply between the tackles Monday is asking a lot of any offense, let alone one that has steadily grown under a first-year quarterback.
"I think there’s a time and place for all of that," Kelly said. "Are we going to be exclusively in tempo? No. I like to pick our spots. Part of our offense right now will reflect more of that at times during the game. It won’t always be that way. We’ll pick our spots to use some tempo that we think can be beneficial for us.
"As you know, personnel, moving personnel in and out of the game, we’d like to try to match up to some of our guys that we think we could have a matchup problem with when you have multiple tight ends on the field."
The Tide surrender just 79.77 rushing yards per game, and 2.46 yards per carry. The Irish's rushing attack has risen from as low as 87th nationally after the season's first month (140.25 yards per game) to 29th now (202.5 ypg), and the emergence of Everett Golson is no small reason for that.
The redshirt freshman's rushing yards through September? Negative-11. His total in the seven games since? 316.
Look at the performance of the only quarterback who delivered Alabama a loss this season -- Heisman winner Johnny Manziel added 92 rushing yards to his 253 through the air -- and the closest thing to a blueprint for attacking the Tide's defense begins to emerge.
"I just think there’s a lot of things that you have to do," Kelly said. "If you go in there and say, ‘All right, we’re just going to play the game between the tackles,’ you’re in for a long day. So I think we have to utilize the 53 1/3 by 120. We’ve got to be attacking all areas and getting the kind of matchups that we need offensively. We’ve got to get big chunk plays. I’m just going to tell you that right now. They know that, we know that."
Facing a defense that ranks in the top-eight nationally in five different categories, the Irish will need playmakers in all shapes and sizes, making the return of a deep threat like DaVaris Daniels (broken clavicle) all the more important come Monday.
"We got a lot of guys that can fill in that role, so it's on all our shoulders," Daniels said. "Everybody has to make a play. We need all 11 guys to play to the best of their abilities."Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte addresses troops during change-of-command ceremony at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, northeast of Manila,on Wednesday. | AP Photo Duterte does profanity-laced Trump impression
He’s no Alec Baldwin, but Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte tried his hand at impersonating President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday in a profanity-laced speech.
Regaling the audience at a state conference, Duterte relayed what he said were snippets of his recent phone conversation with America’s next leader.
“You’re doing great. I know what your worry [is] about these Americans criticizing you. You’re doing good, go ahead. I have this problem on the border of Mexico and America, this goddamn s--- guy,” Duterte said.
During the conversation, Trump said, “no media supported me and I did it on my own,” according to Duterte.
Duterte, who has been critical of President Barack Obama, appears to have formed a budding friendship with the next president of the United States. For his part, Trump has not objected to comparisons to the Philippine leader, who has been criticized by human rights groups for carrying out extrajudicial killings in his crackdown on drug traffickers.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday that the “vigilante justice” under Duterte’s watch runs counter to basic American values. Earnest has frequently been asked to respond to Duterte’s attacks on Obama, including the time he called his U.S. counterpart a “son of a whore.”
At one point, the Philippines leader said the U.S. had “lost” and that the long alliance between the two countries was over. But a spokesman for the president later walked back the threat.
According to Duterte’s office, Trump has invited the Philippines president for a visit to the United States.The Raiders’ limp, lifeless, and frankly embarrassing 34-14 loss to the Buffalo Bills Sunday provided some clarity to Raiders fans.
Ten days after Oakland’s Thursday night tease, we now know that this Raiders season — a campaign that began with so much promise and potential — is effectively over. At 3-5, with four ugly losses in October and little sign that a turnaround is imminent against a hellacious second-half schedule, one can firmly say that the playoffs are a pipe dream for this Raiders team, which has to be considered the biggest disappointment in the NFL this year.
But when it comes to whom Raiders fans should blame for this dissatisfying season, there isn’t much clarity at all.
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The 263-pound linebacker signed with the Raiders. The team’s doctors told him to get to an ER immediately.
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What Khalil Mack trade tells us about Raiders and 2019 free agency So who is responsible for this mess? Have a comment about this? Join the conversation at our Oakland Raiders Facebook page.
The truth is that everyone with the Raiders — top to bottom — deserves a piece of this action.
The go-to scapegoat for this season’s failures is first-year offensive coordinator Todd Downing, and fan zealousness aside, that makes plenty of sense — he’s the new guy. When doing the simple deduction between last year and this year, Downing’s promotion from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator stands out.
The new OC has certainly struggled to establish a reliable or formidable offensive identity for the Raiders this season, and after an inspired game plan last Thursday against Kansas City, where Downing moved wide receiver Amari Cooper around in formations and quarterback Derek Carr around on designed bootlegs, the Raiders offense regressed back into a predictable, underwhelming attack Sunday against a solid Buffalo defense, dinking and dunking their way into 367 total yards but also seven-straight failed possessions, bookended by a touchdown on the first drive of the game and on the first drive of the fourth quarter.
Did the @RAIDERS win? I blacked out after the 40th screen pass. — Ice Cube (@icecube) October 29, 2017
The Raiders offense was pegged as a unit that could be the best in the NFL this season. Those expectations were not unfounded, but they have been nowhere near actualized.
The Raiders have one of the best offensive lines in football (still), established receivers, and a quarterback with elite arm talent, and yet the Raiders offense was a steady stream of running back check-down passes on Sunday.
Why was that?
Head coach Jack Del Rio didn’t have an answer. Literally. When asked why the Raiders stopped throwing the ball downfield consistently after the first drive of the game, Del Rio responded “I can’t answer to that. Nobody was saying don’t take a shot.”
Carr had an answer, but it won’t satisfy anyone. The Raiders quarterback said that the check-down passes were necessary because the Bills defense, like every other team that’s (correctly) played the Raiders, was playing soft zone coverage — daring Carr to turn the ball over. (Even so, he did turn it over — twice.)
Downing is no doubt part of the Raiders’ disappointing first half, but Sunday’s game showed Carr shouldn’t escape criticism either. Reading this on your phone? Get our free mobile app from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.
The fourth-year quarterback might have a penchant for late-game magic, but despite a huge $125 million contract, for the first 50-or-so minutes of games, his play is still shockingly inconsistent — he can be blindingly brilliant and aggressive or a worse-than-replacement level signal caller on any given drive and there’s little rhyme or reason as to why that’s the case, outside of the quarterback’s clear lack of pocket poise. (And that can’t be the overarching reason, can it?)
Carr has not progressed year-over-year, despite the new contract, and while Downing will probably take the heat for that with the fans, the quarterback himself cannot be considered blameless. Carr knows that the Raiders go as he goes, and so far this season, he’s averaging fewer than six plays per drive.
Does that make him the scapegoat? After all, Carr can’t do it alone.
Cooper, after that “breakout game |
an identical contract with the Dolphins.
What was behind his change of heart? Cameron suggested at his introductory press conference on Friday morning that a stable quarterback situation in Miami was a big reason for the switch. Ryan Tannehill has made promising strides in each of his first three seasons, while the Browns' have picked up journeymen Josh McCown and Thad Lewis in free agency. Their other QB is a guy by the name of Johnny Manziel.
"The quarterback situation — he’s an up-and-coming guy, very young, working hard," Cameron told reporters on Friday. "They’re saying a lot of good things about him yesterday in this building and that’s a big part of my decision. The people around the building were awesome and I’m very excited to be here. It’s going to be a good fit."
It makes perfect sense. Cameron had a breakout season in 2013 with Jason Campbell, Brandon Weeden and Brian Hoyer throwing him the ball, but any receiver would prefer to establish a relationship with one signal caller. Tannehill has increasingly looked like Miami's franchise QB — he threw for more than 4,000 yards and 27 touchdowns with 12 picks last fall.
Meanwhile, the Fins will apparently keep tight end Charles Clay under the transition tag. Omar Kelly of the Sun Sentinel said Friday the club still wants to re-sign Clay if the price is right. The Bills may still extend an offer sheet that the Dolphins are not willing to match, but if not, he could be yet another target for Tannehill.
The Dolphins are indeed interested in re-signing TE Charles Clay if his offer from Buffalo is manageable. Cameron, Clay, Sims, & Lynch.[/p]— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) March 13, 2015The police officer died from his wounds after leaving the scene in an ambulance, Dogan news service said (AFP Photo/OZAN KOSE)
Ankara (AFP) - A policeman was stabbed to death in Istanbul on Sunday by a suspected member of the Islamic State group who had been arrested for planning a suicide attack, Turkish media said.
The assailant stabbed the officer at around 11 pm (2000 GMT) as he was being taken out of a patrol car near a police station following his arrest, according to the privately run Dogan news service.
The attacker, who was detained on suspicion of planning to carry out a suicide bombing, was then shot dead by police, the pro-government Anadolu agency reported.
The officer, who was taken from the scene in an ambulance, died from his wounds.
It was not immediately clear how the man managed to keep a knife while being taken into custody.
Turkey was hit in 2016 by a succession of attacks that left hundreds dead in the bloodiest year of terror strikes in its history.
The attacks were blamed on IS jihadists who had taken swathes of territory in neighbouring Syria and Iraq as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who have battled the Turkish state in an insurgency lasting more than three decades.
Last month anti-terror officers in Istanbul detained dozens of alleged IS members, several of whom were said to be preparing a "sensational attack" in Turkey, police said.
An attack by a jihadist gunman on an elite nightclub in Istanbul just 75 minutes into New Year's Day in 2017 left 39 people dead, mainly foreigners.
There has since been a lull in similar attacks, but tensions and high security remain in big cities.Anyone who’s spent enough time at clubs or industry parties is familiar with the phenomenon of the celebrity DJ, where famous people are paid a lot of money to basically play songs off their phone and pose for Instagram photos. Elijah Wood is certainly a celebrity, but with his project Wooden Wisdom, a partnership with former indie label guy Zach Cowie (a.k.a. Turquoise Wisdom), he proves he’s a legit disc jockey—they spin vinyl, navigate a broad range of sounds from acid rock to African funk, and can actually get a crowd energized for reasons other than sharing a room with a famous person.
Recently Wood and Cowie took their records on the road for a full-on Wooden Wisdom tour. Before their gig at Brooklyn Bowl, they sat down with EW to talk about their vinyl fetishes and what’s so great about the possibility of totally screwing up a set.
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/185035918
EW: Tell me how you guys got together.
ZACH COWIE: So we met through these designers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, that have a line called Rodarte, and I work on their runway music and DJ their afterparties. I was DJing one of their parties about four years ago, and they’re old friends with Elijah, and they were like, “You should go up and meet Zach and play some songs with him.” I was playing records, and Elijah came up with his iPod and we did it, and we ended up going like song for song for the whole party. It’s kind of, I’d say notorious at this point, to mention that I don’t remember this part.
ELIJAH WOOD: He actually doesn’t. We were at this bar in LA, and we were just chatting, and I was like, “Do you remember that night when we first met, and when we DJed together, and I brought my iPod?” and he’s like, he literally looked at me and he’s like, “We did?”
COWIE: I’d like to point out that I haven’t had a drink in four years. [Laughs]
Elijah, how did you start DJing in the first place?
WOOD: It actually started back in New Zealand. I was working there for a long time—I was there for like over a year and a half—and I brought CDs with me, because it was pre-iPod days, so I carried like two giant CaseLogics with me. All of the per diem that I was getting from the movie was just going to the local record store. So I had this crazy CD collection, and I just remember at one point, myself and Dominic Monaghan, we were exposed to like a CD-J, basically. And it was like, the notion of it was so simple, like, “Oh shit, we can play music that we love and just crossfade between these songs.” And we did it at a friend’s bar, because we were there long enough that we kind of knew local people. So that was my first experience with it, and I f–ing loved it. Just the idea of music that you love, being able to share that with other people, made so much sense. It was a great way to not be… not having to talk to people, but I could just stand behind this thing and play really good music. I just did it for fun, amongst friends, and at friends’ bars and stuff when I got home. And then when iPods came out, I ended up switching to that, just because it was easier, and I would have more music at my disposal. I just literally did it for fun, for years. It really wasn’t until about five or six years ago that I kind of started thinking about it from a serious perspective.
And so you guys are doing all vinyl?
COWIE: Yeah, we only do vinyl. Elijah was part of a campaign for Bushmills, and there was an LA launch party for the campaign. So we decided that we should just play together, and sort of just worked on some DJ stuff. He had accumulated a really good amount of records at that point, but like, from that night, once he nailed it, it was just like records from there on out.
WOOD: There was actually an event in New York after that event, and he was like, “Dude, just bring records. Don’t bring your iPod. You can do it!” And I was like, “I just don’t know!” Because the thing with me was that our tastes are really similar, but they’re also really varied, so the thing about an iPod is that I could go anywhere in a night and not have to be stuck with a certain kind of genre, I could kind of go multiple places, and I was used to that freedom. And he was like, “No, just bring records.” And I did, and I was petrified. It was great, and I never looked back. It totally changed my life. [laughs] It did! It was a serious apex, life-changing moment.
COWIE: The sound quality’s a big thing, but the, kind of the life that comes with accumulating the records makes the DJ experience so much more fulfilling, like you have to go out and find this stuff. And the fact that you have to take 60 of them out of your wall of records to take on a tour with you forces you to kind of show up and say something, rather than just cater to whatever’s happening.
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/108054391
On the flipside, as it were, records are really heavy.
COWIE: They are heavy!
Tell me about your record collections at home. Elijah, what’s yours? How much space does it take up?
WOOD: It takes up a lot, and increasingly more space. It’s horribly disorganized right now ‘cause I’ve got one of those IKEA sort of…
WOOD: Exactly. So I’ve got one of those, but it’s all filled. So I’ve got sort of a surplus of records. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment. It’s not as organized as his situation. He’s got two of them…
COWIE: I have far less going on than you, though. I have plenty of time to put records up on the wall. But he’ll be on a film shoot and just buying stuff online the whole time, and it’s amazing, ‘cause he’ll come home to a stack of records, just like boxes and boxes.
WOOD: Yeah, I’m on Discogs all the time.
COWIE: Yeah, I’ve got more time to listen to it, file it. My stuff’s pretty organized, but I have a lot a lot a lot a lot of records. I’d say probably like, 5,000 LPs and a couple thousand 45’s?
Are you guys into the sort of tactile “record as artifact” thing?
WOOD: Putting a needle on a record is almost like you’re making a commitment to listening to something. And because everything else digitally is so scattershot, and we listen to things in playlists, or we don’t even listen to things in full, there’s something so meaningful about taking us back to actually focusing again on listening to music, and it not being this kind of negligible, kind of throwaway thing. So that’s a huge part of it. But also the physical media is… there’s something tangible and beautiful about it. There’s all these elements to it that make it really human, and there’s something, I think, beautiful about that. And as a DJ, the thing I love about it is that it’s an active process, so you’re constantly having to work, physically. Looking through records that you want to play next, putting another record on, you know, cycling through it to find out where you want to queue. You know, it’s a physical process. And that’s a really gratifying thing, because you can actually f– that up, do you know what I mean? And honestly, the fact that you can f– it up, the fact that there is margin for error, makes it more exciting to where, when you can mix something really beautifully, and it’s a trial and error thing, if that works, it’s so much more satisfying.
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/145995795
You guys will go from like, you know, psych rock to like Bollywood stuff, but it feels like something’s tying it together. What do you think that is?
WOOD: I think about that. I think about that very thing. I think some of it’s beat oriented. I think production oriented. It’s a certain era, where production had a certain sound that kind of all fits. Beat has a lot to do with it. Things that are kind of driving, I’m just naturally drawn to that, so that can exist in any form of music. I’m also a firm believer, too, that things that are genuinely good, that give you that feeling that quickly, most people will have the same response to it. And so a lot of the stuff that we play is the stuff that kind of had that immediate reaction, and nine times out of ten, if people aren’t there jonesing to hear something that they want to hear that’s whatever, and they’re not open to hearing new things, most people are. And they connect to it. It’s pretty simple.
Elijah, I’m sure you’ve probably run into the problem of being perceived as a “celebrity DJ.”
WOOD: You know what’s funny is I honestly don’t ever really think about it. But I’m not that self-aware, so maybe that’s part of why. But I don’t really think about it until somebody sort of mentions it. Like, “Man, like it’s crazy, I was skeptical about what you were gonna bring!” I hear that a lot. But I don’t ever walk into a scenario in which we’re gonna DJ with like a defense of like, “Ooh, people are going to be weird,” or “People are gonna have expectations.” I don’t think about it because I know that we just love it, and I think we play killer records, and that’s all that I care about. I think that we as a people, as a culture, it’s often hard for us to accept when one leaves a vocation and moves to another. It happens all the time. So again, objectively, I get it. But at the same time, I know that what we’re doing is pure, and my interest is pure. So I guess that’s why I’ve never personally worried about it, ‘cause it’s something that’s so a part of who I am, and it was a part of who I am before I even started DJing. Music is inherently part of my identity. And when they hear the records, they can judge for themselves.A SERIES of planned protests around Melbourne against the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims fizzled today, with police reporting low numbers and no serious incidents.
Right-wing protesters met at the State Library and briefly argued with one Muslim man, but were outnumbered by police.
A planned protest was cancelled earlier this week after organisers spoke with police.
Police on watch for Islam protests
Two people were given banning notices, preventing them from being in the CBD for 24 hours, at Flinders St station, where so called "pro-Australian" protesters were urged to "come ready for battle" before heading to the library.
Four men in "proudly atheist" T-shirts and carrying signs saying "Islam is false" had a fiery debate with pro-Islamic supporters about 1pm.
Pictures: Anti-Islamic protest
Up to 12 people who had flown Australian flags and onlookers joined in before police asked a pro-Islam supporter to leave.
The remaining group chanted and waved flags before an argument broke out.
Police Commander Jeff Forti said more pro-Islam supporters could have made the event volatile, and planning had averted problems.
"I think (Islamic community leaders) diligently thought, 'Well, there's potential for violence. We don't want to be involved in that', so they chose to recommend to their people not to attend, and I admire them for that," Cdr Forti said.
Victorian Muslim leaders have continued to discourage protests and have overwhelmingly condemned last week's violence in Sydney.
- with Amelia Harris
media_camera A young Muslim male engages a group of anti-Islamic protesters in heated debate during what was to be a pro-Islamic rally on the steps of the State Library. Picture: Jake Nowakowski
Originally published as Muslim protests fizzle in cityThis is the fifth in a series of 10 self-guided driving tours of Houston’s original six wards, written by architectural historian Stephen Fox. All the tours are collected in a limited-edition zine, forWARDS, that was published in conjunction with RDA’s 40th annual architecture tour. The zine, designed by Spindletop Design and illustrated with photography by Peter Molick, can be purchased for $15. Call 713-348-4876 or email rda at rice.edu.
Start on Elgin Avenue and Chenevert Street. Pass Elizabeth Baldwin Park, the second oldest public park in Houston. The section of Third Ward east of Texas 288, now called Midtown, was historically known as the South End. The South End was Houston’s most elite residential neighborhood before development in the Montrose area began after 1905. Pass the Moran Center at 1410 Elgin (2011, Leslie Elkins).
Turn left onto Caroline Street, then left onto Holman Avenue. The South End Junior High School (now Houston Community College’s San Jacinto Memorial Building) at 1300 Holman was erected in 1914 (Layton & Smith; modernistic wings by Hedrick & Gottlieb, 1928, and Joseph Finger, 1936) and terminates the axis on Caroline. Brown Reynolds Watford just restored the monumental classical building. The Learning Hub and Science Center to the left of the main building is by Kirksey (2007). The 10-acre campus site is another undivided Holman outlot.
Across Holman from the school is First Evangelical Lutheran Church at 1311 Holman (1927, Joseph W. Northrup, Jr.). This square complex houses Houston’s oldest German congregation, which moved to the “suburbs” in the 1920s from Downtown. This is also the reason that the ex-Temple Beth Israel (now HCC’s Erwin R. Heinen Theater) at 3517 Austin (1925, Joseph Finger) was built here for Houston’s oldest Jewish congregation. Take immediate left onto Austin Street.
Two Colonial Revival houses on this street — the E. R. Richardson House at 3307 Austin (1903, J. Perkins Richardson) and the Sallie Sewall Horton House at 3208 (1913) — preserve a fragment of the historic residential fabric of the old South End.
Turn left onto Elgin, then left onto Fannin. Still as spectacular as when it was built in 1958 is the ex-Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. Building spanning the entire block front at 3333 Fannin, the work of the modern expressionist architect Herb Greene, who was then the designer for the building’s architect, Joseph Krakower. Another Colonial Revival survivor is the Bering House at 3402 Fannin.
Turn right onto Holman, then right onto Main. The Main-Holman corner is anchored by the neo-Gothic limestone Trinity Episcopal Church at 3415 Main (1919, Cram & Ferguson and William Ward Watkin). Turn right onto Francis, then right onto Fannin.
Pass on the left yet another remnant Colonial Revival house, now Adkins Architectural Antiques & Treasures at 3515 Fannin in the McGregor South End Addition. Turn right onto Winbern Avenue past the sadly mutilated Herzog Galleries at 3700 Fannin (1940, F. Perry Johnston). Turn right onto Main. The picturesque gable-fronted brick building at 3617 Main was the studio and residence of photographer F. J. Schlueter (1923). The gate on the Winbern side of the building led to the space where Nina Vance started the Alley Theatre in 1947; this side passage is the “alley.”
Turn right onto Berry, right onto Fannin, and left onto Alabama Avenue. Turn right onto La Branch Street into the Empire Addition, an early Jesse Jones development. At 1502 Alabama Avenue and La Branch is the Station Museum of Contemporary Art. Turn right underneath the U.S. 59 overpass, then right onto Eagle Avenue. As 59 bridges over the South End, it effectively outlines the south city limit line of Houston in 1905. The freeway right-of-way was previously the right-of-way of the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway line.
This is Kenilworth Grove, the first of several subdivisions Henry F. McGregor would develop southward up the axis of Caroline. The house at 4120 Austin and Eagle is one of the neighborhood’s most distinctive, with its diagonally splayed front entry. Turn right onto Austin. The Midtown Elevated Houses at 3910-3906 Austin (2009) are by Collaborative Designworks’s James M. Evans. Turn left onto Truxillo Avenue, then left onto Caroline Street.
Resplendently restored in 2012 as the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is the Houston Light Guard Armory (1925, Alfred C. Finn) at 3816 Caroline. As you transition from the Empire Addition to Kenilworth Grove at the Cleburne Avenue intersection, Caroline widens to become a boulevard. The imposing tile-roofed bungalow at 4115 Caroline was built in the 1920s.
Turn right onto Eagle Avenue. Pass the midblock modernistic building at 1207 Eagle built in 1940. Turn right onto San Jacinto Street, then left onto Cleburne Avenue, then left onto Fannin Street. The gable-fronted brick A. E. Kiesling Building (1920s, Alfred C. Finn) at 4102 Fannin Street was part of a complex of buildings in this block owned by the Kiesling family; it might have also been the original home of the Cleburne Cafeteria. From the mid 1920s to the early 1960s, the Midtown blocks of Fannin, Main, and San Jacinto streets were the suburban extension of the Downtown retail district.
Turn right onto Wheeler Avenue, then right onto Main Street circling Sears Roebuck & Company’s Main Street store (1939, Nimmons, Carr & Wright), Sears’s flagship in Houston and the first department store in Hous- ton built outside Downtown. Here, the surface parking lots are historic!
The Isabella Court (1929, W. D. Bordeaux) at 1003-05 Isabella Avenue and Main is a prototype mixed retail-residential building, with upper-floors apartments arrayed around a second-floor patio. It architecturally staked out the “Spanish Village” sector of the Main Street South End retail sector; today it is one of the few survivors.
Turn right onto Alabama, then left onto San Jacinto. Cross Elgin, then turn left onto Anita Avenue, then left onto Fannin, then left onto Rosalie 19 Avenue. The three-story brick building midblock at 1111 Rosalie (1924) is the one remaining increment of the modest beginnings of Methodist Hospital, according to Barrie Scardino Bradley’s research. The hospital’s other buildings stood between 1111 and San Jacinto. Turn left onto San Jacinto.
Head toward Downtown on San Jacinto, passing at the San Jacinto-McIlhenny intersection the brick apartments at 1111 McIlhenny Avenue, rehabilitated in 2000 as single-room-occupancy housing. Turn right onto Webster Avenue. The restored Benjamin Apartments at 1218 Webster (1924, Alfred C. Finn) sits across Caroline from the ex-Houston Typewriter Exchange Building (1956, Joseph Krakower) at 2201 Caroline, another eccentric Herb Greene design.
Turn right onto La Branch. The columned Colonial Revival house at 1505 Hadley Avenue (now Music World house of Dereon) is the Benjamin Botts Rice House; B. B. Rice was one of a number of William M. Rice’s nephews who lived in this corner of the South End; his is the only surviving house.
Turn right onto Hadley Avenue, then left onto Caroline. Another South End survivor is the Waggaman House (c. 1904) at 2218 Caroline and Hadley; it was rehabilitated in 1997. The Gallery Sonja Roesch (2002, Bluebox Architekten Rösch Schubert Hanisch) at 2309 Caroline is the work of architects based in Würzburg, Germany. Turn right onto Anita past 13 Celsius, architect/entrepreneur Ian Rosenberg’s recycling of the Jenning’s Cleaners and Dyeing Shoppe from the 1920s. Turn right onto Fannin, then left onto McGowen Avenue.
The Houston Electric Company’s streetcar made a turn from Travis Street (outbound) to McGowen then to Fannin Street (inbound). Consequently, these blocks of McGowen developed a streetcar-related retail corridor that predates auto-related retail development of the Main-Fannin-San Jacinto corridor in the mid-1920s. Leon’s Lounge at 1008 McGowan and Rosenberg’s Mongoose vs. Cobra at 1011 McGowan occupy recycled retail buildings; 1011 McGowan was the Auditorium Grocery (c. 1915), so called because it shared this block with the Auditorium, for a short time Houston’s civic arena, which faced Main Street. Dating from the final decade of Main Street’s golden era is the four-story Mid-Century Modern IBM Building (now Greensheet Building, 1955, David C. Baer). Turn right onto Main.
At 2301 Main is the sadly abused Knoll Building (1984, Tigerman Fugman McCurry), Stanley Tigerman’s postmodern remake of a 1920s commercial building.
Turn right onto Pierce Avenue. The now-shuttered Sacred Heart Catholic Church (1912, O. J. Lorehn), the South End parish church, faces an uncertain future.
Turn left onto Crawford Street. The six-story South Wing of St. Joseph Hospital at 1916 Crawford and Pierce (1941, I. E. Loveless) is the last surviving increment of the hospital’s modernistic interwar expansion program. At 1903 Crawford and Calhoun is the four- and five-story Convent of the Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word (1940, I. E. Loveless), once home to the religious order that founded St. Joseph in 1887 and operated it until 2006.
Turn right onto Leeland Avenue, left onto Jackson Street, right onto Clay Avenue, left onto Chenevert Street, left onto Polk Avenue, then right onto Avenida de las Américas. It is hard to believe in the stretch of Third Ward/South End that you are in the very center of the fourth-largest city in the U.S.
Turn left onto Lamar Avenue past the George R. Brown Convention Center (1987, Houston Convention Center Architects & Engineers), the 24-story Hilton Américas Hotel at 1600 Lamar (2003, Arquitectonica and Gensler) with its plaid curtain wall, and the 12-acre Discovery Green (2008, Hargreaves Associates, Page, and Lauren Griffith Associates). The reconfiguration of Downtown blocks in what had been the Victorian sector of the South End in Third Ward into a system of superblocks bespeaks the difference between nineteenth-century and twenty-first-century American urban spatiality.
Turn right onto Austin Street and traverse Houston Center with its collection of blocks, towers, skybridges, and parking garages. The parking lot on Austin between Rusk and Capitol is the site of the new High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (2017, Gensler). This was the site of the Houston Academy (1857, Houston’s first public school), its Victorian successor Houston High School (1894), and Sam Houston High School (1919), where Lyndon B. Johnson taught debate in the early 1930s.
Turn left onto Prairie Avenue. The two-story, red brick Channel Garage (1920s) at 1321 Prairie Avenue was built to house parked cars and service moving vehicles at the corner insert, which housed a gas station. Across the street at 1310 Prairie is the 16-story Houston Cotton Exchange and Board of Trade Building (1924, Sanguinet, Staats, Hedrick & Gottlieb), where Houston’s cotton trade was headquartered. Such nearby buildings as the four-story Westheimer Building at 1217 Prairie (1913, G. W. Collignon) were also outposts of the cotton trade. The parking garage at 1212 Prairie Avenue (2008, Page) houses The Beacon, Christ Church’s ministry to the homeless, on its recessed ground floor. The 10-story Sam Houston Hotel (now the Sam) at 1119 Prairie (1924, Sanguinet, Staats, Hedrick & Gottlieb) is the glamorously reincarnated version of what had been a railroad-era traveling salesmen’s hotel. The green building at 500 Fannin and Prairie was Wilson’s Stationers (1932, William Ward Watkin), rescued from total dereliction by Fretz Construction Company in 2012 (Ziegler Cooper). At 1004 Prairie and Main is the three-story Isis Theater Building (1912, C. D. Hill & Company); the theater, built to show moving pictures, no longer exists.
Turn right onto Main Street and proceed to Congress Avenue. At 405 Main and Preston is the 11-story Scanlan Building (1909, D. H. Burnham & Co.), built by Houston’s foremost female developer of the early twentieth century, Kate Scanlan, and designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham.
The slender, turreted, three-story building at the Third Ward corner of Main and Congress is another amazing Victorian survivor, the three-story Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks Building at 301 Main (1889, George E. Dickey).Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Home Affairs Correspondent Danny Shaw said it was unknown whether the victim and the suspect were known to each other
An 82-year-old woman has been killed in a suspected beheading in the garden of a north London house.
Palmira Silva was found behind the house in Nightingale Road, Edmonton, at about 13:00 BST on Thursday.
Image copyright Daily Mail Image caption Police do not know whether Palmira Silva knew her attacker
Officers found her collapsed in the back garden and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
A 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and is in custody. Detectives said there was no suggestion the killing had a terrorist motive.
The man is in hospital being treated for injuries suffered when he was arrested, police said.
A Taser was used during the arrest and a firearms officer is believed to have suffered a broken wrist.
Police said they were initially called to reports of a man armed with a knife and eyewitnesses said he had attacked an animal, possibly a cat or a dog.
Speaking at the scene of the attack, Cdr Simon Letchford said police had distracted the man while they evacuated nearby houses.
"Officers had to do everything they could to make other people safe and evacuate houses and put their lives on the line to make sure this individual did not cause further harm," he said.
He said officers smashed windows to get people out of properties after the man was "cornered" in a house.
Detectives investigating Ms Silva's death are also looking into an earlier attempted attack on two people in another address in Nightingale Road. Officers said the pair were not thought to have been hurt in the incident.
Police said they had traced the victim's next of kin but were unwilling to speculate on the nature of her injuries or the type of weapon used.
Image copyright PA Image caption Police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the killing
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Residents were evacuated from the area and the street has been cordoned off, police said
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Police said forensic officers would be at the scene for hours to come
Det Ch Insp John Sandlin said: "I can understand why this may cause people concern, however we are confident that we are not looking for anyone else at this stage.
"Whilst it is too early to speculate on what the motive behind this attack was I am confident, based on the information currently available to me, that it is not terrorist related."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Commander Simon Letchford: "These sort of events are very unusual"
Neighbour Muhammed Yusuf said police knocked on his door and told him to leave the property immediately.
His son Ahmed, 19, said: "At first there were two police cars, then all of a sudden there were 20.
"The police said to drop everything. I said 'What's going on?' and they said there's a guy jumping over gardens."
Another resident Freda Odame, 30, saw a screaming man waving a weapon around.
She said: "I heard shouting and banging and I opened my curtains and saw a guy holding a knife in a back garden a few doors along."
The BBC's Home Affairs Correspondent Danny Shaw said it was currently unknown whether the victim and the suspect were known to each other.
The police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, has been informed of the incident.Not to be confused with Scott Peterson, an individual with a similar name and case.
Drew Walter Peterson (born January 5, 1954) is a retired Bolingbrook, Illinois police sergeant who was convicted in 2012 for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, a few months after their 2003 divorce. Peterson first received national publicity in 2007 when his fourth wife, Stacy Ann Cales Peterson, disappeared. Although law enforcement and Stacy Ann's family suspect foul play, she has never been found, and Peterson has not been charged in her case.
Suspicions in Stacy Ann's case were fueled in part by the death of Savio, whose bruised body was found in a dry bathtub in her home in 2004, with a large gash in her scalp.[1] Initially, Savio's official cause of death was found to be accidental drowning.[2] In 2009, after the attention from Stacy Ann's disappearance, Peterson was indicted for Savio's murder after a second autopsy showed evidence of a struggle. He was convicted of Savio's murder in 2012, and was sentenced to 38 years in prison on February 21, 2013.
On February 9, 2015, Peterson was charged with two additional felonies – solicitation of murder and solicitation of murder for hire – for attempting to have Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow killed.[3] He was convicted on May 31, 2016, and sentenced to an additional 40 years on July 29, 2016.[4] On February 21, 2017, Peterson was transferred from Illinois Department of Corrections custody to the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Personal life [ edit ]
In 1972, Drew Peterson graduated from Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois, where he ran cross country. He joined the U.S. Army after graduation and briefly attended the College of DuPage in 1974 before moving to Falls Church, Virginia to train as a military police officer.[5] Peterson began his 30-year career with the local police force in Bolingbrook, Illinois (suburb of Chicago) in 1977.[5] In 1978, he was assigned to the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad, and in 1979, he received a "Police Officer of the Year" award from the department.[5]
Peterson retired from police in November 2007 at the age of 53 as a sergeant while under investigation for Savio’s death and the disappearance of his fourth wife Stacy. He was given a (tax-free) $79,000-a-year pension (almost $6,600-a-month).[6] One day after his second conviction in May 2016 his pension was terminated. Peterson appealed the termination within a week after being sentenced for the second crime in August 2016.[7][8]
Marriages [ edit ]
Carol Brown [ edit ]
Peterson and Carol Brown met in high school in Villa Park and together attended his senior prom.[5][9] They married in 1974, but divorced in 1980, after Brown learned about his infidelity.[10] Together they had sons Stephen Paul Peterson (1980) and Eric Drew Peterson.[11]
Vicki Connolly [ edit ]
Peterson married his second wife, Victoria "Vicki" Connolly, in 1982; the two operated a bar together in Romeoville.[9] Connolly alleged a history of abuse during her ten-year marriage to Peterson,[12] as has her daughter, who lived in the household until she turned 17. In the wake of Stacy Peterson's disappearance, Connolly told police that during their marriage, Peterson threatened to kill her and make it look like an accident.[13] She divorced Peterson after he started dating Kathleen Savio.[9] Their divorce was finalized on February 18, 1992. Peterson married Savio two months later.[5] In 2007, Connolly stated that Peterson "was a legend in his own mind".[9]
Kathleen Savio [ edit ]
Peterson married accountant Kathleen Savio (born June 13, 1963 in Glendale Heights, Illinois)[14] on May 3, 1992.[15] Together they had two sons, Thomas (January 5, 1993)[16][17] and Kristopher (August 8, 1994).[18] Their divorce was finalized on October 10, 2003.[5] It was reported that between 2002 and 2004, police were called out to the Peterson house eighteen times on domestic disturbance calls, including calls for returning children late after visitation.[19] On March 1, 2004,[20] Savio's body was found in a waterless bathtub. Her death was initially ruled an accidental drowning by a coroner's jury that included a police officer who personally knew Peterson and assured the other jurors that he was a good man who would never hurt his wife.[21]
However, following Stacy Peterson's later disappearance, Savio's body was exhumed and underwent forensic examination on November 16, 2007.[22] Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner who conducted the examination at the request of Savio's relatives and Fox News, concluded that she died of drowning following a struggle when her body was placed in the bathtub. Postmortem photos showed extensive bruising and scraping to her back, torso, and face, as well as a large, unexplained gash in her scalp.[1] The results of the official autopsy ordered by the county have yet to be released to the public.[23] Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow told the press that, after examining evidence in the case, he believed that the death was a "homicide staged to look like an accident.[23][24] On February 21, 2008, Glasgow announced that a pathologist had determined that Savio's death was |
TV through a Roku. Not all video formats will work, but this opens the door for streaming individual videos while using your phone as a remote control rather than mirroring your entire display.
In other words, it offers functionality similar to what you could expect from a Google Chromecast or the upcoming Matchstick Firefox OS device.
Not bad for a device that also offers hundreds of channels of online content and a remote control-friendly user interface.
The Roku Streaming Stick sells for $50, while the Roku 3 has a list price of $100. Both devices are often available for much lower prices.Having just toured the nation with shows and festivals still to come in the coming months the Funkoars have done what they do best, look after the fans.
The new EP Dawn of the Head peaked at #3 on the Urban and #18 on the Album ARIA charts last month. Today, we are super excited to announce Dawn Of The Head has been officially uploaded on YouTube for FREE. Check it out below.
2014 has seen a resurgence for the group with the final touches being put on the 5th album In Case of Emergency ready for release later this year. If you haven’t already seen this powerhouse of Hip Hop they will be hitting a venue or festival near you very soon.
Official || Facebook || Twitter || YouTubeWith the looming debt ceiling crisis roiling the country, I think it's important that we all do our part and try to find ways to pitch in. I think I've found a bunch of money we could use to alleviate the debt and buy ourselves a bit more time.
First, since Congress is no longer functioning or doing its job, we can probably save some cash by not paying them until they do. There are 100 Senators and 433 Representatives in the House making a base annual salary of $174,000. I'm sure they'd hate to be paid for not working, so there's $93 million we can set aside. We can leave aside the health and pension benefits from what we're reclaiming -we're not animals after all!
The Senate actually represents a treasure trove of lost money, we could root around there for days finding excess cash that could sure be of use right now.
According to a document at Treasury called the “2010 Detail of Appropriations, Outlays, and Balances" Senators and their staffers actually cost tax payers a grand total of $815,257,000 in 2010 above and beyond their regular salaries. Yes, that's correct taxpayers, almost a billion dollars in non-salary expenses for the maintenance of 100 men and women in civil service.
These "appropriations and outlays" consisted of line items like:
$1,238.56 per senator for "Senatorial Health and Fitness Club Memberships" $333.87 per Senator for Hair Care Revolving Fund" $1,666.73 per Senator for "Senate Gift Shop Revolving Fund" $2988.21 per Senator for "Stationery" $44,164 per Senator for "Use of Foreign Currency" $135,249.22 per Senator for "Miscellaneous Costs"
Haircuts, gym memberships, gift shop tchotchkes - just some of the things a $174,000 annual income (with free healthcare and retirement funding) apparently doesn't cover.
These absurdities and others add up to an obscene $8,162,000 or so per Senator or a total of $815 million. Stripping them away while Congress declines to serve in their elected roles, plus that $100 million in regular salaries, gives us almost a billion dollars we can subtract from the deficit problem. And this is before we've even taken a peak at the House of Representatives' "expenditures" let alone those of the White House.
I'm just trying to be resourceful here during a difficult time, hope this money will help...
Data Sources
112th Congress, 1st Session (TheCapitol.net)
The Senate: How Much Does it Cost (Reality Blog)
Combined Statement of Receipts, Outlays, and Balances (Treasury.gov)
Add/view comments on this post.
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The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above.This post is an introduction to using the TFANN module for classification problems. The TFANN module is available here on GitHub. The name TFANN is an abbreviation for TensorFlow Artificial Neural Network. TensorFlow is an open-source library for data flow programming. Due to the nature of computational graphs, using TensorFlow can be challenging at times. The TFANN module provides several classes that allow for interaction with the TensorFlow API using familiar object-oriented programming paradigms.
The Setup
First, the required modules are installed and imported. This code requires numpy, tensorflow, and TFANN.
import numpy as np from TFANN import ANNC
TFANN can be installed via pip or by copying the source code into a file named TFANN.py.
pip install TFANN
Next, an matrix of random data points is generated using numpy. Class labels are created following a polynomial inequality. The polynomial used is
.
The inequality used to generate class labels is
.
The equation is a downwards facing parabola centered on the y axis. Points below the parabola satisfy the inequality and are labeled as 1. Points above the curve are labeled as 0. Code to generate the data matrix and class labels follows.
def F(x, y): return - np.square(x) +.1 * x -.6 * y +.2 #Training data A1 = np.random.uniform(-1.0, 1.0, size = (1024, 2)) Y1 = (F(A1[:, 0], A1[:, 1]) > 0).astype(np.int) #Testing data A2 = np.random.uniform(-1.0, 1.0, size = (1024, 2)) Y2 = (F(A2[:, 0], A2[:, 1]) > 0).astype(np.int)
The function curve is shown in Figure 1 along with a scatter plot of the generated data matrix.
Figure 1: The Generated Data
The color indicates the value of and the curve is. The same plot colored instead with class labels in shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Generated Data with Class Labels
As can be seen above, the data is divided into two classes: 0 and 1. The goal is to create a model which can determine if a data point belongs to class 0 or to class 1. This is known as binary classification as there are two class labels.
Multi-Layer Perceptron Classification
Next, a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) network is fit to the data generated earlier. In this example, the function used to generate class labels is known. This is typically not the case. Instead, the model iteratively updates its parameters so as to reduce the value of a loss function.
A two layer MLP is constructed. The activation function tanh is used after the first hidden layer and the output layer uses linear activation (no activation function). The architecture of the network is illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3: MLP Network Architecture
The green dots on the neurons in the hidden layer indicate tanh activation. Next, this network architecture is specified in a format that TFANN accepts and an ANN classifier is constructed.
NA = [('F', 4), ('AF', 'tanh'), ('F', 2)]
The list of tuples is the network architecture. F indicates a fully-connected layer and the following number indicates the number of neurons in the layer. AF indicates an activation function and the following string indicates the name of the function. As can be seen, the network architecture specifies a fully-connected layer with 4 neurons which is followed by tanh which is followed by another fully-connected layer with 2 neurons. The final layer is the output layer.
The docstring for the _CreateANN function provides detailed information on the types of network operations that are currently supported by TFANN.
In [109]: help(TFANN._CreateANN) Help on function _CreateANN in module TFANN: _CreateANN(PM, NA, X) Sets up the graph for a convolutional neural network from a list of operation specifications like: [('C', [5, 5, 3, 64], [1, 1, 1, 1]), ('AF', 'tanh'), ('P', [1, 3, 3, 1], [1, 2, 2, 1]), ('F', 10)] Operation Types: AF: ('AF', <name>) Activation Function'relu', 'tanh', etc C: ('C', [Filter Shape], [Stride]) 2d Convolution CT: 2d Convolution Transpose C1d: ('C1d', [Filter Shape], Stride) 1d Convolution C3d: ('C3d', [Filter Shape], [Stride]) 3d Convolution D: ('D', Probability) Dropout Layer F: ('F', Output Neurons) Fully-connected LRN: ('LRN') M: ('M', Dims) Average over Dims P: ('P', [Filter Shape], [Stride]) Max Pool P1d: ('P1d', [Filter Shape], Stride) 1d Max Pooling R: ('R', shape) Reshape S: ('S', Dims) Sum over Dims [Filter Shape]: (Height, Width, In Channels, Out Channels) [Stride]: (Batch, Height, Width, Channel) Stride: 1-D Stride (single value) PM: The padding method NA: The network architecture X: Input tensor
The final layer of a classification network requires that class labels be encoded as 1-hot vectors along the final axis of the output. Since the network predicts a single binary class label for each sample, the final layer should have 2 neurons. In this way, the final layer outputs a matrix of dimension. The function argmax is applied along the final dimension of the output matrix to obtain the index of the class label.
Next the network architecture is passed to the constructor of the ANNC class, along with the input shape and other parameters. ANNC is an abbreviation for Artificial Neural Network for Classification.
annc = ANNC(A1.shape[1:], NA, batchSize = 1024, maxIter = 4096, learnRate = 1e-3, verbose = True)
The first arguments to the ANNC constructor is the shape of a single input sample. In this case, the shape is a vector of length 2. The batchSize argument indicates the number of samples to use at a time when training the network. The batch indices are selected randomly for each training iteration. The learnRate parameter specifies the learning rate used by the training method (which is the adam method by default). The maxIter argument limits the number of training iterations to some fixed amount. Finally, verbose controls whether the loss is displayed after each iteration of training. Detailed descriptions for the constructor arguments are available using help(ANNC).
TFANN follows the fit, predict, score interface used by scikit-learn. Thus, fitting and scoring the network can be accomplished as follows.
annc.fit(A1, Y1) #Fit using training data only s1 = annc.score(A1, Y1) #Performance on training data s2 = annc.score(A2, Y2) #Testing data print('Train: {:04f}\tTest: {:04f}'.format(s1, s2)) YH = annc.predict(A2) #Predicted labels
The score method uses accuracy as the metric for classification models. This is the number of samples labeled correctly divided by the number of samples. Some care should be used with this metric in problems where class labels are imbalanced.
Results
Due to the simple nature of the problem, the network is able to achieve very high accuracy on the cross-validation data. After 4096 iterations, the network achieves roughly 98% accuracy. The predictions on the testing data are plotted below in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Model Cross-Validation Predictions (Accuracy = 98.4%)
The reader is encouraged to modify the data, network architecture, and parameters to explore the features provided by TFANN.
AdvertisementsHi, I'm new here. My daughter took Plaquenil the entire time she fought lupus. It is, I must say, the least dangerous and least unpleasant of the treatments for this disease. It has been around since WWII, so it has a long history to draw from. My daughter also took Imuran early on, and moved on to Cellcept, which worked well for her for years. She refused Cytoxan due to its toxicity and threat to her fertility. No matter what treatment you try, PLEASE make sure that you get your bloodwork done as directed. There is a delicate balance between chemo drugs and Prednisone levels, as one's goes up, the other is decreased.The reason I want to impress this upon you is that my daughter hated the "moonface" (aka cushingoid syndrome) caused by the Prednisone, so she refused to increase her dose last year as directed when her white count fell, and other bloodwork got bad. She developed sepsis while in the hospital in January, and died because she couldn't fight the infection. I am still crying, and miss my girl, my best friend.Most Recent Winning Lottery Numbers
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for months 1 & 2 '07 Grand Prize 61737 609 Regular Prizes
頭獎 10439 011 67032 883 84391 882 Bonus Numbers
六獎 None *Update: New Game, New Number: to heighten interest in the game (and thus reinforce the likelihood that merchants will print receipts) the Lotto officials have added a new winning number giving you another (and hopefully easier) chance to win: if any of your receipts have the same last THREE numbers in the same order as this new number, you win NT$200. The strange thing about this game is that sometimes they don't run it. And, this is one of those times. They've put it all in potholes. ---------------- Hi. Well, so, you've been walking out of stores trying to leave behind your receipt when the cashier implores you to take it. Your local friends look at you aghast! And so, you've got them, some of them...a bunch of them. They swirl and eddy around your apartment. You try to throw them out but... you pause. There's a lottery. Some time, somehow, somewhere.... Then, suddenly, you see your co-teachers buzzing with tales of major wins... money for nothing. Hunkered down with big fist-fulls of receipts, they are raking it in, retiring to Bimini. Meanwhile you're receipts are just skittering around back home. Stop tossing those babies aside, and start playing! Here's the story. I'm from abroad. Can I win?
Yes! We foreign folk are in the running. As long as your visa is valid, start sizing up those Rolls Royces. Second -- why do they have this thing?
In an effort to get merchants to keep things on the books, the government came up with the Receipt Lottery. The theory being, with millions in winnings on the line, customers would start demanding receipts with every purchase and merchants would wind up with all their income on the books. Third -- how does it work?
Each receipt gets a unique eight digit number stamped on it. On the 25th of every odd month they announce six winning numbers. You check your receipt numbers from the previous two months. Of the six numbers they announce two are NT$200 winners, three are regular prize numbers, worth up to NT$200,000, and one is a grand prize number worth two MILLION! For the two NT$200 numbers, if any of your receipts end in the same last three numbers these, you get NT$200. For the three regular prize numbers, the amount you win is based on how many of the numbers on your receipt sequentially match the regular prize numbers. If any of your receipts has the same last three numbers, in the same order, you win NT$200. If any of your receipts has the same last four numbers, in the same order, you win NT$1000. Same last five numbers in the same order, NT$4,000. Same last six numbers in the same order, NT$10,000. Same last seven numbers in the same order, NT$40,000. All eight numbers in the same order, NT$200,000. That's for the three regular prize numbers: partial to total matches get you different money. Then, there's that GRAND Prize number. Only one way to win: have all the same numbers in the same order. O.K., so... you've checked your receipts, and you've got a winner! What now? If you've won the 2 million, or first through third prizes in the regular numbers contest, you collect these prizes only from The Taiwan Cooperative Bank, http://www.tcb-bank.com.tw/. They run the show for the government. For all the other prizes, NT$10,000 to NT$200, you can go to any branch of the:
How much will you be collecting? Well, if you win NT$1000 or less, you'll walk away with the full amount. But, lest the taxman finds himself out of the loop from his own lottery, he's instituted a nifty little lottery tax of...20%!! for prizes above 1000. Nice racket, eh? Along with the winning number, your receipt has to have the company's information stamped on it. Usually this happens automatically when your receipt comes out of the register. But, sometimes it doesn't get stamped on there. Should you come up a winner, but are missing this info...don't despair. Just take it back to wherever you got the purchase from, and ask them for a Tong-Eee Fah-Pyow,. In collecting your prize, you'll get to become familiar with the back of your winning receipt, which bears a tiny little form for you to fill out. Also, you'll find a bit of a disclaimer of sorts. Once you win, you've got three months to claim your prize. That'll give you time to line up your body guards, accountants and high-powered advisors. And, there you go. Now that you've got lotto fever, what are you waiting for?! ;)PRINCETON, NJ—According to a groundbreaking new study published Thursday in The Journal Of Natural And Applied Sciences, people who are far away from you are actually not, as once thought, physically smaller than you.
The five-year study, conducted by researchers at Princeton University, has shattered traditionally accepted theories that people standing some distance away from you are very small, and people close-by are very big.
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“The data was irrefutable in demonstrating that when someone standing directly in front of you begins walking away, their body does not, as previously assumed, gradually shrink before eventually disappearing entirely,” said Dr. David Pinard, lead author of the study. “Rather, our findings indicate that they maintain their original size regardless of how tiny they may appear.”
“Indeed, people who are far away may, in actuality, be larger than you are,” Pinard added.
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Pinard explained to reporters that through the use of highly accurate computerized measurement systems and advanced cameras capable of photographing test subject at a rate of 2,500 frames per second, researchers were able to disprove the long-held presumption that one is able to physically alter the size and stature of any person by moving either closer or further away from them.
Pinard also confirmed that one’s vertical distance from another person likewise had no measurable effect on that person’s size, and that people on the street are not, in fact, the size of ants when you look down from the top of a tall building.
“In what was probably our most telling experiment, we positioned two 5-foot-10-inch tall male subjects opposite one another at a distance of approximately 800 feet,” said Pinard. “We found that, though appearing no more than 4 centimeters in size to their respective counterpart, each subject remained at their original height of 5-feet and 10-inches at all times. In the next phase of the trial, the subjects began walking toward each other, and again, the results indicated that they were not growing taller and taller at exponential rates with every step, but instead once again remained at a constant height of 5 feet and 10 inches, with absolutely no variation in physical stature.”
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“The experiment was further complicated when the two began walking toward one another at the same time,” Pinard added. “But after several hundred trials, we eventually concluded that a person, in fact, does not grow or shrink any faster depending upon the speed at which they move closer or further from you. In fact, as with our previous findings, we determined that they do not grow or shrink at all.”
The study has reportedly been met with some fierce criticism from both the general public and those within the scientific community, with several experts staunchly maintaining that not only do people get smaller when they move further away, but their voices also drastically diminish in volume to the point that they can no longer speak.
Many critics also remain adamant that a person ceases to exist if they are no longer visible in your line of sight, or if you close your eyes.
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To demonstrate his team’s findings, Pinard provided reporters with a visual diagram of two people, depicting their size at varying points of distance.
“As you can see from this image, subject A appears to be twice the size of subject B,” said Pinard, adding that researchers have yet to determine a cause for the inexplicable phenomenon. “However, as subject B moves closer, he does not, as it would otherwise appear, grow larger than subject A. He is, in fact, taller than subject A regardless of where he stands.”
“It is, of course, astonishing, but the evidence is indisputable,” added Pinard. “And furthermore, we actually now believe that two people walking side-by-side do not eventually merge into a single body once they reach a certain distance from you. However, we are still in the process of analyzing that data to make sure it is 100 percent conclusive.”
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Pinard stressed to reporters that the new discovery only applies to human beings who are far away from you, as researchers have yet to test the theory on inanimate objects such as chairs, streetlights, park benches, cars, or buildings.
Pinard did confirm, however, that airplanes do indeed get infinitesimally smaller as they fly into the sky.ADVERTISEMENT
As a practicing Catholic working in the media, perhaps the five most frightening words I hear are "Pope Francis gave an interview." They aren't scary because of anything Pope Francis actually says; the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio spent decades choosing his words carefully as an Argentine priest and then prelate of Buenos Aires, emphasizing the pastoral care of the Catholic Church while the extremes of politics from both left and right engulfed Argentina for decades. The first Jesuit pontiff knows how to speak about faith and clearly enjoys doing so — and Catholics aren't alone in their enthusiasm for listening.
So where does my anxiety come from? Well, from having to read what the media think Francis said.
Often, I find out from U.S. newspaper headlines that the pope has declared faith irrelevant to salvation or that same-sex marriage is acceptable. I stumble on these breaking-news bulletins before most Catholics are even aware of the interview itself.
But here's the truth: The media seem incapable of understanding the pope, and Catholicism itself.
It's not as if they haven't had the practice. The problem first became apparent in the spring, shortly after Pope Francis's installation, when USA Today reported about the pontiff's supposed "obsession with Satan," which must have come as a shock to Catholics, Christians, and others who have, er … actually read the Bible. Having "mentioned the devil on a handful of occasions," the newspaper took an innocuous incident in which Pope Francis gave a blessing to a disabled young man and speculated that the Jesuit pontiff was an exorcist. Or perhaps from The Exorcist. The Vatican had to inform the world press that no priest performs ad hoc exorcisms, and that popes usually pray with and bless visitors to St. Peter's Square.
There is nothing secret about exorcisms in the Catholic Church, nor about papal blessings or the belief that Satan is a real and malevolent force in the universe. Any media organization could have flipped through the Catholic catechism, canon law, or even the Bible — all of which are online. Instead, USA Today and other media outlets around the world seemed stunned that a pope would talk about Satan, which led Fox News's Kirsten Powers to quip on Twitter, "The @AP should just change the title to this story to BREAKING: Pope Francis believes the Bible."
Just a couple of days later, the international media reported that Francis had declared that atheists would get into heaven as long as they performed good deeds. This time, the media took Francis's words rather than his actions out of context. Francis spoke of ecumenical communion between believers and good-hearted atheists, where work for the poor and downtrodden would provide a meeting place of hearts, and pointed out the basic tenet of Christianity that Jesus Christ came to redeem all sinners. The last time this position was considered an innovation might have been when Jesus Himself first said it, and the church has taught it ever since. One has to choose redemption, though, in order to be saved, and nothing Francis said has contradicted that.
Two months later, the media breathlessly reported that Francis had declared that the Catholic Church would no longer "judge" homosexuality. This time, when Francis said, "Who am I to judge?" in response to a question at a press conference, he explicitly referred to the catechism to explain that orientation itself wasn't an issue of sin, but that fornication and adultery are, neither of which are limited to gays and lesbians. And in fact, Francis was actually responding to a question about a purported "gay lobby" at the Vatican and was emphasizing that having "lobbies" of all kinds focused on narrow segments of society destroys Christian unity and brotherhood.
Last week, Francis gave a lengthy interview to America Magazine, published by and for the Society of Jesuits in the U.S. Among the many topics he discussed was evangelism, and the pope's image of the church as "a field hospital" to heal those wounded by sin. "We have to find a new balance" in that triage by starting with the good news of salvation, rather than a litany of rules and dictates, including those about abortion, divorce, and homosexuality. "[T]he proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives," Francis told his fellow Jesuits, and used the model of a homily as an example of true evangelization:
A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep, and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. [America Magazine]
The media takeaway from this rather common-sense approach to evangelization — and the centrality of Jesus Christ and the message of salvation to Christianity — was that Pope Francis was going to change doctrine, or at least soften it up a lot. ABC News reported this as Francis scolding the Catholic Church over "divisive rules." A few days later, the European wire service AFP reported that the "pope seeks easing of rigid Catholic doctrine," with references to other reporting by media outlets of "revolutionary words" and that Francis was "pushing a shift" in the Catholic Church. The abortion-rights group NARAL even went as far as publishing a thank-you note to Francis, only to have him excoriate abortion a few days later and the "throwaway culture" that abortion promotes.
Even with all of the resources available to research the hardly secret doctrine of the mainstream Catholic Church, the media either fail at putting Francis in the proper context or can't resist attempting to fit him into the narrative as the Pope Who Will Create Secular Catholicism. In this narrative, the retired Benedict XVI plays as some kind of moss-backed, benighted conservative for whom Francis is the cure. That ridiculous notion got skewered by National Catholic Register's Pat Archibold in an article that offers 10 quotes that prove Pope Francis is a liberal — only to discover that all 10 came from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
While this continuing media failure exasperates Catholics who actually understand what Pope Francis says, it raises a more significant question of media credibility on religious matters, and perhaps even more broadly than that. Catholic doctrine and teachings are easily accessible and understandable, and yet the media don't appear interested in checking facts first before publishing news stories that inevitably mischaracterize the words of Francis and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Just how well do they report on other religions making news, whether that is Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or even atheism? Do they research those topics before publication, or are they building fact-deficient narratives on those topics, too — and at what cost to clarity?
Even with the exasperation and dread of having to explain that Francis isn't actually rewriting the doctrine of the Catholic Church, we Catholics do have to admit that we benefit from the media failures in one respect. Suddenly, cheering the pope is hip in a way we haven't seen since John Paul II took on the Soviets early in his papacy. The gentle pastor of the Vatican has made Catholicism cool again, thanks to the press's futile attempts to pigeonhole him. The Lord works in mysterious ways — even more mysterious than the media, it seems.TRENTON – The judge who said last month that gay couples should be allowed to marry in New Jersey starting Oct. 21 will not stay her ruling pending higher-court review.
Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled against the Christie administration’s request for a stay of her Sept. 27 decision in case the state Supreme Court takes up the case.
Jacobson ruled last month that in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year, New Jersey same-sex couples were being denied their rights under the state’s civil union law.
She ruled that when the nation’s highest court ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act, that effectively meant New Jersey’s approach to same-sex unions was denying such couples equal rights under the Constitution.
Jacobson said that starting Oct. 21, gay couples should be allowed to wed in New Jersey.
That set in motion a flurry of legal activity.
Both sides of the issue have asked the state Supreme Court to immediately take up the case. The state high court has not yet announced its decision.
Senate Democrats said they will pursue an override of Gov. Chris Christie’s veto in late 2012 of a gay marriage bill. The Democrats would need three no votes to change to yes votes for that to happen.Exclusive: The mainstream U.S. news media is flooding the American people with one-sided propaganda on Ukraine, rewriting the narrative to leave out the key role of neo-Nazis and insisting on a “group think” that exceeds even the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
After the Feb. 22 coup in Ukraine spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias European and U.S. diplomats pushed for a quick formation of a new government out of fear that otherwise these far-right ultra-nationalists would be left in total control, one of those diplomats told me.
The comment again underscores the inconvenient truth of what happened in Ukraine: neo-Nazis were at the forefront of the Kiev coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, a reality that the U.S. government and news media have been relentlessly trying to cover up.
Although real-time reports from the scene in February chronicled armed and organized militias associated with the neo-Nazi Svoboda party and the Right Sektor attacking police with firebombs and light weapons, that information soon became a threat to the Western propaganda theme that Yanukovych fled simply because peaceful protesters occupied the Maidan square.
So, the more troubling history soon disappeared into the memory hole, dismissed as “Russian propaganda.” The focus of the biased U.S. news media is now on the anti-Kiev militants in the Russian-ethnic areas of eastern Ukraine who have rejected the authority of the coup regime and are insisting on regional autonomy.
The new drumbeat in the U.S. press is that those militants must disarm in line with last week’s agreement in Geneva involving the United States, European Union, Russia and the “transitional” Ukrainian government. As for those inconvenient neo-Nazi militias, they have been incorporated into a paramilitary “National Guard” and deployed to the east to conduct an “anti-terrorist” campaign against the eastern Ukrainian protesters, ethnic Russians whom the neo-Nazis despise.
The new role for the neo-Nazi militias was announced last week by Andriy Parubiy, head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, who declared on Twitter, “Reserve unit of National Guard formed #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning.”
Parubiy is himself a well-known neo-Nazi, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991. The party blended radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy also formed a paramilitary spinoff, the Patriots of Ukraine, and defended the awarding of the title, “Hero of Ukraine,” to World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose own paramilitary forces exterminated thousands of Jews and Poles in pursuit of a racially pure Ukraine.
In the hasty structuring of the post-coup government in February, part of the compromise with the ascendant neo-Nazis was to give them control of four ministries, including Parubiy in the key position heading national security. To give him loyal and motivated forces to strike at the pro-Russian east, he incorporated many of the storm troopers from his Maidan force into the National Guard.
Leaving Out the History
Yet, how is Parubiy described in the U.S. mainstream media? On Sunday, Washington Post correspondent Kathy Lally, who has been one of the most biased journalists covering the Ukraine crisis, wrote a front-page article about the state of Ukraine’s military in which she relied on Parubiy for a key part of her story.
Lally simply identified him as “secretary of the National Security and Defense Council,” without explaining Parubiy’s extreme-right politics or the illegitimate way that he got his position. Lally then let him assert that Russia is “intent on making the government fail and seeing it replaced by one deferring to Moscow.”
But Lally is far from alone in representing the deeply prejudiced “group think” of the U.S. press corps regarding Ukraine. Often the only way that American readers can get any sense of the key role played by the neo-Nazis is in the repeated denials of that reality.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof returned to his family’s ancestral home in Karapchiv in western Ukraine to interview some of its residents and present their views as the true voice of the people.
“To understand why Ukrainians are risking war with Russia to try to pluck themselves from Moscow’s grip, I came to this village where my father grew up,” he wrote. “Even here in the village, Ukrainians watch Russian television and loathe the propaganda portraying them as neo-Nazi thugs rampaging against Russian speakers.
“’If you listen to them, we all carry assault rifles; we’re all beating people,’ Ilya Moskal, a history teacher, said contemptuously.”
Of course, Moskal’s description is hyperbole. The Russian media is not making those claims, although it has noted, for instance, that the neo-Nazi militias now reformulated as “National Guard” units did kill three eastern Ukrainian protesters last week, deaths announced by the Kiev government.
But Kristof doesn’t stop there in his nostalgia for his father’s old home town, which he depicts as a noble place where everyone loves the music of Taylor Swift and dreams of their place in a prosperous Europe if only President Barack Obama would send them weapons to kill Russians (or go “bear-hunting” as Kristof cutely wrote in a previous column).
On Sunday, Kristof wrote: “For people with such fondness for American culture, there is disappointment that President Obama hasn’t embraced Ukraine more firmly.”
Source of Ukraine’s Ills
Kristof also blamed Ukraine’s economic woes on Russia when a more honest explanation would be that the free-market “shock therapy” that Western advisers imposed on Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 allowed a dozen or so well-connected “oligarchs” to plunder the country’s wealth and amass near total economic and political control. They are the principal reason for Ukraine’s pervasive corruption and poverty.
But Kristof appears to be readying his New York Times readers to support the violent crushing of the popular resistance in eastern Ukraine, which was President Yanukovych’s political base. Kristof is a renowned R2Per, urging a “responsibility to protect” civilians from government force, but his sense of responsibility appears to be highly selective, fitting with his favored geopolitical priorities.
More broadly, the U.S. news media’s hiding of Ukraine’s neo-Nazis has become a near obsession, indeed, done in greater uniformity across the mainstream press and even much of the blogosphere than the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD in 2002-03 that led to the disastrous Iraq War.
From a purely news point of view, you might think the inclusion of Nazis in a European government for the first time since World War II might make for a good story. But that would go against the preferred American narrative that the protesters in the Maidan were peaceful and idealistic and that they were set upon by the evil Yanukovych who simply fled because he could no longer withstand their moral pressure.
Left out of this narrative is that Yanukovych signed an agreement on Feb. 21 brokered by three European governments in which he agreed to reduce his powers, accept early elections to vote him out of office, and most fatefully pull back the police. It was then that the neo-Nazi militias, from western Ukraine and organized in 100-man brigades, attacked the few remaining police, seized government buildings and sent Yanukovych and many of his officials fleeing for their lives.
As I was told by one of the Western diplomats involved in the aftermath, there was an urgency to cobble together some interim government because otherwise the neo-Nazis would have been left in total control. He said the various parties in parliament moved expeditiously to impeach Yanukovych (though constitutional procedures weren’t followed) and replace him with an interim president and government.
To placate the neo-Naz |
Native American staff members.
"Dear James G: Thank you for your stay with us. I do apologize for your disappointing stay with us. I have noted your comments and will review them with our staff members to make improvements. Unfortunately, mistakes can happen with our staff as our hotel is working with a mostly Native population that have not had privileged education available in most parts of the country.The hotel does our best to train them to improve their quality of life. We hope our guests from outside the reservation can also introduce kindness to them as they are very nice people learning to service a more sophisticated and well-traveled public. Thank you."
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Belinda Lee Barney said she worked for that Best Western for about a year and is a Navajo woman. She said she was angered by the post when she saw it online and sounded off against her employers with a critical Facebook post.
"And that night on Aug. 10 at 7:40 p.m., I get a phone call from my supervisor stating I was fired," Barney said.
She also claims she asked for a reason why and her supervisor hung up on her.
12 News made several phone calls to the Best Western asking for a phone interview but instead received a statement via email from the owner, Steve Wang.
"The Best Western Plus at Lake Powell is dedicated to providing all guests a high-quality stay and experience. Equally, we appreciate and value our employees and the community of which we are privileged to be a part."
Spokespersons at Best Western's corporate office in Phoenix declined an on-camera interview, but also sent a statement regarding the incident:
“Best Western values diversity and the fair treatment of all individuals. We are committed to ensuring guests have an exemplary experience at each of our independently owned and operated hotels. Having spoken to the hotel’s leadership, we have been assured that the comments were never intended to be offensive or demeaning, and that they truly regret that they can be misconstrued. The hotel truly appreciates being a valued member of its community.”
12 News also asked the corporate office about Barney's claims of being fired, but never got a response.
Copyright 2016 KPNXRob Fahey Contributing Editor Friday 6th September 2013 Share this article Share
In a sense, a whole generation has already grown up with virtual reality. The technology was a staple of science fiction films of the 1980s and 1990s, from the neon dreamscapes of Tron via the squishy organic ickiness of Cronenberg's eXistenZ to the slick totalitarian nightmare of The Matrix. Even in films where it wasn't a core story element, VR headsets or virtual worlds were movie shorthand for "hey, we're in the future".
Hey - we're in the future. It's now clear that Sony is working seriously on a VR headset for PlayStation 4, which will compete with the Kickstarter sensation that is Oculus Rift - the HD version of which has been wowing almost everyone who tries it out. After countless abortive attempts at VR tech, laid low by poor framerates, awful resolution, glitchy head tracking and, in many cases, the sheer discomfort of wearing the heavy headsets themselves, the message from both Oculus and Sony seems to be "this time it actually works" - a message borne out from personal brief experience, and more usefully from acres of positive coverage of more long-term testing.
In the midst of the warranted enthusiasm about these strides forward in a technology many of us have dreamed about since childhood, there's a question nobody seems particularly keen to ask. Is this a mainstream technology, or simply a sideshow for a dedicated band of early adopters? VR unquestionably has applications in a host of serious fields - medical treatment, military training, search and rescue and many others - but does it have a future as a well-supported entertainment device? Can anyone really picture a time when a couple of VR headsets snuggle on charging cradles below the living room TV?
"Is this a mainstream technology, or simply a sideshow for a dedicated band of early adopters?"
We don't want to ask those questions, I suspect because we fear that we already know what the answers are. A world that has heavily adopted VR in the home genuinely is quite hard to envisage. The technology is, by its nature, antisocial - as long as you assume that "social" is confined to real rather than virtual environments, of course. It's designed from first principles to exclude the world around you in favour of a constructed virtual world. Where something like Google Glass augments reality (and plenty of people find that creepy enough in itself), Oculus Rift and its ilk replace reality outright. That's an intriguing prospect but one which seems, at least to most people, like one with a very limited set of usage scenarios.
After all, think about how the "dream" of VR was presented in all of those movies of the 80s and 90s. We may have watched them as children and thought about how cool it would be to step into a virtual environment - but even if you leave aside the scary hand-waving "dangers of the virtual world" storylines (seriously, if you've written the line "if we die in the game, we die in reality!" in a story or script, go out, get some fresh air, and consider a career change), the depiction of VR was never all that positive. Science fiction is generally a moral tale about today dressed in the speculative clothing of tomorrow - within those parables, VR mostly served as a warning about how isolated and confined technology could make us. VR users were at best, drooling vegetables whose minds were engaged far away from the people around them; at worst, withered tube-fed husks who didn't even know the real world existed.
"I'm not convinced that VR has a place as a mainstream entertainment device - it's simply a step too far in disconnection from your surroundings"
These depictions were contemporary comment more than anything else - a statement about fears that we were becoming more and more absorbed in technology and media to the exclusion of the real world and those around us. VR was the ultimate expression of that fear - a technology which would entirely replace the real world. To those of us who view games as escapist fantasy, that's beguiling, but it's easy to see how such complete escapism can be no different to isolation or disconnection. For exactly the same reason that film makers of previous decades used VR to express their fears about technology, I'm not convinced that VR has a place as a mainstream entertainment device - it's simply a step too far in disconnection from your surroundings. It will undoubtedly find a great niche market among a specific class of core gamer (and I'll be happy to be among them), but ultimately, it is a class of device that belongs in the den or the bedroom, not the living room, and it will concern and disturb enough people to keep it locked out of many homes for years to come.
There is a counter-argument to this, if I may be permitted to play my own Devil's Advocate - smartphones. If you had made a film in the 1980s in which everyone on a train carriage stared and tapped on panes of glass, unspeaking, for the duration of their journeys, or in which a family sat around a television engaging with the black slabs in their hands rather than in conversation with one another, it would have looked like a dystopian nightmare. "Nobody will ever permit that to happen to society," you might have thought - yet here we are, a nation of people who decry those who can't stop checking their phones while out for a dinner date, yet secretly can't wait for our date to take a bathroom break so we can reach into our pockets.
It's not a dystopian nightmare, unless you're a utterly miserable luddite - the kind of person who sniffs at smartphones and honks out "well mine makes phonecalls just fine!", as if a completely bone-headed misunderstanding of technological progress makes you into the smartest guy in the room and not just an earth-shattering bore. It's just a bit socially annoying. We got used to this new reality in small steps - it's the new normal. Who is to say, then, that VR headsets won't also become the New Normal?
"We got used to this new reality in small steps - it's the new normal. Who is to say, then, that VR headsets won't also become the New Normal?"
In the very long term, I think that reasoning is probably sound. I buy it with regards to Google Glass style HUD systems, a product I don't like very much right now but which I fully expect will become normal for us all within the coming decade, just as smartphones did this decade. As VR headsets become smaller, lighter and less intrusive - ultimately, a few decades down the line, probably being built into contact lenses or something of that sort - they will indeed become the new normal, at least for some people. In the medium term, though, VR seems destined to be an exciting niche, at best. I personally can't wait to see what kind of experiences we can have on future versions of Oculus Rift and Sony's headset, but I have no expectation that this will break out of the core gamer market (a few tens of millions of consumers, which is admittedly not to be sniffed at) for years to come.
One of the most sensible rules that anyone talking about the future - be it serious speculation or pure science fiction - ought to follow is "never say never"; the best way to look like a fool down the line is to proclaim anything to be impossible. With regard to mainstream adoption of VR, then, I'm certainly not prepared to say "never" - but with a slightly heavy heart, I'm definitely prepared to say "not yet".One of the enduring zombie tropes of the junk science world is that cancer rates are increasing in the USA (and across the world), and that deaths from cancers are higher today than it was in the past. Depending on the one screaming this myth, this rate of cancer increase is a result of A) vaccines, B) GMO crops, C) pasteurized milk, D) non-organic foods, or E) everything.
To be certain, there are a few things that do cause cancer, like smoking, UV radiation, human papillomavirus, and obesity. There are no 100% guaranteed environmental risks that cause cancer (lots of smokers do not get lung cancer, and there are very rare cases of non smokers getting the same cancer).
But are cancer rates increasing?
Here and there, you might run across a study that mentions one thing or another may or may not increase or reduce the risk of cancer. But most of those studies are one-off primary research, usually using small groups, providing little clinical evidence that you may or may not be able to increase or decrease the risk of cancer. Wait until we can find these studies in large systematic reviews, before deciding that this or that may or may not increase or decrease the risk of cancer.
In the meantime, Joe Mercola certainly can make boatloads of money making such nonsense cancer claims. If he were the only one, we could ignore him, but a quick search of the internet produces millions (I kid you not) of websites pushing miracle cancer cures or prevention.
Let’s go find out what the evidence tells us about the cancer rate. Are there are any real peer-reviewed articles that do a careful analysis of cancer rates over 100 years in the USA?
Without much effort, I found one with the obscure and complex title of, “The decline in US cancer mortality in people born since 1925.” The paper by Kort et al., and published in Cancer Research in late 2009, reviewed data reported by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, was obtained from WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS). They examined the incidence (rate) and mortality from various cancers from individuals born in 1925 and after.
What the authors found was that rate of cancer in each age group is holding roughly constant. However, since society as a whole is aging, overall cancer incidence is increasing slightly–remember, our average life expectancy has skyrocketed since the 1920’s from approximately 57.1 years for someone born in 1929 to 78.7 years for someone born today (pdf). That means more cancer events happen to people who used to die long before cancers appeared 100 years ago.
Well, the results are pretty clear. The rates of cancer for each age cohort appears to be flat, slightly increasing, or slightly decreasing. Overall, across all age groups, the cancer incidence is nearly flat (although the numbers are higher because the US population is larger and older than it was 60 years ago).
And look at kids 0-9 years old. You know, the ones who get vaccinated. No change in cancer incidence over 60 years. None. Those who proclaim loudly that immunization somehow weakens the immune system, and they become riddled with cancer–about as untrue as the sun revolves around the earth.
The authors looked at mortality rates over that period of time, and they found that:
[Cancer] mortality has been systematically decreasing among younger individuals for many decades. … the cancer mortality rates for 30 to 59 year olds born between 1945 and 1954 was 29% lower than for people of the same age born three decades earlier. … substantial changes in cancer mortality risk across the life span have been developing over the past half century in the United States. … this analysis suggests that efforts in prevention, early detection, and/or treatment have significantly affected our society’s experience of cancer risk.
Furthermore, if you look at these data carefully, the decrease in cancer mortality, coupled with the constant incidence, means that there are more people surviving after a cancer diagnosis.
Yes, as a result of modern science-based medicine, we have reduced the mortality of cancer substantially. And maybe, because more people survive after a cancer diagnosis, there is an observational bias that makes one think that there is more cancer.
Broad claims that cancer has increased are simply untrue. More people do have cancer, and this may be personally observed, but the incidence is flat, and the mortality is down.
If you listened to the junk medicine pushers, vaccines, GMO foods, non-organic vegetables, chemtrails, and whatever else, all added together, would have shown a huge increase in the rate and mortality of cancer. We haven’t. If you’re a woo-pusher, don’t use this argument, it’s insane. Use other insane arguments, that I’ll have to debunk, because I enjoy writing about debunking your insanity.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in March 2014. It has been completely revised and updated to include more comprehensive information, to improve readability and to add current research.
Key citations:
Kort EJ, Paneth N, Vande Woude GF. The decline in U.S. cancer mortality in people born since 1925. Cancer Res. 2009 Aug 15;69(16):6500-5. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-09-0357. PubMed PMID: 19679548.
RelatedGIROUD GAVE A CENTRE-FORWARD MASTERCLASS
Antoine Griezmann’s deadly display of finishing in the last-16 win over Ireland made it very possible to envisage a France team with the little genius at its apex, rather than Olivier Giroud. The Arsenal striker scored in the opening game against Romania but had been unable to get on the scoresheet again, until, that is, France unleashed the most devastating attacking performance of the tournament. And Giroud was at the heart of it.
After 12 minutes he had France in front with a fantastic finish through the legs of Hannes Halldorsson; the third had his imprint on it when he headed down for Griezmann to lay off to Dimitri Payet, who finished neatly from range; the fourth came about after the lightest of touches with his heel as he brushed a Paul Pogba pass through to Griezmann; and the fifth came via his own forehead as Halldorsson rushed off his line and failed to reach a Payet free-kick.
Giroud played the centre-forward role superbly, competing with Iceland’s physical centre-backs, holding the ball up and haring all over the pitch for his team. The ‘is Giroud a good player?' debate will always be a live one, but this was a fantastic night’s work. Booed by his own fans in a friendly before the tournament, the Stade de France gave him a standing ovation when Deschamps brought him off on the hour mark to keep him fresh for a semi-final against Germany. A moment of personal redemption on a brilliant occasion for Les Bleus.
GRIEZMANN COULD BE THE PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT
France's Dimitri Payet kisses the boot of Antoine GriezmannReuters
It seems remarkable to think that Griezmann was dropped by Didier Deschamps after France’s nervy late win over Romania in the very first game; by the time of the final whistle in the last match at Euro 2016, we could be crowning him the player of the tournament. There is stiff competition, not least in his own ranks where Payet now has three goals in five games after netting in this demolition of Iceland, not to mention two assists having set up Giroud for the fifth goal with one of his devilish set-piece deliveries. But the defining image of France’s quarter-final rout was Griezmann's finish for the third goal.
Played in by a combination of Pogba’s searching pass and Giroud’s feather-like touch, Griezmann took the ball on, drew the keeper and dinked his shot perfectly into the opposite corner. It was Messi-esque in its execution, and the comparison is not made lightly. Griezmann is now the top scorer at Euro 2016 with four goals and, after that stalled start back on June 10, he has assumed authority once again, drawing on his masterful technique, devastating pace, intuitive movement and clever finishing with his move into a central position.
With 22 goals he was the top scorer in La Liga from outside of Real Madrid or Barcelona and it is clear that the forward, who only recently signed a new contract with Atletico Madrid, belongs at the very top of the game. That may be confirmed when the player of the tournament is crowned.
ENGLAND WERE EMBARRASSED ALL OVER AGAIN
Iceland concedeEurosport
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for England. The country’s worst humiliation, Glenn Hoddle linked with the manager’s job, some very distasteful scapegoating of young players, Gary Neville angrily denying reports of a falling out with Roy Hodgson and then this, as the paucity of their ‘performance’ against Iceland in the last 16 was laid bare for all to see.
The ease with which France destroyed the unlikely insurgents of Euro 2016 by racing into a four-goal lead, crushing them with all the enthusiasm that the bloodthirsty Marseillaise, bellowed out to spinal shivers at Stade de France, promises, merely accentuated just how bad England were. Maybe Iceland had expended too much emotional energy in vanquishing Hodgson’s side to replicate the feat against France; maybe starting the same 11 players in all five matches, Iceland becoming the first team to do so in European Championship history, is not a good idea at a compact major tournament such as this; or maybe England really are all that bad.
Still, it is one thing to prey on the deep-seated insecurities of one of international football’s great underachievers, quite another to beat the host nation, a team of deep talent and quality with a very good chance of winning the whole thing, at their national stadium. Knocking England out of the last 16 was a moment that Iceland’s players will recall vividly for their rest of their lives, but a destructive performance from France ensured their fairytale would not continue on to another chapter. A glass ceiling was found, and bumped against quite painfully.
BUT THERE IS ONE PROBLEM...
Iceland's Birkir Bjarnason celebrates after scoring their second goalReuters
A note of concern amid the eulogising over France's attacking display: they showed some defensive weaknesses that Germany will be keen to exploit. France should have kept a tight grip on the game at 4-0 and then 5-1 up but they allowed Iceland to score twice at the Stade de France, both times exploiting some unconvincing defending. First, Gylfi Sigurdsson was allowed to pick out a cross for Kolbein Sigthorsson to slot home, with neither Patrice Evra nor debutant Samuel Umtiti looking particularly convincing. Then, Birkir Bjarnason got in behind Evra to score again.
Hugo Lloris was also called upon to make a sensational save from Sverrir Ingason while late substitute Eliaquim Mangala had to make an important interception to prevent a goal late on. It was a curious result: France were brilliant and yet it could quite easily have been closer.
FRANCE V GERMANY COULD BE SOMETHING SPECIAL
France's Antoine Griezmann celebrates after scoring their fourth goalReuters
There has been a baton handed over in the two biggest games of Euro 2016 so far: Spain losing their crown to Italy in the last-16, and then Italy, the tournament’s supreme tacticians, falling to Germany at the quarter-finals. Thursday night’s semi-final in Marseille between France and the Germans is the biggest match of Euro 2016, whoever ultimately contests the final, and it could be similarly epic.
The hosts, who finally found their stride in such magnificent fashion here in Saint Denis, up against the reigning world champions. Two of the favourites for the competition at its outset, both blessed with a menagerie of stars and the capacity to thrill. If the pattern continues then France will sweep Germany’s feet from under them; but this one is just too close to call, especially after France’s masterclass.The Kansas City Chiefs announced Saturday that they’ve placed ILB Derrick Johnson on injured reserve and promoted DL David King to their active roster.
Adam Schefter recently reported that Johnson plans to return to the team next year, despite suffering a ruptured left Achilles tendon last Thursday night.
This came just two years after Johnson tore his right Achilles. However, a source tells Schefter that Johnson isn’t considering retirement at all and plans to play again.
“I wouldn’t bet against him ever,” said a source close to the situation. “Everyone did two years ago and I would expect to see him back out there again. He’s not even thinking about [retiring]. All he’s thinking about is getting back out there.”
According to Schefter, Johnson had played the past few weeks with a sore left Achilles that had been affecting him in practice and during games. Unfortunately, the ligament gave out in the win over the Raiders and will cost him the remainder of the season.
Johnson, 34, is a former first-round pick of the Chiefs back in 2005. He’s currently in the first year of his three-year, $21 million contract that includes $9.75 million guaranteed and stands to make base salaries of $1.5 million and $4.75 million over the next two years.
In 2016, Johnson appeared in 13 games and recorded 90 tackles, one sack, an interception returned for a touchdown and three pass defenses. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 21 linebacker out of 89 qualifying players.
King, 26, is a former seventh-round pick of the Eagles back in 2013. He lasted just a few months in Philadelphia before he was waived at the start of the 2013 season. After brief stints with the Bengals and Seahawks, the Chiefs claimed him off of waivers back in November of last year and later brought him back on an exclusive rights contract.
King was unable to make the 53-man roster coming out of the preseason but was later signed to their practice squad and eventually promoted to the active roster. The Chiefs elected to cut him loose shortly after and re-signed him to their practice squad once he cleared waivers.
In 2016, King has been active for one game but has yet to record a statistic.Tweeting from space has been done before, but that doesn’t mean that it gets any less fun, cool, or exciting.
India is celebrating after successfully sending its first satellite into orbit around Mars. The country managed to pull off the impressive feat with its first attempt — unlike other missions — and you shouldn’t miss out on its Mars Orbiter which is tweeting from space like the best of them. And with humor.
What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit? pic.twitter.com/HDRWjOcPus — ISRO’s Mars Orbiter (@MarsOrbiter) September 24, 2014
I’ll be back after breakfast. Good ol’ sunlight. It’s good for your battery. — ISRO’s Mars Orbiter (@MarsOrbiter) September 24, 2014
Howdy @MarsCuriosity? Keep in touch. I’ll be around. — ISRO’s Mars Orbiter (@MarsOrbiter) September 24, 2014
Yes, there are only three tweets at this point, but they are fun and from space, so we think this account is well worth following. If nothing else, it will broaden your horizons — quite literally.
Read next: Amazon brings Kindle Unlimited to the UK, an all-you-can-eat book subscription service for £7.99 a monthThe Ecology Action Centre is questioning the fairness of proposed changes to the Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Act that will increase some fines for collisions involving pedestrians.
Under the proposed amendments pedestrians could be slapped with a $697.50 fine if they don't press crosswalk buttons or jaywalk. Drivers who don't follow the rules also face the same fine.
But hitting pedestrians that break the law with such a hefty penalty is disproportionate and counterproductive, according to Tristan Cleveland, an urban planner and community activist with the Ecology Action Centre.
He told CBC Radio's Maritime Noon the move comes as the province is trying to encourage residents to get out and walk more as part of a healthier lifestyle.
"At that time we would turn around and slap every single tiny pedestrian infraction with the same crippling fine is just counterproductive," he said.
Cleveland predicts the higher fines will only make it more difficult for police and lead to less enforcement.
"How are the police supposed to give out fines for every single tiny infraction, when it will hit them with the highest possible fine," he said.
He said all the increased fines will do is further punish pedestrians who have already suffered.
Targets the poor
"When you do look at the times when they do give it out, pedestrians often get fined after being hit by a car," he said. "Do we really want to give someone a $700 fine who is in the hospital with a broken leg."
Cleveland also suggests the fines will target the poor.
"Who are the people who cannot afford to own a car? Probably the same people who cannot afford a $700 fine," he said.
When compared to other fines in Canada for jaywalking, Cleveland says what's being proposed in Nova Scotia is disproportionate.
"When you look at other provinces in Canada, the biggest fine for jaywalking elsewhere is $50," he said, adding he doubts Nova Scotia's proposed penalty will increase safety.
Cleveland said he doesn't dispute some changes may be needed to the Motor Vehicle Act.
"I applaud them for looking at the rules again, but I think that the government needs to slow down, don't pass this bill today or tomorrow," he said. "We need a chance to talk this through as Nova Scotians."
Deterrent, not punishment
But the province's transportation minister says this isn't about the money.
"We want to save lives," said Geoff MacLellan. He said he has constantly heard complaints about pedestrians breaking the rules since taking on the transportation portfolio.
"It's obviously a significant problem in Metro, across the province altogether. It's a shared responsibility."
MacLellan describes it as a "major" issue and says even the debate over fines is helping raise awareness.
"It's not about punishment, that's the important thing to remember for us, it's about deterring these actions," he said.
He says the fines are being increased in an effort to level the playing field.
"This isn't about pedestrians, it's about drivers, it's about cyclists, it's about all of us and certainly we want to bring them in line so there's more cohesian."American TV think Tottenham won the league 😂 pic.twitter.com/WWcPZElhoG — 90thMin (@90thMin) May 3, 2016
Leicester City were crowned as Premier League champions yesterday, right?
Well, not according to this American television show.
ESPN’s SportCenter had an absolute shocker by broadcasting that Tottenham had won the Premeier League rather than Leicester.
Accompanied by images of Leicester fans, virtually all dressed in blue and jumping up and down, the presenter managed to claim that Spurs had won the league.
You might think that this was a simple mistake but he somehow claimed they’d won it TWICE in consecutive sentences.
The blue shirts should have been a giveaway… (Picture: Twitter)
The presenter said: ‘Still ahead on SportCenter, you’re talking about improbable?
‘This is the reaction today when Tottenham won the EPL.
‘Darren Rovell will have reaction from all over as Tottenham wins the EPL.’
They’ve had an absolute shocker.
MORE: Schwarzer sets TWO Prem records after Leicester title winBlake Bortles finished tied for 2nd in passing touchdowns and 7th in passing yards
Allen Robinson finished tied for 1st in receiving touchdowns and 6th in receiving yards. He also had the highest yards per reception average of any player with 1,000 receiving yards
Allen Hurns also hit the 1,000-yard mark, and had the 6th highest yards per reception average of any player with 1,000 receiving yards. Hurns and Robinson were one of just four duos (Jets, Broncos, Cardinals) to have two players gain 1,000 receiving yards.
After a 1-4 start to the season, it might have felt like an odd time to write about how the Jacksonville Jaguars could have the next great offense. But in many ways, Jacksonville’s passing attack only got better as the season went along. Some (the majority?) of the big numbers were more of a function of quantity than quality, but the numbers really were big. Consider:
That’s an impressive trio by any standard, but what’s incredible is that Hurns was born in November of 1991, and he is the oldest of the three! So how young is the Jaguars passing attack compared to other teams? I have decided to create a passing yards-weighted age grade for each passing attack. And in doing so, I chose to count passing yards and receiving yards equally, which of course has the effect of making the quarterback(s) equal to half of the team’s passing game. I’m OK with that.
So Blake Bortles is responsible for 50% of the Jaguars passing yards, Robinson for 15.8%, Hurns for 11.6%, and so on. With this methodology — you can see it below — the 2015 Jaguars passing attack has a weighted age of 23.9 years:
That’s really young, but to my surprise, it wasn’t the youngest in the NFL last year. That honor would go to the Tampa Bay Bucs:
Rk Team Yds Yds Rk Age 1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 8084 19 23.4 2 Jacksonville Jaguars 8856 9 23.9 3 Minnesota Vikings 6492 29 24.2 4 Oakland Raiders 8258 16 24.8 5 Tennessee Titans 7788 22 25.1 6 Buffalo Bills 7206 27 25.4 7 Miami Dolphins 8462 12 25.8 8 Cincinnati Bengals 8208 17 26.4 9 Washington Redskins 8588 11 26.5 10 St. Louis Rams 5864 30 26.5 11 Seattle Seahawks 4098 31 26.7 12 Philadelphia Eagles 8682 10 27.1 13 Detroit Lions 8932 7 27.4 14 San Francisco 49ers 7292 26 27.5 15 Houston Texans 8158 18 27.6 16 Cleveland Browns 8312 15 28.4 17 Baltimore Ravens 8901 8 28.5 18 Carolina Panthers 3909 32 28.5 19 Kansas City Chiefs 6986 28 28.6 20 Atlanta Falcons 9204 5 28.8 21 Green Bay Packers 7650 24 29.1 22 Indianapolis Colts 7856 20 29.4 23 Chicago Bears 7686 23 29.5 24 Dallas Cowboys 7356 25 29.8 25 New York Giants 9019 6 29.8 26 New York Jets 8347 14 30.4 27 Denver Broncos 8432 13 30.4 28 Pittsburgh Steelers 7813 21 30.7 29 San Diego Chargers 9710 2 31.1 30 Arizona Cardinals 9550 4 31.4 31 New Orleans Saints 10410 1 31.5 32 New England Patriots 9624 3 32.7
This list is, of course, going to be heavily influenced by the age of the starting quarterback. That’s up to each reader to determine if that’s an appropriate way to weigh things. That said, let’s take a look at the Bucs in more depth:
Tampa Bay has an even younger quarterback its own star receiver born in August of 1993. What the Bucs are missing, though, is that second young star wideout, though perhaps Sefarian-Jenkins can develop into that role.Many countries are pouring millions into orders for swine flu vaccine from pharmaceutical companies. But one country is taking a different approach.
The Irish Independent reports that the some Canadian provinces have suspended the 'normal' seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 in response to a recent study there. However, the vaccine suspensions do not apply for people over 65.
The study suggests that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are actually twice as likely to catch swine flu.
But plans vary across the provinces of Canada. Last month, British Columbia announced it is suspending seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 years old, joining Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia in halting the immunizations.
Quebec's Health Ministry announced it would postpone vaccinations until January, clearing the autumn months for health professionals to focus on vaccinating against H1N1, which is expected to the more severe influenza strain this season.
"By the time the H1N1 wave is over, there will be ample time to vaccinate for seasonal flu," said Dr. Ethan Rubinstein, head of adult infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba.
Other provinces, including Manitoba, are still pondering a response to the research. New Brunswick, one of the lone holdouts, made an announcement in September that it would forge ahead with seasonal flu shots for all residents in October, as originally planned.
Yet according to an even more recent posting by PreventDisease.com, some provinces are still recommending co-administration of both vaccines in as little as 60 days, according to a staggered schedule.
An international panel is currently scrutinising the controversial study's data. Dr Ethan Rubinstein, who has read the study, said it appeared sound.
"There are a large number of authors, all of them excellent and credible researchers," he said. "The sample size is very large, at 12 or 13 million people."
It was back in 1981 that R. Edgar Hope Simpson proposed that a principal cause of seasonal influenza is linked with the deficiency of solar radiation which triggers the production of vitamin D in the skin. Vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and vitamin D is crucial in allowing your immune system to defend itself against invading organisms.
In addition to vitamin D, studies have suggested that people who exercise moderately suffer fewer and less severe colds and flu infections.
In a new study, researchers found that when they had a group of mice regularly run on a treadmill over 3.5 months, the animals developed less-severe symptoms when infected with the flu virus.
Additionally, mice that exercised right before flu infection, but not regularly over the preceding months, also showed some protection against severe symptoms -- which in mice means dampened appetite and weight loss. Those benefits, however, were only apparent in the couple days after infection, whereas regular long-term exercise reduced flu symptoms over the whole course of infection.
In August of this year, I was pleased to publish the news that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) will be investigating the role of vitamin D in protection against swine flu. The agency began a study last year on the role of vitamin D in severe seasonal influenza, which it is now adapting to the H1N1 swine flu virus. Carole Baggerly, a major proponent of vitamin D, was the primary person responsible for this amazing, ground breaking decision. After donating one year of her time to convince Canadian government officials to do this, she deserves hero status for her efforts. Her tireless work has helped push a whole nation towards the truth. She is an incredible role model and source of inspiration for all of us as to the power of what one person can do if they are committed to a noble cause.
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Vitamin D and the Flu
Some Canadian Provinces Temporarily Suspend Seasonal Flu Shots
Several provinces in Canada have responded proactively to the statistical findings that people who have received seasonal flu shots are TWICE as likely to contract the swine flu, by suspending or delaying the administration of seasonal flu shots. Unfortunately, it may be too late for people who received the seasonal shot during last year’s season, as the researchers found these folks remained more vulnerable to swine flu well into 2009. An article in the Deseret Morning News published on Homeland1.com, quotes Dr. Ethan Rubinstein, head of adult infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba as saying: “It has confused things very badly. And it has certainly cost us credibility from the public because of conflicting recommendations. Until last week, there had always been much encouragement to get the seasonal flu vaccine." Confusing as it may be, administering two types of flu shots in a single season has never been done before, which raises the risk of unfore |
down a dark street. It was shrouded by a dark robe, concealing everything except for pale hands as they mimicked movements. On both sides were buildings either heavily reinforced or abandoned, wooden boards blocking every single one. At this hour, the streets themselves were deserted.
"No, that doesn't seem right. It was right foot. And he balanced himself on the left foot." The figure stepped into the moonlight and pulled out a worn book from the dark folds of the cloak. Fast fingers flipped through pages of sketches and descriptions before landing on a blank page. Soon, a charcoal image was drawn, filling up half the page. The illustration depicted a human standing on its left foot, raising its right leg and arm with fire coming out of it.
"Yea, that's what it should look like."
As soon as the shrouded figure closed the book, a cloaked person ran by and ducked into one of the many dark alleys lining the main street. The sudden gust of wind from the runner blew the artist's hood down, revealing braided, platinum blonde hair belonging to a woman. She stood up, shoving her book into a bag hidden in her cloak.
Elsa debated pulling the hood back up to conceal her features, especially her hair, but decided not to. After all, one person running through a deserted street at – what was it, 1 AM? – wouldn't stop to notice her.
"Get back here!" a man shouted, rounding a corner with two other men. They followed the path that the first figure took, leaving Elsa no choice but to press up against the wall to avoid the trio as they disappeared as well into the dark alley.
"What in the…?" She took a few steps towards the corner and peered around it, finding the three men surrounding a red haired woman in the rundown alley. Trash piled in the corners, boards covered any doors and windows, and a fine layer of dirt had settled on the ground.
This would have made a nice, quiet place to sleep tonight too.
"You have nowhere to run, now hand it over," the first man said, taking a step towards the woman. She turned her head to look behind her, eyeing the brick wall that separated her from freedom.
"I'm good, thanks," she replied, returning her gaze to the men in front of her.
The man snarled as a flame resembling a dagger grew from his closed fist. "Last chance, sweet cheeks."
"Never." The redhead took a step back at the sight of the fire, pressing up against the wooden boards covering a door. Her face slowly lost confidence as the man stepped forward, igniting a dagger from his other fist.
Elsa ducked behind the corner as multiple thoughts ran through her head.
Save her.
Run.
It's your duty.
It's none of your business.
It's the least you can do.
Making a decision she felt like she'd regret later, Elsa turned the corner to face the group. Not much had changed during her ten second mental battle, but she knew time was running out. The first man was advancing faster towards the woman while the other two watched, content with letting the apparent leader do the dirty work.
Right as Elsa took a step forward, ready to fight, the man lunged at the girl with his right fist arching upwards. The woman dove to her right, dodging the flame as it scorched the boards behind her. She landed on a trash bag, trapping herself in a corner.
"Well, that didn't last very long," said the man, laughing at his own comment as he turned to face the cowering woman. He opened his hand and lifted it to the boarded window, lighting it on fire with merely a thought. The flames crept closer to the woman, who pressed herself against the brick wall of the alleyway. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead as she frantically looked for a way out. Her eyes, scanning everything in the alley, focused on a pair of ice blue ones as a wave of pleading came over her face.
The firebender paused when he lost her attention and turned to see what gained it. Elsa took a step backwards, suddenly realizing what a horrible idea it was to snoop.
"You brought a friend? Cute." The man shifted slightly, looking at his own friends. "Lee, Bernt, take care of the blonde while I deal with this one." The first man turned back around, meeting the redhead's eyes as they focused back on him.
"Gladly, Bjarte." The taller of the two men had taken a step forwards towards the blonde newcomer, playing with a ball of fire in between his open hands. Elsa's eyes flickered between the approaching man and the trapped woman.
The man whipped his hand upward, launching the ball of fire towards Elsa. The blonde woman ducked low, dodging it almost too easily. Even I know that move, she thought to herself as she repositioned to face him. The next attack was just as straightforward as she side stepped past the flame. Before the man could launch another ball Elsa slid under him, knocking him off his feet with a kick to his legs. She turned and popped up, quickly diving to the side from the second man's attack. Elsa risked a quick glance toward the other woman, watching as the leader shifted his feet to put power in his next attack.
"No!" Elsa shouted, sprinting towards the redhead and ignoring the two men behind her. She slid on her knees just in time, shielding the woman with her body. Her pale hands moved in a circle as the fire reached them, dispelling it.
"A fellow firebender, huh? This just got more interesting." He smirked as he launched another attack, thrusting his fist forward. Elsa maneuvered the fire with her hands again, watching it dissipate as she leaned back towards the woman.
"Go! Run now!" Elsa half-yelled, keeping her eyes on the firebender in front of her.
"Wait, what? Why?" the woman answered, seemingly taken aback by the command.
"It's dangerous here! I'm buying you time."
"Time? For what? I can handle these jerks."
"I don't see you fighting," Elsa snapped, yanking the redhead down and under the next attack as they ran to the other side of the alley. The man turned around, smoke coming out of his flared nostrils in beat with his breathing.
"I'll show you fighting," the redhead mumbled, words barely reaching her protector. Elsa felt an object press up against her back, reflexively turning to see what it was. The woman shoved a bag in her arms, confusing the blonde. In a sudden act of grace, the cloaked woman ducked under Elsa's occupied arms, only just dodging an attack from the man. She dove forward, rolling between the two men left in the background before sprinting away from the scene. All three men paused their actions, watching as the mystery woman disappeared.
"Well, look at that. The rat just dumped the bag and left you all alone in this alley. That makes my job easier." The man stopped his attacks, standing to his full height. The fire from the wooden boards had spread, rapidly burning and casting orange light on the four occupants in the alley. "Grab her."
Lee and Bernt walked forward, wicked smiles on their faces as they approached Elsa. The tall woman backed up, pressing her body against the wall. Flames flickered to her left as she realized how dire her situation was. Each man grabbed an arm, twisting her to face Bjarte and locking her arms behind her.
"I'll be generous this time. You didn't hurt me or my friends, so I won't kill you. But." He calmed the flames so they shrunk into a smolder, casting longer shadows in the small alley. "You still let the thief get away. And for that, I'll have to give you a reminder that no one messes with me."
He held up a finger, watching it for a short moment before a spark lit from the tip. He took a step closer to Elsa, grabbing her face with his free hand and running a thumb over her cheek. "Such beautiful skin. It does pain me to mar it so. But if I didn't burn my loose ends I'd lose my seat of power here, and we can't have that, can we?"
Elsa watched with wide eyes as the flame approached her face, the orange light flickering in her eyes. She struggled for a moment, only to be kneed in the back by one of the men, ceasing her actions. Looking for a way out of the situation, multiple ideas formed in her head, leaving her to decide which was the best. She hastily chose an idea, taking a deep breath and gathering as much air as she could but right before the flame grew close enough for its heat to be felt, it died out.
And in three beats of Elsa's fast heart, the man lay flat on the ground, unable to move. Behind him stood the red-haired woman, missing her cloak.
"Miss me, boys?" She smiled and jumped back, dodging a blast from one of the men holding Elsa. They released their grasp from the blonde, focusing on the new threat. Elsa, on the other hand, was sitting on her heels with her jaw open, watching the redhead expertly dodge the attacks.
"It was a setup!" yelled the taller of the two, charging the woman..
"She's back?" Elsa stuttered, confused at the redhead's reappearance. The shorter man turned around, remembering that his captive was behind him. He shifted into a fighting pose. The blonde quickly stood up, mirroring him. With her attention settling on the man in front, she lost track of the redhead's movements and prayed she'd be alright.
Her train of thought was interrupted when the man spun his arms in front of him, gathering a fireball that he launched only seconds later. Elsa redirected the attack, guiding it towards the wall instead of herself. He followed it up with an arching kick, creating a whip of fire that cracked down faster than she expected. The flame found purchase on the sleeve of her cloak, distracting her from the fight as she hurried to pat it out. She missed the smirk on the man's face as he launched another attack, kicking fire towards her. Blue eyes caught the move as pale hands shot up to deflect it.
He is trying to kill me.
Finding a sudden burst of courage Elsa took a step forward, planting her feet as she thrust her hands towards her target. White flames grew from her fists and shot toward the man. Copying her earlier move, he spun the unusual flames away, only to jump back from a rapid attack towards his feet. Elsa kept launching small bursts of fire, pushing the man back until he was up against a wall.
"Wh-White?" he croaked out, uncertainty resonating in his voice. Elsa kept her face neutral while holding her pose. She turned to see the redhead watching her as she stood over a second limp body. The thief shook her head before taking a step towards the last remaining man. The women's' eyes met and then focused on the man in front of Elsa. If the blonde had blinked, she would have missed the rapid jabs aimed at the man, causing him to slump to the ground like his friends.
"Now we run." She reached forward and grabbed Elsa's hand before pulling her out of the alleyway. The women sprinted a block down the street before the woman ducked into another alley. Elsa was about to leave her when she popped back out, holding her cloak.
"Can't forget this," the woman said, taking quick breaths. They ran until they hit the edge of town, ducking into the tree line. After Elsa was sure they were safe, she grabbed the back of the redhead's cloak, causing her to lose her footing and tumble to the ground.
"I'm not taking another step until you tell me what was going on."
The redhead looked up at the blonde woman, smirking. "I was taking back what belongs to me."
"And that is?"
"Doesn't matter." The redhead grabbed the bag from Elsa, slinging it over her shoulder.
Elsa raised an eyebrow but soon dismissed it. After all, she had secrets of her own, so who was she to force others to reveal theirs?
Suddenly, the redhead stuck her hand out towards Elsa, scaring her slightly.
"Hi, I'm Anna!"
Author's Note:
Well, I did it! This is the first chapter of a story that was brainstormed between myself and Kasierklee. (Go check out his stuff if you're looking for something good to read after reading the crap I write.)The Germany captain has enjoyed a successful working relationship with Louis van Gaal before. If the pair hit if off again, Manchester United could finally have a midfielder worthy of replacing Roy Keane and Paul Scholes
A year ago, in the 124th minute of the World Cup final in Rio de Janeiro, Bastian Schweinsteiger hit the deck for the last time. By the time he dragged himself to his feet, he was a world champion. Mario Götze may have won the game with a flash of his left boot in extra time, but Schweinsteiger’s performance in the 114 minutes before the goal and the six minutes following it were just as important. Battered and bruised and barely able to stand, Schweinsteiger clung to his team-mates at the final whistle, the back of his No7 shirt stained with the grass of the Maracanã and the blood, sweat and now tears of a battle won.
Due to his near omnipresence in the recent history of Bayern Munich and Germany, Schweinsteiger’s move to Manchester United feels similar to Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard switching to MLS: a highly decorated club legend will now be playing out his final few seasons in different surroundings. The difference is that, at the age of 30, Schweinsteiger is considerably younger than his USA-bound contemporaries. Whoever else Louis van Gaal buys this summer, he may have just made his best signing of the season.
This transfer would have been more striking a couple of years ago but it remains a real coup for Manchester United. They have just plucked one of Bayern’s most iconic players from Munich while he still has a lot to offer. You have to wonder if Schweinsteiger would have been allowed to leave the club if a German was in charge, and not Pep Guardiola. That Schweinsteiger wanted to leave is a real testament to Van Gaal’s reputation. Would David Moyes have secured the deal? Probably not.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Louis van Gaal and Bastian Schweinsteiger at Bayern Munich in 2009. Photograph: Frank Leonhardt/EPA
Like all good players, Schweinsteiger has evolved over seasons, and under different managers. Just as Andrea Pirlo switched from attacking midfield to the regista role, and Franz Beckenbauer, also originally an attacking midfielder who dropped even further back to become a pioneer of the libero role, Schweinsteiger has developed his game. He played on the left wing when he first broke into the Bayern Munich and Germany teams. He loved to run at defenders and, being predominantly right-footed, often looked to cut inside and get off a shot – as he did to devastating effect against Portugal in the third-place playoff at the 2006 World Cup.
However, as the football public in England will be all-to-aware, Van Gaal does not accept the pre-defined positions for his players. And although his tweaking at Old Trafford hasn’t really paid dividends as yet, his work with Schweinsteiger, although simple, was staggeringly effective. When he joined Bayern Munich in 2009, Van Gaal spoke to each player individually about their role in the team, and for the Dutchman it what was clear to see that Schweinsteiger was not a left winger – despite having enjoyed success in the role for his club and country. Van Gaal convinced him to switch to a central position as part of the Doppelsechs on the side of enforcer, Mark van Bommel, where his intelligence and ability to read the game would be best exploited. Van Bommel provided the metal; Schweinsteiger brought the guile.
Schweinsteiger has come a long way since being part of the Schweini and Poldi double act at the 2006 World Cup with Lukas Podolski. The bleached blond, spiky hair has given way to a short crop that is now greying at the temples. And following the international retirement of Philipp Lahm, Schweinsteiger’s increasing importance to the national set-up peaked when Joachim Löw promoted him to captain.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski celebrate after winning the World Cup in 2014. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images
The departures of Roy Keane and Paul Scholes have left chasms in the Manchester United midfield and the failure to replace the pair has been lamented. Of course, you can never truly replace a player; that’s what makes players into legends. Generally, attempts to sign like-for-like successors end in failure. Manchester United may have enjoyed some early success with Javier Hernández as a relatively cheap signing who was effective coming off the bench – but in no way did he replace Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The key is to bring in players who can, at least, help to offset the loss of quality, influence and goals that a departed player has taken.
Schweinsteiger is neither the second coming of Roy Keane nor Paul Scholes. Nevertheless, he possesses qualities that may finally offset the loss of both. With increased responsibility for both club and country has come a greater physical presence on the pitch, a steeliness. The time of the enforcer has arguably gone, but Manchester United now have a player in the centre of the park who can make a tackle. Better still, he is able to recycle possession by quickly shifting the ball on to team-mates, which may add some impetus to United’s static play last season.
Beyond that, Schweinsteiger has won multiple Bundesliga titles and domestic cups, the Champions League, World Cup and other honours in a 17-year career. Regardless of how effective Michael Carrick can be, and to what extent Ander Herrera has grown into his role at the club, having a player of Schweinsteiger’s stature in the team will have a psychological effect on his team-mates and the opposition – perhaps it is in this respect that Schweinsteiger will most compensate for the loss of Scholes and Keane.
Like the United legends, Schweinsteiger has overcome disappointment, such as missing a penalty in the 2012 Champions League final against Chelsea, and he is a winner. You don’t accumulate over 100 caps for Germany and rack up 500 performances for Bayern Munich unless you are a special player. His record will afford him respect among his peers and some bedding-in time with the fans.
His longevity should not be confused with antiquity. He is a similar age to Michael Ballack when he signed for Chelsea as the Germany captain, and he is younger than Andrea Pirlo when the Italian maestro revitalised his career at Juventus after being shown the door at Milan. Schweinsteiger is perfectly placed to become a linchpin in Van Gaal’s reshaping of Manchester United, a Mercedes Benz in the engine room.
Players will often cite the need for a new challenge when moving on, particularly when they have become so ingrained in a club’s fabric, as Schweinsteiger is with Bayern Munich. And while this is often empty rhetoric, in Schweinsteiger’s case the desire for a new challenge seems to have forced his hand. It would have been easy to see out the last year of his contract at Bayern and then see what happened.
He would have remained an important player and would have been almost guaranteed success, domestically at least. As captain of the national team, he would have been training and playing with many of his team-mates on a daily basis. But he seems genuinely excited to be making a new start. The Schweinsteiger story has already seen challenges and disappointment, and as he switches to Old Trafford, this looks very much like a new chapter rather than just an epilogue.
• This article first appeared on Englische Woche
• Follow Englische Woche on Twitter‘Ashamed and embarrassed’: James Marry landed himself in a police cell after punching a cop (Picture: Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images)
James Marry said he was ‘ashamed and embarrassed’ as he was jailed today.
And you would be if you’d done what he did.
Marry punched a cop in McDonald’s before getting naked in his police cell and smearing himself in poo.
The 26-year-old, from Balbriggan, Ireland, attacked a policeman – punching him in the face several times and ripping his stab vest – after he intervened in an altercation a drunken Marry was having with two other men at a Dublin McDonald’s.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
When Marry was booked in at Balbriggan Garda Station, he proceeded to get naked, defecate and then smear poo over the walls and over his body in an apparent ‘dirty protest’.
The cop-punching defecater was jailed for eight months by Judge Dermot Dempsey today.
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He has six previous convictions.
MORE: Bitter ex ‘broke into former girlfriend’s home and defecated on belongings’
MORE: Fugitive car defecator snapped by latest victim while in the actWhile there have been reports that Batman V Superman will be sitting out of Super Bowl 50 and not getting a commercial, we here at ComicBook.com have a sneaking suspicion that it might come during the Doritos ad which features director, Zack Snyder.
If it shows up, what would we see? What could we see? We’ve already seen the arrival of both Wonder Woman and Doomsday, and have gotten great looks at Superman’s motivations, Batman’s motivations and even Lex Luthor’s. Ideally, we’d love to be taken completely by surprise. Given that we’re seeing something happen during the Super Bowl, who wouldn’t love their first look at Ray Fisher as a cameo. Now we don’t need him to be Cyborg yet, but given his football connection, it’s a natural fit. In case you missed our first look at Cyborg, you can check it out here.
There is also a lot of running in Football, maybe we’ll see the Flash? Moving back to what we know for sure, there is still a huge question mark over Jason Momoa’s Aquaman involvement in the film. Here’s hoping we get a glimpse.
Needless to say, a new trailer would certainly stoke the engines of the Batman V Superman hype train, and we’re all aboard.
Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.Eastbourne Police are searching for a man who leapt out at a cyclist brandishing an offensive weapon – while dressed as a clown.
The incident comes just days after a warning on the Eastbourne Herald website that people dressed as ‘killer clowns’ had been scaring passers-by across the country.
The strange new trend has come over from America and as Hallowe’en is approaching, police are asking residents to watch out.
This latest incident took place as the cyclist was riding north along the cycle route to Golden Jubilee Way. The ‘clown’, with red hair, jumped out of a bush.
Sergeant Ed Ripley said, “This is a very irresponsible act which could impact significantly on the wellbeing of people who are targeted by these pranksters.
“This type of behaviour will not be tolerated in Eastbourne. Police will investigate incidents of this nature and take positive action against individuals.”
Eastbourne’s Neighbourhood Policing Team will be running increased patrols within anti-social behaviour hotspots to ensure that disruption to residents is minimal.
If you feel as though you have been a victim of anti-social behaviour please call us on 101, in an emergency always dial 999.A group of Dutch entrepreneurs has used their country’s wet weather as a business opportunity by creating a rainwater bitter
It may have been the wettest June since records began in some of the Netherlands, but that’s no reason for the Dutch to be despondent.
A small group of entrepreneurs has demonstrated that it’s the perfect excuse to make beer, launching a brew made from rainwater.
The idea is that with climate change linked to increased rainfall in the Netherlands – just as in the UK – they might as well use it as a business opportunity.
At the De Prael brewery in Amsterdam early on Friday evening, bitter lovers turned up for a free tasting of Hemelswater: code blond, a 5.7% beer made from ultra-filtered rain, organic malted barley and wheat, hops and yeast.
“It’s a bitter blond, like an IPA,” explains Hemelswater (which means heaven’s water in Dutch) co-founder Joris Hoebe, “It’s quite bitter, fruity and soft.”
Bottles of Hemelswater water: code blond beer. Photograph: Brouwerij de Prael
The social entrepreneur and student coach got involved in this project, inspired by a government spin-off called Amsterdam Rainproof. This body aims to make citizens aware of the problems of heavy rainfall and take action (pdf) to increase the city’s sponge capacity, so that rainwater is absorbed or used instead of causing flash-floods.
“We get lousy summers and a lot of rain,” says 37-year-old Hoebe. “As a hobby, I was also brewing beer and noticed you need a lot of water. I was thinking, why don’t we put these two together: the abundance of rainwater and the need for water to brew beer?”
Together with a group of four students and a researcher from the startup development initiative MediaLAB Amsterdam, Hoebe set up two huge tanks in the grounds of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Obligingly, May brought two weekends of heavy rain and the team managed to push 1,000 litres of rainwater to De Prael brewery in central Amsterdam, which had agreed to be their partner.
Using a special bacterial filtration system also called Hemelswater, they filtered the beer and handed it over to be boiled and made into the brewery’s simplest beer.
The brew is currently on sale for around €2 (£1.70) a bottle, and will be served on tap at various restaurants and bars around the Dutch capital (for around €4 or £3.40).
“In the next year, we want to scale up with hundreds of these tanks across the city, on [the roof space of] companies, restaurants and cafes,” says Hoebe. “We want them to catch the water, we’ll put in sensors and when their tanks are full, we’ll collect the water with electric cars and filter it. We are thinking about making beer, sorbet, soup and lemonade.”
There is a precedent, he adds. “It seems like a disruptive idea, but when we researched it, in the middle ages, [Dutch] breweries set up near churches and cathedrals to catch rainwater runoff from their roofs.
People may worry that about the cleanliness of rainwater, but Hoebe says “you boil the beer so bacteria are killed. There are a lot of problems with drinking water, with more drugs and hormones [found in it]. We believe that with rainwater, we can make cleaner beer.”
De Prael liked the sound of the project from the start, says marketing manager Thomas Gesink. Founded 13 years ago, the Amsterdam brewery employs people facing difficulties in getting a job, training them in the art of making beer (with some support from social funds).
It is set to expand to a second site, and is planning a rainwater tank for the roof to make more code blond beer – whose name is inspired by Dutch colour-coded weather warnings.
China's sponge cities: soaking up water to reduce flood risks Read more
“We have this goal to contribute to a better society, and we like to use and make products that are good for the environment,” says Gesink. “The idea is to have cafes catch their own water that we use to make their beer.”
Daniel Goedbloed, programme manager at Amsterdam Rainproof, said the body was created by the Dutch water infrastructure organisation Waternet in response to a disastrous 2011 cloudburst in Copenhagen, which saw six inches of rainfall in less than three hours causing £688m of damage. “They thought how vulnerable Amsterdam is with all its canals,” he explains.
His group gives commissions to small projects, encourages people to create rain-friendly gardens and green roofs, and lobbies larger building projects to incorporate rainwater gathering.
A new island in the IJburg artificial island chain in Amsterdam, for instance, is now being rainproofed, and Mirandabad swimming pool has a parking area on large plastic crates of gravel, so rainwater drains through quickly.
There are government grants to make green roofs and Amsterdam Rainproof is working with other organisations to encourage crowdfunding.
“Rain beer is great,” said Goedbloed. “We say every drop counts, and don’t just look at the down sides. Look at the fact that you can use rainwater to green the city and make it more attractive or even flush your toilet. Hemelswater uses rainwater to make a really nice product: beer. It’s fun, and a lot of people drink beer.”Alfie Allen, also known as Alfie Owen-Allen, (born 12 September 1986) is an English actor.
Contents show]
Biography
He is the son of actor and comedian Keith Allen and the brother of singer Lily Allen. His most notable role so far has been a well-received 2009 stint as the lead in the play Equus.
He stars in HBO's Game of Thrones as Theon Greyjoy. He was announced in the role on 20 August 2009. He was part of the initial starring cast and has remained a member appearing on all subsequent seasons since. Along with Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) and Joe Dempsie (Gendry), Allen initially auditioned for the role of Jon Snow, which ultimately went to Kit Harington.[1]
Allen explained that Theon hasn't seen his own father Balon Greyjoy in nine years since he was a small child, so logically he doesn't know him very well. Therefore, as part of method acting, Allen intentionally avoided actor Patrick Malahide, who plays Balon, at all times except for when they were actually shooting scenes in front of the cameras, to maintain a level of unfamiliarity and uncertainty between them.[2]
Credits
Starring
See alsoJohn Stokes’s favorite bridge in the whole of the British capital is London Bridge because of the spectacular views it offers.
Stokes, 69, works as a tour guide on an open-top double-decker bus. On Saturday night he was giving his spiel to about 50 tourists on London Bridge.
“I always tell everyone to get out their cameras, get ready to take a picture of the Tower Bridge all lit up. It’s the most beautiful part of our tour,” he said Sunday. “But the bus was moving very slowly. We then noticed someone lying on the pavement … and then a little further up we saw someone else … and then someone doing CPR on a man. We were really alarmed.”
As video footage and eyewitness reports emerged from the terrorist attack on Saturday night — the third in Britain in three months — it was clear that the incident was meant for all the world to see.
At around 10 p.m., a white van mowed down pedestrians as it zigzagged across London Bridge, which offers what may be the best vantage point for viewing Tower Bridge, a symbol of London itself.
1 of 39 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Britain probes attack in central London that left seven dead and dozens injured View Photos London Bridge and nearby Borough Market were the site of chaos after a van plowed into pedestrians and attackers with knives went into the crowd. At least 12 suspects have been arrested. Caption London Bridge and nearby Borough Market were the site of chaos after a van plowed into pedestrians and attackers with knives went into the crowd. At least 12 suspects have been arrested. June 5, 2017 People attend a vigil at Potters Field Park in London to remember the victims of the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market. Hannah Mckay/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
“I saw blinding white headlights weaving through cars and coming at us. It hit directly to the right of me,” said Dan Nguyen, an American tourist who was on London Bridge.
“I looked ahead and saw there was a distance to go before the end of the bridge, so I braced myself to jump off the bridge into the river. Then I saw my girlfriend limping and sobbing so I ran back towards the scene to drag her away,” he told the BBC.
At the south end of the bridge, three assailants — wearing fake explosive vests — leapt out of the van and began stabbing people as they plowed through a bustling restaurant area.
They tore through nearby Borough Market leaving a trail of blood in their wake — seven people died and dozens more were injured.
Some patrons threw glasses, stools and chairs at the attackers.
According to his mother, Daniel O’Neill, 23, was injured after an attacker plunged a knife into his stomach and said, “This is for Islam.”
Speaking to reporters outside of King’s College Hospital, Elisabeth O’Neill said that her son was still in shock, but he was able to speak. “These people say they are doing this in the name of God which is an absolute joke. … If it wasn’t religion, they’d find some other excuse.
London tourists gathered Sunday in Parliament Square, in view of the Elizabeth Tower, also known as Big Ben. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News)
“They are callous, they are barbaric, and they are absolute cowards. We’re going to carry on as normal.”
Situated south of the River Thames, the bustling London Bridge area is popular with tourists and locals who adore its nooks and crannies, its restaurants and pubs, its elegant riverside walk.
It’s an area with tourist attractions like the Shard, the tallest building in the country, which towers dramatically over the scene.
Borough Market is also a big draw. During the day, it’s a food lover’s paradise — vendors from around the world sell dishes with enticing aromas and tourists from around the world buy them. It is perhaps not surprising that a number of nationalities have been reported among those who were wounded, including French and Australian. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that a Canadian citizen was along those who died.
As the attack unfolded, confusion rippled through the neighborhood.
“Through the window, I saw people covered in blood. One person had blood on his neck and chest, and stumbled away. Another woman was lying on the ground — I really hope she isn’t among the people we’re praying for today,” said Richard Angell, a 33-year-old who on Saturday evening was dining on Middle Eastern cuisine at a nearby restaurant.
When he was able to leave the restaurant 30 minutes after, he said he saw “wallets, high heels and blood on the ground. People had left everything behind.”
“There was a lot of screaming and people ran away as helicopters circled over us,” said German tourist Alex Rumpf, 60, who was staying at the Novotel Southwark hotel.
A nurse at a nearby hospital, who wanted to remain anonymous because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said a “vast amount” of the serious injuries were from stab wounds.
Many victims were brought to King’s College and St. Thomas Hospital on the south side of the river, she said. The nurse described some of the injuries as catastrophic, including one victim with a slit throat.
The incident itself was “neutralized,” very quickly, according to police. Within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call, the three suspects were shot dead by eight police officers who collectively fired about 50 times.
There was still a security cordon around the area on Sunday afternoon as the police continue to piece together what happened.
But less than 24 hours after the attack, there was also a palpable sense of defiance in the London Bridge area and beyond.
Angell, who was only yards away from the attackers, said he was planning to go back to the restaurant where he was dining to pay his bill and thank the staff.
“My friends and I have already agreed that we will go back to have a beautiful meal and to double the tip. The staff thought of us and our safety,” he said.
Charles Dickens Primary School sent a note to parents in response to the incident, saying that it would “continue to learn about and celebrate our religious and cultural differences across the school.”
“This is our city,” the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said. “We will never be cowed by terrorism.”
At Walthamstow Central in northeast London, passengers were greeted by a defiant message on the subway station’s information board.
“London Bridge will never fall down,” it read."One in seven Americans think it is definitely (7%) or probably (9%) true that 'God controls the climate, therefore people can't be causing global warming," according to a July 26, 2016, note from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Only half (59%) of the respondents regarded it as probably not (16%) and definitely not (33%) true, with 15% not sure and 20% regarding it as not applying to their beliefs.
Those more likely to agree included evangelical and born-again Christians (30%), people who believe that Earth was created in six days, as described in the Bible (26%), Republicans (26%), and people who do not believe that humans evolved from earlier species (24%). Those least likely to agree included agnostics and atheists (1%), Democrats (9%), people who believe humans evolved from earlier species (9%), and those with a college education (11%).
The data presented derive from a study conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication in a web-based environment from March 18 to March 31, 2016, using an on-line research panel of 1204 American adults, "weighted, post survey, to match US Census Bureau norms." The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3% at the 95% confidence level.As we bring 2016 to a close, Esquire.com looks back at the films, albums, and television shows that have shaped our year and will have a lasting influence on the culture at large. Read the complete series of essays here.
In May, I flew to Australia for a festival tour. My time in Sydney was glamorous, if you're into books. The festival, which was set on the dramatically beautiful waterfront, was packed, and the weather was crisp and sunny |
dest thing I saw was an ultrasound machine. Now, all this stuff is supposedly binned items right out of the trash, right? Where did they get it? And how much did it sell for, because it was gone at the end of the day. Who would have bought that? I have pictures.
Well I guess I know where to go if I want a cheap ultrasound machine! Thanks Roland.
In a trashy mood? WATCH - Toxic: Garbage IslandA A
SPANAWAY, Wash. - There are more eyes watching drivers in the Bethel School District this year than last.
The district doubled the number of school buses armed with cameras, catching drivers who disobey the law to stop when a bus is picking up or dropping off students.
Whenever a school bus' red lights are flashing and the stop arm goes out, drivers must stop.
But a review of the video from five cameras on Bethel School District buses shows just how many drivers fail to stop. They just keep on driving.
Occasionally, the video shows that the driver seems to be slowing down, perhaps thinking of stopping, but then just keeps going, right past the sign extended from the bus that says stop.
The five bus cameras caught 149 drivers in Pierce County last spring, each one getting a $394 ticket.
In Washington state, all drivers must stop whenever red lights are flashing on a school bus. The only time drivers don't need to stop is if they're approaching a bus from the opposite direction and there are at least three marked lanes, a median or a physical barrier between the driver and the bus.Gov. Robert F. McDonnell signed into law Thursday a bill that will require Virginia high school students to take at least one virtual course to graduate with a standard or advanced diploma.
The new requirement will apply to students who enter ninth grade in 2013-14, said Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education. Current high school students are not affected.
Expanding virtual education has been a key part of McDonnell’s education agenda since taking office in 2010.
The online-course requirement will better prepare students for the “job market of the 21st century,” McDonnell spokesman Jeff Caldwell said via e-mail.
Virginia joins several other states, including Idaho and Florida, that have adopted online-course graduation requirements in recent years.
The new law also requires candidates for a standard diploma to earn a credential in career and technical education, such as an industry certification or state license.“I’m here until January,” said a man sitting with his arms crossed in the backseat. The six of us had piled into an old Ford Taurus, hitching a ride back to camp from a prayer ceremony at the site in North Dakota where protests against the now infamous pipeline project had been met with riot police and attack dogs only days before. “The long haul.”
“Right on,” said a woman in the front. “That’s dedication.”
He was from the Navajo Nation, where he was studying business management at Diné College on the reservation. She was from the Cherokee Nation and had arrived at 3am that morning. Everyone in the car, it turned out, was from a different tribe. That’s not unusual for Red Warrior Camp near Cannonball, North Dakota, where nations and tribes from around the world have united behind a common purpose: stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
The campsites, Sacred Stone and Red Warrior, have swelled to well over 2,000 people. A seedling camp has sprung up on the road close to where construction on the pipeline is taking place about an hour south of Bismarck. Together, they constitute a sustainable community, complete with kitchens, donation centers, schools and legal counseling. The scope of the gathering is unprecedented, with over 280 tribes represented at the camps.
This combining of forces has been spurred on by the urgent nature of the crisis. For indigenous people, climate change and pollution aren’t the battles of tomorrow. They are very real, very present issues that have already dramatically impacted everyday life. The Inuit residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, are voting to relocate their village due to rising sea levels. The Navajo Nation is suing the EPA over a toxic mine spill that contaminated the San Juan River, which the Navajo depend on to water their crops and livestock. Last March, the Lenka people in Honduras lost civil rights leader and environmentalist Berta Cáceres, an ardent opponent of the privatization of the river Río Gualcarqueque, to assassination.
Historically, oil transportation has been bad news for indigenous populations. Last June, a train carrying tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil derailed and caught fire near Mosier, Oregon, contaminating the Columbia River, which the Yakama Nation in Washington depends on. In South Dakota, the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota peoples fought off the Keystone XL pipeline that bisected treaty lands and, the tribes said, would lead to more pollution.
So when pipeline construction began on land just outside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and sacred burial sites were bulldozed in the process, it became a lightning rod for a broader struggle. “Water is life” is a rallying cry of the protests, and it’s a message that resonates as much with the Inca in South America as it does the Ojibwa in Canada.
“Cut the heads from the snakes!” said a man speaking at the prayer ceremony at the protest site, referring to oil pipelines everywhere. He wore camouflage pants and a feathered headdress. “Today, we hear about the Colonial pipeline.” He pauses. “That’s a good name for it, isn’t it?” He was referencing a recent eruption in the Colonial pipeline in Alabama that resulted in a massive oil spill.
The indigenous way of life is more immediately dependent on the natural world, and when nature is damaged, indigenous people are damaged. When the rivers are poisoned, indigenous people are poisoned. This immediacy is what has drawn so many indigenous people together to fight. But it’s time for non-indigenous people to understand that this is their fight too. Their livelihoods also depend on the success of the battle indigenous people are fighting right now.
This was the hottest summer on record, and global temperatures continue to rise. Earth’s biodiversity is under threat and so long as corporate profits continue to be prioritized over the planet, we will continue to slide into conditions that are increasingly inhospitable to life.
It’s a lesson indigenous people have already learned.
“The world needs us right now,” Nina Gualinga, an activist from the Sarayaku tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon said when her tribe arrived at Red Warrior Camp. The Sarayaku have fought Big Oil and won, and they hope to lend their strength to the protestors at Standing Rock. “The statistics say we are 4% of the population,” she went on, “but we are protecting more than 80% of the world’s biodiversity.”Messianic rabbi and Religious Right activist Jonathan Cahn is still making the rounds on right-wing programs in order to promote his latest book, “The Paradigm: The Ancient Blueprint That Holds the Mystery of Our Times,” which he claims reveals how recent and current events were foretold thousands of years ago in the Bible.
During a recent appearance on “The Hagmann Report,” Cahn revealed that evil spiritual forces had tried to prevent him from promoting his new book by rupturing his appendix on the day of its release.
Cahn said that every time one of his books is released, “there is always intense warfare, every single time, and there is always an attack that comes, usually on the day of its release.”
Cahn revealed that when he released his book “The Harbinger,” a hurricane flooded his office and when he released “The Mystery of the Shemitah,” he was rushed to the hospital “paralyzed with some strange illness.”
On the day of the release of “The Paradigm,” Cahn said, he woke up “with severe pains” and was taken to the hospital where he learned that his appendix had ruptured.
“I’m rushed into surgery on the day of the release,” he said, “and I spent the whole week of the release … in this hospital.”
Cahn said that he views this recent attack “as a good sign, I’m encouraged because when the enemy goes crazy, that is a good sign that God is doing something.”With Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras triumphantly returning to the US to accept the Polk Award with Barton Gellman and Ewan MacAskill yesterday, maybe it's time we revisit one of their first and most important stories: how much are internet companies like Facebook and Google helping the National Security Agency, and why aren't they doing more to stop it?
The CEOs of the major tech companies came out of the gate swinging 10 months ago, complaining loudly about how NSA surveillance has been destroying privacy and ruining their business. They still are. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently called the US a "threat" to the Internet, and Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, called some of the NSA tactics "outrageous" and potentially "illegal". They and their fellow Silicon Valley powerhouses – from Yahoo to Dropbox and Microsoft to Apple and more – formed a coalition calling for surveillance reform and had conversations with the White House.
But for all their talk, the public has come away empty handed. The USA Freedom Act, the only major new bill promising real reform, has been stalled in the Judiciary Committee. The House Intelligence bill may be worse than the status quo. Politico reported on Thursday that companies like Facebook and are now "holding fire" on the hill when it comes to pushing for legislative reform.
The keepers of the everyday internet seem to care more about PR than helping their users. The truth is, if the major tech companies really wanted to force meanginful surveillance reform, they could do so tomorrow. Just follow the example of OKCupid from last week.
Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox browser, was under fire for hiring Brendan Eich as CEO because of his $1,000 donation in support of Prop 8 six years ago, and OKCupid decided to make a political statement of its own by splashing a message criticizing Mozilla before would-be daters could get to OKCupid's front page. The site even encouraged users to switch to another browser. The move made the already smoldering situation explode. Two days later, Mozilla's CEO was out of a job, and OKCupid got partial credit for the reversal.
The leading internet companies could easily force Congress' hand by pulling an OKCupid: at the top of your News Feed all next week, in place of Monday's Google doodle, a mobile push alert, an email newsletter: CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS. Tell them to SUPPORT THE USA FREEDOM ACT and tell the NSA to stop breaking common encryption.
We know it's worked before. Three years ago, when thousands of websites participated in an unprecedented response to internet censorship legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), the public stopped a once-invincible bill in its tracks. If they really, truly wanted to do something about it, the online giants of Silicon Valley and beyond could design their systems so that even the companies themselves could not access their users' messages by making their texting and instant messaging clients end-to-end encrypted.
But the major internet outfits were noticeably absent from this year's similar grassroots protest – dubbed The Day We Fight Back – and refused to alter their websites à la Sopa. If they really believed the NSA was the threat so many of them have claimed, they'd have blacked out their websites in protest already.
In an emblematic moment for the nonchalance at the executive level of tech companies, Dropbox named former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors this week. Besides being an Iraq war architect and torture advocate, Rice notoriously defended George W Bush's outright illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping program when it first was revealed in 2005. Not exactly a vote of confidence to users worried about government intrusion. Rice actually had to the gall to say she would help Dropbox "navigate" the national debate about privacy.
Among the rank-and-file engineers in Silicon Valley, there is widespread affinity for Edward Snowden and genuine anger at the US government. One of the most indelible anecdotes in all the NSA reporting came when the Washington Post reported the NSA had broken into the links between their overseas data centers:
Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing. "I hope you publish this," one of them said.
"The initial reaction from employees and engineers at big companies like Google after the NSA leaks was sort of a resounding 'how dare you?,'" security expert Chet Wisniewski told Buzzfeed on Friday. "I imagine now that there's the possibility companies like Yahoo, Akamai, Amazon might have been vulnerable, there will be a very similar reaction."
Turns out they were. Millions of websites have been affected by the OpenSSL so-called Heartbleed bug that was revealed this week, putting billions of people's personal information at risk. Now Bloomberg is reporting that the NSA has secretly been exploiting the bug for two years. (The US government denies this claim.)
It's amazing that entire internet, including big companies like Google and Facebook rely on this tiny OpenSSL foundation, which manages the free encryption library. They have four developers working on the project, and only one full time. Maybe these multi-billion dollar companies could throw in some money to help preserve the future of the internet. As cryptographer Matthew Green told the New York Times, 'If we could get $500,000 kicked back to OpenSSL and teams like it, maybe this kind of thing won't happen again."
To be sure, Snowden's revelations have sparked these companies to dramatically improve their security, which protects customers against not only the NSA but also other governments and criminals. "For that reason alone, we owe Edward Snowden our thanks," the ACLU’s principal technologist has said.
But many of the companies were also just implementing practices that security experts had been advocating for years – and as the Heartbleed bug showed, they were not enough.
And what about that Edward Snowden, the man who brought us all this of information? Many of these CEOs can't bring themselves to praise him in public, despite being "outraged" by the government's "illegal" activity. Only Zynga's founder – Marc Pincus, the man seated next to President Obama in that photo above – was brave enough to advocate for a pardon of Snowden after he and some of his fellow CEOS went to the White House in December.
Both Greenwald and Poitras made clear at the Polk awards here in New York on Friday: without Snowden, we'd have known exactly none of this.
Many of the billion-dollar companies involved in the NSA mess have faced allegations that they are more than willing participants in at least some of the surveillance programs, and a recent poll showed people trust them even less than the IRS. Which is saying something. If they want to say to us that they're serious, it's time that they took some serious action.Question: What is the story behind YJA-STAR and Kurdish women’s self-defence battalions?
Though the name YJA-Star was adopted in 2004, the process towards the militarization of women had begun much earlier. The deep contradiction within the sociological reality of Kurdistan and the strong participation of female comrades in the revolution has caused the issue of women’s liberation to incrementally become a pressing matter that is just as important as the national issue. Entrenching the militarizing qualities and the authenticity of the women’s organization as well as ensuring it’s emergence upon genuine demands had been of great importance. “When the revolution succeeds, women will also be emancipated”; at no point such a phrase was invoked.
Concerning the woman issue, it has been quite clear that emancipation would only be achieved through the very own ideas, organizations and actions of the women themselves. Concerning this issue, since the self-revelation of women’s self-power is of capital importance, the militarization of women was constituted as a necessity. Despite all its rigors, the militarization of the Kurdish woman had became a constituent element in her self-creation and self-consciousness of her own existence. In order for those women who are dispossessed of their volitions and their very selves under societies where oppressive forces are dominant, to reshape their own personalities, to become Life’s transformative force and to liberate their gender, is only possible through becoming a power themselves.
In such context, the women’s militarization had organized itself rather as an instrument of equality in social, political and cultural spheres instead of a simple military organization with only combat related purposes. A woman who cannot fold herself into a total reality encompassing the ideological, political and military spheres, becomes a basis for the false sense of power that develops in men which causes the development of a masquerading sense of dominance over women. The armies of men have taken their source from inequality and have become the instruments of deepening for slavery and domination; in contrast with this, the militarization of women is face to face with the duties of abolishing the sources of inequality and exploitation, fighting against the very causes that foment domination and becoming the army of equality and liberation.
Question: Why the militarization of women?
It is inevitable in Kurdistan for the initial field of organization for women to be the army and war. In the struggle for national liberation, no alternative was left other than militarization. Under such circumstances the only way to preserve one’s existence, honour and identity is to fight. Women’s advance towards liberation is going to be through the initial organizational step of self-militarization, this is evident. Through their defiance, women have been struggling to establish the sense that they can be involved in every field of work in life. What is aimed with the militarization of women is to shatter the male-dominant logic and the societal habitude that has sprouted from this logic.
Given the class reality, to incorporate the oppressed people and the even more oppressed women into the army and have them fight, expresses a great emancipatory outburst against classic traditional approaches. The armies of men have taken their source from inequality and have become the instruments of deepening for slavery and domination; in contrast with this, the militarization of women is face to face with the duties of abolishing the sources of inequality and exploitation, fighting against the very causes that foment domination and becoming the army of equality and liberation.
In a society, the more the level of women’s liberty, the more dynamism its level of development will have. In this respect, women’s liberation has priority. Nevertheless as the women’s liberation is continuous; a unique organization, organizational mechanisms, means of struggle and the institutionalization of those are all essential as they are fundamental requirements for emancipatory development.
Question: What are the differences between men’s army structures and women’s army structures?
As we know, armies all over the world are the most fundamental sources of political power and these armies consist of men. The level of men within armies relatively, as well as generally, represent the degree of the dependency of women. As the man’s dominance in military also represents his dominance in that society; as such, it also amounts to a dominance over women. No one can deny the existence of such relations. The relation between such a sense of a male dominated military and the undergoing repression of women is real.
There is no concept such as an army of equality. One is the army of the oppressed, other is the army of the oppressors; if there is an army completely consisting of men somewhere, then there also exists the facticity of oppressed women. Life itself indeed verifies this condition. We do not speak merely of martial militarization; in economy, in numerous institutions of social life, without the creation of women’s political and especially cultural militarization (ie. organization), a solution towards the greater problem of equality and liberation cannot be provided. Army is a type of organization for us. If we look closely, the existing reality of women whose place within society is utterly minimized, results from the quality of being a women who is dissuaded from organizing in general and creating her own army distinctively.
And this causes for wars and inequality to persist and gain root within our societies. Upon this perspective, the organization and institutionalization of the militarization of women in every aspect is essential for liberation and the creation of equality. In this respect, the non-patriarchal development of our guerrilla army is strongly connected with the endeavours of democratization. One of the fundamental reasons for developing this unique form of militarization of women is also to prevent the emergence of patriarchal characteristics. In nowhere across the globe has there ever been a separate army of women that has developed within the general army. Herein lies our principal difference.
Question: Is the women’s group completely politically and militarily autonomous?
The women’s organization is autonomously and uniquely organizational within all fields of work (political – military) in general. Currently due to several disadvantages surrounding the conditions of struggle, especially in war, there is more of a combined system. To better put this, in fields of life and organizational fields we have separate positionings; but in war, common practices are held. There are both men’s military units and women’s in the war zones. Moreover, there are also mixed units, but still the unique system of female guerrillas is in effect within these mixed groups. By their participation and stance, women have a strongly determinant position within mixed guerrilla units as well. These units may have division of labour and mutual support but they do not dissolve or liquidate under one another.
There may be common actions, but still some actions may be exercised solely by women’s units, and some solely by men’s. There are actions to be held both commonly and separately in war. We speak of a women guerrilla force which provides ideological, political and military education in and of itself, which acts according to its own plans and practices through self-power – i.e. a force that organizes its own system. This is to transform women’s own volition into an organization and ensure its strong development.
Question: How are hierarchical relations between women constituted within an army organization? Is there an hierarchical organization? If so, does it present an obstacle in the face of common struggle?
When it comes to the army, usually what comes to mind are the armies of the dominant state and class structures. On the contrary, what we have is a people’s guerrilla force. And it has a structure developed upon democratic grounds. The women liberation guerrilla constitutes the most essential dynamism within the development and preservation of this democratic structure. Volunteerism is the principle for participation; nevertheless, indubitably, it is neither disorganized nor irregular.
Of course, there are rudiments of principle and discipline concerning the participation to the practice for undertaking activities within an organized structure. In this framework, every participating individual’s talents and skills are held at the maximum capacity for their own self-development and for serving the development of the organized structure. Every resource and opportunity is facilitated for the development of one’s own talents, skills and self in all levels. It is better to define this as more of a work and role coordination than a hierarchical structuring. Because the form of administration has more of a communal structure than individualistic. Under this form, administration or commandership represents the institution rather than the individual. It is not possible for someone to make decisions, plan and exercise solely on individual basis.
Of course there is a chain of command within a fighting guerrilla unit, as its absence would simply cause the annihilation of the unit in a short span of time. However, we have really strong mechanisms to monitor and criticize the command structure. If comrade structures have strong criticisms they can even discharge their commander using their common will. We have a system where every action, education or meeting is collectively evaluated; a system where such direct democracy is exercised even though its is a military organization.
Question: Are the experiences of these women being recorded?
Generally, since there is a historical consciousness being developed through the transformation of the resistance and efforts of women into continuous gains, the guerrilla women have diaries. The keeping of these diaries creates multiple effects and results. While the emotional intensity of guerrilla lives find expression through the voices of the writers of these diaries; a quite vast and rich historical interpretation is also brought upon through the collection of individual feelings and interpretations of each friend.
Also everyone acquires a talent in expressing one’s own feeling and life in a literary language. These diaries also bring along them the existence of women in history as subjects. As whatever is being lived and the one living them are written down in unison, it is possible to state that the women are writing the history of their own liberation.
Question: How are your educational programs for women?
Besides ideological and military education, there are also unique education programs that analyze every type of systemic assault against the woman gender. Moreover such kind of education programs are also held in common environments where a basis of self-questioning in every manner for men is provided. Wherever women units are present, we educate about neolithic women’s revolution, the history of the exploitation of women (mythological, religious, philosophical, scientific), history of women’s resistance, effects of social sexism and jineology studies (we call these genuine education) and our male friends also get educated in this framework, and further analysis are made in order for them to overcome their patriarchal personalities.
The ones providing this type of education are women. Academies are organized especially for these unique concentrated studies. In these academies every person strictly analyzes their own life and presents to the others their psychological, sociological etc. findings in relation to women. Furthermore military and ideological education are covered integrally. In military education what is taken as principal is self-defence from women’s perspective.
Question: What is the concept of self-defence? Feminists emphasize individual self-defence. What is your approach?
Our sense of self-defence does not only amount to physical defence, but it also involves a self-defence against every possible kind of assault from the patriarchy. First of all, the self-defence of women through the use of their social reasoning against the patriarchal system’s attacks aimed at mentality is taken as a basis. This type of defence also provides a defence line against attacks on different levels (cultural, economic, military etc.). If it can be said that these are all out attacks against women, against society as a whole; then it must also be said that struggle and resistance need to be all out as well.
However, as you have asked, feminists have grounded their thought on an individualistic sense and style of self-defence. How can a defence be maintained individualistically by such precautions as pepper sprays, needles, sticks, karate etc.? We do not regard these with contempt but we still do not find this approach successful in terms of the given results. Today if we are to consider the massacres committed against women, we can observe that the general defence mechanisms present in society are not preventative mechanisms in respect to the assaults aimed at women.
For this reason, all across the globe violence and massacres against women are deepening everyday under new guises. For women to defend themselves ideologically, socially, legally and economically, and for them to guarantee their life/freedom; ensuring the organization of every woman in society is crucial. Women have to be educated upon this principle, and have to construct their own communes and collectives.
Question: Is it true that domestic violence has increased in places where guerrilla forces have retreated? Have women guerrillas contributed to the prevention of domestic violence?
Becoming a force through genuine organization upon the basis of self-liberation, this as a great social revolution, is an assurance not only for Kurdish women, but for all women. Under the contemporary capitalist system, which is forced upon women as a life with no alternative, the fact that even the existence of the women’s liberation movement is providing an alternative life which is opposed to the decimation of women is a fact that has now become unquestionable.
Especially in places where guerrillas are present, the occurrences of great changes within family relations has become a societal reality. In so far as how the relations between women and men are supposed to be goes and as a force in creating a change of mentality, we can say that the guerrilla acts as a model of a way of life – not merely as an armed force. By forming one-on-one relationships with women, the women guerrilla have not only supported them in gaining consciousness regarding their own identities, but also have always made them feel secure and spiritually powerful. Women have boosted morale through the use of such practices and have strived to build up the organization of women in an unprecedented way.
Question: What are the differences between jineology and feminism?
First of all, it would be better to begin by stating that jineology is not a Kurdish feminist theory. The failure of feminism (or feminisms) that was developed in the West in light of the legacy of the women’s tradition of resisting, in regards to developing a united theory aiming for the liberation of all women has brought along a fragmented approach that characterizes women based on the position they belong in. The inability to form consensus even on the definition of woman, to analyze the system of exploitation in it’s entirety and to construct common fields of struggle has brought along weakness when it comes to getting results, despite all the great efforts.
In this line, the concept of Jineology (science of women) rather than Feminism may better fit the purpose. The reason why is because it is indubitable that women constitute the broadest physical and conceptional segment of social nature. Upon this perspective, Jineology would greatly contribute to the revelation of women’s position, starting from the history of their exploitation and further continuing with her economic, social, political and mental exploitation. It is without doubt that elucidating the status of women is only one dimension of the issue. What is more crucial concerns the issue of liberation. It is commonly stated that the society’s general scale of freedom is proportional to that of the women.
However, how to follow up on this true statement is important. Freedom and equality of women do not determine social freedom and equality only. It also requires a theory, a program, organization and mechanisms of action. More importantly it also demonstrates that democratical politics cannot exist without women, that even class politics would be deficient and the improvement of peace and the environment cannot take place either. It is necessary to draw women out of the “holy mother, principle of honor, indispensable and irreplaceable wife” statuses, and investigate the reality of women as a subject-object sum.
As a matter of fact, one of the most important aspects of such an investigation would be exposing the great whitewashed villainy that masquerades as love (rape, murder, violence, unending swearing being the foremost). The list continues to being exploited as; the mother of all labours, owner of free labour, worker with bottom wage, being the most unemployed, a source of the endless desires and oppression of men, a birth giving and child rearing machine for the system, an instrument of advertisement, sex-porn etc.
Being a system of exploitation, Capitalism has developed more mechanisms for the exploitation of women than all of those that came before it. In truth, no other social phenomenon has ever been subjected to colonialism the way women have been as body and soul. It should be understood that women are being restrained under a colonial status with hard to define borders. In light of such truths, it is without doubt that the feminist movement should be the most radical anti-system movement. Initially legal equality was pursued. This sort of equality, which does not mean much, seems to be generally provided today. It seems there are improvements in appearance regarding human rights and the others such as economic, social and political rights. In appearance women are free and equal with men.
However the most crucial trickery lies herein with the very type of equality and freedom. Establishing freedom, equality and democracy for women who are mentally and bodily taken captive and sentenced to the most profound type of slavery – not only by the official modernity, but also by the hierarchical and statist system which has penetrated the social fabric of civilizations of all times – requires extensive theoretical studies, ideological struggles, programmatic and organizational practices and most importantly it requires strong actions.
About Family
The system has transformed family into an institution where it’s suffocated by all the contradictions of the system. Marriage, wife-husband and children all the while not yet having transcended their former feudal relations, are living the life of a prisoner under siege by capitalism’s inexorable relations. While family is considered sacred in Kurdistan, it has been backed to a corner especially because of the economical and educational shortcomings as well as health problems and the yet-to-actualize liberation.
The condition of women and children is a total disaster. The phenomenon of honor killings are in truth the symbolic representations of the status of life in general. Honor, of which the society is deprived, has been made a thorn in women’s flesh. Thus tattered manhood gets its revenge from the women. In the current conditions, only through a general democratization of the society can a path towards the solution for the crisis of family be opened. It is not the right approach to claim the issue of state precedes the issue of family. Both of these phenomena, which are in a dialectical relation, require to be treated together in order to be resolved.
The consequences of the approach taken in real socialism, putting priority on the state and claiming the turn for society will eventually come, are apparent. No serious social problem can be solved by giving priority to a single problem. To adopt a holistic approach, to give sense to every problem by understanding them within their relations to one another, and to adapt the same approach on the path to the solutions is a better method. Just as understanding the state without understanding mentality, understanding family without understanding the state, understanding men without understanding women would be amiss, it would as well be so to reach a solution without doing the reverse.
The reason why family preserves its power relative to other social relations that are more rapidly dissolving is because it is the only social sanctuary. One should definitely not underestimate the family. Our criticisms do not necessitate its total refutation, but exhibit the need for its reinterpretation and restructuring.
About transforming men
It is important to prioritize the issue of men in a more stressing manner than that of women as an order of business. The analysis of the sovereignty and power of men is no less important than the slavery of women, it might even be harder to do this. It is not women but men who do not lend themselves to transformation. When men abandons the dominant male figure, he feels like a ruler who has lost his kingdom or a similar halfness.
Actually it is needed to show him that this most hollow type of dominance deprives him of freedom, and that it makes him into a total conservative. Concretely speaking, the struggle for women’s liberation has to be performed jointly from forming their own party to founding a massive women’s movement and from all kinds of non-governmental organizations to democratic political institutions. Women may have a free personality and identity only so far as they have emancipated themselves from the hands of male and societal dominance and have gained power through their free initiatives.
Question: What is your ecological paradigm?
Philosophically as well, nature is seen as a power that enables humans to achieve self-consciousness. Coming from this aspect, we see that there is a tight connection between the ecological crisis and the social crisis (or rather the decimation of societies). Therefore what lies within the foundation of the ecological crisis is the fall from the principle of moral society. It is quite apparent that this principle of moral society was also devastated within the reality of women.
A society which does not hand the principle of moral society its place has neither internal, nor external sustainability. Current reality explains this condition well. The practical activities we handle in the mountain conditions are; for nearly 10 years ecology had been amongst all our educational programs’ core lessons for creating an ecological consciousness. Moreover, the clearance of mines from terrain where civilian populations live are being handled by HAWPAR, alongside planting trees in locations where forests were burnt by heavy shelling. We also live without causing any harm to the environment we live in, all the while maintaining friendship with the animals.
We do not hunt the endangered mountain goats. It is forbidden for the peasants to hunt the mountain goats as well and also cutting down green timber is prohibited. Also all forces stationed on the mountain have the opportunity to do organic horticulture for production and for ecological reasons.
Question: Lots of women guerrilla reject to eat meat under mountain conditions. What are your thoughts on this?
We can say that it is a preferential situation that has risen upon the development of social ecological consciousness. Regarding this issue, the assessments of our leadership has also turned the attention of our guerrilla friends to the culture of eating meat. Thereto, historically speaking, we consider the culture of hunting as one of the factors that create war and violence. If it’s considered that eating meat is not a strict nutritional necessity for human kind, and that it merely constituted 20% of nutrition even in the culture of the hunter-gatherer era, it can be seen that today’s meat eating habits have become very exaggerated.
Furthermore the livestock industry, which the big monopolies have a hold of, has created a horrid massacre and the results are harmful for human health. Seeing animals merely as food to be eaten rather than as part of the entirety of nature also contributes to such occurrences.
Question: How will your envisioning of the future be if peace was made? What will happen to the women‘s armed forces if peace was to be established, will you continue the struggle against male violence?
For us there is no such situation as before or after the revolution. Because what we mean by revolution is innovation, change-transformation i.e. something that is always happening as we are navigating through moments of freedom. Revolution and struggle are part of our lives. It is a lifestyle for us. How can anyone remain apart from it while life itself is constantly changing? Isn’t this the reason of the social problem that is experienced today? Estrangement from the cycle of life… We have never opted for such a life, and we never will. Thus we have never had such agendas. For us, struggle does not mean something to be temporarily exercised, it is not something that we seek to deviate from after saying “the revolution has happened, peace is here”. We do not approach the phenomenon of revolution as a secondary job, as an extra job. We also do not consider it as an adventure. For us being a revolutionary is a form of living, it is the formation of human energy for communality.
We approach this matter philosophically, ideologically and biologically. Human kind always pursues what is new. It is a never ending path, especially for women. It is a quality of women’s nature, a quality of being human. A condition of peace that is to be developed would serve a great basis for the deepening of the revolution. The real revolution would start after that. In relation to this, women struggle as well is a struggle that will always continue. Because we have the patriarchal system of thousand years, the male mentality against us.
To shatter its patterns, institutions and forming women-libertarian system requires a great war and struggle. The problem is not only women being armed or not. It is an important aspect of the struggle but not the only one. We did not had a reason and practice that claims initially a revolution should occur, then the issue of women would be solved, and we would not ever have |
.
***Franciscus Joseph Wilhelmus van der Lugt, known as Frans van der Lugt or Pater Frans (10 April 1938[1] – 7 April 2014), was a Jesuit priest from the Netherlands, who established a community centre and farm near the city of Homs, Syria, where he worked for the betterment of people with disabilities and for harmony among Christian and Muslim people.[2] He was shot dead in the garden of the community centre in 2014.
Biography [ edit ]
Van der Lugt was born into a banker's family and grew up in Amsterdam. His father was Godefridus Wilhelmus Antonius van der Lugt,[1] president of the Nederlandsche Landbouwbank. His brother Godfried van der Lugt became a top executive with the Postbank and later the ING Group.[3] Van der Lugt studied as a psychotherapist but left the Netherlands for the Middle East in the 1960s, where he joined the Jesuits and spent two years in Lebanon where he studied Arabic. In 1966 he went to Syria, where he lived for nearly fifty years.[4]
Van der Lugt started a community center and farm in 1980, the Al-Ard Center, just outside the city of Homs.[5] The farm had vineyards and gardens in which much of the work was done by people with disabilities, providing an unprecedented resource in a society in which such people are usually hidden from view.[2] In reconciling people from different religious backgrounds, van der Lugt emphasised the humanity of people as the common ground, rather than stressing commonality in the theologies of different faiths. He saw connection with the earth as part of a common bond.[2] To this end, he conducted annual eight-day treks across the mountains for teenagers of all faiths.[2]
Christians and Muslims are going through a difficult and painful time and we are faced with many problems. The greatest of these is hunger. People have nothing to eat. There is nothing more painful than watching mothers searching for food for children in the streets...I will not accept that we die of hunger. I do not accept that we drown in a sea of hunger, letting the waves of death drag us under. We love life, we want to live. And we do not want to sink in a sea of pain and suffering. —Pater Frans, in a video made January 2014.[6] Translated from Arabic.[7]
After the siege of Homs, van der Lugt cared for the sick and the hungry. He gained international exposure at the beginning of 2014 when he made a number of YouTube videos, asking the international community for help for the citizens of the besieged city.[8] He refused to leave, despite the dangerous situation.[9] In February, The Economist reported that he was probably the last European in the city and stayed because he was "the shepherd of [his] flock":[10] He declined being evacuated during a UN operation in 2014 that saved 1400 people from the besieged city.[11]
Van der Lugt was known for helping Christians and Muslims alike; the Al-Ard Center aimed to foster dialog between people of different faiths.[12] In an interview in 2012, he explained how they held a church service after a bombardment; by this time, he said, all the Catholics had left, leaving only Orthodox Christians and Muslims to celebrate Palm Sunday in his church. The imam preached at the service. Van der Lugt later said that the sermon had removed from him any residual tendencies to place emphasis on dogma.[3]
Death and reactions [ edit ]
He was shot around 09:30 am on Monday, 7 April 2014,[7] aged 75.[13] According to the governor of Homs Governorate, Talal al-Barazi, he was murdered by extremists from the Al-Nusra Front.[14] He was the second foreign-born Jesuit in that area to fall victim to the Syrian civil war: Paolo Dall'Oglio was kidnapped in 2013.[12] A Vatican spokesperson "expressed 'great pain' over his death", according to the BBC, and the Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans called his murder "cowardly".[11]
In an appeal to end violence in Homs and the rest of Syria, Pope Francis remembered Father van der Lugt:
Last Monday in Homs, Syria, the Rev. Fr. Frans van der Lugt was assassinated, a Dutch Jesuit brother of mine, 75 years old, who arrived in Syria about 50 years ago; he always did good to all, with gratitude and love, and therefore he was loved and respected by Christians and Muslims. His brutal murder has filled me with deep pain and it made me think of a lot of people still suffering and dying in that tormented country, my beloved Syria, already too long in the throes of a bloody conflict, which continues to reap death and destruction. I also think of the many people abducted, both Christians and Muslims, in Syria and in other countries as well, among which are bishops and priests.[15]
Bibliography [ edit ]
(in Dutch) : Paul Begheyn sj (red.)Frans van der Lugt sj 1938–2014 – Bruggenbouwer en martelaar in Syrië, editor Valkhof Pers, Nijmegen, October 2015, ISBN 9789056254490
References [ edit ]18.42 Time to wrap-up today's coverage. We'll be back tomorrow when the Bank of England will reveal its latest decision on interest rates, and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, will testify before the US Senate.
18.24 Economists at RBS think that the ECB will cut rates in July. Silvio Peruzzo and Gareth Anderson outline two reasons why:
Firstly, the confirmation that there was a debate about lowering interest rates in the Council, showing a process of transition within the Governing Council towards a more dovish stance, especially compared to the May discussion when Draghi said that no changes in interest rates were discussed. The decision to keep rates unchanged in June was supported by a broad consensus but a “few” members argued in favour of lower interest rates. Looking forward, we do not expect there to be any meaningful good news about the euro area economy which will reverse the Governing Council transition and therefore we expect a majority of members to recognise the materialisation of downside risks to the economy.
Secondly, President Draghi was very explicit in mentioning some of the assembedded in the new Eurosystem staff projections. The projections have already been challenged to the downside by some of the most recently available survey data for May, especiallthose pinning down conditions of foreign demand, which the ECB still expects to be “buoyant”. In fact following the cut-off date for the Eurosystem projection assumptions (May 24th), survey data suggest the global business cycle might be weakening, especially as far as the manufacturing sector is concerned.
17.31 The investigation will focus on the formation of Bankia from seven Spanish savings banks, or cajas in 2010, according to the Spanish newswire Efe, which cited an interview with Spain's chief prosecutor, Eduardo Torres-Dulce.
Complaints from consumer groups representing small Bankia shareholders have grown louder in recent weeks, and many have threatened legal action over the sudden collapse in the bank's share price. According to Reuters, thousands of ordinary Spaniards invested an average of €6,000 each when the bank floated last year at €3.75.
The shares closed at €1.04 today.
17.13 Spain's public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into bailed-out bank Bankia,
Last month, Bankia requested €19bn in state aid on top of the €4.5bn it has already received from the government.
The investigation will be conducted by the anti-corruption unit, a spokesman told Reuters.
16.59 Charles Dallara, the man who represented banks in Greek debt write-off talks, will step down as head of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) at the end of the year.
An IIF spokeswoman told AFP that Mr Dallara's departure was not linked to the stressful debt negotiations, adding that he would stay on at the IIF until the end of the year to ensure an "orderly transition".
16.54 Ben Critchley, sales trader at IG Index, comments on today's market movers:
There was a brief wobble for markets during the early afternoon after Mr Draghi said no to any rate cut for the eurozone. However, indices rapidly stabilised after they remembered the more important rumour, that QE3 might finally be on its way in the US. The ECB didn’t hint at any liquidity boosts so all eyes now turn to Washington. Both the Fed’s vice-chairman and chairman will make speeches over the next 24 hours, and, so the theory goes, the spate of weaker US data means that intervention must be on its way. Markets might of course be setting themselves up for a fall in the coming days if we don’t get any supportive words, but for now the optimists are in full control.
16.43 European markets have drawn to a close for the day, climbing on hopes European authorities are moving closer to more effective measures against the debt crisis.
The FTSE 100 has ended 2.29pc up, the DAX rose 2.15pc and the CAC gained 2.61pc. The FTSE MIB soared by 3.42pc.
16.02 We've got a slideshow this afternoon of European banknotes which could be making a comeback soon if the eurozone debt crisis isn't solved.
15.35 A banker who was involved in the Greek debt haircut negotiations that ultimately saw investors lose the majority of the value of their bonds has pleaded for other countries to avoid similar tactics. Jean Lemierre of French bank BNP Paribas told a conference in Copenhagen hosted by the Institute of International Finance:
Don't do it again, please, in the official sector. Once is enough. Stick to your word, stick you commitments, and pay back the creditors.
I'm very grateful to the heads of state in Europe (for having) promoted a negotiated solution. We are not happy about the haircut at the end of the day, of course, but negotiation has great value.
It is very crucial when you have a process to understand what is going to happen, otherwise you have a systemic crisis. I hope in the future we shall stick to that principle of negotiation. This is key.
15.27 The Crisis in the eurozone is hitting small companies’ confidence and cash flow, writes James Hurley, with European suppliers demanding cash up front for orders while exporters are being caught by customers delaying payment.
Data from Western Union show that businesses are increasingly shifting payments to the end of the month as they hoard cash and wait for better exchange rates.
15.12 Wall Street is now up and running, with sentiment buoyed by the ECB's decision to leave interest rates at a historic low and keep cash flowing to banks - until the end of the year, anyway. Oil is also back above $100 a barrel this afternoon.
The Dow Jones has already gained 1.24pc, the S&P 500 is up 1.3pc and the Nasdaq has risen 1.47pc
In Europe the markets are also climbing once again. The FTSE 100 is back to just over 2pc, the DAX is 1.64pc higher and the CAC has floated 2.05pc.
14.45 Glenn Uniacke, senior dealer at Moneycorp, comments on the ECB press conference:
With its direct reference to increased downside risk, heightened uncertainty, flat GDP and a lack of momentum, Mario Draghi's press conference will have left many onlookers scratching their heads as to why rates were left on hold.
While Draghi has a point in that monetary policy cannot make up for a lack of action elsewhere in the banking and political apparatus of Europe, watching and waiting could be a woefully flawed strategy.
Knee-jerk policy reactions are less effective than a determined and committed policy stance. Caution and procrastination could be the catalyst of the eurozone's collapse.
14.38 The ECB has passed the buck to eurozone governments, warning that the single currency is under increasing threat. Mario Draghi talked down the chance of more cheap LTRO funding once the current batch runs out, saying it was wrong for monetary policy to fill a policy vacuum created by others:
The issue now is whether these LTROs would actually be effective. Some of these problems in the euro area have nothing to do with monetary policy... and I don't think it would be right for monetary policy to fill other institutions' lack of action.
The economic outlook for the euro area is subject to increased downside risks relating in particular to a further increase in the tensions in several euro area financial markets and their potential spillover to the euro area real economy.
14.28 The Wall Street Journal asks Mario Draghi what he would say to people outside of Europe who believe their unemployment levels have been raised by the crisis in the eurozone. He replies:
The capacity of the European crisis to affect the rest of the world, one one hand I think it has to be right. We are the second richest economy in the world, so if this weakens we're certainly going to have some impact on the rest of the world.
But Draghi also warned about taking this reasoning too far:
Europe may have some responsibility but these countries also have their own responsibilities. It's not balanced to say that only Europe has a responsibility. And this is maybe going to be the main message of the G20 summit, that all countries have to work together. First and foremost they have to address their own problems, and then they should worry about the spillover of their own policies - or lack of policies - on the rest of the world.
14.09 Markets have slipped back slightly since Mario Draghi started his press conference.
The FTSE 100 has come off to rest 0.9pc up on the day, the DAX is just 0.63pc higher and the CAC has pared gains to 0.99pc.
For those of you unfamiliar with equine pharmaceuticals, Dormosedan is a sedative...
<noframe>Twitter: Constantin Gurdgiev - Mario Draghi - Dormosedan for the markets.</noframe>
13.56 Mario Draghi has been asked if Spanish banks will be able to receive help without having to go through the Greek government as a middle-man. He says:
I don't view it as the ECB's task to push governments into doing something. It's their own decision whether they want to access the EFSF or not.
He says the IMF assessment of the country's banking sector will come "very soon" and then the independent one soon after, and that any decision will need to be made on "realistic assessments of the needs to recapitalise the banks and the money that's available to the government".
13.45 We're on to questions and answers now. Draghi has been asked how functional the bond markets currently are:
We still have very low nominal rates and negative real rates. We also have dysfunctional markets - the inter-bank market is really very dysfunctional, it's not working.
13.42 The ECB's governing council considers economic and monetary union to be a "highly important step" in restoring stability in the eurozone. It predicts growth during 2013 of between stagnation (0pc) and 2pc - that's the same lower limit, but a slightly lower upper limit than the last estimate of 2.2pc.
13.41 Credit demand is likely to remain subdued, and banks need to do more to ensure their resilience. On interest rates, he said the decision was by "consensus" and wasn't unanimous.
13.37 Indirect taxes and rising energy prices will keep eurozone inflation above 2pc for the rest of the year, says Draghi. It's likely to fall below the threshold in early 2013 he claims.
13.34 Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, is now giving a press conference. Within minutes he's down to the key points: three-month LTRO lending will continue to the end of 2012.
13.05 We've heard from the basics from the ECB - although Draghi will be holding a press conference soon - but the MPC decision won't be made public until tomorrow afternoon. David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, looks ahead at what to expect:
Most analysts expect the MPC to maintain its current policy at the June meeting, with interest rates staying at 0.5pc and the quantitative easing programme at £325bn. However, demands for more QE have started to rise due to the worsening crisis in the eurozone and signs that the US and Asian economies are slowing. More QE will have only marginal effects in boosting growth. But if the pressure facing Spanish banks puts the UK financial system at risk, an increase in QE may be necessary. In the meantime though, the MPC should focus on boosting the flow of credit to businesses.
David Kern
12.45 The European Central Bank held its key interest rates steady at an historic low of 1pc. All eyes are now on what Mario Draghi will say at his press conference. The bets are that he will indicate a cut in interest rates and keep pressure on eurozone leaders to act to stem the debt crisis.
Rabobank economist Elwin de Groot said:
The key question for the market now is whether the ECB will cut rates next month and whether it is willing to also lower the deposit rate.
11.47 Part of the reason for that solid demand for German bunds could be down to slow bank runs (bank jogs?) in Europe.
11.31 Some mixed news from Germany now. Industrial production fell 2.2pc in April, wiping out gains in the previous month. Analysts had expected a 1pc contraction.
Meanwhile, the country sold €3.98bn of five-year debt this morning, enjoying solid demand. The yield was 0.41pc, compared to the last similar auction which came in at an average of 0.56pc.
Achilleas Georgolopoulos, strategist at Lloyds Bank, said:
It was nothing spectacular in that the market expected a good result. The record low yield was expected, though the Bundesbank probably held a bit more than we thought. The market probably liked it a bit more than we expected - despite the very low yield there's still decent demand.
11.14 The EC has published its report on bank recapitalisation. Bruno Waterfield brings us the key points:
<noframe>Twitter: Bruno Waterfield - 1) European Commission proposals of no use in the eurozone's current bank crisis as they are for the long-term, in six years time</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Bruno Waterfield - 2) Weak banks would see their management sacked and shareholders forced to take losses - but only after 2018 (academic in other words)</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Bruno Waterfield - 3) national bank resolution funds set up in all EU 27, paid for by "ex ante contributions to equal 1pc of covered deposits over 10 years"</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Bruno Waterfield - 4) funds will be'mutualised', compulsory loans to other countries after decisions taken by a "resolution college" in the EBA</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Bruno Waterfield - 5) Senior bondholders potentially face haircuts, currently ruled out by the EU and ECB - still protected, fairly meaningless as after 2018</noframe>
11.03 Markets are continuing to bob upwards as the ECB announcement nears. Investors are optimistic that the ECB could unveil more stimulus to fight the debt crisis.
The FTSE 100 is now up 1.27pc, the DAX by 1.55pc and the CAC is 1.92pc higher. Spain's IBEX is now 2.86pc up on the day, it's third consecutive positive trading session.
10.37 First quarter eurozone GDP data out this morning shows that strong exports saved it from recession. The EU statistics office confirmed GDP was flat in January to March, quarter-on-quarter. Reuters reports:
Eurostat confirmed that the eurozone escaped technically moving into recession by the skin of its teeth as GDP was flat quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2012 after contracting 0.3pc quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2011.
However, this does not mask the fact that the eurozone is exhibiting recessionary tendencies in most respects, Indeed, eurozone GDP was down 0.1pc year-on-year in the first quarter (revised down from flat).
It is also notable that it took a strong net trade performance to prevent the eurozone contracting in the first quarter, and the eurozone cannot rely on this going forward given current heightening global growth concerns.
10.35 More on the Spanish bank bailout, or, more specifically, the lack of one. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos says there are no immediate plans to request a recapitalisation - it needs the results of a banking sector audit first:
I have absolutely not discussed any intervention in Spain's banks today... in no more than 10, 15 days we will have the report from the independent auditors... which we are cerain will be very similar to that of the International Monetary Fund. From there the Spanish government will take the decisions it has to take in terms of recapitalising the institutions.
Economy Minister Luis de Guindos
10.26 The ECB may cut interest rates to a record low later today. Officials are meeting in Frankfurt at the moment and an announcement is expected this afternoon. With governments struggling to fix the debt crisis that’s engulfing Spain, pressure's mounting on the ECB to lower rates and introduce more liquidity support for banks.
Bloomberg surveyed 44 economists: 32 predict rates will remain as they are, 11 predict a 0.25pc cut and one expects a 0.5pc cut. What do you predict? Time for a quick poll.
Will the ECB cut interest rates?
10.13 Spain's in discussions with Germany and EU policymakers on how to recapitalise its troubled banks, but no decision can be made until the first phase of an independent banking audit is completed later this month, sources say.
A series of reforms have failed to persuade investors that huge losses from 2008's property crash have been fully addressed.
Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro said yesterday that Spain was locked out of the credit markets. That could prove troublesome tomorrow, as the country hopes to raise €2bn in a bond auction.
Reports this morning suggest that the EC will propose a new plan for boosting failing banks later today. But it won't kick-in until 2014, which means it will be of little help to Spain.
09.55 Spain isn't keen on a full bailout, as seen by Greece, Portugal and Ireland, instead calling for direct recapitalisation of its struggling banks by the eurozone bailout fund, the EFSF. In any case, it argues, it's too big to bailout directly.
There's a strong editorial by Ignacio Camacho on Spain's ABC which shows exactly how the troika inspectors and austerity measures which come part and parcel with European bailouts are seen:
They call it a rescue, but in reality it is a kidnapping; they take over the sovereignty of the nation concerned and wire it up to shock treatment, until the now-happy patient relaxes a little. They are the Men in Black, the flying emissaries from the dreaded EU troika, the commissioners that Merkel sends to impose her airtight budgetary discipline. It’s a pitiless brigade whose presence always sparks panic in governments when things start to go the way they are going in Spain.
Starting with pensions and unemployment benefits, they move on to taxes and civil service salaries and end up selling off all the assets that can be bought. When they finish, they leave the economy burned to the ground and politics mowed down to stubble, and depart arm-in-arm with the patient brushing the dust off their shoes. They may be able to clean up a nation that has sunk, but if there is any possibility of recovery they will leave it buried it under the rubble.
09.50 Oil is floating back towards $100 a barrel as data showed US stocks fell more than expected. Positive services data also gave investors a hint that demand would remain high. Brent crude rose more than $1.10 to $99.94 before easing back to $99.75 this morning. Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said:
We probably need to see a more significant rally out of this level to be more confident we have a corrective rally going on. We have gone from pricing in a potential supply shortage because of the situation in Iran... to a market that is more than adequately supplied.
09.35 Growth in British house construction fell back to a three-month low in May as new orders dried up. The Markit/CIPS Construction PMI fell to 54.4 from 55.8 in April, staying in growth territory and beating expectations slightly. But, still, a three month low...
The slip will undermine hopes of an early end to recession, especially given previous disappointing manufacturing data. Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit, said:
While still in positive territory, the month-on-month fall in business confidence was the greatest since June 2010, which was when plans for the autumn government spending review were first announced.
This reassessment of the year-ahead outlook represents worries within the construction sector that weakening economic conditions could leave firms running on empty again once existing projects have come to completion.
09.24 As we've mentioned, Moody's downgraded six German banks, but it also took a swipe at Austria. The rating agency cut the long-term rating for Erste Group Bank by two notches to A3 from A1 while UniCredit Bank Austria AG was cut to A3 from A2. Both got a negative outlook into the bargain. Raiffeisen Bank International was cut to A2 from A1 and assigned a stable outlook.
The main concern for German banks was contagion, while for the Austrian banks Moody's noted vulnerabilities from operating conditions in Central and Eastern Europe.
09.14 Warren Buffett has been speaking on the eurozone crisis, calling for more fiscal union:
They can't have a common currency, but not common fiscal policy or culture. It can't be half slave and half free. European leaders need to resolve some of the union's weaknesses.
Speaking at the 25th anniversary dinner of the Economic Club of Washington, the billionaire investor also said the odds of a renewed US recession were "very low."
09.04 There are two big meetings today: the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, and the European Central Bank. As usual, we won't hear anything from the MPC until tomorrow at noon, but the ECB is expected to make an announcement this afternoon.
The Bank of England.
08.52 Irish services PMI data is out this morning, showing its first contraction in four months. Slumping confidence is causing new orders to dry up and the backlog of work is running out. The index fell to 49.6 in May, from 52.7 in April.
08.49 There's an interesting article on CNBC warning that Greece could run out of cash next month, and have to stop paying salaries and pensions, along with imports of fuel, food and pharmaceuticals. It also has a fascinating insight into the endemic nature of tax evasion in the country:
To understand the difficulty, just talk to Nikos Maitos, a longtime official in Greece’s financial crimes investigation unit. When he and a team of inspectors recently prowled the recession-hit island of Naxos for tax evaders, a local radio station broadcast his license plate number to warn residents.
“One repercussion of the crisis is that people are harder to find,” Mr. Maitos, an imposing, burly man, said last week in his sweltering office on the edge of Athens. “And when you do find them, they don’t have money.”
Even tax collectors, who have had to take large pay cuts, find that budget reductions make it hard to pay for the gasoline needed to reach their targets.
08.41 The morning briefing from Benedict Brogan has just been sent out (sign up here), focusing today on "Eurogeddon".
Parliament might be in recess and politics put aside for the Jubilee, but the eurozone crisis still rages across the continent, giving David Cameron something to be busy with.
Yesterday he had a telephone call with Barack Obama about preparations for this month’s G20 summit in Mexico. No wonder - things are getting hairy. Yesterday Spain admitted for the first time that it can no longer raise money on the global markets or roll over its sovereign bonds.
And manufacturing and jobs data in the US and China came in weaker than expected. You can read more in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s report.
08.34 Spain's industrial output slumped to its lowest level since 2009 in April. It took an 8.3pc tumble year-on-year, way below forecasts of 6.5pc. And this follows a 7.5pc drop the previous month, showing that contraction is serious and prolonged.
08.26 A quick update on markets across Europe now, which are all making gains ahead of the ECB meeting.
The FTSE 100 has edged 0.8pc higher, the DAX is up 0.72pc and the CAC has risen 0.53pc.
Asian markets also mostly rose overnight, following a positive lead from Wall Street. Tokyo closed up 1.81pc, while Seoul was closed for a public holiday.
08.04 The FTSE 100, which is playing catch up after being closed on Monday and Tuesday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, has opened higher, rising 45 points - or 0.9pc - to 5305.7.
07.55 Germany's banks are in focus today. Moody's, the credit rating agency, has downgraded six German banks, including the country's second largest lender Commerzbank.
Moody's said in a statement it was downgrading by one notch the credit ratings of Commerzbank, DekaBank, DZ Bank, regional banks LBBW, Helaba and NordLB in view of "the increased risk of further shocks emanating from the euro area debt crisis, in combination with the banks' limited loss-absorption capacity."
<noframe>Twitter: Tim Weber - Downgrades for 6 German banks <a href="http://t.co/tAjbs3bt" target="_blank">http://t.co/tAjbs3bt</a> We'e entering a vicious circle were downgrades trigger weakness which triggers downgrades</noframe>
Mario Draghi is expected to keep pressure on eurozone leaders to act
07.30 The European Central Bank is expected to hold back from policy moves when it meets later today, instead urging governments to address the eurozone's crisis, but it could indicate a readiness to cut interest rates as early as next month given a weakening economy and Spain's banking troubles.
Bloomberg reports that the meeting has been moved to today, because of holidays in Germany tomorrow. Yesterday IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she thought the central bank had room to cut rates.
07.15 The European Commission is to unveil proposals for far-reaching powers for regulators to deal with failing banks on Wednesday. This is seen as a step towards the banking union the European Central Bank has demanded to secure the euro's future.
The Commission's 156-page draft will suggest giving supervisors powers to "bail in" or force losses onto bondholders of a bank so that taxpayers are kept off the hook.
However, any legislation is unlikely to take effect before 2014. That would be too late for Spain and its ailing banks. Nicolas Veron, of Brussels think tank Bruegel, told Reuters:
Everybody's energy right now should be focused on the current crisis. I'm not sure we can afford the luxury of thinking about a permanent framework when the houses are burning.
07.00 We have a debt crisis special on our Finance page today, focusing on Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Iceland. Bruno Waterfield reports:
Unlike Greece and Portugal, the two other countries under the yoke of EU-IMF austerity programmes, Ireland is meeting the fiscal targets required of it in Brussels and Frankfurt... But behind the gloss and glow of a successful EU referendum and encouraging signs of inward investment there is still a mountain to climb...
The country still faces unemployment of 14.3pc and extra pressure on the domestic budget from weaker economic activity than anticipated, compounded by high exposure to risks from eurozone contagion.
06.55 Yesterday, Spain admitted for the first time that it can no longer raise money on the global markets or roll over its sovereign bonds.
Premier Mariano Rajoy said the country is "in an extremely difficult situation" and called on Europe to stand by the mutual obligations of euro membership. "Europe must say where it is going and show that the euro is an irreversible project that is not in danger, that helps nations in difficulty," he told Spain's senate.
Treasury minister Cristobal Montoro confessed that Spain can no longer raise money. "The market is no longer open. The risk premium is telling us that Spain as a state has a problem accessing the market when we need to refinance our debt."
Treasury minister Cristobal Montoro said Spain's economy is too big for the EU bail-out machinery
06.50 UK markets are open today after a double bank holiday.
06.45 Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the European debt crisis.
Debt crisis live: archiveWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives voted Thursday to end federal funding for National Public Radio, following recent controversies that entangled some of the organization’s senior executives.
Republicans said the move, which passed by a vote of 228-192, was motivated by the need to cut spending in the face of a record federal budget deficit.
Democrats argued the bill was a thinly veiled ideological attack on an institution that some Republicans have long criticized for what they see as its liberal bias.
The measure’s prospects beyond the Republican-led House appear doubtful as Democrats control the Senate and President Barack Obama, who opposed the bill, could veto it.
NPR, which has about 27 million listeners, was shaken last week when its chief executive, Vivian Schiller, resigned after the organization’s chief fund-raiser was secretly videotaped making disparaging remarks about members of the conservative Tea Party movement and questioning whether NPR needed government funding.
The organization also aroused the anger of conservative media and Republican critics last year when it abruptly fired news analyst Juan Williams after he made controversial comments about Muslims.
Only about 2 percent of NPR’s budget comes from the federal government. But its member stations are heavily reliant on funding from federal and state governments.
NPR said it was concerned about the impact the bill would have on the entire public radio system.
“The bill is a direct effort to weaken public radio that would ultimately choke local stations’ ability to serve their audiences,” NPR said in a statement. “Many small-budget stations would be placed in a serious financial bind.”
Under the House-passed bill, affiliate stations could not use federal funds to pay for NPR-produced programs or member dues. Republicans said the measure would save up to $60 million a year.
“It’s called tightening the belt,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said on the floor. “It’s time to reflect the common sense of the American people.”
Democratic defenders of NPR said many of its programs had little or no ideological content, and that conservative and Republican criticism was less about making its political tone balanced than tilting it to the right.
“My colleagues should consider the studies that show NPR listeners are more aware of indisputable facts than listeners of most other news sources.... Where’s the political bias?” asked Democratic Representative Mike Doyle.CodeWorld’s Big Decisions
Reflecting back on the last 6 years of developing and teaching with CodeWorld, there are a number of decisions that were unique, and often even controversial, that define the project. For the record, here are eight of the biggest decisions I’ve made with CodeWorld, and the reasons for them.
1. Teaching functional programming
There are plenty of efforts around to teach coding in schools. Most of them focus on standard imperative programming languages: for example, Python, or JavaScript, or even Java (which is a horrible choice, but is entrenched due to its role in the Advanced Placement curriculum and exams). Most of these efforts don’t think much about functional programming.
Regular readers of this blog are probably familiar with functional programming, but for those who aren’t, you should understand that it’s really a rather different paradigm from most typical programming. It’s not just another syntax, with a few different features. Instead, it’s a whole new way of breaking down problems and expressing solutions. Basic ideas taught in the first few weeks of traditional computer programming courses – for example, loops – just don’t exist at all. And other really central ideas, like functions and variables, have a completely different meaning.
I’m not quite alone in teaching functional programming, though. Matthias Felleisen and Shriram Krishnamurthi started sizable effort to teach Scheme at the K12 level in the 1990s, and Emmanuel Schanzer created a Scheme/Racket based curriculum called Bootstrap, which is heavily based on functional programming. I’ve made the same choice, and for much the same reason.
In the end, while functional programming is very different from the mainstream of computer programming, it is very similar to something else: mathematics. Functions and variables in the functional programming world may mean something different from the same words in Python or JavaScript; but they mean the same thing as functions and variables in mathematics.
In fact, I never set out to teach “coding” at all! My goal is to teach mathematics more effectively. But mathematics education suffers from the weakness that students who make a mistake often don’t find out about it until days later! By them time, whatever confusion of ideas led to the error has long been forgotten. CodeWorld began as my attempt to get students to directly manipulate things like functions, expressions, and variables, and get immediate feedback about whether the result makes sense, and whether it does what they intended. For that purpose, a functional programming language is perfect for the job!
2. Teaching Haskell
Even after the switch to functional programming, I still surprise a lot of people by telling them I teach middle school students in Haskell! Let’s face it: Haskell has a bit of a reputation as a mind-bending and difficult language to learn, and it sometimes even deserves the reputation. This is, after all, the programming language community with more Ph.D. students per capita than any other, and where people hold regular conversations about applying the Yoneda lemma to help solve their coding challenges!
But it doesn’t have to be! Haskell also has some advantages over almost anything else, for someone looking to work with tangible algebra and mathematical notation.
First of all, the language semantics really are comparable to mathematics. Haskell is often called purely functional, meaning that it doesn’t just enable the use of functional programming ideas, but in fact embodies them! By contrast, most other widely used |
officials have already observed fighters from the terror network moving toward the Euphrates River valley, and particularly where it meets the Syrian border, a sprawling region logistically difficult for any military to target. The Iraqi air force struck a town across the border in February, making news for its coordination with Damascus and demonstrating a partnership that officials say will likely continue in the coming months, perhaps years.
Once Mosul is cleared and secured, attention will turn to "the other threats that exist," says Army Brig. Gen. William Turner with the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Baghdad. "We are trying to anticipate how best to posture ourselves."
Turner oversees providing logistical support to all U.S. forces and some of the Iraqi military, as well as training local troops, police forces, emergency responders and counterterrorism units.
"The fight will not stop in Mosul," he says.What is a Bitcoin Fork and Why does it Happen?
If you’re following the latest trends on cryptocurrencies especially Bitcoin, you might have heard of the term “forks”. I’m not talking about the fork you use for dining. I’m talking about the technical event which happens due to the need for a number of participants to reach an agreement on a few common rules.
One of the main question that should be raised is: “Does this fork event support or help Bitcoin in order to get more acceptance by the public?”. I personally fear no, as people like potential investors have no clue about this process and why it is used in a “currency like” system.
Basically, a fork is an event when a blockchain gets separated into two different paths. This could either be a new rule deciding a transaction’s validity or the transaction history of a network. Due to this, blockchain users are forced to choose which of the two choices they should stick with.
There are actually several types of forks. However, there’s still not much information or science behind them. So far, there are types of forks capable of resolving on their own. However, some are fueled by deep community disputes, which lead to the creation of two blockchain histories. Along with this, comes the creation of two separate currencies.
A lot of individuals are also confused about the types of forks, the risks they bring, and how they occur. To make it easier to understand, we’ve created an overview of the different fork types and how they work.
Learning – The Basics
Before anything else, keep in mind that Bitcoin forks have already occurred on a regular basis.
Forks are a byproduct of distributed consensus and occur when two miners happen to locate a block at almost the same time. This can be resolved with the addition of subsequent blocks to one, thereby causing it to become the longest chain. On the other hand, the other block becomes an abandoned or “orphaned” block.
However, it is also possible to introduce forks into the network. This can be done by developers when they want to modify the rules used by the software for assessing a transaction’s validity.
When there are invalid transactions in a block, it gets rejected. As a result, the respective miner will gain no block reward at all. This has prompted miners to only mine valid blocks.
Here are some of the most common types of forks:
Hard Fork
What’s a hard fork?
A hard fork happens when a software upgrade has a new rule, which isn’t compatible with its previous version. It’s basically an expansion of the current rules. A new rule which indicates that a block size should be 2MB rather than 1MB will require a hard fork.
What happens during a hard fork?
In the event of a hard fork, nodes that run the old software version will invalidate new transactions. Hence, in order to continue mining valid blocks, a new version upgrade for all nodes within the network is necessary.
What issues might arise?
However, issues arise when a huge part of the Bitcoin community chooses to stick with the old rules regardless of what happens, particularly during a political impasse. A network’s computing power, likewise known as the hash rate, that supports the old chain becomes irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that data still has value; therefore, miners will still continue mining a chain while developers continue supporting it.
One of the best examples of how a community gets separated by different rules was the ethereum DAO hard fork case. This resulted in two blockchains that use the software’s variant: ethereum and ethereum classic. Each of them has a different currency and ethos.
Soft Fork
What’s a soft fork?
While hard fork refers to the expansion, the soft fork is the opposite. For example, instead of a 1MB block size, this might result in only 500K blocks.
What happens during a soft fork?
As a result, nodes which have not yet upgraded will validate those new transactions. The problem is, if they continue mining blocks, their output will be ignored by the newer version nodes. It is for this reason why soft forks should have a major portion of a network’s computing power.
What issues might arise?
A soft fork can end up becoming the shortest chain if there’s not enough hash power to back it up. As a result, it gets abandoned by the network. In some cases, it can also act as a hard fork.
It’s believed that soft forks pose a lower chance of splitting the network. Due to this, they are the most preferred option for upgrading the Bitcoin blockchain. A few examples of a successful soft fork include software upgrades such as the BIP 66 for signature validation and P2SH for Bitcoin’s address formatting.
User-Activated Soft Fork
What’s a UAS fork?
There’s a popular idea which states that there’s a possibility of a blockchain adding an upgrade, which is outside the jurisdiction of those who provide hashing power to the network. The concept behind a user-activated soft fork is that wallets, exchanges, and businesses that operate full nodes will have the power required for activating a soft fork. This means that it’s no longer necessary to wait for support from the mining pools.
What will happen?
If this happens, most major exchanges will need to support the change publicly before a new code is written and implemented. Afterward, the new software with an activation point is then installed on nodes aiming to play a role in the soft fork.
What issues might arise?
The major issue with a user-activated soft fork is that it requires a lot of work as compared to a hash power triggered fork. Moreover, it’s believed that the process of writing and implementing the code will take a year or even longer.
This also opens up the issue of most miners not activating the newly introduced rules. As a result, they can use their hash power as a means of splitting the network.
For now, this is still a concept and not yet implemented. But who knows? Sooner or later it might come to fruition.The Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- A region of Toronto is en route to becoming the country's first national urban park.
The House of Commons has passed the Rouge National Urban Park Act which provides the protection for the Rouge Valley.
The bill will now go to the Senate for review.
The Rouge National Urban Park Act is designed to protect the Rouge's ecosystems and cultural landscapes, maintain native wildlife and ensure the health of those ecosystems.
The bill gives Parks Canada the legislative framework to protect the park's ecosystems, wildlife, flora, fossils, artifacts, and other natural and cultural resources.
Under this legislation, hunting, mineral extraction, dumping, polluting, harassing wildlife, poaching and the removal of artifacts and fossils are prohibited.
The government says stiff fines and year-round patrols will help address long-standing dumping, pollution, poaching and vandalism issues.NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers speaks about cybersecurity in February. A new bill would allow companies to share consumer data with the NSA in hopes of preventing cyberattacks. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon reintroduce its cybersecurity information sharing bill to meet the digital security challenge made to Congress by President Barack Obama, but privacy and civil liberties groups are once again criticizing the potential of the bill to enable broader government surveillance.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which has been circulating among the members of the Senate committee in draft form, would allow legal liability to help companies share information about digital threats with intelligence agencies to prevent attacks against networks.
Obama has used executive orders to incentivize companies to share information about data breaches and hacks with government, including by encouraging the creation of organizations to analyze this data, but called upon Congress to match these efforts with cybersecurity legislation.
Members of Congress, however, have failed to pass a comprehensive cybersecurity bill in recent years because of concerns that it would damage consumer privacy – and this latest attempt faces the same challenge.
According to a letter signed by 26 civil society organizations and 22 security experts and published by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the latest data sharing bill endangers privacy by enabling the National Security Agency to access personal information shared with the government, failing to strip out data that identifies users and giving law enforcement broad license on how it uses the data.
“Automatic sharing with NSA risks not only privacy, but also effectiveness,” the letter reads. “During a recent House Intelligence Committee hearing, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers stated that sharing threat indicators without filtering out personal data would slow operations and negatively impact NSA’s cyber defense activities.”
By enabling broad powers and broad information sharing ability the bill would act as a kind of “cyber-surveillance,” Robyn Greene, policy counsel with the Open Technology Institute, wrote in a recent blog post.
“[The bill] would provide a blanket authorization for companies to monitor their users’ activities for purposes other than protecting their own networks, as they are currently allowed to do,” Greene said.
This is unlikely to be the only cybersecurity bill introduced during this Congress, however, as network security is more prominent in the national dialogue than ever before. Data breaches last year compromised the personal data of customers of businesses like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Target Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment and, most recently health insurer Anthem.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., on Tuesday kicked off a series of House hearings about cybersecurity with a statement about the risks from hackers.
“Barely a day goes by where we do not learn of a new breach or potential vulnerability,” he said. “With everything from health records to toasters increasingly integrated into cyberspace, the challenge can appear daunting.”× Proposed Bill Limiting Food Stamps To ‘Healthy Foods’ Dismissed
LITTLE ROCK (KFSM) — A bill that would limit the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to foods that have “sufficient nutritional value” was dismissed on Thursday (Feb. 9).
The bill passed the Arkansas House of Representatives on Jan. 30, but failed to make it through the Senate.
House Bill 1035, which called for creating the Arkansas Healthy Food Improvement Act, would ban people from using SNAP benefits from buying junk food.
The bill was proposed because the General Assembly found over-consumption of excessively sugary foods and beverages increases the risk of obesity and other diseases and people living in poverty are more likely to consume nutrient-poor food.
The bill mandated that the Department of Human Services identify specific foods and beverages that have sufficient nutritional value to qualify for SNAP.Inez Tenenbaum, chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
On March 11, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will go live (at SaferProducts.gov) with a new public database for consumer complaints. Many pro-business conservatives claim this will be a dark day for free enterprise. Their beef demonstrates that there is no government action too mild for Tea Partiers and corporate lobbyists to turn into an ideological duel.
Republican CPSC Commissioner (and former Kentucky * Rep.) Anne Northup complained in November that the database “wastes taxpayer money, confuses and misleads consumers, raises prices, kills jobs, and damages the reputations of safe and responsible manufacturers.” Testifying last month before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, Wayne Morris, a vice president for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, complained, “It is wrong for the federal government to allow companies and their brands to be unfairly characterized, even slandered.” The National Association of Manufacturers said the database’s “credibility” and “usefulness to consumers” is “severely damaged.” In response to such criticism (and possibly also in response to Koch Industries, which showered an improbable $79,500 on his campaign), Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, a Tea Party freshman, sponsored an amendment zeroing out funding for the database that cleared the House, 234-187. The CPSC database, Pompeo said, “will drive jobs overseas.”
The Democratic-controlled Senate has other ideas, you won’t be surprised to learn, and anyway, the money to get the database up and running (a big $3 million) has already been appropriated. “We’ve already spent the money,” CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum told me. The database is in soft-launch mode and will go live in a matter of days.
Perhaps you’re struggling to remember what the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been up to during the past decade. Short answer: Not much. Created in 1972, CPSC has always been one of the tinier federal agencies. It’s got about 500 employees, a severely constricted regulatory authority, and an itty-bitty budget of about $118 million. Apart from some routine actions concerning cribs and other infant and toddler doodads, the last even moderately notable stand anyone can remember CSPC taking was back in 1988, when it banned lawn darts. Tenenbaum mentioned it in a speech she gave just this week to the state attorneys general. Babies banging their heads against too-widely-spaced slats in long-ago-recalled cribs have grown into adults, and CPSC is still talking about those lawn darts!
CPSC limped through the Dubya years as best it could. In 2007 Bush actually tried to install a lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers as chairman; the lobbyist withdrew after he was questioned about a $150,000 NAM severance package. Later that year, China was found to have exported to the U.S. a lot of toys with lead in them. Consumers Union declared it “the year of the recall” (most of them not by CPSC), and the following year Congress bestirred itself to pass the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which, among other things, created the public database. The bill cleared both the House and Senate by an overwhelming majority—three nays in the Senate and one in the House. President George W. Bush signed it into law.
Why wasn’t the public database controversial in 2008? Because it wasn’t that big a deal. For starters, it didn’t create new regulatory authority; it merely created a place for consumers to bitch about faulty products. It wasn’t even the first such database created by the government. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration already had one at SaferCar.gov. It’s pretty good! I entered my 2004 Honda Odyssey and learned that a lot of owners have transmission trouble. So far so good for me. (Knock wood.) Like the complainers you encounter on Amazon, NHTSA’s don’t always get straight to the point, and some of the beefs seem pretty trivial. But the automobile industry has suffered no death of a thousand cuts—not from that, anyway.
Opponents of the database point out that cars kill a lot more people than toasters, and that’s certainly true. But the CPSC database will be much more filtered than NHTSA’s. Consumers who go to the CPSC site will have to identify themselves to the agency (on the public database itself they’ll be anonymous), and before a complaint gets posted, CPSC will shoot it over to the manufacturer, which will get 10 days to respond before the complaint goes live. If the manufacturer does respond, its comments will go live on the database simultaneously with the complaint. If it turns out the complaint misidentified the manufacturer, CPSC will yank it. Opponents are apoplectic that CPSC’s final rule will allow lawyers and consumer advocates in addition to consumers to file complaints to the database. But if businesses are allowed to post, why not advocates? Tenenbaum points out that it’s illegal to submit a false statement to the federal government. Anyone who does so risks getting prosecuted, and I’m sure manufacturers won’t be shy about identifying violators. That should minimize Wiki-style mischief. During the database’s “soft launch,” a sort of trial run in which people are filing complaints but the complaints aren’t yet being shown to the public, CPSC has received about 900 postings. The agency has shown these to manufacturers. In only four instances did the manufacturers so much as claim that they’d found inaccuracies.
Another refrain from opponents is that tort lawyers will troll the site endlessly to generate new lawsuits or provide fresh evidence to existing ones. That complaint is cancelled out by another one—that the CPSC site isn’t needed, because there are already plenty of private-sector sites online where consumers can sound off about faulty products. If there are already plenty of existing sites, aren’t lawyers already trolling those?
I asked Rep. Pompeo (by e-mail) whether he’d support the database if CPSC kicked out the lawyers and consumer advocates. Their inclusion has been his main complaint, and Northup’s. Pompeo replied that he would not. “These changes would not prevent false data from being included on a government website,” he (or a staff aide pretending to be him) e-mailed back. “I firmly believe that a consumer ‘database’—the word database in this case is actually a misnomer—carrying the government’s imprimatur must only include data that is accurate.” That’s a standard Congress itself can’t meet. Pompeo (or “Pompeo”) also pronounced himself “skeptical” that setting up the database cost only $3 million. Has he eyeballed the wee size of the agency’s total budget lately?
When I asked Pompeo whether Koch Industries, which lobbied against the database’s inclusion in the 2008 bill, had lobbied him on the matter, “he” said (in a statement his press secretary told me to attribute to her): “As a matter of policy, Congressman Pompeo does not discuss with reporters his private conversations with constituents and others with whom he meets.” (Pompeo’s chief of staff is a onetime Koch employee. For a thorough summary of the Koch-Pompeo connection, click here.)
It isn’t clear to me that—apart from their grand ideological ambition to reduce the regulatory state to rubble—the Koch brothers have any financial reason to care about the CPSC database. Koch Industries doesn’t make a lot of consumer products; it’s more of a raw-materials company. One of the ironies in Pompeo and others screaming bloody murder that the database will kill jobs is that most of the appliances likely to get dinged in the database won’t even be American products. Right now four out of five of CPSC’s recalled products are imports. That isn’t because the Chinese don’t know how to build stuff as solidly as we Americans can. It’s because—well, stop and think about how many appliances you own that aren’t imports. Even the ones with American brand names are typically manufactured overseas. The United States still manufactures plenty of goods, but among the four largest manufacturing industries that account for 44 percent of U.S. manufacturing GDP, only one—computers—is consistently regulated by CPSC (and a lot of those computers are assembled abroad). The other three U.S. manufacturing colossi are (processed) food, chemicals, and fabricated metal products. (To read a bittersweet blog listing consumer products still made in the U.S.A., click here.)
I phoned the Chamber of Commerce to ask whose jobs would be lost even if its worst nightmares about CPSC’s new database proved true. Nobody got back to me.
Correction, March 9, 2011: An earlier version of this column stated erroneously that Northup’s congressional district was in Louisiana. (Return to the corrected sentence.)After Der Klassiker (against Dortmund), here comes a former Klassiker (although it was never called that) against one of FC Bayern Munich's main rivals in the 2000's, as well as prior decades, Werder Bremen. It's a matchup between the winningest club in Bundesliga history (Bayern) against the second winningest club (Werder, but far behind the leaders), although Bremen have fallen on hard times, and currently reside two points out of the relegation zone, and have lost four games in a row, including two to newly promoted teams Darmstadt and Ingolstadt.
Pep Guardiola and media director Markus Hörwick sat down for the customary press conference with the sports media representatives.
FC Bayern Press Conference, October 16, 2015
Here are the highlights of today's questions and answers (my interjections in italics):
On who is fit for this game - The list of not-fit players is longer than the list of fit players. We have 13 players for tomorrow, plus two goalkeepers. Mario [Götze] is not available, Arjen [Robben] and Kingsley Coman aren't ready yet. Xabi Alonso and Javi Martinez couldn't practice well yesterday. The day before yesterday, Douglas Costa came back from South America, yesterday Arturo Vidal came back, so our situation is a little "bloop" (that's as close as I can get it to the sound Pep made).
On whether Juan Bernat is back - Yes. He trained well the last three days, and his problem is gone.
On whether Arjen Robben is still having problems - (Robben has been ruled out for Saturday's game) No, no problems, he just isn't fit yet.
On having to play a team in a slump, after an international break, with that many injuries - I've learned here in Germany, that every away game is a little tough, not just after a national team break. It's more in our heads than in our legs. But, Werder Bremen is, historically, one of the biggest teams in Germany, lots of tradition. When you have a four game losing streak, you will be concentrated, passionate, and you want to react to the situation. It's tough and complicated. But, I'm sorry, I trust in my team, and I hope we keep the high level of play that we had before the break.
On Matthias Sammer's statement that Jerome Boateng is the best inside back in the world - Well, if Matthias said that... He is one of the best centerbacks that I've ever trained, absolutely. He's world class, of course. There are a lot of good centerbacks in the world, but Jerome has absolutely everything. He is happy, he is fast, he's right-footed, his passes always have purpose, he interprets the game well, he can play in a three-man or four-man backline. I think he could also play defensive midfield, he has the quality for that, but above all, he is a great guy, I love practicing with him.
On Holger Badstuber's return to team practice - (Badstuber last saw action five months ago, and participated in most of the team practice on Thursday) We can't forget that he was injured for two years.He wants to go, but it's a risk if he practices too hard. But we're very happy, it's a great moment for him. I hope he can get back as soon as possible.
On Franck Ribery's progress in his rehab from his ankle injury - It's the next step. He's running now, and that's good. It's part of a process, with a lot of small steps forward. His ankle is reacting well, and that is great news for him (and for all of us Ribery fanboys, me included).
On the construction start of the new youth development center - (On Friday morning, FC Bayern broke ground on a brand new youth facility, expected to cost €70m, which should be ready by 2017) This is the best news for this club. It's better to invest this money in a youth center than to buy two of the world's best players. That's the future for Bayern Munich, the scouting department is good, and now they need to look all over Germany (and everywhere else too, Pep), and get players that are ten or eleven years old, and get them here, train them, and get them integrated in the city, the club and the fans, and to find the next Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger or Thomas Müller, that's very important. I came up in a club (FC Barcelona, in case you hadn't heard) where the youth development center and working with the young players was the most important thing. We won two Champions League finals with seven or eight players who were in the youth system at age ten. I am completely convinced that this the best decision by the club, huge compliments to the management of the club for this great idea.
On former Bayern great Stefan Effenberg's managerial debut at SC Paderborn - I think it's very important for German football when former greats like Effenberg, Mehmet Scholl or Oliver Kahn can coach (last I checked, only one of those three are actually coaching), because they have big ideas and lots of experience. I wish the best for Effenberg, and I hope he can have success there, and have a long career. I started in the fourth division, he's starting in the second division, and I'm sure, if he continues well, he can quickly be up in the Bundesliga (well, it might take a little while, he's taking over a Paderborn team that is currently in the relegation zone of the second BL).
On breaking the start record to a Bundesliga season, and how Bayern is able to keep doing this - (This season's team has equaled the record start of eight wins, shared with the 2012/13 team, and can break the record with a win against Bremen) That's the most important to me, that we have had a good start in the last three seasons. Nine wins in a row is ok, but I am focusing more on our playing style, and our level of play for the future. I am a little concerned, because we can't continue to play at our level, and fight for titles, with only 13 players. We've done well so far, because we had a lot of fit players, and they were fighting for starting spots amongst themselves. Every player knows that if he doesn't play well, he may not play next game. To hold this level of play for four years, after the triple win with Jupp Heynckes, and winning the Bundesliga early the last two seasons, you need the entire roster. For one game, you can live with 13 players, but three days later, you play again, and you need everyone. I hope that in March and April we have Badstuber, [Medhi] Benatia, Franck, Arjen, and all the other players, fighting for spots, and fighting against the opponents.
On whether Bayern are less dependant on Robben and Ribery now - We need them both. Coman and Costa still have to eat a lot of soup to get to the level of what Arjen and Franck have done at this club (ok, I get what he means, but this must be a Spanish or Catalan saying). We need them both.
Disclaimer - Due to the nature of having a coach whose native language is not German, the translation of the quotes is not exactly word for word, but includes some interpretation on the part of the author of this article, in order to more accurately portray what the coach is intending to say. There is some necessary guesswork involved.Hellboy II: The Golden Army has claimed the number one spot in the UK and Ireland after its opening weekend on release.
The comic book sequel took almost £3 million after opening on Wednesday August 20th to debut at the top of the charts.
Pan's Labyrinth's Guillermo Del Toro - set to helm the two films based on The Hobbit - returns in the director's chair while Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones and Jeffrey Tambor all reprise their roles from the 2004 original.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army sees Big Red battling against an evil elven prince (Luke Goss) who wishes to harness the power of the titular army to rule the Earth.
Get Smart, a 21st century reboot of the 60s comedy series, debuted at number three while last week's number one, The Dark Knight, fell to fourth.
The top ten films in the UK are: (last week's position)
1 Hellboy II: The Golden Army - £2,969,602 (-)
2 Mamma Mia! - £1,837,577 (3)
3 Get Smart - £1,542,005 (-)
4 The Dark Knight - £1,454,847 (1)
5 You Don't Mess With the Zohan - £781,953 (3)
6 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - £641,421 (4)
7 Wild Child - £585,881 (5)
8 WALL-E - £459,574 (7)
9 Star Wars: The Clone Wars - £347,981 (6)
10 Space Chimps - £135,547 (8)
27/08/2008 11:03:01Honda is keen to take on a second team, after its deal with Sauber was cancelled, as it feels the extra data gathered would help development with McLaren.
Talks have been on-going for several weeks, even though the Italian team already has a deal with Renault in place for next year.
But it is believed the two parties could not come to an agreement regarding the financial aspects of the deal.
With time running short for a Toro Rosso-Honda alliance to be sufficiently prepared for next year, it was decided to bring talks to an end.
Toro Rosso will continue to run Renault power units next season. Had the Italian team switched to Honda power, the Japanese manufacturer would have been its third different supplier in three years.
Honda and Toro Rosso were unavailable for comment.
It remains unclear whether Honda will continue with McLaren next season after a challenging campaign so far.
McLaren is evaluating its options, even though Ferrari and Mercedes have made it clear they will not supply engines to the team.
Should McLaren split with Honda, that would force the Japanese manufacturer out of the championship and leave Renault as McLaren’s only option for a supply.
Time to agree a deal with Renault is running short, with engineers already advanced in working on next year's car configuration.
It is believed a Renault deal - while not impossible - is unlikely, as the French marque is thought to be reluctant to expand its supply to a fourth team due to concerns that this would have a negative impact on reliability.Over at MSNBC, Benjy Sarlin asked ex-Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer whether there was "a single thing President Obama has done that you consider a positive achievement".
Schweitzer thought for a moment. He stroked his chin. He searched his memory palace. Then he answered. “My mother, God rest her soul, told me ‘Brian, if you can’t think of something nice to say about something change the subject,’” he said. And so he changed the subject -- to more criticisms of Obama.
President Obama speaks with Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. The chat did not go well. (White House Flickr)
More interesting than Schweitzer's lack of praise for Obama are his extremely specific criticisms. He loathes Obamacare and believes it should be replaced by a single-payer health-care system. He calls the NSA revelations "un-effing-believable." He says the Obama administration "just haven’t been very good at running things." It's an outline of where one extremely savvy politician thinks the left might be unhappy with Obama -- and, by extension, Hillary Clinton.
But Schweitzer didn't become governor of right-leaning Montana by accident. He's skeptical of gun control and likes to shoot at things in campaign ads. He's a big believer in coal production and expanded oil drilling. He's the sort of red-state Democrat that the party thought was key to its future in 2005 but whose political appeal has been diminished by the rise of Obama's younger, more multicultural majority.
Or so goes the conventional wisdom. But Schweitzer clearly thinks he's got a chance. You can read Sarlin's full profile here.New Hampshire State Rep. Steve Vaillancourt wrote a long blog post predicting the outcome of the race in the state's 2nd Congressional District on one factor: incumbent Democratic Rep. Ann McLane Kuster's looks.
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster Facebook
"Let's be honest. Does anyone not believe that Congressman Annie Kuster is as ugly as sin? And I hope I haven't offended sin," Vaillancourt wrote on NH Insider, a New Hampshire politics blog.
By contrast, he wrote, Kuster's Republican challenger, State Rep. Marilinda Garcia, is "one of the most attractive women on the political scene anywhere, not so attractive as to be intimindating [sic], but truly attractive."
Vaillancourt writes that he was inspired to write the post after hearing "some polling data which went by too fast for me to write down."
"I seem to recall hearing that a new survey is out revealing that, with two caveats, an attractive candidate can have as much as a seven to ten point advantage over a less attractive (or even an unattractive) candidate," he wrote.
New Hampshire State Rep. Marilinda Garcia Facebook
Though he acknowledges, "I'm not sure how valid the polling data is," he goes on to say the caveats of that theory are that the two candidates must be the same gender, and that, "the attractive candidate not be so drop dead gorgeous as to intimidate those watching."
He goes on to tell a story of a "rather attractive drag queen" that he saw in Montreal the previous weekend standing outside of a bar called Mados that features men dressing as women ("not that there's anything wrong with that," he says).
"How ugly is Annie Kuster?" he begins. By the end of the story, he concludes, "By now you probably know why I think of Annie Kuster whenever I walk by Mados; sad to say, but the drag queens are more atrractive than Annie Kuster....not that there's anything wrong with that."
Vaillancourt writes that for years he promised himself "not to use this anecdote," but that, "after seeing the story about the seven to ten point boost for the attractive, the story has political relevance."
"Annie Kuster looks more like a drag queen than most men in drag," he concludes.
Vaillancourt seemed to realize the post might cause a backlash, because he warned readers at the top that "the subject matter, although very real, may prove uncomfortable for some of my more sensitive readers."
"Thus, to avoid the PC police sending out a warrant for my arrest, I offer an advance warning," he said (with the promise that "I don't plan to say anything really offensive here.").
Garcia released a statement calling the comments "sexist" and saying they "have absolutely no place in political discourse.
"Both Rep. Kuster and I have experienced this unfortunate reality of being a woman in politics. I hope that as time moves forward and more female candidates run for political office around the country, people will focus on the content of our ideas rather than what we wear and how we look," she said.Story highlights King Mohammed VI of Morocco withdraws pedophile's pardon after protests
Daniel Galvan Vina, convicted of raping 11 children, was among pardoned Spanish prisoners
Protesters demonstrated outside Morocco's Parliament building in Rabat, the capital
King did not know details of Galvan's case, monarchy says on its website
Morocco's king revoked on Sunday the pardon of a convicted Spanish pedophile that sparked angry protests in the North African nation.
"King Mohammed VI has decided to withdraw the pardon previously accorded to Daniel Galvan Vina," the royal office announced on its official website on Sunday.
The statement said the "exceptional revocation" was ordered by the king because of the "gravity of the crimes committed by the person concerned, as well as out of respect for victims' rights."
According to official newspapers, Galvan was convicted of raping 11 Moroccan children and sentenced 30 years in prison in September 2011. The children ranged in age from 4 to 14.
Galvan, a retired professor, was arrested in December 2010 after he was found with CDs and external storage units containing pornographic images of him raping children.
It was unclear whether Galvan had left the country, as several media reported, but the monarchy said the king has ordered the Minister of Justice to speak with his Spanish counterpart about the actions that would follow the revocation of the pardon.
On Friday, hundreds of angry demonstrators protested outside the country's Parliament building in Rabat, the capital, to protest the royal pardon, according to media reports and social media websites.
A statement posted on the official Moroccan monarchy website on Saturday said that the king had not been informed of the details about the case.
The king "has not been informed on all gravity of the despicable crimes committed by this person," the statement said. The monarchy also said that it will investigate what led to Galvan's release.
Galvan was one of 48 Spanish prisoners who were pardoned. King Juan Carlos of Spain thanked King Mohammed for his action, according to a statement on the Moroccan monarchy's site dated July 31.
Meanwhile, Moroccans on social media are trying to organize another protest in the next few days.by Robin Shepherd, Owner / Publisher on 8 July 2013 16:53
There is a moment when one puts aside everything; and when one just pauses to reflect on what can only be described as pure evil. Words like "evil" do not go down well in a relativistic Western world these days.
But, when you see two little girls (aged about 7?) being paraded by the "moderate" Palestinian Authority's TV Channel on their breakfast broadcast saying the following, do you relativists not think that there just might be such a thing as "good" and "evil" in this world?
"Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations. Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs." Those are the words of one little girl. Here is what her sister said, following on in reciting the same "poem" with the encouragement of the moderator:
"Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity, Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate
And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure."
These are children. I don't blame them. They don't know what they are saying. But the Palestinian Authority does know what they are saying. They are using these children to legitimise pure hate, pure evil.
Come, come: let's just laugh it off and ignore it. That's the easy thing to do. Go on; Laugh it off; brush it off. Don't internalise it. Too painful. Too much of a call to action. Well, obviously...
I just have this really controversial, not to say odd |
A reality cracker is someone who examines people’s perception of reality and then looks for ways to exploit it. In Reality cracking - cracks let the light in I talked about the famous reality crackers Fravia and Orc. When reading the book The Good Soldier Svejk one is always asking the question, is he a buffoon or a reality? Authorities from ranging from the USA to Nazi Germany couldn’t decide, to be safe they banned it. The book was the inspiration for works like Catch-22,Mash,Forest Gump etc. How could a Czech Forest Gump be subversive? Why is a book written almost a century ago still important? Reading books as Nicholas Carr puts it, prevents one from becoming shallow and develops our mind. This is why you should read a book by one of the world’s first trolls and sock-puppets.
Understanding the author and his times
To understand the book, one has to understand the author,Jaroslav Hasek,a Czech, and his times. Despite living over a century ago, he actually lived in a similar situation as most of us today. Before WW1, Czechoslovakia was part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, contrary to popular belief it was a benevolent empire. Every major ethnic group could elect a representative to a parliament, which for the times was extremely progressive. Most ethnic groups had the right to practice their own language and culture within limits. There are many similarities to the modern the European Union. A struggle between the identity of ethnic groups versus the whole.
Despite all of these privileges and benefits of belonging to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Czechs, and other ethnic groups wanted independence. Jaroslav Hasek was a Czech nationalist and anarchist, anarchist being a term given to people who wrote satirical short stories mocking the Empire and pamphlets why Czechs should be independent. As a result, he believed he was being monitored by the Emperors secret police, today they are called the NSA, or maybe his friends told Jaroslav Hasek he was just being paranoid.
Jaroslav Hasek would have loved social media due to his dark sense of humor, unfortunately, he was limited to pamphlets and newspapers. Never the less, he made the best of his circumstances. Using a pseudonym, he sent a well written but inflammatory letter to the editor of a Prague newspaper. After the letter was published he then used another pseudonym to write another letter to a different Prague newspaper. In this letter, using inflammatory arguments he refuted the claims of the first letter. Using letters to the editor, he essentially did what was sock-puppets and trolling, he continued to write letters to each newspaper. Unknowingly soon other writers and intellectuals joined the fray. Each sock-puppet would attack these writers and intellectuals to inflame the issue. After a few months, tensions rose, the personal attacks increased. Fearing possible libel or slander lawsuits, the newspapers panicked. It was then Jaroslav Hasek revealed his real identity, that he was arguing with himself, which he found comical. The intellectuals and writers who had joined the fray didn’t share his humor, that he had made them look like fools.
Understanding the setting
The book opens after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, people reacted similar to the 911 attacks, it was the first assassination to be captured on film. Allegedly the Archduke’s last word where, why?, why?, I don’t understand. He was touring Bosnia, a province which had been acquired from the Ottoman Empire two decades previous. Under the Austria-Hungary, schools were built, road and railways constructed, living standard improved for the average Bosnian drastically. Why would the want to kill him? These are questions people asked after 911, the USA is extremely generous, why would terrorists attack the USA?
The emperor’s secret police are prowling the streets of Prague, they are worried that more anarchist attacks might happen. They are worried it might spread from Bosnia to Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, the situation escalates and hostilities commence and what would become known as WW1 would start.
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire is caught in a bind, Czechs are suspect, but they need soldiers to fight, they start drafting Czechs. It is into this turmoil our hero Svejk is thrown. Svejk upon hearing hostilities have broken out, tells his landlady he wants to volunteer to defend the empire. His landlady tell him he is insane, why would a Czech want to fight for the emperor? Svejk tells his landlady, that even though his rheumatism prevents him from walking properly, he must do his duty.
With his prodding, the landlady reluctantly finds a military uniform and a wheelchair for Svejk. He then has her push him down the main street to the recruiting station. As he is being wheeled down the street, he begins to shout patriotic slogans like “Long live the emperor”. His neighbors knowing his reputation as a drunkard and a dog thief gather to watch the spectacle with amusement. A crowd grows and follows him.
The Austrian-Hungarian propaganda machine is desperate for a story which shows Czechs support the empire. Svejk’s antics attract their attention. Newspaper photographers take his picture, the next day our hero is on the front page of all the major newspapers sitting in his wheelchair, with the headlines like “The Czech is willing to die for his emperor”. The newspaper stories say that even though poor Svejk is crippled, he is willing to do his duty, all Czechs should follow his example.
Upon reaching the recruiting station, our hero’s status changes. He goes from an exemplary Czech to a malingerer. The recruiters accuse him of malingering, faking illness so he doesn’t have to fight. He then is sent to a military hospital which specializes in curing malingering. Treatment consists of heavy doses of castor oil coupled with being wrapped in ice cold soaking wet bandages. A few days of the patient having his bowels constantly emptied and constant shivering cured the hardest case of malingering.
Svejk baffles the doctors when he begs them to double his dosage of castor oil and begs them to apply more cold bandages. He begs them to cure him, so he can go fight for the emperor. Eventually, the doctors determine he is insane,Svejk is transferred to an insane asylum. There is fortunes turn, he becomes a military chaplain’s assistant, later a batman etc. Despite Svejk constantly trying to get to the front so he can die for the emperor, he never quite makes it.
Jaroslav Hasek for revealing human nature is often criticized for being racist. In the book, Svejk recounts many stories of his previous experiences. In one of them, a white woman has an affair with a black man and becomes pregnant. The black man then abandons the woman. Upon giving birth, the baby is born white, the mother proudly shows everyone her beautiful white baby. She is a dutiful mother who loves her baby. A few weeks later, the baby turns black like his father. The mother becomes disgusted with the baby and drops it off at the orphanage. Obviously, a white baby turning black is an impossibility, it is comical that Hasek’s critics even consider the possibility. On a deeper level, Hasek is saying in a satirical way, that we judge things superficially. Nothing changed with the baby except its skin color. How did an object of love upon this change become an object of revulsion? Revealing human nature makes people uncomfortable, what is even more troubling is he does it in a satirical way.
Buffon or Social Engineer?
This is the question which Jaroslav Hasek never answers. In my opinion, like with the white woman and the black baby, he intentionally doesn’t answer the question. The book is often described as anti-war, this is not accurate. Hasek himself personally was willing to fight for what he believes in. A better description for the book is subversive.
subversive - seeking or intended to subvert an established system or institution.
It is subversive on all levels, it is intended to provoke the person to question society. This explains why the book was banned from Nazi Germany to the USA, it is a dangerous book in that aspect. On a deeper level, Hasek is describing how to survive in a chaotic environment similar to our own. The problems he faced are similar to our own. Svejk whether by accident or genius always manages to find the cracks let the light in and exploit them, and of course while doing this enjoying himself with a good beer.
In you like my posts, follow me on twitter at @sir_wankalote. If you want to send me bitcoin, so I can research bargirls, my address is 3NgksauCyuLcVRqLHVLbAnhP2UqmqspJVQ.
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To hear Republicans explain it, the protests at US embassies around the world and the attack on a US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead are a result of the Obama administration “projecting weakness.”
“When we project weakness abroad, our enemies are more willing to test us, they are more brazen and our allies are less willing to trust us,” said vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan at an event in Colorado last week. “[T]hat will not happen under a Mitt Romney administration because we believe in peace through strength.” Ryan was referring to potential defense cuts, so if Al Qaeda pays enough attention to American budget politics to base its strikes on funding cuts then they probably know Ryan projected weakness by voting for them in the first place. Romney adviser Richard Williamson went so far as to suggest to the Washington Post last month that under a President Romney, no protesters would dare defile an American embassy. “In Egypt and Libya and Yemen, again demonstrations—the respect for America has gone down, there’s not a sense of American resolve and we can’t even protect sovereign American property,” he said.
As the details behind the Benghazi attack come to light, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the White House’s initial assessment of the attack as spontaneous rather than preplanned was inaccurate. But behind the comparisons to Jimmy Carter and the references to “peace through strength” is a dubious policy critique: not just that Obama is Carter and Romney is Reagan, but that somehow sufficient man-musk from an American president can dissuade any potential terrorist from laying his finger on an American diplomat.
It’s true that during Carter’s term, several major attacks occurred at US embassies. The most famous is the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, but rumors that the United States was involved in the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, led to attacks on embassies in Pakistan and Libya as well—in late November, after Reagan was elected president.
Wendy Chamberlin, a career foreign-service officer who was serving as the US Ambassador to Pakistan when Al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center on 9/11, says being a target is part of the job for diplomats serving in risky areas.
“High-profile targets like ambassadors have always been in danger because they’re the symbol of the United States,” Chamberlin says. “What you don’t want to represent is that you distrust the people, that you don’t want to engage with the people, that you hate being there. It’s an important part of your mission and get out and mix with the population.” Moreover, under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations it is actually the host country that is responsible for the security of diplomatic facilities, not the Marines. The primary responsibility of the Marine Corps’ Embassy Security Group states that its “primary mission” is “to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States,” while their “secondary mission” is to “provide protection for US citizens and US government property” during “exigent circumstances.” Their first responsibility is to guard secrets, not diplomats.
“High-profile targets like ambassadors have always been in danger because they’re the symbol of the United States.”
Having Ronald Reagan in office didn’t mean an end to attacks on US diplomatic targets. Despite Reagan’s refrain of “peace through strength,” several high-profile attacks on US diplomatic facilities occurred on his watch, including the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, by Islamic militants. Twice. According to the Global Terrorism Database compiled by the University of Maryland National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), attacks on American diplomatic targets actually rose during Reagan’s term—before beginning to subside in the mid-1990s.
“That follows the trend of terrorism generally,” says Erin Miller, a research assistant at START who manages the Global Terrorism Database. “In the early 1990s there’s a drop-off worldwide in terrorism against pretty much all target types.” Miller cites the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a subsequent wane in leftist terrorism as one possible explanation for the downturn beginning in the mid-1990s.
The decline is probably not because terrorists were intimidated by Bill Clinton more than they were by George H.W. Bush. Two of the worst terrorist attacks on American diplomatic targets, Al Qaeda’s bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, happened on Clinton’s watch. It does however, make the Romney campaign’s claim that having a Republican in office will frighten terrorists out of striking at American diplomats or staging violent protests at American embassies extremely dubious. The UMd. database lists 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets during the George W. Bush administration, including car bombs at the US embassy in Yemen and armed attackers assaulting a US consulate in Saudi Arabia.
It’s currently unclear to what degree mismanagement, security lapses, or intelligence failures meant the United States failed to anticipate the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. But no matter which party is in office, no matter who is president, terrorism and violence are always going to be a potential risk for foreign-service officers serving in troubled areas. The important thing, Chamberlain says, is to stay engaged.
“Every ambassador and [foreign-service officer] understands the risks we take in being abroad,” Chamberlin says. “I don’t know any ambassador who hides in his embassy. Getting out with the public and speaking is our job, it’s why we’re there. If you don’t want to do that you shouldn’t go.”New research finds people on both sides of the ideological divide caricature the other, but those on the far left are the most guilty.
A protester Santa Barbara, California in 2007 (PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK)
Those conservatives are appalling: They couldn’t care less if people get hurt. And liberals? They think anything goes, and have no concept of the meaning of loyalty.
Caricatures? Absolutely. But such stereotypes are widely held among Americans, newly published research confirms, with liberals particularly clueless about the concerns of conservatives.
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Regarding issues of morality, “people overestimate how dramatically liberals and conservatives differ,” psychologists Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and Jonathan Haidt write in the online journal PLoS One. Specifically, their research suggests those on the left unfairly assume their counterparts on the right are cold-hearted on issues involving harm and fairness.
“There are real moral differences between liberals and conservatives,” the researchers write, “but people across the political spectrum exaggerate the magnitude of these differences, and in so doing create opposing moral stereotypes that are shared by all.”
The research provides the latest insights derived from Haidt’s framework of moral attitudes. He has identified five distinct moral realms: harm/care, fairness, in-group loyalty, deference to authority, and purity/sanctity. The first two promote individual freedom and self-expression, and are beloved by liberals; the final three bind societies together, and are close to the hearts of social conservatives.
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This new study featured 2,212 visitors to the projectimplicit.org website, a research portal that focuses on “the gap between intentions and actions.” About half identified themselves as liberals, while 500 placed themselves in one of three conservative categories, and 538 defined themselves as moderates.
They were first asked a series of questions to determine their own moral attitudes. For instance, to measure how strongly they believe in loyalty to one’s group, they were asked the extent to which they agreed with such statements as “It is more important to be a team player than to express oneself.”
They then completed similar surveys, offering not their own feelings, but those of a “typical liberal” or “typical conservative.” The researchers compared their assumptions to the answers provided by actual liberals and conservatives, as well as to a different, nationally representative sample of Americans.
“Extreme liberals exaggerated the moral political differences the most, and moderate conservatives did so the least,” Graham and his colleagues report. “Liberals were the least accurate about conservatives and about liberals.”
Liberals tended to stereotype conservatives as uncaring, rather than realize that conservatives’ genuine concerns about harm and fairness are tempered by other moral values that have less value to the left, such as loyalty and respect for authority.
Distorting the picture further, liberals tend to underestimate the degree to which their fellow liberals take those “conservative” values into account when making moral evaluations. Although conservatives did this to some degree, liberals showed a stronger tendency to stereotype their political soul mates, assuming an exaggerated level of ideological purity.
“We suspect that this is partially due to the fact that one can imagine members of one’s own ideological group more extreme than oneself,” the researchers write. “But this may also be a unique feature of moral stereotypes, in that people are motivated to exaggerate the moral values of their group in ways that are in line with the same values.”
Whatever the cause, “our findings suggest … partisans on each side exaggerate the degree to which the other side pursues moral ends that are different from their own,” the researchers conclude.
Although a highly profitable media machine keeps focusing on our differences, and an increasingly tribal mindset serves to reinforce an us-vs.-them attitude, this research suggests that, when it comes to our actual beliefs, American liberals and conservatives are less polarized than we realize.CNN reporters didn’t challenge a man they interviewed who claimed the GOP shooter “wasn’t evil” but was just “tired of politics.”
Interesting how Blitzer – or anyone else at CNN for that matter – didn’t distance themselves from the statement.
.@CNN just aired ManOnStreet where 1 said
“I just want ppl to know he wasn’t evil, just tired of politics”
NO PUSHBACK by Wolf or reporter — David Knight (@libertytarian) June 14, 2017
The man was apparently an acquaintance of the anti-Trump shooter, who police say was 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson.
It’s also worth asking, was this another staged interview by CNN? The network was recently caught staging a fake news scene, and back in Nov. CNN was also caught interviewing one of its own cameramen.
For the past several months, the mainstream media has done everything possible to make it seem “acceptable” to kill the president and his supporters, which has now accumulated with a deranged lunatic shooting up a GOP baseball practice.
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MORE Videos: Resistance NewsI imagine there are quite a few gamers out there who would do anything to find a job with a company like Nintendo. Well, if you happen to be an experienced artist and 3D modeler, look no more! Nintendo is currently looking for an "IP Art Asset Specialist." Essentially, they are looking for someone who will approve or provide feedback on some form of artwork that is using Nintendo's intellectual properties. The IP Specialist would analyze and make reports based on whatever was submitted to them, which could be anything from a shirt with Donkey Kong's grinning mug on it to a comedic sketch featuring Star Fox puppets. Nintendo is looking for someone that has five years of experience in an art field as well as two years in 3D modeling and knows a whole lot about their characters.
For those of us who do not qualify for the job (alas, I am but a writer!), there is still some good news here: the job description mentions approving characters for use in films. While we have known Nintendo is working on movies for a while now, some fans have speculated that Nintendo is more likely referencing the possible sequel to Wreck-it Ralph. Rich Moore, the director of Disney's 2012 film, has expressed interest in having Mario in the sequel in the past, so anything is possible.
What do you think about the mentioning of films? To the artists out there, does this sound like a good job? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: NintendoDoug Tompkins/Patagonia
For nearly 40 years, Patagonia has prided itself on selling high-quality, high-performance outdoor apparel to dirt bags. Dirt bag is a term used affectionately around the company offices. It describes the kind of person who might organize an impromptu game of hacky sack in the middle of an El Capitan ascent, casually enjoy a bottle of beer while free soloing a sheer face on Mount Arapiles, or hitchhike outside Tahoe holding a cardboard sign reading Will belay for food!!! These are all scenes captured over the years in the Patagonia catalog, which, in addition to displaying the company’s wares, documents the dirt-bag lifestyle in vibrant action photography. Sometimes the dirt bags are clad in Patagonia gear, sometimes they’re playing the bongos topless by a bonfire on the banks of the Colorado River.
Though Patagonia caters to dirt bags, the company’s success—it will clear more than $500 million in sales this year—has for many years depended on a different kind of customer: the dog walker. The dog walker buys gear designed for the mountains and puts it to use in the canyons of midtown, the office park, the tree-lined streets of suburbia. He may aspire to the dirt-bag lifestyle, or even have lived it in the years before career or children intervened, but now he wears his fleece to keep warm during Spot’s evening constitutional. The dog walker takes comfort in knowing his Super Pluma Jacket is designed for the harshest conditions, but he’ll never rely on its gusseted underarm panels or harness-compatible pockets. He does, however, think those things look cool.
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This state of affairs is not necessarily pleasing to Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard. “We outgrew our loyal customer base and increasingly were selling to yuppies, posers, and wanna-bes,” he told Inc. back in 1992. “These people don’t need this shit to get in their Jeep Cherokees and drive to Connecticut for the weekend.”
Much to Patagonia’s chagrin. Fashion is referred to as the F-word at the company. A few years ago, when L.L. Bean noticed its duck boots and chamois shirts gaining popularity among city-dwellers affecting a studied rusticity, the venerable Maine retailer exploited its newfound currency by launching a higher-end “Signature” line, a collaboration with designer Alex Carleton of the label Rogues Gallery. Patagonia, by contrast, has never been comfortable chasing trends. While the company does sell sportswear—a smattering of organic cotton jeans and moisture-wicking dresses—Chouinard still cares first and foremost about the dirt bag, the end-user who prizes performance over style. “All our customers are not equal in our eyes,” he writes in his memoir, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. “There are indeed some we favor more than others. These are our core customers, those for whom we actually design our clothes.” So how exactly did a company obsessed with serving wild-eyed climbers, itinerant surfers, and nymph-tying anglers catch on with the rest of us?
Photograph by John Sherman. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by Casey Sheahan. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by Greg Epperson. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by Marko Prezelj. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by Jeff Johnson. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by David Brownell. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by Barbara Rowell. Courtesy Patagonia.
Photograph by John Wasson. Courtesy Patagonia.
Chouinard comes by his commitment to dirt bags honestly: He’s a dirt bag himself. He got his start in the ’50s making alpine hardware— pitons, caribiners—hoping to earn just enough from his start-up smithy to support his own climbing habit. In his memoir, he proudly notes that his first equipment catalog, a mimeographed piece of paper, warned customers not to expect swift delivery from May to November—climbing season. (He also relates that he managed to keep his food bill down one year by subsisting on a case of canned food he got at a discount because the cans were dented. And because it was cat food.) Chouinard got into the outerwear business more or less by accident. During a climbing trip to Scotland, he discovered a rugged garment he believed was ideally suited to the rigors of climbing—the rugby shirt. Before long, he was importing striped jerseys from England and pressing them on American climbers. They would be Patagonia’s first hit.
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Now 73 years old, the owner of a thriving global enterprise, and the frequent subject of admiring profiles in the financial press, Chouinard remains an avid sportsman, as likely to be found surfing a break as presiding over a meeting. He’s fond of bragging about his MBA—that is, his philosophy of “management by absence.” He’ll disappear into the backcountry for months at a time, returning with ideas for how to improve the Patagonia products he brought along. Martijn Linden, Patagonia’s design director, told me he frequently finds Chouinard buttonholing one of the company’s designers, requesting tweaks to his wetsuit.
Patagonia’s stout commitment to customers cut from the same jib as its indefatigable founder would seem to preclude wide popularity in any manner of ways. For starters, what’s convenient for the climber is often a hassle for the commuter. Consider the Down Sweater that Drake was wearing at Sundance: Wanda Weller, design director when that item was introduced, noted that the first generation version of that jacket didn’t have pockets, which would have gotten in the way of a climber’s harness. Concessions to those of us who carry car keys and a Kleenex travel pack only came later.
And because Patagonia is so serious about performance, its production process is deliberate: Innovations need to be researched, developed, then tested in the field. Patagonia maintains a network of so-called ambassadors who take prototypes into the wild and report back with detailed notes and refinements. Unlike a typical apparel company, which can spot a trend and react to it in a matter of months, Patagonia has a comparatively long gestation period for new products. “Every time we try to chase fashion we end up six months or a year too late,” writes Chouinard. “And we look stupid.”
There’s a philosophical objection to fashion as well. Fashion tends to be disposable: What’s in this season is likely to be out the next. Patagonia has a longstanding commitment to sustainability. Since 1985, the company has tithed 1 percent of its sales to environmental causes. Alongside all those photos of merry dirt baggery, the catalog publishes essays calling on customers to do their part to save the whales, the trees, the rivers. (Chouinard’s first crusade was saving the rocks: When he realized pitons were disfiguring climbing faces, he stopped making them—and replaced them with a lower-impact chock.) The company’s latest project is a system that will eventually allow customers to scan a garment’s price tag with a smartphone and pull up a complete account of the environmental impact of its production.
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This may sound like little more than sophisticated green-washing to a cynic, but spend time talking to people at the company, or reading Chouinard (he’ll publish The Responsible Company in May, in which he and colleague Vincent Stanley encourage other companies to follow Patagonia’s lead in embracing environmentally responsible business practices; here’s his recent Harvard Business Review paper on “The Sustainable Economy”) and you quickly realize this is not opportunistic posturing; environmentalism is woven into the company’s microfibers. In 2005, it launched the Common Threads Initiative, which asks its customers to pledge not to buy Patagonias they don’t need. Customers not persuaded to put away their wallets are pointed to an Ebay store, where they can buy a used jacket instead of a new one. It’s a commitment to sustainability bordering on corporate self-abnegation.
Ironically, it’s Patagonia’s aversion to fashion that may have won the brand its current trendiness. Jennifer Ellsworth, who was vice president of product development from 1987 to 1991 and is now a professor of business at Adrian College, told me she teaches her students to distinguish between product-driven companies and market-driven companies. Patagonia is clearly in the former category, designing clothing for its core constituency while largely ignoring the vicissitudes of the market. Yet in recent years, the market has come to appreciate what Patagonia stands for—both its commitment to performance and to environmental responsibility. Patagonia didn’t set out looking for the dog walkers; the dog walkers found Patagonia.
Though Chouinard is allergic to fashion, he’s obsessed with the principles of good design. Back when he was still making pitons, he adopted an approach based on a passage by the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery:
In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.
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An ethos of simplicity proved a smart one when constructing a product line for extreme sportsmen: Bells and whistles just add unnecessary weight to your pack. Because weight—and warmth and water-resistance—are of paramount concern to the climber or hiker or backcountry skier, Patagonia has always been on the forefront of fabric development as well. The company introduced pile fleece to the U.S. market, an insulating layer that was warmer and quicker to dry than cotton or wool. The original models, from the mid-’70s, were made from material salvaged from toilet covers. Today’s considerably less nappy version is made of recycled soda bottles.
Simplicity combined with cutting-edge technology is an alluring combination to the contemporary consumer. Imre Molnar, who was design director at Patagonia in the early aughts and is now the dean of the College for Creative Studies, compares Patagonia to Audi, another company whose product is “totally contemporary yet totally classical”—and has seen its popularity spike in the recent past. A Patagonia may not have the drape of a Prada, just as an Audi doesn’t have the lines of a Ferrari, but both have a sleekness that bespeaks sound engineering and form-follows-function design.
Like an Audi, a Patagonia doesn’t come cheap. All that fabric research and field testing is expensive, as are the company’s responsible business practices, and those costs are passed on to the consumer. (Will Ferrell’s DAS Parka set him back $299, unless he had the good sense to stop at the outlet in Salt Lake on his way to Park City.) Patagonia may not aspire to high fashion, but its prices approach those of its couture cousins, which has earned the company its nickname among aficionados: Patagucci.
Yet because its products are so durable, you can convince yourself you’re buying an investment piece, a wise purchase even in austere times. Patagonia also stands behind its product with one of the industry’s strongest guarantees: They’ll repair or replace anything, at any time, for any reason. During a trip to Patagonia’s Soho store last week, a clerk told me that a customer had recently come in to return a pair of surf shorts dating back to 1995—because he was no longer satisfied with the fit. One suspects the problem lay more with the customer than the product. But the man left the store with a new pair of trunks.
I should note that my visit to the Soho store wasn’t purely reportorial in nature. I’m something of an aficionado myself, though I’m trying not to make any new acquisitions. In gross contravention of the Common Threads pledge, I own a closet full of Patagonias, none of which, strictly speaking, do I need. I’m the worst kind of dog walker: I don’t even have a dog. Last year, when Hurricane Irene skirted New York City, I lamented the missed opportunity to don the foul weather gear I purchased years ago from Patagonia’s now-defunct nautical line.
I caught the Patagonia bug in the early 1990s, at prep school, where a well-worn fleece was a shibboleth announcing your familiarity with NOLS trips, the finer Green Mountain ski areas, and the need for reliable wind-protection during the Head of the Charles. (I was familiar with none of these things, but hid my ignorance under the Synchilla Snap-T I begged my mom to buy me.) My feelings about the brand are thus tinged with nostalgia for the halcyon days when I would pore over the catalog, debating with dorm-mates the finer points of the Nitro and the Storm Jackets, then the top of the line outer layers.In these difficult times of cramped hard drives and a gaming influx, there's a temptation to delete things as soon as they become redundant - this, as it turns out, may be a mistake. Users who have held onto last year's Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta client have been able to see snippets of information as it continues to be updated for private testing.
As a result, industrious users have grabbed screens of Warzone mode's menu screens (above), as well as grabbed a healthy chunk of Kazuma Jinnouchi's moody new take on the Halo theme and more from the main menu (below). No one was able to actually enter a game, it seems, but this is our first look at what could be the menu architecture for the game - seems space-y.
A Microsoft spokesman told Polygon: "It's unfortunate when work-in-progress content leaks, but this Halo 5: Guardians content is part of our ongoing private, external testing for multiplayer. We will continue to rigorously test Halo 5: Guardians to ensure the best possible experience for fans at launch."
Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!For thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of Imagination’s world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea.
All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life, all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain — all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years.
These treasures of the heart and brain — these are the Sacred Scriptures of the human race.
Robert Green Ingersoll
AdvertisementsMercedes-Benz will join Honda and Toyota in the nascent hydrogen-car market.
Mercedes said it will unveil a production-ready hydrogen car on September 12 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The car will be a hydrogen version of Mercedes' GLC midsize SUV. A camouflaged prototype can be seen here:
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes said in 2016 that it planned to reveal a GLC F-Cell at some point this year. At the time, Mercedes said the GLC will come equipped with a 9 kWh battery to provide an all-electric range of 30 miles. The battery and fuel-cell stack will produce a combined range of 310 miles.
Mercedes has been developing a fuel-cell stack through a joint venture with Ford.
Ford had initially planned to reveal its own hydrogen car in 2017, but CTO Raj Nair told Business Insider that the company has pushed back the timeline for its reveal to focus on battery-powered vehicles.
Although hydrogen-powered cars boast longer ranges and faster refill times than plug-in vehicles, the infrastructure to support hydrogen cars is lacking.
There are currently 39 hydrogen stations in the US compared to 16,237 electric charging stations, according to the US Department of Energy. Thirty-five of those stations are in California. Still, we'll have to wait to find out whether the the GLC F-Cell will be made available in the US.
Toyota sells its hydrogen-powered Mirai in California. Honda also leases its hydrogen-powered car, the Clarity, in the state.HONG KONG (Reuters) - China’s Xiaomi targets 2017 sales of over 100 billion yuan ($14.47 billion), Chief Executive Lei Jun said on Thursday, after a year that saw the firm fall down the smartphone vendor rankings while it overhauled its business.
Attendants are silhouetted in front of Xiaomi's logo at a venue for the launch ceremony of Xiaomi's new smart phone Mi Max in Beijing, May 10, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
“The worst is over,” Lei said at an annual meeting in Beijing, describing 2016 as a “make-up year”.
Seven-year-old Xiaomi was briefly the world’s most valuable startup and had hopes to be China’s equivalent of Apple Inc. But it fell out of the top five in China for smartphone vendors in 2016, after reaching No. 2 in 2015.
Last year saw increased competition from compatriots Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], Oppo and Vivo |
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also behind ElectionNightGatekeepers.com, OpenLetterToDonaldTrump.com, votefraud.org
***** This is the end of the official Election Night Gatekeepers article. We have left the below on this page because it may contain some evidence or analysis that would help some investigators. Some of the information below may be repetitive, as we have been pulling together many essays and articles over decades, and, all duplications have not been weeded out. *****
Further Documentation that may sometimes have been covered in the above letter: The documentary Hacking Democracy by HBO, the free online article from Chronicles Magazine, A House Without Doors, the book, “Votescam: The Stealing of America” by Jim and Ken Collier, the book “Black Box Voting” by Bev Harris free online at BlackBoxVoting.org, the LandesReport by Lynn Landes, the articles linked on the right hand column of the home page of votefraud.org, and information at WatchTheVoteUSA.com and GuardiansForLiberty.com, as well as the info all over this website (OpenLetterToDonaldTrump.com) give avalanches of documentation on this issue and all its ramifications.
Who is the Votescam Syndicate?
Somewhat repetitive of the article on this page, but shorter. Two important videos are at the bottom of this page, on South Carolina and Super Tuesday, and on the way the Iowa Caucus has been warped. Please forgive the below still being on this page. We are keeping it on this page until we can check if there is anything we have forgotten to include in the article above. Some or much of it is repetitive of what’s above because we are still editing and double-checking… you are, of course, invited to read it if you wish. — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, and AP wire service This is the “Big Media” combine, which rounds out run the Election Night Gatekeepers, and which prevents the population as a whole from realizing what’s happening on each election night. (The New York Times wire service, the Washington Post wire service, and Reuters are in on the virtual conspiracy of silence. All other Big Daily newspapers in the USA take their national and international news from these big wire services. If a reporter at a big daily, or a local TV affiliate of one of the major networks, learns about some of this blockbuster information, and starts reporting it, he will be given a choice: accept other reporting assignments, or, get transferred to the sports department, or, get fired.) — National Election Pool What’s National Election Pool (NEP)? That’s a corporation in New York City. And who owns this corporation? Why, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX and AP wire. This is the company that does all of the “exit polls” on Election Day and controls the count that is published on election night via the national networks, their local affiliates, and which is then picked up by the Big Daily papers. While the New York Times wire service and the Washington Post wire service are not owners of NEP, they have fully participated in the cover-up for decades. That’s why 99% of you reading this have never heard of NEP. You can read the Wikipedia entry on NEP here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Election_Pool National Election Pool had been called “Voter News Service (VNS)” before 2003, when its name was changed to National Election Pool because the stench was getting too great after the 2000 “election.” This is a periodic tactic of the Ruling Elite behind the Computer Vote-fraud Crime Syndicate; change the name of the offending company, while leaving everything else the same and continuing with the same anti-American treasonous “election” program. 3. Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES & S), Sequoia, and Hart InterCivic These are the mega-corporations that have been hired by the vast majority of counties in the USA. Hamilton County, Ohio, for instance, is hiring Hart InterCivic in the year of 2012; Butler County, just north of Hamilton County in Ohio, is hiring ES & S to process the county election in secret. These companies are completely out of reach of any oversight by the voters and the public. It is this aspect that caused us to say that this explanation is slightly over-simplified. These companies are always buying and selling each other, and using smaller front companies in some areas. When Diebold’s CEO made an incautious statement about helping W. Bush get elected in 2004, a small company called Triad popped up in Ohio to take over some of the counties. In 2010 to 2012, there were shenanigans going on about ES &S buying Diebold, and so on. Recently, in Cincinnati, Ohio at a Tea Party meeting, Secretary of State John Husted acknowledged that, based on the contracts the state and counties of Ohio sign with the elite, private vendors, no state official or county official is allowed to see the source code of the computer programs which are used to “count” our votes on election night. You can see the YouTube Video of this here: (Coming soon) 4. THE RNC and the DNC The Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee encourage all of their local county operatives to delegate the local county elections to the elite private corporations, which use secret computer source code and process the elections in secret. The RNC and the DNC effectively participate in the conspiracy of silence against the American people regarding this theft of the 2nd part of our right to vote, by pretending everything is A-OK. The RNC and DNC have been key players in engineering the current, unacceptable election travesty from the beginning, back in the early 1970s. (The Republicans and/or Democrats control every county Board of Elections in the USA.) Presidential Elections “counted” in secret on secretly programmed computers since 1988 have brought us: 3 terms of Bushes; 2 terms of Clintons; and 2 terms of Obama. We must restore honest, verifiable elections, by returning to paper ballots in every precinct of every county, every election. The ballots must be counted at each precinct in full public view and posted for all to see, before the ballots leave the precincts. This is the only way to ensure that our votes are counted accurately. An Avalanche of Documentation: Supreme Court Decisions Which Demand A Transparent Vote ALL Americans HAVE A RIGHT to a verifiable count in line with THREE, still standing Supreme Court decisions. One of those US Supreme Court decisions, Westbury v. Sanders, 1964, stated that all other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. The other two relevant US Supreme Court decisions, namely, US v Mosley (1915) and Reynolds v Sims (1964) say that our right to vote consists of two parts: a) the right to cast a ballot; b) the right to KNOW that our vote has been counted accurately. The 2nd part of our right to vote is being violated whenever there are easily-rigged, secret Computerized counts. The Iowa Caucus (transparent count) vs. NH, SC, and other computerized primaries (black box voting — no way to watch or check the vote “count”) In the Iowa Caucus, — the FAIREST SYSTEM IN THE NATION if the candidates and citizens watch the vote count at all 1650+ local caucus locations, and then compare it against the published count at the state level by the Iowa GOP HQ, and by the Iowa Democratic State HQ — then the right to vote of Iowans is PRESERVED and in line with these still-standing Supreme Court decisions. The Iowans cast a ballot, or raise their hand in some way, at their local Caucus, and then the participants SEE the ballots counted before their eyes, right away, before the ballots leave the public site. (The crookery in the Iowa Caucus has been accomplished by the GOP manipulators at the STATE LEVEL who simply switch the votes en masse because the voters at the local level, and the candidates are (ABSURDLY) not watching to see if the published results at the state level accurately reflect how the voters voted at the local level. The problem is NOT the good Iowans at the local level, it is the VOTESCAM CROOKS at the STATE LEVEL. But, at least in the Iowa Caucus there is a CHANCE to catch any votefraud, and that’s what WatchTheVote2016.com is all about. Such is NOT the case in 80% of New Hampshire, and 100% the primaries which follow in South Carlina, the Super Tuesday states, and beyond. These states are NOT in line with the standards of the three relevant Supreme Court decisions. In fact, they violate these Supreme Court decisions in the most blatant manner possible. In the case of NH and SC at least, these states violate their own state laws as well. (See the youtube, “South Carolina, Super Tuesday, and Ron Paul”, uploaded in 2008, – ten minutes.) In New Hampshire, for instance, 80% of the voters who are “voting” on computerized systems do have the right to cast a ballot. So far, so good. But, after they cast their ballots, the ballots are whisked away for processing in the “behind closed doors” computer rooms, from which the public, candidates, and local press are barred by police guard. The “count” is announced later that night. To repeat: no candidate, citizen, or local press person is allowed to see any actual ballots on election day, or for weeks thereafter. So the voters and the nation are taking these election “results” in such computerized elections ON AN ACT OF BLIND FAITH on election night, with no evidence. In these computerized elections, the SECOND PART of the citizen’s right to vote is not being respected: the citizen does NOT know whether his or her vote has been counted accurately, or counted all all. (To repeat again: if a group of citizens tries to see the actual ballots in a computerized election in the USA on election day, they will be arrested before local election officials will let them see any actual ballots — just like in Soviet Russia, or any other dictatorship, tin-horn or large scale. Note: Arizona has a spot check of 1% of the ballots, but this is not good enough.) In the other 20% of New Hampshire, the ballots are counted properly, in the open, before the ballots leave the public sight — as votes were counted from 1787 or so, until the early 1970s. Pre-selected citizens from each neighborhood count the votes in public, and right as the polls close, and BEFORE the ballots leave the sight of the election judges or the sight of the public. A man who has become a friend of Watch The Vote in recent years, Mr. Douglas Bersaw, supervised the counting of the votes in such a constitutional way in Richmond, New Hampshire, where he served as Election Supervisor until just a few years ago. It’s do-able. It would cost the nation about 800 dollars a year to hand count all primary and November elections throughout the USA, — a mere pittance in the national budget to ensure we get the leaders whom the voters actually elect. When the primary process gets beyond New Hampshire, then 100% of the primary states (South Carolina, the Super Tuesday states, etc.) are “counted” by computerized “elections”. In South Carolina, there are no paper ballots at all! Just bleeps of energy. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) The Big TV Networks and Big Press Are Neck Deep in Censoring This Information from the American People -with a few exceptions When the “count” is conducted in secret (within a computer) powered by secretly programmed software (with source code usually programmed by persons unknown to even the local election officials) – then the second part of our right to vote is being violated and nullified. These realities about computerized elections have been ruthlessly censored by the Big TV Networks who are NECK DEEP in the process, and as guilty as they can be over the last 40 years, — complete with faked “competitions” to call the winner first, when all TV networks have been getting the exact same information, at the exact same time, from the exact same organization National Election Pool, or NEP (formerly Voter News Service, or VNS) which ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX jointly own — together with AP wire. Nevertheless, there have been intermittent exposures in national publications, such as in The New Yorker in 1988 (The Dangers of Computerized Elections by Ronnie Dugger), the Nation in 2004 (How They Could Steal the Election This Time, Ronnie Dugger), American Opinion in 1977 (How Elections Are Stolen, Dr. Susan L.M. Huck), Harper’s magazine in 2012 (How to Rig An Election by Victoria Collier), and an excellent 5 minute report on CBS Evening News with Dan Rather on November 7, 1988, in which Rather interviewed Dr. Howard Strauss of Princeton University and other key people involved in the election count issue. Of course, even before the internet, 99% of the exposure of the Votescam Issue has been done by small publications and intrepid individuals who have been CENSORED ruthlessly by the Big “mainstream” Media. The American Free Press (formerly the Spotlight) has run hundreds of articles from 1984 to the present Most of these very important articles, and much more, can be found on the nation’s oldest site exposing the illegality of computerized elections, www.votefraud.org run by Jim Condit Jr.– All of the articles in the right hand column on the home page of votefraud.org are vital reading for those who wish to restore honest, open, verifiable, constitutional elections. Another important website is www.BlackBoxVoting.org, run by Bev Harris. And TheLandesReport.com by Lynn Landes, including this important deposition of the only whistle blower to go public that he was hired to wiretap election computers, found here: http://www.thelandesreport.com/gatesdeposition.pdf Important Books, Studies, and Documentaries Important books are: Votescam: The Stealing of America by the late Collier brothers, Jim & Ken. Black Box Voting by Bev Harris. Hacked! by Vicky Karp Important Documentaries: Hacking Democracy, an HBO documentary featuring the astounding work of Bev Harris The Right to Count by Richard Van Slyke Important Studies: Roy G. Saltman compiled several important studies in the late 1970s and 80s for the Bureau of Commerce, such as the one found here: http://www.votefraud.org/saltman_roy_1988_report.htm MIT/Caltech Voting Technology study, published in 2001 about the 2000 Presidential election. The study was entitled, “Voting: What is, What Could be: Incredibly, this team of experts reported that 6 million ballots were DESTROYED as they were processed by the computer systems nationwide — that 6% of the ballots cast in Presidential Election 2000. This could not happen if the ballots were counted properly, before the ballots leave the public sight at the neighborhood polling place, — as still happens at the Iowa Caucus, and in 20% of New Hampshire. Important Quotes from Experts The fatal problems with computer-“counted” elections were pinpointed by Dr. David Dill of Stanford University: “Why am I always being asked to prove these systems aren’t secure? The burden of proof ought to be on the vendor. You ask about the hardware. ‘Secret.’ The software? ‘Secret.’ What’s the cryptography? ‘Can’t tell you because that’ll compromise the secrecy of the machines.’… Federal testing procedures? ‘Secret’! Results of the tests? ‘Secret’! Basically we are required to have blind faith.” — Dr. David L. Dill, Professor, Computer Science, Stanford University, as cited by Ronnie Dugger in his article, “How They Could Steal the Election This Time”, which appeared in the August 16, 2004 edition of The Nation magazine. Other Important Videos on Votescam: http://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-1st-september-2016 This Latest video which mentions this website is not on YouTube, but is at UKcolumn.org at the above link. Intrepid Reporter Mark Anderson begins speaking about Electronic Election Fraud and the 2016 Presidential Election at about 19:27. till about 25:28. The ElectionNightGatekeepers.com logo appears around 20:35. This is an excellent interview which we highly recommend. And here is best-selling author, Roger Stone, on C-Span on August 21, 2016 (also not on YouTube) talking about the dangers of the rigging of the election computers for the 2016 Presidential Election: https://www.c-span.org/video/?414109-1/newsmakers-roger-stone And here is Roger Stone on Breitbart Radio on on July 29, 2016, Milo Y. is host:
Important Books, Studies, and Documentaries
Important books are:
Votescam: The Stealing of America by the late Collier brothers, Jim & Ken.
Black Box Voting by Bev Harris.
Hacked! by Vicky Karp
Important Documentaries:
Hacking Democracy, an HBO documentary featuring the astounding work of Bev Harris
The Right to Count by Richard Van Slyke
Important Studies:
Roy G. Saltman compiled several important studies in the late 1970s and 80s for the Bureau of Commerce, such as the one found here: http://www.votefraud.org/saltman_roy_1988_report.htm
MIT/Caltech Voting Technology study, published in 2001 about the 2000 Presidential election. The study was entitled, “Voting: What is, What Could be:
Incredibly, this team of experts reported that 6 million ballots were DESTROYED as they were processed by the computer systems nationwide — that 6% of the ballots cast in Presidential Election 2000. This could not happen if the ballots were counted properly, before the ballots leave the public sight at the neighborhood polling place, — as still happens at the Iowa Caucus, and in 20% of New Hampshire.
Important Quotes from Experts
The fatal problems with computer-“counted” elections were pinpointed by Dr. David Dill of Stanford University:
“Why am I always being asked to prove these systems aren’t secure? The burden of proof ought to be on the vendor. You ask about the hardware. ‘Secret.’ The software? ‘Secret.’ What’s the cryptography? ‘Can’t tell you because that’ll compromise the secrecy of the machines.’… Federal testing procedures? ‘Secret’! Results of the tests? ‘Secret’! Basically we are required to have blind faith.” — Dr. David L. Dill, Professor, Computer Science, Stanford University, as cited by Ronnie Dugger in his article, “How They Could Steal the Election This Time”, which appeared in the August 16, 2004 edition of The Nation magazine.
Other Important Videos on Votescam:
Watch the Vote 2012 – Iowa Caucus
This video explains the entire “Votescam” issue both at the Iowa Caucus and in the states that follow. You only have to watch the first 13 minutes or so, as the last 7 minutes were made so people could act on their own, and a few days before the video maker understood the power and reach of Facebook.
South Carolina, Super Tuesday, and Ron Paul
This video explains the absurdity, the illegality, and the unconstitutionality of secret computer counts. Though an Florida lawyer and vote activist talked directly to Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager a week before the South Carolina primary in 2008, he was informed a few days after that primary by the Campaign Manager that they did not even tell Dr. Paul about the severe issues raised in this video:
Guardians for Liberty Page on Votescam vs. Honest Elections
This page on the Guardians for Liberty website has a lot of excellent documentation regarding the votescam syndicate and its distorting of America — as well as how to take back our nation by restoring honest, transparent elections:
Guardians For Liberty – Votescam DocumentationMozilla is the latest major group to stumble into Gamergate, and it's just realized that this was a terrible idea. As The Daily Dot reported earlier today, The Open Standard — the foundation's recently launched online magazine — has spent the past few days inexplicably mediating the "consumer revolt" against social progressivism and alleged ethics breaches in video games. After publishing a critical article by education writer Audrey Watters, Open Standard found itself in the crosshairs of Gamergate supporters who believed they had been unfairly profiled, including Eron Gjoni, who instigated the movement with an angry essay about game developer Zoe Quinn. As a followup, it posted a rebuttal sympathetic to Gamergate (from a writer who clarifies she is "neutral" on the issue) and published a series of defensive tweets about its decision, saying it was calling for "more voices" and "more action." Even the Firefox Twitter feed got in on the debate, defending Gamergate as an "important issue [that] should be looked at by all sides."
Today, Mozilla decided that getting in the middle of an internet firestorm without a good idea of the context had been, perhaps, unwise. The Open Standard published a vague apology on its site, saying that it had "fueled a conversation that will not have a positive outcome" but "does not support shouting down people that we don't agree with," which in this case is apparently Gamergate supporters. Firefox's Twitter feed issued a similar statement, saying that "Gamergate as a topic does not make sense" for The Open Standard or Firefox to discuss.
But a recent email by Mozilla executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker, sent to the company's staff and obtained by The Verge, was harsher. "Recent opinion pieces published in The Open Standard about #Gamergate are a mistake, compounded by our follow-up actions," she wrote.
Dear Mozillians, As the computing environment and online life are changing, Mozilla is changing too. Sometimes this involves moving into new areas, and working with content and information as well as code and products like Firefox and Firefox OS. It's hard to do. We are making mistakes. Recent opinion pieces published in The Open Standard about #Gamergate are a mistake, compounded by our follow-up actions. The editorial intent of The Open Standard is to explore the world of open collaboration. It is not intended to represent Mozilla's opinion, but to be an independent platform where we invite people to have discussions around timely topics related to the impact of open systems. #Gamergate as a topic does not make sense for The Open Standard. As a new publication, we are applying our editorial guidelines for the first time. In addition, it's clear that our branding and positioning have not clearly established The Open Standard and Mozilla as separate entities, and we need to do work on that too. Mozilla needs to do new things, and to empower people to work in new areas. Our standard model is a large delegation of authority. However, we need to stop making mistakes. They are harmful to all the people involved. They suggest Mozilla has an opinion which we don't. They damage our sense of what Mozilla is. They are unfair to all the people who work so hard to build a better vision of tomorrow. And offensive to those concerned about key issues of equality, inclusion and safety. My take away from this is that our model of distributed authority needs attention. We need to do better here. The entire leadership team, including me, will be turning our attention to this. We can't stop doing new things. We have to do better. Mitchell
Mozilla weathered a much larger political upset earlier this year, when CEO Brendan Eich stepped down after less than two weeks, due to protests over a $1,000 donation to the fight against gay marriage in California; at the time, Baker said that Mozilla "prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn't live up to it." The Open Standard is only a few weeks old, and as the Firefox Twitter takeover shows, it's still strongly associated with Mozilla, which puts the foundation where Adobe and Intel have both been in past months: tangled in a debate that at this point is mostly just a series of shouting matches and quasi-military boycott "operations." When Advertising Age writes up a PSA warning brands not to get involved with something, you might want to at least approach it with extreme caution — something Mozilla admits clearly didn't happen.
Update November 5th, 1:20pm ET: Added Twitter statement from Firefox and information about Eich's resignation, and statement from the author of Open Standard's rebuttal piece.Just after his big Republican Primary win last month, Rand Paul led his Democratic opponent Jack Conway by 25 points in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race. Now Paul’s lead is down to just eight points.
Now, however, Paul holds a much smaller advantage. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey finds the GOP nominee with support from 49% of the state’s voters while Conway earns 41% of the vote. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Almost all candidates receive a bounce following a big victory and Paul clearly lost his post-primary bounce. But he added to the decline by quickly stumbling out of the gate in an interview on MSNBC. During the interview, he discussed reasons for opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was immediately hit with charges of racism. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Kentucky voters say they have followed news reports about his comments on MSNBC, including 39% who have followed Very Closely.
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Kentucky voters now have a favorable opinion of Paul, down from 69% percent in the previous survey. Thirty-eight percent (38%) view him unfavorably, and five percent (5%) have no opinion.
Conway is viewed favorably by 47% and unfavorably by 43%, marking virtually no change from two weeks ago. Eleven percent (11%) have no opinion of the Democrat.
Forty-five percent (45%) say the comments on MSNBC are at least somewhat important to how they will vote in November, with 25% who say they are Very Important. But slightly more voters (47%) say the comments are not very or not at all important in determining how they will vote.
Interestingly, most of those who have followed the story Very Closely support Paul, suggesting they don’t consider it that big a deal. But 76% of those who consider the comments Very Important to how they will vote now favor Conway.WASHINGTON — President Obama and his allies may soon confront a difficult decision: whether to abandon the creation of a new path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants and accept tough border security and enforcement measures that they have long criticized.
Those are some of the concessions that Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio signaled he would demand in exchange for a willingness to overhaul the immigration system. Mr. Boehner outlined those standards in a one-page document released on Thursday, and if they lead to legislation, Democrats and immigration advocates will be pressured to compromise.
Mr. Obama hinted in an interview broadcast on Friday that he was open to a plan that would initially give many undocumented workers a legal status short of citizenship, as long as they were not permanently barred from becoming citizens.
“If the speaker proposes something that says right away ‘folks aren’t being deported, families aren’t being separated, we’re able to attract top young students to provide the skills or start businesses here, and then there’s a regular process of citizenship’ — I’m not sure how wide the divide ends up being,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on CNN.1. READ THE FIRST POST! If you haven't done that, or have followed this thread since atleast RiZ@L's initial probe reply, don't ask questions! I'll say it again; READ THE FIRST POST! ALL OF IT!
2. The UPs have been ADS honked before. For reasons unknown, it does something now (the image files you see a lot of in this thread), but the first ones discovered did nothing. So something has changed them.
3. The Convoys over Merope 5C are known! They are not new! The ones who have been checked consists of (among other ships) a Corvette transporting Meta Alloys. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be checked out further, as there may be an odd one that does not fit the profil. It does however mean; Don't ask if anyone has seen the Convoy USSs above Merope 5C!
4. The four symbols surrounding the "circle" in the Probe image are being constantly discussed. YES we know they can be interpreted as 1,2,3,4 in 3-bit Binary. And YES we know they spell represent the letters D, W, U, R if the are interpreted as morse.
5. Merope 5 C is seriously bugged atm. People are experiencing crashes, hovering Barnacles, moved/removed Barnacles, a single instance for every commander around the planet, "invisible" Faraguts, and much much more. Send a bug report if you experience something strange there, but it's not news that you crash to your desktop, or you get a capital ship warning but can't see anything. (I'll say it again, RiZ@L broke the planet! Good for him!) It is also known that cmdrs are experiencing their explorer data from Merope disappearing, needing to scan it again to see all the bodies. If you want to contribute, make sure your exploration data is empty, scan Merope, hand in the data, and make a note of what was "rediscovered."
6. The UP "ECM" affects more ships than just the one scanning it. There is video confirming it, with three commanders all being affected at the same time. Nobody knows what happens to NPCs if scanned near them, because they have a bad tendency to blow it up...atleast the Sec Forces do. Stating that it only affects the ship scanning it is proven false!
7. We only have 1 confirmed(!) UP in possession right now. That means all the "tests" you want done with a UP is likely not going to happen (or has already been tested, again READ THE FIRST PAGE!). Your request to test something will more than likely drown in this thread, so it's not very useful (debatable, as there is the odd chance that your suggestion could be something completey unthought of before. Chances are it's not though, and has been asked or tried before). If you REALLY want to test something with UP; get out there and help find more! Check out the spreadsheet on the first page of where they have been found. Bring friends, get the UP (document it!), and test your heart out...or give it to someone who will.
8. Nobody knows what the center image of the UP reply means (yet). Your theory is as valid as anyone elses. BUT explain your theory and why you think it's applicable. Don't just say "I believe it's A". It's not useful and it only adds to the noise, not the signal...and the UP reply has enough of that as it is. The opposite is also true; don't just say "I disagree" with someone elses theory. Explain WHY you don't agree. It makes people think, which (usually) is a good thing.
9. The voices in your head are real...but only for you. The rest don't hear them, and probably don't want to know what they are saying!Though Half-Life [official site] is almost nineteen years old and its sanctioned fan remake Black Mesa is nearing completion, Valve have launched a wee patch for their pretty okay or whatever vintage FPS. The patch fixes a few crashes and exploits, and hit other Half-Life engine games too, such as classic Counter-Strike. Given how much of modern PC games history connects to Half-Life and its mod scene, I’m glad Valve are still tinkering a little. Earlier this year, they finally got Half-Life an uncensored release in Germany too.Yesterday’s patch notes are simple:
Fixed crash when entering certain malformed strings into the game console. Thanks to Marshal Webb from BackConnect, Inc for reporting this.
Fixed crash when loading a specially crafted malformed BSP file. Thanks to Grant Hernandez (@Digital_Cold) for reporting this.
Fixed malformed SAV files allowing arbitrary files to be written into the game folder. Thanks to Vsevolod Saj for reporting this.
Fixed a crash when quickly changing weapons that are consumable. Thanks to Sam Vanheer for reporting this.
Fixed crash when setting custom decals.
The same patch went out to other games built on the Half-Life engine: Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Day of Defeat, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Team Fortress Classic, and yes, even Deathmatch Classic and Ricochet.
Vintage Counter-Strike is still one of the most popular games on Steam (yesterday it peaked at 19,554 people in-game at the same time) so I’d guess that was the main motivation behind this patch. It’s nice that other games benefit too. Thanks, CS.Many Americans are disgusted and disturbed by Donald Trump’s immigration bans, and one of the myriad ways they showed that was through donations to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). On Saturday, the ACLU and its state organizations helped argue the cases that resulted in a temporary stay against Trump’s executive orders.
Yahoo! News earlier reported that the ACLU made $10 million dollars from 150,000 new members since Saturday. Now, the reported numbers are even bigger. USA Today reports that the ACLU has raised $19.4 million from roughly 290,000 people. This is a 1,900% increase in the number of donations from January of 2016, and a huge overall increase for an organization that usually raises $4 million per year in online donations.
In a phone interview with Yahoo, Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, said “I’ve never seen anything like this. People are fired up and want to be engaged. What we’ve seen is an unprecedented public reaction to the challenges of the Trump administration.”
He echoed this sentiment to USA Today, saying, “It’s really clear that this is a different type of moment. People want to know what they can do. They want to be deployed as protagonists in this fight. It’s not a spectator sport.”
In addition, Romero had some sharp words for members of Congress. “With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the Democrats in disarray and lacking any spine, the two pincers (opposing Trump) have to be litigation and citizen action,” he said.
This is a landmark response from the American public, to an equally unprecedented threat to civil liberties. I almost can’t believe the number of donation matches, fundraisers, and just-plain-furious individual donations that occurred, but it’s galvanizing as hell.
However, this is also an opportunity to point out some of the other, less high-profile groups who also do great work. The Anti-Defamation League, CAIR, Lambda Legal, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are just a few of the other organizations that are dedicated to defending civil rights in the U.S. As you plan out donations for the rest of the year, consider also sending some money to more specialized organizations for the causes you most care about or feel are most in danger.
I know there are dozens of other worthy groups out there. Which groups have you donated to in the wake of a Trump presidency? Which ones do you most trust to listen to and defend marginalized people? Let us know!
(Via USA Today and Yahoo! News; image via screengrab from People’s Oath Anthem video)
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Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.In the mid-1960s the BBC was concerned. Pirate radio stations and the commercial broadcaster Radio Luxembourg were drawing in huge audiences of young British music fans, hungry for new and exciting musical sounds. It was clear that ‘Aunty Beeb’ was losing the nation’s youth, and that something must be done.
Until then, the BBC’s radio output was a relatively pastoral landscape of programming that included The Archers, The Goon Show, Hancock’s Half Hour, and Friday Night is Music Night. The quality was high - plenty of these programmes were groundbreaking and still stand up as classics today. On the flip side, the offering of BBC music shows that British teenagers found engaging was mainly limited to The Saturday Club. This early pop programme was presented by Brian Matthews, produced by a young and ambitious Bernie Andrews and had been a stalwart of the airwaves since 1957.
From 1945, the BBC’s Light Programme was the corporation’s main output of light entertainment and music. It was on this station where the BBC’s new lively, modern music show would land (late at night, mind you) and kick off a chain of pop and rock sessions that have now gone down in recorded music history.
What’s in a name?
The name Top Gear, chosen by a competition winner, referenced the slang word ‘gear’ for fashionable Carnaby Street clothing and the Beatles’ popular expression ‘fab gear’. Contrived as it may sound now, the name was a statement of intent from the BBC, which wanted to connect with the trendy fans of the underground British music scene.
The first episode, presented by Brian Matthew and produced by Bernie Andrews, got off to an impressive start with live sessions from Dusty Springfield and The Beatles. The format mixed recordings and live guests and lasted for two hours. This first incarnation of Top Gear only lasted a year and was axed in 1965.
Fast forward two years and Top Gear had been revived with presenters John Peel, Tommy Vance and Pete Drummond at the helm. Meanwhile, the BBC had decided to create a new radio station for their younger audience – Radio 1 – in a direct response to the ultra-popular pirate stations. It was on BBC Radio 1 where Top Gear had found its more suitable home.
Peel, with his relaxed and personable presenting style, may have seemed like an unusual choice for an upbeat pop show. But in the long-run, it was exactly what the programme needed and it wasn’t long before John Peel became the sole presenter. Top Gear was changing into a progressive music show and Peel’s deep love for, and knowledge of, a broad range of music resulted in a wide roster of acts appearing, right through into the 1970s.
Nature and nurture
A year after its revival, John Peel, along with producers Bernie Andrews and John Walters, had turned Top Gear in to |
a sample size this small.
By this method, the Kings’ adjusted shot differential in the playoffs was about 52 percent to 48 percent, very similar to the Rangers’ 51-49. However, the Kings were dominant against much tougher competition; they held their opponents about 5 points below those teams’ season averages, whereas the Rangers held their opponents just a fraction of a point below theirs. Once we correct for that, we again end up estimating that the Kings will get about 52 percent of the shots over the series, or maybe as high as 53 percent. That represents a clear edge, if not an overwhelming one.
So far, so Kings. But there’s also special teams play to take into account. The Rangers drew 32 more penalties than they took in the regular season, whereas the Kings took 12 more penalties than they drew. The Rangers had a higher power play conversion percentage and a better penalty kill percentage, so we should expect the them to have more and better power plays than the Kings in the long run — even if the actual results of this short series will be dominated by random chance.
Finally, it’s possible that it’s all going to come down to goaltending — this is hockey, after all — and the Rangers have a clear advantage there. This was the fifth straight year that Henrik Lundqvist posted a save percentage higher than 92 percent, and his save percentage has been higher than Jonathan Quick’s in every year of Quick’s career. Obviously, over a short series either goalie can get hot and turn the tide, but goalie streaks are almost entirely unpredictable and all we can do in advance is note which goalie is more talented. In this case, it’s clearly Lundqvist. The question is just how big of an advantage he gives the Rangers.
In other words, Lundqvist is the fulcrum. If we expect the Kings to get 52 to 53 percent of the shots and expect Lundqvist and Quick to match their average save percentages over the last three years, that leads to a draw at even strength. Other components — special teams, shooting and perhaps fatigue — are all pretty small factors, but also seem to work in the Rangers’ favor.
Ignore the pundits — this thing’s closer to a toss-up than a blowout.It now becomes our purpose to inquire as to the position and status of Jesus the Christ in the antemortal world, from the period of the solemn council in heaven, in which He was chosen to be the future Savior and Redeemer of mankind, to the time at which He was born in the flesh.
We claim scriptural authority for the assertion that Jesus Christ was and is God the Creator, the God who revealed Himself to Adam, Enoch, and all the antediluvial patriarchs and prophets down to Noah; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel as a united people, and the God of Ephraim and Judah after the disruption of the Hebrew nation; the God who made Himself known to the prophets from Moses to Malachi; the God of the Old Testament record; and the God of the Nephites. We affirm that Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the Eternal One.
The scriptures specify three personages in the Godhead; (1) God the Eternal Father, (2) His Son Jesus Christ, and (3) the Holy Ghost. These constitute the Holy Trinity, comprizing three physically separate and distinct individuals, who together constitute the presiding council of the heavens.a At least two of these appear as directing participants in the work of creation; this fact is instanced by the plurality expressed in Genesis: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”; and later, in the course of consultation concerning Adam’s act of transgression, “the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us.”b From the words of Moses, as revealed anew in the present dispensation, we learn more fully of the Gods who were actively engaged in the creation of this earth: “And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Then, further, with regard to the condition of Adam after the fall: “I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten: Behold, the man is become as one of us.”c In the account of the creation recorded by Abraham, “the Gods” are repeatedly mentioned.d
As heretofore shown in another connection, the Father operated in the work of creation through the Son, who thus became the executive through whom the will, commandment, or word of the Father was put into effect. It is with incisive appropriateness therefore, that the Son, Jesus Christ, is designated by the apostle John as the Word; or as declared by the Father “the word of my power.”e The part taken by Jesus Christ in the creation, a part so prominent as to justify our calling Him the Creator, is set forth in many scriptures. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers in this wise distinctively to the Father and the Son as separate though associated Beings: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”f Paul is even more explicit in his letter to the Colossians, wherein, speaking of Jesus the Son, he says: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”g And here let be repeated the testimony of John, that by the Word, who was with God, and who was God even in the beginning, all things were made; “and without him was not anything made that was made.”h
That the Christ who was to come was in reality God the Creator was revealed in plainness to the prophets on the western hemisphere. Samuel, the converted Lamanite, in preaching to the unbelieving Nephites justified his testimony as follows: “And also that ye might know of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, the Creator of all things, from the beginning; and that ye might know of the signs of his coming, to the intent that ye might believe on his name.”i
To these citations of ancient scripture may most properly be added the personal testimony of the Lord Jesus after He had become a resurrected Being. In His visitation to the Nephites He thus proclaimed Himself: “Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name.”j To the Nephites, who failed to comprehend the relation between the gospel declared unto them by the Resurrected Lord, and the Mosaic law which they held traditionally to be in force, and who marveled at His saying that old things had passed away, He explained in this wise: “Behold I say unto you, that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses. Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel: therefore, the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end.”k
Through revelation in the present or last dispensation the voice of Jesus Christ, the Creator of heaven and earth, has been heard anew: “Hearken, O ye people of my church to whom the kingdom has been given—hearken ye and give ear to him who laid the foundation of the earth, who made the heavens and all the hosts thereof, and by whom all things were made which live, and move, and have a being.”l And again, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, who created the heavens and the earth; a light which cannot be hid in darkness.”m
The divinity of Jesus Christ is indicated by the specific names and titles authoritatively applied to Him. According to man’s judgment there may be but little importance attached to names; but in the nomenclature of the Gods every name is a title of power or station. God is righteously zealous of the sanctity of His own namen and of names given by His appointment. In the case of children of promise names have been prescribed before birth; this is true of our Lord Jesus and of the Baptist, John, who was sent to prepare the way for the Christ. Names of persons have been changed by divine direction, when not sufficiently definite as titles denoting the particular service to which the bearers were called, or the special blessings conferred upon them.o
Jesus is the individual name of the Savior, and as thus spelled is of Greek derivation; its Hebrew equivalent was Yehoshua or Yeshua, or, as we render it in English, Joshua. In the original the name was well understood as meaning “Help of Jehovah,” or “Savior.” Though as common an appellation as John or Henry or Charles today, the name was nevertheless divinely prescribed, as already stated. Thus, unto Joseph, the espoused husband of the Virgin, the angel said, “And thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.”p
Christ is a sacred title, and not an ordinary appellation or common name; it is of Greek derivation, and in meaning is identical with its Hebrew equivalent Messiah or Messias, signifying the Anointed One.q Other titles, each possessing a definitive meaning, such as Emmanuel, Savior, Redeemer, Only Begotten Son, Lord, Son of God, Son of Man, and many more, are of scriptural occurrence; the fact of main present importance to us is that these several titles are expressive of our Lord’s divine origin and Godship. As seen, the essential names or titles of Jesus the Christ were made known before His birth, and were revealed to prophets who preceded Him in the mortal state.r
Jehovah is the Anglicized rendering of the Hebrew, Yahveh or Jahveh, signifying the Self-existent One, or The Eternal. This name is generally rendered in our English version of the Old Testament as Lord, printed in capitals.s The Hebrew, Ehyeh, signifying I Am, is related in meaning and through derivation with the term Yahveh or Jehovah; and herein lies the significance of this name by which the Lord revealed Himself to Moses when the latter received the commission to go into Egypt and deliver the children of Israel from bondage: “Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.”t In the succeeding verse the Lord declares Himself to be “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” While Moses was in Egypt, the Lord further revealed Himself, saying “I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by thy name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.”u The central fact connoted by this name, I Am, or Jehovah, the two having essentially the same meaning, is that of existence or duration that shall have no end, and which, judged by all human standards of reckoning, could have had no beginning; the name is related to such other titles as Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.v
Jesus, when once assailed with question and criticism from certain Jews who regarded their Abrahamic lineage as an assurance of divine preferment, met their abusive words with the declaration: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”w The true significance of this saying would be more plainly expressed were the sentence punctuated and pointed as follows: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham, was I Am”; which means the same as had He said—Before Abraham, was I, Jehovah. The captious Jews were so offended at hearing Him use a name which, through an erroneous rendering of an earlier scripture,x they held was not to be uttered on pain of death, that they immediately took up stones with the intent of killing Him. The Jews regarded Jehovah as an ineffable name, not to be spoken; they substituted for it the sacred, though to them the not-forbidden name, Adonai, signifying the Lord. The original of the terms Lord and God as they appear in the Old Testament, was either Yahveh or Adonai; and the divine Being designated by these sacred names was, as shown by the scriptures cited, Jesus the Christ. John, evangelist and apostle, positively identifies Jesus Christ with Adonai, or the Lord who spoke through the voice of Isaiah,y and with Jehovah who spoke through Zechariah.z
The name Elohim is of frequent occurrence in the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, though it is not found in our English versions. In form the word is a Hebrew plural noun;a but it connotes the plurality of excellence or intensity, rather than distinctively of number. It is expressive of supreme or absolute exaltation and power. Elohim, as understood and used in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, is the name-title of God the Eternal Father, whose firstborn Son in the spirit is Jehovah—the Only Begotten in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
Jesus of Nazareth, who in solemn testimony to the Jews declared Himself the I Am or Jehovah, who was God before Abraham lived on earth, was the same Being who is repeatedly proclaimed as the God who made covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who led Israel from the bondage of Egypt to the freedom of the promised land, the one and only God known by direct and personal revelation to the Hebrew prophets in general.
The identity of Jesus Christ with the Jehovah of the Israelites was well understood by the Nephite prophets, and the truth of their teachings was confirmed by the risen Lord who manifested Himself unto them shortly after His ascension from the midst of the apostles at Jerusalem. This is the record: “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying, Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.”b
It would appear unnecessary to cite at greater length in substantiating our affirmation that Jesus Christ was God even before He assumed a body of flesh. During that antemortal period there was essential difference between the Father and the Son, in that the former had already passed through the experiences of mortal life, including death and resurrection, and was therefore a Being possessed of a perfect, immortalized body of flesh and bones, while the Son was yet unembodied. Through His death and subsequent resurrection Jesus the Christ is today a Being like unto the Father in all essential characteristics.
A general consideration of scriptural evidence leads to the conclusion that God the Eternal Father has manifested Himself to earthly prophets or revelators on very few occasions, and then principally to attest the divine authority of His Son, Jesus Christ. As before shown, the Son was the active executive in the work of creation; throughout the creative scenes the Father appears mostly in a directing or consulting capacity. Unto Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses the Father revealed Himself, attesting the Godship of the Christ, and the fact that the Son was the chosen Savior of mankind.c On the occasion of the baptism of Jesus, the Father’s voice was heard, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”;d and at the transfiguration a similar testimony was given by the Father.e On an occasion yet later, while Jesus prayed in anguish of soul, submitting Himself that the Father’s purposes be fulfilled and the Father’s name glorified, “Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”f The resurrected and glorified Christ was announced by the Father to the Nephites on the western hemisphere, in these words: “Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name: hear ye him.”g From the time of the occurrence last noted, the voice of the Father was not heard again among men, so far as the scriptures aver, until the spring of 1820, when both the Father and the Son ministered unto the prophet Joseph Smith, the Father saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear him!”h These are the instances of record in which the Eternal Father has been manifest in personal utterance or other revelation to man apart from the Son. God the Creator, the Jehovah of Israel, the Savior and Redeemer of all nations, kindreds and tongues, are the same, and He is Jesus the Christ.CLOSE A group of protesters attacked Donald Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate's rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more people were punched. At least four people were detained. (June 3) AP
A Trump hat burns during a protest near where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally in San Jose, California on June 02, 2016. Protesters attacked trump supporters as they left the rally, burned an american flag, trump paraphernalia and scuffled with police and each other. (Photo: Josh Edelson, AFP/Getty Images)
Bottles were thrown, hats went up in flames and one Donald Trump supporter took raw eggs to the face when violence broke out during a protest outside the Republican candidate's rally in San Jose.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched for hours around the McEnery Convention Center, where Trump spoke in front of thousands. The crowd grew unruly throughout the night and started several confrontations with Trump supporters.
About a dozen fights broke out amid the crowd, the Associated Press reported. Videos and photographs from outside the rally captured protesters fighting with supporters, burning hats and ripping up Trump banners. One woman was "taunted" by protesters and hit in the face with raw eggs.
Another was hit with what appears to be a bag, leaving his ear bloodied.
Twitter | @jacobnbc Jacob Rascon on Twitter
NOW: #Trump supporter attacked and left bleeding in San Jose pic.twitter.com/kC2GVz9JcZ — Tim Pool (@Timcast) June 3, 2016
An officer was assaulted outside the event, San Jose Sgt. Enrique Garcia said in an email. Police made "a few" arrests after the rally, but Garcia did not say how many were detained or give other information.
San Jose police shut down streets surrounding the convention center to vehicular and foot traffic ahead of Trump's event. In a statement, Chief Eddie Garcia said, "we will do everything possible to protect the First Amendment, those attending, our Community, and our Officers."
Police declared the demonstration an unlawful assembly 30 minutes after the Trump rally ended, around 8:30 p.m. PST/11:30 p.m. ET. Officers wearing tactical gear were seen guarding the convention center and blocking protesters.
Nearly an hour after the Trump rally ended, police brought out a megaphone and told the demonstrators to leave or face arrest.
According to a tweet from NBC News' Jacob Rascon, one protester yelled back, "we don't follow the law."
Aya Hilali holds up a sign during a protest near where republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally in in San Jose, California on June 02, 2016. Protesters attacked trump supporters as they left the rally, burned an american flag, trump paraphernalia and scuffled with police and each other. (Photo: Josh Edelson, AFP/Getty Images)
In the hours since the protests unfolded, both officials from Democratic presidential campaigns condemned the violent confrontations by protesters. John Podesta, chair of Hillary for America, and Mike Casca, rapid response director for Bernie Sanders, both spoke out against the scuffles on Twitter.
Violence against supporters of any candidate has no place in this election.
https://t.co/PY4vYYszVf — John Podesta (@johnpodesta) June 3, 2016
we cannot stop trump's violent rhetoric with violence – only peaceful protest in a voting booth can do that. https://t.co/o82lIVNqcB — mike casca (@cascamike) June 3, 2016
Inside the rally, Trump was heckled by a protester in the crowd. Trump told the crowd not to worry about it.
"Let him enjoy himself...we need our protesters," he added. "We've got to be nice."
This message runs contrary to what Trump has said at previous rallies, including one in November when attendees kicked a Black Lives Matter activist (Trump said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up.")
This time, Trump told the crowd, "I've learned. Don't hurt him."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1sQTZZ2<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_16228772485745.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_16228772485745.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_16228772485745.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > 1 of 7 A fire burns roughly 10 miles from the Olympic field hockey venue during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Cliff Brunt)
At a Glance A brush fire burned Monday afternoon near several Olympic venues in Rio de Janeiro.
All events were played as scheduled, and the ash that fell from the fire did not have a major impact on play. A brush fire burned Monday near the Olympic cycling course in Rio de Janeiro, causing ash from the blaze to fall on the field hockey facility.
The fire started Monday afternoon as temperatures at the Deodoro Olympic Park soared to 97 degrees and winds turned gusty. The blaze was located near X-Park, which is hosting canoe slalom, BMX and mountain biking events. Later in the day, heavy rain fell on Rio, which delayed some of the track and field events.
Ash from the brush fire did not force any delays in a field hockey quarterfinal game between Britain and Spain, and the strong winds quickly blew away any ash that fell on the field.
(MORE: How the Summer Olympics Can Be Held During Rio's Winter )
High winds rattled and shook the media workroom tent on the site and blew smoke and ash into the area. Germany and the United States had finished playing about an hour before the problem became noticeable.
The International Cycling Union says it will check on Tuesday for any potential impact on the mountain bike course.
Practice on the mountain bike course begins Wednesday. The women's race will be held Saturday, with the men's race on Sunday.
MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Wildfires Burn in CaliforniaKevin Hagan White (September 25, 1929 – January 27, 2012) was an American politician best known as the Mayor of Boston, an office he was first elected to at the age of 38, and which he held for four terms amounting to 16 years, from 1968 to 1984. He presided as mayor during racially turbulent years in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the start of desegregation of schools via court-ordered busing of school children in Boston. White won the mayoral office in the 1967 general election in a hard-fought campaign opposing the anti-busing and anti-desegregation Boston School Committee member Louise Day Hicks. He was earlier elected Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1960 at the age of 31, and resigned from that office after his election as Mayor.
White is credited with revitalizing the waterfront, downtown and financial districts of Boston, and transforming Quincy Market into a metropolitan and tourist destination. In his first term he implemented local neighborhood "Little City Halls" but ended them after narrowly winning the 1975 election during the Boston school desegregation busing crisis, and subsequently constructed a classic and centralized city political machine. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain higher office (Governor of Massachusetts and Vice President of the United States).
His mayoral administration was subject to decades-long federal investigations into corruption, which led to the conviction of more than 20 city hall employees and nearly as many businessmen; the investigations were influential in leading White to decline to seek reelection in 1983, allowing him to avoid public debate and criticism by other mayoral candidates on the topic. He himself was never indicted for wrongdoing.
Family and education [ edit ]
Kevin H. White was born in Jamaica Plain, Boston, on September 25, 1929 to Joseph and Patricia Hagan White.[3] White's father, Joseph C. White, and maternal grandfather, Henry E. Hagan, both served as Boston City Council presidents; Joseph White had also been a state legislator.
Kevin White married Kathryn Galvin in 1956, the daughter of William J. Galvin, another Boston City Council president.[4][5]
White was educated at Tabor Academy, Williams College (A.B., 1952), Boston College Law School (LL.B., 1955) and the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration (now known as the John F. Kennedy School of Government).[5]
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [ edit ]
White was first elected to the open statewide office of Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1960 at the age of 31. The incumbent secretary, Joseph D. Ward, decided to run for governor that year (and lost to John A. Volpe in the general election). White won the Democratic Party nomination at the state convention with the crucial assistance of his father and father in law, who called in political debts in order to obtain enough votes to win the nomination. He was nominated on the third ballot of the convention, thus becoming the Democratic candidate in the general election in November,[6] in which he defeated a rising Republican, Edward W. Brooke (who in later years was elected U.S. Senator).[6]
In 1962 White was reelected to a second two-year term, and in 1966 reelected to a four-year term. He served in office through 1967, resigning on December 20, 1967, after winning the Boston mayoral election that November.[5][6][7]
Mayor of Boston [ edit ]
White successfully ran for the open mayoral office in 1967, winning his first election with a coalition of Italian, liberal and black voters.[8] He campaigned for rent control; one of his slogans was "When landlords raise rents, Kevin White raises hell." This was implemented in Boston in 1970, after a Massachusetts enabling law for municipalities was enacted in 1970.[9]
White succeeded mayor John F. Collins, who stepped down after eight years that included urban renewal projects including the planning and building of Boston City Hall, thus paving the way for the future rebuilding and rehabilitation of the waterfront, financial and business districts of the city center that White later undertook.[6]
Elections for Mayor [ edit ]
The Boston mayoral election of 1967 had a primary and a general election. In a ten-candidate non-party primary election for the open office on September 26, 1967, White was second, drawing 19.83% of the vote with 30,789 votes, and Boston School Board member Louise Day Hicks was first, with 28.16% of the vote and 43,722 votes. For the general election on November 7, 1967, only White and Hicks were on the ballot in a runoff contest. White narrowly defeated Hicks, who had taken a staunchly anti-busing (de facto anti-desegregation) position as a member of the Boston School Committee. Her slogan was the coded "You know where I stand."[10]
Hicks's campaign against more progressive fellow Democrat Kevin White was so acrimonious that the Boston Globe, under the editorship of Thomas Winship, broke a 75-year tradition of political neutrality to endorse White.[6][11]
White won the general election with 53.25 percent of the vote, (102,706, only 12,552 more than Hicks' 90,154).[5][6] Two years later, in 1969, Hicks was elected to the Boston City Council by large majorities, and then in 1970 to Congress, winning the open district formerly held by retiring U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack after defeating Joseph Moakley by 10% in the multi-candidate Democratic primary.[10]
In the 1971 mayoral election White won a second term, again defeating Hicks, this time by 40,000 votes. Hicks in 1972 would lose her congressional seat by two percentage points and 3,428 votes in a post-census revised district and a four-candidate general election that included a rematch with Moakley running as an Independent. Hicks was re-elected to the Boston City Council in 1973, remaining there until she retired from public office in 1981.[10]
In the 1975 mayoral election, White barely defeated State Senator Joe Timilty, the year after the start of court-ordered school desegregation and busing.[5] The 1979 mayoral election was also close, against the same opponent.[4] White did not run again in the 1983 mayoral election, which was won by then-city councilor Raymond Flynn.[4][5][12]
Administration [ edit ]
Mayor White’s early administrations were noteworthy for the racial and ethnic diversity of the senior aides and staff to the Mayor, with many staffers subsequently going on to influential positions and elected office.[4][13]
White decentralized municipal government by establishing in the early years of his tenure in office a number of “Little City Halls” in local neighborhoods, giving more influence to local leadership and ethnic and racial minorities to access city hall bureaucracy, but following the narrowly won election in 1975 against Joseph Timilty during the Boston school busing crisis, closed them, re-centralizing power in Boston City Hall and creating a political machine intentionally modeled on the one headed by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, with ward lieutenants empowered to reward White supporters with city jobs and city contracts.[4][5]
Peaceful city after death of Martin Luther King Jr. [ edit ]
In the fourth month of White's first term, on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, touching off disturbances in the African-American Roxbury section of Boston that same evening which did not spread to other parts of the city.[14] On April 5, 5,000 people marched from Boston Common to Post Office Square in King's memory.[15] James Brown had a previously scheduled concert set for that same evening in Boston Garden.[5] White's chief of police was concerned about allowing 15,000 people to attend the concert so close to downtown, saying he didn't think he could keep the city safe.[14] White originally intended to cancel the concert entirely, but members of his staff, and Tom Atkins, black city councillor from Roxbury and local NAACP leader, elected with White in 1967, warned of rioting if concertgoers arriving at the arena found it cancelled, persuaded White to allow the show to go on.[8][14][15]
On such short notice, Atkins and White administrators persuaded Brown and the local Boston public television station WGBH-TV to broadcast the concert.[5][14] The White administration also appealed to community leaders to help keep the peace, and also encouraged people to stay home and watch the concert on television. White appeared on stage with James Brown to appeal to the audience, and to the entire city via television, to remember and maintain King's peaceful vision.[7][16][17]
So all I ask you tonight is this: to let us look at each other, here in the Garden and back at home, and pledge that no matter what any other community might do, we in Boston will honor Dr. King in peace. - Kevin White from the stage of Boston Garden[17]
WGBH immediately rebroadcast the concert twice more that night, and people apparently stayed inside to continue watching it.[14] While many cities, including Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Detroit and Oakland, were beset with civil disturbances, rioting and fires after King's death, the city of Boston was spared from widespread disturbances.[15]
White secured $60,000 from the Boston City Council to make up for the loss of ticket revenue to the performers resulting from his efforts to discourage attendance at the close-to-downtown arena at this volatile moment. Only 2,000 had attended the sold-out show, in a venue that had a capacity of 15,000.[6][14][15] Individuals with Brown's entourage state that only $10,000 made it to Brown's production company.[14][18]
History of non-leadership by city elites on civil rights [ edit ]
Barney Frank, who worked as White's chief of staff in City Hall during his first mayoral term, has described White's being dubbed "Mayor Black", because he was the first Boston mayor to admit there was a racial-discrimination problem.[19] White administration staff member, and subsequent Boston City Council President, Bruce Bolling, describes a leadership vacuum on the issue of race, and that for many years "the established institutions — the City Council, the School Committee, the mayor, the business community, the philanthropic community, the religious community — no one weighed in in any responsible way to address this issue of school desegregation."[20]
I don’t know where he [Kevin White] was when we were having the people in South Boston and East Boston and other places who were railing out against the desegregation order. I think it's important for people to understand that the leadership in the white community was very scarce around this issue. - Mel King[8]
This elite leadership vacuum would leave Mayor White without the public community leadership and visible alliances and collaboration desirable to peacefully implement new policies necessary to comply with a later court order to desegregate the schools.[20] The Boston School Committee was independently elected, and not under the control of Mayor White, and had put into place de jure segregation and discrimination policies in the operation and funding of schools in Boston, and this was a source of great frustration to Mayor White.[21]
The city administration did not move on the issue of unfair treatment of minorities in the school system, and compliance with anti-segregation laws and decisions, until the a federal court required the city to do so, via a court order.[8]
School desegregation crisis [ edit ]
The state of Massachusetts had enacted in 1965 the "Racial Imbalance Act", the first of its kind in the United States. The law required school districts to desegregate, otherwise state funding for education would be withheld from the school district. The law was opposed by many in Boston, including the Boston School Committee, as well as many especially in working-class districts in Irish-American-majority South Boston.[5]
On June 21, 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity issued a decision in Morgan v. Hennigan that found that the Boston School Committee had followed an intentional policy of segregating the city's public schools by race, including building new schools and school annexes in overcrowded white-majority districts, instead of making use of empty seats and classrooms in districts with large minority populations. As a remedy, Garrity ordered the city's schools desegregated, leading to a system of desegregation busing.[22]
In Phase I of the plan, Judge Garrity followed a busing plan previously drawn up by Charles Glenn, the director of the Bureau of Equal Educational Opportunity within the Massachusetts Board of Education, that required schools with a population greater than 50% non-white to be balanced by other races; the initial Phase I plan included only 80 schools, amounting to 40 percent of the Boston Public School system.[23] The Glenn plan had been originally constructed in response to an earlier Massachusetts state lawsuit between the Massachusetts Board of Education and the Boston School Committee. In that earlier lawsuit, the Boston School Committee had sued the Massachusetts Board of Education for the Board's withholding state funds for the Committee's refusal to conform to the requirements of the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act.[24] Ultimately, among the Boston districts most affected were West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, the North End, Charlestown, South Boston and Dorchester.[23]
The desegregation plan in general, and busing in particular, was met with an onslaught of protest. The integration plan provoked fierce criticism and led to months of racially motivated violence, with attacks at City Hall and South Boston and other city high schools, with dozens injured. In some white neighborhoods, protesters threw stones at arriving school buses arriving with black children from other parts of the city. White directed that police escort buses, and also coordinated with state officials to bring in several hundred state police to keep order.[5] On October 15, 1974, the Massachusetts National Guard was deployed by Republican Governor Frank Sargent to Boston to keep order in schools.[23]
One famous incident in 1976 was documented in a news photograph entitled The Soiling of Old Glory. During one demonstration outside Boston City Hall, black lawyer and businessman Ted Landsmark was attacked with an American flag by a white teenager.[20][25][26]
Rolling Stones [ edit ]
In 1972, White made news when the Rhode Island State Police arrested members of The Rolling Stones immediately prior to a concert appearance in the Boston Garden. That evening, a riot was underway in the South End and White needed to move police officers from the Garden to address the disturbance.[27] Fearing unrest among the 15,000 concertgoers if the Stones were not permitted to perform, White persuaded the Rhode Island authorities to release the |
4.5 per cent of games in the Premier League in 2015/16, with that increasing to 21 per cent, a significant increase this term.
What's more, teams using a three-man defence have a better win percentage (47.3 per cent) than teams using a four-man defence (36.7 per cent), though much of that has been down to Chelsea's success in the setup. That being said, their strongest weapon has been used against them this season.
Tottenham ended their 13-match winning run by using a three-man defence at White Hart Lane back in January, while Jose Mourinho fought fire with fire with a similar setup at Old Trafford on Sunday, with that the first time Manchester United have been deployed in a three-man backline in England's top tier under the Portuguese manager.
It's far from perfect, but the set-up is evidently having the desired effect for Premier League teams, with managers favouring the system as it allows their side to keep numbers at the back and in midfield, yet provide width in the form of wing-backs.
The deployment of a lone striker has also helped in that regard, as managers know they can flood the midfield to either solidify or increase the number of goalscoring options from deep.
In a similar way to the 4-2-3-1 formation becoming flavour of the month after the 2010 World Cup, a three-man defence looks set to do similar in the Premier League as managers look to evolve and keep with the trend in a quest for glory.
Conte's success with the system looks to be setting the standard and it wouldn't be a great shock to see a three-man defence used even more frequently next season.UBC graduate journalism students Heba Elasaad (far left), Krysia Collyer (second from left), Blake Sifton (centre) and Prof. Dan McKinney (far right) spent 10 days in February in Ghana shooting a documentary on e-waste. ((Courtesy of Blake Sifton))
A hard drive containing information about multimillion-dollar U.S. defence contracts was obtained in Ghana by a group of Vancouver journalism students as they probed what happens to developed nations' discarded and donated electronics.
"It's pretty shocking," said Blake Sifton, one of three UBC graduate journalism students who purchased the device containing information related to contracts between the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and military contractor Northrop Grumman. The hard drive cost the students just $40.
"You'd think a security contractor that constantly deals with very secret proprietary information would probably want to wipe their drives," Sifton said Tuesday.
He visited Ghana for 10 days in February with classmates Heba Elasaad and Krysia Collyer and Prof. Dan McKinney while making the documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground for an international reporting course.
The finished documentary looks at problems arising as discarded computers, televisions and other "e-waste" make their way from North America and Europe to the markets and slums of West Africa. It was broadcast Tuesday on the season finale of the PBS program Frontline/World.
The team bought seven hard drives at a bustling market in Tema, a major port near the capital city of Accra where a lot of electronic waste from Europe and North America enters Africa. One of the unformatted drives contained personal information and photos from a family in the U.K. Another was from New Zealand, and another contained the U.S. security data.
Special skills or software weren't required to access the data, said Peter Klein, who teaches the international reporting course and supervised the documentary project.
"We plugged them in and started reading files …. They were just sitting there."
Northrop Grumman declined to be interviewed by the students, but said it was looking into how the hard drive got to the Ghanaian market, and asked the students to return it, which they did not.
In a statement emailed to CBC News Tuesday evening, the company said it has a detailed procedure for disposing of equipment such as hard drives.
"Based on the documents we were shown, we believe this hard drive may have been stolen after one of our asset-disposal vendors took possession of the unit," the company said, adding that "no company can inoculate itself completely against crime."
Though the export of e-waste is technically banned by international treaties, it often winds up on long journeys to the developing world, the students found.
Some students in the class followed the e-waste to China and India — countries where e-waste is known to be dumped.
Many people aren't aware of the other path e-waste can take — to Africa, via donations of used electronics, Klein said.
Sifton, who graduated in May, said many exporters know that most computers they bring into Ghana aren't working.
Parts that work may be sold at the market, while the rest ends up in a nearby dump known as Agbogbloshie.
Charred toxic wasteland
'It's incredibly difficult to breathe' at the dump, said Blake Sifton, as up to seven fires are typically spewing 'black, sticky, acrid smoke' at any one time. ((UBC Graduate School of Journalism)) "It's essentially this charred toxic wasteland," Sifton recalled Tuesday. "The ground is just scorched absolutely everywhere. Everywhere you walk, there's shards of plastic and metal and glass protruding from the ground."
Boys scramble about in flip-flops, helping young men smash piles of old computer monitors, televisions, and radios, rip out the wires, and burn them in fires fed by insulation from old refrigerators. In that way, they extract lumps of copper that they sell for less than 50 cents a kilogram, Sifton said.
"It's incredibly difficult to breathe because there's usually between five and six and seven fires going at any time …. and there's tons and tons of this black, sticky, acrid smoke coming out of them."
After visiting the dump, Sifton would spend 20 minutes trying to clean the dark, smoky residue off his skin.
Separated from the dump by a toxic, lifeless river was a shantytown of metal and wood shacks. Despite the horrific living conditions, however, the residents were very generous and welcoming, Sifton recalled.
People who donate their computers typically don't picture them ending up in either Agbogbloshie or the market in Tema, but put to good use.
Sifton said he did visit universities in Ghana equipped with computers that would have been unaffordable if they hadn't been donated.
He fears that people will increasingly start donating computers without the hard drives, rendering them useless and compounding the problem.
Hard drives can be safely donated: experts
One of the hard drives contained personal information and photos of a family in the U.K. Another contained sensitive data about U.S. defence contracts. ((UBC Graduate School of Journalism)) Fiaaz Walji, senior director of sales for Websense Inc., a computer, internet and data security firm, said the case involving the Northrop Grumman data is scary, and when people don't erase their hard drives before disposal, "the risks are huge."
"If you look at some of the bad guys … this is part of what they do," he said. "They go and scour hard drives and look for information," such as personal information that can be used in identity theft and fraud.
Nevertheless, Walji doesn't think it's necessary to destroy the hard drive.
"That doesn't help from a recycling perspective."
He said high-level data wiping methods that write over the old data should be sufficient.
Cliff Missen, director of a project that has donated hundreds of computers to African universities, said he has never heard of anyone in Africa recovering data from a hard drive that has been wiped three or four times, even though it's theoretically possible.
Missen's Widernet project at the University of Iowa has donated hundreds of computers, mainly from corporate donors, to universities in Ethiopia, Liberia and Nigeria. Most arrive with "just about everything" on the hard drive, but Widernet erases them, refurbishes the computers with extra memory, and packages up spare parts, before shipping them off.
Even though the computers are only delivered as part of computer training programs, the cost of security means some are stolen and may not end up where they were intended, he said.
Consumers should be vigilant: Sifton
Meanwhile, Sifton hopes people won't get too caught up in the cybersecurity element of the story his team has been trying to tell.
"The big picture here is that there's thousands of tonnes of toxic waste — because we want the newer computer, newer TV, or the newer cellphone — being sent and poisoning children in Ghana," he said.
He wants people to think about whether they really need a new, bigger, flat-screen TV before throwing their old one out.
But he acknowledged that when electronics do get too old, it isn't easy for consumers to know what to do with them.
"You don't really know where your computer's going to end up, even if you have the best intentions. It's hard …. I just hope people will think twice and maybe be a little more vigilant when they're donating their computer."It is world Vegan month...so I thought, what better way to celebrate, than make a decadent vegan cake! What first came to mind was a turtle cake...decadent layers of gooey caramel and chocolate laced with pecans and sandwiched between moist chocolate cake...the type that makes you drool just thinking about it. This cake would be inspired by one I had as a child. My Mom used to take me to a restaurant in St. Paul called Cafe Latte which is famous for their turtle cake, and it is pretty magnificent with all of it's layers. I always had to have a nice big piece when she took me there. But of course theirs is not vegan, so I wanted to create my own veganized version of this fabulous cake that tasted just as decadent, and gooey in every way.
I already had a dark chocolate cake recipe that I was going to use, and a delicious chocolate fudge frosting, but what was in question was the caramel. I wanted a maple caramel...I had added maple to the other components of the cake, maple sugar and extract in the cake layers and maple in the frosting. But I had never made a vegan caramel before, and I was going to try. I didn't have a specific recipe, and my first attempt failed. I burned the sugar, and it separated from the coconut oil I had used in place of butter creating a cement like mess in my stockpot...and making me very very frustrated. But me not being one to give up started over with a new recipe. This one used coconut milk in place of the heavy cream, and earth balance in place of the butter. I had my fingers crossed and was praying that it would turn out as I finished it off with the coconut milk...and it did! It was delicious! I had forgotten how good home made caramel could be!
I assembled my cake, and I was so anxious to dive in that it only sat for about as long as it took me to take the photos of it. It was heavenly...decadent, rich, gooey, the toasted pecans mingled in with the brownie like cake and fudge frosting with the salted maple caramel! Party in my mouth! You definitely could not tell that it was vegan. The maple was definitley a good choice to pair with the pecans and chocolate. If you need a decadent dessert, this would be a must...and I guess you could use store bought caramel if you don't want to deal with making it, just add a little maple extract and sea salt. Happy Vegan Month!
Vegan Maple Turtle Cake
Makes 1 6 inch 4 layer cake
2 6 inch cake pans
Cake:
1 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour (if not gluten free, whole wheat pastry flour may be used instead)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I use ghirardelli)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 cup maple sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil, warmed to liquid
1 cup light coconut milk
1 Tbsp maple extract
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
Salted Maple Caramel:
2 cups maple sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup full fat coconut milk
2 T. Earth balance butter
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp maple extract
2 tsp sea salt
Frosting:
1 1/2 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp coconut milk
1 1/2 cups sifted cocoa powder, or more if needed
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp maple extract
Topping:Washington is a city of paper, specifically of letters. Congresspeople write letters to presidents. Agencies write letters to other agencies. Letters are an art form in D.C. — and the letter now blanketing Capitol Hill is a masterpiece of deceit.
Forty-three former Democratic officeholders signed this letter, which demands Congress pass trade deals with Peru, Panama and Colombia — pacts that will expand the job-killing, wage-destroying North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The letter employs a corporate lobbyist's smooth touch. As I learned, that is no coincidence.
NAFTA expansion will "support jobs in the United States," write the 43 Democrats, without mentioning that NAFTA resulted in the net loss of thousands of American jobs.
Another passage says Latin American labor abuses are "serious matters." But it says Congress must ratify these new NAFTAs anyway, even though they include no enforceable labor protections.
This letter materialized just as a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll detailed widespread opposition to America's current trade policy. Nonetheless, those pushing the deals held the letter up as a trophy.
The conservative Weekly Standard said that "former Democratic congressmen, diplomats, and policy advisers, plus retired senators" were taking a courageous stand. The New York Times' pro-NAFTA editorial board hailed the signatories as "Democratic leading lights." The Competitive Enterprise Institute — the industry-funded group famous for praising global warming — reprinted excerpts of the letter on its website. And President Bush cited it in a speech last week, specifically thanking former Democratic Sen. Bennett Johnston for signing.
When I heard Bush utter the name, I realized he was talking about the same Bennett Johnston who heads a lobbying firm representing clients in the energy, manufacturing and defense industries — industries empowered to cut costs when such NAFTA-style pacts aid outsourcing, depress wages and diminish environmental standards.
I wondered: How many others on this letter are paid by industries that stand to make a buck off these trade policies?
Checking federal records, I discovered that the letter's first signatory, James Bacchus, is a former Clinton trade official now employed at convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's old firm. Bacchus helped the firm this year rake in $40,000 from a client accused by watchdog groups of running sweatshops abroad. Another signatory, Ira Shapiro, is at the same firm and is also a former Clinton trade official. He lobbies for Dole Foods, whose South American operations will undoubtedly benefit from the NAFTA expansion.
Going through more signatories, I kept finding the same thing. Stuart Eizenstat, a Clinton deputy Treasury secretary, now deals with "international business transactions and regulations on behalf of U.S. companies and others around the world," according to his corporate law firm's website. Former Democratic Rep. Cal Dooley is the lobbyist for large food, beverage and consumer products companies. And former Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McLarty provides "advocacy services to U.S. and multinational businesses involved in Mexico and Latin America," according to the website of his private investment fund.
In sum, the majority of those who signed are lobbyists, corporate lawyers or business consultants representing interests with a financial stake in the trade policies the letter endorses. Yet, this letter has been trumpeted by the media without a single mention of that inconvenient truth.
The whitewashing says a lot about the Washington press corps. But the affair says even more about the struggles within the Democratic Party.
The party of the little guy may have won Congress in 2006 by promising to reform America's trade policy and curtail lobbyists' power, but the party is under assault by mercenaries cashing in their public service for the riches of private influence peddling. These shills present their reverse Robin Hood ideology as altruism. But they are really just leveraging their billing as "leading lights" to represent Big Money interests — all under the media-provided guise of objective statesmanship.
In response to the push for the new NAFTAs, at least a few principled business leaders are saying enough is enough. Private equity executive Leo Hindery, a longtime Democratic fundraiser, told me in a recent interview, "The wealthy are now a political constituency unto themselves that is decidedly nonpartisan.
"Those who have personal skin in the trade policies game can't really be trusted to present things objectively or unselfishly," he said. "These folks are only interested in keeping the current system going and even expanding it, as grossly unfair to workers as it has become."
Thanks to Washington's invisible culture of corruption, their schemes may yet succeed.
Writer and political analyst David Sirota is the bestselling author of "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government & How We Take It Back." His daily blog can be found at www.workingassetsblog.com/sirota. To find out more about David Sirota and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.Only five years in, and Deepika Padukone appears to have figured it out: “It hits you all of a sudden one day, the realisation that no amount of magazine covers and red-carpet appearances will get you very far, if you don’t have solid performances to show for yourself.” As wild-child Veronica, who spirals into a self-destructive mess when her love is thwarted in Homi Adajania’s recent hit Cocktail, this former model from Bangalore has finally put the ‘act’ into ‘actress’. As if confirming her ascent to the league of leading ladies with promise, she was signed up by Sanjay Leela Bhansali to star in his Gujarat-set Romeo & Juliet adaptation Ram Leela, barely hours after the ink had dried on those rave reviews for her performance in Cocktail.
Dressed in a blood red shirt and pair of white jeans that hug her curves, Deepika towers above most others at an art gallery in Bandra, Mumbai, her two-inch heels creating the impression that she’s literally walking on air. Complain that you have to look up to her now, and she laughs, but only slightly, as if she’s heard this joke a few times already. “I can’t wear heels in films… have you seen how tall my co-stars are? I look forward to days like this when I’m not shooting; these are the only times I can wear them,” she says.
Just to get it straight, Deepika isn’t here to admire a Husain or Souza; it just so happens that the gallery rents out space for television interviews, and she’s here to participate in one of those. Even as the crew adjusts the lighting and locks their frames, the 26-year-old star settles into a sofa to talk about her career reinvention with me. She does, after all, have a promising year ahead, with work to do for filmmakers as diverse as Abbas-Mustan, Ayan Mukherjee, Bhansali and Rohit Shetty, not to mention a role opposite Rajinikanth in the motion-capture fantasy Kochadaiyaan.
Five years is not a long time in Bollywood, where actors—particularly heartthrobs—invariably find themselves spending the early phase of their career merely learning the ropes and figuring out their strengths. Few—Ranbir Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan come to mind—burn up the screen in their very first film. Others inevitably require more time. Given that she had no familial connections to the movie business, and was raised in Bangalore by parents who emphasised the importance of participating in sports aside from excelling in academics, Deepika hasn’t done too badly.
How many newcomers can boast of having been handpicked by an A-list filmmaker to play the female lead opposite superstar Shah Rukh Khan at 21? Making her debut in Farah Khan’s retro comic-thriller Om Shanti Om, in a double role—as an ethereal 70s movie star who is betrayed and killed by her filmmaker boyfriend, and a flaky current-day starlet who is groomed to avenge the actress’ death—Deepika went from virtual anonymity to nationwide stardom in a matter of days.
Of the 11 films she’s done since her blockbuster bow, it’s interesting to note that she’s mixed the unapologetically commercial with the relatively challenging. So for every Bachna Ae Haseeno, Chandni Chowk To China or Housefull that stares at you from her CV, there’s a Lafangey Parindey, a Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, and an Aarakshan that stares right back.
None, however, worked for her in the way that Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal did. Making the most of her yet-unseen potential, this double-stranded love story required her to summon a palette of emotions—confidence, vulnerability, bitterness and sheer lovesickness—to play Meera, a practical-minded girl who breaks up with her boyfriend amicably when they realise their careers are pulling them in different directions, and that a long-distance relationship is unviable. The film’s director, Ali, has said it was a risk casting an actress as raw as Deepika in the part, “but she was a revelation”.
It was Ali again who was instrumental in her landing the gig that, by all accounts, has changed her life. When Adajania consulted Ali on casting the part of bindaas girl Veronica in Cocktail (which Ali scripted), the Love Aaj Kal director recommended his ‘Meera’. “I didn’t think I had it in me when Homi narrated the role,” Deepika remembers, “But when Imtiaz insisted that he was confident I could do it, I decided to risk it.”
It’s unfair to talk of Cocktail—and the praise that came her way for her uninhibited performance in the film—without bringing up the flak its makers received for writing that regressive arc to her character… the overnight mellowing of the party girl, who trades her spunk for some good ol’ fashioned traditionalism in order to bag her man. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, choosing her words carefully before presenting her defence, Deepika insists that the film is a reflection of our times: “So many of my single girlfriends are independent and bohemian and modern, and they’re forced to change the way they dress or speak when their parents are looking for a boy for them. I also know enough men who like to date free-spirited girls, but who look for exactly the opposite kind of person when it’s time to settle down.” Acknowledging that what she’s saying is delicate, yet making it clear this is all she will say on the subject, Deepika adds with finality: “It is what it is! Imtiaz and Homi were clear they wanted to present things the way they are, and not the way they perhaps should be.”
Whatever critics may have made of the film, Deepika is clear it has been a turning point for her. “Suddenly I feel the energy around me has changed.” For one, people—and the media—are talking about something other than her romantic liaisons. “The response to Cocktail has reaffirmed my faith in the fact that it’s really the films you do and the characters you play, and what you make of those parts, that ultimately defines who you are and how people perceive you,” she says. “I don’t worry about tabloid stories anymore. I don’t care who they’re linking me with.”
In case you care, they’re linking her to Ranveer Singh, whom she stars with in Bhansali’s film. The two have been spotted together at coffee shops and at cinema halls. But Singh has rubbished the rumours, claiming they’re only getting to know each other before diving into the romantic film they will spend over a hundred days shooting together.
When I run into Deepika and Ranveer at a preview of Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s sister Bela Segal, there is no awkwardness whatsoever. None of those guilty ‘oh-shit-we’ve-been-caught’ looks.
During my conversation with the actress, no mention is made of Kingfisher scion Siddhartha Mallya, whom she was reportedly dating for two years before the couple broke up earlier this year. She will admit, however, that she’s currently single and isn’t looking for love right now. “I think I’m scared of being hurt again,” she says, and leaves it at that.
Deepika definitely appears more comfortable talking about Ranbir Kapoor, whom she’s working with in Wake Up Sid director Ayan Mukherjee’s next, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. Ask if it’s difficult to muster romantic chemistry with a former lover, and she insists it’s not: “We have no emotional baggage left over from that time. Ayan, who’s a friend of both of ours separately, wouldn’t have cast us together if he thought we’d be awkward.” She has previously said that Ranbir and she became lovers before becoming friends. Now they’re finally good friends and nothing more.
It’s harder establishing friendships with other actresses, particularly one’s contemporaries, she’ll admit. Makes sense, given that there are only around five top heroines who vie for every significant project. “This is an extremely competitive field and it would be naïve to think two actresses can be best friends. But it’s not difficult to be warm and cordial to each other.”
Deepika, who describes herself as “a sportsperson at heart” (her father is celebrated badminton champion Prakash Padukone; the actress herself played state-level badminton in school), says it’s important to be ambitious and aggressive, “but only on the field”. Her background in sports, she claims, has contributed to the shaping of her personality. “There were times I played matches against my best friend and I beat her—or lost to her—and then we’d go back to being best friends and we’d share the same room again,” she remembers. While it’s virtually impossible to expect that level of camaraderie in Bollywood, Deepika says she does share “comfortable vibes” with Priyanka Chopra, Vidya Balan and Kareena Kapoor.
Not that acquiring the title of Miss Congeniality is something she worries herself with. “I’ve got to a place where filmmakers trust me with challenging roles, and my only priority is to do justice to them,” she says. The television crew, which has been waiting patiently for us to wrap up our chat, makes sad puppy dog faces in her direction, and Deepika asks if I have all I need. Turning the question back to her, I enquire if she’s satisfied with where she finds herself currently. “I’m pleased with where I am, hardly satisfied… long way to go,” she says, and then adds with unquestionable sincerity, “I’m here for the long haul.”Karen Axmacher hugs her grandsons Justin Smith, 11, (left) and Jordon Smith, 15 (not seen), after a 14-year-old student shot two other male teen students in the cafeteria of Madison Jr./Sr. High School on Monday. (Photo: Cara Owsley)
MADISON TWP. — It started out like any other Monday.
Zayd Ahmed, a junior at Madison High School, was printing out a resume in the library. Jordan Eslick, a sophomore, was listening to music in gym class.
Then, chaos.
“He just pulled out the gun and started firing,” a 911 caller told police around 11:15 a.m. The fear in the caller’s voice came through in heavy breaths.
Ahmed walked out of the library when he heard the first shot. Then, nothing. Then, “bang bang bang bang.”
He ran back to the library and huddled with other students in a storage closet. His legs wouldn’t stop shaking.
Elsewhere, teachers ushered Eslick into a locker room. He didn’t hear the shots and didn’t know what was happening. He was scared. He called his father.
Noah Sheely, a freshman, grabbed a hammer from his engineering classroom and ran into what he described as a walk-in closet with the rest of his class.
CLOSE A 14-year-old male student is accused of shooting two other male teen students in the cafeteria of a Butler County school about 11:15 a.m. Monday. Provided
Outside, Chuck Veidt, a 58-year-old man whose property abuts the school, was tending to his 102-year-old neighbor. He saw sheriff’s deputies with rifles running through his backyard.
It would be an hour before school officials announced the situation was under control. In reality, it only lasted seconds, but those seconds will be seared into the minds of Madison students.
James Austin Hancock, 14, is accused of bringing a.380-caliber handgun to school. Officials don’t know where he got it, but he had it with him in school all morning, according to Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones.
Around 11:15 a.m., the suspect started shooting in the lunch room, authorities said. The school resource officer had left the cafeteria only minutes earlier. He came running back as he heard the shots. After shooting two boys, the suspect ran out of the school. He tossed the gun away at some point before deputies arrested him, the sheriff said.
Cameron Smith, 15, and Cooper Caffery, 14, were struck by bullets, authorities said.
Brant Murray, 14, and Katherine Doucette, 14, were not struck but were injured in the chaos. Jones said they were likely hit by shrapnel from the gun or were hurt trying to run away.
Hancock faces multiple felony counts including attempted murder, authorities said.
None of the injuries are considered life-threatening. Dr. Peter Ekeh at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton said he believes both students who were shot will make a full recovery. They should be released in a few days.
"You see these things all over the country," Jones said. "You think it can't happen to you, but it does."
A sleepy town and sudden violence
To understand fully what happened on Monday, you must understand Madison Township.
This is a town of less 9,000 people. The elementary school, middle school and high school are all located in the same small complex. In the township administration building, a deer head is mounted on Administrator Todd Farler’s office wall. Residents described the township as both sleepy and country.
In short, this a town where everyone knows everyone. That made Monday’s shooting all the more puzzling.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the suspect brought a gun to school and fired it at other students. Sheriff Jones told reporters deputies had an idea about the motive but declined to release it.
Jones also said officials did not know how the student got the gun.
Students Sheely and Eslick both knew Hancock from wrestling. Neither could think of anything that would have provoked this.
Eslick described Hancock as a “laid-back kid” and said he thought he got along with everyone.
When reached by The Enquirer, Hancock’s wrestling coach declined to comment. Stan Oligee said the incident was “too raw” to talk about.
Rynn Grewe, 15, a freshman at Madison said she took the same school bus as Hancock.
"I never would have pictured him doing that," Grewe said. "Every time I saw him on the bus or in the hall, I never would have pictured him doing anything like that."
Relatives converge on school seeking loved ones
Hancock is charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault, one count of inducing panic and making terrorist threats, all felonies. He is being held at the Butler County Juvenile Detention Center.
Lockdown at the school district was lifted shortly after 12:45 p.m. Roads to the school backed up with parents and relatives trying to get to the school to pick up students.
Bob Hollister, of Trenton, has two grandchildren in the district. He parked on the side of the road in his daughter’s van and watched the traffic pile up. His daughter was at the school trying to get her children.
Hollister described the scene the only way he could: chaotic. He said his daughter wasn’t able to immediately reach his grandson at the high school. She cried as news reports rolled in. She called him about 100 times, Hollister said.
“It was terrible,” he said.
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Bree Martin, a third-grade student at Madison Elementary School, hugged a relative and started crying after she was picked up. Martin said she heard the gunshots.
Madison Local Schools is a district of about 1,500 students. The junior/senior high school has about 750 students, according to the school’s webpage. When school buses left the building Monday afternoon, only one or two students still needed rides.
Officials have cancelled class on Tuesday, although staff will still report to begin compiling a plan to help students deal with the aftermath of the violence.
Ohio passed a law in 2007 requiring schools to file safety plans with the state. It’s the what-if blueprint for any kind of emergency – a tornado, an oil spill, a nearby train wreck or, as in Monday’s case, a shooting.
Those plans are online and accessible to law enforcement, so when officers are responding to a scene, they have a better idea what to expect.
Ohio school shootings
The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety says there have been at least 170 shootings at schools in the U.S. since 2013. Madison now is the most recent. In Ohio, the group also counts:
A 2013 incident at La Salle High School in Cincinnati, in which a 17-year-old student attempted suicide in a classroom, using a gun he brought from home. The student survived.
A 2014 incident in Kent, in which a 24-year-old shot himself in the hand during an argument with two women on campus.
A 2014 incident in Lyndhurst, in which two 17-year-old boys were arrested for shooting at each other in a school parking lot. Neither was injured.
A 2015 incident at Ohio State University, in which a 63-year-old former college security officer shot and killed himself at a college-run art gallery.
A 2015 drive-by shooting at a Cleveland elementary school. A 22-year-old man was killed and a 26-year-old man injured in that incident, according to Everytown.
Enquirer journalists Hannah Sparling, Cameron Knight, Patrick Brennan, Cara Owsley and Carrie Cochran contributed.
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1oJwtekThis week, the Pakistani Taliban attacked a school again. Their gunmen went from classroom to classroom, mowing down young students and teachers alike. The death toll was around 132 children and 9 adults. This crime occurred in the same moral universe as Afghan Taliban attacks on civilians, Islamic State atrocities and the endless tally of suicide bombings by various Jihadis. The same moral universe boasts non-Muslim religious actors as well, including Hindu attacks on mosques in India and religiously-justified Christian massacres of nonbelievers not so long ago.
The atrocities committed in the name of religion beg the question: Who needs an elaborate religious code of rules to know right from wrong? Only sociopaths, I should think. My Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘sociopath’ as “someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people and does not feel guilty about such behavior.”
Especially in the Middle East, people think atheists lack a code of conduct that religion provides, including fear of God should someone transgress His rules of behavior. People commonly seem to think that atheists reject ethics and morality in their denial of God, while those of another religion at least try to be moral and ethical but often fall short because they rely on the ‘wrong’ code.
"Religiously devout" should not be synonymous with'moral' or 'good,' however. All it really means is that someone is good at observing the rituals and rules of a religion. Good people, on the other hand, simply know when something is wrong – they can recognize cruelty and evil when they see it. They refrain from inflicting evil on others not because they fear punishment from God or remember the Sura or Biblical passage forbidding it, but simply by virtue of a functioning moral compass. Those who are religious may turn to their religious code for further elaboration about their ethics, while those who are not religious may believe in a sort of natural law concerning such things. Many others do not even think it through so much – they just know right from wrong in their heart.
The sociopaths, on the other hand, need to be restrained by explicit religious codes and laws. Even in the presence of such restraints, however, they appear quite capable of interpreting things to suit their preferences. Does your religion forbid the intentional killing of innocents? No problem! Redefine them as non-civilians or martyrs for the cause! Do you want slaves? Abraham and the Prophet had them!
The theologians with a functioning moral compass, on the other hand, manage to find in their diverse religious texts a deeper meaning exhorting kindness and tolerance. They discount passages that seem to permit evil by looking at them “in context.” The sociopaths look for the letter of the law. They work hard to indoctrinate people with a functioning, natural moral compass to accept the evil they wish to commit. The process is perhaps similar to how most army recruits must be trained intensively and harshly if they are to set aside their natural reluctance to kill.
A good example comes from one of the Islamic State’s recent pamphlets (December 2014), “Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves." Although the loathsome document is too long to reproduce here, two of the questions and answers deserve a closer look:
"Question 3: Can all unbelieving women be taken captive?” “There is no dispute among the scholars that it is permissible to capture unbelieving women [who are characterized by] original unbelief [kufr asli], such as the kitabiyat [women from among the People of the Book, i.e. Jews and Christians] and poly |
is usually regarded as a solo pursuit, and the essence of any ryu is that one trains for the ryu, a still-feudal entity that strives to survive together. This is admittedly somewhat abstract, so here is an example. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century is Peter Matthiessen, and one of his greatest books is The Snow Leopard. The blurb on Amazon states: In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. It is a stunningly beautiful book. Matthiessen went on this journey shortly after the tragic death of his wife, and devastated, it was an attempt, in part, to recover himself. I passed the book to my mother, who read it, admired much about it, but handed it back to me with contempt, saying, “He left his child behind.” He had a young son who had lost his mother, something even more devastating than losing a mate, and he left him in the boarding school he was enrolled in to go on his spiritual quest, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For me, this sums up the flaw in the idea of self-perfection as an ideal. The samurai trained to be worthy of serving something greater than himself, and the ryu is this, just as one’s family is. The degree to which one commits to this (and the unavoidable tensions that are thus engendered), tempers a man or woman far more than the solitary pursuit of enlightenment, no matter how beautiful the scenery.
Another viewpoint is that one is studying a combative art, and the ryu has either impeccably preserved a methodology for the use of certain weapon(s) for close combat, or continues to hone and polish those techniques so that they are even better each generation. If, however, one truly wants to train for combat, should one not be involved in modern military training? Or, if one is concerned on a personal level about home invasion, should one not spend more training on use of a firearm than a sword? There is no doubt that information is preserved within some ryu that is eminently useful today, were it adapted to modern times and modern equipment. But to the degree that this is so, why not do just that rather than practicing with archaic weaponry in scenarios that will likely never occur?
No simple answer then is satisfactory. Here’s mine. I train for the ryu. In doing so, the ryu becomes me. I am required to maintain a body of traditional knowledge, and struggle that nothing handed down is lost. At the same time, as I become more knowledgeable, I must ruthlessly attack contaminants that have infected the ryu by superficial creativity or mistakes of understanding on the part of my predecessors. (If they damaged this entity which we all love, I am responsible, at my level, to fix it). To the degree that enrollment within the ryu affects me in ways I don’t like (and it certainly has), this creates a fundamental internal tension that I must deal with: in doing so, this tempers me, and I, the product of this struggle, contribute ‘me’ further to the ryu. Since the ryu are combative arts (at least the one’s I have studied), then I am required to become stronger and stronger, but because they are historical entities, confined by culture and by the weaponry they used, there is a ‘frame’ within which I – and the ryu – must function. There is no hard rule here, but the deeper one is within the ryu, the clearer this becomes. Or as Nitta sensei of Toda-ha Buko-ryu said to me on several occasions, “それはちょっと武甲流らしゅくありません。As best as I can translate this, she was not criticizing the efficacy of what I was doing; rather, she was saying, “That doesn’t have the ‘air’ of Toda-ha Buko-ryu.”
With all of that, should one study more than one ryu? I can think of a myriad of answers to that:
There are often two or more ryu that became associated long in the past. An example that comes to mind is Shosho-ryu yawara and Muhen-ryu naginatajutsu. I’ve not looked at their densho in any detail, but I’m sure they have different lineage and many different features particularly at the gokui level. However, they have been together in the same locale, exchanged students and shared teachers for so long that they are one meta-ryu, ‘martial arts of Morioka.’ They are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. In a case like this, I cannot imagine there is any deficit to enrollment in both, as long as one has the time to do them justice. (The five ryu that Kuroda Tetsuzan maintains is another example; they are, in essence, all Kuroda-ryu). A similar example of the item above are the ‘fusoku-ryu‘ (subsidiary schools) that have become branches of a main school, even though they don’t share the same founder. A good example of this would be the fusoku-ryu of Shinto Muso-ryu jo: Isshin-ryu kusarigamajutsu; Ikkaku-ryu juttejutsu; “Kasumi” Shinto-ryu kenjutsu; Uchida-ryu tanjojutsu; Ittatsu-ryu hojojutsu. If three generations back, a headmaster had erased all the names of these schools, destroyed any older documentation, and made them part of Shinto Muso-ryu, no one in subsequent generations would have ever noticed; they are that closely melded together. Far too many people who enroll in multiple schools (most in my view), are ryu collectors. They have either no idea of the depth of each ryu or don’t care. I cannot conceive of joining a ryu just to acquire ‘some’ knowledge of it. Teachers who accept students without the intention of teaching everything (if they prove to be suitable), and students who do not aim to master the ryu are failures, in my view. The teachers are selling portions of the ryu for money, fame or ego gratification. Some enroll in two schools because one teacher is licensed to teach both. I must question, however, why most would do this? You have the same teacher, yet what he or she teaches is radically different. On Monday, s/he says, “Sink your hips, don’t stretch your legs,” and on Tuesday, s/he says, “stretch your legs, don’t sink your hips.” You equally commit to the teacher when you join one school, but you put him or her in a position that s/he’s erasing on one day what s/he taught on the other, and vice versa. In my view, the instructor’s time is wasted, and I will never allow any of my students to enroll in both of the ryu I teach (I will come back to this point, below). And then there are those whose ‘eyes are bigger than their stomachs’ – they join three, four, five schools, all with the best of intentions, but few, if any individual, can do justice to so many unique entities.
The result, at best, is someone who, physically talented, moves through the kata with grace and skill, but one ryu soon contaminates the next, and in a short time, they are moving generically. What makes each school unique is lost.
In addition, they cannot have loyalty to all the ryu. I had personal experience in situations where teachers of two or more schools were at odds, and the students of both squirms inelegantly to avoid offending each of their instructors. From individuals striving to become warriors, they become politicians.
Finally, the deepest teachings of the ryu cannot be handed out like candy. A genuine teacher who holds truly knowledge of the depths of his or her tradition will only teach someone who is willing to be pervasively influenced by the school, both in terms of loyalty to the tradition, but also because without that training-in-depth, the gokui mean nothing to them. I can pronounce a gokui of one of my ryu (it has been publicly published in several books in Japan for generations, for what its worth) right now: “Pine tree on a cliff.” You may have an idea of what that means, maybe even a good idea. But if you have not gone through the specific physical training to the bone that these words indicate, it’s just an idea.
And then there are the only individuals who are, in my view, worth discussing. The ones who enroll in two ryu with full commitment and respect. There are two ways this can occur: either sequentially or simultaneously. Sequentially would mean that after fully mastering a school, one joins another. Why? One reason would be that one crossed hands or weapons with a teacher from the other school and lost the bout. In this case, one could abandon one’s own school, and fully becomes a disciple of the new teacher. Sometime in the far future, one emerges as a full practitioner of the second school, or once graduated, one consciously or unconsciously amalgamates both schools into something new. The same thing could also occur without such drama, when one meets a teacher who is so admirable that one finds it a necessity in one’s life to become a student yet again. Withal, this is actually very unlikely in modern times, particularly among my English-speaking readers. How many genuine menkyo-kaiden in any koryu do you, the reader, know? And how many of them, a true shihan of their own ryu, then go to study as a student of someone else, letting go status and all they know, willing to start over again, perhaps closing the doors of their dojo, and cutting lose their own students, because they have, once again, ‘thrown their life away’ to commit to something they must know, and to a ryu and teacher to whom they must pledge loyalty?
So, let us consider the more likely option: joining two ryu concurrently (I do not want to discuss a higher number. To the degree that this is possible, everything I write from here applies to that possibility as well; to the more likely situation where this is not fully possible, I’ve covered the flaws in that approach in items #3 &# 4 above). The best way to discuss this is to offer my own case, and at last, strive to directly answer Mark’s question.
I joined the Araki-ryu in April of 1976. From that day, one could almost say that it ‘infected’ me. My instructor was only a few years older than I, and he was ferociously powerful, both mentally and physically. He is also among the most moral men I have known, but my values are different from his in many ways. Where does the ryu stop and the teacher begin? This tension has never ceased for me, despite a relationship of forty years. He truly was a man from another era. What I mean by this is that most koryu teachers are modern individuals who teach a tradition. As far as they are concerned, their authority over their students is mostly confined to the dojo environs and mostly concerns the specifics of the ryu. My instructor is a feudal man, and as his student, he had a right to have a say in any aspect of my existence he chose (I was not a prisoner: I could quit at any moment if I didn’t like it, and could be thrown out at any moment if certain lines between us were violated). He also expected me to push back, as long as I was willing to experience any consequences that occurred. In other words, I was fully committed to him and the ryu and in full rebellion at the same time. Tempered like a blade, folded hard and soft, while being hammered at red-hot heat. I did not join the school as a ‘blank slate,’ upon which to be written, nor was that expected of me. Rather, I joined as a man, and the only way I could truly contribute to the school was a paradoxical willingness to be utterly influenced, while maintaining my essential self. I could only bring something worthwhile to the ryu when I offered myself–but ‘myself’ is, to this day, an often rebellious, iconoclastic man who lives by his own sense of values and morality. Rather than joining a cult, entering a ryu in this way is an interactive process; if you go too far in one direction, you will be cast out, leave on your own or will never really be taught anything of substance; if you go too far in the other direction, you will strive merely to become a clone, an imitator who will never surpass your teacher. The latter, too often seen, is one of the main causes of the generation by generation deterioration of all too many martial systems.
The result of all this is that I became an Araki-ryu man. The way I interact with people is always influenced by Araki-ryu. As it says in one of our documents: “You make your practice a friend in the morning, and your discipline to be your pillow at night.”
From this, can the reader see how incredibly deep such a commitment can be were one to join a living ryu, not a cultural treasure merely preserving techniques from the past?
So what did I do!!? In 1978, I joined a second ryu, the Toda-ha Buko-ryu. I had several motivations. At that time, I was too influenced by Donn Draeger, who was then, in my eyes, the exemplar of the perfect foreign student of koryu. Donn joined several ryu, and in his endeavor to make the study of combatives a scholarly discipline, encompassing both pen and sword, he wanted those he mentored to join different ryu as well. If Donn joined several, then so should I. In addition, and more to the point, I wanted to train budo with my first wife, and Araki-ryu did not seem to be the best thing for us to train together. At my Araki-ryu teacher’s introduction, we joined the Toda-ha Buko-ryu.
These two ryu could not be more different, even when they use the same weaponry. They have no historical connection, and there is no overlap within their gokui (the recorded teachings in each school that impart the essential qualities of each ryu). My wife and I trained very hard, and after a few years, with the departure of several senpai, we were the two senior members of the dojo. Within five years, I was Nitta sensei’s shihandai (assistant instructor).
Yet, I must be honest here. Although my practice was good enough that I found such favor in Nitta sensei’s eyes, I did not do Toda-ha Buko-ryu–not even one moment. I moved my body in the correct manner, my kiai sounded impeccable, and I cut and moved with power. I was, for most of my tenure there, without peer among the students in the dojo (other members, now shihan as well, joined at the end of my stay in Japan). But it was never Toda-ha Buko-ryu. Even during training, my mind was on Araki-ryu and my body craved to drop the pretense and do that. Yet because of my own moral sense, I felt an unvoiced, but deep sense of guilt. Every moment I was in the dojo, I was betraying Nitta sensei, who had, among other things, helped me right my course as a human being. Without her presence in my life, I may have lost my way. In betraying her, I was betraying the ryu as well, at least if I believed it was more than a compendium of pattern drills. I was in such a state of conflict that I thought of quitting.
Perhaps Nitta sensei knew this all along, and trusted me to find a way through this dilemma, seeing something in me that I could not find within myself.
In any event, perhaps eight or nine years into my training, something happened. While in the midst of a kata, it was literally as if I dropped into another world. Physically so. All of a sudden, I ‘rearranged’ into a ‘Toda-ha Buko-ryu body.’ Experientially, it was quite different from the Araki-ryu body. It was as if I transmuted from wolverine to doberman. This was something I never lost (and has actually become a skill that I have utilized in very different areas of my professional life). The only way I can describe it is by the shamanistic term ‘shapeshifting.’
As for my life in budo, it is very clear: when I am in the dojo teaching my Araki-ryu students, that’s all I experience; when I am teaching my Toda-ha Buko-ryu students, that’s all I experience as well. When I am training by myself, I can shift from one to the other whenever I choose. How about my daily life? Imagine a chord, with a root note (Araki-ryu) and a secondary note (Toda-ha Buko-ryu). I flicker from one to the other, without conscious thought. The same is true when I train freestyle. There is overlap, at a deep level, but the two ryu are still distinct. The overlap is in the area that some call internal training; this is the bridge for me between the ryu.
I cannot see any reason whatsoever to enroll in a third or fourth ryu, unless such a ryu offered something absolutely necessary to my embodied existence, something that is absolutely impossible to find in either of the ryu I practice. And that would have to be something far more subtle and important than a new weapon to practice, or a new style of movement.
So why won’t I teach any of my students both ryu? Because I know how hard I worked to simultaneously and separately offer two ryu 100% (not 50-50), all the while striving to live without any divided loyalties. How many people are truly, wholeheartedly committed to something? Anything less is a betrayal of the ryu, whether you are enrolled in one or many. How many people can truly “…make your practice a friend in the morning, and your discipline to be your pillow at night?” How many can do this twice–at the same time?
No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from the author. It is acceptable to share a link to this article on such social media as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.I'm telling you, man. The U.S. Men's National Team is looking kind of good these days.
Not super good, mind you, but kind of good. And the good news is that kind of good, right now, is good enough for first place midway through the CONCACAF Hexagonal round. Kind of good looks good enough, right now, to get U.S. Soccer to the World Cup.
Last night, the Americans took on Panama in Seattle. The day started with the USMNT tied for first with Costa Rica and Mexico in the six-team group, second behind Costa Rica on goal differential, but Costa Rica and Mexico drew earlier today. USA would vault to the top of the table with a win.
They won. This shouldn't be a shock, since it's in the headline, but it also shouldn't because the United States secretly never lose World Cup Qualifiers at home. They haven't lost in 12 years, and are 21-0-2 over that span.
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So a win, whether you expected it or not, was expected tonight. It's how they won, though, that is worth talking about.
The USMNT faithful have always criticized the team for not having an identity or fluid style of play. Part of that is because for many years, the team didn't have an identity or fluid style of play, and also because of the American soccer inferiority complex, which I'm considering referring to as ASIC. I'll decide by the end of the post. The truth, though, is that they do have an identity, and they do have a style of play, and at times like tonight, it can be fluid and deadly and, all in all, objectively beautiful.
They counter. They don't have too, too much in the way of world-class talent—expatiation anon—but they have a few central midfielders who can both break up play and link up with the advanced players or run with the ball through the middle. That's valuable, and actually kind of rare. They have speedy wingers who can put in a good ball. They have a number 10 who's both a great goalscorer and a scorer of great goals, and they have a striker who's big and powerful and in form and has now scored three matches in a row. That's something. And when they're on the break, like they were against Panama for the first goal in the 36th minute, they're honest-to-God a pretty dangerous team.
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U.S. Soccer have somehow amassed a few stars, too. Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, Jermaine Jones, Clint Dempsey, and Jozy Altidore are big(gish) names that compete in Europe and play vital(ish) roles for their respective clubs. But the Americans also have pockets of talent elsewhere, and they are starting to resemble a team that has a smidgen of depth. Case in point: the United States' second goal.
Geoff Cameron has one of the most impressive resumes in the squad. He was named one of the Best XI in the MLS, and in his first season at English Premier side Stoke City last year, he started in 29 of 38 league games and was used as a sub in six more. He's a hard-nosed defender, a 6-foot-3 brute, and he can't get on the field at his preferred position of centerback because Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler have built something that is starting to resemble a rapport. But Cameron can also play in the midfield, so he was on the pitch yesterday, filling in while midfielder Jermaine Jones nursed a concussion.
Cameron won the ball and started the counterattack that led to the first goal. And if his interception went unnoticed in the first, everyone was screaming his name by the second. He received a pass in the middle of the park and lifted a filthy 40-yard ball over the top of the Panama defense to converted winger Eddie Johnson—subbing in for the suspended Graham Zusi, by the way—who controlled it with a great first touch and cooly slotted it home. You're not going to see too many better goals than that from the Germans, or the Spanish, or the Brazilians, or the Dutch. I'm not saying they're as good as those teams. I'm just saying.
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So I think it might be time for optimism. After all, just a few months ago we wondered if the USMNT were even going to make the World Cup, and today, they're two points clear of Costa Rica and Mexico with a game in hand on El Tri. USA can widen the gap with a win next Tuesday night in Utah against Honduras. This is America, and ASIC is a thing, so many of us are still half-holding our breaths, expecting U.S. Soccer to choke. But they're halfway through the Hex. They haven't choked yet, and the window to do so is closing rather rapidly.
And I'm telling you. They're looking kind of good. [ESPN/Univision]DC Films’ first Justice League movie has been filming since April 2016, primarily in London. We’ve known for some time that the film will be filming certain scenes elsewhere, including in Iceland, and now we have some more specifics on precisely where in Iceland the Justice League will be touching down.
Justice League will film in the Westfjords of Iceland in October and November. Justice League’s primary set will be Djúpavík village, a village with only two permanent inhabitants, though the population grows during the summer.
Ásbjörn Þorgilsson, one of the owners of Hótel Djúpavík, tells the official guide to the Westfjords that he’s expected 200 crew members to take up residence when Justice League comes to the area. The cast and crew will be spread between the hotel and a cruise ship in the fjord. Additional filming will also take place in Scotland.
According to the Vist Westfjords website, Icelandic actors Ingvar E. Sigurðsson, Kristbjörg Kjeld, Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir and Salóme Gunnarsdóttir will have minor roles in Justice League. They’ll join stars Ben Affleck, Amber Heard, Amy Adams, Jared Leto, Jesse Eisenberg, J.K. Simmons, Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe and Julian Lewis Jones. Justice League will bring together the superheroes of the DC Extended Universe together for the first time, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. The film is being directed by Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice helmer Zack Snyder, from a screenplay by Chris Terrio. Check out the first Justice League trailer.Austin, Tex.
THE industrial production of animal products is nasty business. From mad cow, E. coli and salmonella to soil erosion, manure runoff and pink slime, factory farming is the epitome of a broken food system.
There have been various responses to these horrors, including some recent attempts to improve the industrial system, like the announcement this week that farmers will have to seek prescriptions for sick animals instead of regularly feeding antibiotics to all stock. My personal reaction has been to avoid animal products completely. But most people upset by factory farming have turned instead to meat, dairy and eggs from nonindustrial sources. Indeed, the last decade has seen an exciting surge in grass-fed, free-range, cage-free and pastured options. These alternatives typically come from small organic farms, which practice more humane methods of production. They appeal to consumers not only because they reject the industrial model, but because they appear to be more in tune with natural processes.
For all the strengths of these alternatives, however, they’re ultimately a poor substitute for industrial production. Although these smaller systems appear to be environmentally sustainable, considerable evidence suggests otherwise.
Grass-grazing cows emit considerably more methane than grain-fed cows. Pastured organic chickens have a 20 percent greater impact on global warming. It requires 2 to 20 acres to raise a cow on grass. If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs). A tract of land just larger than France has been carved out of the Brazilian rain forest and turned over to grazing cattle. Nothing about this is sustainable.
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Advocates of small-scale, nonindustrial alternatives say their choice is at least more natural. Again, this is a dubious claim. Many farmers who raise chickens on pasture use industrial breeds that have been bred to do one thing well: fatten quickly in confinement. As a result, they can suffer painful leg injuries after several weeks of living a “natural” life pecking around a large pasture. Free-range pigs are routinely affixed with nose rings to prevent them from rooting, which is one of their most basic instincts. In essence, what we see as natural doesn’t necessarily conform to what is natural from the animals’ perspectives."I love your show - I call it Deface the Nation. But, you know, your show is sometimes not exactly correct."
It isn't any great surprise that Donald Trump has taken aim at the media in an interview.
The outsider, who campaigned against the establishment and gave rise to "fake news" as a rallying cry, skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night in favour of a rally in Pennsylvania surrounded by his supporters.
In a wide interview with CBS programme Face the Nation, the President was asked about his recent comment that he thought the job of president "would be easier".
:: Trump: My first 100 days were'very productive'
'A disruptive presence on the world stage'
Trump explained at length how much he loves the role but feels that it's a "tough job".
He insisted though that he'll be doing it for eight years and believes he's already done "great" things with foreign policy and trade deals.
In North Korea, Donald Trump faces a pressing threat.
Just one day after Pyongyang test-launched a ballistic missile, President Trump said he "will not be happy" if North Korea conducts another nuclear test and declined to rule out a US military response to such a provocation.
"I don't know. I mean, we'll see," Mr Trump said of possible military action.
Trump attacks 'Washington's swamp' at 100-day rally
The Trump administration has been calling for China and other international partners to put pressure on the North Korean regime, whilst retaining a level of ambiguity about what the US might be willing to do in the face of a provocation.
But Mr Trump did offer some analysis on his adversary, describing Kim Jong-Un as someone who "at a very young age…was able to assume power".
He added: "A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else.
"And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie. But we have a situation that we just cannot let - we cannot let what's been going on for a long period of years continue."
Image: Trump said he has 'no idea' whether Kim is sane or not
"People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea," Mr Trump told the CBS programme.
Russia, has provided a scandal that refuses to go away, but Donald Trump says he still can't be sure that the country interfered in the US election.
"The concept of Russia with respect to us is total phoney story," Trump said.
"We have to find out what happened. I'd love to find out what happened. I can tell you one thing. Had nothing to do with us," referring to links between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials.
Republicans and Democrats have claimed Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn may have broken the law by receiving money from Russia and Turkey.
'His team is evolving and so are his ideas'
The claims have raised questions about whether he was properly vetted by the White House.
But the President placed the blame on the Obama administration, saying: "I didn't realise this, when he went to Russia, it was 2015 and he was on the Obama clearance.
"When General Flynn came to us, as you now know, he already had the highest clearance you can have. I think the same clearance as the President of the United States would have. He had this really high clearance.
"And, by the way, they're so devastated because this only came up two days ago."(CNN) -- Emergency crews in the Philippines were on standby Monday morning as the island nation braced for a "super typhoon" that could trigger flooding and landslides.
Super Typhoon Megi, also known as Juan, is expected to make landfall midday Monday at or near super-typhoon strength, with winds possibly in excess of 200 kph (124 mph), according to Mario Montejo, secretary of the Philippines' science and technology.
On Monday morning, Megi carried sustained winds of 287 kph (178 mph) with gusts up to 350 kph (217 mph) as it headed toward the Philippines, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
"Tropical storm force winds and heavy rain squalls are already affecting areas along the coast," CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said. "From this point forward the weather conditions are expected to rapidly deteriorate."
CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera called Megi a "monster storm."
Beyond high winds, large swaths of the northern island of Luzon will see 300 mm (12 inches) of rain, while more isolated pockets may see up to 500 mm (20 inches), Ward said.
A typhoon of this intensity could cause storm surge as high as 6 to 8 meters, threatening population centers along the coast.
As of 5 p.m. (5 a.m. ET) Sunday, the typhoon was about 390 kilometers east of Aparri, Cagayan, according to the state-run Philippines News Agency. It was moving west at about 22 kph.
Montejo said the government is alarmed by the speed and strength of the typhoon. He warned of potentially devastating effects the storm may wreak on Luzon.
"The winds have been steadily increasing," James Reynolds, a storm chaser who is on Luzon, told CNN Monday morning.
"Unfortunately, this is a part of the world where the infrastructure is quite fragile, the power grid is quite fragile and a lot of people live in quite basic houses," he said.
Residents in low-lying and coastal areas are advised to head for safer locations, and authorities are discussing the possibility of forced evacuations.
As the storm moves across the rugged terrain of Luzon, it is expected to decrease in intensity before moving out over the South China Sea. Megi is expected to dump large amounts of rainfall over the mountains, which could potentially trigger mudslides and localized flooding.
The typhoon could also damage large amounts of agricultural land along its path.
"Thousands of hectares are in danger of being ruined," Cabrera said.
On Sunday, Philippine navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said in a statement that disaster response personnel equipped with rubber boats and other life-saving equipment are on standby in several areas.Social Blogging Platform AKASHA Nears Public Alpha Release
Censorship has plagued social media platforms for several years, and AKASHA wants to put an end to this scenario. This “next-generation” social media network is powered by the Ethereum world computer and the Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS).
Also read: TRI to Finally Ship Turing Phone This May
Can AKASHA Remove Censorship From Social Media?
That will be the main question to answer in the next few years. AKASHA wants to portray itself as the social media network of the future, running on the Ethereum world computer and the Inter-Planetary File System. And what better day to unveil this project than on World Press Freedom Day, which takes place on May 3rd of every year.
Everyone in the world is entitled to their own opinion, but not everyone has the privilege to freely express it these days. This is a serious issue plaguing our civilization, and projects like AKASHA wield the latest advancements in technology to rectify this situation in the future.
Speaking of this technology, the Ethereum protocol can be used for so much more than just facilitating smart contracts or letting users transfer the ETH currency. Addressing the censorship issues of the world with Ethereum technology may seem like a stretch at first, but keep in mind we are living in an information-based society right now.
Imagine a world in which information is allowed to flow freely, without being stored on servers where information can be deleted randomly by a select few people. As a result, information would continue to live on forever, in a network where nodes serve data on-demand to users and nothing is ever forgotten, destroyed, or altered to suit hidden agendas. All of this is what AKASHA wants to achieve in the coming years.
The AKASHA team started developing a prototype of their platform last year using Meteor. Although there is no right or wrong way of developing such a game-changing system, the journey was rather frustrating. Both Ethereum and IPFS have always been used from the start, but the rest of the tech stack has seen some changes. Meteor was replaced by Electron, React, and Node.js.
That platform became the Ethereum world computer, combined with the Inter-Planetary File System. This move opened up exciting new possibilities for the AKASHA platform, which could evolve from ”just another social media platform” into something that has the potential to become the “social fabric for the nascent etherweb.”
People all over the world should envision AKASHA as a decentralized social blogging network, where collaborative journalism and social crowdfunding play a significant role. But in reality, the opportunities extend far beyond these principles as well, as we are only limited by our imagination as to what such a decentralized platform could eventually become.
In the end, the need for servers is completely removed from the equation, and access to all information can be (virtually) guaranteed through IPFS. AKASHA may very well become a new paradigm for Internet publishing in the next few years, although there is still a lot of work to be done.
Speaking of the alpha stage for AKASHA, everyone in the world is welcome to participate and share their thoughts and ideas with the developers. Alpha invites will be sent out to Linux, MacOS, and Windows users in the coming weeks, although no further details have been specified. Having the proper tools to build a better web is one thing, but without community involvement, projects like these will not gain significant traction.
What are your thoughts on the AKASHA project? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Akasha Blog
Images courtesy of AKASHA, ShutterstockHome Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter Western International Diplomacy as a Dead Baby Joke
By The Saker
March 21, 2014 " Information Clearing House - I have just been watching the news and, frankly, I ended up laughing.
First, I saw the Eurobureaucrats adding another 12 or so names to a list of 20 or so (sorry, I was not paying attention) names which are going to be on the sanctions list. The US did something similar yesterday. Looking at that circus, I was wondering: does these imbeciles really believe that these puny sanctions of 30-40 individuals will make Russia suddenly change course, apologize and leave Crimea? Have they forgotten that during WWII Leningrad was blockaded by German forces for nine hundred (900! Not 33 like Hezbollah or 78 like the Serbs - 900) days and that it was pounded by the German Air Force and artillery during each one of these 900 days, that most men died and that the city at the end was defended by mostly women, that hunger was so bad that people were making "soup" from glue used to put up |
believe the potential for abuse and government overreach is simply too great to be tolerated.Scans have today confirmed Geelong defender Jackson Thurlow has torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.
Thurlow was stretchered off the ground after colliding with Essendon’s Mitch Brown in the third quarter of Saturday’s NAB Challenge match against the Bombers in Shepparton.
Club medical staff opted to wait until scans today confirmed the extent of the young Tasmanian’s injury. Thurlow will undergo surgery in the coming weeks and will miss the entire 2016 season.
“Confirmation that Jackson has torn his ACL is extremely disappointing for him and the club,” Geelong’s General Manager of Football Steve Hocking said.
“His development came along in leaps and bounds last year and he was definitely in the mix to become a permanent member of our back six this season after showing great promise throughout the pre-season.
“As a club we will ensure he is provided with all the support he needs to work through the process.”
The 20-year-old enjoyed a breakout season in 2015 playing 19 games and earning an AFL Rising Star nomination.
Thurlow was drafted at pick 16 in the 2012 AFL draft and has played 29 games for the Cats over his three seasons with the club.VANCOUVER—Charges of perjury are being recommended against the four RCMP officers involved in the Taser shooting of Robert Dziekanski.
Dziekanski, who was unarmed, died Oct. 14, 2007 after being Tasered multiple times by the RCMP during a confrontation at the Vancouver Airport.
The RCMP investigated the four members involved and the province’s criminal justice branch concluded criminal charges were not appropriate.
But public outrage over that decision and a lengthy public inquiry into Dziekanski’s death which found inconsistencies in the officers’ testimonies prompted the B.C. government to appoint a special prosecutor to re-consider whether to lay charges.
The special prosecutor, Richard Peck, found the likelihood of conviction unlikely arising out of the physical altercation between the officers and Dziekanski. But Peck did recommended perjury charges based on the evidence the officers gave at the provincial inquiry.
Petti FongThe removal from office of President Mohammed Morsi portends great excitement but even greater threats to democracy.
The democracy of the street – which 16 months ago led to the overthrow of the longstanding President Hosni Mubarak – is claiming the same kind of people’s victory in the overthrow of Morsi.
There are similarities. Like in 2011, the military’s move against the sitting president was calculated as a response to massive popular protests – the military then and now claim to be operating on behalf of the Egyptian people. In 2011 people in Tahrir Square reached out with flowers to soldiers climbing down from their tanks. Yesterday the throngs crowding Tahrir Square cheered the military helicopters flying over the square.
But there are serious differences, and major dangers. This time, the sitting president was not a US-backed military dictator kept in power by US funding and political support. This time, the deposed president was Egypt’s first democratically and popularly elected president in several generations. This time, when the military deployed armored personnel carriers in the streets of certain neighbourhoods of Cairo, it was only, apparently, in areas known as strongholds of former President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood-based party he represents.
Whether or not the military’s removal of the president constitutes a coup, the removal of a president by force, by the military, doesn’t bode well for Egypt’s fragile, incomplete and already flawed democracy. Where has that ever succeeded? For people’s movements, the take-over by the military of implementation of the street’s demand that Morsi must go, doesn’t bode well for the future of that movement. The situation remains fraught.
Certainly the military did some things right. The announcement by General al-Sisi, the army commander, of the military’s “roadmap” for the post-Morsi period, was quickly followed by statements of agreement and support for the military by a broadly representative group of leaders of key Egyptian constituencies.
They included the head of the Coptic (Christian) church in Egypt; the imam of Al-Ahzar, the thousand-year-old institution known as the centre of Islamic thought in Egypt; Mohamed el-Baradei, the leader of one of the largest opposition movements and former head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency; and crucially, a spokesperson for the youth-led tamarrud, or Rebel, movement that had initiated the call for these recent days’ protests.
Continue readingNorwegian energy company Statoil says its retooling spending plans in an effort to rebound along with the oil market. File photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI | License Photo
STAVANGER, Norway, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Norwegian energy company Statoil said Thursday it was cutting spending for the year in an effort to position its portfolio for growth once the market recovers.
The company outlined a capital spending plan for 2016 of around $13 billion, down about 11 percent from last year. Earnings for the fourth quarter were down 44 percent year-on-year to $1.75 billion.
President and CEO Eldar Saetre said fourth quarter results were largely a reflection of lower crude oil prices. The price for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, is down more than 25 percent from the start of the fourth quarter.
"We are now further stepping up our improvement program, and tightening our capital and exploration expenditures," he said in a statement. "These are key elements in navigating the business during a period of low oil prices."
The company was one of the few reporting a decline in output, saying equity production during the fourth quarter was down 3 percent year-on-year. Exploration expenses, meanwhile, were lower by 44 percent
Statoil is betting on output in part on production from the Johan Sverdrup field off the Norwegian coast, which could generate $200 billion in revenues over the next 50 years. Within the next two years, the company expects production to grow by as much as 4 percent.
"Statoil is well positioned to capture value from an expected upturn in the market," Saetre said. "More than 80 percent of the operated projects, with start-up by 2022, have a break-even oil price below $50 per barrel."
RELATED Total lands Chinese LNG deal
Brent was trading at around $35 per barrel in volatile trading early Thursday.Quirky, a crowdsourced invention platform, has raised a $68 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, joined by Kleiner Perkins and existing investors. The company, which has raised $97 million to date, says that the funding will be used to expand its platform into a number of verticals, such as Quirky Electronics, Quirky Kitchen, and Quirky Toys, which is a business-y way of saying that it's gearing up to release a lot more products.
Founded in 2009, Quirky has built a community of 260,000 users that can submit and vote on product ideas. The community helps guide a product through its initial concept all the way through to the testing phase, at which point Quirky's design team gets to work on making a 3D-printed model and further refines the product. Essentially, Quirky allows anyone to submit an idea and then works until it finds a few diamonds in the rough, which it then helps to develop and sell.
Everyone that contributes to a product's development is granted a certain percentage of "ownership" in the finished product and receives a kickback from each sale. Items sold through one of the company's 188 retail partnerships with companies like Toys "R" Us, Target, and Staples, give the community a 10 percent kickback – online sales through Amazon, Thinkgeek, and a number of other partners increase the kickback to 30 percent. The company expects to pay its community $2 million of its projected $20 million in revenue this year.
Though the company has been operating since 2009, the idea for Quirky actually came to founder Ben Kaufman after the release of his first product, a pair of headphones he developed while he was still in high school. He had convinced his parents to remortgage their home and give him a little over $100,000 to develop that product, and expected that once the money was in his hands, developing and releasing the product would be easy. After several trips to China, Kaufman realized that he actually needed to master a list of "50 or 60" disciplines to make his product a reality. He managed to get the product released and founded Mophie, which is now known for its battery-charging iPhone cases.
Then, once that was finished, Kaufman decided that Mophie wouldn't be enough. "I didn't want to spend my life building iPhone condoms," he says. "I wanted to reinvent the invention of inventions[.]" So he sold Mophie and started working on what would ultimately become Quirky to help other inventors make their products a reality.
Instead of building something like Kickstarter, which helps one-shot inventors raise money from the masses, Kaufman applied what he knew about product development and built a platform to share that knowledge. As he learned during those trips to China, getting capital isn't even half the battle when it comes to product development. Inventors that turn to Kickstarter ask the masses for money in exchange for a product; inventors that turn to Quirky ask the community to help build a product in exchange for money.
There's certainly a place for both models, and Kickstarter has seen monumental success with its model. As its products continue to raise increasingly higher amounts of money without any proof that they will deliver, however, Quirky's "build the product first, make money later" model may start to make more and more sense.
The most "special and magical" thing about Quirky, Kaufman says, is that it's a machine designed to ensure that only the best products are released. Quirky will design and develop products that aren't "super phenomenal," he says, but none of those products will see the light of day if the company decides that they don't meet a certain standard of quality. With as many as 1,500 people working on a single product that is then tested and judged by experts, bad ideas don't make it past the cutting room floor.
Contrast this with Kickstarter's approach. The company doesn't attempt to regulate the quality of any product that is released, and leaves every step that doesn't involve money up to the development team. As Kaufman's experience trying to develop his first product shows, however, the ability to raise money doesn't guarantee that a product will ship. An inexperienced team will always be inexperienced, whether it raises $5 million or nothing.
At last month's PandoMonthly, Reid Hoffman compared entrepreneurship to jumping off a cliff, saying “in order to jump off a cliff, you kind of have to believe you can assemble a plane on the way down.” Kickstarter offers a way for entrepreneurs to purchase the plane's wings and engine – Quirky guides them through the process of putting those parts together.
[Image courtesy Quirky]Scott Michael Greene, arrested for killing two Iowa police officers ambush-style
I checked diaries and didn’t see anything on this.
I woke up to the news this morning that two Iowa police offers were shot and killed overnight, ambush-style. As of 9am ET, the gunman was still on the loose. Predictably, the comments to any news story about this were disgusting, and many comments were aimed at blaming #BlackLivesMatter for the shootings.
Yet — it appears the suspect, Scott Michael Greene, who is now in custody — was hardly a #BLM adherent and is, in fact, a Confederate-flag waving white man who is aggrieved because he was told to stop waving his confederate flag in front of African Americans at a local football game.
x Last month Scott Michael Greene who just killed 2 Iowa officers took a Confederate Flag to a football game & waved it in front of Black fans pic.twitter.com/rpLNBBsCnX â Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 2, 2016
The Washington Post has more on this:
One of the officers was fatally shot next to Urbandale High School. A video uploaded to YouTube last month by an account named Scott Greene was titled “Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School” and appeared to show a person recording the footage arguing with police officers asking him to leave the area. In the video, the man recording the footage, who is identified by one officer as Greene, is heard telling the police that he was assaulted and almost mugged while “peacefully protesting” at what appears to be a high school. An officer is later seen explaining that the Confederate battle flag he was waving violated the school’s code. “In the current social climate that we’re in, when you fly a Confederate flag standing in front of several African American people, that’s going to cause a disturbance, whether you intended to or not,” the officer said. As a result, the officer said, this man was no longer allowed on the school’s property. Another video posted by the same account showed a still image of a man holding a Confederate flag in what appears to be the stands at an athletic event.
And finally — as if we didn’t know where this was leading, this:
x Neighbor tells me that shooting suspect Scott Michael Greene put this Trump sign in his yard approx 2 weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/8HjtthB51I â Grant Rodgers (@GrantMRodgers) November 2, 2016
I don’t have anything else to add except to say — sadly — that I am not surprised. Get out and vote people. Make calls from home to swing states. Canvass this weekend. Bury the orange menace utterly — it’s our only hope to tamp down some of this hatred.Fake news became all too real over the weekend after a North Carolina man entered a Washington pizzeria with an assault rifle in an attempt to "self-investigate" a false but persistent conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton.
The baseless theory is that the business was a front for a child sex ring run by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager.
Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old man from Salisbury, N.C., walked into Comet Ping Pong in the capital around 3 p.m. on Dec. 4. Police said pointed his gun at a worker, who fled, and then Welch started firing the rifle inside the restaurant, the Washington Post reported.
Patrons and other employees also ran away, police said. The suspect, who allegedly had an AR-15-style rifle and other weapons, surrendered to police and was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. There were no reported injuries.
Welch told police he was there to check into unfounded rumors that Comet Ping Pong, which hosts children’s parties and occasionally small concerts, was actually part of what the Internet has dubbed "Pizzagate."
D.C. police described Pizzagate as "a fictitious online conspiracy theory" in its press release for Welch’s arrest. But where did this theory come from?
Pizzagate's origins
The conspiracy theory spread through viral emails, discussion threads and social media in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
The rumor first began after WikiLeaks released Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails.
Users at the online forum 4Chan noticed Podesta corresponded with Comet Ping Pong pizzeria owner James Alefantis, discussing a potential Clinton fundraiser.
Buzzfeed reported that the idea of a pedophilia ring masterminded by Clinton and her allies started with an Oct. 30 tweet by a reputed white supremacist Twitter account that in turn cited a Facebook user’s status:
Rumors stirring in the NYPD that Huma's emails point to a pedophila ring and @HillaryClinton is at the center. #GoHillary #PodestaEmails23 pic.twitter.com/gkEH5oL269 — David Goldberg (@DavidGoldbergNY) October 30, 2016
From there, various conspiracy theory and fake news sites began spinning out versions of the elaborate but unproven story. (A popular Reddit post detailing the theory has since been removed.)
The gist of the fake theory is that Podesta’s repeated use of the word "pizza" in emails detailed in the WikiLeaks release was actually a code word for pedophilia. Comet Ping Pong was allegedly the base for secret rooms in which Clinton and her allies kidnapped and imprisoned children to be sexually abused, tortured or even sacrificed in the name of Satan. Democrats in both Clinton’s campaign and the federal government have colluded to hide the abuse, the theory alleges.
Some sites have claimed that various details about the pizzeria "prove" that Comet Ping Pong uses coded language and symbols to advertise its secret business to pedophiles. Random pictures of children have been appropriated to falsely illustrate the fake ring’s so-called victims.
The story has circulated on various fake news sites for weeks, although some have since been taken down.
There has been no evidence that any such sex ring exists. But that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from harassing Comet Ping Pong, its employees and even neighboring businesses.
Comet Ping Pong
Let’s go back to Alefantis, who said he has never met Clinton but supported her presidential bid. The 42-year-old Alefantis was once in a relationship with David Brock, a former conservative commentator who now runs the liberal site Media Matters For America.
The New York Times reported in early November that Alefantis noticed a sharp uptick in his social media traffic in the weeks leading up to the election. People he didn’t know began to send death threats and vulgar messages. Employees and their families also were threatened via social media and text messages.
Alefantis filed a police report about the harassment, and authorities have had to intervene before. One man who believed the fake theory posted video from inside the restaurant and was told by police to leave, the Times reported.
After Welch fired his weapon inside the popular restaurant, Alefantis blamed the prevalence of fake news and those that spread it for the troubles at Comet Ping Pong.
"What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences," he said in a Facebook post. "I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away."
Internet response
Even as traditional news outlets have reported on Pizzagate, supporters of the wild theories have argued that attention from the mainstream is only proof that media is in on the coverup.
The hashtag #Pizzagate filled Twitter with users doubting the coverage of Welch’s activities at Comet Ping Pong, including media denials of Pizzagate’s validity.
One notable conspiracy theorist is Michael Flynn Jr., son of incoming national security adviser and retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The elder Flynn has previously shown support to other conspiracy theories that Clinton is tied up with alleged money laundering and sex crimes unrelated to Comet Ping Pong.
On Sunday the younger Flynn tweeted he was skeptical of reports that Pizzagate wasn’t real.
Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many "coincidences" tied to it. https://t.co/8HA9y30Yfp — Michael G Flynn🇺🇸 (@mflynnJR) December 5, 2016
The tweet included another tweet from Citizens For Trump special projects director Jack Posobiec alleging Washington D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham found no connection between Welch and Pizzagate.
We could find no evidence that Newsham said that, only that he initially told the Post the incident was likely not "terrorist related."
According to the official press release from D.C. police, Welch himself admitted he was there because of the conspiracy theory: "During a post arrest interview this evening, the suspect revealed that he came to the establishment to self-investigate ‘Pizza Gate.’ "
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Welch's weapon as automatic.Who stole the middle class's raise? Cheap foreign workers did it. Software did it. The decline of unions and manufacturing did it, too. But don't forget health care.
Between 1999 and 2012, workers' health care costs grew four times faster than their earnings, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
And, pulling back the lens, we see the 50-year story. Workers compensation -- which includes health care, pension benefits, and employer contributions to Social Security, Medicare and other government programs -- has increased from about 4.5 percent of the economy in 1960 to 11 percent of the economy is 2009. Even after globalization and technology trends held down wages in the last few decades, middle class raises transmorphed into benefits. Essentially, we traded income for insurance.
The "good news" in the report is that health insurance cost growth has slowed significantly in the last few years. Then again, earnings growth has slowed even more -- and maybe employers who switched to cheaper plans in the slow recovery will lead the re-acceleration of health care costs next year. We don't know.
But reports like this are an important reminder that some of the trends behind the observed flat-lining of middle class wages won't be addressed by the common -- and important -- debate about trade deficits, and robots, and replaceable workers. We've made a choice to insure workers and one consequence of that choice is that as the cost of insurance rises, the pool of money left over to pay salaries is smaller.For the past four years, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been doing battle with a Christian subculture that, he believes, is trying to Christianize the U.S. armed forces with the help of a complicit Pentagon brass. He calls it the "fundamentalist Christian parachurch-military-corporate-proselytizing complex," a mouthful by which he means holy warriors in contempt of the constitutional barrier between church and state.
The root of the problem, Weinstein believes, is a cluster of well-funded groups dedicated to Christianizing the military and proselytizing abroad.
Today is Memorial Day in the U.S., a day to honor the men and women who have given their lives in our military. I want to do something a bit different for Memorial Day this year and honor an Air Force veteran who is still with us:, a true hero.Weinstein founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) four years ago and has been the most influential defender of church-state separation in the U.S. military since that time. His organization has often worked alongside groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State on cases involving military personnel.wrote an excellent piece on Weinstein forlast week, and I cannot recommend it enough for those who may have missed it. Not only does it describe how Weinstein became interested in this form of activism and highlight some of his recent accomplishments, but it serves as a wake-up call to those who are still reluctant to acknowledge the well organized efforts to Christianize the U.S. armed forces.I have praised Weinstein and the MRFF here many times, as he often seems to be the only thing standing in the way of a Christian extremist military. Glain quotes Weinstein as saying that the scariest part of the efforts to remake the U.S. military as a Christian extremist force is that it "is it's going on not with the blind eye of the Pentagon but with its full and totally enthusiastic support." From what I've read in, this certainly seems to be the case.Weinstein and his organization helped in Spc.'s suit over being forced to participate in public prayer sessions, were key in getting Trijicon to stop engraving bible references on the rifle scopes they were selling to the U.S. military, and persuaded the Pentagon to rescind an invitation to have Christian extremistspeak at a National Day of Prayer Task Force service. He will likely next take up the case of, a Muslim at Fort Hood, TX, who says that he has been harassed and subjected to anti-Islamic bigotry since the on-base shooting.One of the things I found most interesting about Glain's profile was the revelation that most of Weinstein's clients are Christian soldiers, Catholics and mainline Protestants, who are being harassed by evangelical superiors.From Sharlet's, I can see the fingerprints of "The Family" all over this. In fact, the names of the organizations Weinstein provides in the article are the same Family-affiliated groups Sharlet describes. This is more than a little distressing, and it makes me appreciate Weinstein's efforts all the more.Improve your reverse engineering and logical arithmetic skills with this cryptographically weak hash checking software.
Introduction
This is a reverse engineering challenge was developed for Windows.
If you enjoy low level reverse engineering and cryptography challenges you should have a good time.
Scenario
The IT team of a secret organization was tasked to create a hashing function. The next day the algorithm was implemented in all the authentication systems of the secret organization. You have been tasked by a competing organization to find vulnerabilities within the authentication system of a software.
Challenge
This program accepts a password of 16 characters. The goal is to find a valid password to get the message "Access granted.".
A cryptographically weak hash function was used for this challenge, there are many passwords to authenticate.
Download challenge
Password: wiremaskImage copyright CBC News Image caption Two men involved - David Tait Jr (L) and Leon Swanson - choked back tears at an emotional press conference
Canadian police will not press charges against a hospital that switched babies during the seventies.
Four indigenous men from remote communities in Manitoba only recently found they were not related to their families after taking DNA tests.
A review by Health Canada found the switches at Norway House Indian Hospital appeared accidental.
The families say they are still "filled with questions of what would their lives have been like".
Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr revealed last August they were swapped in the government-run Norway House Hospital in 1975.
DNA testing has confirmed that they were sent home with each other's biological parents shortly after they were born. They know each other and continue to live in Norway House Cree Nation, a community of about 5,000 people.
The same thing happened to Luke Monias and Norman Barkman, of Garden Hill First Nation.
Staff Sgt Jared Hall, with the Manitoba branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, called it an "unfortunate accident" without malice.
After the switches were made public, the federal health department began an independent investigation. In Canada, health care is generally administered by the province, except on reserves, where it is administered by the federal government.
The review found that the mistakes were accidental, likely due to the hospital not properly labelling the babies with identification bands at birth.
"The information gathered by the investigators has left the families filled with questions of what would their lives have been like if the Norway House hospital had followed standard procedures," Bill Gange, lawyer for the families, wrote in a statement.
The two cases only came to light in the last two years. First Mr Monias and Mr Barkman discovered the switch. Then, after hearing about their case, Mr Tait and Mr Swanson confirmed their own switch.
Mr Tait's adopted parents have said the ordeal has brought the families closer together, and they will continue to treat their sons as one of their own.
"We agreed we are going to be one family," David Tait Sr said last year.
Manitoba's former Aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson has called the hospital's negligence "criminal" and said today's news offers little peace to the indigenous community.
"Regrettably, it shows that Indian people received second-rate treatment when it came to health in those days and perhaps, some would argue, to this day," he told reporters.Famed bad-ass Chuck Norris is endorsing GOP nominee Donald Trump in a very big way.
Norris writes that any “freedom-loving citizens” in the country shouldn’t even be questioning whether or not to vote for Trump, in an exclusive op-ed for WND.
After Mike dropped out, I decided to wait until the people chose the candidate they wanted as their next president. Then, I would wholeheartedly support that candidate, which is now Donald Trump.
I met Trump 42 years ago at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. I was retiring as the World Marital Arts Champion, and Bill “Super-foot” Wallace was fighting for the title, which he won. The promoters made a big deal about my retirement. Donald was there as a special guest.
When I met him, he asked me why I was retiring. I answered, “Donald, I’m 34 years old, and I’ve held the world title for six years. I want to retire a winner.”
Donald thought for a second, and then said, “That makes sense to me.”
That was it. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. However, I will tell you, I liked him. He was very friendly and sincere.
I truly believe that the people who have a negative view of Trump will be pleasantly surprised when he becomes the leader of our country. I also believe he will make positive changes that will benefit the people who need it most.Valhalla, N.Y., April 1, 2013 – Today FUJIFILM North America Corporation announced that it will implement price increases for film and One-Time-Use cameras in the U.S., effective July 1, 2013.
Prices for consumer and professional photographic film, including black and white, color negative, color reversal films, as well as consumer One-Time-Use cameras (OTUC) will increase by approximately 20%.
The price increases are a result of the continuing decline in demand for film products, the high costs of production, and the increased expenses associated with raw materials, including silver and petro-chemicals, and energy. Under such circumstances, and despite efforts to maintain production costs, Fujifilm is unable to absorb these costs entirely and must implement price increases at this time.
About Fujifilm
FUJIFILM North America Corporation, a marketing subsidiary of FUJIFILM Holdings America Corporation consists of five operating divisions and one subsidiary company. The Imaging Division sells consumer and commercial photographic products and services including film, one-time-use cameras, online photo services and fulfillment, digital printing equipment and service. The Electronic Imaging Division markets consumer digital cameras. The Motion Picture Division provides motion picture archival film, and the Graphic Systems Division supplies products and services to the printing industry. The Optical Devices Division provides binoculars, and optical lenses for closed circuit television, videography, cinematography, broadcast and industrial markets. FUJIFILM Canada Inc. markets a range of Fujifilm products and services. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmusa.com/northamerica, or go to www.twitter.com/fujifilmus to follow Fujifilm on Twitter. To receive news and information direct from Fujifilm via RSS, subscribe at www.fujifilmusa.com/rss.
FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including electronic imaging, digital printing equipment, medical systems, life sciences, graphic arts, flat panel display materials, and office products, based on a vast portfolio of digital, optical, fine chemical and thin film coating technologies. The company was among the top 10 companies around the world granted U.S. patents in 2011, and in the year ended March 31, 2012, had global revenues of $27.8 billion*. Fujifilm is committed to environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmholdings.com.
* At an exchange rate of 79 yen to the dollar
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
###
CONTACT:
Matthew Schmidt
Fujifilm
(914) 789-8529
mschmidt@fujifilm.comSALT LAKE CITY -- Hundreds of California teens on their way to Utah for a ski trip were caught Tuesday with more than just their snow gear. All sorts of drugs were found on their buses - but no one was arrested. In fact the group was allowed to continue on their trip to Utah.
But Elko police say they just don't have the room to hold more than 250 kids on misdemeanor drug charges.
Marijuana, mushrooms, alcohol and pipes are just some of what Elko police confiscated from over 250 California teens looking for a good time in Utah.
"There were five tour buses, full of young people anywhere between the ages of 15 to 20 and they were on their way to SLC for a ski trip," said Chief Don Zumwalt
The unchaperoned ski group stopped in Elko, Nevada for dinner. While parked at a Maverick gas station, patrons of the store noticed some of the teens smoking drugs. Fast forward a half hour or so and dozens of teens are turning over a ridiculous amount of drugs to police.
"We had consent to board the bus and kids brought out loads and loads of contraband on their own and let us take it and destroy it," said Chief Zumwalt.
Elko police say no one teen had enough drugs on him or herself to warrant a felony drug charge. Because Elko's juvenile detention center only holds about 30 kids - it wasn't feasible to arrest and hold everyone on misdemeanor charges.
"We could have stopped and got search warrants, searched every bag, and we would have still be writing search warrants a week later because it takes so much time to do that," Zumwalt said.
So the teens were allowed to continue to Utah for their week long ski trip. That's not the end of the story, however.
Elko police say they're now investigating the bus company, Divine Transportation, and the independent tour group, Summer Winter Action Tours, who put the trip together.
Police say if something like this happens again, not only will the drivers be arrested for endangering teens and transporting drugs across state lines - but the buses will be seized.
"We're going to look into the group and see who sponsors it and see who is responsible for it and then have a little conversation with them, because this happened last year as well," Zumwalt said. Elko police tell us that after last year's bust the parents of some of the teens on that trip sued the bus company, and the company that arranged the trip for negligence.
Divine Transportation did not return any phone calls.
Email: spark@ksl.com
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PhotosAs I travel, and experience Christianity around the world what strikes me most is that most of it isn’t Christianity.
There is a modern, false version of Christianity out there which Rod Dreher has described as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.
To unpack that phrase start at the end. Deism is the idea that God is out there somewhere separated from his world. Oh yes, he got the whole thing started, but he is the transcendent God.
Now the whole thing is going he has sat back to watch it all unfold. The God of Deism is sometimes called the Clockmaker God. He made the clock. It’s ticking. Now he’s disengaged. He might also be called the Playwright God. He wrote the play, cast it and raised the curtain, but now it goes on he sits up in his box to watch the show…or maybe he’s actually dozed off.
That’s the God of Deism. He’s Napping.
Deism is the product of rationalism and it’s also the sister of Calvinism. Both rationalism and Calvinism reacted against the incarnate God of Catholicism who is both transcendent and at the same time immanent. The immanent God is alive and active in the world through the Church. The transcendent God of Deism, Rationalism and Calvinism is not.
In both Protestantism and much of contemporary Catholicism, the God of Deism is the God people believe in. Oh sure, he is up there, but he doesn’t have much to do with me and my everyday life. This is not Catholicism, and the clash with real Catholicism is real and vital.
The second word in this phrase is “therapeutic”. Since God is out there on a cloud and doesn’t have much to do with us, we have to get on and make religion practical. So we have reduced the transaction with God to a method of making ourselves happier and making the world a better place through therapeutic methods. So we go on healing retreats and mega churches run parenting courses and seminars on managing your money and prayer sessions on how to become more alive and live the dynamic Christian life…It’s all therapeutic.
This is where the analysis gets complicated because we are supposed to be ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven–but this is the result of a supernatural transaction with God through repentance, faith and the power of the sacraments. It is not meant to be the primary action. Otherwise it is not really much better than secular counseling. Therapy without God is no more than self help. But if God is “out there” and uninvolved, than self help is the best we can offer.
The third word is “moralistic”. In the absence of a God who is involved with us and with his world, religion becomes a list of do’s and don’ts. It becomes a moralistic form of legalism and empty idealism. If God is not integrated with our lives then all we have left is to try to be good people and make the world a better place by getting everyone to behave.
This is what most of Protestantism has been reduced to and which, sadly, most of American Catholicism has also bee reduced to.
No wonder people are leaving this false religion in droves. It is even a stretch to call it a religion because religion has, from the beginning of time, in every age and in every culture, been about an interaction with the divine. In many different ways every form of real religion has been about a meeting between the human and divine, this world and the next, the natural and the supernatural.
And yet despite the fact that more and more people are abandoning this false religion the modernists keep dishing up more of the same. They are like the insane people who, seeing the rise in teen pregnancies, say, “I guess we need MORE sex education at a younger age.” They’re like the socialists who see poverty increasing as a result of their programs and say, “I guess we need MORE socialism.”
The same is true of those who follow this empty parody of religion.
Moralistic, therapeutic Deism? It’s not a cure. It’s a curse.Rob Portman has focused since early last year on building a reelection campaign that could withstand any election-year turbulence — a strategy now being tested with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. | Getty Ohio poll: Portman leads for Senate despite Trump deficit
GOP Sen. Rob Portman leads Democrat Ted Strickland by an 8-percentage-point margin in a new poll of the Ohio Senate race, the latest in a string of signs that Portman is weathering Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump |
39 - Mohammad Yousuf
- Mohammad Yousuf 38 - Mark Waugh, Sourav Ganguly, Kumar Sangakkara (combined Test, one-day international and Twenty20 international centuries)
There will be no imminent chance to reach the feat after he was left out of India's squad for the first three one-day internationals with the Windies.
It is unclear if Tendulkar will return for the final two matches of the one-day series with the Windies, which take place in Indore on 8 December and Chennai three days later.
Should he not feature in those games, the legendary 38-year-old's next international opportunity is expected to be the Boxing Day Test against Australia at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The Mumbai crowd, who were packed into the Wankhede Stadium in anticipation of Tendulkar's achievement, were left stunned as their idol came so close to the feat that has been expected of him since the World Cup earlier this year.
Anticipation has grown after he made his 99th hundred against South Africa at the World Cup, and interest centred on him throughout India's troubled summer tour of England - where the nearest he came to three figures was
Having been dropped by wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh off leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo with his score on 58 on Thursday, Tendulkar began day four in confident fashion, hitting paceman Rampaul for two fours off successive overs despite overnight partner VVS Laxman falling to the first ball he faced.
The "Little Master" then took 14 off an over from Fidel Edwards, including a cover-driven four and a six over the slips, to move into the 90s.
Media playback is not supported on this device Fans expressed their disappointment after India cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar fell six runs short of his 100th international hundred
But on the last ball of the 87th over, Rampaul struck to leave India's fans playing the waiting game again as their remaining batsmen successfully battled to save the follow-on.
The local media were left as stunned as the supporters - with NDTV describing it as "the biggest heartbreak ever".
With the match looking likely to finish as a draw after West Indies ended the day on 81-2 in their second innings, an overall lead of 189, Tendulkar may not get a chance to bat again until the five-game one-day international series starts on Tuesday.
He remains the leading all-time Test run-scorer by a distance, having and is more than 2,000 ahead of his nearest challenger - his long-term team-mate Rahul Dravid, who became only the second man to score 13,000 Test runs on his way to making 82 on Thursday.“Language is the source of misunderstanding,” said the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. But a confusion of tongues was not the cause of Abigail Beardsley’s consternation over what she was expected to learn in a French language course she took at Penn State University in the spring of 2007. Described in the college catalogue as a course in French language and culture, it inexplicably included a viewing of the Michael Moore film, Sicko, an English-language “documentary” about inadequacies of the healthcare system in the United States and a paean to the state-run medical care in other lands. The following semester, Beardsley addressed a formal complaint to the chairman of the university’s French Department about the insertion of a movie about the American practice of medicine in a course that, she wrote, was supposed to be about “real-life language use, the integration of language and culture and the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing.” In other words, an academic exercise.
Yet the professor “took valuable class time” for the Moore film, which the student described as “an attack on the free market health care system in the United States and an endorsement of socialized medicine in England, Canada, France and Communist Cuba.” She went on to point out the absence of any “critical evaluation of the film” or contrary views of socialized medicine presented by the professor that might have been useful to students in forming their own opinions on the subject. That, she noted, was contrary to a university policy requiring instructors to provide students with “access to those materials which they need to think intelligently.” The same policy, Beardsley noted, instructed professors “not to introduce controversial materials that are irrelevant to the class subject and outside their area of expertise.”
The department chairman dismissed her appeal and backed the professor’s decision to make the viewing of a film attacking the American healthcare system a component of a French language course. The student’s complaint and its rejection were related in Indoctrination U by David Horowitz, who has documented what he describes as “the widespread acceptance of political agitation as a suitable form of classroom instruction.” The problem is not just professors preaching their mostly liberal or “progressive” political views as a substitute for academic instruction, even in courses whose subject matter bears no realistic connection to those political opinions. It is also the fact that little to no room is allowed for different, much less opposing, viewpoints, as Beardsley noted in her letter.
No Discussion Allowed
“Ideas deemed ‘reactionary’ and ‘politically incorrect’ are shut down by ‘speech codes’ and collective disapproval” by those who regard teaching as “a partisan activity and the university as a platform from which they hope to change the world,” Horowitz wrote. “Ideas that oppose left-wing orthodoxy — opposition to racial preferences, belief in innate differences between men and women, or, more recently, support for America’s war in Iraq — are regarded as morally unacceptable or simply indecent. The proponents of such ideas are regarded as deviants from the academic norm, to be marginalized or shunned.” Professors, meanwhile, increasingly use their classrooms as forums in which to preach their often passionately held views to a virtually captive audience, frequently on matters far outside their areas of expertise. Horowitz, who claimed to have interviewed hundreds of students at dozens of colleges and universities on the subject, wrote: “In the course of the interviews, I rarely encountered a student who had not been subject to such in-class abuse.”
Yet in many schools the indoctrination begins well before the incoming freshmen enter their first college classes. Orientation programs are often another name for indoctrination into a “progressive” worldview that requires the student to drop as mental contraband any allegedly racist, reactionary, chauvinistic, or “homophobic” views he or she may have contracted like a communicable disease in a home, school, or church environment. One freshman orientation program that has been adopted at nearly 100 colleges and universities is called the “tunnel of oppression” that the new students must traverse, as they learn about the evils of “white privilege” and sit through lectures informing them that they are part of a “rape culture.” “Resident advisers” are hired to help the students work their way to such pre-ordained conclusions as the certainty that religious parents hate their “gay” children and university campuses are inhospitable to Muslims. The resident adviser must first himself or herself be immersed in the race-conscious, feminist, class-warfare ideology. A former “RA” at DePauw University in Indiana described the regimentation she experienced to Robert Shibley, senior vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a non-profit organization fighting restrictions on the freedom of speech and the efforts at thought control in schools.
The prospective RA’s were instructed never to think of themselves as merely people, but were to regard themselves, first and foremost, according to their respective classifications: “black” or “white” or “Asian” or “heterosexual” or “queer.” They were required to speak in bigoted stereotypes while being told that was what they were really thinking “deep down.”
“For all we hear about faculty ideological or political bias,” wrote Shibley, “campus administrators are often worse when it comes to brainwashing students.” A radical feminist agenda has permeated the culture of colleges and universities, large and small, in the East and West, and in the heartland of America. In the fall of 2010, Hamilton College in New York required all male freshman students to attend a “She Fears You” presentation to make them aware of the “rape culture” of which they were allegedly a part and of the need to change their “rape supportive” beliefs and attitudes.
“Did Hamilton warn incoming female students of the campus ‘rape culture’ before it took their tuition?” wrote Shibley. “I doubt it. But publicity did force administrators to make the seminar optional — just minutes before it started.”
Freshman orientation as practiced at the University of Delaware also came to the attention of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The very fact that the university labeled its orientation a “treatment” program suggested it was an exercise in the type of mental hygiene that might fairly be described as “brainwashing.” The “educational” materials used in the “treatment” of the new arrivals on campus included a glossary that defined racism as a term that “applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.)” Non-racist, on the other hand, was officially a “non term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism.” Through required attendance at lectures and one-on-one meetings with residence assistants, students learned what views were acceptable (or mandatory) on matters of “social justice” and a “sustainable” environment. (One program urged students to commit to reducing their ecological “footprint” by 20 percent.) The code of political correctness even covered door decorations in the dormitories.
Students were evaluated on how they responded to the “treatment,” with the residence assistants providing written reports to school administrators on the “best” and the “worst” students in the one-on-one sessions. Among the “worst” was a student who complained of having “diversity shoved down [her] throat” and who responded to the question “When did you discover your sexual identity?” with a crisp: “That is none of your damn business.” Another who questioned why the university needed to “force all this diversity stuff” on the students was also labeled one of the “worst.”
In a strongly worded letter to the university president, Samantha Harris, FIRE’s director of legal and public advocacy, questioned the University of Delaware’s commitment to education, as opposed to indoctrination:
The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of “treatment” for their incorrect attitudes reveals the university’s utter lack of respect both for its students and for the fundamental right to freedom of conscience. And the university’s definition of learning not as a process of acquiring knowledge or technical skill, but rather as the attainment of specific attitudinal or behavioral changes, represents a distorted idea of “education” that one would more easily associate with a Soviet prison camp than with an American institution of higher education. [Emphasis in original.]
The university formally dropped its “treatment” program after the FIRE protest brought publicity, but a series of Residential Curriculum Institutes, based on the Delaware program, has spread onto campuses throughout the country.
Composition of College Classes
Beyond orientation programs, curriculum is another area in which higher education has undergone radical change, as an English professor at a large Midwestern university sadly told The New American. Even a basic freshman course such as English Composition has long ceased to have anything to do with grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure, he said — the type of things a student might be expected to master in learning to write well. English courses and the social sciences are joined together in a program called Connect, in which each course must address three signature issues: sustainability (environmentalism), civic engagement (political activism), and intercultural engagement (multiculturalism).
“Everything from Theater to Philosophy to History to English has, in effect, become sociology,” the professor said. “Teaching subject matter has become less important than teaching a very political perspective.” Regardless of what subject and in which department students are studying, “they get taught the same thing over and over: a radical critique of the entire American social structure, an indictment of capitalism, anti-Christian propaganda, and collectivism over individuality.... It all comes down to race, class and gender. And sexuality, now that they are pushing, in a radical way, homosexuality.”
A strict requirement of “sensitivity” and a heavy emphasis on multiculturalism have combined to create an environment in which “the only culture we’re ever allowed to criticize is our own,” the professor said. He cited as an example the “Jesus Stomp” instructor at Florida Atlantic University, who, as part of an Intercultural Communications course, instructed his students to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper and then step on it. In the uproar that followed, the instructor, Deandre Poole, received threats and was placed on paid administrative leave by the university. He has been reinstated to teach classes this summer and fall, but has been limited to online courses for security reasons, said Heather Coltman, the interim dean at the university’s College of Arts and Letters. The school will decide in December if Poole will be welcomed back into the classroom for next year’s spring semester, Coltman said.
“You would never in a million years see anyone do that with the name Mohammed. You couldn’t do that with Hillary Clinton’s name. You couldn’t do that with nearly any other name, or you’d be fired,” said the English professor, who preferred not to be identified because he does not yet have tenure in his present job. Tenure isn’t really a protection of academic freedom, he maintains, but is a means of weeding out professors who are not “ideologically pure enough” to remain on the faculty. “There’s a reason why I’ve taught at seven different universities in 20 years,” he said.
Yet for all the emphasis institutions of higher learning place on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues and on race-based courses and Women’s Studies programs, courses not being taught at many colleges and universities are conspicuous by their absence. Last fall the California Association of Scholars issued a report to the regents of the University of California sharply critical of the number of traditional course requirements that have been dropped from the curricula at the various campuses of the statewide university. Entitled “A Crisis of Competence,” the report attributes the deletions to what is described in the subtitle as “The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California.”
Among the glaring omissions detailed by the scholars is the fact that none of the nine general campuses in the university system requires students to study the history of the United States or of Western civilization. English majors on some campuses may graduate without taking a course in Shakespeare. Students in political science programs get diplomas without a course in American politics. The omissions are not the result of accident or neglect. A study by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found more faculty members believe they should teach students to be agents of social change than believe it is important to teach the classics of Western civilization.
The leftward tilt of college and university faculties is nothing new. Numerous studies in recent decades have shown an overwhelming majority of college professors to be left-liberal in ideology and Democratic in party affiliation. But increasingly they seem to be no longer convinced of the need to make any genuine effort at, or pretense of, refraining from making their personal political and social ideals the content of classroom instruction. The school administrators, the California report concludes, “far from performing their role as the university’s quality control mechanism, now routinely function as the enablers, protectors, and even apologists for the politicized university and its degraded scholarly and educational standards.”
At a time when college education costs upwards of $45,000 a year at private institutions and tens of thousands at most state-sponsored universities, the emphasis on racial and cultural diversity and advocacy of social change has come at the expense of academic achievement. “Far too many” students, the California report said, have not learned to write effectively or to read “a reasonably complex book.” Students and their parents, in other words, are paying more and getting less in genuine education.
Yet despite tuition costs that have risen dramatically higher than inflation for three decades, the spending spree in higher education continues, aided and abetted by federal expenditures for research, Pell Grants, and student loans. Much of the spending goes into hiring more administrators to run more diversity programs. Officials at the University of California’s San Diego campus, for example, created a new position called “vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion,” despite a large number of “diversitycrats” already on the school’s administrative payroll. The money for the new vice chancellorship, wrote columnist Michael Barone, “could have supported two of the three cancer researchers that the campus lost to Rice University in Houston, a private school that apparently takes the strange view that hard science is more important than diversity facilitators.” The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Barone noted, saved some money by consolidating two science departments, while increasing spending on its five diversity-multicultural offices.
Mainly Conservative Controls
While ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity appears to be prized at the nation’s schools of higher learning, intellectual diversity is something to be silenced where it can’t be eliminated altogether.
Not all too surprisingly, given the controls on free speech that universities now favor, the suppression of free speech on campus is not only aimed at silencing conservative thought. In Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, author Greg Lukianoff begins by recounting the ordeal of a student, Hayden Barnes, who had been expelled from Valdosta State University in Georgia for protesting, on Facebook and in a letter to the editor of the student newspaper, the university’s decision to spend $30 million on the construction of two parking garages. In the student’s environmentalist crusade against the garages and the automobiles it would house, he invoked what Lukianoff describes as “the classic liberal fight song, ‘No Blood for Oil.’” After Lukianoff, an attorney and the president of FIRE, launched a publicity campaign and finally a legal action to have the expulsion overturned, the university’s Board of Regents reversed the decision and offered readmission to Barnes, who, by that time, was completing his education at another institution.
But Lukianoff, who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat, acknowledges that it is conservative-minded students who are most directly affected by the emphasis on “speech codes” and political correctness on college campuses. “While many attempts at censorship are apolitical,” he notes, “you are far more likely to get in trouble on campus for opposing, for example, affirmative action, gay marriage and abortion rights, than you are for supporting them.”
Lukianoff acknowledges being once “hissed at” during a libertarian student conference for being a Democrat, but notes “it is far more common that I am vilified as an evil conservative for defending free speech on campus,” a reaction he has found to be both commonplace and odd. “Isn’t freedom of speech quintessentially a liberal issue?” he asks.
The problem is not new, but it has grown dramatically worse since a young William F. Buckley described the anti-free market, anti-religion intellectual environment at his Ivy League university in God and Man at Yale, way back in 1950. Many parents and students opposed to the indoctrination routinely imposed at so many colleges and universities are nonetheless paying the increasingly expensive piper for educational tunes hostile to their own deeply held values and traditions. Those of a conservative or libertarian persuasion can find alternatives in mostly small, conservative and/or religious colleges and universities. But the nation should be able to expect more from secular, “mainstream” establishments of higher education than to find them as enclaves of a rigid ideological regimentation.
Speech codes that punish students for comments that may offend or provoke a protected race, ethnic group, gender, or persons of a different “sexual orientation” stifle not only speech but thought, preventing the free exchange of ideas in a climate hospitable to debate. As George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley has noted, the nation has gone far beyond the famous dictum of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that the freedom of speech does not confer upon anyone the right to falsely cry fire in a theater. “Our entire society is being treated as a crowded theater,” wrote Turley, “and talking about whole subjects is now akin to shouting fire.”
The once-proud liberal notion of a “values-free” education has long since given way to an educational regime that imposes values that are hostile to freedom, faith, and morality and intolerant of opposing points of view that have the potential of stimulating serious debate about the reigning tenets of a “progressive” creed and ideology. A 2010 survey of 24,000 students by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found only 30 percent of college seniors strongly agreed with the statement: “It is safe to have unpopular views on campus.” More telling, perhaps, is the fact that only 16.7 percent of faculty members registered a strong agreement with that statement. Higher education in recent decades has become dramatically higher in cost, but remarkably lower in the standards it upholds as a university’s ideal. The late Clark Kerr, former president of the University of California, was no doubt being facetious when he said that the three-fold purpose of the university was to “provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni and parking for the faculty.” Or perhaps he was exaggerating only a bit.
Some economists claim that the rapidly rising costs of college education, propped up by government grants and subsidized loans, have created an economic bubble in the higher education market that will soon burst as the housing bubble did in 2008. Perhaps economic realities will succeed where concern for fairness and decency has failed in focusing minds of professional educators and laymen alike on the meaning and purpose of higher education. Aspiring students in the not-too-distant future may find the doors locked at one or more of our most prestigious universities, with a sign on the lawn in front of the administration building telling the sad story: “Gone out of business. Didn’t know what our business was.”A Jewish transgender reporter who physically threatened conservative pundit Ben Shapiro on TV says Orthodox Jews are flirting with white nationalists.
“The Jewish Orthodox community is playing footsie with the alt-right,” Zoey Tur told the Forward in an exclusive interview.
Last July, Tur and Shapiro clashed on CNN’s Headline News over the rights of transgender people. Shapiro referred to her as “sir” and claimed that celebrating Caitlyn Jenner for coming out as trans was akin to “mainstreaming delusion.” Shapiro is also Jewish.
Tur, an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist who famously tracked down O.J. Simpson during a car chase, gripped the back of Shapiro’s neck. “Cut that out now, or you’ll go home in an ambulance,” she said. Shapiro filed a complaint against her that the Los Angeles Police Department soon dropped. Tur said she received a deluge of death threats from “alt-right” figures after the encounter.
The evening came up again last week when Shapiro mocked Tur in a speech at a Yeshiva University event hosted by College Republicans. Shapiro said being transgender amounted to “a significant mental illness” and compared that condition to paranoid schizophrenia. He called Tur “this fellow,” poked fun at her for having “a voice at least an octave below my own” and referred to her behavior during their encounter as “unladylike.”
Tur said she has no regrets.
“If I allowed him to do what he was doing, I would have been killed. Looking weak, that would be inviting more of this,” she said.
Tur, who blamed the television fracas on an unscrupulous producer at Headline News, said that Shapiro continued to discuss the incident because it left him feeling insecure and emasculated. “There’s no reason to talk about me anymore. He brings it up because he because he needs to make himself look stronger and more powerful,” she said. “He was humiliated beyond imagination on national television by a transsexual, and then went to the police.”
She told the Forward that her exchange with Shapiro alerted her to the dangers of the “alt-right,” which she says Shapiro is a part of.
“He and Breitbart are with the ‘alt-right,’” Tur said. “These are really bad people, really dangerous people. And their ideas are essentially the same, similar to Trump’s, that you can openly disparage people, don’t believe in science, trust fake news.”
Shapiro is now a target of “alt-right” trolling but was once an editor-at-large at Breitbart News, which former head (and now-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon) described as a platform for the “alt-right,” which incorporates strains of nativism and white nationalism.
Tur said she hopes that the students who applauded Shapiro last week at Yeshiva University would learn to “think for themselves” instead of relying on religious faith. “It’s time that we dispensed with our silly beliefs and magical beings that control our lives.”
Ultimately, Tur said she feels sorry for Shapiro and what she perceived to be his deficits. “He has intellect, but no insight, no empathy, no creativity,” she said.
Shapiro did not respond to multiple requests for comments as of press time.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
This story "Jewish Transgender Reporter Zoey Tur Says Ben Shapiro is Part of ‘Alt-Right’ After Yeshiva U. Speech" was written by Daniel J. Solomon.For a joke, Faye Rogers' friends call her Dr Dolittle.
However, the Weedons woman calls herself an "animal communicator".
She says she can talk to anything – from worms to horses.
Much like a horse whisperer, Rogers says she tunes into animals' thoughts to give owners an insight into their pets' health and behaviour.
Rogers says she understands some people are sceptical, but they become convinced after she provides personal information only they could know.
She says all beings are "connected by a higher consciousness".
This way, animals are able to send information to each other despite geographical distance. For example, birds may pass international information to fish.
Rogers says she has been "advised" of impending disasters such as the Victoria bushfires and earthquakes in Haiti and China.
"But it's not my place to stop it," she says.
"Who am I to just ring China?"
She says animals have told her about global environmental concerns.
Rogers says she receives information through words, emotions and visual pictures.
Contrary to the accusation by horse whisperer Bill Northern that cats are "liars", Rogers says they appear wily because they must be asked specific questions.
Dogs and horses are "direct", and birds are "busy and purposeful".
"Cats play with mice because they are giving them respect. It's actually giving them a second chance or time to get away. It's just that humans don't see it like that.
"Farmed animals are happy to be farmed as long as they are treated well.
"They don't mind because they know they are part of the food chain."
A cat recently advised her it had a thyroid problem and a neighbourhood staffordshire terrier correctly complained of having a fracture in its spine when its owners believed the problem was a sore leg.
Rogers started speaking to animals to help friends, but began charging for it about six years ago.
The price is $65 an hour.
Clients approach her with problems, such as animals that share a home but do not get along, queries about health and how to settle an animal that has come from an abused background.
At the rural lifestyle block she shares with her partner, Rogers looks after a pond of goldfish, a rabbit, budgies, a cat, guinea pigs, llamas, four dogs – including an Irish wolfhound called Emerald – a pet sheep called Beanie, and Thistle the donkey.
She has communicated with fish, worms, an ant, a seal, a herd of cattle in Invercargill and a chicken in New York.
The chicken had passed over and wanted to give its owner a final message.
WHAT THE CAT SAID
The Press emailed Rogers a photograph of Dave, a cat belonging to Christchurch couple Steve and Hayley Marsh.
The email provided the cat's name and age and its owners' names.
While Dave had no particular issues, the couple asked where he went at night, if he wanted to be on a diet, and whether he was embarrassed to be ginger.
Rogers emailed the information back in a Q&A format.
She said the cat saw himself as "Mighty Dave", and his main quality was humour.
He visits a black cat at night.
"We play and have fun and I am having chasing games, but more likely we sit and look at the great night sky, and the mice are visible in the moonlight and their smells are heightened, so it is good."
On the subject of diet, Rogers said Dave carried no shame about his weight and did not want to "be like Steve".
On being ginger: "I am more than a colour. I see myself like the sun, bright and energetic.
"I just don't see people's perspective of finding a beautiful colour like me as derogatory. Yes, I showed great hysteria when you asked me this question. I have no complex being ginger. So Hayley, dear, I am just fine."UPDATE 7/21/2014: While initial estimates put the number of AIDS researchers killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 at over 100, the International AIDS Society confirmed Saturday the identities of six delegates – not 100 or more – traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. This article has been corrected to reflect this change.
The stunning loss of scientific intelligence and knowledge as a result of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is unprecedented, and its impact on the search for a cure for HIV/AIDS will likely be felt for years to come. Officials cofirmed that six of the 298 passengers aboard the plane were top HIV/AIDS scientists and researchers en route to the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, which begins Sunday.
Those in the field of AIDS research lament not just their deaths, but the loss of their expertise and the vast wealth of knowledge they held. Though the exact number of HIV/AIDS scientists and researchers who died when the plane was shot down near Grabovo, Ukraine, on Thursday hasn't been released, the International Aids Society confirmed Saturday the identities of six of those delegates.
“We do know that there were a lot of people [on flight MH17] who were working in AIDS research,” Nora Restrepo, a spokeswoman for UNAIDS, the HIV/AIDS research branch of the United Nations, told International Business Times. But, “we’re still essentially bracing ourselves to hear how many people were on that flight.”
Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, said in a statement that the organization is “in deep shock. … The deaths of so many committed people working against HIV will be a great loss for the AIDS response.”
The identities of six of those AIDS researchers were confirmed Saturday and included World Health Organization spokesman Glenn Thomas and former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange. In 2001, Lange founded the Amsterdam-based nonprofit organization PharmAccess Foundation, which helps people in developing countries gain access to HIV/AIDS therapy. "Joep was a visionary amongst HIV researchers," Richard Elion, an American HIV researcher, told Vox News. "He was acutely aware of the multiple dimensions of HIV spanning science to society and had a heart of gold."
The deaths of activists like Joep, whose knowledge and experience in AIDS research is considered irreplaceable, has led many to wonder about the ramifications of losing such intellectual capital in the global movement to end AIDS, which has killed an estimated 36 million people worldwide since the disease surfaced in 1981, according to the WHO.
“That knowledge is irreplaceable,” Richard Boyd, director of the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories, told Guardian Australia. "We've lost global leaders and also some bright young people who were coming through.” It's not only the individuals' knowledge that was lost; so, too, were their capabilities to connect the dots in scientific research.
Trevor Stratton, an HIV/Aids consultant, said it's hard to overstate the importance of the loss. He told ABC network that “the cure for AIDS may have been on that plane.”
Massimo Ghidinelli, head of Pan American Health Organization’s HIV and STD research unit, stressed that while the loss will be keenly felt, those on the plane had shared much of their knowledge. “Certainly professor Lang and many others were actively collaborating on the quest for a cure for AIDS,” Ghidinelli told IBTimes. “Luckily, it was not all imbedded in one single group.”
Ghidinelli added that information about the latest developments in AIDS research is usually shared among those in the global AIDS research community, and that there are “several promising strains” of work going on all over the world.
Still, he said, “The big loss is the human loss and the individual loss of contribution that all of those brains have contributed to the HIV AIDS community over the years. I don’t know the details, but I have a fear and a major concern of most of the Amsterdam-based research group might be heavily affected by this tragedy.”
Nobel laureate Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who co-discovered the AIDS virus, has said the AIDS conference in Melbourne will continue as planned. The conference will feature such prominent AIDS activists as former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Sidibé.
On Friday, President Barack Obama noted that the victims included “nearly 100” AIDS researchers, though the Washington Post reported that conference organizers had confirmed only seven names.
“We have been working hard to try and confirm how many people were on the flight. We’ve been speaking to a number of different authorities, and we think the actual number is much smaller,” Chris Beyrer, who will take over the presidency of the International AIDS Society at the end of the global conference next week, told the Post.
Among the others the Post reported to have been confirmed by employers or others to have been on the flight were three Dutch AIDS activists: Lucie van Mens, who had been involved in HIV/AIDS prevention work; Martine de Schutter, a program manager at Bridging the Gaps, which lobbies for universal access to HIV prevention; and Pim de Kuijer, a lobbyist at the group Stop AIDS Now.
In an email to the Washington Post, Oyuntungalag Namjilsuren, a colleague of Thomas' at WHO, called the tragedy “a shell shocking event in global aids response.”Posted by Maria Maltseva on Jul 31, 2014 in Feminism |
Debunking Modern Feminism, Part 1
Note: What follows does not apply to all feminists, but only to modern feminist mobs that you’re likely to encounter on sites like Jezebel, Blame the Patriarchy, and others. Further, all women owe much to the efforts of early feminists who helped open doors and give Western women the freedoms that we enjoy today.
_______________________________________________
I get asked this a lot, so I’ll answer, briefly for now, and later, in greater detail, with statistics and links. Why is opposing modern feminism important to me? Well, for many reasons. First, I’ve experienced feminist bullying first hand, and it was horrifying. I have never encountered a less compassionate group of people in my life. What was my crime? I stated that it was wrong for feminists to publicly attack two young women who were brave enough to say that being asked to coffee in an elevator is no big deal (it isn’t). This was years ago, and things have only gotten worse since. Every man who voices an objection to anything feminists say is labeled a misogynist and accused of mansplaining. These accusations have been lobbed at some of the most kind and honorable people I know.
Feminists are blurring the definition of rape to where “eye rape” is now actually a thing. Seriously. Eye rape. This does a huge disservice to rape survivors, both male and female, who have already suffered enough. The last thing they need is to have their traumatic experiences compared to “eye rape” or drunk sex.
I hate that feminists smear “Nice Guys” and accuse them of having ulterior motives. Some may; some may not, but how is a guy supposed to show a woman that he likes her? And what’s the problem with being sexually attracted to a woman that you’re friends with? This could lead to a great relationship, or it could lead to nothing at all, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it.
Feminists despise free speech and use every weapon in their arsenal to silence both allies and opponents. Being that afraid of criticism is a clear sign that your ideas don’t and won’t stand up to scrutiny.
I hate terms like “rape culture,” “patriarchy,” “mansplaining,” “dudebro,” “privilege,” “male gaze,” “objectification,” “sexualization,” “creep,” and “misogyny.” They are generally used to describe both everything and nothing in particular. The purpose of these terms is emotional manipulation, and many good men fall for it like dominoes in a row.
Feminists are consistently anti-science. They prefer personal anecdote over evidence, but only if that anecdote fits their ideology.
I hate that feminists completely ignore the rights of men, and only give occasional lip service to the rights of people of color, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others in need of help.
Many feminists make their feminism a career. And I don’t respect people whose career is to make others miserable.
I hate that feminists use statistics to perpetuate lies. I hate their constant hypocrisy.
I hate that feminism teaches women to be victims and whiners, rather than taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions. Women are not as pathetic and weak as feminists would have us believe.
Further, feminists can’t seem to make up their mind as to whether women and men are the same or different. News flash: We’re a sexually dimorphic species with significant physical differences. And that doesn’t just mean that some men are better at weight-lifting:http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ. At this point, I think it is fair to say that on average, women are better at some things, while men are at others. But this doesn’t define where any individual falls on the spectrum of ability, and discrimination on the basis of sex is both illegal and unacceptable.
Some feminists are trans-phobic, because the logical conclusion of viewing gender as a harmful social construct is to do away with it completely, making transgender persons even more marginalized and stigmatized than they already are. On the other hand, other feminists believe that lesbians must have sex with transgender women, even if those women have fully male bodies. According to them, to do less would be discrimination.
Finally, feminist theory is a mess. It’s based on loose facts and snippets taken from postmodernism. Rationalism is what drew me to skepticism, and feminism is the exact opposite of that.
In sum, feminists have managed to prove every negative |
them. However, they may bear any weapon described in the Player's Handbook at the DM's discretion. If a Malfested Soldier is bearing any weapon other than a Longsword, change the damage and range accordingly while leaving the bonus to hit the same. The Azure Knight Medium Monstrosity, Chaotic Evil Armor Class 18 (plate)
18 (plate) Hit Points 300(40d8 +120)
300(40d8 +120) Speed 30 ft., fly 50 ft. STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 19 (+4) 15 (+2) 17 (+3) 11 (+0) 9 (-1) 5 (-3) Saving Throws Str +5, Dex +3
Str +5, Dex +3 Damage Vulnerabilities radiant
radiant Damage Resistances acid, fire, necrotic, poison
acid, fire, necrotic, poison Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 9
darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 9 Languages Common
Common Challenge ___ Actions Multiattack. The Night Terror makes 2 melee attacks. Soul Edge (Greatsword). Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take an extra 4 (1d8) necrotic damage. Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 8 (1d6+5) piercing damage. 4
Night Terror Large Monstrosity, Chaotic Evil Armor Class 18 (plate)
18 (plate) Hit Points 360(40d10 + 160)
360(40d10 + 160) Speed 50 ft., fly 50 ft. STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 21 (+5) 16 (+3) 19 (+4) 11 (0) 9 (-1) 5 (-3) Saving Throws Str +10, Dex +8
Str +10, Dex +8 Damage Immunities acid, necrotic
acid, necrotic Damage Resistances fire, poison; bludeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons.
fire, poison; bludeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons. Damage Vulnerabilities Radiant
Radiant Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 9
darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 9 Languages Common
Common Challenge 17 (18000 XP) Soul Burst. Make a separate attack roll against all creatures within a 15 ft radius of Night Terror. Hit: 8 (1d8+3) necrotic damage. Actions Multiattack. The Night Terror makes 3 melee attacks. Alternatively, it can make one melee attack and perform one Soul Burst. Soul Edge (Greatsword). Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage. Target must make a DC 17 Constitution save, taking 24 (4d10) necrotic damage on a failed save and half as much on a successful one. Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 8 (1d6+5) piercing damage. Legendary Actions The Night Terror can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The Night Terror regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn. Swift Claw. Night Terror makes one attack with its Claws. Vampiric Blade (Costs 2 Actions). Night Terror makes one attack with Soul Edge (Greatsword). It restores health equal to half the damage done. Soul Sacrifice (Costs 2 Actions). Night Terror deals 11 (2d10) damage to itself. All attacks made until the end of its next turn cause this much addiional damage of the same type as the attack. 5Note: This interview discusses some—vague—plot points from Star Trek Beyond.
When John Cho learned that Star Trek Beyond would show that his character, Hikaru Sulu, is gay, he had a couple of concerns. One of those concerns? That George Takei, the man who originated the character, would not be happy. The younger Sulu turned out to be right, even if Takei was unhappy for reasons Cho didn’t anticipate. Takei, an out LGBT activist, called it “a twisting of [Star Trek creator] Gene [Roddenberry]’s creation.” What was supposed to be a tribute to Takei and a revolutionary moment for the franchise ended up a point of contention.
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Cho, however, is ultimately proud of what Star Trek Beyond has done. After all, the actor knows something about the importance of representation. Earlier this year, his face and name were used in a campaign—#StarringJohnCho—that has highlighted how Hollywood underserves Asian actors. The A.V. Club recently spoke to Cho about the movie and the news.
The A.V. Club: In the movie, the central conflict between Krall, who thinks people thrive on conflict, and the Federation, which believes in unity, seriously resonates in this political climate. Have you guys been thinking or talking about that?
John Cho: Yes, we certainly have. When I read the script last year, it was relevant then but in particular now. We traveled to Sydney to begin this press tour, and then everything went bananas in the United States with the events in Dallas and all that stuff. It has been resonant. Obviously, coming up on this election cycle—this has been one of the strangest presidential races that I can remember—so we’ve been thinking about unity versus division, similarities versus differences. That has been on our minds as we talk about Star Trek and what it stands for, what the Starfleet stands for, and its place in culture.
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AVC: Have you had any responses from people to that effect?
JC: The general audience hasn’t gotten to see the movie, but it has not escaped [journalists], and it has not escaped us. I think it does make the themes of the movie more resonant with us. Oddly, the tumult of this year reminds me of the late ’60s, when Roddenberry created Star Trek. It was a similarly divisive time in America. There were assassinations at that time. I’m trying to think of—knock on wood—how young people would feel today if our president and our leaders were shot at. But… our young people are being killed at an astonishing rate, and times seem dark. Times seem similarly dark. The message of Star Trek, if there is one, seems to be that we should try to live up to the very best that we’re capable of. Star Trek seems to be an appeal to our better nature, the side of ourselves that works toward peace and cooperation and understanding and knowledge and yearns to seek out knowledge rather than the side that wants to divide and control one another.
AVC: Could you walk people through how Simon [Pegg], Doug [Jung], and Justin [Lin] first told you that Sulu would have a husband? What was your reaction? How did you first learn it?
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JC: I learned it first from Justin. Simon had pitched it. I heard from Justin early on in preproduction. I was concerned for a few reasons. I was concerned that George wouldn’t like it, and it turned out to be true. But I was actually concerned that he wouldn’t like it for a different reason. I thought that George would object because he’s a gay actor who was playing straight. I know that was difficult, that he couldn’t come out and that he had crafted a straight character. Then, now, because he’s an activist and he’s out of the closet—clearly, this is an homage a little bit to him—[I worried] he would object to us taking that from his life and say, “Hey, I was a gay actor who created a straight character, and now you’re making him gay because I’ve come out of the closet?,” that we were just seeing him for his sexual orientation. So I thought that would be where he would object. It turns out not to be his objection. But that’s what I was worried about.
And secondly, I was concerned that Asians and Asian Americans might see it as a sort of continuing feminization of Asian men. Asian American men, Asian men have been basically eunuchs in American cinema and television, and I thought maybe it would be seen as a continuation of that.
Thirdly, I was concerned that because this is the same genetic Sulu—although we’re in an alternate timeline—that we would be inadvertently implying that sexual orientation was a choice. So those were my areas of concern. Having said that, I was convinced that the message was pure and that it was coming from a really good place, and I thought that it was handled correctly. People would buy it. And I think we have handled it correctly, and I think people are not worrying about the issues that I was worried about.
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AVC: Do you still maintain those concerns a little bit?
JC: Yes, I do. They’re not gone. But, on the other hand, I think, narratively, it’s really good. We’re executing Roddenberry’s intent, I think: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. It’s very much a part of the ethos of Star Trek. I have to say, all things considered, it’s working great, and I’m proud of it. George was very important to me as a kid. Seeing his face on TV as an Asian American kid in Houston, Texas, in the early ’80s, was very impactful for me. Aside from it just being a great narrative device—which it is because it personalizes the stakes when Yorktown [a Starfleet base] is threatened by Krall, our villain—the best thing I can hope for is that it encourages some gay or lesbian viewer, who is young and doesn’t feel like he or she sees enough of themselves on the screen. So if there’s somebody out there who digs it and feels less afraid, then right on.
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AVC: You mentioned the Yorktown moment, which was a really interesting thing. Oftentimes, when a place is threatened in a movie, we have the male hero and the girlfriend or the wife back home. That changes here.
JC: You know, I had requested that my husband be Asian.
AVC: Why was that?
JC: The reason was that I grew up with some gay Asian male friends. You don’t really see Asian men together very often. It’s very rare in life. I’ve always felt that there was some extra cultural shame to having two Asian men together, because it was so difficult to come out of the closet, so difficult to be gay and Asian, that they couldn’t really bring themselves… It’s easier to run away from people that look like your family. I wanted the future to be where it was completely normal and therefore, aside from the gender, they look like a traditional heterosexual couple. So that relationship, to me, the optics of it are that it looks very traditional on the one hand and very radical on the other.
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AVC: Since the “Starring John Cho” meme, you’ve been at the center of a lot of these recent discussions about representation. How does that feel?
JC: It’s cool. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Sometimes I just feel like I’m not talking about acting or character. On the other hand, I’m fine with it. I’m happy to do it, because these are issues that are important to me personally. It’s just weird sometimes, because it’s not germane to my job as such. So it seems strange to be at the center of it. But I think it’s a very healthy discussion to have, and it’s necessary. They are ideas whose time has come, but really they are ideas whose time had come a long time ago, and the execution is lagging. And that’s why we’re having the discussion, because the execution is not forthcoming. So I’m happy to talk about it and happy to do something about it if needed, if I’m in the position to do it. I just happen to be the talking point or rather the impetus for the moment. In 20 minutes, it’ll be something else, but it’s my turn to talk about it, I suppose.
AVC: Regardless, gay or straight—in this instance, Sulu happens to be gay—but we’re learning more about his backstory. Even if we don’t get a long explanation for it, how did that affect your performance?
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JC: For me, it shifts things, because the objective is not just to save the crew or just to get the ship up, but the superobjective is to get back home to the family and protect the family. So it does add a layer of meaning to everything that you’re doing. It sounds silly when you’re pushing fake buttons, but it’s true that it does motivate the fake pushing of buttons in a different way.
AVC: On a lighter note, there’s a really great scene that involves the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” Was filming that fun?
JC: We did pump the tune before we got into that section. It’s a badass tune, so we were just all bobbing heads for a minute and then had to stop bobbing heads. They were like, “Okay, okay, stop! Stop! Stop! Stop bobbing your head!”
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AVC: It seems like you guys also had a blast doing the Dubsmashes.
JC: Yeah, we got a little out of hand with the Dubsmashes. It got out of hand, and then it got in hand, and now it’s out of hand again.NAANTALI, Finland (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin suggested on Friday Russia could move its troops closer to the Finnish-Russian border if Finland joins NATO and called for measures to improve conflict prevention over the Baltic.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures during his joint press conference with Finland's President Sauli Niinisto at Kultaranta summer residence in Naantali, Finland July 1, 2016. Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari/via REUTERS
Finnish armed forces “would become part of NATO’s military infrastructure, which overnight would be at the borders of the Russian Federation”, Putin said after meeting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
“Do you think we will keep it as it is: our troops at 1,500 (kilometers, 900 miles) away?”
Putin’s first visit to Finland since the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014 comes amid increased Russian and NATO activity in the Baltic region, and with the militarily neutral Finland and neighboring Sweden increasing their co-operation with NATO. It also comes a week before a NATO summit in Warsaw.
“NATO perhaps would gladly fight with Russia until the last Finnish soldier,” Putin said.
“Do you guys need it? We don’t. We don’t want it. But it is your call.”
Airspace over the Baltic has been the arena for a rash of close encounters between Russian and Western aircraft in recent months, and the former Soviet Baltic states have called on NATO to step up air defenses in the region.
Putin and Niinisto called for measures to improve security, with the Finnish president urging that no military planes should fly over the Baltic with identification devices switched off.
Related Coverage Avoid flights over Baltic Sea with transponders off: Finnish President
“We all know the risk with these flights and I have suggested that we should agree that transponders are used on all flights in the Baltic Sea region,” Niinisto said.
Putin said Russian planes flew at times with identifying transponders off, but NATO planes did it much more often.
He said Russia would talk to NATO about increasing mutual trust and improving conflict prevention at the Russia-NATO council meeting that will take place after the NATO summit.Show paragraph
The article puts the blame on the meat industry while its obviously about emissions of agriculture plus the meat industry. Wrong methodology. What the article should have done is looking at final consumption of meat and to carve up total CO2 emissions in chunks for agriculture, processing, transport, regrigerators at home etc. Below I'll link to a study which does tis (though not for the entire life cycle). The study also indicates that small scalle production is not necessarily the solution: "The
increasing proportion of lot-fed beef in Australia is favorable,
since this production system generates lower total GHG emissions
than grass-fed production; the additional effort in producing
and transporting feeds is effectively offset by the increased
efficiency of meat production in feedlots.". The short run solution: eat bovine tongue/liver/heart as at the moment this is to quite an extent not used for human consumption. We do not, shame on us, even eat the entire animal (shame on us). The medium term: less beef eventually offset by more sustainable chicken. The long term: less meat. http://scholar.google.nl/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/45684563/Red_meat_production_in_australia_life_cy20160516-5205-16b5l4l.pdf&hl=nl&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm1KxCrh7Jd5K0oie8h26J0AYTpFfg&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0ahUKEwil-bP5-qTYAhXKL1AKHQ-zAOkQgAMIOigCMAACan the availability of potential sexual partners influence sexual attraction?
Why people might find you hotter at closing time in pubs or bars?
Dr James Pennebaker of the University of Virginia psychology department was inspired by songwriter Baker Knight 1970s hit ‘Don’t All the Girls Get Prettier at Closing Time‘ and decided to test this theory.
Pennebaker’s research assistants were instructed to approach men and women in singles bars between 9:30pm and closing time, who were alone but slightly intoxicated. The assistants then asked these people to rate members of the opposite sex.
“Ain’t it funny, ain’t it strange, the way a man’s opinions change, when he starts to face that lonely night.” -Baker Knight
In his book Impulse: why we do what we do without knowing why we do it, Dr David Lewis sums up the findings of the study as follows:
“The results provided strong support for Baker Knight’s lyrics. As a closing time crept closer and closer, people without partners started to see remaining members of the opposite sex as increasingly attractive. A man or woman rated four when the bar was full might be rated six as numbers dwindled and those who remained looked like facing a ‘lonely night’.”
You getting more attractive around closing time is known as the closing time effect.
But why does the attractiveness ratings of the opposite sex persons increase as the evening goes on?
There a few psychological reasons at play…
Sexually provocative cues
One of the reasons is that bars in general contain more sexually provocative cues than other places.
As a result, these cues focus your attention more on people of the opposite sex and prime you for attraction-related thoughts and behaviours.
This is why bars are actually favourable conditions are for increased attractiveness of others, even same-sex individuals.
Just by being in a bar, other people will appear more attractive than usual.
The threat against our behavioural freedom
Although alcohol plays a big role in accentuating these cues, there’s another psychological phenomenon at play that’s occurring in parallel.
This phenomenon has to do with behavioural freedom.
Think of it this way.
When you enter a bar, you can theoretically take any member of the opposite sex home (except for the ones that are taken).
Just take your pick, right?
Pennebaker suggests however, that by closing time as others start to leave, people start to realise that their ability to take someone home is getting slimmer by the minute.
Their behavioural freedom is threatened and so they react.
They suddenly take action and instead of looking for the “the one”, they just look for “any one”.
Scientists refer to the reaction to a loss of behavioural freedom as reactance theory.
Scarcity enhances value
At closing time, there’s naturally less and less people in the bar as some leave, some pair up and are suddenly of the ‘market’, and so whoever is left of the opposite-sex becomes instantly more attractive as they’ve de facto become a scarce commodity.
This is what Brock’s (1968) Commodity Theory stipulates – that scarcity basically enhances value.
When it’s closing time, instead of choosing – people start settling for what’s left.
P.S. Thanks for reading. If you liked this, feel free to sign up to my free weekly newsletter for more psychological insights into everyday life.
AdvertisementsWhat Is The Pomodoro Technique?
The Pomodoro technique has nothing to do with Tomatoes, but it does have to do with productivity and how to time manage better.
The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity technique that helps people get things done by helping them focus on a specific task within a Pomodoro time limit. The Pomodoro time limit is 25 minutes followed by a short break. Some tasks might take more than 25 minutes to finish, so you might need to reset the Pomodoro timer several more times. Ultimately, as stated before, the Pomodoro technique is geared towards helping people focus for the next 25 minutes to get things done.
How To Use The Pomodoro Technique?
The Pomodoro technique is can be summarized into 5 easy steps:
Choose a task to be accomplished. Set your timer to 25 minutes. (Note the Pomodoro is the timer itself). During the 25 minutes, only focus on doing that task until the time’s up. After that, check off the task from your to-do list. Take a 5 minute break. Repeat the process. Feel free to take longer breaks as time progresses (10-15 minutes). To maximize the benefits of this technique, if possible, work at a place where you can focus the best and to get the task done efficiently.
How To Get Started With The Pomodoro Technique?
Getting started with the Pomodoro technique is simple. All you need is a timer. Most people have a phone nowadays so you can simply utilize the alarm or timer feature on your phone set at 25 minutes to get started.
Not only that, there are people out there who developed a Pomodoro app for smartphones. You don’t need to go fancy and take that route, but it is also an option. As long as you have a timer of some sort, then you are ready to go.
How To Integrate The Pomodoro Technique With Other Productivity Techniques?
The Pomodoro technique is not the end all be all productivity technique. There are many other productivity and time management techniques that might work better in some situations than others when compared to the Pomodoro technique. With that in mind, the great thing about the Pomodoro technique is that you can integrate it with other techniques.
For instance, you can organize and prioritize your tasks by using the Eisenhower Matrix. Once you've done that, you can start tackling each task by using the Pomodoro Technique.
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out The 80/20 Rule and how you can use it to make better decisions and ultimately save time. http://goalstriver.com/blog/save-time-make-better-decisions-the-80-20-rule/
Conclusion
So how do you manage your time? What techniques or methods do you use? Feel free to share it with us in the comments below. We love to learn a few new tricks to share.
SOURCES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT70iCaG0Gs
http://lifehacker.com/productivity-101-a-primer-to-the-pomodoro-technique-1598992730
http://pomodorotechnique.com/"The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt."
Gutzon Borglum
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is host to almost three million visitors a year from across the country and around the world. They come to marvel at the majestic beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota and to learn about the birth, growth, development and the preservation of our country. Over the decades, Mount Rushmore has grown in fame as a symbol of America-a symbol of freedom and hope for people from all cultures and backgrounds.
All the cultures that make up the fabric of this country are represented by the memorial and surrounding Black Hills. One of the most important gifts we can give our visitors at Mount Rushmore National Memorial is an understanding and love for our nation's history and cultures and an appreciation of the importance of caring for that legacy.apt-fast and Axel: Roughly 26x Faster apt-get Installations and Upgrades Updated 12/22/2011
apt-fast Development is now on GitHub:
https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast
About apt-fast:
The apt-fast script I have created is a little shellscript that increases the speed of apt-get by many times. You need to have axel or aria2c installed as a download manager, which is a simple, short process, but everything else is extremely straight forward. I started out downloading the upgrades for Kubuntu, at 32kb/s. Not terrible, but not that great. When I was done with the script here, I was getting up to ~850kb/s. That is great!
Once you've setup apt-fast, you can use it like apt-get. To install a single package, make sure your database is up to date ( apt-fast update ), and run apt-fast install packagenamehere. Watch it download with incredible speed, and install your requested packages. To upgrade or dist-upgrade, do the same thing. Just use apt-fast dist-upgrade or apt-fast upgrade. That's all there is to it!
Should your download stall for any number of reasons, you'll need to do an apt-fast clean.
This is a fully opensource script, of course, under the GPLv3, so please improve upon it and modify it as you will. If you do something cool with it, or make a useful mod to the code, please pastebin it or put it in a forum somewhere and put a link in the comments below. I'll give you credit and add it to the script here on mattparnell.com.The fight against war and the political tasks of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
28 November 2014
The Second National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain) adopted this resolution unanimously on October 28.
1. The Socialist Equality Party endorses the International Committee of the Fourth International resolution, “Socialism and the Fight Against Imperialist War.” The resolution of this Congress incorporates and elaborates on the ICFI’s resolution, applying it to the work of the SEP in Britain.
2. The statement’s call for the ICFI to become “the international centre of revolutionary opposition to the resurgence of imperialist violence and militarism” was made on the 100th anniversary of World War I and 75 years after the start of World War II. In 1914 and 1939, the spark for war was ignited in Europe. Today the flame could be lit anywhere in the world.
3. Once again, conflicts over access to markets, raw materials, sources of cheap labour and spheres of influence are preparing an inferno. The recklessness with which the major powers are proceeding points to the deep crisis of imperialism. The basic contradictions of the world capitalist system—between globalised production and the division of the world into antagonistic nation states, and between socialized production and private ownership of the means of production—have reached a new peak of intensity. Faced with the danger of economic collapse and social upheavals, the major powers are resorting to militarism. But their actions only further imperil the world economy.
4. This Congress meets as a military offensive unfolds in Iraq and Syria, involving a gang-up of major and lesser powers, that threatens to become the antechamber of a broader conflagration. Just one year after it was forced to retreat from a planned attack on Damascus due to widespread opposition, parliament has authorized an open-ended conflict in the Middle East, in what Prime Minister David Cameron has declared to be a “generational struggle”. A century after Britain conspired to divide up the former Ottoman Empire, it is participating in a new carve up of the Middle East. This time it does so as a much-reduced economic and military power, weakened against its rivals and wracked by internal social and political conflicts that threaten the very survival of the UK state. With few available options, Britain’s ruling elite is forced to try and protect its geopolitical interests through a desperate alliance with US imperialism.
5. In its drive to overcome America’s own declining world position, the Obama administration has accelerated the Bush administration’s policy of securing US global hegemony by military might. In the last year alone, Washington has fomented civil war in Syria; threatened Iran; organized a right-wing coup in Ukraine; sent military forces back into Iraq; bombed targets in Syria; carried out drone attacks on Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan; dispatched military “experts” to Nigeria to combat Boko Haram and troops to West Africa under the pretext of the Ebola crisis; and escalated a “pivot to Asia” aimed at encircling and isolating China. A review of military strategy by the National Defense Panel states that the US must be prepared to fight five or six major wars simultaneously, citing China and Russia as the likely targets. Given that these countries have the second and third-largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, the machinations of US imperialism threaten the extinction of humanity.
6. At present there appears to be a confluence of interests between the imperialist powers. However, Lord Palmerston’s injunction that “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests” retains its full validity. The resort to imperialist gangsterism is the political expression of vast shifts in the world economy that are disrupting the relations established between the major powers since the end of World War II. China has eclipsed the US as the world’s leading manufacturing country, while the share of world manufacturing taken by Western Europe, the US and Japan fell from 80 percent in 1990, to just over half today. In contrast, the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—more than doubled their share to 27 percent.
7. US imperialism is determined to control Eurasia, the vast land mass that stretches from Western Europe to China and includes the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia and the Indian subcontinent. Former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard, “America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” Brzezinski’s thesis is the contemporary variant of the Eurasian strategy that formed the geo-strategic axis of the First and Second World Wars. This was first elaborated in 1904 by Britain’s Halford Mackinder who warned, “Who rules east Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the world-island; who rules the world-island commands the world.”
8. The destabilization of Ukraine, with the aid of right-wing and fascist forces, was a joint operation by Washington and Berlin, carried out under the auspices of the European Union (EU). For the US, Ukraine is a staging post in the drive to integrate former Soviet republics in Europe and Asia into the military, economic and political structures of NATO, opening the possibility of US or US-linked troops being stationed directly on Russia’s western border and territories. At the same time, Washington aims to bring Europe as a whole more firmly into its orbit. But this brings it objectively into conflict with Germany, which seeks to take advantage of America’s underlying weaknesses to reassert its role in world politics. Berlin has utilized Ukraine as a pretext for ending the restrictions placed upon it following the Second World War. This takes place as the German bourgeoisie proclaims the need to dispense with outmoded “taboos” over Hitler fascism that confined it to “soft power” politics.
9. There is nothing more grotesque than the posturing of Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband as defenders of civilization from the “barbarism” of Islamic State, the authoritarianism of China and “Russian expansionism”. Britain, with its long and bloody history as a colonial oppressor, is an international aggressor, seeking to overcome its eclipse by its major rivals abroad and profound social domestic tensions at home through the return to militarism. This has been made all the more urgent by the UK’s precipitous economic decline. In 1952, manufacturing comprised a third of its national output, employing 40 percent of the workforce and accounting for one-quarter of world manufacturing exports. Today, it is just 11 percent of GDP, employs 8 percent of the workforce and accounts for a miserable 2 percent of world manufacturing exports. What the UK retains, and seeks to utilize, is a significant military apparatus, with a presence in more than 80 countries. This, combined with the 53 member states of the Commonwealth, 14 British Overseas Territories and nine of the world’s top 16 military bases, gives it a global reach second only to that of the US. In addition to possessing nuclear weapons, it has privileged access to a vast intelligence network courtesy of Washington and is part of the Five Powers Defence Agreement—making it an integral part of US-led provocations against China and Russia. Britain is playing a lead role in the reorganisation of NATO, including heading one of the newly created rapid reaction forces that is directed against Russia.
10. Two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, currently being built have been described as the “biggest and most powerful warships ever constructed for the Royal Navy.” From 2020, they will be used to station helicopters as well as some of the 40 F35 Lightning II stealth fighter-bombers presently on order. The extent of British imperialism’s ambitions and its future imperatives was made clear in a 2010 Ministry of Defence policy document, Future Character of Conflict. This pointed out that “the changing dynamic between the major powers will influence how the UK prepares to fight.” In addition to maintaining a delicate balance of international relations, it includes as major global challenges: climate change, demographic imbalances, the battle for scarce resources and the rise of “ideological movements.” It warns, “The fundamental nature of conflict is enduring. It will remain a violent contest; a mix of chance, risk and policy whose underlying nature is both human and, at times, apparently irrational, making its character inherently volatile... The initiative is not a given and we must expect casualties, possibly in large numbers.”
11. The same contradictions that give rise to war create the basis for revolution. The widespread opposition to militarism among broad layers of workers and youth presently finds no political expression. The responsibility of the Socialist Equality Party is to provide the programme, perspective and leadership to mobilise the working class against the profit system—the root cause of war. The imperialist powers seek to resolve the contradictions embedded in the capitalist system through an internecine battle for world hegemony. The working class must provide its own answer by ending the irrational division of the planet and establishing world socialism based on production for need not profit.
The historical decline of British capitalism
12. Cameron has declared that the centenary anniversary of World War I should be a “celebration” of Britain’s “national spirit”. £50 million has been allotted to encouraging events designed to recast war as a heroic venture. The Great War poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are derided as left-wing propagandists, while artistic works such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Oh! What a Lovely War and even Blackadder are denounced for undermining patriotic values and the tradition of military excellence embodied in Britain’s armed forces.
13. The aim is to obliterate from collective consciousness the traumatic events of the first half of the 20th century. The Great War bequeathed to posterity the names of the Somme, Ypres, Verdun, Gallipoli and Kut—battlefields in which 800,000 British soldiers’ lives were lost, out of a one million national death toll, and 16 million worldwide. The term Thankful Villages was coined for those parishes that lost no men in the conflict, of which there were just 53 in England and Wales, and none in Scotland or Ireland. The tragedy of the First World War was made all the more poignant by the fact that it was not, as was claimed, the “war to end all wars.” Instead, it was followed by a yet bloodier world conflagration that left 70 million dead and brought mankind face to face with the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb.
14. Not only did these wars explode the claim that the working class had a stake in imperialism, they sealed the fate of the British Empire. By 1945, Britain’s efforts to beat back the challenge from German imperialism to its global domination had ended in its total eclipse by the United States, its wartime ally. Such were the tensions between London and Washington in the inter-war years that a plan was drawn up in the US for war, beginning with an attack on Canada and designed to open up all of the British Empire to American business and trade.
15. In his 1925 introduction to the US edition of Where is Britain Going? Trotsky wrote, “Britain is moving towards revolution because the epoch of capitalist decline has set in. And if culprits are to be sought, then in answer to the question who and what are propelling Britain along the road of revolution, we must say: not Moscow, but New York… The powerful and ever-growing world pressure of the United States makes the predicament of British industry, British trade, British finance and British diplomacy increasingly insoluble and desperate… The United States can only expand at the expense of Britain.”
16. Trotsky identified the key significance of the UK’s decline in its revolutionary implications for the development of the class struggle. He was writing at a time of a tremendous radicalisation of the working class, generated by the war and its aftermath, which was to culminate in the eruption of the 1926 General Strike just one year later. British capitalism came close to revolution, but was rescued by the betrayal of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress. Still, it staggered from one crisis to another. Hammered by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, forced into a government of National Emergency in 1931, it was beset by a depression that lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
17. America post-1945 was able to dominate Britain and Europe, which had been ruined and bankrupted by war. Combined with the role of Stalinism and social democracy in politically suppressing the working class, US economic might provided the basis for resc |
Time from onset of multiple sclerosis to assignment of a score of 4 (years) <2 470 6.0 5.2–6.8 Reference 470 13.1 11.0–15.2 Reference 293 3.4 2.8–4.0 Reference 2–5 171 4.8 3.5–6.0 0.43 171 10.0 7.2–12.8 0.12 102 3.3 2.4–4.1 0.20 >5 385 5.7 4.7–6.6 0.76 385 12.0 9.7–14.4 0.76 200 3.9 3.0–4.9 0.85 0.62 0.27 0.38 Azathioprine therapy for at least 6 months No 514 5.7 4.7–6.6 Reference 514 12.0 10.6–13.4 Reference 304 3.3 2.8–3.7 Reference Yes 508 5.7 4.8–6.5 0.51 508 14.7 12.1–17.2 0.09 287 4.0 3.3–4.7 0.05 Variable Time from assignment of a score of 4 to a score of 6 Time from assignment of a score of 4 to a score of 7 Time from assignment of a score of 6 to a score of 7 No. of patients (n = 1026) Median (years) 95% CI P value** No. of patients (n = 1026) Median (years) 95% CI P value** No. of patients (n = 595) Median (years) 95% CI P value** Gender Male 397 5.0 4.3–5.7 Reference 397 10.0 8.0–12.0 Reference 241 3.0 2.2–3.8 Reference Female 629 6.2 5.2–7.1 0.09 629 13.0 11.5–14.5 0.11 354 3.8 3.1–4.4 0.21 Age at onset (years) 0–19 207 5.5 4.1–6.9 Reference 207 11.8 9.4–14.2 Reference 65 2.8 1.3–4.2 Reference 20–29 341 6.0 4.9–7.1 0.86 341 11.3 9.6–12.9 0.66 184 3.2 2.5–3.9 0.57 30–39 311 5.0 3.8–6.2 0.56 311 12.6 9.3–15.8 0.49 186 4.3 3.3–5.3 0.12 40–49 185 7.0 5.5–8.5 0.61 185 14.0 10.6–17.4 0.20 106 4.0 2.7–5.3 0.08 ≥50 82 4.8 3.6–5.9 0.16 82 10.2 8.0–12.3 0.69 54 3.2 2.7–3.6 0.88 0.40 0.34 0.19 Initial symptoms Overall Isolated optic neuritis 158 5.0 3.7–6.3 Reference 158 12.6 6.7–18.4 Reference 86 3.5 2.4–4.6 Reference Isolated brain‐stem dysfunction 77 6.3 3.0–9.7 0.77 77 13.2 9.7–16.6 0.56 45 2.3 1.3–3.4 0.30 Isolated dysfunction of long tracts 595 5.8 5.1–6.6 0.77 595 12.0 10.5–13.5 0.64 357 4.0 3.3–4.7 0.31 Combination of symptoms 196 5.5 3.8–7.2 0.84 196 12.1 8.3–15.9 0.95 107 3.0 2.1–3.9 0.91 0.97 0.83 0.25 Long tracts involvement Yes 758 5.7 4.9–6.4 Reference 758 12.0 10.5–13.5 Reference 449 3.8 3.1–4.4 Reference No 268 5.7 4.0–7.3 0.75 268 13.0 9.7–16.3 0.42 146 3.0 2.2–3.8 0.06 Brain‐stem involvement Yes 207 6.0 4.4–7.6 Reference 207 13.2 10.7–15.6 Reference 117 2.8 2.2–3.4 Reference No 819 5.6 4.9–6.3 0.81 819 12.0 10.5–13.5 0.71 478 3.8 3.1–4.4 0.39 Optic neuritis Yes 222 5.4 4.3–6.5 Reference 222 12.6 7.9–17.3 Reference 120 3.5 2.2–4.8 Reference No 804 5.7 5.0–6.3 0.94 804 12.1 10.2–13.9 0.88 475 3.4 3.0–3.8 0.26 Initial course Relapsing–remitting 755 5.7 4.9–6.4 Reference 755 12.1 10.0–14.2 Reference 426 3.3 2.8–3.9 Reference Progressive 271 5.4 4.3–6.6 0.74 271 12.0 10.1–13.9 0.70 169 4.0 2.9–5.1 0.48 Recovery from the first relapse† Complete 592 5.6 4.8–6.4 Reference 592 11.3 9.9–12.6 Reference 308 3.0 2.5–3.5 Reference Incomplete 193 6.3 4.3–8.2 0.56 193 20.3 14.7–26.0 0.004 118 5.0 3.6–6.4 0.009 Time from onset of multiple sclerosis to the second neurological episode (years) <2 438 5.0 4.1–5.9 Reference 438 9.9 7.9–11.9 Reference 247 2.6 2.1–3.1 Reference 2–5 204 6.2 4.3–8.0 0.36 204 15.7 10.8–20.5 0.009 120 4.0 2.6–5.4 0.004 >5 204 6.3 4.6–7.9 0.05 204 14.9 9.9–19.9 0.005 121 4.6 3.7–5.5 0.005 0.14 0.003 0.002 Number of relapses within the first 5 years of the disease‡ n = 1 245 6.0 4.8–7.2 Reference 245 12.2 7.1–17.2 Reference 151 4.3 3.0–5.6 Reference n = 2 159 6.2 4.4–8.0 0.97 159 12.6 7.4–17.8 0.80 94 3.4 2.4–4.4 0.50 n ≥3 251 5.5 4.2–6.8 0.60 251 12.1 8.9–15.2 0.15 143 3.0 2.2–3.8 0.07 0.81 0.24 0.21 Time from onset of multiple sclerosis to assignment of a score of 4 (years) <2 470 6.0 5.2–6.8 Reference 470 13.1 11.0–15.2 Reference 293 3.4 2.8–4.0 Reference 2–5 171 4.8 3.5–6.0 0.43 171 10.0 7.2–12.8 0.12 102 3.3 2.4–4.1 0.20 >5 385 5.7 4.7–6.6 0.76 385 12.0 9.7–14.4 0.76 200 3.9 3.0–4.9 0.85 0.62 0.27 0.38 Azathioprine therapy for at least 6 months No 514 5.7 4.7–6.6 Reference 514 12.0 10.6–13.4 Reference 304 3.3 2.8–3.7 Reference Yes 508 5.7 4.8–6.5 0.51 508 14.7 12.1–17.2 0.09 287 4.0 3.3–4.7 0.05 View Large
ReferencesChapter One: The Right Decision?
AN: Hello Everyone! This is KaosC57 with my first ever story! I hope you all like this semi-late Christmas present! I hope to make an interesting story with the RWBY characters and my own OC that will hopefully be interesting and deep. Without further adieu, here is Beacon Isn't the End.
Ozpin approached a two story bungalow that had chipped paint and dead grass. He knew that the young hunter could afford to improve it, but he understood why he chose to keep the house in such condition.
"He probably doesn't want people to come by" Ozpin thought. Three security cameras watched Ozpin's tall and slender figure move up the drive and followed his every step.
"You know it's me old friend, why must you keep these cameras on?" He knocked on the door only to notice it had drifted open from his knock. "I guess he knew I was coming."
The hunter was dressed in a light crimson t-shirt with his symbol embellished upon it, a crossed greatsword and rapier with dual revolvers in the middle, each differently colored, grey for the greatsword, white for the rapier, and a deep crimson for both pistols. There was also a lightweight metal shoulder piece over each shoulder. He wore blue jeans, lightweight metal knee guards, and long gunmetal black sabatons, each concealing his revolvers. He was reclining in front of his myriad screens when he received a ping from his front door cameras. 'I guess Oz WAS coming after all, I guess he finally found the students who need to be given the training! This is gonna be worth all that work and research after all.' The young man thought. He got up from his position, shaking the aches out of his legs, sore from sitting crisscross for so long on his desk and brushed himself off, and proceeded to clean up the kitchen a little before Ozpin arrived.
"Hello Ozpin, I didn't quite have enough time to clean up properly, going on hunts, training, and your project have kept me busy." The young man stated.
"It's quite all right, I would not expect you to be able to keep a house so clean with the project I have given you. I have found the team that will be able to fulfil the task." Ozpin stated
"Well, that's great. But, do you know if they are truly ready? Beacon is a great start, but my training is a step above what you're measly combat schools can offer. I can show these girls true combat skills that will help not only in defeating the Grimm, but also the infiltrators. But, if you are correct about who their leader is, and her powers. I fear even I couldn't stop her. Let alone four young girls straight out of Beacon."
"I think this video will tell you all you need to know." Ozpin stated, his voice flat, turning his scroll towards the young man and opening a video of The Breach, and team RWBY's past exploits.
"Hmmm… They have potential. And they did stop The Breach." The young man paused. "Give me information on their semblances, and their fighting skills, and try to get a 3d scan of their weapons, if you can't do that that's fine, but it will make my end slightly more difficult."
"Two of them are very attached to their weapons, so that will be difficult to do, but you could do it when you start the training could you not?"
"I could, but i'd rather have the weapons on hand before I start the training. It makes it easier to learn how they fight, to help them improve. Fighting a mirror image of yourself can be incredibly enlightening to your flaws."
The two kept talking and as the young man kept asking questions and giving answers to Ozpin's questions, Ozpin thought "I hope I've made the right decision leaving them in his hands…" "Ok, I'll do it. By the way, what's the Team's name?" Ozpin began to get up to leave, "Team RWBY."
EN: Hey guys, this is my first fanfiction story, or really story that I've written. Most of my writing has been all non-fiction up till now. If you are looking for a standard AU, this is not really your standard AU. It's going to be set as if the events of the Breach, and Vytal Tournament have passed, and that Teams RWBY and JNPR are graduating with flying colors, and that Cinder and co are waiting till they have graduated to spring their final master plan. There's also Aura mechanics that I will be adding that make Aura more like a modified version of Ki from Dragon Ball Z, If you don't like that, then I'm sorry. It's the first idea that came to mind that would make my AU a bit more different, we will not have flying, or 10 billion super transformations. I don't want to divulge ALL of my secrets though, a good magician never tells his secrets! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story. I will not have a set writing schedule, as school will probably get in the way of it most of the time. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
KaosC57About
Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s universe, we created a delightfully unusual range of sweets, and invented the world's first chocolate filled with cake! Each of our collections is based on a Wonderland character; we have the Mad Hatter Bar, the Tweedle Twins, Humpty Dumpty... and quite a few others! Everything is lovingly hand-made in our kitchen in London, following all the procedures to deliver highest standard products.
We have also designed the brand’s visual identity and all the packaging ourselves, including those wonderful gift boxes inspired by the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit. They are made in tough card and are very well finished by hand. Both are laminated, printed inside and out - lid and base, and decorated with Wonderland elements in a silver foil design. As a result, they are quite expensive to make, but people can keep them after eating all the chocolates.
We now need to produce the gift boxes and prepare enough stock for Christmas. We are arranging with Globus, a chain of department stores in Switzerland and other retailers to stock our range. The print company can only produce them in large quantities, which represents a considerable investment, not to mention a cost we must pay in advance. So we are asking for your support and in return, we offer you delicious rewards at a better cost than what you would find on our website!
MAD HATTER BAR
Mad Hatter Bar striped gift box with silver base and lid decorated with a beautiful silver foil design
'Look how beautiful the box is! There’s a little peep hole to let you have a sneak peek and see the surprise inside…' Lay The Table Blog
Mad Hatter Bar - gift box of 3 chocolates filled with 70% cocoa brownie in insanely delicious flavours
HONEY TIME
Honey Time - gift box of 3 chocolates filled with honey cake in timeless flavours
Honey Time gift box with large clear window, navy blue base and lid printed in light blue diamond pattern
Honey time gift box has a pocket watch graphic on the lid and silver foil rabbits running along the navy blue base. The chocolates come nested in an insert covered in white fur fabric
YOUR COMMITMENT WILL HELP US...
To produce new batch of boxes for our chocolates & cake collection:
- 600 Mad Hatter Bar git boxes
- 600 Honey Time gift boxes
To produce those minimum quantities we must raise £6,000. Your commitment will help us make that goal possible, and we have prepared fantastic rewards in exchange for your help: the most perfect chocolatey gifts wrapped and ready for Christmas!
YOUR REWARDS!
We welcome backers from around the World! - with an extra charge for the rewards delivery, as described in all pledges. After conclusion of the project we will conduct a survey with all backers to identify the desired flavour(s) for their rewards.
Check the delicious available flavours below:
Mad Hatter Bar - 'Chunky Nutter' 40% cocoa milk chocolate filled with 70% cocoa brownie, pecans & white choc chunks
Mad Hatter Bar - chocolates with 70% cocoa brownie filling:
a. Salty Insanity: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with sea salted caramel
b. Fruity Rhapsody: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with red berry selection
c. Mad Christmas: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with spiced fruit pudding
d. Earl Madness: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with Earl Grey notes
e.Chunky Nutter: 40% cocoa milk chocolate, with white chocolate & pecan
f. Caramel Craze: 40% milk chocolate, with milk caramel chunks
Honey Time 'Peanut Bunny' 40% cocoa milk chocolate filled with honey cake & crunchy peanut butter
Honey Time - chocolates with spiced honey cake filling:
a. Fancy Fudge: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with milk caramel
b. Orange Rush: 70% cocoa dark chocolate, with orange marmalade
c. Lazy Rabbit: 40% milk chocolate, with Bailey's ganache & walnuts
d. Sour Kick: 40% milk chocolate, with apricot compote
e. Peanut Bunny: 40% milk chocolate, with crunchy peanut butter
f. Nutty Delay: 35% white chocolate, with hazelnuts & praline
Honey Time - 'Nutty Delay', 'Sour Kick' & 'Fancy Fudge' flavours
MORE ABOUT US...
The name “Lucky's” was chosen in reference to all fortunate people who would be as ‘lucky’ as Alice, discovering and experiencing Wonderland through the most incredible chocolates & cakes!
We are a young, London-based company created by a graphic designer and a business researcher, now chocolate & cake makers, Fabio and Armand, both very passionate about food. One day, we were trying some chocolates with friends, and imagined the perfect treat, which would be a ‘chocolate and a cake all in one’.
The idea evolved into a wish for a unique magical chocolate brand with unusual scrumptious ranges, all tasting as gorgeous as they look. So we decided to go down the rabbit hole and find inspiration in Lewis Carroll’s universe, turning each character into a chocolate or a cake.
Our creations have been receiving wonderful feedback, comments and coverage from people all over the world since 2010! We have more than 5,000 followers & fans on Twitter (as part of the new brand Fairy Tale Gourmet) & our Facebook page. We also have 3 Great Taste Awards and are proud to have been featured in Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.
WHAT THE PRESS SAYS ABOUT US
Check our Humpty Dumpty featured in the Evening Standard!
The innovative features in our creations have been commented by some of the most important chocolate experts and food journalists in the UK. Some of the best quotes include:
'Fall for it' - Evening Standard
'Genuinely unique' - British Baker Magazine
'The escapist moment starts with the luxurious packaging... and carries on in the fantastic flavours' Daily Candy
'Indulge your childish side without skimping on luxury' Chocolate Week London
'Bonkers? Slightly. Genius? Definitely!' Channel4 Food
'Very clever concept & totally delicious'Chocolate Ecstasy Tours London
'Exceptionally cute' Chocablog
'Absolutely perfect... stunning chocolate creations' Chocolate Reviews
'Brilliant concept + quality ingredients = winner. It’s as simple as that' The Snack Review
'Lustworthy & desirable' FaerieTale Foodie
'Unique and fun range that gets a resounding 10 out of 10 from me' Grocery Gems
'The whole idea is what makes these unique' Mostly About Chocolate
We hope to send you a gorgeous box filled with our chocolate creations this Christmas!
Have a question about our Kickstarter project? Discuss at:
http://crowdfundingforum.com/showthread.php/7136-(Kickstarter)-Chocolatey-Wonders
Thank you for visiting! xxPosted by muslimahmediawatch on 16 Feb 2009 / 0 Comment
I’m a member of the Congressional Muslim Staffer’s Association (CMSA), an organization on Capitol Hill that seeks to unite Muslims working in Congress and quell myths about Islam through outreach. Last Friday, some members of CMSA met with a group of young Egyptian men and women as their two-week congressional internship came to a close. Their trip, sponsored by the American Embassy in Cairo, was part of a student-led project to build a replica of U.S. government. I asked some of the women about their experience.
Sally Kotb, 23, a graduate student in International business law at the University of Indiana’s campus in Cairo, said she was surprised by the diversity in American politics: “The practical life we see in Congress is very different from what we see in the media,” she said. “I thought all lobbyists were like AIPAC, but there are also lobbyists who support the Middle East.”
Her colleague, Sara Mustafa, 22, agreed. “The media makes it seem that Muslims are refused in America, she said. “We found it completely different; it’s definitely not to the extent that we believed it to be,” she said.
Not many families in Egypt would allow their daughters to travel thousands of miles on their own. Ms. Mustafa, who was traveling on her own for the first time, agreed that the subject was contentious but said her family recognized the value in her visit.
“For two weeks I was totally independent and it is difficult,” she said. “But my mother was the one who really encouraged me to go because she saw it was a good opportunity.”
Heba Al Hass, 20, a political science major at The Faculty of Economics and Political Science, said the internship was an eye-opening experience, especially for a Muslim woman from Egypt.
“This is what I study, so it was great to see the process and also to see so many women working in government,” she said.
Al Hass also agreed with the other women, saying she was surprised by how easily accepted Muslims are in America: “I’m surprised there are Muslims in U.S. government and I’m surprised there is a mosque* in the Capitol, it’s really great.”
I asked Al Hass what her perceptions were about the treatment of Muslim women in America: “Well, we used to think they are not that easily accepted,” she said. “But I’ve seen people smile at women who wear the veil, and it’s really nice.”
I’m glad I met with these women. It was heartwarming to know some of their misperceptions abut America were corrected. They really valued their experience and enjoyed their time. Their company made my day a little brighter and reminded me why it’s important to write about Muslim women and continue the fight for women’s rights in the Middle East.
*It’s more a large prayer room than a mosque, but barakah is there nonetheless.
Editor’s Note: This was written by Yusra, but was initially published under Fatemeh’s name erroneously. The error has been corrected, and MMW is sorry for any inconvenience or confusion.I know Pat Robertson saying something crazy isn’t news to anybody, but now that the Air Force is allowing atheists to omit the words “So Help Me God” from the oath, he is flipping out over how quickly they changed this policy. (Edit: I should have said they changed this policy back to what it used to be.)
He’s especially angry with Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation for writing a letter to the Secretary of Defense defending atheists. (For what it’s worth, there’s no evidence that Weinstein’s letter was the one that caused the Air Force to change its policy, but it undoubtedly helped.)
There is a left-wing radical named Mikey Weinstein who has got a group about ‘people against religion’ or whatever he calls it, and he has just terrorized the Armed Forces. You think you’re supposed to be tough, you’re supposed to defend us, and you’ve got one little Jewish radical who is scaring the pants off of you. You want these guys flying airplanes to defend us when you’ve got one little guy terrorizing them? That’s what it amounts to. You know, we swear oaths, ‘So help me God,’ what does it mean? It mean’s that with God’s help — You don’t have to say you believe in God, you just have to say you want some help beside myself with the oath I’m taking. It’s just crazy. What is wrong with the Air Force? How can they fly the bombers to defend us if they cave to one little guy?
Well, first of all, it wasn’t just “one little guy.” It was Weinstein, and the American Humanist Association, and the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and a lawyer for the conservative American Family Association, and right-wingerwho almost never says anything sensible.
And what’s with Robertson saying, “You don’t have to say you believe in God”? Signing the oath is admitting exactly that! Remember: All the other branches of the Armed Forces made “So Help Me God” optional a long time ago. The Air Force is only now falling in line with them. So why isn’t Robertson complaining about the other branches?
The Air Force agreeing that service members’ religious beliefs shouldn’t preclude them from enlisting isn’t “caving in.” It’s making us stronger. It’s what they should have been doing all along.
I called up Weinstein to see if he had anything to say in response to Robertson — as if he ever didn’t have something to say — and he was even more blunt than usual:
“Pat Robertson is to human dignity and sanity and integrity and character what dog shit is to a fine French restaurant on the menu.”
Unquote. I’ve had many phone conversations with Weinstein over the years, but never one that quick. He knew exactly what he wanted to say.
(via Right Wing Watch)WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Four national shared parenting organizations—Leading Women for Shared Parenting, Divorce Corp, Stand Up for Gus and American Coalition for Fathers & Children—today called on Federal and North Dakota authorities to investigate what they believe are civil rights violations by the State Bar Association of North Dakota (SBAND). The four organizations believe that, by using mandatory bar dues to oppose a citizen-led ballot initiative (Measure 6 - Shared Parenting), SBAND has violated its members First Amendment rights.
SBAND created a front organization ("Keeping Kids First"), which is led by a 12 member committee that includes nine divorce attorneys (all members of SBAND) and the SBAND Executive Director, to oppose the initiative. The sole source of funding for Keeping Kids First is $70,000 from SBAND member dues. The organizations believe the public has a right to know when a group presents itself as disinterested, but is instead a front for deeply invested stakeholders.
In a series of decisions over the last 25 years, the U.S. Supreme Court and other Federal courts have analogized mandatory bar associations, like SBAND, to closed-shop unions, and held mandatory bar associations may not force members to subsidize activities not germane to regulating the legal profession or improving the quality of legal services. Lobbying on legislation and ballot initiatives like Measure 6 is not germane.
Other mandatory bar associations have adopted procedures protecting the Constitutional rights of members, but SBAND has not. According to a law review article examining these issues, "the North Dakota procedure is deficient in almost every respect."
Last year, the Nebraska Supreme Court restructured the Nebraska State Bar Association in response to that mandatory bar association's lobbying on non-germane legislation, including family law legislation like Measure 6. As a result of that decision, the Nebraska State Bar Association no longer has access to mandatory dues and is now effectively a voluntary organization.
The four organizations have sent this material to the North Dakota Supreme Court, the North Dakota Attorney General and the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
For more information on the North Dakota ballot initiative, please visit www.ndsp4k.com
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-shared-parenting-organizations-call-for-civil-rights-investigation-of-state-bar-association-of-north-dakota-152256672.html
SOURCE ACFCWhen it comes to information about video games, there are only a few ways in which we tend to consume it. There is the text-based article, which is how we often read reviews and find out current news, there are forums like Reddit Off The Beaten Path: 4 Lesser-Known Gaming Subreddits Off The Beaten Path: 4 Lesser-Known Gaming Subreddits If you're a gamer and you don't frequent Reddit, you're missing out. It's one of the world's biggest web communities, and it's populated with gamers aplenty. Read More and NeoGAF, where we learn stuff from our fellow gamers, there are videos on sites like Twitch and YouTube 5 Up And Coming Gaming YouTube Channels To Add To Your Subscriptions 5 Up And Coming Gaming YouTube Channels To Add To Your Subscriptions YouTube has some of the best gaming content on the Internet. There are plenty of YouTubers that provide content just as good as the big guys, but they're simply not as well know. Read More, and there’s my personal favorite, the humble podcast.
Video games were one of the first mediums to go all in on podcasts, with shows like 1UP Yours filling gamers’ ears with in-depth analysis on the world of games in a way that an article just never could.
Podcasts have taken video game writers and given them a personality. After all, a monotone voice speaking into a microphone telling you about games isn’t enjoyable. You want information, but you also want to be entertained. It’s with that in mind that we take a look at the best gaming podcasts out there right now. For entertainment and information, the shows below rule the roost!
When it comes to blending video game information with entertainment, there is no one that does it better than Giant Bomb. If you frequent the site to check out their Quick Looks of video games 3 Hilarious Giant Bomb Quick Looks For Games You Will Never Play 3 Hilarious Giant Bomb Quick Looks For Games You Will Never Play When I think of Giant Bomb's videos, the first that comes to mind is the Quick Looks. In these, the crew sits and plays a section of the game for our enjoyment. Generally, when I... Read More without checking out the weekly podcast, you are missing out.
These pods feature detailed breakdowns of the games each of the personalities have been playing, news, and odd emails from readers that always lead Dan Ryckert, Brad Shoemaker, Jeff Gerstmann, and Drew Scanlon down some fascinating, and oftentimes strange, avenues of discussion.
The Giant Bombcast does tend to be a little on the long side, so those who want a bite-sized podcast might be scared off by the 3-hours-plus episodes each week, but once you start listening, you’ll realize that this podcast is so good that you’ll wish it was longer. From a sound quality, entertainment, and breadth of information perspective, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a show better than The Giant Bombcast.
Sadly, Vinny Caravella, one of the key members of the Giant Bomb team, relocated to New York recently, leaving a man-shaped hole on the main Bombcast. Finally, he and other New York-based staff members started The Giant Beastcast (the name being short for Giant Bomb East).
They then picked up video game intellectual and soon-to-be doctorate degree-toting Austin Walker to bring a level of more intelligent discussion to the show. There’s also a “rotating” fourth spot that has so far been filled every week by CNET’s Jeff Bakalar.
While The Giant Bombcast can be serious from time-to-time, this one ups the anti with some actual deep conversations on the world of games, while still keeping the Giant Bomb feel that fans expect. I was reluctant to include two podcasts from the same site, but seeing as they are very different, and that they both top the iTunes Podcast charts week in, week out, I just had to give both their moment in the sun.
The Giant Beastcast is still early in its run, so you can actually get in towards the beginning, which is rare with most great podcasts having been running for years.
RebelFM was started as part of 1UP when some of the younger staff members decided to make their own show to go out alongside video game podcast stable 1UP Yours. In spite of 1UP as we knew it shutting down long ago, the crew, now spread throughout the gaming industry, has kept going with a fantastic show. You’ll recognize names like Anthony Gallegos, Arthur Gies, Matt Chandronait, and Mitch Dyer as being industry vets, and their gaming knowledge and varied perspectives shine through on the podcast.
The show tends to follow a fairly standard structure with them talking about the games they’ve been playing, news from the gaming world, and listener comments, but it works well, and is always entertaining. The only complaint some have is that, since most of them play the game regularly, Dota 2 comes up in conversation a lot, but even if you don’t like Dota, the rest of the show is so good that it gets a pass.
Cheapy D, Wombat, and Shipwreck may not be affiliated with any major gaming sites, but their podcast, known as the CAGcast, has outlasted almost every other show on the Internet. Long after the crew from GameSpot moved on to start Giant Bomb, and after the 1UP crew moved to (and then ended) Weekend Confirmed, the official podcast of Cheap Ass Gamer has prevailed, continuing to bring its own brand of personality to the show each and every week. As of this writing, the CAGcast has already sailed past 400 episodes, and it shows no sign of stopping.
In spite of being from a website specializing in video game deals Top 7 Sites for Video Game Deals & Bargains Top 7 Sites for Video Game Deals & Bargains Video games are expensive, but you can save money by buying them on sale. Here are seven of the best websites for finding cheap video game deals and great bargains. Read More, the CAGcast only talks about deals occasionally. Instead, the crew focuses on talking about games while being incredibly humorous (mostly at the expense of Wombat). Combine that with the absolutely absurd level of knowledge offered by Shipwreck and the hosting skills of Cheapy D, and you have a show that is not to be missed when it comes out each week.
Like the CAGcast, this independent podcast has outlasted all of the big guys (it was on our original list of video game podcasts years ago The 5 Best Gaming Podcasts You Should Be Listening To The 5 Best Gaming Podcasts You Should Be Listening To There are few better ways to entertain or educate oneself while on the go than a podcast. All you need is an MP3 player or smartphone and a pair of earbuds. It’s no surprise that... Read More ). It was started 9 years ago, when podcasts were a fairly new format, but this show has kept going, and with good reason, because it’s a truly enjoyable show. Each week they talk about the games they’ve been playing, and they dig into a specific topic from the world of games.
What makes this podcast stand out from the crowd, aside from the fact that it has been around for forever, comes from the “With Jobs” portion of the title. This podcast is aimed at adults. No, I’m not talking about the use of vulgar language, because The Giant Bombcast has enough of that for everyone. I mean the discussions are mature and not aimed at the teenagers of the gaming world. There’s still a little bit of humor sprinkled in, but it’s not the focus as it is in some other shows.
Match 3 Podcast
When Patrick Klepik left Giant Bomb for Kotaku, we thought it might be the end of his podcasting days, as his Bombin’ the AM show would no longer be running. But |
to tamp it down. I fully understand that. I see the evidence of it each and every day. But who is it, name a name? When you get excited about a candidate or an elected official, public figure, who says something that really rallies you, why has that happened? That person’s engaged in ideology. And what I mean by that is principles. The person has supported, can explain, optimistically advance principles.
Conservative principles, I believe, are the principles that founded this country. They work. Look at Bobby Jindal. Conservatism works every time it’s tried. Bobby Jindal was reelected in Louisiana as a conservative, in Louisiana. He won big the first time. He wins reelection again yesterday as a conservative. A gigantic landslide in Democrat Louisiana. He ran as a tax-cutting social conservative. Bobby Jindal is a great example of old-style immigration. And there hasn’t been any press about Jindal’s reelection because there’s abject fear over Bobby Jindal’s reelection. Not that Bobby Jindal is gonna run for president, not that he’s gonna be elected or get the Republican nomination. They’re ignoring it because it works, it wins elections. It’s what won the November 2010 elections. “That’s not right, Mr. Limbaugh, and you yourself even said that the Republicans were not campaigning to attract those votes that the independents –” yeah, what did the independents run away from, Mr. New Castrati? The independents ran away from socialism, liberalism, Marxism, whatever it was, however they described it, they didn’t like it. They ran away from Obamaism.
Now, another thing. Continuing to check the e-mail, and predictably a lot of people are agreeing with Pamela and a lot of people are telling me to tell Pamela to take a hike. But the people who agree with Pamela, who are ripping me, telling me they’re never gonna listen anymore, and neither are their friends and neither is their dog, are telling me that Romney’s the only guy that can win and that I’m full of it, that the White House would love to have Herman Cain or Perry, ’cause that’s who they know they can beat. They know they can’t beat Romney. They’re scared to death. That’s why they’re trying to discredit Romney, because they think Romney can beat Obama.
I think any of our candidates could beat Obama, especially if the election were tomorrow, any of our candidates could beat Obama. Well, maybe two exceptions. I’m not sure that Huntsman could and I’m not sure that Ron Paul could. But the rest of them up there, Santorum could, on the basis of policy, the basis of ideology, on the basis of principle. Bobby Jindal, among other things, proves that conservatives are not xenophobes or bigots. It still frosts me that that has to be proved. Ticks me off to no end that that has to be proved. Makes me mad when we have somebody on our side running around trying to prove it.
Let me give you an example. Somebody did a Jack Kemp. This is October 9th in 1996 in Tampa, University of South Florida. Vice presidential debate, Jack Kemp and Algore. Algore said, “Throughout most of his career Jack Kemp has been a powerful and needed voice against the kind of coarseness and incivility that you refer to –” This is an audience member question. “I think it’s extremely valuable to have a voice within the Republican Party who says we ought to be one nation. I compliment Mr. Kemp for the leadership he has shown in moving us away from that kind of attitude.” It was a question about racism in the Republican Party and what Gore basically said was, “Well, Jack Kemp ain’t one of those guys. Jack Kemp’s a great conservative. Jack Kemp’s not a racist Republican.” What did Kemp say?
KEMP: Well, I thank you, Al. I mean that very, very sincerely.
RUSH: And a lot of people, “Wait a minute. So everybody in the Republican Party is a bunch of racist, sexist, pigs, but you’re not so you thank Algore for singling you out as being one of the conservatives who’s not?” Thereby illustrating the defensive nature that a lot of people on our side have. They say we’re racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes. Somebody comes along from their side and says, “Except you’re not.” “Thank you. Thank you.” (interruption) I know it’s bad memories, I know. The proper answer to something like this is, “Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but you are as wrong as you can be in your characterization of the Republican Party or of American conservatives.” Friday night on Hardball on PMSNBC, Chris Matthews is talking to former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, and Matthews said, “You know what I want to say to you? Thank you for your service, thank you for your service, for being the sane man in the Republican Party. It reminds us there’s actually someone who has their feet on the ground in that party.”
HUNTSMAN: Thank you, Chris.
RUSH: “Thank you, Chris.” “Thank you, Chris.” The only sane man in the Republican Party. Now, my point is, the pressure is always on to get ideologies to shut up. The pressure is always on to get conservatives to shut up, to go moderate, to go centrist, and even be critical of conservatives in their own party. I’m telling you it wins every time it’s tried.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to ask my phone a question here. Okay. Let’s see how this works. Siri, do I dislike Mitt Romney?
SIRI: Rush, I don’t understand: “Siri, do I dislike Mitt Romney?”
RUSH: Okay. Okay. Should I vote for Mitt Romney?
SIRI: I don’t think you have any meetings with Mitt Romney.
RUSH: Well, don’t have any meetings with Romney, so I guess that means I shouldn’t vote for Romney, don’t have any meetings with Romney. (laughing) It coulda ratted me out. If I had a meeting with Romney on the calendar, it could have said, “Well, you’re meeting with Romney on –” (laughing)In many respects, the original archonology series is an evidence-based exploration. At the time, it seemed necessary to explore or demonstrate the materia of various control mechanisms and groups. Directed energy weapons, tax havens, electro-gravitics and so on.
The thinking behind it is and remains the proverbial “it only takes one black swan to prove that not all swans are white”. Throw out a bunch of red pills so that readers could stop looking for answers or even sanity in the public expression of politics. And I quite like that the series is a bit of a ruin now. Many of the evidential videos have mysteriously vanished from YouTube, for instance. (The popularity of the series itself may have had something to do with it.) It feels like something that had to emergency land under heavy enemy fire.
And almost two years ago I started banging the ‘war in heaven’ drum, which is to say that the middle layer or fulfilment layer of the Anglo-American control hierarchy was being downsized. As with the original archonology series, this statement had to climb a wall of cynicism through Brexit and Trump and the Dow and Amazon and all the rest.
To my eyes, it seems pretty hard to argue against this contention now. But with the entirely-predicted Saudi/Iran/Lebanon thing that happened this week (that I went into considerable detail on in the Blue Mountains earlier this year), I look around me and see that even the ‘cleanest’ alternative analysts are all at sea when it comes to interpreting what is going on.
This is a classic fog of war. I have never seen reality diverge quite so far from what people really believe is going on. Not just the ‘Russian collusion’ op, but falling back on some kind of 70s nonsense to do with petrodollars, return to gold standards, fighting the deep state with bitcoin, the purported collapse of the dollar and all the rest. It took this long for Americans to work out they have an empire and now they’re looking at it as if Nixon’s still in the White House. Empire as cartoon. Imperiology requires more nuance than that.
If I am being charitable, I can attribute this to the difficulty in thinking like a psychopath when you are not one. My pro-tip to get started would probably be to just assume the absolute worst about mankind and scenario plan from there. This is a challenging mindset to find and an even more challenging one to stay in for any length of time.
Here’s a slide from my Devil’s Dice Game presentation that sums it up. I may share more of it in the coming weeks.
Once you get into the headspace, you really only need to ask yourself one question.
“How does G7 maintain control of a world where the majority of future growth will come from areas outside its typical footprint?”
Putting it another way:
“What does Empire look like when it is no longer cost-effective to enforce it in traditional, military ways?”
The short answer to that is what Catherine Fitts has been calling free-range totalitarianism. The longer answer to it is forthcoming in this series. The medium-term answer is welcome to the downsizing.
So for this return of the archonology series, we are going to let the demons speak for themselves. If you subscribe to the All Red Line you will know I have been earnestly recommending people upskill themselves on ‘Conspiracy 101’.
Conspiracy 101 is deceptively simple. Over the course of the 20th century, The Anglo-American super-elite would periodically publish more or less exactly what they were going to do (and have mostly done), or exactly how they see us. It is deceptively simple because you are genuinely listening to demons at this point. They lie. Or they tell us what we want to hear. But even the publishing of their thoughts is itself part of the operation. Tragedy and Hope, for instance, appears to have had as at least one of its goals the perpetration of a psy-op against the Soviets by demonstrating how successful and powerful this Atlanticist group really is.
If you haven’t done this before it is difficult. You have to listen to people you do not agree with, who are not only lying but often telling you they are lying (is that a lie??). The temptation is simply to dismiss what they are saying because they are a source with an agenda. But a representative of the agenda throwing out a source once in a while is ITSELF part of the agenda. So you can’t look away.
We begin with an ‘easy’ one. If you ever wanted to know what the world looks like from the inside of McCain’s cancer-riddled brain, then look no further than Peter Zeihan. Formerly of Stratfor and now an ‘independent intelligence analyst’, this 12 month old presentation is hugely interesting for getting the ‘war hawk’ view of the planet. And it is compelling to see how much of this appears to be landing now -particularly around this administration’s treatment of the Middle East- which only makes sense in the scenario of a Tanker War. The rearrangement of alliances along Saudi/Iran axes currently going on appears to be because the countries concerned have cottoned to that and are scrambling for their seats at the new multiplayer grand chessboard. Here's a version I cleaned up for AV clarity.
Think about Zeihan’s presentation in light of the leaked cables showing a Saudi/Israeli detente to go to war in Lebanon, Trump’s military sale to both the Saudis and, very recently, Japan, ALL THE TALK ABOUT North Korea, Tillerson’s recent tour of the Middle East trying to get Afghanistan and Iraq to side with the Saudis against Iran and the apparent end of ISIS (which can only happen once the US is done with them as a strategic asset, which can only happen if they’re moving into the ‘tanker war’ phase.)
I’m not sharing this video -or any of the subsequent analysis in this series- because I agree or disagree with it. Or even because I think it is predictive. This is the ‘low resolution’ view of the world that has turned alternative analysis into the dumpster fire it has become.
This is being shared because it is an insight into how those who purport to run the world actually see it. THAT is the object under examination here. The inside of the demons’ heads.
And I share it deliberately today, on the 99th anniversary of the “guns going silent”. Australia’s involvement in World War I (And the kiwis, too) was a defining moment in the development of our national identity. Where our ‘sacrifice’ in defence of our nation is remembered. Fine. But if you know anything about the history of World War I, Churchill put the soldiers of the empire -second class citizens to him- through a meat grinder as a distraction because his classical notions of the Eastern Med had him insistent on taking Constantinople. (The official story remains it was ‘an error’ that led to the Gallipoli landing where it was. Bullshit.)
If we replace the words ‘sacrifice’ with ’slaughter of innocent victims from the colonies by the same Atlanticist mindset that has so wrecked the world’ then we can and should remember them.
But in this series we remember instead the mindset that led them to their deaths in the first place. The same mindset that makes Zeihan’s mouth water when he talks about US aircraft carriers. The same Atlanticist imperial mindset that is mostly to blame not only for the origins of World War I but its subsequent use as an opportunity to rearrange the world of the twentieth century.
The mindset of the archons.April 26, 2014
Ukraine: Media Obfuscate About "OSCE Observers"
Also Friday, a group of foreign military observers traveling under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, along with their Ukrainian hosts, were detained by pro-Russian separatists in Slovyansk, the separatists and the Ukrainian government said. The government said seven foreign observers and five Ukrainian military officers had been seized.
Defying Moscow, Ukraine Threatens to Blockade Pro-Russian Militants
The group was operating under the mandate of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and comprised four Germans, a Pole, a Dane, a Swede and a Czech officer. According to the Ukrainian interior ministry, they were being escorted by five members of the Ukrainian armed forces when their bus was seized by separatists.
Ukraine: pro-Russian separatists hold European military observers captive
Now, how is the above reporting consistent with this?
OSCE @OSCE 1/4 Comms with military observers in Donetsk region lost.Team not OSCE monitors but sent by States under Vienna Doc on military transparency
OSCE @OSCE 2/4 All members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and OSCE/ODIHR election observers are safe and accounted for
OSCE @OSCE 3/4 Military verification team - led by Germans – and composed of 8 members – 4 Germans, 1 Czech, 1 Danish, 1 Polish, 1 Swedish
OSCE @OSCE 4/4 Military verification team sent following invitation from Ukraine under terms of Vienna Document 2011
The captured foreign officers were there at the invitation of Ukrainian coup-government and accompanied by Ukrainian officers. While the Vienna Document 2011 was exchanged within the framework of the OSCE the military observer mission under the document, like the one captured in Slovyansk, are bilateral and not under organizational OSCE control (see para 18: VOLUNTARY HOSTING OF VISITS TO DISPEL CONCERNS ABOUT MILITARY ACTIVITIES). This was not an OSCE mission but a multilateral visit under a paper that was signed between OSCE countries.
The coup-government has labeled the protesters in eastern Ukraine as "terrorists" and only yesterday some of them were, allegedly, killed by Ukrainian troops. How would anybody with a sane mind send foreign military observers and Ukrainian officers into towns where those "terrorists" are having the upper hand? For what purpose if not to spy for the Ukrainian government which plans to recapture those towns by military force?
UPDATE:
In case someone doubts the official OSCE position as expressed in the tweets above here is a TV interview (in German) by the Austrian TV with the vice president of the OSCE crisis prevention center Claus Neukirch. He points out several times that the military observers caught in eastern Ukraine are acting under a bilateral (German-Ukrainian) deal within the framework of a document which was once signed during OSCE consultations. Neither the paper nor the missions under it are, Neukirch says, within the official OSCE framework. The OSCE does have 150 strong civilian mission in Ukraine which is neutral in its position and is trying to locally intermediate between waring sides. Neukirch also says that the official civilian OSCE mission is not involved in any negotiations about the caught bilateral military mission. That mission's fate is a problem for Germany and Ukraine to solve.
Posted by b on April 26, 2014 at 05:01 AM | Permalink
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Damien de la Tour
Guillaume
Gregoire De Gorgon
Roderick of Dun Tynne
Northern Realms
Northern Realms
Jacques de Aldersberg
Hammelfart
Caleb Menge
Graden
Tamara Stenger
Eternal Fire Priest
Eternal Fire Inquisitor
Witch Hunter Executioner
Cleric of the Flaming Rose
Knights of the Flaming Rose
Footmen of the Flaming Rose
Greater Brothers
Weaker Mutant
Calanthe
Roegner
King Dagorad
Cintrian Spellweaver
Cintrian Enchantress
Cintrian Artificer
Cintrian Knight
Cintrian Royal Guard
Cintrian Envoy
Vissegerd
Adalia
Coodcoodak
Windhalm
Anseis
Ulrich
Von Horst
Fette de'Amin
Tuur
Fallen Knight (1)
Fallen Knight (2)
Eternal Fire Preacher
Keeper of Eternal Fire
Eternal Fire Flagellant
Redanian Jousting Knight
Monsters
Monsters
Dettlaff
Vereena
Fugas
Plague Maiden (Silver)
Shrieker (Possibly abandoned.)
Queen of the Night
Gael
Scoia'Tael
Cedric
Sirissa
Fauve
Vrihedd Infiltrator
Brokilon Sentinels
Dryad Grove Shaper
Dryad Ranger
Dryad Grove Keeper
Dryad Sharpshooter
(?)
Iorveth's Commando (Possibly abandoned.)
Missing.
Skellige
Skellige
Tyr
Otkell
Otrygg an Hindar
An Hindar!
Goddess Freya!
Ha! Lutefisk! Gimme some o' that!
Artis
Priest of Svalblod
Svalblod Cultist
Skellige Pirate
Sigvald
Arnvald
Svalblod Jarl
Corrupted Flaminica
Neutral
Neutral
Syanna
Orianna
Chappelle
Lady of the Lake
Doppler Female
Witcher's Story
Falibor's Archer
Bandit
Bandit Archer
Thronebreaker
Greta Obert
Flavor Text
“ Precipice; We teetered on the brink of the abyss - then took a step forward! ”
“ Northern Wind; An unnatural fog enveloped Demavend's ship and his crew turned into icy sculptures... ”
“ Coral: Gravedigger; Digging mass graves, disinterring the dead, reassembling corpses torn asunder… All doable with grace, provided the right hands and attitude. ”
“ Shaelmaar: Imagine a cross between a mole and an armadillo, but ten feet tall and with an appetite for human flesh. ”
“ Garkain: The vilest vampire I've ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon. ”
“ Vran: We know relatively little about the Vran, except that they were wiped out at Loc Muinne by a mysterious disease… ”
“ Rabid Bear: He was just an average bear. Then someone stole his honey… ”
“ Riordain: Stare into their eyes, feast on their terror. Then go in for the kill. ”
“ Iorveth's Commando: Race is the very reason we fight. ”
“ Wolf: Surrounded by that pack of wolves, we felt like the Three Little Pigs. ”
“ Basic Infantry (?): The backbone of any army. As long as their boots are comfortable. ”
“ Dun Banner Standard: Contrary to popular belief, it is not at all dun. ”
“ Grand Feast: We've an adage here in Skellige… At a good feast, mead and blood flow in equal measure. ”
“ Rogue Mage:Those who are expelled from the Ban Ard Academy often continue studying on their own, in defiance of the laws established by the Council and Conclave. ”
“ Avallac'h: the Navigator; Welcome to the Ddiddiwedht Desert. ”
“ Falibor: Loyal vassal of the old baron of Tridam. Currently a wanted man. ”
“ Falibor's Archer: The soldiers from Tridam had received only basic archery training and most certainly were not among the world's best marksmen. ”
“ Falibor's Scout: Every scout bears the : Every scout bears the lives of twenty–four men in his quiver. ”
“ Bandit: They take from the rich and give the poor… a kick in the teeth. ”
“ Monster Horde: The ugliest of them all. ”
“ Plague Maiden: The sick rave about a boil-pocked woman surrounded by herds of rabid rats... ”
“ Yennefer: Necromancer: Putrefaction's set in... but the vocal cords are intact. We might still get something out of him... ”
“ Vicovaro Medic: The world has known as many plagues as it has wars. Yet both war and plague always take men by surprise. ”
“ Griffin: Griffins like to toy with their prey. Eat 'em alive, piece by piece. ”
“ Petri's Philter: But that night, the moon was the color of blood. ”
“ Elder Bear: Roooaaar! ”
Avatars and Announcers
Brouver Eithne Crach Harald Foltest Demavend Henselt Eredin King Unseen Elder Emhyr John Calveit Voorhis Shupe Empress Geralt Triss Iorveth Djenge Jotunn Priscilla Trollololo Draig Gabor Peasant Cow Vesemir Bruxa Germain Zapphire Arachas Horde Falibor Milaen Torina Meve Meve Meve Meve Meve Meve Vilem Vilem Reynard Caldwell NR Caldwell NR Eyck Rayla Unknown Woman Unknown Unknown Lyrian Soldier Eldain Barnaby Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Caldwell NG Unknown Gascon Gascon Caldwell NEU Isbel Unknown Keg CDPR
Ciri
Geralt
Dandelion
Imlerith
Imlerith
Iorveth
Yennefer
Triss
Regis
Odrin
Eredin
Eredin
Radovid
Morvran Voorhis
Well played, my friend!
Bloede arse!
Why, thank you!
You will like this.
Let us see if I can't do something about that.
Just the beginning, a mere opening.
Tremendous luck.
I don't mean to rush you, but…
Interesting, very interesting…
Sorry! My mistake.
That a jest, friend?
Forgive me, but I must destroy you.
He does not yet know it, but his time will soon come to an end. (reacting to Emhyr)
A charming creature, though slightly uncouth. (reacting to Ciri)
Far more than a simple witcher… (reacting to Geralt)
The North's finest flower, in full bloom. (reacting to Maria La Valette )
) An unbearable loss for the Corporation. (reacting to Shilard)
The Alba Division knows no equal. (reacting to Alba Units)
His name shall be struck from all records and memory. (reacting to Usurper)
Hm. Not terribly fond of my likeness.
Francesca
Letho of Gulet
Vernon Roche
Zoltan
Phoenix
Brouver Hoog
I'll give ye this – ye did good there.
Oh, flibberbait!
Right, well. Thanks, I guess.
Now ye're in it tits-deep…
Get those commode-scraps offa my board.
Dinnae expect that, did ye?
Twere easier in the old days…
Ye waitin' round, hopin I'll croak, ye badger?
Awright, that was somethin' else.
All this fluffin' about'll be the death o' me…
Hahaha! Ehh… wait, ye're serious? That's yer move?
Somebody hold me back or I'll…
Wee Chivay never could stay outta trouble.
With Gabor, you nee'n't worry.
Awright, awright… least this yen killed a dragon. (reacting to Yarpen Zigrin)
Another itchy-arsed wander-luster. (reacting to Sheldon Skaggs)
Now that's a heid whose gears're greased. (reacting to Barclay Els)
Ech, that bloody stubborn wench again… (reacting to Queen Meve)
Cow
[Holy cow! That was impressive.]
[A cowpox upon you!]
[Thanks, got no beef with that.]
[Right. Time to take the bull by the horns.]
[Pff! Dropped patties bigger than your army.]
[Stick that in your corral and milk it.]
[Phew… thought I was mincemeat.]
[Go on! Make your mooooooooove!]
[Udderly fascinating…]
[Tsk. What a misteak.]
[You're like a bull in a china shop.]
[Time for the slaughter!]
Crach an Craite
Cuttin' job ye did there.
Gods dammit all…
I owe ye for that.
Time for the Wild Boar o' the Sea to sail!
They cannot hold a candle to us!
An Craite blood runs thick!
Phew… a hair's breadth.
Waitin' for the thaw?
Gonna have to give that a think.
Somethin's amiss.
Hahaha!
An Craiiiite!
Good ol' Ermion.
Ahh, Pavetta… as lovely as her mum.
My fiery sparrowhawk. (reacting to Cerys)
Foolhardy and reckless - oh, he's definitely mine. (reacting to Hjalmar)
Back-stabbin' vipress. (reacting to Birna Bran)
Wonder if she still remembers that time we… (reacting to Yennefer)
Hope all's well with her, wherever she be. (reacting to Ciri)
A Skelliger at heart, if I've ever seen one! (reacting to Geralt)
Black 'uns killed 'im - they'll burn for that. (reacting to Eist)
Dagon
Demavend
Enjoy it whilst you can.
A crime! A crime against the crown!
I appreciate it, really I do.
And now for a little surprise of my own.
Hmmm… I've got to get me one of those.
Serves me rather well, that one.
Phew… luck's on my side today, and luck's always with the better.
Wake me when you're done, please?
My spies, my scouts said nothing of this…
An unfortunate incident. I'll have the historians omit it.
Rather creative, that. Moronic, but creative.
I shall come, I shall see, I shall conquer!
Ah, it's Meve! Been years, darling!
Hm… who might that be? (reacting to Letho)
Oh, my dear lad… (reacting to Prince Stennis)
Strikes fear in the hearts of her enemies - mine, too, if I'm to be honest. (reacting to Rayla)
Not at all as handsome as they say. (reacting to Foltest)
A traitor! And a lout! A traitorous lout! (reacting to Henselt)
My subject, by all rights… though I trust her not one whit. (reacting to Yennefer)
Eithne
You fight well.
Curse you! And your kin!
May Brokilon reward you for that.
When we strike, you won't see it. Nor anything, ever again.
Intruders. Blasphemers.
Bow before the power of Brokilon.
I survived so I may fight for Brokilon another day.
Watching the woods grow?
Interesting…
Every mistake is an opportunity.
Our daughters are faring far better than you.
You should not have come.
Sor'ca. [Little sister.] (reacting to Milva)
My beloved daughter… (reacting to Morenn)
Fight and live proudly, sister. (reacting to a dryad)
No wound is too terrible for her. (reacting to Aglais)
She is one of us now. Only that matters. (reacting to Braenn)
So naive. (reacting to Fauve)
Gwynbleidd. [White Wolf.] (reacting to Geralt)
Eldain
Not bad… but you must try harder.
Thaess aep! [Shut up!]
You have aided the Scoia'tael. But do not expect gratitude.
You've no idea what's to come.
Nice army… such a shame it'll be destroyed.
This is only the beginning.
This time it worked.
Move along now, bloede skrekk! [Bloody rat!]
Interesting.
Aep D'yaebl! [Dammit!]
You are not the first to underestimate me.
You shall end like all the others.
If anyone can lead us, it is he.
Enid an Gleanna.
She is a woman, but no different from all other men. (reacting to Queen Meve)
Demavend's butcher… (reacting to Black Rayla)
Emhyr
Impressive.
I do not tolerate incompetence.
You serve me well.
Time you learned a lesson.
Futile, this resistance.
Why hold out hope in the face of overwhelming force?
That was close. Too close.
You waste my time.
Hmm… interesting…
Ah, a novice's error.
Your continued struggle has grown amusing.
Careful. You do not want me to lose patience.
Friends make the worst enemies.
We share the same goals.
Her sacrifice was necessary.
She is destined for great things. (reacting to Ciri)
She shall suffer no more harm, ever. (reacting to Fake Ciri)
He killed my father. He should have killed me. (reacting to Usurper)
He must die. But I shall keep the promise I made him. (reacting to Letho)
He has a knack for meddling in other's affairs. (reacting to Geralt)
I cannot picture his face… (reacting to Fergus )
) This Owl hunted dangerous prey. (reacting to Stefan Skellen)
Foltest
Don't give up easy, do you?
Dammit all!
This I like!
Watch the true King of the North in action.
Surrender and limit your shame.
The finest of Temeria's finest.
Very close call.
Enough! Do something! Stop mucking about!
Interesting… very interesting.
An error.
Are you a jester? Is that it?
Grrr, I've had battles go awry, but this topples them all!
I shan't let anyone touch her. (reacting to Adda)
Ready to pounce on my every misstep. (reacting to Radovid)
A good man, reliable. And loyal. (reacting to Vernon Roche)
Fanatics, I cannot stand them. (reacting to Jacques de Aldersberg)
Never met another woman of her make. (reacting to Queen Meve)
A gluttonous pig - nothing else to say. (reacting to Henselt)
I owe him a debt I can never repay. (reacting to Geralt)
Uncanny resemblance to my confessor… (reacting to Letho)
My charming advisor. (reacting to Triss Merigold)
Demavend, that stick still firmly planted between his cheeks.
Harald the Cripple
Well played… for a land rat.
Sufferin' sea devils!
Ha! I'll take that!
Look alive! It's raidin' time!
Ha, ha, ha!
Got soft underbellies, but they'll do.
Ahh, that were close!
Move or I'll gut ye!
Hmm.
Bad, just bad.
Supposed to scare me?! That?!
Filth like you should be keel-hauled and plank-walked!
Henselt
I see you've been practicing!
Devils take all!
You're helping me - why would you do that?
Think this is my first battle?
You'll need to try harder than that.
Oi… that was close.
Make your move already, I haven't got all day!
Interesting…
Something's amiss…
Ha, ha, ha! Pathetic!
You've got balls, that's clear. But you'll need more than that.
He has an unusual interpretation of "brotherly love." (reacting to Foltest)
A revolting monstrosity. (reacting to Striga)
Fiery and headstrong. I don't envy her enemies. (reacting to Queen Meve)
The dragonslayer is not hard on the eyes. (reacting to Saskia)
Useful, though talks far too much. (reacting to Dethmold)
Don't trust her… nor any other witch. (reacting to Sile de Tansarville)
The wolf pup has much left to learn. (reacting to Radovid)
He's yet to prove his true mettle. (reacting to Prince Stennis)
A worthy foe. (reacting to Demavend)
The witch got what she deserved. (reacting to Sabrina)
John Calveit
Admirable move. I'm impressed.
Ess'sheyss... [Dammit...]
The Empire will repay you for that.
Prepare for a demonstration of Nilfgaardian might!
Minor obstacles on our road to glory.
The Great Sun shall light our path.
Good… hope still lives.
What an incredible waste of time…
Hmm… I shall take note of that.
One learns through one's errors.
In need of help, perhaps?
I am tolerant… to a point.
King Bran
Unseen Elder
Hmm… you live.
Hsssss!
Offering accepted.
Silence! Behold!
Hmm… fresh blood.
Mi marish. [My servant.]
Hrmph.
You tax my patience.
I must… reflect.
A fatal error.
Hheh, hheh, that should scare me?
Begone!
Sech farthana. [Step-daughter.] (reacting to Orianna)
Foolish child… (reacting to Dettlaff)
Fratricide. (reacting to Regis)
Athumica… [Kin…] (reacting to lower vampires)
Outsider… (reacting to Hubert Rejk)
Hheh, hheh… (reacting to witchers)
Troublemaker. ( |
use of a bike share. If potential bikers are forced to carry a helmet, on the chance of using a bike share, that can kill spontaneous trips.
“It’s like having to bring a seat belt with you to rent a car,” said Paul DeMaio, a bike-share consultant who designed the plan for the successful bike-share system in the Washington, D.C., region. “Bike sharing has been really successful at getting people who don’t consider themselves cyclists to ride a bike, and when there is an additional cost associated with that, it can add up.”
Even if clean helmets are provided at bike-share stations, as they are in Seattle (free for annual members, $2 a day for one-time riders), people can be loath to use them.
“It’s kind of like bowling shoes,” said Jay Decker, the bike-share coordinator in Baltimore, which just launched its system with Bewegen. “You don’t really trust them because they’ve been on someone else. They’re technically clean, but it feels kind of weird.”
With 200 electric-assisted bikes, Baltimore currently has the largest electric bike-share fleet in the country. Seattle’s would be six times as large.
Could the appeal of electric bikes help overcome the hindrance of the helmet law?
Decker said that, anecdotally, the electric bikes are far more popular than the standard ones. Fishman, the Australian researcher, said electric bikes are used five times more often than conventional ones in cities where bike shares offer both options.
“The bike-share people are all of the opinion that the helmet law will kill the system,” said Randy Swart, the director of the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, a helmet advocacy nonprofit. “Everybody’s looking to Seattle to see what will happen.”From the moon landing being fake to the belief that President Obama was not born in the US, there are a seemingly endless range of conspiracy theories that, despite evidence to the contrary, many believe are true.
But what prompts people to believe in seemingly impossible or unlikely ideas, despite evidence that disproved these theories?
According to Joseph Uscinski, author of 'American Conspiracy Theories,' conspiracy theories tend to be believed by people who have lost an election or influence.
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Phil Wolf, owner of Wolf Automotive used car dealership, stands in front of a billboard on his auto lot on November 21, 2009 in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Wolf, who paid $2,500 for the sign, is a supporter of the 'birther' conspiracy, which questions President Obama's citizenship
POPULAR THEORIES There is a secret Illuminati group controlling the world
President Obama wasn't born in the US
The attacks on 9/11 were orchestrated by the US government
Shape-shifting reptilian aliens are running the world
JFK's assassination was part of a conspiracy
Aliens are contacting us
The moon landing was faked
FDA is withholding the cure for cancer
Chemtrails are airlines deliberately spraying a mixture of toxic'mind control' chemicals into the air
Vaccines cause autism
Speaking to Time Magazine, Uscinksi said that people who have lost something look to conspiracy theories to 'explain that loss.'
This can be observed by the popularity of certain conspiracy theories when the presidency changes.
For example, when President George W. Bush was in power with Dick Cheney as his Vice President, there were theories that the Blackwater protection company masterminding the Iraq war to obtain oil.
And when President Obama was elected to office, a conspiracy surrounding his birth place emerged.
Some people believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, and not Hawaii - despite President Obama releasing his birth certificate proving he was indeed born in Hawaii.
Aside from people who are out of power tending to believe in conspiracy theories, certain demographic factors can be linked to these beliefs.
When President Obama was elected, a conspiracy surrounding his birth place emerged. Some people believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, and not Hawaii - despite President Obama releasing his birth certificate (pictured) proving he was indeed born in Hawaii
For example, a study published in March found that being unmarried, belonging to a particular ethnic minority (for example African American or Hispanic) and low religious attendance were all associated with a belief in conspiracy.
In addition, people with lower household incomes averaging at $47,193 were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than those who had higher household incomes of $63,824.
Another possible reason for why people believe in conspiracy theories is that it makes them feel'special.'
The reptilian conspiracy theory is the idea that shape-shifting reptilian aliens are running the world by taking on a human form and gaining political power. Pictured is President Obama imagined as a reptilian
A May 2017 study found that a small part of what motivates people to endorse conspiracy theories is the desire to stand out and be unique.
This might also explain why some people continue to believe in conspiracy theories despite evidence disproving them - for example, the continued conspiratorial belief that President Obama was not born in the US despite him releasing his birth certificate.
In order to combat conspiratorial beliefs, a 2015 study involving parents with anti-vaccination attitudes found that shaming or criticizing people for their belief does not work, nor did trying to dispel the myths about the dangers of vaccination.
Instead, the parents were more likely to be responsive to warnings (in the form of images and stories) about the severity of these diseases, and that greater awareness of the risks associated with failure to take preventive action improves attitudes to vaccinations.
As such, having conversation with people about the consequences of their conspiratorial beliefs can help change their minds.
Finally, early life education can help children avoid belief in conspiracy theories.After decades of pandering to intolerance while working against the needs of working-class Americans and minorities, the Republican Party appears headed for disaster. As its post-mortem report said, it didn’t have to be this way.
The question now is, what will the candidates beaten by Mr. Trump, like Mr. Rubio, do? Will they endorse the man they portrayed as a threat to the nation, or take a more principled stand? What are party leaders like Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, prepared to do?
For Democrats, the remainder of the primary season will be less perilous. While Hillary Clinton continues her march toward the nomination, the weakness of her appeal among the young, independents, men and some working-class voters cannot be ignored. Though she and her campaign insist they have always envisioned a long, tough battle with Bernie Sanders, they have been challenged in ways they could not have expected. And Mr. Sanders has the drive, the money and the delegates to stay in the race until the end. No matter what happens, he will help determine the party’s future priorities.
Mr. Sanders’s quixotic candidacy has not offered concrete ways to achieve his goals with a Republican-controlled Congress, and he hasn’t been able to win over enough African-American and Latino voters. But he has managed to take aim at Mrs. Clinton’s vulnerabilities — like her paid speeches to Wall Street firms and her shifts in position on issues like gay marriage, trade agreements and immigration — to some effect. Some voters accuse her of saying whatever it takes to win, and as she tacks to the left in response to Mr. Sanders’s challenge, that perception may increase.
Still, Mrs. Clinton’s strong performance Tuesday puts her even further out of Mr. Sanders’s reach. But she has to do more than defeat him for the nomination. Mr. Sanders’s success has been as the voice of Democrats resentful of a party establishment that has been too tepid in taking on issues like income inequality. She will have to somehow connect with his supporters and show them she understands them, particularly since some of them are potential Republican voters come November.
The surest path to winning over these skeptics is to stop dodging some aspects of her record. That includes speaking with greater detail and complete candor about her changes on policy positions. Releasing transcripts from those Wall Street speeches would be a great first step toward showing those who want to support her that she is willing to earn their votes through transparency. If she chooses not to do these things, skeptical voters’ doubts are likely to linger, and deepen.Look out Marketing Industry, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
The marketing communications industry has always worked with a high level of data. But over the last decade, it’s been transformed by a new degree of granularity — the number of data streams available, new insights, and the ability to take action on those insights. We’re now working with up to 10 to 50 times the amount of data we had access to before, and it has the potential to unleash a new level of understanding, creativity, consumer value, and monetization.
Of course, there are a few pitfalls, which fall primarily into three categories.
The first has to do with understanding privacy rights: making sure everyone knows how their personal and consumer data will be used. Ideally, marketing creates a value exchange — providing benefit to consumers in exchange for collecting their information for the purposes of targeting media or custom messages.
This is what online services like Google and Facebook would argue they already do — free services in exchange for data collection and targeting. There is no true corollary for offline media at present, but when you look at the mergers of Time Warner and ATT, and the future direction of Comcast, both companies plan to inject as much data as they can into their advertising delivery and distribution vehicles. Over the Top (OTT) television offerings, and apps which enable a direct to consumer relationship between broadcast companies and consumers are also an example of media companies trying to simultaneously reclaim their relationship with the viewer and inject data into their targeting and sales approaches.
People are smart. As long as privacy terms are clearly outlined, a choice is given to them, and the benefits are compelling, they’ll opt in the majority of the time. The millennial generation goes even farther. They accept that they are giving away their data, and they want bigger and bigger rewards or a special relationship for it. They’ll continue to pursue marketplaces where “cost, value and experience” intersect. If brands and media publishers fail to provide this intersection, millennials will disproportionately turn to ad blocking. It’s not as much a privacy issue, it’s simply that the value exchange isn’t there for them. Put another way, the privacy issue isn’t all about protecting themselves, it’s about transparency and getting the right value for the trade.
The question then becomes, what’s fair value for the trade? Google and Facebook believe they over deliver on the fair value of the trade. And it’s hard to argue with the market shares in both the search and social markets they dominate. People vote with their feet, and so consumer time spent with both of these platforms indicates people are happy with the experience. However, from an advertiser point of view, the experience has become fraught with complication, transparency and fraud. Bots, fake sites and news articles, ads that are skipped or have less than 5 seconds of viewability are a reality on both Facebook and Google. This has given rise to verification and brand safety services which should be essential to any marketer. It’s hard to believe any publisher can walk away from integrating these services into their platforms, and hard to believe any marketer or agency would not consider them a key measurement tool today and in the future. Once these services are integrated fully into video and social, marketers and agencies will know a lot more about the value of the consumer experience for people, and it may well lead to some shifts in whether consumers feel the trade is fair, in how marketers pay for ads, and what those marketers may consider to be quality and safe placements. It’s interesting to see that since the election, Facebook time spent (minutes) across adults, and specifically for adults 25–49 is down on average 10–16%.
The second key concern is that big data can still be dumb data. Data in and of itself is not smart, so will bad or poor quality data lead to bad decisions. To marketing and data professionals — whether they are analytics professionals, creatives, planners, brand managers, CMOs or strategists — data is a catalyst for better insight, problem solving and action. On its own, data is not particularly compelling. It’s about bringing together these big and powerful data sets, with brilliant data scientists, with analysts and creators, is where the magic happens.
Advertising works when messages tailored to the right audience reach that audience at the right time, in the right place, with the right context. It sounds so easy, and in a consolidated, scaled offline media environment of 30 years ago, it was (relatively) easy.
When matched properly, in real time, across multiple touch points in an omni-channel environment, data will make marketing, targeting, brand context and consumer experience much, much better. It will supercharge the right audience, at the right time, in the right place and context, and hopefully make the advertising experience much, much better for people. But making it all work is exponentially harder than 30 years ago, because the tools needed to collect, inject, structure, analyze and activate big data are so much more sophisticated. And, frankly, most of it is well beyond the reach of key players in the marketing ecosystem today.
To collect, analyze and take action on big data, companies need to invest in a data platform, and in SaaS-based products, solutions and services to take action across multiple touch points. Up until now, access to Google, Facebook and DMP platforms enabled a basic level of data-driven capability. But largely, the online world has ignored or de-prioritized the offline world. By offline, I simply mean analog or linear media, such as newspapers, magazines or commercial TV you watch at home with commercials in real time.
Yet more and more data is coming online, and as we all need to solve the holy grail of Identity (a unique, real person, with behavior attributes attached to this person), Authentication (the actual process a platform or publisher verifies the person’s identity), and Attribution (the process of understanding the consumer journey and what touch points lead to purchase), the game is changing big time and it’s changing offline, online, in real time. And it’s not just a media or media targeting issue. A marketer or agency’s ability to master the Identity Graph in the coming years will determine the effectiveness of the offer, the message, the placement and the outcome to a larger and larger degree.
As consumer’s expectations for better messaging and context increase, driven in large part from marketers and media companies who master it early, the pressure will only increase for every brand to work off bigger data sets, and activate insights across messaging, placement and audience in real time. To win in the new era of Big Marketing Data, every company must become a data and insight company. And that requires technology, data science, platform activation, capital and operational expenditure to make it real.
I don’t believe the marketing ecosystem is truly ready for this coming reality.
The third key pitfall is the filter bubble. This debate has been brewing for for much of the last decade, and it’s only gotten louder in the past year. It will continue to grow over the next ten years. It gives rise to an important philosophical and strategic conversations running through every part of the marketing world: do predictive data and analytics limit a consumer’s experience? If an algorithm is deciding what I want to watch or view or click through, am I losing something as a result?
It would be a mistake to make data the scapegoat in our conversation about the filter bubble. Data isn’t narrowing our list of friends. It isn’t narrowing our information channels or what we can view or spend time with at night. It isn’t forcing us to only talk to the same people or not. Data is neutral. It’s up to people to choose wisely and up to the platform companies to analyze and listen carefully. Despite how smart Netflix is, it still hasn’t figured out that I’ve stopped watching “Orange is the New Black,” and it hasn’t asked me why. If Netflix did, I could give it needed feedback on content, characters and storyline. Maybe it doesn’t care, or perhaps it doesn’t need to know, but it will one day as more services and platforms do listen, incorporate, and adapt to win (win back) market share.
Ultimately, the most sophisticated use of data in the coming years will be in crafting custom experiences and predicting people’s unfulfilled wants and needs as effectively as possible, in real time. The CMO, or agency creative, or media director’s ability to anticipate and predict from data, and translate those insights into action that identify a person’s unique needs and tailor brand offerings to meet and exceed them, is what is exciting about the future of the business.
When Netflix does make a program suggestion correctly, that’s getting it right. When Hyatt anticipates I don’t like down feather pillows and I am allergic to eggs, tailoring a room and menu experience just for me, that’s getting it right. When Airbnb knows I like two bedroom apartments to rent, not studios, that’s getting it right. When Comcast X1 knows I tend to watch college football and searches for games in the fall, that’s getting it right.
Simple examples, but a clear signal of what’s to come. Better consumer experiences, enabled by data, insight and action, in real time.
The future of marketing and brand building is very bright. And companies can win as they face the opportunity of the next decade, rather than become defensive in a crisis. For the marketing ecosystem, investing in and building platforms, software, solutions and services to implement and enable data and predictive analytics is absolutely crucial and clearly vital to those who will win. Failure to invest, failure to think ahead, and failure to reimagine the marketing business and consumer value exchange, will mean you will be left behind.
Laura Desmond is Founder & CEO of Eagle Vista Partners, where she and her partners advise clients on the convergence of marketing, digital media and technology. She is a Senior Advisor to Acxiom and Uptake Technologies. She is the former CEO of Starcom Mediavest Group, and a past Chairman of the Advertising Council. Follow her @LBDesmond.Before the tragic specter of school shootings haunted the minds of Americans, the Columbine High School massacre on April 20th, 1999, shocked the public and left indelible memories in the minds of men, women, and children across the nation. For Americans who value their constitutional right to bear arms, the tragedy marked the beginning of renewed efforts by state and federal government to infringe on their citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights.
Now the Columbine generation has come of age, and one survivor turned lawmaker is fighting back against the tide of gun control. Colorado State Representative Patrick Neville has introduced a bill which would allow licensed teachers to carry guns on school grounds in Colorado.
“The only thing that is going to stop murderers intent on doing harm is to give good people the legal authority to carry a gun to protect themselves and our children,” Neville said, according to The Hill.
“More of my friends would still be alive today.”
Neville also blasted current policies that fail to address the threat.
“Unfortunately, the current system continues to leave our children as sitting targets for criminals intent on doing harm,” he said.The Bush Rules of Evidence In the history of the American Republic, perhaps no political family has been more protected from scandal than the Bushes. Bookmark
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Printer friendly When the Bushes are involved in dirty deals or even criminal activity, standards of evidence change. Instead of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that would lock up an average citizen, the evidence must be perfect. If there’s any doubt at all, the Bushes must be presumed innocent. Even when their guilt is obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense, it’s their accusers and those who dare investigate who get the worst of it. Their motives are challenged and their own shortcomings are cast in the harshest possible light. For decades – arguably going back generations – the Bushes have been protected by their unique position straddling two centers of national power, the family’s blueblood Eastern Establishment ties and the Texas oil crowd with strong links to the Republican Right. [For details on this family phenomenon, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.] This reality was underscored again by how major news outlets and the right-wing press reacted to a new piece of evidence implicating George W. Bush in a criminal cover-up in the “Plame-gate” scandal. Though the evidence is now overwhelming that President Bush was part of a White House cabal that leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA officer and then covered up the facts, major newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, continue to pooh-pooh this extraordinary scandal. The latest piece of evidence was the statement from former White House press secretary Scott McClellan that Bush was one of five senior officials who had him clear Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby in the leak when, in fact, they were two of the leakers. “The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore the credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” McClellan said in a snippet released by the publisher of his upcoming memoir. “So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,” McClellan said. “There was one problem. It was not true.” After McClellan’s statement touched off a brief furor on the Internet and cable TV shows, his publisher Peter Osnos tried to soften the blow. Osnos told Bloomberg News that McClellan didn’t mean that Bush deliberately ordered his press secretary to lie. “He told him something that wasn’t true, but the President didn’t know it wasn’t true,” Osnos said. What Bush Knew But neither McClennan nor Osnos knows what Bush really knew. The revelatory point in McClellan’s statement was that Bush was a direct participant in the campaign to protect Rove and Libby as they lied about their roles in the leak. Previously that was an inference one could draw from the facts, but it had not been confirmed by a White House official. Indeed, looking at the available evidence, it would defy credulity that Bush wasn’t implicated in the Plame-gate leak and the subsequent cover-up, which led to Libby’s conviction earlier this year on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. For Bush not to have been involved would have required him to be oblivious to the inner workings of the White House and the actions of his closest advisers on an issue of great importance to him. From the evidence at Libby’s trial, it was already clear that Bush had a direct hand in the effort to discredit Plame’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, after he had gone public in July 2003 with his role in a CIA investigation of what turned out to be bogus claims that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger. Bush, who had cited those bogus claims in his 2003 State of the Union Address in making his case for invading Iraq, was worried about his credibility when U.S. forces failed to find WMD evidence and when Wilson became the first Washington insider to start questioning Bush’s case for war. So, Bush collaborated with Vice President Dick Cheney in mounting a counter-attack against Wilson. Bush decided to selectively declassify portions of a National Intelligence Estimate in order to undercut Wilson’s credibility and agreed to have that information leaked to friendly reporters. It was in that context that Libby, Rove and other administration officials went forth to brief reporters, contacts that ended up disclosing that Wilson’s CIA wife, Plame, played a role in arranging his work on the CIA investigation. The suggestion was that Wilson’s unpaid fact-finding trip to Niger was a case of nepotism or a junket. Following these press contacts, Plame’s identity surfaced in a July 14, 2003, article by right-wing columnist Robert Novak, who had gotten his information from two sources, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and his friend, the president’s chief political adviser Karl Rove. But Rove’s work on the Plame leak didn’t stop with Novak’s article; he continued to peddle the information to other journalists, such as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who told Wilson a week after Novak’s column, “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says and I quote, ‘Wilson’s wife is fair game.’” Rove has since disputed the precise “fair game” quote, but he doesn’t deny talking to Matthews about Plame’s identity. So, we know that a week after the original leaks had blown Plame’s undercover status, Bush had not called off the dogs. His closest political adviser still was using the information to undermine Wilson. Hardball Politics This pattern of hardball politics, of course, fits with how George W. Bush and others in his family play the game. His father, George H.W. Bush, would talk about how rough he could be when in “campaign mode.” The younger George Bush just extended that pugnacious approach to full-time, aided and abetted by a powerful right-wing media that has carried water for him consistently over the past eight years. Even American citizens who get in Bush’s way feel the lash. Just ask the likes of former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who challenged Bush’s pre-Iraq War claims about WMD, or the Dixie Chicks, who dared to diss the Commander in Chief at one of their concerts. So, the treatment of Wilson/Plame was part of the standard fare for what happened to Americans who dissented on Bush’s war policies. However, this one was a little different because the leak destroyed the career of a covert CIA officer and endangered her network of foreign agents who had been supplying information about WMD in the Middle East. In September 2003, upset about this collateral damage, the CIA forwarded a criminal complaint to the Justice Department seeking an investigation into the outing of Plame. As far as the CIA was concerned, her classified identity was covered by a 1982 law barring willful exposure of CIA officers who had “served” abroad in the preceding five years. But Bush and his inner circle could still breathe easily since the probe was under the control of Attorney General John Ashcroft, considered to be a right-wing Bush ally. The White House responded to press inquiries disingenuously, claiming Bush took the leak very seriously and would punish anyone involved. “The President has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration,” McClellan said on Sept. 29, 2003. “If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.” Bush personally announced his determination to get to the bottom of the matter. “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush said on Sept. 30, 2003. “I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true.” Yet, even as Bush was professing his curiosity and calling for anyone with information to step forward, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized the declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to arrange for those secrets to be given to reporters. In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the anti-Wilson scheme got started – since he was involved in starting it – he uttered misleading public statements to conceal the White House role. Spreading Lies Also, since the other conspirators knew that Bush already was in the know, they would have read his comments as a signal to lie, which is what they did. In early October, press secretary McClellan said he could report that political adviser Karl Rove and National Security Council aide Elliott Abrams were not involved in the Plame leak. That comment riled Libby, who feared that he was being hung out to dry. Libby went to his boss, Dick Cheney, and complained that “they’re trying to set me up; they want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Libby’s lawyer Theodore Wells later said. Cheney scribbled down his feelings in a note to press secretary McClellan: “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others.” Cheney initially ascribed Libby’s role in going after Wilson to Bush’s orders, but the Vice President apparently thought better of it, crossing out “the Pres” and putting the clause in a passive tense. Cheney has never explained publicly the meaning of his note, but it suggests that it was Bush who sent Libby out on the get-Wilson mission to limit damage from Wilson’s criticism of Bush’s false Niger-yellowcake claim in the State of the Union Address. Cheney’s reference to the “incompetence of others” may refer to those who cleared the false Niger claim in the first place. Bush’s subsequent behavior in the latter half of 2003 adds to the evidence of his guilt. Assuming Bush was sincere in his desire to get to the bottom of who leaked Plame’s identity – or just wanted to make sure there was no security risk in his inner circle – he presumably would have ordered an internal White House security probe. But he didn’t. James Knodell, director of the White House security office, conceded before a congressional committee in March 2007 that no internal security investigation was performed; no security clearances were suspended or revoked; no punishment of any kind was meted out to White House political adviser Rove, even after his role in leaking Plame’s classified identity was determined. Knodell, whose job included assessing Executive Branch security breaches, said that what he knew about the Plame case was “through the press.” A logical inference from Knodell’s inaction was that Bush already knew who had leaked Plame’s identity because he was involved in the leak. In fall 2003, with no White House security review underway and the criminal probe presumably bottled up in the Justice Department, the cover-up broadened. On Oct. 4, 2003, McClellan added Libby to the list of officials who have “assured me that they were not involved in this.” So, Libby had a motive to lie to the FBI when he was first interviewed about the case. He had gone to the mat with his boss to get his name cleared in the press, meaning it would make little sense to then admit involvement to FBI investigators, especially when it looked as if the cover-up would hold. “The White House had staked its credibility on there being no White House involvement in the leaking of information about Ms. Wilson,” a federal court filing later noted. For his part, Libby began claiming that he had first learned about Plame’s CIA identity from NBC’s Washington bureau chief Tim Russert after Wilson had gone public. Reversal of Fortune This White House cover-up might have worked, except in late 2003, Ashcroft decided he wouldn’t be the loyal foot soldier and recused himself because of a conflict of interest. Deputy Attorney General James Comey then picked Patrick Fitzgerald – the U.S. Attorney in Chicago – to serve as special prosecutor. Fitzgerald pursued the investigation far more aggressively. Bush’s White House countered with a combination of public stonewalling and a continued PR campaign to further discredit Wilson. Bush’s political and media allies dissected every nuance of the Wilson/Plame case to highlight supposed inconsistencies and contradictions. The Republican National Committee put out nasty anti-Wilson talking points; senior Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee called Wilson a liar; the right-wing media – aided and abetted by the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial page – amplified these ugly attacks to the public. Right-wing lawyer Victoria Toensing received widespread media coverage when she claimed that Plame was not a “covert” officer under the definition of the 1982 law protecting the identities of intelligence agents because it only applied to CIA personnel who had “resided” or were “stationed” abroad in the previous five years. Toensing argued that since Plame, the mother of young twins, was stationed at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and resided in the Washington area, she wasn’t “covert” even if that was her official CIA status. But Toensing was misrepresenting the law that she said she had helped draft while a congressional staffer in the early 1980s. The actual wording of the law as it pertained to CIA and other clandestine officers was “served” abroad, which is not synonymous with “stationed” or “resided,” the words that Toensing had substituted. One can be stationed or reside inside the United States and still “serve” abroad by undertaking secret missions overseas, which Plame had done. But many in the right-wing news media and even at prestige newspapers like the Washington Post adopted Toensing’s word games as reality. It became an article of faith in some political circles that Plame was not a “covert” officer and that therefore there was “no underlying crime” in the leaking of her identity. Bush’s Guilt? But what does this ongoing pattern of deception and character assassination against Wilson and Plame suggest about Bush’s innocence or guilt? If Bush were the innocent party that we are supposed to believe, wouldn’t he have acted differently? Wouldn’t he have called for an end to these attacks on two American citizens who had served their country? But Bush never tried to halt these cruel diversionary tactics. The White House goal, it appears, was to stir up enough confusion so that the public wouldn’t focus on the logical conclusion that Bush was responsible for damaging a CIA operation intended to protect national security. In October 2005, Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts of lying to federal investigators and obstructing justice. Libby was convicted on four of five counts in March 2007 and sentenced to 30 months in jail. But Bush’s role in the cover-up wasn’t finished. On July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby’s sentence to spare him any jail time. The President also left open the possibility that Libby might receive a full pardon before Bush left the White House. The combination of taking away the stick of jail time and dangling the carrot of a full pardon eliminated any incentive for Libby to turn state’s evidence against Bush, Cheney and other senior officials. In a different era, one might expect major newspapers, like the New York Times and the Washington Post, to erupt in fury over such an obvious case of presidential wrongdoing. One also might have anticipated serious hearings by a Democratic-controlled Congress to get to the bottom of this sorry affair. But not in this era. Even when former press secretary McClellan became the first White House insider to acknowledge that senior officials, including Bush and Cheney, put him up to spreading lies about the Plame-gate scandal (whatever they knew at the time), there was almost no reaction, except on the Internet and some cable TV shows. The Post and Times essentially ignored McClellan’s statement, apparently buying into the later spin that Bush might not have known then that Libby and Rove were lying. Bush’s right-wing apologists already are back on the attack, claiming that McClellan’s back-tracking supports Bush’s innocence. The Democrats also don’t seem to have the stomach to hold Bush accountable. One presidential hopeful, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, called for the Justice Department to investigate whether Bush had intentionally misled the public. But the Democrats control both houses of Congress and presumably could compel testimony from many of the principals. They might even be able to force an explanation from special prosecutor Fitzgerald about why he didn’t pursue a broader case and what Bush and Cheney told him during their interviews about the Plame leak. Instead the Democrats appear frightened of the counter-attack that the right-wing media could unleash, especially when major mainstream publications like the Times show little interest in the story and others like the Post actually are helping Bush in his cover-up. But the broader picture appears to be that George W. Bush is just the latest member of the Bush family who can skate away from nearly any wrongdoing without paying a price. [For more on this remarkable pattern of protecting the Bushes, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Rule of Journalism” or two of our books, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.] Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com. To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here. Back to Home PageFeeling The Code
I don’t agree with the opinion that “cool kids now use boot“. People who say that are just missing out on the power of “feeling the code” rather than being abstracted from the code by a “better XML”. Same deal with people 10 years ago who said “cool kids are using functional languages”.
Don’t get me wrong I like lein a lot. It is simple to start with, it is well documented, it is very googlable, it is sharing platform (i.e. templates), mature, etc.. But boot is very different, it does not aim to do what lein does, it aims to do “what you want”. There is a difference.
Mounting a Bootable Partition
Since the late 90s when I got in to Linux, I found bootable partitions most exciting, they actually bootstrap everything, they were these wizards waving their magic wands and systems appeared. Granted the wave could take minutes, but we are humans, we always wait for the magic, even if it takes the whole life.
First thing that needs to be done for the magic to happen, this bootable partition needs to be mounted.
I wanted to do it for some time now, when, I could not figure out why ClojureScript brought in as a dependency with :classifier “aot” caused compilation problems with lein/cljsbuild, David Nolen suggested that this is rather due to the lein environment issues. So 2 and 2 together: it was the right time to “boot” myself up.
And since the partition was already mounted it was ready to boot.
Grokking the New Simple
Rather than tell you how great boot is, I’ll share non obvious (to me) things that I stumbled upon converting mount from lein to boot. Let’s rock & roll:
REPL is just REPL
Since I needed a support for both Clo |
refugees and migrants into Europe.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier also said Friday, when asked about the Spiegel report, that the German parliament “has the right and freedom to comment on political issues but, as the parliament says itself, not every resolution is legally binding”.
German-Turkish relations have been under strain for some time, with Berlin also speaking out against Turkey’s tough line against critical journalists and its Kurdish minority, and the mass arrests after its failed coup in July.
Germany is home to a three-million-strong ethnic Turkish population, the legacy of a massive “guest worker” programme in the 1960s and 1970s.
Steinmeier said there had been “many areas of friction, not just since the coup attempt”, and again urged Turkey to respect the rule of law in its treatment of the tens of thousands of detainees.
The minister also said that “of course it is the task of diplomats to reduce these areas of friction and to search for ways to maintain relations with Turkey and to provide a future perspective for them”.
“In recent talks we got the impression that this is an interest also shared by Turkey.”Looking for news you can trust?
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Before the dark drama of House of Cards and the political satire of Veep, there was The West Wing, the beloved NBC White House drama that aired 154 episodes over seven seasons, beginning in 1999. For the past six months, Song Exploder host Hrishikesh Hirway and West Wing actor Joshua Malina have been reliving The West Wing in podcast form, usually one episode per week.
For a generation of political junkies, The West Wing delivered an idealistic fictional view of what Washington could accomplish. A Democratic president with a professorial demeanor confronts Republican opposition, while the president’s gang of ambitious, idealistic staffers navigates the inner workings of Capitol Hill and the presidency. A decade after it ended, the show still feels relevant.
“Hrishikesh is the superfan and probably the smarter of the two of us. It’s like the Beatles…I’ll be the cute one!”
The relationship that begat The West Wing Weekly podcast began with an email. Back in 2001, Hirway was looking for advice on how to break into the entertainment industry. He reached out to Malina, a fellow Yale alum. The two kept in touch over the years, eventually collaborating on an ill-fated TV project. Hirway would later hit podcast gold with Song Exploder, wherein he and a guest musician completely deconstruct one of that artist’s songs. In September, after a guest appearance on Gilmore Guys—a podcast in which two guys hash out each episode of Gilmore Girls—Hirway got to thinking: Why not do the same with The West Wing? He reached out to Malina, who currently plays Attorney General David Rosen on ABC’s Scandal.
As Hirway saw it, The West Wing, which snagged more than two dozen Emmys over the years—merited discussion not only about how each episode came together, but also about the ideas it espoused. Would his friend join him?
Malina was reluctant at first. After four seasons as White House official Will Bailey, Malina hadn’t returned to the show since it ended. But after talking to Hirway, he went back and watched the pilot episode. He was hooked. It’s “one of the great pilots,” Malina told me, and ripe for exploration. “Hrishikesh is the superfan and probably the smarter of the two of us. It’s like the Beatles—you have the cute one…” he added. “I’ll be the cute one!”
Thanks in part to Malina’s Hollywood connections, West Wing Weekly is well stocked with special guests, from former cast members, directors, and writers to real-life political insiders. The podcast goes well beyond the play-by-play recap, enriching listeners’ binge-rewatching experience with the stories behind the episodes. During the recently wrapped first season, West Wing Weekly was downloaded more than 5 million times—it took Song Exploder a year and a half to hit that mark. Six more seasons is a long haul, to be sure, but Malina and Hirway insist they’re all in. Assuming they stick to a weekly schedule, the podcast will wrap up sometime in the spring of 2019.
With the second season just commencing, we spoke to Malina and Hirway about The West Wing‘s lasting influence, things that Barack Obama and Martin Sheen’s Josiah Barlet have in common, and how the show’s mastermind, Aaron Sorkin, might have written the rise of Donald Trump—or not.
Mother Jones: How would you say The West Wing holds up today?
Joshua Malina: The issues are certainly evergreen. Aaron writes a storyline 17 years ago—somebody hopped the fence and tried to make it into the White House—and it happens three days ago. It’s very topical. The show is generally perceived as an antidote to the Bush years, although it had a big audience on the left and the right. Eli Attie, a West Wing writer and producer, was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration and ultimately Al Gore’s chief speechwriter. I remember asking him: Did he think the show was realistic? I reiterated that a lot of viewers saw it as this liberal fantasy camp. He said, “It’s absolutely my experience that the great majority of people who go into politics and work in our government were drawn to it for all the right reasons, and their day-to-day lives reflect a dedication to making the country a better place.”
Hrishikesh Hirway: I think it holds up brilliantly—I don’t think that there’s anything [that doesn’t], except for a few moments about inclusion and technology. It’s rare that the show feels outdated. There is a Democratic president but a Republican-controlled Congress. A lot of the conflict that comes up is because of that dynamic, that it’s difficult to govern. It’s not like they can go all out on a massive legislative overhaul. They are always kept in check by the other branch. Sometimes that’s incredibly petty and partisan and divisive, just for the sake of politics—and that, of course, has been really relevant to the entire tenure of the Obama administration. It’s a workplace dramedy about friendship and the family that you create with the people that you work with, people who are smart and dedicated and passionate. I don’t think those ideas or themes have an expiration date.
The Trump campaign “would’ve been too over-the-top and cartoonish to fit within any kind of West Wing universe.”
MJ: How might the show’s writers have fictionalized a Trump presidency?
JM: [Groans.] I groan even at the phrase.
MJ: Okay, the rise of Donald Trump?
JM: The three-ring circus we are being treated to may be best handled by the people who make Veep. Can you even treat seriously what we’re seeing on a daily basis from the Trump campaign? I’d love to see what Aaron Sorkin would’ve done with this, but it’s certainly beyond my conception.
HH: I think it would’ve been too over-the-top and cartoonish to fit within any kind of West Wing universe. It would be like saying, “How would the West Wing have handled the Age of Ultron plot line?” or something like that. It would be more like, “How would George Orwell handle the Trump presidency?”
MJ: Hrishikesh, you told me President Obama was Bartletesque, while his first deputy communications director, Sam Seaborn, was like Justin Trudeau. How so?
HH: They’re both extremely academic—they’re scholarly presidents. They’re kind of saddled by trying not to rock the boat too much. Obama, especially in his first term, went to the middle in a way that was surprising to the people who were really excited to vote for him and inspired by the things that he said. It’s disappointing, but it also makes sense given the Congress he was up against, and just needing to deal with the recession. He couldn’t come out of the gate with the same kind of fire that had ignited the campaign.
In the first season of The West Wing, you see the same exact thing happening in the Bartlet administration. They keep running up against the wall and then compromising their lofty ideals, or sabotaging them for the sake of pragmatism. Finally, about a year and a half in, they realize this is not a winning strategy, and it’s more important to govern in the time that they have rather than make sure they’re safe enough to be reelected. That happened in the second term with Obama—he was able to bring back some of the idealism of the campaign.
“New people are discovering West Wing every day. People are inspired by its vision of Washington—it’s a rare thing in television.”
MJ: What about the Trudeau comparison?
HH: You know, he’s young and handsome. He’s our dreamboat head of state. I think he really has lifted people up in a way that you get when you listen to Sam Seaborn speak. If The West Wing is a fantasy for capable, smart, thinking people, then Seaborn distills a lot of that when you hear him talk about education or space exploration. He gets some of the best monologues, when he’s trying to passionately argue a point. Some of that rhetoric has echoes in some of the speeches Trudeau has made. You combine that with how good he looks in a suit and—I don’t know, the comparison kind of makes itself.
MJ: Why do you think The West Wing still resonates?
JM: It’s a variety of things: great writing, great dialogue, engaging characters, a terrific cast. The secret sauce is the presentation of the American government in a more positive light than we’re used to seeing it. At a pre-prom party, [my daughter] Izzy came up to me and said, “Oh, this is my friend. Her date wanted to meet you.” The date is a young guy who’s interested in poli-sci. There are young people who have been absolutely inspired by watching The West Wing, and he was maybe just born when it premiered. It makes me very happy. The audience is always increasing because new people are discovering the show every day. People are inspired by its vision of Washington—it’s a rare thing in television.
HH: The show is so beloved. People like me love it enough to want to spend three years talking about it! I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised that there would be a lot of people that enjoy having this in-depth experience. All the things that motivate me to want to make the podcast would potentially appeal to somebody who wanted to listen to it. At its heyday, The West Wing had 18 million viewers. The compass for making this podcast is to try as much as possible to honor the spirit of The West Wing—to be fun and funny, but also a little bit thought-provoking—more than a piece of entertainment, but a chance to engage with some aspects of civic duty as well. Or rather, to be able to reflect on how things work in the real world. I want to do the show justice. It’s a high bar. I don’t feel confident that we’re doing that with our goofy chats, but it’s a nice goal.The incredible saga of the Green Bay Packers began in August 1919, when the Indian Packing Company agreed to sponsor a local pro football team under the direction of Earl (Curly) Lambeau. In 1921, the Packers were granted a membership in the new National Football League.
Today, they rank as the third oldest team in pro football. The long and storied history of the Green Bay team is one of struggle, until comparatively recent, for financial survival off the field and playing stability on the field. The Packers' record has been punctuated with periods of both the highest success and the deepest depths of defeat.
Many great football players have performed for the Green Bay team but two coaches, Lambeau and Vince Lombardi, rank as the most dominant figures in the Packers' epic. Between the two, Lambeau and Lombardi brought the Packers 11 NFL championships, including two record strings of three straight titles, the first in 1929, 1930 and 1931 and the second in 1965, 1966 and 1967. Those last three championships completed the Packers' dynasty years in the 1960s, which began with Green Bay also winning NFL championships in 1961 and 1962. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Lambeau-led Packers were annual championship contenders. They won four divisional crowns and NFL titles in 1936, 1939 and 1944.
Individually, Lambeau, Lombardi and 20 long-time Packers players are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame players from the early years include Don Hutson, history's first great pass receiver, Arnie Herber, Clarke Hinkle, Cal Hubbard, John (Blood) McNally, Mike Michalske and Tony Canadeo. The great Packers elevens of the 1960s produced Jim Taylor, Forrest Gregg, Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley, Willie Davis, Jim Ringo, Paul Hornung, Willie Wood and Henry Jordan for the Hall. More recent Packers who've earned election to the Hall of Fame include wide receiver James Lofton, defensive lineman Reggie White and linebacker Dave Robinson.
Green Bay, home of the Packers, is still a city of less than 100,000 and is viewed as sort of a sports "dinosaur" as the only remaining small city in the big-city world of major league professional sports franchises. Green Bay is unique in another way -- the team is the only community-owned non-profit organization in the NFL. From 1937-1994 the Packers played their home games in two cities. Five of their eight home games were played in Green Bay's Lambeau Field and the remaining three at Milwaukee County Stadium in Milwaukee. Today the Packers play exclusively in Lambeau Field.
The Packers first played on a couple of small fields in Green Bay and then in 6,000-seat City Stadium beginning in 1925. Eventually, the City Stadium capacity reached 25,000. On September 29, 1957, the Packers dedicated a modern $1,000,000 stadium with a 32,150-seat capacity. Subsequent expansions and renovations have brought the Green Bay facility, officially named Lambeau Field in 1965, to its current capacity.
Off the field, the Packers remain a financially sound, competitive and historically rich franchise. On the field the glory years are back. In 1996, the Packers returned to the top of the pro football world when they won Super Bowl XXXI. Green Bay won the Super Bowl for a fourth time in 2010 when the Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.The Supreme Court of Belgium has ordered internet service providers throughout the nation to begin proactive efforts to search and censor proxy services for the Pirate Bay, the most popular file-sharing site in the world.
Belgium has quietly been a focal point in the debate between copyright laws and illegal file-sharing for years. In 2011, the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) filed suit against Belgacom and Telenet in an attempt to force the ISPs to block their customers from reaching the infamous Pirate Bay. That court ruled in favor of the ISPs, deeming the full-scale blocking a “disproportionate” responsibility for the telecommunication companies.
That ruling was later overturned by the Court of Appeals, blocking access to the Pirate Bay in the country ever since. Yet file-sharers in Belgium, like their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, have subscribed to proxy servers that subvert the ISP blockade and re-direct them to the Pirate Bay, where they can upload and download copyrighted music, movies, video games, and computer software.
The Pirate Bay has previously advertised proxy services advertising the ability to add new domains and internet-protocol addresses by request. Log-in, registration, comment, and upload functions were disabled for security reasons, almost certainly a point of frustration for copyright enforcers.
In response, a Belgian court issued a verdict last year forcing the ISPs to block all “current and future domains” to the Pirate Bay, as reported by Torrent Freak. That decision sparked a new wave of legal challenges until this week, when the Belgium Supreme Court upheld the decision.
The verdict has yet to be published, although observers have speculated that it may also block proxies to ExtraTorrent, Kickass.to, and other heavily-trafficked torrent sites. A number of ISPs quietly began blocking those sites and a number of others that facilitate illegal file-sharing.
The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Italy have also blocked access to the Pirate Bay and Belgium’s decision to take that prohibition one step further is seen as a legal action that will become more common as governments and entertainment groups continue to struggle against the outpouring of free content.
It is not yet known if there are any plans to appeal, or if appealing the decision is even a possibility, but ISPs have wasted no time in voicing their frustration.
“Internet providers are obliged to continue to block the Pirate Bay, even if the site moves to another domain. That is a very broad definition which obliges providers to police the entire internet,” Belgacom spokesman Jan Margot told TorrentFreak. “This is something we cannot accept.”
The court’s decision comes just after Peter Sunde, a founder of the Pirate Bay, admitted his frustration with the current incarnation of the site because of the political attitude it helps foster.
“You can’t beat politics with new technology all the time. Sometimes you have to actually make sure that politics are in line with what people want,” he told Wired magazine. “A lot of people are giving up on politics and thinking they can solve issues with technology. These kind of arrogant behaviors towards the rest of society are a bit disgusting.”
Sunde went on to describe how a growing faction of internet users consider themselves “the clever people,” an attitude that could prevent intelligent people from making actual change.
“You actually need to go somewhere and vote and make sure you don’t have police,” he went on. “But there’s a faith in technology as the savior, as the new Messiah, and that’s definitely not the case. I really don’t see any revolution happening.”Looking for an easy way to keep on top of our unread articles on Feedly on Chrome?
Feedly Notifier is a small Chrome extension that lets you do exactly that.
While Feedly Notifier isn’t the only Google Chrome Feedly extension available on the Web Store it is one of the simplest to use, and one of the few to still receive updates and development.
For comparison, the oft-recommended (and very cool) Feedly Checker hasn’t been updated since 2013.
Feedly Notifier: Features
An open-source add-on, Feedly Notifier does what it says: it notifies you about new articles in your Feedly subscriptions.
The “main” feature of Feedly Notifier is the unread count that sits in the toolbar.
This omni-present counter is updated at a set (configurable) interval to relay passive information about how many unread new articles are waiting for you while you’re busy browsing elsewhere.
Clicking on the toolbar button will, by default, open a small pop-up window. This shows you the 20 most recent unread articles and offers buttons for opening all unread articles in new tabs, marking all items as read, and manually refreshing the list.
You can also preview articles in the pop-up window by clicking the small arrow icon beside each post.
Clicking on an article title will open the article source in a new tab (i.e., it doesn’t open the article’s page in Feedly).
The embedded article window that opens when you click on the toolbar counter won’t be to everyone’s taste. Thankfully you can set it to open the Feedly website in a new tab instead. Right-click on the toolbar icon and select “options” to change this, and plenty of other, settings.
Other settings include only being notified/seeing articles from a specific Feedly category or folder and saving items to ‘read later’.
The extension can also be made to serve up desktop notifications of new posts as Feedly finds them (for added effect you can also enable sound notifications on new articles, too).
Feedly Notifier Features at-a-glance:
Unread article count in toolbar
Pop-up window with unread headlines
In-window article previews
Filter news by category
Mark items as read from the pop-up window
Drawbacks
There are a few drawbacks.
For one, whether you set the app to show the pop window or not, it runs all the time in the background. This isn’t necessary. Our own OMG! Chrome! notifier extension checks for new articles periodically, but only ‘runs’ when you click on its toolbar button.
A similar option could be used here, albeit at the expense of desktop notifications (which Chrome is doing away with).
Although not the biggest user of memory, the add-on sits on around 60MB RAM while Chrome is running (if you have other extensions, this can add up, particularly on Chromebooks with 2GB RAM).
Finally, a matter of taste, more efficient use of space/the layout of headlines in the pop-up window could be improved. Things look a little squashed and the use of bold icons and bold headlines limits legibility a little.
Install Feedly Notifier for Google Chrome
Feedly Notifier is a free extension available for Chrome and Chrome OS. You can install it from the Chrome Web Store.
Permissions wise the add-on will ask for access to Feedly sites (understandable, as it needs to communicate with Feedly APIs), permission to show desktop notifications (these can be disabled, however) and access to read your entire browsing history. It’s not clear exactly why the add-on needs this latter capability.
Feedly Notifier on Chrome Web StoreBurger King Helsinki's sauna. Facebook/Restel A Burger King in Finland has something no other fast-food restaurant in the world offers: an on-site sauna.
The restaurant, located in Helsinki, offers full service in the sauna, with servers who take food and beverage orders and then deliver the items to customers.
Designed by Finnish celebrity designer Teuvo Loman, the sauna features Burger King-themed benches and towels, a stove, and a television with gaming capabilities.
Other amenities include fancy showers, dressing rooms, and a lounge.
Facebook/Restel The restaurant's operator is planning to eventually install tablets in the sauna where customers can place orders, according to Euromonitor analyst Elizabeth Friend.
Here are the showers:
Facebook/Restel
The Burger King sauna recently won Euromonitor's New Concepts in Foodservice contest.
Facebook/Restel In a post on Euromonitor's website, Friend writes that the sauna demonstrates "just how competitive the search for differentiation has become in global foodservice."
Companies "are having to go to further and further extremes in order to set themselves apart," she writes.
Friend notes that it's common in Finland for friends and coworkers to sauna together.
"In this way, Burger King's in-store sauna offers a powerful example of localization, demonstrating an understanding of local preferences while also offering customers the novelty experience of a sauna alongside their Whopper and fries," Friend writes.Debt Collection, At The End Of A Gun (Update)
Feb. 17, 2016 (Mimesis Law) — A good friend came to me decades ago with a problem. He received a letter from the Department of Education informing him that he had to repay his student loans that had been incurred decades earlier. He did repay them, he told me. “You have proof?” I asked.
Are you kidding? It was 25 years ago. I threw the checks away decades ago. Who keeps checks for decades?
I contacted the folks who sent the letter, who informed me in that officious tone that only a low-level government bureaucrat can pull off that their records showed the loan was unpaid, and that was that. Pay it or else. The “or else” was that the DoE would get a judgment against my friend and swoop down with its might to collect.
He paid what the government demanded. Not so much because he was afraid of fighting over his student loans, but because he had a pretty sweet side business growing weed. Discretion was the better part of valor.
In Houston, Paul Aker got a dose of “or else” consisting of a seven person SWAT team.
Seven US marshals armed with automatic weapons turned up at Paul Aker’s home in Houston, Texas, last week to arrest him over a $1,500 student loan debt dating back to 1987. It was totally mind-boggling,” Aker said. “I was wondering, why are you here? I am home, I haven’t done anything … Why are the marshals knocking on my door? It’s amazing.” Aker said he was arrested, shackled and taken to federal court. “I was told: ‘You owe $1,500.’ I just couldn’t believe it,” he told Fox 26. “I was taken before a judge surrounded by seven marshals.”
That the amount was $1,500 has been played up as part of the appeal to emotion, but it’s irrelevant. It makes no difference whether it’s $1,500 or $150,000. What does matter is that armed marshals swooped down on a guy for a debt.
Texas representative Gene Green, a Democrat, said it was unacceptable that US marshals are being used to collect decades old student loans. “There’s bound to be a better way to collect on a student loan debt that is so old,” he told the station.
That the debt is “so old” is another appeal to emotion, and also irrelevant. If it’s 100 years old or ten minutes old, it makes no difference.
Arne Duncan, the former secretary of education, had said he would work to write off the students’ Corinthian loans and vowed to fight back against unethical businesses moving in higher education. “You’d have to be made of stone not to feel for these students,” Duncan said last summer. “Some of these schools have brought the ethics of payday lending into higher education. This is our first major action on this but obviously it won’t be the last.”
That there were student loans related to a disreputable for-profit college, Corinthian, is an appeal to emotion, and, again, irrelevant. If the loan was for Harvard, even for a Harvard gender studies major, it changes nothing.
Failure to repay a loan guaranteed by the federal government is enforced at the end of a gun. It may take a while for the feds to do something about it, but when they do, they use the same shock and awe that serves its interests so well when the target is drug dealers, terrorists and arbitrageurs for making too much money.
For everyone else in the nation, the failure to repay a loan would constitute a civil wrong, for which a judgment would be sought, and if obtained, collection proceedings would ensue. There are methods, albeit often problematic as the old saying, you can’t get blood from a rock, comes into play, to get back the money due.
The problem here is that the government, as it does with so many things, backs up its power with criminal sanctions. The same ones that the New York Times finds unworthy of imputing a mens rea requirement, even though the victims of government overreach are a thousand times more likely to be individuals like Paul Aker than corporations owned by the Koch Brothers.
And when civil disputes, bad debts, are enforced at the end of a gun, there is a chance that the gun will go off. This raises the question, is non-payment of a student loan, regardless of how much, regardless of how old, regardless of where incurred, worth taking a life?
But it gets worse.
Congressman Gene Green says the federal government is now using private debt collectors to go after those who owe student loans. Green says as a result, those attorneys and debt collectors are getting judgements in federal court and asking judges to use the US Marshals Service to arrest those who have failed to pay their federal student loans.
Not only are people’s lives being put at serious risk for the petty purpose of collecting a debt, but judges, federal judges, are signing off on the marshals going in hot on student loan deadbeats for the benefit of private debt collectors doing the government’s bidding. The DoE may lack the time, interest and expertise to round up unpaid loans, and so it contacts with private companies in the highly-principled business of debt collections to split fees with them so someone else will do their dirty work?
And these private enterprises get to enjoy the benefit of the United States Marshals rolling in with weapons pointed, with the court’s full approval. Eventually, a gun will discharge and a dead body will be left on the ground. Will that be acceptable if the dead former student at least owed the money, rather than a guy like my old friend, who was the victim of government’s finest bookkeeping?
Update: According to Yahoo Finance, there is an additional twist left out of the news reports:
Back in November 2007, Aker was sued by the federal government for nonpayment of more than $2,600 in unpaid federal student loan debt, according to documents from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (embedded below). The court record shows that Aker, listed as Winford P. Aker in the complaint, did not appear in court to answer the lawsuit and, as is common when student loan borrowers fail to appear, the presiding judge ruled against him and ordered Aker to pay the full balance on April 17, 2007. According to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, Aker repeatedly refused to show up in court after being contacted several times. Disobeying a court order is a criminal offense. Within a few months, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest, which the U.S. Marshals carried out. So, yes, Aker was arrested, but not just because he owed a little student loan debt. He was arrested for disobeying a court order.
Not to blame Yahoo for having no clue, repeating what the Marshals told the writer and generally adding to the level of ignorance in the room, but it is not “normal” for a civil litigant who chooses not to contest a suit against him to be arrested. It is not “normal” for the plaintiff to be ordered to appear in a civil collection action. It is not “normal” for the court to order his arrest for failure to appear in a civil action.
There is nothing “normal” about any of this. Not that Yahoo would know. Then again, it’s also not “normal” that, as the marshals allege, if Akers resisted, he wouldn’t be shot and then, after arrest, would be immediately released. No, there is nothing “normal” here. Nothing normal at all. Except this:
And, to add insult to injury, he was ordered to pay more than $1,200 in fees back to the U.S. Marshals service for the cost of arresting him.
Finally, something normal.
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TwitterPlayStation Vita Guide
[ edit ]
Everything you need to know about Sony's next handheld.
Sony's next handheld is going to be here before you know it, and that means it's time to bone up on everything PlayStation Vita-related. We've compiled this ever-growing guide to answer all of your burning questions--but feel free to add stuff we missed or ask a question we didn't think of.
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The IGN PlayStation Vita Guide belongs to everyone.
What is the PlayStation Vita? [ edit ]
The PlayStation Vita is Sony's next handheld video game platform. On top of two analog sticks and a sexy widescreen, the PlayStation Vita features a rear touch pad, a front touch screen, all sorts of sensors and cameras.
What does "PlayStation Vita" even mean? [ edit ]
Vita is Latin for life. President of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida told IGN Podcast Beyond that the name was chosen because the company envisions Vita being part of its users everyday life. It'll always have some utility for you. Leading up to E3 2011, many called the Vita the PSP2 or its codename, NGP for "Next Generation Portable."
When does the PlayStation Vita come out? [ edit ]
Vita box.jpg
Will the PS Vita have any Pre-Order Bonuses?
[ edit ]
European product manager Adam Grant has revealed on the European PlayStation Blog two pre-order gift packs that will be available when the system launches next February.
The first pack will include a set of "PS Vita Blue" in-ear headphones. The second pack includes a PS Vita wallet "with a hidden compartment for 3 PS Vita cards and 3 PS Vita memory cards." Both packs will also include PSN vouchers for various discounts, avatars and PlayStation Home items.
Sony says the packs are currently only set for Europe but other territories will not get something similar.
How much will the PlayStation Vita cost? [ edit ]
The PlayStation Vita will come in two varieties. The Wi-Fi only model will cost ¥24,980, $249 and €249. The 3G model will cost ¥29,980, $299 and €299, UK wifi: £229.99 and 3G £279.99.
An estimated RRP of $308 and $408 for the Wi-Fi only model and the 3G model respectively has been given for Australia.
How does 3G work with PlayStation Vita? [ edit ]
If you buy a 3G-enabled PlayStation Vita, you'll be able to connect to the Internet from wherever you are--no need for a hotspot. AT&T is the exclusive U.S. 3G provider and will offer two month-by-month plans without a contract. For $14.99, you can get 250MB. For $25, you can get 2GB. The AT&T plans also give users free access to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots.
"Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and Vodafone have today announced a partnership that will see Vodafone as the preferred provider of 3G connectivity for PlayStation Vita initially in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and The Netherlands, and with Vodafone’s Partner in France (SFR).
In the Philipines, the provider for the Playstation Vita 3G feature will be Globe Telecom.
The PS Vita 3G/Wi-Fi model sold in selected countries will come with a Vodafone SIM card so that users can immediately enjoy social gaming experiences on the go. Customers will also be able to buy PS Vita 3G/Wi-Fi model direct from Vodafone channels, both online and in store. In addition, customers connecting with Vodafone will receive a PlayStation Network voucher to download WipEout 2048 from PlayStation Store."
Will I be able to have multiple PSN accounts on the Vita?
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Players who want to use multiple accounts will have the option of doing so, but each account will need to be bonded to its own memory card. To switch the cards and use the same Vita, you'll need to factory reset the handheld. Check out this video...
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Will I be able to play my PSP games on the PS Vita?
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Yes and no. If you're talking about getting yout UMDs on the Vita, the answer is complicated. There's a program called the UMD Passport that allows you to get discounts on digital versions of the PSP games you own, but it's only in Japan. It's not in North America.
If you're talking about digital PSP game you already own, the answer is "yes." Here's how...
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Will I be able to take screenshots on the Vita? [ edit ]
"By pressing the PlayStation and Start buttons together, the Vita snaps a screengrab and saves it to the system's photo gallery (similar to the iPhone/iPad)."
Will games come with paper manuals?
[ edit ]
Reportedly, PS Vita games ship without game manuals and instead rely on Online Manuals to inform players. This page is meant to be an archive of web links to all such manuals.
What's the coolest PlayStation Vita game? [ edit ]
It's impossible to answer that as we haven't reviewed any of them, but several titles have caught the attention of various IGN editors. Sound Shapes is a music game that allows you to create songs and then use them to create a platforming level. LittleBigPlanet Vita takes what you know about Sackboy and tosses in a bunch of cool uses for the PlayStation Vita tech. Super Stardust Delta takes the awesome gameplay we love and amplifies it with back touch controls. Meanwhile, Uncharted: Golden Abyss is literally Uncharted in your pocket. Awesome.
What is PlayStation Vita Near [ edit ]
Near is Sony's location-based social network. The program uses PlayStation Vita's Wi-Fi or 3G capabilities to see what people have been playing in the area. Nearby gamers can even "gift" game-related items to fellow players.
What is PlayStation Vita LiveArea? [ edit ]
LiveArea is the PlayStation Vita's new interface--a new version of the XMB. You touch the game or app you want to use, and are then launched into that piece of software. LiveArea will apparently be a part of each PlayStation Vita game and constantly update with information and the activity of other people playing the same game. Little is known about the feature beyond that.
Will the PlayStation Vita be region locked? [ edit ]
Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe Michael Denny said that--to the best of his knowledge--the PlayStation Vita would be region free. This would allow players to play games from anywhere in the world on their Vitas rather than a Japanese Vita only being able to play Japanese games.
What format are PlayStation Vita games? [ edit ]
PlayStation Vita games will come on flash memory cards--either 2GB or 4GB. Games will also be available via digital downloads. In retail stores games will be priced at $29.99, $39.99, or $49.99 in the U.S. In the U.K. they will be approximately £22.97, $32.97, and £42.97.
What is the battery life of the PlayStation Vita?
[ edit ]
The PlayStation Vita's battery lasts around five hours based on what you're using the system for. IGN Tech Tower Scott Lowe has done extensive tests for your reading pleasure.
What are the PlayStation Vita's specs?
[ edit ]
Check out the PS Vita specs sheet for the full deets. The short:
CPU
ARM Cortex A9 core
(4 core)
GPU
SGX543MP4+
Width182.0mmm
Height83.5mm
Thickness18.6mm
Screen
OLED 16:9 display
5 inches (diagonally)
960 x 544 resolution
Approx. 16 million colors
Capacitive multi-touch screen
Who will be the Canadian 3G Provider?
[ edit ]
While it has not been confirmed yet. There is speculations on the net that the 3G will be supported by Rogers Communication.
Currently, the Xperia Play (Playstation Phone) can only be purchased through Rogers WIreless. This past month, Sony and Rogers teamed up to have a special promotion where |
; perhaps appropriately in the midst of a howling thunderstorm, where primal urges are unleashed and humanity is declared. This particular sequence sold me on this fan fic the most, a real show-stopper which demonstrates Roy’s lust and yearning for life, as he howls into the night; daring the Gods to break him as he claims his spot on the dying Earth for all eternity to take measure off. Even Rachel is stunned as Roy, in a simple act of defiance, urges her to join him, as together they rail against the system and plant the flag for replicants and their desire to be more than their masters made them.
Roy simply wishes freedom for them both, and as Rachel discovers her true identify, she begins a journey that will lead her into Deckard’s arms, as the pair then convene after she saves him: the hunter, now being rescued by the hunted, an ironic twist in a film leading towards a highly unusual and unexpected outcome.
As the two convene in Deckard’s apartment, Deckard dreaming of unicorns, and Rachel pondering the nature of her reality, we get the sense that these two beings really are truly alone and the last hope either has for a normal life.
They almost go through the motions of love-making and sex, as if it where the only thing left to cling onto in a world where humanity is drowning. The carbon filters, as so eloquently offered an explanation for the rain, serve as a metaphor I think for the filtering of carbon based lifeforms in this particular system; Rachel and Deckard exercising their right to humanity as they cloister together in the one last refuge either has for survival; Rachel now assuming she is prey for Roy, who is now steadily becoming more unstable, his own End of Days approaching, and Deckard now faced with the inevitable fate of having to face him, and potentially face his own Apocalypse as Rachel’s future becomes increasingly uncertain.
Will she stay or will she go? These questions are raised and more as the two characters are beautifully explored in their time together, one pondering the journey of her (short) life so far, and the other simply trying to survive in a job he hates and which will likely get him killed eventually.
Still, he doesn’t feel he has a choice, and even though the death of Tyrell is ultimately a footnote in a world where thunderstorms are 24/7 (beautiful metaphor there I thought) he still has a job to do and people to answer for, and even if Rachel can survive and make it out while he can’t, it’ll have been worth it. He would have saved one more life, especially one who has saved his own so unexpectedly before.
As he goes off to the job, she waits for him…wondering if he’ll return, or whether she’ll journey off on her own to pastures new.
The choices is hers, and we are left with the beautiful ending, whereby she just knows that he will return, and the two of them can eventually leave for the life of their dreams and beyond.
There were of course many more fan fics I could have chosen, but these are the ones that I felt capture something unique with the “Blade Runner” universe, and which I feel are beautifully written with real atmosphere and heart. Honourable mentions go to a novelization being written of the film, which is an ongoing story, and the other “The Prodigal Son” an account of Roy’s story from the Off-world Colonies to home. Many more can be found of course, and I’ll provide links below to some of my favourites, which I hope you will enjoy.
More to come in my next review, and I hope you see you next time for our further delving into the movie/fan universe, and beyond…
‘Till next time…fan it up!
Author’s note: The header image of the illustrated eye is by mahmusx, whose work can be found here: https://mahmusx.deviantart.com/art/Blade-Runner-682937551
Disclaimer: I acknowledge that the rights to “Blade Runner” do not belong to me nor to the artists behind each piece, and I do this as a fan of the work and the work it has inspired. I could not have not done this without the support and permission of each artist who contributed such fine and beautifully written/illustrated work to the world of “Blade Runner” and fandom in general.
Any changes made to the above article can be found here.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) - It is with great sadness that we report that John Auble has died at 77-years-old. John had been fighting cancer for a long time and he finally succumbed on Saturday night, surrounded by his family.
John was a warrior a true journalist who cared. He served the St. Louis community well and we are grateful for his service.
He is survived by his wife Charmaine, five children, seven grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren.
We will miss his passion, dedication and his marvelous wit. Auble worked at KTVI for 23 years and retired because of illness in May 2011. He was an anchor, reporter, and a great storyteller.
Some of his career highlights include the first interview with James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also interviewed Coretta King, Rosa Parks, Mafia dons Mike Trupiano in St. Louis and Art Berne in Southern Illinois.
Visitation:
May 17. 03:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Buchholz Mortuary West
2211 Clarkson Road
Chesterfield, MO, US, 63017
Mass:
May 18. 11:00 AM
Our Lady of Guadalupe
1115 South Florissant Road
Saint Louis, MO, US, 63121Last month, two women were arrested on charges of child abuse after a bruised and malnourished 8 year-old girl was in the couple’s home, along with two other children.
On today’s “Pray In Jesus Name” program, “Dr. Chaps” Gordon Klingenschmitt discussed the case to argue that even if gay couples who have children do not physically abuse them, they are still abusing their kids by depriving them of either a mother or a father.
“Even if a child is not physically abused,” Klingenschmitt asked, “what’s the next worst thing you can do to a child? Is to take away their mother.”
“In the case of homosexual couples who get ‘married,’ so to speak,” he continued, “and then they adopt children, even if they never physically harm those children, they are taking away that child’s right to a mother, or maybe they’re taking away that child’s right to a father. And that, in my opinion, is also abusive”:Father's Day was started a century ago because inventor Sonora Smart Dodd was upset by widespread mocking of fathers in popular culture as lazy, sleazy and drunk.
This June 20 marks the 100th anniversary of Father's Day, and while today's fathers have come a long way, some would say they could once again use an image boost thanks to the much-mocked antics of the likes of Tiger Woods and Jon Gosselin.
While it is easy to take shots at dads who mess up, it's important to focus on the important role of men, said Michael Gurian, an author who specializes in the struggles of men in the modern world.
"Making fun of guys to get them to perform and prove themselves, that's always going to exist," Gurian said. "But we have to equally celebrate them and empower them."
For Sonora Dodd, the last straw was a church sermon in 1908, when her priest rambled on about the newly created Mother's Day and the importance of mothers.
"I liked everything you said about motherhood," Sonora Dodd recalled telling the priest in a 1972 interview. "However, don't you think fathers deserve a place in the sun too?"
Her father, William Smart, survived the Civil War and then moved West to seek his fortune. His wife died in the winter of 1898, while giving birth of their sixth child.
But Smart, with the help of Sonora, the eldest child and only girl, held the family together. Sonora became convinced of the importance of fathers, at a time when they were not considered that relevant to the family.
While William Smart's sacrifice might have been somewhat unique in its time, these days 15 percent of single parents are men, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In addition, there were 158,000 stay-at-home dads in 2009 who raised the kids while their wives worked, the Census Bureau said.
And 71 percent of 6-year-olds ate breakfast and dinner with their fathers every day in 2006, the agency said. Fathers are also good about reading to their children, praising them at least three times a day and taking them on outings, various reports compiled by the Census Bureau said.
At the other extreme, Gurian said 90 percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. Also, 71 percent of high school dropouts and 63 percent of young people who commit suicide are from fatherless homes.
"Without fathers you would have no civilization," Gurian said.
He acknowledged that men tend to take more risks, fool around more (see Edwards, John) and suffer more crippling addictions (see Sheen, Charlie) than women. They also seem slower to mature these days, often living at home into their 20s.
"Father's Day is hopefully a time when the culture says 'this is our moment to look at who our men and boys are," he said. "If we don't protect fathering, we are going to really be messed up."
Sonora Dodd certainly did her part. She pushed for the first Father's Day celebration, which was held in June 1910, in Spokane. Fathers in church were given red roses, and people whose fathers were deceased wore white roses.
Some also credit the invention of the holiday to Grace Golden Clayton of Fairmount, W.Va., who is said to have suggested to the pastor of her church in 1908 that he hold a service in honor of fathers.
But it was Dodd who campaigned nationally for the holiday.
Mother's Day was quickly accepted as a national holiday, with Congress in 1914 designating the second Sunday in May. Father's Day had a much longer road, perhaps reflecting the societal split involving mothers and fathers. It was not until 1966 that President Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers and set the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. In 1972, President Nixon signed the law that made it permanent, to the delight of necktie and golf club makers everywhere.
Sonora Dodd died in 1978 at age 96 and is buried in Spokane.
"She was a businesswoman and knew how to get things done," said Barbara Hillerman, Sonora Dodd's only grandchild.
Hillerman, 75, a college professor in Vienna, Austria, will be making her first trip to Spokane in decades for anniversary festivities. Her father was Sonora Dodd's only child, John Bruce Dodd, Jr.
She did not know her grandmother well, in part because her family moved back and forth across the country as her father rose in the Forest Service.
"My relationship to her was as grandchild and grandmother," Hillerman said in a telephone interview from Vienna. "One of my failures is we didn't talk about Father's Day."
But "I sent my grandmother a Father's Day card every year," Hillerman said.
RELATED:A big game hunter who has been leading safaris in different parts of Africa for decades has died after an elephant collapsed on top of him during a hunt.
Theunis Botha led his first guided hunting safari through South Africa's grasslands in 1989. A college student at the time, he used the money he received to help put himself through school.
An elephant reportedly fell on top of Botha after one of his companions fired at it. Credit:AP
Over the following 28 years, Botha expanded his college side-gig into a full-fledged business, setting up private hunting ranches in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and elsewhere, and drawing clients from around the world. He won a reputation as a sought-after specialist in leopard and lion hunting, and pioneered a new method of using hounds to track big game, according to his hunting company's website.
On Friday, after countless treks into the African wilderness, the 51-year-old embarked on his final hunt.A U.S. lawmaker has asked users of Reddit for their ideas about legislation to address the controversial recent practice by two U.S. agencies of seizing websites for alleged copyright infringement.
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren
U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said Monday she is considering legislation to address free expression and due process concerns with the website seizures by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the past two years, the two agencies have seized about 1,500 websites they accused of selling pirated digital goods or counterfeit products.
Users of Reddit, a popular social news site, showed a “strong dedication to free expression” during a debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act, Lofgren said in a statement. SOPA, defeated after millions of Internet users protested earlier this year, would have expanded the DOJ’s powers to seize websites for alleged copyright infringement.
Reddit was one of the first sites to announce it would go black for a day to protest SOPA and the Protect IP Act, a similar bill. With Reddit’s involvement in the SOPA debate, “I thought I would attempt an experiment: crowdsourcing a legislative proposal on Reddit,” Lofgren said.
Lofgren will consider proposals from Reddit users in the drafting of legislation, she said.
Lofgren’s move toward introducing legislation shouldn’t be seen as an endorsement of the seizures, she said.
“Although I am considering introducing a bill on domain name seizures for infringement, that does not mean I accept the practice as legal or constitutional,” she said. “Nonetheless, since these seizure actions are occurring, I thought it worthwhile to explore a legislative means providing appropriate protections for free expression and due process.”
Critics of the seizures have said the DOJ and ICE give website owners no notice before seizing the sites. In some cases, the websites seized may include blog posts, discussion boards or other material protected by U.S. free speech rights, critics have said.
Supporters of the seizures, including many in the U.S. entertainment industry, have argued that the seizures are necessary to stem rampant copyright infringement online.
New legislation from Lofgren would focusing on requirements that the agencies provide notice to website owners and an opportunity for them to defend against a seizure, she said.
Four Reddit users had submitted comments as of Tuesday afternoon.
“Domain Name seizures should be made completely illegal, with no compromises or exceptions,” one Reddit user wrote. “The government has taken down countless websites across the internet with absolutely no due process with only a judge’s signature on a piece of paper with most of the evidence for the take down coming from the biased entertainment industry.”
The Motion Picture Association of America, a supporter of the seizures, commended Lofgren for reaching out to people on copyright issues.
“While we may not agree with Representative Lofgren on all issues relating to protecting creative works from theft, we do support her efforts to engage more voices in the conversation,” an MPAA spokeswoman said.
A representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also a supporter of the website seizures, didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment on Lofgren’s proposal. A representative of the Recording Industry Association of America declined to comment.Morton S. "Mort" Garson (20 July 1924 – 4 January 2008)[1] was a Canadian-born composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. He is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s that were among the first to feature Moog synthesizers. He also co-wrote several hit songs, including "Our Day Will Come", a hit for Ruby and the Romantics. According to Allmusic, "Mort Garson boasts one of the most unique and outright bizarre resumés in popular music, spanning from easy listening to occult-influenced space-age electronic pop."[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Mort Garson was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He later moved to New York City where he studied music at the Juilliard School of Music. He worked as a pianist and arranger before being called into the Army near the end of World War Two.[2]
Early career [ edit ]
After leaving the forces he became an active session musician, with an ability to carry out any or all of the musical chores on any given session: composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and pianist as required. In 1957, he co-wrote Brenda Lee's minor hit "Dynamite" with Tom Glazer,[3] and he also co-wrote Cliff Richard's 1961 UK hit "Theme for a Dream".[4] In 1963, with lyricist Bob Hilliard, he wrote one of the great lounge hits of the 1960s, "Our Day Will Come",[5] a hit for Ruby & The Romantics and more recently covered by k.d. lang and Take 6 for the soundtrack of the movie Shag.
Garson spent the mid-1960s on a rapid succession of accompaniment and arrangement jobs: two Doris Day albums (Sentimental Journey and Latin for Lovers), Mel Tormé's Right Now! album of contemporary covers like "Secret Agent Man," and Glenn Yarborough's highly successful cover of Rod McKuen songs, The Lonely Things. He also arranged for the Lettermen on Capitol Records, provided background to Laurence Harvey reading poetry on Atlantic Records, and provided arrangements for Esther Phillips, Julie London, Nancy Wilson, Chris Montez, Leslie Uggams, Joanie Sommers and many others.[6][7] He was a favorite of producers when the job involved soft pop vocal groups and string ensembles, and was responsible for a wide variety of easy listening records, including Bossa Nova for All Ages by the Continentals, Symphony for the Soul by the Total Eclipse, and Sea Drift by the Dusk 'Til Dawn Orchestra.
With Perry Botkin Jr., he arranged and conducted easy listening arrangements of big pop hits, among them the Hollyridge Strings' Play the Beatles Songbook album series and their Play the Hits of Simon & Garfunkel. He also worked on albums and singles by The Sugar Shoppe, the Sunset Strings, and the Love Strings, and released singles under his own name.[8] He arranged The Sandpipers' 1966 hit, "Guantanamera", and co-wrote its B-side "What Makes You Dream, Pretty Girl?" with lyricist Jacques Wilson, with whom he worked on later projects.[9] In 1968, he was responsible for the string arrangements on Glen Campbell's international hit "By the Time I Get to Phoenix."[2]
Later career [ edit ]
In the late 1960s, Garson became one of the first arrangers and composers to work with the newly available Moog synthesizer, and his electronic albums from the period are now highly prized among collectors and exotica fans. A suite of Garson compositions with words by Jacques Wilson, released on Elektra Records, The Zodiac : Cosmic Sounds - Celestial Counterpoint with Words and Music includes tracks for each of the 12 signs of the zodiac. While Garson was writing the music, he was introduced to Robert Moog and decided to incorporate his invention into the album.[7] The recording features Paul Beaver on a variety of electronic instruments with voice-overs by Cyrus Faryar. Released in late 1967, it was the first album recorded on the West Coast to make use of the Moog synthesizer.[2] Also in 1967, he arranged the obscure single "See The Cheetah", credited to the Big Game Hunters.[10]
Another moog album, Electronic Hair Pieces, covered songs from the hippie-influenced musical, Hair. The mod album cover art for Electronic Hair Pieces featured a model with a wired-up skull; liner notes were provided by Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers. Another album, The Wozard of Iz, a psychedelic satire based on The Wizard of Oz, also with words by Jacques Wilson, featured Bernie Krause providing environmental sound effects and Suzie Jane Hokom voicing Dorothy.[2] (The widely repeated claim that Suzie Jane Hokom is a pseudonym for Nancy Sinatra is untrue.)
Following the success of the original Zodiac LP, Garson went on to compose and arrange a 12 album series of zodiac albums for A&M Records, one album for each sign. Like Zodiac, each album contained original tunes with heavy use of electronics. In 1971, he composed an entirely instrumental electronic Black Mass album, released on Uni Records under the pseudonym Lucifer, that again featured the Moog. Jason Alkeny at Allmusic describes the Black Mass album as "undoubtedly... his masterpiece".[2] Garson also released, in 1972, a record of music-and-moans to capitalize on the best-seller at the time, The Sensuous Woman by "Z". In 1974, he composed the electronic music score for the 18th Annual Grammy Award winning Best Children's Recording of The Little Prince narrated by Richard Burton. The following year, he released an album titled Ataraxia: The Unexplained designed to accompany meditations to the mantra of the listener's choice. Mother Earth's Plantasia, which was released in 1976, was a series of Moog compositions to be played for growing plants. It has recently resurfaced online and become a posthumous cult hit. In 2018, independent reissue label Rubellan Remasters [11] licensed and released on CD for the first time Garson's two Occult themed albums, remastered from original studio tapes.
Films, television and theatre work [ edit ]
Garson also worked in television and film, scoring a wide variety of music for many different movies and TV shows, from Beware! The Blob! to Kentucky Fried Movie to National Geographic specials, although it is Elmer Bernstein who is credited with composing the well-known National Geographic orchestral theme that first appeared in on the magazine's TV specials in 1966.
Garson's music was used as incidental music during the television transmissions of the Apollo 11 manned moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969. He said:[7]
"The only sounds that go along with space travel are electronic ones... The Apollo film shows different facets of the flight - blastoff, separation of the stages of the rocket, scenes of the moon at close range, of the astronauts playing games in the ship and of earthrise. [The music] has to carry the film along. It has to echo the sound of the blastoff and even the static you hear on the astronauts' report from space. People are used to hearing things from outer space, not just seeing them. So I used a big, symphonic sound for the blastoff, some jazzy things for the zero-G game of catch, psychedelic music for a section that uses negatives and diffuse colors on shots taken inside the ship, and a pretty melody for the moon. After all, it's still a lovely moon."
In 1972 he wrote the music for the Larry Hagman-directed movie Son of Blob (also known as Beware! The Blob). He also scored the 1974 Fred Williamson film Black Eye, and adapted the music for Mel Brooks' and Carl Reiner's 1975 animated television special The 2000 Year Old Man.[7]
In 1983 he composed the score for the West End musical Marilyn!, which opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 17 March 1983. Jacques Wilson wrote the lyrics for the show which starred Stephanie Lawrence as Marilyn Monroe. He then scored the action films Treasure of the Amazon (1985) and Vultures (1987), which both starred Stuart Whitman.[12]
In 2002 Garson composed the score for "When Garbo Talks!" a new musical with book and lyrics by Buddy Kaye that had its world premiere 15 October 2010 at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, International City Theatre.[13][14] Garson and Kaye previously collaborated on The Little Prince Narrated by Richard Burton, Grammy Award-Winner ("Best Children's Recording").
Garson was very closely associated with Heatter-Quigley Productions, creating the theme songs and music cues for the following TV game shows:
The music for the first five featured Garson playing synthesizers, but the Battlestars package used more conventional marching band orchestration.
Death [ edit ]
Garson died of renal failure in San Francisco in 2008, at the age of 83.[15]
In popular culture [ edit ]
A sample from Garson's "Planetary Motivations (Cancer)" was incorporated into DJ Shadow's 1996 song "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt," from the album Endtroducing...... In the 1994 Peter Lynch short film Arrowhead, Ray Bud (played by Don McKellar) manipulates a dead fish while singing Mort Garson's closing theme to the 1970s Canadian nature program Untamed World. The song "Plantasia" from the album "Mother Earth's Plantasia" is used in the documentary Lil Bub & Friendz.
"Deja Vu" was used as the main theme for most of the first arc, Balance, of the Maximum Fun podcast The Adventure Zone, with "The Unexplained," "Astral Projection," "Cabala," "Wind Dance," and "Music To Soothe The Savage Snake Plant" also being used later on the series as an alternate theme and as background music, respectively, along with a cover version of "Plantasia," arranged by Griffin McElroy.
Discography [ edit ]In today’s main feature, we scratched the surface of the contribution of the Situationist International to contemporary radical thought. If your interest is piqued and you’re looking for more in-depth exploration of these ideas, there are plenty of resources available in print and on the internet. A great starting place is our topic of this episode’s Chopping Block, Raoul Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life; it’s available for free online at the Anarchist Library, as is On The Poverty of Student Life, which we mentioned in our discussion of the Situationists.
Of course, another classic is The Society of the Spectacle. It’s not an easily accessible starting point, but it is a crucial text if you’re trying to understand the Situationist analysis. Basically every piece of paper Guy Debord ever wrote on can be found on Not Bored (if you can tolerate Bill Brown’s Debord-esque attitude), and the Bureau of Public Secrets is another outpost of translations of Situ material (if you can tolerate the web design). The bureau also hosts this killer list of graffiti slogans from May ‘68,, which a crew of our friends read for this episode’s feature.
Cody Sutherlin of the Tinley Park 5, who plead guilty to three counts of armed violence for his role in storming a restaurant during an organizing meeting of white supremacists, will be released from prison next month! Here is a link to his release fund.
Updates from the hunger and work strikes at prisons in Menard, Illinois and Alabama.
As mentioned in the Hot Wire, here’s the link to the new Warrior Publications guide titled Defend the Territory! Tactics and Techniques for Countering Police Assaults on Indigenous Communities
Earth First organizers are planning a tour to circulate the newly published Direct Action Manual and share direct action skills; if you’re interested in having them come near you, email dam at earthfirstjournal dot org.
Open Books in Pensacola, Florida, which houses a books to prisoners collective, was hit pretty hard in recent flooding and suffered a lot of damage. Read their call for support.
Anarchist prisoner Casey Brezik is requesting books and letters to help chip away at his 12 year sentence for attempting to attack the Governor of Missouri.I used to work for a biotech company that used fetal remains in its research. It took me more than two years to realize what was going on. No one mentioned it in my interview, and no one said anything about it after I started working there. The company's structure was split between the big brains and the hands, and I was just one of the hands — a molecular biologist with a very specific skill set, for a pointed purpose. Other scientists used my work for their studies. It was easy for me not to know what the big brains were doing in their fiefdom.
It took a bomb threat to wake me up.
One spring day, alerted by fire alarms and PA announcements, 200 employees fled to the parking lots. There was real fear and panic as we asked, "Is there a fire?" "What's going on?" "Chemical?" until the reason — "bomb threat" — snaked its way through the group.
"Bomb threat?" I asked. "For what?" My colleagues didn't know, or wouldn't discuss it. I was bewildered.
But soon enough, executives addressed us, outside in the daylight: Someone had called to say that there was a bomb on site because we worked with aborted fetuses. The threat was being taken seriously. Dogs and the bomb squad were on their way.
And with that I was made aware of the source of one of my company's most useful research tools: fetal liver stem cells. How had I not put it together before?
I ended up working at the company for a decade. I never was completely comfortable with our use of fetal tissue, and I could sense my colleagues weren't, either — the culture of silence around the remains continued, even after the bomb threat. But now, years after I left, and as Planned Parenthood is under fire for how it provides organs from aborted fetuses to research companies, I see that using these cells is a necessary evil, contributing to medical research that could save millions of lives. If I had the opportunity to work with fetal cells again, I would.
At first, the fetal tissue dilemma didn't affect me directly
It was the ‘90s, and the company was at the cutting edge of stem cell biology's potential to solve some of our most intractable medical problems: ALS, HIV, cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's, even aging itself. It was a thrilling time: the end of a century, an exponential outburst in the biotech's uses and usefulness, the awe of the Human Genome Project, the untapped promise of gene therapy, the dot-com boom. And with this job, I landed smack in the middle of it all. I was ecstatic to be at a great company, and to be a spoke in a wheel on a meaningful journey.
When I first found out the company used fetal tissue, I was disturbed, but the fact felt distant — something that didn't touch me directly, something to misplace in the greater scheme of doing good works. I didn't use the fetal tissue in my own work — I worked with other cell lines and adult immune stem cells.
I use the word "baby" purposely — it was all I thought about on my trips to tissue processing
My misgivings simmered under the surface: Then, as now, I hope we will reach the point when abortions are rare because of medical advancement, early and enduring sex education, and easy access to long-acting birth control. And in that specific, future, fairy tale case, no research cause would be worth acquiring or generating fetal tissue. It is morally reprehensible for abortions to be performed, coerced, or bought specifically for research.
I also had personal, practical concerns with what my company was doing. I worried about my safety — I worried that the next bomb threat wouldn't be a threat at all, but very real; I analyzed my personal, internal views on abortion and, as a man, set them aside in favor of women's choice and health.
But mostly I compartmentalized, an easy thing in my 20s.
But I couldn't avoid working with fetal cells forever
Eventually, though, this aspect of the company's work started to affect me directly. A few years after that first bomb threat I, alone at the company, was given one of the great quests in the biotech field: to find a way to keep stem cells young, healthy, and multiplying in the lab.
Although the politics and bioethics of using fetal tissue in medical research can be contentious and complicated, the biological reasoning is simple. The tissues, organs, and systems of the human body replenish from their own, dedicated source of stem cells — blood, skin, immune system, heart, muscle. If a scientist wants to study an organ or system — in particular if she wants to repair or replace it — stem cells are where it's at. Heart attack: heart stem cells. ALS: neural stem cells. Blood cancers: blood stem cells.
Studies like this one have shown that the younger the stem cells, the better they do their rejuvenating job. That's what makes fetal tissue so valuable — it provides doctors and scientists with extremely young stem cells.
The ultimate goal of my new project — discovering a way to make young stem cells — required the use of fetal cells themselves. You can see my Gordian Knot: Use babies' cells so we don't have to use babies' cells anymore.
I use the word "baby" purposely, as it was all I thought about on my regular trips to tissue processing. This was where a specific tech — a young woman, actually — prepared cells from fetal tissue for my use. It was a long walk. The processing area had its own faraway place, in the basement, where this employee worked alone. I think this was deliberate, in part, a way for the company to compartmentalize its own ethical views of fetal tissue into a small, isolated place.
This compartmentalization was probably good for employees' mental health — one doesn't drop fetal tissue willy-nilly around a company without problems — as well as for the tissue tech's safety, privacy, anonymity, and as much peace of mind as they could give her. It's a job I could never, ever do, but one that's necessary if you believe in the work. I don't know how she dealt, or what she thought about her job. Our relationship was transactional; we rarely chatted.
How I — and the rest of the industry — coped
So with all my reservations and queasiness, how did I cope? I did the job I was supposed to do. I worked really hard for a solution that would negate the need for fetal tissue. I reduced my thoughts down to the cell, not where the cells came from. I volunteered often to work on the breast cancer clinical trial the company was working on. I lived well outside of work. I didn't discuss my reservations, ever.
I suspect that's how my colleagues dealt with their own issues. Not to talk about it; definitely not at work. We didn't bring it up. "See no evil. Speak no evil. Do no evil." We worked at a company that was fighting HIV, curing a set of cancers, solving gene therapy, enhancing transplants. It was exciting, newsworthy, innovative. That was the focus. No one was advocating aloud for fetal tissue research, or its potential as a cure. Everyone drank the Kool-Aid.
And for good reason: All of this work, with all of its complications, laid the groundwork for a tremendously successful clinical trial. Our scientists used a breast cancer patient's own purified blood stem cells as a disease-free source for immune system replacement after extra intensive chemotherapy. Four years ago, the company's primary founder summarized the results in an interview: "33 percent of the patients that received the cancer-free stem cells are alive today, 14 years later. These were stage IV metastatic breast cancer patients. For those patients at the same center that received mobilized peripheral blood (where at least 40 percent of the isolates contain massive amounts of cancer cells), only 6 percent were still alive without disease after 2 years."
I did the job I was supposed to do. I worked hard for a solution that would negate the need for fetal tissue.
Although this trial did not use fetal stem cells, fetal stem cells were fundamental to its genesis. All these years later, it's amazing to discover the good we did for women suffering from breast cancer.
Grand purpose, however, is not a "by any means necessary" argument made by researchers and companies who use fetal tissue. I think the industry's view is that because abortions are so common, there is an abundance of fetal tissue, and it's better to use it to save lives than to throw it in the trash.
But the industry is clearly ambivalent about using fetal remains. A good deal of effort goes into finding and using alternatives, like ethically unambiguous cord blood or reprogrammed stem cells, or, my old work, cultivating stem cells. These are not, and were not, half-assed efforts. Scientists are conscious of what they do.
Even in the face of multiple bomb threats, the company hunkered down, battened down the hatches, went quiet. After each threat, there was a companywide meeting with a bigwig or two where our good work on adult stem cells was emphasized, where we were advised not to talk to the press, where everyone left quietly to go back to business as usual. No one I knew ever quit in the face of threats related to our work. Even with all the moral questions surrounding it, it seemed we were willing to sacrifice ourselves, or at least our psyches, for the welfare of future generations.
Why I'd make the "devil deal" again
After 10 years on the job, I left biotech for the finance industry. I eventually quit that, too, and now I'm a writer. I've contemplated whether I would work with fetal cells again, if I had the chance. Knowing all these years later that there are women still alive on Earth because of our work — devil deal and all — I now know surely I would. Knowing that I helped save lives is the most amazing feeling. I haven't felt anything like it in quite a long time. I'm sure it's the force that drives researchers to do what they do.
I felt then, as now, that I was a soldier on the front line in science's war against dreaded diseases. For as long we live in a time when abortion isn't rare and in its wake there's useful material created that can save lives, then I believe it's essential we use it. Definitely.
Madison Kilpatrick III has a bachelor's degree in biology and was a PhD candidate in developmental biology, before leaving to work in the biotechnology industry. He now writes about science, futurism, finance, and politics. He's on Twitter @madikilpatrick.
First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.posted by Morant |
chunk of his estimated net worth of $20.5 billion — much of which is tied up in SpaceX — he’ll have to follow the rule of spaceflight financing attributed to pioneering NASA astronaut Gus Grissom: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
Today’s response from NASA, one of SpaceX’s biggest sources of bucks, was lukewarm.
In a statement, NASA Headquarters gave a nod to Musk’s ingenuity — but made clear that, at least for now, it would stay the course for deep exploration with its heavy-lift Space Launch System, currently under development, and its Orion crew capsule. It also gave a shout-out to the Deep Space Gateway concept it’s currently studying, which got nary a mention in Musk’s remarks:
“NASA is excited to see continued global interest in moving human exploration farther into the solar system, including Mars. A sustainable crew presence in deep space will require the best of NASA, our international partners and the private sector. Therefore, the agency is studying the deep space gateway concept with U.S. industry and space station partners for potential future collaborations. “At NASA, we will use our heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft in the vicinity of the moon, where we will build the gateway, and prepare for human Mars exploration. Using the most powerful rocket in the world, we would launch a power and propulsion element, habitation module for crew, and logistics module for the gateway in the early missions of SLS and Orion. Later, on a single SLS mission, we would launch a proposed deep space transport to the gateway, which would be used for crewed missions to Mars.”
Could NASA change its course? It’s happened before, when the Obama administration canceled the Constellation back-to-the-moon program in 2010. But SpaceX has changed course as well, scotching plans for Red Dragon missions to Mars when NASA balked.
The likeliest scenario is that NASA, the White House, congressional leaders, SpaceX and other space companies will be engaged for months if not years in a behind-the-scenes wrestling match over the future shape of the space program.
Phil Larson has been on both sides of the policy fence, first as a White House space policy adviser and then as a SpaceX spokesman. Now he’s an assistant dean at the University of Colorado’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. In an email, he told GeekWire that next week’s National Space Council meeting could provide as an initial indication of what’s ahead for SpaceX and America’s space program:"DOES ANYBODY IN their right mind think that the value of American business has dropped by $6 trillion?" asked investment guru John Bogle in a recent interview at Marketwatch.com.
That was a rhetorical question, but this is not: Does anybody in their right mind object to Bogle's grammar?
The answer is yes, "they" do - but opposition to singular-they seems to be losing steam. For the first time ever, a reader has e-mailed not to complain about "everybody has their quirks," but to wonder why we don't all use the construction. When you need a gender- and number-inclusive pronoun, writes John McCosh, "I think they makes sense."
Usage writers, even if they don't think singular they has achieved respectability, agree that its day is coming. Barbara Wallraff explains why in a post at her new blog at TheAtlantic.com: "Write 'he' about a nonspecific person and you're a sexist. Write'she' and you're a flaming feminist. Write 'he or she' and you're a pedant. Write 'they' and you're an ignoramus."
Bryan Garner, in Garner's Modern American Usage, says that singular they is increasingly common, and he notes that some constructions require it: "Everybody was crouched behind furniture to surprise me, and they tried."
"Disturbing though these developments may be to purists, they're irreversible," writes Garner.
Like it or not, usagists agree that they and their have been referring to indefinite antecedents like everybody, nobody, and anyone - grammatically singular but plural in sense - since Chaucer's time.
That is not because the Wife of Bath and her 14th-century feminist friends objected to being subsumed under the pronoun he. It's because using he to include both sexes often sounded odd to ordinary people, including writers.
It still sounded odd some 500 years later, when H.W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, said that men and women were equally reluctant to shape up grammatically. Some people, he said, just resisted the idea that "the right shortening of the cumbersome he or she, his or her, &c., is he or him."
Those resisters had history on their side. English had prospered, messy pronouns and all, for centuries before the 18th-century grammarians decided to clean it up and sort it out. The earliest known document stating the rule against "singular they" is - I suppose we can call this ironic - a 1745 grammar book by a woman, one Anne Fisher. "The Masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person who knows what he says," Fisher decreed.
But though the rule has been enforced in much edited prose, it never managed to stamp out the older notional agreement. Bergen Evans, in A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1957), contradicted Fowler, saying that they, them, and their "may be used in speaking of a single individual whose sex is unknown," as in "everybody brought their own lunch."
Singular they comes up in two situations, however, and most usage commentators treat them as one. "Did everyone bring their pen" is indeed ancient usage. But in a recent essay, etymologist Anatoly Liberman argues that when the antecedent is not an indefinite pronoun but a noun - "A student must bring their pen" - it does not deserve the same respect. "This usage did not develop naturally (it was forced on English)," he charged in his weekly etymology column at the Oxford University Press website.
Liberman thinks the anti-sexism forces are sneaking nouns like student, tenant, and hero into the generic category, pretending that they are as plausibly plural as anyone and nobody, and just as appropriately referred to with they and their. And he strenuously objects.
But is it really sneaking? Even when the noun-pronoun disagreement is made plain, some usage writers embrace the form. Bill Walsh, in "Lapsing Into a Comma," offers the sentence "Every music lover has their own favorite album" for our consideration. He calls it "grammatically incorrect (for now) but intuitively plausible and rather tempting." Garner says this kind of construction is "Either a common blunder, or a godsend that allows us to avoid sexism."
And if political pressure has increased acceptance of the usage, why should that make it suspect? Every generation learns that some once-common usages are no longer socially acceptable, whether they're racial slurs or religious taboos or the much-missed "ain't I."
But I'm not convinced feminism alone accounts for the spread of the noun-pronoun mismatch. As Fowler noted, reality exerts its own pressure on grammar; many speakers, referring to a generic "student" or "tenant" or "hero," might choose the pronoun they or their to avoid not the sexism of he or his but the inaccuracy of the male pronoun.
And of course, this is English we're speaking, language of pure democracy. Nobody can make you say "Everyone should bring their pencils" if you have a different preference. To each his (or her, or his and her, or their) own.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.Depression has long been assumed to be a primary risk factor for suicide. But recent research has found that while depressed people are more likely to have suicidal thoughts, it is those with other disorders who have the highest risk of actually attempting suicide. WSJ's Andrea Petersen joins Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty
Scientists are making headway in the search for solutions to one of the most vexing problems in mental health: How to predict who is at risk for suicide.
Researchers are hunting for so-called biomarkers, such as patterns of brain activity on fMRI scans or levels of stress hormones in the blood, linked to suicidal thoughts and acts. They are creating computer algorithms, fed with tens of thousands of pieces of data, to come up with measures of risk. They are looking at sleep patterns and even responses to specialized computer...When a gondola suddenly warps into the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and Luigi discover Venice. // Kooky Von Koopa makes a magic pendant that gives King Koopa the power to become Super Koopa!
King Koopa drops paint on the Mushroom people, turning some red and others blue. // The Koopa kids clean up the castle - and dump all their junk into a warp pipe.
A family of Real World Humans stray off the vacation path and find themselves lost. // In an underwater battle with King Koopa and his Doom Sub, the Brothers find Mev-tropolis.
The 'Koopa-Doopa-Raiser-Upper' device sends the Mushroom Kingdom up into the clouds. // Koopa and his Koopalings invade the real world in the Doom Ship, sealing all the warp pipes.
King Koopa and his evil horde orchestrate the escape of an infamous criminal. // The mischievous Koopa Kids Hip and Hop snatch King Windbag's magic wand and zap him and Luigi.
Mario and his friends set out for Darkland and the Temple of Gloom. // Mario, Luigi and the Princess go to the real world to see Milli Vanilli in concert.
Kootie Pie and Big Mouth are convinced they are much too beautiful to be adopted! // Toad thinks he has lost the million gold coins the Princess had him deliver.
Princess Toadstool is fed up with Koopa and challenges him to try and win an election. // Koopa announces that he is giving up being bad for good!
A grudging hostility is aroused between the Brothers when they are Kooped up in Toad's cottage. // Using a magic wand, King Koopa sucks the TV hero "Mighty Plumber" from the television.
Toad is toadally infatuated with the Wizard King's new magic wand. // The Mario Brothers are warped into a Brooklyn apartment and are appointed as baby-sitters.
Hip and Hop steal the golden mummy case of Prince Mushroom-khamen, a dead ringer for Mario. // King Koopa is siphoning off all the oil from Desertland to power his doomship!
The Princess goes on her very first vacation to the real world - Hawaii. // King Koopa and Kooky Von Koopa travel back in time to defeat the Mario Brothers.
King Koopa uses a Magic Wand to turn Cheatsy, Bigmouth, Bully, and Kooky into giants. // Kootie Pie demands that she be given Real World America as a gift.
init_data: 0.0774, render: 0.0327
This content is only available in an online streaming format. More information about streaming videos can be found in the Streaming Videos on Steam FAQ.In early 2014, I finally and completely let it all go. I left the faith. The Biblical story was utterly broken for me.
It was not something I rushed into. My abandonment of faith was an arduous process of slowly backing away. I’ve heard others refer to it as “death by a thousand cuts”. That’s a good way to put it. Someone else has said that religion is like dreaming: you think you’re awake until you wake up. “You know you thought you knew, but now you know you know.”
During the final stages of my trek, it was often on my mind that if I was wrong the consequences could be eternal damnation. The fear of hell and the loss of heaven kept me in chains, which has always been the intent of those religious doctrines: ultimate control. It keeps people in bondage by offering the most tantalizing thing imaginable (eternal life with a perfect body) while also offering the most extreme punishment the human mind could conceive (anguishing fiery torment that never ends).
I have often wished that I could point to one thing and say, “this really sealed it for me”, but I can’t. What I know for sure is that the rationalizations I had been making for Christianity were overwhelmed by the scientific evidence about our cosmos, combined with the enormous number of issues with the Bible as a supposedly inspired, inerrant book.
I remember seeing a book by Daniel Dennett called Breaking the Spell a few years ago, and that book title made me snarl. But now, that’s how I felt. The “spell was broken” in my mind. The world now made a lot more sense without the blinding fog of religion.
Parents often say that their children are smarter than they are. I am glad that my oldest son broke free of religion, and I am grateful that his courage to do so helped me toward the door of freedom from an oppressive and tyrannical (albeit man-made) god. At this point of time in writing this, I still struggle with the various labels and I struggle with giving myself a label. Jerry DeWitt puts it in an interesting way when he says of himself:
“Skepticism is my nature; free thought is my methodology; agnosticism is my conclusion, and atheism is my opinion. Humanitarianism is my motivation.“
If you wonder, “am I happy now?” the answer is a resounding yes. And I’m still the same person at heart. People still know me as someone who is patient, kind, and helpful. I didn’t lose my faith and then go rape, pillage and murder people. That’s a silly thought that some have about those who stop believing in the god of the Bible. I was fairly happy as a Christian, but I am far happier now as someone who has embraced reason, truth, and reality.
Many people look down on those of us who remained trapped in the delusion for such a long time. As more time goes by, I have asked myself why I couldn’t have broken the spell sooner. But I do understand now how our religious books likely came into existence. Religions have evolved over time and they continue to do so. The book I mentioned earlier, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, does a good job of showing how our various religions have likely evolved because as a primitive species, we looked for answers behind every sudden sound, flash of light, or other unexplained phenomenon. As we came to understand our world through science, we no longer had to blame an invisible ghost for the things we didn’t understand. And just like others before us who once believed in Zeus or Apollo, they eventually put away their beliefs in their man-made gods.
So in the end, I saw the Bible for what it was: a repulsive collection of writings by tribal people which gave them imaginary license to kill other tribes; to kill everyone who worked on the Sabbath; to kill everyone who did not believe in their god; to kill anyone who cursed father or mother; to stone everyone who committed adultery; and to kill anyone who happened to be Homosexual. The Bible is also a book that: endorsed slavery (including the beating of slaves); endorsed genocide; endorsed sexism, and even endorsed self-mutilation (Matt 18:7-9). The Bible is a repulsive book that no longer has a place in a modern civilized society.
The Bible starts with Adam & Eve and how sin entered into the world. The problem of “sin” is a central theme, and the Bible attempts to conclude the story with the god-man being killed on a cross to solve the sin problem. The gist of the story would be that God, who is omniscient, says: “I told you not to eat from the tree. You didn’t do what I told you to do even though I knew you were not going to. So now, take my son and kill him so that I can save you from what I will do to you for doing what I already knew you were going to do.” Or put in a simpler way, God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save us from himself. It’s truly ridiculous.
That’s my story. If you have thoughts or comments to share, please feel free to do so.
If you would still like further thoughts on the topic, the following list came from many of my personal notes that I compiled for myself:
From a historical perspective, religion has been one of the most destructive and harmful ideologies to mankind. Countless millions have died or been murdered in the name of religion (the crusades; the inquisitions; witch hunts; holy wars, jihad, etc.). People hate each other merely for their religious differences. Many have committed suicide because of the extreme intolerance and judgmental attitudes of believers. Has Christianity also helped those in need and in poverty too? Yes, absolutely it has (which is wonderful). But that doesn’t negate the incredible harm that has been done in the name of religion, nor does it contradict the fact that many non-believers also help those in need.
Most people inherit the religious beliefs of their parents or family members. It’s rare for someone to embrace a religion that they were not brought up in, and the religions of the world are very contradictory of each other. Each branch of faith is convinced their truth is the correct truth. They can’t all be correct. But they can all be wrong.
Mankind has worshiped a long list of gods in the past, which includes Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon, Athena, Ares and Apollo. No one believes in those gods anymore. We are all atheists toward them. Today’s modern atheist just adds one more to the list: Yahweh or Allah.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Arthur Clarke). Our understanding of the universe is still small, and it’s likely that what seems like magic now will be better understood in the future.
When I consider the story of the flood in Genesis, it is incredibly implausible and hideous. It’s the uplifting story of God who massacres every living thing on the planet, which includes women and children as well as all of the innocent animals. It’s also implausible for several reasons, which includes: No one before Noah had ever built a boat before nor even seen a boat before Noah’s time. In contrast, true master shipbuilders who had attempted to build a ship similar in size with wood, failed. Also, the ark had to stay afloat for a very long time (1 year), and carry 1,000s of animals plus food and drinking water. This is very implausible. Also see this. Very old trees have been found that exceed 5,000 and 6,000 years in age. The flood, which the story indicates occurred 4,300 years ago, left the planet under water for a full year, which would have killed all trees, animals and plant life. But yet, we have trees in existence that are older than 4,300 years. Assuming the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat (as is usually thought), how did all of those animals then travel to our various continents (without a bridge)? Perhaps they built their own boats, then collected enough food and fresh water for the trip, and traveled to the various continents to repopulate. Um, no. That’s just craziness. The fossil record clearly rejects the myth as well. One small example: kangaroos. Kangaroo fossils are found in Australia but no fossils for these animals have been found elsewhere. The grand canyon is a marvelous testament to the fossil record which contradicts the view that Noah’s flood created the fossil record. The layers of fossils that are found reveal that this record was created over a very long period of time – – not by one big flood. Answers in Genesis says that the flood likely happened about 4300-4400 years ago. Which means that we have to believe the incredible diversity of humans (e.g., Eskimos, Native Americans, South Americans, Scandinavian, African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aboriginals, etc.) evolved over a faint 4400 years. That’s less than 100 generations, and it’s just not realistic. It is insane really. We also have a tremendous fossil record of human skulls that show a very slow evolution in structure and shape. The evidence is overwhelming.
Even with all of the advances of science that we have today, we still have no actual evidence for a spirit world or an afterlife, nor any scientific evidence that God exists.
In regard to prayer, Double-blind tests of the effectiveness of prayer for those in medical need also proved to be the same as a placebo, except that those who knew they were being prayed for often fared worse. Consider too that God never heals amputees.
There’s no plausible explanation about the dinosaurs from a Biblical viewpoint. Fossil evidence shows they existed long long ago, and it also shows that many dinosaurs had teeth and jaw structures designed for meat-eating but Genesis says the animals were all plant eaters until after the flood. The Bible is also devoid of information about dinosaurs, save for one tiny reference in Job that is more likely to be about large crocodiles. And yet the typical fundamentalist view is that the dinosaurs died at the flood. It doesn’t fit. At all.
The creation account in Genesis 1 conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In the Bible, the earth is created before light and stars; birds and whales before reptiles and insects; and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is just the opposite.
A study of thousands of people about human sexuality (masturbation, heavy petting, oral sex, intercourse) finds that there is no difference between the secular population vs. Christians or other religious people. In other words, even though religion forbids lust, fornication, adultery, etc., all humans engage in those activities to the same degree. In fact, protestants are even more likely to view porn even though they cite guilt as significant. And perhaps, the taboo or naughtiness of it contributes to the appeal. One obvious conclusion to this is that religion is ineffective.
Over 90% of the species that have ever existed, are extinct and gone. Only about 2% of the species that have existed, still exist. That is not evidence for intelligent design. That’s evidence for natural selection. Consider too that in the study of life on our planet, one would have to conclude that God must really love beetles since there are over 350,000 different species of them.
If you enjoy a more visual style of content, I highly recommend the YouTube user named 43Alley.
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GoogleGreg Jones joined Babcox Media in January 2014 and currently serves as managing editor of Motorcycle & Powersports News and Engine Builder magazine. He is also content specialist for Speedville.com.
We first met Ken Rodcharoen in Indianapolis during our Rock Bottom Brewery Pre-PRI Party. Ken was in town to attend the annual industry trade show. It wasn’t until later on that we learned Ken actually has a background in recording technology, which is quite the opposite of engine building. While his focus was on recording during his college days, Ken has always been into cars, and it turned out, with the help of his brother, that engine building was a natural progression for him.
“I was always into show cars and that moved on to actually figuring out what engines are in what Hondas,” Rodcharoen says. “I’ve always been a big Honda guy my whole life. I started working with my brother at a machine shop and… I started getting interested in micrometers. That kind of snowballed into bearing clearances, ring end gaps and piston-to-wall clearance. Then I started figuring out and understanding compression ratios more and realizing what gains you can get from porting a cylinder head or degreeing cams and so on. It all snowballed from there.”
Ken and his brother soon realized that it was time for them to go into business for themselves. They opened Ken’s Race Engines in Walnut, CA in May 2015. The shop specializes in Honda/Acura and import engine work.
Recently, a customer reached out to Ken through email about doing work on his Acura RSX Type S engine.
“We went back and forth on what he wanted to do, either stick to using a 2L or K20 bottom end, or get a K24,” Rodcharoen says. “His original block had a nice hole in it because it chucked a rod. So I told him if you want a little more power and a little more low-end torque go with the K24, the 2.4L. The only downside is you’re going to be limited on your rev. Instead of revving to 9,000 rpm, you’re going to lower it down to 8,300 to 8,500 rpm.”
The customer agreed the K24 was the way to go and Ken worked with him to get the right parts to do the job well.
“The entire long block was based around the customer working with me and asking what I need for the setup and what parts I recommend,” he says. “He wanted a set up that he could drive on the street, but also take out to a road course.”
The long block and cylinder head is original to the customer’s car, but the bottom end is what Ken focused on.
“It’s going to be a NA set up on E85,” he says. “It has a Ferrea valve train in it. It’s been ported and polished. All my cylinder head work I have done at Port Flow over in Harbor City, CA. The valve job is a CNC valve job done on a Newen. Bottom end-wise it’s literally a piston and rod motor with a bore, deck and hone.”
Ken used Arias pistons and Brian Crower lightweight H-beam rods.
“Crower has a Pro Series, which has an ARP 625 plus bolt and then the Sportsman rods are similar but have an ARP 2000 bolt,” Rodcharoen says. “Because it has a different bolt, the power rating on it is a little less. What I have on this K24 is the lightweight version of the Sportsman rod. There’s weight taken off certain areas on the connecting rod to make it a little lighter than the Sportsman so it’s more suited for an all-motor setup like what I’m doing.”
According to Ken, the camshafts used are not very high lift since they are meant for a street application. When the car is tuned it shouldn’t have a weird sounding idle, but rather sound relatively stock.
“We used Drag Cartel’s Endurance cams, which is the Elite Series,” he says. “It’s a.0543˝ lift camshaft with around 257-degrees of duration. The engine will have a 12.5:1 compression ratio and a stock Honda crankshaft. The stock Honda stuff works really good. The crank is still factory weighted too. I just do a check for straightness, balance and do a micro polish. In the process of the straightness check I get the crank magged as well, but I’ve never had an issue with any Honda cranks cracking. They’re pretty durable for what they are.”
For bearings on the rods and mains Ken turns to King Bearings.
“I’ve been using them for years now and they’ve never let me down in terms of clearance and quality,” he says. I use them in my race engines and I use them in a lot of street engines as well and they hold up.”
Before Ken puts the finishing touches on an engine, he typically likes to degree the camshafts. However, on this K24 he wasn’t able.
“On this one I can’t adjust the camshafts at all because they’re still using the factory VTC intake gear, which will advance the intake anywhere up to 50 degrees, which is very standard on a lot of these newer Honda K-series engines,” he says. “What I did to avoid any type of piston or valve issue was put a limiter pin in it. So it’s going to be limited down to 30 degrees rather than going to the full 50.”
Once Ken has put his final stamp of approval on this K24 engine, it should deliver roughly 290 hp and 195 lb.-ft. of torque, plenty of giddy up on the street or road course.
The Engine of the Week eNewsletter is sponsored by Cometic Gasket.
If you have an engine you would like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder magazine’s managing editor, Greg Jones at [email protected]technojunkie wrote:
OK... maybe I'm real slow here... but it JUST occurred to me that the real reason Charlie wants parson to cast the scroll vs being killed/disbanded is that he knows it's his best chance to get the arkenshoes back into the game...
He has to have seen enough parallels in signamancy, language, and mannerisms of Judy and Parson, not to mention the theoretical exposure he's had to stupidworld via the dish. Big Game may not have been about the hunt so much as getting the prey into the circus...
The only variable that doesn't work for this thought is that Charlie has no reason to believe Parson knows about the'shoes.
keybounce wrote:
Anomynous 167 wrote:
Quote:
Wanda: punch, punch, punch
Charlie: Now you are all mine! Parson, read the scroll now. That's an order.
Parson: PUUNCH! I think what you meant to say was...
So Parson is a man who gets One Punch? Man...
(Hey, should I say welcome back Anomynous? I thought you got a ban a week or so ago?) So Parson is a man who gets One Punch? Man...(Hey, should I say welcome back Anomynous? I thought you got a ban a week or so ago?)
Parson called Charlie a wizard. It's a pretty safe bet that Charlie knows that Parson knows everything (except why did Jack spend so much of that one day as a bird). Charlie does point out that the "Deal of a Lifetime is pretty much mooted" this update.One Punch is all Parson'll need for Charlie and or Stanley. As we've scene with the Slately fight, Parson is a stabber who specialises in stabbing people WITH HIS FISTS.(Shucks, that was a month ago. Also, my son, I regret to inform you that there is a 10% inheritance tax.)I had initially planned on making a huge stink like The Commander did on my return. "That's right, I'm back. And I've got more Risk-esque opinions that you lot were too afraid to ask:"What's the deal with Charlescomm food?".However it seems that Rob anticipated the remark that I had been planning to make for the past two weeks, from the moment when he banned me. I mean the very update I can first post in pretty much nullifies the question, since now we know we're going to get an answer. Well played.edit: Changed "whelps" to "lot". Playing Whack-a-mole with Rob. Made the mistake last time of not ducking when my gut told me to.According to a report from The Indian Express, China-based hackers broke into the computer systems of India's Eastern Naval Command, where India's first nuclear submarine is undergoing trials. Using a virus transmitted by USB thumb drives (which are banned from Indian Navy offices), the hackers were able to cache information that matched keywords and transfer it to another thumb drive when one became available. That allowed the data to be moved to Internet-connected PCs, where the virus then dumped the data and transmitted it across the Internet to servers in China.
The virus is similar to one that attacked the US military's classified networks in 2008. Those led to a Department of Defense ban on the use of USB drives and any other writable removable media. The DOD partially lifted the ban in 2009, restricting the use of USB drives to "carefully controlled circumstances."
The Indian Navy has not revealed the extent of the hack, or how long it went on for. The Indian Express reports that at least six officers have been charged with "procedural lapses" that allowed the hack to happen.Front Neurosci. 2013; 7: 148. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2013.00148 PMCID: PMC3757321 PMID: 24009547 Taking two to tango: a role for ghrelin receptor heterodimerization in stress and reward,1,1,2,3 and 1,2,4,* Harriët Schellekens 1Food for Health Ireland, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Find articles by Harriët Schellekens Timothy G. Dinan 1Food for Health Ireland, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 2Laboratory of Neurogastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 3Department of Psychiatry, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Find articles by Timothy G. Dinan John F. Cryan 1Food for Health Ireland, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 2Laboratory of Neurogastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 4Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Find articles by John F. Cryan Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer 1Food for Health Ireland, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 2Laboratory of Neurogastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 3Department of Psychiatry, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 4Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Edited by: Zane B. Andrews, Monash University, Australia Reviewed by: Justo P. Castaño, University of Cordoba and Maimonides Biomedical Research Institute, Spain; Nicholas D. Holliday, University of Nottingham, UK *Correspondence: John F. Cryan, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College Cork, Western Gateway Building, Cork, Ireland e-mail: ei.ccu@nayrc.j This article was submitted to Neuroendocrine Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. Copyright © 2013 Schellekens, Dinan and Cryan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Abstract The gut hormone, ghrelin, is the only known peripherally derived orexigenic signal. It activates its centrally expressed receptor, the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHS-R1a), to stimulate food intake. The ghrelin signaling system has recently been suggested to play a key role at the interface of homeostatic control of appetite and the hedonic aspects of food intake, as a critical role for ghrelin in dopaminergic mesolimbic circuits involved in reward signaling has emerged. Moreover, enhanced plasma ghrelin levels are associated with conditions of physiological stress, which may underline the drive to eat calorie-dense “comfort-foods” and signifies a role for ghrelin in stress-induced food reward behaviors. These complex and diverse functionalities of the ghrelinergic system are not yet fully elucidated and likely involve crosstalk with additional signaling systems. Interestingly, accumulating data over the last few years has shown the GHS-R1a receptor to dimerize with several additional G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) involved in appetite signaling and reward, including the GHS-R1b receptor, the melanocortin 3 receptor (MC 3 ), dopamine receptors (D 1 and D 2 ), and more recently, the serotonin 2C receptor (5-HT 2C ). GHS-R1a dimerization was shown to affect downstream signaling and receptor trafficking suggesting a potential novel mechanism for fine-tuning GHS-R1a receptor mediated activity. This review summarizes ghrelin's role in food reward and stress and outlines the GHS-R1a dimer pairs identified to date. In addition, the downstream signaling and potential functional consequences of dimerization of the GHS-R1a receptor in appetite and stress-induced food reward behavior are discussed. The existence of multiple GHS-R1a heterodimers has important consequences for future pharmacotherapies as it significantly increases the pharmacological diversity of the GHS-R1a receptor and has the potential to enhance specificity of novel ghrelin-targeted drugs. Keywords: ghrelin, dimerization, obesity, stress, food reward
Introduction Appetite regulation, food intake and diet are closely intertwined with mood regulation and stress perception and stress response (Oliver and Wardle, 1999; Gibson, 2006; Morrison, 2009; Dallman, 2010). Obesity and the metabolic syndrome, which can be defined as a combination of comorbid medical disorders, including atherosclerosis, hypertension, insulin resistance or diabetes mellitus type II, glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia, and a general pro-inflammatory phenotype (Cheng and Leiter, 2006; Mikhail, 2009), have been identified as environmental risk factors for affective psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and depression (McElroy et al., 2004; Goldbacher and Matthews, 2007; Kloiber et al., 2007; Gariepy et al., 2010; Marijnissen et al., 2011). Epidemiologic data even suggests that obesity is associated with a 25% increased incidence of anxiety and mood disorders (Simon et al., 2006). In addition, major depression in adolescence is linked with a higher risk for obesity in adulthood (Richardson et al., 2003). Moreover, metabolic conditions may be exacerbated in depression and vice versa, which indicates a reciprocal link (McElroy et al., 2004; Simon et al., 2006; de Wit et al., 2010; Luppino et al., 2010; Marijnissen et al., 2011). Likewise, stress significantly impacts on food intake in humans and animals and may promote metabolic disturbances (Block et al., 2009; Dallman, 2010; Maniam and Morris, 2012). Interestingly, stress-induced hyperphagia and subsequent increases in body weight and obesity are also associated with major depressive disorders in humans (Novick et al., 2005; Simon et al., 2006; Kloiber et al., 2007). Moreover, acute stress responses are reduced following intake of palatable rewarding foods, potentially explaining the phenomenon of “comfort eating” observed in stressed individuals as self-medication for stress relief (Dallman et al., 2003). Ghrelin, a 28 amino acid stomach-derived peptide |
the assassination of the relatively secular Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Walid and others bristle at the overall organization being defined by individual members like Qutb.
“Sayyid Qutb is not the official thinker of the movement,” Walid said. “We highly regard the human values of the American Society although we don’t agree on some of its moral practices. Our point of view regarding spreading Islam, it is only through peaceful means.”
But the two American Muslim leaders interviewed – despite being on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shia rift tearing the Islamic world apart – view it differently.
Lebanese Sunni sheikh Moreib said that the Brotherhood had adopted the views of Qutb, and that “this path is the mothership for all the radical groups that distort the real Islamic view.”
He did not comment on whether the U.S. should label it a terror group, calling that the “U.S. government's decision.” But American Shiite Sheikh Mohammed el Hajj Hassan wrote a letter to Donald Trump calling for the group to be listed as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
“Terrorism is the enemy of the whole humanity, including Muslims; these Takfiri [apostate] terrorist organizations distort the real image of Islam and offen[d] Muslims - who want to live in peace and security with all segments of the society,” he wrote.
Additional reporting for this article provided by the Fox News Investigative UnitWith increased attention on the 99% emerging from the Occupy Wall Street movement, it’s time to open the CCPA vault on the issue.
www.growinggap.ca is our dedicated website on income inequality, and it’s a treasure trove of facts and arguments documenting worsening income inequality in Canada and offering solutions to help close the gap. We’ve got studies, blogs, videos, and interactive web tools. The reports are written by some of Canada’s leading thinkers on this issue, and our contributors span the country. Here’s a sampling, but if you’ve got a few hours to spare, pour yourself a cup of tea and spend some time exploring www.growinggap.ca yourself.
If you’re looking for fast facts, the February 2011 Hennessy’s Index featured a one-page list of statistics showing the reality of income inequality in Canada. It comes in HTML or in a PDF mini-poster format that’s easy to share.
Similarly, check out our You Oughta Know series on income inequality for bite-sized factoids.
CCPA Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan is one of Canada’s foremost authorities on income inequality. She was ahead of the curve with the release of her 2007 report The Rich and the Rest of Us, which documents the rapid trend of Canada’s richest 10% breaking away from the rest of us.
Armine followed it up with a groundbreaking study on Canada’s richest 1%. The study revealed this generation of rich Canadians is staking claim to a larger share of economic growth than any generation that has preceded it in recorded history. An examination of income trends over the past 90 years reveals that incomes are as concentrated in the hands of the richest 1% today as they were in the Roaring Twenties. And even then, the Canada’s elite didn’t experience as rapid a growth in their income share as has occurred in the past 20 years. Canada’s richest 1%1 — the 246,000 privileged few whose average income is $405,000 — took almost a third (32%) of all growth in incomes in the fastest growing decade in this generation, 1997 to 2007.
CCPA Research Associate Hugh Mackenzie has been making headlines for several years with his annual review of the highest paid 100 CEOs in Canada. The January 2011 report showed Canada’s best-paid 100 CEOs breezed through the worst of the recession with earnings 155 times higher than the average Canadian income earner.
The closer you look at the problem of income inequality, the racialized and gendered dimensions begin to reveal themselves. CCPA Research Associate Grace-Edward Galabuzi and Wellesley Institute Economist Sheila Block co-authored a report examining the trends in Canada. Canada’s Colour Coded Labour Market, co-produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and the Wellesley Institute, draws on 2006 Census data to compare work and income trends among racialized and non-racialized Canadians. It found that racialized Canadian workers earned only 81.4 cents for every dollar paid to non-racialized Canadian workers in 2005 – reflecting barriers in Canada’s workplaces. “We found that during the heyday of Canada’s pre-recession economic boom, racialized Canadians were more willing to work, but experienced higher levels of unemployment and earned less income than non-racialized Canadians,” said Galabuzi. “The distribution of work tells a disturbing story: Equal access to opportunity eludes many racialized Canadians.” Watch the video.
The CCPA’s David Macdonald paired up with Dan Wilson to release a groundbreaking report focusing on the gap between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canadians. The study reveals that for every dollar non-Aboriginals earned in 2006, Aboriginal peoples earned only 70 cents – a slight narrowing from 1996 when it was 56 cents for every dollar. The gap between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canadians narrowed slightly between 1996 and 2006, but at this rate it won’t disappear for another 63 years without a new approach.
CCPA Research Associate Monica Townson looks at women and poverty and finds that even after taking into account government transfers and tax credits, almost one-quarter (24%) of Canadian women raising children on their own and 14% of single older women are poor, compared to 9% of children.
In 2008 CCPA Research Associate Lars Osberg released a comprehensive study documenting 25 years of income inequality in Canada. He found that between the Second World War and 1980, the economic pie was growing at all points in the distribution, even if income shares in Canada didn’t change much” says Osberg. “But today, there are very different trends for the top, the bottom and the middle 90% of the income distribution.” Growth in Canadians’ average real wages has been stalled since 1979 which, Osberg points out, is “a dramatic change from Canada’s historical experience”. “A quarter of a century ago, circa 1980, someone who wrote about economic inequality in Canada was writing about a country in which real wages had been rising strongly,” Osberg says. “but the ‘new normal’ for Canada’s middle 90% is for stagnant or declining real wages, despite unprecedented improvements in education and skills.”
In April 2008, before a global recession darkened Canada’s doors, we published essays by some of the country’s leading thinkers, who ventured to answer the question: Why does income inequality matter? In the context of a worldwide economic turmoil and the Occupy Canada movement, their words take on even greater meaning today.
In 2007, the CCPA’s Ellen Russell partnered with Mathieu Dufour to look at workers’ pay compared with corporate profits. They concluded Canadians are working harder and smarter, contributing to a growing economy, but their paycheques have been stagnant for the past 30 years. Rising Profit Shares, Falling Wage Shares found that Canada’s economy grew steadily and workers’ productivity improved by 51 per cent in the past 30 years, but workers’ average real wages have been stuck in a holding pattern all this time.
We’ve read a lot about how a speculative housing market contributed to the economic meltdown in the U.S. several years ago. The CCPA’s David Macdonald released a report in August 2010 revealing that for the first time in 30 years, six of Canada’s hottest real estate markets are in a housing bubble. This study examines trends in house prices in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa between 1980 and 2010 and finds price increases in those cities are outside of a historic comfort level.
CCPA Research Associate Steve Kerstetter examined Canada’s affordability gap in 2009. The Affordability Gap: Spending Differences Between Canada’s Rich and Poor reveals how Canada’s poorest households often forego buying things most Canadians consider essential, from eyeglasses and dental care to computers and newspapers. “The poorest 20 per cent of Canadian households live in worlds far removed from the richest 20 per cent,” says Kerstetter. “In every spending category, the richest 20 per cent spend six or seven times more than the poorest 20 per cent.”
CCPA-BC Senior Economist Marc Lee documented in 2007 how more than a decade’s worth of tax cuts had disproportionately lined the pockets of Canada’s most affluent families. The study found the top 1 percent of families in 2005 paid a lower total tax rate than the bottom 10 percent of families. “Canada’s tax system now fails a basic test of fairness,” said Lee. “Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada.”
CCPA Research Associate Andrew Jackson 2007 study of income taxes revealed Canada’s top federal tax rate to be considerably lower than the U.S. The study showed the top U.S. tax rate was 35% on incomes over $326,000 and 33% on incomes over $150,000; Canada’s top federal income tax rate was 29% on incomes of over $116,000.
CCPA Economist Hugh Mackenzie partnered with Richard Shillington in 2009 to produce a report like no other. Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending responds to incessant calls for tax cuts and concludes public services make a significant contribution to the majority of Canadians’ standard of living – worth at least 50% of their income. The study shows middle-income Canadian families enjoy public services worth about $41,000 – or 63% of their income. Even households earning $80,000-$90,000 a year enjoy public services benefits equivalent to about half of their income. The study also shows 80% of Canadians would be better off if the federal government hadn’t cut the GST; 75% would be better off if their provincial governments invested in public services instead of broad-based income tax cuts.
CCPA Research Associate Toby Sanger looks at Canada’s finance sector and finds it could contribute more. Canada’s financial sector has been the greatest beneficiary of recent corporate income tax cuts. The study shows how Canada should join other countries in introducing fairer taxes on the financial sector that could generate over $10 billion a year.
Have we looked at income inequality by province? For the most part, yes: BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. And here’s a provincial roundup by Armine Yalnizyan.Women sift through the rubble of their collapsed house in the main bazaar of Muzaffarabad in the aftermath of the earthquake.—Photo by Arif Mahmood/White Star
By: Tariq Naqash
In the Bandi Mir Samdani neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad, which skirts the Neelum Valley road and marks the end of the town’s municipal limits, it is hard to stop staring at the mountain in the backdrop.
The mountain appears to have been shorn off; its inner light-grey core is visible. It is hard to imagine the force that caused this.
Asad Kiyani lives in Kiyani Mohalla of Bandi Mir Samdani, across this mountain, which acquired its current shape due to the devastating earthquake ten years ago, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale.
“Whenever I look at the mountain, I am reminded of that harrowing day,” he says, remembering October 8, 2005 when much of northern Pakistan experienced an earthquake that turned towns and villages in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) into graveyards. Thousands were buried under the rubble.
‘I still remember the children and their teacher screaming for help but we could not remove those concrete slabs’
It struck around 8:52 am, hitting the northern districts of AJK and the adjoining areas of KP. In AJK, Muzaffarabad was the hardest hit, mainly because the epicentre of earthquake was just 19 kilometres (12 miles) to its northeast.
“The destruction caused - we had not imagined it in our wildest dreams,” Kiyani adds.
Experts say AJK lies on land beneath which the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates collide. The geological activity born out of this collision is the reason for the unstable seismic activity in the region.
October 8 too was a result of this activity. More than 70 per cent of all casualties were estimated to have occurred in Muzaffarabad, while Bagh, the second-most-affected district, accounted for 15 per cent of the total casualties.
Asad Kiyani, then 27 years old, was sleeping after having sehri inside his home in Kiyani Mohalla. But for some reason – he cannot remember it ten years later – he came out after eight in the morning and slept on a charpoy in his lawn.
“I was dozing when suddenly the earth beneath my charpoy started shaking; there was an ear-splitting sound, amid unrelenting jolts, and I was eventually tossed on to the floor, while the house caved in,” he says.
“When I managed to rise to my feet, everything was engulfed by clouds of dust, emanating from the mountain across the river as (a huge portion of) it had also caved in,” he adds.
According to Kiyani and many others interviewed in that neighbourhood, the clouds of dirt completely marred visibility and people were unable to see anything in front of them, let alone at a distance, for quite some time.
When the dust settled, the survivors rushed to look for their dear ones buried beneath the fallen buildings.
All the 26 houses in Kiyani Mohalla were reduced to rubble, leaving almost all the residents either dead or wounded.
Asad Kiyani’s infant nephew was killed while the adults inside the house were injured.
But next-doors, the fatalities were much higher, particularly in a government and a private educational institution, located around 100 and 200 metres away from Kiyani Mohalla, respectively.
Saghir Kiyani, now 46, was in Mirpur that morning, visiting his father.
He had taken his spouse and an infant daughter with him, but his school-going daughter and son, aged 11 and 9 years, were in Muzaffarabad, in a private school called Islamic Public School.
“When we learnt that Muzaffarabad had been hit by a devastating earthquake, we desperately tried to call home. Finally, through an acquaintance in the police (who got information on the wireless) we found out that our entire mohalla had been razed to the ground,” he recalls.
“We reached Muzaffarabad early next morning.”
They saw only death and destruction everywhere.
“Most of the children, including mine, were trapped under the rubble. Everyone was frantically trying to rescue them but we didn’t have the tools.”
The helplessness that gripped those whose relatives were trapped under the rubble has left wounds, which refuse to heal.
“I still remember the children and their teacher screaming for help but we could not remove those concrete slabs. They died as we watched,” he recalls.
By the evening of October 9, Saghir and others had retrieved as many as 80 bodies, including those of his two children and five nephews.
“We ran out of shrouds and burial space – we used the planks of school desks to cover the bodies,” says Saghir as his voice chokes.
His wife, Musarrat, breaks down.
“I shouted the names of my children, but there were no reply. I heard other children whimper; mine must have also moaned like that,” recalls the 38-year-old, as she weeps.
Ten years later, she suffers from anxiety, insomnia and hypertension.
Survivors have not been able to get over the tragedy either. Saghir says that in the past two years, his two brothers-in-law got married but there were no traditional ceremonies or celebrations.
Dr Khawaja Hamid Rashid, consultant psychiatrist at the Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences Muzaffarabad, says that the devastating earthquake left multiple psycho-social effects on the survivors.
“A large number of survivors are still suffering from post traumatic stress disorder complicated by other psychiatric and psychosocial symptoms,” he says.
“While it was hard for families to come to terms with the death of loved ones, others had difficulties coping with injuries or loss of employment opportunities,” adds the doctor.
Mir Mohammad Rizwan is the owner of Rizwan Public School in the main city, located partially on a slope that goes down to the left bank of River Neelum.
When the quake struck, part of his school’s building collapsed instantly, trapping around 350 students and 22 teachers and other staff members, including his spouse Fauzia.
“A small slab fell on her, killing her instantly. Among the other 51 dead were three teachers, a driver, and 47 students, including one of my four sons.”
Rizwan says the community still has not learnt from the earthquake.
“We should have prepared ourselves to meet any such eventuality in the future, but alas,” he laments.
Nafeesa Munir, then-20 years old, was teaching in a private school in Jalalabad, an upscale area of Muzaffarabad, which houses the official residences of the president and the prime minister.
In her family, there were eight deaths.
Ten years on, “Whenever I recall those moments, I feel as if everything just happened yesterday,” she says.
“Sleep continues to elude me and I feel an anxiousness that words cannot explain. Allah aisa waqt dushman ko na dikhaye.”
Khadijah Umer Khayam, a practicing clinical psychologist from Bagh, was a first year college student when the deadly quake hit.
After the first two jolts, the building of her college caved in, trapping her and 120 students.
She was rescued after more than two hours, with a fracture in her foot. Nonetheless, she took part in rescue efforts.
“I chose this profession because I was traumatised myself, as were members of my immediate and extended families. I wanted to learn how to bring such people back to a normal life,” she says.
Khadijah believes that negative attitudes have multiplied among the survivors.
“Natural disasters can render people numb for the rest of their lives. In some cases, victims of severe trauma experience not just fear, sadness, anger or even guilt, they even become less sensitive to the pain and agony of others,” she observes.
Back in Muzaffarabad, ageing grocer Fazal Hussain corroborates her opinion.
“On October 8, 2005 we all had a close call. And therefore empathy, brotherhood and affection should have increased,” he maintains.
“But instead people have become more greedy and self-centred.”
The unending saga of reconstruction
A man sits on the rubble of his destroyed home in the Koutch e Syeda area of Azad Kashmir.—White Star
By: Tariq Naqash
Abid Bashir is an 8th grade student in a state-run boys’ high school in Batangi village, some 58 kilometres south of Muzaffarabad in district Hattian Bala. Since he can remember, he has been studying under the open sky. He is not alone; some 450 other students learn with him.
When the harshness of the weather becomes intolerable, they take shelter beneath tattered tents, which make up their “school building”.
“It is difficult to concentrate on studies in this environment, particularly when the weather is extremely hot or cold,” he says, as fellow students nod in agreement.
However, this is not the lot of the 450 plus Batangi students alone. In Muzaffarabad, the state capital, many schools function in similar conditions.
“For the past several years, we have been waiting for the completion of our school building,” laments Saiqa Shafiq, a 9th grade student in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School Gojra.
“Now that it’s the tenth anniversary of the earthquake, the media will be here again to report on our plight for a few moments. Later, we will be forgotten again,” she fumes.
According to Mohammad Zaffar Khan, secretary State Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (Serra), at least 150,000 students in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are compelled to study under the open sky, due to missing or incomplete buildings.
Rebuilding schools
Schoolchildren were a major casualty of the 2005 earthquake, as it levelled, partly or completely, as many as 2,792 educational institutions in AJK.
Of those flattened institutions, donors pledged to rebuild 402 — 309 were to be rebuilt by the Asian Development Bank-funded Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project (EEAP); 201 by the World Bank-funded Earthquake Additional Financing Project (EAFP); 35 (mostly colleges) by the Saudi Fund Development and Kuwait Fund (SFD&KF) and the remaining, 1,845, by government of Pakistan (GoP) funding.
The GoP-funding is the term used for the money Islamabad received from the international community as donation/soft loan to exclusively spend in the quake hit areas of AJK and neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
This money was to be channeled through the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra).
However, ten years down the line, only 1,277 educational institutions buildings have been completed in AJK. Of the rest, 833 are still under-construction and 682 are yet to be initiated.
Officials say the 806 under-construction and 653 yet-to-be initiated projects fall under GoP-funding. Only 29 of yet-to-be initiated projects in the education sector are to be built by donors, directly. Unfortunately, under-construction projects are also progressing at a snail’s pace. The reason, according to the government, is an unsteady cash flow.
“A severe financial crunch has virtually paralysed the reconstruction programme since April 2010,” admits Serra Secretary Zaffar Khan.
In 2011-12, the requirement for the ongoing and new projects in AJK was estimated at Rs 32.328 billion, but only Rs 5.38 billion was provided.
Next year, AJK got Rs 3.564 billion against its demand of Rs 16.02 billion. In 2013-14 it got Rs 1.512 billion against Rs 14 billion and in 2014-15 it was given Rs 714 million against Rs 10.75 billion.
In the current fiscal year, the minimum requirement was estimated at Rs 6.95 billion, but so far only Rs 182 million have been released to AJK.
The projects in sectors other than education numbered 4,938, of which 3,928 have been completed and handed over to the concerned departments. Of the remaining projects, 778 are said to be under-construction while 232 are yet to be initiated, most of them in the livelihoods sector.
In 2011, the Pakistan Peoples Party formed its government in AJK, three years after assuming power in Pakistan. Reconstruction related officials here heaved a sigh of relief, assuming that the new government will ensure reconstruction funds.
However, the expectations were soon shattered. “In fact the PPP government squeezed the funds further,” complains an official, on the condition of anonymity.
“If we demanded Rs 100, we were given Rs 10. How could the targets be achieved?” There have long been allegations that the reconstruction programme in AJK ran into snags because the Peoples Party led central government diverted Rs 56 billion meant for the purpose to other heads.
In March 2012, PML-N AJK chapter president Raja Farooq Haider publicly levelled this allegation against the PPP government.
The financial constraints did not ease with the change of government in Islamabad.
In November last year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced Rs 4 billion for the completion of the under-construction projects, particularly in the education sector.
Following the announcement, Serra selected 500 under-construction schools for quick completion. Contractors were persuaded to resume work.
However, so far, no funds have been released and the trust deficit has worsened. “Now the contractors are not ready to believe us,” one official says.
But the woes of Serra are not the entire story.
Erra runs into financial troubles
The AJK Urban Development Programme (UDP) runs in addition to the projects executed by Serra. The former is a vertical programme being directly executed by Erra and the federal government in Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot.
This programme was launched in 2009; it was funded by $300m provided by China’s AXIM Bank and $53m by the government of Pakistan.
This sum was to be spent in the Muzaffarabad City Development Programme ($190.62m), the Bagh City Development Programme ($123.55m) and the Rawalakot City Development Programme ($38.83m).
Of the 104 projects, envisaged under MCDP, BCDP and RCDP (53 under BCDP and 18 under RCDP), 46 (25, 13 and 8 respectively) have been completed. In Bagh and Rawalakot, work on 39 and 18 is in progress. In Muzaffarabad, work on 27 projects is under progress, including the president’s and prime minister’s houses.
However, many projects – 110 according to a Serra document - are yet to be initiated.
“So far $140m have been spent under the MCDP… We have given preference to important projects,” says MCDP project director Brig (retired) Riaz Noor. He admits that the UDP has been facing delays due to a delay in the release of the funding committed by the federal government. The truth is that even the ones initiated are progressing slowly.
For example, under the MCDP, 275-acres were acquired some 10 or so kilometres south of Muzaffarabad, for establishing two satellite towns, for earthquake survivors.
Ten years on, these towns are still not ready for allotment. Development work is likely to consume another six months, according to Asad Habib Awan, chairman Development Authority Muzaffarabad (DAM), who nevertheless claims that his institution will start the allotment process soon.
Zahid Amin, a leading civil society activist, has been protesting the delay of projects under the MCDP. “It is unfair to deprive Muzaffarabad of the projects that were promised to its people,” he says.
Mr Noor says, however, that some “not-so-pressing” projects have been delayed for multiple reasons, mainly the high cost of land acquisition.
After the earthquake, it was decided that AJK would be given Rs 4.18 billion for acquisition of land for various projects under the UDP. However, it got only Rs 2 billion. Mr Amin also points out that the Chinese loan expires in December 2015, after which no one will bother with the unfinished projects.
But Mr Noor shrugs off these fears, in the hope that the loan’s term will be extended to December 2016.
Grievances notwithstanding, many believe that the rebuilt infrastructure, particularly the buildings, is impressive. “In all constructions in public sector, building codes and guidelines have been strictly followed,” says Zaffar Khan.
In private sector too, building codes have mostly been followed in new constructions, particularly in cases where government grants were involved.
But with time, as complacency set in, newer construction has been carried out without adhering to rules. And the civic bodies have turned a blind eye.
Mr Amin, who has headed both Muzaffarabad Municipal Corporation and DAM, points out that none of the civic bodies has a structural engineer to take care of this foremost task. “A city that sits on fault lines cannot afford to turn a blind eye to violations of the building codes,” he maintains.
Serra officials also acknowledge that there have been complaints of non-compliance to seismic resistance standards. Worse still are the rural areas where there are no checks and balances. Asad Habib Awan, Chairman DAM, asserts that whenever they come to know about any unlawful construction, they take requisite action, swiftly.
The day Balakot died: a journalist’s account
By: Mubashir Zaidi
It was a Saturday and that too of Ramazan and my weekly day off from the BBC, Islamabad. I was jolted out of my bed by a strong quake at 8:50am. Soon after, news began flashing on TV screens about the Margalla Towers apartment building, which had collapsed. I rushed to the location, only to find my colleagues already there, so I returned home. The death toll was 20 by then.
It was around 11am that I received a call summoning me to the BBC office immediately.
I arrived to find a car ready to take me to the northern areas which were believed to have been affected. But no one had any idea about the scale of devastation, since the communications infrastructure had completely broken down.
So I left for the north that fateful afternoon, little knowing that I would end up reporting to the world the devastation of Balakot, which lost 10,000 people on Oct 8, 2005. Nobody in government had the slightest of idea at the time about the massive death toll here.
At a crossing,the injured and the dead lay together; people died in front of my eyes
The devastation started becoming visible from Abbottabad where I stopped to buy some iftari. Most people pointed me towards Mansehra.
I dumped my plans for iftari and rushed towards Mansehra, where the main district hospital had accommodated twice its capacity of the injured and dead. Makeshift camps had been set up near the hospital. There, many people told me that the worst-hit town was Balakot. But the road from Mansehra onwards was destroyed. So I decided to walk.
I joined a group of volunteers who were also heading towards Balakot. It was pitch dark by the time we reached our destination. Almost all the houses had collapsed and thousands were under the rubble.
At a crossing,the injured and the dead lay together; people died in front of my eyes. One of the local leaders told me that no help was available.
Many people asked me that if I could reach Balakot, why couldn’t rescue teams and the military? I had to lie that they would come very soon, despite knowing nothing about any rescue plans.
As I started to take a round of the city, a group of parents led me to what they said was the local college, which had been buried during the earthquake. All I could see was a bigpiece of concrete on the ground. It was the ceiling of the building. The local people were desperately trying to cut through it with anything they could find, even stones, but to no avail. I could hear students crying for help. As I tried to get closer to the concrete, a woman shouted: “Come back. My child is inside.” I stepped back immediately; the shout still echoes in my head.
The next few hours were hell. I kept recording the desperate calls of survivors. Then I left for Mansehra, went back to Islamabad, reported about the quake and left for Balakot again in the morning.
Even then, no rescue teams had arrived, though people from nearby towns were arriving with food, clothes and medicine. A batch of military men came to examine the devastation. People ran towards them,pleading with them to dig out their loved ones – some of them could still be alive.
But they were told flatly that this team was here only to survey, and help would follow after they made their report. People got angry and started shouting slogans that soon turned into cries of mourning as the military men returned to their base camp in Abbottabad without doing much that day.
Months after the quake, the then government announced plans for setting up ‘New Balakot city’ andreserved land for it, too. Ten years later, very few have opted to relocate. Today, life goes on in Balakot as usual, with residents welcoming tourists with open arms. These travellers stop at Balakot for midway snacks or lunch on their way to Naran.
That assignment made me emotionless for life.
There can’t be a bigger tragedy than the earthquake which resulted in the death of more than 70,000 people. I told many more stories later, about the merciless killings by terrorists in Swat, Fata and Islamabad, without my face twisting. Such is the life of a reporter in Pakistan.
The city that never was
By: Kalbe Ali
“I have not forgotten for a day that our own government cheated us,” says Junaid Qasim, who was tehsil nazim of Balakot in 2005.
His anger and betrayal stems from the government’s promise to build a new, well-planned Balakot and then failing to do so – ten years after an earthquake destroyed the city.
The 2005 earthquake razed Balakot city. Shortly after the earthquake, when reconstruction began, it was decided that Balakot would be rebuilt elsewhere, as the original city was located on a fault line.
“The location was declared a Red Zone and no construction was allowed here, even makeshift shelters were established as temporary arrangements,” he said.
“As a result, ten years on, we are IDPs living in temporary homes.”
He was referring to the prefabricated houses that dot the landscape. Made of metallic sheets and plywood, these lightweight houses are temporary bungalows. It is not possible to construct another storey over the ground floor.
After the earthquake, all construction was halted – and still is a decade after the tragedy – and everyone was compelled to live in these prefabricated buildings. Even government offices or departments such as the post office, the girls’ school and a small hospital continue to operate in similar, prefabricated buildings.
Reconstruction was to take place in the new city in a new location. Launched in 2007 at Bakrial, the new Balakot was to be 20 kms south of old Balakot City and 15 kms north of Mansehra. Today, it is an isolated area, characterised by a few villages, a large forest and grazing land.
The total budget for establishing New Balakot city was estimated at Rs14 billion and some Rs1.2 billion have been paid to the land owners of the Bakhrial area, though the possession of the land is yet to be obtained.
According to the plan, around 11,436 acres was to be developed – so far only 14 percent of this has been developed.
“A large tract of land owned by the forest department is to be used for the city and this parcel too has not been handed over to ERRA,” said Master Maroof, a government school teacher and prominent activist from the area. He alleges that “The federal government has never even tried to press the KP government to hand over the land.”
According to the original plans, the new Balakot city was scheduled to be completed by 2010; no one even blinked when the deadline passed.
In the process, the destroyed infrastructure was never reconstructed. For example, two bridges over river Kunhar, connecting the people of Balakot living on both sides, have still not been rebuilt.
Similarly, the local roads connecting the villages and adjoining areas with Balakot have also not been repaired.
Worse still is the fact that no one is willing to take responsibility for the delay. The provincial government, the federal government and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) all point fingers at each other, absolving themselves.
Imran Khan visited Balakot in March 2015, accompanied by Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, Senator Azam Swati and others. Khan promised that land acquisition for the new Balakot city would be completed in three weeks. But this deadline has also passed.
The KP minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan visited the area in April 2015 and promised to take up the issue with the chief minister and the federal government, after blaming the local elected representatives for not pushing the matter.
On the other hand, the local MNA and Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Mohammad Yousuf blames the provincial government, arguing that the acquisition of and the transfer of forest land was “a provincial subject”.
Residents, meanwhile, continue to struggle on, not sure of the future or the present.
The temporary settlements are not enough to cater to the residents’ needs, as many families have grown in the past decade and can no longer live comfortably in the small prefabricated houses.
“Besides, these units catch fire easily, so cooking is a challenge in the winters,” said Zainab Bibi, a resident, who teaches at a local private school.
To cope with this situation, some residents have established a small room with a chimney at a short distance from the main units for cooking. However, this makes life more difficult for the women who get exposed to the rain or snowfall as they go back and forth between the home and the kitchen.
No wonder then that the residents of Balakot speak of betrayal and anger. The sense of injustice has simply grown once it became obvious that the government seems to have abandoned the plans to build a new city.
“Now the officials openly encourage us to start rebuilding at the old site, but it will cost us all our savings to construct a new house,” said a shopkeeper in the newly erected market of Balakot. This new market, made entirely of concrete, was built earlier in 2015, near the magistrate office and lower courts.
But despite the resentment, the residents have taken advantage of the change of heart – construction is taking place.
A large number of factories making cemented blocks are proliferating. Many freshly constructed houses or under construction structures are visible along the road and on the slopes.
However, this activity is still the domain of the well off. The majority of residents live in makeshift, prefabricated homes.
And the anger continues.
Advocate Munir Lughmani, who serves as the convener of the Balakot Basao Tehreek and is a PMLN member of the newly elected council of Mansehra district, criticised the bureaucrats and politicians.
“We had our tehsil headquarter hospital destroyed in the natural disaster but the political disaster has prevented it from being rebuilt,” he told Dawn.
He said that a piece of land close to the original site of the hospital and outside the Red Zone was the property of Communications & Works department (KP); the health department wanted to build the hospital on this land.
“When Muammar Qaddafi offered to build the hospital, C&W refused to part with the land; now that Qaddafi is no longer in this world, the land has finally been transferred to the health department in August 2015,” Mr Lughmani said.
“This attitude of the rulers is one reason why we want a province for Hazara,” said Ahmed Hassan, a veteran journalist from |
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Henry Wolfe, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said those who have been deemed eligible have already been sent e-mails or traditional mail notifying them.
Those who have not been notified but believe they are eligible can file a request online or contact one of the two law firms that represent the class: the Wolf Law Firm of North Brunswick or Squitieri & Fearon of Jersey City.
Visit www.livenationsettlement.com to file a claim or find more information on the case. You have until April 30 to submit.
The settlement does not include people who bought tickets at the Arts Center's box office, even if they paid with a credit card.
Live Nation would admit no wrongdoing under the settlement if a judge finalizes it.
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• N.J. concertgoers could get free tickets, discounts under Live Nation settlement
• More PoliticsThe Madison Symmetric Torus gained new capabilities with the installation of a neutral beam injector.
The Madison Symmetric Torus, a leading piece of equipment in plasma physics research for more than 20 years, recently gained a new capability with the installation of a neutral beam injector.
The addition allows University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to delve further into the basic properties of plasmas, which are important in astrophysics research as well as numerous more down-to-Earth applications such as microchip fabrication, plasma televisions, and other displays, and development of fusion technology.
A new study published online in Physical Review Letters reports the first description of the effects of instabilities generated by injecting hot plasmas with beams of uncharged particles—generally hydrogen—in a type of plasma confinement device known as a reversed field pinch, or RFP.
The nature of those instabilities can help researchers understand how the beam particles interact with the plasma and their potential beneficial uses, says UW-Madison graduate student Jonathan Koliner, who led the study with UW physics professors Cary Forest and John Sarff. Paper co-authors include other colleagues at UW-Madison, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Neutral beams have sometimes been used to heat plasmas and drive electric currents in another type of plasma device, called a tokamak. Other times, the effects are more problematic.
"Like throwing rocks into a pond generates ripples, these particles come in and generate ripples [in the plasma]. Those ripples can feed back on themselves and start to grow very big, and when the ripples get big enough they'll kick the particles out," says Koliner.
More work is needed to understand and, ultimately, control the bursts to harness the particles' energy rather than losing them from the plasma, he says. In addition, RFPs offer some advantages over tokamaks in studying basic plasma properties due to the way they contain and control plasmas. The beam on the Madison Symmetric Torus is the first on an RFP device and offers the first opportunity to characterize beam-generated instabilities in this type of plasma environment and compare them to those in tokamaks.
"Seeing what neutral beams can do in an RFP is a good way to figure out if you can use them to control [the plasma] in other ways in the future," Koliner says. "It's important first to lock down exactly what they do in all of the different possible plasma equilibria we can make in our machine. Once you figure out what they do, then you can come up with a plan."
Koliner and his colleagues are studying the particle bursts under several plasma conditions and operating modes to form the best possible picture of what the plasma looks like and how it is behaving in the different situations.
"The bursts themselves have illuminated a lot of what the beam is doing that has been somewhat mysterious, not perfectly understood up to this point," he says. "Knowing what these bursts do fills in a large piece of the picture."
Source: University of Wisconsin-MadisonPromotion:
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The traditional machine learning models and other techniques used to learn what spam looks like and classify messages don’t always work when you’re dealing with content that users expect to see in real time. However, Twitter has developed a system called BotMaker to address its unique situation — a system the company claims has resulted in a 40 percent reduction in spam since it was rolled out.
Engineer Raghav Jeyaraman explained BotMaker in a blog post on Thursday that like many other systems in place among web companies, Twitter included, the trick to BotMaker is breaking it down into real-time, near-real-time and batch jobs. Essentially, a tool called Scarecrow tries to stop spam messages before they’re written to Twitter, by spotting problem account names or URLs, for example. Next, a tool called Sniper is constantly scouring written messages looking for things Scarecrow missed, possibly because it didn’t have enough time to analyze certain features. Finally, batch jobs periodically analyze large amounts of offline data in order to uncover long-term behavior patterns that can help make the online models smarter.
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Aside from the 40 percent overall spam reduction Twitter has seen from BotMaker, Jeyaraman notes that the ability to detect spam in the write path has been particularly beneficial.
This is not the first attempt [company]Twitter[/company] has made to combat spam using machine learning. It’s not clear whether BotMaker uses techniques from this research, but Twitter did team up with University of California, Berkeley, researchers in 2012 to develop a system that can detect spambots based on characteristics such as email addresses or the time it takes them to fill out a registration page. One of researchers, Chris Grier, told Gigaom last year that while the resulting algorithm had been used to periodically purge Twitter’s roles of bots, it could also be turned into an online system that could spot spam accounts in real time.Jeff Hall
The sandy-haired boy who was 10 when he shot his neo-Nazi father in the head two years ago will be the youngest inmate in a California juvenile justice facility, “surrounded,” his lawyer told the Los Angeles Times, “by gang members and older kids who have committed sexual offenses.”
Now 13, the boy was ordered Thursday by a judge in Riverside County to spend up to10 years in a state-run juvenile justice facility for killing his father, Jeff Hall, a West Coast leader of one the country’s largest neo-Nazi groups, the National Socialist Movement (NSM).
The child’s lawyer, Punam Grewal, blasted the sentence, according to the Times, calling it a “miscarriage of justice.”
Grewal argued that boy should be placed in a private yet secure residential facility where he could receive better mental health services.
“There was a complete disregard of the evidence of this child’s disabilities, complete disregard of the evidence of the horrific 10 years of abuse that he suffered,” Grewal told the paper.
But even as she sentenced the boy to the tough California juvenile justice system, the judge, Jean R. Leonard, acknowledged his deeply troubled and often violent upbringing.
“This is an individual with exceptional needs,” the Associated Press quoted Leonard as saying during sentencing.
The boy will be eligible for parole in seven years when he is 20.
Michael Soccio, the prosecutor, said he had grown fond of the child during the course of the long case that began in the early morning hours of May 1, 2011, when Hall, asleep on the couch in his living room in Riverside County, was shot in the head at point-blank range with a.357 Magnum.
Soccio asked the court for permission to visit the boy at the juvenile facility, even though, according to the Times, the prosecutor described him as dangerous, a “lost soul” who “was born with a very troubled spirit, with a lot of anger.”
The prosecutor said the boy would receive counseling and treatment in the facility and he hoped would “be able to come out as undamaged as possible.”
“He’s resilient,” Soccio told the Times. “He’s a thriver under the worst conditions.”
The child was found responsible in January for the second-degree murder of his 32-year-old father. During the trial, the defense argued that Hall, an unemployed plumber, had abused the child over the years – physically and psychologically. He reportedly took the boy to numerous white supremacist rallies and meetings.
Hall raised his son in a household soaked in racist hate.
The fact that the son killed the father was never in dispute in the trial. The case turned on the question of why the little boy pulled the trigger and whether he was able to know right from wrong.
Tragically, it appears the adults in his life were incapable of teaching him the difference.Narrator: Elsewhere.
A closed door has a sign on it: PRIVATE.
Voice from closed door: So should we accept dollars?
Voice from closed door: They have an odd system.
The next panel shows woman 1 standing in the background; and man 1, man 2, woman 2, and man 3 seated at a circular table. The conversation between them spans several panels.
Woman 1: They use a so-called credit card info string.
Man 2: Like a bitcoin address?
Woman 1: Like a bitcoin address in a bizarro world.
Woman 1: You know how in our normal world it's always the bitcoin sender who initiates a payment?
Off-panel voice: Naturally. It's the sender's money.
Woman 1: In their bizarro world, the recipient initiates a withdrawal from a sender's credit card info string.
Man 2: That's absurd.
Man 3: But the sender must approve it first?
Off-panel voice: The sender doesn't even know of the withdrawal until afterwards.
Woman 2: Are they nuts?
The next panel takes the form of a scene enclosed by a thought bubble.
Woman in thought bubble, holding a document in her hands: Why are there so many porn sites on this statement?
Bespectacled man in thought bubble: What? No! I don't remember any.
Woman in thought bubble: I'm sure you don't.
The next and final panel returns to the previous scene, now showing only woman 1.
Woman 1: Any recipient who knows a sender's credit card info can withdraw any amount from the sender's account.
Off-screen voice: Are they nuts?
Title: 40 Million Credit Cards -- II.I started my Tennessee sabbatical with a story about 3 peace activists who recently shut down the Y12 bomb plant here in Oak Ridge with a stunning protest, armed only with a bible and flowers. I figure I’ll end my sabbatical with another great story of East Tennessee mischief.
This is the story of one of my favorite flash-mob actions, which happened right here in Knoxville. And this year marks its 5-year anniversary.
It all happened on May 26, 2007.
Word had begun to spread that a group of white supremacists, including members of the KKK, were converging here in Knoxville, TN, holding a rally in a park downtown. It was in the news and papers. Many locals were pretty upset by the public display of racism and hatred. Even though many of the folks connected to the hate-group were coming from other states, they had obtained a permit to gather and publicly proclaim their hate-filled message of White Power.
But they had no idea what was coming.
A group of locals had decided neither to cower away in fear nor to fight fire with fire…. Instead they decided to meet hatred with humor. They began to organize a counter-protest — but not your typical counter-protest. They showed up with an army of clowns, with stilts and unicycles and red-noses… and they far-outnumbered the white supremacists.
In fact they stole the show.
The clowns seemed to have slightly missed the message of “white power”. They began yelling, “White Flour! White Flour!” Pulling out bags of flour and throwing it all over each other, they created a hysterical cloud of dust. Needless to say, the spectacle quickly hijacked all the attention of the media and bystanders – it may have even distracted some of the haters themselves. They were hard to ignore.
Also by Shane Claiborne: The Myth of Redemptive Violence
Before long one of the clowns pointed out that they had messed up the message, which was not “white flour” but “white flowers”. So they dusted themselves off and were conveniently met by a mob of new clowns that had tons of white flowers. Enthusiastically they ran through the streets giving them away to everyone they met and spreading the flower power through the downtown streets… all the while chanting in unison the revised war cry: “White Flowers! White Flowers! White Flowers!” I think even a couple of the white supremacists received a flower from a clown with a smile.
But it wasn’t long before someone again pointed out the err of their ways. They still had the message wrong. “Ohhhhhhh, ” said one of the clowns, “how silly of us – we’ve got it now… WIFE POWER.” A mob of clowns decked out in wedding dresses came out of nowhere, wisked some of the men from the crowd into their arms and led everyone in a new cheer… “Wife Power!” Wife power it was.
And on they went. I think they went on to have a “tight shower” with a 10-foot clown on stilts spraying a smushed-together crowd with a showerhead… maybe they even handed out some “white sours” or built a big “white tower”… and so it goes.
It was a beautiful day. The white supremacist group was so outmatched, upstaged, and overwhelmed that they called it quits a couple of hours early. But the clowns marched on, their charade snowballing into a full-on street parade marching down the city streets with police escorts smiling by their side, proclaiming a contagious message of love and laughter.
It’s a true story. There’s even a children’s book inspired by the whole fiasco.
The event is a great reminder that we need imagination as we confront evil, so that we do not mirror the hatred we seek to end. And, even as we fight serious injustices, we need humor– as old Emma Goldman once said, “If I can’t dance… then it ain’t my revolution.”
Watch Shane on RLC TV!
The clowns remind us that mean people can be resisted without being emulated and neutralized without being destroyed. Before long, we might even see that some of our enemies have become our friends. After all, it takes a lot of energy to hate, but love sets all of us free – both the hated and the haters.“The difference between gods and daemons largely depends upon where one is standing at the time” – Argel Tal to Lorgar Aurelian
Some time ago, I picked up some of the plastic GW Plague Bearers and an Avatars of War model to use as a Herald (or Daemon Prince) of Nurgle as allies for my Chaos Marines in 40k. Incredibly, breaking from true Tony of Nurgle tradition, I actually painted them in a relatively short time frame. Regrettably, I only used them once or twice.
So rather than leave them as a project completed in relative folly, I decided that 7th Ed 40k was a reasonably good excuse to build a new army – mono-Nurgle Daemons.
If I can manage to do this on the cheap, all the better. After a good look through my boxes of “miscellaneous stuff”, I unearthed some metal Plague Bearers and Great Unclean One from a Fantasy army I’d worked on a good number of years back. By my now slightly better standards of painting, they looked crap, so off they went, to meet an uncertain fate in tub full of Dettol. After 24 hours and a scrub with an old tooth brush, things were looking up, and the number of models was seemingly halfway respectable.
More digging around, and I uncovered some Maxmini.eu models that I bought at Salute a good few years back. These would provide me with some counts as Nurglings, and another Herald. Throw in a few bases of those spare Nurglings from the Plague Bearer sprues, and things are looking, well, more swarmy than they were before. Reckon I’ll probably pick up a couple of boxes of those Nurgling stacks GW are making to further vary things up.
For the sake of gribble, I also converted up a GW Arachnarok (supplied for cheap by our own Gaz) into a “counts as” Soul Grinder, with the addition of some green stuff cables and tubes and a couple of capering Nurglings. Although this may well undergo further transformation.
In addition, I’ll be proxying in my Plague Toads as Beasts of Nurgle.
To round things out, I also found The Old Death (I think made by Enigma Miniatures), although this would have to be checked. This guy should make for an imposing looking Daemon Prince, and I hope, a suitable contrast to the daemonflesh of the rest of the army. I absolutely love this model. Motarion upon reaching daemonhood?
All that’s now needed is some Plague Drones. And a paint job. Not much to ask for surely?
So I am oathing to get these (or at least the requisite amount of points worth) ready for the impending doubles tournament later in the year, where I will be teaming up with our very own Chris and his Iron Warriors.About
Electric Sheep is a collaborative abstract artwork founded by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on almost anything. When these computers "sleep", the Electric Sheep comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep".
Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience.
The Electric Sheep are a free and open source service. The Gold Sheep are an HD premium version. Learn more and sign up.
You can design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool. The result is a collective "android dream", blending man and machine with code to create an artificial lifeform. Learn more about it.Professor Ted Malloch revealed that senior Greek economists have enquired about the possibility of adopting the greenback if the country crashes out of the single currency. He asserted that Athens is so desperate it is prepared to tie itself to the dollar on the same terms as the likes of Puerto Rico if it means being able to quit the eurozone.
GETTY Professor Ted Malloch said Germany was 'freaked out' about the prospect of Greece quitting the euro
And Prof Malloch said German leaders including Angela Merkel were “freaked out” at the humiliating possibility of losing Greece to a rival currency, which would be a devastating blow to the EU project. Tying Greece temporarily to the US dollar would be one way for the authorities in Athens to ensure that its currency does not completely tank if it leaves the eurozone, as would likely occur with a reissued drachma.
GETTY Greek PM Alexis Tsipras must try to negotiate yet another bailout deal for his country
WND BOOKS Prof Malloch said Greece could even turn to the US dollar in the event of a Grexit
However critics may argue the country would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it would simply be trading one currency it has no control over for another. In an explosive interview with a Greek broadcaster Prof Malloch said it would be the best thing for the the country’s people if it quits the eurozone, adding that the current situation is “simply unsustainable”. He told Skai TV: “I know some Greek economists who have even gone to leading think tanks in the US to discuss this topic and |
(90 OVR)
BALTIMORE RAVENS OG Yanda is considered by many to be the best OL in the league, and he has 91 STR/88 PBK/95 RBK.
JASON PETERS (89 OVR)
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES OT Peters is a seven-time Pro Bowler and headed for the Hall of Fame. He brings 93 STR/94 PBK/91 RBK.
SEBASTIAN VOLLMER (89 OVR)
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS OT He had offseason shoulder surgery, but Vollmer should be ready to go. He has 92 STR/93 PBK/84 RBK.
EVAN MATHIS (88 OVR)
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES OG Perennially rated as one of the best guards in the league, Mathis has 84 STR/83 PBK/94 RBK.
JOSH SITTON (88 OVR)
GREEN BAY PACKERS OG Sitton played through an injury late in the 2014 season but should be ready with 91 STR/95 PBK/87 RBK.
T. J. LANG (88 OVR)
GREEN BAY PACKERS OG Always reliable, Lang has played every position on the offensive line. He has 87 STR/89 PBK/92 RBK.
TRAVIS FREDERICK (87 OVR)
DALLAS COWBOYS C A first-round pick in 2013, Frederick has started every game since. He brings 89 STR/87 PBK/95 RBK.This review pertains to the 2009 Sanctuary release of this CD.
'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' is an amazing album. Some consider it the band's masterpiece (although I don't think I'd go quite that far). I would definitely say it's one of their best, and probably their most progressive. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with this 2009 Sanctuary release on CD.
But first, and most importantly... the music. From that first wicked riff that kicks off the title track, we are assured that after four great albums, Black Sabbath have NOT lost their edge. Although slightly more refined (and with better production value than 'Vol.4') 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' reveals a band that has matured some, but that is still brimming with the creativity and drive that defined their early work.
Like 'Paranoid' and 'Sabotage', the album has a nice flow and can be listened to, in it's entirety, in one sitting. The only song I don't really care for is 'Who Are You', because of an over-reliance on a campy synthesizer line that dates the song and undermines the weight of the lyrics. The other entries here are all very solid, though. My personal favorites are the title track, 'A National Acrobat', and 'Sabbra Cadabra'. 'Fluff' (the only instrumental track on the album) is a flowery, layered guitar piece that has some nice harpsichord embellishments. The second from last track on the album, 'Looking for Today', has a great hook in the bridge and some pretty powerful lyrics;
"Everyone just gets on top of you
The pain begins to eat your pride
You can't believe in anything you knew
When was the last time that you cried?"
'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' is just a really complete, well-produced album, overall.
Now, a few minor criticisms of the 2009 Sanctuary release on CD. First of all, I noticed a quick drop out in the left channel during the first minute or so of 'Spiral Architect' (during the lyric, "...peace of mind..."). It almost sounds as if the source tapes (which this release was mastered from) may be deteriorating. I checked the same spot in the U.S. Rhino release and it wasn't there, so presumably Rhino has either fixed it or used another source for their release. Plus, the CD is mastered comparatively louder and brighter than both 'Vol.4' (released before SBS) and 'Sabotage' (released after SBS) in this same series. There seems to be some compression used throughout the mastering as well- nothing major, but it does limit the dynamics somewhat. Andy Pearce (who remastered the entire series of Sanctuary releases for this band) did a wonderful job with the first three Sabbath albums, as well as 'Sabotage'. I can only assume that there was some tampering with his work here before the CD was pressed (as does sometimes happen when record company executives get involved). This may also be true of 'Technical Ecstasy' and 'Never Say Die', since they suffer some of the same problems.
All minor quibbles aside, this is really a decent presentation of 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' on CD- I just can't recommend it as definitive because of the points I've mentioned. The album itself really deserves the red carpet treatment. It came SO close here. Maybe they'll get it right next time around. Great album, decent (but not great) CD release!Nissan Altimas will be on the 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship whether the car manufacturer continues to invest in the category or not.
That’s the word from Todd Kelly, the co-owner of Kelly Racing, which has campaigned four Altimas under the Nissan Motorsport banner with factory backing since 2013.
But with Nissan’s decision whether to renew still to be resolved the team has bitten the bullet and committed to the Altima for a fifth consecutive season regardless.
“Either way (the Nissan decision goes) we have got the cars and we are too far down the track to do anything other than racing Nissans next year so we are pressing on regardless,” Kelly told supercars.com.
While Kelly and the team understand Nissan Australia to be supportive of an extension, the decision first has to get the green light from Nissan in Japan and its performance and motorsport division, Nismo.
Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery has indicated a decision will be known by the September 16-18 Wilson Security Sandown 500, but it could be communicated sooner that.
Kelly is clear the team believes it has Nissan Australia onside and is hopeful global headquarters sees it the same way.
“Nissan Australia and all the team are completely immersed in our business and what we have done with the engine, what we have done with the aero and how we have structured our team and our long term and short term plans with staff and drivers and engineers and sponsors and the whole thing,” he said.
“Hopefully at a global level (Nissan) understands what’s going on here and what the sport of Supercars does for their brand. The engagement this sport gives, the traction here in Australia is massive; how all the fans are out their buying merchandise and waving flags and how Nissan has activated it with the GT Academy is huge.”
Kelly said the renewal decision comes at a time when the performance of the Altima is reaching a truly competitive level and when the team’s commercial operations are also very strong.
“We are in probably one of the best positions we have been in in terms of opportunities and deals happening and the general buzz around the team commercially is really encouraging,” said Kelly.
“So we have had a lot of that stuff happening over this year and we are just waiting for the big one with the Nissan situation to resolve itself.
“That is really positive locally but it has to go through the global process and unfortunately as good and positive as everything else is within out world, it’s all really hinging on that happening because driver discussions and a lot of commercial opportunities are waiting on an answer on that.”
Both Holden Racing Team driver James Courtney and Swiss female racer Simona de Silvestro have been linked with a Nissan seat for next year. Kelly wouldn’t confirm the rumours but did praise both drivers. Current Nissan drivers Michael Caruso and Dale Wood have not been re-confirmed for 2017 as yet.
“James is an outstanding driver and has still got plenty left in him as have a decent handful of drivers,” said Kelly. “He would be a bloody good option for any team if where he is not where he wants to be in the next few years.”
Kelly said de Silvestro impressed with her performance as a wildcard in the Harvey Norman Ford Falcon FG X alongside Renee Gracie at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 last year.
“The sport is crying out for a female and everyone knows that when you see the traction they had at Bathurst. That was fantastic.”
But Kelly cautioned against the prospect of double or even a single driver change happening at the team next year, citing continuity as a key concern.
“There is a possibility of not changing it (the driver line-up), there is a possibility to change it. We just need to make sure we make the right decisions for the best situation for our performance.
“We are not in a bad place, we have lots of good things happening and plenty of options we just need to make sure the Nissan thing gets ticked off and we make the right decisions.
“But as I always say continuity is the key to good performance and we need to keep that in mind with all this.”Tasting Wine
All About Wine Tasting
There’s more to tasting a glass of wine than throwing it down your gullet. We’ll start slow.
Colour
Hold the glass over a white background, like a napkin or tablecloth. Colour varies with age, varietal (i.e. Chardonnay is darker than Riesling) and time spent in the barrel. White wines range from almost clear to pale yellow-green, straw/yellow, light gold, gold or old gold, to maderized brown. Reds can be magenta, purple, ruby red, red, eggplant, brick red or orange, red brown and finally, brown. (If you’re not drinking Sherry or Madeira, brown is not a good thing.)
Swirl
Swirl the wine to aerate it. This releases ethers, esters and aldehydes that combine with oxygen to bring you the wine’s aroma or bouquet. It doesn’t take much practice, but if you’re just learning, start with a white or dress down.
Nose
Follow yours. First: the flaws. If there’s a moldy, wet cardboard aroma it may be “corky” or tainted. Drink not, or suffer the consequences. Sulfur (burnt match) aromas may dissipate with a little air time or may not even bother you too much, but too much sulfur dioxide is a problem. If your wine smells like Sherry but isn’t, that’s a problem. Likewise for vinegar. If a wine smells clean, fresh, and ripe to you, get out of the embarrassing tasting spotlight and motion for the waiter to pour. Only cigar smokers swish and contemplate the “legs” of a wine. The “nose” should also be faithful to the grape’s variety, which is something you have to learn over time.
Taste
Skip the sip. Soak your taste buds by taking a decent mouthful and rolling it around. Sweetness is detected at the tip of the tongue, so you’ll be aware of residual sugar right away. Varietal characteristics are picked up in the middle of the tongue; tannin (in most reds and wood-aged white) starts there. Acidity hits the sides of the tongue, the cheeks and the back of the throat. Oak — despite all the faux connoisseurs waxing poetic about a Chardonnay’s “complex oakiness,” the presence of oak is usually a negative attribute. Many delicious wines are appropriately aged in oak barrels, a process that enhances a wine’s body and viscosity.Many domestic whites under $15 are not just aged in oak but also oak-fermented — that is, artificially sweetened with oak chips, powders, and essences. The process disguises the natural flavour of the grape varietal with what is all too often the rough-hewn sweetness of, say, burnt caramel popcorn. Too much of any one flavour almost always means it’s out of whack.
Aftertaste is what lingers after you swallow. A long pleasing aftertaste with a nice balance of the other components is the sign of a high quality wine. A big part of the taste will come from the temperature the wine is served. This can be easily be controlled with a wine fridge, to ensure each bottle stays the ideal temperature.
Finish
What was the body of the wine like? Light (like skim milk), medium (like whole), or full bodied (like cream)? If it was a white wine, how was the acidity? Too little and flat? Just right, crispy, fresh and pleasing, or too high and burning your mouth? For a red wine, tannins are a big factor. Light tannins make for a soft wine. They can be present, ripe and pleasing, or too high, leaving a dry mouth feeling that may indicate some cellar time is needed to chill out. How long did the “finish” last? A couple of seconds, or much longer, as great wines tend to? Is it ready to drink? Are all of these components appealing to you? Is it worth the price? Can you think of a food it might go well with? And most important: was it good for you?
With Food
Remember, red wine is not necessarily more sophisticated than white, and not necessarily the only choice with meat. In fact, because whites are generally lighter in weight than reds, they lend themselves more easily to a wider range of foods. While there are any number of great sipping wines, light- to medium-bodied wines that are high in acidity and sugar and low in alcohol tend to be the most flexible and complimentary to our lighter, more dynamic diets. Food-friendly whites include Riesling, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc; the best choices among the reds are Cabernet Franc, Barbera, Gamay, Pinot Noir.
By Region
Regional wine qualities tend to reflect the specifics of regional cuisines. So picking a region to tour often means choosing what kind of food you want to eat for ten days straight.
Here are some top wine picks in Europe:
Northern Italy: Piemonte and the Veneto are greatly influenced by the rich subtelty of their butter-worshipping French and Swiss neighbors. Whites: From Piemonte, Pinot Bianco, Soave, Pinot Grigio with shellfish and fish; the sparkling Prosecco from the Veneto. Reds: Franciacorta Rosso (Cabernet Franc, Barbera, and Merlot) with meat; Amarone (Molinara, Rodinella and Corvina), Barbera, and young Nebbiolo with lamb and game.
Central Italy: Trendy cuisine from Tuscany and Chianti favors lighter pastas, vegetables and seafood. Whites: Verdicchio, Orvieto (Trebbiano and Garbanega), Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Reds: Sangiovese, Morellino, Rosso di Montalcino, Chiantis, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Brunello di Montalcino. For tricky-to-pair cured hams and cheeses, fruitier reds are a good choice: Valpolicella (Corvina, Molinara, Rodinella), Barbera, Dolcetto, Ruffina.
Sicily and the South: Campagna and Sardegna—land of hard sheep’s milk cheese, salty fish, tomatoes and plenty of garlic—favor sweeter, prunier wines like Greco and Fiano from Campagna and Vermentino from Sardegna.
Northern and Central France: Delicate butter and cream sauces paired with exquisite veal stock reductions and tarragon call for great big wines that have high acidity. For fish or vegetables in light cream sauces, escargot, and oysters: Loire Chenins (Vouvray and Montlouis), Loire Sauvignons (Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé), and Champagne. For veal, pork, and white meat birds: Loire Cabernet Francs (Saumur, Chinon, Bourgueil) and the Gamay wines of Beaujolais. For red meat and game: Bordeaux and red Burgundies.
Provence and Southwestern France: Like Southern Italy, salty fish, tomato sauces, peppers, olive oil, and herbs go well with the regions many rosés and Ugni Blanc from Cascogne. With light meats and heavy seafood, Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne, Côtes-du-Rhône Blanc, Condrieu, and Hermitage Blanc. Heavy goose liver pâté and duck can take heavy black wines like Cahors (Malbec), Madiran (Tannat), Bandol (Mourvèdre), and Syrah-Grenache (blends from Châteauneauf du Pape, Gigondas, Côtes de Roussillon, CÔtes de Lubéron, Corbieres, St. Chinian, and Minervois) and northern Rhône Syrahs like Cornas, Côte-Rôtie, and Hermitage.
Alsace: For the cuisine of this region, which is heavily influenced by its potato-, goose-, and sauerkraut-eating German neighbors, heavy aromatic whites are in order: Alsace Pinot Blanc, Tokay-Pinot Gris and the flowery and fruity Gewürztraminer.
Germany: Wines that are high in acid provide a necessary counterbalance to the fatty, bland, carb-and-meat-centric northern European diet. The Mosel Rieslings are citrusy, whereas Rhine River wines tend to smell vaguely of peaches. Nahe River wines are a combination of the two. Rheinhessen wines tend to have smoky undertones to their fruity flavour. Wines from the Rheingau region are dry. The increasingly popular Rheinpfaltz (or just “Pfaltz”) style is both full and fruity and includes Gewürztraminer, Scheurebe, Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir), and Chardonnay.We have just introduced the new 8.9 update and with it, the new line of German tank destroyers. We want to encourage you to try them out and prove yourself as a flexible and fast-learning tanker!
We prepared this contest for those who are willing to show us real mastery of tank driving and who want to participate in creating the new vehicles’ renown.
The powerful Rhino is a fearsome creature. We hope that you will show us how to tame Nashorn and its kin on the battlefields!
Contest rules
To participate, you must use the German tank destroyers introduced in the 8.9 update to get as many experience points as you possibly can.
Marder 38T (Tier IV)
Pz.Sfl.IVc (Tier V) Nashorn (Tier VI) Pz.Sfl.V (Sturer Emil) (Tier VII)
Rhm.-Borsig Waffenträger (Tier VIII)
Waffenträger auf Pz.IV (Tier IX)
Waffenträger auf E 100 (Tier X)
Bonuses for experience points (first victory, premium account, etc.) do not count towards the contest results.
Only results from random battles are taken into account in this contest. Platoons are allowed.
There will be two prize categories: daily prizes and weekly prizes.
Daily prizes
The top 25 results for each Tier (IV–X) for each day will be rewarded at the end of the contest as follows:
Tier IV 1,000 Tier V 1,500 Tier VI 2,000 Tier VII 2,500 Tier VIII 3,000 Tier IX 4,000 Tier X 5,000
You can win multiple prizes per day (but not for the same tier) and multiple daily prizes during the week, as long as you qualify.
Weekly prizes
For each vehicle, the player scores the highest amount of experience points during the contest will win 6 months of premium account access.
You can only win this prize once, so if you qualify twice or more then the player with the next highest amount of experience points will receive the prize.
You will receive the prize for the vehicle that gave you the top score earliest. I.e., if you get the top score for Tier VII earlier in the week and for Tier V later in the week, you will get the prize for Tier VII and the prize for Tier V will go to the second best result).
The contest starts on Tuesday 5th November 06:10 (UTC +1) and lasts until Tuesday 12th November 06:00 (UTC +1).
Commanders, tame the Rhino!It's been a long, hard wait for Captain America: Civil War, and once you read the first reactions, the wait is going to get that much harder. The social media embargo was officially lifted at 2 AM EST and the critics have spoken... the superhero movie event of the year, Captain America: Civil War, is a winner from beginning to end. It's not a perfect film by any means as you'll see, but it seems like almost everyone is in agreement that Tom Holland's Spider-Man definitely steals the show and Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther also makes an impressive debut. Check them all out for yourself and check back in for more throughout the day:
I liked it. — Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) April 9, 2016
First things first: we finally have the perfect Spider-Man and the greatest Peter Parker. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
‘Captain America: Civil War’ is so good, it’s a better Avengers movie than the last Avengers movie. — Mike Sampson (@mjsamps) April 9, 2016
Captain America: Civil War is a complex mystery posing a big, fun superhero film. Lots of themes and emotions. Very unexpected & VERY good. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
#CaptainAmericaCivilWar falls into a lot of the same traps as #BvS, but it's a lot more fun. What we get of #SpiderMan is played perfectly. — William Bibbiani (@WilliamBibbiani) April 9, 2016
Next: Black Panther is incredible. Boseman plays him as both regal and full of rage. The most serious character in the film. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
I honestly don't know how Civil War works. There's so much going on but it does. Spidey is AMAZING. Made me smile & laugh till my face hurt — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
I’m trying not to talk about ‘Civil War’ by comparing it to BvS, but it’s hard. It succeeds because it's exactly what that film is not: FUN. — Mike Sampson (@mjsamps) April 9, 2016
The big battle scene in #CivilWar is an absolute blast. Spider-Man, as you'd expect, steals the show. Ant-Man, as you might not, a close 2nd — Mike Sampson (@mjsamps) April 9, 2016
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is literally going to make all the money. — Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 9, 2016
#CaptainAmericaCivilWar delivers the goods. Endless Avenger v Avenger action. Tense and still funny. Boseman kills it as Black Panther. — Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) April 9, 2016
Civil War and BvS tackle some of the same themes and have similar beats, yet Cap works because we know and care about these characters. — Mike Sampson (@mjsamps) April 9, 2016
The plot has problems in #CaptainAmericaCivilWar, no doubt about it. So do the plots of most superhero movies. But when it's fun, it's FUN. — William Bibbiani (@WilliamBibbiani) April 9, 2016
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is a Barry Bonds steroids hitting home-run by Marvel & Russo Brothers. And I LOVED Spider-Man in the film. LOVED. — Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 9, 2016
The movie is bigger in scale than WINTER SOLDIER but is so much more personal. The stakes are incredibly emotional. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
Oh yeah, the big fight in Captain America: Civil War is cinematic joy. And Spider-Man is so great. He's in it more than I thought he'd be. — Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) April 9, 2016
There are things in #CaptainAmericaCivilWar I thought I'd never get to see on the big screen when I was a kid. It's worth watching. — William Bibbiani (@WilliamBibbiani) April 9, 2016
You have only seen 1% of the airport fight. The action is incredible. There's a staircase fight that turns into a chase that's an all timer. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
So to wrap it up: it's not perfect, but it's a blast. Better than Age of Ultron. Not as cohesive as Winter Soldier. #CaptainAmericaCivilWar — William Bibbiani (@WilliamBibbiani) April 9, 2016
Just saw @CaptainAmerica Civil War!!! Wow! Spider-Man Rocks! Best Action Sequences in any superhero film EVER! pic.twitter.com/5uTdpYvFw6 — Jon Schnepp (@JonSchnepp) April 9, 2016
Finally: the last fight between Steve and Tony is unlike anything you've seen in a Marvel movie. They're both right. You just want them — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
to stop fighting. It packs a serious emotional punch. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
I'll also admit, after 1 viewing, I have some small issues with the film. I'm guessing they'll shrink after a 2nd viewing to unpack them tho — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
Chadwick Boseman is fantastic as Black Panther. Can't wait to see his solo film. He absolutely nailed the role. — Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 9, 2016
What we thought of Captain America: Civil War pic.twitter.com/4s0Mn5wxxs — John Campea (@johncampea) April 9, 2016
I'm pretty sure Captain America: Civil War is my favorite Marvel movie. — Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) April 9, 2016
I lied. One last last thing: this movie plays like a repudiation of BATMAN V SUPERMAN. A devastating reply. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
I don't want to drop any #CaptainAmericaCivilWar spoilers but have to get off my chest that I'm pretty sure Vision shops at Banana Republic. — Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) April 9, 2016
I didn't see CIVIL WAR tonight -- Tuesday in Vegas -- but my Marvel direct-deposit just hit so what the hell, it's AMAZING OMFG — Josh Lincoln Dickey (@JLDlite) April 9, 2016
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR has such incredible action set pieces because you care about the people fighting. It's not just punching bad guys — Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 9, 2016
I could go on all night with this but one last thing. The airport scene in Civil War is probably the best superhero action scene ever. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
for press screening they don't show any trailers. We did see one after the credits scene but Marvel usually holds the final one for release — Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 9, 2016
I have to admit it. Captain America: Civil War a letdown after the high of Winter Soldier. It's a better, smarter version of BvS. — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
Zemo is another wasted Marvel villain whose scheme is, while not as crazy as Lex's, isn't much more coherent or less convoluted — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
Spider-Man is both the best & most expendable part of Civil War. I want to see more of him — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
Big airport brawl is great fun & Civil War sort of limps to the finish line after that. Panther is very cool. Want to see more of him too — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
But I think between this & BvS I'm done with being reminded of superhero battle collateral damage. We've dealt with it. — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
Really didn't think I'd care *that* much seeing Spider-Man hanging out with all the other characters. But there he was and it made me happy! — Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) April 9, 2016
Unsure if ppl will find Cap 3 as fun as trailers sell it. Tony was far more morose than I expected. Parts of movie work better than whole — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
Civil War is not a bad film at all. But it's not the great movie I'd hoped it would be. It's a good movie with many OK & a few great moments — Jim Vejvoda (@JimVejvoda) April 9, 2016
CA:CW is fantastic. Flat out fantastic. Either my #2 or #3 favorite Marvel film so far. Better than BVS, not quite as good as Deadpool. — John Campea (@johncampea) April 9, 2016
Winter Soldier had a better of a story, Civil War better action and set pieces... I'll give a SLIGHT nod to WS over CW, but CW is incredible — John Campea (@johncampea) April 9, 2016
I cried tears of joy, okay? Tears of joy. #CaptainAmericaCivilWar — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
Tom Holland is the greatest Peter Parker and Spider-Man ever put to screen. It made me bawl. #CaptainAmericaCivilWar — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
Black Panther is amazing and Boseman excels here. The most serious character in the film and not in a bad way. #CaptainAmericaCivilWar — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
It's the darkest Marvel movie yet, but it's emotionally dark. The scope is bigger, and the stakes are more personal than any Marvel film yet — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
The airport sequence honest to God, might be the best thing I've ever seen in a superhero movie. Ever. You've only seen 1 tiny slice of it. — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
I honestly think it might be Marvel's best movie to date. Their most ambitious to date and it succeeds in ways they've never done before. — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
Imagine all of the best moments from The Avengers movies, on steroids and amplified. — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
Everything that BVS did wrong, Civil War does right. Does so right. — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
What BVS did to Superman, #CivilWar does the opposite to Spider-Man. Welcome home. — Alex Welch (@AlexRWelch) April 9, 2016
Earns the Beat changes, the action, the banter, the high stakes moments. Doesn't disappoint #CaptainAmericaCivilWar — Sabina Ibarra (@SabinaHasNoR) April 9, 2016
Was asked if the #CaptainAmericaCivilWar film was light or dark. The Russo Bros crafted a script that had great tonal range — Sabina Ibarra (@SabinaHasNoR) April 9, 2016
just saw #CaptainAmericaCivilWar! That Airport fight tho!!!! AND SPIDERMAN THE BEST HE'S EVER BEEN! — = K H A I L = (@KhailAnonymous) April 9, 2016
Seriously...this scene is the best thing ever done in a comic book movie! #CaptainAmericaCivilWar pic.twitter.com/zp0X6r7i6e — = K H A I L = (@KhailAnonymous) April 9, 2016
Sorry Batman V Superman, but Civil War nailed hero vs hero tension...and had some fun with it. — = K H A I L = (@KhailAnonymous) April 9, 2016
Yeah dude 100%, I never was super into Spider-Man, but this kid IS Spider-Man. https://t.co/W2P7jKp0zy — = K H A I L = (@KhailAnonymous) April 9, 2016
At 8pm, WINTER SOLDIER was my favorite MCU film.
Roughly 2.5 hours later, CIVIL WAR is now #1.
Action masterpiece. SPIDER-MAN!!!#NerdTears — Kevin McCarthy (@KevinMcCarthyTV) April 9, 2016
There is an airport action sequence in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR that I would pay full price to see on loop for 3 hours.
Epic Nerd Tears! — Kevin McCarthy (@KevinMcCarthyTV) April 9, 2016
So Captain America: Civil War is pretty good. Spider-Man and the airport brawl are pretty great. — Chris Tilly (@TillyTweets) April 9, 2016
Black Panther is really, regally bad-ass. — Chris Tilly (@TillyTweets) April 9, 2016
A superhero movie can definitely have too many characters. — Chris Tilly (@TillyTweets) April 9, 2016
Did I say Spider-Man is great? Because Spider-Man is great. (Though feels like the retrofitted the movie to include him). Really great. — Chris Tilly (@TillyTweets) April 9, 2016
You know how the villains aren't that great in the MCU? Yeah that. — Chris Tilly (@TillyTweets) April 9, 2016
@CPThrio He's a major player in this and yet I wanted much more — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@juanselc97 Smaller roles, both good, Scott in particular — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@myfriendalex015 Wanda is complicated for reasons we can't talk about until people have seen it — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@therichfinley The movie has surprises — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@thababes I can say that he's in it and has a fun role to play — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@ptj007 He's incredibly cool and crucial to the story — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@davewburns Honestly, they all have their part to play. Some are much smaller than other but it serves the story. Gun to my head? Vision. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@matt_S_1021 It has a ton of moving parts but somehow all comes together very well. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@jeromybme Throw out the comic. Forget about it. This just takes the title. Totally different. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@jeromybme Not at all. It's much, much smaller than you're expecting story wise. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@zombie_midgey Second lead. Major major player. — Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) April 9, 2016
@mikeryan yeah but there's no realistic way it's the same character. It's a thing they did in the credits. Has to be. — nived (@devincf) April 9, 2016
Perhaps a bit late on Twitter, but Captain America: Civil War is the superheroes fighting superheroes movie we deserve and need right now. — Adam B. Vary (@adambvary) April 9, 2016
CIVIL WAR: This Spider-Man is SPECTACULAR. pic.twitter.com/AUex8LkE9c — Russ Fischer (@russfischer) April 9, 2016
#CaptainAmericaCivilWar was so good!! Spidey and Black Panther ftw! https://t.co/JyfcvAVW1K — Dennis Tzeng (@ThinkHero) April 9, 2016
Now THAT was a movie, superhero or otherwise. — The Rogue Juan (@juanmadpelicula) April 9, 2016
Nobody does action better than the Russo Brothers. I want to see #CivilWar again RIGHT NOW. — The Rogue Juan (@juanmadpelicula) April 9, 2016
And BTW the movie goes dark and it still a fantastic fun time at the movies. #CivilWar — The Rogue Juan (@juanmadpelicula) April 9, 2016
Thrilled to say that Captain America Civil War is a blast. Works great as a |
Cowboys will need to focus their defensive efforts.
Left of Hash Middle of Field Right of Hash 20+ yards downfield Targets 1 4 1 Catches 1 1 0 Yards 21 24 0 QB Rating 118.8 50 39.6 TD's 0 0 0 10-19 yards Targets 0 7 5 Catches 0 5 4 Yards 0 177 101 QB Rating 0 146.4 118.8 TD's 0 1 0 0-9 yards Targets 8 21 3 Catches 8 16 2 Yards 103 163 14 QB Rating 121.9 98.9 77.1 TD's 3 1 0 behind LOS Targets 0 5 0 Catches 0 3 0 Yards 0 13 0 QB Rating 0 64.6 0 TD's 0 0 0
As the table above shows, Welker does some serious damage in the short and intermediate middle, which brings the support of the middle linebackers in question. The Patriots will most likely try to occupy Sean Lee, Keith Brooking and Bradie James with their two-tight ends, leaving Orlando Scandrick and possibly the safeties to try and stop the underneath traffic. Pressure on Tom Brady will be key, but Welker in the left split end position, probably on slants and short-ins, will be a quick read the defense has to prepare for.
It will be an interesting test for this rejuvenated defense.The votes for the TripAdvisor 2014 Travellers’ Choice Islands Awards have been counted… *drum roll*… and we are ecstatic but not at all surprised to reveal that Scotland has managed to pull several awards out of the bag. Lewis and Harris, the northernmost island in the Outer Hebrides, has been crowned the number one island in Europe, followed by Mainland Orkney which comes in at fourth place, and the Isle of Mull in ninth! If that wasn’t enough, Lewis and Harris has also secured a place in the Travellers’ Choice global top ten and won fifth place.
Holding their own against balmy, continental climates and far-flung-tropical beaches, the fantastic performance of these Scottish islands is proof that you don’t have to travel far to find that perfect island escape. In fact, it could be right on your doorstep.
Warebeth Beach at sunset Dun Carloway Broch Isle of Lewis World-class surfing Isle of Lewis Calanais Standing Stones Isle of Lewis Dunyvaig Castle Isle of Islay Loch Scavaig and the Cuillin hills Elgol, Isle of Skye Kyleakin Harbour Isle of Skye The Old Man of Storr Isle of Skye Portree Isle of Skye Tobermory Isle of Mull Highland cattle on the beach by Loch Tuath Isle of Mull Machir Bay Isle of Islay Mull of Oa Isle of Islay Isle of Harris Golf Club Isle of Harris The beach near Luskentyre Isle of Harris The sandy beach at Traigh Iar beach Horgabost, Isle of Harris Brodick Bay Isle of Arran Sea kayaking at Brodick Bay Isle of Arran Machrie Golf Links Isle of Islay Eoropie beach Isle of Lewis
Scotland dominates in TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Islands in the UK with a total of six located north of the border. The Isle of Skye, the Isle of Arran and Islay take fifth, sixth and eighth places respectively in the list of UK winners.
To top it all, a total of six Scottish beaches have been named among the top 25 beaches in the UK at the TripAdvisor 2014 Travellers’ Choice Beaches Awards.
So what is it exactly about Scotland’s islands that makes them so irresistible to travellers? Or rather, what is it about them – according to this recent survey – that keeps visitors coming back for more? Let’s take a closer look…
Lewis and Harris
Together Lewis and Harris make up Scotland’s largest island but they remain distinct in both scenery and character. Lewis with its undulating moorland, endless stretches of beach and monumental sea cliffs offers a landscape seemingly made for mystery and adventure. Marvel at the Calanais Standing Stones, ancient monoliths said to be older that the Pyramids of Giza, get your pulse racing with world-class surfing and abseiling, spot whales and enjoy the best in traditional Scottish music at the Hebridean Celtic Festival.
Best-known as the home of Harris Tweed, Harris has a wild and contrasting landscape of white shell beaches, turquoise waters, imposing hills and jagged peaks. Fantastic fishing, never-ending beaches and the stunning 9-hole golf course at Scarista are just some of the reasons visitors return to this remarkable island time and again. Don’t miss the Harris Tweed Hebrides Tattoo in August!
Orkney Mainland
A vibrant capital, fascinating historic attractions, wonderful wildlife and gorgeous scenery, the Orkney Mainland really does have it all. Home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing incredible Neolithic remains, RSPB reserves where you can observe birdlife at close range, pristine beaches, and a flourishing local arts and crafts scene, Orkney has fantastic discoveries waiting around every corner.
Isle of Mull
Discover a haven on magical Mull, where you can wander along the waterfront of brightly coloured towns such as Tobermory, climb to the summit of Ben More and bag a Munro, and take a guided walk through Glen Seilisdeir to the rare white-tailed sea eagle, the largest bird of prey in Britain.
Isle of Skye
The moment you set foot on Skye you’ll be blown away by its staggering natural beauty. Discover a walker and climber’s wonderland in the Cuillin mountains, explore crumbling brochs and the ruined clan stronghold of Armadale Castle, and see the legendary Fairy Flag at Dunvegan Castle. Travel further back in time to the island’s Jurassic past and marvel at the remarkable rock formations of the Trotternish peninsula, and enjoy a dram at the Talisker Distillery.
Isle of Arran
Fancy an island adventure? Look no further than Arran. Jump on the ferry from Ardrossan to Brodick and in less than an hour you can choose from an astonishing array of outdoor activities on land, in the water and in the air. And, thanks to a government-backed scheme introduced in October 2014, it’s now cheaper than before to travel to Arran by ferry! Try mountain biking, archery, paragliding, sea kayaking, canyoning and more. Perfect your swing on seven golf courses or cycle around the island to discover a place teeming with wildlife and marine life.
Islay
Sometimes referred to as ‘The Queen of the Hebrides’, visitors find themselves unable to resist the charms of this enchanting island. A perfect place to relax and unwind, this little gem has plenty of things to see and do with eight malt whisky distilleries, Machrie Golf Links – a sure contender for one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world – pony trekking and other activities.
If all this hasn’t convinced you to book an island hopping break in Scotland, take a look at Amy’s round-up of what’s on in Scotland’s islands this year for some more inspiration, or check out Sophie’s recommendations for great coastal getaways in the Outer Hebrides and the Highlands.
Start planning your island escape today and find out more about travel and accommodation. And don’t forget to make us jealous with your snaps by sharing them as #brilliantmoments on your preferred social media platform.
Here are this year’s winners listed in full:
Top 10 Islands in Europe
1. Lewis and Harris, Scotland
2. Naxos, Greece
3. Island of Gozo, Malta
4. Mainland, Orkney Islands, Scotland
5. Milos, Greece
6. Cephalonia, Greece
7. Santorini, Greece
8. Island of Capri, Italy
9. Isle of Mull, Scotland
10. Paros, Greece
Top 10 Islands in the World
1. Ambergris Caye, Belize
2. Providenciales, Turks and Caicos
3. Bora Bora, French Polynesia
4. Marco Island, Florida
5. Lewis and Harris, Scotland
6. Naxos, Greece
7. Aitutaki, Cook Islands
8. Nosy Be, Madagascar
9. Easter Island, Chile
10. Ko Tao, Thailand
1. Lewis and Harris, Scotland
2. Mainland, Orkney Islands, Scotland
3. Isle of Mull, Scotland
4. Jersey, Great Britain
5. Isle of Skye, Scotland
6. Isle of Arran, Scotland
7. Isle of Man, Great Britain
8. Islay, Scotland
9. St Mary’s, Isle of Scilly
10. Island of Anglesey, WalesMany scientists, Reed included, have addressed that second question. By carrying out painstaking cross-breeding experiments, and by working out where in the wings various genes are active, they identified a handful of pattern-defining genes, with colorful names like optix, doublesex, and cortex. “It was convincing but we didn’t know exactly what these genes were doing,” says Reed. Without the ability to delete the genes, and see if their absence changed the butterfly wings, “we didn’t have the final proof. There’s been this frustrating wall that I’ve banged my head against.”
CRISPR changed everything. This technique, used by bacteria for billions of years and harnessed by scientists in the last five, allows researchers to cut and edit DNA far more easily and precisely than ever before. As I’ve argued before, the oft-cited concerns that CRISPR will usher in a dystopic era of designer babies are overblown. But scientists are already exploiting it, to do experiments that would have been impossible a decade ago. They’ve used CRISPR to probe the weaknesses of cancer cells, study how bodies are built, and to learn how our feet evolved from fishy fins. And Reed has used it to finally do the gene-deleting experiments that had long eluded him.
By deleting the optix gene in a wide variety of butterflies, team member Linlin Zhang showed that red parts of the wing consistently turn black. The Gulf fritillary transforms from a vivid orange insect into a dark inky one. The small postman loses the vivid red streaks on its hind wings. And the painted lady loses its complex psychedelic patterns and becomes almost monochrome. “They just turn grayscale,” says Reed. “It makes these butterflies look like moths, which is pathetically embarrassing for them.”
These results reveal another side to CRISPR’s power: It’s so versatile that scientists can quickly manipulate the same genes in many species, including those that aren’t standard parts of laboratory life. For years, scientists have relied on a few handfuls of “model systems”—species that they can easily breed, study, and manipulate in laboratories. But CRISPR “fully unlocks butterflies as a model system,” says Wei Zhang from the University of Chicago, who published the first study that used the technique on butterflies.
These butterfly experiments reveal evolution’s penchant for both conformity and innovation. For example, optix does the same thing in species that have been separated by at least 80 million years of evolution. “It acts like a color/grayscale switch across the whole wing—quite incredible,” says Chris Jiggins from the University of Cambridge. But different species deploy it in different ways to produce their own distinctive patterns. If optix is a paintbrush, then other genes act as the painter’s hands, determining where the brush will go, and yet other genes act as the paints, determining which colors the brush eventually lays down. All of this can be easily rewired, producing a wide kaleidoscope of patterns from the same basic toolkit.Share This On Your Site
<a href=”https://onlinemastersinpublichealth.com/breeding-nutrition/”><img src=”https://www.onlinemastersinpublichealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/breedingnutritionout.jpg” width=”500″></a><br /><br /><br /><br />
<br />Source: <a href=”https://onlinemastersinpublichealth.com/”>Online Masters In Public Health</a></br>
Breeding the nutrition out of food
Our foods have lost many of the illness-fighting properties they once had. That’s where the nutriterians come in.
Vegetarians= don’t eat meat.
Vegans= don’t eat animal derived products.
Flexitarians= eat some meat.
Pescatarians= eat seafood but not other meats.
Raw foodists= don’t eat cooked food.
Nutriterians=choose foods based on their nutrient content, particularly phytonutrients.
–Phytonutrients–[1]
Compounds in our foods with the potential to reduce chances of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dementia.
To put that into perspective:
That’s four of the top seven leading causes of death[2]
(1) Cardiovascular disease
(2) Cancer
(6) Alzheimer’s
(7) Diabetes
[if you want to highlight these against the entire list. Missing runs (3)lower respiratory disease;(4) Stroke;(5)Accidents;(8)nephritis;(9)Influenze and Pnumonia; (10)Suicide]
That we can prevent.
Not through rocket science.
Or invasive surgeries.
Or crazy exercise or dieting.
Just by eating well.
In the past, people didn’t live as long.
But they also didn’t die as regularly of degenerative illnesses. [comment# a background of over the top Eden like/peaceful native american scenes would be a nice touch to begin this story of the decline of phytonutrients.]
The problem: our supermarkets don’t stock phytonutrient-rich food. In fact, we don’t even farm many of the foods at all.
10,000 years ago foraging for food was common.
Over time we’ve weeded out varients that don’t taste good. Leaving us with sweet but phytonutrient-poor foods.
We’ve literally bred the nutrients out of our foods.
Case study: corn
Teosinte: 2% sugar, 30% protein. Hard to eat, only 4-5 kernals in a hard shell.[3][1]
Natural/heirloom varieties:
[mg’s of phytonutrients per 100 grams of dried product]
Blue corn: 99.5
Purple corn: 93.2
Red:85.2
Canned/in stores
Yellow: 70.2
White/sweet: 1.54
Case study: apples
[number is total milligrams of phylonutrients per liter of juice]
Natural varieties:
Sikkim crab apple: 7,181
Siberian crab apple: 4,606
Cultivated:
Gala: 210
Granny smith: 205
Fuji: 142
Red Delicious: 108
Golden Delicious: 71
Ginger Gold: 15
Phytonutrient-rich plants are usually sour, astringant, or bitter tasting. Leading to decreased consumption over time.
How to spot a phytonutrient:
———————————————–
By color: [4]
It’s common knowledge. But 8/10 Americans don’t eat enough “color.”[6]
This is why you should “eat the rainbow.”
Carotenoids: red, yellow, orange
–Antioxidents
Ellagic Acid: reds to purple: strawberries, raspberries, pomegranetes
–Cancer fighting
Flavonoids: Variety: citrus fruits, green tea, onions.
–Reduces risk of ashthma, heart disease, cancer.
Resveratrol: Purple: grapes, red wine, purple grape juice.
–Extends life span. Antioxident and anti-inflammatory.
Glucosinolates: Green: Kale, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts.
–Cancer preventing.
Phytoestrogens: Black, brown: soy, seseme seeds, flaxseeds.
–Estrogen mimicking, lowers bone loss in women, lowers risk of endometrial cancer.
———————————————–
By commonly sold food:
Wild Dandelions have 7x the phytonutrients that spinach “superfood” does. But you don’t have to go foraging to protect yourself.[1]
Top 10 commonly eaten vegetables[5]
[by phytonutrient density: 1,000= max]
[might want to provide estimate of “wild dandelions” at 5000+, it is just an estimate, however, as the scale only goes to 1k]
1.) Cooked mustard greens: 1,000
2.)Raw watercress: 1,000
3.)Cooked Kale: 1,000
4.)Cooked turnip greens: 1,000
5.)Cooked collard greens: 1,000
6.)Cooked bok choy: 824
7.)Raw spinach: 739
8.)Cooked spinach: 697
9.)Brussel sprouts: 672
10.)Swiss chard: 670
Wild dandelion estimate (specific): 5721 [7][5]
Top 10 commonly eaten fruits[5]
1.)Strawberries: 212
2.)Pomegranate juice: 193
3.)Plums: 158
4.)Raspberries: 145
5.)Blueberries: 130
6.)Oranges: 109
7.)Grapefruit: 102
8.)Cantaloupe: 100
9.)Kiwi: 97
10.)Watermelon: 91
Estimate for wild Aronia berries (chokeberries): 2000
[5][7]
Other foods[5]
1.) Hot Dogs: 8
2.)Cream cheese: 5
3.) Soft drinks:.5
————————————————-
By commonly found foods you can forage!
Wild Carrots (particularly purple)
Watercress
Wild Onions
Wild Dandelions
Crabapples
————————————————-
The nutrients have been bred out of many commonly eaten foods. Take you time to to find the disease fighting phytonutrients that are still out there.
citations
1.)http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/breeding-the-nutrition-out-of-our-food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp&
2.)http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm
3.)http://susanprincenaturalwellness.com/tag/phytonutrients/
4.)http://www.webmd.com/diet/phytonutrients-faq
5.)http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15235103
6.)http://blog.naturalhealthyconcepts.com/2013/04/16/5-colors-of-phytonutrients-you-should-eat-every-day-infographic/
7.)http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/26/sunday-review/26corn-ch.html?ref=sundayPeople play a parlour game in which the participants say to which period and place in the world they would travel if they had the use of a time machine and why they would go there. My choices are all relatively dull, as they all have to do with the history of science; I would for example want to go back to Cambridge University in the first half of the 19th century. This is the Cambridge of Woodhouse and Peacock who created the concept of abstract algebra and thereby set the ball rolling for the birth of the British school of algebra and the development of the non-standard algebras such as Hamilton’s quaternions, Boole’s algebra of logic, Cayley’s matrix algebra and Clifford’s algebras. This is the Cambridge of the Analytical Society a group of young mathematicians who fought to get the moribund fluxions of Isaac Newton replaced with the continental analysis in the curriculum and who would go on to found the Cambridge Philosophical Society one of whose journals, The Cambridge Mathematical Journal, was the first English language academic journal devoted exclusively to mathematics. This is the Cambridge that played a central role in the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, set up to challenged the encrusted dominance of The Royal Society. This is the Cambridge that sent Charles Darwin off around the world on the Beagle and heaved George Boole onto the chair of mathematics at the newly created Queen’s College Cork although he was entirely self-taught and had never attended a university himself. And this is also the Cambridge of the last generation of larger than life British polymaths such as George Airy, Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Augustus De Morgan and William Whewell who were all friends and all of whom were involved in one or more of the activities listed above.
William Whewell (24th May 1794 – 6th March 1866) was the son of a master carpenter from Lancaster whose prodigious abilities in mathematics saved him from having to follow the trade of his father and earned him various grants and subsidies that made it possible for him to enter Trinity College Cambridge as a sub-sizar in October 1812. A sub-sizar is a student who is excused from paying fees in return for which he is required to work as a servant to his fellow more affluent students. Isaac Newton also entered Trinity as a sub-sizar.
Trinity would be his home for the next fifty-four years, a working class lad from up north who spoke funny he had a difficult start in Cambridge but it says much about his character and his abilities that he rose to become Master of Trinity and as such the most powerful man in the University. Whewell studied mathematics and graduated in 1816 as second wrangler and second Smith Prizeman. The Cambridge mathematical Tripos (bachelor’s degree) was a competitive exam with those obtaining first class honours being called wranglers; Herschel and Airy were both Senior or First Wrangler, De Morgan Fourth and Babbage did not take his degree but was awarded an honorary one without examination. During his studies Whewell also won awards for Latin declamation and writing English poetry. He won a fellowship at Trinity in 1817 and was appointed mathematics lecturer and assistant tutor in 1818 and full tutor in 1823. Within the Cambridge system maths tutors played an important role as they prepared the students for the competitive Tripos exams.
If Whewell is known today it is as the author of his two monumental works on the history and philosophy of science but he was much more than that producing academic work in a bewildering breadth of disciplines. William Whewell was the number one Victorian polymath. John Herschel, who wrote prolifically on an extraordinary wide range of subjects, said of his good friend Whewell:
… a more wonderful variety and amount of knowledge in almost every department of human inquiry was perhaps never in the same interval of time accumulated by any man.
Not all regarded this diversity so positively, Sydney Smith, Anglican divine and English author, who was famous for his biting quips, he once summed up English 18th century epistemology thus “Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737”, said of Whewell:
Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible.
Leslie Stephen, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography and father of Virginia Woolf, wrote in his biographical essay on Whewell:
Whewell began as a man of science but then scarcely became a philosopher.
Michael Ruse titled his contributory essay to a collective biography of Whewell (see below), “Whewell: Omniscientist”.
So what exactly did Whewell do to garner all of these comments? As already mentioned Whewell started his career as a maths teacher and his first academic contribution was in the form of maths and physics textbooks introducing the continental analytical methods into the Cambridge curriculum. These books became standard works and enjoyed several new editions. Cambridge boasted eight professorial chairs at the beginning of Whewell’s working life and in 1832 he was elected Professor of Mineralogy. After having taught himself the basic of geology and mineralogy with the help of his friend Adam Sedgwick Whewell preceded to reform the basic principles of the subject providing in his publications a nomenclature, a taxonomy and a simple mathematical foundation for mineralogy which dominated the subject for the rest of the century. Having done his work he then resigned the professorship after only four years. During this time Whewell used his clout as a professor to introduce reforms in the university in the teaching of anatomy and chemistry.
During the same period Whewell established himself as an expert on the history of architecture applying his mathematical skills to the analysis of the developments that led to the appearance of Gothic Architecture in Europe and championing the Gothic revival in Victorian England. As another historian disproved one of his theories Whewell displayed his true scientific spirit, “No one can rejoice more than myself to find what I have put forward superseded by the complete labours and sounder views of persons who may bring … more leisure talent, and research”.
Always seeking new fields of endeavour Whewell moved on to economics applying his mathematical talents to demonstrate that the theories of economists, such as David Ricardo, with whom he disagreed were in fact not viable and when examined mathematically led to nonsense. His economic theories were guided by his moral beliefs, which were deeply Christian. Whewell was an ordained priest and author of the first Bridgewater Treatise in which he presented his views on natural theology, a theological standpoint particularly prevalent in Britain in the 18th and 19th century in an attempt to reconcile Christian belief and modern science.*
In the 1830 Whewell together with the young mathematician John William Lubbock embarked on his largest scientific project his attempt to mathematically capture the ebb and flow of the tides. Lubbock a rich banker would later rent the land to Charles Darwin on which he constructed the Sandwalk. Whewell who coined many of the words that we use today in science named the scientific study of the tides tidology a discipline that he and Lubbock basically created. Collecting and analysing data of tidal flows from all over the world they tried to determine the cotidal lines for the whole world. That is lines connecting all points in the world that simultaneously have high or low tide. This ambitious project failed but they received the Royal Medal for their work and the data collected and the analysis proved invaluable for later researches in the field.
Parallel to his tidal studies Whewell took up the largest project of his life, his three volume History of the Inductive Sciences (1st ed. 1837) and the two volume The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Founded upon their History (1st ed. 1840); the two works together in their finally editions run to more than 2800 pages. The History was on the whole well received, although when praised by Darwin it evoked the response from the naturalist Robert Brown, “Yes I suppose that he has read the prefaces of very many books”. The Philosophy, however, was almost universally rejected. Since the middle of the 17th century the dominant stream in English philosophy of science was empirical a tradition with which Whewell broke. Whewell replaced Locke’s tabla rasa mind which created theories from collected empirical facts for a Kantian concept by which theories are form by a union of ideas from the mind with the collected facts. This did no go down well with his contemporaries and his philosophy became buried under the juggernaut of John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science.
In 1841 Whewell was appointed Master of Trinity a position that he held up till his death. In the role he was much occupied as an administrator and educationalist. He carried out both tasks very conscientiously reforming and modernising many aspects of the university curriculum. Earlier in 1838 he took up the last of his academic directions when he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy. As with all his other subjects Whewell reformed and reorganised laid new foundations and gave the discipline a new direction to carry it into the future.
Not content to be a mathematician, physicist, geologist, mineralogist, theologian, historian of architecture, economist, educationalist, historian and philosopher of science, tidologist, and moral philosopher Whewell was an avid book reviewer, translator and annotator of Plato, poet and translator of German poetry. He also coined many terms used by scientist in their work; for the geologists he created the terms uniformitarianism and catastrophism to characterise the two sides in the debate raging in the discipline in his day, for his friend Michael Faraday he coined the terms anode and cathode and for the scientific community the terms scientist and physicist. He appears to have been a man for whom the day had much more than just 24 hours. A keen horseman he died as the result of a riding accident in 1866, 72 years old and a towering figure in Victorian intellectual circles.
For all of his reforming zeal as a scientist and as an educationalist one would be mistaken in assuming that Whewell was in anyway a radical. Deeply religious and stock conservative he rejected the theory of evolution, supporting his friend Richard Owen in his opposition to Darwin. Whewell could conceive of an evolution for brute animal but not for human beings who were the unique creation of God. For the same reason one of the books amongst his extraneous publications, of which there were many, laid down the reasons why it was impossible for any other planet in the Universe to be inhabited.
At the beginning I introduced Whewell as one of a group of Cambridge polymaths, there were also others that I did not name, all of these left their mark on the history of science and are at least for the well educated and well read well known names. In this age of the computer Babbage is honoured as one of the great pioneers, De Morgan’s name is firmly attached to the laws that form a central part of the Boolean algebra that is so essential to those computers, Herschel like his father is remembered as one of the giants of astronomy and Airy as one of the giants of physics. Although he made significant contributions to many areas of academic endeavour Whewell failed to produce the big break in any field of science and the rejection of his philosophy in his own lifetime meant that when he died, although honoured, he slipped into obscurity. However the 1950s and 1960s saw a sea change in the philosophy of science with Hanson, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and others insisting that philosophy of science must be based on its history. Slowly people began to remember a strange Victorian polymath who had made the same claim more that 100 years earlier and so William Whewell has at least in HPOS circles found the renown that was denied him in his own times.
* A good short introduction to natural theology is Jonathan R. Topham, Natural Theology and the Sciences, in The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion ed. Peter Harrison, CUP, Cambridge 2010, pp 59 – 79.
For those that wish to learn more about Whewell there are articles online at Wikipedia, MacTutor and The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For those who prefer there reading matter printed on paper there are William Whewell articles by:
Robert Blanché in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy ed. Paul Edwards Vol. 8 pp 288 – 289
Robert E. Butts in The Dictionary of Scientific Biography ed. Charles Gillispie Vol. 14 pp 292 – 295.
Richard Yeo in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Vol.?(somewhere I’ve lost the effing title page!) pp 463 – 470
A longer modern biography is Menachem Fisch and Simon Schaffer eds. William Whewell: A Composite Portrait, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. (Including thaz essay by Michael Ruse)
A 19th century biography with lots of Whewell’s letters (he was also a prolific letter writer) is Mrs Stair Douglas, The Life and Correspondence of William Whewell, D.D., C. Kegan Paul & Co., London 1881, reprinted Thomes, Bristol, 1991.
His philosophy of science is discussed in Menachem Fisch, William Whewell, Philosopher of Science, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.
1991 was a good year for our Whilly!
If you really want to get the feel of the man then read his big history and philosophy of science volumes they’re actually very readable!
If any of my co-contributors or any readers have any objections, corrections or additions to the above please write them in the comments they are more than welcome.Search Gallery Pokemon Sword and Shield Ry-Spirit 873 Everybody Loves Sora - Sneaky Pic Ry-Spirit 577 Quest 2: Rescue Puffluff Ry-Spirit 675 Everybody Loves Sora - Power of Waking Ry-Spirit 668 Everybody Loves Sora - Beautiful Ry-Spirit 731 Art vs Artist 2019 Ry-Spirit 591 Everybody Loves Sora - Hi-Potion Ry-Spirit 1,448 I made a art Ry-Spirit 589 Ry the Keeper Character Card Ry-Spirit 364 Emiry Character Card Ry-Spirit 258 Life of Ry - The Countdown Ry-Spirit 557 Life of Ry - Christmas Gift Ry-Spirit 780 #103 Ballaf - #104 Olaf - #105 Snowlaugh Ry-Spirit 622 #100 Spotless - #101 Dalmatian - #102 Splot Ry-Spirit 1,086 #097 Calhoun 64 - #098 Calhoun - #099 Calculator Ry-Spirit 826 #094 Felix 64 - #095 Felix - #096 Super Felix Ry-Spirit 805 #091 Vanellope 64 - #092 Vanellope - #093 Virus Ry-Spirit 1,272 Artistic nood Ry-Spirit 457 #088 Ralph 64 - #089 Ralph - #090 Wrecky Kong Ry-Spirit 1,009 #085 Pee-Wee - #086 Pete - #087 Saltpeter Ry-Spirit 782 #082 Osmol - #083 Oswald - #084 Oswole Ry-Spirit 826 Courage and Wisdom Ry-Spirit 1,391 #079 Flubs - #080 Flubber - #081 Flubbest Ry-Spirit 819 Newt Salamander Ry-Spirit 1,264CHILDREN sit with straight backs chanting in loud voices from the Dizi Gui, a classic Chinese text about obedience. At the end of class they bow low to an image of Confucius, hands clasped as if in prayer. A statue of the ancient sage watches over the playground, too: “Study the Dizi Gui, be a good Chinese,” reads a red banner. At the Zhengde summer camp in Jinan, in the eastern province of Shandong, children as young as five spend their day reciting verses, learning tai chi and watching cartoons with moral messages. Phones are banned “to prevent contamination of the mind”, says Yi Shugui, the headmaster, a former management consultant. At similar summer schools across China children learn calligraphy, traditional Chinese crafts and how to play ancient instruments. China is undergoing a cultural renaissance, much of it government-sponsored.
For most of its history the Communist Party wanted to smash China’s past, not celebrate it. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s it sought to overturn the “four olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Temples, mansions and tombstones were ravaged, along with any artefacts or people associated with the bourgeois way of life. Small wonder that Communist ideology lost its appeal. The blistering pace of change in recent decades has kindled an anxiety that China is suffering from moral decay and a concomitant yearning for a revival of ancient values. The government is harnessing those feelings, using ancient rites and customs to spread favoured values.
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Since coming to power in 2012 Xi Jinping, the president, has intensified efforts to build what he refers to as “cultural confidence”. In an extraordinary denial of its legacy, the Communist Party has taken to presenting itself as “the faithful heir” of traditional Chinese culture. “Our civilisation has developed in an unbroken line from ancient to modern times,” Mr Xi declared in 2012. In January the government sought to codify its attempts to “preserve” traditional culture by outlining a vast array of policies that local and national officials should advance.
Individual elements of the policy to promote “the integration of leisure life and traditional cultural development” sound rather benign. Taken together, however, they constitute an attempt to infuse daily life with a sanitised and government-sanctioned version of Chinese culture. The intention, as in so much that Mr Xi does, is to secure the enduring power of the Communist Party.
The agenda touches every aspect of life. The white paper calls for an emphasis on “our festivals”, so local and national holidays are being celebrated with new vigour. Some people are proposing that China should pick its own Mother’s Day, rather than copy the American date (China already has a native version of Valentine’s Day). State media are boosting the use of Chinese medicine when people fall ill, wearing Han robes when they get married, and keeping fit by practising tai chi and other ancient sports (a recent viral video lauds “Kung Fu Granny”, a 94-year-old who reckons she owes her longevity partly to such activities). The party is trying to bend popular culture to its agenda, too. On August 5th it announced plans to replace prime-time entertainment and reality TV shows that “hype” pop stars with programmes of higher “moral” content. Examples include a much-plugged quiz show about classical poetry and another in which children compete to write complicated Chinese characters.
The great call
Every part of society is being pressed into the effort. Zhengde is emblematic of a wider plan to influence Chinese youth, what the People’s Daily refers to as a “soul-casting project”, by introducing new school textbooks and degree programmes relating to ancient culture. Employers are encouraged to take their staff on study trips and provide classes on culture. Even the People’s Liberation Army has been told to seek courage from a lion-hearted hero of ancient China. So, either by directive or a desire to please officialdom, every art form is being given a Chinese twist: “King of Glory”, a popular game for mobile phones, features a famous eighth-century poet, Li Bai, albeit as an assassin, not a calling there is |
’ mother, Laura Rios, has stated repeatedly that the family wants to know what happened the night of her son’s death – a request repeated at a press conference outside of the family’s home announcing the lawsuit. Queried multiple times on the shooting by Truthout, the Chicago Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. The City of Chicago Department of Law likewise did not offer comment to media after the suit was announced.
Speaking at length with Truthout, by way of an interpreter, Laura Rios said, “It all feels so wrong. I’m mad about what they did to my child. There has to be some justice. I want justice and to know the truth. That’s all I want. That’s all my husband wants.”
“We will never forget him.”
Truthout’s four-part investigative series, tracking the shooting of Pedro Rios Jr. and public agencies responsible for Chicago Police Department oversight will resume next week.Ternary operator associativity
The ternary operator is left-associative and therefore behaves entirely incorrectly:
$ cat ternary.php <?php echo (FALSE? "a" : FALSE? "b" : "c")."
"; echo (FALSE? "a" : TRUE? "b" : "c")."
"; echo (TRUE? "a" : FALSE? "b" : "c")."
"; echo (TRUE? "a" : TRUE? "b" : "c")."
";?> $ php ternary.php c b b b
In any other language with a ternary operator, you can stack them and build an if-elseif-elseif-else expression:
$ cat ternary.pl #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; print +(0? "a" : 0? "b" : "c")."
"; print +(0? "a" : 1? "b" : "c")."
"; print +(1? "a" : 0? "b" : "c")."
"; print +(1? "a" : 1? "b" : "c")."
"; $ perl ternary.pl c b a a
$ cat ternary.c #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("%s
", 0? "a" : 0? "b" : "c"); printf("%s
", 0? "a" : 1? "b" : "c"); printf("%s
", 1? "a" : 0? "b" : "c"); printf("%s
", 1? "a" : 1? "b" : "c"); } $ gcc -o ternary ternary.c;./ternary c b a aImagine you are sitting at a game, thousands of screaming fans all around you, your face eagerly pressed against the glass waiting for the puck to drop. With next to no time left on the clock your team has to win the faceoff and score to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. You hold your breath, and will your eyes to stay open. The puck drops. ‘We won the drop!’ Quick pass to the forward who just peeled around from behind. You see it, he sees it, an opening. He pulls his stick back and lays into the puck with a thunderous crack. The buzzer echoes throughout the building as the crowd goes bananas. You cheer and dance up and down in pure jubilation, turning to the person next to you to give them a high five… and then you laugh because you completely forgot you were wearing your virtual reality headset the whole time.
Earlier this month the NBA made it clear that virtual reality was going to be a huge part of their future plans and it appears that the NHL is looking to follow suit. UploadVR has learned the NHL is working with NextVR – a virtual reality company that specializes in live streamed 360-degree 3D video content, to film test footage of its games as the league begins its exploration into the new medium.
The shoot, which was the second the NHL has done, featured a game between the LA Kings and the San Jose Sharks this past weekend at Levi Stadium in San Jose as part of the 2015 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series. Using a pair of cameras, one 180-degree camera placed behind the glass near the end zone faceoff circle and one 360-degree camera placed in the stands, NextVR captured the Kings 2-1 victory over the Sharks. The shoot included a live streamed VR transmission of the game directly from the ice, in 3D.
The NHL, like the NBA, believes that virtual reality will provide fans with never before possible access to sporting events, bringing them so close they are a part of the action, not just watching it. Sports broadcasting in VR has the massive potential to be one of the ‘killer apps,’ and could be a major draw in getting people to adopt the technology at a mass scale. This is because virtual reality adds so much more to the medium of sports broadcasting than any other technology has before it.
Those who followed 3D TV’s rise and fall in the sports world may find those words familiar, as that was supposed to be the next great technology for sports broadcasting. Years and copious amounts of wasted ESPN dollars since, that promise has come up empty, but VR looks to have a different result. DJ Roller, NextVR’s Co-Founder, knows a lot about the 3D debacle, having filmed the first ever live 3D sports broadcast (the 2007 NBA All-Star Game). According to Roller “3D TV wasn’t quite immersive… the user experience was only ¼ of the full 3D resolution,” because the playback resolution was being pumped back through the traditional broadcast infrastructure (which was designed to deliver to one eye, not two, which is double the resolution) this resulted in images that not only didn’t add much to the experience but lead to eyestrain and were shown on screens far too small to create a feeling of immersion. Roller continues though, “our VR technology provides size, scale and depth where 3D TV only provides depth – bringing you closer to feeling like you are there,” a measured improvement over the original 3D TV experience.
Immersion without quality, however, is something that is a big struggle right now for the live action VR video space. Quality is especially important for sports where HDTV has improved the experience exponentially allowing for viewers to easily see the ball/puck and the faces of the players. That is an experience that is a baseline requirement for most viewers, and even the coolest immersive sports experience will quickly lose its novelty after a while if you are sacrificing one’s ability to actually see the action. This is a problem that Roller and NextVR are well aware of and have worked tirelessly to overcome. “One of the things I’m most proud of,” says Roller, “is that you are able to follow the puck in the VR live stream, this was really important to us.” Accomplishing that is no small feat, as it is often difficult to spot details like a fast moving puck with the current hardware we have to shoot and view VR content.
For most setups the resolution simply is not up to par and the lack of 3D is ultimately distracting as you end up feeling you are in a bubble with images projected on the walls. Roller believes that “3D should be a baseline requirement for VR video,” it is simply something we should expect of the medium because it is required for immersion, “you wouldn’t bring a 2D game to Oculus,” he says.
It’s not just best practices that give NextVR an edge for sports broadcasting, it’s their technology as well. One of the reasons that live streamed VR content is hard is because most setups require the use of a process called stitching where the images from multiple cameras are ‘stitched’ together to create a cohesive image. This is a process that takes both time and effort and if not executed perfectly can lead to presence-breaking ‘seams’ in the image. According to Co-Founder and CTO Dave Cole, NextVR avoids this process altogether. NextVR’s camera “senses the geometry of the world as a wireframe,” which allows it to then map the video directly to that frame creating a near-seamless 180/360 image.
This is not NextVR’s first foray into the sports world, nor will it be its last. According to Roller, the company is “talking to every major sports league” about VR involvement and the response has been great. The company previously worked with the NBA to film a preseason match between the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers in Rio de Janeiro last year. NextVR has been showing off that footage at trade shows including at the NBA’s Annual Technology Summit, but has not yet announced when it will be doing its first public live streamed piece of VR content. According to Roller however, that should be coming “very soon.”
Honestly, it couldn’t come soon enough. As Roller told me, “when you place someone somewhere they could never buy a ticket for, that is pretty compelling content.” That is what is at the heart of the magic behind this technology, enabling ordinary people to have extraordinary experiences. The ability to sit courtside at an NBA game, glass-side at an NHL game, or be on the sidelines at an NFL game is one that should excite any sports fan, the future is now.Callers Threaten Rockville High
UPDATED Rockville High School — the site where a 14-year-old girl allegedly was raped — received two telephone threats Wednesday, Montgomery County officials said.
In an email, MCPS spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala said the callers threatened to bring guns to shoot illegal immigrants.
One threat came about noon and the other about 1:30 p.m., Montgomery County police Officer Rick Goodale said.
Rockville High parents were called to a PTSA meeting Tuesday night where officials addressed parents concerned over the rape.
“Detectives following up on it,” he said. “They’re certainly looking at the events that unfolded last week as the reason for the threats today. But they’re not ruling anything out.”
The principal, Billie-Jean Benson, asked police to come to the school.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story described the threats as bomb threats based on police and school system officials comments. After the story was published, a spokesperson for the school district said the callers did not make bomb threats.TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
One of the first lines in The Fault In Our Stars, which is narrated by a teenage girl named Hazel Grace, is: “Depression is a side effect of dying.” It’s an introduction to the character—she’s got cancer, she thinks about dying a lot, and she’s kind of dealing with it and kind of over it, to the point that she can crack a bleak joke about depression and dying in one sentence.
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What’s interesting is that the statement has some bias built in: It implies that depression offers clarity into the human condition—something more real, more reliable, more logical.
There’s a term for this: depressive realism, a psychological hypothesis introduced in 1979 that suggested that maybe the reason certain people suffer from depression is because they’re able to see the world more clearly, without the bias of optimism. It’s a dark interpretation of the disease—and one that has been challenged quite a bit in the psychological community. But its particular insidious appeal, I think, is that depressive realism follows the logic of depression itself—this pessimism is the only sensible way to look at the world.
A few weeks ago, Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson introduced the idea that The Leftovers serves, at least in part, as an examination of depression. That seems more relevant than ever in tonight’s episode, “Cairo,” which tells the story of how Jill Garvey, a teenage girl like Hazel, ends up joining the Guilty Remnant. There’s other stuff happening in this episode, but “Cairo” feels like Jill’s episode. This is the first time her struggle has felt important and real. And what it feels like is a struggle with depression.
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That gets broad very quickly, because Jill’s attempt to handle the truth of the disappearance is similar to the rest of the Guilty Remnant, who have all chosen a pretty bleak and empty way of life as a way to handle this. It seems reductive to hypothesize that the Guilty Remnant is a cult of depression—but at the same time, they embody the despair of the disease so totally that the cult has become broad manifestation of depression as a way of life. Even their logic for joining and believing in what they do, as Patti summarizes at the end of “Cairo,” is sort of like depressive realism—it’s a seductive line of reasoning, but something seems a little off about it.
This is my favorite so far of the episodes of The Leftovers that aren’t about the Jamison siblings, and that might only be because I feel like this lens of depression and despair has helped me understand what the story is trying to tell us. After the first time I watched “Cairo,” I watched it again, looking for the seeds of Jill’s decision to knock on the door of the Guilty Remnant. And what it essentially boils down to is a continued use of the terms “okay” and “not okay.” Jill isn’t upset that her dad is maybe sleeping with Amy or Nora Durst or anyone else; she’s upset that he might move from being broken to being okay. Maybe because that means he, and everyone else, is leaving her behind in the land of not-okay. And maybe because she just believes that nothing should ever be okay again.
I mentioned in the first few weeks of reviewing this show that the teenagers’ behavior seemed unnecessarily nihilistic. As I’ve gotten to know them—and as their group has started to splinter—that fact makes more and more sense. Some of this group of teens is in it for the shits and giggles—and some are stuck in an ocean of loss and sadness. The twins kind of get it, when they break into Nora’s house with Jill, looking for the gun—and of course, they phrase it all in “okay”/“not-okay” terms: “If the lady who lost her family is lying about the gun, then like, nothing can ever be okay again.” The other twin digests this, and then follows up with another question: “Do you think Aimee is really fucking Garvey’s dad?” “Probably,” the other replies. “Dude is ripped.”
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Aimee, like Jill, came into sharp focus in “Cairo,” too. She gets Jill’s whole thing even more than the twins. “It is possible to be okay, Jill,” she says, as the two are smoking a joint in the park next to the gazebo. “Are you okay, Aimee?” Jill asks, sarcastically. Aimee’s response cuts Jill to the quick—pretty much everyone is on their way to okay, or could be okay, if Jill would just let them be okay. And Jill’s response is really telling—she asks if Aimee is fucking her dad. (Side note: I think it’s canny of the show to leave this plot point ambiguous, right now. It doesn’t matter whether or not Aimee and Kevin slept together; it matters that Jill is asking about it right now.) Aimee’s response is kind of brilliant; a snapped-off send-up of Jill’s bitterness. She says she has, because she, and Kevin, aren’t okay and will never be okay and what’s the point of pretending? “So I fucked the shit out of him on a pile of guns.” Which is the equivalent of saying: Am I not-okay enough for you, Jill? Aimee walks away in tears. Jill is so far gone that she doesn’t seem to feel much of anything.
What I found ambiguous is the moment in Nora’s house where Jill finds the gun. Nora didn’t lie, at the dinner at Kevin’s house: She had a gun, and now she doesn’t need it to feel okay. On one hand, she does still have it. On the other hand, she’s clearly put it away, with the other remnants of her old life: Under the bed in the missing children’s room, in a box for a game called Trouble. So is she okay, or not okay? What was Jill looking for proof of? I’m not sure. But what she did is almost exactly what the Guilty Remnant is always trying to do: refresh the pain of the loss. She uncovers the wound and puts it out in the open, so that it can’t quite heal. It’s no wonder she ended up at their door; their mission is the only mission she’s going to understand.
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Of all of the plot developments in The Leftovers, Jill showing up at the Guilty Remnant is the most fascinating—it carries with it equal possibility for pain and for triumph. We’ve seen Laurie and Jill both struggle with missing each other while trying to navigate the hellscape of life after October 14. Now they’re both in the same place, something is going to happen.
What also interested me about the portion of “Cairo” that deals with the Guilty Remnant is that while it seems to be structurally enforcing some crucial aspects of depression—like being silent, and slowly killing yourself, and making despair a lifestyle choice—clearly everyone within it isn’t just depressed. I think that just as The Leftovers introduced a massive, unexplained disappearance to explore loss, it uses the Guilty Remnant as a cult/movement that explores depression. And maybe varying stages or levels of it—Patti, Laurie, Meg, and now Jill are very different people. (It’s striking, too, that all of the characters we’ve come to know in the Guilty Remnant are women—and most have related to each other in a mother/daughter dynamic. Patti and Laurie, Laurie and Meg, Patti and Meg, Laurie and Jill.) Meg, in particular, is looking ready to blow something up—though maybe it’s just her own place in the Remnant, and nothing else of consequence. Where the rest of the Remnant has embraced the despair that’s the cult’s mission, Meg is angry, and that’s not something that fits in with them. It’s shocking in “Cairo” to see her talk so much in that empty house, and to provoke Laurie so much that Laurie cracks her a slap across the face. Meg isn’t chastened, as that last lingering shot on her face indicates. She’s happy she got a rise out of Laurie. I hope that’s going to go somewhere interesting, too.
Kevin’s story this week is a bit less moving than Jill’s but more allegorically charged. It’s less infuriating than it might be, introducing the fact that Kevin has memory blackouts, because looking back at the last several episodes, Kevin losing his memory for stretches at a time is the only thing that really explains his behavior. And now that we know he was taking a bunch of anti-anxiety pills and sleeping pills? It seems highly feasible that he’d be blacking out on the regular.
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The question is: Who is he when he’s blacked out? He’s a more violent version of himself—he kidnapped Patti on a semi-dare. He’s a version of himself who has some kind of mission, some vague sense of a plan. He also seems to be enacting the same kind of ritual each time—going out to Cairo, hanging his shirt up, kicking off his boots.
Memory loss is a significant event for this show—a show so invested in excavating loss, with characters who build their whole lives around re-experiencing that loss. And as soon as Kevin gets to Cairo, everything that happens to him feels like a fairy tale. It’s like he’s touched by some magic for being able to forget anything at all—and now he’s gone through to the spirit world to talk to both his good angel and his bad angel, except they’re neither of them very good at giving advice, and ultimately, they both want the same thing.
Just in case that sounds totally out of nowhere, last week Jill’s interest in the fridge is pulled straight out of shamanistic ritual—sensory deprivation as a route to communing with the spirit world, in particular. (This is a messy discussion of it, along with some other shamanic practices; this is the foundational text of the field.) The darkness and confinement of the fridge offers a coffin-like, death-like experience, and the idea is that when the seeker emerges, they’ll have an understanding of the spirit world, or of life after death. Kevin’s memory loss falls into the same category, I think—in this case, there’s a part of Kevin that he literally can’t access because it’s literally in his dreams, in that, he has to go through his dreams to get to this other side of himself.
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And that is a layer built on top of the fundamentally religious symbolism of Kevin being tempted by a man who calls himself a guardian angel, and then wrestling with that man to try to assert his own willpower. There’s a lot to potentially interpret from the struggle, before Patti kills herself—what I saw was that Patti and the man with the truck presented themselves to Kevin as the good angel and the bad angel that both sat on his shoulders and offered advice (Patti’s wearing white; the man is wearing a flannel shirt that is at least partly red). But when push came to shove, both of them wanted the same thing—the opposition between them was a performance enacted for Kevin’s benefit. Weirdly, some part of Kevin also wanted to kill Patti—after all, he sleepwalk-dragged her out to the cabin. But he doesn’t do it. And The Leftovers doesn’t present his abstinence like a moment of triumph for his soul, or anything—it’s just a choice made within a context of a lot of pressures, and it’s hard to tell whether or not Kevin has accomplished anything here at all.
Especially because, when Kevin doesn’t kill her, she does the job herself. Patti recites some poetry about rest, passionately defends the Guilty Remnant’s ideology, and then punctures her own throat with a glass knife, so that she might be remembered as Gladys is remembered. And though it’s a remarkable send-off for Ann Dowd, it’s not really clear why Patti is doing what she’s doing—unless the whole point was to evoke the Pieta in the last shot, as Kevin is cradling her body.
My guess is that The Leftovers’ aim is more about bringing together fantastic ideas than bringing together a fantastic story—because the subtext is way more interesting (and comprehensible) than the basic plot of the text. More than most weeks, “Cairo” has some compelling underpinnings that make it a solid episode. But especially around Kevin, the storytelling falls short of the mystery.
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Stray observations:
Thanks to Myles for filling in last week.
The poetry Patti recites is from William Butler Yeats’ “Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be At Peace” (and there’s more on who Robartes is supposed to be, here). I do not know why Patti declaimed it at that moment—she professed not feeling love or attachment moments beforehand. But it is very powerful.
I might be imagining things, but some of the episode’s score sounds like “All The Pretty Little Horses,” and hearing Patti recite a poem about horses made me wonder if that was deliberate.
Patti calls October 14 “the clusterfuck of the modern era.”
“I am not weak” “PROVE IT”
“Cairo” is directed by Breaking Bad executive producer Michelle MacLaren—so maybe all that mounting horror was her doing. Certainly the final shot of the twins and Jill leaving the house and then, through the window, showing them stalling, then starting the Prius evoked that show.
“Why don’t you get in the car, get comfortable, and close your eyes? Because I need to talk to the other guy.”
A little tongue-in-cheek callback to an earlier episode, from Kevin: “Nora’s a guest in our house.”
Driving distance from Westchester County to Cairo, NY: 97 miles.
The opening song is a rendition of the spiritual “I’ve Been ’Buked,” and that makes me think of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, so here is the company’s dance to that song.The controversy over Mitt Romney’s tax returns has now grown to the point that even Republicans are speculating about their contents and calling for him to release earlier returns. On Tuesday John McCain, one of the few people who actually knows what devastating secrets lie within the documents, attempted to help Romney out by saying the returns weren’t the reason he wasn’t his VP pick. Unfortunately, that plan backfired when he explained that Sarah Palin was simply “better” than Romney.
When Politico asked McCain why he went with Palin over Romney, he said:
Oh come on, because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate. Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn’t I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. … Come on, why? That’s a stupid question.
The implication that Palin is better than Romney at anything other than fitting large flag pins onto her lapel and having more family members featured on reality TV is fairly shocking, so that’s the headline most media outlets went with, even though it’s fairly obvious McCain meant she was a better VP pick for his ticket in the 2008 race. (Apparently those interpreting McCain’s remark didn’t read Game Change, or even bother to watch the HBO movie.)
The response sent McCain into full curmudgeon mode. Later in the day he complained to reporters that his words had been misinterpreted, saying, "It’s really getting a little disgraceful, twisting someone’s words when clearly I said and meant that she was the best fit for our campaign."
McCain also reiterated his real message: There’s nothing in Romney’s tax returns that would disqualify him as a candidate, and McCain will "personally vouch" for that. In what’s probably a reference to Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel suggesting on ABC’s This Week that McCain picked Palin after seeing Romney’s returns, McCain added that he’s only weighing in because of the "scurrilous, scurrilous Chicago style sleaze intimations with no basis in fact whatsoever." Oddly, although there’s supposedly nothing damaging in Romney’s tax returns, McCain still doesn’t think he should cave to those demanding to see them. "So if your opponent makes a big deal out of some issue then you’re supposed to do something that no one else has done?" said McCain.
On Monday, former McCain strategist Steve Schmidt told the Huffington Post that while "Romney’s wealth was seen as a liability" to a candidate already being hammered for owning twelve homes, issues surrounding Romney’s taxes were never discussed. Unfortunately, Schmidt can’t back up McCain’s assessment of Romney’s returns because, despite what the movie would have you believe, he wasn’t involved in the vetting process and never saw the documents. We’ll just have to trust the judgment of the guy who was ultimately responsible for putting an inadequately vetted Alaska governor on his ticket.A Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor is a device that uses electrostatic confinement to produce conditions that will allow fusion to occur. Currently, this team consists of three high school students who look towards pursuing a career in plasma physics/other related fields. We believe that this will be a great opportunity for us to actually do some hands-on experimentation and gain valuable experience.
Some of the expensive components include a medium-power vacuum pump, which can fetch a hefty $500+, a vacuum chamber made with stainless steel, another few hundred dollar, and the list goes on and on.
Once we get this project going I will open a blog that will keep track of our progress. This must be built and ready to display in around 5 months time, so we need to get going and started as soon as possible if we want a chance.
Feel free to send me a message and I will answer any questions/concerns that you may have about this fusor.
Thank you and remember, EVERY PENNY COUNTS!House prices in Brazil are still falling, but the omens are good. Increases in construction and home sales, as well as a positive economic outlook, suggest that Brazil´s housing market is not too far from recovery.
Brazil´s composite FIPEZAP house price index declined by 0.36% during the year to September 2017, or -2.83% adjusted for inflation.
Looking back to the boom, house prices in São Paulo rose by an amazing 223.8% from January 2008 to June 2015 (106.3% inflation-adjusted), and in Rio de Janeiro house prices rose by an even more spectacular 266.1% (133.3% inflation-adjusted). National house prices rose 26.3% in 2011 (18.6% after inflation), by 13.7% in 2012 (7.4% after inflation), by 12.7% in 2013 (6.4% after inflation), and 6.8% in 2014 (0.3% after inflation).
Property became increasingly unaffordable due to the surge in house prices, leading many Brazilians to rent rather than own. "In the major cities young professionals are struggling to afford the kind of prices now being asked for properties in good areas," according to Colordarcy.
Since the end of 2014 national house prices have been falling in real terms. In 2015 house prices nominally rose 0.9% (but fell 8.9% in real terms). In 2016 national house prices nominally rose 0.2% (but fell 5.8% in real terms).
During the year to September 2017:
In Sao Paulo, Brazil´s biggest real estate market, house prices went up by an average of 1.38% (but fell 1.13% after inflation).
In Rio de Janeiro, house prices dropped by 3.58% (and fell 5.96% after inflation), marking its 24th month of year-on-year nominal price declines.
While house prices are clearly still declining in many parts of Brazil, the outlook for the housing market has been improving particularly in the Sao Paulo region. Investors and international buyers are back, searching for bargains.
The reason? Since October last year, the Central Bank has been cutting its key interest rate, making lending less costly for potential home buyers. As of October 2017 the key rate stands at 7.5%, significantly lower than the 14.25% rate in the first half of 2016.
Q2 2017 saw Brazil´s first y-o-y economic expansion, after having shrunk every quarter since Q2 2014 - the country´s worst and longest recession in more than a century. The GDP expansion of 0.3% y-o-y was supported by the rebound in household consumption, which rose by 0.7% y-o-y, also the first increase since 2014. The Brazilian economy has suffered a deep recession in the last two years, contracting by 3.59% in 2016, and 3.77% in 2015.
The economy is expected to expand by 0.7% this year, followed by 1.5% growth in 2018, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The government also expanded the Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House, My Life) program by raising the maximum income of eligible beneficiaries, as well as the price ceiling of housing units. In February 2017, the government allowed almost 30.2 million workers to withdraw amounts deposited in inactive FGTS accounts. Minha Casa Minha Vida allows workers to use their FGTS as deposit for low-income housing, qualifying them for loans from the state-owned bank Caixa Econômica Federal.
As a result, "The residential real estate market in Brazil now is starting to pick up after two years where business was very slow," says Bossa Nova Sotheby´s International Realty broker Sylvia Agricola.
The recovery is helped by the fact that the previous boom was hardly a "bubble". Brazil´s GDP per capita has increased by a whopping 60% since 2008.
"A bubble means a lot of increases in prices for nothing," says professor Fabio Gallo. This was not the situation in Brazil. "You had real reasons for the expansion of the prices in Brazil." The 2007 discovery of enormous oil fields located deep beneath a layer of salt in the Atlantic seabed boosted the energy industry´s demand for residential and office space. Demand continued to surge following the 2009 announcement that Rio de Janeiro would host the 2016 Olympic Games. Rapid development of the mortgage market followed legal reforms to streamline the foreclosure process. Plus, interest rates were progressively cut from 26% to 7.25% between 2003 and 2012. The rapid growth of the middle class was another important factor. All of these elements contributed to the house price boom.
The crisis and its aftermath
Brazil´s recent troubles began with the global recession in 2008. To boost the economy, the Central Bank of Brazil slashed its benchmark short-term SELIC rate from 13.75% in December 2008 to 8.75% by July 2009. Brazil wasn´t spared a downturn in 2009, but the economic contraction was minimized at 0.13%. Brazil was swamped with consumer credit from state-controlled banks during Rousseff´s first term from 2011 to 2014. There was a surge in wage growth, pushing prices higher. Real GDP growth rates were 7.5% in 2010, 4% in 2011, but then growth fell to 1.9% in 2012, 3% in 2013, and 0.5% in 2014.
Weak growth was combined with spiraling inflation. Alarmed, the central bank raised the benchmark interest rate nine times from 7.25% in March 2013 to 11% in April 2014, causing a sharp economic slowdown. After holding the key rate steady for almost seven months, the central bank raised it again by 25 basis points in October 2014, and by 50 basis points in December 2014. In 2015, the central bank again raised the key rate five times to 14.25%, the highest level for almost six years.
In June 2013 riots exploded, precipitated by a BRL0.20 (USD0.10) rise in public transport fares, and complaints about excessive spending on mega-sporting events. Brazil is not a poor country. But tax rates are extremely high, yet many Brazilians spend up to four hours per day in traffic jams, either in their cars or on crowded public transport. The protests were an outburst of popular frustration at corruption - a protest against an intolerable situation.
Over the past five years, Brazil´s middle class has felt the pain of prolonged recession. GDP per capita dropped 34.1% between 2011 and 2016, to US$8,727, according to the IMF. During the quarter ending June 2017, nationwide unemployment rate increased to a record 13%, from 11.3% in the same period last year, with about 13.5 million people unemployed according to IBGE.
Then came the corruption scandal involving oil giant Petrobras and the country´s largest engineering and construction firms. Several executives from Brazil´s top builders were indicted for the multibillion-dollar kickback scheme uncovered at Petrobas, while the investigation has implicated politicians, mostly from President Rousseff´s Workers´ Party.
Protests in the streets escalated, worsening the country´s already ailing economy. The impeachment of Rousseff began in December 2015. In August 2016 Rousseff was removed from office and Michel Temer was sworn in as Brazil´s new president.
Michel Temer implemented painful reform measures in a move to attract foreign investment and buoy economic growth. Temer´s reforms include trimming pension benefits, and privatizations of state operations from airports to sewage treatment. In December 2016, the senate approved a constitutional amendment, which imposes a cap on public spending for the next 20 years, adjusted annually for inflation.
Corruption controversies swirling around Temer led him to become even more unpopular. His government received a 3.4% approval rating last September in a survey conducted by polling firm MDA, down from 10.3%, in a poll held in February 2017. Temer is expected to end his term of office in December 2018.
House prices are still declining, but for how much longer?
In 2016 the housing market in greater São Paulo area recorded its weakest performance since 2004. Housing starts were down by 30% y-o-y to almost 27,000 units, while new residential home sales declined by 24% to around 25,000 units in 2016, according to Secovi-SP.
However inflation fell to 2.46% in August 2017, far below the BCB´s 4.5% target, giving the central bank flexibility to loosen its monetary policy. In October 2017, Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) reduced its benchmark Selic rate to 7.5%, the central bank´s ninth consecutive rate cut since October 2016, when the rate was cut to 14%.
These rate cuts are likely to have a significant effect. Brazil´s original housing boom was mainly propelled by a decline in interest rates, as successful economic reforms under President Lula da Silva pushed Brazil´s central bank benchmark rate from nearly 30% in 1998, to 8.65% in August 2009.
Now that interest rates are low again the declines in house prices in major Brazilian cities are unlikely to continue.
Rental yields are moderate
Gross rental yields - what you can earn from an apartment before tax and other expenses - have continued to move down, and in most parts of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro being a landlord generates a much less attractive return-on-investment than a few years ago. In Rio de Janeiro, yields of 3.5% to 4.5% are typical; in Sao Paolo apartment yields are rather higher, between 4% and 6.5%. These are only moderate returns.
House prices in different regions of Brazil
Belo Horizonte saw a nominal house price increase of around 5% during the year to September 2017 (inflation means these price levels are around 2.5% above ´real´ house price rises) according to FIPEZAP. It was followed by Florianópolis (3.4%), Praia Grande (3.3%). Only these cities had above-inflation house price increases.
Weaker price increases: Vila Velha (1.8%), Curitiba (1.7%), and São Paulo (1.4%), Guarulhos (0.9%), Santos (0.6%), Salvador (0.6%), and Guarujá (0. |
Korean drama and movies including full episodes, films, and clips for free. This further emphasizes Yahoo’s commitment to create an experience for people to consume content they care about while being able to connect with a community of like-minded fans.
Featuring content from Hulu, this Fall, Yahoo View will be the best place to watch the last five episodes of ABC, NBC, FOX (8 days after original broadcast) and other network sitcoms, day-after clips, and full seasons of anime and Korean drama. Viewers can also go beyond the episode in a community-watching experience and browse photos and GIFs from the passionate Tumblr fandom. The new site features a “beyond the episode” section that can visually block the enhanced content that might reveal spoilers about the current video playing, and picture-in-picture so viewers can continue to watch while browsing to other content without leaving the screen.
“As a TV junkie and Tumblr fan myself, I’m personally excited to have one place that brings together the best of free TV and Tumblr fandom,” said Jess Lee, Vice President of Lifestyles Product at Yahoo. “Yahoo View is our first step towards creating a powerful community TV-watching experience, but it’s really only the beginning.”
“Video is an important part of Yahoo’s strategy and we’re committed to delivering the best digital video content to our users. To date, we’ve streamed amazing experiences across sports, finance, and news,” said Phil Lynch, Vice President and Head of Media Partnerships. “This partnership with Hulu is a natural extension of that strategy, bringing the best of TV & entertainment content to our lifestyle vertical.”
View.yahoo.com is immediately available in the U.S. today. Mobile web and mobile apps will be coming soon.
About Yahoo
Yahoo is a guide to digital information discovery, focused on informing, connecting, and entertaining users through its search, communications, and digital content products. By creating highly personalized experiences, Yahoo helps users discover the information that matters most to them around the world -- on mobile or desktop. Yahoo connects advertisers with target audiences through a streamlined advertising technology stack that combines the power of Yahoo's data, content, and technology. Yahoo is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and has offices located throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net) or the Company's blog (yahoo.tumblr.com).Women on 20s/Getty Images
Supporters of the decision by the Obama White House to put the black abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill are worried that it could be reversed.
“We certainly are worried, when [Donald] Trump won the election, that he might try to make good on his suggestion that Harriet Tubman be put on the $2 bill instead of the $20 bill,” said Susan Ades Stone, executive director of the nonprofit organization Women on 20s. “It would be a slap in the face of women to reverse the decision in our opinion.”
DT on record calling for AJ to stay on $20 and Harriet to get the $2. Symbols matter, Mr. Trump. #RespectWomen pic.twitter.com/yQooq5RCyl — Women On 20s (@WomenOn20s) November 13, 2016
Lisa Maatz, vice president for government relations at the American Association of University Women, also expressed concern. She said that Trump should consider he has a “credibility gap” with women before deciding to reverse the decision.
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he thought it was “very rough” to take Andrew Jackson off the $20 note.
“I think it’s pure political correctness,” Trump said during an April appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, suggesting that Tubman, who he allowed “is fantastic,” be placed on another denomination. “Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill,” Trump suggested. (Thomas Jefferson appears on the $2 bill, which remains in circulation and production.)
See: Hamilton to stay on $10 bill, with Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on $20 bill
Treasury officials would not comment on whether Trump would or could scuttle the Tubman plan.
Asked shortly before the election whether Tubman could be blocked from the $20 bill, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew avoided giving a direct answer but noted there had been widespread support for the redesigned currency. “I think the enthusiasm about the announcement and what we’ve made has left an important mark.... [P]eople have already started calling them ‘Tubmans,’ and they’re not even printed yet.”
The Trump press office did not respond to a request for comment.
In April, after a lengthy selection process during which 1.5 million Americans reportedly sent in suggestions for new currency designs, Lew announced that Tubman would replace Jackson.
Read: From Pocahontas to Tubman: Watch U.S. currency transform over the years
Work on security measures and design is underway at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The final design of the $20 bill won’t be ready until 2020, with issuance to follow. The Treasury is planning to push out newly designed $10 and $5 bills first because those bills need new security features.
“The further along they are in design, the harder it will be for someone to say, ‘Stop the presses, we’re starting over,’ ” Ades Stone said.Japanese game developer CyberStep announced on Wednesday that a television anime of its massively multi-player role-playing game Onigiri has been green-lit. The anime will premiere on the Tokyo MX and BS Fuji channels in April.
CyberStep describes the story:
Onigiri thrusts its players into mystical Japan, a land filled with mythical creatures of Japanese legend. Starting as a lone Oni, players fight against the malevolent influence of the Kamikui as their miasma spreads over the land. 8 NPCS, each with their own distinct personality and skills, ally themselves with the player to help build a legend, and quell the evil that has arisen. As you grow stronger together, so do the bonds binding you to each other.
The game first formally launched on PC in Japan in December 2013 (after alpha and beta test periods earlier in the year), and then launched in North America in July 2014. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions followed last year.
[Via Hachima Kikō]
Update: The anime's official Twitter account has since posted that the anime will premiere in April. Thanks, Stark700[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he season premiere of “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix has sparked the New York Civil Liberties Union to launch a public education campaign to highlight the deplorable conditions at the Riverhead Correctional Facility, where some of the scenes are filmed, and demand that Suffolk County officials “stop stalling and clean up” both that jail and the Yaphank Correctional Facility.
“We’re thrilled the show is able to provide a glimpse into the lives of incarcerated people and the experiences they deal with,” said NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Corey Stoughton. “But a big part of our story is what won’t be shown on TV.”
In 2012, the NYCLU and the law firm of Shearman & Sterling LLP filed a federal class-action lawsuit involving more than 100 inmates citing the “grotesquely inhumane conditions” at Suffolk’s two jails and citing overflowing sewage, chronic overcrowding, rodent and insect infestations, pervasive mold and rust, among other problems.
The County Attorney’s office had no comment “due to the pending litigation,” a spokeswoman told the Press.
Recently Suffolk County completed construction of a new $185 million facility in Yaphank as part of phase 1, but the second phase, which is slated to cost more than $114 million, has stalled. Meanwhile, Yaphank’s older facility remains open as does the Riverhead jail.
“Phase 1 has already been built and there’s actually more beds [there] than had originally been planned,” said Legis. Kate Browning (WFP-Shirley). “Building these new jails is on the backs of Suffolk County taxpayers. There’s no state or federal funds to help build these things… It’s an old building! It’s got problems. But does the NYCLU have a big checkbook that they can write us a check for $114 million?”
The NYCLU said that its lawsuit makes the case that the county’s “longstanding indifference to the deplorable and well-documented conditions at the jails violates people’s constitutional rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.”
The lawsuit is still in the discovery mode, and the county has been stalling, according to Amol Sinha, director of the Suffolk County Chapter of the NYCLU.
“At least seventy-five percent of the people in there are simply awaiting trial,” Sinha explained. “We’re talking about basic human dignity here that every single person whether convicted or not should be entitled to.
“Raw sewage bubbles from the floor, toilets explode, rodents and roaches infest the kitchens, black mold covers the walls, and drinking and bathing water runs brown and smells of sewage,” Sinha said. “The women in “Orange is the New Black” face miserable conditions and abuse, but nothing in the show compares to what real people are experiencing in the jail where they film.”
Riverhead Correctional Facility ComplaintIt’s May and that means another mix tape! Hurrah! Now, the ’00s were getting to be a dark time for ska music. Bands were breaking up, switching over to emo and rock and/or dropping their horn sections all together. It was sad. Luckily, two things were going on, some bands were sticking it out and other bands were forming to fill that void. Getting booked wasn’t easy, ska was on its way back underground, but you’d have to be really out of touch to miss these acts. This whole month is dedicated to those bands in the form of a 90min mix tape broken up over a month. Enjoy it, let it take you back, it did for me!
Big D & the Kids Table – Evil Girl / Angry Girl (the Gipsy Hill EP ’02)
Cornerstone 96-98 – Eggshells (Cornerstone 96-98 ’04)
Johnny Nine & the Racers – My Beat (Chin Up ’09)
the Homecoming Queens – Timmy Goes to Summer Camp (a Sound You Once Knew ’08)
the Amphetameanies – the Devil Lives Upstairs (Now! That’s What I Call… ’06)
Squid 58 – the Last Fag (Dismantled ’07)
Monkey – Voice of America (Cruel Tutelage ’06)
Find & like 23min of Ska on facebook. Also, feel free to download this episode. Ska is better on vinyl. Hit up Grandpa’s Casino Recordings, we don’t have any cassettes, but we have some great vinyl records!What is GroveHat for Arduino Nano? Seeed Studio's Grove is an ingenious way to create hardware interoperability between accessories made for maker. It uses a standard socket & pinout, supports more...
What is GroveHat for Arduino Nano?
Seeed Studio's Grove is an ingenious way to create hardware interoperability between accessories made for maker. It uses a standard socket & pinout, supports more than 100 accessories already (from sensors to output, from displays to wireless communication). Breakout boards make several microcontroller & computer platforms to be able to use these accessories (full scale Arduinos, Raspberry Pi, Intel Edison and Galileo, VIA VAB-820, and so on).
GroveHat now brings access to all those accessories to Arduino Nano as well!
Technical specs
This breakout board targets the v3.x series of the Arduino Nano (and compatible clones), while trying to be usable with other boards like the Pro Micro and v2.x series of the Nano. It makes available Serial (TX/RX) line, Digital, Analog, PWM, and I2C functions, while maintains the same form factor as the Nano board.
Since all the above boards have slightly different pinout and very little space on the breakout board to indicate all the possibilities, the silkscreen tries to indicate the usage for the Nano v3.x, while additional documentation shows the functions on other boards.
Errata
Known issues with the v1 board (mostly harmless, just for reference)
The A/I2C socket's silkscreen wrongly indicates the pins for A4 and A5, they should be the switched: for most Grove-compatible analog devices use "A5" in the sketch (Nano v3.x)
The A4/A5 pins are not marked as used with a silkscreen square around them on the side
These issues will be fixed in future PCB runs!
License
The board is released under the CERN Open Hardware License 1.2.
ElsewhereNicola Sturgeon will today use her visit to Dublin to press for the entire UK to retain membership of the EU single market after a former Irish Prime Minister dismissed her claim Scotland alone could stay in.
The First Minister will tell a business breakfast attended by around 130 chief executives that the single market is good for the entire British Isles and the Irish Government has a “strong ally” in Scotland to help secure this goal.
She received some encouragement yesterday on the first day of her two-day trip yesterday when Charlie Flanagan, the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, pledged to be “helpful” to Scotland during the Brexit negotiations.
But John Bruton, the former Irish Prime Minister, described as “nearly impossible” Ms Sturgeon’s proposal for Scotland to remain in the EU single market if the rest of the UK leaves.
Mr Bruton, who was Ireland’s Taoiseach between 1994 and 1997, said he did not see how it was possible to have two sets of trading rules on the British mainland.
His scepticism echoed that of Carwyn Jones, the Welsh First Minister, who said the proposal was unworkable and would require customs posts at the border between England and Scotland.
Esteban Gonzalez Pons, who leads the Spanish delegation of MEPs in the European Parliament’s largest political grouping and is a member of the government’s ruling party, also told the Daily Telegraph that Ms Sturgeon’s proposals are “impossible” and his country would oppose them.
The UK and Irish governments are optimistic about continuing the common travel area between north and south after Brexit but the trading relationship will be much more difficult to resolve if Britain is outside the single market.
The European Commission negotiates trade deals with third countries on behalf of all EU members and Ireland does not currently have the latitude to reach separate arrangements with the UK.Martial Archetypes
Different fighters choose different approaches to perfecting their fighting prowess. The Martial Archetype you choose to emulate reflects that approach. Eldritch Knights are not the only fighters to dabble in magic. Some fighters choose to embrace a single elemental magic, becoming paragons of fire, lighting, or the void.
Striker
Strikers have chosen lightning as their favorite element, and strive to master the fury of the storm. They channel lightning into their attacks, preferring close-quarters attacks. Their high-risk-high-reward style is sometimes considered reckless, but is always exciting.
Charged Strike
Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you can choose to add extra dice of lightning damage to a melee weapon attack or unarmed strike. The damage increases based on your level as shown in the table below. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your constitution modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses of this feature when you take a long rest.
Fighter Level Charged Strike Damage 3rd 1d6 7th 2d6 10th 3d6 15th 4d6 18th 5d6
Lightning Fast
Electric fields charge your muscles and sharpen your senses. Starting at 7th level your speed increases by 5 feet. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to your initiative rolls.
Fist of Havoc
You have mastered a technique to channel larger amounts of electricity into a single strike. Starting at 10th level you can use an action to expend 3 uses of your Charged Strike to slam the ground around you with electric energy. When you do so, all creatures touching the ground within a 10-foot radius of you must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your constitution modifier). On a failed save, creatures take the full damage displayed in the table below, and half as much on a successful one.
Fighter Level Fist of Havoc Damage 10th 6d6 15th 8d6 18th 10d6
Wild Lightning
Your charged strikes have become too powerful to be contained in a single body. Starting at 15th level, when you hit an enemy with a charged strike, the lightning chains to another target as well. If there is another enemy within 15 feet of of the first target, you can deal half the lightning damage that the first target took to it.
One With The Storm
You have become a master of the workings of electricity. It moves through you naturally, like a fish through water. Starting at 18th level, you gain immunity to lightning damage.
Sunbreaker
Sunbreakers are truly a force to be reckoned with. They combine their already exceptional martial skills with the dangerous and powerful art of pyromancy. Seeing fire as a favorite method of wizards, some fighters strive to study its destructive potential further.
Heated Strike
Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you can choose to add extra dice of fire damage to a melee weapon attack or unarmed strike. This damage increases based on your level as shown in the table below. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your constitution modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses of this feature when you take a long rest.
Fighter Level Heated Strike Damage 3rd 1d6 7th 2d6 10th 3d6 15th 4d6 18th 5d6
Incindiary Missiles
You have learned to contain fire in a spherical space, so that it might be thrown like a ball. Starting at 7th level you can expend a use of your heated strike to throw a small fireball at a point within 60 feet. All creatures within a 5-foot radius of that point must suceed on a Dexterity saving throw (DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your constitution modifier). On a failed save a creature takes fire damage equal to one of your heated strikes, and half as much on a successful one.
Hammer of Sol
You have mastered a technique to solidify fire into the shape of a throwing hammer. Starting at 10th level you can use a bonus action to expend 3 uses of your Heated Strike to summon the Hammer of Sol. You can sustain the Hammer of Sol for 1 minute, or 6 attacks (whichever happens first). It acts as a magic warhammer with the following properties:At the start of 2015, two familiar features dominate the global economic outlook: continuing turbulence in financial markets and the relative strength of the U.S. recovery. One aspect of America's superior performance, though, has received surprisingly little attention, and that's the marked decline in the country's external deficit.
This article originally appeared in Bloomberg View
At the start of 2015, two familiar features dominate the global economic outlook: continuing turbulence in financial markets and the relative strength of the US recovery. One aspect of America’s superior performance, though, has received surprisingly little attention, and that’s the marked decline in the country’s external deficit.
The shrinking of the current-account deficit — from its peak of almost 6 percent of US gross domestic product in 2006 to 2.3 percent in 2013 — ought to be a big story. Bear in mind, it happened even though the US has enjoyed stronger growth in domestic demand than either Europe or Japan, and despite the recent strength of the dollar. That took some doing.
In my early years of learning international economics, it was banged into my brain that the U.S. would always see its imports rise significantly when its domestic demand grew more strongly than that of other developed economies. Ten years ago many economists believed that the U.S. external deficit would persist until domestic demand gave way or the dollar collapsed (or both).
What concerns me as 2015 gets under way is that this little-noticed but highly significant adjustment could now be under threat.
One crucial variable is the price of oil. The US is a net oil importer, so the collapse in crude-oil prices has squeezed the current-account deficit. In the short term, it will continue to do so; in the longer term, however, other forces will come into play. Cheap oil will boost the real incomes of U.S. consumers, allowing them to spend more on imports. In addition, if the price of oil stays down, the recent surge of investment in the domestic production of shale oil and gas may stall or even go into reverse. The technological opportunity afforded by fracking — and the prospect of a permanent improvement in the U.S. balance of trade in oil — could be undone.
Another big factor is the aforementioned strength of the dollar. Over the past year, the dollar has appreciated against almost all the main currencies. Even if the connection isn’t apparent yet, a stronger dollar will slow the decline of the US deficit.
On the one hand, if the dollar were to strengthen in 2015 as it did in 2014, there’d be a boost to consumer demand from higher real incomes, and this would support the recovery. On the other, the diminished competitiveness of U.S. producers in domestic and foreign markets would probably cancel out the benefit. Exports would fall and imports would rise. It’s quite likely — contrary to some short-term forecasts — that the combination of cheap oil and a strong dollar will be more helpful to Japan and the euro area than to the United States.
If I were a U.S. policy-maker, I’d be concerned about this. If I were a governor of the Federal Reserve, I might be concerned enough to wonder whether the dollar’s strength — in effect, an unplanned tightening of U.S. monetary policy — should make me want to postpone the first post-crash rise in short-term interest rates yet again.
True, a strong dollar will keep imported inflation in check –but inflation is not yet a concern. Meanwhile, further currency appreciation could do lasting structural harm to the economy by bringing the recent revival of US manufacturing to a premature halt. That’s not all. Lately, unlike the other main currencies, China’s renminbi has risen along with the dollar; at some point, policy-makers in Beijing are likely to act against the ongoing loss of competitiveness. That would add to the downside for the U.S. economy.
Many will say there’s little the US can do about the fall in oil prices or the rise of the dollar — and I expect they’re right. Even so, I see US policy-makers mobilising their diplomats and hitting the phones, urging foreign counterparts not to solve their own economic problems at the expense of the US. Since 2008, the structure of the American economy has changed and, partly for that reason, the nation has recovered much of its strength. Those gains won’t be surrendered lightly.Disaster-stricken areas often need more than temporary structures for secure housing. They need power, too, for cooking, and for pumping and purifying water, and to help provide medical services. So it’s not difficult to understand why Envision Solar, which does distributed power systems, is now collaborating with the temporary-structure company Proteus On-Demand Facilities to sell its LifePort and LifeVillage products to international aid, governmental and other organizations.
LifePort is a modular building system, made from light gauge steel, with scalable photovoltaic panels. It was developed to function as a carport for people whose houses weren’t quite right for a solar power system. Bu t,according to Envision CEO Rorbert Noble, “it quickly became apparent to us that such a versatile and scalable system, with the addition of battery storage capability, would be extremely useful in developing nations and inaccessible ‘off-grid’ areas.” A LiveVillage is a simply a grouping of LifePorts, fitted together to create something resembling a community.
It is said, according to Envision, that “LifeVillages can be deployed to build entire clean energy, self-sufficient communities, worldwide, with the unique possibility of having a significant role in eliminating energy poverty throughout the world.”
Proteus, which has been doing a lot of disaster-relief work, including in Haiti, said this is what its clients are looking for – systems that are “critical to getting communities back on their feet in the response, recovery and rebuilding after disastrous events,” according to Proteus President John Keller. “Our alliance with Envision Solar will further strengthen our ability to serve our clients and meet the needs of their people for years.”Trans Liberation Collective Protests Pride View Full Caption
BOYSTOWN — Amid the exuberant cheers and waving of rainbow flags to celebrate the brightest aspects of gay pride, some of the community's uglier history is lost in the background, activists said.
On Sunday, a collective of trans and queer people of color shut down the Chicago Pride Parade at Belmont and Halsted to remind people of that history — and demand better for the future.
Nearly 40 protesters marched between the WGN floats and the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches in the second leg of the parade, which began at noon Sunday at Montrose and Broadway and finished just after 4 p.m. at Diversey and Sheridan Road.
But for nearly 15 minutes, the coalition — filled with members of the Black Transgender Gender Non-Conforming Collective, Black Lives Matter Chicago, Jewish Voice for Peace, Assata's Daughters and Pilsen Alliance — chanted explicative-laced insults toward police officers and Donald Trump and denounced LGBTQ organizations they said overlook marginalized people within the community.
"The rainbow masquerade is not enough," Vita Cleveland declared into a megaphone, fellow protesters echoing them. Later, Toni Marie Preston cried out in a hoarse voice that, "Black trans lives matter."
Encircled and hoisting papier mâché depictions of often-forgotten transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the group interrupted the flow of the parade as police officers flocked to the scene in droves.
Protesters carried sculptures of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two often-forgotten transgender activists who were in the Stonewall riots and the first organizers of the earliest Pride parades in New York City. [DNAinfo/Ariel Cheung]
But unlike the #BlackOutPride protests that halted the 2015 Pride parade, the protesters moved from the parade route before it came to members being detained and handcuffed. Activists also disrupted the parade in 1992 and 2008.
The collective published a statement to better outline its mission and its opposition to "the ever-increasing corporatization, whitewashing, gentrification, racism and cisnormativity that have infused Pride for decades."
READ THE FULL STATEMENT HERE
Among the more tangible goals: To launch a Trans Pride celebration in 2018. Akin to the Dyke March or Black Pride, the event would harken to the earlier, more politically minded Pride Parades.
Members also took issue with mainstream LGBTQ organizations like Center on Halsted, Howard Brown Health and Equality Illinois, accusing them of exclusionary practices that mean much-needed services are denied to trans and queer people of color as wealthier residents and people living on the North Side are favored.
"If you're going to say you're for equality, you really need to be about it and stop making excuses for why you don't have a black trans woman on your board or you're not hiring black trans women," Preston said.
In hopes of equality for all, their objectives spread across the political spectrum, calling for Palestinian liberation, supporting anti-colonial movements in Puerto Rico and the Standing Rock resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
They joined with Black Lives Matter Chicago in demanding that the Chicago Police Department disband and prisons be shut down and for the end of charter schools in Chicago and better distributing of funding toward impoverished schools on the South and West Sides.
Despite almost a half-century of progress toward equality, LGBTQ folks — particularly queer people of color — have a much harder time finding steady employment and housing.
Protesters headed by the Trans Liberation Collective shut down the Chicago Pride Parade for about 10 minutes to call for more inclusiveness in LGBTQ communities and organizations. [DNAinfo/Ariel Cheung]
People who are gay are more likely to be poor. Trans and queer people of color face up to four times the national unemployment rate, and an epidemic of violence that disproportionately affects them.
RELATED: 27 Murdered Trans Women Portrayed In 'Say Our Names' Lilly Wachowski Exhibit
And many of their contributions have been erased from the pages of LGBTQ history, activists said. Johnson and Rivera, for example, protested in the Stonewall riots in New York City and helped organize the earliest Pride Parades in New York.
'We need to be recognized while we're still living," Preston said. "Black trans women and gender non-conforming femmes are dying at ridiculous rates, so people need to invest in our lives and divest in corporations who don't give a damn about us."In August 1873 a new sporting craze was sweeping through India in the form of badminton. Beatrice Aitchison, the wife of Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison, Foreign Secretary to the Government of India) wrote to their family friend Lewis Pelly (Agent to the Governor-General at Rajputana, on special duty as Special Commissioner to Baroda) about the latest craze which she and her husband had taken up:
“We have even taken to it in a quiet way – we play by ourselves instead of going out to walk. It is good exercise and the Foreign Secretary thoroughly enjoys it”.
Photo 913/(25) Oscar Jean Mallitte, European men and women playing badminton on an outside court at Shillong, India. Images Online
In her letter to Pelly she describes how the sport has created quite a trade in the bazaar with the bats (racquets) being made by the locals and proving to be very popular but the difficulty was with the shuttlecocks as the locally made ones simply didn’t fly properly. Even her husband Sir Charles was quite enamoured with the sport, noting in a letter to Pelly that ‘my good old joints are getting supple from Badminton which I have been at length dragged into’.
MSS Eur F 126/4 Beatrice Aitchison to Lewis Pelly, August 1873
The craze for playing badminton recurs throughout the private papers collection of Sir Lewis Pelly, with correspondents writing to him throughout 1874 and 1875 and making reference to their fondness of the sport and the various matches that had been taking place.
One such match occurred in January 1875 and was between staff of the Government of India Foreign Office, including Aitchison, and staff of the Rajputana Agency which according to the descriptions to Pelly had resulted in a draw and had prompted one correspondence Adelbert Cecil Talbot to comment to Pelly about the Foreign Office team that
“We have a [ ] fair side and could I think play most others thanks to Mr Aitchison who is a very good player indeed”.
Even Lewis Pelly was not, it seemed, immune to the latest craze with Aitchison proposing in November 1873 a match between the two gentlemen and commenting that “I hope you won’t play the same tricks with my office as I played with yours”. Whether this match took place and whether any of the ‘tricks’ referred to were played we shall perhaps sadly never know.
Karen Stapley
Content Specialist, Archives
British Library /Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme
Further reading from India Office Private Papers:
Mss Eur F126/4, f 26v
Mss Eur F126/7, ff 57v-58, 82v-83
Mss Eur F126/69, f 50v
Mss Eur F126/71, f 53v, 71v-72
Read an earlier blog post about Charles Umpherston AitchisonWith the English Defence League’s leader Stephen Lennon languishing in a Norfolk prison, having been sentenced in January to 10 months (five in jail, five on license) for using a friend’s passport to enter the US, now is a very good time to ask: who exactly are the EDL? Where did they come from? Are they really an organic, grassroots street movement dedicated, as they continually claim, to peaceful opposition to extremist Islam in Britain? Is Lennon calling all the shots, or is he taking orders from elsewhere?
Lennon and the Zionists
The question of image and reality is especially relevant following information that came to light at the end of Lennon’s recent court case. During sentencing Judge Alastair McCreath intriguingly revealed that the name on Lennon’s passport is actually “Paul Harris” [1]. Lennon appears to be a man of many names – he is also known as “Stephen Yaxley-Lennon”, as well as using the pseudonym “Tommy Robinson”. If we cannot be sure of his real name, we do at least know that he has some very interesting connections.
Lennon’s arrest followed his illegal entry into the US last September to attend a conference organised by notorious Islam-hating Zionists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, whose “anti-Jihadist” organisation Stop Islamization of Our Nation –SION! – he is a board member.
EDL or IDL?
Lennon’s attendance at a Zionist-organised conference should come as no surprise, because the English Defence League have openly pledged loyalty to Israel. In an article posted on the EDL website and published on Geller’s ‘Atlas Shrugs’ blog in June 2011 [2], Lennon made his devotion to the Jewish state perfectly clear:
“One of the fundamental beliefs that this movement was built on was its support for Israel’s right to defend itself. In our first demonstrations, we went to Birmingham, and we flew the flag of Israel, the Star of David. In the first public speech I ever gave, I wore the Star of David in Leeds. The reason for this is because Israel is a shining star of democracy. If Israel falls, we all fall.”
A ‘politically correct’ nationalist movement
The EDL coalesced out of small groups connected to Luton’s football gangs, and Lennon’s peculiar statement seemed highly incongruous. The ignorant football thugs amongst the EDL’s rank and file had quite likely never given Israel a second thought – defending England from “Muslamic” terrorists was their primary concern. Why was a foreign flag being flown alongside St. George’s cross at rallies?
Since when had defending England meant championing diversity and multiculturalism? The EDL website hosted images of a multiracial organisation, its leaders made a point of stressing the movement’s diversity and support for minorities who were not Muslim, and the group has at various times operated a Pakistani Christian Division, Jewish Division, Sikh Division, Disabled Division, and even a LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Division [3]. This image of a liberal, open-minded EDL jarred with reality, as many of its members were actually hostile towards ethnic minorities.
It seemed almost as if the EDL had an astute public relations department, working hard to make the movement seem less offensive in the eyes of the public.
Alan Lake, wealthy mastermind behind the EDL
The man responsible for the direction of the EDL was “Alan Lake” – real name, Alan Ayling. Ayling, a wealthy businessman and rabid anti-Muslim with close links to SION’s Geller and Spencer, formed the EDL with the express intention of using them as a puppet army, to physically confront Muslims on the streets.
Ayling spelt out his agenda during a speech at a seminar on Islamisation in Malmö, Sweden, on September 6th 2009, where he openly admitted to using “the physical groups”, the football lads, to bulk up – in terms of both size and muscle – anti-Muslim protests [4].
He made his intentions equally clear in a Guardian article that same month:
“We are catching a baby at the start of gestation…We have a problem with numbers. We have an army of bloggers [in the far-right] but that’s not going to get things done…Football fans…are a hoi polloi that gets off their backsides and travels to a city and they are available before and after matches.”
The founding meeting of the EDL even took place in Ayling’s expensive London flat; he is accurately described when called the group’s financier and strategist.
Words of violence, and defence of terror
The EDL claim to support peaceful opposition to Islam, yet Ayling’s language has been anything but peaceful. Writing on his 4Freedoms website in May 2010, he casually talked about the torture and execution of alleged pro-Muslim British political and religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, David Cameron, and Nick Clegg. Referring to the Islamic enclaves that he believes will exist in Britain in 20 or 30 years time, Ayling wrote that by [5] :
“forcing these liberal twits into those enclaves, we will be sending them to their death at worst, and at best they and their families will be subjected to all the depredations, persecution and abuse that non-Muslims worldwide currently ‘enjoy’ in countries like Pakistan… It will be great to see them executed or tortured to death.”
Anders Behring Breivik, the nationalist terrorist who murdered 77 in Norway on July 22nd 2011, was a keen follower of the anti-Jihadist bloggers featured on Ayling’s website. Breivik praised the EDL in his manifesto and posted on forums linked to the group [6]. Following the Norwegian terror attack Ayling was actually questioned by police, keen to establish whether he might be the English mentor “Richard The Lionhearted” – of whom Breivik speaks admiringly in his sprawling manifesto.
Whilst Ayling was released without charge by police, some continue to allege that he is indeed “Richard The Lionhearted”. Most prominent amongst them is Paul Ray, a disgruntled former EDL member who had been present at the group’s founding meeting in Ayling’s flat. Ray had the misfortune to blog using the name “Lionheart”, and so naturally became a person of interest to the authorities in the aftermath of Oslo and Utoya. He flew voluntarily to Norway from his home on Malta to be interviewed by police, and continues to claim that he was set up by Alan Ayling, who he believes to be the real “Richard” – though his evidence seems entirely circumstantial.
Ayling made sure to publically condemn Breivik’s attack but also described it as “chickens come home to roost” [7]. He wasn’t the only member of the EDL to exploit the Norwegian’s murderous attack |
and by holding a special session on the topic at its annual meeting.[14]Donald Trump's ban on federal funds going to international organizations that provide abortion information as part of their reproductive services will have sweeping health consequences across the globe. In part, that's because it is written much more broadly than those implemented by previous GOP administrations, writes the New York Times:
The wording in the Trump order extends the restrictions to all American global health aid, an $8.5 billion pot of money, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research organization. More than half of that money goes to programs for H.I.V. and AIDS, including services for women of reproductive age, the analysis found. An additional 9 percent goes to maternal and child health care, which is partly aimed at promoting safe pregnancies. By contrast, the last time the rule was in place, under President George W. Bush, it applied only to family planning money, an amount that is currently around $520 million, the analysis found. As health providers braced for cuts from Washington, the Netherlands lost no time in casting itself as a defender of reproductive rights. Its Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it would start an international fund “to make up as much as possible for this financial blow.” It gave no specifics.
Just to be clear, U.S. money was already prohibited from funding abortions abroad. This is just a really sloppy, overly broad attack on the mere mention of the term. Now it will adversely affect everything from the worldwide effort to combat HIV/AIDS to family planning services to basic healthcare needs. Social conservative groups like the Family Research Council are grinning ear to ear—they likely wrote the verbiage so its damage would go far beyond abortion. And it will.
Research suggests that the policy has had a counterintuitive impact in the past. In countries that relied heavily on funding from the United States for reproductive health services, abortion rates rose when the Reagan-era policy was in place. Researchers cite a possible reason: The aid spigot dries up for the organizations that provide contraceptive services to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Because actually decreasing abortions has never really been the goal of social conservatives.Back in November of 2016, Instagram announced that it would be introducing support for live videos so users could have new ways to share the moment. Unfortunately, and as has been the routine, the Live Videos feature first rolled out to iOS and Android users, and Windows Phone fans were left in the dust. According to WindowsPhoneArea, a few short months after the initial rollout, some Windows 10 Mobile users are now reporting that the feature is now live on their devices.
To check to see if you have the Live Videos feature on your Windows 10 Mobile Instagram app, you should swipe to the right from the main Instagram feed, and then select the “Live Camera” mode. After you do so, and when you start broadcasting, your Instagram followers will receive notifications and you will see that they have started watching you.
Additionally, on Windows 10 Mobile you also now can send photos and videos to your followers in Snapchat-like messages, which will disappear after 24 hours. Do you have Live Videos feature on your Instagram app? If you don’t, you should not worry, as the feature will slowly be rolling out to users this week. As always, let us know what you think by dropping us a comment below!
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Further reading: InstagramA MORGUE van carrying a dead body struck a pedestrian and overturned on a main street in Sydney’s inner west in a dramatic four-car crash last night.
Police believe a 21-year-old man in a Ford Focus collided with the van and two other vehicles on King St, Newtown around 10pm, before fleeing the scene on foot.
media_camera The overturned morgue van in King Street, Newtown last night. Picture: Channel Seven
media_camera Police at the scene of last night’s bizarre accident.. Picture: Channel Seven
media_camera The overturned morgue van on King Street, Newtown last night. Picture: Channel Seven
The morgue van ran off the road in the chaos, hitting a 24-year-old man walking along the footpath before landing on its side. The van’s 53-year-old male driver sustained a neck injury while the front-seat passenger fractured their ribs and both were taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Police confirmed the van was “loaded” with a dead body and another van had to be brought in to carry it from the scene.
media_camera Tow truck workers prepare to move the overturned morgue van in King Street, Newtown. Picture: Channel Seven
Newtown police are still searching for the 21-year-old and are understood to know who he is.
The pedestrian was taken to hospital with an injured wrist but cleared of fractures.
The 25-year-old man in a Toyota and 20-year-old female driver of a Nissan Qashqai were both involved in the accident but uninjured.Jessica Wilcox was born into a humble family on New Year’s Eve of 1925. Her father left them when she was three; her mother was critical and cold to her. The young girl was often left alone for hours in a dark room, and hence, as children are wont to do, she created an imaginary friends with whom to pass the time. With these imaginary friends, Jessica forged strong friendships, chief among them was one named Arlene, who hung around for many years and grew up with Jessica despite being an almost polar opposite of her: Jessica was open and articulate, Arlene was cynical and contemptuous like her mother. Other imaginary friends faded, but Jessica never grew out of Arlene–rather Arlene grew into Jessica, and became a separate personality.
Jessica was 16 when she entered the Miss Atlantic City contest, which led to a job at the Miss America Contest, which in turn was her platform to fame and a new name: Candy Jones.
During World War II, Candy was one of the world’s most popular pin-up girls. She toured with the USO through the South Pacific in 1944 and 45, and in the 60’s she may have unwittingly become a secret agent for the CIA, but Candy didn’t know anything about it. The agent was actually her alter ego, Arlene.
While out with the USO in April of 1945, Candy became very ill, and was taken to a hospital in the Philippines. While there she became friends with a medic whose name has been obscured over time, but is known by the pseudonym of “Gilbert Jensen.”
After the war Candy went home and married, then divorced, opened a modeling school and was getting by pretty well when she was approached by an FBI agent who asked her for her help. It seemed a benign request, and it was only patriotic to help out, and she allowed him to use her office as a secretive government mail drop.
And that was the entire story until 1972 when Candy married John Nebel. The pair had a true whirlwind romance, having known each other only a month before they wed. Despite being a generally congenial disposition, after they married Nebel started noticing Candy displaying huge, sudden mood-swings, the worst of which was when she’d slip into what he described as “the Voice”; in his own words: “The Voice … a look, a few moments of bitchiness.” A few weeks into the marriage Candy told her new groom that she sometimes worked for the FBI, and that she would be prone to vanishing for days on end without notice. Slowly it came out that Candy was also suffering insomnia, and in (what I can only imagine as a desperate) gambit to improve her moods, he offered to hypnotize to in order to help her sleep.
Nebel hadn’t hypnotized anyone before, and Candy was resolute that it couldn’t be done, so of course she went right under. She slept better than she had in years, and they decided to continue the sessions. As the hypnosis continued, Nebel learned that Candy became unusually susceptible to suggestion while under, and more disturbingly, she would spontaneously age-regress, and speak in a child-like voice. Sometimes her own, and sometimes Arlene Grant’s. It was the latter that spooked Nebel into tape-recording the sessions.
He uncovered a plot that had roots in 1945 Philippine hospital, and began in earnest when the FBI had asked for her help. Candy had only a few memories of the things she was asked to do, but Arlene had a grasp of all of them. While her modeling school was doubling as a government mail-drop she was asked to drop off a letter in Oakland, and since she was going there anyhow, why refuse? When she arrived the recipient was the doctor Gilbert Jensen that had befriended her when ill. He offered her a tidy sum of money to allow him to hypnotize her, and she accepted since she was divorced and strapped for dough. He told her the hypnosis didn’t work, but in sessions where the Arlene personality spoke, she said it had.
Jensen asked Candy to be a messenger for the CIA, and that her post was to be so secret that not even headquarters would know about her. In order to serve she needed to be in top health, and thus submitted to regular injections of vitamins. These were, of course, not vitamins, but a chemical agent designed to bring out the Arlene persona. When she assumed the Arlene identity she would alter her dress, her walk, her tone, and even took to wearing a dark wig. Arlene was supposedly sent to training camps where she was trained to kill with her bare hands, or, if handy, a hat pin. She was trained with poison lipstick, hiding code numbers under the paint of her fingernails, and other things that would make Mr Bond’s nipples hard. She would be asked to run government drops on her normal business trips, and it would be an ideal situation for the government if Candy had no recollection of performing these tasks.
And of course, the CIA knows nothing of it because they’re an intelligence agency.
But was any of it real, or was it False Memory Syndrome brought about by a truly disturbed woman and an inept therapist? There are some hints that point to the credibility of her story.
In the 60’s Candy told her editors that she sometimes worked for the FBI. Candy wrote a letter to her attorney instructing him that if she were to die or vanish that he wasn’t at liberty to reveal the details of the event to anyone. In 1974 the Rockefeller Commission exposed CIA’s MKULTRA Program–a mind-control program that was going on in the 1950’s. There were several absences from her school, or business trips where there was no business to do. And when Donald Bain was talking to her about publishing a book on the story of her life she produced a passport she’d found in the name of Arlene Grant bearing a photo of her in a dark wig.
On 3 July 1973 the answering machine at Arlene’s house received a message that said: “This is Japan Airlines calling on oh-three July at 4.10 p.m. … Please have Miss Grant call 759-9100 … she is holding a reservation on Japan Airlines Flight 5, for the sixth of July, Kennedy to Tokyo, with an option on to Taipai. This is per Cynthia that we are calling.” Upon a callback to Japan Airlines, there was no Cynthia working there.
None of it is proof. Nor is the fact in July 1980 Candy was nearly killed in an explosion. Just hints, innuendo, ticklers of possibility.
On the other hand, is even the CIA dumb enough to try to make a 6’4″ supermodel of the era into a secret agent? And worse, if they figured out a way to rewire the brains of pretty girls, don’t you think that Washington DC would be the global hotbed of sexy women?YOUNG priests who lead churches in deprived parishes in London have shown that Anglo-Catholic growth is possible — but they are not typical and a change of culture will be needed to make them so.
This is the conclusion of a new report from the Centre for Theology and Community (CTC), A Time to Sow: Anglican Catholic church growth in London. It says that the seven churches featured give the lie to claims that growth cannot be achieved in deprived areas, but warns that many Anglo-Catholics have embraced “damaging myths” about church growth, including the idea that it is an Evangelical phenomenon.
The report “shows that Catholic growth is possible,” writes Canon Angus Ritchie, director of the CTC, and Priest-in-Charge of St George-in-the-East, London. “But it also shows that such growth is only happening in a fraction of the parishes where it could — that there is a need for a change in the culture of Catholic Anglicanism if it is to fulfil its God-given potential to transform lives and communities.”
A Time to Sow, published after a separate study that explored Evangelical church-planting in London (News, 8 April. 2016), features seven Anglo-Catholic churches in the dioceses of London and Southwark that have been growing numerically in the past five years. Most have been growing at an average annual rate of five to ten per cent, equivalent to between three and 15 new people.
The new joiners were found to be a mixture of people who are from other churches, or who are returning to church, or who are new to church. All seven churches are within the 15 per cent most deprived parishes in England, and five of the seven priests leading them are in their first postings as incumbents, and are described as “young and relatively inexperienced”. Three of the churches are defined as “traditional Catholic”; the remainder “modern Catholic”. The growth in the churches is not merely numerical, the report emphasises, but is also seen in discipleship.
Among the seven featured is St Luke’s, Woodside. Before the arrival of the Priest-in-Charge, the Revd Sam Dennis, last year, there had been talk of merging the church with another parish. “The rapid revival of the church’s fortunes appears to vividly illustrate the difference that a positive and active priest can make in a parish where church life has waned,” the report says.
The author of the report, Tim Thorlby, development director at CTC, identifies seven “habits of growth” observed across the seven churches: “ensuring a welcome to newcomers, worship which is accessible but with depth, a focus on work with children, new services mid-week and later on Sunday, community ministry, and clergy who are focused on growth.”
The report says that the leadership of priests who have growth as “part of their mindset” evinces both continuity with the past and a readiness to make changes where necessary. The seven parishes were not ones where “Father does everything”, but places where the laity was empowered. Sacrament: The Vicar of St Benet’s, Kentish Town, the Revd Dr Peter Anthony, baptising a new member of his growing congregation
It also highlights the “active management” of assets, including buildings, and campaigns to increase giving by congregations. It gives the example of one flat that was so poorly managed that it eventually had to be sold for half of what its value might have been, and a hall used by an organisation who neither paid rent nor maintained it (a court settlement eventually resolved the matter). Several of the churches had secured increases in giving by significant amounts, after making requests of their congregations.
Relatively few of the activities or habits are new, the report says: “most are tried and tested, and some are truly ancient.” They are also, it suggests, similar to those observed in growing Evangelical churches in London: “Although worship styles and churchmanship may well differ, it is possible that the underlying habits of church growth may be more universal and not owned by any particular tradition.” This was the conclusion of From Anecdote to Evidence, the study published by the Church Growth Research Programme in 2014, which said that theological tradition appeared to have “no significant link with growth”, but listed “being intentional in prioritising growth” as a factor.
The CTC report also lists “habits of decline”, which, it suggests, are not theological but cultural, “acquired at some point during the 20th Century and which are no longer serving the tradition well”. Some priests are “ambivalent at best” about church growth, it says.
“Some of our interviewees suggested that the traditional mindset for a parish priest seems to be very much about being faithful in ‘running a parish’, ‘administering the sacraments’ and ‘praying for the world’ and relying upon the local community to faithfully respond to this by attending services. This may have been an appropriate stance when churchgoing in Britain was more prevalent but in a post-Christendom culture, they argue that the role of the parish priest has changed — it needs to be reimagined and the priest must become more of a ‘missionary’ to a sceptical community. A time of declining congregations requires a greater sense of urgency.”
The report also challenges claims made by some church leaders that deprivation is a reason for a lack of growth. The seven churches featured “strongly indicate that such arguments are excuses rather than explanations”, it says.
Mr Thorlby writes that the seven case studies are “unusual, rather than typical, examples of Anglican Catholic parishes in London”, and concludes that the overall picture is one of decline. CTC had “great difficulty in finding many Anglo-Catholic parishes which had grown consistently in the last five years”, and found “little evidence” of church-planting. “It is hard to see where significant Anglican Catholic growth in London might be,” he writes.
Although the report acknowledges that, across London, church attendance has been in modest decline, it argues that growth is less likely to be found among Anglo-Catholic parishes, on average. It cites the fact that there are no Anglo-Catholic “mega churches”; and that, among the large ones, few seem to be growing consistently or aiding the growth of other parishes. The argument that “mega churches” and “church planting” are not Anglo-Catholic reflects a “modern reticence” not rooted in the tradition, it argues.
Four challenges conclude the report, including a suggestion that priests consider “well developed programmes of midweek fellowship and catechesis” and a call on larger Anglo-Catholic churches to support and resource other parishes.
After listing a number of “damaging myths” embraced by Anglo-Catholics, Canon Ritchie writes in his Afterword that the report “refutes the consoling claim that growth is ‘not for us’. For
Catholic church growth is happening in some of England’s poorest neighbourhoods. Far from selling out to the dominant culture, the churches which are growing are challenging injustice and proclaiming the faith with confidence.”
In a foreword, the Rt Revd Peter Wheatley, a former Bishop of Edmonton, now an honorary assistant bishop in the dioceses of London, Southwark, and Chichester, suggests that many clergy have learned to preach, teach and pastor, “but not how to run an effective organisation where their people feel they are hosts not guests”. He also observes that most of the clergy featured in the report were appointed by bishops “exercising patronage creatively”.
In her foreword, Canon Alison Grant Milbank, associate professor literature and theology at the University of Nottingham, writes of a “crisis of confidence in the whole movement as well as a reluctance among some Catholic parishes to engage with what can seem an instrumental attitude to church growth”.
Noting that the churches featured have not done “anything particularly revolutionary... What is paradoxically most encouraging here is the modest nature of the growth reported, which is evidence of its rooted and authentic nature. Our world is crying out for sacramental, holistic ways of living which unite body and soul to mediate the transcendent.”
FR SAM DENNISSpirit-filled: Celebrating Pentecost at St Luke’s, Woodside, where Fr Sam Dennis is now Priest-in-Charge
Churches featured in A Time to Sow
At St Luke’s, Hammersith, where the Revd Richard Bastable is serving his first incumbency as Vicar, there has been a “significant increase” in children’s attendance and a growth in Sunday attendance from 60 to 75. Teaching sessions on spirituality are attended by up to 25 people a week. Income has been increased by leasing out a flat, and by a stewardship campaign that has resulted in an increase of 60 per cent in giving. Among the social outreach activities is an after-school craft session.
At St Benet’s, Kentish Town, the Vicar, the Revd Dr Peter Anthony, has seen growth from 40 to 60, offering a “more family-friendly welcome” on a Sunday, and more children’s work during the week. The Sunday school has been re-established, and a children’s eucharist is held several times a year. Management of the church’s property has delivered £20,000 more income a year and congregational giving has doubled.
At St Mary’s, Tottenham, where the Vicar is the Revd Simon Morris, social outreach includes a night-shelter and a lunch club. A mission hall, recently repaired, now has a congregation of about 40, using it for worship for the first time in 70 years. They include some people returning to church after years away. A new full-time children’s worker and assistant curate have joined this year.
At St Anne’s, Hoxton, where the Vicar is the Revd Christopher Woods, the congregation has grown from 45 to 65, of which a third are children. Members are involved in a growing number of mid-week activities, including study groups and a new evening rosary group. The church has also started running a weekly soup kitchen and youth group.
A St John’s, Catford, where the Rector is the Revd Dr Martin Thomas, the congregation has grown from 50 to 150 over the past decade. A new, more informal, Sunday-afternoon service, has been created, and mid-week activities include Messy Church and choristers club. Approximately half of the congregation class themselves as returning or new to church.
At St Luke’s, Woodside, where the Priest-in-Charge is the Revd Samuel Dennis, the congregation has grown from 60 to 90. There is a new “young church”, as well as a number of mid-week services and activities, including the Pilgrim course. Before his arrival, there had been talk of a merger with another parish. Congregational giving has risen by nearly 40 per cent.
At St George-in-the-East, Shadwell, the living was suspended until a plan proffered by the CTC was approved by the PCC: the Rector’s stipend was used to fund two part-time priests and the rectory was used to house a lay community of young people serving the parish. Sunday attendance has grown from 20 to 50, and two mid-week fresh expressions of church have begun. This has led a number of social justice initiatives, as part of Citizens UK.
Read the full report here
Comment: Church growth is not just for Evangelicals
Listen to Tim Thorlby talk more about the report on this week’s Church Times Podcast: churchtimes.co.uk/podcastIT was a team performance to be proud of, a close-knit unit covering every blade of grass in pursuit of glory for Australia at the World Cup.
No stone is being left unturned in making sure Ange Postecoglou’s Brazil-bound squad feel the part - and look it. On the night of the Socceroos’ qualification for the World Cup in June, a bunch of celebrities from Hugh Jackman to Shane Warne tweeted their delight - now their words will quite literally feed into clothing the Australian squad in Brazil.
WORLD CUP SCOUT: YOUR WEEKLY GROUP-BY-GROUP NEWS FIX
UP FOR THE CUP: PAPER TALK, BRAZIL STYLE
News_Rich_Media: Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou says it's time for Robbie Kruse to start thinking about the 2018 World Cup with his ACL injury almost certainly ruling him out of the tournament's 2014 edition in Brazil.
Rather improbably, each tweet was reproduced in grass on a farm deep in NSW, where a flock of some 100 Merino sheep today were let loose to munch their way through a diet of landscaped hashtags. This is grassroots sport, but not as you know it.
The sheep’s wool will shortly be sheared, and turned into the suits to be worn by the Socceroos on the way to the World Cup, made by tailor MJ Bale.
To give the sheep a due sense of national pride in their work, they were honoured not just by a rendition of Advance Australia Fair, but also the presence of former Socceroo Mark Bosnich.
Now the only question left to answer is whether Australia, facing world champions Spain and heavyweights Chile and Holland, will ultimately prove to be lambs to the slaughter.News_Image_File: Sheep dining out on famous Tweets.The founder of Facebook has found religion, it seems, according to a cheery holiday message he posted on the social network he created.
On Christmas Day, Zuckerberg indicated in a Facebook status that he was “celebrating Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from Priscilla, Max, Beast and me,” he wrote, naming his wife, daughter and dog. Then a commenter asked him: Aren’t you an atheist?
Zuckerberg identified himself as an atheist for years, but on Facebook on Christmas he wrote back: “No. I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.”
He didn’t answer further questions about what he does believe in. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have publicly discussed their moral values frequently — including in a lengthy letter when their daughter was born a year ago, in which they pledged to donate 99 percent of their Facebook stock, which at about $45 billion at the time was one of the largest philanthropic commitments ever. And they’ve already met one of the world’s most important religious figures: Pope Francis, with whom they discussed bringing communication technology to the world’s poor.
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The man billed as the first atheist bound for Congress isn’t actually an atheist at all
Study: Religion contributes more to the U.S. economy than Facebook, Google and Apple combined
How a Facebook comment turned into a nightmare for the ‘evangelical Harvard’President Trump praised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday for Canada’s announcement it will bolster its military spending, according to the White House.
A phone call between the two leaders on Friday evening follows Canada unveiling a new defense budget aimed at increasing the country’s military spending budget to $32.7 billion over the next decade. The plan increases Canada’s defense budget by 70 percent over the next decade.
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Trump has made a point of lashing out at NATO allies for “not paying their fair share,” and pressed them to increase their military budgets in order to meet a 2014-set goal of putting two percent of their GDP toward defense spending.
"If we are serious about Canada's role in the world, then we have to be serious about funding our military," Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said earlier this month. “And we are.”
While Trump thanked Trudeau, other Canadian politicians have insisted Canada needs to play a bigger global role in large part due to a lack of Trump’s leadership.
“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Canada Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in an apparent jab at Trump earlier this month.Today’s Washington Post:
A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.
The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs — often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits — were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company’s business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management.
… Today, U.S. businesses spend from $200 million to $300 million a year on diversity training, … Kalev said many trainers and executives told her they were not surprised by her findings. … Businesses are responding rationally to the legal environment, since several Supreme Court rulings have held that companies with mandatory diversity training are in a stronger position if they face a discrimination lawsuit.Ask anyone if they think the origins of Hip Hop’s emcee, b-boy, deejay, and graffiti culture have changed, and you’ll be certain to get a unanimous response. Yes. These art forms that comprise Hip-Hop made their rise during the late ‘70s through the early ‘80s and defined themselves as a staple in the South Bronx’s street culture. In an epic Rock and Rap fusion record, “The Escapades Of Futura,” Futura 2000 and Mick Jones of The Clash painted a vivid picture of life as a graffiti writer in New York during the early 1980s. Let’s not forget the impact Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón had on the culture of b-boying, while names like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash serve as iconic figures in the early prominence of deejaying.
So while no one in their right mind would debate the aforementioned five pillars of Hip Hop, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that the entry points to Hip-Hop have changed. Golden Era fans likely point to the fact that those who weren’t artists per se still participated in the culture by deejaying, b-boying and practicing emceeing and even graffiti art as hobbyists and weekend enthusiasts. We’ve seen far less graf writing and b-boying over the last 30 years, technology has changed the perception and methods used for deejaying, and there are probably times when even the most hardcore Hip Hop fans believe that knowledge and overstanding of the culture is lacking. The latter is likely what prompted Nas to declare, “Hip Hop Is Dead” with the title of his 2006 album. To me, all of this leads to one question. How do you participate in Hip Hop in the Digital Age?
The Internet As An Entry Point Into Hip Hop Culture
When prompted with this same question, Compton-bred emcee, Problem, pointed to the World Wide Web.
“I guess you start a successful blog site,” he answered. “I think that’s probably the most effective way…it started as a street hobby, but so did basketball. It’s changed, so you gotta get involved with this shit and find new ways to get in and move. I watched an NBA game, and maybe three out of six commercials had rappers in them. This is it, man. Think of something and jump in! You might change the game. The thing everybody always has to realize though—it all goes back to the music. You still gotta be good.”
Problem’s observation points to an important distinction—not just in Hip Hop—but in all art forms. He notes the difference between what he called a “street hobby” and what has essentially become a multi-billion dollar industry. I’d argue that aside from the obvious difference of Hip Hop being a lifestyle or culture, the immediacy of the Internet can often transform a hobbyist into a professional in the blink of an eye.
“I started playing around in November of [2011],” Trinidad Jame$ noted, in an interview with Peter Rosenberg and Hot97 FM Program Director Ebro Darden. “Then I just stopped messing with it. Then two months after—in February—I decided to do the tape by myself.”
That tape, Don’t Be S.A.F.E., spawned the single, “All Gold Everything,” which debuted at the #47 spot on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” chart before being certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Jame$ reportedly signed a $2 million deal with the iconic Def Jam Records. Yet it all came courtesy of a memorable hook over an instrumental he grabbed off the mixtape website, DatPiff—all free of charge. It was the same method he used for many records during his come-up days, as Jame$ would resort to grabbing beats off online instrumental CDs. Jame$ didn’t hide his path to success, either, when talking about how he used the Internet to his advantage when making his “All Gold Everything” hit.
“Everything I did was right out there in the open,” Jame$ told HipHopDX. “It wasn’t like it was a hidden secret. You gotta have something that’s worth going viral with. Once you go viral with it, you gotta have something that sticks to people in an original way so they feel like they really want to be a part of it.”
The example of Trinidad Jame$ speaks to the fast-paced nature of Internet-spawned success and an unwritten Hip Hop rule of perfecting one’s craft. I think how much importance each listener puts on both aspects directly informs each individual opinion on if Trinidad Jame$ is a proper representation of Hip Hop culture. Does the immediacy the Internet provides have to be mutually exclusive from perfecting one’s craft?
Paid Dues: The Death Of The Incubation Period
“A lot of kids get to come out too soon,” noted R.A. the Rugged Man, when asked about Hip Hop in the Digital Age. “[Before the Internet], when you was wack, you was learning your craft and you was wack. No one got to witness it worldwide. Nowadays, kids will be like, ‘Yo, I’m dope,’ when they’re still wack. And they get to put their shit all over online and on Facebook. And people will be like, ‘Ahh, that rapper’s wack,’ because he didn’t learn his craft yet. So you’ve got tons and tons of wack, unpolished, horrible rappers putting their fucking songs all over the Internet. They start thinking they’re a Rap star before they’re even good at their craft and before they even know how to make a song. That took at little something out of the game. ”
Granted, R.A. wasn’t speaking specifically about Trinidad Jame$ or any other particular emcee. But I can’t help but wonder if we’re talking about the issue of exposure as opposed to a fundamental shift in the way people—Hip Hop fans included—communicate with each other. I don’t necessarily think emerging emcees were better 30 years ago. But in 1983, a young emcee, deejay, b-boy or graffiti artist was pretty much limited to sharing their efforts with a small circle of peers. During that era, few could afford video equipment or the means to press mass quantities of their product for public distribution. I feel the limitations of technology provided a sort of incubation period as people perfected their craft. I’m not a mind reader, so only time will tell if someone like Trinidad Jame$ is actively working to become a better bar-for-bar rapper. And I’m not sure how we’d objectively measure such a thing anyway.
For now, I don’t think perfecting one’s craft and the immediacy afforded by the Internet have to always be mutually exclusive. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are part of the fundamental ways we communicate with each other in 2013. What’s the difference between someone in 2013 sharing their personal contribution to Hip Hop with 500 “friends” on the Internet versus someone in 1983 sharing their personal contribution to Hip Hop with 10 friends they personally interact with face-to-face? As someone is perfecting their craft, how do we as listeners separate the baby steps that sometimes lead to innovation versus an untalented contributor that’s better off just being a fan with a day job?
Started From The Bottom: Errors, Innovation & Excellence
“Back then, everybody was a biter,” noted legendary b-boy Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón in a 2010 interview with SceneInteractive.com. “But it was all about how can you bite, come back that next week, make that move yours and put your own little stamp on it?”
To me, Crazy Legs’ quote speaks to the issue of innovation and contributing to Hip Hop in the Digital Age. Whether you’re talking about deejaying, sample-based production or even emcees freestyling over previously used beats, I feel much of Hip Hop culture is comprised of adding on and creating new material from a previous work. Colón added that one of his many legendary innovations, was birthed from some haphazard experimentation while he was still perfecting his craft.
“It was an evolution of accidents,” Colón explained, while chronicling the invention of the infamous b-boying technique of the Windmill. “One day, I was trying to go into a Chair Freeze, and I over-rotated, because I was practicing in a small hallway. We didn’t have studios then, and I was in a tenement building. I went to go into my Chair Freeze, and to prevent myself from hitting my feet against the wall, I kind of whipped my legs around from [a different] position. Then I started spinning, and my cousin was like, ‘Oh shit!’”
I wonder what would have happened if Colón’s awe-inspiring mistake during that Chair Freeze was witnessed by a dozen people via a webcam instead of his cousin? If he’d essentially “gone viral” during what R.A. referred to as that wack period when people are experimenting and perfecting their craft, would we look at him differently?
Ill Communication: A Global Shift In How People Share Information
Ultimately, I think comparing pre-Internet Hip Hop contributions to today’s environment is apples and oranges. Legislation, societal norms, technology and a host of other factors make the decrease in visible b-boys, deejays and graffiti artists more than just an issue of trendiness. And I feel it’s almost impossible to knock how Hip Hop contributors share their contributions when the fundamental way we share everything has changed so much in the last few decades.
“We really are in the middle of a massive change and transformation in telecommunications in general,” noted photographer, producer and deejay Ryan Lewis. “I think just to be a person right now—so much has drastically changed in the world of communications—it’s heavily affected what it means to be a photographer or a producer. We have access to things.”
Lewis’ entry point was certainly aided by technology. He credits software programs and the ability to pursue photography and music production all relatively cheaply (or freely) from the same computer as a reason he is in his current position.
“The access is crazy cheap or free,” Lewis added. “And once you attain a certain skill level, the ability to freely promote and market yourself through social media is sort of the next step to that. It’s a very interesting time, but it’s a very difficult time to get recognized for anything artist |
that somebody because of their background or their ethnicity has – doesn’t have the ability to carry something out is wrong.”
None of this will change Trump, however.
Trump has already told his campaign surrogates, in a leaked phone call, that they ought to attack Curiel directly. This fits the Trump pattern: always attack. There’s a reason a Trump surrogate reportedly called up David French’s wife to threaten her after Trump found out that French was considering a third party run.
And while we’re seeing a temporary respite of sanity from some Republicans, they’ll be back to pressuring the rest of us to jump behind Trump soon enough. Our very unwillingness to back Trump sticks in their craw; it’s a direct repudiation of their morally obtuse argument that Trump won’t damage conservatism if they consolidate behind him.
Hence the words of Trump’s shinebox specialist, Mike Huckabee, who told Sean Hannity that the Republican establishment “need to be happy they’re only getting spanked and not executed.” And hence the Republican outrage at Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), who has openly refused to back Donald Trump. Politico reports today:
The blowback started in earnest in May at a state Republican convention, with the passage of a resolution seen as a clear rebuke of Sasse. It stated that the state party would not support any Republican officeholder who opposes the GOP presidential nominee or advocates a third-party candidate….Sasse’s anti-Trump mission is infuriating many Nebraska Republicans, who view it not only as self-serving but a boon to Hillary Clinton. Others privately wonder whether there is substance behind Sasse’s lofty language and question whether his meteoric rise has perhaps left him in over his head….He is also increasingly a no-show at Republican Party lunches, even as he keeps up his social media presence. The prevailing view among Senate Republicans is that Sasse is preparing to run for president, and sooner rather than later.
Politico goes on to complain that Sasse isn’t spending enough time naming Post Offices.
Yes, Sasse will become an outsider because he’s not willing to clamber aboard the Trump bandwagon, just as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) became an outsider because he was unwilling to go along with McConnell’s refusal to use the power of the purse to stop the Obama agenda.
This will be the give-and-take of the Trump campaign: Republicans driven away from Trump by his definitional unfitness, reluctantly returning to Trump out of a feeling of necessity, swinging behind Trump enthusiastically in order to justify their support, and then pressuring other Republicans to do the same and getting angry when they don’t.
In the end, the only thing that will matter is who kept standing by Trump when he alienated every possible constituency in American life, and who stood by principle instead.When Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was elected as President of Indonesia in late 2014, the world was enthralled. He was expected to be different — the first President in the nation’s history not connected to the old power order. In fact, he came from a surprisingly humble background; he was a former small-scale furniture salesman who rose to power by fighting corruption and getting things done. Here was a young, populist leader at the head of one of the world’s largest countries and most populous Muslim nation.
Just a few months later, this goodwill disappeared when Jokowi made the ill-advised decision to execute a dozen foreign nationals, including, most notably, two citizens from neighboring Australia, for drug-related crimes. It was the largest single use of the death penalty in Indonesia in nearly a decade and created an international crisis.
While there was definitely some hypocrisy at play (where was the global outrage when Saudi Arabia executed Indonesians in 2011?) the situation ended up being a lose-lose for Indonesia. The global outcry tainted Jokowi and the country’s international standing. Moreover, and importantly, the impact on the country’s drug problem was, not surprisingly, pretty much nil.
Part of it was because the death penalty, as a tool of fighting crime, just does not work. “We oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle,” says Andreas Harsono, Indonesia Researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Moreover, the death penalty does not deter drug trafficking.” HRW also strongly believes the death penalty will do nothing to stop drugs from entering countries like Indonesia.
This shouldn’t come as any surprise. Amnesty International, HRW, and other civil society organizations believe that the death penalty is discriminatory, prone to misuse by skewed justice systems, and does nothing to deter crime. According to Amnesty, you are more likely to be sentenced to death if you are poor or belong to a racial, ethnic or religious minority because of discrimination in the justice system. Moreover, poor and marginalized groups have less access to the legal resources needed to defend themselves.
This goes beyond the death penalty, which is just the most harsh tool in the plethora of heavy-handed, police and military focused anti-drug tactics. And on this, President Jokowi is, amazingly, doubling down. This past February, he stated in a speech that drugs were Indonesia’s top problem, calling for more a aggressive, punishment heavy, anti-drug push.
Perpetuating bad policy
Think about that for a second. This is a country with rampant corruption, severely lacking infrastructure, where tens of millions still don’t have Internet, one out of two Indonesians lack reliable clean water, and the education system is ranked near the bottom of an survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Those are all problems worth tackling, and each could be called the country’s top challenge. But drugs?
Certainly a problem, though many dispute the Government’s figures of 4 million addicts nationwide, with 30 dying each day. Just not the biggest one.
It’s not just the diagnosis that’s worrisome — so too is the prescription. Indonesia’s use of the death penalty was just one sign of a policy focused on imprisonment and police tactics. As experiences from other countries shows, such a “war on drugs” not only won’t work, but can make things worse.
Jokowi’s policies harken back to the experiences of countries like the United States in the 1960s, when the so-called “War on Drugs” began. Heavy-handed police tactics and a court system focused on imprisonment rather than rehabilitation has left the country with the largest prison population in the world, and no discernible reduction in drug use, as the recent heroin epidemic attests.
The impacts on America’s neighbor, Mexico — which economically more resembles Indonesia than the United States — are even worse. There, in certain regions, the war on drugs has become a literal war, with 27,000 killed, many civilians, in 2011 alone. For comparison’s sake, Indonesia estimates that 8,000 people die from drugs in the country every year — a number that could probably be reduced through better healthcare rather than more arrests and death penalty convictions.
Jailing addicts alongside traffickers
Frighteningly, the country is already heading down the path of mass incarceration — and seeing the impacts. Harsh new laws are being considered that would increase punishment for drug offenses, potentially including draconian penalties such as force-feeding drug traffickers their own narcotics until they die. In fact, many of these drug laws are inspired by the U.S. approach to drugs, which were promulgated in Indonesia through the United Nations’ failed narcotics policy. These laws, as they currently stand, do not distinguish between drug traffickers and addicts, putting far too many addicts into overcrowded prisons.
“Criminalising the consumption of even small amounts of drugs has led to a massive increase in the number of prison inmates,” said Michael Buehler, a lecturer at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, to Al Jazeera. “Around 60 percent of the 12,000 people locked up in the capital Jakarta alone are imprisoned for substance abuse.”
Focusing on improving social services such as health care could actually have more impact on reducing drug usage in Indonesia than greater use of the death penalty or putting more drug users in jail. In fact, the country estimates that 1.2 million drug addicts need immediate medical care, yet there are only 22,000 beds across the country. Expanding this system, and ensuing that addicts get care, would be one step towards actually solving the problem.
“If the Indonesian government were really serious about protecting the wellbeing of its citizens, it would pursue harm-reduction strategies aimed at Indonesian drug users instead of executing drug traffickers,” said Buehler.
Chief among these would be fighting corruption, as, according to World Press, it is closely connected to the drug issue.
Understanding drug problems in Indonesia is complicated by the open secret that drug dealing is tied to politics and the security forces. Many police and soldiers test positive for drugs in their urine (usually Ecstasy, amphetamines, or low-grade heroin).
There is still time for Jokowi to change his mind, and focus on the real problems facing Indonesia. If he does, the world will stand behind him, because even though he lost his goodwill last year, we’re still eager for a Democratic, populist hero in Southeast Asia. Shifting his priorities away from drugs and focusing on Indonesia’s social challenges, such as corruption, education, health, or even gender inequality, would be a boon not only for the country’s 240 million citizens, but for the world. These initiatives would likely have the side effect of reducing drug use as well.
Let’s hope that he comes to his senses soon, before it’s too late.
Photo: ahmad syauki/Creative CommonsSWAMP CREATURES: Christopher Wray Worked Under Comey on Enron Prosecution -Weissman Too
On Thursday acting FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to answer Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) when asked if the Russian dossier was used to spy on President Donald Trump.
FBI Director Christopher Wray Refuses to Answer Rep DeSantis When Asked if Dossier Was Used to Spy on Trump's Camp https://t.co/Semj3PjagD — Jerome Corsi (@jerome_corsi) December 8, 2017
Wray was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.
Wray was very evasive with the Republican-led committee.
Now this…
Christopher Wray worked under James Comey in the Enron prosecution.
Jerome Corsi tweeted this out.
WRAY worked under Deputy AG Comey on ENRON prosecution – WEISSMANN severely criticized for PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT in Enron case — see SIDNEY POWELL book LICENSED TO LIE https://t.co/yPq7uZ61Fw WRAY a SWAMP CREATURE corrupt — Jerome Corsi (@jerome_corsi) December 7, 2017
Jerome Corsi reported this today at Infowars:
On Sept. 11, 2003, on being confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, Wray worked under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw the Enron Task Force, investigating among other issues the criminal malfeasance of auditor Arthur Anderson. Sidney Powell, a former U.S. attorney whose 2014 book Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice is a shocking exposé of prosecutorial impropriety that she maintains still runs rampant today among Department of Justice prosecutors, warns that the Enron case was tarnished by a history of Department of Justice prosecutorial misconduct. Powell focuses on the role played in the Enron prosecution by Andrew Weissmann, a DOJ prosecutor who is now part of Mueller’s team and is capable of extorting guilty pleas. Noting on page 35 that Weissmann was the “driving force” behind the indictment of Arthur Anderson in the Enron case, Weissmann used the “special tactics” he developed prosecuting organized criminals, convinced that even if some of his special tactics went outside the bounds, the ends justified the means when prosecuting serious bad guys. On page 410 of her book, Powell pointed that Weissmann forced Duncan into a guilty plea by misrepresenting to Duncan that his innocent conduct in the case was “criminal.” Calling the DOJ prosecutors in the Enron case a “cabal” that came together in 2002, Powel charges that those involved in the Enron prosecution “emboldened and fed” each other’s worst traits (page 408).
Read the rest here.
FBI CHRISTOPHER WRAY a disgrace yesterday — same level tone lying as Comey (do these guys go for training to the FAMOUS FBI LEADER COMEDY SCHOOL?) lied, lied, hid behind IG — wouldn't answer questions – told Congress they didn't have a right to KNOW – pathetic — Jerome Corsi (@jerome_corsi) December 8, 2017Share. We also get some background on Ghus. We also get some background on Ghus.
Saga, by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, is a bit of a phenomenon in the world of comics. It effortlessly blends sci-fi and fantasy to create a bizarre yet wondrous world where two aliens from warring planets, Marko and Alana, go on the run in order to care for their newborn baby, Hazel.
But there's so much more that makes Saga great -- there's the family-centric stories, the emotive and stylish artwork, and the heartfelt moments of humor. There's also these giant, surprise splash pages that are so obscene, depraved, and sexual that we'd have to age restrict this page to show them.
It's also a sales titan as far as creator-owned comics go. Like clockwork, most comics debut with big numbers, take a sharp dive, and never recover. Saga has only gone up since its debut, and stayed there.
With Saga #31 not hitting shelves until November 25, we figured the only way to get our fix before then was to call up Vaughan and Staples to talk to them about their hit series. While they were especially tight-lipped on what's coming next (we wouldn't have it any other way), they did talk about their creative process, how other creators are adopting the "Saga business model," how libraries and stores have tried to ban Saga, and, yup, those splash pages.
IGN Comics: How are you enjoying your break between arcs?
Fiona Staples: [Laughs] Well, I used up my break to do Archie. I managed to get away for a couple of weeks and have a real vacation. My boyfriend and I went out to the West Coast, so that was nice. Other than that, it was kind of over in a flash, and now we're both back working on Saga, Volume 6.
Brian K. Vaughan: Yeah, and I'm slow, so it's always I have to get started on the next arc as soon as the next one ends. So it never feels like a break. We apologize for being absent from the stands, but we're still working, we promise.
IGN: When you guys take time off it causes this uproar from your fans. They don't want you to stop.
Staple: Yeah, but it's a schedule of expected uproar. [Laughs] I think people have learned to live with it.
Vaughan: Yeah, when I was growing up there were a lot of books where you wouldn't know when they were going to stop, so, yes, Fiona's right; it is an expected outrage, a planned one.
IGN: The schedule you've come up with for Saga -- do an arc, take a month or so off where you release the trade, then start a new arc the next month -- has actually become very popular in the comic industry. People call it the "Saga business model." What's it like for you guys to see other people mimic your strategy?
Staples: Well, I hope it works for them as well as it's worked for us. We started doing it out of necessity at the beginning. I think we intended for it to be a monthly series, but once we started putting the issues out and I was getting behind, it became obvious pretty quickly that we weren't going to be able to keep up that schedule. So we built in this break as a kind of experiment.
Vaughan: It's a pipe dream for any artist to draw 12 issues of something in a year and to color it like Fiona does, because that will murder you over time.
I always thought maybe we could get fill-in artists or something, but it was just so clear from the first issue that this book would never be Saga without Fiona. A fill-in artist just felt gross and wrong, so we knew we had to do a different model.
It's not that we were business geniuses; it was just the only choice we had to keep doing Saga. But I'm glad to see that worked in the same way people are able to binge-watch seasons of TV and sort of join in whenever it returns to a weekly schedule. I hope that's what people are doing with our book now.
Staples: Yeah, and to Image's credit, even though they thought it was a terrible idea, they still let us go ahead and do it. They let us be the boss of our own book.
Vaughan: Yeah, and then they were like, "Hey, it worked for you guys." I think it's true. Image, at every turn, have been such great partners. They've steered us away from making mistakes in the past, but also when they think that we're about to do something they say, "Look, we're your partners, not your bosses, so let's do it." So yeah, all credit to Image. There's never really been a publisher like them.
IGN: With as much positive attention as Saga gets, it's also one of the most challenged comics out there, where people have tried to get it banned from libraries and stores. What's your reaction when you hear that?
Staples: As far as I know, I don't think we've actually been banned anywhere. There have been complaints about it. It's been "challenged," is the word I think they use for it. We're on the "most challenged books" list, which means we're the most requested to remove it from the public, by libraries or schools. I think it's a shame, but I understand why people don't want it in the kid's section, which is where most graphic novels and comics end up in many libraries or stores. But I think the real problem is just the way comics and graphic novels are organized and presented in these spaces.
Vaughan: It makes me really thankful for librarians. As Fiona pointed out, the book gets challenged a lot, but "banned" is a pretty strong word, and I think that almost never happens. That's because librarians have so often been at the forefront of this. The good ones have said, "Look, Saga shouldn't be shelved in the kid's section." I benefited as a writer for having a Porter Public Library in Westlake, Ohio that would let me check out whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to. That comic books are in libraries at all now feels insane. That wasn't happening when we were kids, so I'm grateful that they're there at all.
IGN: So where do you think Saga belongs? Would it be appropriate in a high school library?
Staples: I think it should be available in public libraries, the adult section probably. High school... I don't know. I think teenagers should be reading it, but maybe on the sly. [Laughs]
Vaughan: Yeah, Fiona's right. There's nothing better for business than a panic. So yeah, I think Saga should be forbidden from any high school library. That will make it the most desirable book in the country. So absolutely, no more Saga in high school libraries.
IGN: [Laughs] One thing the series has become known for is how you'll surprise readers with these splash pages of something really disgusting or obscene or sexual. What is the conversation behind those? Do you just try to dream up what will get the biggest gut reaction out of people?
Vaughan: Well, I think you always want people to have a reaction, but I never like things that are just shocking for shock's sake.
Like we had a giant testicle monster named Thard, and that wasn't just about "This will be an awful thing to make Fiona draw." I sort of wanted Marko, at this stage of his life, to reconnect with his mom and just be confronted with the worst things you don't want to experience with your parents. So there's always some thinking that goes into the awful imagery.
Discussions, usually, with Fiona, she's great about it. But I don't know, Fiona, what's your perspective on having to draw this horrible shit?
Staples: I don't mind. I usually think it's pretty funny. [Laughs] And cathartic. I don't know, I sort of grew up, when I was a teenager, reading the filthiest comics available. Before I even set foot in a comic book store, I was reading like Sexy Losers and stuff like that. So it feels right to me. [Laughs] Like, seeing a flash of a dragon boner.
Vaughan: It's interesting, because we have moments of horrific violence, too. That to me is the more offensive, harder to look at stuff -- especially in North America. The sexual stuff seem to drive a certain segment of the audience nuts I guess.
IGN: The splash pages have gotten pretty out-there and extreme. Do you feel a need to always top the one before?
Staples: I think the context is always different, so the shocking moment is always going to be something different. It's always unexpected, because they arrive in such different situations, like Marko exploring a planet with his mom or Gwendolyn and Sophie on a quest. It could happen anywhere.
Vaughan: Yeah, by the time we had our hardcover collecting 18 issues, it felt like, well, we've opened on a splash page so many times that you don't want to become a parody of yourself. So even with this last arc, I think we started opening in a much more restrained fashion than just the "here, pay attention to me" splash. So I think the book will continue to grow up as Hazel grows up, but it's always going to be filthy -- hopefully in evolving, ever-different way.
IGN: I also wanted to ask about Ghüs -- is it "Gus"? Is that how you say his name?
Vaughan: We say "Goose." [Laughs]
IGN: Good to know! Well, Ghüs, was he originally supposed to be a member of the cast?
Vaughan: That is 100-percent Fiona. I knew that we would be meeting a character that was going to become part of this journey, but it was only ever a small part. But it was when Fiona -- this was just her creation entirely -- sent over this drawing of a seal wearing overalls and was like, "Could this fit in the book?" I was like, "Oh, yeah. It's not just fitting in the book. Like, the whole book is going to become about this guy." So yeah, that was definitely 100-percent Fiona.
Staples: [Laughs] And I think you've caught on, so... we're going to continue to pander.
Vaughan: Until he gets brutally murdered.
IGN: No! [Laughs] Well, there was that one page where it looked like Ghüs was going to sacrifice himself, but he did not, to the relief of many fans.
Vaughan: He's certainly become -- surpassing only Lying Cat -- the character where fans are like, "I promise I will stop buying the book if anything happens to this character." But we're pretty ruthless, so never say never.In his exquisite taxonomy of the nine kinds of silence, Paul Goodman included “the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear.” And yet so often we think of listening as merely an idle pause amid the monologue of making ourselves clear. Hardly anyone has done more to advance the art of listening in a culture of speaking more than artist, actor, playwright, educator, and enchantress of words Anna Deavere Smith, founder and director of Harvard’s Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, and recipient of the prestigious MacArthur “genius” fellowship and the National Humanities Medal.
Half a century after John Cage demonstrated that we only hear what we listen for, Smith set out to explore her intuition that in order to develop a voice, one has to “develop an ear”; that words can be as much “the most important doorway into the soul of a person” as “the doorway into the soul of a culture.” She spent twenty-five years traveling and interviewing, at first, anyone who would talk to her — from the YMCA lifeguard to the lady at the clothing store register to a convicted murderer in a women’s prison — and, eventually, public figures like Christopher Hitchens and Studs Terkel, all the way up to then-President Bill Clinton. Smith would later use these interviews to “perform” the person in her acclaimed one-woman plays. The singular, immeasurably rewarding record of Smith’s journey lives on in Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines (public library), subsequently released in paperback under the title Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics — an unusual meditation on public life via private identity, an investigation of truth-telling and lying, and an uncommonly insightful manifesto for the art of listening and the power of words in the architecture of character.
Smith writes:
The creation of language is the creation of a fiction. The minute we speak we are in that fiction. It’s a fiction designed, we hope, to reveal a truth. There is no “pure” language. The only “pure language” is the initial sounds of a baby. All of us lose that purity, and as we get more “of” the world, we even lose sometimes the capacity to keep that breath moving in our language.
In a sentiment that calls to mind Adrienne Rich’s crystalline conception of the liar as someone who loses sight of “the possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people,” Smith adds:
Our ability to create reality, by creating fictions with language, should not be abused. The abuse is called lying. Perhaps we understand the precariousness of our situation. We as linguistic animals. At the very least language is currency as we create “reality.” To abuse language, to lie, is to fray reality, to tatter it. Those in public life who create our values are especially asked not to “lie.” Yet most of us say, at least, that we believe we are often being lied to.
As Smith undertook this experiment in “what happens when you dare to move out of the margins and into another place,” a pivotal point in her journey of listening came when she met a linguist at a random party. She recounts trying to articulate to her the intuitive seed for the project — this effort to listen between the lines in the hope of hearing the realness people conceal beneath the comfort of familiar words:
We can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment that they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It’s the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it’s a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They’re digging deep and projecting out at the same time. […] The idea is that the psychology of people is going to live right inside those moments when their grammar falls apart and, like being in a shipwreck, they are on their own to make it all work out.
Smith was looking for a way to get at precisely that unrehearsed language, so the linguist suggested three questions to crack the shell of verbal habit: “Have you ever come close to death?”; “Do you know the circumstances of your birth?”; and “Have you ever been accused of something that you did not do?” Armed with a simple Panasonic tape recorder and dogged dedication to what was at first merely an intuitive insight, Smith made these questions the springboard for her interviews. She eventually stopped asking them, but the questions, she notes, taught her how to listen. She recalls:
After I asked the questions, I would listen like I had never listened before for people to begin to sing to me. That singing was the moment when they were really talking.
In the early 1980s, she began taking that recorder — which eventually evolved as the technology did — all over America, culminating with Washington, D.C., and the President’s office, where she listened “for the talk, the talk of the big talkers, to turn, if only for a moment, into a song that they and only they can sing.”
Reflecting on the countless messages with which contemporary culture bombards us, from political propaganda to mundanities like airline safety instructions, Smith asks:
Who’s listening anymore? What does it take to get people to listen? When do people feel they need to listen? When do they feel they have to listen? … We get so used to hearing things that they have no meaning… We live with the expectation that words mean very little, because we have seen it all before, heard it all before. And that is why I find myself going on a quest down memory lane for a time when words meant something in my family, in my church, in my city, in my world.
She turns a particularly scrupulous eye to the professional purveyors of such meaningless din:
The press gather the information. But they do a lot more than gather and disseminate information. At their best moments, they use their wit to make us question power in a way that we may not have. And they must get our attention in the first place. They have to creep into the brains of the readers, or listeners, and alter the flow of our ideas. […] It’s like a constant drip that affects the way we think, and the way we see the world. They can change us without our full awareness. It happens slowly, bit by bit, that we take on attitudes that are perpetuated in the media. How can we as a public regain control of words?
The effort to reclaim the realness of words — of culture, of public life, of private truth — through acting may seem, at first, like a counterintuitive, even paradoxical approach. But Smith writes:
Acting is the furthest thing from lying that I have encountered. It is the furthest thing from make-believe. It is the furthest thing from pretending. It is the most unfake thing there is. Acting is a search for the authentic. It is a search for the authentic by using the fictional as a frame, a house in which the authentic can live. For a moment. Because, yes indeed, real life inhibits the authentic.
Citing the great director Joseph Chaikin’s formulation of presence as “the gift of the actor,” a “kind of deep libidinal surrender which the performer reserves for his anonymous audience,” she adds:
Presence is that quality that makes you feel as though you’re standing right next to the actor, no matter where you’re sitting in the theater. It’s the feeling you have that the performer is right in front of you, speaking to you and only you. It’s that wonderful moment when Jessye Norman sings in a quiet, so quiet you can hear a pin drop concert hall to an audience that is attentive like no other. It’s a moment when she seems to be singing as she’s never sung, and the audience seem to be listening as they’ve never listened. It’s the moment when it’s clear that everyone is there for the same reason… These moments have a kind of authenticity, because they reach the heart. They speak to us. They speak to us not because they are natural in the sense of normal. They speak to us because they are real in their effort to be together with a very large you, the you being all men and women.
Politicians and media manipulators, Smith argues, often try to borrow these skills, but the result is mere simulacra speaking to very few. More than a decade before the golden age of social media, Smith offers a perspective of extraordinary prescience and urgent timeliness today:
That genuine moment, that “real” connection, is no small thing. It is not something that happens every day. Is it rare because it calls for a special talent? Is it a moment that can happen only when we don’t know each other, when we have so much to learn about each other that we hang on every breath together? It is hard to find those moments in our culture because we think we know so much about each other. Perhaps it is a moment that is dependent not only on the performer or the leader, but on the audience as well. Does this era of focus groups and polls, this desire to get at and quantify the mysteriousness of that “deep libidinal surrender,” make it nearly impossible to find those moments of true engagement? Does the overdetermined nature of our time, and the inherent desire to control the public, to control their thoughts, particularly how they work those thoughts into actions that are favorable to the marketplace, create an atmosphere where only the predictable can occur? Those moments of deep libidinal surrender are in fact all about that which is not predictable. And there is no anonymous audience. At least that’s what the pollsters would like, what commerce would like. They would like to make the anonymous audience fully identifiable. With no anonymous audience, there can be no deep libidinal surrender. […] We’re having a hard time connecting in public.
At once a lament and a call to action, Smith’s observation rings even truer today:
We are in a communications revolution. Yet, as the great Americanist Studs Terkel tells us, “We’re more and more into communications and less and less into communication.” In this time of a global economy and business mergers happening as often as sunrise and sunset, where is the human merger? Where is real human engagement?
It’s interesting to note, here, that in the decade since Smith’s contemplation, the word “engagement” itself has been co-opted by the mass media as precisely the kind of marketable metric that dehumanizes how we connect in public. In the language of online media, “engagement” measures meaningless statistics about “user” behavior — and what better way to indicate that one is not listened to than being called a “user”? — that become simulacra for the genuine moments, those moments of “deep libidinal surrender,” which Smith so aptly identifies as the true measure of connection. “Engagement,” under the tyranny of this vocabulary, is interested in the very smallest you, not Smith’s large you of our shared humanity.
If there is any hope for us, it lies in relearning to tell the truth and hear it, in reclaiming ourselves as a listening species.
Smith traces her love of words and her fascination with their power to her grandfather — a “tall, thin, and aristocratic looking” patriarch called Pop who, despite only having an eight-grade education himself, managed to send all six of his kids to college. “He and I were good friends, because he liked to talk, and I liked to listen,” Smith recalls. “He is the one who taught me the kernel of all that I understand about acting.” That kernel was contained in a single sentence her grandfather liked to repeat, which eventually became the lens for Smith’s art:
I take the words I can get and try to occupy them. Using the idea that my grandfather gave me — “If you say a word often enough it becomes you” — I borrow people for a moment, by borrowing their words. I borrow them for a moment to understand something about them, and to understand something about us. By “us,” I mean humans.
In these borrowed words, and in the act of borrowing itself — which is predicated on the act of listening — Smith found a rare gateway into the depths of the human experience:
Placing myself in other people’s words, as in placing myself in other people’s shoes, has given me the opportunity to get below the surface — to get “real.” […] Some people use language as a mask. And some want to create designed language that appears to reveal them but does not. Yet from time to time we are betrayed by language, if not in the words themselves, in the rhythm with which we deliver our words. Over time, I would learn to listen for those wonderful moments when people spoke a kind of personal music, which left a rhythmic architecture of who they were. I would be much more interested in those rhythmic architectures than in the information they might or might not reveal. […] I wanted to get people to talk to me, in a true way. Not true in the sense of spilling their guts. Not true in the sense of the difference between truth and lies. I wanted to hear — well — authentic speech, speech that you could dance to, speech that had the possibility of breaking through the walls of the listener, speech that could get to your heart, and beyond that to someplace else in your consciousness.
She contemplates what makes speaking from an authentic place so challenging for most of us and why we protect that place by shrouding it in all kinds of pre-learned patterns of packaged speech:
Speaking calls for risk, speaking calls for a sense of what one has to lose. Not just what one has to gain.
Talk to Me is a dimensional and immensely insightful read in its totality, perhaps even timelier today than when it was first released in 2001. Complement it with Smith on what self-esteem really means and how to stop letting others define us, then revisit John Francis on what the ragged edge of silence taught him about listening.South Glasgow University will task a fleet of 22 robots with trolleying medical equipment, food and linen around the hospital form next week.
The brand new hospital, which cost £842 million, spent £1.3 million on the drones – which have a lift to shuttle up and down the 14 storeys.
©iStock/Squared/Pixels
In a post on the hospital's website, facilities manager Jim Magee said the robots would help boost patient services.
“The technology is brilliant. For example, the Swisslog Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) will return themselves to a charging station if their power is running low.
The robots sit together at pick-up points waiting until they are needed, replacing each other when necessary.
While South Glasgow’s hospital’s medibots were made in Switzerland, the government is hoping that robotics development will take off on British soil to boost the economy.
It has invested heavily in research, but a report recently condemned its silo approach to research which it claimed was wasting funding in excess of £327 million provided by the tax payer.
The industrial robotics market is worth over £17 billion ($25 billion) and forecast to reach £25 billion ($37 billion) in three years’ time.
Additionally, professional service robots like robotic laparoscopic surgeon arms will see a huge increase in demand, generating $3.4 billion (£2.2 billion) to $17.1 billion (£11.47 billion) within a year.
The UK is hoping to lead the pack in one |
of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Law enforcement officers prepare to disarm the booby-trapped apartment July 21, 2012. Hide Caption 15 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Officials tow cars outside Holmes' apartment July 21, 2012. Police disassembled devices and trip wires set up in the apartment. Hide Caption 16 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Officers prepare to place an explosive device inside the apartment. Hide Caption 17 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Debris flies out a window, right, after law enforcement officers detonate an explosive device inside the apartment July 21, 2012. Hide Caption 18 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre People mourn the victims during a vigil behind the theater where a gunman opened fire on moviegoers in Aurora. Hide Caption 19 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A woman grieves during a vigil for victims behind the theater. Hide Caption 20 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A distraught woman receives counseling from the Rev. Quincy Shannon, left, in front of Gateway High School in Aurora, where the families of the missing met after the shooting. Hide Caption 21 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Lin Gan of Aurora holds back tears as she speaks to reporters about her experience in the Century 16 theater. Hide Caption 22 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre People embrace before a vigil for victims behind the theater where a gunman opened fire on moviegoers. Hide Caption 23 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Investigators work on evidence near the apartment of James Holmes on July 20, 2012. Hide Caption 24 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Members of the Aurora Police Department SWAT unit walk near the Holmes' apartment. Hide Caption 25 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Television news crews gather in front of the home of Robert and Arlene Holmes, parents of suspect James Holmes, in San Diego on July 21, 2012. Hide Caption 26 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A popcorn box lies on the ground outside the Century 16 movie theater. Hide Caption 27 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Adariah Legarreta, 4, is comforted by her grandmother Rita Abeyta near the Century 16 Theater in Aurora. Hide Caption 28 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, was one of the victims. Hide Caption 29 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A woman waits for news outside Gateway High School, a few blocks from the scene of the shooting at the Century Aurora 16. Hide Caption 30 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Aurora police chief Daniel J. Oates speaks at a press conference near the Century 16 Theater on July 20, 2012. Hide Caption 31 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Agents search the trash container outside the suspect's apartment in Aurora. Hide Caption 32 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A Federal ATF officer carries protective gear onsite at the home of the shooting suspect. Hide Caption 33 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre President Obama speaks on the shootings at a July 20, 2012, event in Fort Myers, Florida. Hide Caption 34 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Moviegoers are interviewed at the Century Aurora 16. Hide Caption 35 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Officers gather at the theater July 20, 2012. Hide Caption 36 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Investigators were a common sight at the theater on July 20, 2012. Hide Caption 37 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Authorities gather at the shooting suspect's apartment building in Aurora. Police broke a second-floor window to look for explosives the suspect claimed were in the apartment. Hide Caption 38 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Screaming, panicked moviegoers scrambled to escape from the black-clad gunman, who wore a gas mask and randomly shot as he walked up the theater's steps, witnesses said. Hide Caption 39 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Onlookers gather outside the Century Aurora 16 theater. Hide Caption 40 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre A woman sits on top of her car near the crime scene. Hide Caption 41 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Police block access to the Town Center mall after the shooting. Hide Caption 42 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Cell phone video taken by someone at the theater showed scores of people screaming and fleeing the building. Some, like this man, had blood on their clothes. Hide Caption 43 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre Witnesses told KUSA the gunman kicked in an emergency exit door and threw a smoke bomb into the darkened theater before opening fire. Hide Caption 44 of 45 Photos: Colorado movie theater massacre What is believed to be the suspect's car is examined after the shooting. Hide Caption 45 of 45
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"We know that social isolation can amplify the negative consequences of stress and increase the risk of developing psychopathology. Some research has shown that social isolation actually delays the positive effects of activities found to be emotionally beneficial, such as exercise.... What we don't know is what caused Holmes to have such a break with reality."
Whatever his reasons, the lack of an online presence puts Holmes squarely in the minority among his peers.
About 81% of 18- to 29-year-olds in the United States use social media at least occasionally, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project
And surveys show that college students like Holmes, who was a graduate neurosciences student at the University of Colorado, are even more likely to use the sites.
But Rainie says it would be a mistake to draw a direct line between his decision to eschew social networking and a mindset that led to the alleged violence.
"It's not the norm for someone of this age to have such a limited presence, in any form: no blogs, no profile on a photo-sharing site and things like that," Rainie said. "But it's also a mistake to think the everyone in this age cohort is living every minute of their lives with social media. That's not the case."
The survey didn't ask respondents for specific reasons that they choose not to engage online. But Rainie said Pew has heard numerous reasons, from concerns about wasting time to privacy concerns to simply preferring face-to-face interaction.
In a Pew survey from November, two-thirds of respondents (67%) said that staying in touch with current friends is a major reason they use social media, and half gave similar importance to connecting with old friends. Only 3% said that finding a romantic partner was a major reason for their of digital networking tools.
"It's certainly an interesting element of his life that (Holmes) had such a limited digital presence," Rainie said. "But it's not necessarily the case that this means anything about the quality of his social world."
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College of London, has studied the impact of Internet use on mental health. He too says it's impossible to nail down its significance at this point but listed a set of possibilities, from a sense of isolation to distaste for Facebook as an emblem of "the status quo" to something perhaps even more sinister.
"He (possibly) did not want to have any reputation other than for what he was planning to do, like someone who saves himself for the big stage or a single lead role," Chamorro-Premuzic said.
Similar attacks in the recent past have, in some cases, painted a different picture.
Anders Behring Breivik was 32 when he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, at summer camp in Norway in July 2011. Breivik was a prolific blogger who was active on Facebook, Twitter and other sites. He posted a video to YouTube only hours before his shooting rampage.
By contrast, reporters looking into the mindset of Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old student who killed 32 people and wounded 25 others in an April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, found almost no traces of him online
The lack of a digital footprint for Holmes has created some unpleasantness for an unexpected group: people who share his relatively common name, live in the area of the shooting and do have a Web presence.
"It amazes me how insensitive, heartless and just plain old IGNORANT some people are in this world," a different James Holmes, this one a fitness instructor who, like the suspect, lives in Aurora, wrote on his Facebook page. "In the last 24 hours I have received hate mail, racist remarks, and sexual advances. I have over 400 friend requests in which a quarter of those are ppl mocking the real killer to gain attention and this was all AFTER the identity of the real killer was revealed..."
James P. Holmes, who lives in the Denver area, left a similar note on Facebook, albeit in a more wry tone.
"I am not a 24-year-old gun-slinging killer from Aurora, I am a 22-year-old book-slinging mass eater from Littleton...," he wrote. "James Holmes happens to be a pretty common name, surprisingly, so try not to jump the gun. Regards, A different guy named James Holmes."
With few, if any, conclusions to draw, Rutledge said the most interesting observation about society as a whole may be how surprised we are that the suspect did not use social media.
"It's a testimony to how normal participating in the social media world is when we look at the lack of presence as an anomaly," she said. "(We wonder,) 'What's wrong with this guy that he's not at least on Facebook?' "National Hockey League defenceman Clayton Stoner of the Anaheim Ducks is facing five charges under the Wildlife Act related to the trophy hunting of a large male grizzly bear beloved by aboriginals on B.C.’s central coast.
The B.C.-born Stoner is charged with two counts of making a false statement to obtain a licence on May 22, 2013, as well as one count of hunting without a licence, one count of hunting wildlife out of season, and one count of unlawful possession of dead wildlife — the latter three offences allegedly taking place on May 28, 2013. Stoner is scheduled to appear in Vancouver provincial court on Oct. 9.
Stoner’s shooting of the five-year-old grizzly affectionately known as Cheeky draws immediate comparisons to the case of an American dentist charged with the illegal trophy hunting in July of a 14-year-old male lion named Cecil, outside Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park in Africa.
That killing earned international condemnation and refocused public attention on trophy hunting.
Detective-Sergeant Cynthia Mann of the Conservation Officer Service’s major investigation unit said in an interview Wednesday that the Wildlife Act defines resident hunters as Canadian citizens or permanent residents whose primary residences are in B.C. and who are physically present in B.C. the “greater portion of each of six calendar months out of the 12 calendar months” preceding both their application for the hunt and the date of the actual hunt.
The legal argument is that Stoner did not meet those conditions due to living out of the province as a professional hockey player. At the time of the hunt, Stoner played for the Minnesota Wild but joined Anaheim as a free agent in 2014. “All five charges are directly related to the residency requirement,” Mann said.
Anyone who cannot meet those criteria must pay to hunt with a licensed B.C. guide-outfitter — typically, about $25,000 US for a coastal grizzly. The charges carry potential maximum fines of $50,000 to $250,000.
Stoner said through the Anaheim head office Wednesday that he did not wish to comment.
Faisal Moola, a director general with the David Suzuki Foundation, said it is interesting that the province has charged Stoner for “bureaucratic reasons” while continuing to allow a cruel sport that is at odds with the “morals and ethics” of average British Columbians. Coastal First Nations also believe it is disrespectful and unethical to kill bears for trophies and not for food.
“The hunt is part and parcel of a very bloody, horrific, painful experience for the bears,” Moola said.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark has consistently refused to ban trophy hunting of grizzlies even though 87 per cent of British Columbians oppose the activity. Unlike the hunting of other game, there is no legal requirement under the Wildlife Act for hunters to remove edible portions of grizzly meat from the kill site.
Stoner, 30, hails from Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island. He played 69 games, had one goal and seven assists, and 68 penalty minutes playing for Anaheim during the 2014-15 season.Indian Men's junior cycling team create history by attaining world number 1 ranking
Suromitro Basu FOLLOW FEATURED COLUMNIST News 47.60K // 23 Jul 2016, 10:40 IST SHARE Share Options × Facebook Twitter Flipboard Reddit Google+ Email
Indian Men’s senior team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games
In a first for Indian cycling across any age category, the Men’s junior sprint have cemented the world number 1 spot in the team sprint event as per the recently released Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rating release. The rankings are updated every three months, and the national team has jumped directly from 11th spot to number one with a points tally of 1012.5 points.
The narrowly edged out Poland, who occupy second with 960 point, followed by South Korea who raked in 900 points. General Secretary of the Cycling Federation of India (CFI) Onkar Singh said, “You have just witnessed history in the making, this feat is amazing because when the Federation started functioning properly back in 2013, the junior team was ranked 149th, so you see how much they have progress. What we should also highlight is Indian cycling’s unique landscape. Unlike other sports where they train under one nationational coach, all the 15 boys are from different parts of the country and train under different coaches. This highlights how much India has progressed, despite the scattered talent.”
One of the squad members Sanuraj also reached the individual top ten rankings in the Keirin event. The women’s junior team also showed substantial improvement by occupying the world number 8 spot. Team member Anu Chotia also entered the world top 20. In the senior categories, Andaman and Nicobar Islands cyclist, Deborah Herold remains top ranked, holding the sixth spot, after reaching a career high of fourth in December.
Singh added, “Rio qualification didn’t go as per plan, but our goal still is 2020 Tokyo, I’m confident we will win a medal at that particular event, considering our growth as of now.” The Men’s junior team will again be in action on July 24 at the UCI Junior track Championships in Switzerland. The team has been training for the event under the guidance of the Indian Air Force.A brawl broke out at Jingu Stadium during a game between the Hanshin Tigers and Tokyo Yakult Swallows near the tail end of the 2013 season. It was a typical baseball fight, so beyond a round of spirited pushing, players being held back and an assortment of shouts hurled back and forth (“That’s fertilizer. That is fertilizer,” Dodgers broadcasting legend Vin Scully might’ve translated).
The catalyst for this was a play at the plate. Tigers outfielder Matt Murton had rounded third, headed home and barrelled into Swallows catcher Ryoji Aikawa, who had just received the ball.
Aikawa, who had already missed two months that year after a similar play, was predictably miffed about being run over and gave Murton a shove which brought both teams out of the dugout.
Murton, however, didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong, he just wanted to knock the ball free, which was within his rights to do, and score a run for his team.
“Obviously it’s just a basic baseball play,” Murton said then. “The guy is standing in the middle of the plate, it’s a close play, and I ran him over, and for whatever reason he took exception to it.”
Aikawa had held onto the ball, so Murton was out (in more ways than one as both players were tossed because of the fight).
It wasn’t the first home-plate collision for either player that year, and there had been others, including one that resulted in an injury, involving different players.
These are the types of plays Japanese baseball will try to eliminate by agreeing to crack down on players running into catchers and enforcing rules preventing backstops from blocking the plate without the ball. The rule changes mostly mirror those MLB made in 2014 to improve player safety.
Players will have to adjust to the new environment around the plate, but the onus will be on Japanese umpires to get the ball rolling during the spring.
If the new rules applied to the aforementioned meeting of the minds between Murton and Aikawa, umpires would’ve had to determine whether Aikawa was blocking the plate, or Murton careened into him needlessly, or if neither of those things happened.
That’s going to be a lot for the umpires to handle — as it was for MLB umps in 2014 where there were a number of gripes from confused players and managers concerning the application of the rule and mixed messages coming from the league office.
So Japanese umps will need to be on their toes and be as clear as possible, even though no two situations are exactly the same, about what goes and what doesn’t. That, of course, means taking off their blinders when it comes to catchers.
Many Japanese baserunners generally avoid home-plate collisions — it’s usually been foreign players, Westerners mostly, who come from leagues where physicality at the plate was more accepted, who ram into catchers, which was within the rules. Japanese catchers, on the other hand, will often stand guard at the plate without the ball. So a renewed focus on the existing rules will likely come as a rude awakening to some, at least early in the season.
There are going to be some mistakes in applying the rules, perhaps (but hopefully not) even some that effect the outcome of games. There were growing pains in the majors as well. There is also no way to totally eliminate collisions, because sometimes things happen.
Player safety is paramount, however, and if umpires are up to the task during the spring and early in the year, there will be a smooth transition.Southern Railway of B.C. employees are lending a helping hand to the Christmas Bureau.
At their recent Celebration Dinner, SRY employees brought in donations totalling $1,425, including $683 in new toys, $282 in non-perishable foods and $460 in gift cards, mostly from grocery stores.
The railway company donated the items to the Salvation Army, which will help more than 200 low-income families with more than 500 children have a nicer Christmas this holiday season.
New West makes Top 10
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New Westminster has taken ninth place in the BCBusiness’s annual Best Cities for Work in B.C. list.
Developed in partnership with Environics Analytics, the survey evaluated 36 B.C. cities on seven indicators including income growth, average household income, population growth and unemployment. It believes these factors, when combined, paint a picture of the relative economic health of communities – and their appeal for people seeking to work there.
Topping the list was Fort St. John, followed by Dawson Creek, North Vancouver District, Squamish, Coquitlam, Langley District, Surrey, Delta, New Westminster and Port Coquitlam.
“We expect the results of this year’s ranking to attract a lot of attention and provide a lot of discussion across the province,” said BCBusiness editor-in-chief Matt O’Grady in a press release. “The B.C. job market, despite what’s happening next door in Alberta, has more or less weathered the economic storm.”
The complete list, along with the details on the methodology and analysis of B.C.’s top-ranked cities, can be found in the January 2015 issue or the magazine or online at BCBusiness.ca/BestCities.A couple of months ago, Cody unearthed in his Android Messages 2.3 teardown hints of the app implementing suggested actions, something akin to Gmail and Inbox's smart replies, but more in line with Allo or Assistant in that it could suggest to share your location or open your calendar and more. The image above is our first glimpse at what one of the possible actions, smart replies, could look like.
You can see from the 3 bubbles that smart replies will look very similar to Gmail/Allo/Inbox. You get the 3 most likely suggestions based on Google's machine learning and you can easily tap one and send it directly or add to it and send.
Cody tells me that at some point in his teardowns, he's seen suggested actions linked to Project Fi, so these might be limited to Fi subscribers although it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Just to be sure, he tested Messages with his Pixel on Fi and didn't see any of the smart replies, so we're pretty confident this is a limited server-side test and not a full rollout. Let us know if you're seeing the smart replies too, and if so whether you're a Fi subscriber.
Now onto the second change we've spotted. This one is pretty wild. Reader Lukis24 commented on our previous Android Messages post with a couple of screenshots that left us scratching our heads. They show a new interface for attaching things to messages, with horizontal rows in lieu of separate bottom tabs. You can see rows for emojis (probably recent or frequent ones), stickers, image attachments, location sharing, and voice messages. The icons and rows look eerily familiar to me, they remind me of an app or keyboard that had the same interface, though I can't put my finger on it. (If you can help, please leave a comment, this is torturing me.)
Messages attachment interface: current (left), maybe new? (middle/right)
To be honest, we're not sure if this is some kind of mod or mockup or something else. And we've never seen anyone else mention this so we're confused. It does look legit with all the options and permissions, but it's also way more cumbersome than simply using a tabbed interface and giving each type of attachment its own due. So we're sharing this here to ask if you've seen this interface before. Either way, you can leave a comment expressing your honest opinion about what the bloody hell Google could be thinking here.Clemson Tigers quarterback Deshaun Watson said he has long been stereotyped as a run-first quarterback because he's black and is an effective runner.
In an interview posted on Bleacher Report, Watson said the label dual-threat quarterback is a "code word."
"People think, 'Oh, he's a black quarterback, he must be dual-threat.' People throw around that word all the time. It's lazy," Watson told Bleacher Report. "The one thing I learned early on as a football player is people have their opinions, and I can't change them. But I can show them what they're missing.
"People have assumed that I have to run the ball before I can throw it most all of my career, all the way back before high school. It's a stereotype put on me for a long time because I'm African-American and I'm a dual-threat quarterback. I don't know why that stereotype is still around. It's about talent and the ability to throw the ball, not the color of your skin or your ability to also be a dangerous runner."
Editor's Picks Playing in the shadow of Death Valley In Clemson, South Carolina, it's summer 2016 and forever 1981. ESPN The Magazine looks at how Heisman candidate Deshaun Watson and the Tigers want to build a championship legacy all their own.
Watson told Bleacher Report it annoyed him when he was younger.
In his two seasons at Clemson, Watson has emerged as one of the best quarterbacks nationally as both a passer and runner. He's 18-2 as the Tigers' starter, and in 2015, his first full season, he became the first FBS quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards and rush for 1,000. He was the Tigers' first Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing third, and led Clemson to an ACC title and appearance in the national championship game.
Against Alabama, Watson completed 30 of 47 passes for 405 yards and four touchdowns. He added 73 yards rushing. Clemson's 550 total yards were the most Alabama allowed all season in a single game. The Crimson Tide finished 2015 ranked No. 1 in adjusted defensive QBR.
"Then everyone said, 'Well, let's see how he does against the Alabama defense' -- the defense everyone thought was the best," Watson told Bleacher Report. "I think my teammates and I proved we can throw the ball."
Watson was the No. 1 quarterback in the 2014 recruiting class after breaking several state high school records in Georgia and leading Gainesville to a state championship. He held offers from Alabama, Georgia, Florida State, Ohio State and USC, among many others.
"People think, 'Oh, he's a black quarterback, he must be dual-threat.' People throw around that word all the time. It's lazy," Clemson's Deshaun Watson told Bleacher Report. Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Early projections have Watson as the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NFL draft, if he elects to forgo his senior season. As a sophomore, he threw for 4,104 yards and 35 touchdowns and rushed for 1,105 yards and 12 scores.
Injury concerns followed Watson into the 2015 season after he suffered a torn ACL late in 2014 -- his third significant injury that year -- but he remained healthy throughout all of last season. He told Bleacher Report he doesn't think his injury history will scare teams.
"Not at all," he told Bleacher Report. "I think I proved last year that I am durable and can take the punishment. I've put on about 16 pounds of muscle this offseason, and I'm more prepared than I have ever been to handle the hits."
He told Bleacher Report a national championship is his main priority after losing 45-40 to Alabama in January. It was the SEC's eight national title in the past 10 seasons.
Watson said he does not see a disparity in talent between the SEC and ACC. Florida State won the 2013 national championship and made the playoffs in 2014, and Clemson nearly went undefeated a season ago.
"We had the No. 1 defense in the nation last year. I practiced against the No. 1 defense every week. When we played Alabama, there was no difference to me," Watson told Bleacher Report. "I'm not saying that Alabama doesn't have talent -- they do. They've got some studs over there. But I truly believe there's no difference between the two leagues. It's not overwhelming or shocking to play against the SEC, like most fans think."As the temperature starts to rise, and the "sun's out, guns out" practitioners emerge, we urge you to take a closer look at the T-shirt's more sturdy, well-dressed cousin: the polo. When done right, it's the most casual way of looking put together. When done wrong, however, it can make you look ridiculous. Here's what to look for when you're out there in the wild shopping and, eventually, wearing.
Watch Your Ass
Traditionally, the common piqué (a weave of cotton that adds texture) polo shirt is longer in the back and shorter in the front to help it stay tucked in when you bend over. But when worn untucked, as we recommend, they're menswear mullets (though we doubt a mulleted man wears polos). You'll want to take this into consideration when looking for one. If it covers more than half of your back pockets, it's too long.
Don't Go Deep
Once you find a length that you like, be sure that you take a quick look at the buttons. Many polos have pretty deep Vs, which when left open and floppy is TMI for everyone. But every brand is different. Lacoste polos, for example, have two buttons with a placket (the piece of fabric the buttons sit on) that stretches down to the nipple line; it demands to be buttoned. On the other hand (chest?), J.Crew's offering doesn't go quite so low (about midway down the chest) and can be worn completely unbuttoned.
Mind the Sleeves
Another thing you'll want to look for is the ribbing on the sleeves. This varies across all brands and comes down to personal preference. Some have no tension at the end of the sleeve, some hug you like a rubber band. If you've been up in the gym all winter polishing your guns, you might want sleeves that hug (not constrict) your arms to show that off. Just be sure you don't get anything that's too tight. Nobody looks good when their muscles are fighting their clothes. They should complement each other.
Polos Are Team Players
If you're not going with piqué and are instead opting for a more old-school knit polo (something with a ’50s vibe that feels like a super-light sweater), you may have to contend with a banded bottom. This can get a little tricky with the rest of your clothing. A waistband will cinch everything in, which can make you look slimmer. The only thing is, you have to make sure your pants aren't at odds with it. That means nothing low-rise—waistbands usually hit just around where your belt would sit, and you don't want any glimpses of midriff. Go for a pair of pants that complements the vintage vibe of the polo. Rule of thumb: If they're JFK-appropriate, they're knit-polo-appropriate. And avoid leather belts—you sweat more around them, and that can easily seep through the leather and stain your precious polo.
Wear It Right
Now, when you've actually found your dream polo, there are some tricks to rocking it properly that'll make you look completely at ease. First, do not wear them with an undershirt. They're meant to be casual. They're meant to project the notion that you may or may not be on a boat in the next few hours. An undershirt will bulk you up (in a bad way), and the sleeves might peek out from underneath—not a good look. Go commando above the waist! And if you're concerned about sweat stains under your pits, you should be. So apply that deodorant and make sure it's aluminum-free—otherwise your beautiful white tennis shirt will get yellow in as little as one wear. Protect the polo!
Oh—and never, ever pop the collar.Kentucky was America’s leading hemp producer in the early 19th century. Now, 200 years later, after a historic election for drug policy has led to a shift for marijuana policy reform in America, Kentucky lawmakers are taking steps to revive the crop.
While advocates for hemp legalization say the plant could bring a wealth of green jobs to Kentucky, deep-rooted drug stigma and conflict with federal law have made passing the legislation unlikely. Nonetheless, two state bills are in the works, while a federal proposal aims to clear the way for state legalization. Lawmakers suggest the bills could at least open up the conversation about hemp, and clear up misconceptions about its use.
Because hemp is increasingly imported from Canada, growing and making it in the US could save the US money and create green jobs at home. Aside from soy, no other plant has shown the potential to create so many different products — from hemp soap to paper and oil. Hemp rarely requires pesticides, can be grown in the same fields over several consecutive years, and produces biodegradable plastics and biofuels. Lightweight and dense, hemp-lime is a building material that is known to be an efficient insulator leaving behind a minimal carbon footprint.
Kicking off the call for hemp production in Kentucky is Kentucky Democratic representative Terry Mills, who has pre-filed an industrial hemp bill that would allow hemp to be made from marijuana crops containing.3% THC, which is at least one and a half times less than typical marijuana THC levels and does get people high. Marijuana that has psychoactive properties comes from the flowering buds, leaves and resin of the cannabis plant, while the stalks and sterilized seeds of the plant are commonly referred to as hemp.
A federal hemp bill is indeed in the works, but the chances of it passing in the near future are slim to none. The Hemp Farming Act of 2012 was introduced by senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) this summer. It would amend the Controlled Substances Act to allow for the cultivation of low-THC hemp and exempt industrial hemp from marijuana legislation.
"I'm not opposed to it," said state Rep. Jim DeCesare (R). "It is a good alternative crop for the ag community." Stil, DeCesare acknowledges that many people are confused by the differences between agricultural hemp and the pot that people smoke.
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"They are not the same," he said. "It is going to take an education effort" for the bill to pass the state house. If they can make it happen, which is unlikely, the benefits would be immense. As Rand Paul recently wrote, "[Hemp] jobs will be ripe for the taking, and I want farmers in Kentucky to be the first in line.”Democracy in Ancient India
by Steve Muhlberger, Associate Professor of History, Nipissing University.
Note on this article. I must state right out front that I read no Indian languages, which may lead some readers to dismiss entirely my work in this difficult field. For the more tolerant, let me explain that an earlier version of this article has been read and commented on by several academic readers, whose comments and corrections have been taken into account. The editors of the Journal of World History liked it well enough to ask me to write a broader treatment of democracy's prehistory. This resulted in Phil Paine and I writing "Democracy's Place in World History," which appeared in that journal in 1993. This article, however, never found a home of its own -- in part because I myself could think of few journals that would be interested in an article that concentrates on specialized material yet draws broad conclusions from it. Returning to it now, in 1998, I find I still believe in my interpretation of the ancient evidence for Indian democracy, and in its relevance to how we understand the world history of democracy. Rather than let it languish further, I am releasing it electronically, for both general and specialist readers. I will be glad to hear your comments. For the reader who wants to look into the question independently, I have posted a bibliography, and of course there are always the footnotes. I should make clear that though this article bears my name alone, I was pointed in the right direction by an unpublished essay on democracy by Phil Paine. I also wish to note that I was aided in my research by the collection of Asian literature at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. My philosopher-colleague at Nipissing University, Dr. Wayne Borody, made some suggestions, but neither he nor anyone else is responsibile for any errors or misinterpretations.
In fact, the supposed differences between "Western" and "non-Western" cultures are in this case, as in so many others, more a matter of ideological faith than of cool, impartial judgment. If we are talking about the history of humanity as a whole, democracy is equally new or equally old everywhere. Fair and effective elections, under adult suffrage and in conditions that allow the free discussion of ideas, are a phenomenon of this century. The history of democracy, properly so called, is just beginning.
The "prehistory" of democracy, however, is scarcely restricted to Europe and Europeanized America and Australasia. A search of world history finds much worth studying. There are no perfect democracies waiting to be discovered, but there is something else: a long history of "government by discussion," in which groups of people having common interests make decisions that affect their lives through debate, consultation, and voting. The vast majority of such groups, it may be objected, are more properly called oligarchies than democracies. But every democracy has been created by widening what was originally a very narrow franchise. The history of government by discussion, which may be called republicanism for brevity's sake, has a claim to the interest of anyone who takes democracy seriously.2
This article will examine one important case of government by discussion -- the republics of Ancient India. Although they are familiar to Indologists, these republics are hardly known to other historians. They deserve, however, a substantial place in world historiography. The experience of Ancient India with republicanism, if better known, would by itself make democracy seem less of a freakish development, and help dispel the common idea that the very concept of democracy is specifically "Western."
The present article has two goals. First, it will summarize the history of the ancient Indian republics as it is currently known. This survey is restricted to North India and the period before about 400 A.D., when sovereign republics seem to have become extinct.
Second, the article will examine the historiographical evaluations of the Indian republican experience, and suggest that most of them have placed it in too narrow a context. Ancient Indian democratic experiments, it will be argued, are more important than they are usually granted to be. It is well known that the sources of ancient Indian history present considerable difficulties. All the indigenous ancient literature from the subcontinent has been preserved as part of a religious tradition, Brahmanical, Buddhist or Jaina. When the subject is political theory and its implementation, the preselected nature of sources is a distinct handicap to the researcher. The largest and most influential Indian literary tradition, the Brahmanical, is distinctly hostile to anything resembling democracy.
Brahmanical literature gives kingship a central place in political life, and seldom hints that anything else is possible. For moral philosophers and legislators such as Manu (reputed author of the Manu-Smrti between 200 B.C.-A.D. 200), the king was a key figure in a social order based |
= l.unbox, case let.Node(.R,a,x,b) = ll.unbox { return.Node(.R, Box(.Node(.B,a,x,b)),y,Box(.Node(.B,c,z,d))) }
Note, the return statement is the same in all 4 rebalance patterns. It’s only the pattern match that changes, based on which of the 4 imbalance possibilities is being checked.
It might be nice to be able to group these 4 possible matches together like so:
switch tree { case let.Node(.B,.Node(.R,.Node(.R, a, x, b), y, c), z, d),.Node(.B,.Node(.R, a, x,.Node(.R, b, y, c)), z, d),.Node(.B, a, x,.Node(.R,.Node(.R, b, y, c), z, d)),.Node(.B, a, x,.Node(.R, b, y,.Node(.R, c, z, d))): return.Node(.R,.Node(.B,a,x,b),y,.Node(.B,c,z,d)) default: return tree }
but Swift won’t allow multiple patterns in a case when the pattern declares variables, so we have to stick with the multiple returns for now.
Traversing in-order
So, now we have a nice balanced tree. But to get the benefit of an ordered set, we want to iterate over it in order. This sounds like a job for SequenceType. That way, you could use for...in over the sorted elements.
In-order traversal of a tree is usually done recursively, but that’s a little tricky to do when you want to give anyGenerator a closure expression that spits out the next element. So instead, we can use a stack to do it iteratively:
extension Tree: SequenceType { func generate() -> AnyGenerator<Element> { var stack: [Tree] = [] var current: Tree = self return anyGenerator { _ -> Element? in while true { // if there's a left-hand node, head down it if case let.Node(_,l,_,_) = current { stack.append(current) current = l } // if there isn’t, head back up, going right as // soon as you can: else if!stack.isEmpty, case let.Node(_,_,x,r) = stack.removeLast() { current = r return x } else { // otherwise, we’re done return nil } } } } }
Initializing from another sequence
One last extension. When you have a container, it’s nice to be able to initialize it from another sequence, as well as from a literal. These are both pretty easy:
extension Tree: ArrayLiteralConvertible { init <S: SequenceType where S.Generator.Element == Element>(_ source: S) { self = source.reduce(Tree()) { $0.insert($1) } } init(arrayLiteral elements: Element...) { self = Tree(elements) } }
Given these, you can now create new sets using literal syntax:
let alphabet = Tree("the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".characters) let primes: Tree = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19]
That’s it for now. Several features of Swift 2.0 make this code a lot more pleasant to read and write. There are various further enhancements you could make. The tree maybe ought to be wrapped in an outer struct to avoid exposing the enum implementation. The next logical extension would be conforming to CollectionType.
And there are also performance improvements you could make (the functional data structures book suggests a few as exercises). Honestly, the times when this data structure will do better than an unordered set or array + sort are probably going to be pretty rare. But it’s nice to have the option now.
Below is the final code, along with some tests, or you can find the full code for the tree in a gist, here.
If you found this interesting (and if you made it all the way down here, hopefully that’s true!), it’ll be part of Chris Eidhof and my book, which you can get a preview of here.
enum Color { case R, B } indirect enum Tree<Element: Comparable> { case Empty case Node(Color,Tree<Element>,Element,Tree<Element>) init() { self =.Empty } init(_ x: Element, color: Color =.B, left: Tree<Element> =.Empty, right: Tree<Element> =.Empty) { self =.Node(color, left, x, right) } } extension Tree { func contains(x: Element) -> Bool { guard case let.Node(_,left,y,right) = self else { return false } if x < y { return left.contains(x) } if y < x { return right.contains(x) } return true } } private func balance<T>(tree: Tree<T>) -> Tree<T> { switch tree { case let.Node(.B,.Node(.R,.Node(.R, a, x, b), y, c), z, d): return.Node(.R,.Node(.B,a,x,b),y,.Node(.B,c,z,d)) case let.Node(.B,.Node(.R, a, x,.Node(.R, b, y, c)), z, d): return.Node(.R,.Node(.B,a,x,b),y,.Node(.B,c,z,d)) case let.Node(.B, a, x,.Node(.R,.Node(.R, b, y, c), z, d)): return.Node(.R,.Node(.B,a,x,b),y,.Node(.B,c,z,d)) case let.Node(.B, a, x,.Node(.R, b, y,.Node(.R, c, z, d))): return.Node(.R,.Node(.B,a,x,b),y,.Node(.B,c,z,d)) default: return tree } } private func ins<T>(into: Tree<T>, _ x: T) -> Tree<T> { guard case let.Node(c, l, y, r) = into else { return Tree(x, color:.R) } if x < y { return balance(Tree(y, color: c, left: ins(l,x), right: r)) } if y < x { return balance(Tree(y, color: c, left: l, right: ins(r, x))) } return into } extension Tree { func insert(x: Element) -> Tree { guard case let.Node(_,l,y,r) = ins(self, x) else { fatalError("ins should never return an empty tree") } return.Node(.B,l,y,r) } } extension Tree: SequenceType { func generate() -> AnyGenerator<Element> { var stack: [Tree] = [] var current: Tree = self return anyGenerator { _ -> Element? in while true { // if there's a left-hand node, head down it if case let.Node(_,l,_,_) = current { stack.append(current) current = l } // if there isn’t, head back up, going right as // soon as you can: else if!stack.isEmpty, case let.Node(_,_,x,r) = stack.removeLast() { current = r return x } else { // otherwise, we’re done return nil } } } } } extension Tree: ArrayLiteralConvertible { init <S: SequenceType where S.Generator.Element == Element>(_ source: S) { self = source.reduce(Tree()) { $0.insert($1) } } init(arrayLiteral elements: Element...) { self = Tree(elements) } } import Darwin extension Array { func shuffle() -> [Element] { var list = self for i in 0..<(list.count - 1) { let j = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(list.count - i))) + i guard i!= j else { continue } swap(&list[i], &list[j]) } return list } } let engines = [ "Daisy", "Salty", "Harold", "Cranky", "Thomas", "Henry", "James", "Toby", "Belle", "Diesel", "Stepney", "Gordon", "Captain", "Percy", "Arry", "Bert", "Spencer", ] // test various inserting engines in various different permutations for permutation in [engines, engines.sort(), engines.sort(>),engines.shuffle(),engines.shuffle()] { let t = Tree(permutation) assert(!t.contains("Fred")) assert(t.elementsEqual(t.insert("Thomas"))) assert(!engines.contains {!t.contains($0) }) assert(t.elementsEqual(engines.sort())) print(t.joinWithSeparator(",")) }Earlier this month, Alex Miller, one of the main developers behind the Clojure Community, announced the latest version of Clojure. The flagship new features of Clojure 1.8 are Direct Linking, String Functions and Socket Servers, although it also includes a few minor enhancements and more than thirty bug fixes.
Clojure, a modern dialect of the primordial Lisp programming language, originally debuted in October 2007 and offered its first stable release in 2009. Since then, it has adopted a release cadence of approximately one per year, although recent comments indicate a target of a new release every 6 months.
The three new main features are rather unrelated to each other, but they provide important benefits to Clojure users. On one side, Direct Linking can improve performance by making direct static calls to other functions, as opposed to using the usual two-step indirection. This also allows the JVM to optimise code through JIT (Just In Time) compilation. One downside of this approach is that the dynamism of the method is lost, so methods cannot be redefined during execution. However, the flag can be turned off selectively for any given function by marking it with the metadata "^redef" annotation. Version 1.8 turns on that flag for all functions in Clojure core by default.
On the other hand, a number of native String Functions have been added: index-of, last-index-of, starts-with?, ends-with? and includes?. Prior to this, this functionality was only available by calling the Java String methods directly (via the Java native interoperability known as Java Interop). In contrast with the objective of Direct Linking, the new String Functions are actually slightly slower than the existing alternative. However, the ease of development these functions provide made this one of the most popular Clojure JIRA tickets with 29 votes. They have also been added to ClojureScript.
Finally, the new Socket Server functionality allows the developer to create a socket server for any Clojure application by simply providing a function name as an argument on the command line or in a configuration file. This, together with the new clojure.core.server/repl function, can be used to interact with a running application for debugging or development purposes, since the REPL module will be able to inspect values and even redefine functions in runtime. However, this feature is less likely to be used in production environments for two reasons: first, because of the obvious security concern of having an open server that allows interacting with a running application, and second, because if Direct Linking is enabled (and it's likely to be enabled if performance is a concern), then redefinition of methods won't work, which diminishes the value of the REPL server.
In addition these features, Clojure 1.8 includes a vast array of other changes that can be checked in the official release notes.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
A stork got a heck of a surprise when it came beak to snout with a killer crocodile.
The hunting bird looked like it might lose more than its lunch as a the reptile's jaws came within inches of its head.
The yellow-billed stork was fishing on the Siwadu lake at a game reserve in Tanzania when it spotted the head of a tiger fish floating in the water.
It was about to tuck into it lucky discovery when a peckish crocodile swooped in and snatched the fish right out of the stork's beak.
(Image: Caters)
In this stunning series of images, the crocodile is seen coming within inches of feasting on the stork - and in one image it looks like the stork may be in for it.
But happy with its fishy catch, the content crocodile left the stork to continue fishing.
Photographer Mark Sheridan Johnson captured the images at the Selous Game Reserve, where he works as a safari guide.
(Image: Caters)
Mark, 35, said: "I noticed the stork was playing with something in the water, it turned out to be the head of a tiger fish.
"While playing with the fish head the stork attracted the attention of a young crocodile, who came swimming in at speed to steal the bird's dinner.
(Image: Caters)
"Once the croc had the fish, the stork realised the battle was lost, so decided to carry on fishing near the crocodile.
"You will quite often see these storks fishing close by to crocodiles, they know that as the croc moves along the shoreline of the lake, it will scare fish away from it, which the stork will catch.
(Image: Caters)
"Similarly you'll find different species of birds such as the yellow-billed stork and the spoonbill hunting side by side, this is called 'twin hunting strategy'.
"These bird and crocs live in general harmony, but sometimes the crocs do kill them."
Watch terrifying 16ft croc make short work of smaller rival:While the 2017 total solar eclipse might not be on your personal astronomical agenda, stargazing might be.
Tom Haugh, the outreach coordinator for the Northwest Florida Astronomy Association, recommends stargazing in places with little city light, such as anywhere north of I-10. The club hosts monthly stargazing events at state parks such as Henderson Beach State Park, Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, Grayton Beach State Park and Eden Gardens State Park.
The International Dark-Sky Association recognizes exceptionally dark skies with a dark-sky certification, Haugh said.
“That’s a way of certifying, somewhat accurately and professionally, how dark your skies are,” Haugh said. “It takes some instrumental monitoring, where you set up and measure the actual brightness of the sky over several nights over the period of a season or so and then you propose it to the National Dark-Sky Association.”
Eden Gardens State Park in Walton County is in the initial stages of applying for this certification, he said.
We asked our Facebook readers for best places to stargaze, and these were the responses:
Dawn Nezat: The beach road between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach. 10 miles of white sand on either side of you and very little light makes it perfect for stargazing.
Steve McGrady: In the winter, I’ve enjoyed the clear night sky in Blackwater River State Forest. Alone, though, everyone around here is too chicken to go with me.
Newton Ace: The beach in between Okaloosa Island and Destin Bridge. Gulf side, of course.
Wesley Norton: There are several spots off Highway 20 on the north side of Choctawhatchee Bay.
Tricia Hope: The middle of my pasture in Baker!
Jeanette Ojeda: Navarre Beach.
Emerald Fiedler: I’ve heard Henderson beach State Park and Fort Pickens.
Everett Johnson: 790 on the Gulf (restaurant) has a patio that has a great view.
Michele Layne: Choctawhatchee River.The BC NDP is considering setting up a ministry dedicated to seniors if elected next year.
Leader John Horgan made the suggestion during an open forum for seniors in Prince George today at the Library.
“Seniors are a dominant force in communities right across this province, they pay taxes, they built communities, they’ve been the foundation and backbone of towns in every corner of BC and their issues are not being addressed through mainstream ministries.”
“If we can have a ministry that is dealing with the building code… or emergency preparedness, why in the world wouldn’t we be able to have a ministry responsible for seniors.” Horgan added
During the open forum, seniors and their family members told Horgan and the NDP seniors and health spokespeople about the challenges they face with everything from surgery and care home wait times to Medical Service Plan premiums.
Horgan drew approval from the crowd of about 30 when he pledged to scrap MSP premiums, but an even louder cheer came when he called on the BC Liberals to publicly support a national pharmacare program.
Horgan and many in the room praised the work of Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie, but blasted the fact that she reports to the Health Minister, not the other way around.
“She’s been given enough rope to put forward some provocative reports, but none of them have been acted upon but our concern and the concern you heard in the room was; she’s there at the whim of the government when she should be there holding the government accountable.” Horgan said
As for wait times for surgery and care homes, Horgan stopped short of promising new funding instead stating that efficiencies could be found in the system to get better value for the government’s dollar. He praised Northern Health’s recent move towards a team based and improved record keeping as one example, saying the health authority has the advantage of being able to experiment with new ideas due to its low population.
The full audio from John Horgan’s scrum with reporters following the open forum can be listened to below.Next year is shaping up to be extremely busy for the Foo Fighters as they have tour commitments as well as headlining gigs around the world. The band just recently added second shows to their already growing 2015 U.S. tour. Not only that, but they have also announced that they will be headlining Germany’s Rock Im Park/Rock Am Ring festivals, Belgiums Rock Werchter and the Netherlands massive Pinkpop festival.
The year 2015 is certainly looking to be the year of the Foo Fighters and that is most definitely not a bad thing. Check out the newly added second shows below along with a live performance of the band at Pinkpop 2011.
Aug. 16 – Denver, CO – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre – http://bit.ly/1zKB7bC
Sept. 19 – Anaheim, CA – Honda Center – http://bit.ly/1ybuq5p
Sept. 22 – Los Angeles, CA – The Forum – http://bit.ly/1ybuqCm
Public on sale begins Friday at 10am local
AdvertisementsJustice Department asks court to keep wiretapping challenges secret John Byrne
Published: Wednesday July 30, 2008
Print This Email This In a little-reported brief filed late Tuesday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Bush administration asked the court to keep any review of the warrantless wiretapping law passed earlier this year by Congress secret. The administration also asked that the court refuse to accept legal briefs from anyone other than the Justice Department itself. The filing, made by the Justice Department, comes in response to a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union earlier this month asking the court to ensure that any proceedings relating to the "scope, meaning or constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act" be as transparent as possible. "The government is proposing that the intelligence court should consider the constitutionality of the new surveillance law in proceedings that will be entirely secret," Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a release. "If the government's request is granted, the court won't hear arguments from anyone except the government and those arguments will be presented to the court in secret briefs. At the end of the process, the court will issue a ruling that is also secret. The process the government is proposing is completely unacceptable. Especially because the new surveillance law departs so significantly from the standards that have applied to government surveillance for the last 30 years, any proceedings relating to the new law's constitutionality should be adversarial and as informed and transparent as possible." The ACLU is also seeking a court ruling declaring the law unconstitutional in the Southern District of New York. Critics have bemoaned the law, which granted the telecommunications industry retroactive immunity for participating in a program that was at the time not authorized by law. "This bill has quite literally no public value for citizens or civil liberties," constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley said earlier this year. "It is reverse engineering, though the type of thing the Bush Administration's famous for, and now the Democrats are doing--that is, to change the law to conform to past conduct. "It's what any criminal would love to do," Turley added. "You rob a bank, go to the legislature, and change the law to say that robbing banks is lawful."AUBURN TAGS IN GEORGIA
Show your Auburn Spirit on the road with the newly designed Auburn license plate in the state of Georgia. The "Auburn Club" license plate can be ordered at your county tax commissioner's tag office. When renewing online, it is also available in the full tag list under the "Special Interest" plates. This tag can be ordered at any county tag office in the state. However, there will be NO physical plates in the offices. The state says these plates are being issued "on demand" - this means that when you order the tag and pay your fees, you will be issued a temporary plate. Your new Auburn specialty plate will be sent to your home within an expected 7 business days. You can order the tag before your renewal date; you will still have to pay other fees (ad valorem etc.) at the time of your actual renewal period. The funds from the tag sales go to the State Treasury. If you currently have the previous Auburn tag, the state advises that there is NO mandatory tag replacement at this time, so if you wish to keep your old plate, you may. Should that guidance change, the Georgia DMV will let you know. If, however, you do want the new tag, you will need to order it. The state-issued "TZ" designation that is on the old plates will not be on these new tags. The new digitally printed tags feature three random letters and three random numbers, so these will be random combinations on every plate. Unfortunately, personal vanity plates are not possible, as the state of Georgia does not allow vanity plates (personal letter/number combinations) for this tag.Swish 1.0, our Swift networking library, is out! Swish came to life through working on many client projects and writing more or less the same networking stack over and over. Our goals with Swish are:
Be able to test our networking layer.
Keep the networking layer self contained.
By default, decode JSON into domain objects via Argo. If we want to do something different than decoding JSON, it should be as painless as possible.
And so Swish was born!
Our 90% use case is that we get JSON from an endpoint, and we want to decode it into a struct via Argo. Swish makes that easy. Let’s say you have an endpoint, GET https://www.example.com/comments/1, that returns the following JSON:
{ "id" : 1, "commentText" : "Pretty good. Pret-ty pre-ty pre-ty good.", "username" : "LarryDavid" }
We’ll model this with the following struct, and implement Argo’s Decodable protocol to tell it how to deal with JSON:
import Argo import Curry struct Comment : Decodable { let id : Int let text : String let username : String static func decode ( json : JSON ) -> Decoded < Comment > { return curry ( Comment. init ) <^> j <| "id" <*> j <| "commentText" <*> j <| "username" } }
(n.b. if you’re not familiar with the Curry library, check this blog post out)
We can model the request by defining a struct that implements Swish’s Request protocol:
struct CommentRequest : Request { typealias ResponseObject = Comment let id : Int func build () -> NSURLRequest { let url = NSURL ( string : "https://www.example.com/comments/ \( id ) " )! return NSURLRequest ( URL : url ) } }
We can then use Swish’s default APIClient to make the request:
let request = CommentRequest ( id : 1 ) let dataTask = APIClient (). performRequest ( request ) { ( response : Result < Comment, SwishError > ) in switch response { case let. Success ( value ): print ( "Here's the comment: \( value ) " ) case let. Failure ( error ): print ( "Oh no, an error: \( error ) " ) } }
And that’s it!
Swish’s defaults make decoding via Argo seamless, but if you want to customize, provide a different implementation for any of the following protocols:
RequestPerformer allows you to define how the NSURLRequest should be carried out
allows you to define how the should be carried out Deserializer allows you to process the NSData from the response however you wish
allows you to process the from the response however you wish Parser allows to you convert the result of your deserialization into a Representation (e.g. JSON, by default)
allows to you convert the result of your deserialization into a (e.g., by default) Client allows you to define how the objects implementing the above protocols are linked together.
Checkout the Swish repository for more!This amazing documentary gives long overdue recognition to a great and misunderstood man of science. The life of Nikola Tesla is an inspiring example of the power of one man to change the world with technology and revolutionary ideas. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was one of the most fascinating scientists of the 20th century. He invented, developed or imagined the technology that brought us electricity, remote control, neon and florescent lighting, radio transmission and much more… all the basic inventions that now connect the world with power and information. He was a brilliant and charismatic immigrant whose talent took him to the height of celebrity. He locked horns with Thomas Edison, J. Pierpont Morgan, Guglielmo Marconi, and George Westinghouse. Mark Twain praised his genius. They are all characters in this program, the very first to tell the full story of Tesla’s life and work. Like many geniuses, Tesla was not a conventional man. He gave his life to realize his visions, while others made millions with his inventions. Tragically, he died penniless and nearly forgotten.Huge value in a 28" display
A couple of years ago, I got an energized, slightly crazy look in my eyes when folks in Korea started selling some truly gorgeous 27" IPS monitors on eBay for dirt cheap. Word spread quickly among PC enthusiasts about the visual glory that could be had for about 300 bucks. I promptly ordered one and did my part to spread to word about its crystal-clear, colorific virtues.
Little did we know back then that the sleepy world of PC displays was about to be awakened by a series of disruptive technologies. Since then, the first wave of 4K panels arrived based on a mind-shatteringly beautiful 31.5" panel—with an equally sanity-threatening $3,500 price tag attached. Next came G-Sync, or at least the early prototypes, with a variable display refresh capability that makes in-game animation look silky smooth. I also briefly freaked out over a tantalizingly cheap 39" TV with 4K resolution—but sadly, it only worked at a pokey 30Hz refresh rate.
In truth, all of those developments were simply a portent of better things to come. The really exciting part is when these new technologies go mainstream—when we can get our grubby little hands on mature versions of new tech at affordable prices. We've reached one of those happy milestones with the introduction of Asus' new 4K monitor, the innocuously named PB287Q. This monitor represents the maturation of 4K display tech, and wow, 4K has grown up faster than Miley Cyrus went from Hannah Montana to whore o' Babylon.
The PB287Q measures 28" from corner to corner, and inside of its rectangular frame is a grid measuring 3840x2160 pixels. Unlike almost every other 4K display on the market, the PB287Q is capable of treating that grid as a single, coherent surface. That's a huge deal for reasons I'll explain in more detail shortly, but the bottom line is that dual-tile 4K is just a bag of hurt.
Even so, the second punch in this combo is the knockout: Asus is asking only $649 for this monitor ($699 in Canadia.) That's... way less than three grand, I'm pretty sure, although I do have a liberal arts degree.
The value here is a thick and viscous slurry that clings to everything it touches. It's practically inescapable. Yet for the PC display purist, there is one big, shiny, green fly struggling helplessly in the ointment of 4K goodness. Metaphorically speaking, I hope. The PB287Q is so affordable in part because it's based on a 28" panel of the twisted nematic variety.
Yep, it's the dreaded TN panel type. You've seen them in laptops, attached to cheap desktops, and most recently perhaps in one of those $60 Android tablets they sell at Walmart. TN panels have a lousy reputation, and they've earned every inch of it by combining horrid color reproduction with crummy contrast ratios and narrow viewing angles. For me, thinking about them can induce rage, probably because of how many otherwise-decent laptops they have sabotaged.
Frankly, I would have written off the PB287Q as uninteresting if I weren't vaguely aware of the fact that not all TN panels are created equal. When I came face to face with an early version of the PB287Q during CES, it was shockingly not awful. Downright decent, even.
I don't even know who I am anymore.
But I do know that the PB287Q hosts the best TN panel on which my eyes have ever fixed their gaze. In fact, it's a pretty darned good display.
About the whole 4K thing
There's really nothing magic about "4K" resolutions. They're not even terribly well defined. 4K has something to do with packing about four thousand pixels from left to right across the screen. That's weird, since 720p and 1080p consider vertical resolution, but not so weird, since marketers like bigger numbers.
I am a fan of high resolutions, especially when they're combined with high pixel densities. Most of the 4K monitors out there are moving the ball forward substantially in terms of pixel density, and that is a little bit magical. Here's how Asus' new 28" wonder stacks up against a number of common displays.
Given how PPI works, the PB287Q crams about three times as many pixels into a square inch as your "typical" PC monitor, represented above by a 24" 1080p panel.
The Q, as I like to call it, is also substantially denser than its spiritual predecessor, the Asus PB278. The PB278 is a 27" IPS panel with a 2650x1440 resolution, and it's basically just a nicer, better-packaged version of those 27" Korean IPS monitors. In my view, the crucial and decisive question about the PB287Q is how it stacks up against those 27" IPS displays. On the pixel density front, at least, the PB287Q is clearly in another class.
This panel isn't as crazy-dense as some of the smaller tablet displays, including Apple's 9.7" iPad "Retina" panels, but it's also not meant to be viewed six inches from your face. Which I remind myself every time I start slouching again. I'd say the Q qualifies for "retina" status when viewed from a reasonable distance (for a desktop display) of 20-24". That is, you're not likely to be able to pick out individual pixels, and text takes on a "printed" look with smoothly contoured edges. It's purty.Doing it Live
Honig Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 20, 2015
The slightly inspirational story of a random guy bringing his love of funk to the airwaves.
It had been my personal aspiration to be a radio DJ ever since I was five. Local LA radio personalities like KRTH 101’s “Shotgun” Tom Kelly and 95.5 KLOS’ Joe Benson were consistently on the family radio during my childhood. Growing up, I began to develop an admiration for such on-air personalities: I just thought they just sounded so smooth, so cool as they talked about music. And they were all about playing the best music: the stuff that came out of the 60s, 70s, and (to a lesser extent) the 80s. These guys, Shotgun Tom and Uncle Joe, are all about keeping the music of the past alive. It’s their goal, their mission, to ensure that all those old-ass bands — everyone from the Rolling Stones to Sly and the Family Stone — maintain relevancy today.
Through my youthful exposure to the FM throwback stations, it became my prime objective as a teen to be heard on the airwaves. Alas, this childhood career fantasy was completely crushed come high school. It came to my attention that you can’t make a comfortable living out of being on the air. With the advent of iTunes and digital music, there’s no denying that the medium of radio is rapidly dwindling in popularity. Thus, there’s virtually nothing in the way of on-air openings in the job market.
Looking like a total dweeb in the presence of Daryl “DMC” McWilliams
My career aspirations took a blow, yet I was nonetheless still a devoted radio listener. While my friends would cruise around our suburb listening to their iPods, my car radio was (and still is) permanently set to 93.5 KDAY — LA’s prime source for back in the day rap jams. I’m talking Run DMC. Public Enemy. Too $hort. DJ Quik. Salt ‘n Pepa. It goes without saying that the bass of my beat-up Honda was always cranked to the max.
Botoxed moms on their daily power walks would shake their heads in disgust at me as I rolled by in the Civic.
When going through the ponderous decision-making process of college selection, I discovered that the University of Wisconsin had a student-run radio station. Upon further investigation, it became clear that WSUM doesn’t play by the rules of most radio stations. Whereas corporate channels (a la CBS’ KROQ or iHeartMedia’s KIIS FM) assign a rigid play list for their disc jockeys, WSUM DJs can play essentially whatever they want. This made my selection relatively easy. Holy shit. The idea of being able to share the music I love with actual listeners! As a college kid, I would be able to craft an on-air persona like the ones I had spent so many lazy afternoons jamming out to. This was an opportunity to finally share my taste in music with the world. To fulfill such a childhood fantasy would be “dank,” as I would have phrased it as a pizza-faced high schooler.
My peers would say things like: “Dude! You’re doing radio at….Wisconsin? Isn’t that like…really cold?” and “West-consin.. that’s the East Coast right? You’re gonna get fucking frostbite.” In spite of the nay-sayers, I wasn’t too concerned about moving from SoCal to the Midwestern tundra. The very prospect of being on the air far outweighed any personal grievances about freezing my tucus off for four years.
Where the magic happens. Credit: wsum.org
Flash forward to Fall 2008, and I’m an enrolled freshman at UW training to be a DJ at 91.7. All of the sessions took place in the DJ booth under the guidance of a broadcasting host. This room is a music junkie’s paradise: there’s a slew of volume controls, massive speakers, mics, a couple of turntables, and an array of mixing gear. It all just looks so professional — examining the equipment for the first time made me feel as if I was in training to be a big time DJ. All of the volume levers, mini-disc players, and microphones seemed daunting at first. However, with time and experience, handling these broadcasting essentials became second nature.
The booth’s walls are lined with posters for all kinds of music, from Elvis to the Chili Peppers to Mozart. A large glass window behind the broadcasting equipment gazes out upon the foot traffic of the University Square. There’s always serious babe-age hanging out down there, but I was usually far too glued to the soundboard, rambling on the mic, or taking calls from listeners to be staring outside during my show. Through the course of my education, the broadcast booth became my Shangri-La.
You wouldn’t dare think of bringing a beverage inside.
As is the case with all college students, I had gone through many personal changes during those volatile years of higher education. Amidst this coming of age period, I had never strayed away from WSUM FM. I was on the air almost every week between January 2009 and August 2012. At the risk of coming off as schmaltzy, doing my show was a cathartic experience. It was my weekly, hour-long break from the grind. It also really felt terrific to get a phone call from a listener, I might add, even if it was your mother just ringing to say you’re doing a great job but that she’d like to hear you talk on the mic more.
Funking up a crowd on a hot summer Saturday in Madison, WI circa 2010.
Putting on a weekly show wasn’t always so invigorating, particularly as a freshman. I had to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn on Tuesday mornings and walk across the ice-capped campus to do my first program, the aptly titled “Funk My Life.” It was a daunting challenge hosting a high-energy hour of funk so early in the day. I am not a morning person. However, with the help of black coffee and artists like Isaac Hayes, I think I managed to keep the mood and flow of the broadcast lively.
Hopefully, all four of my listeners felt the same.
Keeping up with the 8 AM slot of death eventually paid off. In my next semester of hosting, I was bumped up a full thirteen hours to the 9 PM Tuesday slot. Primetime, baby. During that fall, a couple of friends and I had a variety show called “Cocktail Hour.” The premise was that we were all aging lounge singers showcasing our favorite hits of the Easy Listening genre. Certainly, this wasn’t traditional |
She also knocked Ryan for pinning the blame for S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when Republicans in Congress helped precipitate the downgrade by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
"The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth," Kohn wrote.
You can read Sally Kohn's full takedown of Paul Ryan's speech for Fox News here.She has just finished a promotional tour of Australia.
But it seems there is one thing Demi may have forgotten to share with her fans Down Under when she paid them a visit - the reason she is wearing a gold band featuring tiny diamonds on her wedding finger.
The 22-year-old star was sporting the simple bling when she landed at LAX on Wednesday, and did not seem to make any attempt to hide it.
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Something to tell us? Demi Lovato was seen coming through LAX on Wednesday wearing a gold band with diamonds on her wedding finger
She had also been wearing the gold band when she left Australia and boarded the plane.
The star has been dating beau Wlmer Valderama on and off for five years - they got together in 2010, but later split.
Then in 2011 they were rumoured to be on again, but then broke up again to date other people.
Wedding bling? The singer has just returned from a promotional trip to Australia but did not say she had got engaged
The pair then got together again in 2014 and have been going strong ever since.
Demi has made no mention of any nuptials with her 35-year-old other half.
However she did tell New Zealand radio show ZM in July that if Wilmer asked her to tie the knot she would definitely say yes.
Long term: She has been dating beau Wilmer Valderama on and off for five years
Nuptials in the offing: He did not accompany her on the trip - she is seen here with a minder - however she told a New Zealand radio show she would say yes if he proposed
She said: 'I am very, very in love with him. I think we’ll probably wait a little bit longer, but if he asked tomorrow, I’d say yes.'
The singer has always been very open about how supportive the actor is of her.
Wilmer helped her through her struggle with addiction, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and cutting.
Close: The singer has been very open about how supportive the actor has been - they are pictured here together
She told the radio station: 'I am very, very in love with him. I think we’ll probably wait a little bit longer, but if he asked tomorrow, I’d say yes'
In 2010 Demi did a stint in rehab to overcome her demons, and the actor was there by her side to help her get well.
She told the radio show that when they got together, the 13 year age gap raised some eyebrows:
'I was 18 and he was 30 so people were definitely judgmental and even my parents were kind of, "Why is someone his age wanting to date someone so young?"
'And after a while everyone around us started to see that what we have was real and incredible and very special, and we’ve been together ever since.
'Obviously my family loves him [now]. People kind of stop doing that because you can see when we’re together or even just from our Instagrams that we’re very sweet to one another.'
Demi left Australia after completing some promotional commitments on Wednesday.
Sad to leave? Demi Lovato looked downcast as she walked through Sydney Airport on Wednesday after a promotional tour in Australia for her new single Cool For The Summer
Wearing black sunglasses to cover her eyes, the starlet layered up in a casual chunky knit cardigan and scarf over her T-shirt and ankle cropped jeans.
The diminutive star added black heel ankle booties to her winter ensemble, with a matching black leather designer tote resting in the crook of her arm.
The brunette beauty had her long locks pulled back into a neat, low ponytail and appeared to have minimal make-up on for the 14-hour flight.
Layering up: The pop star layered up in a long chunky knit cardigan and scarf as she left the winter weather, adding black leather booties to her cropped jeans
And despite a whirlwind visit the former American X-Factor mentor seems to have had a fun, action-packed trip as she promoted her latest single Cool For The Summer.
Demi checked out some of the native wildlife and paid a visit to Australia Zoo in Brisbane.
The purple haired popstar shared a snap of her day with the wildlife, including puckering up to a baby quokka.
Stealing her heart: Demi Lovato poked fun at boyfriend Wilmer Valdarrema on Tuesday when she planted a kiss on a quokka at Australia Zoo, telling him to 'look away' in her Instagram post
Doing the rounds: The adorable animal wasn't the only one Demi met though, with the singer seen in shots with a koala and a kangaroo
Demi declared on Instagram: 'HE LITERALLY KISSED ME!!!! Look away Wilmer Valderrama, look away.'
The diminutive animal wasn't the only one Demi met, though, as she became acquainted with a koala and a kangaroo, the latter she was particularly excited about.
'GUYS,' she excitedly wrote in bold onthe social media platform, 'F****** KANGAROOS!!!! Literally SO happy!!!! I love Australia!'
Big fan: She captioned her meeting with a kangaroo with a particularly excited message, writing 'GUYS...F****** KANGAROOS'
Adorable: Demi, who was adorned in a bright and colourful dress, was similarly excited for the koala, which she described as a'sleepy little boo boo'
Demi, dressed in a bright turquoise dress and with fuchsia lips, was similarly excited for the koala, which she described as a'sleepy little boo boo.'
Also while in the country, the songstress performed her latest single on Sunday's The Voice Australia Live Shows.
The former Glee star dropped jaws as she flaunted a healthy dose of skin in a revealing bra top and hotpants combo.
Bringing the heat: Demi is in Australia to promote her newest single Cool For The Summer, on Sunday performing the hit on The Voice Australia
More reserved: A day later she attended a press call in Sydney, putting her best fashion foot forward in a knee length structured black number
A day later she attended a press call in Sydney, putting her best fashion foot forward in a knee length structured black number.First lame joke: White? Wow, racist. Second lame joke: Shouldn't they wear orange? In all seriousness, this seems just about right for a party whose base is obsessed with virtue-signaling symbolism above almost all else. The smug, self-righteous echo chamber is a cozy and satisfying place to be, especially if you refuse to consider the possibility that your tactics are actively undermining your alleged cause. You'd think that Democrats' opposition to Trump would be adequately communicated by their applause choices -- or, you know, their literal presence in the chamber as the opposition party. But hey, maybe this makes them feel like they're accomplishing something. In which case, have at it, folks:
It's not really a protest, says Ms. Popularity, but it sort of is -- as a "statement of values" to contrast with Trump's. It's not quite clear from Pelosi's answer whether only Democratic women will be wearing their white-and-purple values on their collective sleeve, or if the men will also be participating. In any case, it used to be much easier to discern who was clapping for what lines during presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress because member seating was segregated by party. That tradition was suspended by another well-meaning but factually-misplaced gesture following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a mentally ill man with no political motivations. Incivility and heated rhetoric was not the reason Giffords was attacked, but that's the lesson that liberals settled on (with conservatives to blame, of course), so symbolism again won the day. That new arrangement lasted a few years, but "fizzled" toward the end of Obama's second term; it therefore seems unlikely that Republicans and Democrats will again be co-mingled tonight. Fake feel-goodery may have met its final expiration date anyway in an age Trump, in which Democrats are required to ritually demonstrate their wokeness. If the original tradition is indeed fully restored this evening, it'll once again be pretty easy for viewers to spot the Democrats. If not, it'll be harder, but not impossible: They'll be the ones wearing Northwestern colors and occupying dozens and dozens of fewer seats than they did eight years ago.
Parting thought: If some Democrat is overcome with anger, can't resist the temptation to break leadership's one comportment rule, and pulls a Joe Wilson, what are the odds Trump heckles right back? Oh, and do the Dems set their indignation aside and leap to their feet if Trump calls for, er, amnesty?President Obama and conservative GOP Sen. Marco Rubio agree: Olympic medals and the cash awards that go with them should be tax-exempt. This is the dumbest idea of the summer—and in our overheated campaign season, that’s saying something.
The idea seems to have originated with anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist. Rubio instantly turned Norquist’s press release into a bill. By yesterday, Obama had his spokesman join in the pandering, perhaps hoping that a bit of the Games' nationalistic enthusiasm would rub off of his presidential campaign.
What’s going on here? U.S. athletes who win their competitions get two forms of direct compensation. First, of course, is their medal: gold, silver, or bronze. The commodity value of the hardware is very modest, ranging from perhaps $700 for gold to about $5 for bronze. Second, the U.S. Olympic Committee (not the U.S. government) pays a cash bonus of $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. Those winnings are taxable, just like any other income. The Rubio bill would make them tax-exempt. If you want to know more, PolitiFact has a nice, more detailed description.
I suspect much of the support for this silly idea is based on the mostly-outdated myth of the self-sacrificing amateur athlete who gives up all in the Olympic spirit. Chariots of Fire and all that.
But the dons who run the Olympics have let professionals compete for more than 40 years. As a result, many of those who would benefit from this tax cut are as far from amateurs as one could imagine. LeBron James, for instance, made $57 million last year in salary and endorsements. Kobe Bryant made $52 million. Michael Phelps made $10 million. Does BronBron really need an $8,700 tax cut? Seriously?
And even those winners who have not yet cashed in will do so soon enough. As Gabby Douglas is about to learn, a gold medal and a nice smile is worth untold bucks on Madison Ave.
Are there still U.S. athletes who compete for the love of their sport, and make great personal and financial sacrifices to participate in the Olympics? Absolutely. Many medal-quality athletes now have sponsors who pay most of their expenses but some, especially those in minor sports, must work temporary or part-time jobs to pay the rent while training.
The thing is, those self-sacrificing athletes won’t be helped very much by this new bill. A single person whose only income is her $25,000 cash award and who has no deductions would owe about $1,900 in federal income tax. But, of course, a world-class athlete would likely have many deductible expenses—for coaching, travel, equipment and the like. It is not unreasonable to suspect that in the real world, many of those low-income non-professional athletes already owe little or no tax on their Olympic cash bonus.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the Olympics is big business. Paying athletes performance bonuses for winning medals is no less commercial than anything else the Olympic bosses do. But why this extra cash should be tax-free escapes me. At least hedge fund operators have to pay capital gains taxes on their bonuses.
As my colleague Eric Toder reminds me, there once was a time when this sort of special tax treatment was slipped into revenue bills by high-paid lobbyists in the dark of night. Now, the code has been so corrupted that pols propose this junk without even being asked. For that, I suppose, they deserve the gold medal of stupid tax tricks.Neurological disorder Neurons in person with epilepsy, 40x magnified. Specialty Neurology
A neurological disorder is any disorder of the nervous system. Structural, biochemical or electrical abnormalities in the brain, spinal cord or other nerves can result in a range of symptoms. Examples of symptoms include paralysis, muscle weakness, poor coordination, loss of sensation, seizures, confusion, pain and altered levels of consciousness. There are many recognized neurological disorders, some relatively common, but many rare. They may be assessed by neurological examination, and studied and treated within the specialities of neurology and clinical neuropsychology.
Interventions for neurological disorders include preventative measures, lifestyle changes, physiotherapy or other therapy, neurorehabilitation, pain management, medication, or operations performed by neurosurgeons. The World Health Organization estimated in 2006 that neurological disorders and their sequelae (direct consequences) affect as many as one billion people worldwide, and identified health inequalities and social stigma/discrimination as major factors contributing to the associated disability and suffering.[1]
Causes [ edit ]
Although the brain and spinal cord are surrounded by tough membranes, enclosed in the bones of the skull and spinal vertebrae, and chemically isolated by the blood–brain barrier, they are very susceptible if compromised. Nerves tend to lie deep under the skin but can still become exposed to damage. Individual neurons, and the neural circuits and nerves into which they form, are susceptible to electrochemical and structural disruption. Neuroregeneration may occur in the peripheral nervous system and thus overcome or work around injuries to some extents, but it is thought to be rare in the brain and spinal cord.
The specific causes of neurological problems vary, but can include genetic disorders, congenital abnormalities or disorders, infections, lifestyle or environmental health problems including malnutrition, and brain injury, spinal cord injury or nerve injury. Metal poisoning, where metals accumulate in the human body and disrupt biological processes, has been reported to lead to neurological problems, at least in the case of lead.[2] The neurological problem may start in another body system that interacts with the nervous system. For example, cerebrovascular disorders involve brain injury due to problems with the blood vessels (cardiovascular system) supplying the brain; autoimmune disorders involve damage caused by the body's own immune system; lysosomal storage diseases such as Niemann-Pick disease can lead to neurological deterioration. The National Institutes of Health recommend considering the evaluation of an underlying celiac disease in people with unexplained neurological symptoms, particularly peripheral neuropathy or ataxia.[3]
In a substantial minority of cases of neurological symptoms, no neural cause can be identified using current testing procedures, and such "idiopathic" conditions can invite different theories about what is occurring.[citation needed]
Classification [ edit ]
18-52 53-68 69-84 85-99 100-131 132-157 158-186 187-243 244-477 478-1,482 Deaths due to neurological conditions per million persons 2012
Neurological disorders can be categorized according to the primary location affected, the primary type of dysfunction involved, or the primary type of cause. The broadest division is between central nervous system disorders and peripheral nervous system disorders. The Merck Manual lists brain, spinal cord and nerve disorders in the following overlapping categories:[4]
Many of the diseases and disorders listed above have neurosurgical treatments available (e.g. Tourette's Syndrome, Parkinson's disease, Essential tremor and Obsessive compulsive disorder).
Neurological disorders in non-human animals are treated by veterinarians.[5][6]
Mental functioning [ edit ]
A neurological examination can, to some extent, assess the impact of neurological damage and disease on brain function in terms of behavior, memory or cognition. Behavioral neurology specializes in this area. In addition, clinical neuropsychology uses neuropsychological assessment to precisely identify and track problems in mental functioning, usually after some sort of brain injury or neurological impairment.
Alternatively, a condition might first be detected through the presence of abnormalities in mental functioning, and further assessment may indicate an underlying neurological disorder. There are sometimes unclear boundaries in the distinction between disorders treated within neurology, and mental disorders treated within the other medical specialty of psychiatry, or other mental health professions such as clinical psychology. In practice, cases may present as one type but be assessed as more appropriate to the other.[7] Neuropsychiatry deals with mental disorders arising from specific identified diseases of the nervous system.
One area that can be contested is in cases of idiopathic neurological symptoms - conditions where the cause cannot be established. It can be decided in some cases, perhaps by exclusion of any accepted diagnosis, that higher-level brain/mental activity is causing symptoms, rather than the symptoms originating in the area of the nervous system from which they may appear to originate. Classic examples are "functional" seizures, sensory numbness, "functional" limb weakness and functional neurological deficit ("functional" in this context is usually contrasted with the old term "organic disease"). Such cases may be contentiously interpreted as being "psychological" rather than "neurological". Some cases may be classified as mental disorders, for example as conversion disorder, if the symptoms appear to be causally linked to emotional states or responses to social stress or social contexts.
On the other hand, dissociation refers to partial or complete disruption of the integration of a person's conscious functioning, such that a person may feel detached from one's emotions, body and/or immediate surroundings. At one extreme this may be diagnosed as depersonalization disorder. There are also conditions viewed as neurological where a person appears to consciously register neurological stimuli that cannot possibly be coming from the part of the nervous system to which they would normally be attributed, such as phantom pain or synesthesia, or where limbs act without conscious direction, as in alien hand syndrome. Theories and assumptions about consciousness, free will, moral responsibility and social stigma can play a part in this, whether from the perspective of the clinician or the patient.
Some of the fields that contribute to understanding mental functioning
Conditions that are classed as mental disorders, or learning disabilities and forms of intellectual disability, are not themselves usually dealt with as neurological disorders. Biological psychiatry seeks to understand mental disorders in terms of their basis in the nervous system, however. In clinical practice, mental disorders are usually indicated by a mental state examination, or other type of structured interview or questionnaire process. At the present time, neuroimaging (brain scans) alone cannot accurately diagnose a mental disorder or tell the risk of developing one; however, it can be used to rule out other medical conditions such as a brain tumor.[8] In research, neuroimaging and other neurological tests can show correlations between reported and observed mental difficulties and certain aspects of neural function or differences in brain structure. In general, numerous fields intersect to try and understand the basic processes involved in mental functioning, many of which are brought together in cognitive science. The distinction between neurological and mental disorders can be a matter of some debate, either in regard to specific facts about the cause of a condition or in regard to the general understanding of brain and mind.
Moveover, the definition of disorder in medicine or psychology is sometimes contested in terms of what is considered abnormal, dysfunctional, harmful or unnatural in neurological, evolutionary, psychometric or social terms.
See also [ edit ]The idea for this post came from several people who asked me the same question: "How to find the date of the end of the month? only using CL". When I quizzed them they explained that this was asked during an interview. If anyone asks me for help I always ask them how they would do it, and they all had pretty much the same solution, but struggled with how to determine if February should have 28 or 29 days. They asked how I would have done it. I came up with two solutions that I will share here.
The first version is very similar to what they can come up with. In this example the date is in *DMY format.
01 PGM 02 DCL VAR(&QDATE) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(6) 03 DCL VAR(&MONTH) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(2) 04 DCL VAR(&MONTHEND) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(8) 05 RTVSYSVAL SYSVAL(QDATE) RTNVAR(&QDATE) 06 CHGVAR VAR(&MONTH) VALUE(%SST(&QDATE 3 2)) 07 SELECT 08 WHEN COND((&MONTH = '01') + *OR (&MONTH = '03') + *OR (&MONTH = '05') + *OR (&MONTH = '07') + *OR (&MONTH = '08') + *OR (&MONTH = '10') + *OR (&MONTH = '12')) + 09 THEN(CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('31')) 10 WHEN COND((&MONTH = '04') + *OR (&MONTH = '06') + *OR (&MONTH = '09') + *OR (&MONTH = '11')) + 11 THEN(CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('30')) 12 OTHERWISE CMD(DO) 13 CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('29') 14 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&QDATE) TOSEP(*NONE) 15 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0000) + EXEC(CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) + VALUE('28')) 16 ENDDO 17 ENDSELECT 18 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&MONTHEND) TOFMT(*YYMD) + TOSEP(*NONE) 19 ENDPGM
Line 5: I retrieve the current date from the system value QDATE.
Line 6: I substring the month number from the current date using the substring built in function, %SST.
Line 7: Rather than use multiple if statements I can use a select command to make the code more readable.
Lines 8 and 9: For those months with 31 days I change the first two positions of the date field with 31.
Lines 10 and 11: The same goes for the months with 30 days.
Line 12: What about February? This is the part the questioners could not come up with an easy solution for.
Line 13: I change the day number to 29.
Line 14: I can use Convert Date command, CVTDAT, to validate 29th February. I use the same variable for the from and to date parameters, DATE and TOVAR, and I do not want any date separator characters in the to date, TOSEP(*NONE).
Line 15: If 29th February 2017 is not a valid date, which it is not, then the CVTDAT would error. This Monitor Message command, MONMSG, "catches" the error, and changes the day number to 28.
Line 18: I have added this as I would like the final date to be YYYYMMDD rather than DDMMYY, as you cannot sort dates if they are in *DMY. The to format has to be *YYMMD as *ISO inserts date separators whether I want them or not.
If I had been asked to do this in RPG I would use an embedded SQL statement:
dcl-s MonthEnd date ; exec sql SET :MonthEnd = LAST_DAY(CURRENT_DATE) ;
So how could I put that into a CL program?
Those of you who are regular readers of this site know that I like the Run SQL command, RUNSQL, in CL. Alas, RUNSQL does not support all the types of SQL statements that RPG does, for example the SET I used in my RPG example is not supported by the RUNSQL command.
After some attempts I came up with the following:
01 PGM 02 DCLF FILE(QTEMP/WORKFILE) 03 DLTF FILE(QTEMP/WORKFILE) 04 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0000) 05 RUNSQL SQL('CREATE TABLE QTEMP.WORKFILE + 06 (MONTHEND) + 07 AS (SELECT LAST_DAY(CURRENT_DATE) + 08 FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1) + 09 WITH DATA') + 10 COMMIT(*NC) 11 RCVF 12 CVTDAT DATE(&MONTHEND) TOVAR(&MONTHEND) + FROMFMT(*ISO) TOFMT(*YYMD) TOSEP(*NONE) 13 ENDPGM
Line 2: I am declaring a file. As this is a work file it will exist in QTEMP, where all work files should.
Line 3: If the file already exists, delete it. I could have used DROP TABLE in a RUNSQL statement, but wanted to show that the Delete file command, DLTF, deletes SQL created tables as well as DDS files.
Line 4: If the file does not exist I do not want the program to error, hence the Monitor Message command.
Lines 5 – 10: This may look complicated, but it is not. I am going to create a table on the fly. The new table will be created in QTEMP, line 5, with one field called MONTHEND, line 6. Into this table I am inserting a value from another table/file, lines 7 and 8. I am using the LAST_DAY function, as I did in my RPG example, to get the last day of today's month. SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1 is, as its name suggests a dummy. It does exist, and it is used like this as good SQL practice to show that whatever is selected is not from this table/file. WITH DATA, line 9, indicates that data from the select is inserted into the new table.
Line 11: Now I have the end of the current month in my work table I need to read the table. The Receive File command, RCVF, does that. As only one file is defined within the program I do not have to give the file or record format name. As I know there is going to be a row/record within the table I am not checking to see if end of file is encountered when I do this.
Line 12: As I did in the other example CL program I am converting the date to *YYMMDD. The value retrieved from the table is in *ISO format, therefore, I do have to give that in the FROMFMT parameter of the command.
Personally I like the second example better than the first. If I was on the interview and was challenged that this approach is not strictly CL I would argue that the RUNSQL is part of CL and this approach is valid.
Before I get messages from people telling me that helping people with interview questions is "cheating", in my opinion it is not as this is a learning experience for those who did not know how to do this.
You can learn more about this from the IBM website:
This article was written for IBM i 7.3, and should work for earlier releases too.
Addendum
Thank you to everyone how has posted their suggestions in the comments, below. One I really liked was the one made by Ringer, counting down from 31 to 28 and using the CVTDAT to validate if the date is good, see here. He did not give example code so I thought I would show my interpretation:
01 PGM 02 DCL VAR(&QDATE) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(6) 03 DCL VAR(&MONTHEND) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(8) 04 RTVSYSVAL SYSVAL(QDATE) RTNVAR(&QDATE) /* Date in DMY */ 05 CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('31') 06 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&QDATE) TOSEP(*NONE) 07 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0555) EXEC(DO) 08 CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('30') 09 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&QDATE) TOSEP(*NONE) 10 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0555) EXEC(DO) 11 CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('29') 12 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&QDATE) TOSEP(*NONE) 13 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0555) EXEC(DO) 14 CHGVAR VAR(%SST(&QDATE 1 2)) VALUE('28') 15 ENDDO 16 ENDDO 17 ENDDO 18 CVTDAT DATE(&QDATE) TOVAR(&MONTHEND) TOFMT(*YYMD) + TOSEP(*NONE) 19 ENDPGM
Remember that in this example the system date format is *DMY.
Line 5: Change the day's part of the date to 31.
Line 6: Validate the date using the CVTDAT command. I do not have to give the From and To date formats as I am just using the default, *JOB, but I do not want date separators inserted into the To date.
Line 7: Message CPF0555 only happens if the date is invalid. If the date is valid the logic goes down to line 17.
Lines 8 – 10: As the date using 31 was not valid let me try with 30.
Lines 11 – 13: The only month that will reach here is February. Now to determine if this is a leap year using 29 as the day of the month.
Line 14: If all the above has failed then this month has to February and it is not a leap year, therefore, the end of the month is the 28th.By Theodore Shoebat
The German government has declared that it will continue its support for the Kurdish Peshmerga, providing arms and training. According to one report:
Germany will continue to provide training and military support to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces following a brief halt due to clashes in Kirkuk, a German Defense Ministry official told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday. In an emailed statement, Major Anne Bressem, a spokesperson for the Bundeswehr Joint Forces Operations Command, provided details of Germany’s military support to Peshmerga forces in the Region. Bressem noted the temporary suspension of training for the Kurdish forces following their clashes with Iraqi and Iranian-backed Shia militia Hashd al-Shaabi in Kirkuk, but said regular support resumed on Sunday. “The security of German soldiers in northern Iraq is of paramount importance,” she stated. “As the situation has calmed down, the Bundeswehr is continuing the training” of Peshmerga in Kurdistan. Bressem mentioned the military support Germany had provided the Peshmerga since September 2014, including the delivery of “24,000 rifles, 8,000 pistols, 400 anti-tank RPGs, and 60 MILAN systems.” The Bundeswehr spokesperson also provided details about the training provided to the Kurdish forces which “focuses on sustainability.” “This means that the Bundeswehr is training the Peshmerga in a way [that] enables them to train themselves,” Bressem explained. One of the training topics involves the tracking, defusing, and elimination of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), a tactic heavily used by the Islamic State (IS). Bressem noted that German military instructors are involved in the preparation of Peshmerga forces as “mentors” during the sustainable training drills. The main goal is to train Peshmerga on counter-IED and fire protection, which enables them “to lead and carry out training independently” and teach their fellow compatriots, she said. “Further training contents are tactical training as well as the life-saving medical education,” Bressem concluded. There are currently 150 German soldiers deployed in the Kurdistan Region capital of Erbil as part of the US-led coalition mission against IS.
This is only going to lead to more destabilization. The Kurds have been some of the most cruel and evil persecutors of Christians in history. They were in the ranks of the killing squads for the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide, and if you arm the Kurds and train them, what do you think they will eventually do with such training and backing? They will slaughter the Christians. The Kurds have already murdered Christians and are currently stealing Christian property in their agenda of “kurdification.” The Germans conducted what is known as the Kulturkampf in the 19th century, in which they wanted to Germanize the Poles, and destroy Catholic culture. The Kurds are doing the same thing in Iraq, and the very people who wanted to Germanize Europe are supporting such an evil cause.
The German government gave tens of thousands of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition to Kurdish fighters, and those very weapons ended up in the hands of ISIS and other criminals. The very Kurdish fighters for whom the Germans supposedly provided the weapons, sold the arms illegally to terrorist criminals. In the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniya, for example, German weapons have been found for sale in the black market, with the letters HK, signifying the famous German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch, and Bw, for the Bundeswehr, or German Army.
One ex-Kurdish Peshmerga fighter stated that the standard rifle for the German Army, the G36, once costed $4,000, but now the weapon has been incredibly reduced in price — between $1,450 and $1,800 — because there are so many. The German government provided the Kurds with 12,000 G3 rifles, 8,000 G36 rifles, and 8,000 P1 pistols. These weapons are now being distributed amongst terrorists. One German report states:
“Isis fighters are equipped with numerous G3 battle rifles from German manufacturer Heckler & Koch, as well as German Walther KKJ rifles from the 1960s, according to the report.”
You may say that the German government is innocent of this because the weapons were specified for the Kurds and not Islamist terrorists. But tell me, how could a government as sophisticated as Germany not know that this would happen? If an average citizen like myself can predict that American arms given to “moderate” rebels would end up in the hands of terrorists, then how could the government — which superintends over the whole country and determines the state of lower nations — not know of this most obvious consequence?
Moreover, the German government’s ministry of defense admitted that it doesn’t even know to which Kurdish units received the weapons. If the government’s sole objective is to give weapons to one entity alone — the Kurds — then it should know to which exact units would receive the arms. But it did not. Because arming the Kurds was not the sole objective, and one may even question if it were the objective at all. The weapons were given chaotically, because they were given with the intention to create chaos, to fuel violence and bloodshed. They were given with the knowledge that the weapons would end up into the hands of terrorists, just as the German government is going to be training these Islamic refugees deliberately knowing that they will use their training for pernicious, anti-Christian goals.
Germany giving weapons into a military conflict was hailed by the media as the “the first time it will send weapons into an ongoing conflict since the end of World War II.” Angela Merkel, in regards to this giving of weapons, and in the attempt to sound like a protector for the defenseless, said “The immense suffering of many people cries out, and our own security interests are threatened”. And yet, even though your “security” is in such a critical dilemma, you send weapons without even knowing to which unit they would be going to. You may say that this is just a case of stupidity on the part of government, but secular governments do not do things without internal and calculative interests.
The Germans provided the Kurds with $90 million dollars worth of weaponry, which consisted of sophisticated weapons, such as anti-tank rocket launchers. With so much money spent, and given the severity and volatileness of the region to which they sent the weapons, I find it very difficult to believe the German government, that they would give so much for such a serious reason, without any serious precautions and measures to prevent weapons from going into terrorist hands. And I also am quite incredulous to the idea that Germany would send weapons without knowing that they would be given to Islamic criminals.
It would not surprise me, and nor would it be adventuresome to say, that Germany used the Kurds as a conduit by which to give weapons to criminals to further destabilize the region. Governments are infamous for creating chaos, to only make themselves the Don Quixote who will destroy the disarrayed windmills that they themselves erected. They construct the windmills and call them dragons, and then portray themselves to the people as the tough and heroic leaders who will slay these sensationalized and government funded enemies. State created enemies are what give politicians power. We already know, thanks to Putin, that there are G-20 nations who are financing and supporting ISIS, so I do not see why I must accept the excuses of the German government.
What is interesting is how while this is happening, Robert Spencer, a guy who is associated with neo-Nazis, is supporting the tyrannical Kurds who slaughter and oppress Christians.
Robert Spencer is now supporting the Islamic jihad, and believes that Israel needs to arm and back Kurdish separatists. But the Kurdish separatists are Muslim. So how does Spencer justify arming Muslims, especially ones who persecute and hate Christians (more on that later)? Spencer, a supposed ‘fighter’ against Islam, published an article which supports the backing and arming of Kurdish separatists in the Middle East, who are really just Islamic militants who persecute Christians.
The article says that Israel should arm and train Kurdish separatists to help further the cause of an independent Kurdish ethno-state:
Why should the Kurds in Iran not now take up arms received from a newly-independent Kurdistan, and welcome, too, outside volunteers from the Peshmerga in Iraq and Syria? For that matter, why wouldn’t Israel, which has had a long secret history of working with the Kurds, help out with training and weaponry for the Kurds in Iran? There is no better way for now, to strike a destabilizing blow at Israel’s most dangerous enemy. … And Iran’s Kurds could also be getting more weapons, and training, from Israel. The |
revolution with the Cascadia. A bestselling author and self-confessed vegan runner, Scott now commands more audiences at book signings than start lines of ultras with his last world-class performance in 2010 when he broke the US 24hr record.
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Like this: Like Loading...Rendering of proposed gondola from Amtrak station in Rensselaer to Albany. (McLaren Engineering Group) Rendering of proposed gondola from Amtrak station in Rensselaer to Albany. (McLaren Engineering Group) Photo: Cfink Photo: Cfink Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Churchill: An Albany gondola? Give the idea a chance 1 / 19 Back to Gallery
Albany
In these parts, soul-crushing cynicism greets nearly every new idea. It is easily our worst regional trait.
Creativity is mocked. Change brings fear. Optimism is for fools.
It's that Smallbany mentality that is again raising its hideous noggin, this time to deride the plan for a gondola system that would connect the Rensselaer train station and downtown Albany.
This isn't about a guy who would row you across the river while singing "O Sole Mio." We're talking aerial gondolas that would whisk passengers above ground, carry them over the Hudson and deposit them on the other side.
Such systems are rare in U.S. cities but increasingly common in forward-thinking places worldwide. It's efficient and clean transportation, especially compared to the battered taxis that now greet arrivals at Rensselaer's Amtrak station and make them think they've accidentally traveled to Uzbekistan.
Now, under normal conditions the idea would be silly for a smallish city such as Albany — and the even smaller Rensselaer.
But the gondola plan is designed to counter the abnormal stupidity of building a train station in Rensselaer in the first place — akin to putting Grand Central in Yonkers. Every weekday, thousands of Albany-bound passengers are left stranded on the wrong side of the river, which gives the gondola system a ready-made market and a boost for its financial viability.
But to listen to the Smallbany peanut gallery, especially online, you might think the plan called for a massive rocket ship that would shoot passengers to the moon before forcing them to parachute onto the roof of The Egg. Consider a few comments from the Facebook wags:
"Easily the dumbest and biggest waste of money you could possibly dream of."
Actually, the Legislature thinks of dumber ways every day.
"We don't need another consulting firm to come up with new ideas."
Yes, because all new ideas are immediately and definitively awful.
"You'll get nice views of the polluted river and maybe if you're lucky some dead bodies might float by."
In other words, everything is already awful so don't bother to do anything. Now there's the spirit of innovative optimism that made America great. Just be glad these naysayers weren't manning their keyboards when visionaries suggested building the Erie Canal.
More Information Contact Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com
"What a stoopid idea! Total waste of money!! The Great Lakes suck."
Such reflexive cynicism is laziness. It's too easy. An open mind and thoughtfulness require a little work.
The point here isn't to offer a full-throated endorsement of the gondola plan. I'm suggesting we be open to this new idea and others.
The big question mark, of course, is the cost and who will pay for it. Clifton Park-based McLaren Engineering and its partners say the first phase of construction would cost $16 million to $20 million and include a station on South Pearl Street. An Empire State Plaza station would cost $10 million more.
But here's the encouraging part: Backers of the gondola project are talking about trying to build the system largely — and perhaps entirely — with private funding. That's essential, because private investors aren't likely to back a potential white elephant.
"It's out of the box, and it's a challenge," Peter Melewski, a McLaren executive, said of the proposal. "Sometimes you have to push the envelope a little bit."
Indeed, you do — especially if you want a dynamic city. A few other thoughts:
1.) Critics are wrongly conflating gondolas with the Uber issue. We need the car-hailing service badly upstate, but one improvement doesn't preclude the other — and Uber doesn't take exhaust-spewing cars off the road.
2.) Gondolas are more efficient than they seem. The system could handle 1,200 riders an hour, with cars potentially arriving every 30 seconds for the four-minute trip over the river.
3.) The timing of the proposal might be perfect, given how President-elect Donald Trump is talking about spending a trillion dollars on infrastructure.
4.) The gondolas could also be, to use a technical phrase, really cool.
What's great about things that are really cool is that they double as tourist attractions. Some people would ride the gondolas because they're trapped at a poorly located train station; others would hop on because the ride is fun and the view is great.
I hope we can all agree Albany needs something — a crowd-pleasing project like the High Line in Manhattan or the wildly successful Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. Such projects spur economic development. Even better, they improve the quality of lives.
So dare to think big. Make Albany great again. And give the gondola plan a fighting chance.The Wolf Pack offense is expected to take a step forward in 2016, with 10 starters, plus running back James Butler, returning this season. (Photo: Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports)
Preseason prognosticators are high on the Wolf Pack – just not as high as they are on San Diego State.
With kickoff less than 50 days away, magazine racks are flooded with college football hype, predictions and analysis that won’t mean anything in December but give a good gauge of the 2016 expectations.
The consensus – from Athlon to Phil Steele to Sporting News to Lindys – is that the Wolf Pack will finish second in the Mountain West’s West Division behind SDSU, which was perfect in the MW last year and returns a loaded squad that is the consensus team to beat in the West, and perhaps all of the MW.
Unanimously, the Wolf Pack is projected to go to a bowl game – the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is most often listed – but the big question is this: Will it be another nondescript 7-6 season or something better?
“Nevada’s offense should improve over last year, which will help blunt the significant losses to its defensive front,” Athlon writes in its preview of Nevada’s 2016 season. “Still, the Wolf Pack have too many holes to expect a serious run at a West Division title. Nevada has finished 7-6 in four of the last five seasons, and there is plenty of reasons to believe that history will repeat itself.”
The Wolf Pack returns 10 starters on offense and five on defense, although only one of those five comes on the front seven. After running out inexperienced teams during most of his tenure, fourth-year head coach Brian Polian finally has a veteran squad. Seven seniors are projected to start on offense (11 overall) and Steele ranks Nevada as the 30th most experienced team in the FBS after being ranked 121st in experience (out of 128) last season. The offensive line’s 116 combined starts rank 24th nationally.
Steele is bullish on the offense, projecting Nevada to score 32 points per game after it averaged just 26.2 points per game last year, its lowest figure since 2003. Steele says Nevada’s quarterbacks are the seventh best in the MW (out of 12), the running backs third best, the receivers/tight ends third best and the offensive line first in the conference.
“For the offense to truly jell, the experienced offensive line will have to take another step forward, particularly in pass protection,” Athlon writes. “Junior left tackle Austin Corbett anchors the line, but all five projected starters are upperclassmen, a first in the Polian era.”
The Wolf Pack’s offensive staff underwent major change in the offseason. After Nick Rolovich became Hawaii’s head coach, Polian hired Tim Cramsey, from Montana State, to run the offense and coach quarterbacks. Lester Erb moved from running backs to wide receivers. Jonathan Himebauch was hired to coach the offensive line. And Marc Nudelberg was hired as running backs coach/special teams coordinator.
“I’m curious to see what they do,” an opposing MW assistant told Athlon on the condition of anonymity. “The new coordinator runs a different system than they had before with Rolovich.”
Wrote Mel Lawrence’s Playbook.com: “After coping with an offense in decline during each of his three years at the helm, Nevada HC Brian Polian decided a shakeup was in order. New OC Tim Cramsey arrives in Reno after a wildly successful run at Montana State, where he engineered a juggernaut offense that scored 41.9 PPG and ranked third in the FCS, averaging nearly 520 yards of total offense.”
Elijah Mitchell is one of 11 projected senior starters for the Wolf Pack in 2016. (Photo: Andy Barron/RGJ file)
On defense, the questions are less about scheme – there were no changes to the staff in the offseason – and more about personnel as Nevada lost six of its front seven starters, each of whom were multiple-year starters who combined for 178 starts in their careers. Athlon writes defensive coordinator Scott Boone has turned in “an underrated effort” during his first two seasons with the Wolf Pack.
“Nevada’s biggest question mark is replacing its defensive front seven, which has just one returning starter,” Phil Steele writes. “The Wolf Pack gets to avoid both Boise State and Air Force out of the Mountain but have to play San Jose State on the road and also face ex-OC Nick Rolovich on the road.”
The schedule, Steele says, plays in Nevada’s favor. Based on opponent winning percentage from 2015, the Wolf Pack plays the fifth-easiest schedule of 128 FBS teams (Nevada’s 2016 foes went 62-88 last year, a 41.3 percent winning mark). Accounting for his 2016 projections, Steele rates Nevada’s schedule at 110th in the nation. Mel Lawrence’s Playbook.com also believes the Wolf Pack gets a favorable draw.
“The Wolf Pack face only three opponents that owned a winning record last season,” he writes.
The schedule might lack powerhouses – Notre Dame is the big non-conference game – but the early-season travel will be difficult as Nevada plays at Notre Dame, Purdue and Hawaii in a one-month span.
“The Wolf Pack will enjoy playing home games in a refurbished Mackay Stadium, but road trips to Notre Dame and Purdue in September may not be so pleasant,” Sporting News writes.
Two Nevada players received superlatives from the magazines, with defensive tackle Nick Gregg, a freshman from Reed High, being named the MW newcomer of the year by Sporting News, and long snapper Wes Farnsworth, a sophomore from Manogue, named fourth-team All-American by Phil Steele.
Each of the preseason magazines project SDSU, from the West, and Boise State, from the Mountain, to meet in the MW title game. Steele’s projections say both teams will be undefeated in the regular season. By proxy of being placed second in the West Division by the magazines, Nevada seems to be the biggest challenge to the Aztecs’ reign (SDSU’s 10-game winning streak is the FBS’ second-longest active).
But if Nevada is going to upend SDSU and win the West, it will have to play better than it has the last half decade. Sporting News points out Nevada is 32-32 over the last five years. That stat can be taken two ways.
“After averaging 8.5 wins per season between 2005-10, Nevada has averaged 6.4 since,” Athlon writes. “Life could be worse – but it could be better.”NEW DELHI: A book which forms part of the Delhi University's history curriculum calls Bhagat Singh a "revolutionary terrorist", prompting the freedom fighter's family to raise the issue with university authorities as well as the HRD ministry.The book titled "India's Struggle for Independence", authored by noted historian Bipin Chadra and Mridula Mukherjee, mentions Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Surya Sen and others as "revolutionary terrorists" in Chapter 20.The book also calls the Chittagong movement a 'terrorist act', while Sanders killing has been called an 'act of terrorism'.Bhagat Singh's family has written a letter to HRD minister Smriti Irani seeking her intervention in this regard and demanded appropriate changes in the textbook.The family members also met DU vice chancellor Yogesh Tyagi on Wednesday who assured them of looking into the matter."This is a very sad precedent that even after 68 years of Independence such words are used for the revolutionaries, who gave their lives for the freedom of the nation."The Britishers, who hanged Bhagat Singh, described him as 'true revolutionary' in their judgement, even they didn't use words like terror or terrorism. Using such words for revolutionaries in an attempt to stir controversy is very unfortunate," Bhagat Singh's nephew Abhey Singh Sandhu told reporters.Maintaining that the book is taught in the history department as a "reference book" and not a "text book", Tyagi said they have taken note of the request."The book is taught as a reference book in our history department but is not a text book or published or authored by DU professor," he said."Few members of his (Bhagat Singh's) family met me today. We have taken note of the request and the matter is being looked into," Tyagi added.Articles
Anoop Kumar
His speech at the talk organised by the Ambedkarite Students' Association at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, held on 22nd December, 2014. The speech has been transcribed by Valliammal Karunakaran.
My name is Anoop and I have been working on the issue of Dalit students in Indian campuses for almost 20 years now, first as a student then after completing my studies as an organizer. I have been involved in other activities too but mostly focus on students. About this topic – Indian campuses and caste, I share a very love-hate relationship with these campuses. The campuses, which I really want to destroy because I believe that these are not our spaces. But on the other hand, I also help our students to enter into these spaces. I teach students at Wardha since last two years. I have been teaching students for various entrance exams. I want them to get into these spaces but somehow I do not have the confidence that these educational spaces will provide justice to our students because the whole design of these spaces is very brahminical. And that has been my experience right from my engineering college days to JNU and afterwards. There is something in-built in these spaces which actually takes away the dignity of our students and makes them feel very left out and unwelcome. I will start with the example of TISS, the admission procedure of TISS, through which I will try to explain what I mean when I say that I hate these campuses and believe that these are inherently very brahminical spaces. It is a very big fight for us, it is a conflict whether I want these spaces to get diluted and become less brahminical or try to create a vision of an alternate space.
I've been teaching students in a small town in Maharashtra. So last year [2013], 24 students of mine sat for TISS entrance exam and all of them were from very humble backgrounds - SC, OBC and NT/DNT. None of them had an English medium schooling. What made me to ask them to sit for this exam was that there was no entrance fee for our students. Yet I had to goad them to fill the form. None of them knew about TISS. Once they came to know that the entrance exam will be in English, they were like, "No no, we just cannot sit in the exam, we cannot compete in this". So I had to goad them. A couple of my students are sitting here today. I had to force them to apply because I knew that they can compete, it's not that they can't compete. So they sat for the exam and after three months of labour, 12 of them were able to pass the preliminary written exam. Out of the 12, 5 students finally got through into TISS.
That was the first time I started looking at the examination pattern. I also have given several entrance exams but I was an English medium student so I could not understand the pattern then. But now when I look at the kinds of questions asked [in these tests], everything is in English, everything online. Most of my students had never even touched a computer. So last two three days before [the TISS online entrance test], I had to bring them to my place, and they stayed with me. I had to teach them how to handle a laptop and how to sit for the online exam.
When the students came back I asked about the question paper. They told me that about 30% of the questions were about English comprehension, 30% current affairs and some math and reasoning questions. I could not understand when the question paper was already in English, why do they need some 30 - 40 questions to test your English again. Actually this is where the discrimination starts. This is where I came to understand that you don't want our kids to come to TISS actually. You only want to teach your own children – English speaking children – to become social workers, to talk about MNREGA, to talk about poor. You don't want those children who have actually learnt about MNREGA first hand, to come and study in your campus. So basically you want your own children to come and become social workers and work on the issues of those who are never going to get admitted into your campuses. The kinds of questions you ask! About European football in current affairs! None of my students have even heard about that.
What I am trying to say is – what kind of knowledge are you testing? What is your criterion of knowledge? What is your definition of knowledge? The knowledge you are testing has nothing to do with the daily lives of the majority of the students in this country. And this is just about one incident I am telling, there are thousands and thousands of students who just cannot sit in your exams – not because they are less intelligent than you – because the examination has been designed in such a way that it excludes these people. Then I started looking at all other examination and patterns – the same thing everywhere.
Then the next moment comes when such student comes into the campus, if he somehow comes through. So if I am not an English medium student, if I am from a very humble background, I am definitely going to come through reservation because I am not able to compete with you. It is as simple as that. It has nothing to do with my merit or your merit. It's just by chance that you are an English medium student and none of my students are. It has nothing to do with your intelligence or their intelligence. The whole system has been designed in a way that the concept of knowledge itself – what is knowledge? What constitutes knowledge? – has been defined in such a way that your own children can clear these exams.
Then the second concept comes into play – merit. Somehow our students get through reservation, and then there is this whole dialogue that starts against them - "See we have scored 70% marks in the entrance exam but you got through on only 45% marks. So you are non–meritorious". It is a rigged examination. It is a one-sided examination. The moment our students somehow get in through reservation, they get marked again as non-meritorious students, those who don't deserve to be there. Completely unwelcome! They cannot even have that joy of being able to reach to TISS, from the very first day. I value TISS as one of the better institutions but just imagine IITs, medical colleges! The trauma the student goes through when he/she has been declared non-meritorious! This is out in the open. Nothing remains hidden. The teacher knows about it the students and class fellows know about it. Then what happens, I am not even able to enjoy my success because my merit has been limited to the marks in the entrance exams.
I can tell you the stories of all those students whom I have coached. Out of the 24 students, there were 22 girls. All of the students who finally got into TISS are girls, from different parts of Wardha district. All are from villages and they were all BSW students and wanted to do an MA from here. I will just try to give you a brief glimpse into their lives. I am not trying to romanticize; I am just trying to tell you what actually merit is. All these girls, wake up at 5-5.30 am, they prepare food, they send their siblings to school, then they take a bus at 7 am, come to Wardha, which is some 30-45 km away, 9 am their classes start and till 12.30 pm they have classes, then they have to go back again cook, clean etc. and in between all this, they have to find time to study. So what I feel is – what about their merit? If they are able to get through TISS on 35% marks, 45% marks – isn't it meritorious? These girls, who work so hard, cook, send siblings to school, take buses, trains, come to classes, go back, cook, and clean utensils... This is not just Wardha, it is everywhere. So what about those students? Every elite and state institution has been designed to exclude such students, from the very first step of the entrance exam.
I'm not the first person who is saying this; Dr. Ambedkar said this in his speech at Bombay Assembly, in 1926. On a debate about a Bombay University Bill, he said very forcefully: "This is wrong! By raising the level of the entrance, by making it so tough, actually you are excluding the majority of the people in this country who have no tradition of education. This is the first time these people are coming into education and you are excluding them by raising these levels." He didn't talk about the word merit probably because the concept of merit had not yet gained currency but he was talking about making it so hard for the students.
~
So if I call these spaces brahminical, I am not calling some professors brahminical or some students brahminical – of course there are many who are, without doubt - but I'm not interested in blaming few professors. I'm saying that these educational spaces have been deliberately designed in such a way, to discriminate from the first day. Take the case of IITs. Four years back, some of us came together to study the patterns of IIT. While working, we came across lot of instances came where Dalit and Adivasi students had committed suicide. There is this IIT Kanpur. We went there and came to know that in the last few years there have been 11 suicides. Out of 11 there were 8 Dalit and Adivasi students who have committed suicide.
See, suicide is something which is not uncommon. It is very common in India in higher education. Everywhere, in USA, in UK also students commit suicide. It is nothing new. It is not that this has something to do with caste only or India only. But what made us to look into it more deeply was that out of 11, 8 students who committed suicides were from SC/ST background. And if you notice in IIT Kanpur, there are hardly 10-12% SC ST students. See the ratio. It's a very crude way of telling but still let me say to you that if out of 11 suicides, 80% are from a particular background, then there is certainly a problem. Suppose, If 11 students commit suicide and out of that 8 are women, definitely there is a problem there.
We tried to argue but you know they threw us out. They said, 'Oh you guys are creating a caste issue here'. Their standard reply was, 'You see our spaces are very competitive and these students were weak students, they were not able to compete. They are not able to take up this and they get stressed and committed suicide. We have yoga classes. Why they don't come to yoga classes?' These are the kind of replies we got from IIT administration. And once we started probing more, they threw us out literally saying, 'You guys are creating problems'. IITs are supposed to be such meritorious institutions!
It is not about one IIT Kanpur. We came to know that there are a large number of students who have committed suicide all over the country and the majority belongs to these two categories – SCs and STs. There has to be something! Then we tried to dig out some data and we brought out 22 cases. We focused particularly on central educational institutions. Nobody bothers about state universities. If I say that in Lucknow University, 3 students committed suicide, nobody bothers. But if I say that in IIT Delhi, 3 students committed suicide, everybody notices. So it was also a kind of strategy for us. We have to focus somewhere and we focused on central institutions and IITs and medical colleges. We had a number of suicide cases but we focused on instances from the last 3 years because we could go and interview families, there may be some friends who could help us. So we went and documented 22 cases and we made 3 documentaries out of it under the name of 'The Death of Merit'. So we put these documentaries on YouTube and there was a lot of hullaballoo around. The central government said they would do something but nothing came out of it.
So while making these documentaries what came out very clearly was that - out of these 22 students, no one was your so called 'weak student'. There is this whole tendency of equating Dalits as 'weak students' and 'non-meritorious' students. If you take the case that we documented from AIIMS, New Delhi, the student who committed suicide - Balmukund Bharti -was from Bundelkhand. He was a topper from his school. He was a gold medalist. He had been awarded by the President of India. And the first day he enters into AIIMS ragging happens and he gets beaten up very badly on caste lines. He gets a room in the hostel wing where only upper caste students stay. I'm talking about AIIMS of 2006 when there was this whole anti-OBC reservation movement there. So already our students were feeling very vulnerable. In that year, this friend of mine got admission and got caught up in this. He was beaten up very badly. He was abused. On the doors of our students, the upper caste students inscribed, "You bloody SC/ST get out from this wing." And when they complained about this to the professors, nothing happened. SC/ST students had to get out of that wing. Balmukund had to get out too this is how his first year started. By fifth year, he was not doing very well academically but he was passing. There was this one course – Social Medicine – which is supposed to be a very easy course. So he passed in all the courses but in this course he was failed twice by the same professor. When he went and spoke to this professor, he said, "You come here via reservation. You don't have the brain to be a doctor." Mind you this is Balmukund's fifth year. This is his final year. The professor said to him - you don't deserve to be a doctor and I will fail you, whatever you do I don't care. This was his breaking point. Balmukund was clearly struggling. He was struggling throughout his 5 years as his friends and family members told us. And one fine day, 2 months before the completion of his degree, he committed suicide. This was one case where the parents came out very openly, after the suicide.
Suicides were happening. Suicides were happening where Dalit and Adivasi students were dying but this was the first case where the parents came out very openly saying that this is a caste issue. And they went to the media. Parents were from very humble background from a village in Madhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand area. If you watch the documentary, the parents say there that their boy was the first one from that area to become a doctor. This is the first boy who went to Delhi. This is the first boy who could have been a doctor from the entire neighbouring area. His father went to National Human Rights Commission; he went to SC and ST Commission. This is how we came to know about it and thought that we have to do something. We went to his village and talked with his parents and other family members and then we shot the documentary.
My own experience at engineering college was also like that only. I could also not complete my engineering. So I knew about caste discrimination in campuses. But talking to a father who has lost his son was something which was very a terrible experience for us and we really wanted to do something, so we made a team and made more documentaries. And for the first time, caste in higher education became a bit of public issue. Before these documentaries – nobody wanted to believe us that caste is there in the campuses.
~
It was this notion and my own family believed in this notion too that with education caste vanishes. Caste is there in my village, my home but you know my own father and my mother used to believe that once you go to Delhi, once you go to city, caste is not there, caste is a local problem. So we grow up believing this that caste is there only among the uneducated ones, with education caste vanishes. Now when I look back – initially it used to make me very angry that why my parents were lying. My father was a lawyer he was not some uneducated person who didn't know. He was a lawyer. Why he never prepared me to defend myself against caste? Why there was no talk about caste in my home? Why there was this denial? This used to make me very angry, for a very long time.
But now when I look back I understand my father much better. And I appreciate, because this was the only way to grow your child. This is the only positive thing, because he knew how the world is. It is a denial; of course it is a denial. But there is this tendency to protect your children. Right? To whatever extent possible. And this I have seen amongst all my Dalit friends, this tendency. Our parents don't want to talk about caste. But what happens is that if you don't talk about caste in your home it makes me completely defenseless when I enter into these places. I have absolutely no clue how to handle a casteist and how to handle caste. And this belief is so strong that education is a panacea of all ills and with education all problems will vanish. My own parents refused to believe that what happened to me in engineering college had some caste issue. So this is the environment through which we come in and this is what I have always tried to fight. It's not just about fighting against these educational spaces which are patently brahminical, out rightly brahminical spaces but also the defenselessness of us, which we have created ourselves.
~
Then there is another issue - the whole narrative that has been constructed post-independence that the upper castes are caste-less. If you look at history you will see that just before independence, this was not there. I will give you one example. For the past 2 years, there was this NCERT cartoon controversy going on. During that debate a lot of cartoons from the pre-independence surfaced. I was astonished to see that a lot of these were targeting caste system. A lot of cartoonists of that time were drawing cartoons criticizing caste system; they were even drawing brahmin figures as some chotidhari and as a symbol of brahminism. It shows that there was some space available before 1947, where there was talk on caste. Caste was certainly in discourse then. But what happens after independence? In my growing up period I have never seen one cartoon which talks about caste, although every newspaper has a cartoon section. So what happened to that discourse? It was the same country where this discourse was there and immediately after independence this discourse vanishes. The only anti-caste discourse that remains is with these wretched Dalit activists, the Ambedkarites, you know.
What happened is that this whole narrative of castelessness has been thoroughly propagated, that there is no caste, that caste is past. The moment I speak that I am a Dalit the upper caste gets offended, because he believes that I am accusing him or her of something. He actually believes that there is nothing called caste and caste is just a political manipulation. So what happens is that it criminalizes my articulation. I become a criminal. I become a criminal because I am raising an issue which is long dead, which is not there, which is no more relevant and I am raising the issue because I have some politics to play. You know like 'Mayawati has sent me'. I am not kidding; these are the statements which were being made in JNU.
I joined JNU in 2001 and in the very first semester there is a paper on Indian Political System taught by a very well known Marxist guy. So he was teaching this course and then there was this whole debate on reservation in the class. The moment the debate on reservation comes, you know, our antennas also get up. This was the first semester and we were some 8-9 SC and ST students among a class of some 70 students. The moment the debate of reservation comes this whole cloak of 'progressiveness' vaporizes. If there is a debate on the issue of displacement or nuclear weapons or the class divisions in the society, the entire class takes a very progressive stand but as soon as the issue of reservations comes there is immediately a division and a lot of upper caste angst comes in open but you know we always keep our mouths shut. Their questions used to be like – sir, why do they need reservation? They now study in the elite schools. Out of the 8 Dalit students in the class, probably I was the only one who was from the English medium background. Rest were from more humble background from the interiors of Jharkhand, Bihar, Tamilnadu etc and none of them were very proficient in English and suddenly all of them became from a very 'elite background'! And to that my Professor replied – No, Dalits live in slums. They are poor people.
I was like no, I don't live in slums. And I don't think that a majority of Dalit students here live in slums anymore. I thought if this professor is not able to convince me on the reservation how he would be able to convince upper caste students on reservation. He was just linking caste to poverty. He was not talking about discrimination. He was not talking about structural problems. But he was a good comrade, so he was 'anti-brahminical also'! And so he made many students angry because he once talked about the brahminism in the class. But I was very happy that a professor was talking about it. I was very happy, seriously. After that class, there was a group study and we were all sitting together, and then there is this one student who gets up and starts abusing that professor, on how dare he talk about brahminism, brahmins are like that, brahmins are like this and brahmins are meritorious and he is just doing this brahmin-bashing. I was surprised as the student was so aggressive and everybody present there agreed that caste is no more and there is no caste.
I was someone who had come from a very particular background with a particular experience from an engineering college where I had seen how caste plays. Still I could not speak. I just kept silent. I didn't know how to react. Because I thought these are all good students. These are all JNUites, supposed to be very progressive. I was very taken aback actually. I got very disturbed because inside the class these students acted very 'progressive'. They didn't realize that I was there. Somehow I was invisible I guess, because I was there, right there and they talked for long, for 15-20 minutes and they abused the professor like anything, you know, just because he talked about brahminism a little bit. This disturbed me a lot. The very next day, in the morning, I went to that professor and said probably your students did not know about caste, I want to share my own experience, would you allow me to share? Because I believe these are JNU students, they will go to media houses, they will become IAS officers, they will go to all these big places and they are not aware about caste. They don't know about caste. But the professor said, you know I explained them. I said, yes, but you did not explain them properly because you linked it with poverty. It has nothing to do with poverty as such. Then the professor agreed.
The next day when there was a class, I took permission from the professor and I spoke for about 20 minutes and I told them about my experience in engineering college, my father's experiences and how caste operates. There was a pin drop silence. But the whole class became so hostile after that, for the next 2 years, my entire MA program, nobody talked with me. It was again very shocking. I thought that I would share my own experience and this would open up the debate. And sharing own experience is not always a good experience in itself. You are almost naked before everyone. You are vulnerable, because all your emotions, all your experiences are out there in front. And there were people who looked shocked but there was also a complete disbelief in their face. They don't want to believe you. Some students tried to poke around, to prove that whatever I said was a lie. That I told a big fat lie and that I had some ulterior motives, I want to become a politician etc. For the next two years, believe me, I'm not exaggerating even a bit, nobody talked with me in my class. I was also aggressive; I wasn't a typical victim who was crying there. I said I don |
have many support sandbox style exploration. Pac Man manages to support this kind of play through obfuscation of its goals (pacman never tells you how to get to the next level, or even if there is a next level), and clearly defined components. This provides opportunity to for players to create their own goals, many of which are more exciting to novices than actually trying to achieve a highscore. Goals like:
- collecting all the dots
- eating a giant blinking dot
- eating all the giant blinking dots
- eating all the ghosts after eating a giant blinking dot
- surving as long as possible
- eating the fruit Again, the key with these goals is that they’re all in service of improving your pacman skills. In Tetris, the slow initial speed and pure sandbox novelty of coming up with interesting shape combinations, or trying to get 2, 3 or 4 rows at a time can be enough to keep people going long before they start attempting highscores. Now, I’m not saying all games have to be taught this way, but I do think it’s worth having this in our toolbox. Because although each of these games seems like a straightforward videogame, we can use the lens of problem-solving to reveal one possible reason why they’re so accessible, and possibly, why they’re so popular.
And the most wonderful part of approaching players this way is that they don’t just act like great problem-solvers, they eventually become great problem-solvers. And having great problem-solvers playing your game is every designers dream, because these are the type of players who surprise you. They’re the type that master your game to a greater degree than you could have ever imagined. They’re the type that invent problems that are much more interesting then the ones you came up with for them. They’re the players who figure out how to beat Ocarina of Time in under 20 minutes, or start a league of Binding of Isaac Racing, or figure out how to play a single game of SpellTower for 6 months and amass a score of 2 million points.
Games are just rules until they are played, so it follows that a beautiful game is one that is played beautifully.
Lets design to help our players do that.When Apple unveiled iPhoto for the iPad and iPhone this morning it showed off an assortment of new features, but one thing it didn't tout was something left behind: Google Maps. Bringing up the location feature in the app calls up tiles that bear little resemblance to the Google service used in the rest of iOS and in iPhoto for OS X. Writer Holger Eilhard was able to discover that the tiles are in fact being pulled from Apple directly, from a server named gsp2.apple.com.
It's no secret that Apple has been moving away from relying on Google's services, even going so far as to pick up several mapping companies itself in recent years. While there's nothing here yet that confirms Apple has rolled its own service — these could easily be tiles Cupertino has licensed from a third party — slipping in this kind of change in a marquee title for a flagship product certainly seems to indicate something bigger is underway. Whether this change will be elaborated upon in iOS 6 remains to be seen; we just hope Apple makes the tiles a little better looking before considering going with them full-time.
Thanks, Stephen!
Update: John Gruber at Daring Fireball is reporting that the maps data being used in iPhoto's location feature is still provided by Google, but that the maps provided in iPhoto's slideshow and journal sharing options are an Apple-only solution.
Thanks, drummerdude13903!Once again, the New England Patriots are heading to the AFC Championship Game. The Patriots had little trouble against the Chiefs, as Kansas City attempted to match touchdowns with field goals in the first half. On the first drive of the third quarter, it looked like Kansas City would make this an interesting game, but Knile Davis fumbled in New England territory. Tom Brady led his team down the field for another touchdown as a result, throwing another one to Rob Gronkowski and making it 21-6. New England never looked back. Alex Smith led the Chiefs to within seven points by the end of the game, but some poor clock management forced the Chiefs to attempt an onside kick with about one minute left. After New England recovered, Brady needed one first down to win and a wacky deflection got the job done. The Patriots will either head to Denver or host the Steelers next weekend.
Here at Last Word on Sports, we’ll be handing out post game awards immediately after each NFL playoff game. In particular, we’ll be naming a game MVP, most surprising performance, an unsung hero and the biggest disappointment.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at which players distinguished themselves (both good and bad) with their performance today.
Kansas City Chiefs vs New England Patriots Post Game Awards
Game MVP: Tom Brady
What else is new? Tom Brady had another fantastic playoff performance and he clearly deserves the MVP award for this game. The Kansas City defense had no answer for the Patriots passing attack all game. Brady completed 28 of his 42 pass attempts for 302 passing yards, three total touchdowns, and no interceptions. What makes Brady’s performance even more impressive is the fact that he had very little help from his running game, as the Patriots finished with only 38 rushing yards. Brady’s quest for five rings lives on for another week at least.
Surprise Performance: Julian Edelman
Julian Edelman is a very good wide receiver, but I’m still listing him as the surprise performance only because he came into this game banged up and he hadn’t played since November. The dynamic slot receiver caught 10 passes for 100 yards and he was the leading receiver for New England. While he did drop a few passes at the beginning of the game, he eventually got into a rhythm and couldn’t be slowed down. The Chiefs have some very good defensive backs, but nobody could cover Edelman (or Gronkowski for that matter, but what else is new?).
Unsung Hero: Chandler Jones
Despite the controversy revolving around Chandler Jones this week, he did not seem fazed once the game started. He didn’t exactly light up the stat sheet, as he accumulated only 4 tackles (1 sack and 1 tackle for a loss), but he made the key play of the game on the first drive after halftime and showed why he is one of the best defensive ends in the league. The Chiefs were driving down the field and looking to come back from a 14-6 deficit, but Chandler Jones stripped Knile Davis in New England territory. After that play, New England drove down the field and put the game away for good. Jones might not get much recognition because of the huge performance by the offense, so he is the unsung hero.
Biggest Disappointment: Knile Davis
Knile Davis has been given opportunities all season, but he continues to blow them. Spencer Ware was banged up today, and Andy Reid gave Knile Davis the opportunity to back up Charcandrick West. His 30 yards rushing and 13 receiving yards were not disappointing numbers for a backup running back, but the crucial fumble on the first drive of the third quarter killed Kansas City’s momentum. If he hangs onto that ball in New England territory and the Chiefs score on that drive, this game could have been entirely different.
Main Photo:Some years fans of Joss Whedon have to content themselves with old Buffy The Vampire Slayer DVDs. Other years everything comes up Whedon. Here’s what Whedon’s 2012 looks like: the long-delayed Whedon co-scripted and produced Cabin In The Woods is finally hitting theaters (and earning a lot of early praise), Whedon’s big-screen adaptation of The Avengers will premiere this summer, a secretly directed version of Much Ado About Nothing may come out, the Buffy comic has attracted attention for addressing abortion, and, lo, what’s this… news of a sequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, the Neil Patrick Harris-starring musical Whedon created with his friends, family, and stock-players during the last writer’s strike? That’s what Wired is reporting, even if the information is, to say the least, a little sparse. From the Wired piece:
“We do have a number of songs written,” he said. “We have a whole outline.”
So, after gorging on the year’s Whedon bounty fans still left unsatisfied can rest secure in the knowledge that somewhere there’s an outline waiting to fleshed out and some songs waiting to be sung as soon as everyone’s schedule gets free enough to do the fleshing out and the singing.Thanks for all your pledges! The Reeves family have set up a fund for donations towards rebuilding the Reeves Corner area. Please make your donations here: http://www.houseofreeves.com/fire-at-hou...
Pledge “RebuildReeves”
"I will Donate £10 to fund to help rebuild the House of Reeves furniture store in Croydon but only if 1,000 other people will donate what they can too."
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Deadline to sign up by: 28th August 2011
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The House of Reeves is a furniture store that existed for nearly 150 years in Croydon until 8th August 2011 when it was burned down during the riots.
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For more information, contact Mark, the pledge creator: http://www.pledgebank.com/RebuildReeves/...Some look like they already have been.
Back in the days when celebrity culture wasn't as prevalent, folk would flock to waxwork museums to peer at molten representations of the rich and famous.
Despite the face that we can now look at multiple celebrity faces just by switching on the internet, the wonderful world of waxworks is still with us - just.
Here are ten waxworks of footballers. The players are all brilliant, but the waxworks are of varying quality.
10. David Beckham - Hitman
9. Mark Hughes - Surprisingly lifelike hair
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8. Neymar - More like Shergar
7. George Best - No wonder the girls loved him
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6. Gary Lineker - Or Neil Warnock wearing lipstick
5. Diego Maradona - Mara-goner
4. Kevin Keegan - Wouldn't love it
3. Paul Gascoigne - So that's what happened to Lord Charles
2. Michael Owen - Probably a more interesting commentator
1. Wayne Rooney - Ron HowardOne sign of a extremely loyal following is when the customers of a product start developing marketing pitches, and otherwise begin promoting the product. Worried Nissan Leaf owners, looking at the sales trends, are beginning to earnestly discuss what Nissan should be doing differently to promote the Leaf. Last year the Leaf was selling pretty well. That is, while the Leaf sales were a fraction of typical gas car sales, sales were growing, Leaf sales exceeded that of the Prius in its first years of availability, and Leaf sales compared to past sales of electric cars was phenomenal. Unfortunately, this year Leaf sales have dropped considerably, and while many attribute it to the approval of California HOV lane stickers for the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius Plug-in, maybe there's something else, the advertising campaign perhaps, that could be improved, according to discussion among Leaf owners.
Nissan's sales goal for fiscal year 2012 (ends March 31, 2013) is 20,000 Leaf's. With 3,148 Nissan Leaf sales so far this calendar year the company has a long way to go to meet that sales goal. The Smyrna TN plant is due to begin domestic production of the Nissan Leaf at a much higher production volume. It may be that Nissan is waiting for that factory before beginning a large scale marketing push. Another issue is that the scuttlebutt conversation says the Nissan Leaf price is expected to fall once that factory begins production, because of a combination of import duties and higher volume production. Whether or not the price drops, the expectation of a lower price in a few months could act to dry up sales.
By the way, for an earlier example of a rabid loyal following of an electric car, recall the GM EV1. That car (and a few other electric cars) was launched during the previous era of electric cars in California. Those electric cars from GM and other makers were built in limited production volumes, epitomizing what we now call "compliance cars": built in small volumes, available only under lease, and offered only in states with strong requirements for low-emissions vehicles. When California gutted the zero emissions vehicle program, GM and the other automakers immediately responded by retrieving electric cars from lease holders and crushing the cars. That led to the DONTCRUSH.ORG campaign, launched by loyal EV1 fans, shown in the documentary movie Who Killed the Electric Car. Some of those fans later banded together to form Plug In America.
While there isn't much sign that Nissan is aiming to backpedal away from electric car production plans, like GM did 10 years ago, one aspect of the GM EV1 story is complaints about the curiously strange advertising GM published. Likewise some of the discussion of Nissan's marketing focuses on the strange advertising for the Nissan Leaf. Such as the singing electrical sockets advertisement Nissan published last winter.
For example, one suggestion is advertising that shows the white HOV lane sticker in California advertising. While the Volt and Prius Plug-In qualify for a green HOV sticker, the white HOV sticker is a better deal because it won't expire.
If the two main concerns stopping potential Leaf buyers from purchasing are "range and price," it's up to Nissan to assuage those concerns.
Show families which own two cars, driving the electric car for around-town trips, and the gas car for longer trips. This is the most pragmatic solution to range anxiety today, to own a second car used primarily for the longer trips. Some families are choosing to own both a Leaf and a Volt, but we shouldn't expect Nissan to show such families in their advertising.
Another item to show is the CHADEMO quick charging port on the Leaf, which by itself has the potential to erase range anxiety. Unfortunately the value of that port depends on there being enough CHADEMO charging stations in the public. Rollout of those fast charging stations has been slow, despite announcements of fast charging networks in the SF Bay Area, Chicago, California, and elsewhere. The standards battle between CHADEMO and the SAE DC Quick Charge forces have not helped. This means that while the CHADEMO port is a potentially valuable feature of the Leaf, its value is not being fully realized because the CHADEMO charging infrastructure is not available enough.
Nissan could also create better education about typical driving patterns (the average driver travels less than 50 miles a day by car) that are perfectly satisfied by all electric cars like the Nissan Leaf. One way to demonstrate this is to show a typical urban area, and the number of interesting places to go within a 35 mile radius of a suburban home.
The Leaf purchase price is much more than that of a typical gasoline powered sedan, so how could Nissan address this issue? For example, by focusing on high gasoline prices, especially coupled with the potential to save a lot of money on fuel costs because electricity is a more efficient, lower cost, fuel than gasoline. Nissan fully knows about the effects of high gasoline prices, as that issue was a key part of Carlos Gohsn's recent prediction that electric cars would be 10% of all car sales in 2020.
Is focusing on the "environmental" crowd going to result in enough Leaf sales? Maybe Nissan needs to move beyond the polar bear hugging advertising that appeals to environmentalists. Does an electric car to "save the environment" motivate enough people?
Or, would potential buyers be more motivated by the fun factor? The common response to driving an electric car is the "EV grin" because electric cars, including the Nissan Leaf, are so much fun to drive. Nissan could showcase this aspect, and could perhaps make something out of Nader Asemi's achievement at the recent REFUEL electric car and motorcycle race, where he was able to beat the lap times of a few Tesla Roadsters after doing a few modifications (suspension, etc) to his Leaf.
Another tactic could be to simply show satisfied customers, similar to the "Happy Volt Owners" series by GM showing, well, happy Volt owners.
For the discussion see: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9354#p210930Sandy Billings hasn't added a story.
On June 21, 2012 Lucy was mountain biking in Tsali campground. She was halfway through her ride when she started feeling dizzy, nauseated and her legs and arms started to go numb. When she got back to camp she laid down in the tent and became very sick to her stomach and shaky. My daughter, Whitney, called 911 and an ambulance took them both to the nearest hospital where they did tests to make sure she didn't have a stroke. She didn't, however, through a CT scan, they found what is called a glioma on the left frontal lobe of her brain. She was rushed to Asheville, NC to get an MRI in order to back up the earlier doctors findings, and they confirmed that it is in fact a brain tumor called an Astrocytoma. What happened in the tent and what she was experiencing on the bike trail was a seizure caused by swelling in her brain. The neurologist she spoke with gave her a couple options: surgery, chemo-therapy and radiation. However, it is not fast growing and she has plenty of time to seek alternative forms of therapy. There are terrible side-effects to chemo and radiation and often times they cause more harm than they do good (not that it doesn't and hasn't worked for lots of people, she is just trying something more fitting to her lifestyle while she can). She will be moving forward with a program called The Gerson Therapy. It is a very strict dietary regimen that has cured many different kinds of cancers and illnesses including Astrocytomas. For more information visit www.gerson.org and read all about this amazing way of life. The Gerson Therapy is a very intensive, organic diet and they recommend you visit a clinic for 3 weeks to adapt to this new way of life. She will need to do the therapy for 2 years and the 3 week stay at a clinic is VITAL to succeeding in curing this tumor. But like all things having to do with cancers or tumors, treatment is expensive. The 3 week therapy and clinic, and the tools she'll need when she gets home, comes to about $20,000. No one can raise this money alone, but with everyone giving the little that they can, we'll help her get there in no time. We cannot help her raise this money without the help of those that love her and care about her. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please repost it or pass it along so that others may know and feel inspired to help Lucy on her journey.Protesters gathered outside the White House on Wednesday, displaying signs with various messages from calling for a special prosecutor to alleging a cover-up to tying President Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. This comes on the heels of Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey.
Comey sought to expand his agency’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election before Trump fired him on Tuesday, a congressional source said Wednesday.
Facing criticism from members of Congress, the Trump administration denied the firing was related to the FBI probe of the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Moscow to sway the election.
The president, who met Russia’s foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, defended his decision to abruptly fire Comey from a law enforcement post he had held since 2013. (Reuters)
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Rob Ford and Mike Duffy may not prove to be the end of Stephen Harper, but they are the beginning of the end.
To what must be the disbelief of his political base, the prime minister reduced Mayor Ford’s saga — of cocaine use, driving while over-refreshed and hanging out with guys who pack heat and use it — to a political cliche. When asked for his view of the ‘gangsta’ side of Rob Ford, Harper responded simply that the voters of Toronto will decide his fate.
That can only mean one thing: If, 11 months from now, a conflagration of idiots re-elects Rob Ford, Harper is suggesting he believes that ROFO’s drug use and criminal associations are inconsequential, if not utterly without meaning. Political success purges all. This from the fellow who used to say he would rather lose an election than do the wrong thing in Afghanistan.
It was also a strange thing to say for a man who has presented himself to his supporters as a champion of law and order. Harper once spoke for people who thought law-breakers should pay for their crimes, not run for public office.
Jason Kenney, who properly called for Ford’s resignation last week, is now the sole Harper cabinet minister the base can trust on one of their key issues: justice. For the PM, electability apparently trumps criminal behaviour. Not a big seller in Conservative circles.
Conservatives have another peculiar trait. They traditionally expect their leaders and MPs to tell the truth — just ask ‘Lyin’ Brian.’ Wantonly misleading the public is supposed to be what Liberals do. Not only has Harper turned his mania for control on his own MPs, corseting the few who are actually allowed to speak in talking points — he has lied egregiously on Duffygate, and attempted to cover that fact with the aura of office.
Conservatives have another peculiar trait. They traditionally expect their leaders and MPs to tell the truth — just ask ‘Lyin’ Brian.’ Wantonly misleading the public is supposed to be what Liberals do.
There is not a single, informed person in Canada who believes that Duffygate comes down to two evildoers — Duffy and former chief of staff Nigel Wright. Yet this is our prime minister’s sad refrain — regardless how many facts emerge to render his version of events little more than delusion in a footrace with farce.
Still, the truth is in the things that make men lie. Harper may always be relied upon to stick to marketing rather than facts. But marketing or not, it is a story that won’t sell in Toronto — or, for that matter, in Calgary. It is narcissistic hot air designed for one purpose only — to insulate the prime minister from the fallout from a potentially government-killing scandal that has taken place under his watch, under his nose, and perhaps under his direction.
The heart of Harper’s defence in Duffygate is that he didn’t learn that Wright gave Duffy $90,000 to make disputed expense problems go away until he saw it on the news — expenses, by the way, that Duffy believed were in order.
Had he known what Wright and Duffy had planned, the PM contends, he would have put a stop to the deal. It is the only part of a rickety story told by the PM that has remained consistent since CTV’s Robert Fife broke the “secret” payment story last May. And it might even be true, though that is a matter open to question.
But the heart of Duffygate is not Wright’s $90,000 ‘Hail Mary’ to Duffy under conditions that might amount to duress.
That payment came at the very end of a colossal conspiracy of far greater dimension: the subversion of an independent institution, the Senate, by a predatory PMO. It also involves attempted interference in an independent audit, a call ordered by the PM’s chief of staff and carried out by Conservative bagman Irving Gerstein, as well as a serious attempt to use Conservative party funds subsidized by taxpayers to pay off Duffy.
Put the $90,000 to one side for a moment and ask another question: What did Harper know about that process which began in early February behind the scenes and exploded publicly in May only as Wright’s cheque-book damage control?
The affair began innocently enough, but Wright clearly saw the thunderheads on the horizon. It was reported in the media that Duffy had applied for a Prince Edward Island health card on Feb. 5, 2013, made necessary by inconvenient media inquiries about his eligibility to serve as a senator from P.E.I. since he was a longtime resident of Ontario.
Wright called Senator David Tkachuk the next day to get an assessment. Even after Wright was informed by Chris Woodcock in the PMO that Duffy would issue a statement about documents provided to the Senate regarding his residency, Harper’s chief of staff had a premonition. As he replied to Woodcock: “But let this small group (in the PMO) be under no illusion. I think that this is going to end badly.”
For Duffy, it began badly. He found out on February 7 that there was going to be an independent audit by Deloitte and hired a lawyer. He hoped the matter of disputed expenses could be resolved without an audit. He didn’t think he had broken the rules. Four days later, Wright told Duffy that if his primary residence was, in fact, in Ottawa rather than P.E.I., he ought to repay his housing allowance on moral grounds. It was believed at this time that the amount owing was $32,000.
The elephant in the room that Stephen Harper is working overtime to hide under the smokescreen of the $90,000 payment by Wright to Duffy is that everyone — including, it would seem, the PM — had agreed to an earlier deal that would have seen the Conservative party “make Duffy whole”.
Why do I include the PM in a chain that includes PMO staffers Perrin, Woodcock and Wright, and Sen. Gerstein? Because of internal PMO messages recently obtained under production orders granted by the courts to the RCMP in their ongoing investigation of Duffygate.
It came down to this before the initial deal fell apart: Duffy would repay disputed expenses but he needed help. Wright asked PMO legal advisor Ben Perrin to help close the issue of a cash payment to Duffy by getting a clarification of terms with Duffy’s lawyer, Janice Payne, that included his silence about the arrangement.
“Ben, please go back to Ms. Payne on these points and ascertain where they stand on everything else. I do want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final.”
Less than an hour later, Wright sends another email stating, “We are good to go from the PM once Ben has confirmation from Payne.”
It is open to debate what those words mean. But Wright himself cast light on the interpretation just the day before, when he inserted his own comments into an email from Duffy’s lawyer laying out the terms of a deal to which the senator would agree.
Those terms clearly included giving Duffy the funds to cover any repayment he might have to make — and his legal costs. Wright agreed to the terms, but first wanted the exact amount of the legal fees disclosed. With that proviso, he noted that “the Party is open to keeping Duffy whole since it is clear that any overpayments were innocently received.”
To this point, Harper’s PMO makes Hamlet’s Denmark smell like the powder room at the Ritz. If the PM didn’t know a thing about the “Duffy problem”, it looks a lot like wilful blindness to me. If he did, it’s time for him to step down and allow someone else to do what he once promised back in 2006 after being sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada: “We will improve Canadians’ faith in public institutions by making government more accountable and effective … Our first priority will be to clean up government.”
Thanks to broken promises and hubris, it’s a much bigger job today than it was then.
Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.
Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.
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.What’s in your (waiter’s) wallet?
Visitors to the US are often mystified about the “right” amount to tip for service, and it turns out Americans don’t agree too much either.
An analysis of tens of millions of transactions across the US by payment service Square revealed that, when customers left a tip, Alaska (17%), Arkansas (16.9%), and North Carolina (16.8%) registered the three highest average tips for any US state. Delaware (14%), Hawaii (15.1%), and South Dakota (15.3%) registered the three lowest.
The highest average tip for any individual city was Denver, Colorado, at 16.8%, followed by Chicago (16.7%), Tampa (16.4%), Atlanta (16.3%), and Austin (16.2%). The nationwide average, according to Square’s data, is roughly 16.1%.
It’s worth noting that Square’s data aren’t perfect. The tips it logs are paid out not in cash, but using credit cards, which likely tempt customers into doling out a bit more cash than they would otherwise. Studies have shown that as little as a credit card insignia can lead to heftier tips (pdf). In fact, technology in general, justified or not, has been blamed for encouraging “guilt tipping.”
But Square serves a number of business types in each state, including restaurants, cafes, taxi services, and small vendors—meaning that its tipping wings spread across all sorts of tipping lands. The average transaction size per state also doesn’t deviate much. And the distribution of businesses in each state is fairly similar.
Square’s data is in fact fairly in line with perceived nationwide tipping trends. ”Those numbers are pretty consistent with what we’ve found,” Michael McCall, a professor at Ithaca college who specializes in consumer behavior, told Quartz. “The average tip was once about 15%, but it’s creeping up towards 20%.”
A bigger surprise, in fact, is Square’s data on the percentage of customers who tip at all. This varies from Illinois, where people left a little extra over 61% of the time, to Delaware, where fewer than 38% of transactions added a tip. (McCall had no light to shed on why the variance is so big.)
While it’s tempting to look for trends that might explain the variation, it would be hasty to establish any definite links, according to McCall. “There are certain cultural norms that develop across the country in terms of tipping,” he said. “If you’re traveling through and not coming back, there’s probably less incentive to tip well.” States like Delaware, for instance, that sit along major thoroughfares, likely deal with more transient customers. “But I’m not sure, for example, how much something like politics has to do with it,” McCall added. According to his research, a sense of empathy and culture of hospitality are harder to define, but would likely serve as better indicators.
So have a look at how each US state tips, but be easy on drawing any conclusions.
Now read: Violent video games might make white people more racistDr DY Patil Institute of Technology, Pimpri has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited for the setting up of a centre of excellence in robotics and automation.
The MoU was signed on September 22 by Somnath Patil, secretary, Dr DY Patil Vidya Pratishthan Society and Amit Bingurde, chief operating officer of TAL Ltd.
The MoU will lead to the setting up of a robotics laboratory for providing training to faculty members and students, industrial visits, internships, exploring research opportunities in the field of robotics, projects, and employment opportunities for students. It will also help towards providing an incubation facility for budding engineers to become entrepreneurs. Robots used that come under the MoU are indigenously manufactured by TAL.
TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited is a Chinchwad-based enterprise of the TATA group, delivering manufacturing solutions for over 40 years to customers in automotive and heavy engineering and more recently, to the aerospace and defence sectors.
Amit Bingurde, chief operating officer of TAL Ltd. said that,“There is huge scope for research in the field of robotics and there is shortage of skilled engineers in the robotics field.” He appealed to the students and faculty members to gain hands-on training at the centre of excellence and to do more research in the field of robotics.
While concluding, he clarified about the fear of job losses that could arise with the growth of robotics and assured that robotics will only create more jobs.
In his speech, Somnath Patil, secretary of the Dr DY Patil Vidya Pratishthan Society, welcomed the partnership of the institute with TAL. He assured that the MoU will help in creating a bright future for students.
Principal, PD Patil, congratulated TAL for developing robots completely designed and manufactured in India and for bringing the technology nearer to academic institutions to create pool of skilled engineers.
First Published: Sep 24, 2017 16:53 ISTYou take one look at the house and you have to wonder: which room does Uncle Fester live in? Cousin It? Will Lurch be at the front door? Will Bernie Sanders sleep by day in a coffin in the basement? Do you think Mrs. Obama wanted an old house possibly built by slaves so she could experience the rush of virtue orgasms?
President Obama is in the process of building a large wall around his Washington, D.C. home. It's kind of an odd choice for a home. From the outside, it looks dilapidated and even spooky.
But not only is Obama building a wall around his home, something he refused to do at our nation's borders, but he may well get Mexico to pay for it. Undoubtedly after he leaves office, he will cash in, giving short speeches for six- or seven-figure payouts. And he's not going to be speaking before the Heritage Foundation or free-market groups. He almost certainly will be speaking before big corporate America and identity, race, and abortion groups like CAIR, La Raza, and Planned Parenthood. I also think it very likely that he will be paid to speak before business or even government groups funded by the Mexican government, as a thank-you for his lax border controls and mass granting of illegal amnesty. If that happens, Obama could be said to be using Mexican money to pay for his border wall.
If Democrats responded to Obama's border wall the same way they responded to the idea of a wall at our southern border, what would they say?
1) "It's too expensive...it can never be done!"
2) "You don't need a physical wall, President Obama; just have a 'virtual fence.'"
3) "If you find someone on your property, you have to allow his family in as well, because separating families is cruel."
4) "You live on a'sanctuary block,' and the local police will not respond to reports of incursions."
5) "The church next door should serve as a staging area for trespassers, giving them food, drink, shelter, and a map of your home's defenses to give them the best possible chance of breaking in."
Questions for discussion:
1) Would you be brave enough to walk by that house on a dark, moonless evening, when you hear high-pitched, shrill cries of racism in the night?
2) From the dilapidated look of the home, do you think the Obamas have a den or a crack den?
3) On Halloween, do you think this neighborhood will experience a net loss of trick-or-treaters?
4) On Halloween, do you think Mrs. Obama will bother to wear a costume?
5) On Halloween, do you think the Obamas will take candy from the bags of white children and give it to the others?
Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.This week has been productive, and I’m continuing to learn something about game development every day. I’m also doing a lot of work planning for what the final game will be like. There will be strategy. There will be action. And there will be what I think is humor.
Now, and in upcoming posts, I’ll go over what I’ve completed this week, and what I would like to complete by next Tuesday.
Completed Goals:
Multiple Crop System
I had said I would implement a few more crops, but decided against it, and only added one more. I figure if I get the base down with two, the others can easily fall into play. The crop quota is evaluated every month, and now it works when multiple crops are at play. Here’s a look at what the game looks like with corn and wheat in action. And with this extra crop, I needed to make a UI change for planting.
With the planter tool, a popup comes up when a tile is selected.
Enemy Behavior
Previously, the enemies could only come from the east direction, but can now come from all sides. For each month, the amount of days between attacks gets shorter, and the number of enemies that come at once get bigger. Here you can see in Month 5, the enemies are soon going to overrun the farm, and are coming from every direction. ( I know they all appear the same )
Fence Tool Fences actually have what I promised. They are created on farmed tiles, doubles the maintenance cost, and increases the chance of an enemy attack failing. Here you can see two enemies approaching two farmed tiles.
Here you can see that one tile was destroyed, while the other was protected by the fence.
Next Week’s Goals:
Tool Upgrades
-Act on adjacent tiles
-Lower cost of use Tile Upgrades
-Auto Replant
-Auto Harvest The upgrades will be something the player needs to obtain to succeed and simplifies farming gameplay as enemies become more active. New Enemies Unique attacking styles, art, and animations.
I’d like to keep these as a surprise for now. They will be impressive when the art and animation is in place.
Thank you all for reading, and please Follow me On Twitter to check out what I’m doing!
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, the importance of health. And that's-that means that all of us have to, in our communities, in our places of worship, in our school systems, encourage nutrition programs, provide young people outdoor activities that give them exercise.
And Michelle and I always talk about the fact when-when we were kids, during the summer, you know, basically, mom just said, "See ya!" after breakfast. You were gone. (Laughter.) You might run in, get some lunch, go back out, and you wouldn't be back till dinner. And that whole time, all you're doing is moving.
Now, unfortunately, times have changed. Sometimes, safety concerns prevent kids from doing that. Sometimes, there are a lot of kids just don't have a playground. Little leagues may be, you know, diminished. That means that, you know, we as adults in the community may have to provide more and more outlets for young people to get the kind of exercise that they need.
When it comes to food, one of the things that we are doing is working with school districts. And the child nutrition legislation is going to be coming up. We provide an awful lot of school lunches out there and-and reimburse local school districts for school-lunch programs. Let's figure out how can we get some fresh fruits and vegetables in the mix. Because sometimes you go into schools and-you know what the menu is, you know? It's French fries, Tater Tots, hot dogs, pizza and-now, that's what kids-let's face it, that's what kids want to eat, anyway (Laughter.) So it's not just the schools' fault.
A, that's what kids may want to eat. B, it turns out that that food's a lot cheaper, because of the distributions that we've set up. And so what we've got to do is to change how we think about, for example, getting local farmers connected to school districts, because that would benefit the farmers, delivering fresh produce, but right now they just don't have the distribution mechanisms set up.
So, you know, Michelle set up that garden in the White House?
One of the things that we're trying to do now is to figure out, can we get a little farmers' market outside of the White House. I'm not going to have all of you all just tromping around inside -- (laughter) -- but right outside the White House -- (laughter) -- so that -- so that we can -- and -- and -- and that is a win-win situation.
It gives suddenly D.C. more access to good, fresh food, but it also is this enormous potential revenue-maker for local farmers in the area. And -- and that -- those kinds of connections can be made all throughout the country, and -- and has to be part of how we think about health.Want to see some of the best architectural delineations in the world? You’ve come to the right place because today is a special day. Collected here for you to get your architectural eye candy fix, are the 2015 winners and finalists from the 41st annual Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition, the longest running architectural delineation competition in the world.
The competition for this event is typically ridiculously strong and this year was no different. With over 424 Total Entries (the highest number of entries in the history of the competition) from over 28 different countries, selecting the winners is no easy task. This year’s jury was made up of 3 amazing delineators in their own right, which consisted of John Maruszczak, Steve Oles, and Michael Rojkind.
I have been lucky to have chaired this competition in the early days – my claim to fame was instituting a category for digital submissions, which at the time was a hotly contested decision. I recommend that you head over to the official Ken Roberts Competition web site and take a look at all the recognized entries (finalists and winners) from this year and the last 11 years! It’s a huge repository of architectural eye-candy.
All of these images can and should be clicked upon so that they can be viewed closer to their original submission size. The detail is vastly improved and I promise, seeing these images larger is well worth your time.
I hope you can appreciate the time, effort, skill, and dedication to their craft that each of these illustrators has demonstrated. Makes me want to get out my sketch book and try to start working on my own delineation skills. I don’t think that I will ever approach the level of skill demonstrated by these winners – but not many people ever will.
Cheers and Happy Delineating!Solr: The Most Important Open Source Project You've Never Heard Of Steven J Vaughan-Nichols
There are many open source programs that get a lot of press. And then there a few, like Solr, that are important to businesses but are also virtually unknown, even in geek circles.
When I did a story recently about in-demand open source jobs, I wasn't surprised to hear from Dice that the job market was hot, hot, hot for OpenStack (for Big Data, Hadoop in particular) and for the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python). What did surprise me--indeed, shocked me--was that another red-hot tech jobs area was Solr.
"Solr?" I wondered. "What the heck is Solr?” That was also the reaction of all of my developer friends. And, since my buddies and I, among the lot of us, have centuries in the tech business, we've seen a lot of programs. That “Oh, did you say money?” item set me to do my research. Now I'll let you into the secrets of Solr.
One reason why Solr may not have gained the attention it deserves is it's actually apart of another larger and much better known open source project, Apache Lucene. This, as I'm sure you know, is a Java-based text search engine library.
Lucene is used by many companies and groups as the foundation for their search engines. These organizations include AOL, Disney, and Eclipse. Lucene’s chief selling point is that the indexing engine, with a footprint of a mere megabyte of RAM, can index up to 150GBs per hour of text on commercial off-the-shelf hardware. That's darn good!
Solr comes into the picture as the search platform front-end for Lucene. It provides full-text search, including the ability to handle such formats as Microsoft Word and PDF with Apache Tika; hit test highlighting; and faceted search, which incorporates free text searching with topic taxonomy indexing.
Like Lucene, Solr is very popular (even if I didn’t know about it before now). It's used by sites such as Reddit, Netflix, and Instagram. These are all websites whose users won't stand for slow response time. Solr can deliver the kind of performance that cranky users demand.
Under the hood, Solr is written in Java and it relies on Lucene for its core functionality. It usually runs within a servlet container such as the Jetty HTTP server and Javax.servlet.
Solr has REST-like HTTP/XML and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) APIs for ease of programming from almost any language. So, while you can work with Solr using its native Java, you also can use your language of choice. For example, query results can be returned in XML/XSLT, JSON, Python, Ruby, PHP, Velocity, CSV, or binary formats. You can use this data with whatever package strikes your fancy.
While Solr is built on Lucene, it also expands upon it. For instance, it supports sharded data, geospatial search, and user extensible caching. The end-result is a very fast and flexible back-end DBMS for almost any Web search engine job.
With its exhaustive documentation, the program promises to make it easy to get up to speed. As for administrators, with an AJAX-based administration interface and comprehensive logging facilities, Solr is simple to manage.
While Solr is clearly useful and easy, clearly not enough Solr experts are out there. According to Dice on September 11th, 2013, there were no fewer than 318 Solr jobs listed. Many of these job listings had a phrase like, "Solr experience is a must." If you’re interested in pursuing this in-demand open source job skill, big data experience is a real plus. In particular, Hadoop and its close relative, Hbase, were frequently mentioned. And, of course, if you can do all this on a cloud architecture, that's a real plus.
So, in short, if you'd like a programming job sooner rather than later, don't be like me and my buddies. Learn about Solr today so your resume will look better tomorrow.
How about you? Have you heard good things about Solr, or just nothing at all? Do you have Solr experience, and does it help you in your career? Let us know in the comments.
See also:
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[dfads params='groups=937&limit=1&orderby=random']Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton called for “fact-checkers” to save her against Republican nominee Donald Trump in Monday’s debate.
Trump attacked Clinton’s initial support of the war in Iraq Monday, saying the way the United States government pulled out of the Middle Eastern country was irresponsible.
“Well, I hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard,” Clinton retorted. “Donald supported the invasion of Iraq. That is proved over and over again. He actually advocated for the actions we took in Libya, and urged that Gadhafi be taken out after actually doing some business with him one time.”
This was the third time Clinton called for fact-checkers during the debate, relying on the “main stream media” to argue Trump’s points for her. Bloomberg and other news outlets reported they would fact-check Trump live throughout the debate.
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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.AT&T's preaching about the mucho dinero it's dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who'll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we'll be seeing over the course of 2010. We're counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally pimps its nine-figure investments in most states over the past several years, too -- but of course, phones need spectrum to communicate, not blank checks and promises. Let's see how we finish the year after those iPads, next-gen iPhones, and AT&T-compatible Nexus Ones (our fingers are crossed) have had a chance to slam the airwaves for a bit, shall we?Andy Buckley is set to guest star on the upcoming second season of Stephen Falk’s comedy You’re The Worst, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Buckley is perhaps best known for his role as David Wallace, CEO of Dunder Mifflin, on NBC’s The Office. Buckley will portray Russell Fleischer, Jimmy’s agent, who has grown weary of Jimmy’s douchebag behavior standing in the way of Jimmy getting better gigs. At the moment, Buckley is tapped to appear in only one episode, called “Crevasses.”
You’re The Worst follows the adventures of Jimmy (Chris Geere), a writer, and Gretchen (Aya Cash), a PR executive, in Los Angeles. These two awful, toxic people attempt to be in a relationship; the results are predictably awful and toxic, but still more credible than anything that came out of The Bachelor. For its sophomore season, You’re The Worst will be moving from FX over to the network’s younger, hipper, comedy-centric counterpart FXX. A return date has not been announced as of yet.For those of us who love and cried uncontrollably during The Fault In Our Stars – so basically, everyone – we've got some sad, day ruining news for you. John Green just announced that he might never write another book again. Cue the tears!
According to the author in a new Vlog Brothers YouTube post, he felt so much pressure to follow up the success of his massive best selling book that he had difficulty writing much of anything else! Of the pressure John faced, he said, "I started to feel this intense pressure, like people were watching over my shoulder while I was writing. Somewhere in that period, my job stopped being Person Who Writes Books, which is a present-tense job title, and became Person Who Wrote That One Book, which is a past-tense job title."
John also discusses whether or not there will be any new books that he will release in the near future, saying, "Writing had always been a safe and sane way to pore out my obsessiveness and recursive thinking. But then suddenly it didn't provide that release anymore."
He added, "I missed writing, but in the way you miss someone you used to love. I don't know if I'll ever publish another book and even if I do, I don't know whether people will like it."
Watch the author talk about his feelings on a new book below:
Well, now that we've had the time to collect our emotions and stop crying, maybe a break like this is exactly what John needs. After all, before he released TFIOS, he also wrote and released Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson back to back.
But John, being the gracious writer that he is, didn't let us cry for too long and released this statement on his Twitter:
As I think is clear in the video, I'm enjoying writing again after a while away. I hope and intend to publish more books… — John Green (@johngreen) September 22, 2016
But I'm not certain. I've become deeply, encyclopedically uncertain (and not just about writing). But I'm enjoying writing! — John Green (@johngreen) September 22, 2016
Well, there you have it folks, straight from the author himself. Now, we're going to just sit here and wait until John finally decides to release his new book…any day now.
What do you think about John Green's confession? Let us know in the comments section below.
Love J-14? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for fun, exclusive videos with your favorite stars.Austin Texas is the live music capital of the world. Between ACL, SXSW, or any random weekend on 6th Street, Austin plays host to musicians from across the globe. But what about our amazing and talented local musicians? Let's show everyone the true meaning of the term "live music." Join us at MusicMaker for a one-night "hackathon" where you will collaborate with fellow musicians and write a song that you'll perform LIVE for our panel of judges. You bring your instrument of choice (or even just that beautiful set of lungs you reluctantly trot out at karaoke every few months), and we'll help you take care of the rest.
We'll provide food and adult beverages (read as: awesome local beer) to keep your creative juices flowing, and we'll also have some great prizes for the winning teams!Fenix Profile Joined April 2007 Peru 112 Posts #1
Hi guys, I’m LG-IM Fenix, an Incredible Miracle player, as some of you may know I am out of the competitive scene a cause of health problems (an acute tendinitis in both hands that got me out of game for a long year)
After 7 months of hard, painful and long treatment, now I’m able to tell all of you that
I’m Ready for a comeback!
I know It will require a lot of job and long hours of training for me,but I think it´s not impossible when we give our very best!
For that reason, I’m working very hard with my teammates of IM who I consider my friends, because they are all the time encouraging me and giving me advice, including IM manager “Hirai”
I am also pushing me hard to reach my usual level to give all of you my very best, for that reason I just have started a big challenge in which I would like your support.
Challenge: Become a Grand Master in 3 days??
Day 1 : I started from 0, and I was positioned in platinum level, I reach the level of top Master in 6 hours with the stats of 21-2
Day 2 : It will be on April 5th (Friday) at 18:00 CET, Join me in this challenge
I promise to give my very best in every game and share with you some strategies
I will be training with my friends of IM in korea sever too so interesting games will be granted!
Replay Pack Day 1:
I invite all of you to my Stream
Stream:
Fan page :
Twitter:
Fenix is coming back!
Best Regards for all!
Fenix is Coming Back!Hi guys, I’m LG-IM Fenix, an Incredible Miracle player, as some of you may know I am out of the competitive scene a cause of health problems (an acute tendinitis in both hands that got me out of game for a long year)After 7 months of hard, painful and long treatment, now I’m able to tell all of you thatI’m Ready for a comeback!I know It will require a lot of job and long hours of training for me,but I think it´s not impossible when we give our very best!For that reason, I’m working very hard with my teammates of IM who I consider my friends, because they are all the time encouraging me and giving me advice, including IM manager “Hirai”I am also pushing me hard to reach my usual level to give all of you my very best, for that reason I just have started a big challenge in which I would like your support.Challenge: Become a Grand Master in 3 days??Day 1 : I started from 0, and I was positioned in platinum level, I reach the level of top Master in 6 hours with the stats of 21-2Day 2 : It will be on April 5th (Friday) at 18:00 CET, Join me in this challengeI promise to give my very best in every game and share with you some strategiesI will be training with my friends of IM in korea sever too so interesting games will be granted!Replay Pack Day 1: REPLAY DAY 1 I invite all of you to my StreamStream: http://www.twitch.tv/fenixcoaching Fan page : https://www.facebook.com/Fenix.sc2 Twitter: @IM_Fenix Fenix is coming back!Best Regards for all! IMFenix http://www.facebook.com/Fenix.sc2When you think of NFL teams hitting the road, you probably picture players and coaches climbing aboard team buses and planes and suiting up in visiting locker rooms. But thousands of NFL fans stand to see their teams hit the road permanently in the next couple of years. That’s because the Chargers, Raiders and Rams are all weighing moves to Los Angeles. And while that’s bad news for San Diego, Oakland and St. Louis, it stands to be very good news for LA, which hasn’t had a professional football team in 20 years. Only one other team has changed cities since then (the Houston Oilers, aka, Tennessee Titans), so many of today’s NFL fans don’t remember a time of such turbulence. But when you explore the history of relocation in the NFL, it’s clear the league historically has been no stranger to changes of scenery.
Click image to see a larger versionMy Journey To Insanity
Mushrooms - P. cubensis
Citation: SlipKnot420. "My Journey To Insanity: An Experience with Mushrooms - P. cubensis (exp41750)". Erowid.org. Mar 28, 2005. erowid.org/exp/41750
DOSE:
7.0 g oral Mushrooms (dried) smoked Cannabis
I actually wrote this about 4 years ago, and was reading through it randomly tonight and decided to post it.-----I ate the quarter of disgusting mushrooms over a 5-minute time span, starting at exactly 7:00 PM. I was at my friend Adams house, hanging out in his basement with a bunch of other friends. Two people had taken rolls, and everyone else was smoking weed. I was really excited about the intense trip that I would experience.About 8 minutes after consumption, I noticed that the mushrooms were already beginning to kick in. Everything around began to look different. The room became started to seem more noticeable and more real. The colors in the room were gradually becoming brighter. What I was experiencing was nothing very intense, but I was feeling some nervousness. It hadn't even been 10 minutes and I was already feeling the mushrooms. In my entire shrooming career, mushrooms had NEVER kicked in that fast. It occurred to me that I probably shouldnt have eaten so many shrooms on an empty stomach. I decided not to tell anybody that the shrooms were already kicking in. I figured everyone would think that I was just exaggerating anyway.To relieve the tension I sat down in the chair, but I continued to feel very uncomfortable. I just couldn't relax. This feeling of tension in my body was building up. One of my friends was smoking a joint, and I figured that some pot would relax me and soothe the physical unease that I was experiencing.'Hey man can I have a hit?' I askedHe gave me the last of the joint and I managed to get a couple of hits off of it. I then went to sit back down but somebody had taken my seat. I wasnt feeling too bad, but I just wanted to sit down and relax. Things were pretty good for the most part, and I was in a good mood. I looked up at the lights and realized how bright they were. I could tell that my pupils were already dilated.I gazed down at the grey concrete floor and observed the dark shadows cast upon it. Then to my amazement I noticed that the shadows were swirling together and forming strange patterns. It started to look like the dark shades of shadow on the ground were forming images on the floor. Two-dimensional cartoon cars and houses appeared to form on the ground, as well as other various shapes and images. But oddly, I was having trouble telling if the shadows were really forming those strange shapes and patterns or if the mushrooms were kicking in harder than I thought.'Hey,' I said to somebody. 'Do you see those patterns?' I pointed to the images that were clearly visible on the hard concrete floor, but he just looked at me strangely and didn't answer. I was starting to realize that these vivid pictures decorating the floor werent even there. I was amazed at how real and detailed they looked though, but also slightly nervous by the fact that I couldnt distinguish them from reality. As I continued to observe them they morphed and changed shape.I was tripping already. It hadnt even been half an hour since I had eaten the mushrooms and I was tripping pretty decently. I knew that I was in for a very intense night, but I was still completely unaware of the experience that I was about to embark upon.The seeds of nervousness that were already planted in my mind began to grow when my friend turned to me and said 'You know this isn't going to be a good experience. These kids we are with are all lightweights.'I nodded, but tried to forget what he said. He didnt mean I was going to have a bad trip. He just meant I would feel separated because only two people that we were with had ever tripped before. So I tried to ignore the comment, and push it out of my mind. However nervousness about everything was growing deep inside me. I began to convince myself that I was going to have a bad time. I had a tense feeling in my chest that was steadily building up. I knew not to think this way during a mushroom trip, so I forced my mind onto other thoughts.I looked back at the lights on the ceiling and they were even brighter now. They were glowing bright white. 'Are my pupils big?' I asked out loud.My friend looked up at me and said 'Yea they look really big to me and Im all the way across the room.'I relaxed and began to forget about my physical and mental unease. Everybody sat in a circle, getting ready to smoke some weed, so I took a seat on the couch. Weed was just what I needed. I wanted to relax a little, and I was sure the weed would calm my stomach. Plus smoking weed is awesome on shrooms. Somebody pulled out a bong and started passing it around. When it came to me I took a massive hit. I just kept inhaling more and more smoke because I couldn't feel any smoke in my lungs. I held the hit in for a while and then finally exhaled a huge cloud of smoke. After that, I sat back, and waited for the weed to relax me some more.I looked over at one of my friends, and he started to climb a pole in Adam's basement. He had taken a hit of ecstasy earlier, and it was starting to kick in. I turned away and leaned back on the couch. My body was beginning to feel heavy. The shrooms were really grabbing a hold of my brain. When I looked back I saw that two of my friends (both were rolling) were hanging from a pole on the ceiling. What the fuck? This was too weird for my altered state to make sense of, so I just ignored it.I started talking to somebody else to distract myself from the crazy kids on ecstasy hanging from the ceiling. He was saying something about me having a crazy grin on my face. As I listened to my friend talk, he started to sound further and further away. I could barely hear him at all. It was like trying to listen to him from underwater. His voice sounded muffled and distorted. Everything around me looked and sounded so distant. Then I heard two people talking to each other, although I didn't know who was saying what. Their voices sounded very distant.'This is so weird, normally we are the people who are always fucked up''Yeah but this time everybody else is fucked up and we are sober'Fucked up? Was I fucked up? No, I was normal. I started to forget where I was, believing that I was at my friend Dans house. I could see his room, his bed, his carpet. I quickly snapped out of it though and realized where I actually was. Then my mind returned to its previous thoughts. Fucked up? I couldnt be fucked up. I didnt understand the concept of hallucinogens, or even drugs in general. How could they alter consciousness? Why would I want to alter my consciousness? What the hell was consciousness anyway? What was going on?I was feeling very uncomfortable now. My stomach was very tense, and my body felt weird and unfamiliar. My sense of gravity was severely altered. It felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. I sat up straight because I didn't like that feeling. But sitting up didn't feel right either. I needed to stay as relaxed as possible, and when I sat up my body felt like it was being pulled from different directions. So I laid back against the couch and once again felt like something was pushing me into it. The feeling was very similar to the pulling sensation I experienced on salvia. I looked at my hands and legs and they didn't seem like they were mine. Just like when I was on salvia.Salvia. Am I on salvia??? I wasnt sure. Everything started to seem exactly like salvia, and I had a feeling mushrooms and salvia were related somehow. This was making me very nervous, because I didn't want to be this fucked up. The Salvia universe was the last place that I wanted to go. Suddenly I just wanted it all to end. I wanted to know how much longer I would be tripping for, how much more of this uncomfortable madness I would have to endure.'What time is it?' I asked my friend.'Its 7:30' he said.'Okay,' I said. But the numbers had no real meaning to me. It had been half an hour since I had eaten the shrooms and I was already tripping much harder than I ever had before. I sat back and felt the pulling sensation return, but it was even stronger now. The couch was trying to pull me into it!!! I quickly sat back up again but gravity felt so weird. I couldn't get comfortable. It was getting very scary. My sense of time was completely destroyed by now. After enduring what seemed to be a couple hours of this sinking feeling, I asked my friend what time it was again.'It's midnight' he said jokingly. Even though it felt like hours had passed I guess only a minute had. However, I believed him when he told me that it was midnight.'IT'S MIDNIGHT??? I exclaimed. I gotta go home!!! Will somebody drive me home?''Ha ha its not actually midnight' he said laughingly. Im just joking. Its only been like a minute since you asked me.'Oh,' I said. I tried to forget it but I couldnt get the thought of it being midnight out of the back of my mind. I sat on the couch, enduring my mushroom trip. I waited a few hours, struggling to keep my sanity. 'What time is it?' I asked him again a long time later.'It's midnight now, he said again.Oh no! It really was midnight this time! I knew because I could tell a long time had passed since I last asked him. I was still tripping too! I didnt want to get home too late or my parents might get really mad. 'I have to go home!!!' I told him'Relax, Im just joking' He said and once again laughed. You keep asking that every 30 seconds.My sense of time was so distorted that I seriously thought four hours had passed in those 30 seconds. Time was becoming extremely dilated. Every second was being stretched out so that each moment felt like an hour.'Messing with his mind like that is the worst thing you can to do somebody who is tripping' I heard somebody say.Tripping? Was I tripping?? What the hell? I wasn't tripping. I was getting really freaked out now. Slowly my friends were beginning to look more and more unfamiliar to me. I didn't know what was going on. I heard Adam shouting loudly. That made me even more uncomfortable. I suddenly realized that this was a bad place to eat shrooms. I didnt like being here normally, let alone shrooming. I didn't know or care what time it was anymore, all I knew is that I wanted to go home. I hadnt been careful enough about setting. I was having such a bad time because I was at a place I didnt like. But how would I get home? It was too far to walk, and I hadnt driven there. Somebody would be nice enough to drive me home. These people were all my friends. They would understand that I didnt want to be here, and they would be more than willing to drive me.'Will somebody drive me home???' I asked.Everybody seemed confused that I wanted to leave since it wasn't even 8 PM on a Friday evening. And nobody wanted to leave to drive me home.I remember somebody saying 'Why do you want to go home? Don't you want to stay with your friends?' His voice sounded distorted and unfamiliar.Friends? I was confused. By this point I didnt even recognize anybody anymore. 'Uh no I just want to go home. Why won't anybody drive me home?''Nobody has a car to drive you home right now.' He said. This was totally ridiculous since everybody had their cars there, but at the time I believed him.'Oh I understand,' I said. It seemed to make perfect sense to me at the time. So I began walking around. The room was looking unbelievably bizarre now. Every color was more intense than any color I had ever seen. It was almost like everything was glowing. I walked over and stared at the unplugged pinball machine in the corner, trying to keep myself entertained. I could feel the spiritual energy coming. I knew something BIG was on its way.But soon the idea of wanting to go home crept back into my head. I asked for people to drive me home again, but nobody would. Everybody was looking at me like I was completely insane, and I couldnt understand why. I felt really scared. Was I insane? I never thought that I was insane. But what if I was? What if I had been for a long time and had never realized it. Everybody who met me would be nice to me, but they were really just being nice to the retarded kid. I had become one of the prime examples of how drugs could completely destroy somebodys mind. And I had never even realized it. I could see myself walking through the halls at school, talking to people, feeling completely normal. But then everybody would look at me sadly as I was walking away and think Its so sad what drugs can do to somebody. Was I one of those kids who were mentally challenged and I just didn't realize it? Were drugs the reason why? Everybody was treating me strangely, looking at me strangely. Something was wrong but I couldnt figure out what. They were all staring at me with concerned looks on their faces. They all looked so unfamiliar. I felt like a little kid on a hospital table, being stared at by a bunch of strange adult doctors while a bright spotlight blinded me. Their faces looked warped and distorted.'Are you starting to feel scared?' somebody asked me.Im just really confused. I said. My voice sounded so unfamiliar. I wasnt really feeling terror or panic. But the distortion, the confusion, it was overwhelming.Are you thinking that you want it to stop?'Yeah maybe I dunno what's going on, I just want to go home.' I said, filled with paranoia. Everybody was staring at me. There was something wrong with me. But what?'That's what had happened to me too' he said to somebody else. Then he turned to me and said 'Nobody can drive you home right now. Here, just lay down on the couch for a while.'I laid down on the couch and tried to go to sleep. By this point, all I wanted was for this to end. I tried to sleep it off, but when I closed my eyes all I could see were colors and colors and colors. There were hundreds of intense bright colors, moving around and changing and flowing. This was insane. I was so shaky, I looked at my hands and they were drenched in sweat. It felt like I was tripping on acid. Only it was crazier.'Don't go to sleep,' Somebody said to me. 'You're going to waste the trip.''Haha, he's not going to fall asleep' Someone else replied.They sounded millions of miles away. I laid there on the couch with my eyes closed, confused, staring at the bright colors which danced behind my eyes. I couldnt sleep it off. I sat up. I didnt feel good. I felt sick. Very very sick.'Here, take you shoes, off, get comfortable' A kid who was rolling said to me. I must have mentioned that I was feeling sick. 'If you have to throw up, try to do it in this bucket. If you don't make it in the bucket though thats okay, we will clean it up.' I didn't want to throw up. I don't know why but I was suddenly determined not to vomit. The nausea in my stomach was steadily increasing but I fought it.'I'm so cold!' I said. My body was freezing; I had never felt so cold in my life. I felt icy, but the feeling wasnt just covering my body. The cold was deep inside me as well. It was so uncomfortable that I was shaking. He gave me his green plaid shirt to wear, but I was too confused to put the shirt on.'Here, put one arm in one sleeve, and the other arm in the other.' He told me. I tried but I couldn't manage to do it. It was like seeing a shirt for the first time. I couldnt filter my vision to figure out what I was seeing. There was just a mass of random colors and shapes. No dont just put it around you, put your arms in the sleeves. He said. I still wasnt doing it right and so eventually he just put the shirt on me. Then he got somebody elses sweatshirts and put that on me as well.I returned to the couch, laying on my stomach and trying to sleep my trip off. I should have known by now that there was no way to sleep off a trip, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I looked down at the shirt I was wearing but realized that I had never seen it before. I had already forgotten that I was wearing somebody elses shirt. This added to my sense of total confusion.As I continued to lie on the couch, gravity suddenly stopped existing. The couch was sideways. Then it was spinning. Then it was upside down so that it was on top of me, crushing me. My face was being smothered in the pillows. I couldn't breath. I was drowning in it. The couch was a red liquid ocean and I was drowning in it. I wanted to get up, to tell somebody that I was dying but I couldn't move. I felt like I was suffocating in the couch. Nobody seemed to notice that I was dying either. Something was going very wrong in my body. Why wasnt anyone paying attention to me?Suddenly I realized the severity of what was happening. I had always known that I was going to die, that my life on this earth would have to come to an end eventually. But now it was ACTUALLY happening. I felt filled with fear at what was going to happen. It was all ending. Soon my body, the body that had been mine for so many years, would just be lifeless laying in this basement. My life, my memories, my self, would all be gone. I thought about my parents. They would be so upset about it. But by this point it was too late, there was nothing I could do. I couldnt hold on any longer. And I felt myself die. |
Heights in 1970 in which he portrayed Heathcliff. After a few more films, Dalton took a break in 1971 to concentrate on the theatre, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and other troupes throughout the world. In 1975, Dalton and Vivien Merchant headed the cast of a revival of Noël Coward's The Vortex.[11]
With two exceptions, the films Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Permission to Kill (1975), he remained a theatre actor until 1978. That year he starred in Sextette as the husband of 85-year-old Mae West, hailing his return to cinema and the beginning of his American career. While in the United States, Dalton worked mainly in television, although he starred in several films. During this time, he played Prince Barin in the science fiction film Flash Gordon (1980) and played Mr. Rochester in a BBC serial of Jane Eyre (1983). Dalton starred alongside Jonathan Pryce in the film The Doctor and the Devils (1985).
Dalton co-starred with Joan Collins in the miniseries, Sins (1986). He was also replaced in two films in which he'd been signed to appear. He was offered the role of real-life British Prime Minister William Lamb in the film Lady Caroline Lamb. The filmmakers replaced him with Jon Finch at the last moment; Dalton sued for breach of contract and won an out-of-court settlement.[12]
In 1985, Dalton was set to play Don Alfonso de la Torré in Roman Polanski's film Pirates. The two men did not get along, so Polanski replaced Dalton with Damien Thomas.[13]
James Bond (1986-1994) [ edit ]
Initial offers [ edit ]
Dalton had been considered for the role of James Bond several times. According to the documentary Inside The Living Daylights, the producers first approached Dalton in 1968 for On Her Majesty's Secret Service although Dalton himself in this same documentary claims the approach occurred when he was either 24 or 25 and had already done the film Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). Dalton told the producers that he was too young for the role. In a 1987 interview, Dalton said, "Originally I did not want to take over from Sean Connery. He was far too good, he was wonderful. I was about 24 or 25, which is too young. But when you've seen Bond from the beginning, you don't take over from Sean Connery."[14] In either 1979 or 1980, he was approached again, but did not favour the direction the films were taking, nor did he think the producers were seriously looking for a new 007. As he explained, his idea of Bond was different.[16] In a 1979 episode of the television series Charlie's Angels, Dalton played the role of Damien Roth, a millionaire playboy described by David Doyle's character as "almost James Bond-ian".
In 1986, Dalton was approached to play Bond after Roger Moore had retired, and Pierce Brosnan was unavailable due to his contractual commitments to the television series Remington Steele. Dalton would soon begin filming Brenda Starr and could do The Living Daylights only if the Bond producers waited six weeks.
Films [ edit ]
Dalton's first appearance as 007, The Living Daylights (1987) was critically successful, and grossed more than either of the previous two Bond films with Moore (Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985)), as well as contemporary box-office rivals such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. His second film, Licence to Kill (1989), although almost as successful as its predecessor in most markets, did not perform as well at the U.S. box office, in large part due to a lacklustre marketing campaign, after the title of the film was abruptly changed from Licence Revoked. The main factor for the lack of success in the U.S. was that it was released at the same time as the hugely successful Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Tim Burton's Batman, and Lethal Weapon 2, during the summer blockbuster season. In the United Kingdom—one of its critical markets—the film was also hampered by receiving a 15 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification, which severely affected its commercial success. Future Bond films, following the resolution of legal and other issues, were all released between 31 October and mid-December, in order to avoid the risk of a summer failure, as had happened to Licence to Kill.
With a worldwide gross of US$191 million, The Living Daylights became the fourth most successful Bond film at the time of its release. In 1998 the second Deluxe Edition of Bond's soundtracks was released. The Living Daylights was one of the first soundtracks to receive Deluxe treatment. The booklet/poster of this CD contains MGM's quote about The Living Daylights being the fourth most successful Bond film.
Since Dalton was contracted for three Bond films,[18] the pre-production of his third film began in 1990, in order to be released in 1991. What was confirmed is that the story would deal with the destruction of a chemical weapons laboratory in Scotland, and the events would take place in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The film was cancelled due to legal issues between UA/MGM and Eon Productions, which lasted for four years.[19]
The legal battle ended in 1993, and Dalton was expected to return as James Bond in the next Bond film, which later became GoldenEye. Despite his contract having expired, negotiations with him to renew it took place.[20] Dalton surprised everyone on 12 April 1994 with the announcement that he would not return as James Bond. At this time, he was shooting the mini-series Scarlett. The announcement for the new Bond came two months later, with Pierce Brosnan playing the role. Dalton reflected in 2007, "I was supposed to make one more but it was cancelled because MGM and the film's producers got into a lawsuit which lasted for five years. After that, I didn't want to do it any more."[21]
Dalton as Bond [ edit ]
Unlike Moore, who had played Bond as more of a light-hearted playboy, Dalton's portrayal of Bond was darker and more serious. Dalton pushed for renewed emphasis on the gritty realism of Ian Fleming's novels instead of fantasy plots and humour.[22]
I think Roger was fine as Bond, but the films had become too much techno-pop and had lost track of their sense of story. I mean, every film seemed to have a villain who had to rule or destroy the world. If you want to believe in the fantasy on screen, then you have to believe in the characters and use them as a stepping-stone to lead you into this fantasy world. That's a demand I made, and Albert Broccoli agreed with me.[22] — Dalton stated in a 1989 interview.
A fan of the literary character, often seen re-reading and referring to the novels on set, Dalton determined to approach the role and play truer to the original character described by Fleming. His 007, therefore, came across as a reluctant agent who did not always enjoy the assignments he was given, something seen on screen before, albeit obliquely, only in George Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In The Living Daylights, for example, Bond tells a critical colleague, Saunders, "Stuff my orders!... Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it." This was an element that appealed to Dalton when he read the script[23] In Licence to Kill, he resigns from the Secret Intelligence Service in order to pursue his own agenda of revenge.
Unlike Moore, who always seems to be in command, Dalton's Bond sometimes looks like a candidate for the psychiatrist's couch – a burned-out killer who may have just enough energy left for one final mission. That was Fleming's Bond – a man who drank to diminish the poison in his system, the poison of a violent world with impossible demands.... his is the suffering Bond.[22] — Steven Jay Rubin writes in The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopaedia (1995).
This approach proved to be a double-edged sword. Film critics and fans of Fleming's original novels welcomed a more serious interpretation after more than a decade of Moore's approach.[24] However, Dalton's films were criticised for their comparative lack of humour.[22] Dalton's serious interpretation was not only in portraying the character, but also in performing most of the stunts of the action scenes himself.[25] His director, John Glen, commented ""Tim is a very convincing James Bond. When he has a gun in his hand, you believe he really could kill someone. I don't think that was ever the case with Roger Moore."[26]
Some modern critics have compared Dalton favourably to Daniel Craig.The Guardian wrote that "they want Bond to be closer to the original Ian Fleming character. They want him to be grittier, darker and less jokey. What they really want, it seems, is to have Dalton back."[27] Eoghan Lyng, writing for The James Bond Dossier, says "despite chronological placement, it was Dalton, not Brosnan, who proved to be the prototype for the 21st century Bond."[28] Dalton himself has claimed that the Bond films starring Daniel Craig are "believable" in the way he wanted his own Bond films to be:
“...I came in under certain circumstances. The prevailing wisdom at the time — which I would say I shared — was that the series, whilst very entertaining, had become rather spoof-like. It was one-liners and raised eyebrows and it had become, let’s say, too lighthearted. And the producer, Mr. Broccoli, felt that, and he wanted to try and bring it back to something more like its original roots with those Sean Connery films. I had loved them all, and I had loved the books....So that was the loose framework that we sort of embarked on, but then you find that nobody else wants to change it all! The studio doesn’t want to change it, the people that work on it don’t want to change it... Everyone’s happy with what they know. And everyone intellectually says, "Well, yes, we should, it was getting a bit stale, it was getting a bit this, that, and the other," but nobody actually wants to. So it wasn’t as easy as one would hope. I mean, now they have. I think now, with Daniel [Craig], they have. But that was, what, almost 20 years later that they actually embarked on something more believable?"[29] ”
Of his time as Bond, Dalton recalled:
“...I should be careful what I say, because, of course, everyone is interested in Bond. It's almost like a bracket or a bubble in one's life. Everybody treats the idea of a Bond film different to anything else. I mean, journalists come knowing the story they want to write, whereas on a normal piece of work we're all discovering what to write about. We're discovering what we’re acting. It's part of the creative process. But in a Bond movie? No. People know what they want to write about. And they know, really, what they want. Everyone's got an opinion, from the top of the studio down to the guy in the street. But you're sort of... outside. No one, no matter how well someone can communicate, can tell you — and I certainly can't really communicate accurately — what it is like to be the actor playing James Bond. The only actors who can are the other actors who've played the part. It's kind of astonishing, really. You are in kind of a bubble. It's real, it's valuable, it's exciting, and it can give great pleasure. And yet it's somehow unreal. No, forget the "unreal" bit. But it's somehow outside the normal course of what we all share in... A fantastic experience."[30] ”
His time as Bond allowed him to work on projects that were of interest to him; "Hawks deals with the subject of extraordinary relevance: Why does it take a crisis to make you realize how bloody precious life is? Unfortunately, it's about cancer, which is a not a word the film business thinks of as being particularly commercial. Still, doing the first Bond film enabled me to get Hawks made. Doing the Bond film helped the O'Neill play find an audience. This is a commercial business. If you have a commercial success, you have enhanced viability."[31]
Post-Bond career [ edit ]
After his Bond films, Dalton divided his work between stage, television and films, and diversified the characters he played. This helped him eliminate the 007 typecasting that followed him during the previous period. Dalton was nevertheless for a certain period considered to act in the Bond film GoldenEye. Instead, he played Nazi spy Neville Sinclair in The Rocketeer (1991), and Rhett Butler in Scarlett, the television miniseries sequel to Gone with the Wind. He also appeared as criminal informant Eddie Myers in the acclaimed British TV film Framed (1992). He had a major part in an episode of the TV series Tales from the Crypt.[32][self-published source]
During the second half of the 1990s he starred in several cable films, most notably the Irish Republican Army drama, The Informant, and the action thriller Made Men. In the TV film Cleopatra (1999) he played Julius Caesar. He played a parody of James Bond named Damian Drake in the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). At the end of that year and the beginning of 2004, he returned to theatre to play Lord Asriel in the stage version of His Dark Materials. Dalton played Simon Skinner, who ran the local supermarché, in the action/comedy film Hot Fuzz, which was released in 2007.
Dalton returned once again to British television in a guest role for the Doctor Who 2009–10 two-part special The End of Time, playing Rassilon.[33][34] He was first heard in the role narrating a preview clip shown at the 2009 Comic Convention. In 2010 and 2011, he starred in several episodes of the fourth season of the American spy comedy Chuck as Alexei Volkoff.[35]
Dalton voiced the character Mr. Pricklepants in Toy Story 3, which was released on 18 June 2010; and again in the television specials Toy Story of Terror! (2013) and Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014).
From 2014 to 2016, Dalton portrayed the character Sir Malcolm Murray for three seasons on the Showtime original television series Penny Dreadful.[36]
Personal life [ edit ]
Dalton was in a relationship with English actress Vanessa Redgrave (with whom he appeared in the 1971 film Mary, Queen of Scots and the 1979 film Agatha) between 1971 and 1986.[37] He was in a relationship with musician Oksana Grigorieva in the 1990s; they met in 1995 while she was employed as a translator for filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov. Dalton and Grigorieva had a son together (born August, 1997) named Alexander.[40] They broke up around 2003.
Dalton is a Manchester City F.C. supporter, and is often seen at the City of Manchester Stadium to watch the team play.[42]
Filmography and other works [ edit ]
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In the interview with Fairfax Radio, Mr Abbott also defended his decision to keep up his volunteer firefighting role. The Prime Minister spent Saturday night with the Davidson Rural Fire Brigade on a backburning operation near Bilpin. ''I love my service with the brigade, it helps to keep me grounded, quite apart from being an important form of community service,'' he said. When asked if his security detail was happy about the arrangement, he replied: ''I think the short answer is, not very.'' Mr Abbott said that he did not take ''silly risks'' when volunteering.
''I think the risks are well within the bounds of what's acceptable.'' Greens leader Christine Milne said Mr Abbott had insulted Ms Figueres with his hat comment but that the real losers out of his "science denialism" were future victims of extreme fires, droughts and storms. “Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister for science denialism. He thinks his opinion on global warming outranks the evidence of the best scientists in the world. It is arrogance in the extreme," Senator Milne said in a statement. “The Prime Minister’s hubris on global warming will see Australia swelter and burn, and our people suffer.” It is rare for a senior UN official to intervene in a domestic climate policy debate.
Ms Figueres' comments came three weeks before the next major round of UN-sponsored talks in Warsaw, which are aiming to reach a global climate treaty by 2015 that would take effect by 2020. She described the NSW fires as an ''example of what we may be looking at unless we take actually vigorous action''. Loading The UN negotiator said the new Abbott government had chosen a more difficult and expensive path to emissions reduction than the previous Gillard government – noting that the Coalition had not stepped away from Australia's commitment to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent by 2020. ''The road that they are choosing to get to the same target that the previous government had could be much more expensive for them and for the population,'' Ms Figueres said.[Note: As the Adrian Peterson saga drags on, now is a perfect time to continue the three-part study Brad Davis has put together on the likelihood of decline from Adrian Peterson. Previously, we looked at Adrian Peterson’s statistical output alone when determining whether or not he’s declining, but in Part Three, Brad Davis looked at 33 different running backs to see the commonalities in running back decline and how they apply to Adrian. Davis, who doesn’t take a stance on Peterson’s trade value in these pieces, ran through the data with rigorous statistical analysis. Part One of the study, which looks solely at Peterson’s career, is here. Part Two of the study, which answers criticisms and questions of part one, is here.]
by Brad Davis
Everybody who follows football beyond the casual observer ‘knows’ that running backs, ALL running backs, performance declines with age. And everybody makes reference to the fact that this decline begins around age 30. This fact was brought up again and again in the discussion of whether Adrian Peterson has shown significant decline in his performance or whether we should expect to see this decline shortly.
In the first two blog posts discussing whether Adrian Peterson has shown any evidence of decline in his play over the course of his career, we evaluated his performance using four different metrics: Yards per attempt, WPA, and two different success rate measures: DD (down and distance), and AFA over two different time scales: his entire career, and the three most recent years in his career. And we didn’t see any evidence of decline in his performance for any of those four metrics over either time scale.
However in the course of that analysis and over the course of some discussion on forums and twitter, we began to wonder if it would be possible to detect any evidence for the decline in the performance of any running back using these metrics? After all, if everyone knows that all running backs decline and our metric for measuring decline is any good, we should be able to detect it, right?
With that in mind, we set out to see if the data supports this widely held view, not using conjecture, not using our eyes, but using rigorous statistical analysis of running back performance data. This was a pretty major undertaking. We obtained running back performance data for 33 running backs who have more than 8 years of history playing in the NFL who started playing in 1998 or later. This list includes: Adrian Peterson, Ahmad Bradshaw, Ahman Green, Brandon Jacobs, Brian Westbrook, Cedric Benson, Chester Taylor, Clinton Portis, DeAngelo Williams, Deuce McAllister, Dominic Rhodes, Edgerrin James, Frank Gore, Fred Jackson, Fred Taylor, LaDainian Tomlinson, LaMont Jordan, Larry Johnson, Marshawn Lynch, Maurice Jones-Drew, Michael Turner, Mike Anderson, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, Ricky Williams, Ron Dayne, Ronnie Brown, Rudi Johnson, Sammy Morris, Shaun Alexander, Steven Jackson, Thomas Jones, and Willis McGahee.
We used an even more comprehensive approach to determine if a running back has demonstrated a decrease in their performance over the course of their career than we did in the original analyses. We used the same four metrics of player performance as in the initial analyses as our dependent variable (YPA, WPA, DD, and AFA) and used three measures (Age, Season, Number of Touches) as our independent variables for YPA and WPA, but only Season for AFA and DD.
[Ed. note—we explained what those acronyms mean in previous sections, but as a refresher: YPA is yards per attempt, WPA is win probability added (explained eloquently here), DD stands for “down and distance”—shorthand for traditional success rate measures that reward the running back for getting 60% of the required yardage to convert a new set of downs on first down, 40% on second down and 100% on third or fourth down—AFA stands for “Advanced Football Analytics,” a website that has its own success rate calculation based on win probability added.
Those four measures are not independent by any means, but they produce different outputs. We figured that if decline could not be detected by yards per attempt, maybe it could be detected by success rate—if a running back is getting worse at third-and-inches style running, success rate would detect that while YPA may not if a team pulls that RB out of those plays. If he is getting worse at first-and-ten style running, then success rate may or may not detect that, but YPA surely would]
Additionally, we examined the data in two additional ways. In our analysis of Adrian Peterson’s running back performance, we examined his entire career and looking only at the most recent three years. But we wondered—what if a running back had their largest decline in performance mid-career? And what if that decline persisted (i.e. it’s not just a temporary blip). We might not see that with either of the analyses we’d already considered.
Towards that end, we added two additional ways of analyzing the data: the largest decline observed over any three year period plus the most statistically significant decline over any three year period. Now in some cases, those two measures are going to identify the same set of years, but they don’t have to be the same.
This approach really maximizes our opportunity to see if there has been any decline in player performance. The choice of three years was somewhat arbitrary, but it seemed like a good balance between competing alternatives: two years would potentially identify pairs of seasons where a running back had a career year followed by an average one even if they didn’t actually experience any real decline (generally referred to as regression to the mean, and incidentally, it’s also the explanation for the ‘Madden Curse).
On the other hand four years (or more) would decrease the sensitivity to find rapid declines in performance, and the point of this exercise is to maximize our sensitivity. All in all we performed over 1000 statistical comparisons examining running back performance producing 792 different measures of decline for the 33 running backs included. There are additional ways of analyzing the data, but I don’t think that anyone can say that this analysis is anything short of comprehensive.
In order to determine if a running back has shown a statistically significant decline for a given measure, the P value of the slope describing the change in their performance must be less than 5%. Under that those criteria, 69.69% of all running backs in our data set showed evidence of decline in performance in at least one measure of running back performance, and 60.6% shows decline in two or more measures of running back performance.
The running backs that don’t show any evidence of decline in performance include Ahmad Bradshaw, Cedric Benson, Deuce McAllister, Dominic Rhodes, Marshawn Lynch, Mike Anderson, Reggie Bush, Ron Dayne, and Sammy Morris. Take note that Adrian Peterson is not on this list any more – we have identified one measure that shows some evidence of decline.
Specifically with the new analyses there is some statistically significant evidence of decline in his AFA success rate over the three seasons showing the most statistically significant decline. But because this is Adrian Peterson, we’re going to dig into this result a little bit deeper and identify the three-year period where he shows a decline in his AFA performance so we can get a better understanding of exactly what’s happening here.
Interestingly, this three-year period starts from 2007 and extends to 2009.
Looking at this figure alone, there seems to be strong evidence of a decline in his performance (P = 0.021) however this doesn’t place this short period of his career in a larger context, but we can do that quite easily (excluding his single game in 2014).
[Ed. note: remember, significance tests are supposed to tell us how likely it is that we should accept the “null hypothesis,” which means a lot of things that are relevant but the most important of which is that they will occasionally produce blips in data that are statistically significant, but not meaningfully so—as explained wonderfully by XCKD]
You can see from this figure that this decline just represents a short blip and his not indicative of an overall decline in the quality of his play. Consequently, I think we can make an argument that AP has not shown a decline in his play.
Now that also suggests that this metric looking at the largest (or most statistically significant) decline in performance over any three period may be overly sensitive and identifying early and unsustained declines in performance for other running backs to. So how does this affect our overall conclusions about the percentage of running backs that show a decline versus considering their entire careers or their last three years?
It turns out that it doesn’t affect things very much at all. It decreases the fraction of running backs showing a decline in play, but not drastically- it declines from 69% to 64% and includes: Adrian Peterson, Ahmad Bradshaw, Cedric Benson, Deuce McAllister, Dominic Rhodes, Fred Taylor, Marshawn Lynch, Mike Anderson, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, Ricky Williams, Ron Dayne, Ronnie Brown, Rudi Johnson, Sammy Morris, Shaun Alexander, Steven Jackson. It turns out that there’s only one other player who shows evidence of decline in one of these extra sensitive decline detectors in addition to Adrian Peterson and that’s Fred Taylor. So let’s take a closer look at him too.
In this case, the most statistically significant decline was detected in the DD metric between 2003 to 2005, but looking at the bigger picture of his entire career you can see that there was no sustained decline and Fred Taylor played at a pretty consistent level through out his career.
So in summary, yes, we can detect declines in performance for a large fraction of NFL running backs (between 64 to 69%, depending on the metrics examined) over the course of their careers. And while this number represents a majority of the running backs included in our data set, it doesn’t represent an overwhelming majority of running backs.
It’s uncommon for running backs to show no decline in performance, but it’s not rare either. I think that’s an important point to highlight—it’s not a forgone conclusion that all running backs experience a decline in their play before they retire. That view is just not supported by the data.
Of course everybody ages, and as we get older our physical capabilities begin to diminish after some point. There are lots of other reasons why a running back may get cut from a team or retire other than a decline in their performance. Salaries for featured players increase the longer they are in the league. One of the most cited reasons for trading or cutting Adrian Peterson from the Viking’s is his cap hit: there are cheaper alternatives available. Players themselves may become wary of the toll the game is taking on their bodies, even if they’re still able to perform at a high level.
Furthermore, despite looking at these additional metrics we do not see any statistically significant and meaningful decline in performance for Adrian Peterson. This is spite of the fact that we can detect temporary (and not sustained) decline in performance early in his career. I think that Adrian Peterson can play at a high level for many more years.Latics Hen party as Chilean striker joins on loan
Wigan Athletic are delighted to announce that Chilean international striker Angelo Henriquez has joined the club on loan for the rest of the season from Manchester United.
Following the news of Roger Espinoza’s imminent arrival The 18-year-old becomes the second confirmed signing of the January transfer window as manager Roberto Martinez makes an early start on strengthening his squad for the second-half of the campaign,.
Henriquez could make his debut against Bournemouth this Saturday as he is eligible to play in the FA Cup. He will take the Number 11 shirt.
Martinez said: “We’re really excited about Angelo because he is a very young man with a huge potential; he’s a goal-scorer with clever movement inside the box and has had a very successful time with his former club Universidad.
“We hope to have a good partnership in terms of allowing Angelo to develop as a footballer and learn of the demands of the English game, because I feel he can bring us something different in the forward line.
“I’m sure the fans will give him a great welcome on Saturday and it will provide him with the perfect opportunity to begin his experiences on the pitch in English football which is very exciting.”
Henriquez said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for me and I am really excited after the manager has given this chance for me to prove myself. Now I need to work to try and earn my place in the team.”
Henrique joined Sir Alex Ferguson’s side in the summer from Chilean side Universidad de Chile, with whom he came through the youth ranks and helped to win last season’s Apertura, the nation’s top division.
He arrives at the DW Stadium at an exciting point in his career, having only just made his senior international debut last month against Serbia, scoring in the same match that also featured new Latics team-mate Jean Beausejour.Our story starts out in New York’s South Bronx, where a young rapper named Scott Mescudi is crashing at his uncle’s place after arriving from the suburbs of Cleveland, OH, where he’d been trying, to no avail, to get the locals interested in his quirky, yet larger-than-life new persona he calls Kid Cudi. Like anyone who has ever heard the call––whether it be from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five or Ben E. King––New York, NY, is the birthplace of hip-hop, and on Broadway is where you come to see your name in lights. Which is exactly what Mescudi, or Cudi, did in October 2004––with only a demo tape and five-hundred bucks cash in his pocket.
After getting a job at American Apparel he hooked up with Plain Pat and Emile and recorded “Day ‘n’ Night,” a single that would not only change his life, but the notions of what kind of artist he is. Hip-hop? Pop? EDM? That’s the way Kid Cudi likes it. And while he may brush off his collaborations, he earned a Grammy for his work on Kanye West’s “All of the Lights” (which also features Rihanna and Fergie).
Cudi was there for West, helping him in the studio on several cuts, and in turn West was there for Cudi when he signed him to his own G.O.O.D. Music label. But now the social media savvy rapper (according to The Hype Machine, he is among the top 10 most blogged about artists of all-time) has stepped out to release his third album Indicud (which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart) in conjunction with G.O.O.D. Music, Republic and his new imprint, Wicked Awesome Records.
We catch up Kid Cudi in between gigs as he winds down The Cud Life Tour, a spectacle that has Mescudi-cum-Cudi transforming into the “Moon Man,” who’s somewhere between David Bowie and Tony Stark.
Music Connection: Was there a hip-hop scene in Cleveland when you were coming up?
Kid Cudi: Yeah, there was a very small scene that was a dope collection of hip-hop heads, but you had to know about it and ask around. It was on the west side, and it was hard to get a ride over there, but I was always there trying to do these freestyle battles. [There was another competition where] you’d give them an original song and they played it with other original songs, and if you win that you get to come back next week and perform the song in a 15 minute set; so you know that was my goal: “Shit I gotta have this dope song, then I gotta go perform!”
MC: Did the scene take to you right away?
Kid Cudi: I would win some competitions and lose some, but when I lost everyone looked at me like I was fuckin’ crazy. They were like, “what the fuck am I listening to?” And, “Who is this dude?” I was always pushing the envelope and trying new things, I went out of my way to find my own voice, and I think that’s how I developed my sound. I was about growth and adventures and living life and seeing what was out there, but I always felt trapped in Cleveland. I’m gonna tell it to you like this, and this might come off crazy, but I was like, “This town ain’t ready for me. Who I am don’t fit here. I need to go where I fit, where I find inspiration.”Don’t cry kids, but most “My Little Pony” shows are flying off Netflix.
The subscription streaming service is set to lose most of the popular kids show plus a host of kids TV series from the Discovery/Hasbro stable on Feb. 2.
The content getting yanked at the Discovery deal expires also includes most of “Transformers: Rescue Bots.”
The two sides failed to reach an agreement on a new rights deal.
The kids content, which had aired on the Discovery/Hasbro joint venture network, The Hub, now re-branded Discovery Family, leaves Netflix with kids’ content from Disney and DreamWorks Animation.
Viacom had yanked its content from Netflix in 2013 after finding a more suitable deal with Amazon and Hulu Plus.
A Netflix spokesperson confirmed a handful of the Discovery TV titles would expire but added that the service still has some movies that aren’t part of the deal, including, “My Little Pony Equestria Girls,” and “Transformers Prime.”
Discovery Communications boss David Zaslav said he was ready to make a deal with Netflix for the return of other cable shows from networks — such as Investigation Discovery — but only at the right price.
The TV giant is said to be examining the launch of a possible over-the-top service to get the content out to a kids audience.
The shows could end up on both an authenticated basis for those with a pay-TV subscription and also to those who just have broadband, a source said.
Such a move would be a first for Discovery in the US.
Discovery could also make a deal with Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Prime streaming service, which is currently offering a free 30-day trial for non-users.
Amazon Prime customers — who pay $99 a year for unlimited free shipping — get the streaming video service for free.
Amazon has been gaining increasing attention thanks to its Golden Globes win for “Transparent,” and an unprecedented deal with Woody Allen for a new online series.The DVD Is Dying. Hollywood's Plan? Do Nothing And Cede Ground To File Sharing
from the there's-no-business-like-no-business dept
Netflix's CEO says, “We expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.” The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.
Streaming movies offers instant gratification: no waiting, no driving—plus great portability: you can watch on gadgets too small for a DVD drive, like phones, tablets and superthin laptops.
For all of the apparent convenience of renting a movie via the Web, there are a surprising number of drawbacks. For example, when you rent the digital version, you often have only 24 hours to finish watching it, which makes no sense. Do these companies really expect us to rent the same movie again tomorrow night if we can't finish it tonight? In the DVD days, a Blockbuster rental |
detail on what they’d be looking for in the ad buy details, Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat member of the House Intelligence Committee, spoke to BuzzFeed News at length about what he’d like to examine, providing insight into the thinking inside Congress. Swalwell first said he wants to look at the ad creative, or the images the Russians paid to promote on Facebook, with a specific focus on whether those images appeared elsewhere on the Facebook platform. “It would be very illuminating to know if there are any duplicates that are not Russian-sourced,” he said. “Who are these people and why are they paying for an ad that is identical to a Russian-sourced ad?”
“Who are these people and why are they paying for an ad that is identical to a Russian sourced ad?”
He also plans to examine the ads for language, looking at the possibility that an American assisted in creating the messaging. “If a foreigner is trying to communicate a message in English on the topic of politics, there could be some lost-in-translation typos or idioms that they may misuse,” he said. “What I would look for — was the copy assisted by a US person?" Ad targeting is also an area of interest. Swalwell said he’d like to see if similar data was uploaded into Facebook by the Trump campaign and the Russians. “We want to compare analytics of content the Russians used, who they targeted to, to content that the Trump campaign was using, and who they targeted it to,” he said. “And if there’s a crossover, find out if it’s just a coincidence… or if it was more than that.” Swalwell told BuzzFeed News that he is in favor of forming an independent, bipartisan commission to review this information, and the full scope of Russian election interference, on a full-time basis with a dedicated staff. Even with these resources, it would likely take extreme sloppiness on the part of the Russians and the Trump campaign for the commission to find clear evidence of collusion in the ad buy details. “The smoking gun would be audiences that [the Trump campaign] had created for [the Russians] and then pushed to them,” Zac Moffatt, digital director of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, told BuzzFeed News. “I think the likelihood that that happened is completely nonexistent.” Sway Earlier this week, Facebook shared critical information that Congress could use to help make that determination. In a post on its Hard Questions blog Tuesday, Facebook published a number of stats that suggest the $100,000 Russian ad buy had less influence on the election than some fear. In its post, Facebook said the Russian ads were shown to some 10 million people — far less than some other estimates that ranged up to 75 million viewers. The company also noted that only 44% of the ads ran before the election.
@Kantrowitz If there is one thing I hope we can bring to the discussion it is more of this: a sense of scale Facebook's head of consumer hardware makes the case for Russian ad buy to be kept in perspective.
Moffatt, Romney’s former digital director, said he thinks the Russian ads were a tiny sliver of the overall campaign advertising pie.
“I can promise you, in 2012 for Governor Romney, we were definitely spending more than $150,000 a day,” Moffatt said. “If you said to me they spent $150,000 in one state, in one district, even then I’d be like — okay. But when you take it across the whole country… There’s not that much there.” Moffatt said he didn’t believe even $1 million strategically spent on Facebook could flip an election, given that each campaign spends hundreds of millions on advertising and receives many billions more in free publicity. “I don’t understand how, of all these other things, why this would be the one thing that people think would make the difference as it goes through,” he said. “I think this is people looking for a silver bullet that explains something that they can’t understand how it happened.” Members of Congress will readily admit that it’s impossible to ascertain the true impact of the Russians’ $100,000 ad spend. “We’ll never know what the effect was as far as how many minds were changed,” Rep. Swalwell said. “In an election that is as close as this one, could it be determinative? We’ll never know,” Rep. Schiff said, speaking of the Russians’ influence as a whole. But as Sen. Warner put it at the Wednesday press conference, digital platforms are becoming increasingly important in the political process, as evidenced by a 700% jump in digital political ad spending from 2012 to 2016, with a similar or larger jump forecast for 2020. In such an environment, Congress sees a duty to ensure something similar to the Russian ad buy won't take place again, especially not at a larger scale. At the very least, it’s likely to be watching Facebook closely over the next few years. “There were clear, coordinated, sophisticated efforts that Russia ran in this last campaign that we have to catch next time,” Rep. Swalwell said. “A $100,000 ad buy for 3,000 ads — we have to catch that next time.” What Happens Now Over the past two weeks, Facebook has introduced a number of advertising reforms. It’s effectively ended the practice of “dark advertising,” or targeted ads not visible to the public, by promising to reveal all ads run on its platform on the pages that pay for them. It’s told political advertisers they must “confirm the business or organization they represent” before they can buy ads. And it’s said it will hire an additional 1,000 people to bolster its ad review operation. Still, that hasn’t been enough to satisfy Congress. Within the next few weeks, Sen. Warner and Sen. Amy Klobuchar are expected to introduce a piece of legislation that would require Facebook and other major online platforms to publicly disclose political ad spending on their platforms. The bill will be the first piece of legislation to respond to Facebook’s Russia ads crisis, and others may follow.
“I think this is the beginning. Certainly not the end.”It enthralled all of us so it's no surprise that the All Ireland Final sparked quite the British hurling reaction after many witnessed it for the first time on Sky Sports One. I think they like it a little...
Trying to catch the hurling but might have to be Sky+...???? — Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) September 7, 2014
Watching the hurling on @SkySportsGAA. Unbelievably skillful. Amazing vision, speed reflexes...& that's just the cameramen... — John Gilheaney (@JohnGilheaney) September 7, 2014
Watching this All Ireland Hurling Final on Sky Sports. How are people not killed playing this game?! Are there any rules? Wow — Neil Maxfield (@NeilMaxOfficial) September 7, 2014
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If anyone's bored out it on sky sports now, one if the craziest sports I've ever watched! Absolutely quality #AllIrelandFinal — Reiss Kennedy (@GoonerReiss) September 7, 2014
What on earth is the sport on sky sports one ATM — Ben Wells (@BenWells93) September 7, 2014
All Ireland hurling final on Sky Sports now, or "the mental Irish game with sticks" if you prefer — Martin Wickham (@Martin_Wickham) September 7, 2014
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Watching a hurling match, I don't know what's happening but I'm excited. — Dizzy Miss Lizzy (@Coca___Colo) September 7, 2014
Watching Hurling and I don't think I'll ever enjoy any other sports again. It's absolutely mental! — Toby Flannery (@tobyflannery_93) September 7, 2014
Sky Sports 1 right now. Hurling is the greatest sport of all time. I have absolutely no idea what is happening but its great. — Jack Duignan (@djuaicgknan) September 7, 2014
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Hurling is the most inexplicable, mad sport I may have ever witnessed. SS1 now and you'll get what I mean. — Oli Roston (@OliverRoston) September 7, 2014
There's a good game of quidditch on sky sports right now. An all Irish final too. — Phil Russell (@Boro_Monkey) September 7, 2014
Whose idea was it to put HURLING on Sky? You are a genious, it's fantastic!!!! — Cllr Bob Copland (@CllrBobCopland) September 7, 2014
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Why would you want to be a goalkeeper in hurling?? Last ditch tackles and baseballs smashed at you #AllIrelandFinal — Tom Weiner (@Tom_Weiner) September 7, 2014
Penalties in Hurling are about 35 yards out and they face the keeper plus 2 defenders! — John Paul Glennon (@johnpaul_44) September 7, 2014
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Looks like Hull City are going to make up for last seasons FA Cup Final defeat by winning the GAA Hurling Final. — Matt Littlechild (@mattlittlechild) September 7, 2014
A spectacle that is a kin to a cross between hockey an murder #gaa #hurling #tippvkk pic.twitter.com/OCKFwE1EoJ — Sorcs (@sorcsfs) September 7, 2014
Where's the nearest hurling club, I wanna join — Dale Richards (@DaleRichardss) September 7, 2014
Like Balls.ie on Facebook for moreSnapchat added Emily White, the director of business operations at Instagram, as the company's new COO on Tuesday, according to AllThingsD.
The now-former Facebook exec had been director of mobile partnerships at Facebook beginning in 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was assigned to work with Instagram and its co-founder Kevin Systrom in April, and was involved in bringing advertisements to Instagram just last month.
See also: 12 Most Cliché Photos on Instagram
"It happened really quickly, but to have an actual COO role in one of many companies that is disrupting the communications arena is one I could not pass up," White, who will work directly with Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel as the company's No. 2, told AllThingsD. “I have always been captivated by the creativity that has gone into the product… and I think that Evan has been looking for someone who can help him grow and scale what is already something that has changed a lot of the way people think about the mobile experience.”
When contacted by Mashable, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that White is leaving the company and joining Snapchat. Snapchat did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.
The new hire comes just a few weeks after Snapchat reportedly turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook, and seems to reinforce that the Los Angeles-based startup is committed to moving forward as an independent company.
Snapchat hasn't raised a round of funding since June, but reports surfaced in October that the startup is seeking another round that would value the company as high as $3.5 billion.
Like other social media success stories before it (Twitter, Instagram), Snapchat appears to be in no rush to monetize its photo-sharing app. Although White's experience in bringing ads to Instagram could help Snapchat generate revenue at some point.
Spiegel claims that users send 400 million snaps per day — either photos or videos — and it's possible to imagine that brands and retailers could one day send ads to users in a similar form using Snapchat's system.
Image: Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesMentally ill in the US: Ten times more in prisons than in hospitals
By Trent Novak
18 June 2014
A report released by the Treatment Advocacy Center in April shows that there are now 10 times as many individuals with severe and persistent mental disorders in state and county prisons than in state psychiatric institutions. The ratio may be even larger than 10 to 1, since mentally ill inmates in federal prisons were excluded from the report, as were those in private prisons utilized by states such as Alaska and Hawaii.
The report, titled “The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails,” surveyed professional staff members at correctional facilities and hospitals throughout the country. Based on the statistics and interviews gathered in these surveys, the Advocacy Center scathingly condemns the widespread “criminalization of mental illness” in the United States, and the existence of “new asylums” within the prison system.
In 2012, prisons and jails housed 365,000 people suffering from chronic psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, while the number of such patients at state medical facilities was just 35,000. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have a prison or jail that holds more individuals with serious mental illness than the largest psychiatric hospital in the area. In several states, such as Illinois and Iowa, a number of county jails hold more mentally ill patients than all of the psychiatric hospitals in the state combined.
The report also describes a trend in which both the number of inmates with mental disorders and the severity of the disorders themselves have steadily increased over the last 40 years, while prison administrators and guards lack the resources, training, or legal basis to provide such prisoners with adequate treatment.
Officials and health care workers in prisons are often legally barred from treating mentally ill inmates with psychiatric medications or sedatives. The District of Columbia and 18 states require either a formal judicial review or transfer to a state psychiatric hospital in order to involuntarily administer medication. Many county jails have involuntary commitment guidelines requiring transfer to a state hospital as well.
However, because state hospitals are scarce and overcrowded, these laws usually render such methods of treatment impossible. Solitary confinement and the use of restraining devices are therefore used as common alternatives.
Lack of treatment and the hostile nature of the criminal justice system itself usually combine to worsen the prisoners' disorders, with most prisoners being in poorer psychological health when they leave than when they first entered. In some cases, prisoners denied proper treatment act out violently, or even commit suicide.
In May, the Associated Press shared information concerning the deaths of two mentally ill inmates at Rikers Island Correctional Facility in New York City. The first inmate apparently died of infection after mutilating himself in solitary confinement, while the second died from being left in an overheated cell and was only found four hours later. These disclosures were followed by a New York Times article in which mental health workers at the prison mentioned their patients being deliberately harassed or provoked by prison guards. (See: Inmate deaths reveal brutal conditions in New York City’s Rikers Island prison, Report: US targets poor and working class with mass imprisonment)
The Treatment Advocacy Center report attributes such events to the historical effects of deinstitutionalization, a nationwide process of systematically closing state psychiatric hospitals. In its list of recommendations, the organization calls for various legal measures to reverse this trend and remove restrictions surrounding involuntary commitment of the mentally ill.
The deinstitutionalization movement arose in the 1960s during the Kennedy administration as the combined effect of the efforts of patients' rights activists, profiteering by the pharmaceutical industry, and state officials seeking to shift mental health care costs to the federal government.
Psychiatric patients and their family members organized for the reform of laws that recognized few rights for the mentally ill and subjected them to lobotomies, electroshock, and other invasive forms of treatment within state hospitals.
In 1963, President Kennedy called for increased federal funding of mental health and psychiatric research, as well as the construction of 2,000 community mental health care centers that would reintegrate patients into the population and eliminate the worst abuses of the state hospitals. Kennedy declared, "The cold mercy of custodial isolation will be supplanted by the open warmth of community concern and capability." However, by 1980, only 750 of these centers had been built and staffed.
The Reagan administration then reduced federal mental health spending for community mental health centers by 30 percent, through a system of block grants to the states. From 1970 to 1984, the number of beds available for psychiatric patients in public and private hospitals dropped by about 40 percent. A study in 1984, at the end of this period, found that individuals with mental health disorders accounted for 30 percent of the homeless population.
The cutting back of services for the mentally ill continued over the next 30 years.
An earlier Treatment Advocacy Report released in 2012 documents a 14 percent decrease in the number of state psychiatric beds between 2005 and 2010, and notes that the availability of psychiatric beds per capita has declined to the level of 1850—before the American Civil War. This year is used as a comparison because it represents the beginning of efforts to treat mental illness within a hospital setting.
The earlier report also mentions the growing proportion of mentally ill individuals among the homeless. For instance, several localities report that as many of two thirds of the homeless population suffer from some type of mental illness, even as the national rate continues to increase as well.
The Treatment Advocacy Center's description of the growth in the number of prison inmates suffering from mental health conditions over the past 40 years coincides with a recent National Research Council report emphasizing the historical intensification of criminal sentencing laws affecting the poor and economically disadvantaged over the same historical period.
These overlapping findings are indicative of a deliberate and far-reaching class policy being pursued by the financial aristocracy and the government it controls. The American ruling class seeks to claw back all major social gains won by workers in the political struggles of the past century—including access to psychiatric health care. In such circumstances, the most vulnerable people are either cast aside or imprisoned.
Care for all of those in need of psychological and psychiatric treatment must be a basic human right. But universal access to mental health care, like universal access to health care in general, is incompatible with an economic order based upon private profit.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.So, you might rightly wonder, what happens now at TSN?
You know, without all those NHL games that, starting next fall, will migrate to Sportsnet, City, CBC … and whatever other outlet Rogers chooses to use over the 12-year length of the mega-deal it signed with the National Hockey League earlier this week. They control the puck now, at least at the big league level.
(but not all the puck talk, as this piece authored by your humble scribe here Tuesday pointed out).
When the discussion turns to marquee properties that remain in the TSN portfolio, it generally starts with the Canadian Football League. And so it should. The CFL has firmly established itself as the No. 2 property on Canadian television, with the Grey Cup annually drawing an audience that only the Super Bowl can hope to match in terms of an annual one-day event.
TSN also owns the world junior hockey championship but, for all the grand numbers it produces — the majority of the top 10 programs in network history come from that event — let’s face it, we’re talking about a 10-day phenomenon here. It hardly carries TSN throughout an entire winter.
Then there’s the ultra-Canadian game that, for all the ‘shuffleboard on ice’ jokes and the like it has to endure, delivers TSN a rock solid audience, year after year after year. Put a lid on that snickering, folks. Curling is surely a major property for TSN — and the literally dozens and dozens of hours of airtime the network gives it each year is testament to that (and trust me, no TV programmer worth his salt would blow that many hours on a sport if the ratings numbers didn’t support it).
AverageTSN audience for an NHL game – 482,000.
Average TSN audience for a curling game – 516,000.
Just sayin. — Paul Wiecek (@PaulWiecek) November 28, 2013
Which is why you’ll see wall-to-wall coverage of next week’s Canadian Olympic curling trials — the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings — at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg starting on Sunday. The goofy Ron Burgundy publicity stunt aside, we’re guessing TSN will attract plenty of eyeballs for this marquee event (which is also why the Burgundy thing strikes me as more of a promotional gig for the upcoming Round 2 of the Will Ferrell movie franchise. Curling certainly doesn’t need the help).
With all of this in mind — and in honour of the impending Roar of the Rings — here are five shots that rocked the curling world over the years. Sit back and be entertained.
Sandra Schmirler, 1997 Canadian Olympic trials
“Schmirler the Curler,” the pride of Saskatchewan, had already etched her name in Canadian sporting lore long before she arrived in Brandon, Man., for the first Olympic trials (curling having been approved as a full medal sport for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics). She and her team had a trio of world championships on their resume already, but a game-saving shot in the women’s final at the Keystone Centre cemented her legacy. In a spot of trouble against Alberta’s Shannon Kleibrink, Schmirler’s circus shot of a takeout scored three and set the stage for a 9-6 win. Two months later, Schmirler’s rink would lay claim to gold in Nagano — but tragically, cancer would take her life two years later at age 36. And a province and country mourned a mom and a curling legend whose life was cut way too short.
Glenn Howard, 2009 Tim Hortons Brier
Search the words “great curling shots” and this one at the 2009 Tim Hortons Brier in Calgary inevitably comes up near the top of any list (well, it did for me). Down two heading into the final end of a round-robin match against Saskatchewan’s Joel Jordison and facing two opposition stones, Howard lined up a difficult angle-raise takeout with his final shot. Incredibly, it worked to perfection, wiping out both Saskatchewan rocks and scoring three for a 7-6 win. While Howard would eventually be eliminated in the semifinals by Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton, the takeout he’d later call “the greatest shot I’ve ever made” has lived on long past that game and that week at the Pengrowth Saddledome. Good enough for us.
Jennifer Jones, 2005 Scott Tournament of Hearts
Rarely has a curling shot captivated a nation like this beauty, which made it way onto the front of newspapers and national newscasts. It was the final end of the Scott final at Mile One Stadium in St. John’s, N.L., with Ottawa’s Jenn Hanna poised to cap a remarkable run with a somewhat unlikely title. Down to her final shot trailing 6-4 and with Hanna sitting shot rock, Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones was left with only one hope — a difficult in-off that, if all went perfectly, would give the Winnipeg skip her first Canadian crown. Remarkably, that’s exactly what happened. When Jones’ shot came to rest, she’d counted four and pulled off a stunning triumph. Nearly nine years later, it’s still an all-timer.
Kevin Koe, 2010 Tim Hortons Brier
Like any post-Olympic competition, the 2010 Brier didn’t exactly include all the best of Canadian men’s curling. Most notably absent: the dominant Kevin Martin rink from Alberta, which roared to a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, but wasn’t at the Halifax Metro Centre for the subsequent Brier. Surely, without Martin there, the Canadian men’s curling championship wouldn’t be returning to Alberta (Martin had won the previous two crowns). But Kevin Koe had other ideas. The transplant from the Northwest Territories squared off with Glenn Howard in the final, with the game heading to an extra end. Howard was poised to steal the victory, forcing Koe into a draw that had to hit the button for the win. Thanks to some frantic brushing, the Koe rink pulled it off. And Alberta was golden again.
Al Hackner, 1985 Labatt Brier
Mention the words “The Shot” to any diehard curling fan, and no doubt they know exactly what you’re talking about. The Ryan Express was a dominant force at the 1985 Brier in Moncton, N.B., blowing through the round-robin 11-0 and looking all but unbeatable. When Alberta skip Pat Ryan delicately placed his final shot perfectly in the rings, he walked down the sheet of ice raising his broom in triumph. But Al Hackner, the famed “Ice Man” from North Ontario, wasn’t ready to surrender just yet. With his last shot in the 10th end, Hackner executed a double takeout many in Moncton Coliseum believed was impossible. The stunned crowd roared its approval, then watched Hackner steal one in the extra end for the upset win. More than 20 years later, many still consider “The Shot” the greatest in curling history.
We’ll call this an extra end — a compilation of super shots from the 2009 Olympic trials in Edmonton.
Related articlesPopular pizza chain Little Caesars is staring at a $100 million lawsuit filed against them by a Muslim man who claims he accidentally ate pork after the restaurant carelessly served it to him. According to a report by KHOU, the Muslim man, identified as Mohamad Bazzi, is a resident of Dearborn, Michigan. Reportedly, it was only after he took a few bites that he realized that the pepperoni pizza that he had ordered, believing it contained halal meat, actually contained pork — food that is strictly prohibited by Islamic law. The lawsuit alleges that the outlet from where he ordered the pizza served him pork on two occasions, and that they were packed in boxes that were labeled “Halal.” The boxes, however, allegedly contained regular pepperoni.
According to Mohamad Bazzi’s attorney Majed Moughni, the decision to file the lawsuit was made to ensure that no other Muslim would end up accidentally eating pork during the month of Ramadan that is about to begin this week. Moughni also described the incident as “upsetting.”
Speaking to the members of the press, Moughni said, “My clients want the public to know. Especially during Ramadan, it would be a travesty if Muslims… in Dearborn bought pizza from Little Caesars and discovered they were eating pork.”
He reiterated that as per Islamic beliefs, consuming pork is “one of the worst sins you can do.”
In the lawsuit, which was filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, the attorney revealed that the first incident of pork being served in boxes labeled “Halal” happened on March 20. On that day, Bazzi, who was at home with his wife, ordered pizza from the outlet. It was only later, when both of them had consumed large slices of the pizza, that they reportedly realized that it contained pork pepperoni. The lawsuit further stated that Bazzi was able to figure it was pork since he used to work for a pizza outlet and was well versed with different types of pepperoni. His wife, who is a Catholic convert to Islam, has also given up on eating pork, Bazzi confirmed. Since Bazzi’s wife literally grew up eating pork all the time, she was also able to identify the meat. The lawsuit alleges that the couple felt “sick to their stomach” after the revelation and just three days later filed a police report.
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However, far from being over, Bazzi’s ordeal had just begun. On May 24, barely two months after the first incident, the same incident was repeated once again. After it had become evident that he was served pork a second time, he decided to talk to the store manager and also recorded the conversation they had. This time, he also went ahead and decided to sue Little Caesar, perhaps to make sure they do not repeat the mistake again. Meanwhile, officials from Little Caesars remained tight-lipped over the developments and refused to answer questions.
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For those unaware, for any meat to be called “Halal,” it needs to be prepared according to Islamic guidelines. It is very similar to Judaism’s kosher. However, rules of halal meat do not apply to pork since Muslims are prohibited from eating the meat since the source animal is considered impure.
“There’s different schools of Islamic law that allows for the eating of chicken and beef, but there is no such thing as halal pork. The pork itself is forbidden,” Moughni said.
Coming back to the lawsuit, Bazzi blamed Little Caesars of breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and fraud. The case is against Little Caesars Pizza, Little Caesars Enterprises, and the employees of the shop. Bazzi’s attorney is also calling for class-action status for the case.
[Featured Image by Gellinger/Pixabay]The Ragin' Cajuns put 12 players in the scoring column and dominated the glass in the second half, picking up an 85-57 win over Louisiana College on Friday night at the Cajundome in the season opener for both teams.led the Cajuns (1-0) with 20 points and seven rebounds, with the win serving as the fourth straight season-opening victory for UL and the second straight over the Wildcats (0-1).Louisiana dominated the Wildcats on the glass and off the bench on the night, out-rebounding LC 46-24, including 30-10 in the second half and holding a massive 38-5 edge in bench scoring."The second half was much nicer than the first half," Louisiana head coach Marlin said following the game. "We turned it over too much, didn't block out and didn't do the things we needed to do against a good, experienced team that brought back five starters from last year."The Wildcats hit just 39.6 percent from the floor and were held to just six points in the final 7:07 of game time as the Cajuns outscored them 22-6 in that span. The 57 points scored by LC was the lowest output by a Cajun opponent in a season opener since Southern Miss scored the same number in a 57-51 win to start the 1998-99 season.Walker hit seven of his eight shots on the night, doing most of his damage in the second half after scoring just three points in the opening 20 minutes. Fellow newcomersandjoined in him in double figures, each with 11 points.Williams filled up the stat sheet, adding five boards, three steals and a pair of blocks to his totals. Stove added three rebounds and two assists without a turnover in 18 minutes off the bench, and but was just one of many contributors with Marlin allowing just three players to net 20 minutes of court time.andalso each had eight points in the opener, and the balanced scoring helped the Cajuns overcome a difficult night at the foul line that saw them hit just 19 of 34 tries in addition to making just four of 16 attempts from beyond the arc.got the start at point guard and picked up six points and six assists in 17 minutes, whileandalso saw time at the one. Williams turned in a good showing in 16 minutes off the bench, scoring three points with a pair of assists and no turnovers, while Shepherd connected on two of his four shots from the floor for five points, including UL's only three-point bucket in the first half.The Wildcats put four of their five starters in double figures, led by Anthony Gaines, Jr.'s 15, but saw just two other players crack the soring column.It took the Cajuns just over 10 minutes to build up a 22-12 lead on a short jumper frommidway through the half before a layup from Long doubled up the Wildcats at 24-12 to cap a 9-2 run.But the Wildcats nearly made up the entire deficit before the end of the half as Shepherd's triple was the only field goal for UL for nearly seven minutes, allowing LC to go on a 16-5 run that cut the lead to just 29-28 before a three-point play from Stove at the 1:31 mark of the half.Stove added another bucket just before halftime as the Cajuns scored the final six points of the period to take a 35-28 lead into the break.The Wildcats raced out of the gate in the second half, scoring the first six points of the period before Walker started heating up. The junior answered the Wildcats' six-point burst with a six-point burst of his own on two layups and a dunk, and after a three from Stove the Cajuns had stretched the lead back to 44-37 after just four minutes.Louisiana continued to stretch out the lead over the next six minutes, pushing it to 15 on a three fromjust after the 10-minute mark of the half. The lead got over 20 on another layup from Walker with less than four minutes to play as part of another spurt of three straight buckets.The Cajuns will now hit the road for four straight games away from home, starting Monday night at the Reynolds Center in Tulsa when they travel to take on the Golden Hurricane.Last September German consumer group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband filed a complaint against Valve for its End-User License Agreement (EULA) disallowing the reselling of digital content. Earlier this week the German court ruled in favour of Valve.
"The Regional Court of Berlin has dismissed the lawsuit of German consumer watchdog group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband ("VZBV") against Valve Inc. over the provisions in company's terms of service that prohibit the sale or transfer of user accounts on the Steam digital distribution platform," said law firm Osborne Clark in a statement.
This wasn't entirely surprising as this was the second time VZBV has attempted this, and the first attempt was unsuccessful. "The reasons for the decision have not yet been published, and VZBV may still have the right to appeal the judgment. Even so, the ruling touches on hot issues of European copyright law and may have ramifications for the games industry and the used games market across all EU jurisdictions."
So there you have it. For the time being digital distributors aren't obligated to give Europeans the right to buy or sell digital content. How do you feel about this?Steve Simmons and his wife, Amy, the Austin ice cream queen, bought a ranch in the Smithville area 10 years ago to get away from the hustle. But a Saturday in early 2014 inspired Steve to get to work instead. He and his family had dinner that night at the Back Door Café, Smithville’s fine dining establishment, then walked onto the Main Street of a ghost town. “We’d just had a great meal, and the downtown buildings looked beautiful against the sky,” Simmons recalls. “Where are all the people?” his 10-year-old son asked. It did seem strange to Simmons that there wasn’t anyone else on the streets that once bustled when the town was a railroad hub. “Dad, you could fix this,” were the words that sent the father into action.
Smithville For Smithville visitor information, call the Smithville Area Chamber of Commerce at 512-237-2313.
Simmons bought a couple of buildings downtown and recruited friends and associates to also invest in this quaint burg 45 miles east of Austin and 120 miles west of Houston. Then he sold his vision of Smithville’s downtown revival to city leaders with a talk at the library.
Three years later, Smithville (population 4,218) struts with a vibrancy it hasn’t seen since the late 1980s, when the road between Austin and Houston went right through the center of town. Once deathly quiet after dark, save for the blaring horns of passing locomotives, downtown now has an upscale pizzeria, a sports bar, a community theater, an eclectic boutique, a wine bar, and occasional concerts on the second floor of the Mosaic Art & Home shop.
Smithville is fast becoming Austin’s Marfa, a daytrip destination that doesn’t take all day to get there.
Culinary comeback
At the storefront at 303 Main St. that once housed the Smithville Times weekly newspaper, you’ll find Coach Q’s Social Club. Simmons bought the 1930s building and teamed with former Smithville High track coach Tony Quitta—recently retired after 29 years helming the Tigers—to open a sports bar for the whole family. The club, decorated with Smithville sports memorabilia, received a vintage transplant when Simmons and Quitta bought the contents of a St. Louis bar called the Mahogany Room, which had been in storage for 55 years. Included in the sale was a gold cash register that gets almost as many oohs and aahs as the sports action unfolding on eight TV screens.
Coach Q’s has the best cheeseburgers in town, though fans of Pocket’s Grille (205 Fawcett St.), whose varied menu includes such burger concoctions as the El Hefe (grilled onions and jalapeños, topped with a fried egg) and the Alpine (mushrooms and Swiss cheese), might disagree.
In 2016, Steve and Amy opened both Honey’s Pizza and Amy’s Ice Cream on Northeast Second Street. The joint location instantly became the town’s fifth-largest employer. Friends from Austin, meanwhile, bought and renovated downtown’s two bed-and-breakfast inns—the Katy House and the Smithville Inn—fun and relaxing places to stay overnight.
The top food necessity for any small Texas town that wants to put itself on the map is a good barbecue joint, and Smithville has one of the best in Zimmerhanzel’s BBQ. But when you add a great pizza restaurant like Honey’s, plus the consistently good Olde World Bakery and Café on Main Street, and soul food trailer Auzell’s Kitchen on the North Third Thoroughfare, you’re state champs in 1A culinary options.
And joining the culinary crowd this fall is Micklethwaite Craft Meats, the Austin-trailer sensation moving into the former Vasek Automotive building. Also across the street from Honey’s/Amy’s is the fabulous Midnight Monkey Merchantile & Services, bringing a taste of Austin’s SoCo shopping district to Southeast Second Street. With the Pine Hotel Lofts coming next door to Honey’s in 2018, that block is the hippest in Bastrop County.
“Smithville is a little treasure,” says Robin Kelley, who opened Midnight Monkey with cousin Beth Neely in the fall of 2016. “This town inspires you to create.”
If you’re working hard to add something special to the community, you’re “smithing,” a term Kelley invented, which is starting to catch on.
Both progressive and traditional, Smithville has had a recycling center since the 1980s. But the Smitty City is still without a movie theater, public swimming pool, greengrocer, regular live music venue, or an ethnic restaurant besides Mexican. All |
only four, and he doesn’t really have to read right now. We can let the whole thing go for a year or more, and be none the worse for it. But the reality is that we might not have the money to pay people to fix our stuff soon - and I’m well past the age that I should be doing the work.
Periodically I hear others (and I do this myself) say “I’m not good at X” For X you can insert just about anything - growing food, sewing, cooking, repairing things. Now sometimes this goes to a real physical disability that has to be overcome - or can’t. There are things those of us with physical or intellectual limitations may never be able to do - just like there are people who will never master their times tables or learn to read. But barring such disabilities, there are some things in life that the general consensus requires that we have a certain basic, minimal skill set in. For example, children may come to reading or arithmetic with great difficulty or great ease, but the assumption is that they need to learn to read and do their times tables. They may never do them naturally, but they have to be able to. And the truth is that for most people who received an adequate education, they can read and figure, if laboriously.
There are large chunks of basic subsistence skills that we really need to treat as part of the same basic categories as reading and math - things that every adult person should have a certain level of minimal competence in, barring a true physical or mental barrier to them. I’m not sure I’d use Robert Heinlein’s list quoted above, but you can come up with a decent one that isn’t too far off and that prepares us for this new world where we can’t buy our way out of so many problems- all of us need to know how to cook a decent meal, handle an injury or illness crisis, tend a sick kid, fix a broken step, darn a sock, dehydrate a tomato, tell a story, grow a potato, build a sun oven, bake a loaf of bread, put up fence, season cast iron, mend a rip, care for a dying person, sing a baby to sleep, clean a toilet, knit or crochet a sock, fix a roof, use a weapon, plant a tree, immobilize a limb, make someone understand a counter-intuitive idea, save seed, sharpen a knife, chop garlic, make beer, have courage, fix a bicycle tire, make soup, give a pep talk…
The truth is that for most people, with most things (and again, I know there are exceptions), “I’m not good at it” is a cop out. The reality is that most of us aren’t going to be very good at everything - some things will always be struggle, and as long as we’ve got the time and money and energy to find alternative ways of dealing with it, it is perfectly fine to say that I want to reserve my struggling for things I care more about. What’s not ok is telling our kids, or ourselves the lie that it is ok to use our fear of failure or our hatred of being bad at things as an excuse for picking up skills.
The other thing it isn’t ok to use as an excuse for this is division of labor, particularly by gender or class roles. That’s not to say that there aren’t jobs that it won’t make sense to contract out to a partner or someone who needs the money - there’s nothing wrong with you saying “I have more money than time right now, I’m going to get someone to build in those pantry shelves.” Nor is it bad to acknowledge that your 6′3, 200lb husband is probably better at hauling hay bales than a 5′1, 90lb spouse.
But the reality is that spouses sometimes go away, and things happen when they aren’t around - and occasionally, they die or marriages break up. Sometimes spouses are away just as the cattle need feeding, and the money dries up even though you really need those shelves. The wrong attitude here is the “my wife does the cooking, so I don’t have to” or “I’m very important and I make lots of money, so I don’t have to know how to fix my bike.” Instead, the idea is that all of us be able to handle the basics - we can hire our friend who is a talented seamstress to if there’s cash, but if rips need mending and there’s no money, we need to be able to make the clothes wearable. All the men and boys need to know how to do “women’s work” at least to a competent minimum, and vice versa (and yes, I’m using the term ironically). Everyone gets up on the roof, at least enough to be able to know how to keep the rain off - and then, if you are fortunate enough to have someone else in your life willing to go up in the rain and fix it, well, you can be grateful, but not dependent.
I’m going to bet that everyone one of us has a little guilty spot right now, a thing they know they should learn, a skill they’ve been avoiding picking up, something that they’ve already tried and put down in frustration because they sucked at it. So I’m about to give you folks a bit of a challenge - I invite you to take a look at the holes in your own competence, pick one that needs filling, and get to work on filling it.
My project is to get handy - I want to be able to build my own bookcases and fix my own plumbing. I’ll be posting regularly about how it is all going, and I’m hoping for lots of support as I make plenty of stupid, incompetent mistakes. In turn, I really invite you to tell us about all your failures and inadequacies as you gain a skill you really need. We promise, we aren’t going to let you fail. And maybe you’ll inspire the rest of us to keep going, or to try yet another skill after we master the basics of this one.
So who is in?
SharonThis month marks the 25th Anniversary of the North American release for Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990, essentially the swan song of the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
The game is claimed now by several generations of gamers, since its 1988 Japanese release on the Famicom, as quite possible the best platformer ever made, if not overall game period. The only real competition for the “Best Game Ever” title people vie for is the series’ blueprint entry, the original Super Mario Bros from 1985, and the original Legend of Zelda from 1986.
All of which are the inspired creations of Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who defined the way games are played, built and designed with his whimsical style and personality after he re-legitimized games with the original arcade Donkey Kong.
His team, the internal Nintendo R&D4 studio, with colleague Takashi Tezuka, digitally built these mesmerizing worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom complete with music composed by Koji Kondo that play in the back of the minds of millions of people, making even fonder memories of Miyamoto’s creations.
There are several things that make Super Mario Bros. 3 such a timeless, revolutionary piece of gaming history, and the fact that it was the focus of a 1989 movie, The Wizard starring Fred Savage, before it’s release doesn’t even compare to the actual reasons. Pretty cool, though. Well, about as cool as the Power Glove actually turned out.
What Super Mario Bros. 3 did is what many people love The Legend of Zelda’s third installment for on the Super Nintendo in 1991, in that it built on the original game’s successful features, and polished them to perfection. The worlds featured more color, more items, more expressive enemies, and general features that make the original look like a simple arcade title. Instead, you are given something that felt so personal as something that could only be played in a home, that it left a Nintendo mark of quality on its audience. Not only that, but the game was optimized for exploring levels beyond a flat, left-right direction, and allowed players to travel backwards, and fly up in a diagonal direction, thanks to the first addition of the series’ now famous Tanooki Suit, in which mario flies with a brown raccoon costume. Don’t ask, I still don’t get how that works.
As if being a great game wasn’t enough to praise SMB3, it was frankly the biggest commercial success gaming had ever seen for years, selling 11 million copies in it’s first two years between the U.S. and Japan alone, and still sits among the top selling games of all time, only recently surpassed by titles like Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft.
The game has been re-released on several Nintendo platforms in the time since it’s release, including a full remake in Super Mario Advanced 4 for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. It is currently available on the Virtual Console Shop for the Wii and Wii U, and should absolutely be played by anyone as a piece of history in design, building on a success, and in general fun.
In a Koopa shell, this is Super Mario at his finest.
Liked it? Take a second to support The Young Folks on Patreon!OVER the past 15 years striking corporate headquarters have transformed the great cities of the emerging world. China Central Television's building resembles a giant alien marching across Beijing's skyline; the 88-storey Petronas Towers, home to Malaysia's oil company, soar above Kuala Lumpur; the gleaming office of VTB, a banking powerhouse, sits at the heart of Moscow's new financial district. These are all monuments to the rise of a new kind of hybrid corporation, backed by the state but behaving like a private-sector multinational.
State-directed capitalism is not a new idea: witness the East India Company. But as our special report this week points out, it has undergone a dramatic revival. In the 1990s most state-owned companies were little more than government departments in emerging markets; the assumption was that, as the economy matured, the government would close or privatise them. Yet they show no signs of relinquishing the commanding heights, whether in major industries (the world's ten biggest oil-and-gas firms, measured by reserves, are all state-owned) or major markets (state-backed companies account for 80% of the value of China's stockmarket and 62% of Russia's). And they are on the offensive. Look at almost any new industry and a giant is emerging: China Mobile, for example, has 600m customers. State-backed firms accounted for a third of the emerging world's foreign direct investment in 2003-10.
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With the West in a funk and emerging markets flourishing, the Chinese no longer see state-directed firms as a way-station on the road to liberal capitalism; rather, they see it as a sustainable model. They think they have redesigned capitalism to make it work better, and a growing number of emerging-world leaders agree with them. The Brazilian government, which embraced privatisation in the 1990s, is now interfering with the likes of Vale and Petrobras, and compelling smaller companies to merge to form national champions. South Africa is also flirting with the model.
This development raises two questions. How successful is the model? And what are its consequences—both in, and beyond, emerging markets?
The law of diminishing returns
State capitalism's supporters argue that it can provide stability as well as growth. Russia's wild privatisation under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s alarmed many emerging countries and encouraged the view that governments can mitigate the strains that capitalism and globalisation cause by providing not just the hard infrastructure of roads and bridges but also the soft infrastructure of flagship corporations.
So Lee Kuan Yew's government in Singapore, an early exponent of this idea, let in foreign firms and embraced Western management ideas, but also owned chunks of companies. The leading practitioner is now China. The tight connection between its government and business will no doubt be on display when the global elite gathers in the Swiss resort of Davos next week. Among Westerners there, government delegates often take the opposite view to those from the private sector: Chinese delegates from both sides tend to have the same point of view, and even the same patriotic talking-points.
The new model bears little resemblance to the disastrous spate of nationalisations in Britain and elsewhere half a century ago. China's infrastructure companies win contracts the world over. The best national champions are outward-looking, acquiring skills by listing on foreign exchanges and taking over foreign companies. And governments are selective in their corporate holdings. Overall, the Chinese state has loosened its grip on the economy: its bureaucrats concentrate on industries where they can make a difference.
Let a thousand mobiles bloom
Yet a close look at the model shows its weaknesses. When the government favours one lot of companies, the others suffer. In 2009 China Mobile and another state giant, China National Petroleum Corporation, made profits of $33 billion—more than China's 500 most profitable private companies combined. State giants soak up capital and talent that might have been used better by private companies. Studies show that state companies use capital less efficiently than private ones, and grow more slowly. In many countries the coddled state giants are pouring money into fancy towers at a time when entrepreneurs are struggling to raise capital.
Those costs are likely to rise. State companies are good at copying others, partly because they can use the government's clout to get hold of their technology; but as they have to produce ideas of their own they will become less competitive. State-owned companies make a few big bets rather than lots of small ones; the world's great centres of innovation are usually networks of small start-ups.
Nor does the model guarantee stability. State capitalism works well only when directed by a competent state. Many Asian countries have a strong mandarin culture; South Africa and Brazil do not. Coal India is hardly an advertisement for efficiency (see article). And everywhere state capitalism favours well-connected insiders over innovative outsiders. In China highly educated princelings have taken the spoils. In Russia a clique of “bureaugarchs”, often former KGB officials, dominate both the Kremlin and business. Thus the model produces cronyism, inequality and eventually discontent—as the Mubaraks' brand of state capitalism did in Egypt.
Rising powers have always used the state to kick-start growth: think of Japan and South Korea in the 1950s or Germany in the 1870s or even the United States after the war of independence. But these countries have, over time, invariably found that the system has limits. The Chinese of all people should understand that the best way to learn from history is to look at its long sweep.
But it may take many years for the model's weaknesses to become obvious; and, in the meantime, it is likely to cause all sorts of problems. Investors in emerging markets, for instance, need to watch out. Some may be taking a punt on governments as much as companies. State-capitalist governments can be capricious, with scant regard for minority shareholders. Others may find their subsidiaries or joint ventures in emerging markets pitted against state-backed favourites.
Another concern is the impact of the model on the global trading system—which, at a time when the likely Republican nominee for president wants to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day of office, is already at risk. Ensuring that trade is fair is harder when some companies enjoy the support, overt or covert, of a national government. Western politicians are beginning to lose patience with state-capitalist powers that rig the system in favour of their own companies.
For emerging countries wanting to make their mark on the world, state capitalism has an obvious appeal. It gives them the clout that private-sector companies would take years to build. But its dangers outweigh its advantages. Both for their own sake, and in the interests of world trade, the practitioners of state capitalism need to start unwinding their huge holdings in favoured companies and handing them over to private investors. If these companies are as good as they boast they are, then they no longer need the crutch of state support.Game of Thrones fans, the end is seriously nigh.
Ser Davos actor Liam Cunningham has let slip when the final season will start filming - and it's not far off.
Shooting is ongoing on the seventh season and will wrap in February - with Cunningham telling Dubai One that work will begin on the last ever episodes seven months later.
HBO
"I think [the next season's] going to be extraordinary," he enthused. "We're still filming - we don't finish until the end of next month.
"That's seven episodes and then we start again in September and there's a final six."
So now we know - the end begins in September - and it's another confirmation that the final GoT season will span just six episodes.
HBO
But don't fret: while the next two seasons will be shorter, the total time spent filming (roughly five months) will be the same as for a 10-episode run.
According to Iain Glen, who plays Jorah Mormont, that means that the "scale and size of the set pieces" will be more epic and "more extraordinary" than ever before.
Game of Thrones has traditionally returned in early April, but the next season has been filmed later in the year - to accommodate a winter shoot - and won't launch till summer 2017.
Once the epic fantasy saga does draw to a close, HBO may launch a spin-off - with network chiefs confirming that they're weighing up "possibilities" for a new show.
Don't forget to vote for your favourite TV shows in this year's National Television Awards! Shortlist voting closes at 12 midday on Wednesday, January 25.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment and tech news? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.GOP 2016 contender Donald Trump insists he would eliminate Planned Parenthood’s federal taxpayer funding because it performs abortions. But he’s defending the other work the organization does that he claims women understand better than he does.
On NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd had the following exchange with Trump during which Todd continued the myth that Planned Parenthood performs mammograms:
CHUCK TODD: Now let’s move to Planned Parenthood. You defended the other work Planned Parenthood does. And now you said you’d defund it. DONALD TRUMP: That’s right, I do. That’s right, I would. CHUCK TODD: Now, the government will say, Democrats will say the money they give to Planned Parenthood does not go to abortions. That the money they give to Planned Parenthood only goes to other women’s health issues, including mammograms and things like that. If you knew that government money were only going to that, would you support funding Planned Parenthood? DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, if it didn’t have to do with abortions. Look, I understand that I have many, many friends who are women who understand Planned Parenthood better than you or I will ever understand it. And they do some very good work. Cervical cancer, lots of women’s issues, women’s health issues are taken care of. I know one of the candidates, I won’t mention names, said, “We’re not going to spend that kind of money on women’s health issues.” I am. Planned Parenthood does a really good job at a lot of different areas. But not on abortion. So I’m not going to fund it if it’s doing the abortion. I am not going to fund it. Now they say it’s 3 percent and it’s 4 percent, some people say it’s 60 percent. I don’t believe it’s 60 percent, by the way. But I think it’s probably a much lower number. But Planned Parenthood does some very good work. But I would defund as long as they’re doing abortions.
Trump refers to Planned Parenthood’s narrative that only a mere three percent of its business is abortions. The figure, however, is deceptive because it’s derived by counting abortion as just another service – such as a pregnancy or STD test.
.@realdonaldtrump won the #SCPrimary. If he makes it to the White House, all we’ve fought for is at risk. #NotMyCandidate #ImWithHer — Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) February 21, 2016
Rich Lowry – writing at the New York Post last summer – noted: “By Planned Parenthood’s math, a woman who gets an abortion but also a pregnancy test, an STD test and some contraceptives has received four services, and only 25 percent of them are abortion.”
Referring to Planned Parenthood’s math as an “artifice” and a “dodge,” Lowry likened the deception to the following:
The sponsors of the New York City Marathon could count each small cup of water they hand out (some 2 million cups, compared with 45,000 runners) and say they are mainly in the hydration business. Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only.012 percent of what they do.
With Planned Parenthood performing about 330,000 abortions per year, Lowry concludes, “Planned Parenthood’s twisted conception of ‘reproductive health’ doesn’t extend to the baby that has been reproduced. All you need to know about its priorities is that it only provides 19,000 ‘prenatal services,’ which means that it performs roughly 17 times more abortions.”
.@realDonaldTrump shows systematic disregard for the lives of women, immigrants & communities of color. #ImWithHer pic.twitter.com/ENlj43KUjw — Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) February 21, 2016
Trump also states about a fellow GOP candidate, “I know one of the candidates, I won’t mention names, said, ‘We’re not going to spend that kind of money on women’s health issues.’ I am. Planned Parenthood does a really good job at a lot of different areas.”
.@realDonaldTrump's victory tonight is frightening. Many communities would live in fear if he was elected. #NotMyCandidate #ImWithHer — Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) February 21, 2016
In October, rival Ted Cruz praised his home state of Texas for ending Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state and redirecting those funds to thousands of alternate health providers.
“The horrifying videos released this summer revealed the grim reality of Planned Parenthood’s barbaric actions,” Cruz said. “For far too long, Planned Parenthood has hidden behind the guise that it provides women’s healthcare. The truth is: there are real alternatives to Planned Parenthood that offer high-quality, affordable women’s health care.”
“For every one Planned Parenthood in Texas, there are 19 community health care providers,” he added. “Today’s decision means that women will have access to healthcare that’s no longer burdened with the moral and ethical issues of Planned Parenthood, an organization under criminal investigation.”Things move pretty quickly in this world. I made a Facebook post, cutting and pasting from a list of recent gun tragedies in response to the Sandy Hook massacre and it got a lot of response. My post was in response to the Mike Huckabee comments about the Sandy Hook tragedy. He’s the former Arkansas Governor, Presidential candidate turned radio pundit and the story was:
So I took a technique I used many times in my radio career, especially at KNUA in the late 80s in Seattle. Take a news story and tweak the ending a bit. Here’s what I posted:
December 11, 2012. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts killed 2 people and himself with a stolen rifle in Clackamas Town Center, Oregon. His motive is unknown, but it appears to have been caused by God being removed from Malls.
September 27, 2012. Five were shot to death by 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, MN. Three others were wounded. Engeldinger went on a rampage after losing his job, ultimately killing himself. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from sign shops.
August 5, 2012. Six Sikh temple members were killed when 40-year-old US Army veteran Wade Michael Page opened fire in a gurdara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Four others were injured, and Page killed himself. It appears to have been caused because the Christian God has been removed from Sikh temples.
July 20, 2012. During the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, CO, 24-year-old James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58. Holmes was arrested outside the theater. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from Hollywood films.
May 29, 2012. Ian Stawicki opened fire on Cafe Racer Espresso in Seattle, WA, killing 5 and himself after a citywide manhunt. It appears to have happened because God has been removed from cafes.
April 6, 2012. Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, shot 5 black men in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in racially motivated shooting spree. Three died. It appears to have happened because God has been removed from Tulsa.
April 2, 2012. A former student, 43-year-old One L. Goh killed 7 people at Oikos University, a Korean Christian college in Oakland, CA. The shooting was the sixth-deadliest school massacre in the US and the deadliest attack on a school since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. It appears to have happened because God has been removed from Christian colleges.
October 14, 2011. Eight people died in a shooting at Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, CA. The gunman, 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai, killed six women and two men dead, while just one woman survived. It was Orange County’s deadliest mass killing. It appears to have happened because God has been removed from salons.
September 6, 2011. Eduardo Sencion, 32, entered an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, NV and shot 12 people. Five died, including three National Guard members. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from pancake houses.
January 8, 2011. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head when 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire on an event she was holding at a Safeway market in Tucson, AZ. Six people died, including Arizona District Court Chief Judge John Roll, one of Giffords’ staffers, and a 9-year-old girl. 19 total were shot. Loughner has been sentenced to seven life terms plus 140 years, without parole. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from grocery stores.
August 3, 2010. Omar S. Thornton, 34, gunned down Hartford Beer Distributor in Manchester, CT after getting caught stealing beer. Nine were killed, including Thornton, and two were injured. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from liquor warehouses.
November 5, 2009. Forty-three people were shot by Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. Hasan reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire, killing 13 and wounding 29 others. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from army bases.
April 3, 2009. Jiverly Wong, 41, opened fire at an immigration center in Binghamton, New York before committing suicide. He killed 13 people and wounded 4. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from immigration centers.
March 29, 2009. Eight people died in a shooting at the Pinelake Health and Rehab nursing home in Carthage, NC. The gunman, 45-year-old Robert Stewart, was targeting his estranged wife who worked at the home and survived. Stewart was sentenced to life in prison. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from nursing homes.
February 14, 2008. Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, killing 6 and wounding 21. The gunman shot and killed himself before police arrived. It was the fifth-deadliest university shooting in US history. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from universities.
February 7, 2008. Six people died and two were injured in a shooting spree at the City Hall in Kirkwood, Missouri. The gunman, Charles Lee Thornton, opened fire during a public meeting after being denied construction contracts he believed he deserved. Thornton was killed by police. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from municipal government offices.
December 5, 2007. A 19-year-old boy, Robert Hawkins, shot up a department store in the Westroads Mall in Omaha, NE. Hawkins killed 9 people and wounded 4 before killing himself. The semi-automatic rifle he used was stolen from his stepfather’s house. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from malls, as noted above.
April 16, 2007. Virginia Tech became the site of the deadliest school shooting in US history when a student, Seung-Hui Choi, gunned down 56 people. Thirty-two people died in the massacre. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from universities.
February 12, 2007. In Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square Mall, 5 people were shot to death and 4 others were wounded by 18-year-old gunman Sulejman Talović. One of the victims was a 16-year-old boy. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from malls, as noted above.
October 2, 2006. An Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster, PA was gunned down by 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts, Roberts separated the boys from the girls, binding and shooting the girls. 5 young girls died, while 6 were injured. Roberts committed suicide afterward. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from all Amish institutions.
March 25, 2006. Seven died and 2 were injured by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in a shooting spree through Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA. The massacre was the worst killing in Seattle since 1983. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from Capitol Hill.
March 21, 2005. Teenager Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend before opening fire on Red Lake Senior High School, killing 9 people on campus and injuring 5. Weise killed himself. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from high schools.
March 12, 2005. A Living Church of God meeting was gunned down by 44-year-old church member Terry Michael Ratzmann at a Sheraton hotel in Brookfield, WI. Ratzmann was thought to have had religious motivations, and killed himself after executing the pastor, the pastor’s 16-year-old son, and 7 others. Four were wounded. It appears to have been caused because God has been removed from churches and because people with mental illnesses have easier access to guns than to mental health treatment….CLOSE More than 1,000 protesters marched for hours in Berkeley, California, shutting down Interstate 80 and stopping a train in the city's third night of demonstrations over police killings across the country. VPC
Protesters rallying against police violence block both directions of Interstate 80 in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday. (Photo: Noah Berger, AP)
BERKELEY, Calif. — More than 1,000 protesters marched for hours on city streets, shutting down Interstate 80 and stopping a train in the third night of demonstrations Monday over police killings in Missouri and New York.
They confronted a line of police officers in riot gear outside police headquarters before heading to a BART train station, prompting authorities to close it. Protesters then headed west on University Avenue, a four-lane divided street to shut down Interstate 80 in both directions.
A line of police officers in riot gear blocked the ramp to the freeway.
Some protesters managed to get around officers and onto the freeway but were forced back. Then protesters retook the highway, halting traffic in both directions.
Dozens of protesters also marched to the railroad tracks, blocking an Amtrak train. A protester held up a sign "Black lives matter" in front of the stopped train.
Leman Woods, 41, came to the protests after getting off work at UC Berkeley.
"I'm here because I am tired of police brutality," Woods, an Oakland resident, said.
He said it has been painful to watch news coverage of the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown and the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
"It's sad, it's hard," Woods said. "It shouldn't be happening to nobody of any race or color. And police just get away with it."
The protests were peaceful in contrast to Sunday night when some protesters vandalized and looted businesses, lit garbage cans on fire and blocked a nearby freeway despite calls from many in the crowd for a "peaceful protest."
"I am very unhappy with the violence. What people in Berkeley are generally in favor of the issues involved and they are very sympathetic with the people in Ferguson and people in New York. But what has happened is that peaceful rallies have all turned into violent confrontations," Mayor Tom Bates said in an interview late Monday.
"We are used to having peaceful demonstrations in Berkeley. But it looks like a whole group of people coming from the outside are bound and determined to get confrontation."
He called violent elements of the protesters "cowards and thugs who need to take off their masks," Associated Press reported.
SUNDAY DESTRUCTION
On Sunday night violence ignited when a man in a mask smashed the window of a Radio Shack and began stealing merchandise. Protesters swarmed the man and his accomplice, throwing boxes of merchandise back into the store. A protester who tried to stop the man from vandalizing and looting was hit with a hammer.
Home to the University of California's flagship campus, and with a history of demonstrations, Berkeley leaders place limits on their police. Officers cannot use search dogs, stun guns or helicopters and are restricted in the type of gear they can wear, said Berkeley police union President Sgt. Chris Stines.
Around 9 p.m. protesters got past California Highway Patrol officers onto Highway 24 in Oakland and blocked multiple lanes of eastbound traffic. The Highway Patrol said officers fired tear gas after protesters threw rocks and bottles and tried to set fire to a patrol vehicle.
While many marchers remained peaceful, groups of protesters roamed the downtown area for hours, throwing trash cans in the streets and lighting garbage on fire, smashing the windows of businesses and looting stores including Sprint and Whole Foods. Protesters also smashed windows at the Civic Center building.
By the time the demonstrations ended at 3:30 a.m., 16 businesses in Berkeley had their windows smashed, Bates said. Police made eight arrests.
Peaceful protesters confronted protesters vandalizing and looting businesses and cleaned up trash they left in the streets.
Bates said protesters causing damage are undercutting the point of the demonstrations.
"It's really striking out at the wrong thing and diminishing from the message which is we need to do something about police and community relations," Bates said.
The demonstrations were just the latest to express growing frustration across the country with grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two African-American men.
Bates said police would continue to try to keep the demonstration "as peaceful as possible and protect the public's lives and safety."
Contributing: William M. Welch in Los Angeles; Associated Press
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1A9r1kSHARRISON, N.J. (July 27, 2017) - The New York Red Bulls have loaned Panamanian center back Fidel Escobar from Sporting San Miguelito pending receipt of his ITC, the club announced today. Escobar, 22, joins on an 18-month loan, through the end of the 2018 season.
“We are pleased to add Fidel to our roster,” said Red Bulls Sporting Director Denis Hamlett. “We’ve had our eye on him for a while, and had the opportunity to watch him play in the Gold Cup. He is a young player that has a lot of qualities we like in a center back.”
Escobar began his professional career at San Francisco FC before moving to Sporting San Miguelito, also in Panama City. Fellow Red Bull Michael Amir Murillo is currently on loan from San Francisco FC. Murillo and Escobar have been teammates at both the youth and senior levels for Panama.
He most recently spent the 2016/17 season on loan to Sporting B, the reserve side for Sporting CP in Portugal. While on loan to Sporting B he made 14 appearances, including 12 starts, and scored one goal in the Ledman Liga Pro season.
The Panama City native earned his first senior cap in February of 2015 in a friendly against the United States. He appeared in three of Panama’s 2017 Gold Cup matches, including the quarterfinal loss to Costa Rica on Wednesday night.
A post shared by newyorkredbulls (@newyorkredbulls) on Jul 27, 2017 at 9:25am PDT
Transaction: New York Red Bulls loan Fidel Escobar from Sporting San Miguelito through the end of the 2018 season, pending receipt of his ITC, on July 27, 2017.
FIDEL ESCOBAR
Position: center back
Height: 5’11
Weight: 165
DOB: January 9, 1995
Hometown: Panama City, Panama
Nationality: Panama
Previous Club: Sporting San MiguelitoSEOUL, Aug. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – The South Korean government has set a concrete strategy for technology development related to drones and autonomous vehicles, and will implement the plans by next year.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning announced that it held a meeting on August 9 where high officials of nine central government bodies including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy discussed the development of unmanned vehicles, and established detailed plans for the future.
Among the detailed plans, the ministry will develop a common platform that can be applied to all unmanned vehicles, a highly secured communications software package. In addition, it will develop related original technology to lead the market in the future.
In the unmanned aerial vehicle sector with a weight of more than 150kg, it will commercialize a tilt-rotor drone that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute developed by 2023. To ensure the stability of the drone, it will set up a comprehensive aerial test complex. In addition, to control the tilt-rotor from a ground station, it will secure a radio frequency and prepare related technology standards.
To enhance the performance of small drones of less than 30kg, the South Korean government will apply various measures such as the development and distribution of core parts and a common platform, development of drones for disaster and |
Quran gives the status of ahl-e-kitab, by virtue of their belief in previous Prophets of God. Some of these have been mentioned in the Quran and many are not as they are too numerous (124,000, according to one Prophetic tradition). They were sent to all nations with revelations. Quran asks Muslims to have the best of and the most intimate including marital relations with all ahl-e-kitab. Iman or faith is defined in Islam as, among other things, having faith in all previous prophets of God and considering them of the same status as Prophet Mohammad (Quran 4:164; 2.21; 35:24; 10:47; 21:7).
To illustrate the point about Islamic theologians circumventing clear unequivocal Quranic dictates about freedom of religions, I quote the following passage from the writings of Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi, an influential cleric of Hyderabad. No Indian alim (scholar; plural: ulema) has disputed this widely-circulated narration so far.
Discussing the oft-quoted Quranic verse 2:256 “La Ikraha fid Deen” (meaning, let there be no compulsion in religion), the maulana writes in his booklet, Use of Force in Quran: “This is an established fact (that Quran gives religious freedom to all). But it is related only with accepting or not accepting the belief. This does not mean that ahl-e-Kufr (infidels) should be left totally free on earth with their un-belief and should not be made accountable. If this were true, what do we mean when we say that the religion (Deen) of God has been revealed to dominate the world?
“It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Prophet Mohammad, pbuh) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikoon (polytheists, idolaters, etc.) hate it.” Surah at-Tawbah 9: 33. What will this verse mean then and what relevance will the obligation of jihad have (if we accept the Quranic decree of no compulsion in religion)? “…It is the duty (of Muslims) to struggle for the domination of Islam over false religions and subdue and subjugate ahl-e-kufr-o-shirk (infidels and polytheists) in the same way as it is the duty of the Muslims to proselytise and invite people to Islam. The responsibility to testify to the Truth and pronounce the religion God has entrusted with the Muslims cannot be fulfilled merely by preaching and proselytising. If it were so there would be no need for the battles that were fought.” “And fight them until there is no fitnah (mischief) and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah. And if they cease—then indeed, Allah is Seeing of what they do. (Surah Anfal 8:39)”
“Jihad has been made obligatory to make the Deen (religion) dominate and to stop the centres of evil. Keeping in view the importance of this task, the significance of jihad in the name of God has been stressed in the Quran and Hadith. That’s why clear ordainments have been revealed to Muslims about fighting all the Kuffar (infidels).” “United, fight the polytheists as they fight against you (Surah Tauba: 36).”
There is a consensus of the ulema’s opinion (ijma) around such views. Peaceful, pluralistic, early verses revealed in Makkah are supposed to have been abrogated by aggressive war-time verses that came later in Madina. Guided by the ulema as they are, Muslims have come to believe that ijma is more important than Quran. Indeed, Quranic commandments of peace and pluralism, co-existence with other religions, patience in times of adversity, not rushing to war on the slightest pretext, etc., have been abrogated for over a millennium. The ulema keep quoting these verses to non-Muslim audiences as part of their taqaiyya (a religious instrument to deceive the enemy), but Muslims are supposed to know that these verses are abrogated and are being quoted only as a strategy of deception.
Progressive Muslims keep quoting these peaceful verses as they are not well-versed in theology and jurisprudence. They still believe in Quran. Largely living in their own world, they have no idea what is going on in the community. They do not understand why pluralistic Quranic verses do not have any impact on the Muslim masses any more. No wonder they have not been able to come up with a cogent theological counternarrative.
Sultan Shahin is the founder-editor of a Delhi-based progressive Islamic website NewAgeIslam.comCasio's SD ("Spectrum Dynamic") Synthesizers were a late-1980s line of hybrid digital-analog synthesizers featuring a resonant analog filter. SD synthesis was very similar to traditional DCO-analog synthesis, with the main difference being that some of the SD digital waveforms' harmonic spectrums changed temporally, or dynamically in relation to the amplitude envelope. SD synthesis is used in six Casio synthesizers and home keyboards released in 1987 and produced until 1991, when Casio exited the synthesizer market completely and focused solely on pure consumer keyboards. Due to some programming limitations plus Casio's poor marketing, the SD synths never gained wide popularity and are now fairly rare in the second-hand marketplace (which adds to their charm, according to some). There still exists a small but devoted fanbase who insist that SD synthesis, particularly as expanded in the high-end model HT-6000, was overlooked and highly underrated.
Background [ edit ]
SD Synthesis followed on the heels of the more advanced Phase-Distortion (PD) Synthesis employed in the successful line of Casio CZ synthesizers. When Casio decided to retire the CZ line, they decided to go in two directions: more complex (the VZ "Interactive" Phase Distortion line), and more traditional (SD synthesis, starting with the HZ-600). In turning to SD synthesis Casio meant to create a synthesis engine that was more comprehensible and accessible than Phase Distortion synthesis. Yamaha's then-active lawsuit against Casio's PD synthesis method, which claimed PD synthesis infringed on patents of Yamaha's including their famous frequency modulation synthesis, may also have contributed to Casio's development of SD synthesis to diversify their offering.
The 1987 Casio HZ-600 was the initial model and was considered an entry-level offshoot of the "Z" series of synthesizers that included the CZ and VZ lines. The subsequent SD syntheizers were marketed as advanced home keyboards (i.e., including speakers and programmable accompaniment) launched under the HT prefix (with the notable exception of the non-editable, preset-only Casiotone version, the MT-600).
SD Synthesis Details [ edit ]
SD (Spectrum Dynamic) Synthesis was modeled on traditional DCO-VCF-DCA analog synthesis but used waveforms that included predefined variations over time. The SD sound source is a 4-bit (16-step) digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) that uses preprogrammed waveforms including triangle, sawtooth, squares of different widths, and some unusual pulses, plus various combinations thereof. The DCO has preprogrammed control of the timbre of the waveform, and some (but not all) of the available waveforms are "moving", meaning that their spectra are designed to change as the DCA envelope progresses. For example, one waveform has an octave-unison effect where the higher harmonics fade in over time. This predefined temporal motion of the harmonic spectrum yields the term "Spectrum Dynamic." The user has very limited influence over the spectrum dynamic using the DCA envelope, and doing so is something of a trial-and-error process. In effect, each so-called "waveform" of an SD synth consists of 2 layered subvoices with independent preset volume envelopes (that cannot be changed by the user).[citation needed] Thus, some "waveforms" crossfade between timbres without filter sweep to simulate e.g. the brighter attack phase of metallic clangs or picked strings.
Most SD synthesizers use a single DCO (plus a digital noise generator for certain waveforms) per voice, and offer 32 possible waveforms. The top-of-the-line Casio HT-6000 offered 64 possible waveforms, 4 DCO's per voice, velocity, detuning, ring-modulation, and an expanded SD parameter set. In SD synthesis, an analog voltage-controlled resonant filter (VCF) is used to shape the DCO's waveform (whereas on Casio CZ Synthesizers the phase distortion engine could only emulate a resonant filter). The SD sound is further shaped by a digitally controlled amplitude (DCA) envelope. Both the VCF and DCA are programmed with traditional 4-stage attack/decay/sustain/release (ADSR) curves [whereas the CZ line used sophisticated 8-stage envelopes and also included a pitch envelope]. Finally, like on the CZ's, a low-frequency oscillator (LFO) is programmable to modulate the DCO pitch, but unfortunately it cannot modulate the VCF or DCA. Nearly all of the SD synth parameters had 5-bit precision, allowing a stepwise range of 0-31.
Summary of Models [ edit ]
The HZ-600 was the first SD synthesizer, and was the only SD synthesizer built to look like a "professional" synthesizer, i.e., without built-in speakers or auto-accompaniment controls. In contrast to the bulky-looking Casio CZ line, the HZ-600 was deliberately[citation needed] styled after the sleek-looking Roland Alpha Juno 2 right down to the inclusion of an "alpha-dial" programming wheel. The HZ-600 was a 61-key, 8-note polyphonic basic-MIDI synthesizer without initial- or after-touch, and functionally was essentially an advanced Korg Poly-800. Like the Poly-800, all voices (in each channel) shared a single VCF, meaning the VCF envelope would retrigger when a new note was played, affecting all previous notes still playing. The HZ-600 included 3 levels of onboard analog chorus, 3 selectable keyboard split points, 3 selectable pitch-bender ranges, a modulation wheel, transpose, and a card slot for the new sleek Casio RA-100 RAM cards, which had 8K of memory. Unlike the CZ series, portamento was not available.
The MT-600 was a non-programmable home keyboard variant of the HT-700. While not technically a synthesizer (the tones could not be altered and new sounds could not be created), it used the SD synthesis engine and had the same preset patches as the HZ-600 (arranged in a different order). The case of the MT-600 was smaller than the HZ-600, with only 49 mini-keys, but as a home keyboard it did include stereo speakers and auto-accompaniment. The MT-600 included a pitch-bender, which was unusual for home keyboards at the time. Unlike the HZ-600, the pitch bend range was not selectable. Auto-accompaniment used a fixed bass patch, and the "lower tone" sounds of the HZ-600 for chords. Drums were low-resolution 8-bit PCM samples and resembled an expanded Casio SK-5 drumkit. The MT-600 was 3-part mutitimbral for use as a MIDI sound source.
The HT-700 was the user programmable version of the MT-600 (hence the prefix HT). It included the fully editable SD synthesis of the HZ-600, plus it took the auto-accompaniment of the MT-600 and made it fully editable too (a very rare and powerful feature). Users could fully program their own 2-measure patterns consisting of drums, basslines and chord inversions. The fill-in measure was also programmable. The HT-700 had 49 mini-keys and a pitch bender, and looked somewhat similar to the MT-600. Unlike the MT-600, though, it included a programming wheel and a card slot for Casio RA-100 RAM cards. The HT-700 and other HT synths could not store nearly as many patches to a RAM card as the HZ-600, because most of the RAM card capacity was reserved to store accompaniment patterns and chord/operation sequences. The HT-700 was also sold by Hohner in Germany as the 'KS-49 midi' (with slightly different preset sound set).
The Casio HT3000
The HT-3000 was the full-size version of the HT-700. Like the HZ-600 (but in distinction from the MT-600 and HT-700), it had 61 full-size keys, a modulation wheel, volume-pedal jack, MIDI THRU, and a 3-point splittable keyboard. Versus the HT-700, it also added a few other features such as an "Ending" for auto-rhythms, and "auto-harmonize." The HT-3000 was also sold by Hohner in Germany
The HT-3500 was not released in North America. Details are unclear but it is not believed to be substantively different from the HT-3000.
The HT-6000, released in late 1987 but not widely available until late 1988, was an entirely different SD synthesizer which greatly expanded SD the synthesis engine. While designed as a consumer model, it was far more powerful than the more professional-appearing HZ-600 whose synthesis engine the other HT's utilized. The HT-6000 introduced for the HT line some of the more high-end features previously only included by Casio in the CZ line, such as ring-modulation, detuning, key-follow, and initial-touch (which, among the CZ's, was only found on the most advanced model, the CZ-1). The HT-6000 used an impressive 4 DCO's per voice (vs. 1 on the other SD synths, and 2 on the CZ synths). It had 64 DCO wave forms to choose from (32 basic, 16 with noise [white or metallic], and 16 with ring modulation). It had 8 independent VCF filters (1 per voice, vs. 1 per channel), and added key-follow parameters for both the DCA and VCF. The DCA also added attack and decay curves (acute and obtuse). It also added an independent ADSR envelope for noise. The 4 DCO's each use the same waveform, VCF and DCA envelopes, but can have separate tunings, velocity response curves, and relative DCA envelope depths. Stacking the oscillators with detunes allowed the creation of flange and chorus effects, fat "super saws", and the creation of dual-note or even triad and 4-note leads. The filter cutoffs could be set to respond to velocity which added some expressiveness. Because each oscillator could have separate tuning and velocity response, it was also possible to have the pitch change according to pressure, if one of two differently tuned oscillators had an inverse velocity curve. Ring modulation used oscillator 4 to modulate oscillator 3, and allowed the creation of metallic and pulse sounds, lower bass harmonics and even distortion. Like the HZ-600 but unlike the others, the HT-6000 had a complete parameter list silkscreened on the outer panel, somewhat alleviating the need for a manual. In terms of "home keyboard" features the HT-6000 improved the auto-accompaniment versus the previous HT's by including some additional PCM drum sounds, an additional accompaniment part ("obbligato"), 4 bass patches (versus one), additional chord inversions (including more tonic, suspended and subdominant triads), and the addition of "Intro" and drum and chord "Variation" for auto-rhythms. The HT-6000 was also sold in Germany by Hohner as the KS-610/TR. The HT-6000 was reviewed in Keyboard Magazine, November 1988, p. 149. If the HT-6000, rather than the HZ-600, had been packaged as the "professional" model, it may have sold much better.
Feature Comparison Matrix [ edit ]
Casio SD Synth Features HZ-600 MT-600 HT-700 HT-3000 HT-6000 Keys 61 Full 49 Mini 49 Mini 61 Full 61 Full Built-in Speakers No Yes (1W+1W) Yes (1W+1W) Yes (2W+2W) Yes (2W+2W) Velocity (Initial Touch) Sensitive No No No No Yes Polyphony 8 8 8 8 8 Multi-timbral MIDI Channels 2 3 3 3 4 Programmable SD Synthesis Yes No Yes Yes Yes, Expanded Headphones Jack Front, 1/4" Rear, 1/8" Rear, 1/8" Front, 1/4" Front, 1/4" Volume Pedal/Line-in Jack Yes, 1/4" Stereo No No Yes, 1/4" Stereo Yes, 1/4" Stereo Line-out Jacks L & R 1/4" None L & R RCA L & R 1/4" L & R 1/4" MIDI Jacks In, Out, Thru In, Out In, Out In, Out, Thru In, Out, Thru Transpose -5 to +6 No -5 to +6 -5 to +6 -5 to +6 Chorus Analog, 3 levels Analog, no levels Analog, 3 levels Analog, 3 levels Analog, 3 levels RAM Card Patch Capacity (Upper/Lower) 120 / 60 None 20 / 10 20 / 10 20 / 10 Accompaniment Sequencer Memory (Banks x Chords/Operations) None 1x 1304/395 2x 640/198 2x 640/198 2x 427/198 Pitch Bender Range Selectable (Major 2nd, Minor 3rd, Perfect 5th) Fixed @ Major 2nd Fixed @ Major 2nd Fixed @ Major 2nd Fixed @ Major 2nd Modulation Wheel Yes No No Yes Yes Programming Wheels 1 None 1 1 2 Auto-shutoff override Yes No No No Yes Keyboard Split 3 split points None 2 (only for auto-accompaniment) 3 split points 3 split points Preset Patches Piano, Harpsichord, Jazz Organ, Brass Ens, Symph Ens, Synth Bells, Magical Wind, Blues Harmonica, Light Harp, Plunk Extend, Elec Piano, Vibraphone, Synth Clavi, Strings, Synth Bass, Synth Celesta, Pearl Drop, Synth Reed, Fantasy, Typhoon Sound. Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Synth Ens 1, Cosmic Dance, String Ens, Brass Ens, Pipe Organ, Piano, Harpsichord, Guitar, Trumpet, Vibraphone, Synth Ens 2, Cathedral, Symphonic Ens, Synth Brass, Jazz Organ, Elec Piano, Harp, Funky Clavi, Flute, Synth Bells "Internal" Patch Defaults (Rewritable except on the MT-600) Piano 2, Marimba, Pipe Organ, Strings 2, Synth Ens 1, Synth Vib 1, Koto, Double Reed, Clarinet, Miracle, Elec Piano, Vibraphone 2, Violin, Synth Strings, Synth Ens 2, Synth Vib 2, Synth Harp, Slash Reed, Synth Guitar, Explosion Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Synth Ens, Space Fantasy, Chorus, Synth Harp 1, Pipe Organ 2, Piano 2, Harpsichord 2, Harmonica, Synth Reed, Steel Drum, Brass Ens 2, Metallic Sound, Synth Sound, Fantasy, Jazz Organ 2, Synth Celesta, Synth Harp 2, Clarinet, Synth Guitar, Marimba Auto accompaniment patterns None 20 presets, non-programmable 20 presets, 10 internal, +10 card 20 presets, 10 internal, +10 card 20 presets, 10 internal, +10 card Volume Sliders Master, Lower Tone Master, Accompaniment Master, Accompaniment, Drums Master, Accompaniment/Lower Tone, Drums Master, Accompaniment/Lower Tone, Drums Accompaniment Parts 0 (No accompaniment) 2 (Chord, Bass) 2 (Chord, Bass) 2 (Chord, Bass) 3 (Chord, Bass, Obligatto) Accompaniment Bass Patches 0 (No accompaniment) 1 1 1 4 (Wood, Elec, Slap, Synth) Accompaniment Obligatto Patches 0 (No accompaniment) 0 0 0 6 Programmable PCM Percussion Sounds 0 (No accompaniment) No programmable percussion. Preset rhythms use the 15 HT-700/3000 drums. 15 (bass, snare, rim-shot, elec. toms (hi, low), ride, claps, hi-hat (open, closed), bongos (hi, low), timbales (hi, low), agogos (hi, low), claps) Same as HT-700 18 (same as HT-700/3000 but adds gated snare, timpani, orchestra hit, cowbell, and drops the claps.) Chord Inversions available for Custom Accompaniment 0 (No accompaniment) 0 (Not programmable) 8 8 14 Rhythm Intro No (No accompaniment) No No No Yes Rhythm Ending No (No accompaniment) No No Yes Yes Rhythm Variation No (No accompaniment) No No No Yes Accompaniment Variation No (No accompaniment) No No No Yes Auto-Harmonize No (No accompaniment) No No Yes Yes DCO Oscillators/Voice 1 1 1 1 4 for upper tones, 2 for lower tones Available DCO Waveforms 32 (Some including noise oscillation) DCO-based presets uneditable. Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 64 (32 basic, 16 including noise oscillation and 16 including ring modulation) Programmable LFO Settings Pitch only. Delay, speed, depth, wave (saw up/down, triangle, square, random) None Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 Programmable VCF Settings ADSR w/ cutoff frequency, resonance, depth None Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 ADSR w/ cutoff frequency, resonance, depth, key-follow, velocity curve Number of VCF's 1 shared/channel 1 shared/channel 1 shared/channel 1 shared/channel 8 independent (1/voice of polyphony) Programmable DCA Settings ADSR, depth None Same as HZ-600 Same as HZ-600 ADSR, attack and decay curves (acute or obtuse), key-follow, plus velocity curves and depths for each of 4 oscillators Independent DCA for Noise Oscillator No No No No Yes (ADSR) Detuning No No No No Yes, higher than fundamental, fine or coarse (but not both together for a given oscillator) Ring Modulation No No No No Yes, oscillator 4 can modulate oscillator 3. "Line Editor" Programming No No No No Yes: simultaneous side-by-side view of all 4 oscillators' velocity, amplitude or detune, with 4 pairs of increment/decrement buttons.Robert Barchi has faced remarkably little criticism for his two private-sector jobs that he has held throughout his Presidency. Daniel Munoz
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Rutgers University President Robert Barchi has been getting paid from multiple entities with competing financial interests, including the taxpayers and tuition-payers at the state university, and two companies that do business with Rutgers.
All told, Barchi made well over $1 million dollars last year, a combination of his public salary with two side jobs serving on the Boards of Directors of private companies that sell products to Rutgers.
Living in a free house on the Busch campus, Barchi already draws an annual salary of $650,000 from the school, more than three times what the state's Governor earns and $250,000 more than the US President.
In an apparent conflict of interest, Barchi has also been working for two private companies, both of which have contracts with Rutgers. A conflict of interest is defined as "a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization."
In February, a $6 billion deal to sell one of two companies where he moonlights netted Barchi enormous profits, but officials won't say how much he made off the deal.
Barchi has long collected payments from both Rutgers, and two companies that do business with it, in an arrangement that creates a stunning conflict that was first explored by the Bergen Record's Patricia Alex and Shawn Boburg.
Ten months into his tenure at Rutgers, many were shocked to learn that Barchi also made more than $300,000 in compensation from two different companies: Princeton-based Covance, and VWR International, based in Radnor, Pennsylvania.
"It smells to high hell quite frankly," Harvard professor Jay W. Lorsch, who focuses on corporate governance, told the Record at the time.
A "contract research organization" that spun off of Corning Incorporated in 1996, Covance provides drug development and animal testing services, and has been accused of abusing primates at facilities in Germany and the United States.
Barchi made $226,295 during 2014 as a member of Covance's Board of Directors, including $125,000 cash and $101,295 in stock awards.
But, Covance had pulled in about $100,000 in business from the medical school that is now a part of Rutgers, between 2008 and 2013.
Perhaps because the scandalous story broke over the summertime in 2013, when the campus was quiet, not much came of it over the past 19 months.
In response to public questioning, Barchi explained his side of the story at the September 2014 University Senate meeting, where he pledged to continue moonlighting, but also not to get involved with any university decisions involving the companies.
"I have made that disclosure and I have guaranteed this board and I'll guarantee you that I will not be involved in any decision that has anything at all to do with this university, either positively or negatively, for those companies," he told the crowd.
"And that's just the way I've always operated. I've done it for my entire career involvement with these companies and others. And that's the way I intend to do it going forward."
Barchi also said that the pay he received for serving on the boards was fair market value.
"You will find that [the compensation is] right at or below the median compensation for any other board. They're not overpaid. It is what it is in that kind of business."
According to StreetInsider.com, Barchi had 5,658 shares in Covance as of December 31, when he gained 308 additional shares for his service on the board.
And if he held on to those shares until February 18, when the sale of the company was finalized, they would have been worth $639,495.
All Covance shareholders were compensated $75.76 per share, and given about one-fourth as many shares of Labcorp stock as the deal was finalized.
Labcorp will allow the company to continue operating under the name Covance, and it will continue to be based out of Princeton.
Both companies do business with Rutgers.
Barchi ignored questions about the deal when New Brunswick Today approached him on March 26, refusing to answer.
"The president formally recused himself from any and all discussions or decision making regarding these companies and has had no involvement with business decisions between the companies and the university," said a Rutgers spokesperson.
Rutgers added that purchasing decisions and management of the Covance contract are handled by University Procurement Services, though it would seem implausible for Barchi's subordinates in that department to not be aware of and influenced by Barchi's ties to the company.
Rutgers officials have repeatedly refused to say how much Barchi made off the sale of Covance.
"Like all employees of Rutgers, and indeed all private citizens, he does not discuss his private finances," said university spokesperson E.J. Miranda.
BARCHI'S OTHER, BIGGER CONFLICT OF INTEREST
VWR International is a laboratory supply company that has been criticized for union busting. The most recent records available show Barchi making over $100,000 as a Director.
That company received nearly $15 million in contracts with Rutgers between 2008 and 2013.
Records provided to New Brunswick Today show that, just ten days after Barchi took office, the medical school agreed to extend a contract with VWR International for an additional year.
While he is not the only college President to also draw compensation from a corporation, Barchi's side work stands out because of the sheer income he makes from it, and the fact that the university does business with his companies, raising questions as to who benefits from the crossover.
According to a 2011 survey cited by the Bergen Record, only 3% of college presidents make more than $300,000 sitting on corporate boards, further contextualizing the irregularity of Barchi's arrangements.
The Covance deal is just the latest development, as the company was sold in February to Labcorp for $6.1 billion.
Rutgers officials said Barchi is no longer involved in the North Carolina company that bought Covance, though it's still not clear if he owns any stock in it.
According to Barchi's most recent financial disclosure statement, along with his wife who is a Rutgers professor, he owns more than $500,000 worth of real estate outside New Jersey, but none in the Garden State.
The Barchis also reported owning more than $250,000 worth of art, jewelry and collectibles, and one or more boats valued between $100,000 and $250,000.
But Covance was by far Barchi's biggest investment, with more than $500,000 in stock as of 2014.
In his financial forms from the prior year, he had reported his stake in Covance as "greater than $50,000 but not greater than $100,000."
Several state legislators, including the Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, took a stance against Barchi's private-sector side work following the original revelations about Barchi's ties to Covance and VWR, and called on him to resign from the side jobs.
But Governor Chris Christie took to Barchi's defense, passing the buck to the school's powerful governing board: "If the [Rutgers] Board of Governors is comfortable with it, they’re the ones running Rutgers University day-to-day, not me.”
Rutgers officials said that the board was aware of Barchi's other jobs, and had approved the pre-existing arrangements for him to sit on the boards, when they hired him in 2012.
Barchi joined the Covance board in 2003, and the VWR International board in 2006.
"I've been in this for a long time," Barchi said months later under questioning from New Brunswick Today. "It was fully disclosed to the board when I came here before I said I would come... and those were the terms under which I came."
But not everyone saw it like Barchi did, including many of the university's students and faculty members.
"Rich board members may see this as normal, but faculty members see this as proof that the president is living in a very different world than they do," Rutgers-Newark professor Robert Snyder told The Record.
VWR International's filings with the federal government show that the company is proud to have Barchi on the board, but considered whether or not he was "independent."
Though the company is not subject to rules requiring a certain number of board members to be independent, the filing does acknowledge that the board considered Barchi's employment at Rutgers in evaluating his independence.
"In determining Dr. Barchi’s independence, the Board considered that the Company had net sales to Thomas Jefferson University, where Dr. Barchi served as President until August 2012, of less than $0.1 million during 2012 and net sales to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where Dr. Barchi began serving as President," reads the most recent filing.
It was not until July 9, the same day Rutgers handed over documents to The Record, that a memo was issued advising high-level officials at the university to exclude Barchi from any decisions involving the two companies.
According to his financial disclosure forms, Barchi also owns stock in more than 40 other companies.
The companies Barchi's stock range from popular brands like CVS CareMark and Apple Inc., to more controversial entities like Halliburton and Chevron Corp.
Both he and his wife also own stock in city-based Johnson & Johnson, whose worldwide headquarters neighbors the Rutgers campus.
PREVIOUS PRESIDENT DID NOT GET PAID BY CORPORATIONS
By comparison, Barchi's predecessor Richard McCormick was the University President while he served on three boards, including those at the State Theatre, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, and the NJN Foundation.
But each of those organizations are non-profits, and McCormick received no compensation at all for his service on any of the boards.
Barchi is not the first Rutgers President to come under fire for membership on a corporate board.
According to a February 1993 article in the Newark Star-Ledger, McCormick's predecessor Francis Lawrence sat on the board of directors at Chemical Bank, and saw no conflict of interest when the board of governors voted to set up an account at the bank.
"I had nothing to do with the decision," Lawrence said at the time. "Those decisions were made in 1989 before I came on board."
Not satisfied with Barchi's explanation of the side jobs, New Brunswick Today took to the microphone at a University Senate meeting in September 2013 to ask him a simple question: "Why won't you resign and work for Rutgers full-time?"
In his defense of the side work, Barchi relied heavily on arguments that they had been longstanding and disclosed, pointing to the fact he had been allowed to hold private-sector board member positions in his previous jobs.
"So let me say first that I've been on these boards for, in some cases, a decade or more, alright?" Barchi began.
"I've served on these boards when I was the president of a major healthcare university. I served on these boards when I was provost of a well-respected Ivy league institution," Barchi continued. "And every step of the way I have disclosed my involvement to the company and to the boards."
"I've put in place the kinds of protection we need to protect me and the institution," he told the crowd. "It's all very above board and very public."
He ultimately said holding private-sector side jobs was standard practice for university presidents: "Many if not most of our peer institution presidents are on boards in the same way that I am."
IS EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT?
New Brunswick Today asked Rutgers officials to back up Barchi's claims that his side jobs were normal back in September 2013.
Within hours, Rutgers Vice President of Governmental Relation Peter McDonough responded with a list of mostly private universities where presidents served on corporate boards for pay: Harvey Mudd College, Rennsaellaer Polytechnic Institute, Boston University, and the University of Miami.
But several of McDonough's examples did not hold up to scrutiny, as his assumptions about Boston University and University of Miami proved to be off-base, and several other examples differed significantly from Barchi's situation.
"As for other presidents who serve on boards of companies that may do business with their universities, one can only assume... that Boston University probably uses DuPont products and that the University of Miami probably subscribes to the media and information services of Gannett."
As it turns out, Miami's President Donna Shalala had left the Gannett board more than two years prior, and Boston University said that it does not use DuPont products, though their president makes $293,699 serving on that corporation's board of directors.
"Boston University has no direct business dealings with DuPont," said spokesman Colin Reilly. "If the university did have business dealings with DuPont, they would first have to be reviewed and approved by the Audit Committee of the board. Also, each year the Executive Committee reviews and approves the president’s outside activities."
But some of the high-level administrators cited by McDonough did show the potential for conflicts of interest between their public and private work, both involving the board of directors for New Brunswick's own major corporation: Johnson & Johnson.
The University of Michigan's former President Mary Sue Coleman made a $603,357 salary in that job, but also earned $110,000 for serving as a Director at Johnson & Johnson.
Coleman left office last July, after more than a decade in office. Like Barchi, she donated some of her pay to the university she worked at.
"I'm perfectly well compensated," Coleman said, as she announced she would donate an amount equal to her recent salary increase towards a scholarship fund supporting opportunities to study abroad.
"Since President Coleman sits on the J&J board, she is not involved in discussions or decision-making involving J&J purchases or investments on behalf of the university," Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told New Brunswick Today at the time.
"Her position on the J&J board is disclosed to the Vice President and Secretary for the publicly elected Board of Regents."
Coleman was replaced by someone who does not appear to serve on any corporate boards.
McDonough had also cited the University of California-Los Angeles' (UCLA's) Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences Eugene Washington, another J&J board member.
For their part, UCLA officials said they weren't sure if they used J&J products.
"I am not sure whether or not the University of California Los Angeles and/or the UCLA Health System purchases goods from Johnson & Johnson," wrote Dale Tate, the Executive Director of Communications and Government Relations at UCLA Health Sciences.
"But as Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Washington has no role |
guy who might be a hero… and a kid. What are readers going to get when they buy this book?
DB: I think the theme of this book is choice. It explores what drives a person to make the right choice, to become the hero, or the selfish one and become a villain. Claudio and Chondra did one hell of a book here; I was hooked on the story right after I finished reading the script for issue #1. It’s really engaging.
BC: Tell us about your process for doing a page. Do you work from thumbnails or do you go straight to roughs? In your other projects you seem to do all the art from pencils to colors, is that the case here as well?
DB: For TRANSLUCID, I would start with some rough traces for layouts. Once they are approved, I go straight to digital inks. Fortunately, color for this book is done by the awesome Adam Metcalfe. He makes every page more exciting with his wild color palette. I really love what he’s doing here. When working on Moonhead projects, since we are a two-man operation, Gerardo scripts the whole story and dialogues, and I do the whole thing from inks to color to lettering. It takes a whole lot of time but we really dig that approach to comics.
BC: You’ve done your take on Batman, Superman and Daredevil on your website… are you a big superhero comic fan? Is that the type of books you would like to draw? And if so, which character would be your favorite to get to work on?
DB: Well, yeah I like superhero stuff, and I would definitely love to take another stab at Batman and Superman in an Elseworlds type of book, or maybe X-Men or Daredevil on a Strange Tales. I don’t know, hopefully one day we’ll have the chance to do that.
Translucid #1 is on sale now from Boom! Studios:
About Dan Wickline Has quietly been working at Bleeding Cool for over three years. He has written comics for Image, Top Cow, Shadowline, Avatar, IDW, Dynamite, Moonstone, Humanoids and Zenescope. He is the author of the Lucius Fogg series of novels and a published photographer.
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None foundYulia Morozova knows heroin addiction inside and out.
Today she is a clinical psychologist, helping people with addictions through the final stages of their recovery treatment at the sprawling Center for Practical and Research Narcology in southeast Moscow. But a decade or so ago she was a patient there herself, suffering “cold turkey” Russian-style.
The three-week withdrawal process was “not easy,” Dr. Morozova says now. But “everything that’s going to be interesting in your life happens after that. In my case, this was the only way. I have been clean for nine years now.”
Russia has an opioid addiction crisis about as grave as America’s. But the two countries’ approaches to the problem could hardly be more different. Where most US and European clinics offer patients methadone as replacement therapy, Russian doctors disdain such “soft” treatment.
They acknowledge that their methods of curing addiction have a lower success rate than the 50 percent achieved in the United States. Some put it as low as 10 percent. But they do not consider people who rely on methadone to be free from their addiction.
In Russia, says Yevgeny Bryun, who runs the 1,400 bed center where Morozova works, “We call a person's addiction in remission if they are completely drug-free. Not otherwise.”
So addiction treatment, like many other topics these days, has become a field for East-West sniping.
Who are you calling 'liberal?'
Russian doctors claim that the American crisis is the result of “liberal” attitudes that enable the over-prescription of powerful opioid pain killers, and lax medical approaches that treat heroin addiction with replacement therapy drugs like methadone.
Western doctors argue the Russian “cold turkey” approach to ending addiction is a brutal kill-or-cure solution that ignores the scientific evidence that replacement drugs can wean people off their addiction while allowing them to get on with their lives.
“Our philosophy is simple. We organize treatment and rehabilitation in a completely drug-free environment,” says Dr. Bryun. “In Russia it is illegal to use any drugs in treating drug addicts.”
Treatment in Bryun’s center – often ordered by the courts – starts with a mandatory 21-day withdrawal period when the patient undergoing “cold turkey” is kept under close supervision but given nothing more than aspirin to help weather the experience.
Russians who suffer through this experience call it the “vegetative state,” says Morozova, when you know nothing and you are not yourself.
That is followed by nearly three years of regular visits to the center as an outpatient, and then a final month in its rehabilitation wing, where the rules are so strict that even the strong-brewed Russian tea known as chifir is prohibited.
Around 720,000 of Russia’s 1.5 million citizens with a heroin addiction are currently undergoing such programs, says Bryun.
An Afghan heritage
Heroin was unknown in the Soviet Union until its troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Today as much as 20 percent of Afghanistan’s annual opium production makes its way through central Asia to Russia, flooding its cities with cheap heroin.
That history makes the origins and causes of Russia’s heroin habit very different from the US experience, where four out of five new users start out by misusing prescription pain killers.
“In Russia that’s impossible. You can’t obtain opioids in drugstores because there is very strict control,” says Dmitry Movchan, deputy director of the Marshak Clinic, a private addiction-treatment center in Moscow.
Too strict a control, perhaps. The extreme difficulty of obtaining strong painkillers condemns many patients to excruciating pain, often in the final stage of life, and some have even committed suicide.
“It’s true, we’ve erred on the side of making access to palliative medicines too difficult,” acknowledges Bryun. “We are developing policies … to find the right balance.”
But “allowing easy prescription access to opioids as tranquilizers or pain killers is reckless policy,” Dr. Movchan argues. “Over there [in the US] they ‘play democracy’ with drug addicts. But these are not people to be treated with half-measures. Either you cure them, and they stay clean, or they will have this addiction for their entire life,” he says.
That is a far cry from modern thinking in the West, where experts argue that Russians' fear of the “cold turkey” approach deters a lot of people with an addiction from seeking treatment in the first place, and that anyway it works only 10 percent of the time.
On top of that, one pillar of the Russian approach to drug addiction is a ban on Western-style programs that provide clean needles to patients in order to block the spread of HIV/AIDS. HIV infection rates have risen by about 10 percent annually in recent years, according to the Russian Federal AIDS Center, the third-fastest pace in the world. Half of new victims are infected by shared needles.
Tough love and 12 steps
Bryun says he debates frequently with Western colleagues at international conferences. He argues that the replacement therapies favored in the United States are often just the cheapest and easiest way to treat people who can’t afford to pay for expensive rehabilitation.
Those who can, he says, often opt for a “cold turkey” approach in private clinics which is not very different from the Russian way, though American doctors are readier to provide palliative drugs to suffering patients.
“In Russia we have an integrated system, and it is all paid for by the state. In our center you find all the facilities for detox, psychiatric and support services, and rehabilitation all together under one roof,” he boasts. “We view treatment as a single continuous process, and we follow each patient through the entire three year program.”
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Morozova is one of the system’s success stories; she credits its “tough love” with curing her of her heroin addiction. But once her three-year program ended, she turned to a linchpin of Western addiction control that has caught on widely in Russia – “Narcotics Anonymous.”
“The 12 steps saved my life,” she says.WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez had just fought twelve hard competitive rounds at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Both fighters were on edge. The outcome of their fight was very much in doubt. The winner would be ranked among the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world.
As the fighters paced nervously in their respective corners, a tall slender man wearing a tuxedo stood in the center of the ring, microphone in hand. He was meticulously groomed with perfectly manicured nails, every hair in place.
The man knew something that virtually no one else knew. The judges’ scores were on a piece of paper in his hand. Millions of people around the world were waiting for his next words. He was riding on the back of a tiger that he had tamed.
Michael Buffer is boxing royalty, better-known than all but a handful of fighters in the world today. He’s the gold standard by which ring announcers are judged, having taken his craft to a whole new level. There’s Buffer, and then there’s everyone else. Before the start of each main event that he works, the crowd waits with anticipation as he builds to his trademark phrase.
Five words: “LET'S GET R-R-R-READY TO RUMBL-L-L-L-E...”
Those words have become part of the pageantry of boxing. It’s hard to think of a parallel in any other sport. Buffer’s presence confers legitimacy on a fight, making it seem bigger and more important than would otherwise be the case. No other ring announcer in history has done that.
Buffer was born in Philadelphia on November 2, 1944. He began ring announcing in the early 1980s to supplement his income as a model, having worked previously as what he calls “the worst car salesman in the world.” He first used the phrase “Let’s get ready to rumble” in 1984.
I used to watch films of old fights on television,” Buffer recalls. “In the old days, the ring announcer would introduce the important fighters who were in attendance. But that had evolved to announcing five commissioners, three sanctioning-body officials, two ring doctors. And it chilled the crowd. I wanted something comparable to 'Gentlemen, start your engines' at the Indy 500; a hook that would excite people and put some energy back into the arena. I tried'man your battle stations' and 'batten down the hatches' and 'fasten your seat belts,' but none of them worked. Then I remembered Muhammad Ali saying, 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee; rumble, young man, rumble.' And when Sal Marchiano was the blow-by-blow commentator for ESPN, he'd say, 'We're ready to rumble.' So I took those ideas and fine-tuned them.”
By 1990, ring announcing was a fulltime job for Buffer. Today, he’s a brand unto himself. Retail sales of products that have licensed the phrase “Let’s get ready to rumble” are near the $500,000,000 mark.
Buffer estimates that, during the last three decades, he has been the ring announcer for roughly one thousand fight cards. He has plied his trade in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
Does he hope that someday he’ll be called upon for a fight card in Antarctica?
“No,” he answers after a moment’s thought. “I wouldn’t trust the runway.”
At present, he works thirty to thirty-five cards a year. By the time fight night arrives, most buyers have purchased their tickets. No one calls anyone at the last minute, saying, “You have to watch the pay-per-view tonight. Michael Buffer is going to be on.” But he’s good branding and he adds to the entertainment value of the show.
Buffer also works a dozen conventions and other special events annually, including past appearances at the World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Championships, and NFL playoff games.
“I enjoy the spotlight,” he acknowledges. “It’s exciting to be there. I was very nervous the first year. Then I got used to it. I’m comfortable and confident now, so I enjoy it more. Where boxing is concerned, I root for a good fight more often than I root for one fighter or the other. There are times when I like both fighters and feel bad for the one who loses more than I’m happy for the winner. But it’s all very gratifying to me. There’s a legacy there.”
What makes Buffer so good?
Ring announcing is an under-appreciated art. It looks easy. It isn’t.
Buffer is consistent and technically sound. He has a smooth silky baritone voice that’s a gift of nature. And the camera is kind to him.
In the old days, ring announcers shouted to the crowd through megaphones.
“I’m lucky,” Michael notes. “I came along at the right time. Television and today’s technology capture what I do and the overall scene very well. I’m a performer. And I’m never fully satisfied. After each fight, I go home and watch the introductions and my announcement of the winner to see what I could have done better.”
“And most important,” Buffer continues, “I always remember that the fighters are the stars. The cheers are for them, not me. I never forget that.”
Buffer appreciates the irony of his celebrity status and also the financial rewards that have flowed from his success. He and his wife live comfortably in suburban Los Angeles in a fashionable home on one-and-a-half acres of land with the mandatory swimming pool, waterfall, and fountains. They have five dogs, three of which are rescue animals. The garage holds a Mercedes S500 sedan, Mercedes SL55AMG, Cadillac Escalade, and Bentley convertible.
Friends appreciate Buffer for his loyalty and also his sense of humor. He has a talent for celebrity impersonations, the best of which is Johnny Mathis singing the national anthem while the public address system keeps cutting out.
He also has strong feelings on a wide range of issues from politics to the less savory aspects of boxing, but keeps them private.
“I’m troubled by the way things have changed for middle class families in America,” Michael says. “It bothers me that people are finding it harder and harder to get by and too many parents are no longer optimistic that their children will enjoy a better life than they’ve had. But I’ve made a conscious decision to not speak out publicly on political issues because I think that my job requires neutrality.”
There are hassles that come with being Michael Buffer. The evolution from occasional fans with Kodak Instamatics to everyone having a cell phone and wanting a photo equates to nuisance.
“And they give their cell phone to someone who doesn’t know how to use it to take the picture,” Buffer notes. “So they have to take the picture three times.”
“I get recognized in New York more than anyplace else,” he continues. “Or at least, New Yorkers are more open about. They’ll come up to me and say, ‘Hey, you’re Michael Buffer.’ About three times a week, someone asks me to say ‘Let’s get ready to rumble’ for them. If I’m in New York or a fight environment like a casino, it’s more like a half-dozen times a day.”
How does Buffer respond to the request?
“Sometimes, I’ll do it for children. Or if it’s red carpet stuff like the season premiere of Boardwalk Empire, I’ll do it for a video camera. Usually, I ask, “Do you have your checkbook with you?” and that ends it.’
But not always.
“Every now and then, there’s some tension. One time, I was having dinner in a restaurant. A guy came over, leaned on the table, and said, ‘Hey; you’re that guy, right?’ Then it became, ‘Say it for me! Say it for me!’ And he’s getting more and more aggravated because I’m not going start shouting ‘Let’s get ready to rumble’ in a restaurant. After a while, his girlfriend came over. She’s telling him, ‘Come on, Vinny. He’s eating dinner. Leave him alone.’ So then Vinny gets pissed off at her.”
In many respects, Buffer has lived a charmed life. But there was one period of crisis.
“In February 2008,” Michael recounts, “I took the dogs out for a walk. I got home, looked in the mirror – I can’t walk by a mirror without looking; that’s the image; right? And I noticed a tiny protrusion on the side of my neck. I went to the doctor and it was misdiagnosed as a blockage in my salivary gland. ‘Suck on some lemon sours and it should go away.’ But it didn’t go away. So I went to another doctor. He dropped a light in and said to me, ‘I want you to get an MRI today.’”
“They did the MRI,” Buffer continues. “They took a biopsy. I was in New York to emcee a press conference for the Klitschko-Ibragimov fight at Madison Square Garden when I got the call. Cancer. I emceed the press conference, worked the fight [on February 23, 2008], and went home to face the unknown. This was my life, and even if I survived the cancer, I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk again. It wasn’t just my livelihood. I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk. We’re talking about my throat. I was a smoker when I was young. I told myself, ‘Well, if this is it, I’m going to do one of those anti-smoking commercials before I go. It’s not the way I want people to remember me, but maybe it will save some lives.’”
On March 15, 2008, Buffer worked the second fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Then he went under the knife.
“I got the right doctor. There was one surgery. They opened me up and took out three small tumors – squamos cells – that were attached to my tonsils along with some lymph nodes and part of my tonsils.”
One month later, Michael was in the ring for Joe Calzaghe vs. Bernard Hopkins. In 2013, he passed the five-year mark, which means that, from now on, he’ll undergo a PET-scan once a year instead of once every six months.
“I don’t know how long I’ll keep announcing,” Buffer says. “I definitely don’t want to stay too long at the dance. A while back, I thought that sixty-five would be it. But I’ll be sixty-nine in November. Things are still going well and I still enjoy it.”
On the afternoon on October 12th, Buffer was at The Wynn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas readying for Bradley vs. Marquez. Earlier in the day, he’d gotten bout sheets for the evening’s pay-per-view fights from the HBO production team. After reviewing the sheets, he went online to Boxrec.com to supplement the information. Next, he wrote the data necessary to introduce to each fight in red and blue ink on 4-by-6-inch cards.
Then he dressed.
Buffer owns eight tuxedos. Once, he had twenty. The tuxedos share closet space in his home with two dozen suits, a half-dozen sport jackets, and fifty dress shirts.
He doesn’t own many shoes.
“I have a wide foot, so it’s hard to find a good fit.”
And he loves watches. Buffer’s collection of fifteen high-end timepieces includes Rolex, Cartier, and the like. But he’s also fond of a one-of-a-kind tourbillon watch that Azad custom-made for him.
In his hotel room at The Wynn, Buffer re-ironed his shirt.
“I’m fussy about my shirts. I usually wash and iron them myself. If I do send them to the cleaner, I touch them up when they come back. Sometimes, when I buy a new shirt, the collar button doesn’t line up perfectly. I’ll take it off and sew it back on myself so it fits just right.”
Then there’s the matter of Buffer’s ties.
“People who are righthanded tie their knot so that the bottom of the knot goes to the right,” he explains. “If you’re lefthanded, it’s the reverse. But a lefthanded knot has a better fit because it’s snug against the top button so you get a cleaner look. I’m righthanded, but I reverse my hands and tie my knot lefthanded. It takes forever, but it looks better when I’m done.”
Michael smiles.
“I know. I sound like Tony Randall playing Felix Unger in The Odd Couple.”
Buffer also cuts his own hair with a three-way mirror once every three weeks and trims his sideburns weekly.
“I grew a moustache when I was twenty-three years old and in the Army,” he admits. “But it was so sparse that I had to fill it out with an eyebrow pencil.”
At 4:30 PM, Buffer was standing at The Wynn’s south valet station, waiting for his car and driver. Michael was close to trainer Emanuel Steward, who died of cancer in October 2012. Now, every time he works a fight, he pins a campaign-type botton with Steward’s image on it inside his tuxedo jacket over his heart. The button was in place.
The car was fifteen minutes late. A half-dozen fans stopped and asked for cell phone pictures.
Buffer’s gold-and-diamond Tiffany cufflinks and tuxedo studs glittered in the sunlight, as did his rose-gold Rolex Presidential watch with diamond dial and diamond bezel. The diamonds were small, not gaudy. His style is elegance, not bling.
At 5:10 PM, Buffer arrived at the Thomas & Mack Center and made his way to his seat in the technical zone within arm’s reach of the ring apron. The fights on the card that he was scheduled to work would begin at six o’clock.
Bill Brady (chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission) came over and asked if he could introduce Buffer to a friend that he and his wife had brought to the fight. Referees Robert Byrd (who would work the main event) and Tony Weeks approached to say hello. Four roundcard girls seated to Michael’s left smiled enticingly at him.
At six o’clock, Buffer walked up the steps in the neutral corner nearest to him and entered the ring. During the course of the evening, he would make that journey eight times (before and after each of four fights).
The first three fights ended in knockouts, which meant there was little suspense in announcing the result.
Then it was time for the main event. Marquez entered the ring to the thunderous cheers of his supporters. Bradley followed, greeted by boos.
“I get anxious like a fan gets anxious before a fight,” Buffer says. “It’s anticipation. Not nerves.”
At 8:12 PM, Buffer took the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.”
There were the mandatory introductions of state athletic commission officials and sanctioning body personnel, the referee and judges.
“And now, the officials are ready. The fighters are ready. Ladies and gentlemen, ARE YOU READY. For the thousands in attendance and for the millions watching around the world; ladies and gentlemen, “LET'S GET R-R-R-READY TO RUMBL-L-L-L-E...”
The crowd roared.
Buffer introduced Marquez first, then Bradley.
The fight began. Michael watched intently throughout, commenting on the flow of the action.
“Bradley is boxing nicely... Now he’s is getting countered... Marquez is controlling the distance between them... Good shot by Marquez, but Bradley rolled with it... There’s not much body-punching by either guy... The swelling around Marquez’s eye is starting to cause him problems... Bradley is telegraphing his right hand every time he throws it.”
It was a close fight between two highly-skilled boxers. At the final bell, Buffer rose from his chair and entered the ring. Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer handed him a sheet of paper with the judges’ scores on it. Bradley had won a split decision.
Announcing a knockout is fairly straightforward. Decisions, particularly after a close fight, are another matter.
Buffer read the commission sheet carefully to himself and organized his thoughts. Whenever there’s a split decision, the first two scores that he reads are one for each fighter. Then comes the deciding tally.
“I try to read the first two scores the same,” he says. “Then, on number three, I give it a big pause. I knew there would be a bad reaction from the crowd on this one because it was a pro-Marquez crowd and the decision could have gone either way.”
“Ladies and gentlemen; we go to the scorecards. Glenn Feldman scores the contest 115 to 113. He scores it for Marquez... Robert Hoyle scores it 115 to 113, and he has it for Bradley.”
A pause for drama.
“Patricia Morse Jarman scores the contest 116 to 112 for the winner by split decision...
There was dead silence. Buffer was holding history in the palm of his hand.
“And STILL WBO welterweight champion of the wor-r-r-r-ld, from Palm Springs, California, Timothy ‘Desert Storr-r-r-r-r-r-m’ Bradle-e-e-e-e-y.”
There was a post-fight press conference. Members of the boxing community would congregate and discuss the fight into the wee small hours of the morning. But Buffer was not among them.
Minutes after the fight ended and he’d announced the winner, he slipped out of the Thomas & Mack Center and returned to The Wynn. One could imagine Buffer as James Bond, walking into the casino and sitting down at a high-stakes baccarat game, every hair still in place. Beautiful women would stare. A casino host would bring him a martini; stirred, not shaken. Across the table, perhaps, Auric Goldfinger would be cheating.
But it was not to be. Buffer went directly to his room, ate a granola bar, drank some hot tea with honey, and went to sleep.
Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book (Straight Writes and Jabs: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) has just been published by the University of Arkansas Press.
WATCH RELATED VIDEOS ON BOXINGCHANNEL.TVIs Sensationalism Getting in the Way of Real Reporting? Special: New United Exposé.
Even song birds will peck our eyes out when their nest is threatened. Yadav didn’t have time to contemplate how she might be threatening anyone’s nest. The next moment the door flew inward, and the governor slipped through.
“May I introduce a cabinet member and my close advisor, Wei Martinez,” the governor said, gesturing to the man behind her.
Black, straight hair fell to Martinez’s shoulders, and a thin mustache perched over his lip like an oiled caterpillar. Upon entering, he made a point of smoothing and buttoning his suit jacket, which was well tailored. If he’d worn a tie, Yadav was sure he would have cinched it tight. Strapped to his belt was a holster carrying a kinetic sidearm.
Yadav eyeballed the gun, wary.
“I am Governor Tentopet Jones. And your ID codes say that you are …?” She and Martinez both crossed their arms expectantly.
Yadav felt a bit like a young child in the principal’s office under Jones’ scrutiny. But Martinez’s countenance gave her graveyard chills.
“I’m Ulla Yadav,” she said without hesitation, holding up her press tattoo. “Of New United.”
Jones nodded, satisfied.
“You landed illegally on our planet,” Martinez broke in. “No passes or permissions were given. Your ship was destroyed. When and how do you intend to vacate the system?”
“Is that important?” Yadav asked
His gaze narrowed. “Yes.”
Their medical scans hadn’t even picked up on the beacon in her intestines. What century were these people living in?
“Why don’t you just deport me?” she asked.
“We don’t have the resources to waste,” Jones said smoothly. “Who knows you’re here?”
Yadav carefully gauged the pitch and timber of Jones’ question. The answer was uncertain — maybe all of New United, maybe no one. It was impossible to tell if someone had picked up her trail yet or not, especially since she didn’t know how much time had passed since the crash. But that wasn’t important. Yadav had to tell them — especially this Martinez character — exactly what they needed to hear.
“I have a contact out of system,” she said. “He’s got his ears open. He knows to alert the company if he doesn’t hear from me every forty-eight hours.”
Martinez let out an aggravated, “Ha.” Whether it was because he didn’t believe her, or didn’t want to believe her, Yadav wasn’t sure.
“Why is my colleague dead?” she blurted.
Jones didn’t answer right away. She seemed to be searching for the right words. “We were unable to save him. I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you saw from the med shuttle, but we are not a well-to-do society. Our capabilities proved inadequate.”
“But at first glance they didn’t appear inadequate,” Yadav said. She needed to get a feel for the political dynamics in play. Exactly what kind of a leader was this Ten-toe-pet Jones? “The city at the bottom of the hill is in shambles, but you tried to build something imposing and modern up here. Have a nice little private compound, don’t you?”
Martinez looked as though he might lash out at any minute. Frustration wafted off of him like bad cologne. “What’s your point?”
“You don’t seem to have a lot to work with, but you sure did your best to make it look like you’ve got deep pockets.”
“It makes the public believe that prosperity is achievable,” Jones said. “If they knew the truth, that not even their government had wealth, they would despair.”
Yadav openly scoffed. Warlords and pseudo-emperors loved their high towers and gilded palaces. Such compounds were displays of power meant to keep people in their place. They highlighted the massive gap between the oppressed and the oppressors. Made the public feel weak, incapable.
It surprised Yadav that Jones would attempt to claim their compound as anything more than uprising insurance.
The governor sat down across from the reporter and leaned in. “Wei and I are cousins,” she said, gesturing to Martinez, who rolled his eyes. “Where we come from originally, no one has money. No one appears to have money. This society might look impoverished to you, but you’ve never seen our home station.
“Most of my childhood memories run together. One day was mostly like the next. But there was one that sticks out in my mind as a turning point — it’s the reason I chose to be a leader. The reason for these buildings.
“There was this fence — well, more of a wall. It was made of rusty metal slats, and blocked off a dilapidated, toxic apartment. The chemical smell was horrendous — the place had been used to cook SLAM. Some kid had found a half-empty can of spray paint and covered the thing in vulgarities. The wall sat like that, a sickening eyesore in the heart of our rundown space station for years. Until some people chipped in to buy a few gallons of paint off a traveling salesman. As a community, we whitewashed that wall. Made it shine.
“That wall made us believe things could get better. A silly, crappy faux wall that we made beautiful. The premise here is the same.”
Jones sat back. “I am a public servant, Ms. Yadav, trying to increase the morale of my strained people. If I have to do a little hand waving, a little deceiving, to make them believe in improvement, I do it without hesitation.”
Great, another politician with a sob story, toting civic duty like a Roman cross, Yadav thought. “What is your relationship with the pirates like?”
The governor was quiet for a split second. “Tenuous.”
“How are you protecting your people? Are you protecting your people?”
“Our cannon worked well enough, didn’t it?”
“But what else?”
“You’ve got no reason to take up the governor’s time,” Martinez protested. “She doesn’t have to prove anything to you. We’re here to interrogate you, not the other way around.”
Jones held up a placating hand.
“Instead of an interrogation, how about a formal interview?” asked Yadav. “In the streets, amongst the people.” Maybe she would get to inspect those lean-tos after all.
A subtle smile played over Jones lips, as though she’d been waiting for this chance. “If I show you our colony, will you do a story on it? Make us major news?”
“If there’s something newsworthy happening on this planet, I’ll write about it,” Yadav replied slyly.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Martinez said.
“Get me someone who can remove her restraints,” Jones decided, ignoring his concern. “I’m taking our new friend for a walk.”
Martinez bent close to Jones’ ear, laying a firm hand on her shoulder. Yadav noticed his knuckles strained against her jacket. “We’re going to regret this,” he said darkly. “You should have taken my initial recommendation.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Jones said unemotionally. “But under the circumstances, I’ll be keeping my own counsel.” She gave him a meaningful look.
“Fine,” he said, moving toward the door. “But a government’s number one concern must always be the protection of its people. Don’t let this newswoman make you think any different. Rosy PR means nothing if the people can’t produce.”
Yadav wanted to assure him that the last thing he had to worry about was her interfering with their public relations, but staying quiet when necessary was just as important as shooting off the right questions at the right time.
“Thank you,” Jones said again. “Please get me an escort, something to free her hands —”
“And a change of clothes?” Yadav suggested. A hospital robe was hardly appropriate street wear.
“And the spare suit from my office,” Jones added.
Martinez opened his mouth to protest again, but Jones barked, “Go.”
He nodded, suddenly gracious. Then he allowed his gaze to meet Yadav’s for a split second before he disappeared.
Yadav felt like she’d just disturbed an ants’ nest and was waiting for the first of a thousand stings.
to be continued …Welcome to the second issue of The Left Fold, a weekly programming article digest.
Programming Languages
Doug Crockford gave a talk on his book "JavaScript: The Good Parts". This article explains what he likes, what he doesn't, and why:
An assessment of the current state of D implementations and libraries:
GWT, the Google Web Toolkit, compiles Java to JavaScript. Here's an article critical of the approach:
Thoughts on and predictions about the moratorium on Python changes proposed last week:
Programming Language Implementations
Three Common Lisp implementations are evaluated and critiqued for numerical performance and code generation:
How PyPy improved garbage collection times, and how it compares to CPython:
Coding
A survey of how several well-known C libraries and applications handle out-of-memory conditions:
The L1 code cache, how it impacts performance, and why smaller can be better than unrolled:
Design and Testing
Communications of the ACM features a retrospective by C.A.R. Hoare on testing and verification:
Analogies between Feynman's observations about the Challenger development process and software development:
KLEE is an automatic test generator that uses LLVM to trace code paths and provide coverage for arbitrary C programs. Think Haskell's QuickCheck, but aware of the source code:
Algorithms
CouchDB is a document-oriented database. This article describes how it uses an append-only B-Tree for replication and concurrency:
Everyone loves Bloom filters. This paper describes an extension that supports an unspecified maximum set size with a bounded error rate:
A discussion of one of the more difficult aspects of the Netflix challenge that remains unimproved:
UI
Development and considerations for rating tea:
Experience Reports
Clojure for data analysis:
Mono compared to Microsoft's.NET for an browser-based game:
The Left Fold
Thanks for the feedback (reddit, news.yc, favorite reddit comment) on the first issue. I am slowly experimenting with different layouts and organizations. Unfortunately, I am not able to offer an RSS feed of fulltext articles (copyright).
Thanks to Adam Langley for contributing to this issue.
-- AlecI found out something very interesting this morning when I went to check my overcrowded Gmail inbox.
Sitting there was a message from friend, colleague and soccer enthusiast here at ESPN informing me that fellow SEC blogger Chris Low and I were the only ones to have Alabama running back Trent Richardson at the top of our Heisman ballots for this week.
(Full disclosure: he’s been at the top of mine for the past two weeks.)
Jokes went back and forth between us as he let me know that our SEC bias was showing and I simply told him that I put the best player in the country at the top of the list for the most prestigious award in the sport.
Trent Richardson ran around and through the Ole Miss defense on Saturday. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
How only two people could see that at this point is baffling. Yes, Andrew Luck continues to be spectacular and Kellen Moore probably doesn’t -- and won’t -- get the respect he deserves.
But to put them, or anyone, ahead of Richardson right now is totally bogus.
After his 17-carry, 183-yard, four-touchdown performance against Ole Miss, he leads the SEC and is fourth nationally in rushing (912), yards per game (130.3) and is third in the nation with 15 rushing touchdowns and with 13.7 points per game.
Seven of his rushing touchdowns have come against SEC opponents and he’s currently averaging 149 yards against conference foes.
However, if that wasn’t enough to nail his name to the top of a ballot, how about his scintillating 76-yard touchdown run against Ole Miss? Every candidate needs his Heisman moment and Richardson had his Saturday when he showed off all the tools that make him great.
First, it was |
of smoke. The spice hit on the front end and then just disappeared. That lasted halfway through the 1st third. Then the flavor profile smoothed out in in the middle for me and was incredibly pleasant to smoke. At the beginning of the last third during the relights I had to power through a terrible burnt tobacco taste that was caused by the cigar going out. Once I got through that disaster I was able to pick back up on the spice and finish out the cigar with great pleasure. The Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial Limited Edition 2011 is definitely a full bodied cigar. It almost put me down for the count. I smoked it in the afternoon after a fairly big lunch and by the end of it I was lightheaded and had one hell of a nicotine buzz. Usually full bodied cigars don’t affect me like that, but this was a big boy and it had some bite to it. The flavor was incredible and an absolute pleasure to smoke. Just make sure and pack a lunch if you plan to tackle this one! Would I Buy It Again? Without a doubt, even though the price tag is a little high at $16 a stick this is a great cigar to have in your humidor. Is It an Every Day Smoke? I don’t believe so, with the full bodied flavor and the size of this cigar it’s just too much to smoke everyday unless you’re just a beast. Would I Buy a Box? I would, a box of 16 is around $215 which is a little steep, but it’s a great smoke to have around for those times when you want a full body pleasurable cigar. Conclusion If you’ve ever been curious about the Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial Limited Edition 2011 I would suggest you go and pick one up if you can find them. It’s one of those cigars that people will constantly compare other sticks to and you’re doing yourself and your palate an inservice if you don’t smoke this one before it disappears.
0 Users (0 votes) Creamy Woody Earthy Spicy Sweet Floral Fruity Other Leave your rating What people say... Sort by: Most recent Top score Most helpful Worst score Be the first to leave a review. Verified {{{ review.rating_title }}} Show more {{ pageNumber+1 }} Leave your rating Creamy
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OtherThere are many, many things that can go wrong on a first date, having your prized sunglasses stolen probably isn't something you'd consider, though. However, that's exactly what happened to this guy who spent the next year sending hilarious texts in hopes of being reunited... with his sunglasses, according to The Mirror.
The guy, Alex, was on a date with a woman named Anna when he asked her to keep his sunglasses in her bag. Apparently, the date wasn't going so well and Anna decided to ditch. Alex wasn't too concerned about losing the girl. "I wasn't that into her anyway," he told The Mirror. She made off with his sunglasses, though, which is why we now have this saga of one-sided text messages from Alex to Anna.
Alex tries everything to get his sunglasses back. He sends memes, emoji phrases, pictures of himself with ridiculous sunglasses, and is always topical. Read the entire chain of messages from page one to FORTY below.TOKYO -- Japanese police were looking for traces of poison in the home of a woman arrested on suspicion of killing her husband, one of six men who have died while in a relationship with her over the past 20 years.
Police say they suspect insurance claims or inheritance money could be the motive for the killings.
Chisako Kakehi, 67, was arrested Wednesday in Kyoto prefecture after cyanide was found in the body of her 75-year-old husband, a senior official at the investigative department told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Kyoto. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the pending investigation.
Kakehi has denied involvement in the deaths and has not been formally charged.
Her latest marriage lasted one month before her husband died in December.
Cyanide had also been found in the blood of a 71-year-old partner who fell while riding a bike in 2012, officials said. His death was initially attributed to a heart disease.
Kakehi had reportedly married three times and had relationships with three other men over the past two decades. All had died within a few years of marrying or starting relationships with her.
All the deaths occurred in the western Japan area, including Kyoto and Osaka.
On Thursday, police raided her apartment in Osaka following searches at her home in Muko city, and confiscated capsules and wafers to wrap powdered medicine as possible evidence, reports said.
Kakehi caught the attention of authorities after she called an ambulance to rush her latest husband to a hospital, saying he suddenly collapsed at home. An autopsy found cyanide in his blood, and investigators eventually ruled out a suicide, leading to Kakehi's arrest.
She was being questioned by the prefectural prosecutor before a decision is made whether to press charges.Spirit becomes third U.S. airline to call it quits in Cuba
The number of U.S. airlines flying to Cuba keeps thinning out.
Spirit Airlines has become the latest to throw in the towel on regular passenger service to country. It's now the third U.S. carrier to do so after similar announcements earlier this year from Frontier and Silver Airways.
Spirit’s Havana-Fort Lauderdale flights will end May 31, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Other airlines, including American and JetBlue, also have reduced capacity to Cuba, though they have not dropped any routes there.
Spirit’s decision to exit Cuba comes only about eight months after regular passenger flights resumed for the first time in nearly 50 years.
When Cuba opened up to U.S. airlines last year, routes and capacity to the island were capped and carriers had to apply for the rights to serve the Cuba’s international airports. Nearly all of the big U.S. airlines rushed in with requests to fly to the island – especially on routes to Havana.
Against that enthusiasm, however, some industry executives openly wondered whether demand would live up to the hype.
Despite the loss of Spirit's service, South Florida travelers will continue to have numerous options for non-stop flights to Havana. American and Delta each fly to Havana from Miami while JetBlue and Southwest fly there from Fort Lauderdale.
USA TODAY: First U.S. commercial flight in 5 decades lands in Cuba (story continues below)
Without regular airline service to the island in five decades, there was little data available to carriers in trying to assess potential demand for flights to new destinations. And unlike other foreign markets, Cuba remains a unique and highly regulated place for U.S. airlines to do business.
As for Spirit, it had been flying two daily round-trip flights to Havana from Fort Lauderdale, its biggest base. Those flights began just this past December.
“We really wanted [Fort Lauderdale-to-Havana] to work, especially being South Florida’s hometown airline... and the ultra-low cost leader to the Caribbean, but the costs of serving Havana continue to outweigh the demand for service,” Spirit CEO Bob Fornaro says in a statement to the Sun-Sentinel. “Due to overcapacity and the additional costs associated with flying to Cuba, we don’t find it sustainable to continue this service while maintaining our commitment to pass along ultra-low fares to our customers.”
Both Frontier and Silver also cited overcapacity in their decisions to exit the market.
TWITTER: You can follow Today in the Sky editor Ben Mutzabaugh at twitter.com/TodayInTheSky
TODAY IN THE SKY: Booking a flight to Cuba? Here's what to expect now (September 2016)
IN PICTURES: U.S. airlines now flying to Havana for first time in five decades
Spirit's first aircraft to get the airline's new paint scheme is rolled outside for photographs at the Premier Aviation Overhaul Center in Rome, N.Y., on Sept. 15, 2014. (Photo: Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY)
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2pBgwHRAround 50 Hongkongers and Londoners gathered at the Chinese embassy in the British capital on Sunday demanding the release of Hong Kong’s missing booksellers.
Lee Bo, 65, a shareholder of Causeway Bay Books and a British passport holder, went missing from Hong Kong on December 30. In a fax allegedly written by him and received by his wife last week, Lee said that he had travelled to China voluntarily and that “everything is fine.”
Four other members of staff from the store, which specialises in political gossip titles banned in the mainland, remain missing. They include Gui Minhai, a Swedish national, Lui Bo, Cheung Ji-ping and Lam Wing-kei.
The suspicious circumstances have led some to speculate that Lee may have been abducted and sent to mainland China through secret channels. On Saturday, a second letter and a video reportedly from Lee, urged the public not to make a “big fuss” out of his disappearance.
Protesters in London condemned the apparent abduction and demanded the release of the missing booksellers.
Deryck Chan, an engineer originally from Hong Kong, told HKFP that the protest “focused on the fact that Lee Bo is British” and that “Lee and Gui Minhai were abducted from outside the jurisdiction of China.”
“The Chinese embassy is cowardly as normal – doors shut, two London policemen stand outside the door to usher demonstrators across the road,” he said.
He described the London police officers as “diplomatic and humorous” about the protest, as they allowed demonstrators to move nearer to the Chinese embassy later on.
Chan said that a policeman at the protest told him: “Nobody is safe anymore [in China]. But you’re safe with us. We aren’t the Beijing police.”
Desmond Sham, a protester at the scene, told HKFP that they also demanded Chinese authorities protect the freedom to publish and to uphold judicial independence in Hong Kong.
Earlier in Hong Kong, 6,000 people joined a rally in response to the disappearance of the booksellers.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in the Middle East for her first official visit Monday, expressed doubt that Iran would respond to the Obama administration's expressions of interest in engaging Tehran on nuclear and other issues, a senior State Department official said.
Clinton was in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheik to attend an international conference to raise money for the war-torn Gaza Strip, where donors pledged $4.4 billion in new funds, according to Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
He added that other nations recommitted themselves to funds they promised in the past but never delivered, bringing the total to $5.2 billion in pledges. Aboul Gheit said the figure is "beyond of our expectations."
Clinton made the statement on Iran in a private meeting with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who had expressed to Clinton a concern among Persian Gulf nations that Obama might make a deal with Iran without full consultation with US allies. The official who described the exchange spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
Clinton told her counterpart that the Obama administration is carefully calculating its moves and will consult fully with Gulf allies.
"We're under no illusions," the official quoted Clinton as telling Abdullah. "Our eyes are wide open on Iran."
She told the UAE minister, whose country has close historic commercial ties to Iran but is wary of Iranian nuclear ambitions, that she doubts the Iranian government, will respond to US diplomatic initiatives. Last week Clinton announced that she has appointed veteran diplomat Dennis Ross to be her special adviser on matters related to the Gulf, to include overtures to the Iranians.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi told reporters in Tehran, "We have said many times that a nuclear weapon has no place in Iran's defense doctrine."
Clinton also told her UAE counterpart that Iran's "worst nightmare" is an international community united against Iranian nuclear ambitions, the US official said.
Pushing for peace
Clinton then went on to declare that the Obama administration is committed to pushing intensively to find a way for Israelis and Palestinians to exist peacefully in separate states.
"We cannot afford more setbacks or delays or regrets about what might have been, had different decisions been made," she said
With the Obama administration's Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, seated behind her at the aid conference, Clinton said the US president would continue the Bush administration's focus on seeking a two-state solution that entails Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state co-existing in peace.
Clinton and Mubarak during conference (Photo: Reuters)
She made it clear, however, that Mideast leaders could count on Obama to take a more active approach than did his predecessor.
"It is time to look ahead," she said, "The United States is committed to a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and we will pursue it on many fronts."
Clinton, who is scheduled to travel to Jerusalem on Tuesday to consult with Israeli government officials, said the United States was pledging $900 million to the international aid effort for the Gaza Strip: Some $300 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and $600 million in budget and development aid to the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank.
"We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure our funding is only used where and for whom it is intended and does not end up in the wrong hands," Clinton told the conference.
"Our response to today's crisis in Gaza cannot be separated from our broader efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace," she said. "Only by acting now can we turn this crisis into an opportunity that moves us closer to our shared goals."
"By providing humanitarian aid to Gaza we also aim to foster conditions in which a Palestinian state can be fully realized, a state that is a responsible partner, is at peace with Israel and its Arab neighbors and is accountable to its people," she added.
Clinton also met with Egyptian FM Aboul Gheit, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and she attended a meeting of the so-called Quartet of international mediators, the US, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, seeking to forge progress toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
At that session, Mitchell added that while the situation between Israel and the Palestinians is difficult, he sees opportunity for progress. He stressed the need to consolidate a ceasefire in Gaza and he forecast that once Israel creates a new governing coalition it will be in position to improve living conditions in the West Bank.If you’ve ever taken a photo from behind a window, you know you’re just as likely to get a good shot of yourself reflected in the glass as you are of what’s on the other side. Researchers from MIT have developed a process that could one day extract your reflection from such pictures, leaving only the intended subject on the other side of the glass.
This process actually relies upon the most severe sort of reflections as those are easier to pick out. Specifically, anything taken through double pane glass or very thick glass tends to have two overlapping reflections, one from the inner surface and one from the outer one. If you only have one reflection, it’s a very computationally complex problem for an algorithm to figure out what’s a reflection and what isn’t. With two identical offset images that are reflections, suddenly the computer has a point of reference.
The system created by the MIT team relies on finding the edges of the reflection by looking for a repeating offset pattern. The image is split into 8×8 blocks of pixels and calculates the correlation between the pixels. When the parts of the image comprising the reflection have been identified, the computer can then selectively tune the levels to make the reflection less pronounced. You can see an example of the results in the image above. It’s far from perfect, but this is just the first iteration of the technology.
This process currently requires the offset of the double reflection to be rather large to ensure the algorithm can recognize them as distinct shapes, but things might improve in the future. The team sees possible applications for this technology in consumer imaging technologies. Your phone might just know how to reduce reflections when you snap a photo through the window. These algorithms could also be of use in improving computer vision. Despite all the research that has gone into it, computers are still pretty bad at making sense of an image.Green & Gold Rugby Wallaby Player of the 2014
The Green & Gold Rugby Wallaby Player of the Year award has entered its sixth year and continues to be the premier, and largest, fan-driven player award in Australian Rugby. Forget your generic “Fan Favourite” award, this one is not a popularity contest but rather the culmination of a match-by-match analysis for each Wallaby Test in a calendar year. After each Test our highly knowledgeable (passionate, engaged, verbose etc) forum members provide their 3-2-1s. That is, their best three players for the Wallabies in that Test, providing us an overall top three players for each match. Adding these final scores together gives us the answer to the ultimate question – just who has been our choice as the best performing Wallaby each year.
A quick history of the award is below.
2009 – George Smith
2010 – David Pocock
2011 – Will Genia
2012 – Michael Hooper
2013 – Scott Fardy
A review of the past winners goes to show two things. First, that our readers are a fair judge of performance and, secondly, George Smith and David Pocock got absolutely dudded when it came to their prize. A certificate? Really? But as I am sure they will acknowledge, its the recognition not the reward that counts.
So let’s get to it. Who was our G&GR Wallaby Player of the Year for 2014?
Wallabies v France (Brisbane)
Michael Hooper (3pts)
Israel Folau (2 pts)
James Slipper (1 pt)
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Josh Lowensohn/CNET
Once every other year won't cut it anymore, even for Apple.
The iPhone 5S, Apple's newest flagship smartphone, debuted on Tuesday at the typical hype-filled and splashy event. Like the iPhone 4S and iPhone 3GS, it offered some new software tricks, but little physical change -- aside from a new gold color option.
This is the odd year in the iPhone development cycle, the year before and after a major change in hardware. Indeed, Apple has gotten comfortable in its routine of offering only a major change every other year, a pattern that even its fans have settled into.
But with so many companies pushing forward with new innovations on a yearly, and even monthly, basis, now is not the time for Apple to be easing off the pedal. When it comes to hardware and design -- once an area where Apple held an unquestioned leadership position -- the company should be hitting the gas hard.
Apple should be pushing for design breakthroughs every year. Instead of an "S" version, Apple fans should be getting a whole number upgrade, and all the big upgrades that come with the number change. Clearly, they are eager for improvements like an even bigger screen.
"Jony Ive is one of the best industrial designers ever and he needs to come up with magic once a year to make the competition perpetually play catch-up," said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. "That's what Apple needs to do as the industry leader."
At a time when HTC boasts an all-metal One smartphone, and Nokia has pushed the envelope with a 41-megapixel camera phone, Apple offered an iPhone 5 lookalike with some new software tricks and internal specification upgrades.
The lack of a major change invited some barbs from rivals. Nokia mocked the upgraded camera on the iPhone 5S, noting that it falls far short of the PureView camera found in its Lumia 1080. It led to HTC's self-congratulatory blog post about its constant push to change the "status quo," something Apple seems comfortable with right now.
Now playing: Watch this: Apple's iPhone 5S arrives in gold
Of course, these competitors are small fry relative to Apple. HTC is struggling with falling profits and revenue, and Nokia's phone business is moving over to Microsoft. Apple will undoubtedly sell boatloads of the iPhone 5S, and the same screen size will keep developers happy.
"There's something to be said for keeping things familiar for a full device cycle," said Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC.
But the fact that Apple has opened itself to snide comments speaks to the shrinking gap between it and its rivals. Where once Apple was the undisputed leader in design and hardware, it can now no longer make such a claim.
Even Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S4, which took some criticism for the little physical upgrade it went through, managed to pack a larger display into a similar-sized body.
It's clear that a larger display is what consumers want, something Apple has yet to fully embrace.
While Llamas believes the once-every-two-years hardware upgrade cycle is fine, he acknowledged that he would want to see a bigger display, somewhere in the range of 5 inches.
Llamas isn't the only one. Some Apple fans are likely a little envious of the giant screens that all of the recent flagship smartphones rock. With the iPhone 5S just unveiled and still employing the same 4-inch display, it'll likely be another year before they get their wish.
Again, Apple's decision to move slowly with its hardware changes likely isn't going to hurt the company on the financial end -- people will still snap up iPhones at an impressive rate. But it would be terrific if Apple took the lead again on design and creating drool-worthy products. The iPhone 5S is nice, but I don't feel the immediate need to run out and get one.
Maybe it's unfair to place such lofty expectations on Apple. Or maybe as fellow CNET editor Charles Cooper pointed out, the sizzle really is gone from the smartphone industry.
Apple's Phil Schiller called the iPhone 5S the "most forward-thinking phone ever made." I would wager that a lot of Apple's competitors would question that claim. And for once, they may have a point.This is Ruby; safe from euthanasia with M.A.I.N. but certainly NOT out of the woods.
Folks, Ruby is as sick as we’ve seen any of our dogs. We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few days, and we can’t promise anything other than we will try our hardest to make this sweet young pup whole again. Please share a prayer for her and help us provide her the medical care that we hope will save her life.
She’s estimated to be two years old, so we shudder to think what those years must have been like for her. We’ll keep you posted as we know more and we’ll let you know when she’s safe and part of the M.A.I.N. family.
Medical Update, Jan. 30th: We ran some additional bloodwork – initial results indicate that her vital organs are functioning fine. She’s negative for Tick Fever but there are several indicators she may have Valley Fever, so we are waiting on the full results and titer.
Medical Update, Jan. 29th from the vet: She is eating like a horse, still very sore/crusty despite her bath. Heartworm negative, so we’re starting the Ivermectin for the Mange. She’s doing great right now. She is drinking more than expected but I think it may be a resource guarding type situation. We will test her for Tick Fever and Valley Fever as well.
Ruby’s Updates:
Ruby has been adopted! Congrats to Ruby and her fur-ever dad!
Ruby’s Petfinder Bio: Hi! I’m Ruby, a gem of a dog looking for a fur-ever family to call my own. You’ve probably noticed my “before” picture by now- can you believe that was me when I was first rescued?! M.A.I.N. rescued me from the county pound euthanasia list with a horrible case of Mange. I was very sick, but have made a full recovery and am now a happy, healthy energetic young dog! Let’s talk about some fun things now- like PLAYING! I love to play and have tons of energy. I would make a great new friend for your dog at home or a great hiking/running partner for YOU! I love everyone I meet, other dogs, cats and kids included! My absolute favorite thing in the world is going to the dog park to meet new people and dogs. The Lab in me loves water and running through the sprinklers, but I haven’t quite found the fun in the pool yet. Summer is coming up- maybe you could teach me?! There’s lots of fun things we can do together! I’m also a very smart girl; I walk great on the leash, am kennel trained and know “sit” and am working on “lay down.” Want to teach me some more tricks?! I’m up for it! One thing I should warn you about- I do consider myself to be a lap dog and would love to sit next to you and cuddle! I’m sure you won’t mind! I’m full of fun, energy and sweetness and would make the PERFECT furry friend for your dog at home!
From Ruby’s foster, April 2nd, 2013: I took my son to the skateboard park tonight and let Ruby come with, she really enjoyed watching the kids play; you could see her head turning back and forth as the kids went by. She is such a happy and well adjusted girl, which is so amazing when you think how bad her life was just a few months ago!
From Ruby’s foster, Feb. 25th, 2013: She is as puppy as they come- chewing, stealing toys, food, and just plain full of mischief. She is doing awesome! She is even dog door trained now. No doggie accidents in the house in two weeks. She is just darling.
From Ruby’s foster mom, Feb. 18th, 2013: Ruby is doing fabulous! She’s growing like a weed. She weighs about 50 pounds now and she is getting tons of new hair. Those of you who don’t know, Ruby is a puppy! I figure she is six to eight months old. She barks and plays just like one and still has sharp puppy teeth. We love watching her play and grow. She is like a different dog. I would like to thank all of you for your love and support. We could have never done it without all of you!
Update on Ruby, Feb. 6th from her foster mom: I took Ruby to see Dr. Miller at BAH last night and she has Kennel Cough, so she is on another antibiotic. I got to meet Benny and his foster mom also. It was so nice. The doc and techs say Ruby is looking and doing great! She will be back to herself in no time. She now weighs 44 lbs and tested negative for Tick Fever and Valley Fever! How great is that!?
From Ruby’s foster mom, Jan. 31st: She is asleep at my feet on her bed right now. She has had her medicated bath and is all squeaky clean. It was a VERY hard thing to do. There isn’t one 1/2 inch of her body that isn’t an oozing, bloody sore. She was a trooper and took it like a good girl. The smell is horrible, especially when wet, by the way..but I love her!
Ruby visited with Don & Heather on March 4th, and they had to take some photos! Look at what a fabulous foster family, a thousand people on Facebook and a lot of love can do!
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Nikita, we hardly knew ye.
Jeff Paterson and Jason Botchford are back on the Pat-cast, powered by Eagle Ridge GM.
It’s the second episode of the 2017 off-season and there’s still already tons to talk about.
There’s a tribute to the BFG. What the heck happened?
There’s new coach Travis Green. What’s his history? What’s good, and what’s bad about this hire? Does he have any hope of winning given the roster he’s been handed?
Are there more moves to be made in the front office?
And the thrilling first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs are over. There’s are lessons there for gauging the Canucks.
Which series does Botch like best in Round 2?
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Both quit over their support for Kevin Rudd, who says he did not challenge Julia Gillard because he did not have the numbers to win.
There have now been seven resignations since Ms Gillard invited the spill following calls from party elder Simon Crean, who was sacked from Cabinet.
Mr Ferguson stood down as the resources, energy and tourism minister about an hour before Senator Carr said he would quit as minister for human services.
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They joined Chris Bowen, who stepped down as tertiary education minister this morning.
Mr Ferguson said he would have voted for Mr Rudd, saying he would have given the Labor Party the change it needed.
"I was worried about where we were heading from an electoral point of view. For those reasons I would have voted for Kevin Rudd and Simon Crean," he said.
Senator Carr said he thought a leadership change yesterday was the "last opportunity" for Labor to win the election.
Share Kim Carr said he thought a leadership change was the last opportunity for Labor to win the election.
"I took the view that this week was the last opportunity we had to produce a Labor team, which in my opinion would have the strongest possible opportunity for Labor to remain in government," he said.
"That is not to say there aren't other opportunities to stay. I would never write the Labor Party off. Never.
"But I solemnly believe that Kevin provided the best opportunity and that's clearly what the evidence suggests across this country that the people would like to see.
"That is not going to happen."
Senator Carr said the numbers for Mr Rudd in the frantic counting before yesterday's spill were "very, very close".
"Don't listen to the nonsense being spoken to the contrary. The fact is that there was not a majority there. Simon Crean did a very courageous thing but no-one followed him," he said.
"Kevin had already indicated that he wanted to see and only would accept the draft on the basis there was a clear majority.
"The majority wasn't there because no-one came with Simon. I had hoped that people would support Simon's call. They did not."
Rudd thanks supporters
Video expired Thu 20 Jun 2013, 5:00pm AEST
Mr Rudd this morning issued a statement ruling out ever being Labor leader again.
He later told reporters in Brisbane that he did not challenge Ms Gillard yesterday because he did not have the numbers to win.
"I gathered my key friends and ministerial colleagues together in my office yesterday afternoon after Simon Crean's statement and I asked for their views," he said.
"I asked Chris Bowen for his views. I asked Anthony Albanese for his views. I asked Joel Fitzgibbon for his view, Richard Marles, Alan Griffin, as well as Kim Carr.
"And the truth is this, I asked them, what are the prospects for us obtaining a significant majority? Their collective response was zero.
"I asked them what are the prospects of us obtaining a majority, to which their response was zero.
"I then asked them under these circumstances... what should I do? Each of them said to me, 'Kevin, I believe you should not run because it would divide the party'."
Mr Rudd paid tribute to his backers who have fallen on their swords, including Joel Fitzgibbon, Richard Marles, Ed Husic and Janelle Saffin.
Spill fiasco: The casualties so far Simon Crean Elder statesman who sparked the spill. Sacked for disloyalty before Question Time on Thursday. Chris Bowen Ex-immigration minister, resigned all portfolios at an emotional press conference the day after the spill. Martin Ferguson Former ACTU boss, resigned as resources, energy and tourism minister to go to the backbench. Joel Fitzgibbon Chief whip who set the hounds running on Wednesday, says he will keep quiet for the foreseeable future. Kim Carr Minister for human services and previously demoted Rudd backer, he has quit the ministry. Richard Marles Forced to resign parliamentary secretary role after coming out strongly for Rudd on Thursday. Ed Husic Western Sydney MP who quit as whip after expressing no confidence in Gillard. Janelle Saffin Long-time Rudd backer who resigned as whip after the challenge collapsed.
He singled out Mr Bowen for praise.
"I see in him a future prime minister of Australia, he is a very good man, he has a good heart and a very strong mind and is a man of integrity," Mr Rudd said.
"His service in a number of portfolios, including the really hard ones, shows that this bloke has a future."
Mr Rudd, who repeated his intention to stand at the next election in his seat of Griffith, said it was now time to "put a line under it" when it comes to the Labor leadership.
'Courageous'
Mr Ferguson delivered a stinging assessment of some of the Government's policies, saying he considered resigning when the mining tax was changed after he promised the companies it would not be.
He said he would stand at the September 14 election and give the Government his absolute support from the backbench.
The former head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) urged the party to reclaim the legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments.
"Reclaim the legacy of Hawke and Keating of being a reforming government and a government that governs for all Australians," he said.
"A modern Labor Party should appeal to all Australians. The way forward for Labor is to send a very strong message that that's what we're all about.
"When you look at the way we handled the global financial crisis, Australians didn't appreciate that there was a worldwide recession. Things were going well, then we got ourselves derailed from the mining tax dispute."
He also praised Mr Crean for his "courageous" move to trigger yesterday's leadership spill.
Reflecting'reality'
Ms Gillard said Mr Rudd's statement this morning "reflects the reality".
Speaking at a media conference in the northern New South Wales town of Bangalow shortly before Mr Ferguson's announcement, Ms Gillard again declared the leadership issue was over.
"I've seen the media reports of the statement and I think it reflects the reality," she said.
"This issue is over and done with. I was very clear about that yesterday and let me be very clear again today. This issue has been resolved for all time and I think Kevin's statement reflects that."
Ms Gillard says she will make an announcement about changes to her ministry in the coming days.
"There are a number of people clearly considering their position. And I too will consider ministerial arrangements over the next few days," she said.
"I will make some decisions about the ministry over coming days and then we will announce them when those decisions are made."
Ms Gillard also said she was tough enough to deal with the internal politics of the Labor Party.
"Look, I'm someone who's made of pretty strong stuff. That's been on display. Politics is not an easy business," she said.
"But what's always driven me throughout all of my days as a member of Federal Parliament and what drives me as Prime Minister is a vision of our country and getting that achieved."
Senior minister Bill Shorten, who supports Ms Gillard, welcomed Mr Rudd's declaration to rule out a future leadership challenge.
"The idea that Kevin Rudd is right there supporting Julia Gillard, that's good news, and it's bad news for Tony Abbott."An article by K.M. Abraham (@lithiumabraham) of Northeastern University and E-KEM Sciences.
UPDATE (12/16/2016): We checked back in with Dr. Abraham to see if anything has changed since the publication of this article. According to Abraham, hoverboard manufacturers have improved the safety of the devices since wide-spread instances of explosion in 2015. This has been brought about by a certification program by the Underwriters Laboratory (UL). The UL, which is a safety consulting and certification company, has introduced their NATIONAL STANDARD UL 2272 Certification for Personal e-Mobility. Any hoverboard that is marked with the UL certification can be expected to be much safer than previous generations. Several companies, including Sharper Image, now sell UL certified hoverboards. “As with any manufactured product — and especially devices powered by very energy rich Li-ion batteries — there is a potential for safety hazard,” Abraham says. “But we can expect hoverboards to be significantly safer if UL certified.”
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(Feb. 2016) Recent |
responsible" and potentially dangerous, especially when the animals are kept as pets.
"In a nutshell, it is an irresponsible thing to do and there is no redeeming reason to cross breed these cats nor to support those who do by buying one. It almost never works out for the individual cat and in the rare case that it does, the number of animals that had to suffer in order for this one rare cat to exist is staggering," Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue, explains on the animal sanctuary's website.
However, it seems Kiara won't be going home with an unsuspecting child but will instead be living at the zoo with her big cat family and her new house cat mom.Apple’s second quarter wasn’t nearly as bad as the bears on Wall Street thought it would be. In fact, the company actually beat estimates, even though there were some notably bearish analysts and traders on Wall Street. Despite that, Apple’s results, guidance and future are as confusing as ever, with something for both the bulls and bears alike.
Here are three things Apple bulls have to be happy about in the report:
Earnings Beat
Second-quarter results weren’t as bad as feared, as Apple earned $10.09 per share on $43.6 billion in sales. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $10.01 per share and $42.31 billion in revenue. Revenue grew 18% year-over-year, which is pretty healthy for a company many seemingly pegged as being on its death-bed, but earnings fell 18% year-over-year.
Apple had an incredibly successful fiscal 2012, setting a stage that was nearly impossible to outdo. Apple has annual revenues approaching $200 billion, and for the company to generate 18% revenue growth is extremely impressive, especially when you take into account the law of large numbers.
New Products
In addition to the earnings beat, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted that innovation is alive and well at Apple in his prepared remarks. “We are participating in large and growing markets we see great opportunities in front of us particularly given the long-term prospects of the smartphone and tablet market the strength of our incredible ecosystem which we planned to continue to augment with new services our plans expanded distribution and the potential exciting new product categories,” Cook said on the call.
This suggests that the rumors about an iWatch, iTV or other iDevices may indeed be true. If Cook was just referencing updated versions of the iPhone and iPad, the words “product categories” would not have been tossed out.
Cook also made mention of not just new hardware, but new software and services as well. Apple has lacked in software and services, especially on its own apps. Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is incredibly easy to use and aesthetically pleasing, but services such as Apple Maps, iCloud and others have lagged behind competitors, such as Google.
Cook is trying to change the way Apple is viewed to more than just a hardware company, telling Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope the company is “really confident about our product pipeline in both hardware, software and also our services.”
Huge Cash Return
Aside from new products and new product categories, Apple showed it was more than serious about returning excess cash to shareholders. The company increased its share repurchase program to $60 billion, from the current $10 billion. Combined with an increased quarterly dividend of $3.05 per share, Apple is going to return $100 billion in cash to shareholders over the next three years.
The company accessed the debt markets to do so, signifying it is not adverse to debt, as Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn suggested. Apple is serious about returning cash to shareholders, while maintaining a cash balance that is more than adequate to invest in research and development, capital expenditures and run the business.
Here are three things Apple bears have to be happy about in the report:
Guidance
The fear on Apple was that the guidance for the June quarter would disappoint, and boy did it ever. For the fiscal third-quarter, Apple expects revenue will be between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion, with gross margins between 36% and 37%. Analysts were expecting $38.2 billion in sales.
That’s a stark contrast in what Wall Street is expecting, and what Apple is expecting. Apple is likely not going to refresh its product lineup until the fall of 2013, making fears about the fiscal third and fourth quarters exacerbate from current levels.
Gross Margins
Gross margins fell to 37.5% in the second quarter, down from an abnormally high 47.4% in the year ago quarter. While the 990 basis point was extreme, it was inline with what Apple forecast last quarter. However, gross margins are expected to continue to decline, as the iPad mini continues to sell more units than the iPad, weighing on Apple’s overall margins.
Apple makes incredible products, but customers are showing there’s little reason to buy the more expensive 9.7-inch iPad when the 7.9-inch iPad mini does the trick, at a much lower cost.
Product Delays?
Cook hinted Apple is looking at new product categories, as well as refreshing its existing lineup. However, he said new products would be coming in the fall and 2014. Many on Wall Street were expecting a summer refresh to the iPhone, so this could put a crimp in earnings estimates once again.
In 2012, Apple refreshed nearly its entire product portfolio in September and October, and the concern could be that Apple is doing the same thing again in 2013. Taking a more staggered approach would allow Apple to smooth out its fiscal quarters. With the current approach, Apple is increasingly becoming a seasonal company, with the importance placed on the holiday shopping season.When a student reached out to an adjunct professor at Colorado State University to say that he would be turning an assignment late because he couldn’t deal with the election results this past Tuesday, the professor didn’t respond in the way he probably expected.
The message, captured and sent exclusively to Independent Journal Review, is found here:
The student begins, “…I just wanted to let you know why I haven’t posted yet this week. The election of the most evil hateful person to ever run for president has me very upset and I need time to process it all and get centered…”
The student then makes his big “ask.”
“I’d appreciate not getting points docked…”
Although the ask seems to be more of a statement than a question.
The Colorado State University professor simply responded by sending the student an excerpt of the late work policy.
“The Original Post must be completed by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. MT and Peer Responses posted by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. MT. In accordance with the grading rubric, late posts will not be awarded full points.”
The professor gave Independent Journal Review an additional comment on the incident and her insight into the disturbing trend she is seeing among college students and professors today, in the wake of the recent election, saying:
“Students need to realize that we live in a republic where majority rules. That means that the person you voted for doesn’t always win, but you have to just deal with it. I was upset both times Obama won, but I dealt with it. Colleges and professors who baby their students because they’re upset over the election are not doing them any favors. Throwing a tantrum or becoming a basket case when life doesn’t go your way is not how adults behave.”
She then echoes what all of us have been thinking about these students will fare in the real world:
“I can’t imagine what these students will do once they enter the workforce and have a difficult boss or a challenging project, or have personal setbacks. We are raising a generation of crybabies who can’t handle life, and if they don’t get it together I’m very worried for the future of this country.”
Good luck, future employers.Preview | Recap
Mavericks-Rockets Preview
By NOEY KUPCHAN
Posted Nov 22 2014 12:39AM
The Dallas Mavericks made a huge splash this offseason when they lured Chandler Parsons away from the Houston Rockets.
While the Rockets have managed just fine without him, Dwight Howard's absence has become a concern.
Parsons faces his former team for the first time looking to lift the Mavericks to a seventh straight victory Saturday night in Houston.
Parsons spent the first three seasons of his career with the Rockets before agreeing to a three-year, $46 million deal with Dallas in July. Houston allowed Parsons to become a restricted free agent despite having him under contract for one more season and could have kept him but chose not to match Dallas' offer.
He's averaging 14.5 points after scoring 21 in Friday's 140-106 rout of the Lakers, the Mavericks' sixth consecutive win. Dirk Nowitzki had 23 points in 21 minutes, while Monta Ellis scored 20 to go with 10 of the team's season-high 37 assists.
Eight players scored in doubles figures as Dallas shot 62.2 percent.
The Mavericks (10-3), leading the league with 111.3 points per game, have averaged 118.7 during their winning streak. They haven't posted seven consecutive victories since 2010-11, when they went on to win the NBA championship.
Dallas now plays for a second straight night, but all of its starters were rested in the fourth quarter of Friday's blowout.
"We've just got to get to the plane quick, get there, get some rest and get ready," coach Rick Carlisle said. "(The Rockets are) sitting there with two days' rest. There's an advantage for them, but I like how our team played tonight."
Houston (9-3) couldn't keep up with Los Angeles in Wednesday's 98-92 defeat with Howard (knee) on the sidelines. The Rockets were outscored 38-20 in the paint and outrebounded 14-6 on the offensive glass, dropping to 0-2 when their All-Star center doesn't play.
Howard, who isn't expected to suit up Saturday, is averaging 27.7 points on 66.7 percent shooting in his last three games against the Mavericks.
"Everything's not going to be perfect, everything's not going to go according to plan every single night, we just have to find a way to win," point guard Patrick Beverley said. "Of course we want our big horse riding with us, but we can't control injuries, and it's time for someone else to step up."
Rookie Tarik Black should draw a second consecutive start if Howard can't go. He finished with five points on 2-of-6 shooting and five boards Wednesday.
Aside from Howard, the Rockets are also without Terrence Jones due to a leg injury. The duo is averaging a combined 32.8 points and 18.8 rebounds.
"Not having he and Terrence really hurts us, no question," coach Kevin McHale said.
James Harden had 24 points against the Lakers but committed six of the team's 17 turnovers. Harden is averaging a league-high 4.2 turnovers and shooting what would be a career-worst 38.6 percent.
"We'll watch some film, bounce back and be ready for Saturday night," he said.
Dallas and Houston both averaged 113.5 points in splitting four games last season. Nowitzki averaged 34.7 points on 62.7 percent shooting in the last three meetings.
"I treat Dallas like I treat the Lakers, treat the Lakers like I treat Memphis, treat Memphis like I treat OKC. They're our next opponent, and that's all that matters right now," Beverley said.
"They put a good team together, a really good team. Everyone knows their roles really well, good rollers, good poppers. Of course Dirk is Dirk, a lot of good guards. Of course Chandler can play the three and the four. They're really talented."
Copyright 2014 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibitedAll aboard the “L” train!
Brooklyn matchmaker Erika Christensen, 31, calls herself the “Love Conductor” — because she spends her days trainspotting single straphangers she thinks are ready for romance on the rails.
In one recent outing she spotted a man in his 20s selling paintings on the platform of the Bedford Avenue station in Brooklyn.
“Are you single?” she asked bluntly, pulling out her business card — “You’ve been spotted,” it reads — and handing it to the slightly startled man.
“If he gets in touch, I have a couple girls I can fix him up with,” she said confidently.
The gorgeous Greenpoint resident has managed to combine her matchmaker skills with her other passion — the New York City subway system and its underground culture — into a budding career.
A dozen clients pay her between $39 and $456 a month for matches, date planning and coaching services. Rather than scour Web sites or bars, she rides the rails looking for someone’s perfect match. For about a month, she’s been selling her services in conjunction with the dating site Tawkify, which her blog Train Spottings is now part of.
“I’m using the subway as this great recruitment tool,” she says. No surprise: The L train, with its contingent of single hipsters, is one of her more fruitful stomping grounds.
Sarah Nisbett, 30, was riding the F train sketching other passengers last month when Christensen approached her. Nisbett was instantly on board, hoping the Love Conductor would help track down her elusive dream man — a funny, artistic lumberjack.
“It’s a totally natural idea for New York,” she says. “There is that little nugget of hope that makes commuting more exciting.”
If Christensen makes a match, she’ll coordinate the date, which could be anything from a subway ride on the 6 train to a rendezvous at the abandoned but beautifully ornate 1904 City Hall station to drinks at the Campbell Apartment bar in Grand Central Station.
Christensen has even been known to jump in and interrupt a potential missed connection.
“I don’t know if you people are single, but you are clearly enjoying the sight of each other,” she’ll say before handing out her card and leaving the train.
Christensen, who grew up in a small West Virginia town with a one-room schoolhouse, has been fascinated by the subway’s underground culture since moving to New York in 2004 to work for a financial company. She says the New York subway system is the ultimate meet market, we just need to put down the iPhones, the books and our guard to make it work.
“You’re lying if you say you’re not checking everyone out on the train,” she says.UPDATE: Suspect Admits to Pooping in Car and Slashing Tires in NWA Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Video
UPDATE:
FARMINGTON, Ark. (KNWA) - Farmington Police issued a citation for 7 counts of criminal mischief on Rylan Sims.
According to police, Sims confessed to slashing the tires of his ex-roommates and defecating in the car as retaliation.
No formal arrest has been made.
The incident took place in Valley View Estates on Rose Court.
David Buchanan walked out of his house to find all four tires on his truck -- slashed.
He quickly woke up his roommates who discovered they were victims as well.
"They seemed a little shocked,:" Buchanan said. "I mean it is not an everyday occurrence that a whole neighborhood's tires get slashed."
One of Buchanan's roommate, Ian Harkey, found his car broken into.
His speakers inside the car were cut, his knife stolen, and human feces found in his front seat.
"The defecation was very unorthodox," Ian Harkey said. "It was extremely rude. For them to even think to doing something like this to my car for me to pick up someone else's pile of crap."
"We felt safe for the year and half we have lived there until this exact moment," Harkey said.
"This is out of the blue and something like this happens and you are in shock," Buchanan said. "That is the real why I like living out here because it is so calm and not a lot of crime going on so something like this is really unexpected. "
ORIGINAL:
FARMINGTON, Ark. (KNWA) -- Police are investigating after someone slashed 18 tires and pooped in a car sometime between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
The Farmington Police Department says a total of eight vehicles were damaged in the vandalism spree.
The incidents took place in Valley View Estates on Rose Court.
The car that was pooped in also had a knife stolen from it and its speaker system damaged.NEW BRUNSWICK -- In an effort to confront its historical ties to slavery and address concerns raised by students, Rutgers University has compiled research that sheds new light on its beginnings, including an untold story of a slave who helped build the school's iconic Old Queens administration building.
Published in a book titled "Scarlet and Black," the detailed report released Friday coincides with the university's 250th anniversary this year and shows how intertwined slavery is with the early history of Rutgers, a common theme among America's colonial colleges.
The book combines previously documented history with some new details to paint a vivid picture of the university's relationship with slavery, a history largely unacknowledged by Rutgers until this year, university officials said.
"It's something that I think most people at Rutgers had no clue about," said New Brunswick campus chancellor Richard Edwards, who ordered the review last year after African American students raised concerns about the racial climate on campus.
Rutgers throws its own 250th birthday party
Though slavery was common and socially accepted when Rutgers was founded in 1766, the new book marks the first time Rutgers has chronicled its past in such depth, university officials said.
It comes as colleges nationwide are grappling with concerns about their historical ties to slavery and racism.
Among the highlights in the book:
Rutgers' first president owned slaves. Its first tutor owned slaves. And its namesake Henry Rutgers owned slaves, including the "negro wench" he supported in his will.
A slave named Will, leased for construction work by the New Brunswick doctor who owned him, helped lay the foundation for the Old Queens administration building in the early 1800s.
Famed abolitionist Sojourner Truth was originally owned by the family of Rutgers' first president.
Some early university trustees owned slaves and were among the most ardent anti-abolitionists in the mid-Atlantic region. Others were proponents of the colonization movement, which supported sending former slaves to Africa rather than allowing them to live alongside whites.
Rutgers' early faculty and curriculum reinforced the racism that justified slavery and the separation of races.
"Like most early American colleges, Rutgers depended on slaves to build its campuses and serve its students and faculty," the book states. "It depended on the sale of black people to fund its very existence," noting that donors who gave money or land to the university owned slaves.
The book also examines the displacement of Native Americans who once occupied land later transferred to Rutgers.
The committee of university professors and students that spent eight months combing through archived documents and compiling the report issued more than a dozen recommendations.
Among them, the group calls for the university to place historical markers on campus recognizing the contributions of enslaved individuals and to consider naming new buildings after prominent African Americans or Native Americans.
It proposes naming the space in front of Old Queens "Will's Way" and requiring all Rutgers students to take a course in diversity.
"The committee has explored aspects of our history that are difficult and complex and I applaud them for it," Rutgers President Robert Barchi said. "Their findings provide a fuller understanding of the institution's early days."
Rutgers will consider all of the suggestions, Edwards said. It will also continue its research and document the experiences of African Americans and Native Americans at the university through the 20th century.
"We must acknowledge that our history also includes some facts that we have ignored for too long," Edwards said after commissioning the report last year. "To truly praise Rutgers, we must honestly know it."
Unlocking the past
Edwards initiated the review at Rutgers after African American students told him about the 2013 book "Ebony and Ivy" during a meeting in 2015, he said.
Written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology history professor Craig Steven Wilder, the book examines how the birth of America's early colleges was associated with slavery. Several passages in the book mention trustees and leaders at Queen's College who owned slaves or supported the colonization movement.
"As we approached the 250th anniversary, it struck me that this is something we really needed to take a look at," Edwards said. "I thought it was really important for us to start examining it, documenting what the situation here at Rutgers was."
Quiz: How well do you know Rutgers?
Edwards commissioned a group of faculty, graduate students and undergraduates who sifted through records in Rutgers Libraries Special Collections and University Archives and the Sage Library at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary. They also traveled to the state archives in Trenton and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Students dove into the wills, speeches, journals and property records of Rutgers founders and early trustees. They read documents slave owners filed to grant freedom to the slaves and analyzed newspapers ads for the sale of slaves.
Beatrice Adams, a graduate student who participated in the research, said she was proud of the university for doing the project.
"This report speaks volumes, that this doesn't have to be something administrators and professors are doing begrudgingly," said Adams, a graduate student in African-American history.
The report helped bring the university's relationship with slavery out of the abstract and into reality, Edwards said.
"The history was all there," Edwards said. "But no one had really delved into it."
Perhaps the most interesting finding was the slave known only by his first name, Will, who helped lay the foundation for Old Queens, according to the book.
Little is known about Will's life, other than records of his labor. But accounting records kept by his owner and maintained in the university archives place him at the construction site of Old Queens in the fall of 1808, where he performed masonry work.
"I want our African-American students to be proud of Will and to understand that their ancestry helped build the university,'' said Deborah Gray White, the history professor who chaired the research committee. "I want New Jerseyans and Americans to understand that African-Americans were integral to this nation even though we came here in chains."
The book says that other slaves likely contributed to the construction of Old Queens but were not documented by name.
There's no known record of what happened to Will after 1823, and it's likely he was sold to another owner or ran away, the report concluded.
A shared story
The fact that the early leaders of Rutgers -- founded as Queen's College in 1766 -- were slave owners has been previously documented and was not unusual for the times, historians unaffiliated with the university said.
Slavery was widely accepted at the time in the 13 original colonies and prevalent in New Jersey since the arrival of Dutch colonists in the 1600s. Slaves in New Jersey commonly tended small farms, performed household chores or were rented for manual labor.
New Jersey was the last of the northern states to pass the gradual abolition of slavery in 1804, and some African Americans remained enslaved in the state into the 1850s, historians said.
"The institution (of slavery) was simply not frowned upon at that time," said Craig Hollander, a history professor at The College of New Jersey. "If you were a prominent citizen in New York or New Jersey and you had enough money to support the founding of an institution like Rutgers, my guess is that you also had enough disposable income to own other human beings."
Many of America's other colonial colleges were also founded by men who owned slaves and supported by wealthy families who profited from slavery. Several of the nation's oldest colleges, including Harvard, Yale and Brown universities, have also investigated their ties to slavery.
Though slavery was prominent in the north at the time Rutgers was founded, it's also commonly mischaracterized as benevolent or humane, said Jim Gigantino, a historian whose book "The Ragged Road to Abolition" examines slavery in New Jersey.
"There's kind of a myth that slavery in the north was benign, that it was somehow better or easier to be a slave in the north, that they were treated better," Gigantino said.
Northerners were often just as racist as the slave owners who lived in south, Gigantino said -- a sentiment reflected in the the comments of Rutgers' seventh president, Theodore Frelinghuysen.
Frelinghuysen, president from 1850 to 1862, described African Americans as "a depressed and separate race" who were "licentious, ignorant and irritated," according to the new book.
'History is messy'
Rutgers' exploration of its history comes as universities across the country have been pressured to reconcile how they honor the past within the social and political expectations of the 21st century.
Some students at the University of Missouri last year petitioned for a statue of President Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, to be removed, saying it represented "the dehumanization of black individuals."
The University of Louisville announced earlier this year it will remove a statue honoring Confederate soldiers. And Princeton University has promised "an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity" after criticism of its continued honoring of former university president Woodrow Wilson, who admired the Ku Klux Klan.
Georgetown University took the biggest step toward reconciling its past, announcing earlier this year that it would offer a formal apology for the sale of 272 slaves in the 1830s and offer preferential admissions status to descendants of all slaves who contributed to the university.
It also pledged to rename two buildings named after former college presidents involved in slave sales.
Rutgers, too, has buildings named after founding fathers who owned slaves on its campus, including a residence hall named after Jacob Hardenbergh, the university's first president.
Before moving to rename buildings, the university should consider the consequences, White said.
"We would like to open a dialogue and begin a discussion of what is lost and what is won in the renaming of a building," White said. "Do we really want to erase this history be erasing the name?"
Those types of decisions, historians said, can become complicated.
"History is messy," Hollander said. "And it's going to be for every institution to decide whether or not they want to hold past generations to certain standards."
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
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BUENOS AIRES – Jean-Eric Vergne has revealed that his role with Ferrari is set to change for the 2016 season, with an announcement due shortly.
Vergne joined Ferrari as a test and development driver for 2015 after spending three years in Formula 1 racing for Scuderia Toro Rosso.
The Frenchman balanced his role with a drive in Formula E, where he continues to race with DS Virgin Racing and will take part in this weekend’s Buenos Aires ePrix.
Speaking to MotorSportsTalk in Buenos Aires, Vergne was coy when asked about his role with Ferrari for 2016, but confirmed that it would change.
“Yeah, things will change a little bit. It’ll be announced quite soon,” Vergne said.
When pressed if this could see him fill the role vacated by Esteban Gutierrez at the team after his move to Haas, Vergne said: “We’ll see. Maybe.”
Looking ahead to this weekend’s Formula E race in Buenos Aires, Vergne admitted that he does not have high hopes due to the extra weight that the DS Virgin car is carrying.
“We are too heavy and we cannot get any lighter so we’re going to have a big extra weight for the rest of the season,” Vergne said.
“But nevertheless we’re going to make our maximum and we’re going to make some steps forwards because the guys in the team are extremely good, working really hard.
“We’re going to make our best and we’ll make some steps forward to try and fight the guys that win in FE all the time.”
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Most people remember the 2003 blackout, that sent NYC and much of the Northeast into darkness on a sultry August day. But it was nothing compared to the Blackout of 1977 during the frightening "Summer of Sam." On the 38th anniversary of the blackout, PBS will air a new American Experience feature, Blackout, with archival photographs and footage, plus interviews from those who lived through it; one recalls, "Buildings were burning. Cars were burning. Garbage in lots were burning."
The program takes you back into the bad, old days of the city, when New York teetering towards bankruptcy, unemployment was high, city employees were being laid off and the Son of Sam was a year and a half into his reign of terror. A thunderstorm on July 13, 1977 hit a power line in Westchester County and a cascade of problems occurred, as power demand surged on the other available lines. Con Ed ended up dumping customers off the grid to save the system—but the lights still went out.
Here's an exclusive clip from Blackout, which features Kevin Zraly, then wine director of Windows on the World, remember what he saw from the top of the World Trade Center, as NYC went dark around him during dinner service.
Exclusive Clip of 1977 Blackout Documentary... by Gothamist
The program's press notes note:
That night, in the city that never sleeps, the divide between the haves and the have-nots became ever more apparent. In some neighborhoods, there was conviviality, as diners at the Windows on the World restaurant in the World Trade Center were treated to free champagne and allowed to remove their jackets and ties. Helpful citizens took to the streets to direct traffic. Impromptu block parties broke out, and bartenders served patrons in T-shirts and shorts. Upper East Side residents had candlelit dinners on the roof.
But in the poorer neighborhoods of the city's boroughs, the power outage spurred near-immediate mayhem under the cover of darkness. As employees at Con Edison struggled to restore power to the elaborate system, people smashed windows and ripped security gates off storefronts, carting off washing machines, sofas, Pampers, TVs, refrigerators — whatever they could carry. By the time the power was fully restored more than a day later, more than 1,600 businesses had been looted, over 3,700 people had been arrested, and firefighters had battled more than 1,000 fires.
Executive producer Mark Samels says, "The 1977 blackout reminds us of how easily we take things for granted. We expect the lights to turn on, the garbage to be picked up, and the trains to run — all these systems keep our daily lives going. But when a city is plagued by crime, unemployment, reduced services, and growing anger, an event like a blackout can be the spark that ignites a fire. The thin crust of civilization is suddenly gone and we discover that urban life is much more fragile than we thought."
Blackout will air on PBS on July 14, 2015, at 9 p.m. EST. Check your local listings.DEA Official Spills the Beans on the Clinton Foundation
Without much comment or fanfare, I am going to present a note sent to me by a DEA informant who I had a great amount of contact with over two years ago. My long-time readers may recall that during the Central American immigration invasion, I had contact with two DEA agents working independently. The information provided to me has stood the test of time.
Everyone has to make up his/her mind as to the authenticity of this account. However, I want reiterate, I have had extensive contact with this person and their information has always been first rate.
Dear Mr. Hodges,
As you will recall, I had intermittent contact with you during the so-called Central American immigration crisis during May-July of 2014 in which I shared my experiences with you as a result of my work with the DEA.
I am sure you will recall that I introduced you to the inner workings of terrorist training base camps operating in El Salvador as well the planned influx of MS-13 trained assassins into the United States which was accomplished with the oversight of DHS. These forces will soon come into prominence in the coming weeks and months. We are going to see violence in this country on an unprecedented scale just as we are seeing in Europe with the Muslim immigration, the local police will be powerless to act because they are ultimately controlled by federal agencies like DHS who will roadblock normal law enforcement. I am telling you it is hard to not believe that the real goal is to perpetuate massive civil unrest so that more formal uses of governmental power can be brought to bear against and potential American dissident movement which has really mushroomed since the beginning of the Trump candidacy
My purpose for writing to you today is to let you know that I have contact with DOJ and in particular many FBI officials as a result of daily activities. I have to watch my ass and it is not as it was two years ago when we first communicated. I am determined to see the release of certain information prior to the election because I believe you and others are correct when you say, the criminal cabal that seems to have taken over key positions in our government are poised to change America and my children and yours will have to try and survive what is coming and then they will have live in this shit hole. I am playing this very close to the vest. Responding to this email will be pointless as all of our future conversations will have to remain one-sided but I am not writing anything that I do not want released. Please release everything I am sending to you.
To a person my colleagues feel betrayed by the present FBI Director and Attorney General, but I am telling you that Obama is controlling the activities through his appointed CIA operatives who have infiltrated the DOJ as well as military, generally, and the FBI, specifically. The tone of the influence is decidedly pro-“Radical” Muslim and anti-American in the traditional sense. This undue influence often seeks to perpetuate the activities of those people of privilege who seem to be beyond the reach of traditional law enforcement. Their activities include gun running and drug dealing. This has reached into your area because Maricopa County Sheriff Joe will be/is the victim of election fraud because the certain people want him out because he will not look the other way when it comes to cartel drug activity in Arizona which is key because Arizona is a border state.
Your reporting of the corrupt voting machines in your area seems to be correct but Arpaio is more of a target than Trump because he is an impediment to drug trafficking in your area. You have to remember that your Sheriff was at one time one of us, so we know what we are seeing. Yes- I am saying that Obama’s DOJ is protecting the drug dealers by going after Arpaio. The persecution of the Sheriff has nothing to do with the violations of the civil rights of immigrants and has everything to do with his refusal to cooperate with the Obama administration by looking the other way when it comes to both cartel and the intertwined activities of terrorists that have crossed our borders in great numbers since 2010.
Most will never know who these people are until they act. They live among us, work with us and their children even go to school our children. When they are arrested, DHS shows up to intervene and the issue is cloaked under the guise of racial prejudice and border agents and local law enforcement who are over-stepping their bounds. The police are so discouraged that they have basically given up. This is actually a case of thinly disguised criminal enterprise corruption and DHS always runs the interference. This is a lot of what you see in these inexplicable catch and release activities. The bigger the drug and gun fish that is apprehended, the quicker they are released to repeat the same actions.
A case in point from the past: Do you remember when Congressman Bridenstine tried to enter a holding facility for immigrants at Ft. Sill during the 2014 immigration crisis and he was told by DHS to come back and make an appointment? DHS was attempting to shield what was truly going on which was the introduction of foreign operatives into mainstream America. West African terrorists are also coming across our border with bad intentions, not just people from Central America and the Middle East. I have every indication that these forces are ready to unleash massive waves of destruction in our country as their drug activities have increased exponentially in the past several months. They are raising money for purposes that extend far beyond mere living expenses.
You have written that you expect the left to unleash terror attacks should Mrs. Clinton not win the election through whatever means is at her disposal. You are correct, but I think this may be a moot point. Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, the Foundation is the most criminal enterprise organization on the face of the earth. They avoid detection because of the use of their shell corporations which gives them at least 2-3 degrees of separation.
Sharing is caring!Kary Stewart looks at how feminists are championing women’s rights across the continent and beyond, and examines what is at the heart of gender inequality
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Gender equality remains a distant dream for women in Africa. Less than a third of all agricultural land in Africa is operated by women, nearly one in five of whom do not have access to contraception. In addition, almost a quarter of African women are likely to experience violence from their partners. Kary Stewart finds out how women have been working to bring about gender equality. There are contributions from Awino Okech, lecturer on gender studies at Soas, University of London; Jessica Horn, director of programmes for the African Women’s Development Fund; Patricia Isabella Essel, programme manager for Women in Law and Development in Africa; and Hakima Abbas, co-executive director of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.
This podcast was amended on 20 January to correct the job title of Hakima Abbas.Due to the worldwide promotion of Mirai botnet that knocked down half of the Internet last Friday, hackers and even script kiddies have started creating their own botnet networks by hacking millions of IoT devices and selling them as DDoS-for-hire service to overwhelm targets with data.A 19-year-old student from Hertford has pled guilty to running one such DDoS-for-hire service that shortly became one of the most popular DDoS booter tools in the market to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.Dubbed, the tool was used to conduct coordinated DDoS attacks around the world and brought Adam Mudd an income of more than US$385,000 (£315,000 A$505,000), |
grow prolifically, which resulted in an explosion of the deer mice population. The mice may have carried hantavirus for years, but suddenly many more mice were coming into contact with humans.
People became infected through contact with infected mice or their droppings. Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome has now been reported in 34 states. Through 2013, 637 cases were reported in the U.S., and approximately 230 people have died.
In 1999, the West Nile virus, transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, made its first appearance in the Western Hemisphere in New York, after a drought followed by heavy rains. Since then, over 1,600 people have died of the disease. This month, the number of reported cases of West Nile virus—1,993 including 87 deaths— is the highest year-to-date total since it arrived in the U.S., with Texas being hardest hit. A recent study suggests that in the future, higher temperatures and lower precipitation will lead to a higher probability of West Nile cases in humans, birds and mosquitoes.
Extreme weather events can produce a cascade of other effects that influence disease. Heat and droughts create dry conditions, providing fuel for forest fires that end up fragmenting forests and driving wildlife closer to humans. Droughts and floods affect crop yield, sometimes resulting in malnutrition, which makes people more vulnerable to disease while forcing them to find other food sources. Flooding can provide breeding grounds for insects and cause water contamination, leading to the spread of diarrheal diseases like cholera. Moreover, extreme weather can disrupt the finely tuned relationships between predators and prey, and competitors that keep pathogen-carrying pests like mice and mosquitoes in check.
Climate-sensitive diseases are also affected by the shorter-range climate impacts arising from El Niño, which occur when unusually warm sea surface temperatures develop off the Pacific coast of South America. Historically, El Niño events have resulted in drier and hotter than normal conditions in some areas and wetter and cooler than normal conditions in others, effects felt mostly in the tropics. An El Niño is predicted to occur this fall and to last until February 2015, likely bringing with it more rainfall and higher temperatures.
The Earth Institute’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) develops tools to monitor and predict epidemics, and uses high-level climate information to help societies, particularly in developing countries, understand and manage the impacts of both short and long-term climate. Madeleine Thomson, director of the IRI/PAHO-WHO Collaborating Centre for Early Warning Systems for Malaria and Other Climate Sensitive Diseases, oversees the public health activities at IRI.
One climate contribution to this work is Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS), an initiative developed by IRI and its partners. It is making high-quality climate data more available to decision makers in Africa, including those who are dealing with malaria. ENACTS reviews historical climate data to understand natural climate variability over time and monitors current climate, so that decision makers get an “early warning” about when climate effects could trigger malaria outbreaks and when malaria interventions should be implemented.
With a potential El Niño developing, there is an increased likelihood of higher than normal rainfall in East Africa in the next rainy season and malaria control agencies are already getting prepared. Some have shifted stocks of diagnostic tools and medicines out of reserves and made them more readily available, explained Thomson. “Once they get the early warning they can reach out to their donors and the government for more money, they can communicate with the community to use bed nets, to attend clinics if they are sick, and to get their children drugs on time. If there are concerns about an impending epidemic, they can also use insecticide spraying.”
When discussing the likely impact of climate change, Thomson explained that the time frame for decision makers who have to determine budgets and make plans is relatively short, maybe four or five years. Even for global policy, the time frame is at maximum maybe 10 to 20 years. “These are not climate change time frames,” said Thomson. “In terms of decision-making, they have to deal with short-term climate variability—especially for rainfall. The shift to warmer temperatures in highland areas, however, is linked to the larger climate system. It will impact vector-borne diseases, because when it’s warmer, the disease transmission system speeds up.”
Scientists recognize that climate is only one factor in the spread of disease. “Underdeveloped countries are so vulnerable to infectious disease because they are not able to protect themselves with good housing, good infrastructure, education, a sound health system, access to vaccines, and surveillance systems that track cases of disease,” said Thomson. “These vulnerabilities are the first problem—climate impacts on top of them just compound the problems.” In the U.S., we are better protected against the spread of disease by our high standard of living and strong surveillance systems.
The good news, said Thomson, is that there is a shift in awareness at the global level about the need to understand how climate change is affecting disease, and it is filtering down to local levels. The WHO’s first international conference on health and climate, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, at the end of August, is evidence of this growing awareness.A software bug in Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jet could cause the plane’s electrical system to fail, prompting a potential “loss of control” of the aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned.
The problem lies with the plane’s electrical generators if they are left on continuously for more than eight months.
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“A Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all alternating current electrical power due to the generator control units simultaneously going into failsafe mode,” the FAA stated in a directive “We are issuing this AD to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane.”The discovery of the flaw arises amid debate over the hackability of airplanes.In a story the stoked concern in the cybersecurity community, a professional white hat hacker was recently barred from boarding a United flight and questioned by the FBI after he joked on Twitter about releasing a plane’s oxygen masks via hack.Several models of aircraft have been found to be vulnerable to cyberattack, including the 787. In 2012, two experts discovered a “back door” in one of the jet’s chips that could be exploited by hackers.Boeing said all of its 787s currently in service have been turned on and off to avoid the latest vulnerability, and the company is working on a software update that will patch it.How can you tell whether a number is divisible by 7? Most everyone knows how to easily tell whether a number is divisible by 2, 3, 5, or 9. A few less know tricks for testing divisibility by 4, 6, 8, or 11. But not many people have ever seen a trick for testing divisibility by 7.
Here’s the trick. Remove the last digit from the number, double it, and subtract it from the first part of the number. Do this repeatedly until you get something you recognize as being divisible by 7 or not.
For example, start with 432. Split into 43 and 2. Subtract 4 from 43 to get 39. Since 39 isn’t divisible by 7, neither is 432.
For another example, start with 8631. Split into 863 and 1. Subtract 2 from 863 to get 861.
Now split 861 into Split into 86 and 1. Subtract 2 from 86. Maybe you recognize 84 as a multiple of 7. If not, double 4 and subtract from 8 to get 0, which is divisible by 7. Either way, we conclude that 8631 is divisible by 7.
Why does this work? Let b be the last digit of a number n and let a be the number we get when we split off b. That says n = 10a + b. Now n is divisible by 7 if and only if n – 21b is divisible by 7. But n – 21b = 10(a – 2b) and this is divisible by 7 if and only if a – 2b is divisible by 7.
What about the remainder when you divide a number by 7? Here’s where the rule for 7 differs from the more familiar divisibility rules. For example, a number is divisible by 3 if its digit sum is divisible by 3, and furthermore the remainder when a number is divided by 3 is the remainder when its digit sum is divided by 3. But the divisibility rule for 7 does not give the remainder when a number is divided by 7. For a simple example, the divisibility rule for 31 terminates in 1, but the remainder with 31 is divided by 7 is 3.
Why doesn’t the divisibility rule for 7 give the remainder? It is true that 10a + b and (10a + b) – 21b have the same remainder when divided by 7. But then we factored this into 10(a -2b). It’s true that 10(a – 2b) is divisible by 7 if and only if (a – 2b) is divisible by 7, but if neither is divisible by 7 then they will leave different remainders.
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For daily tweets on algebra and other math, follow @AlgebraFact on Twitter.Torture 'to continue at Iraq jails' BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Torture and grim conditions will continue in Iraqi prisons despite the election of a new government, human rights watchdog Amnesty International has declared. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/torture-to-continue-at-iraq-jails-28587195.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/article25745524.ece/e8f26/AUTOCROP/h342/World%20News%2010-1.jpg
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Torture and grim conditions will continue in Iraqi prisons despite the election of a new government, human rights watchdog Amnesty International has declared.
Its report described state-run detention cells as breeding grounds for systematic torture and sickness.
Torture and abuse has long been a part of Iraq's prisons system, going back to Saddam Hussein's regime before he was overthrown in 2003 by the invasion. It has since continued, even in American-run prisons, most notably at the Abu Ghraib detention centre outside Baghdad.
But US forces turned over full control of prisoners to Iraq's government last year, "without any guarantees that they will be protected," the Amnesty report states.
"There is every likelihood that torture and ill-treatment will remain widespread," it concluded.
An estimated 30,000 men and women are currently in Iraqi custody, including about 1,300 on death row.
In 2008 Iraq's parliament voted to join most of the rest of the world in banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners by signing onto the UN Convention Against Torture. But Iraq has still not filed its paperwork with the UN, and "there is no indication that the government intends to," the report said.
Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman said parliament intends to ratify the UN treaty, but has been too busy trying to stabilise Iraq to address it yet. "The convention enjoys the support of all political blocks and nobody rejected it in the previous parliament," he said.
The report follows a similar charge last week by Human Rights Watch that accused elite Iraqi troops controlled by Mr al-Maliki's office of holding prisoners at a secret jail and torturing inmates at another facility.
Mr Al-Maliki has denied the allegations, but they raised fresh concern about the government's treatment of detainees just six months after the US military handed over full responsibility for the prison system to the Iraqis as part of its preparations to withdraw from the country by the end of this year.
Press AssociationGoogle's ambitious efforts to bring balloon and aircraft-borne connectivity to underserved areas of the globe are pushing past some key milestones, and the company expects a public launch in a few years.
Both projects have captured the imagination of many for their ability to beam Internet signals from platforms high up in the sky to areas without cellular networks, but represent significant engineering challenges for Google -- just the kind of thing the company likes, said Sundar Pichai, a senior vice president at Google, speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The oldest and perhaps best known of the two projects, Project Loon, seeks to use balloons flying around 20 kilometers (65,000 feet) above the Earth to deliver Internet signals. The company's first experiments used a proprietary Wi-Fi signal but that's since changed to LTE cellular signals.
When Google first began launching the balloons two years ago, it couldn't manage to keep them up for more than about five days at a time, but now they are in the sky for as long as six months, delivering LTE signals directly to handsets on the ground. The range it can achieve with each balloon has quadrupled, he said.
"We think the model is really beginning to work," he said.
Google is working on tests of the technology with Vodafone in New Zealand, Telstra in Australia and Telefonica in Latin America.
A newer project called Titan is at the stage where Loon was a couple of years ago, said Pichai.
Titan relies on solar-powered airplanes that can stay aloft for long periods. Unlike the balloons, which will largely be propelled and steered by winds, the airplanes will have a greater degree of movement, he said.
"The planes can supplement in areas where we need extra capacity, such as during disaster relief," he said.
Combining the balloons and planes will result in a floating mesh of cell towers, delivering Internet connections to many areas of Earth, said Pichai. Or at least, that's the plan.
The planes are scheduled to make their first test flights in the next few months and Google will be working with cellular carriers around the world on their testing.
"You'll see a lot of progress in the next few years, that's the time frame," said Pichai when asked when the technology will move beyond testing.
He said it won't necessarily be limited to remote areas and could see use in developed nations.
"Even in places like the U.S., we've struggled with peak-demand situations," he said.
Google has two other projects that are bringing wired connectivity to urban areas. Google Fiber continues its expansion in the U.S. this year and Pichai said that Project Link, which has brought a high-speed telecommunications backbone to Kampala in Uganda will be expanded to "many more" countries in Africa this year.
Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.comFlexbox or CSS3 flexbox is a layout that provides an arrangement of multiple elements on a page so that these elements behave are able to behave predictably whenever a particular page layout accommodates different types of screen sizes and multiple display devices. Most of the application the flexible box model serves for an improvement that dominates the block model where it doesn’t use floats nor the flex container’s margins collapses with any margins of its contents. Moreover, much of the designs would find a flexbox model convenient to use. The child elements contained in a flexbox can be laid in the direction you want and would have flexible dimensions on the display space.
Flexbox is something that everyone is talking about. It surely can help solving many problems, and allow you completing your project easily. Well, if you are interested in learning flexbox, then you must check out these top 18 excellent resources for learning flexbox.
Flexbox- It gives a brief overlook on flexbox layout model that builds up your basic skills.
An overview as to how the flexbox can easily address some of the common layout designs patterns. These are the layouts that are difficult to implement using the traditional CSS box layout.
Over 94.57% of the browsers that are used nowadays are able in altering the flexbox layouts.
It discusses some outstanding strategies and multiple tools that help in implementing flexbox.
A complete guide with tons of graphics and many other CSS tricks.
Another detailed guide with live demos that teach you more about Flexbox.
Here you can get free video courses that are sent directly inside your mail box.
Take a 5 minutes tour to the core features of flexbox and other CSS properties.
This resource has been provided by Mozilla Developer Network who says that, “Most of the designers would consider it easier to use the flexbox model.”
It is one of the latest WC3 technical specifications of the flexbox.
It is an introduction at the Dev.Opera.
Learn how you can use flexbox on some of the most popular design patterns.
A great, yet an interactive guide on flexbox CSS properties.
Here you will find different examples on using flexbox in order to solve common layout problems faced by designers.
Here you will learn as to how the flexbox CSS properties can dramatically affect the page layout with this interactive tool.
Another interactive playground that helps in exploring the flexbox. It is very much necessary for beginners.
This interactive demo can help you in testing and experimentation with flexbox and its immense features.
A huge collection of content on flexbox and some extra tips and resources.Glyzelle Palomar, 12, looks at one of the rosaries Pope Francis gave her after she delivered a speech before him and thousands of youths at the University of Santo Tomas on January 18. Photo by Ryan Chua, ABS-CBN News
12-year-old victim of physical abuse hugged by Pope Francis after emotional speech
MANILA - For several days, she rehearsed the short speech she herself wrote, making sure it would come out perfectly during the big event. She will, after all, be speaking to the leader of her faith.
But just as 12-year-old Glyzelle Palomar was delivering the last line of her message to Pope Francis before thousands of youths on Sunday, she broke into tears.
"It was sudden," she told journalists after the Pope's encounter with the youth at the University of Santo Tomas. "I felt my throat ache and my tears just fell."
Palomar, who suffered physical abuse from her mother and is now under the care of the charity Tulay ng Kabataan, was among four people who delivered testimonies before the visiting pontiff in the well-attended program.
Palomar told Pope Francis of how some parents have neglected their children, and how those children have become victims of prostitution and drug addiction.
"Why is God allowing such things to happen," she said, her voice breaking and tears falling midway through the sentence, "even if it is not the fault of the children?"
After her speech, Pope Francis hugged Palomar and 14-year-old Jun Chura, a former street dweller who also delivered a message. The Pope also gave them rosaries.
"I'm very happy," Palomar said of her close encounter with the Pope. "He's like God."
"I also felt he was like my father. I no longer have a father," added Palomar, whose father died when she was younger.
Pope Francis drew points from Palomar's testimony in his message to the crowd of over 24,000 young people, doing away with his prepared speech.
Speaking in Spanish, Francis praised Palomar for having the courage to cry and urged Catholics to do the same.
"Today's world has a great lack of capacity of knowing how to cry," he said. "Let us learn how to weep as she has shown us today."
The Pope, the head of over 1 billion Catholics all over the world, said he had no answers to Palomar's question. But he underscored the role of crying in showing compassion, one of the themes of his apostolic and state visit.
"The great question of why so many children suffer, she did this crying," Pope Francis said, still referring to Palomar. "The response that we can make today is, let us learn how to weep, how to cry.
"If you don't learn how to cry, you can't be good Christians."
As in his previous speeches, Pope Francis put helping the poor at the core of his message to the youth.
The Argentinean pope is widely praised for his emphasis on helping the poor even before he assumed the papacy. When he was elected pontiff, he named himself after Francis of Assisi, a saint known for living a life of poverty.
"Do you think with the poor, do you feel with the poor, do you do something for the poor?" he said towards the end of his message to young Catholics in the Philippines, where poverty remains widespread despite recent economic gains.Okay..I did this just cause I can.
Plus it's been along time since I've done any FlashLight art.
Just to show you I'm not so lazy here's a short story...just cause I can.
Picture 1:
Twilight: Hey guys! have you seen Flash?
Applejack: Ey there birthday girl. Why are ya askin' for him for?
Twilight: Oh it's just that...well....I though he would be here to you know.....celebrate my birthday.
Pinkie Pie: Oh you mean that guy. He's there!
Twilight: Where!?
Flash: Here.
Twilight: Flash! I was-
Flash: I know....
Twilight: Well...umm....what do you think.
Flash:I think you look beautiful...like you always do
Twilight: Oh thanks.....
Flash: Hey Twilight....I actually got something for you.
Twilight: Oh! Really. Flash you shouldn't have-
Flash: Now close your eyes.
Twilight: Okay then.
Flash*Presses Twilight's lips gently*
Twilight: *Eyes emidietly flutter open*
Flash: *Lets go from kiss*..Happy Birthday Princess.
******************************************************
Picture two:
Flash: Okay so what are you trying to do.
Twilight: Husss....
Flash: Okay...what are you trying to do to me.
Twilight: Gosh Flash your so curiously impatien.
Flash: Well what can I say. I'm the Flash.
Twilight: That was chessey. Really cheesey.
Flash: Oh huss you love me.
Twilight: Yes...yes I do.
Flash: So what is this crime seen you've drag me into
Twilight: If you're saying a bright moon and glimmering starts a crime. Then you probably need a doctor.
Flash : But I already have one. And she's a Princess.
Twilight: Eww that sounds gross.
Flash: Hahaha. Okay so what do you want to do Princess
Twilight:...Remember that day you kissed me on my birthday....
Flash:Yeah
Twilight: Well...I was thinking of repaying back..your kiss
Flash: Who repays thier kiss back
Twilight: Oh shut up *kisses Flash*
Flash: *giggles*
***********************************
Yup...lazy af.Don't have any ideasssss. BluhhhhImage caption Unemployment is at the highest rate since the euro was launched in 1999
Unemployment in the eurozone hit a record high at the end of last year, the Eurostat agency has said.
The jobless rate in the 17 countries that use the single currency was 10.4% in December, unchanged from November's figure which was revised up from 10.3%.
Some 16.5 million people were out of work in the eurozone in December, up 751,000 on the year before.
The highest unemployment rate remains in Spain (22.9%), while the lowest is in Austria (4.1%).
Unemployment has been rising throughout 2011, as the debt crisis in the region has continued. In December 2010, the unemployment rate in the euro area was 10%.
Investment delays
Guillaume Menuet, economist at Citigroup, said he expected the number of people out of work to increase throughout 2012.
"If you think about the direction of employment expectations that you see across various business surveys, the outlook for employment doesn't look particularly enticing, simply because the uncertainty is very high.
"In many cases you find firms continuing to delay investment projects. For those that are still making profits, hiring is being frozen, and for those which are under pressure to hit results or losing money, job losses are becoming the only solution that they have," he said.
In the 27 EU countries, the unemployment rate was 9.9% in December, with 23.8 million people out of work. November's figure was also revised up from 9.8% to 9.9%.
The biggest increases over the past year were seen in Greece, Cyprus and Spain.
The largest falls took place in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Deteriorating situation
The issue of jobs and economic growth was a key area for discussion at this week's summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
On Monday, figures showed that the Spanish economy shrank by 0.3% in the last quarter of 2011. It is now widely expected that Spain will enter recession in the first quarter of this year.
Also on Monday, France cut its growth forecast for this year to 0.5% from 1% "to take into account the deterioration of the economic situation".
At the Brussels summit, 25 of the 27 member states agreed to join a fiscal treaty, aimed at much closer co-ordination of budget policy across the EU to prevent excessive debts accumulating.
The UK and the Czech Republic did not sign up to it. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said he had "legal concerns" about the use of EU institutions in enforcing the treaty, while the Czechs cited "constitutional reasons" for their refusal.Story highlights CIA has said contractors not required to sign nondisclosure forms about Benghazi
But questions are raised about the timing, intent of the forms
Contractors who responded to terror attacks in Libya tell their story to Congress
Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed
CIA contract security officers who responded to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, last year were told by the CIA to sign nondisclosure agreements just before a memorial ceremony at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, this past May, a congressional source told CNN.
The source says this was disclosed by the contractors during closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill this week, and it seems to contradict information sent by CIA Director John Brennan to the House Intelligence Committee investigating the events in Benghazi.
The CIA has repeatedly denied reports by CNN that the CIA has tried to prevent its personnel from talking to members of Congress investigating the September 2012 Benghazi attacks.
When it was first reported by CNN, Brennan released a letter showing that he strongly encouraged CIA operatives to cooperate with congressional investigators. Brennan even went so far as to directly answer a question from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers who, in a September 3 letter to the CIA director, specifically asked this question:
"Has any officer, either staff of contractor, been required to sign any nondisclosure agreement because of their presence at Benghazi or their participation in any activity related to the Benghazi attacks?"
Brennan's answer: "No."
CIA contract operatives testifying before a classified House Intelligence subcommittee on Wednesday and Thursday directly contradicted Brennan's answer, a congressional source told CNN.
CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz told CNN that "there is absolutely no contradiction."
"CIA contractors routinely sign secrecy agreements, which are standard forms. No CIA officer has ever signed a secrecy agreement that referenced Benghazi or that prohibited them from talking to Congress," Ebitz said in a statement.
"In fact, CIA secrecy agreements specifically note an officer's right to bring issues to the attention of Congress. Furthermore, Director Brennan extended to all Benghazi survivors an invitation to speak to Congress and indicated the Agency would support their interaction. Several have spoken to CIA's oversight committees."
All five operatives were part of a security team hired by the CIA to protect its operations during missions in Libya.
The official nondisclosure forms did not specifically mention the Benghazi investigation, but the source told CNN, "There is not a person in Washington, D.C. who doesn't understand why the forms were put in front of these people."
The Weekly Standard first reported the signing of additional nondisclosure agreements on Thursday.
Mark Zaid, an attorney representing three of the CIA contractors, told the Weekly Standard, "There is no doubt that the NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) would not have been presented to them had it not been for Benghazi. That is their impression and my analysis based on 20 years of experience."
Zaid continued, "the NDAs in no way changed the legal landscape. They had already signed NDAs that bound them to certain obligations. These new ones were legally unnecessary."
The CIA contractors told to sign the nondisclosure agreements were attending a memorial service for Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, two CIA operatives who died in the Benghazi attacks.
This week, the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight met to hear closed-door testimony from the former security agents.
Though the testimony is secret, the congressional source with inside knowledge of the hearing told CNN, "There now appears to be serious discrepancies" between what the CIA has officially reported to Congress and what the witnesses are telling members of the committee.
CNN has learned a rescue team of five CIA operatives were armed and ready to respond to the terrorist attack within minutes of the first radio communication from Ambassador Christopher Stevens' compound, but CNN sources say the agents were told to stand down.
The allegation was first raised last year, after which the CIA told Congress there was no order to stand down. The CIA has said "no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."
Members of the House Intelligence Subcommittee believe they need to have more information to determine why a discrepancy now exists between the would-be rescuers on the ground and the official reports from the CIA.
The agents eventually did respond to the attack, pulling off a heroic attempt to save U.S. State Department officials who were under siege.
Intelligence officials explained last year that there was a roughly 25-minute gap from the initial call for help to when half a dozen officers were able to make a move -- and that the delay was due to the time it took to load weapons and equipment and coordinate with friendly militias.Remember when Lady Gaga was virtually infallible? When critics and fans bowed at her altar, and even detractors couldn’t begrudge her the stranglehold of influence (and if not necessarily influence, definitely uncontested saturation) on pop culture? I ask if you remember because it seems that for Gaga, that’s all we have left: the memories.
No one gives a fuck about Lady Gaga anymore. Last week, she released her 11-minute, 46-second epic “Artpop Film” for the track “G.U.Y,” and almost no one gave a shit. The video has just over 23 million views at the time of writing—a number that’s likely to grow, but based on the performance of her last video epic, “Marry The Night,” it won’t likely be by much—but also one that’s disappointing for Gaga in the wake of contemporaries like Katy Perry and Beyoncé, whose videos have amassed 165 million (“Dark Horse”) and 129 million (“Drunk In Love”) views respectively. Even Jennifer Lopez’s recently released video “I Luh Ya Papi” has pulled in 17 million views, and J.Lo doesn’t even have a fun nickname for her fans. Considering none of these other videos are a performance epic to rival Gaga’s, which was filmed at Hearst Castle, that’s got to be pretty frustrating for the Gaga-sphere. I mean, all Bey did was dance on a beach.
Comparisons aside, did you even know Lady Gaga released “G.U.Y.” last week? The video fell almost completely under the radar as sites that would usually dedicate full posts to The Life and Times of Mother Monster relegated the “G.U.Y.” video to “New This Week”style list posts, or didn’t even bother to mention it at all. It seems as though Lady Gaga, one of the most widely watched and critiqued pop icons of this generation, has been deemed unworthy of the news cycle, at least as far as her “art” is concerned.
Lady Gaga is flailing. She’s drowning, not waving. Which really sucks for her, because she’s an amazingly talented artist. If you don’t believe me just watch this video of her singing “Hair” on Howard Stern, which I’ve just re-watched and teared up over. At the most base level, without any of the accoutrements, Lady Gaga is an accomplished, capable, and passionate performer. Somehow however, that very rare fact has been lost, and possibly suffocated, beneath a menagerie of wigs and the oiled, fetishized bodies of her many dancers.
My personal obsession with Gaga began when I saw her in concert nearly four years ago, and I was struck by the depth of her skills on stage. She was completely mesmerizing, her songs were infectious, and I danced and screamed along like I’d been born that way. Lady Gaga is fascinating in a way most other pop stars aren’t—save for maybe someone like Ke$ha—because she’s the dark horse. She’s the girl in high school who smoked cigarettes behind the bike shed, and who walked the halls under the protective hurricane of rumors and speculation about her life, her family, her backstory, constantly swirling around her.
But now, Lady Gaga just seems... boring. The arbiters of think-piece material don’t seem to care about her anymore, and even more worryingly, nor do the social pages and gossip blogs. She’s fading into a “meh”-ness that goes against her whole body of work. Here are a few reasons why:
THE “G.U.Y.” VIDEO IS OBJECTIVELY BORING
Gaga’s “G.U.Y.” video is a loose metaphor on womanhood, misogyny, capitalism, her Jesus complex, etc. It’s full of predictable Gaga motifs and overused allegory. It begins with her as a sexy harpy thing, being shot down by some greedy men in suits who seem to be stealing her money (don’t ask me where bird Lady Gaga carried all the money, she doesn’t even seem to have a bag). Anyway, this montage carries on for almost three full minutes, as wounded bird-Gaga crawls back to her big gay palace to be resurrected, like Christ, because why not, and rejoin the big gay party happening in every room of her mansion.
There’s a terrible skit in the middle where Gaga references the Greek Gods and says some less than profound stuff about sexuality, which is further proof that skits should be left to the professionals—90s R&B artists. The video devolves into some yawn-inducing choreography, which we’ve seen a thousand times from Gaga and again, acts as a compelling argument that choreographed dancing should be left to the professionals—Beyoncé and Ciara, exclusively.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills appear for a bit as a cutesy folk band, singing “G.U.Y.” in lieu of Gaga, which is totally besides the point because who the fuck even knows who these women are? The only reason I know is because I Googled it for this article. While trying to be ironically twee, Gaga slips easily into irrelevance. She also pulls out some visuals we’ve seen done recently—and better—by her contemporaries. Dancing around in a weird teddy bear cut out, she’s a poor-man’s Miley, and in her Egyptian-themed mansion, she recalls Katy’s “Dark Horse.”
The video ends with a weird sexy dance that looks more like a long commercial for jeans, and if you made it to the 7:38 minute mark, you probably won’t even have noticed the song itself, which is also objectively terrible. The final four minutes of the video are the credits—which apparently mention everyone Gaga has ever met—played off to the tune of another of her new insufferable songs, “Manicure.”
In sum, no one cares about the “G.U.Y.” video because it sucks, which is a completely fair reason not to care about something.
SHE’S SORT OF NORMAL NOW
One of the most compelling things about Gaga was the ambiguity of her sex, and the way she sold sexuality on this bizarre spectrum in which as “weird” increased, so too did “nude." On the other end of the graph, “weird” also increased in direct proportion to “clothed." Weird always permeated everything Gaga did, so she was never sexy in the way you’re conditioned by pop to expect a woman to be sexy, and the way many of her contemporaries are. She bridged the gap between Madonna and Miley, championing the un-sexy sex thing in the post 00s flat-abbed super-tan era of sexy sex thing pop stars had been doing once we fell out of touch with Madonna’s original vision for female sexuality.
In “G.U.Y.," and in many of her recent public appearances, however, Gaga does conventional sex. And while she does it well, it’s not why people flock to the Haus of Gaga. No one has ever wanted or even asked Gaga to be properly sexy—we’ve been giving her a standing ovation for challenging those notions with her alternative aesthetics (while still being hot as hell). I don’t think anyone ever wanted to see Gaga in a blonde wig, porcelain-perfect make-up, regular lingerie, and men’s magazine poses. It’s just so uninteresting, and so much less interesting when someone who was previously so interesting engages with it.
SHE’S ADVANCED HERSELF TO POP DEMI-GODDERY WITHOUT A MANDATE TO DO SO
Beyoncé and Madonna are the only active performers that belong in “Pop Goddess” club. Britney, maybe, but only maybe. Gaga, for some reason, felt it necessary to proclaim herself in this category, with all her Jesus motifs and posturing in the “Artpop” world she’s attempted (and failed) to create. Self-anointing herself as an immortal in the pop world wasn’t Gaga’s wisest decision—it’s hard work, the eventual upheaval of some sort of status quo (Madonna revolutionized sex for women in music, Beyoncé revolutionized what it even means to be a woman, and Britney, if you want to include her, weirdly enough, changed the type of music we expect women in pop to perform, taking on a sound that before her was reserved for boy bands), and trial by fire in the court of public opinion, that allow you to ascend to pop Asgard. It’s little surprise that the public has rejected Gaga’s notion that she belongs with the legends, and the saddest part is that had she held her horses, she may have made it there eventually.
HER MUSIC ISN’T EVEN GOOD ANYMORE
Once upon a time, Lady Gaga made amazing pop music. “You & I” (written by Gaga), is one of the best, and most underrated pop songs of the past decade, perhaps ever. It’s an incredible arrangement that pairs her bluesy vocal with unadulterated piano, and just a smattering of |
When you need advice on a subject, you go to an expert.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo did just that when he had a policy meeting on the subject of how cops enforce the laws with hip-hop mogul Jay Z–who earned most of his expertise in crime as a crack dealer.
The governor’s spokeswoman, Melissa DeRosa, on Wednesday described their confab in Cuomo’s Midtown office as “productive.’’
The two discussed “a top-to-bottom review of the criminal justice system and how we can all work together to pass a reform package,” she said.
The rapper built his musical career on songs about his past criminal exploits slinging crack in Brooklyn’s Marcy housing project.
One online report lists 187 references to crack or cocaine on his 12 solo albums, including last year’s chart-topping “Magna Carta Holy Grail.”
In addition to his rap boasts about drug dealing, his criminal justice experience includes being charged with stabbing people and bashing them on their heads with bottles at his favorite city nightclubs.
{snip}
In addition to meeting with Jay Z, Cuomo has conferred in recent days with NYPD union chief Pat Lynch and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, DeRosa said.
During a Wednesday news conference outside City Hall, Simmons said Cuomo “made a commitment to immediately promote an executive order to get special prosecutors for any of these cases where police brutality is charged.”
“Today is the beginning of the end of police policing police,” the Def Jam Recordings co-founder added.
A rep for Cuomo disputed Simmons’ account of their conversation, saying, “While the governor didn’t promise to appoint an interim special prosecutor, the two discussed the possibility–among others–and a range of options to take up during the legislative session.”
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisHarry Forrester scored eight times in 44 games for Rangers
AFC Wimbledon have signed Rangers midfielder Harry Forrester on a season-long loan deal.
The 26-year-old joined Rangers in January 2016 from Doncaster and went on to make 44 appearances, half of which came in the Scottish Premiership.
"Harry brings a quality going forward that we need a little bit more of," said assistant manager Neil Cox.
"His goalscoring record is good, he's played at a higher level and he just wants to get started."
Forrester was on the books of Northampton, Watford and Aston Villa as a junior but made his breakthrough in senior football during a loan spell at Kilmarnock.
He joined Brentford in 2011, playing 69 times, and then had a two-and-a-half-year spell at Doncaster.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.The Redknapp touch
van Menon FOLLOW CONTRIBUTOR Humor 1.21K // 31 Oct 2011, 01:01 IST SHARE Share Options × Facebook Twitter Flipboard Reddit Google+ Email
The Greek God Dionysus granted a Phyrgian king a very powerful power. This was in return for sparing his satyr Silenus who was dozing in the Phyrgian king’s vineyard. Now, not all of us are familiar with Greek mythology, but surely most of us have encountered this particular king, Midas. It is from this tale that we get the phrase “the Midas touch”, the ability to turn things into gold on touch. Used idiomatically in modern times, it is not unusual to hear of someone having “the Midas touch”. For a second though, I ask you to ponder what if someone had something akin to the Midas touch, but not quite?
Enter Henry James Redknapp, currently whiling away his time managing Tottenham FC. Redknapp possesses not so much “the Midas touch” as the complete opposite of it. And what works for him is that most of the time he manages to punch above his level, building skyscrapers on needles for foundation before walking away and letting it all fall to pieces.
Our dear man has plied his trade at four clubs – Bournemouth, West Ham, Porstmouth (twice) and Southampton – prior to joining Tottenham and each time he’s managed to leave a distinct Redknapp aftertaste.
Redknapp began his managerial career at Bournemouth, with the club struggling to stay afloat in the Third Division. Within a couple of seasons, Redknapp had led Bournemouth to the Third Division title in 1986/87 with 97 points. By the late eighties, Bournemouth were finishing solidly in mid-table in the Second Division and a shot at the First Division did not seem too far off.
After a bit of shuffling around at West Ham, Redknapp took over from Billy Bonds as manager in 1994. With the team struggling to keep pace in the Premiership, Redknapp managed to lead them to a fifth place finish in 1999. Fast forward to 2002 and he was managing Portsmouth, with the Pompey faithful relying on Harry to get them out of the – no surprises here – relegation zone. Managing that in spectacular fashion, and again in 2006 Redknapp went on to win more hearts as Pompey manager when he led them to their first FA cup win in 69 years. Now, he manages the lads at Tottenham and in his second season in charge he’d already led them to their first Champions League campaign.
But, silly me, I forgot to mention how all those managerial campaigns ended. Bournemouth were faced with injury troubles and struggled to stay in the Second Division, being relegated in 1990. Redknapp left in 1992 and therein begins the first signs of the Redknapp touch. The club pulled off a “great escape” to stay in the league while still remaining in ruins financially. The state was so bad that even the club’s website says, “If the Cherries had won no games whatsoever during the
1997-98 season, it would really not have mattered too much. The mere fact that the club was there was what mattered.” Recently, they went into administration in 2007-08 and were almost relegated from the football league the next season. Currently, they are kicking it around in League One.
West Ham fired Redknapp in 2001 and were promptly relegated two seasons later with a record 42 points. The club managed to get back to the Premiership for 8 years but were relegated last season and now play in the Championship. In between the Portsmouth stints, Redknapp managed Southampton and failed to keep them in the Premiership, relegating them after 27 years. After he left, they went into administration and were relegated as far back as League One. Last season, they clinched promotion to the Championship. Portsmouth, the last in the list, also went into administration and were relegated to the Championship, which is where they are now. As for Tottenham, they’re still awaiting the Redknapp touch to take hold.
Everyone knows his England ambitions and sure, he may not be your typical manager, but when you’re Redknapp, you don’t need all those fancy “tactics” and “formations” and what not. For they just dampen his style – he just needs the Redknapp touch.It's easy to believe that self-driving cars are right around the corner. Ford plans to launch a fully-autonomous car with no manual controls in 2021, and Lyft has said it will give 1 billion rides per year in autonomous electric cars by 2025. But the first generation of truly autonomous cars could cost $300,000 to $400,000 apiece, Austin Russell, CEO of Silicon Valley startup Luminar, said in a recent interview with Axios.
Russell, who is only 22 years old, started Luminar to develop better lidar sensors for self-driving cars. He says the technology hasn't progressed as far as some analysts claim.
"People think that they'll go and buy autonomous cars. That's not going to reflect reality," Russell said. Current lidar systems simply aren't reliable enough, he said, and making them more reliable will drive up costs.
Current systems have a "critical failure rate"—how often they fail to "see" an object—of one error in 1,000 miles. To be acceptable for use on public roads, that rate will have to drop to one in 5 million miles, Russell said. But lidar hasn't achieved a significant performance improvement "in decades," he said.
Instead of focusing on improving performance, lidar developers have concentrated on bringing down costs, in order to make the technology more attainable, Russell said. But he believes companies should pay more attention to optimizing the technology, which will drive up costs. That will make fully-autonomous cars too expensive for most people to own, Russell predicted.
Cars with partial autonomy may be more widely available, while the majority of people will get their first ride in a fully-autonomous car through a ride-sharing service. Large fleet operators will be better able to shoulder the cost of the technology, Russell said.
That scenario isn't too different from the plans of many companies developing self-driving cars. Initially, Ford plans to use them in ride-sharing exclusively, and Uber and Lyft are two of the most aggressive proponents of autonomous driving. Analysts predict the combination of autonomous driving and ride-sharing will be more transformative than either factor would be on its own. But if self-driving cars really do cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit, that could still limit the number companies are willing to put on the road—and slow the transition from human to autonomous driving.This article by Anne Nicol Gaylor originally appeared on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The first legislative hearing I ever attended was in the mid-1960’s at the Wisconsin capital, and the subject was the modernization of Wisconsin’s birth control law. Wisconsin, the last state in the country to legalize contraceptives for unmarried persons, had a law until 1974 that was hostile to birth control for anyone and denied it to the unmarried, no matter what the circumstances. A fifty-year-old widower, for example, could not legally buy a condom.
Toward the end of the hearing, which had featured calm and reasonable presentations by professional people who supported liberalization of the law and emotional outbursts about morals from clergy and Catholic matrons opposed to change, a frail, elderly man took the podium. He explained that he was an atheist concerned with separation of state and church, and that he regarded the birth control issue as one where the Catholic Church was imposing its doctrine on the state, an observation that resulted in immediate uneasiness among the legislators hearing testimony, especially the Catholic chairperson. The atheist then began a brief summary of the historic problems of state-church entanglement, citing the bloodshed and wars in European history that were religion related. When he referred to religion’s role in World War II and Adolf Hitler’s Catholicism, the chairman of the committee became enraged, and, in a red-faced frenzy struck his gavel repeatedly until the elderly man tremblingly left the podium.
For some reason, Catholics are not eager to claim Hitler.
Even today, when I refer to Hitler’s Catholicism in conversation or a speech, it immediately becomes apparent that I have said something “not quite nice,” and I am often challenged. Nontheists, I then explain, know that many modern tyrants, whether petty tyrants such as Richard Nixon, or more successful tyrants such as Hitler, have regarded themselves as exemplary Christians, an estimate their followers had no trouble accepting. Hitler’s religiosity — he was a Catholic until his death — is often glossed over, but it is critical in understanding his motivation.
I have often reflected, wistfully, on how much happier modern history might have been had Hitler been brought up as an atheist, an agnostic, or, at least, a Unitarian. Born and bred a Catholic, he grew up in a religion and in a culture that was anti-semitic, and in persecuting Jews, he repeatedly proclaimed he was doing the “Lord’s work.”
You will find it in Mein Kampf: “Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s Work.”
Hitler said it again at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926: “Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews … The work that Christ started but could not finish, I — Adolf Hitler — will conclude.”
In a Reichstag speech in 1938, Hitler again echoed the religious origins of his crusade. “I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”
Hitler regarded himself as a Catholic until he died. “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so,” he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941.
There was really no reason for Hitler to doubt his good standing as a Catholic. The Catholic press in Germany was eager to curry his favor, and the princes of the Catholic Church never asked for his excommunication. Religions encourage their followers to hold authority in unquestioning respect; this is what makes devout religionists such wonderful dupes for dictators.
When Hitler narrowly escaped assassination in Munich in November, 1939, he gave the credit to providence. “Now I am completely content,” he exclaimed. “The fact that I left the Burgerbraukeller earlier than usual is a corroboration of Providence’s intention to let me reach my goal.” Catholic newspapers throughout the Reich echoed this, declaring that it was a miraculous working of providence that had protected their Fuhrer. One cardinal, Michael Faulhaber, sent a telegram instructing that a Te Deum be sung in the cathedral of Munich, “to thank Divine Providence in the name of the archdiocese for the Fuhrer’s fortunate escape.” The Pope also sent his special personal congratulations!
Later the Pope was to publicly describe Hitler’s opposition to Russia as a “highminded gallantry in defense of the foundations of Christian culture.” Several German bishops openly supported Hitler’s invasion of Russia, calling it a “European crusade.” One bishop exhorted all Catholics to fight for “a victory that will allow Europe to breathe freely again and will promise all nations a new future.”
Biographer John Toland wrote of Hitler’s religion: “Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god — so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty. Himmler was pleased to murder with mercy. He ordered technical experts to devise gas chambers which would eliminate masses of Jews efficiently and ‘humanely,’ then crowded the victims into boxcars and sent them east to stay in ghettos until the killing centers in Poland were completed.”
Jews, of course, were not the only “holy” victims. In Yugoslavia, Hitler installed a Croatian, Ante Pavelic, as his puppet, and Pavelic, a Catholic like Hitler, began extermination of the Serbs, who were Greek Orthodox. One of my relatives by marriage is a Yugoslavian, a Serb, who survived World War II by going “underground” with the advent of Nazism in his country. Out of his immediate family of 17 (this includes his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and first cousins), only three survived. His mother and sister just disappeared, his mother shortly after being given the opportunity to convert to Catholicism, an offer she refused. The Vatican was not unaware of the massacres conducted in Yugoslavia in the name of Catholicism, but Pope Pius remained diplomatically quiet. In fact, one of his actions was to receive Ante Pavelic in private audience, thereby giving his blessing to this regime.
War’s causes, of course, are complex, but it would be difficult to overestimate the disastrous role religion played in World War II. Distrust, fear and hatred of Jews was a lesson Hitler learned early in life. It was taught by his church and reinforced by his culture. It became his obsession, his version of “the Lord’s work.” That Hitler, that supreme villain of the 20th century, could see himself, and be seen by others, as “providentially” guided, protected and inspired should certainly serve as an ominous clue to the dangers of religious belief. Just as the Vatican umbrella could be maneuvered to shield the massacres of Serbs by Catholics in Yugoslavia, so can religion validate any behavior, any atrocity, any war.
Anne Nicol Gaylor (1926 – 2015) was an American atheist and reproductive rights advocate. She co-founded the Freedom from Religion Foundation and an abortion fund for Wisconsin women. She wrote the book Abortion Is a Blessing and edited The World Famous Atheist Cookbook. In 1985 Gaylor received the Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association, and in 2007 she was given the Tiller Award by NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Nazi War Criminal and Roman Catholic Cardinal Stepinac
Christopher Hitchens – Hitler, Fascism and the Catholic Church
Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church
Be sure to ‘like’ us on FacebookFirst, OSTree v2014.1 is out! Nothing earthshaking, but I’m happy with some of the fixes and features there.
One thing that’s absolutely fundamental about OSTree is that it forces one to name complete filesystem trees. While the system does not mandate any convention (they’re just strings), you have seen some examples in previous posts, like gnome-continuous/buildmaster/x86_64-devel-debug and fedostree/20/x86_64/base/minimal. Here the “OS” name starts first, and after that, you can choose whatever format you want. Now, traditional dpkg/rpm packages are names for partial filesystem trees (plus some metadata and scripts that run as root). When they’re assembled via a package manager onto the root partition of your drive, that collection is not normally named – what you have is an anonymous, and very often unique, custom set of packages.
There are of course efforts in various package systems and GNU/Linux distributions to attempt higher level management of software beyond “set of packages”. In Debian, metapackages are common. In Fedora, there is comps.
I could talk for quite a while about the management differences between the metapackage vs comps approaches, particularly after YumGroupsAsObjects. But suffice to say that I think both suffer badly from being glued on top of the “set of packages” model. In many cases they end up making things more complex, not less. Here is a blog entry that describes how Debian’s metapackages clash badly with another tool which tries to remove “unused” packages. From my observations in the Fedora context, comps groups are mainly used for initial system installation (in Anaconda) and early set up perhaps you do yum install @virtualization after installing a workstation.
How OSTree is less flexible, but more rigorous
With OSTree, you can say something like “I’m running fedostree/20/x86_64/base/minimal”. This is a name for a filesystem that was replicated from the rpm-ostree build server – and it is immutable. OSTree itself comes with no application mechanism, or even the ability to layer trees. So this is a far stronger and more rigorous description of the contents of your (visible) root filesystem.
For example, with the current rpm-ostree, if I remove a package from products.json, then it drops out of the filesystem tree composed on the server side, and thus will also disappear when clients upgrade. It’s really quite simple. The problem of removing old, unused packages is a messy subject in package systems like dpkg/rpm – it’s painful at the distribution level with things like Obsoletes, and if you are a downstream consumer of the distribution, if you installed a package at some point on your servers that you want no longer installed, your best bet is to use something like Puppet to assert that packages are removed.
Now, you still may be thinking “OSTree sounds cool, but I want to be able to install things!”.
Downstream tree construction and naming custom trees
I mentioned in the previous post that I plan to implement a feature like yum-ostree install strace, which would assemble a new filesystem tree from packages (just like rpm-ostree does the server side), and set it up for the next boot. But an interesting question arises – how should I name this filesystem tree? We could represent “install” by appending the string “+strace” to our current tree; so we might end up with a tree named “fedostree/20/x86_64/base/minimal+strace”. Now obviously this doesn’t scale really far – and perhaps leads us back towards wanting e.g. a “tracing-and-debugging-tools” metapackage (or comps group); if you care to install strace, why not also perf? With Fedora’s comps, it’s actually quite nice that we have a reserved symbol “@” and a distinct namespace from the normal package set. So we could synthesize a name like “fedostree/20/x86_64/base/minimal+@tracing”.
What I’m going for here really is that I’d like to cut down on the combinatoric complexity of packages by emphasizing layering over arbitrary additions and removals. This doesn’t mean that we need to completely restrict the system to layering – one could clearly implement yum-ostree remove X (for naming, append e.g. “-X” to the tree name). The lowest OSTree level lets you put whatever filesystem trees you want in it. But for many cases where people want to do this kind of thing, we can turn it into configuration instead of system manipulation. For example, using systemctl mask firewalld.service over yum remove firewalld. If something is supported via system configuration, we should prefer doing that rather than creating new filesystem trees; it’s more efficient and safe to replicate a pre-built tree that’s been tested and known to work, then add configuration.NEW YORK – The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday conducted a two-hour session with HSBC whistleblower John Cruz in its investigation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch’s role in the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute the banking giant for laundering funds for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists, WND sources have confirmed.
WND was first to report in a series of articles beginning in 2012 charges by Cruz, a former HSBC vice president and relationship manager, based on his more than 1,000 pages of evidence and secret audio recordings.
The staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee focused Wednesday on Cruz’s allegations, first reported by WND Feb. 6, that Lynch, acting then in her capacity as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, engaged in a Department of Justice cover-up. Obama’s attorney general nominee allowed HSBC to enter into a “deferred prosecution” settlement in which the bank agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine and admit “willful criminal conduct” in exchange for dropping criminal investigations and prosecutions of HSBC directors or employees.
On Feb. 12, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had decided to postpone the Senate vote on Lynch’s confirmation until the last week of February, when Congress returns from the Presidents Day recess. The decision is widely attributed to allowing Vitter and the Senate Judiciary Committee staff time to pursue the allegations concerning Lynch’s role in the HSBC scandal.
Read the explosive backstory inside the HSBC scandal – how WND first exposed the massive money-laundering scheme, the fallout from the eye-popping discovery and the role Loretta Lynch played in “Launder-gate.”
Cruz called the $1.9 billion HSBC fine “a joke,” explaining to WND that HSBC bank auditors had told him in 2009 that senior managers and compliance officers in New York were fully aware the London-headquartered bank was engaged in a criminal scheme to launder money internationally for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists.
“The auditors warned me investigating the money laundering could cost me my job,” Cruz said. “The auditors told me in 2009 that nobody in the bank was going to go to jail and that HSBC had already put aside $2 billion in reserves to pay the fine they somehow had reason to suspect back then that the Department of Justice would demand to settle the case.”
Cruz argued that a $1.9 billion fine of an international bank the size of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, the official name of HSBC, amounted to no more than “a few days operating profit.” He described it as “a cost of doing business” once HSBC had decided to launder money for international criminals.
Senate investigators to hear HSBC recordings
Confidential sources in Washington confirmed to WND that Jason Foster, the chief investigative counsel at the Senate Judiciary Committee, was directing the investigation into Cruz’s allegations against Lynch.
Cruz’s charges and documentation were brought to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, before the senator announced Feb. 11 that he was opening his own investigation of Lynch.
Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.
Foster is considered on Capitol Hill to be one of the Senate’s best, most experienced investigators. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he had more than 15 years experience directing fact-finding inquiries for the Senate Committee on Finance, Senate Homeland Security Committee and the House Committee on Government Reform, before becoming chief investigative counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2011.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s staff questioning of Cruz and his attorney focused on approximately 1,000 pages of HSBC customer account records that Cruz turned over to WND early in 2012. The records were pulled from the HSBC computer system before he was fired by HSBC senior management who didn’t want to investigate his claim to have discovered illegal money-laundering activity at the bank.
As WND reported in a series of articles beginning Feb. 1, 2012, Cruz was able to document a complex criminal scheme that involved wiring billions of dollars of money for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists thorough thousands of bogus accounts created through identity theft. The scheme used the names and Social Security numbers of hundreds of unsuspecting current and former customers. It allegedly had the active participation of regional bank managers, branch managers and employees, as well as bank compliance officials at hundreds of HSBC locations throughout the nation. The money ultimately was wired by the bank to undisclosed bank accounts internationally.
Foster, on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has requested that Cruz to submit some 70 hours of conversations Cruz secretly recorded of bank management and compliance officers in New York. He also recorded his conversations with law-enforcement authorities, including the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS.
Cruz played for WND an audio recording he made of a phone call he placed to Jeremy Scileppi, the bureau chief at the office of the Suffolk County district attorney June 25, 2012. Scileppi told Cruz Suffolk County did not want to duplicate other investigations of HSBC money-laundering allegations.
Scileppi explained the Suffolk district attorney had turned over Cruz’s documentation to HSBC security personnel, “so the bank could conduct their own internal investigation,” as well as to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office and to the FBI, a division of the Department of Justice, as is the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York.
“We generally back off the investigation if the FBI or another federal agency is involved,” Scileppi explained. The way it works is that we don’t want two different agencies to chase the same squirrel up the same tree from two different sides, because, then, nobody gets the squirrel. The FBI told us to back off because they were working the HSBC money-laundering investigation.”
Cruz: ‘DHS stonewalled’
One day after WND’s first article on the HSBC money-laundering scandal was published in February 2012, WND received an email from Sgt. Frank J. DiGregorio, a DHS employee in New York.
“I have read your article in WND pertaining to the allegations by John Cruz against HSBC Bank. As a supervisor for Homeland Securities Investigators, I would very much like the opportunity to meet with Mr. Cruz and speak with him,” DiGregario said.
On Feb. 7, 2012, WND attended a meeting with DiGregorio and Graham R. Klein, special agent for the Department of Homeland Security, in an office building on Manhattan’s lower east side that bore no DHS designation, with Cruz attending by telephone.
With Cruz’s approval, WND handed over to DHS all the written documentation and audio recordings Cruz had provided, offering with Cruz’s permission to assist in the investigation in any way possible.
In a meeting lasting over an hour that Cruz audio-recorded without WND’s knowledge, DiGregorio and Klein promised to investigate the evidence and allegations Cruz had presented.
“This is an ongoing investigation,” DiGregorio told WND at the conclusion of the meeting. “Cruz made very serious allegations, and it takes time for us to do our work. But we have not forgotten about Cruz, and we will get back to him just as soon as we can.”
DiGregorio explained that as a detective sergeant in the office of the Queens County district attorney, he is currently assigned to Homeland Security Investigations, where he supervises Special Agent Klein.
Subsequent to the meeting, Cruz told WND he was shocked DHS claimed it was their first contact with him.
“Back in 2010, my attorney turned over information regarding HSBC to DiGregorio,” Cruz said, as reported by WND in an article published May 13, 2012. “Then, on Feb 7, 2012, Homeland Security said my attorneys never spoke to them, that they didn’t know who I am.”
Cruz was shocked.
“DiGregorio called me; he was belittling me,” Cruz recounted. “DiGregorio said I was a disgruntled employee, that I was just here for the money. They said, ‘Why did it take you two years to come forward?’”
IRS continues to stonewall Cruz
WND reported May 13, 2012, Cruz explained he had also presented his allegations and evidence to Internal Revenue Service Special Agent David Wagner and Supervisory Special Agent Kevin B. Sophia. Both were of the U.S. Department of Treasury, IRS, Criminal Investigation Division.
“I met with them in Denver, Colorado, on April 12, 2012, at the IRS office,” Cruz said. “I gave them a computer disc with all the HSBC documents on it. Agent Sophia asked, ‘What would make us believe HSBC employees would acknowledge illegal activity?’ I told them I recorded everything.”
Cruz also handed over to the IRS two discs with approximately 19 to 20 hours he had recorded of his discussions with HSBC employees concerning his allegations.
Cruz told WND the IRS agents were overwhelmed with the volume and detail of the information he handed over.
“The IRS agents said, ‘This is mind-boggling,’” Cruz recounted. “They told me that if the information on the computer disk and in the audio files was as I represented, the IRS agents were talking about arresting HSBC bank employees.”
Cruz noted the IRS was stunned at the dollar magnitude of the suspicious bank transactions he had documented, noting that billions of dollars in tax revenue was being lost, with bank employees transferring money into and out of bogus accounts set up for illegal gain.
The IRS explained to Cruz that the individuals whose identities may have been stolen to set up the apparently fraudulent accounts would also have to be investigated, to see if they were part of the suspicious activity or merely victims.
Either way, the Social Security numbers associated with the suspicious HSBC accounts turned out to be authentic numbers identified in many cases with present or former customers of the bank. And the billions of dollars traveling through the accounts had never been reported for income tax purposes.
“The IRS denied my request to be a whistleblower in the HSBC case,” Cruz told WND. “The IRS said the information I provided did not result in the collection of any fines, so I was not owed any fee by the federal government.”
Cruz: ‘I no longer trust DHS or the IRS’
As WND also reported May 13, 2012, Cruz handed over to WND audio recordings he made of his meetings with DHS and IRS officials – recordings he made without disclosing to the DHS and IRS.
Cruz explained that he no longer trusts even federal law enforcement to do their job investigating and prosecuting HSBC employees who may be involved in illegal bank transactions, as he alleges.
“It’s a circle,” Cruz explained. “I turn over the information to law enforcement, and law enforcement turns around and gives the information right back to the bank for the bank to conduct their own internal investigation.”
Cruz says he was fired by HSBC for bringing forth his charges.
“This is how the bank and employees in the bank make money,” he argued, explaining why he was fired instead of being given awards for meritorious service disclosing the suspicious activities. “It’s a lot easier to make money off fraudulent transactions than it is to make money off legal transactions.”
He indicated he was not concerned HSBC and/or its employees might sue him for libel or defamation.
“Sue me,” he said defiantly, “sue me all you want. Then bring out the proof. I will ask for every document. I will ask for a lot of documents. I will show that I am right, and I will give every tape recording to the public on air, so they can listen to these individuals talking.”
Cruz explained he taped the conversations with federal law enforcement authorities “to cover myself.”
“You never know what’s going to happen,” he explained. “Somebody could say, ‘Oh, you’re involved.’ I need to explain that I’m not involved, but that I reported it. Then, if they deny I reported it, I have the tapes to prove I reported it.”
Cruz affirmed to WND he was accusing by name federal officials in DHS and IRS, as well as officials in the district attorneys offices in Suffolk County and Queens County, New York, of not taking steps to stop immediately what he alleges is money laundering billions of dollars in the United States around the world.
He noted his contact with the IRS was relatively recent, and he has reason to believe the IRS has opened an investigation.
IRS agents Wagner and Sophia did not return WND calls for comment.
HSBC ‘a criminal organization’
Cruz began working at HSBC Jan. 14, 2008, as a commercial bank accounts relationship manager and was terminated for “poor job performance” on Feb. 17, 2010, after he refused to stop investigating the HSBC criminal money-laundering scheme from within the bank.
In his position as a vice president and a senior account relationship manager, Cruz worked in the HSBC southern New York region, a which accounts for approximately 50 percent of HSBC’s North American revenue. He was assigned to work with several branch managers to identify accounts to which HSBC might introduce additional banking services.
Cruz told WND he recorded hundreds of hours of meetings he conducted with HSBC management and bank security personnel in which he charged that various bank managers were engaging in criminal acts.
“I have hours of hours of recordings, ranging from bank tellers, to business representatives, to branch managers, to executives,” he said. “The whole system is designed to be a culture of fraud to make it look like it’s a legal system. But it’s not.”
Cruz explained that after many repeated efforts, he gave up on the idea that HSBC senior management or bank security would pursue his allegations to investigate and stop the wrongdoing.
“My conclusion was that HSBC wasn’t going to do anything about this account, because HSBC management from the branch level, to senior bank security, to executive senior management was involved in the illegal activity I found,” he said.
After repeated attempts to bring the information to the attention of law enforcement officers, Cruz hit a brick wall until WND examined his documentation and determined his shocking allegations were sufficiently substantiated.
“HSBC is a criminal organization,” he stressed. “It is a culture of crime.”
In 2011, Cruz published a book about his experience with HSBC, titled “World Banking World Fraud: Using Your Identity.”
Note: Media wishing to interview Jerome Corsi, senior staff writer for WND, please contact us here.On Monday, at a White House press briefing, Sean Spicer surprised an audience of reporters who must by now have grown accustomed, even hardened, to the press secretary’s gaffes, mistakes and dogged defenses of alternative facts. Extemporizing on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against a civilian population, Spicer explained why the Syrian dictator is more evil than Hitler.
“Someone as despicable as Hitler … didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer told the crowd. Asked to clarify his remark by journalists presumably aware of the Nazis’ use of Zyklon B, first in the euthanasia program and later in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor, the press secretary compounded his mistake.
'I've let the president down': Sean Spicer apology tour continues Read more
“He was not using gas on his own people the way that Assad is doing” he added, thus betraying his ignorance of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews, gay people, political opponents and people with disabilities exterminated by Hitler were German and Austrian citizens.
It’s difficult to believe that anyone could go on to make the situation worse, but Spicer rose to the challenge. Unlike Assad, who “dropped (poison gas) … into the middle of towns” Hitler, said Spicer, had the weapons sent “into the Holocaust center”. One can hardly imagine what he was envisioning when he described the concentration and extermination camps as “the Holocaust center”.
This is not the first time that the White House has displayed a curious unwillingness to deal with the Nazis’ final solution to the Jewish question. Soon after his inauguration, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Donald Trump issued a statement of sympathy that neglected to mention the Jews.
Called to account, Sean Spicer dismissed the resulting outrage as the grumbling of “nitpickers”. Sensitivity on these issues is understandably high, given the rising incidence of antisemitism and hate crimes of all sorts, as well as Trump’s (possibly waning) closeness to Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart news is a wellspring of bigotry and propaganda.
Despite one more ineffective attempt to make things right (“Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.”) Spicer’s combination of callousness and historical amnesia inspired a range of critics – from Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi to Steven Goldstein, director of the Anne Frank Center – to demand that he be fired. But this seems unlikely to happen, in part because Spicer’s behavior so closely mimics that of his boss.
Sadly, Sean Spicer's Hitler comments serve as a useful distraction for Trump | Francine Prose Read more
Like Trump, Spicer will never take real accountability for |
alls Node module dependencies
Builds and bundles the front-end JS
Generates self-signed SSL certificates
Starts the server
Starting the server using npm start does the following:
Starts the Mongo daemon
Starts LiveAPI
Manual Installation
Alternatively, LiveAPI can be installed and started manually. Make sure to do each of the steps listed in the bullets above.
If you are bringing your own SSL certs, such as from a CA, you can drop the certificate ( cert.pem ) and private key ( key.pem ) in the SSL folder in the root of LiveAPI.
The minimum NodeJS version required for LiveAPI is 7, but there may be other requirements we have not found yet. We have tested on NodeJS >8.1.4 and MongoDB >3.4.4, but let us know on Github if you have any problems with these or other versions.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, suggestions or issues you have about LiveAPI. We’re excited to keep expanding it.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out the project’s github or website. We’ve written a bit on how it works under the hood as well.
Current contributors: Penn Wu | Melissa Schwartz | Brett BeekleyNicholas Wolfram fell promptly in love with tabletop and video games when he was only two years old, and he has been writing about them since he figured out how words worked. Now he puts together words about Magic, which he started playing way back in 2000.
What Is the Magic Online Weekly Announcements Blog?
Every Tuesday, we round up all of the biggest Magic Online news for the Weekly Announcements Blog.
Check in weekly for the latest updates!
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Aether Revolt Limited Championship qualifiers start tomorrow, February 15
The road to the Magic Online Aether Revolt Championship begins tomorrow! Join one of the tournaments and you'll receive a free alternate-art promo copy of Trophy Mage. Perform well enough, and you can net yourself an invitation to the Aether Revolt Limited Championship on February 25 and an alternate-art promo copy of Yahenni's Expertise. Are you ready to take the challenge? Find out more details here!
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Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminary schedule changes were announced this morning
Starting with the Pro Tour Hour of Devastation season, Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries will now follow a fixed weekly schedule as opposed to the variable schedule we have used previously. For more information, see Lee Sharpe's article from this morning.
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Amonkhet Standard Pro Tour Qualifier on Saturday, February 18
Attention all Pro Tour hopefuls: a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) is approaching! The Standard Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries begin Thursday, February 16, and run through Tuesday, February 21. We hope to see you in the PTQ Finals on Saturday, February 18!
Remember, you are no longer required to enter into the PTQ Finals immediately following the Preliminary that you qualified through, thanks to the redesigned PTQ system that Magic Online Events Manager Lee Sharpe announced here.
Learn more about Magic Online Pro Tour Qualifiers here.
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Amonkhet Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier on Sunday, February 19
Attention all Pro Tour hopefuls: a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) is approaching! The Amonkhet Sealed Pro Tour Qualifier Preliminaries begin Thursday, February 16, and run through Tuesday, February 21. We hope to see you in the PTQ Finals on Sunday, February 19!
Remember, you are no longer required to enter into the PTQ Finals immediately following the Preliminary that you qualified through, thanks to the redesigned PTQ system that Magic Online Events Manager Lee Sharpe announced here.
Learn more about Magic Online Pro Tour Qualifiers here.
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Throwback Standard Gauntlets kick off on February 22 with Mirage-Tempest Standard
Revisit the Standard formats of olde with our new Throwback Standard Gauntlet series! From February 22 through March 1, you'll be able to join a league and play with one of ten randomly chosen phantom decks from Mirage-Tempest Standard. Find out more here!
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Vintage Super League airs tonight
Season 6 of Vintage Super League continues tonight! Tune it at 5 p.m. PT on twitch.tv/magic to catch the action live! For more information on Vintage Super League, check out their website here.
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Downtime for tomorrow, February 15
All tournaments will close Wednesday, May 18, at 5:00 a.m. PT/1 p.m. UTC
Store and trade activity will be suspended at approximately 7:45 a.m. PT/3:45 p.m. UTC
The system will be down from 8:00 a.m./3 p.m. UTC until 12:00 p.m. PT/7 p.m. UTC
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Build notes
Lobby | Phantom events no longer display a message about locked cards.
Sideboard | Changes made but not submitted before time runs out in the first sideboarding of a match no longer show up during the second sideboarding of that match.
Limited | A bug causing Peema Aether-Seer's triggered ability to cause a soft-lock has been fixed.
Limited | Aether Revolt Inventions, such as Wurmcoil Engine, now create tokens with the correct art.
Limited | Fixed an issue that caused Spark of Creativity to reset the game state if cast by a player with an empty library.
Modern | Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to take actions for the remainder of the phase if See the Unwritten was cast and found no creatures.
Commander | Playing Horobi, Death's Wail no longer causes the game to immediately end in a draw.
Commander | Fixed an issue where Sanctum Prelate was not allowing spells with XX mana costs to be correctly cast.
Commander | Fixed a rare bug that would not allow an opponent to draw a card when choosing not to play a land during the triggered ability of Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis.
Commander | Planeswalkers from the Commander 2016 and Conspiracy: Take the Crown sets no longer have a white bar running across the bottom of their text.
Legacy | Animate Dead is now correctly attaching to targeted creature.
Legacy | The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale no longer requires payment for lands that were turned into creatures in previous turns.
Legacy | The activated ability of Benthic Explorers now allows you to select an opponent's land.
Collection | Selection bars in the left pane now open on a single-click rather than a double-click.
Collection | Magic Online Player Rewards for January have been added to collections. You can see which cards those are in this article.
Collection | The Show Foils filter no longer hides tickets.
Collection | Imported Commander decks are no longer defaulting to Vintage as the deck type and are now correctly saving as Commander decks.
Collection | You may now select multiple binders to then simultaneously to take action on all of them, such as mass-deleting or mass-exporting. This can be done by holding Shift+click or Ctrl+click when selecting the binders.
Collection | Adding four of the same card to a new deck in Pile View no longer adds one of those cards to a random spot in the pile.
Store | VAT rates have been updated for Romania.
Help | Help text updated to reflect the new default hotkeys.
Help | Updated customer support contact links throughout the game.
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Ongoing and Upcoming Events
Head on over to our shiny new event calendar at MTGO.com/Calendar for an easy-to-digest breakdown of events happening all across Magic Online.The Man
Tommy McClennan is straight from the mould of the hard drinking, hard living blues men of the Mississippi Delta. His raw and infectious style is a testament to his contrary and ultimately self destructive life. There isn’t a lot known about him, and despite living into the 1960’s, there is only one known photograph of him (a lot of sites and publications incorrectly feature a photo of his best friend Robert Petway – which is a bit ironic because it’s also the only known photo of Petaway). Even his Mississippi Blues Trail marker features a photo which likely doesn’t contain him.Born on Highway 51 in Durant, Mississippi, (technically outside the Delta that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers) on January 4, 1905 or in Yazoo City in April on 1908, to an unknown father and his mother, Cassie, Tommy and his siblings frequently moved back and forth across neighbouring counties. The family show up on the 1910 and 1920 census under different spellings on his name – McLinton, McClinton, McCleland – always living on plantations in different counties. It is very likely that he lived on the J.F Sligh plantation in Yazoo City sometime between 1910 and 1925 where he met his good friend and sometime musical companion Petway.
Tommy learned to play the guitar and piano in these areas and was drawn to the relatively big town of Greenwood, where a young BB King played some of his first gigs. In Greenwood, Tommy became a regular at bars and the local pool hall, playing his brand of blues with Petway, Booker Miller (a protege of Charley Patton), and David ‘HoneyBoy’Edwards, a close friend of Robert Johnson who was present on the night Johnson died. Honeyboy remembers McClennan as a decent guitarist with a deep, gravelly voice, but an average piano player who could ignite a crowd with his raucous ‘hokum’ styled versions of traditional songs: “He could play the guitar pretty good, but he sure wasn’t no piano player. He threw the people; he had them dancing and hollering. …He could play that guitar, and he could holler”.
Tommy was married by 1930, but continued his playing and drinking around the bars of the Yazoo City/Greeenwood area. He had started to make a name for himself, with raunchy versions of songs like “Bottle it up and Go” and “Shake ’em on down”, which gave him his Yazoo City nick name “Bottle”. Honeyboy Edwards recalls the good times he, Tommy and Petway had around Greenwood: “Tommy McClennan and me played both sides of town [Greenwood, MS]. We used to serenade in the white neighbourhoods. We’d walk down the street amongst all those old houses, strumming our guitars, and we’d see them curtains fly back and they’d chuck nickels and dimes out in the street for us. We’d play ‘Tight Like That’, little jump-up songs for them. Then we’d go back across the river where we come from, raise hell and drink, holler our asses off all night long, singing the ‘Cotton Patch Blues’ in them shotgun houses in our part of town”.
Lester Melrose, a talent scout and record producer who would travel the south looking for artists to record, found Tommy and Petway in Greenwood in 1939 and invited them to Chicago to cut some records. Tommy recorded 8 tracks fro Bluebird on November 22, 1939, which were released on 4 double sided 78’s. On the first track he can be heard saying “take your time now, play it right for you in Chicago”. The hokum styled discs were a mild success, leading to further sessions and releases in May and December, 1940. He set up home in Chicago, and continued to party and drink his way through the Chicago scene, though the Chicgo audience wasn’t as receptive to his hokum style as the southern crowds. Big Bill Broonzy recalls Tommy escaping a party through a window with the remains of his guitar hanging around his neck after being hit with it.
Tommy’s lifestyle began to catch up with him, he recorded twice more in September, 1941 and February, 1942, though these songs were not as tight as earlier recordings and some were simply repackaged version of earlier songs given a new name. Disappointed by his lack of professionalism and growing problems with the bottle, Bluebird cut him loose from the label. Tommy slowly drifted from the Chicago blues scene.
Honeyboy Edwards remembers seeing him in the late 40s, playing at a second rate bar: “He played a little bit and he sang, but he didn’t play too long ‘fore he just …Tommy just dranked so much he just, he couldn’t…” Tommy seemingly disappeared until Honeyboy ran into him out at a scrapyard in 1961. Tommy was living in a trailer as a hobo, and drinking more than ever. Honeyboy tried to take care of his old friend but he was too far gone: “he studied drinking all the time. …He asked me to take him back to that [hobo] Jungle. I carried him back down there. …Later on I heard he had taken sick, that he was in the hospital. …That alcohol was what Tommy was living for, but it ate him plumb up.”
Admitted to hospital later that year, legend Big Joe Williams took the owner of a local blues club and up and coming guitarist Mike Bloomfield (who three years later would play on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited) to visit Tommy: “”he was just like a skeleton but his eyes were like hot coals burning at you. And his music was like that, too – it had a savage, searing sound. He was a fierce man.”
Tommy McClennan died of bronchopneumonia caused by decades of alcohol abuse on My 9, 1961.In Making Tracks: A Whistle-Stop Tour of Railway History, Peter Saxton shares facts, trivia, and anecdotes chronicling the shift from steam trains to diesel and electric.
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Here, writing for History Extra, Saxton brings you eight lesser-known facts about the history of railways…
Heavy going
Early railway engineers had to overcome extraordinary challenges when building their lines. Steam engines tend not to deal well with heavy inclines, so every effort was made to keep railways as flat as possible. This resulted in huge engineering structures: bridges, tunnels, embankments and cuttings began to appear across the country.
In some areas, even flat land could be a problem. When surveying the route for his Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the 1820s, George Stephenson had to figure out a way to cross the large peat bog known as Chat Moss in Manchester. He came up with the solution of floating the railway across the bog on a bed of tree branches and heather, bound together with tar and rubble.
Huge amounts of material were swallowed by the bog before enough of a foundation was built up. The line exists today and was recently electrified as part of the modernisation of rail routes in the north-west of England.
Tunnelling pioneers
A damp problem of another kind faced Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard Kingdom, when they undertook to dig the first tunnel under the Thames, between Wapping and Rotherhithe.
Originally designed as a foot tunnel, construction started in 1825 but the tunnel wasn’t opened until 1843, because of gas leaks, floods, and financial problems. The Brunels used a revolutionary method of construction called the ‘shield’: an iron framework containing 36 chambers, each large enough to contain a workman.
Wooden shutters were installed at the front of each chamber and the whole apparatus was positioned against the surface to be excavated. The workmen removed the wooden shutters and proceeded to dig away at the earth facing them. Once they had dug to the required depth, they would prop up their excavated chamber, place the wooden shutter against the new earth face, and the whole structure would be winched along for the process to start again.
English engineer and inventor Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–59) standing in front of the launching chains tethering his steamship the ‘Great Eastern’ during its construction in London in November 1857. (Photo by Robert Howlett/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
This must have been back-breaking, unimaginably hard work, with the constant risk of the river breaking through. Upon completion the tunnel became an immediate tourist attraction, with people flocking to experience the thrill of walking beneath the river. Eventually, though, it became part of the railway network, and today it sees an intensive railway service as a part of the London Overground network.
Telling the time
Before the railways were built, communities across the UK set their clocks according to their own local time. Bristol, for example, was 10 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time. This was fine for as long as the pace of life was governed by the natural speed of humans and horses, but the advent of a fast, structured form of transport in the railways meant that a standardised system of time became imperative.
The risk to safety of various parts of the country working on slightly different, locally agreed time is clear, not to mention the difficulty in constructing understandable timetables. The Great Western Railway had already adopted standardised time, but it was the Railway Clearing House – a body set up to apportion financial receipts among the many private railway companies – that set the pace elsewhere. It decreed in 1847 that all railway companies should operate using GMT, and by 1855 the vast majority of towns and cities had complied. Clocks were set to a signal set to GMT sent along the newly installed telegraph system.
Charles Dickens and railways
Charles Dickens had described the coming of the railway to London’s Euston station in a powerful passage in Dombey & Son (1848). He described the havoc and dislocation brought to Stagg’s Garden (Camden) as an almighty canyon that was cut through the existing streets.
Dickens was in fact a prolific user of railways, both in Britain and on the occasion of his visits to the United States. In 1865, however, he was involved in a tragedy that would change his life: Dickens was returning from the continent with his mistress, Ellen Ternan, and her mother, on 9 June 1865. Near Staplehurst in Kent, a gang of workers was busy repairing the track – they had, however, misread the timetable and had thought there was no train due. They had removed a section of track, and the train, hitting this missing section, crashed down into the valley of the river Beult.
Composite photograph of three prints: the South Eastern Railway’s fast ‘tidal’ train from Folkestone, carrying 110 passengers returning from Paris via Boulogne, derailed on the bridge over the River Beult near Staplehurst on 9 June 1865, killing 10 passengers and injuring 49 others. Among the survivors was the author Charles Dickens. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)
Dickens’ carriage was precariously close to the edge – he and his companions managed to climb out and he then went down into the valley to help the victims. Dickens later remembered that he had left the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend in the carriage, and he climbed back into the wreckage to retrieve it.
The incident marked him – he had flashbacks for the rest of his life, and the year after the crash he published his eeriest short story, The Signalman: the chilling tale of a lonely signalman, haunted by an apparition that appears just before tragedy strikes.
The competitive edge
All over the world, railway companies produced locomotives that were grand statements of the new age. As technology improved, trains got faster and railway companies vied with one another to produce the fastest locomotives.
In the 1920s and 30s, the two great companies running trains between London and Scotland engaged in a battle to win passengers to their lines. These were the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), running up the West Coast line, and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), running up the East.
William Stanier of the LMS produced the Princess Coronation class of locomotive – the most powerful steam engine to be built for use in Britain – and for a time one of these engines held the steam speed record, beating its arch rival the LNER. The latter, however, held the trump card. Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, the A4 class of locomotive was a sleek, streamlined wonder, and on 3 July 1938, one of the class named Mallard famously snatched the record back, reaching 202.8 km/h (126mph) and achieving a record for steam that still stands today.
Design for London
City transport systems also invested in strong design, such as the Art Nouveau Metro stations designed by Hector Guimard in Paris or the huge decorated stations on the Moscow Metro. In London, from the early decades of the 20th century, transport companies recognised the value of a strong image for the transport system. Underground station platforms had become cluttered with advertising that made it difficult for passengers to pick out the actual station name boards.
Advertisements for beer and port at Holborn Underground Tram Station, London, 1931. (Photo by City of London: London Metropolitan Archives/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Consequently, Albert Stanley and Frank Pick, two geniuses of early brand awareness, created a standardised name board consisting of a blue bar showing the station name against a solid red circle. This later evolved to become the ubiquitous London Transport roundel seen throughout the capital today.
Further to this, Pick decided to commission designer Edward Johnston to come up with a new typeface, bold and clear, that could be used on signage throughout the system. The Johnston typeface can still be seen across the London transport network – in the 1970s it was tweaked slightly to create New Johnston, but the principle of clarity remains.
Plan, plan, plan
The railway network in India was planned in its earliest years by the then governor general, Lord Dalhousie. He stipulated that there should be a common ‘gauge’ (the width between the rails), and he settled on 1676mm (5ft 6in) – wider than the generally adopted standard.
In such a vast country, the need for a coherent system to link the cities and regions was paramount – initially, of course, with the imperial objective of moving troops and goods quickly and efficiently. Today India has a well-used railway system that with a few exceptions runs throughout on one gauge.
In Australia, however, there was no one to plan out a rail system for the whole country. Early signs were promising, with an objective laid out that the standard gauge be adopted throughout the country. Unfortunately, a farcical set of circumstances ensued, with one Irish chief engineer in New South Wales plumping for the Irish broad gauge, only to be replaced by a Scottish engineer who favoured the standard gauge.
The decision by Queensland and South Australia to adopt a narrower gauge still meant that once the various networks met up with one another, Australia had an almighty transport-related headache. As early as 1911, agreement was reached to convert lines to standard gauge where possible – this is a process that continues today, where finances allow.
The high-speed dream
Speed has been a key selling point for the railways throughout their history. In 1957, Japan opened its first high-speed line and has since become famous for its (to British eyes) unbelievably punctual network. Countries around the world are investing in high-speed networks – none more so and most astonishingly than China.
A slow starter in railway history, China has invested huge amounts in steam technology, building main line steam locomotives right up to 1988. In a complete reversal of this policy, in recent years the country has invested huge sums of money in its high-speed network, meaning that today it possesses the biggest network of high-speed lines in the world, and one that continues to grow.
China is also home to the fastest regular service in the world, albeit not on a conventional railway: the Shanghai Maglev (magnetic levitation) train operates from Shanghai Airport and reaches a top speed of 431 km/h (268mph).
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Peter Saxton is the author of Making Tracks: A Whistle-Stop Tour of Railway History (Michael O’Mara Books, 2015). To find out more, click here.Roush Fenway Racing continues to be the center of attention for what little Silly Season activity there is in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage, as drivers Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle are in the final year of their respective contracts.
The latest from Sonoma:
RFR President Steve Newmark tweeted on Friday that he was working on putting a deal together for next year with the No. 16 Ford that Biffle drives. Although multiple sources said Biffle had discussions with Michael Waltrip Racing, both Biffle and sponsor 3M are expected to remain with Roush Fenway Racing next year.
Article continues below...
It appears almost certain Edwards is heading to Joe Gibbs Racing, where he nearly signed three years ago. Historically, when a driver is leaving Roush Fenway, it is the team, not the driver, who announces the departure. That announcement could come in the next several weeks, with the Edwards-to-JGR signing becoming official much later.
In 2012, Roush Fenway announced on June 5 that Matt Kenseth would be leaving the team at the end of the season. Kenseth’s signing with JGR was made official on Sept. 12, 2012. A similar timetable is likely in play for Edwards this year.
Sources said Ford Motor Co., which reportedly anted up million of dollars in stock options to retain Edwards’ services in 2011, tried to steer Edwards to Team Penske. But team owner Roger Penske publicly said he had no interest in Edwards, who has had a long history of antagonism with Penske driver Brad Keselowski. Money could have been a factor, too: Sources said Penske did not want to step up to pay Edwards a salary said to be in excess of what Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano make now.A team of paleontologists has found that fossilized leg bones of Asilisaurus kongwe — a dinosaur cousin that lived during the Middle Triassic epoch about 240 million years ago, roughly 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaurs — can shed new light on how dinosaurs grew from hatchlings to adults.
The findings, published online March 4, 2016 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, are surprising: dinosaurs and their close relatives had much more variation in growth patterns then ever expected, and this variation does not appear to be related to differences between males and females.
According to the team, Asilisaurus kongwe belongs to Silesauridae, an extinct group of Triassic reptiles related to the dinosaurs.
This reptile lived in what is now present-day Tanzania. It was about the size of a Labrador retriever, had a long tail, and likely maxed at 30 kg.
Fossils of the reptile are vital because a large number of specimens were found, largely intact and varying in size and age.
In studying the anatomy and bone tissue of Asilisaurus kongwe and how individuals changed during growth, the paleontologists found that although these individual animals lived in roughly the same location at the same time, they grew differently.
They compared this finding to any modern family with siblings and cousins differing in height or body mass, for instance, one brother smallish, and another taller; one naturally muscular, another prone to thinness.
They studied bone scars on the Asilisaurus kongwe leg bones, focusing on spots where muscles and tendons attach to bone.
The more mature an individual was at death, the larger its bone scars appeared. As with any animal or person, an individual skeleton goes from possessing few scars to possessing many during life, with scars appearing in a particular order as the age of the individual increases.
Findings show that except for the smallest and largest individuals, which are the least and most mature, size is a poor predictor of skeletal maturity in Asilisaurus kongwe, and therefore likely in early dinosaurs as well.
Further, similar differences in early dinosaurs had been thought to represent a difference in sex, with more ‘mature’ individuals representing one sex and more ‘immature’ individuals representing another.
“Variation in muscle scars was thought to indicate sexual difference in early dinosaurs, but we know that in many modern animals these features are related to growth, not sex,” said lead author Christopher Griffin, from the Virginia Polytechnic and State University’s Department of Geosciences.
“Because of this, we thought that similar variations that we saw in Asilisaurus kongwe would not turn out to split into two groups, which would be evidence for a sex difference, and instead be more on a spectrum. As we looked at more Asilisaurus kongwe fossils of different sizes, because we had such a great sample size, we found this to be supported: with a large sample size, they don’t split into two clean groups.”
“The earliest dinosaurs grew just like their closest relatives, and there are very few features that make dinosaurs unique from their closest relatives,” said study co-author Dr. Sterling Nesbitt, also from the Virginia Polytechnic and State University’s Department of Geosciences.
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C.T. Griffin et al. The femoral ontogeny and long bone histology of the Middle Triassic (late Anisian) dinosauriform Asilisaurus kongwe and implications for the growth of early dinosaurs. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, published online March 4, 2016; doi: 10.1080/02724634.2016.1111224CLOSE Cybersecurity experts say certain password rules are ineffective. Here is some of the latest advice on setting and resetting them. Time
The man who said use capital letters, special characters and numbers in your password is now taking back that advice. (Photo: hanieriani, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The man behind the 2003 report responsible for many current password guidelines says the advice is wrong.
Bill Burr, the author of an 8-page publication released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told The Wall Street Journal his previous advice of creating passwords with special characters, mixed-case letters and numbers won't deter hackers. In fact, he told the journal, the paper wasn't based on any real-world password data, but rather a paper written in the 1980s.
“Much of what I did I now regret,” Burr told The Wall Street Journal.
The problem is that federal agencies, businesses and institutions took the paper seriously—very seriously. The report turned into password protocol. Today, even though Burr's report was updated in June, we are still prompted to change our password every 90 days using at least one capital letter, symbol and number.
These combinations aren't secure, mainly because people choose predictable combinations.
The advice about frequently changing a password has been criticized since the report. A 2010 study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that updating passwords often can actually help hackers identify a pattern. Another study from Carleton University said frequent changes are more inconvenient than helpful.
The better solution could be to simply use a password with four random words, because the number of letters can be more difficult to hack than a small combination of letters and special characters, the Journal reports.
Finally, a good reason to ignore those password prompts and come up with one we can actually remember.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vP4HoL[goodgamer77 brings us his awesome illustrated version of a Mario story. He says it's a children's book, but I've never seen a kid's book with this much blood... -- JRo]
As a father of spastic two-year old son, I am saddened by the state of children's books available. The only passable books I found at Barnes and Noble were books that were made shortly after The Great War. While I appreciate a classic Cat in the Hat or Winnie the Pooh tale, I wanted to weave a yarn more relevant to our times. The project began to stray a bit, but it ends with a good moral. If it is hard to read, go through the gallery at the bottom, it is a little bigger there.
Without further boring text, hit the jump to see my new children's book. Enjoy.
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Click to open photo gallery:A billboard near Dallas says, “The Seals removed one threat to America. Remove the other in November.” The controversy is that Osama Bin Laden, referring to the threat the Seals removed, is now dead, and some people feel that comparing state-sanctioned elimination of a terrorist with removing a president from office was going too far.
It should also be noted that Admiral William McRaven, the commander of Seal Team Six, has indicated that Obama is responsible for the death of bin Laden, saying, “Well, let me make one thing clear, I didn’t order the raid. And this is not a small point. The fact of the matter is, it was the President of the United States that ordered the raid.”
The creator of the billboard, Tom Schad, should probably give credit where credit is due.
The billboard company has stated that it has not received any complaints about the billboard as of yet, just “curious phone calls.” If you file a complaint, please do not try to offend the company. They offer a service, and if they declined on grounds of political affiliation it would be wrong. Just complain about the billboard.
*UPDATE* It appears their phone number (or any we can find) no longer work. Instead, you can write a letter to the following address: 5240 East USHighway 82
Gainesville, TX 76240
kcentv.com – KCEN HD – Waco, Temple, and Killeen
Sign up to have all the AddictingInfo you can handle delivered directly to your email here!
I would be delighted if you joined me on Facebook for instant access to my articles.LONDON, UK—Director of World Heritage Centre of UNESCO has clarified in written to Sikh Council UK that they haven’t received any application regarding enlisting of Sri Harmandir Sahib and also no discussion over this matter is going on in UNESCO. It is notable that rumors of enlisting Sri Harmandir Sahib in World Heritage list of UNESCO were wandering across Sikh circles from many days.
Reference No. 1858 in the list of Ministry of Environment and Forest reveals that Sri Harmandir Sahib was included in the first heritage list released on January 5, 2004. The Sikhs residing abroad took strict notice of this, but SGPC, DSGMC or Shiromani Akali Dal didn’t considered it important to raise issue with UNESCO for the removal of Sri Harmandir Sahib. According to UNESCO, only the Indian Government possesses the right in enlist or delist any place in heritage list.
On the other hand General Secretary of Sikh Council UK, S. Gurmail Singh Kandola has expressed deep concern over the rumors wandering in Sikh circles. He said that Sikhs should remain aware of these rumors.
Sikh24 Editors can be reached at editors@sikh24.comWhat The Well-Dressed Salad Is Wearing For Spring
I ordered a side salad with my dinner the other night, feeling the need for something green. This usually is an afterthought — for me and, it often seems, for the kitchen.
A plate of baby greens, sprinkled with pieces of cauliflower pickled in turmeric, tiny rings of pickled shallot and tasty cherry tomatoes, all dressed with a light, creamy vinaigrette.... The salad tasted like spring.
What I got, however, was the product of obvious thinking — a plate of baby greens, sprinkled with pieces of cauliflower pickled in turmeric, tiny rings of pickled shallot and tasty cherry tomatoes, all dressed with a light, creamy vinaigrette. The greens were arugula, spinach, kale, mizuna and tatsoi (Asian mustard greens). The salad tasted like spring.
"You couldn't get a nice salad when lettuce was shipped across country in tractor trailers," says Jordan Lloyd, chef and owner of the Bartlett Pear Inn in Easton, Md., and creator of my lovely salad. "It had no soul. It was just a chunk of lettuce."
In the beginning, there was iceberg — a chunk of lettuce. It was a constant in many American homes, often topped with bottled dressing. Then there was the mesclun mix of lettuces available at upscale markets and, later, supermarkets. That mix was ultimately prewashed and bagged for further convenience. None of these are bad things. However, there was a sameness to the taste of any side salad. It wasn't a highlight of the meal — just a way to get your greens.
The locavore movement changed everything. Many areas now have farmers markets on every corner, with a variety of salad ingredients that have dirt still clinging to their roots.
Which is Lloyd's point: "My philosophy is soil to table in one day," he says. When he finishes at the restaurant around midnight, he calls his local farmers, who tell him what's available. His produce is picked the next morning and on his diners' plates before the next sunset.
"Everyone says, 'Your food is so good,' " Lloyd says. "But it's the farmers who give me the products that make it good."
The relationship between many chefs and farmers is changing as cooks go straight to the source for their products. Right now, Lloyd has a personal farmer who grows just what he asks for. He picks baby lettuces when they're nice and tender, he has English peas and asparagus, and Lloyd has gone through the guy's whole stock of "incredible carrots." This time of year, Lloyd gets cherry tomatoes from a nearby hothouse farm. "They taste like the earth," he said. "You can smell the vine." From another farmer, he gets "incredible radishes."
Like many other chefs, Lloyd has been doing a lot of pickling. He makes piccalilli, or cauliflower pickled with turmeric. He strews these and pickled shallots in his restaurant's side salad. He got ramps (sometimes called wild leeks and one of the first wild spring greens) last week from a local farmer who went on a ramp-picking vacation in Virginia. (We are talking about people who are serious about fresh vegetables.) The ramps are pickling.
At my local farmers market this week, I got such beautiful heads of red leaf lettuce and chicory, I wanted to display them as bouquets. I found French breakfast radishes and white icicle radishes. I bought a bag of mixed baby mustard greens and another of red Russian kale. I threw in a bunch of brilliant violet chive blossoms.
Fresh herbs can be the basis of a dinner salad, dressed with just a little olive oil and lemon juice. Deborah Madison in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone promotes parsley as an especially healthful and good salad. She suggests serving an herb salad with mild foods or as a contrast to rich food.
In addition to greens and herbs, toss in a few shavings of Parm |
LISC's Newsome agrees. "I cannot spend my time worrying about [wealthy people] going to live here. I have to worry about the janitors, the cab drivers, the cooks...I'm not naive enough to think that what I do is going to stop the tide. [But] people here have done without for so long."Natalia is a light-skinned woman who moved to Congress Heights two years ago, seeking a housing bargain. These facts alone make her a "typical" gentrifier. When I met her, she was shopping at the pop-up Whole Foods Market that sets up the first Saturday of each month at the Gateway DC pavilion.But you know who else was shopping there? Just about everyone, of every skin color. Retired women, young professionals, everyone in between."I like the neighborhood as it is," Natalia says.But, she added, "I'd love to start a cafe."Can't get enough of this topic? Why not attend our event in two weeks--Gentrification, Revitalization, or Renaissance?--discussing affordable housing, neighborhoods in transition, and moreMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption On some days you need a mask to go outside due to smog in Beijing
Seven million people died as a result of air pollution in 2012, the World Health Organization estimates.
Its findings suggest a link between air pollution and heart disease, respiratory problems and cancer.
One in eight global deaths were linked with air pollution, making it "the world's largest single environmental health risk", the WHO said.
Nearly six million of the deaths had been in South East Asia and the WHO's Western Pacific region, it found.
The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe Dr Maria Neira, WHO
The WHO said about 3.3 million people had died as a result of indoor air pollution and 2.6 million deaths were related to outdoor air pollution, mainly in low- and middle-income countries in those regions.
'Heavy price'
WHO public health, environmental and social determinants of health department director Dr Maria Neira said: "The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes.
"Few risks have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution.
"The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe."
Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives, said the WHO.
WHO family, woman and children's health assistant director-general Dr Flavia Bustreo said: "Cleaning up the air we breathe prevents non-communicable diseases as well as reduces disease risks among women and vulnerable groups, including children and the elderly.
"Poor women and children pay a heavy price from indoor air pollution since they spend more time at home breathing in smoke and soot from leaky coal and wood cook stoves."
'Robust and accurate'
The WHO assessment found the majority of air pollution deaths were linked with cardiovascular diseases.
For deaths related to outdoor pollution, it found:
40% - heart disease
40% - stroke
11% - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
6% - lung cancer
3% - acute lower respiratory infections in children
For deaths related to indoor pollution, it found:
34% - stroke
26% - heart disease
22% - COPD
12% - acute lower respiratory infections in children
6% - lung cancer
University of Birmingham professor of environmental and respiratory medicine Jon Ayres said the review needed to be taken seriously.
"The estimates for the impact of outdoor air pollution are robust and as accurate as can be developed at the moment," he said.
The WHO estimates were based on:From VASSAL
Publisher Avalon Hill Era Future Year 1976 Topic Science Fiction Players 1 to 2 Scale Tactical Length Medium
Files
Filename Filetype Size Date Compatibility 2.11 starship_troopers_2.11.vmod Module 3.98 MB 3.2 2.1 starship_troopers_2.1.vmod Module 3.98 MB 3.2 1.2 SST_Big.vmod Module 2.55 MB unknown 1.1 SSTv1.1.vmod Module 2.55 MB unknown Alternate 1.0 SST_Lonestar_1.00.1.vmod Module 34.4 MB NA SST_Lonestar_1.00.vmod Module 34.52 MB NA
Module Information
Lonestar 1.00.1:
Problem found Lonestar 1.00 module -- hidden tunnels and complexes visible to Terran player:
From the forum: I did a little digging myself and came to the same conclusion there is a typo under the definition of ArachnidInvisible. The player side is stated as "Alien" instead of "Arachnid". After changing "Alien" to "Arachnid" the hide option works perfectly for all new units taken from the counters menu.
There is still an issue with the preloaded scenarios as the pieces that are already placed on the board and in hive complex cannot be hid (probably because these games states were created with the typo). But this is pretty easily fixable simply by deleting the preexisting hive complex and making a new hidable complex from the counters menu.
Screen Shots
PlayersSuppose you’re walking home one night, alone, and you decide to take a shortcut through a dark alley. You make it halfway through, when suddenly you hear some drunks stumbling behind you. Some of them are shouting curses. They look large and powerful, and there are several of them. Nonetheless, you feel safe, because you know someone is watching.
You know this because you live in the future where surveillance is universal, ubiquitous and unavoidable. Governments and large corporations have spread cameras, microphones and other tracking devices all across the globe, and they also have the capacity to store and process oceans of surveillance data in real time. It sounds nightmarish — but it might be inevitable. We could be headed straight for the panopticon, and if recent news developments are any indication, it might not take that long to get there.
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Cataloguing the downsides of mass surveillance is important, essential even. But we have a whole literature devoted to that. Instead, let’s explore its potential benefits.
If calibrated properly, total surveillance might eradicate certain types of crime almost entirely. People respond well to inevitable consequences, especially those that follow swiftly on the heels of their conduct. Few would commit easily monitored crimes such as assault or breaking and entering, if it meant being handcuffed within minutes. This kind of ultra-efficient police capability would require not only sensors capable of recording crimes, but also advanced computer vision and recognition algorithms capable of detecting crimes quickly. In theory, they would be able to alert the police in real time, while the crime was still ongoing. Prompt police responses would create near-perfect deterrence, and violent crime would be reduced to a few remaining incidents of overwhelming passion or extreme irrationality.
We could expect crimes such as low-level corruption to vanish, because bribes would become perilous (to demand or receive) for those who are constantly under watch. We would likely see a similar reduction in police brutality. Ubiquitous video recording, mobile and otherwise, has already begun to expose such incidents.
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On a smaller scale, mass surveillance would combat all kinds of abuses that currently go unreported because the abuser has power over the abused. You see this dynamic in a variety of scenarios, from the dramatic (child abuse) to the more mundane (line managers insisting on illegal, unpaid overtime). Even if the victim is too scared to report the crime, the simple fact that the recordings existed would go a long way towards equalising existing power differentials. There would be the constant risk of some auditor or analyst stumbling on the recording, and once the abused was out of the abuser’s control (grown up, in another job) they could retaliate and complain, proof in hand.
[Today], police officers can, on mere suspicion, detain you, search your person, interrogate you, and sometimes enter your home. They can also arrest you on suspicion of vague ‘crimes’ such as ‘loitering with intent’. Our present police force is given these powers because it needs to be able to investigate. But in a total-surveillance world, there would be no need for humans to have such extensive powers of investigation. For most crimes, guilt or innocence would be obvious and easy to establish from the recordings. The police’s role could be reduced to arresting specific individuals, who have violated specific laws.
Of course, these considerations pale when compared with the potential for mass surveillance to help prevent global catastrophic risks, and other huge disasters. Mass surveillance could help greatly here, by catching lethal pandemics in their earliest stages, or beforehand, if we were to see one being created artificially. Surveillance could allow for quicker quarantines, and more effective treatment of pandemics. Medicines and doctors could be rushed to exactly the right places, and micro-quarantines could be instituted. More dramatic measures, such as airport closures, are hard to implement on a large scale, but these quick-response tactics could be implemented narrowly and selectively. Most importantly, those infected could be rapidly informed of their condition, allowing them to seek prompt treatment.
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Surveillance could also be useful in smaller, more conventional disasters. Knowing where everyone in a city was at the moment an earthquake struck would make rescue services much more effective, and the more cameras around when hurricanes hit, the better. Over time, all of this footage would increase our understanding of disasters, and help us to mitigate their effects.
Yes, these potential benefits aren’t the whole story on mass surveillance, and I would never argue that they outweigh the potential downsides. But if we’re headed into a future panopticon, we’d better brush up on the possible upsides. Because governments might not bestow these benefits willingly — we will have to make sure to demand them.
Image: Shutterstock/Brian A Jackson
This article has been excerpted with permission from Aeon Magazine. To read in its entirety, head here.
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Aeon is a new digital magazine of ideas and culture, publishing an original essay every weekday. It sets out to invigorate conversations about worldviews, commissioning fine writers in a range of genres, including memoir, science and social reportage.The European Commission presented on Thursday (28 January) a package of proposals obliging large companies to pay taxes in the EU countries where they make a profit.
The package includes an anti-tax avoidance directive to impose coordinated anti-abuse measures to all member states, a recommendation that member states revise their tax treaties and a plan to revise the black list of tax havens outside the EU.
"Today we are taking a major step towards creating a level-playing field for all our businesses, for fair and effective taxation for all Europeans," the EU tax commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, said at a press conference.
Another item of the package is a country-by-country automatic exchange of tax-related information on multinational companies' activities.
The reporting will not be public, but the commission is assessing whether "increased transparency harms competitiveness", Moscovici said, adding that he supported publicising the information.
'Tax avoidance has a cost'
The new proposal comes after EU states agreed last October on an exchange of information on tax rulings and the commission ruled on several cases of tax avoidance, including by major companies like Fiat or Starbucks.
Tax arrangements between states and several other firms, such as Apple and McDonald's, are still under investigation.
"Tax avoidance has a cost, it is not just a matter of moral judgement," Moscovici said. The commissioner, using a figure from the European Parliament, reminded that 50 to 70 million euros are lost each year in the EU because of tax abuse.
"It is five times the amount of funds dedicated to the migrant crisis in 2015-2016," he said, adding that is was "less money for public services" like health or transport.
"This is unfair competition for European local companies, and a shortfall for citizens who unjustly have to make up for the gap."
To become law, the commission's package will have to get through the EU Parliament and be adopted unanimously by the member states. Some of them, particularly Ireland and the UK, could be difficult to convince because low taxation is part of their economic model.
"I expect a lively discussion," Moscovici admitted.
The commissioner took care to specify that member states would keep their "fiscal sovereignty" and continue to be able to "choose their own corporate tax rate as long as they respect fair tax competition".
"We are not at the harmonisation level, we are at the coordination level," he said to alleviate concerns.
He nevertheless added that "nobody can resist" the trend towards fairer taxation.
The directive unveiled by the commission aims at: preventing companies from shifting profits to low tax countries; relocating assets to avoid tax; exploiting national mismatches to avoid taxation; establishing artificial debt arrangements to minimise tax.
It also aims at preventing double non-taxation of certain companies' income and counteracting aggressive tax planning when other rules don’t apply.
'Global problem'
These measures follow, for the most part, the so-called BEPS package - standing for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting - agreed at the OECD last year in a global move to fight tax avoidance.
This was "a global problem" and the EU "cannot be alone in its corporate tax reform," Moscovici said.
As part of this move the EU will try to force tax havens to change their customs. The EU list of "third countries that refuse to play fair" will be reviewed and a "constructive dialogue" will start.
"The idea is to focus on jurisdictions which are economically relevant and prioritise our assessments," a EU official said.
"What we want is to readjust tax good governance criteria", as the current criteria were established pre-2008, before new, separate, EU and OECD regulations were introduced.
Varied reception
The commission's package, which Moscovici described as "balanced, ambitious and, I hope, clever" received diverse responses from political parties, business associations and NGOs.
"This is the moment of truth in which we will see the sincerity of the EU member states," said MEP Burkhard Balz on behalf of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) group. "States which oppose these rules want to base their economies on taking bread out of the mouths of others."
"These important proposals will close a number of the scandalous loopholes that have enabled companies to avoid and evade tax across Europe," said MEP Michael Theurer from the liberal ALDE group.
"However, there is much more work to do," he added, asking for public country-to-country reporting, measures "on patent and licence boxes as well as on a CCCTB (Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base)".
The commission said it will "relaunch" the CCCTB in the autumn.
Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), warned against "a separate set of EU rules, which would be different to the ones set out by the OECD [and] would risk creating uncertainty".
The NGO ActionAid, for its part, welcomed a "step forward but the detail fails to back that up" but said that "some of the proposals are so timid that they could even worsen the race to the bottom on corporate taxation".
The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) was even more critical. "This package is woefully inadequate to stem the tsunami of scandalous cases of multinational corporations failing to pay their taxes, it said.
"A crucial first step to making a real difference would be for multinationals to publicly report where they make their profits and where they pay their taxes. Instead, the European Commission is presenting a package on how to introduce secret reporting that keeps parliamentarians, journalists and the general public in the dark", said the NGO's tax justice coordinator, Tove Ryding.Perception.
Computational models of facial attractiveness judgments.
Strikingly, both models produced estimates of facial attractiveness that were indistinguishable from human ratings.
The image factors that the model discovered correspond to two of the main contemporary hypotheses of averageness judgments: facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism.
This provides novel evidence for the importance of averageness and sexual dimorphism, but not symmetry, in human judgments of facial attractiveness.
Very related: Computer taught to recognize female attractiveness 2008;37(1):126-42.Related ArticlesBronstad PM, Langlois JH, Russell R.We designed two computational models to replicate human facial attractiveness ratings. The primary model used partial least squares (PLS) to identify image factors associated with facial attractiveness from facial images and attractiveness ratings of those images. For comparison we also made a model similar to previous models of facial attractiveness, in that it used manually derived measurements between features as inputs, though we took the additional step of dimensionality reduction via principal component analysis (PCA) and weighting of PCA dimensions via a perceptron.Because PLS extracts a small number of image factors from the facial images that covary with attractiveness ratings of the images, it is possible to determine the information used by the model.In contrast, facial symmetry was not important to the model, and an explicit feature-based measurement of symmetry was not correlated with human judgments of facial attractiveness.The Obama administration is releasing a draft of legislation that would make it easier for consumers to see or remove the personal data that companies keep. Today, the White House announced that it was releasing a draft based on the principles of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which was first released in 2012. Consumer privacy is one of several internet-related issues that Obama promised to address in his State of the Union address, and he previously released a fact sheet outlining both this and other proposed changes.
The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2015 would address the large amounts of data that companies can collect from customers — whether it's used internally, analyzed by advertisers, or sold to a third-party aggregator. It would require companies to provide "concise and easily understandable" explanations of how data will be used, as well as options for customers to see, correct, or remove information.
Companies have to create "easily understandable" data use policies
Specifically, this covers information like names, addresses, social security or passport numbers, fingerprints, or credit card numbers; it does not cover "de-anonymized" data that theoretically couldn't be traced back to a specific person, or information involved in identifying a cybersecurity problem, as long as companies make "reasonable efforts" to remove identifying information. Companies have to make clear what information is collected, who it will be shared with, when and if it will be destroyed, how it's kept secure, and how customers can see or remove it.
Companies are also required to take "reasonable steps" to mitigate privacy risks and make them clear to users, and the FTC will need to establish rules for privacy reviews. If a company violates the terms of the act, it's subject to lawsuits from the FTC, users, and state attorneys general. The bill creates exemptions for small operators, including people who process data for 10,000 or fewer people a year or have no more than five employees, which the White House says can ease the burden for small businesses.
It's already sometimes possible to find out what information companies have collected. California's "Shine the Light" law, for example, requires companies to reveal what information they've sold to third-party marketing companies. Companies like Facebook have also attempted to make their privacy policies more readable in light of the tremendous amount of information it holds.
The bill assumes "a world where all of our data is collected about us, all of the time."
Alvaro Bedoya, director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown's law school, worries that Obama's bill could actually preempt state laws, in favor of letting companies collect what they want as long as they maintained some level of transparency. He cites rules in Illinois and Texas that ban companies from collecting biometric information without permission. "This bill would erase those protections without offering any clear replacement," he writes, adding that it "seems to assume a world where all of our data is collected about us, all of the time."
He's not alone. Nonprofit Consumer Watchdog calls the bill "full of loopholes" and said it "envisions a process where industry will dominate in developing codes of conduct." The Center for Digital Democracy says it relies too much on companies' judgment to decide whether information is sensitive and how it should be managed, limiting the FTC's power. "Although the president's Privacy Bill of Rights promised transparency and control, it creates a labyrinth-like process that consumers must navigate before they can actually access and correct their own data records held by companies," says a statement. And the Center for Democracy and Technology says it "falls short on the privacy protections needed in today's digital world."
Ultimately, Bedoya hopes whatever reaches Congress will be more specific and authoritative, opening the door to meaningful reform. Obama, meanwhile, will continue pushing on other fronts — earlier this month, he introduced a cybersecurity executive order, one more in a long and dubious series of attempts to create rules governing breaches like last year's Sony hack.
Update February 27th, 5:00pm: Added statements from Consumer Watchdog, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Center for Democracy and Technology.(This is by way of a PSA, and I doubt I’ll be able to come back to the thread since we have our daughter and her three chirren here for a week. So please talk to one another…and may it be that we don’t need them in the future.)
This is the Storify slideshow WikiLeaks posted four days ago of 51 (and counting): #Gaza related WikiLeaks cables mentioned in the past 48 hours | Storify. I went back through their Twitter account to get the links to some of them for your use later as you might need them for evidence when you’re engaged in (ahem) discussions with the confused apologists for raining down bombs and missiles on Gaza. If I understand it, one can’t use the slideshow in that way.
#Gaza related WikiLeaks cables mentioned in the past 48 hours | Storify https://t.co/6pk0aCJHVj — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
Israel admitted to using Palestinians as human shields on more than 1,200 occasions http://t.co/FAnsK9ppe2 More: https://t.co/BK696Gv538 — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 5, 2014
Israel helped #Hamas rival PLO WikiLeaks docs show http://t.co/2oW35bpmNP — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 5, 2014
This Day in #WikiLeaks: More cables on Israel's strategies in Gaza, including manipulation of the economy http://t.co/HnGouzsnxj — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
US docs show the secret birth of Hamas; how #Israel let #Hamas grow while cracking down on the secular #PLO https://t.co/pbthS2khbI #gaza — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
Ten years ago the #Gaza wall was found to be illegal by the ICJ; what was the reaction? https://t.co/wXlsn0vZcP pic.twitter.com/RxlDLaQQpf — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
"Cashless in Gaza" Israel secretly tells US how it manipulates #Gaza's economy to keep it near disaster at all times https://t.co/SJHfc9rVOZ — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
Israel admitted to using Palestinians as human shields on more than 1,200 occasions http://t.co/FAnsK9ppe2 More: https://t.co/QCcRRW6OZy — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
"Gazans were used as human shields, incendiary phosphorous shells were fired over civilian population areas…" https://t.co/QCcRRW6OZy — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 3, 2014
Israel secretly told US of its plan to destroy #Gaza's economy https://t.co/3avElRjtVQ pic.twitter.com/AT65ke2yNh — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
This Day in #WikiLeaks: Cables on Israel's military strategies, including deliberate targeting of civilian areas http://t.co/hs8CfGh3DL — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 3, 2014
New Snowden docs on NSA-Israel spying agreement covering Palestine https://t.co/RrnANyuONM @ggreenwald — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 4, 2014
Please, please, tell us: Who’ll stop the rain?
This? ‘Gaza ceasefire enters second day as delegations prepare for Cairo talks
Israeli and Palestinian representatives set for tough talks aimed at securing permanent ceasefire after 72-hour truce ends’ Please let it be so, and that permanent justice prevails.
Thank you, Chelsea Manning; thank you, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for your services dedicated to us in ‘opening governments’.Philadelphia-based cable giant Comcast is being sued by the state of Washington on grounds that it deceptively enrolled hundreds of thousands of customers in a service protection plan they never agreed to joining.
The $100 million suit, originally filed last summer, was vastly expanded last week after Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson amended it present new evidence of Comcast's alleged violation of the state Consumer Protection Act.
Prosecutors say Comcast misrepresented the scope and cost of its Service Protection Plan, a program designed to reduce the cost of repairs, and exploited more than half a million Washingtonians from 2011 to 2015.
A sample of recorded calls between SPP subscribers and Comcast representatives allegedly revealed the company may have enrolled more than half of its Washington customers without their consent.
In some cases, customers were told SPP was free of charge, but Comcast billed them a monthly fee of $6 after the first month. Even customers who explicitly declined the plan wound up getting enrolled. Subscriptions to the plan during the period covered by the lawsuit amounted to $73 million, according to the Attorney General.
The investigation further revealed that while customers were allegedly told the "comprehensive" plan would reduce the cost of repairs, the SPP does not call indoor and out wall wiring, which makes up the majority of its service. In effect, SPP covered the cost of a technician pointing what customers most likely already knew: their equipment was defective or broken.
New evidence presented in the Attorney General's amended lawsuit comes after Comcast admitted deleted phone recordings it had been ordered to preserve for the state's investigation.
“This new evidence makes clear that Comcast’s conduct is even more egregious than we first realized,” Ferguson said. “The extent of their deception is shocking, and I will hold them accountable for their treatment of Washington consumers.”
Comcast, in a statement obtained by Engadget, denied wrongdoing and claimed that the Service Protection Plan covered nearly all charges related to repairs.Dive Brief:
Nearly two years after t he Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) and the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) announced a partnership to develop and offer a zero waste certification course, development has been completed and the course is now available, according to a press release.
The course offers an overview of principles and practices in 10 modules including managing organics; financing and funding; contracting and partnerships; collections options and processing technology options.
The course is intended to benefit entry and mid-level industry professionals, policy makers and sustainability advocates who wish to implement a zero waste plan in an existing solid waste program.
Dive Insight:
Municipalities nationwide have been declaring zero waste goals for years — many of which are slated to be reached by 2020 or 2030 — yet there had never before been guidelines on how to approach this goal, or what "zero waste" even entails. Some cities like Washington hope to reach a "zero waste" goal of 80% diversion, while other cities like San Francisco have dabbled with the possibility of reaching at true 100% diversion rate. Yet there is a lot of skepticism around how long that would take — or if it's truly achievable at all.
In a May interview with Waste Dive, Covanta CEO Stephen Jones said that zero waste is "an aggressive goal, but you know from a societal standpoint that's a good goal to have." And, while it may be aggressive, it's more likely to happen with room for trial and error. A statewide "zero waste" plan in Maryland was recently scrapped by Governor Larry Hogan due to "burdensome" policies that it entailed, yet it is likely that Hogan will still pursue many, if not all, the elements of a zero waste plan. It is possible that, as more cities approach "zero waste" checkpoints with unfavorable results, plans will be reworked to ensure municipalities maintain a proper focus on sustainability.
The intent of SWANA and CRRA's zero waste course is to rethink existing programs, which means there is not a silver bullet solution to reaching zero waste. Yet, with the proper guidance, each participating municipality will likely reach their individual goals more efficiently and successfully.Lately I have really been noticing how bright the evenings are getting and it makes me very happy and positive! I am planning to do loads of hiking and exploring nature this year so I can’t wait until the days are little bit longer to facilitate this better. I am yet to see my first snowdrop, but they are out, and the other spring flowers will be following soon. Although sadly the seasons are getting increasingly altered -I did a double take when I spotted my favourite tree, cherry, fully blossoming in the middle of december so perhaps I shouldn’t be using flowers to gauge the arrival of spring!
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Although spring is somewhat in the air, it’s not quite in the weather yet, and here in Ireland the coldest winter weather can last into March so I am still making lots of warming winter dishes like this creamy roasted root vegetable soup. Root veggies such as these are in season here at the moment, making them plentiful and cheap. Roasting the vegetables and using fresh herbs instead of dried really adds flavour to this soup, while the cashew nuts add a creamy texture along with some extra protein. I brought a big tub of this in to work for my lunches last week. I had no wheat free bread so I dipped dark rye crispbreads in to it which was delicious!
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I made this soup in my new high powered blender, my new favourite thing! I’ve been having green smoothies every morning for breakfast made with my own homemade almond milk, and love making my own blend of almond butter with a hint of coconut. I had been wanting to get a Vitamix for months, but I couldn’t justify the expense. I ended up buying a similar blender for half the price, but with all the same functionality. Time will tell if I would have been better off buying the Vitamix but my brand has a seven year warranty so that sounds good to me! I think that the extra money would just have be paying for the brand name!
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Obviously I am going to be using my blender for a lot of recipes from now on, but I still want my recipes to be adaptable and accessible,, so wherever possible I will adapt the recipe to be made with more standard kitchen equipment also. Take this soup for example -I made mine in the blender but you can make it on the stove also. If you don’t have a high powdered blender to blend the cashews, use unsweetened almond milk instead to add some creaminess. I list both ways in the recipe below.
INGREDIENTS:This is another one of the weird things you can find in Bangkok. Today we visited an abandoned shopping mall that has been closed for around 20 years. The basement is flooded and full of exotic fish.
Where else in the world could you find something like this? Click here for details of hotels near this location. Our photos from this mall will be featured on BBC2’s Nature’s Weirdest Events in either January or February 2015.
This mall has been abandoned for over 20 years. A local trader told us that the back part of the mall was demolished because it was built too high, and that the whole mall was then closed and abandoned. Miu remembers visiting this mall when she was very young.
The basement then flooded, and some locals let a few fish lose. These have now bred and expanded into thousands.
The locals, and some tourists, feed the fish, which is how they manage to stay alive and breed.
Above you can see the escalator still in place.
There isn’t a roof on this section of the building, so the rain gets in and keeps the place flooded.
It’s an amazing sight to see.
It’s no longer possible to get into the main part of the mall because it’s deemed to be too dangerous. It’s also possible that it could be demolished soon.
How To Get There
The mall is only around 5 minutes’ walk from Khao San Road. Walk to the end of Khao San Road where the small glass police station is and turn right onto Chakrabongse Road. Then walk straight ahead until you come to the junction with Phra Sumen Road. This intersection is known as Bang Lam Pu Junction. You will see the main entrance to New World Mall here, but you can’t get in from the front.
Turn right into Phra Sumen Road and walk for around 200 meters until you get to Krungthai Bank.
Turn right into the small lane alongside the bank – Soi Kraisi.
Once you’ve turned into Soi Kraisi, you’ll see the entrance a few meters ahead to your right. This is private property – see important note below.
There is usually food for the fish for sale in the basket that you can see hanging at the entrance. Just take a bag and leave 10 baht in the cup.
You can also come to this area by boat. Get a boat to Phra Arthit, walk to the main road and turn left. This is Phra Sumen Road. So just follow the road and you’ll come to the main entrance of the mall shown above and then to Krungthai Bank. If you want more info on getting a boat, have a read of Chao Phraya Boat Routes.
Beware that this land is private property, so if you plan to visit you need to ask for permission to enter. Enter without permission and you do so at your own risk. Also note that this building is very dangerous. Enter at your own risk.
The fish have now been romoved.
Hotels Near Khao San Road
There are plenty of great, affordable hotels in the Khao San Road area, and it’s a major tourist destination. It was feature in the film The Beach. Click here for details of Khao San Road hotels.October 14, 2010
WHEN I was a senior in high school, I learned about what happened in England in 1215. But not 1213 or 1217. And I didn't have a clue about anywhere else in the world at any point in the 13th century.
1215 was the first date we had to memorize in our Modern "World" History class. It was the year that a group of English barons cornered King John and forced him to agree to the Magna Carta, a document that limited the king's powers and protected the barons' privileges.
Okay, but why pick this as the starting point of Modern "World" History? Why start with England, which until recently had been an isolated backwater? What happened to everybody after 1215? I had no idea. My history class was silent about the "world" for another 100 years--the next date to memorize was the 14th century, when the Renaissance began.
And why on earth did Modern "World" History not even consider any events outside Europe for centuries to come--and then only because the European colonizers started claiming the rest of the globe in the name of this or that king?
The reason the class started with 1215 in England was that the Magna Carta bears a passing resemblance to the ideas of democracy as they exist under capitalism today. It put limits on the absolute authority of England's monarch, and it established the political power of the aristocracy, eventually enshrined in the House of Lords, which is at least a little bit like Congress or a parliament.
So the Magna Carta could be portrayed as a kinda-sorta Constitution--a first primitive experiment with principles of representative democracy that would take root and flower through the centuries. And, naturally, reach their fullest expression with that great beacon to the world, the United States.
I was being taught history as the story of a few Great Men (very, very occasionally a Great Woman) and their Great Ideas. Such a view of the world has the advantage of flattering the small group of people at the top that they're the ones who matter. It sanctifies the status quo as the natural end point of all historical developments, and it safely locates the driving forces of history in the lofty realm of ideas, philosophy, religion and morality.
Series Revolutionary Ideas of Marx SocialistWorker.org writers examine some of the main themes in the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxists who followed him. Alan Maass Marx’s theory of working-class revolution
Jen Roesch Can the working class unite?
Elizabeth Schulte Marxism and political organization
This was the version of history that Karl Marx encountered as a student in Germany in the 1830s, and his first attempts to explain the principles of scientific socialism began with standing this view of the world right-side up.
As Marx's collaborator Frederick Engels said in a memorial speech after his friend died, Marx started out from "the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.
At the heart of Marxism is the understanding that history's Great Men--its Great Villains, too--and their Great Ideas are the product of the material conditions and social relationships that shape people's lives, not the other way around. Marx called his approach "the materialist conception of history"--"materialist" because it starts with concrete material conditions rather than ideas, "history" because it recognizes that those conditions and the social relationships that spring from them change.
FOR THE vast majority of human history, human beings lived in small groups that provided for their basic necessities by hunting and gathering their food.
These early hunter-gatherers had to be nomadic to find more food. Therefore, the bands of hunter-gatherers had to be small, in line with what available supplies could support, and everyone had to be adept at hunting or gathering--the means of providing basic necessities didn't allow for social differences to take root.
The Magna Carta would have been inconceivable in these circumstances, and not just because written language had not yet developed. The idea that one member of the group would claim to rule by "divine right," much less that another minority within it would seek to limit that rule for its advantage, would have seemed utterly foreign--likewise, with the ethic of individual |
murder shines light on the dark side of celebrity: Deranged fansby
The success of everything you do and want out of life all rests on a collection of muscles better known as your “core”. Yeah, seriously. You wouldn’t get very far (quite literally) if it weren’t for these muscles, and if you take the time to develop them to their maximum potential–doors open that may have been previously closed. You will get injured less often, as the core protects your spine… and here is something you may not know: it is not the ‘strength’ of your muscles that protects your back the most, but rather their ‘endurance’. And endurance is something that is incorporated into every worthy core workout (such as the one we have for you today).
And have you ever heard the phrase ‘eight-pack abs‘? They do exist for some, but you’ll need to reach deep down within every fiber of your core to find them. And you’ll also need to get on a lean body mass building regimen of food and supplements, which is something we’ve already covered with celebrity trainer, Michael Giovanni Rivera. So if you’re ready to set off in this uncharted territory to better health, less injury, improved sports performance and an overall improved physique, we have enlisted the help of Dr. Jeffrey M. Willardson. He is an Associate Professor at the Kinesiology and Sports Studies Department at the Eastern Illinoise University, and also the author of the book, Developing the Core (Human Kinetics).
Let’s get to work:
Urbasm: Jeff, your book offers a huge number of exercises to try. What would you say is a good overall introductory core program for the average armchair athlete?
Dr. Jeffrey M. Willardson: A basic program should start with a focus on developing localized endurance in the core musculature via performance of various types of planks such as in a prone, supine, or side lying position. The focus should be on maintaining proper body alignment in a static position (during different types of planks) to build a foundation for more advanced exercises that involve dynamic movement.
A beginning program might involve once daily, rotating three times through a circuit of prone, supine, and side planks (both sides) each performed for 20 seconds statically, and building up to 60 seconds over the course of four weeks.
(The following is an excerpt from Developing the Core, the latest release in the NSCA’s Sport Performance Series with Human Kinetics. All text and images provided by Human Kinetics.)
PRONE PLANK
Lie on your abdomen with your palms on the floor, feet together, and spine in a neutral position. Lift your body up on your palms and toes, keeping your head, torso, and legs in a straight line. Maintain this position for the prescribed time frame, and challenge yourself to maintain longer periods in the plank position. (If you have difficulty with this exercise, place your forearms on the floor and perform as described. This is shown in the photos.)
Variation
Prone Plank With Hip Extension: From the prone plank position, raise the heel of one foot toward the ceiling. Reducing the number of contact points increases the intensity of the exercise. Raise the heels alternately in a dynamic fashion, or hold each heel in the air for a set period of time.
SIDE BRIDGE
Lie on your right side, legs straight, right palm on the floor, feet stacked one on top of the other. Straighten your right arm, keeping it in line with the shoulder, and place your free hand on your opposite shoulder. Hold this position for the desired amount of time, and then repeat on the opposite side.
Variation
Modified Side Bridge (Forearm Bridge): Place your forearm on the floor, and perform the movement as described.
STABILITY BALL SUPINE BRIDGE
Lie faceup on the floor, with hands palms-down at your sides, knees bent at a 90-degree angle, and the heels of your feet on a stability ball. Keeping your back straight, lift your hips off the floor. Your back and thighs should form a straight line at the top of the move. Contract your glutes, and then return along the same path back to the start position.
Variation
Stability Ball Supine Bridge With Leg Curl: While in the supine bridge position, flex the knees to bring the ball toward the body. Dorsiflex the feet throughout the movement to keep the heels pressed against the top surface of the ball.
Dr. JMW: After four weeks, some dynamic movements can be incorporated involving trunk flexion and extension; trunk lateral flexion and reduction; and trunk rotation; but again, taking a very conservation approach with body weight only, or 10-15 lbs added resistance. The goal might be to perform two or three sessions per week that involve two sets (of each of the aforementioned movement patterns) to the point of moderate fatigue, but never muscular exhaustion. Chapters 4 and 5 of the book would be a good place to learn different exercises and programming.
Urbasm: In your experience, where does almost every guy go wrong with his fitness regimen?
Dr. JMW: First, most guys take way too much rest between sets. For most endeavors in building musculoskeletal fitness, no more than two minutes rest should be taken between consecutive sets of the same exercise. Second, the importance of quality of repetitions rather than the quantity of repetitions should be emphasized. Doing a few sets of a given exercise with intense mental focus on the working muscles is more productive than doing more sets while “throwing” the weight with excessive momentum or poor technique.
Urbasm: How would you describe the importance of incorporating core work into a man’s regular routine? What are some of the advantages we might not be aware of?
Dr JMW: Low back pain is more often caused by a lack of muscular endurance rather than a lack of muscular strength. Furthermore, the muscles of the spine are suited for working statically in a stabilizing role rather than dynamically in a movement role. For health and functionality, the focus should be on developing fitness via different types of planks (prone, supine, side) from basic to advanced variations. For aesthetic purposes, dynamic movements (trunk flexion and extension; trunk lateral flexion and reduction; and trunk rotation) can be performed conservatively to develop a little hypertrophy in the core muscles and allow them to “show” under the skin. [Although] this is assuming that a low level of body fat is achieved in conjunction with a proper nutrition program.
Urbasm: What are the essential core exercises that every guy should be doing as a bare minimum?
Dr. JMW: The three different planks; prone, supine, and side (shown above) train muscles all the way around the torso and can be performed with several basic to advanced variations. Once a suitable level of fitness has been achieved with the planks; then more advanced exercises such as hanging knee raises, abdominal roll-outs, and cable crunches with a rope attachment can be incorporated. These are all described in Chapter 4 of the book.
(The following is an excerpt from Developing the Core.)
BARBELL ROLLOUT
Load a pair of small plates (five-pounders work well) onto the ends of a barbell. Grasp the middle of the bar with an overhand, shoulder-width grip, and kneel down so your shoulders are directly over the bar. Your upper back should be slightly rounded, with your butt off the floor as high as possible. Keeping your knees fixed on the floor and your arms taut, roll the bar forward as far as comfortably possible without allowing your body to touch the floor. Reverse direction by forcefully contracting your abs, returning along the same path back to the start position. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.
CABLE KNEELING ROPE CRUNCH
Kneel in front of a high-pulley apparatus with your body facing the machine, sitting back on your heels. Grasp the ends of a rope attached to the pulley, and keep your elbows in toward your ears, torso upright. Keeping your lower back immobile, slowly curl your shoulders downward, bringing your elbows down toward your knees. Contract your abs, and then slowly uncurl your body, returning to the start position. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.
CABLE KNEELING TWISTING ROPE CRUNCH
Kneel in front of a high-pulley apparatus with your body facing the machine, sitting back on your heels. Grasp the ends of a rope attached to the pulley, and keep your elbows in toward your ears, torso upright. Keeping your lower back immobile, slowly curl your shoulders downward, twisting your body to the left as you bring your elbows toward your knees. Contract your abs, and then slowly uncurl your body, returning to the start position. Continue for the desired number of repetitions, alternating sides with each rep.
HANGING KNEE RAISE
The hanging knee raise stresses the abdominals (transversus and rectus abdominis) and lower back muscles (erector spinae) to strengthen the core. Hang from an object high enough that the body is fully extended and the feet do not touch the floor. Draw in the abdominals, slowly raise the knees to the chest, pause briefly, and then slowly lower the legs down to start position and repeat without losing the draw-in of the abdominals. The movement should be done with control so that the body does not swing. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions or for a specified amount of time (30 to 60 seconds).
Variation
Hanging Straight-Leg Raise: Perform the same exercise, but keep the legs straight while raising and lowering them.
Urbasm: Jeff, What are your three best fitness tips that every man should know?
Dr. JMW:
Tip #1: Eat a consistent and healthy diet most days of the week, but do allow for some moderation in your eating habits to incorporate foods that you enjoy. Plan your day ahead of time to avoid overeating late at night. Tip #2: Perform your exercise session early in the day when you have the most energy, rather than after work when your mind and body are fatigued. Tip #3: Make sure to go to bed at a consistent time each day and get at least 7 hours of quality sleep per night.
And now we’ll close with a comprehensive explanation of core muscle workouts and trunk movement complexes via an excerpt from Jeff’s book, Developing the Core.
CORE MUSCLE WORKOUTS
Workouts should train the four basic movement patterns of the trunk: trunk flexion (TF), trunk extension (TE), trunk rotation (TR), trunk lateral flexion (TLF), and variations or combinations of all four. Static exercises that require trunk stabilization against these movement patterns can be used.
Note that similar muscles are used during trunk rotation and trunk lateral flexion movements. If time or training volume is a concern, the practitioner can program in such a way to include only one of these movements in a particular workout. Trunk rotation and trunk lateral flexion can be trained by alternately performing one of the two movements every other workout to ensure both are being performed in a training cycle.
The beginner or novice exerciser, with less than three months of training experience, should perform single-plane trunk movements. All exercises can be performed using body weight, with 60 seconds of rest between sets. Increase repetitions to 20 per set for dynamic exercises and 60 seconds for static exercises. Add external loading when a person can perform three to five sets of 20 repetitions of each exercise.
The exerciser with more than three months of training experience can begin to perform multiplane trunk movements. All exercises can be performed using body weight or light external loads, with 60 to 90 seconds of rest between sets. As movement proficiency and strength endurance improve, gradually increase repetitions to 20 per set for all exercises. Increase intensity when a person can perform sets of 20 repetitions of each exercise.
All four basic movement patterns can be trained by performing multiplane movements or performing single-plane and multiplane movements in the same workout.
CORE POWER WORKOUTS
The exerciser with at least four months of training experience can begin to perform power-oriented movements. To develop maximal power, nonreactive medicine ball throws can be performed for a total number of no more than five sets per exercise and one to five repetitions per set. Two to five minutes of recovery time between sets of maximal core power movements is recommended. Submaximal medicine ball reactive exercises, such as the medicine ball twisting wall toss, can be performed for a greater number of repetitions (10 to 20) for three sets per exercise and 60 to 90 seconds of recovery time between sets.
The practitioner can program in such a way to include maximal and submaximal power movements in the same workout to emphasize power in a particular movement plane. For example, assume a tennis player lacked power during an overhand serve but had decent power during rotational movements such as the backhand or forehand return. A maximal power exercise, such as nonreactive medicine ball slams, could be performed in a workout with lower-intensity core power exercises. This would help remedy the power deficiency in the movement plane that best simulates the overhand tennis serve.
TRUNK MOVEMENT COMPLEXES
The exerciser with 8 to 12 months of training experience can begin to include exercise complexes that combine trunk movement patterns with multijoint movements. Single-plane and multiplane movements can be performed using both open- and closed-chain exercises. These exercise complexes are more demanding on the body’s energy system and provide advanced exercisers greater exercise variation during a training cycle. Fewer repetitions and more rest time between sets might be needed to accommodate the fitness and conditioning level of the exerciser. Repetition schemes of three to five per complex with rest times of two to three minutes between sets are a good start point for most exercisers. A logical progression, if the goal is to increase localized muscular endurance, would include adding more repetitions and decreasing recovery time as the exerciser adapts to the training.
Exercises should include the basic multijoint movement patterns of the human body such as pulling, pushing, squatting, and lunging. With some thought and creative programming, a practitioner could design workouts to train the entire core musculature while simultaneously training all the major movement patterns of the human body. This can be achieved using three or four exercise complexes. This saves time for in-season athletes or those interested in fitness who have a demanding schedule with a limited amount of time that can be devoted to training.
CONCLUSION
Designing a training program for the core musculature does not have to be complicated or difficult. A movement approach to program design is simple and provides the practitioner the ability to design effective and balanced programs. Functional movements of the trunk are combinations or variations of four basic movement patterns: trunk flexion, trunk extension, trunk rotation, and trunk lateral flexion. A training program should include static and dynamic exercises that require stabilization against or movement through these patterns. Any physical quality can be developed (localized muscular endurance, strength, power) by following a linear progression. Exercises progress from simple single-plane to more challenging multiplane and trunk movement complexes. A variety of open- and closed-chain exercises, using various implements to increase intensity, can be incorporated into the program to develop the movement capabilities of the core musculature. Programs and exercises can be adapted to accommodate different populations, including those with previous or existing injuries.
Developing the Core features numerous core exercises for baseball and softball, basketball, football, golf, ice hockey, soccer, swimming, track and field, tennis, volleyball, and wrestling. The book is now available in bookstores everywhere, as well as online at HumanKinetics.com.Looking for news you can trust?
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There’s been a boomlet this year in books and articles suggesting that innovation in recent decades has slowed to a trickle and economic productivity is flattening out for the foreseeable future. Peter Thiel has been pushing this meme for a while, Tyler Cowen made a splash in January with his e-book, The Great Stagnation, and Neal Stephenson nearly took the World Policy Institute offline last week with his essay, “Innovation Starvation.” Talking about our innovation drought is suddenly all the rage. But is it really true? Or is it mostly just a product of discouragement borne of several years of lousy economic performance?
Honestly, I’m not sure. But maybe it’s worth thinking out loud about this a little. The complaints mostly take two basic forms. The first I call “Where’s my jetpack?!?” and it’s pretty easily disposed of. The argument here is that back in the 1950s we thought the future would bring us flying cars, electricity too cheap to meter, and vacations on the moon. But none of that has happened. What gives?
The answer is prosaic: Forecasters in the ’50s were wrong. It’s not that the future never arrived—it’s that the future brought us different stuff than we thought we were going to get. Our lack of flying cars simply doesn’t tell us anything about the pace of innovation.
The second form of the innovation argument is more substantive. I call it the Great-Grandma Argument, and it compares innovation in the first half of the 20th century to innovation since then. Our Great-Grandma from 1900, we’re told, would be totally flabbergasted if she were whisked to the year 1950. So much new stuff! But our mothers and fathers from 1950? If they were magically transported to 2011, they’d recognize almost everything they saw. Yawn.
There’s obviously something to this. The end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was an astonishingly fertile period: lightbulbs, radios, autos, airplanes, refrigerators, penicillin, TVs, air conditioners, the telephone, and much more. The period since then has seen the digital computer and….that’s about it. Things like cell phones and flat screen TVs are mere technological improvements, not genuinely new inventions.
Which is true enough. But although I’ve often thought about innovation this way too, the more I’ve chewed it over the more I’ve decided that it misses something. Most of the best known inventions of the early 20th century were actually offshoots of two really big inventions: electrification and the internal combustion engine. By contrast, the late 20th century had one really big invention: digital computers. Obviously two is more than one, but still, looked at that way, the difference between the two periods becomes a bit more modest. The difference between the offshoots of those big inventions is probably more modest than we think too. Just as we once made better and better use of electrification, we’re now making better and better use of digital computing. And to call all these computing-inspired inventions mere “improvements” is like calling TV a mere improvement of radio. These are bigger deals than we often think. We have computers themselves, of course, plus smartphones, the internet, CAT scans, vastly improved supply chain management, fast gene sequencing, GPS, Lasik surgery, e-readers, ATMs and debit cards, video games, and much more.
Wait a second. Video games? Am I joking? No indeed. Give some thought to just what innovation and productivity gains are for.
Initially, of course, they help provide a better basic standard of living. But what happens after that? Once you have a certain level of food, shelter, sanitation, and so forth, you start adding nonessentials. Basically, luxuries, whether you call them that or not. Entertainment. Vacations. Restaurant meals. Fancier clothes, faster cars, and bigger houses.
That’s what the first half of the 20th century brought to the developed economies of the world. Can computers and their offspring make the same claim? I think they can, which is why video games are no joke. If, instead of bigger cars and better vacations, we get video games, Facebook, blogging, Hulu, and iTunes, is this any less of a productivity improvement?
I don’t see why. Above a basic level, the whole point of productivity improvements is to provide us with more fun. Facebook may show up as a smaller contribution to GDP than a nationwide chain of movie theaters, but so what? If you’d rather spend four hours a week on Facebook than fours a week going to movies, then Facebook has improved your life as much as movie theaters improved your grandparents’. If you prefer Farmville to a week in Hawaii, then Zynga has improved your life as much as the 707 improved your parents’.
But that’s not all. There’s something else that frequently warps our view of innovation too: exaggerating the impact of flashy improvements and discounting the importance of boring ones. In “Innovation Starvation,” for example, Stephenson, who’s the same age as me, looks back nostalgically at the Apollo program and then says:
In early 2011, I participated in a conference called Future Tense, where I lamented the decline of the manned space program, then pivoted to energy, indicating that the real issue isn’t about rockets. It’s our far broader inability as a society to execute on the big stuff.
Maybe. But beware of rose-colored hindsight. In current dollars, the Apollo program cost less than $20 billion per year. The atomic bomb program cost less than $4 billion per year. Both of these were dramatic accomplishments, to be sure, but although they might have seemed like “big stuff,” they actually weren’t—neither by cost standards nor by productivity enhancement standards. Compared to replacing our fossil fuel infrastructure, they were trifles.
The flip side of this is that it’s all too easy to overlook backroom process improvements. Looking at the first half of the 20th century, cars and radios and TV get all the attention, but the moving assembly line was probably more important than any of them. In the second half, Facebook and smart phones are the attention-getters, but the containerization revolution was far more important than either one. Likewise, Walmart revolutionized the retail industry in the ’90s via its logistics and supply chain innovations, but hardly one person in a hundred knows it. You could put the recent revolution in global finance in this category as well (though we obviously still have a few wee wrinkles to iron out of that one.) Computerization may be changing our daily lives, but it’s arguably changed backroom operations even more, and will continue to do so.
I’ve already gone on way too long, so I’ll wrap it up here. Just keep in mind three things when you read about innovation droughts. First: The key to innovation is the exploitation of really big inventions. Computerization is as big as it gets, and it has a much longer tail than electrification. We’re not even close to mining its full potential yet. Second: Above a certain level, the goal of productivity gains is to provide us with more fun. It doesn’t matter whether that fun comes in physical or virtual form, or how it shows up in national accounts. Third: Don’t exaggerate past innovations just because they were exciting or dramatic, and don’t discount current innovations just because they’ve happened behind the scenes or seem sort of prosaic. Hip replacements may not be as big a mobility improvement as the automobile, but they’re a bigger deal than you think—as you’ll realize someday if you have to get one because you can’t walk more than a hundred feet at a stretch with your original equipment.
We’re going through a tough stretch right now. But my best guess is that there are two big culprits here, and neither one of them is a fundamental slowdown in innovation. The first is that, even after 30 years, we still haven’t figured out how to effectively manage and regulate the post-union, post-globalization, post-Bretton Woods economy. This is a relatively short-term kind of problem, but there are still a lot of bumps left on that road. The other is that we’re simply working on some really hard problems—much harder than we anticipated when we first dived into them. Artificial intelligence is really hard. Finding a source of energy that’s cheaper per BTU than oil is really hard. Gene sequencing—along with a deep understanding of how human biology works—is really hard. But that doesn’t mean innovation has been snuffed out. It just means we’ve set our sights really high. That’s no bad thing.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Foreign Secretary William Hague: "We require the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London"
The UK is to expel all Iranian diplomats following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced.
He said he had ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London.
Tuesday's attack by hundreds of protesters followed Britain's decision to impose further sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.
The sanctions led to Iran's parliament reducing diplomatic ties with the UK.
Mr Hague said he was demanding the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London, with all its staff to leave the UK within 48 hours.
"If any country makes it impossible for us to operate on their soil they cannot expect to have a functioning embassy here," Mr Hague told MPs.
He said there had been "some degree of regime consent" in the attacks on the embassy and on another UK diplomatic compound in Tehran.
He said all UK diplomatic staff in Tehran had been evacuated and the embassy closed.
Mr Hague said relations between the UK and Iran were now at their lowest level, but the UK was not severing relations with Tehran entirely.
Analysis In Iran's iconography of villainy, Britain holds a special place. The UK is seen as the mastermind behind the overthrow of previous Iranian governments. Conservative hardliners believe Britain has in its blood the desire to decide who rules Iran. But, somehow, Britain and Iran have usually managed to keep their diplomatic relations going. Among ordinary Iranians there is a degree of affection for British people. During the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, which began in 1997, diplomatic ties produced a reasonable degree of understanding. But in recent years, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, those ties grew much more strained. Now the drawbridge has been pulled up. The empty embassies in London and Tehran won't bother conservative hardliners in Iran's establishment. They feel little need for dialogue. These are the same people who have led Iran's pursuit of a nuclear programme.
Addressing parliament, Mr Hague said he was due to raise the matter at a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.
"We will discuss these events and further action which needs to be taken in the light of Iran's continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme," he said.
Iran's foreign ministry called the British move "hasty", state TV reported, according to Reuters.
It said Iran would take "further appropriate action".
Also on Wednesday, Germany, France and the Netherlands announced they were recalling their ambassadors to Tehran for consultation and Norway said it was temporarily closing its embassy there as a precaution.
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said the Iranian ambassador to Rome was being summoned to give guarantees of security for Italy's mission in Tehran.
Hundreds of protesters - whom Iran described as "students" - massed outside the embassy compound on Tuesday afternoon before scaling the walls and the gates, burning British flags and a car.
Another UK diplomatic compound in northern Tehran, known locally as Qolhak Garden, was also overrun and damaged.
Iran said it regretted the incident, which it described as "unacceptable behaviour by a small number of protesters".
Mr Hague said the majority of those taking part had been members of a regime-backed Basij militia group.
He said the private quarters of staff and the ambassador had been ransacked, the main embassy office set on fire and personal possessions belonging to UK diplomats stolen.
The US, EU and UN Security Council also condemned the attacks.
Turbulent history
Relations between the UK and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been fraught since the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Wednesday's move brings bilateral relations to their lowest level since 1989 when ties were broken over Iran's declaration of a "fatwa" (edict) to kill the author Salman Rushdie.
Image copyright AFP Image caption New pictures have emerged of offices at the British embassy being searched by protesters
Analysts have compared Tuesday's scenes in Tehran to the 1979 storming of the US embassy there. That ended with more than 50 US diplomats and staff being held hostage for more than 400 days.
The US and Iran have had no diplomatic ties since then - the Swiss embassy in Tehran serves as the protecting power for US interests in the country.
Last week the US, Canada and the UK announced new sanctions against Iran, including measures to restrict the activities of the Iranian central bank.
The UK said then it was severing all financial ties with Iran.
The move followed a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog (IAEA) that said Iran had carried out tests "relevant to the development of a nuclear device".
Iran denies the accusations, saying its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.
On Sunday, Iran's parliament voted by a large majority to downgrade diplomatic relations with the UK in response to the recent action.× Longtime Richmond DJs to reunite on new MIX 98.1
RICHMOND, Va. — Richmonders will soon hear some familiar voices on local radio. Lite98 is going away and WTVR-FM will relaunch as MIX 98.1. When the new radio station debuts on Monday, December 28, it will feature radio personalities who once worked at both Q94 and B103.
Jeff Wicker will host a new morning show from 5:30-9 a.m. He once hosted mornings on Q94.
Jackie Cunningham who previously hosted “Jackie and Bender” on 106.1 KISS FM in Seattle, will host weekdays from 9 a.m – noon. Jackie hosted mornings on the former B103 until 2000.
Kat Simons, will return to the station and host from 12 – 3 p.m.
Billy Surf, who once worked at Q94, will host an evening radio program
“I am thrilled to launch MIX 98.1 and am so fortunate to have assembled a team of talent that has so much Richmond history and popularity,” said A.J., Senior Vice President of Programming, iHeartMedia Richmond. “This new on-air team will instantly deliver over 35 combined years on the radio in Richmond. That’s huge!”
MIX 98.1 will play a mix of music from artists like Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Adele, Bruno Mars and Pink.On this particular night, it was possible to buy the same drink at prices ranging from $1 per litre, all the way up to $7.40 per litre. Not only was it the same drink, but it was being sold in the same super market, in the same aisle, and all the packages were on shelves right next to each other! It should not be possible, but some people are being charged 740% more than others (per drink) for the same drink, just because they chose the wrong bottle size!
The first thing I wanted to do was put together an arbitrage strategy using supermarket coca-cola. A 740% risk free return is something I'd happily do all day. Obviously you can't repackage and resell the coke (at least not legally), so alas my dreams of instant wealth are still on hold.
I understand that there is a convenience factor so we pay more when we buy in smaller bottles, but this does not explain the pricing of cans. Why would anyone pay $12 for a pack of 10 cans, when they can buy 2 6 packs and get 12 cans for $10. The fact that the supermarket is able to sell in this way shows that I am not the only one who is price indifferent when buying coke.
The supermarket has shown me that we are either indifferent to price, or are willing to pay a hefty premium for the coke to be in a glass bottle. To s00ee if we are truly price indifferent, I decided to look at how much different shops charge for the identical coke product. I decided to look at the 600 ml bottle (served out of fridge so it's ready to drink). This is what I usually buy on impulse for an instant fix of sugar and caffeine.
This part of the study was conducted in a part of Sydney known as Bondi Junction. It is a very small area consisting of a large number of shops. It took about an hour to walk through the junction and visit a few shops to look at the prices, my findings are shown below:From Little League to the Major Leagues, baseball demands fair play. But lately that appears to be principle confined to the field.
Our national pastime is once again at the center of a national debate in America. Earlier this week, Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles condemned fans in Boston for using the n-word.
Now some are crying foul at Comerica Park.
“I felt unwanted. I felt humiliated,” says Palesa Matinde, who says she was denied service at Comerica Park. “I felt treated like a second-class citizen."
Matinde is a University of Michigan graduate from Zimbabwe. She went to a Tigers’ game last week with her husband.
They decided to check out Miller's Pitcher's Pub inside the ballpark-- where the manager refused to accept Matinde's federal government issued Green Card as ID.
"She said, 'we only accept United States government issued ID. My green card starts by saying United States of America permanent legal resident," she says.
Matinde says the couple tried to assure the manager a Green Card was a legal form of ID.
"She said, 'well, why don't you have an American driver's license? Or why don't you have an American passport?," Matinde says.
The manager told the couple she would check to make sure a Green Card was okay. She returned with the bouncer.
"Please take them out of here. We no longer want them in our establishment," is what Matinde says the manager told the bouncer.
Comerica Park officials blamed the incident on a lack of training and have apologized.
The couple is now consulting with civil rights attorney Bill Goodman - who believes a much larger issue has made its way from the political landscape to the game that exemplifies American virtue.
"This is a shining example of injustice 2017 style," says Goodman.
Baseball may be the national pastime but it's an international attraction, especially in Detroit. Fans routinely come from nearby Canada.
And then of course there are the players themselves: 40 of them from seven different countries, including the United States - a third of them with Green Cards that are legal forms of ID.A beautifully lit shot, but how is it captured?
Note: If you do not know how to operate the main look functions of your camera, read this quick article: How to Easily Operate a Camera in 3 Steps
Picture this: you’re outside filming on a sunny day, your shot is completely over exposed. You’ve set your camera aperture is at f/22, ISO is down to 100 and the shutter is far beyond where it should be– and still the scene is over exposed! Your image looks terrible, is the focus soft? You wont know until later.
There is a better way! Learn how to shoot video in the sun by using the following simple steps.
Step 1. Buy a Neutral Density (ND) Filter for Your Lens
Those threads at the end of your lens can house a number of filters, the Neutral Density (ND) filter is the most important filter in your arsenal. An ND filter will act as sunglasses for your lens. The filters come in a 4 variations:.3,.6,.9, 1.2– as the numbers move higher, the amount of light being let into the lens decreases. Once you have your.ND filter on, you can open up your aperture to get that beautiful depth-of-field effect you’re looking for.
As you can see in this example, an.9 ND filter can convert an over-exposed
scene, into a near-perfectly exposed scene.
Step 2. Shoot Against the Sun
In the photograph of the sun filled valley (above), you can clearly make out the sun and it’s light rays. The only way to get that effect is with an ND filter. Now if you put an actor anywhere in this frame, facing camera, their front side will be silhouetted because the light source (the sun) will be pointing to their back. Believe it or not, this is what we want. We will compensate the frontal light deficiency by using a light bounce disc (or reflector board) to bounce sunlight onto the front the person, and use the sun as a glorious backlight.
The effect of using a light disc (right), when shooting against the sun.
Voila! Two simple steps to capturing excellent shots in the sun. Now this next step is a bonus if you have the budget and a crew to set it up.
Step 3. Setup a Silk
If you’re on a show with even a low-budget, you can rig up a 12 x 12 silk and let the sunlight pass through it onto the actor(s). Unlike using a light bounce disc, you do not need to have your actors back to the sun. For close ups you can also use a 3ft shoot-though silk light disc (light will pass through), to achieve the same effect. The silk material will cut down the light, but there will still be plenty of light left to hit the actor(s) with a nice softly lit look. You can use a light bounce disc (or reflector board) to add some fill to the side of the actor facing away from the sun.
Our Video Example
Using sunlight and the tips found above, we were able to achieve the fantastic sun-drenched look of this video:
These tips can be applied to videography as well as photography. Do you have any questions or comments? Send us an e-mail or comment in the box below.
—-
Create Video is an award-winning Vancouver video production company.
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PrintHairball Awareness Day
April 22, 2014
Friday is National Hairball Awareness Day, and the CATalyst Council, a national initiative comprised of animal health and welfare organizations working on behalf of cats, wants to inform cat owners about some misconceptions they may have about hairballs.
“There have been a lot of recent scientific studies about vomiting in cats and that it may be an indication of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which can progress to cancer. I tell my clients that more than one or two supposed hairballs a year is not normal,” says Dr. Jane Brunt, CATalyst Council’s executive director and a feline veterinarian. “Frequently, when a cat vomits there is hair mixed in, so owners often assume that it is just a hairball—something they think is a normal occurrence. In fact, it may be a sign of a serious health issue. ” Hairballs are formed when a cat ingests fur through grooming, and the fur builds up in the stomach. Most of the time fur passes through the intestinal tract without any trouble. But if there is a problem with the gastrointestinal tract, such as inflammation, the fur can build up, and the cat will need to regurgitate it.
“What's important for owners to know is that hairballs are not |
new projects using the pi-top laptop. We’re offering learning beyond the screen and keyboard, enabling wider exploration of computer science and basic electronics, ensuring that young learners have the opportunity to be inspired by a world of STEAM-based learning.”
New pi-top price and availability
The new pi-top is on sale today priced at $319, and is also available without a Raspberry Pi for $284.99. ModMyPi is listing it as £259 in the UK. The new pi-top laptop will be available at The Pi Hut, ModMyPi, RS, and other retailers.
Win! GoPiGo3 robot kits and accessoriesHe says, “You’re young and edgy, you have tattoos, you live an alternative lifestyle, you’re successful.” As head of communications for Rolls-Royce, Richard Carter, and I eat dinner at SW Steakhouse inside the posh Wynn hotel on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip, he tries to convince me that I’m exactly the type of person Black Badge hopes to attract. As much as I want to believe him—after drinking Perrier poolside, walking along the bottom of the Grand Canyon, dancing during a helicopter ride, and driving a 2017 Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge—I say, “But I’m not rich enough to own a Wraith.” He laughs and agrees.
What is Black Badge?
When Rolls-Royce launched Black Badge earlier this year, CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said the bespoke program aimed to entice “elusive and defiant risk-takers who break the rules and laugh in the face of convention,” who are “dark and restless … glamorous and daring … uncompromising and unapologetic … untrammelled by social convention.” I translated that to: “We at Rolls-Royce are tired of toiling over our cars just to have Floyd Mayweather, David Beckham, or any of the ungodly members of the evidently infinite Kardashian clan slap chrome dubs on their Wraith, get chauffeured to some West Hollywood club, and pull up in front of buzzing crowds of paparazzi who plaster the tackily tainted car across social media and make the fine folks at Goodwood look like they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Rolls-Royce started its presentation about the Wraith Black Badge by showing a dozen photos of murdered-out Rolls-Royces from around the world. Some owners wrapped their Wraiths in matte-black vinyl and slammed the suspension, while others apparently rattle-canned their cars with Rust-Oleum’s basic black, and each looked atrociously gaudy. I understand why younger, avant-garde Rolls-Royce owners want to modify their cars—typical Rolls-Royces, while absolutely elegant and well-crafted, come off as conservative, traditional, and stuffy—but I sympathize with Rolls-Royce on this one, because the owners blacking out Wraiths and Ghosts aren’t doing it right. Which is why Rolls-Royce came up the Black Badge program, to give a “disruptive” group of owners what they want while putting to rest its scruples.
Life’s Outliers
Pictures of boxer Muhammad Ali, fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, and Keith Moon, the original drummer for The Who, flashed on the screen as director of design for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Giles Taylor, talked about humanity’s esoteric visionaries and troublemakers who helped inspire the Black Badge treatment. The Spirit of Ecstasy is done up in dark chrome, as are the grille surround, lower air intakes, and exhaust finishers. The main hubs of the wheels are constructed out of carbon fiber before artistic, five-spoke aluminum faces are bolted on with titanium fasteners. Taylor said the black paint Rolls-Royce suggests for a Black Badge has 16 base coats and seven coats of clear, each layer hand-polished before the next is put down. Inside, a black starlight headliner sits above a special Cobalto Blue leather interior, also suggested for the Wraith Black Badge, and a number of surfaces are covered in heavily lacquered carbon-fiber trim that has eyelash-thin threads of aluminum woven through it.
A pair of engineers took Taylor’s place to talk about the powertrain and chassis upgrades done to the Wraith Black Badge. Power from the Wraith’s twin-turbocharged 6.6-liter V-12 stays the same at 623 hp, but torque is increased by 30 lb-ft to 642 lb-ft. An inch has been added to the diameter of the front brake rotors, and pressing “Low” on the Wraith’s shift stalk changes the car’s character, making it more assertive. “Low” mode showcases more aggressive shift logic for the eight-speed automatic transmission, which has better clutches, hangs onto gears longer, and changes ratios quicker than the standard transmission. The Wraith Black Badge also has performance-focused throttle mapping; for example, if the throttle is more than 80 percent open, the engine will rev all the way to 6,000 rpm before shifting.
This slew of subtle changes might not seem all that serious, but it is for Rolls-Royce. This is the first time in the automaker’s recent history that performance and attitude trump opulence and elegance. “It’s what we’ve got to do,” said Carter, noting that the ego-driven men buying the Wraith Black Badge—no women have placed orders for a Black Badge yet—want a youthful, expressive Rolls-Royce with boldness befitting of their lifestyle.
Flying Up and Over Mountains
After the presentation, I climbed into a helicopter and flew to the base of the Grand Canyon for lunch before flying to Paiute Golf Resort north of Vegas, where a 2017 Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge waited for me. With deep, rich black paint and a white leather interior, it looked like Cruella De Vil’s dream car. I sat behind the thin-rimmed steering wheel and pressed the button near the A-pillar that automatically closes the yard-long, reverse-hinged door. I pressed the ignition button, expecting some sort of rumble from the exhaust, but the V-12 woke up quietly and quickly settled into a humming idle. After using the navigation screen to preview a snaking route through Red Rock Canyon National Park and up to the crest of Charleston Peak, I put the Wraith in “Low” mode and set off, immediately noticing the extra steering heft that engineers worked into Black Badge models.
On a highway littered with state police, I set cruise control and scrolled through the playlist Rolls-Royce put together for the drive. AC/DC, Iggy and The Stooges, Motörhead, The Doors, The Kinks, and The Velvet Underground—not exactly what you’d expect to hear in a Rolls-Royce, but it felt sort of right in the Black Badge. With the windows down and the volume topped out, I turned the Wraith left onto Lee Canyon Road and started to climb some 7,000 feet in elevation. The engine wound up smoothly toward its redline, the transmission snapped between gears with the immediacy of a sports car, and the big brakes bit down wickedly hard when I came to a series of mild chicanes. The car stayed flat, the chassis composed and balanced, as the Wraith transitioned left to right and back, obviously more confident than the base car. But at the first hairpin the Wraith reminded me that despite its angry appearance and mildly improved performance, it’s still a 5,200-pound luxury coupe that leans and dips like a drunk in a funhouse. I came to a straight bit of road, stopped, cycled through the car’s menus to turn off stability control, and roasted the wide rear tires. I got out of the car near the top of Charleston Peak, saw a pair of thick, still-smoking black stripes, laughed, and breathed in cool mountain air before heading back toward the Strip.
Back At the Steakhouse
At dinner Carter asks what I think of the Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge, and this is what I say: Rolls-Royce could’ve easily put together a simple paint-and-trim package that blacked out every inch of the Wraith, and the package would’ve probably sold extremely well, so why not do just that? Because Black Badge is as much for Rolls-Royce as it is for a new generation of Rolls-Royce owners. It works the wants of potential buyers into existing products without completely treading on Rolls-Royce’s traditions. The treatment may not be enough for some buyers, who will seek out aftermarket shops to darken the few bits of chrome left on the Wraith or add more power to its already potent engine, but Black Badge should better resonate with young, successful, alternative individuals who enjoy shaking up established norms than, say, a standard Wraith would. Black Badge gives the Rolls-Royce Wraith serious cojones, and since I—exactly the type of person Black Badge hopes to attract—sort of want one, it seems Black Badge is a success.
2017 Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge SpecificationsEXCEED is a new generation of tabletop fighting card game with fast-paced, intuitive mechanics and gameplay, accessible to gamers and non-gamers of all skill levels. As the game develops, it will feature a wide variety of fighters drawn from different video game, anime, comic book, and board game worlds!
EXCEED is designed as a game for players of all skill levels. The basic gameplay is easy to learn, but nuanced enough that you’ll still be learning new tricks for your favorite characters long after you start playing. Flexible options and cards with multiple uses let you adapt each fighter to your own style and to the needs of the moment. Whether you’re new to fighting card games, or just to card games in general, EXCEED is a great place to start.
EXCEED is different from most dueling card games in that it is Non-Collectible and Non-Constructible. A character in EXCEED is a complete kit, and you play all their cards at once. You do not need to chase after rares or buy expansions to complete and play your favorite character. EXCEED grows as you master your characters and learn new techniques–when to attack and when to defend, when to press your luck and when to call a bluff.
We've been showing off EXCEED at conventions and to reviewers for months now. Take a look and see what people are saying about the game!
"...with its nail-biting card play, excellent hand management, and multiple uses for each card, I can’t help but be stoked to see what Level 99 does with this one." - Dan Thurot, Space Biff
"I really liked it... makes me feel like I'm in a classic fighting game!" - Sen Foong Lim, designer of Belfort, host of Meeple Syrup
"I'm excited about this game, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy for myself!" - Alex Erde, Who What Why Cast
"There is definitely critical acclaim for this game... I enjoyed the lighter, faster aspect... it was a very brutal slugfest." - James Smith, How to be a Nerd Podcast
"You get right to the meat of it... lean and intuitive and fun... I'll be looking forward to it!" - Jason Hammer, The Nerd Nighters
"A very unique mechanic with the placement of cards, fighting, and range... I can actually feel like we are fighting... very compelling." - Tiffany Ralph, @TheOneTAR
"I love it. I'll back it!" - Scott Morris, Crits Happen
"A very neat evolution of the BattleCON system." - Rodney Smith, Watch it Played
"I really enjoyed it... I can't wait for this to come out." - Tim Jennette, the Metal Meeple
We plan for each group of fighters in EXCEED to come from a different video game, anime, tabletop game, or other well-known source, making it a true crossover series. Every "season" of duel decks will be from a different background, giving a new flavor and style to the game.
The first “season” of EXCEED features fighters from Jasco Games’ Red Horizon original property, first featured in the Universal Fighting System TCG. These characters have been reviewed and vetted by the pros at Jasco so that they remain true to their UFS counterparts.
We already have some exciting video game and board game licenses lined up for future seasons! These will be revealed after the campaign ends.
A special thanks to our friend Ferdinand for putting together these tutorial and gameplay videos for EXCEED!
EXCEED is a turn-based fighting card game with a simultaneous selection element, combining the pacing of structured play with the tension of simultaneous attacks. Each turn you'll be able to move, to use one of your fighter's many boost options, or to improve your position by drawing more cards. If you think you've got the advantage, press the attack and Strike your opponent to compare your cards. Whoever has the superior attack will win the exchange!
Each fighter has their own unique attacks and abilities that will change the way you evaluate the battlefield and your hand, as well as inform when you want to attack and when to play it safe. You can even improve your unique ability further by going into Exceed Mode and unleashing your full power!
If you want to try it for yourself, you can download the rulebook and a free demo deck, Reese vs. Alice, right here:
Make sure to post in the comments and let us know how you’ve enjoyed the demo!
If you'd like to just check out the entire rulebook, you can see both pages here (yes, Level 99 Games finally has a rulebook with only 2 pages):
Click on the image above to download the 2 page rules set!
Tag Team is another mode that allows you to play with two characters in the same deck! Check out a full game of this below!
You can join us in bringing EXCEED to life by backing the project and claiming some duel decks of your own to start battling.
Rewards within Canada, EU, and Australia will ship with no customs charges
Our add-ons are fighters from different game worlds, which we hope to have appear in future seasons of EXCEED. Until then, this is the best way to get these fighters, and they will be hard to find after the project ends!
To get an add-on, just use the'manage your pledge' feature at the top of the project to over-pledge for the project by the amount that corresponds to your add-ons. Please note that for shipping reasons, add-ons are only available to pledge tiers $45 and above.
We also have some pretty awesome stretch goals that will enhance the game for all backers. Share the project with your friends, and help us make some extra cool stuff!
... and more to be revealed as the project goes on!
Level 99 Games is a professional development studio and publishing house behind such games as BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, Argent the Consortium, and more. We are known for delivering high-quality games with nearly limitless replayability and tons of game content.
EXCEED has been built from the ground up by the designer of the original BattleCON system, D. Brad Talton Jr, over a year and a half of continuous development and testing spanning 29 different development versions. With the system thoroughly tested and the characters balanced rigorously, we’re now ready to bring EXCEED to the world!
Level 99 Games has been in the business of printing and delivering games for over 4 years now, and we have plenty of experience in bringing products to life and delivering them to backers across seven successful Kickstarter projects.
You can check out some of our other projects here:
Our friends at Jasco Games were gracious enough to let us license the characters and art of Red Horizon without any pre-existing sales data on EXCEED. However, many of the licensors that we are talking with for future seasons want us to prove that a demand for this game exists before they commit to letting us print their characters in EXCEED.
Every pledge, even a pledge for $1, helps us to prove to the big video game companies that a demand for this sort of game exists, and will help us to secure some major fighting video game licenses moving forward.
Additional funding on Kickstarter will help us to jump-start the community and tournament scene for EXCEED with additional prize support, demo kits, promotional materials, and more convention appearances. And of course, we would like to give something back to fans as well for supporting the initial launch of the game, in the form of our stretch goals.
Exceed vs. BattleCON
If you're a veteran of our BattleCON games, you might be wondering "what's different?" The best way to answer that question is to play it for yourself! However, if you don't have time for that, we can give you a quick overview.
EXCEED is a fighting game based on speculation, back-and-forth play, bluffing, and calling out your opponent. While BattleCON is luckless and is more like Chess, EXCEED combines luck and evaluation together, more like Poker. Also, EXCEED will feature various different properties in each new season, while BattleCON will continue to feature original fighters from our World of Indines. Both games will exist side-by-side and have their own support.
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Thanks so much for getting in involved with the project and checking out our work at Level 99 Games! I hope that you have a blast with EXCEED!
- D. Brad Talton Jr, designer of EXCEED and president of Level 99 GamesResearchers testing the waters off Louisiana in June found hugely elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, some of which are known carcinogens.
The researchers from Oregon State University say that a device taking samples just off the shore of Louisiana's Grande Isle registered a 40-fold increase in PAHs between May and June.
What's worse is that the sampling device was specifically designed to measure the fraction of PAHs in the environment that could make their way through a biological membrane.
"This is a measure of what would enter into an organism," said Kim Anderson, an OSU professor of environmental and molecular toxicology.
"There was a huge increase of PAHs that are bio-available to the organisms -- and that means they can essentially be uptaken by organisms throughout the food chain."
Anderson said that water samples taken off the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coasts -- as well as air samples taken along the coast -- also showed elevated levels of PAHs, but not nearly of the same magnitude.
Samples from July were lost; Anderson is now testing samples taken in August. The operative question is how many of the PAHs have biodegraded in the interim. BP's blowout sent somewhere between 4 and 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf's waters between April 20 and July 15.
PAHs are a class of more than 100 hydrocarbon pollutants; 17 get particular attention because exposure can have harmful health effects.
Anderson said that almost every one of those 17 particularly toxic compounds experienced the 40-fold increase that the entire class did.
"This would be the largest PAH change I've seen in over a decade of doing this," she told HuffPost.
Anderson said different organisms -- be they plankton, fish, shellfish or humans -- have different exposure risks to PAHs in the water; and they also have different capacities to metabolize the PAHs.
So just how many of these toxic compounds actually ended up in the food chain was beyond her area of research, she said.
She did not issue any warning to consumers, noting: "The USDA is testing the seafood and I would presume that they've ensured that what's on the market is safe to eat."
Anderson said that based on the findings of other researchers, she suspects that the abundant use of dispersants by BP increased the bioavailability of the PAHs in this case.I’m back in Philadelphia, and Eagles Camp is finally upon us. I couldn’t be more excited to get to work with this team.
I’m very anxious and antsy for camp to begin. We have a great hardworking team, and that’s what I’m most excited about. I know where we are now is not where we’re going to be at the start of the season. We’re going to get better during training camp, and it’s going to be fun for us, and all of you, to see our team come together.
I want our fans to know that this entire offseason, starting back at the end of December through this past summer, we’ve had a singular focus as a group on getting better, and working whenever we could to make you guys proud.
When we wrapped up our June minicamp in Philadelphia, we were even more dedicated to that mission. We spoke about remembering that we have to continue to work hard, and that even when we’re out of town, we represent the Eagles. That means a commitment to being the best we can be.
That’s the type of mentality that we want to have.
NEST WEST
After minicamp ended, I headed down to San Diego for a few weeks to work out with some teammates, and a few other NFL players.
I had already gone down to San Diego to workout with Darren Sproles early in the offseason and loved it there, so I’d always planned to go back down. The timing turned out to be perfect. In addition to Darren training there, we had two other guys on the team that live there: Ryan Mathews and Seyi Ajirotutu. Mark Sanchez had also trained down there before, so when he got word that we were all going to be there, he put together a little “Nest West.”
We had about 12 guys out there in the second week of July, and it was great work. Mark put on a hard-working week for the guys, and it was intense. We got after it hard, and I think all the guys got better.
Training camp starts a little later this year than it did in my first two seasons, so it gave all of us an extra week to prepare our bodies, and get in the best shape that we can to be 100 percent healthy going into camp. That’s every player’s goal, to be in the best shape you have ever been in, and it rings true especially for us with the Eagles. Everyone has to be in great shape to run our offense throughout training camp and into the season.
That’s why a lot of guys came down to San Diego to train with Todd Durkin. With Todd, we pretty much train with the same intensity that we practice at during training camp. So it’s an unbelievable way to get in the best shape you can be.
During that week, we hit the weight room three times — Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then we were on the field three times — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The field stuff was pretty much just running routes and things like that. We had two quarterbacks with Mark and Matt Barkley, and they were throwing the heck out of the ball. We were able to get a ton of route work in.
I was kind of the vet of the receiving group, so I was able to help guys out a little bit, and teach them some of the things that I know. We had Andrew Gleichert, a tight end that we signed after the draft from Michigan State; Rasheed Bailey, a Philly guy out of Delaware Valley; and Quron Pratt, who was on our practice squad last year. So it was cool for me to be able to work with them and help them.
Personally, I’ve had a lot of help in my career from different guys. Brent Celek has done an unbelievable job of helping me out. So I want to help the younger guys any way I can. I let them know early on that if they had a question about a route or a technique, they could always come to me and ask. We have a lot of guys like that on our team, selfless guys who only care about winning. And we know that if we can make another person better, that’s going to make the team better.
STAYING IN SAN DIEGO
Most of the guys left after that week to go finish up their own training, but I stayed in San Diego for about two more weeks working out with Todd, Darren and a handful of other NFL players. We spent those last couple weeks working hard, and grinding together to get ready for the season.
One of the cooler things we got to do, which Todd organized, was take a trip to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, and hang out with the Marines there for the day. They actually have a Marine Corps football team at that base, so all those guys were out there. We threw a little bit with them and did drills. We each worked with guys that played similar positions, and showed them some of our techniques. Todd and his crew do that every year, but this was my first year with them, so I really enjoyed the experience.
Anytime we have the opportunity to perform in front of members of the Armed Forces, we want to take full advantage of that opportunity, and I take pride in doing so. I have such a high level of respect for everything that they do. Everything great that we have in this country, we get to enjoy because of the sacrifices they’ve made. So I’m really glad Todd organized that, and I got to be a part of it.
I also loved training with Todd, or TD as we call him. He is committed to everything he does, but especially to his family, and he treats the guys who work out at his gym as family. I think that goes a long way toward why people love training there. It’s a great environment that allows us to get better.
Everything that we did while we were out there is relatable to how we practice and how we play with the Philadelphia Eagles. Everything is tempo-based and it’s up-tempo, so I’m able to get in the best shape possible. It’s a lot of fun going out there and training with elite guys like, Darren, Drew Brees and Brandin Cooks. I took it as an opportunity to pick up any knowledge I could from those guys.
Darren has been training there since he was a rookie with the Chargers. He still has a house there, so every offseason he goes back. Last season, we were kind of joking around about the shape he’s in, and I said, “Hey, I’m going to come down and train with you.” But then it turned into something we actually did. I went down for about three weeks around early March, and I loved it. It was a short period of time, but I definitely got better. So when we were wrapping up the program, I expressed that I wanted to come back and do more in the summer, because I knew the summer would set me up well for the season. So that was the impetus for me to go back down there, to work on some blocking stuff again, and just get in the best shape I could.
It’s been really great working with Darren. The guy works his butt off each and every day. He brings it, and even at 32 years old, established in this league as an excellent player, he comes in with the mentality of a rookie fourth-round draft pick with something to prove. He’s got a huge chip on his shoulder, and he’s going to outwork everyone. He’s been huge as a mentor for me this offseason.
I honestly believe, coming out of that whole experience, that I’m in the best shape of my life. Training with Darren and some of my fellow Eagles teammates for that week allowed us to build even more camaraderie. I feel like I’m heading into training camp exactly the way I need to.
THE ITCH
As we get closer and closer to training camp, I’ve really been feeling that itch, because I can’t wait to get out there on the practice field with the guys.
That’s why these last few days as camp approaches have been the hardest ones for me.
With this seven-month grind from August to February we have coming up, this last week has been really low volume, and pretty much a recovery week. We’re supposed to take it slow this week, because it’s essential for us to rest our bodies to get ready. But it’s made even tougher because we’re the last team to report, and we’re seeing all these other teams already practicing. I badly want to get out there too. That itch is building up inside to get on the field to try to get better as a team and win football games.
I’m beyond excited for training camp to start. I’m honestly ecstatic. We’ve trained the past six months to get to training camp and into the season. I think I can speak for my teammates when I say this is going to be a fun year, and we’re really excited for it.
We hope you are, too.Share:
WASHINGTON: CIA director John Brennan Thursday said that the next U.S president will continue to support air strikes against militants without consulting any world leaders, including Pakistani leaders.
He said that the Taliban and its brutal offshoot, the Haqqani network, continue to wage war in Afghanistan.
Speaking to participants at the Brookings Institute in Washington, Brennan said that the air strikes were key to repressing the insurgents on the battlefields. He added that the killing of former Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was an intentional decision.
"The Taliban, in particular its sub-group, the Haqqanis, have been determined and continue to carry out attacks. They at times are also successful against US personnel inside of Afghanistan. The president (Barack Obama) has emphasized many times that he is going to do what was necessary to protect the security of the Americans both here and abroad, and so the decision was made," said CIA chief Brennan.
Meanwhile, a US powerful senator John McCain, in interview with Voice of America (VOA), has said that the Haqqani network is still active in Pakistan.
Agreeing with the US officials, Jens Stoltenberg, the chief of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has reiterated that the west will not allow Afghanistan to be changed into a terrorist hideout once again.
"Our military mission in Afghanistan is our biggest military operation ever. The reason why we are in Afghanistan, is to fight international terrorism and to prevent that Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for international terrorists. We also decided to step up our support for Iraq," NATO chief Stoltenberg said.
Senator McCain said that Pakistan must not be isolated. That such a step will encourage China to help Pakistan.
"I think it is very obvious that the Haqqani network is still operating effectively and it has created major problems for Afghanistan," said McCain.A few months ago I started a racist Facebook account.
The reason I did so is, at this point, largely irrelevant. Suffice to say, my initial goal in creating the fake account was to make it look real enough that I would be accepted into closed and secret racist Facebook groups. Not to cause trouble anywhere, but to watch, and learn who these people are and what makes them tick. My own personal Facebook feed long ago become something of an echo-chamber of progressive ideas. I wanted to see the other end of the extreme.
I didn’t want to create a cartoonish villain, but rather a profile that could convincingly belong to a real person with a tendency to proudly wear his bigotry on his sleeve. I used a photo of a random young man in a bar — I literally Googled “random guy” to find it — then set my location to a small city in the American south and “liked” Facebook pages for popular things in that area. Then, over the course of a couple of days, I shared a few memes about racism against whites, pride in the Confederate flag, and links to articles on websites that supported such views. My privacy settings made it impossible to see I actually had no friends yet.
Once my public profile looked legit, I searched for a few white nationalist/supremacist Facebook groups (I learned they now call themselves “white traditionalists”) and requested to join. Within an hour I was accepted into one, then another, and in each group I immediately looked for a few active posters and sent them “friend” requests. Surprisingly quickly, I had a few racist friends. I sent more requests, to more people in those same groups, and via the power of Facebook’s “mutual friend” alert, most were soon accepted. Within a week I was being sent at least a dozen “friend” requests every day, and I accepted them all. I was being added by my new “friends” to additional hate-filled groups, about not just white power but loving guns, hating SJWs (“social justice warriors”), and even groups that seem to be mostly dedicated to posting photos of women in Confederate flag bikinis.
Soon I had over 300 racist friends.
I mean, I have to assume they are all racist. Not just because white supremacist groups were our only point of connection, but because the awful, bigoted things on my own profile I were racking up “likes,” shares, and comments like “FUCK YEAH!”
Never, at any time, has anyone reacted negatively to something I posted. No one calling me out as racist, or over the line. No corrections to regurgitated conspiracy theories and hoaxes. No lost “friends.”
I explain all of this to make it explicitly clear: I went in looking for racists. Just racists.
And now my feed is 90% posts about why Donald Trump should be our next President.
If it’s pro-Trump, it’s in my feed: Videos of angry speeches, re-posts of talking points from his official Facebook and Twitter accounts, and an endless stream of “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” and “TRUMP STRONG THE LION!”
A hatred of “Political Correctness” is everywhere.
Trump can do no wrong. The most vile of his statements? These people agree with him. Any criticism against him only emboldens his supporters more.
Tell me again how their problem with Bernie Sanders is about the workability of his proposed policies.
Has Trump declared someone his enemy? They are ruthlessly mocked in the most coarse and hateful ways you can imagine:
“Hahaha, look, Hillary Clinton’s head, poorly pasted onto the half-naked, cellulite-covered body of some other woman! She’s old and saggy!”
“Bernie Sanders is the atheist Jew who wants to take your money and kill babies!”
“Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, intent on bringing Sharia Law to the United States!”
“The GOP and [Trump’s fellow candidates] are pussies!”
“The mainstream media is out to get Trump and treating him unfairly! And Megyn Kelly is a brainless bimbo!”
“Immigrants are stealing our jobs!“
“Immigrants are unemployed welfare bums!”
“Refugees are terrorists in disguise!”
“Protesters against Trump are thugs, gang members, drug addicts, godless communist agitators, and dangerous dogs who need to be brought to heel!”
One “friend” of mine is desperate to get involved in the “Lion’s Guard,” Donald Trump’s growing personal militia of enforcers. Not because there is a legitimate danger from “far-Left agitators” but because he openly wants to, in his own words, “fuck a nigger up and kick a monkey dyke in the cunt.”Two months ago, 54-year-old Marlene Miller was in so much pain she could barely get out of bed.
Her breast cancer had returned after five years of remission, and had spread to her lymph nodes and bones. But when her doctor suggested she start palliative care, Miller resisted.
READ MORE: Canadian study suggests the term ‘palliative care’ needs rebranding
“I was like, ‘well I’m not ready to die yet.’ That’s what I thought palliative care was going to be about,” she said.
When she finally relented and started to feel better, Miller realized she had misconceptions about what palliative care really is. Her nurse and doctor are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They help regulate her medications and make sure she feels comfortable and empowered.
She can now do some of the things she loves again, like gardening and shopping.
“It has alleviated so much of my stress and fear,” Miller said. “Even as this progresses, I know I’m going to be looked after by these angels that are palliative care.”
Palliative care is not just about managing symptoms as death draws near. It’s a whole approach to care that takes into consideration physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. When started early, studies show it can not only improve quality of life — in some cases, it can extend it.
But Miller is in the minority.
Only 15-30 per cent of people dying in Canada have access to hospice palliative care services, according to the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association.
READ MORE: Gaps in palliative care hurting patients, increasing healthcare costs: report
A recent report from the Canadian Cancer Society paints a grim picture of access across the country. With no federal guidelines, most provinces have developed their own strategies, leading to a patchwork of care. Despite many investments in recent years, the availability, accessibility and quality of care still depend on where you live.
Quebec is the only province that has passed a law guaranteeing end-of-life care for the terminally ill.
The consequence? The majority of gravely ill Canadians are dying in emergency rooms. With an aging population, experts say we simply can’t afford the status quo.
A true choice?
With politicians and pundits in Ottawa focussed on medically assisted dying legislation, there is frustration that the urgent need for palliative care is being ignored.
READ MORE: Assisted dying in Canada: The clock has run out but what does that mean?
Experts told a special parliamentary committee on assisted dying that Canadians can’t make a true choice to end their lives without access to quality palliative care.
WATCH: Palliative care key component of health care system
Doris Barwich of the B.C. Centre for Palliative Care cites research that found over half of cancer patients who expressed a genuine desire to die met the criteria for depression and anxiety.
“If there’s no place for them to go, if there’s no one who will go there, ask them the difficult question with them and align the care they want and need, we’re afraid people will be asking for assistance in death,” she says.
The organization representing Canada’s palliative care physicians is calling for a Palliative Care Secretariat and a National Palliative and End-of-Life Care Strategy, as well as more research.
Political action
While all three major political parties agree Canadians need access to quality palliative care no matter where they live, they have yet to work together to make it happen.
Health Minister Jane Philpott says palliative care will be a major priority for the government over the next four years, as they negotiate a new health accord with the provinces and territories. But she provides few details.
“I have said repeatedly that I think every Canadian should have access to high-quality palliative care,” Philpott said. “Investments through the health accords will make a big difference.”
The NDP has repeatedly called for a national strategy on palliative care. In committee MP Murray Rankin successfully amended bill C-14, the assisted dying bill, to include a commitment to work with provinces and territories to facilitate access to palliative care.
“I think there’s a political will to do it and |
matched, or prevented, that nexus. If you vary impedances, you can get something that really fights you, or something that reacts with amazing freedom, ease, and amplitude in a way that brute force alone would not previously have been able to achieve.
That happens in guitars. Most guitars fight their strings to some extent. The strings cannot unload the energy into the guitar. The guitar parts are too solid and unreceptive. What I’ve done here is simply to have noticed this. And I’m not the first to have noticed this, and I certainly didn’t invent the phenomenon. Now, the Spanish makers whom I so admire weren’t academically trained, but they paid attention! They listened (to sound, and to the guitarists who played their instruments) and thought, something like, “that last guitar was better than this other one. What did you do?” Not being distracted by computers, Wikipedia, or books, the Spanish guitar makers simply noticed things that were right in front of them.
So the surprise that you asked about was that I noticed that my guitars got louder when I strummed them. More specifically, I noticed that my guitar’s sound blooms after I strike the strings. And that really surprised me. It was completely unexpected. (Somogyi writes extensively about the “bloom” in sound both in his book and on his blog.) It didn’t seem to be my doing. It was something the guitar was doing. And this brings us back to what the metronomes were doing: holding hands and walking together, working together. And it’s right there in front of you, in the metronome experiment. And it’s just as surprising to hear it in a guitar as to see it with metronomes.
GC: On your website, I count nine different models of guitars that you build, seven are steel string and two nylon. What are some of the differences found in each of the steel string models?
ES: If you were a guitar player in Spain you’d go to your local friendly guitar maker and say, “I want a guitar”. And, everybody knew what that meant because Spanish guitars are pretty much all the same size and shape. But in this country, the industrial powers needed to produce consumer goods for a growing and very mobile population; and they came up with different versions of the guitar that were marketed for different purposes. That was not needed in Europe, but was very useful here.
The first guitars were small. In time, people wanted LOUDER guitars, because the nature of popular entertainment changed; it grew hugely. Also, there was a greater popular music culture in American than there was in Europe. There had to be. The population was more ambitious, was growing, expanding, and traveling. There were no TV, movies, or computers. If you weren’t working, music was the way to be entertained and to meet people. You hung around and played, or danced.
Metal strings came on the scene around the 1880s; that was a big boost, because you could get more sound. This itself came about largely through advances in wire making technology when this country was expanding westward and they needed wire for fences, etc. Therefore, society came up with the method for making a lot of wire. They put some of the wires on guitars and this material lasted longer than gut strings, was cheaper, made more noise…everybody was happy.
One of the entertainment modes that existed was the orchestra. There were, accordingly, guitar orchestras, mandolin and mandocello orchestras, balalaika orhestras…you name it! The guitar model that was assigned the function of playing in the orchestra was, imaginatively enough, the Orchestra Model, or what we now call the OM, which is a very popular model of guitar. The dreadnaught was BIG and it put out a lot of bass, which worked for a lot of popular music because the bass accompanied the rest of the orchestra very well.
Altogether, for a long time, the guitar did not have its own identity. It was, by itself, a more or less anonymous member of a group of instruments that played as part of an ensemble, usually with mandolin, banjo and fiddle, and maybe some other things. Even in jazz the guitar is only part of an orchestra.
The guitar only began to have its own distinct voice in the 1950’s, when Elvis Presley was on TV and first exposed a lot of people to the sound of one guitar alone. It actually was the first time that many people just heard a guitar. I am talking here about a mass audience, rather than the audience that might have been in a real audience at an actual musical performance.
GC: So it seems to me that the different models, or styles of guitar arose out of need and/or usefulness. Was it the players or the manufacturers who determine which models needed to be produced?
ES: The accepted models are mostly set by the Martin company, maybe the Gibson company. Everybody knows them, and everybody copied them, until people like me came along. Also, historically, even though various “models” had been prototyped or made in small quantities, the principal manufacturers never undertook making any kind of guitar in large quantities until they were sure that enough market demand for these existed so as to make the venture profitable. Some of our most popular and familiar models of steel string guitars were not made in large quantities until twenty years after they had made their initial appearance.
In my opinion, most steel string guitar makers are not well trained, or they don’t have broad knowledge. The make guitars, but they don’t know, I think, that most of them are making copies of copies of copies, etc, of the original, and that there has been very little variation of them. The Dreadnought is the most popular. I have made Dreadnoughts, although I don’t make them anymore. The Dreadnaught is THE most popular shape of steel string guitars today. I make something I like better that I call the Modified Dreadnaught. I was probably the first one to make something like that, and this was before alternative names for models got to be popular.
I took a Dreadnought and re-designed/shaped it for a client who wanted something that worked better ergonomically. I called it the Modified Dreadnought, which doesn’t sound very imaginative, simply because I didn’t know what else to call it. But now, if you look in guitar magazines, everybody who makes whatever model has some romantic proprietary name attached to it. “The Sequoia”, “The Grand Teton”, “The Empire” model, “The Golden Cuspidor!!” (laughs) It’s become quite an industry — which is another difference between steel string guitar making culture and European guitar making culture. In the European culture, for anybody who works as an individual luthier, it’s unthinkable to not put one’s own name on their instruments. In this country the attitude is: “who knows my name? I’m going to call it something that sounds GREAT!” The factories are just as often called something iconic or geographic (Santa Cruz Guitar Company, Froggy Bottom, Running Dog, Ovation, True North, Guitabec, Tacoma, etc. etc. etc) as they are called after people. But many individuals make the “this model” or the “that model”. One’s name might appear on the label but it’s all about marketing.
Commercial sounding guitar names are often associated with nature. The Running Dog brand is owned by a very nice guitar maker named Rick Davis. I asked, “well, how’d you come up with Running Dog?” He said, I was talking to friend of mine who suggested using my initials, RD. I said, “Running Dog”? Doesn’t it sound kind of feral and vicious? Couldn’t you get something more user friendly like “Rubber Duckie”? (laughs). It’s part of our culture to think corporately. We’re used to it. It’s not good or bad. But it never occurred to me to call my guitars anything other than my name.
GC: What is your Modified Dreadnought all about?
ES: A Dreadnought is a big blobby guitar. The classical guitar has some very nice curves. The Dreadnought... well, not so much. It’s just BIG. It’s musical uses were for people in a group, who were standing while they played, with a strap around their shoulder to hold the guitar up. The physical balance was never important. But when you sit down to play it, it slides around your lap; the waist is kind of shallow; it’s a little top heavy. It’s not made for sitting the way the classical guitar is. So, the Modified Dreadnought is the Dreadnought re-shaped, not re-sized. It has a more pronounced waist and a higher center of gravity and it’s not top-heavy. You can sit it and play it comfortably on the lap.
Within my lifetime, guitar fingerpickers have come to the fore. These are people who play the guitar in a sitting position. They need an instrument that works with those ergonomics: that’s the Modified Dreadnought, in fact. I listened to what my client wanted and I came up with something that made him happy. I believe I was the first one (to modify the Dreadnought).
(The following question is the one that seemed to give Somogyi time to think about and reflect upon his career and contributions to lutherie. He clearly possesses a rational and analytical mind. To wrap his head around a topic such as what might have been, a somewhat speculative question, took a succession of three more emails before we both felt it was adequately dealt with. I have incorporated text from all the emails as well as our in-person discussion. Though it departs from the normal interview structure a bit, the emails provided a keen insight into Somogyi and what he has found most significant in his life and career. )
GC: My next question is also drawn from something I read in your blog. It concerns your visit to the Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase in New York State, and the remarks you made about the culture and style of East Coast/ New York guitar builders who mostly specialized in archtops rather than flat, etc. I found this very interesting. I want to ask you how do you think your career as a builder might have been different had you started out in New York rather than in the San Francisco/Oakland area?
ES: Well, we could talk about chaos theory! That’s a relatively new concept. To my understanding, it’s that mode of thought that recognizes that one thing follows another in unpredictable ways. You just can’t know what impact something you would have done has had, or whether it has any impact or effect other than the one you intended, or where on the planet or to what extent. And, for me to consider, for me to imagine that I might have been living back east rather than here, and to try and imagine how my life would have wound up, I can’t do it, because one’s week, let alone one’s month or one’s year or one’s decade is made up of so many things that are below the level of consciousness or awareness. I mean, just to be facetious, let me say that if I had crossed the intersection of 42nd and Grove on April 12, 1964, I would have been hit by a truck. That wouldn’t have happened had I been in New York.
GC: (Laughing) I am sorry but I think my question came off as way too broad. I was thinking more specifically about sound and how perhaps building archtop guitars might have affected the way you thought about sound.
ES: I’ll tell you something that is significant. I started out making guitars in the early 1970’s as a hobby. As it turned out I never was able to find a real job and I stayed with it.
GC: Lucky for us!
ES: I’m still chewing on the question of how my life would have developed differently had I been located on the East coast. But a lot of life’s successes and failures come about because of context and being in the right place at the right time. Period.
Well, I’m going to tell you about three things that happened that were unexpected but that influenced me fully as much as the 3,689,917 things that might have happened to me had I been living back east would have.
I’ll start with some context first, though. When I began making my first guitar in 1970 I was more or less a hippie — that is, a bearded (but clean-smelling) young man who was living without much sense of direction. I was living in the Bay Area largely because I’d graduated from U.C. Berkeley, and it was “home” to me. I embarked on that first guitar making project casually; as far as I knew it was going to be a hobby-project to tide me over until I got “a real job”.
I didn’t know any American guitar makers in those days; I had not even heard of anyone outside of Spain or Germany to be making guitars by hand. Still, I’d spent a Summer in Spain and hung out around some of the guitar shops in Granada; and later, when I went to grad school in Wisconsin in the late sixties I met a man, Art Brauner, who had built a guitar with the help of Irving Sloane’s pioneering book Classic Guitar Making. I was impressed; having been a student much more than anything else in my young life I’d not produced much of anything other than lecture notes, papers, essays, reports, and test results — but this fellow had made a real object! An actual guitar! It made an impression, in spite of the fact that doing this kind of woodworking was an odd way indeed to spend one’s time in those days; no one in my family had ever puttered with hobbies, done woodwork in the basement, welded, built models from kits, made furniture, or anything like that; they were too busy surviving and simply didn’t have the time to. Anyway, I eventually completed my first guitar — a classical model — using Sloane’s seminal book. I think all of us young American guitar makers used that book to get off the ground: American lutherie culture was in its very early stages.
Having made that first guitar brought me a bit of repair work from friends, and this represented a bit of welcome income — so I opened up a small guitar repair shop on Grove street (which later became Martin Luther King avenue) in Berkeley, California. This was in 1971. One year later I took over retiring guitar maker Denis Grace’s larger shop in Oakland, and for a long time made my living principally by doing all kinds of stringed instrument repairs. It’s amazing that I survived, because I had no training, no experience, no knowledge, few tools, no teachers, no work discipline, no professional standards, and marginal skills. Still, I survived, and made a few guitars each year. Because I played flamenco I was making mostly Spanish (classic and flamenco) guitars, as well as lutes and dulcimers; if nothing else, I wasn’t afraid of tackling different projects. I also made a few steel string instruments which, in reality, were nothing other than bigger Spanish guitars with metal strings. Well... I didn’t know any better. I did feel more or less pleased to think of myself as a luthier, though; I think the romance of it kept me going.
It most certainly wasn’t the income; I remember that I grossed $1800 the first year and $2500 the second (I had a part-time job teaching, on the side, to help me pay my bills); it helped that I was young and single and living simply. But I didn’t really face up to how inadequate and amateurish my work was until 1977. In that year I was invited to display my guitars at the Carmel Classic Guitar Festival, as one of seven luthier exhibitors.
The Carmel Classic Guitar Festival is the first of the factors I mentioned above. I’d built a handful of guitars by 1977 and felt happy to be invited to show my work. I can tell you that while my parents could not begin to fathom what I was doing making guitars when I could have had such a promising career doing something reasonable, my friends had been unfailingly supportive and encouraging to me in my guitar making efforts. (Guess which set of people I put my faith in?) In any event, I went to Carmel feeling a little cocky and smug, thinking to impress the people there just as I had wowed my friends.
Carmel is an upscale vacation community four hours’ drive from San Francisco; there’s no reason to go there outside of visiting art galleries and restaurants, to play golf, breathe clean seaside air, and relax. The guitar festival itself — the first one I’d ever gone to — was a prestigious event that drew important people from all over this country and even a few from overseas. It had been organized by a prominent local classical guitar teacher, Guy Horn, to whom I remain indebted to this day for reasons that I will go into below. Among my fellow exhibitors were Jeffrey Elliott, Lester DeVoe, Randy Angella, and John Mello — all of whom went on to support themselves by making Spanish guitars.
The festival was a catastrophe for me. My work, in its full and splendidly careless amateurishness, was the worst of anyone’s there. Worse yet, this was clearly revealed to everybody. The three-day long event was a disastrous, humiliating, and sobering experience that I came back from feeling severely shaken and depressed. My friends had, in fact, been no help to me at all with their uncritical kindness and I hadn’t learned anything from it. I confronted the fact that I had been more or less wasting my time living out a hippie fantasy. It calmly stared right back at me.
Understandably, I experienced a crisis. It became clear to me that I had two choices: quit making guitars and do something else, or buckle down and do better work; the experience of the Carmel festival was decisive and made any denial or rationalization impossible. It took me several weeks of re-evaluating to realize that I actually liked making guitars enough to stick with it, and that the path was open to me if I wanted to apply myself and do professional-level work. That was my real starting point as a guitar maker. And it was within a year of that decision to do the best work I could, and not let things slide, that I started to make steel string guitars. Miraculously, the timing worked out: I was starting to meet serious steel string guitar players in that period — and specifically the first of my Windham Hill contacts.
The second factor was that the timing of all this was fortuitous in a much larger sense: that was when making [hopefully better] guitars was beginning to make a blip on the cultural radar. The folk/rock movement of the sixties and seventies had certainly sparked the playing of guitars; but all the famous folk, country, bluegrass, and popular singers, duets, and groups who used guitars — such as Peter, Paul and Mary, the Mamas and the Papas, the Kingston trio, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Weavers, Dave van Ronk, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Simon and Garfunkel, Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, the Limelighters, the Everly Brothers, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Kate Wolf, the New Christy Minstrels, Phil Ochs, Ian and Sylvia, Joan Baez, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. — were all using store-bought factory-made guitars, not handmade ones. These were, by the way, all steel string instruments; the only guitarists who were using hand crafted instruments at that time were the nylon and gut string group: the classical and flamenco players. Handcrafted steel string guitars were only about to make an appearance... via the Windham Hill label. That Windham Hill door, it turned out, was one of the most important ones that had or would ever open up for me. And none of that would have happened without my disgraceful showing at the Carmel Classic Guitar Festival.
I should explain my reference to Windham Hill a bit. That recording company introduced solo steel string guitar music to the public. Windham Hill’s impact on this specific music, and contemporary guitar music on the American and world scene in general, was phenomenal. The guitarists who recorded on that label became leading points of musical inspiration and reference for many young guitarists, both compositionally and acoustically — in part because, for the first time, the guitar was being recorded and listened to at the level of fidelity of sound previously occupied by classical music alone, and in part because no one before them had composed interesting and complex music for the steel string guitar alone**. And this acceptance of better-quality guitar music also became my point of entry into the world of serious lutherie. I was lucky to have met the Windham Hill guitarists when the Windham Hill phenomenon was just getting off the ground. That was the point in time when factory made guitars were showing their limitations and guitarists were for the first time needing genuinely better instruments: guitars that played in tune, that had good sound and dynamic range, and that recorded well.
[** This isn’t 100% true, but it’s close. The very first strains of melodic and solo guitar music (as opposed to its being an accompanying instrument) came from John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Clarence White, and Doc Watson. They were pioneers and inventors; they just weren’t mass market successes in the way that Windham Hill was.]
I was also lucky to be living an hour from Palo Alto, which was the epicenter of that musical ferment. It helped that I’d figured some things out about guitars by then; I’d had six years of experience which I finally began to pay serious attention to after my disappointing showing at the Carmel Festival, and my instruments were by then finally good enough that people could consider playing and buying them. Happily, my steel string guitars performed well not only acoustically but also did exceptionally well in the recording studio; the players very much appreciated being able to make better recordings; and my word-of-mouth reputation grew. But none of this — other than the incidental fact of my living an hour away from a group of talented steel string guitar musicians — would have happened had I made a good showing at the Carmel Classic Guitar Festival. I would probably have continued to make classical guitars and my life would have gone off in a very different direction.
If you remember, I had mentioned three influences. The third one was that I met a woman whom I married, which relationship enabled me to continue to make guitars at my own pace without worrying about surviving, She was bringing in the income. If that piece hadn’t been in place, then I might have needed to decide, for expediency’s and survival’s sake, that I was going to make one model only and bet my future on that effort.
As it happened, it wasn’t a happy marriage at all. If it had been, then I might have had many children and my life would have been full of that, instead of my work.
Well, everybody has stories like these and these are just three of mine. How does one evaluate the importance of that kind of matrix? I have no clue. These just happen to be significant artifacts of my life experience.
Let’s segue into something that has also been influential. This is that my family’s agenda for me was that I go to medical school and be a doctor. I almost did. I came very close to that something accidental and unexpected happened at the last minute that made me think that maybe I didn’t want to do that. But if that hadn’t happened, I would have continued on in my original direction. Now, I don’t know if I would have become a good doctor, a bad doctor, a happy doctor, a doctor working in some corporate place, or a hospital, or Doctors Without Borders – or even a doctor at all, in spite of having tried. I just don’t know. But I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.
(and from a later email, Somogyi continues on his point in answer to my original question)
ES: I often find myself thinking from a wider perspective than the original question or proposition had been. My mind works like that. And for that reason, hypothetical questions such as “how do I think my life would have been different if I’d lived in New York rather than in the Bay Area” are nothing more than invitations to fantasize about what might have been. I truly cannot know, but I can imagine many possibilities (how impossible would it be for me to have wound up running a whorehouse in Singapore, for instance? Stranger things have happened, as Somerset Maugham was especially brilliant in describing in his short stores.)
In any event, the guitar scene itself was an important real-life factor in how my life has developed. I play flamenco guitar. This would have brought me into contact with nylon string guitar players, and eventually steel string folk and bluegrass guitar players. The East coast is famously more the natural habitat of the archtop guitar, which I’ve never really become interested in. There’s less of that on the West coast. I might have found my way to making archtop guitars had I been living in New York, but I don’t know how much energy and focus I could have mustered behind that effort, as I genuinely don’t connect to them.
I do expect that there’s a fairly healthy acoustic guitar scene on the East Coast, and there certainly would have been the Greenwich Village music scene going on in New York. I am fairly confident that I would have been attracted to that. There’s probably even a good classical guitar and flamenco network, and I may well have been pulled into that world.
I am thinking that this question is somewhat along the lines of an intellectual exercise for you. You may have read my autobiographical chapter [in my book] by now and become aware of the fact that I am a Holocaust survivor. There were numerous instances in that history in which had circumstances been a little bit different I would have been killed. It was, as a matter of fact, the national policy of the country of my birth at that time that, because of the accidental fact that my father was born a Jew, we be exterminated. To be blunt, I’m not alive for lack of anyone’s trying. Finally, there was a war going on at the same time, which mandated that there’d be a hell of a lot of random civilian deaths in any event.
So, you see, I’m not really set up to mentally follow out hypothetical threads that have any great logic or linearity to them. That kind of thing works on certain levels, of course, but my own life has been such that I’m more amazed at the roller-coaster ride than by the skill and foresight of my personal protoplasm.
Also, the question of what I would have become focuses on the things I do for a living, not on what I might have become internally, as a person. I am actually more interested in this level of life than I am in outward manifestations or actions. I became who I am, internally, in terms of my sense of self (as opposed to my job description) from a series of what anyone in their right minds would consider accidental meetings. And a lot of competent psychotherapy. I bow to the forces of life for having allowed me to be in the right place at the right time in these instances. They saved my soul. I have NO idea how I would have been able to negotiate such journeys had I been living in another city with another culture. Really. The sheer randomness of life as I have seen it is beyond words.
On the other hand, there’s a concept in psychology called “overdetermination”. This is the eventual recognition, when one has looked at a structure or a personality or a character long enough, that whatever happened could not have happened in any other way or along another line or in another direction: it was overdetermined. Everything pointed to that, whatever it is or was. All the gravity and motives pulled in that direction.
That utterly applies to my life, in spite of and also along with everything I’ve just said. But you’d have to know more about me to understand how true this is. From that point of view I probably would have become what I am now, but with quite possibly quite a different spin, on the East coast.
Well, that’s it for now. Did I mention that my brain likes to take the overview route?
GC: There is a feeling I get from you, one of wanting to “give back”, to other guitar builders and to your students, for example. It comes across to me, for example, in your book, “The Responsive Guitar”, where you included photos of other people’s work. [in fact, the book opens with 22 pages of photos of other people’s guitars that Somogyi admires, followed by a lesser amount of beautiful photos of the details found in Somogyi’s instruments]. Also at an earlier point in your life you were heading for medical school, which would have benefited people in a different way from how your life and work has benefited people through your art.
ES: Well, not quite. My parents…well, I was brought up in a very authoritarian household. We never discussed anything. My father issued orders. So, it was irrelevant whether I might have wanted to do this [going to medical school] or whether I was even interested in doing that. I WAS going to do that! So I probably wasn’t thinking of being helpful to people. I mean: this was my portfolio, this was the job description that was quite literally handed to me. And, I don’t know what I would have made of that. I probably wouldn’t have become some kind of capitalist, money grubbing medical mo-fo, but I don’t know.
GC: (Pushing the point that there were inklings of a generous, altruistic spirit lurking about I pressed on with my point.) You went into the Peace Corps, for gosh sake! That’s the point I’m making. (The Peace Corps – Ervin states that he was in South America, in Peru – was a really good experience for him. It really broadened him.)
ES: That was after. It was largely because I didn’t want to get drafted for the Vietnam War. This was 1965! My derailing of my medial career occurred in 1964. I mean, it’s really complicated. You know, there’s a Jewish adage that I like a lot: “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”.
One thing I like about my job is that it gives me time to think. A lot of the work is sort of rote. I mean, you’re sanding or something, and I’ve got the kind of mind that flits around, lands on things…like…words. I like words a lot, I always have. Every now and then this thought hits my brain about words. You and I are having a Conversation. “Conversation” turns out to be rooted in the Latin “versere” or “vertere”, wh ich means “turning”. That root appears in other things that speak of turning in the human condition. There’s vers-atile, ad-verse, ob-verse, uni-versal, di-verse, a-verse, verse, vert-ical, ad-vert-ise, in-vert, contro-versy, vice-versa, con-vertible, re-verse, intro-vert, extro-vert, vert-iginous, per-vert.. I just, WOW! And these are all metaphorical turnings. I think that’s really cool.
To learn more about Ervin Somogyi please visit: esomogyi.com
His two books, “The Responsive Guitar” and “Making the Responsive Guitar” can be found at: www.esomogyi.com/books
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commentsNEW DELHI: Raghuram Rajan, the rockstar governor of the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI ), has hung up his boots, with deputy governor Urjit Patel taking over charge from him.Data shows even though banks have not transmitted the rate cuts fully and the former governor remained hawkish throughout his tenure, Dalal Street enjoyed his presence a bit with the Sensex giving 54 per cent returns since September 4, 2013, the day of his appointment as RBI chief.This translates into a 15.4 per cent compounded annual growth rate ( CAGR ) for the index during the period.This was better than the returns that the index had delivered during the tenure of Bimal Jalan D Subbarao and even C Rangarajan, but could not stand against those generated during the tenures of S Venkitaramanan and Dr YV Reddy “We have to acknowledge the contribution that Rajan has made to this country. I think the NPA problem would not have come down for how many years. I personally agree with his stand on monetary policy because mere interest rate reduction is not going to lead to anything unless it is transmitted. His legacy is going to remain and we must thank him for the good work he has done,” ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said last week.The best ever show by the index was during the tenure of Dr YV Reddy between 2003 and 2008, when it rose a whopping 231.5 per cent.During S Venkitaramanan’s comparatively shorter stint of two years as the eighteenth Governor of RBI between 1990 and 1992, the index delivered the second highest return at 145 per cent.The stock market generated 24 per cent return during Bimal Jalan’s tenure from November 22, 1997 to September 6, 2003, while it delivered 28.2 per cent during Subbarao’s tenure from September 5, 2008 to September 3, 2013. During C Rangarajan’s tenure during 1992-97, the index returned 37.5 per cent.Will the tenure of Urjit Patel, another hawk, prove good for Dalal Street? Many experts believe like Rajan, Patel may also find favour with foreign investors.“We had some question marks prior to the appointment of the new RBI Governor. But Patel, I think, is close to everybody, and is dream candidate of every foreign observer. He will certainly continue to be very independent and follow sound monetary policy. Under those circumstances, the Indian bond market is indeed very much a buy situation while Indian equities are pretty much in line with what is going on in emerging markets,” Uwe Parpart, Chief Investment Strategist at Capital Link International, told ETNow.Thomas Rookmaaker, Director, Asia-Pacific Sovereigns Group, Fitch Rating, believes Patel’s entry is hinting at the continuation of the current policy direction in the years ahead.“Patel was part of the team at RBI that set in motion significant policy changes to deal with both high inflation and weak bank balance sheets, including through a set of new policy framework. He seems well-positioned to further institutionalise these policy changes going ahead,” Rookmaaker said.“Structurally low inflation would positively impact the sovereign rating profile, as it would improve the investment climate and, hence, contribute to sustainable growth,” he said.ST. PETERSBURG — The City Council chamber had plenty of soccer aficionados outfitted in green and gold show up last week to support the Tampa Bay Rowdies' bid to join Major League Soccer and expand their home at Al Lang Stadium.
Also in attendance was former mayor (and potential 2017 candidate for mayor) Rick Baker, representing Rowdies owner Bill Edwards.
The proposed ordinance would authorize a May 2 referendum that would allow the city to negotiate a long-term lease with the Rowdies contingent upon the team receiving an MLS expansion slot from the United States' premier soccer league.
Edwards has pledged to pay for up to $80 million in stadium improvements and a $150 million MLS franchise fee without asking for any public money.
That stance was applauded by fans and other supporters, including the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Partnership and the Downtown Neighborhood Association. They also argued that bringing the MLS to the city would stimulate economic development, attract a diverse population and help put the city on the map of hip destinations.
The council set a vote for March 2.
Dissenters said the downtown waterfront was ill-prepared for an influx of fans, parking hassles and trash that would be generated by a proposed 18,000-seat stadium.Playboy cover March 1995
I love performing oral sex to my girlfriends. The problem is, I have a short tongue. After years of practice, I have learned to compensate with technique and enthusiasm, but after fairly long sessions, my tongue hurts. I've heard that you can have the tiny piece of skin on the underside of your tongue cut to give more extension. Is this true? Is it safe?
R.T., Pasadena, California.
Excising the membrane that keeps your tongue from flopping around-a procedure known as frenectomy-has no practical advantage for adults beyond making it easier to get peanut butter off the roof of your mouth. You probably have a short frenulum, which might make you tire more easily during oral sex. But since most women prefer gentle teasing of the outer lips of the vagina, and indirect clitoral pressure, rather than penetration, your lovers aren't likely to be concerned with how far you extend your tongue.
Recently, I was hanging with some friends. We'd just finished dinner and some drinks, and walked back to one of their houses to hang on the porch...and check out the bags of Playboys from the 80's and 90's that had recently been found and saved from a dumpster. Super awesome time, my friends, super awesome time.Here is a question and answer from The Playboy Advisor in the March 1995 issue (page 36):I think the Playboy Advisor did as good a job as one could expect, but I really think they should have been more clear and direct. I know there are far too many men out there who think that giving a woman oral sex means that they should push their tongues in and our of the vagina hole, and there are far too many women who fake orgasms while their sorely uneducated partners poke their tired tongues into highly un-sensitive vaginas. I personally know a couple men who did in fact think that for far too long...and did believe (at the time) that it made their partners come. I would bet my damn house that it absolutely never did.So...if I were The Playboy Advisor, I would switch that answer up a bit - like so:NEW YORK - The New York Police Department is working on a plan to track every car, truck or other vehicle entering Manhattan and screen them for radioactive materials and other terrorism threats.
The ambitious proposal, called Operation Sentinel, is being developed alongside a separate $90 million security initiative to tighten security at the World Trade Center site and elsewhere in lower Manhattan in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Police officials say Operation Sentinel would rely on license-plate readers, radiation detectors |
finds itself in agreement with the Supreme Court when it writes that the industry groups’ “as-exclusive interpretation of “pollutant” is “a plainly unreasonable reading” of the statute.”
The industry groups then went on to argue that only facilities which emit lots of other pollutants should have to comply with the GHG limits. If a facility emitted lots of GHGs but, for example, no sulfur compounds, then that facility would not be subject to the permitting requirements for “major emitting” stationary sources of pollution.
The court disagreed yet again. While the court agreed that, in certain cases, the phrase “any air pollutant” could be more narrowly interpreted, it disagreed with the industry groups that this was one of those cases. The industry groups supported their claim in part with a reference to a section of the Clean Air Act that relates to visibility-limiting pollutants such as haze. In that case, the court concluded that it was reasonable to interpret “any air pollutant” to mean any visibility-limiting pollutant.
In addition, the court pointed out that the visibility portions and the permitting portions of the Clean Air Act are written differently, suggesting that they are mean to be interpreted differently.
In [the visibility section], the phrases “any air pollutant” and “in any area to which this part applies” appear next to one another, and it is the concentration of the pollutant in an area that matters. In the [permitting section], the phrases appear in different subsections and it is the location of the facility that matters.
As a result, the court concluded that “Congress thus clearly knew how to promulgate a narrow, pollutant-specific definition of ‘any air pollutant.’ That it did so in Part D but not in Part C strongly suggests that the phrase ‘any air pollutant’ in Part C was meant to be construed broadly.”
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Once the EPA makes a finding of endangerment from an air pollutant that is emitted by motor vehicles, the Clean Air Act compels that the EPA formulate regulations for controlling the motor vehicle emissions of that pollutant. And as soon as the motor vehicle regulations are published, the Clean Air Act then compels the EPA to formulate regulations for limiting the emissions of the pollutant from stationary emission sources such as power plants. This is the normal state of affairs when it comes to air pollutants.
The states and industry groups who were hoping to overturn this normal state of affairs failed to convince the appeals court that there was any reason to do so. In fact, every argument made in support of limiting the expanse of the phrase “any air pollutant” and every argument claiming the motor vehicle rule was found to be without merit and in every case the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act was found to be “unambiguously correct.”
Definitions:
Arbitrary: A decision that was made without regard for facts or circumstances and with a disregard for evidence (source).
Capricious: A decision that was made based on what the decisionmaker wanted to do, rather than what the evidence said was appropriate (source).
Endangerment Finding: According to Section 202(a)(1), the Administrator of the EPA is mandated to regulate any air pollutant that “in his judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” When an air pollutant is identified as endangering public health or welfare, that’s an “endangerment finding.” In the case of this and related articles, the “Endangerment Finding” is the EPA’s finding that a combination of six greenhouse gases in particular qualify as an air pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act.
Petition/Petitioner(s): A request to the Federal Courts for redress of grievances is known as a “petition,” and the term comes from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. A “petitioner” is an individual, state, or organization that has petitioned the government for redress of grievances.
Standing: This is the law doctrine that states that only people who have been injured in some way have the right to sue for damages or changes to the law. Individuals who do not have a stake in the outcome of the suit are not permitted to enter into a lawsuit because they lack “standing.” For much more information, please see the definition at the Free Dictionary’s Legal Dictionary.
Image Credits:
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia CircuitTime traveling has always fascinated writers, musicians, scientists, and other people. However, the idea that one could travel to the future and to the past seems unrealistic.
A respectable physicist, Stephen Hawking, claims that time travel is impossible and unrealistic. There are also several paradoxes that deny the possibility of time travel. Albeit scientists claim how time travel is impossible and unrealistic, there are people out there who claim they experienced time traveling.
One of those people who claim they have been time travelers is Al Bielek. He claims that he has been to the year 2749 together with his brother, Duncan. The brothers claim they traveled to the future in 1943.
The story of two time traveling brothers starts in 1943 aboard the USS Eldridge, the most advanced naval ship of that time. There are stories that the USS Eldridge could teleport itself around the world and time travel.
The brothers have had it enough aboard the USS Eldridge so they decided to jump off the ship. Instead of landing in the ocean, the brothers landed in the year 2137! Later, Al time traveled to the year 2749.
This is what the brothers experienced and saw in 2137:
Our planet’s magnetic poles had started to shift. Luckily, there was something built around the both magnetic poles that prevented the catastrophe pole shifting could cause.
The Russian people were at war with China. The United States has just ended a military conflict with several countries in Europe. The war between the USA and Europe left several major U.S. cities destroyed to the ground.
The world’s population was only 300 million. Out of that number, 50 million people were living in the USA.
After spending several weeks in the year 2137 together with his brother, Al said that he somehow traveled to the year 2749 leaving his brother behind. This is what Al saw in the year 2749:
Floating cities that could travel the whole world
The world wasn’t controlled by various governments but it was controlled by artificial intelligence system. The artificial intelligence system could communicate with people via telepathy. The society in 2749 was living in socialism.
Al claims that he has been in the year 2749 for two years. Once his 2749 time travel journey came to an end, he was sent back to the year 2137 to pick up his brother. The two didn’t tell how did they return to 1943.
What do you think about this story? Were Al and his brother on some weird drugs while telling their time travel experiences or their experiences are genuine?If you ignore the message, you’ll get an email and in some cases even a call. Some banks are even advising you to use ATMs only of the bank you have an account with as a safety precaution.
While most banks typically send cautionary messages to ensure safety of customer accounts, the frequency of communication, at least in some areas, has increased in recent weeks.
Are you wondering why?
This is on account of suspicious activity noticed by banks over the past two months, said at least three people familiar with the situation. Banks noticed that debit cards of some customers were being used in China even though the customers were in India and had the cards in their possession. These instances were first reported on September 18 by The Times of India.
When enough such instances were seen across different banks, alarm bells starting ringing.
A preliminary audit conducted by some banks threw up the possibility of a security breach at an ATM of Yes Bank, said one of the people quoted above. Since customers can now withdraw cash from the ATM of any bank as opposed to ATMs belonging only to their respective bank, it was feared that debit cards across banks could be at risk, this person said. Some fraudulent transactions have gone through, others have been blocked. BloombergQuint could not determine the quantum of fraudulent transactions that may have taken place.
Yes Bank, on its part, has denied any breach.
“There is NO security breach or compromise noticed on YES BANK ATMs. YES BANK has also proactively undertaken a comprehensive review of its ATMs to rule out any compromise,” said a spokesperson for YES Bank.
“ As a precautionary measure to ensure security & safety, YES BANK has advised its customers to change their debit card PINs. YES BANK continues to work with relevant stakeholders, other banks to ensure security of its ATMs and payment services,” the spokesperson added.
An email sent to the Reserve Bank of India asking whether it had sought a report on the suspected security breach was not answered.Holy crap, can you imagine how many cookies the Cookie Monster would eat if he were high? Possibly all the cookies in the world. Which in a way would be interesting to witness, but in a bigger way very sad, because then I would have no cookies to eat when I am high. Good thing this Cookie Monster comes in glass pipe form, so I'll be the only one getting high and eating cookies.
Custom made by Hedcraft, the Cookie Monster--or, as he calls it, Munchie Monster--Pipe is available in any colors buyers would like, so if your feel Oscar or Elmo would make a better smoke-out companion, feel free to request deviations from the photographed blue/aqua pattern and cookie poker add-on (e.g., a trash can lid for Oscar, a knuckle sandwich for Elmo.)
By the way, here are some comedic parameters the vendor has set, with agreement implicit prior to pipe purchase:26 Pages Posted: 19 May 2003
Date Written: February 2003
Abstract
The concept of sheer ignorance states that the main obstacle to grasping hitherto unnoticed profit opportunities is the decision makers' unawareness of their ignorance about the existence of discrepancies in prices that could be eliminated through profitable arbitrage operations. The paper argues that the logical justification of such unawareness is not fully consistent with the understanding of entrepreneurial discoveries in terms of price arbitrage. It also argues that, contrary to Kirzner's theory, the logic of entrepreneurial discoveries is compatible with strategies of deliberate search and the creation of new opportunities which, in their own turn, play the important role in shaping uncertainty. The paper's approach allows to further articulate the uniqueness of Austrian research program: To focus on the generation of new knowledge by entrepreneurs, as well as on their skillful use of probabilistic and interpretive subjective judgments.President Donald Trumpsaid on Saturday he would not attend the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner, an annual parade of celebrities, journalists and politicians that in recent years has drawn fire for being too opulent and self-indulgent.
Amid tensions between the White House and the national media about whether reporters are covering the president objectively, Trump said in a tweet that he would not attend the function—derisively referred to as "Nerd Prom"—on April 29.
In recent days, a debate has erupted over whether the WHCA should altogether cancel its event, widely regarded as elbow-rubbing between Hollywood, media and political elites.
On Friday, the acrimonious relationship between Trump and the media reached a crescendo when the White House press office selectively chose certain outlets for an informal on-the-record briefing, yet barred others—including CNN, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
The president's decision to skip the WHCA dinner arrives at a time when even journalists have questioned whether the event has become too insular and self-congratulatory. Each year, reporters co-mingle with celebrities in a display of celebrity-soaked pageantry, featuring lots of sponsored parties and related events.
However, some media critics say the dinner raises questions about whether beat reporters should rub shoulders with the politicians they cover frequently, or allow themselves to be too closely associated with Hollywood.
In a statement earlier this month, the WHCA said the dinner would "celebrate the First Amendment and the role an independent press plays in a healthy republic," among other things.
However, the association added that it would continue to "pursue its core mission of advocating for journalists' ability to ask questions of government officials, push for transparency from the presidency, and help Americans hold the powerful to account. This is a responsibility that we have taken seriously for more than 100 years and will continue to uphold," WHCA president Jeff Mason added.Newsweek just performed a fascinating experiment. They contacted America’s best-known authors, and asked them how the Kindle and digital readers are affecting the future of reading! (“The transformation of the book industry has reached a tipping point,” they wrote in their introduction. “Electronic books now outsell paperbacks on Amazon, the retailer recently announced. And Borders, the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States, is reportedly considering a bankruptcy filing…”)
I’ve also got my own collection of favorite authors, and the things that they’ve said about ebooks and Kindles. For example, Stephen King actually owns a Kindle, and in an October interview said he uses it now for about half the books that he’s reading.
I think it changes the reading experience, that it’s a little more ephemeral. And it’s tougher if you misplace a character. But I downloaded one 700-page book onto my Kindle that I was using for research. It didn’t have an index, but I was able to search by key words. And that’s something no physical book can do.
The interview was conducted by the Wall Street Journal, who had asked some tough questions about the business of books.
Q: Is the future of publishing all digital? It’s a hard subject to get a handle on. People like myself who grew up with books have a prejudice towards them. I think a lot of critics would argue that the Kindle is the right place for a lot of books that are disposable, books that are read on the plane. That might include my own books, if not all, then some. Any drawbacks? I wonder if one or two atom bombs went off, would electromagnetic pulses erase the world’s reading material from the servers where they are stored?
But Newsweek tracked some even bigger names, including Dave Eggers, the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Even though he’s 23 years younger than Stephen King, Eggers is more committed to the physical book, perhaps because he’s also the founder of the McSweeney’s publishing house.
EGGERS: I don’t own an e-reader, and I’ve never read a page on an e-reader. I do everything I can to avoid more screen time. I don’t think e-books have topped 10 percent of the market. My guess is that it will be about 15 to 20 percent of the market, because e-readers are expensive, and they’ll continue to be expensive. Not to diminish the value of a paperback, when it comes to somebody investing in a hardcover, it’s something you want to keep. Everything from a cloth-case wrap to a leatherette to a foil-stamped cover, heavier paper, better binding, innovative cover design. You have to give readers a choice, between a richer experience with paper and board and cloth, and a more sterile experience through an electronic reader. We just try to make every aspect of the physical book as good as it can possibly be, because that’s our greatest hedge against the dominance of e-books.
My favorite reaction came when Newsweek spoke to 72-year-old Joyce Carol Oates, who has written three different novels which were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (including Blonde, a recreation of the life of Marilyn Monroe written in 2000). Her response?
My husband, Charlie, is a neuroscientist, and of course he immediately ordered both the Kindle and iPad. When we travel, we read books and The New York Times on the iPad. I’d much rather have a book.
I thought Newsweek did a really classy thing, by taking their question all the way to the head librarian at America’s Library of Congress. 81-year-old James H. Billington is only the 13th person to hold that position, and he obviously grew up reading books, as a student at both Princeton and Oxford. So what did he have to say about ebooks?The Obama administration was nothing if not monomanical in its hatred of firearms. It not only tried to invent facts on the ground (Fast & Furious) and pimp tragedies (Newton) in the cause of gun control, it used its regulatory power to try to make gun buying, ownership and use much more difficult. On its very last day in office, Obama’s head of the Fish & Wildlife Service issued an order banning lead ammunition and lead sinkers from federal lands. The rule was issued without public input or even any actual science to demonstrate that so much lead from expended ammo and abandoned sinkers was plopped on federal land to make any difference.
The order states that FWS policy will be to “[r]equire the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle to the fullest extent practicable for all activities on Service lands, waters, and facilities by January 2022, except as needed for law enforcement or health and safety uses.” It also calls for collaboration with state and fish wildlife agencies in implementing this policy. The order goes on to outline a series of steps the FWS will take to implement the policy, first and foremost of which is the favored gun control tactic of using “science” to re-enforce pre-existing policy goals, rather than to guide those goals in the first place. Rather humorously, the order states, “The Service will continue to support targeted research to understand the human, fish, and wildlife health benefits of using nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle.” And if science were to discover lead wasn’t so bad or non-lead ammunition and fishing tackle could actually lead to adverse health effects of their own? Well, that wouldn’t be “targeted.” The order also requires that “over the next 24 months, each Regional Director, in coordination with relevant Assistant Directors, should work with individual states, regional state fish and wildlife associations, and tribes to identify opportunities to expand existing state, Federal, or tribal requirements for use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle on Service lands, waters and facilities.” It goes on to state that FWS Regions should enact and enforce on their own lands, wasters, and facilities requirements for non-lead ammunition and fishing tackle that have already been enacted by states, tribes, and other federal agencies.
Personnel is policy. And the first act of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was to sh**-can this rule.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order Thursday overturning a ban on using lead ammunition on wildlife refuges. Zinke signed the order on his first day in office, overturning a policy implemented by former Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe on Jan. 19, the Obama administration’s last full day in office. Ashe’s policy banned the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on all FWS wildlife refuges that allow hunting or fishing, as well as in all other hunting or fishing regulated by the agency elsewhere. It was meant to help prevent plants and animals from being poisoned by lead left on the ground or in the water. “After reviewing the order and the process by which it was promulgated, I have determined that the order is not mandated by any existing statutory or regulatory requirement and was issued without significant communication, consultation or coordination with affected stakeholders,” Zinke wrote in his order. Zinke also signed an order Thursday asking agencies within his purview to find ways to increase access to outdoor recreation on the lands they oversee. “It worries me to think about hunting and fishing becoming activities for the land-owning elite,” he said in a statement. “This package of secretarial orders will expand access for outdoor enthusiasts and also make sure the community’s voice is heard.”
Zinke is completely right. Under Obama the push was to turn federal lands into pristene preserves off limits to most Americans. You see this over and over with their active war on ranchers using grazing land and on snowmobile use. This mandate for use of non-lead ammunition was nothing more than a back door way of keeping hunters and fishermen out of the playground for the wealthy that Obama was trying to create.Whereas Google Glass has a relatively simple design and is as understated as can be, Sony SmartEyeglass looks like a cross between hipster glasses and the goggles Horace Grant used to wear. They are absurdly thick and oddly shaped, which helps to hide quite a lot of sensors. The glasses house an accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, ambient light sensor, and a 3-megapixel camera. And, despite how big the glasses are, Sony somehow still couldn't find a place for the battery pack, and has had to add an external battery pack that would need to be clipped to your shirt. It is quite odd all around.
Sony has released the SDK for its SmartEyeglass today, to get developers on board with augmented reality apps. The device connects to compatible Android devices and runs information from Android apps, but it doesn't seem to run Android itself. The SmartEyeglass is planned to go on sale by the end of March. No word yet on pricing.
Ever since Google Glass was revealed to the public, there has been no shortage of people saying that the device makes the user look silly. Unfortunately, as more Glass competitors are unveiled, we're starting to realize that Google Glass is possibly one of the best face-worn designs possible. At the very least, Sony SmartEyeglass is proving that the device can look more ridiculous.These are two letters from Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar in Syria, translated by Sr. Margaret Charles Kerry, FSP.
It is unprecedented that the archbishop would write two letters in one week. Please keep the people of Syria and Iraq in your prayers. If you are able to make a donation, please do. Information at the bottom of the letter. – Sr. Theresa Aletheia
His first letter:
BROKEN DREAMS
1) EXODUS OF YOUTH
This absurd war, which has torn Syria for five years, pushes a number of young Syrians to flee violence, military service, death and chaos. With the closure of consulates and refused visas, the young spend their fortune and ruin their families to join illegal underground immigration which is costly and dangerous; some drown, and others are vandalized. Often unwelcome and ignorant in foreign languages, these young Syrians live in isolation wrought with suffering and a bitter silent hatred. They lost everything only to live in solitude and perdition. They want their Church which has been unable to help and hold them, and their country, now borderless and torn by a war that feeds hatred and Syrian youth, asset of the future, losing hope turn their back on their homeland so much in need of them. Their dreams are broken in the ruins of their beautiful country. A one-way trip. What a waste.
2) MILITARY CHILDREN
The tragedy does not stop at the departure of young children. Syrian youth, who have awaited peace for five years, revolt against lives of misery and abandonment. Driven by academic failure, by poverty and by blocked prospects, they join armed groups and prove to be audacious fighters and executioners with hearts of stone, war machines drawn into violence without fear or goals. An issue which worries the Church and troubles the minds of its pastors. This terrible consequence of a war that has lasted too long is that instead of saving the children from these atrocities they were plunged into total violence. To destroy childhood is to break innocence and to kill hope. The most beautiful dream of life is broken. How do we restore the pure spirit of these children? What will the Resurrection be in a country with the absence of young people and children?
“Rescue me from my enemies, LORD, in you I take refuge.” Psalm 143:9
“You who control the course of world events…” Daniel 2:21
His second letter:
LIVING UNDER THE BOMBS
Part of the war in Syria is to live under indiscriminate bombing, a kind of Russian roulette which is always unpredictable. This Sunday, August 23, 2015 a rain of mortars fell on the neighborhood including two shells on the roof of the church. Since it is constructed with stone vaults it held despite the damage: cracks larger than arches, water tanks and fuel tanks ripped open, air conditioning out of service. The nearby Latin Church and several families in the neighborhood were also affected. Nine people were killed and forty seven innocent and poor were wounded. These are people who have not able to leave the country and escape the fighting. Of those who died survivors say: “You won’t have to see and live this cruel tragedy without end. You won’t see your children, your friends and your neighbors suffer and die in the blind violence and fanatical killing unable to save them or help them without understanding why.” The survivors bury the dead without having been able to treat the wounded since they lack means and competence. They sink into silent prayer before the relics of martyrs, the seeds of Faith.
Damascus August 24, 2015
+Samir NASSAR
Maronite Archbishop of Damascus
– – –
Catholic organizations on the ground providing aid:
Please share this letter, talk about it at the dinner table and at work and help raise awareness for the people in Syria. We cannot tire of bad news, as Christians we are called to carry the burden of others who are suffering and to help in any way possible.
If you would like to pray the Stations of the Cross for Persecuted Christians written by Archbishop Samir Nassar, they can be found here.Like any good dancer, actor or used car salesman, Gov. Larry Hogan has a "move." It's just a bit more elaborate than a feather step, a raised eyebrow or a pitch for $200 undercoating. His is the "straw man" — a distortion of reality that allows him to vigorously attack, knock down and refute something that doesn't even exist.
First, there was the "rain tax," a requirement that provided the state's largest jurisdictions with the means to meet federally mandated targets to clean up the pollution that rolls down storm drains after it rains or snows. He called for a "repeal," and instead got the law changed so that while the same pollution must be cleaned up, a specific tax to finance those upgrades was strictly optional (a choice already provided by existing regulations, incidentally). He declared victory nonetheless.
Now comes another state law that he has grossly misrepresented. It requires that transportation projects be ranked by a scoring system that, among other things, requires the administration to show how any project promotes community vitality, economic prosperity, environmental stewardship, safety and security, system preservation and so forth. We never saw much need for the law, believing it to unnecessarily duplicate existing transportation planning requirements — but it's also strictly advisory. Governor Hogan or any other governor still retains authority to decide how transportation money shall be spent; the law merely requires him to publicly justify expenditures.
Ah, but there's the rub. The governor has chosen to make the law as unworkable as possible by drafting doomsday regulations that he claims would kill highway projects. He's even labeled the legislation on which the General Assembly already overrode his veto as the "road kill bill." He might as well have called it the "rain tax 2."
One can only marvel at the commitment to this alternative reality in which legislation that specifically gives the governor an out can be described as hand-tying. As the state attorney general's office advised lawmakers earlier this year, projects with lower scores can still be funded if the transportation department "provides, in writing, a rational basis for the decision." In other words, it's all non-binding (unless the governor insists on "irrational" transportation projects — water slides, vacuum tubes, compressed air cannons perhaps — for which he might theoretically be stymied).
Now Governor Hogan has upped the ante further by declaring this week that repeal of the "road kill" bill will be his highest priority in the upcoming legislative session. Wow. Guess he doesn't have much of an agenda for his third year (normally, a governor's most productive, by the way). Here's our prediction: There is about a zero probability that lawmakers are backing down now.
That leaves the governor and his straw man strategy two possible plays. Either he goes forward and uses this authority to kill all those hundreds of millions of dollars in road construction projects he claims he must kill (a commitment to self-destructive role-playing one rarely witnesses in public office), or, more likely, he formulates some eleventh-hour reprieve for which he can take full credit (and which probably doesn't involve the General Assembly). After all, the point of having a straw man is not usually to allow the straw man to win.
Speculation by Democrats that this narrative also gives Mr. Hogan an opportunity to kill or perhaps delay highway projects that are currently underfunded due to lower-than-projected fuel tax revenues may or may not be true. Still, the observation made by the governor's spokesman that such talk is a triumph of the "tin-foil brigade" is itself a triumph of self-delusion, or at least acting with a Robert De Niro-in-"Raging Bull" level commitment to the role.
Maybe Mr. Hogan thinks that if a bogus rain tax argument could win him an election two years ago, then a bogus road kill campaign could win him re-election (not that he seems to need the help). But such a strategy presumes Maryland voters are a pretty gullible bunch. Donald Trump may have gotten far on a wave of "fake news" over facts, but we'd like to think Mr. Hogan aspires to better. The legislation's own author notes that all that is really at stake is "just a score." In other words, the law is closer to being a nothing-burger than a sign of the apocalypse, and average Marylanders are bound to get wise.(Reuters) - Fresh off a $532.9 million jury win against Apple Inc (AAPL.O), a Texas company is again suing the tech giant, this time over the same patents’ use in devices introduced after the original case was underway.
People walk past the Apple logo near an Apple Store at a shopping area in central Beijing February 19, 2013. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic
Smartflash LLC aims to make Apple pay for using the patent licensing firm’s technology without permission in devices not be included in the previous case, such as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and the iPad Air 2. The trial covered older Apple devices.
On Tuesday, a jury in federal court in Tyler, Texas found that Apple willfully violated three Smartflash patents with devices that use its iTunes software. The patents relate to accessing and storing downloaded songs, videos and games.
The new complaint was filed on Wednesday night in the same court in Tyler, where Smartflash is also based and which over the past decade has become a focus for patent litigation. Smartflash licenses its patents but does not make products itself.
“Smartflash filed the complaint to address products that came out too far into the last proceedings to have been included,” Smartflash’s attorney, Brad Caldwell, told Reuters on Thursday. “Apple cannot claim they don’t know about these patents or understand that they are infringing. A diligent jury has already rejected those arguments.”
A representative from Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.
Apple said after Tuesday’s verdict it would appeal and that the outcome was another reason reform was needed in the patent system to curb litigation by companies that make money off patent royalties instead of products.
The latest suit alleges Apple infringes the same patents at issue in the trial, and names four others. Three of those additional patents were part of its older complaint against Apple, which was later narrowed.
Both Smartflash lawuits say that around 2000, the co-inventor of its patents, Patrick Racz, met with executives of what is now European SIM card maker Gemalto SA (GTO.AS), including Augustin Farrugia, who is now a senior director at Apple.
Smartflash has also filed patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) over the same patents.
The case is Smartflash LLC et al v. Apple Inc, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 15-cv-145.A new Blockchain alliance has been formed based on Ethereum by Microsoft, Intel, Accenture, Credit Suisse Group, UBS, etc. In total there are more than two dozen companies that have come together to form the Enterprise Alliance. The alliance will have a rotating board. Ethereum is an open source Blockchain-based computing platform which has smart contracts built in. The platform uses Ethereum Virtual Machine as well as the programming language Solidity.
Ethereum Foundation supports Enterprise Alliance
Ethereum Foundation, the body behind Ethereum, has expressed its support for Enterprise Alliance. In an email to Cointelegraph, John Frazer from External Relations at Ethereum Foundation wrote:
“Although the Ethereum Foundation is not officially involved in the Enterprise Alliance, we are very much supportive of the Ethereum enterprise community at large and have expressed our support for this Enterprise Alliance. Many of the members are long-time contributors to the Ethereum project and the Foundation hopes to be able to work more with this Ethereum enterprise standards body in the future.”
Increasingly, a number of organizations have been working on Blockchains and forming alliances.
IBM Blockchain has a Hyperledger-based Blockchain initiative. Then there is R3, a Blockchain alliance comprised of financial industry persons, entrepreneurs, experts and technology specialists. No one will doubt that it was the Bitcoin Blockchain, which is freely available and open source that fired the imaginations of various individuals and companies about what possibilities exist using this technology. Ethereum with its smart contracts feature has its own appeal.
Ming Chan, executive director at Ethereum Foundation, says in respect to the public vs. private debate:
“We are very supportive of the Enterprise Alliance effort especially as we feel having Ethereum enterprise and other Ethereum standards organizations are important to the Ethereum ecosystem and adoption in the world at large. Since Ethereum Foundation remains focused on our Ethereum platform and protocol R&D mission, we are happy to see industry groups like the Alliance provide for an enterprise-specific need that is relevant to the Ethereum Foundation's work, but not one we can devote our attention to.”
Private vs. public Blockchains
It does not come as a surprise that various constituents of industry, trade and financial services providers would be interested in private Blockchain solutions.
Ming Chan told us that the Ethereum Foundation would continue to work on the public chain, where the work will be free, open and accessible to anyone. She adds:
“Our hope that Ethereum will gain mass adoption, in fact, necessarily includes the world of business, trade and industry, which is naturally interested in private Blockchains. There are many areas of overlap between public and private chain development and we expect the future of Ethereum will see a great deal of interplay, exchange and collaboration between the two.”
The news of Ethereum Alliance comes as a shot in the arm for Ethereum, which has been dogged by news of hacking, forks and wild movements in Ether, the cryptocurrency. It would be interesting to see how this development affects the future of Ether and Ethereum and what direction the cryptocurrency takes from here.
No fee to participate
Among the many companies that make up the newly formed Ethereum Alliance, many already have a background of working on Ethereum related projects. Jan Xie, the founder of Cryptape, said in the press release issued by the Ethereum Alliance: “As a long-time supporter of Ethereum technology, Cryptape is honored to be a member of the EEA. The success of a global standard of commercial Blockchain needs the participation of Chinese enterprises, and we will, as always, work with the whole community to make it come true.”
Reuters is one of the members of Ethereum Alliance and they reported that members of the alliance will not have to pay any fee to participate, at least for now.
Microsoft among leading backers
Microsoft is among the leading backers of the Ethereum Alliance. They already have the Azure platform in place which offers Ethereum Blockchain as a service. Marley Gray, the principal architect of the Azure Blockchain Engineering team at Microsoft, says in the Ethereum press release: “At Microsoft, we are proud to be a founding member and board member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to continue the advancement of enterprise-grade Blockchain platforms. Participating with the Ethereum community to implement open standards will accelerate deployment of Blockchain solutions. In addition, Microsoft Azure’s open, global scale cloud infrastructure and platform services provide fertile ground for the evolution of Ethereum into the enterprise.”Groundwater contamination from toxic waste dumped decades ago at a nearby factory in the Severn area has prompted widespread testing of residential wells and put eight homes on bottled water, state officials said.
The eight households have been notified that they have unsafe levels of industrial solvents in their wells, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, and two other homes have been found to have levels below those deemed to pose health risks.
State officials said they are anxious to complete testing for the chemicals — including possible carcinogens — at dozens of other homes that had yet to respond to requests to check their wells.
"We don't know how long it's been in the wells," James R. Carroll, manager of the state's land restoration program, said of the contamination.
State officials say the source of the contamination is an idled factory three-quarters of a mile away in Hanover, where high levels of the solvents have been found moving underground in the direction of the neighborhood. From the late 1960s until recently, the plant fashioned metal components for electric power transmission lines.
The land has had several owners but now is occupied by Kop-Flex Inc., a subsidiary of Emerson Electric Co., a multinational manufacturer based in St. Louis. The company is supplying bottled water to the eight homes.
Emerson said in a statement that the company is still investigating whether it is responsible for the groundwater contamination.
"If the investigation results demonstrate that the Kop-Flex site is the source of the contamination, Emerson will offer to connect their homes to public water supplies, if available," the company said.
Chris Nidel, a lawyer who said he represents occupants of four of the homes on bottled water, criticized the pace of the state's investigation and the treatment of his clients and others in the neighborhood. After the first off-site well found contamination last year, he said, "it was months before they came back in the neighborhood and started testing wells and told residents in January that they were drinking poison."
Nidel questioned why the company and state regulators are limiting the extension of public water to the eight homes with unsafe wells and not talking about cleaning up the contaminated groundwater.
Long-term exposure to the three chemicals found in the greatest concentrations in the residential wells can cause liver, kidney, lung or nervous system damage, according to a fact sheet prepared by the Department of the Environment.
One of the three, dioxane, is deemed likely to cause cancer, while another, 1,1-Dichloroethene, or DCE, is considered a possible carcinogen. Levels of DCE in the eight homes are up to 32 times the threshold considered safe by federal health authorities.
Residents say they are worried and upset — and still have many questions.
"I've been drinking the water for 50 years," said Phillip Hinkle, 51, who said he grew up and raised his |
I was spending on “Cook, Serve, Delicious!” despite the fact that even on indie game terms,
One thing that was significant in shaping up the game was an open beta I made publically available with a small amount of game content, followed by a closed beta of the full game. The open beta really showed me some game design flaws that I had previously missed, and allowed me to see from those open beta testers users who were very passionate about making the game better. I invited about twenty of the open beta testers to the closed beta, where they got a full version of the game. I was incredibly paranoid of the game leaking ahead of the release date, but thankfully the game stayed within the forums I released it on.
The beta was a great experience, but what I wasn’t expecting was making some tough choices as to how much of the feedback I was going to incorporate into the game. Several users found the game too slow to progress to the next level, so I trimmed the game down by nearly eight hours. It really hurt as I had planned to advertise the 20+ hours of gameplay, but at the same time it was the right thing to do. I’d rather people have a fun twelve hour experience than a mediocre twenty hour one. Lots more fixes were done and there was a great, positive amount of buzz surrounding the game. Or at least, that’s what it felt like.
But as the beta was underway, I knew I wasn’t going to make the summer deadline. And as September loomed, I knew if I wasn’t going to launch before October, then I was going to have to hold the game till next year due to the high profile releases starting mid-October. And that would have been an absolute disaster in terms of income and my personal morale. I worked like crazy and managed to announce a release date: October 5th, on a Friday. It would also be $8.95, as I learned from the Oil Blue that a high price of $15 was something I wanted to avoid. The game was DRM free, same as all my other releases.
The Launch of Cook, Serve, Delicious!
CSD was a different game from the normal cooking casual fare, mainly because it was incredibly hard. This was done intentionally, and I branded the game as “the first Hardcore Restaurant PC Sim” without really knowing if that were true or not. Hey, it sounded true to me! I had no interest in branding the game to casuals, and immediately aimed the game at the more core/indie gamers looking for a difficult challenge. And so, on Friday October 5th at midnight or so, I released the game on PC via my website using BMT Micro.
Right away I realized why games don’t get released on a Friday: if you don’t get any buzz by the end of Friday, you’re next shot is Monday. That’s two days that my game was going to be dead in the water, right after launch. How could I have been so dumb?
Actually, I remember why: because I felt like the people who were going to buy the game were the ones reading my blog since March, and the ones who really loved Ore no Ryomi and had played my previous fan games. I felt that was enough to push me to my $2k goal, a goal that while very short from the $8k I spent, would set me on track.
Well, by Sunday I had made about $250. I was panicking already. The audience that I thought was there was significantly smaller than I had imagined. Very few websites picked up on the game on Friday, leaving me with a dead weekend. I told myself that it would be OK with the Mac and iOS release I was going to work on, which I really felt was a more lucrative market, but it still marked the most depressing weekend I’ve ever had involving my indie game pursuits. I felt like a complete failure.
The week following, things got a little better. Rock Paper Shotgun picked up the game and sales grew quite a bit, and by the end of the next week I had hit $900. I changed my goal from $2k in a few days to $2k by the end of the month. I thought that any money I wasn’t able to make to break even I’d make with the Mac/iOS releases.
I was trying to convince myself in all sorts of ways that things would be fine. In the back of my head though, I knew I had blown it. You only get one chance to launch a game, and CSD hit with all the intensity of a marshmallow. I was hoping that my press release via GameBizWire would help get my foot in the door with a few websites, but aside from a few requests from indie sites, there wasn’t much on the radar. It was extremely difficult motivating myself to get through the Mac/iOS ports at this point. Sales were dwindling by the day.
Had that sales trend continued, I probably would have ended my game career. I don’t think I would have had the motivation to go through the Mac/iOS ports due to the fact that Mac was already a smaller audience, and iOS was such a difficult market to break through that it seemed ludicrous to even try since I couldn’t even break through the PC market. I felt like a quitter, but after making two games that I was really proud of design wise and seeing them flounder financially, I had my spirit broken. It was over.
A Giant Bomb
The next week following my game launch, a message on the right bottom corner of my PC screen lit up: an email from Ryan Davis about some promo codes for CSD.
This wasn’t the actual Ryan Davis, was it? Not of the Giant Bomb website that I’ve subscribed to for the last few years and enjoyed with every new Quick Look and podcast, right? No, that can’t be. I paused for a few seconds before opening the email. Sure enough, it was him, asking for some extra press codes/builds mentioned in the press release.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to running around the house screaming. But then I realized the game wasn’t exactly a prime candidate for any kind of coverage on Giant Bomb. That’s what I believed anyways, after a rough week and a half of little to no coverage. So I sent some codes over but didn’t think much would come of it.
And then I saw the schedule for the next day over at Giant Bomb: at 2pm, a Quick Look of “Cook, Serve, Delicious!” which is where two Giant Bomb guys play a game for thirty minutes or so. I don’t recall sleeping very much that night.
Most of the views on GiantBomb are done by their own hosted videos on the GB site, so the view count here is inaccurate to the total amount of people who watched the Quick Look.
Let me tell you what it’s like watching a video of your own game being Quick Looked: pretty damn surreal. I was scared to death that something would break in the game, despite extensive beta testing. I was so excited seeing these two guys that I enjoyed reading/listening to for so long actually playing one of my games. My heart was racing the entire time. Then I watched it about a half dozen more times in the next few days. It felt like such an accomplishment that I felt like it was crazy I was thinking of quitting game making in the first place…well, that is, until I remembered I kinda need to make money doing game development, cause that’s kinda important.
About thirty minutes after the Giant Bomb video went up, sales came in. And they kept coming in all night. Emails would be dispatched to me with every sale, and I could literally refresh my inbox on my iPod seconds after the last email, only to get more sales emails. I had sold 2 copies of my game the day before the Quick Look, and on the day of the video release sold over 140 copies, and even more the next day. It was incredible, and one of the best indie game related days of my life. I finally had the breakthrough I so desperately needed.
If we look at the sales trend for how the game was doing in the first 12 or so days before the GiantBomb Quick Look, I would have made about $1,500 that month. Total sales for the month ended up being $7,400 on both my site and GamersGate/Desura. I had almost broke even before I had a chance to release the Mac/iOS version, something I couldn’t even imagine happening.
Sales graph for PC/Mac- guess which day the Giant Bomb video came out?
Still, I knew it was a fairly big blow not to have the Mac version released at the same time with the PC version. It was mainly due to having to work via Game Maker 8.1, which is PC only, since GM Studio wasn’t quite ready yet. So, I quickly ported the game to Studio and in just a few weeks had a Mac build up and running. Originally my launch press release said the Mac version would come out in November, but I was able to release it on October 28th. I only netted $100 for that month and as of now, have sold around $1,500 for the Mac version alone. I was kind of surprised how poor my experience was with the official Apple Mac App Store, where I thought I’d be making the majority of Mac sales. Not only was the approval times severely slow (nearly taking 14-20 days to approve games and updates), but the sales were nearly nonexistent. One main factor was that the Game Maker Studio build at the time had a glitch that didn’t allow saving for Snow Leopard users. It was a very rare glitch, but led to my one and only review for CSD on the Mac store, alerting me to the bug and warning others of the issue. The GM Studio devs were able to get a fix for me in just a few days, and Apple rushed the update to get it out quickly.
Another problem with the Mac version is that it’s just not very well optimized, mainly due to the different way GM Studio handles files on the Mac that I wasn’t used to. It needs a significant amount of resources to run (optimally 4GB of memory), among other things. This was a byproduct of developing on GM 8.1 first and then porting to Studio, as I didn’t optimize anything for the new engine. I was in a mad dash to get iOS support up and running, and to fully optimize CSD for Mac meant that I’d have to tear down the game completely. Given the sales to date of the Mac version, I did the right thing by choosing to have a simple port, but it still felt a little scummy. It’s a perfectly playable/fine version of the game, if you have a powerful enough Mac to run it.
Tapping into YouTube
Something I didn’t see coming was the ease of which the game could be played and streamed by various YouTube and internet personalities. It had some breathing room during the day for people to chat to their viewers, and then gets immediately chaotic during the “Rush Hour” portions of the day where things just go nuts for one minute. There were people streaming the game for charity events, and some big named YouTube/internet streamers like Northernlion and HAWP giving it a go. Some streamed just to show off their awesome APM skills. It was pretty nuts to watch.
Still, after two months things started slowing down sales and coverage wise, right as I was ready to launch the iPad version of Cook, Serve, Delicious! I was watching various iOS websites and had read dozens of developer breakdowns and strategies by mobile devs, so while I sorta knew what to expect on iOS, I was still very much new to the entire market. I was a no name dev who was about to launch a pricey game that would compete with a ton of other restaurant sim games on the platform, despite my game being significantly different. It was scary, but at the same time I knew I’d have a winner if it found an audience. And I managed to do everything possible to ensure that it wouldn’t.
iOS for Dummies
I had known that Christmas Day is the biggest sales day in the entire year for iOS devs, and I wanted a piece of that pie. I priced the game at $5 for the iPad, with a sale at $3 till January 6th. Giantbomb mentioned the game again in podcasts and even nominated CSD for Best Downloadable Game 2012, which to even be nominated felt like I had won the Oscar. Some major review sites gave me 4 stars and up, with Touch Arcade’s 4.5 star review staying on their front page of the TA App through January. All of this helped to create a lot of sales and buzz for December, and a good thing too, considering how stupid it was to launch in December in the first place.
What I knew I didn’t want to do was go down to $1, as the game was new and had no In Game App purchases to help offset the loss. But what I didn’t fully realize was that, sure, Christmas Day was a huge day for app devs…if your game is priced accordingly. I launched during a month where I was competing with endless holiday sales, where huge AAA apps were being sold at just $1, and where major companies would slash their entire hundred plus app catalogue to nearly free. There was no way I could compete with that, and consequently my game didn’t get a Christmas Day boost (it actually sold less than most days). My game was $3 after all, and if I was a kid with a shiny new iPad/iTunes gift card, I’d fill up on $1 apps myself.
Another major fault of mine was the sale till January 6th. I should have never kept the game at $3 for so long- but it was too late. I had already posted how long I’d have the price for, and I didn’t want to upset any users. But sales typically work great at one-two days because you’re on app price watchers websites and get a boost of traffic. After that, you’re basically selling your game at a discount with no disenable difference in revenue whatsoever, since I had to sell more copies to make what I would with a $5 price point. All that holiday traffic could have boosted revenue if I had just ended the sale earlier.
Finally, the last problem I had was the game wouldn’t run on an iPad 1…another byproduct of porting the game from GM 8.1 instead of optimizing it from the ground up. Because there’s no way to prevent iPad 1 users to buy your game, I had to issue warnings in the game’s description. That seemed to work fine, aside from the occasional “HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF” comments I get from time to time with regards to the game not being on iPad 1. Yes, I actually got that comment.
In fact, it’s kind of a jolt to interact with user reviews on the app store. Some would love the game but would only give me one star until I added a small option or fixed a bug. One user repeatedly gave me one star with every new update saying she liked the game but didn’t like the design choices, and asked herself repeatedly why she still was playing my game for hours. I wanted to punch my monitor. But thankfully the issues were ironed out and the game on the US store currently has 120 4-5 star reviews, with only two negative reviews. That’s pretty awesome, I must say.
My DLC Take
Because of the ease of patching a game on iOS, I wanted to do something I hadn’t done with any of my games before: offer DLC. I figured this would be a boost of press every time I’d get an update out, and would help sales by offering the DLC for free on PC and as a premium in app purchase on iOS. I spent about $1,800 on new art and music, which consisted of ten new foods and a new gameplay challenge taking place in the Iron Cook Kitchen.
Game design wise, it was a huge success, addressing some of the shortcomings of the game and making it even better than before. Business wise, it would be a huge mistake.
I think the weakest point of the game was when the player was getting from zero to a three star restaurant, which then unlocks new events and challenges, as the one and two star tiers don’t have quite as much going on in terms of new gameplay elements. The new DLC consisted of ten new foods to buy for the restaurant menu (six currently released as of now, with four more in March), and unlike the other twenty foods available would unlock to buy at the one and two star restaurant levels. This helped bridge the gap to the next few restaurant tiers and created new gameplay elements and strategies that really strengthen the game overall, and in that regards it was a big success.
Originally I was going to have the DLC available for free on PC/Mac, with iPad owners buying it at $1.99 per pack. But ultimately I decided to release it for free on iPad as well, as the smaller userbase (about 1,800 at the time when the first patch went out in January) wouldn’t result in very many IAP sales, even if the conversion rate was high. I thought the goodwill gesture would result in more press and ultimately more sales.
What I didn’t think of at the time is just how the game is played. Users can unlock the final restaurant upgrade at around a dozen or more hours, and at that point the game becomes an open ended free play mode, with no other goals to achieve. They will have “beaten” the game. In order for this DLC to be relevant to the user who owns CSD, they’ll need to still be in the progress of beating the game. Because of that, the ability to sell DLC/IAP is hampered. There’s a window in which the user is playing the game and when I can sell them content, and it’s too short to target.
Not only that, but when you think about it, the game is feature complete and selling at $5, a premium price on the iOS market. Once users buy the game at $5, it makes no difference, business wise, whether they play for ten minutes or ten hours…I still make the same amount of money. To create DLC to extend the life of the game benefits me in no way, and crucially ties me up for the next few months as I get all of the DLC finished for iPad so I can move onto the iPhone/Android ports, and then after that having to port the new content to PC and Mac. It was not a smart move, despite the DLC making the game better. My next games will have a better implementation of how DLC can be integrated in a much smarter way, so I won’t be so tied up with porting and developing.
iOS Sales and Results
Since CSD has been released on iPad, I’ve had one more sale at the end of January, decreasing the price from $4.99 to $2.99 for a few days, but that’s been about it. I’m very cautious about creating too many sales, and I don’t want to price the game below $2.99 since there’s no IAP in the game to make up the difference. This is my only game that’s making money after all, so I have to be extremely careful in how I promote it.
Another side note was that I released a demo version on iOS that had about thirty minutes of gameplay before the user had to buy the full version. I had a lot of reviews calling the game a “scam” which was pretty confusing…but after talking with some helpful Touch Arcade forum devs, it turns out calling the game “Cook, Serve, Delicious! Free” was giving the impression that it was the full game for free but with ads, which certainly wasn’t the case. So I changed it to “Cook, Serve, Delicious! Lite” and haven’t run into any problems since. Whoops!
My app ranking on the Top 300 for North America since release through March 6th.
One interesting fact I want to point out is the way the game is charted in the App Store Top 300 Paid Simulation and Strategy charts- it doesn’t quite give the entire picture of how much a dev makes in a day. During parts of Jan/Feb I made more money being near the bottom 300 than being in the top 150. At the same time it does give me a good indication of how sales go during the week, with Tuesday/Wednesday being the best selling days, and Sunday/Monday being the worst. I haven’t cracked the top 75 again since launch through January, but to be on the charts for a few months with my first iOS game is a great start. (I was originally in the Action/Simulation genre listings before switching to Strategy/Simulation in Jan.)
The Totals so Far
The game has been on sale since October 5th for PC, October 28th for Mac, and December 12th for iPad. Here’s how I’m doing in sales so far.
The PC/Mac version has sold a combined $16,200 through March 5th across my site via BMT Micro, GamersGate, Desura, Amazon and MacGameWorld. BMT, GamersGate and Desura have been nothing short of fantastic to deal with, as they always pay on time and have great tech support. I cannot recommend those three services enough.
(A quick note: I also sell on my website a bundle called the Combo of Amazing, which packages all of the games I have currently for sale, including CSD, into a $15 bundle, which normally would be over $30. That accounted for $3,500 in sales, which is part of that sales total above.)
Total sales on the iPad version alone from December 12th through January 31st totaled $10,500, with a projected $2,000-$2,500 for the month of February. Once I have the iPhone and Android port done (should be by April) I’m hoping to make at least $3,500 a month in mobile sales, which would definitely put me on track to have a good year.
iPad sales so far
So, the grand total so far puts me at around $28,000, which is a $17,000 profit after expenses ($2,500 being onetime expenses in getting into iOS/Mac/Android development). For just five months, that’s a very solid figure, but on the other hand I have to admit that would be some razor thin margins for most indie devs. Had I needed a programmer or an additional artist, my profit would be much lower. I saved lots of money and time by doing the game on my own via Game Maker Studio, and it paid off quite well. But had I not been mentioned on Giant Bomb or Northern Lion, I probably would not have broke even on just the $8,500 in expenses. It’s a scary thought that reminds me how lucky/blessed I was that they gave my game a chance.
There are plenty of opportunities for revenue this year with just Cook, Serve, Delicious! I think the new mobile ports will do well, and I’ll likely bundle the game towards the end of the year with one of the major indie bundle guys. I want to return to that shelved game and release it this year, as well as make a major iOS game for release in January 2014, as that seems to be a great empty month that most devs don’t target at all. Look at how much attention was given to Hundreds, one of the few major iOS releases in January.
I’ll likely do another sales article sometime before the end of the year with my experiences in the iPhone/Android market, but I hope this was at least interesting enough to help anyone out there looking into making an indie game. I am finally a full time indie game developer with my game supporting me financially, for the moment anyways. Here’s hoping it’ll stay that way for the months to come!Confederate Pardons
Most Confederate soldiers signed an oath of allegiance in order to gain status as a United States citizen. In 1863 President Lincoln issued a proclamation to grant pardon or amnesty to Confederates.
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The end of the Civil War was not merely a handshake agreement with life returning to normal. The balance of life for both the Union and Confederacy had been torn apart, both physically, by families, economically and socially. The reconstruction involved time and effort.
Most Confederate soldiers signed an oath of allegiance in order to gain status as a United States citizen. In 1863 President Lincoln issued a proclamation to grant pardon or amnesty to Confederates. President Johnson issued an amnesty proclamation on 29 May 1865. Under the 1865 proclamation, former Confederates who had not been pardoned in 1863, could receive amnesty. First they had to take an oath to defend the Union and Constitution, and obey federal laws and proclamations regarding slavery. These were similar to that issued by President Lincoln in 1863. The pardons issued in 1865-1867 were normally not to Confederate soldiers, but to other individuals who supported the Confederate cause.
If their property was valued at more than $20,000 they could not apply for a pardon. Persons who had broken their oath under the Lincoln proclamation of 1863, could not re-apply for pardon. It was also not extended to graduates of Annapolis or West Point who had served in the Confederacy. Civil or diplomatic agents or officials in the Confederacy and ex-Confederate governors could not apply for amnesty.
Confederate military officers above the rank of a Navy lieutenant or Army colonel were excluded. Members of the United States Congress who resigned to assist in the rebellion were also excluded. Military personnel who resigned their commissions in the Army and Navy of the United States were not allowed to apply for a pardon.
Even with all of these and more restrictions to the 1865 pardon act, President Johnson received thousands of applications. He had granted 13,500 pardons by the later part of 1867. The number of restrictions was reduced by a second proclamation issued in September 1867.
Another proclamation was issued on 4 July 1868 in which Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, John C. Breckinridge and a few others were restricted from pardon. A final proclamation was issued on 25 December 1868 which granted amnesty to everybody who had participated in the rebellion.
These proclamations resulted in many records, most of which the normal researcher has never had the opportunity to check... or never thinks to check. The records consist of affidavits, recommendations and depositions asking for pardon and oaths of allegiance. Some are more detailed than others, but they usually provide information on the applicant, his activities during the Civil War and his current status.
The original records are housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. However, they are also available for searching on Ancestry.com, in a newly released database of about 14,000 files.
Ancestry's database is interesting to search. I have personally found files for ancestors who did not serve as a soldier in the Confederacy, but acted in other capacities, such as a sheriff (in a Confederate state) or postmaster. In most cases, they told their account of the war and why they did not wish to enlist as a Confederate soldier.
If you do not have access to Ancestry.com, microfilm of the pardons is available through the Family History Library (LDS) and can be rented at any of their Family History Centers.
The microfilm collection, M1003 of the National Archives, is available on 73 reels of film at the Family History Library. More information film numbers can be found at FamilySearch International.
The application files are divided into three groups. The first group consists of applications submitted by persons in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia). The second group consists of applications submitted by persons from the North and West (California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico Territory, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island). The third group are applications submitted by persons without designation of state or territory.
To make your Confederate ancestors' life story more complete, be sure to check out the Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons. It is worth the time to search and read the applications.The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, will no longer give hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to Planned Parenthood, according to the Associated Press.
Planned Parenthood received $680,000 in 2011 and $580,000 in 2010 from Komen for breast-cancer screening and related services. Nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams were supported by Komen grants.
Komen said they were halting their partnership with the women’s health center because of recently adopted criteria prohibiting grants to organizations under local, state, or federal investigation.
Planned Parenthood is under currently under investigation in Congress, an investigation spearheaded by anti-abortion Republicans.
“It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women’s lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying,” Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told The Associated Press. “It’s really hurtful.”
The investigation, ordered by the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee chairman, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), has largely been seen by Planned Parenthood advocates as the latest Republican line of attack against the agency, which provides more low-cost women’s health services than any organization in the country.
The use of public funds for elective abortion procedures is prohibited by law, and the group insists they do not put tax dollars to use for such purposes. Planned Parenthood is audited every year, and the results are published online.
Nancy Brinker, the founder of Komen, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and one of former President George W. Bush’s “Pioneers,” who gathered $100,000 for his campaign.
Photo credit: ProgressOhioElderly spectators hoping to bag the best spot on the Royal Wedding procession route, but unwilling to spend a night camping on the pavement, can now buy a caravan designed to be towed by a mobility scooter.
The QTvan is small enough to be used on the pavement or even inside shops, but manages to accommodate a full-size bed and television.
QTvan
The £5,500 QTvan is the world’s smallest caravan and is so named because it caters to three peculiarly British obsessions: queuing, tea and caravans. As well as a 19” television on which to watch the ceremony highlights, and a drinks cabinet with which to toast the happy couple, the tiny caravan boasts tea-making facilities – essential for a royal day out. If any extra provisions are needed, the caravan is so compact it can be towed inside a supermarket.
The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) developed the QTvan to highlight the estimated 220,000 people who use a mobility scooter without breakdown cover and face the prospect of a very long wait should they suffer a mechanical fault or their battery runs flat.
Short range
The ETA warns that the QTvan is best-suited to local trips of up to 1o miles.
If it is used to venture further afield, extra time should be allowed.
For example, a trip from London to a popular caravanning destination like the New Forest would take 2 days, while a journey to Whitby would take one week.
Order the QTvan
To find out more about the QTvan or to place an order please email marketing@eta.co.uk
QTvan specifications:
Top speed: 6mph
Dimensions: 2m x 75cm
Range: 30 miles on a single charge
Power: 240v hook up or battery
Entertainment: 19” TV, radio, alarm clock, book shelves
Accommodation: Full-sized single bed
Cooking facilities: Kettle, drinks cabinet
Eco rating: The QTvan is the world’s most environmentally-friendly caravan. Using a conventional caravan for a ‘staycation’ within Britain remains a relatively green way of taking a holiday, but if the electricity used to charge the mobility scooter is bought from a green provider, the QTvan is entirely carbon neutral.
Price: £5,500
Optional extras include: Solar roof panels, air horn and extra-wide wing mirror for mobility scooter, satellite dish, gaming console, central heating, external luggage rack, bespoke paint, adaptation to be towed towed by a bicycleEgypt has arrested at least 150 LGBTI people in the past three years
A doctor has been jailed in Egypt for gay sex.
The man, who has not been named, was sentenced to one year in prison with labor by a Cairo court on the accusation of ‘practicing homosexual activity,’ reported local newspaper Youm7.
According to the report, the doctor was arrested after the morality police were tipped off to a WhatsApp group he had allegedly created to attract men who ‘want to practice immorality.’
Homosexuality is not specifically outlawed in Egypt, but gay men are often charged under vague public morality laws with punishments of up to 17 years imprisonment with or without hard labor.
At least 150 LGBTI people have been arrested in the Muslim-majority country since the military government took power in 2013, and there have been reports of police ‘hunting’ gay men on hookup apps such as Grindr.
A gay man was arrested last month after police claimed to have found an ad he had posted online looking for sex with other men.Writing a Technical Book
IronPython in Action with Manning Publications
Stating the obvious IronPython in Action is a book on the Microsoft open source implementation of Python for Mono and the.NET framework. It is written by Michael Foord and Christian Muirhead. It covers application development, scripting and embedding IronPython in.NET applications - with chapters on WPF, Silverlight / Moonlight development and a Python tutorial. Christian and I are both experienced Python programmers who have been developing full time with IronPython for Resolver Systems since about IronPython version 0.7.
Introduction Any day now I will get the first quarter sales figures for IronPython in Action. That will mark the book having been actually in the hands of readers for three months and also be about two and a half years since I first contacted Manning about the possibility of writing an IronPython book for them. As I always suspected, in retrospect I greatly enjoyed the process and challenge of writing a book. It has however left me with a strong suspicion that the three laws of optimizing code can be neatly modified for technical book writing: Don't No really: don't If you absolutely have to, go read the contract section at the end of this article
How it all started I started working with IronPython in 2006 when I joined Resolver Systems. As IronPython was still very new (version 0.6 or 0.7) there were very few people within the Python community using it seriously so I started to write a tutorial series. I enjoy writing, and there were no books on IronPython so I decided to see if a publisher would be interested. I have a contact who works with O'Reilly and got in touch with them. Having reviewed (and been impressed by) a few Manning books I also contacted them. After initial discussion O'Reilly never came back to me - so it gave me some satisfaction to later hear of them hawking around the IronPython mailing list trying to find someone to write a book for them. My original idea was to write a book on IronPython and Windows Forms as that was what I was spending most of time working on; but Manning wanted a much more general book on developing with IronPython that would fit into their "in Action" series. I first exchanged emails with Mike Stephens in June 2006. Over a period of six months I worked through turning a vague idea into a full book proposal. Writing a Manning proposal is a lot of work, including writing a complete table of contents down to the sections and sub-sections. Early on whilst writing the proposal I roped my colleague Christian Muirhead in. I was to write thirteen of the fifteen chapters whilst he was to handle the two chapters on ASP.NET and databases and webservices.
An overview We finally started writing in the backend of December 2006. The book was complete, including index, front matter and all the edits, in January 2009. It was in the shops for people to buy in early April 2009. That's a long time. Perhaps the main reason it took so long is that I was working full time throughout, with a 2 hour commute in each direction. If I was lucky and got a seat on the train then about an hour of that I could work on the book but getting a 3G modem with internet connection put paid to using the time productively... (Eventually my pattern became that I would work late into the night and then use the time on the train to catch up on my sleep.) Because of working for Resolver Systems the time I had for the book was after returning home and weekends. Often in the week I would get home after 8pm and between eating, dealing with essential email (and essential RSS feeds) and being exhausted I would get maybe a couple of hours an evening to work on the book. Inevitably my most productive times were the weekends. IronPython in Action swallowed most of my weekends for the better part of two years. There were various reasons why it took so long. Some of these are down to me, some unavoidable due to unforeseen events like the release of IronPython 2 and Silverlight, and some due to the Manning processes. Writing a book, particularly one on a hot new technology, has an inevitable tension between wanting to get the book to market as quickly (and therefore as cheaply - man hours on the editing cost bucks) and producing as high quality a book as possible. Some publishers manage to get books out very quickly, and often it shows. In the brave new online world perhaps this is the right way to go - it used to be possible to earn a living from writing technical books alone, but very few people do that now. In March 2009 I was at PyCon 2009. Although the book was complete it was not quite out yet, we missed PyCon by a couple of weeks. I mentioned to Guido (yes I'm a fanboy) that I'd finished writing the IronPython book. On hearing that it was for Manning he made the telling comment that they had a reputation for taking a long time to actually get books published. Although things didn't go perfectly with Manning I think we could only realistically have completed the book six months faster. This would have got us in time for the Christmas 2008 market, so it's a real shame that we didn't, but even so I am convinced that the tortuous process Manning puts its authors through does result in a higher quality book. I'm proud of what we've achieved with IronPython in Action - it is a fantastic book, and the we includes the whole team of folk from Manning who were involved. As Christian and I wrote in the acknowledgements: "Writing this book has been a labor of love for the past two years. One thing that has astonished |
around the camera aperture, however. Again the largest deviation is the removal of “Google” branding in place of “Nexus” on the backside.
There’s a vertical slit for the speakerphone on the back at bottom right. Top left is where the Nexus 4 locates the 8 MP camera and LED flash. This is the same camera module and system as what’s in the 8 MP LG Optimus G configuration, which has no bulge at all. Only the 13 MP system (which is an option) has a bulge.
The Nexus 4 eschews the face-hugging curved glass which begun with the Nexus S, carried over to the Galaxy Nexus, and always struck me as being a bit of a gimmick. It might have made the phone slightly more ergonomic during phone calls, but really most of smartphone use these days isn’t calling, it’s interacting with the display. Moreover, that vertical curve always did create some weird total internal reflections in the glass that constantly bugged me when the sun was at a critical angle. Instead the Nexus 4 has a small radius of curvature lip at the left and right side, making interacting with the extreme left or right easy. My fingers roll off the left or right instead of into a sharp plastic ridge like with the Galaxy Nexus.
The other common design element between the Optimus G and Nexus 4 is that nonconductive metallic plastic ring which extends around the perimeter of the device. This is something that comes off as tacky in the US market but (I’m told) is still a somewhat attractive motif in the Korean market. There’s actually a process whereupon the plastic is impregnated with this nonconductive silvery material, and again it has to be nonconductive to not impact any RF characteristics of the handset. The front facing camera is top right, in the same position as the Galaxy Nexus. Earpiece is a recessed notch at the top between the chrome lip and the glass. Oh, and the Nexus 4 still contains the same three-color notification LED bottom center as the Galaxy Nexus, which is just as well done and disappears into the black surrounding material when not glowing.
Button placement on the Nexus 4 is the same as the Galaxy Nexus, with a volume rocker at left, power/standby at right. For ports, everything is mostly the same, with microUSB at the bottom and a microphone pair (one primary microphone at top, one secondary at bottom for noise rejection). Nexus 4 does mix things up and stick the headphone jack at the top as opposed to the bottom which Galaxy Nexus went with.
The Nexus 4 lacks a removable battery door, although the back of the phone is easily separated from the rest of the phone by removing the two Torx T4 bits at bottom and prying up with a plastic separator tool or guitar pick. Underneath is a 2100 mAh 3.8V battery (8.0 Whr) battery and the numerous antenna connector springs required to connect to the inductive antenna coil for NFC, wireless charging, cellular diversity, and WLAN/BT. The Nexus 4 also moves the land of Nexus to a microSIM via an ejectable tray in place of the miniSIM used on its predecessors, so people upgrading will either need to borrow a SIM cutter or make a trip to their local carrier store for a new micro sized USIM.
Physical Comparison Apple iPhone 5 Samsung Galaxy S 3 (USA) Samsung Galaxy Nexus (GSM/UMTS) LG Nexus 4 Height 123.8 mm (4.87") 136.6 mm (5.38" ) 135.5 mm (5.33") 133.9 mm (5.27") Width 58.6 mm (2.31") 70.6 mm (2.78") 67.94 mm (2.67) 68.7 mm (2.7") Depth 7.6 mm (0.30") 8.6 mm (0.34") 8.94 mm (0.35") 9.1 mm (0.36") Weight 112 g (3.95 oz) 133g (4.7 oz) 135 g (4.8 oz) 139 g CPU 1.3 GHz Apple A6 (Dual Core Apple Swift) 1.5 GHz MSM8960 (Dual Core Krait) 1.2 GHz OMAP 4460 (Dual Core Cortex A9) 1.5 GHz APQ8064 (Quad Core Krait) GPU PowerVR SGX 543MP3 Adreno 225 PowerVR SGX 540 @ 304 MHz Adreno 320 RAM 1 GB LPDDR2 2 GB LPDDR2 1 GB LPDDR2 2 GB LPDDR2 NAND 16, 32, or 64 GB integrated 16/32 GB NAND with up to 64 GB microSDXC 16/32 GB NAND 8/16 GB NAND Camera 8 MP with LED Flash + 1.2MP front facing 8 MP with LED Flash + 1.9 MP front facing 5 MP with AF/LED Flash, 1080p30 video recording, 1.3 MP front facing 8 MP with AF/LED Flash, 1.3 MP front facing Screen 4" 1136 x 640 LED backlit LCD 4.8" 1280x720 HD SAMOLED 4.65" 1280x720 SAMOLED HD 4.7" 1280x768 HD IPS+ LCD Battery Internal 5.45 Whr Removable 7.98 Whr Removable 6.48 Whr Internal 8.0 Whr
Overall the Nexus 4 hardware impresses me quite a bit. The Galaxy Nexus couldn’t ever quite shake the plasticky feeling for me, in spite of Samsung including a battery cover with soft touch material and texture. The odd thickness of the Galaxy Nexus always also bugged me. With almost the same overall dimensions and shape, the Nexus 4 pulls off a much more sophisticated in-hand feel with the rubber perimeter, and I’m willing to deal with the glass back in light of the alternative. The part about removable battery covers is a worthy complaint, though we’re seeing all OEMs head in this direction gradually in an effort to deliver smaller and smaller profiles. In addition, the microSD card ship sailed a long time ago for Nexus phones (back in the Nexus S days) and wasn’t ever coming back. The front glass roll-off at left and right on the display contrast starkly to the Galaxy Nexus’ sharp plastic ring and really help the Nexus 4 feel great.
I’m very impressed with the direction that Google is taking Nexus in general. The Nexus 7 was impressive to me with its design and attention to in-hand feel, and the Nexus 4 is likewise a substantial improvement over the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus 4 is also simultaneously different enough from the Optimus G to not be either confused with it or be accused of just being a reused design.The future of professional wrestling is being thrown around in the painfully humid second-floor auditorium of Washington Hall in the Central District.
The room is packed. Hundreds of bodies are sitting, standing, and lining the walls. They’re sweating out the cocktails they bought during intermission, occasionally pulling out their cell phones to post to Instagram, and leaning over the edge of the balcony to heckle the tattooed, chain-wielding villains screaming back at them. As villains and heroes often do, these wrestlers come in all different shapes, sizes, and packaging. Sometimes the bad guys sport blond dreads and blood-red contact lenses, like “The Devil Himself” Drexl. And sometimes heroes, as is the case with Drexl’s arch-nemesis Kate Carney, spring toward the fight in a gold dress, tossing you her confetti cannon before entering the squared circle.
This is the world of DEFY, the latest outfit to present professional wrestling to a growing number of Seattle fans. Specifically, this is DEFY 2: Wolves at the Door, an early-April event best quantified with a calorimeter, its atmosphere thick with body heat and the charge that transfers from one human body to the next courtesy of hard elbow strikes and body slams. The fans reflexively boo and cheer and toss up applauding hands and middle fingers, all in the name of being entertained on a Friday night. Wrestling’s choreographed aspect is something fans have long been aware of, but that knowledge does nothing to dampen the spirits of the 200 people packed into Washington Hall.
The Seattle pro-wrestling scene has been bursting at its seams with passionate, informed fans for some time. But until two years ago, those fans were often relegated to Twitter or the comments sections of wrestling sites like Cageside Seats. Due to Washington’s cost-prohibitive laws, which foist regulations upon pro wrestling as if it were an honest-to-goodness combat sport like boxing or mixed martial arts, World Wrestling Entertainment was for some time the only avenue to catch an artistically viable wrestling product, and fans were considered lucky if the global entity came to town more than once a year.
These laws stated that a promoter’s license would cost six percent of the promotion’s total earnings for a calendar year and require an on-site ambulance paramedic unit plus $1 for every ticket sold. For fledgling promoters such as the lucha libre-centric Lucha Libre Volcánica and 3-2-1 Battle, an outfit well-versed in blending wrestling with comedy, the cost of obtaining a license was detrimental to running shows on a regular basis. But after the recent passage of an amendment on these licensing provisions, promoters are no longer required to procure a license to host shows, as long as they put on a limited number of events per year and feature mostly talent still in the early stages of their careers. On-site medical workers are still required at every show.
This new reality means a brighter future for promoters in the area, as well as for fans. The greatest impact, though, may be on local wrestlers, who for decades have negotiated their calling and a local culture that has provided them with little in the way of an outlet, much less a career.
That has long been the situation facing Mike Santiago and Darby Allin, two natives of western Washington who took very different paths to the ring and who are facing off in the opening moments of DEFY 2. The anticipation is tangible in Washington Hall as smoke machines spout clouds and fans eagerly await the first match, shifting in their seats and clapping along with the opening music. Santiago appears first, snatching the microphone from ring announcer (and KISW personality) Steve Migs and bemoaning the fact that he was added to the card at the last minute, due to a family emergency that caused one of the main event competitors to cancel.
Suddenly the strains of “Lonely Freak” by Seattle punk band Grindline fill the hall. A backstage hand carries out a body bag, from which Allin emerges. The bell rings and the two wrestlers tie up—their first-ever fight even though they grew up roughly 40 miles apart.
Both Allin and Santiago viewed Seattle as a place with limited potential for growth as they started their professional wrestling careers. In the mid-’00s, Santiago traveled from his Tacoma home to Oregon, Canada, California, and Las Vegas to learn the craft. Allin, who once lived near Garfield High School, moved to Florida nine months ago, referring to Seattle’s wrestling scene as a “dead zone.”
A swath of local wrestling fans and casual observers might disagree. Over the past few years a smattering of small independent outfits like Lucha Libre Volcánica, 3-2-1 Battle, and Project 42 have cropped up. But while these promoters are beloved by fans, Allin will tell you that they don’t necessarily offer what a rising star needs: experience, contacts, feedback from industry veterans.
But DEFY has changed the game. The main difference is that DEFY brings in national talent, which means that relatively inexperienced wrestlers like Allin and seasoned regional names like Santiago can work with globetrotting independent wrestling veterans and grapplers who have worked in WWE, long known as the “major leagues” of professional wrestling. This exposure helps more inexperienced wrestlers improve their craft, with veterans and journeypeople teaching them tricks of the trade that will bolster their characters and in-ring work. And then there is the increased notoriety among fans and the possibility of working with other companies.
Santiago initially declined the offer to perform in the first DEFY event, Legacy, on January 13. But he eventually agreed and faced off against Ethan HD (best known locally for his work with Project 42) in a “Loser Leaves Seattle” match. He won. Allin didn’t compete in the inaugural DEFY event, as he had just moved when he was asked.
But Allin showed up at DEFY 2 with massive industry buzz following a vicious beatdown during an “I Quit” match for highly touted independent wrestling outfit EVOLVE in conjunction with WWE’s Wrestlemania weekend. Allin also left that match with a knot on his head the size of a golf ball. Tonight at Washington Hall, the contusion has subsided dramatically but is still best avoided by the overly squeamish; the resulting scar looks like a bullet hole. As for Santiago, he pounds Allin with hard strikes while gleefully antagonizing fans. Allin flips out of a German Suplex, spits in the face of the Tacoma bruiser, and manages to win the match with quickness and his inhuman tendency to absorb more punishment than his opponent can dish out. It’s a contest that would sit nicely on an EVOLVE program, further proving that DEFY can hang with the industry’s larger-name independent organizations.
Watching the match in person is undeniably entertaining, but to understand one key component that sets DEFY apart from most area wrestling organizations, you need to catch the show on the DEFY On Demand service. There you can witness the striking visual aesthetic made possible by production quality that is head and shoulders above any other independent wrestling product today, though it still resembles late-period Jim Jarmusch more than peak-era Vince McMahon.
“DEFY’s approach is different and unique,” Allin says via email a week after DEFY 2. “I see a lot of recycled vibes in wrestling, so for a company to come out of nowhere with its artistic direction is rad.”
Christina Von Eerie has the upper hand on Taya Valkyrie, but their fortunes would reverse before the end of the match.
In Japan, professional wrestling is a different sort of event. Treated more as sport than entertainment, matches are covered by the media with as much reverence as baseball. Many wrestlers have competed in MMA and amateur wrestling, and almost every one practices what is widely known as “strong style,” popularized by Japanese wrestling legend Antonio Inoki and to many the platonic ideal of the art form. To put it in the most succinct layman’s terms, “strong style” is the philosophical concept of being able to take a hit as well as you can give one. It is not what you see in WWE, which has had a reputation for decades as being too cartoonish, and it is not what you get with the coalition of mom-and-pop-owned brands that make up independent wrestling in America, which is often criticized for being too synchronized.
But it is what you get with DEFY, or at least a version of it. Founder and promoter Jim Perry calls it Seattle Strong Style. “I think Seattle Strong Style is more of a vibe or feeling than a technical execution. It’s more akin to a movement, in terms of a mind-set,” he says, sitting at Bimbo’s Cantina on Capitol Hill, where the bar is adorned with lucha libre masks. “It takes some of the best aspects of Japanese strong style—fighting spirit, right?—and integrating that into the tone and feeling of the grungy, wet, burdensome Pacific Northwest. You have to be tough to live here. You have to be mentally tough because we never have great weather except a few months of the year. And you have to sort of bite down on the inside of your mouth, taste a little bit of your own blood, and grind through.”
DEFY was born of Perry’s need to change his own life. Years ago, he had a well-paying job in creative direction and web design, but it was unsatisfying. “I had gotten to a point,” Perry says, “where I was experiencing really horrific anxiety and the panic of living up to these expectations or ideals associated with handling really huge budgets for projects and satisfying stakeholders that really didn’t give a shit about what you did with your life.”
Two years ago Perry decided to combat that anxiety by undergoing a personal overhaul, intending to scale back how he represented himself in the agency world. He took fewer jobs while observing just how tied-up his identity was in his career, “knowing I wasn’t a cookie-cutter creative director that was out there, with the slickness and the energy for approval that was needed [to be successful].” He started a podcast called Euphomet, centered on topics including but not limited to the occult, the paranormal, fringe science, mysticism, and forgotten ancient cultures.
“At the same time, I was getting back into wrestling,” Perry says. He was a fan, but had begun to stray from the paint-by-numbers storyline structure of mainstream wrestling and its broad-strokes treatment when portraying marginalized groups. “Wrestling was a comfort food for me. So when I was super-stressed out, or worried, or trying to be on deadline, I would listen to a wrestling podcast or I’d put old wrestling on TV, and it would just calm my nerves. As it continued to nurture me, I began to find pieces of it that really resonated with me creatively.”
Perry started ingratiating himself with Seattle’s emergent wrestling scene, seeking advice on running his own wrestling brand and cultivating connections. He started going to 3-2-1 Battle and Lucha Libre Volcánica shows at EVOLV Fitness near South Lake Union, meeting folks, helping set up the ring. While networking and gathering as much information as possible about running a wrestling company, he was approached by Matt Farmer, a Tacoma-based wrestling historian, former independent wrestler, and noted wrestling podcaster. Their ideas started to come together in a big way.
“I have a lot of experience with promoting, and I wanted the wrestling scene in Washington to grow,” Farmer says. “And I saw this as an opportunity to help build the wrestling industry in Washington.” And so, after months of elbowing his way through crowds at wrestling shows and building relationships throughout the national underground wrestling scene, Perry started his wrestling company out of his own pocket with savings from his years as a designer.
Perry and Farmer sought from the beginning to create a thoughtful and stimulating product that could sit among the best independent brands in the genre. They cultivated the look, feel, and talent with two goals in mind: to provide a different flavor from their peers, and to give fans a show worth more than the cost of admission. “When you pay any amount of money for a product and the product doesn’t deliver, it’s easy for a fan to feel cheated,” Farmer says. “We want to make sure we give the fans their money’s worth.”
Adding national talents like Georgia’s Cody Rhodes (son of wrestling legend Dusty) and Los Angeles native Joey Ryan to the card helps justify ticket costs, since wrestling shows can be quite expensive to run. Facilitating local stars like the not-entirely-fit Mr. Fitness and thong suspenders-wearing air-guitar hero Eddie Van Glam affords local talents the two things Seattle wrestlers have heretofore had to leave the Pacific Northwest for: exposure and experience. And in delivering visually stimulating stage design and production for the DEFY On Demand service, as well as a compelling dramatic structure for its shows to complement its colorful cast of characters, DEFY has done in a short time what generally takes indie pro-wrestling promotions years to do: create a singular product with credibility.
“I sit here today not even six months after DEFY launched our first show, and struggle a little bit to reflect on it at this point. It’s been such a rocket ship, and I’m just trying to hang onto it and keep it going up, and not crash into Mt. Rainier.”
Carl Cunningham takes to the air in a tag team battle against Los Sexi Mexis.
Of all the art forms in the world, pro wrestling is arguably the most visceral. As much as it is derided as “fake fighting” and as little as the moves would make sense in the context of a real fight, a wrestling match employs unreal—equal parts impressive and nonsensical—physical feats that, mixed with a deft understanding of basic human psychology, can provoke an emotional reaction. Whether elation, outrage, or just pure disbelief, the entire purpose of a wrestling match is to elicit this response.
This formula is working well on May 26, as a rising start from Washington D.C. named Lio Rush slowly walks toward the ring at Washington Hall. He has traveled across the country to defend his newly won Combat Zone Wrestling World Championship against independent wrestling veteran Davey Richards. It is mere weeks since Lio first appeared at a DEFY event, fighting seasoned Tacoma-born wrestler Shane Strickland. That match was accompanied by an announcement that DEFY and Philadelphia-based Combat Zone Wrestling had entered a partnership. The relationship was forged in part by word of mouth from DEFY stars like Strickland, who had been working with the Northeast outfit for years.
The match between Rush and Richards begins with ringside fans showering streamers on the wrestlers in a tradition that goes back to 1970s Japanese wrestling. Though the competitors are primarily recognized as stylists of different sorts—Richards well-versed in submissions and MMA-style ground grappling, Rush a singularly talented high-flier—both approaches converge with brutal kicks that sound (and probably feel) like shotgun blasts. After a suspenseful, evenly matched contest, Richards walks away with the CZW World Championship belt. An array of emotions follows: praise for the Othello, Wash.-born Richards; disappointment at a heroic effort from Rush falling short; stunned silence for an unexpected result.
The expectation was that this title, which had been around almost 20 years, wasn’t going to change hands anywhere but at a big CZW show—and certainly not in the far reaches of the Pacific Northwest. Wrestling promotions aren’t usually known for breaking convention, after all. In the best art, however, expectations are often constructed just to be shattered.
“Once we saw an opportunity to do a mold-breaking story, we jumped on it,” says Perry. “People don’t expect the world championship of a super-well-known and legendary indie like CZW to change hands on a show some-odd 3,000 miles away from their home base. People expect Lio to take that title back to the Northeast, not drop it to a Northwest competitor in DEFY, no matter how established that guy is.”
Lio Rush is thrown by Davey Richards.
Davey Richards has long been considered a polarizing figure in independent pro wrestling, but no one can deny his success. While some fans credit him as a pioneer of the MMA/grappling/brutal strike wrestling style now spread throughout the genre, others tend to think he takes himself far too seriously. Whatever there is to do in independent wrestling, Richards has likely done it two or three times.
Lending his talents to a Seattle-based wrestling brand carving its niche in a very fruitful independent wrestling panorama is a full-circle scenario for Richards. When he was starting his career, Washington had very few places for wrestlers to get an education; he had to travel the country and the world to gain experience. He attempted to give back to the art form, starting a wrestling school in Auburn where Mike Santiago trained for a spell. But it didn’t take. “The [Seattle] scene was dead,” Richards laments.
Now he and his wife—Angelina Love, DEFY competitor and one of the most decorated champions in women’s wrestling today—are planning to move their family to Seattle from St. Louis, and he is looking into starting a wrestling school here. “Building a scene is paramount,” he emphasizes in our e-mail exchange. “Seattle is sacred ground for me. I can’t explain it, but I feel it. It’s home. It’s my home.”
That feeling is shared by others who have been thrown against a DEFY turnbuckle or two. “Working with DEFY, I’ve learned you don’t always have to escape your home to create something amazing,” says Darby Allin. “The fact that this company is in my backyard is tremendous for the scene; we’ve all been longing for something like this to come along and change things. Do it yourself. Make your home where it’s at.”
arts@seattleweekly.com
DEFY 4: GIGANTIC (NIGHT 1), Temple Theater, 47 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma. All ages. Thursday, June 29.
DEFY 5: GIGANTIC (NIGHT 2), Washington Hall, 153 14th Ave. 21 and over. Friday, June 30.The International Olympic Committee banned the Russian federation from the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea on Tuesday, while leaving the door open for individual Russian athletes to compete, in a historic act of punishment for widespread doping Olympic officials believe was supported by the Russian government.
Russia's flag and anthem will be absent from February's PyeongChang Games, the IOC decided, as penalties for a doping regime that included the sabotage of drug testing during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
Russian athletes who can prove their innocence of drug cheating will be permitted to compete in PyeongChang under the designation of an "Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR)." The Olympic anthem will be played in any ceremony for medals won by these athletes, and Russia's official medal count for the games will stand at zero.
In a Tuesday evening news conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, IOC President Thomas Bach called Russia's doping system "an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic games and sports."
"This decision should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective and a more robust anti-doping system," Bach said.
[Document: Read the full IOC report on Russia’s systematic doping]
Bach was joined Tuesday by Samuel Schmid, the former president of Switzerland, who led a commission investigating the allegations against Russia for the IOC. Schmid's report confirmed "the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia," he said.
A nation's Olympic team had never been banned for doping, or any competitive violation. The IOC has issued politically motivated bans in the past, such as those imposed against Germany and Japan during World War II, and against South Africa during apartheid.
Russian lawmakers and other officials quickly rejected the IOC decision as politically motivated.
"We won't apologize," said Pyotr Tolstoy, a leading member of the Russian State Duma, Russia's lower house of legislature. "We won't apologize to Bach, to the former president of Switzerland, who prepared this report so sweetly. We have nothing to apologize for and neither do our athletes."
Former Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko, whom the IOC banned for life from Olympic Games, did not reply to requests to comment. Mutko consistently has denied Russian government involvement in drug cheating, and told reporters at an event in Moscow last week promoting the 2018 World Cup in Russia that "there is no proof" of state-sponsored doping.
[Svrluga: This American was denied an Olympic medal. Russian ban gives her hope it won’t happen again.]
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose spokesman did not reply to a request to comment Tuesday, previously had termed a potential ban as "humiliating," and implied it would provoke a Russian boycott.
Bach, who has had a close relationship with Putin in the past, told reporters in Lausanne he had not discussed the IOC's punishment with Putin. A delegation from Russia made a last-minute plea for leniency, Bach said, before the IOC's executive board made its decision.
"An Olympic boycott has never achieved anything," Bach said. "I don't see any reason for a boycott by the Russian athletes, because we will allow the clean Russian athletes to participate."
Russia's anti-doping agency has been suspended since 2015, calling into question how the IOC will verify athletes who have trained in Russia have done so without the assistance of banned substances.
To determine which Russian athletes will be allowed to compete, the IOC plans to establish an independent testing authority, Bach said, that will include officials from the World Anti-Doping Agency. The IOC fined Russia's Olympic Committee $15 million, which it intends to use to pay for this independent testing authority, as well as for past investigations into Russian doping.
Anti-doping officials — some of whom heavily criticized the IOC for not levying a similar punishment before the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro — praised Tuesday's decision.
[Jenkins: Let’s not congratulate an IOC that awarded Russia an Olympics in the first place]
"Over the past three years, a high-stakes game of chicken has been played between those willing to sacrifice the Olympic ideals by employing a state-directed doping program to cheat to win and, on the other side, athletes unwilling to stand silent while their hopes and dreams were stolen and the Olympic Games hijacked," said Travis Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "Today the IOC listened to those who matter most — and clean athletes won a significant victory."
"The IOC took a strong and principled decision," U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun said. "There were no perfect options, but this decision will clearly make it less likely that this ever happens again."
[Russian athletes confront their country’s Olympic ban: ‘I want to compete.’]
The absence of Russian athletes would sap many events of top competitors. In the 2014 Winter Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia led the medal count, with 33 overall and 13 golds. But Russia's success at those Olympics, according to former Moscow antidoping lab director Grigory Rodchenkov, came with some assistance behind the scenes.
Rodchenkov has said he oversaw a state-run doping system that provided hundreds of top athletes with banned performance-enhancing substances for years. When the Olympics came to Russian soil, according to Rodchenkov, he ran a clandestine effort, with the assistance of government agents, to replace tainted urine samples taken from cheating Russian athletes during the Sochi Games with clean urine samples he collected months before.
Rodchenkov's testimony, bolstered by two other Russian whistleblowers, have been supported by a series of investigations by the World Anti-Doping Agency since late 2015 that have concluded more than 1,000 Russian athletes across at least 30 sports, including both summer and winter events, had been involved in doping that dated from at least 2011.
Russian sports ministry officials have apologized for widespread doping among their athletes, but forcefully have denied allegations of government involvement and painted Rodchenkov as a rogue actor.
Last month, a Russian court issued an arrest warrant for Rodchenkov, who fled the country for the United States in 2015 after two colleagues at Russia's anti-doping agency died suddenly. Rodchenkov, who was the subject of the Netflix documentary "Icarus" earlier this year, is living somewhere in the United States under the protection of federal authorities.
Jim Walden, Rodchenkov's lawyer, released a statement praising the IOC decision for sending "a powerful message that it will not tolerate state-sponsored cheating by any nation."
"As the world has seen, Dr. Rodchenkov provided credible and irrefutable evidence of the Russian state-sponsored doping system," Walden wrote. "Russia's consistent denials lack any credibility, and its failure to produce all evidence in its possession only further confirms its high-level complicity."
Andrew Roth contributed to this report from Moscow.In studies that observe the brain in action, the right hemisphere seems to be the sexy hemisphere. It lights up during orgasm—so much so that, in one study, much of the cortex went dark, leaving the right prefrontal cortex as a bright island. New research suggests the right hemisphere is also hyperactive amongst the “hypersexual,” a symptom of brain injury loosely defined as groping, propositioning or masturbating in public without shame.
What is surprising about this is that pleasure is classically thought of as the province of the left hemisphere, not the right. The left is most active when recalling happy memories, meditating on love for another, and during the expansiveness of grandiosity or mania.
The left hemisphere is even preferentially more active among people free of depression and less active among the unhappy. If the brain were a simpler and more cooperative organ, the left hemisphere would be lit up like the Fourth of July during an orgasm. Instead, it is surprisingly silent. Why might this be so?
Until eight years ago, neuroscience had little scientific basis from which to comment on bliss, sexual or otherwise. Despite our public fascination with things sexual, as researcher, Gemma O’Brien put it, “orgasm is not impersonal and third person enough for the sciences.” Neuroscience was hobbled by the avoidance of such squashy topics, even if it meant setting aside important parts of human experience. However, a clearer portrait of pleasure is now emerging. Bliss, both sacred and profane, shares the diminution of self-awareness, alterations in bodily perception and decreased sense of pain. And while the left frontal lobe may be linked to pleasure, the other three characteristics are bilateral.
Absence of pain is predictably akin to pleasure, but the other two—losing a sense of identity and of bodily limits—are less obvious. Self-awareness, apparently, is no picnic. William James described the self as that kernel of consciousness that persists throughout various experiences and sensations. The self is divided between the stream of consciousness and an internal observer—except in those rare moments when we dissolve into mysticism.
Self-awareness exists as a running critique organizing conscious experience. Telling stories to ourselves (often about ourselves) is the cognitive default.
Escaping continual self-observation seems an underappreciated pleasure. Roy Baumeister wrote an entire book devoted to the premise that self-awareness is frequently a burden. Across cultures, we blunt awareness with alcohol, drugs, auto-hypnotic rituals and when times are dire, suicide. Meditation offers relief from this self-preoccupation and one of the few tools for creating a durable boost in happiness—perhaps by dampening activity in regions implicated in judgment, comparison, planning and self-scrutiny. Left prefrontal cortex activation correlates with happiness and Tibetan Buddhist monks have created the greatest measured spike in activity in this region produced by simple thought when meditating on compassion. The reported depth of meditation also corresponds to activity in the brain’s pleasure centers, such as left forebrain bundle, anterior insula and precentral gyrus. This overt pleasure is accompanied by a shift in emotional self-regulation; meditators are more aware of thoughts and feelings conceptually, but less emotionally disrupted by them, according to one study. Both hemispheres are involved in self-observation.
Pleasure is also linked to a loss of awareness of the boundaries of our body, and this, too, involves both sides of the brain. Orgasm and meditation dissolve the sense of physical boundary, but the activation patterns are distinct. Meditation does so in a somewhat cerebral way, altering bodily self-awareness by enhancing activity in specific brain regions, such as right angular gyrus—regions that become most lively during attempts to imagine ourselves from a stranger’s perspective, during out of body experiences or déjà vu, and in a neurologically obscure disorder in which patients lack awareness of their own paralysis or bodily infirmity.
But during orgasm, the cerebellar deep nuclei and vermis, also in the cerebellum, glow. The cerebellum used to be thought of as the “motor bit” tacked onto the back of the brain. The deep nuclei are mysterious, but they seem involved in planning and initiating movement, motor learning, rhythm, synchronizing and smoothing of movement. The vermis tracks the movement of the body through space outside of conscious awareness. Unlike meditation, orgasm seems a heightened sense of being within one’s body rather than the sense of being outside of it. The disconnected awareness meditation (“I am not my thoughts, I am not this experience”) is antithetical to the self-forgetting of sex in which wallowing in the experience, and the relationship, is precisely the point.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.A dramatic increase in the number of young men doing jobs traditionally held by women has left them worse off than the previous generation, according to a study.
By the time they hit 30,'millennial' men – those born between 1981 and 2000 – have earned around £12,500 less than those in 'Generation X', defined as those born between 1966 and 1980.
It makes them the first generation to earn less than their parents' generation, prompting a senior MP to warn that many young men are being 'denied their traditional role as breadwinners'.
In 1995, a 25-year-old man earned an average salary of £13,800 – worth the equivalent of £23,300 today. But the average for a 25-year-old in 2015 was £21,700.
By the time they hit 30,'millennial' men (stock photo) – those born between 1981 and 2000 – have earned around £12,500 less than those in 'Generation X'
The pay gap has been caused by a surge in the number of young men working in bars, restaurants and shops as the manufacturing industry has declined but the services sector has boomed.
Think tank the Resolution Foundation said its analysis shows that the 'long held belief that each generation should do better than the last is under threat'.
It explained the'stunted pay progress for young men has been exacerbated by an increase in part time work'. Since 1993, the number of men aged 22 to 35 working part time in the lowest paid occupations such as basic admin and sales, has increased fourfold.
However there are fewer young women working in these jobs.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of young men in retail jobs has almost doubled from 85,000 in 1993 to 165,000 in 2015/16.
Although women remain significantly more likely to work in retail than men, the number of young women doing these jobs has fallen over the same period.
The number of young men working in bars and restaurants has also trebled from 45,000 to 130,000 since 1993.
Plain 'bad luck' is also one reason millennial men are worse off, with the onset of the financial crisis in the late 2000s coming just as many were graduating from university.
But while women have 'overwhelmingly transferred' into |
walks by look in confusion.
In the fifth minigame, he looks much more decrepit than he did in the past minigames, with a strange glowing in one eye. Everyone around him appear very concerned.
In the sixth minigame, his skin has turned a dull purple, now having a white glow in both of his eyes. He also acts to be more senile and less cheerful than he was before. There are much less people around him and one of them is hiding behind their house in fear.
In the last minigame, he is hunched over and his skin is a dark purple colour. His appearance is now very reminiscent of purple guy. Everyone around him have hid behind their houses in dread.
Eventually, his body has a spasm, and he regurgitates the robotic parts belonging to Ennardinto the sewer. He lies on the ground, presumably dead. The player then hears Circus Baby's voice repeating "you won't die", and then Michael gets revived while all of the animatronics' eyes show up in the sewer.
Golden Freddy V. Hard Cutscene
After beating V. Hard Golden Freddy mode, Michael Afton, speaks to his father William Afton.
"Father. It's me, Michael. I did it. I found it. It was right where you said it would be. They were all there. They didn't recognize at first but then they thought I was you. And I found her. I put her back together, just like you asked me to. She's free now. But something is wrong with me. I should be dead. But I'm not. I've been living in shadows. There is only one thing left for me to do now. I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you."
After this, Springtrap walks in for a second before the screen goes black. Looking in the background, you see the words "Fazbear's Fright."
Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator
Michael returns in this game as the main protagonist taking the job of manager of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. As well as working on the Pizzeria itself, Michael was also tasked with salvaging vintage animatronics which had appeared in the back alley, supposedly for parts. The first of these was Molten Freddy. Over the next few days, these included Springtrap, Scrap Baby, and Lefty. While in his office, Michael fended off the Animatronics, by luring them with sounds.
On the final night, Mike's boss revealed that the Pizzeria was a trap for all the remaining animatronics, with Mike luring them around the labyrinthine vents in circles. Henry praised Michael as his "brave volunteer", telling him that, while there had been a way out, he knew Michael did not want it. Henry then burnt the Pizzeria to free the souls, including Michael who finally died.
Description
Appearance
Before being scooped Michael was a Caucasian male with brown hair and blue eyes. After that he was scooped his body started to get rotten until his skin became purple, he lost his hair and his eyes became black with white pupils.
Personality
Michael's personality is unknown but from the minigames of Sister Location, it is seen that Michael has a lot of friends, making understand that he is a very friendly guy. From information gleaned from the Survival Logbook, He is a talented artist as seen from the many drawings on the logbooks pages drawn in red pen, he has a nasty habit of chewing bubblegum as seen on one of the questions, he is quite sarcastic as seen from numerous shrewd comments written about the company, and is also fit for exercising around the block and wanting to join a self defense class as seen on a filled in question.
Heroic acts
Freeing his sister's soul.
Freeing the children's souls.
Trying to kill his father.
Telling his little brother that he is sorry for putting him in Fredbear's mouth. (if he is the brother from FNaF 4)
Helping the Cassette Man (who was revealed to be Henry by PJ Haywood) gather all the remaining animatronics, including Springtrap (William Afton), and trap them all to burn them, also sacrificing himself in fire as well.
Gallery
Images
TriviaSome helicopters from U.S. President Barack Obama’s cast-off fleet may yet find their way into the service of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The Canadian Press has learned Defence Minister Peter MacKay recently ordered National Defence to take another look at whether some of the nine VH-71 aircraft —purchased for spare parts to keep this country’s search-and-rescue choppers flying — can be made fully operational.
MacKay plans to tour the hangar, at IMP Aerospace in Nova Scotia, where the discarded presidential fleet has been housed since the Harper government spent $164 million to acquire it from the Pentagon.
Both the air force and the department’s material branch have insisted the American helicopters were only suitable for spares because they do not have an air worthiness certificate, nor an electronics suite for search and rescue.
I can’t think of anything that would have more of an immediate impact
But MacKay, in an interview with The Canadian Press, says he’s ordered a review to see what sort of work would be needed to bring as many as four of them on to the flight line.
“This is something we’re very serious about,” he said, noting it would be cheaper than buying additional CH-149 Cormorants.
“I’m not saying it would be cost-neutral but I can’t think of anything that would have more of an immediate impact” on search and rescue operations, MacKay said.
MacKay ordered the second look before last week’s searing auditor general report, in which National Defence was told it didn’t have enough new aircraft or the right kind of helicopters devoted to saving lives in the hinterlands.
Specifically, Michel Ferguson took aim at the air force’s use of CH-146 Griffon utility helicopters out of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont. The light chopper cannot make it all of the way to the Arctic or other far-flung destinations without refuelling.
The Griffons were placed at Central Canada’s major search-and-rescue hub because the Cormorants, purchased by a previous Liberal government, faced routine, often infuriating, spare parts shortages.
The problem has largely been eliminated with the purchase of the used VH-71s, which are similar to the EH-101 airframe on which the Cormorant is based.
The air force has also managed to acquire a much larger stock of spares from the aircraft-manufacturer, AugustaWestland.
Maj.-Gen Mike Hood, the deputy commander of the air force, said outfitting some of the former presidential helicopters with mission systems “remains a consideration, but going forward we are focused primarily on the parts and enabling our present system.”
He was cautious in his assessment of whether the U.S. planes could be converted.
“I’m certainly not going to preclude anything,” Hood said in a brief interview. “We’re going to have to work with industry to see what is the art of the possible.”
Opposition MPs have often asked why some of the VH-71s could not be converted and pressed into service to relieve the overburdened search-and-rescue system, and now MacKay is asking the question himself.
“I know they were concerned about spares, but I think our Cormorants are in a much better place than they were several years ago, and we have dealt with things,” MacKay said.
Internal defence department documents say the number of aircraft sidelined because of a lack of parts on any given day has been cut to two from five.
The Canadian military bought 15 Cormorants, but lost one in a training accident in 2006.
The fleet has suffered a variety of problems, including cracks in the tail rotor and corrosion.
Shortly after taking office, the Obama administration cancelled the VH-71 program of new presidential helicopters, which was started under former president George W. Bush.
The projected cost had doubled to US $13 billion.At the end of every year, magicthegathering.com goes on vacation for the holidays. This means no new content, (although do check in this Friday for the final episode of The Great Designer Search to see who wins the coveted design intern position) but it does give each columnist a chance to look back at the year and pick what they think was their best columns. As New Years falls on a Monday, I get three slots this year for my best-of articles. And you know what, it was difficult picking my favorite three.
I was very happy with a number of my columns this year. Don't get me wrong, I had my clunkers too. But in the end, I figured out what I consider my top three. Runners up included "It's About Time", "As Good As It Gets" and "Between a Grok and a Hard Place." But number three goes to...
"Timmy, Johnny & Spike Revisited"
The original "Timmy, Johnny and Spike" had the distinction of being the column with the most hits of all magicthegathering.com for a long time. While I enjoyed my original column I felt I could do better with a new take thanks to everything we've learned since then. This column was my chance to revisit one of my favorite contributions to the game - the player psychographics - and talk a little more deeply about what they mean. There's even a new test to check out what box(es) you belong in.
This column will have two distinctively different readers. The first will have read the original article or at least be aware of the three terms. The second will be learning about this R&D classification for the first time. This column will have something for both types of readers. I will be walking through each of the player types (for the benefit of the second group), but going into much greater detail this time, including looking at some of the subsets of each profile (for the benefit of the first group – and I guess the second group as well).
So, let's start with the obvious. What or who are Timmy, Johnny, and Spike? To answer this question, let me begin by flashing back ten years. When I was hired into R&D, I was a bit of an oddity. The way I put it back then was I was the one R&D guy that studied words in college. Everyone else majored in something that involved a lot of numbers, be in mathematics, engineering, or a number of different sciences. I, on the other hand, had majored in communications. I was a writer.
This meant that I approached card design the same way I approached writing a story. After all, to me, they were both forms of creative expression. So this begs the question of how I function as a writer. I write from the heart. I write to create an emotional response in my readers. This is the same way I design Magic cards.
Here's where it gets interesting. In order to create an emotional response, I had to understand what emotions I was trying to evoke. In short, I had to ask a number of questions: What does a Magic player want when they play Magic? What are their reasons for playing? What makes them happy?
This is where my communication background helped me out. You see, when you attend a communications school, they make you sample classes in all the different aspects of communication. Now, I majored in broadcast & film (yes, I managed to pick a major where watching television and movies were actually homework), but I was also forced to dip my toe into the schools two other sections – journalism and advertising/public relations.
In one of my advertising classes, I stumbled onto a neat little tool called a psychographic profile. The idea of a psychographic profile is that by isolating different personality traits and behaviors you can understand what motivates a particular type of person to act in a certain way. In advertising, psychographic profiles are used to understand what motivates people to buy a particular item versus another. But the field of psychographics has advanced over the years and is now used to help in all sorts of fields. Why not game design?
The Play's The Thing
Timmy, Johnny and Spike are psychographic profiles for Magic players. That's what the test was all about. It lets you know which profile (including all the various hybrids) you fall into. So what makes the psychographic profile so valuable to a Magic designer (or developer)? The simplest answer is that our job is to make you happy. If we know what makes you happy, our job gets a lot easier.
It took me many years to piece these three psychographic profiles together and many years after that to really understand how each worked. (I should point out that this is an ongoing learning experience which is one of the reasons, by the way, that this column is so much more advanced than the one four years ago.) I had a lot of help from the rest of R&D fine-tuning the details, both in how to interpret what each profile liked and then figuring out how to make cards that satisfied that group's desires.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is that each group had a clear stereotype that pulled focus. That is, when we talked about the psychographic profiles, we had a tendency to err in talking about one particular subset at the expense of the rest of the profile. That, I feel, is what I did in my first article on this topic. I oversimplified to the point where I reduced each profile to a stereotype. This has caused a number of inaccuracies and misunderstandings (one might even call them myths) about each of the profiles. Today, I'd like to set the record straight by doing a better job of clarifying each profile. As with last time, let's begin with Timmy.
Timmy
The first question I always ask of a profile is: what does this profile want when they play Magic? Timmy wants to experience something. Timmy plays Magic because he enjoys the feeling he gets when he plays. What that feeling is will vary from Timmy to Timmy, but what all Timmies have in common is that they enjoy the visceral experience of playing. As you will see, Johnny and Spike have a destination in mind when they play. Timmy is in it for the journey.
One of the great myths about Timmy is that he is young and inexperienced. I think this comes from the fact that a non-Timmy (particularly a Spike) looking at a Timmy play reads his choices as those of inexperience. Why else would he play overcosted fatties or coin flipping cards or cards that, simply put, aren't that good? Because Spike misses the point. Timmy plays with cards that make him happy; cards that create cool moments; cards that make him laugh; cards that allow him to hang with his friends; cards that cause him to have fun. Winning and losing isn't even really the point (although winning is fun – Timmy gets that). For Timmy, the entire reason to play is having a good time.
But fun varies greatly from player to player. This is why for each of the profiles we like to examine many of the subgroups that make up the profile. These subgroups are not an exhaustive list but rather a touch upon a few of the larger subgroups.
Power Gamers
One of the stereotypes of Timmy is that he (or she; for the rest of this column just add “or she” whenever you see “he”) loves playing big creatures and big spells as he smashes his way to victory (my last column on Timmy really reinforced this image). This isn't true for all Timmies, but it is true for this group. The Power Gamer equates power with fun. He enjoys the vicarious thrill of dominating the game. For Power Gamer Timmy,is about seeing how much he can do. How big a creature can he play? How much damage can he do in a single turn? How much can he win by?
The important thing to understand is that the Power Gamer while a subset of Timmy is not the entirety of Timmy. As you will see in a moment, there are many other ways to enjoy the game of Magic.
Social Gamers
These are the Timmies that thrive on the social aspect of the game. To them, it's all about interacting with their friends. They see Magic as a means to spend a fun Saturday night (or Sunday afternoon, or lunch time, etc.). This is the group that is much more partial to multi-player variants, as they want to involve the entire playgroup in a single game. (Although I should point out that some social gamers like pairing off and playing traditional two-person Magic.)
Social Gamer Timmy makes his card and deck choices to maximize fun interactions. Of all the Timmies, Social Gamer Timmy is the one most likely to issue house rules and self ban cards. Why? Because if the point is to have a good time with one another, why let irksome cards get in the way.
Diversity Gamers
This third subgroup finds its fun in the variety inherent in the game. Due to its modular design and fanatical following, Magic has many different deck types and formats. Diversity Gamer Timmy wants to experience it all. Fun for him is this constant exploration. Each time he plays, he wants to try something different than what he did before. Yes, he occasionally returns to things he's done before, but only as a breather before he leaps once again into the great unknown.
This is the group of Timmies most likely to try cards that no one else is paying. Not to prove that they can be like the Johnnies, but because they are honestly interested to see if the card might be fun. The same goes for deck types and formats. Every color, every archetype, every way to play is all fair game.
Adrenalin Gamers
This final subgroup embraces the joy of variance in the game. They enjoy playing cards and decks that don't have a predictable outcome. To them, the fun of the game is to see all the different kinds of things that could happen. This is the group, for example, that loves things like coin flip cards and cards that work differently each time you play them.
For Timmy, the entire reason to play is having a good time
Adrenalin Gamer Timmy likes flying by the seat of his pants. He enjoys the rush of adapting to the unpredictable. As a result, Adrenalin Gamer Timmy is drawn to decks and formats that allow every game to be as different from the last as possible.
Let me end my section on Timmy by stressing that of the three profiles I believe Timmy has gotten the worst rap. Timmy isn't an idiot. Timmy just chooses his cards for his own purposes. It's not the reason Johnny and Spike choose their cards, but then that's the entire point of psychographic profiles - to explain how different players are motivated by different criteria. I hope after this article, a lot of readers will realize that they themselves are Timmies. Don't shy away from this news. Embrace it. Be proud of your Timmy-dom. After all, to quote/paraphrase a semi-popular 80's tune “Timmies Just Want To Have Fun”.
Johnny
So why does Johnny play Magic? Because Johnny wants to express something. To Johnny, Magic is an opportunity to show the world something about himself, be it how creative he is or how clever he is or how offbeat he is. As such, Johnny is very focused on the customizability of the game. Deck building isn't an aspect of the game to Johnny; it's the aspect.
One of the strengths ofis the ability for players to imbue much of themselves in their decks. When you play Monopoly you don't get emotionally attached to the board. But with, your deck becomes an extension of yourself. When your deck wins, you win. When your deck gets complimented, you get complimented. It is this principle that drives Johnnies.
As with Timmy, Johnny also has numerous subgroups. The difference though has to do with the focus. Timmy's subgroups form around the issue of how to make the game fun. For the Johnny subgroups, it's about how one can express themselves.
Combo Players
Just as the Power Gamer subgroup defines the Timmy stereotype so does the Combo Player subgroup define the Johnny stereotype. The Combo Player is fascinated by the interaction of the cards. His quest is to find combinations that no one else has. He wants to build a deck that will impress all who see it. Because of this desire, the Combo Player is drawn to cards that have a sense of potential. In particular, he likes cards that he can build a deck around.
How the Combo Player varies from the other subgroups is that he is very focused on the modular aspect of the game. He wants to find the connections between the cards. This means that most of his focus is on the individual cards themselves.
Offbeat Designers
Johnny wants to express something
The Offbeat Designer also comes up with strange decks, but he starts from a very different vantage point. Instead of being driven by the cards, he is driven by ideas. What if the deck only had lands? What if the deck never played permanents? What if the deck stole every card played by the opponent?
The difference between the Combo Player and the Offbeat Designer is a subtle but important one. The Combo Player is proving that he can master the system by finding gems in the midst of chaos. The Offbeat Designer is proving his ability to find answers for any challenge. The former is an explorer. The latter is an inventor.
Deck Artists
The Deck Artist also builds decks but in a very different vein. The deck artist isn't trying to find anything or demonstrate anything. The Deck Artist is trying to use deck building as a form of self-expressive art. These are decks that do things like embody the elf culture or represent Empire Strikes Back or play in a way that makes the opponent appreciate the uniqueness of the card choices.
The Combo Player and Offbeat Designer are showing off what they are doing. The Deck Artist shows off how they are doing it.
Uber Johnnies
The Uber Johnnies build their decks based on sheer stubbornness. They are out to prove that what conventional wisdom says can't be done, can be done. To them, no card is too bad to find a use for. No deck archetype is too unworkable. Nothing truly is off limits.
The Uber Johnnies thrive on doing the undoable. They live to demonstrate that they were the one to succeed where all the others failed. Yes, this is the group that makes R&D design things like One with Nothing. (Which I feel compelled to point out showed up in multiple sideboards at Pro Tour--Honolulu).
Before I wrap up with Johnny, I feel obliged to point out that Johnnies aren't restricted to deck building. Be it choice of format, choice of play style or even choice of tokens, Johnny can use many different means to express himself. The common bond to all the Johnnies is that they are on a mission to show the world something about themselves. What they're showing varies tremendously, but at the core of each Johnny is a similar motivation: “Look at me world! Look at me!”
Spike
So why does Spike play? Spikes plays to prove something, primarily to prove how good he is. You see, Spike sees the game as a mental challenge by which he can define and demonstrate his abilities. Spike gets his greatest joy from winning because his motivation is using the game to show what he is capable of. Anything less than success is a failure because that is the yardstick he is judging himself against.
Like Timmy and Johnny, Spike has his own subgroups. What separates these subgroups is how Spike has chosen to try and dominate. Different Spikes focus on different aspects of the game.
Innovators
This group is the closest thing Spike has to Johnny sensibilities. (Although I should point out the Innovator Spike wants to win first and foremost; he doesn't feel any need to be novel or unnecessarily different.) Innovator Spike prides himself on his ability to judge new cards. His goal is to find the next broken thing. Innovator Spike's dream is to spawn the next dominant deck. He wants to break the game. And like Johnny, he wants credit.
Because Innovator Spike is so focused on breaking new cards, he spends a great deal of time understanding the nuances of the mechanics. If something broke once, odds are greater that R&D will misjudge the same thing in the future. Because this group wants to understand how the game ticks, they are the ones most likely to be interest in Magic game theory. They want to understand things like card advantage and card utility because it is this intimate knowledge that's going to reward them later on.
Tuners
This subgroup of Spike doesn't try to innovate. They leave that up to the Innovators. This subgroup is the next in line. Once decks are produced and played, this group tries to dominate by fine-tuning the known decks. Known as min/maxers in the role-playing side of gaming, this is the group that tries to squeeze every ounce of advantage they can out of the resources at hand.
Tuner Spike uses his expertise to understand the things that help optimize decks such as mana ratios, card numbers and sideboard technology. Innovator Spike has surprise on his side. Tuner Spike has to win his games by being more efficient than those he plays against.
Analysts
Spike gets his greatest joy from proving something by winning
The next subgroup also sits and collects information, but aiming for a different type of advantage. Analyst Spike's focus on the metagame. He plans on winning not by having the best deck in a vacuum, but by having the deck best suited for any particular environment. Analyst Spike understands that all decks have a weakness. If you can understand what will be played, you can figure out how to beat it.
Analyst Spike also tinkers with his decks, but more so to prime it for the field he expects. In addition, Analyst Spike (at least the tournament version; and yes, there are Spikes outside of the tournament environment) is very focused on the sideboard. With only fifteen slots, proper sideboarding relies heavily on understanding the threats one should expect to face.
Nuts & Bolts
The last subgroup has moved beyond decklists and metagames. Nuts & Bolts Spike focuses his energies in perfecting his own gameplay. He believes that the ultimate key to victory is flawless play. As such, Nuts & Bolts Spike spends his energy looking within. He tries to understand his own internal flaws and works to improve them.
Because of this focus, Nuts & Bolts Spike tends to spend more of his time on Limited formats, as it allows the most opportunities to improve his general skills. (This by the way, is mostly due to the fact that Limited has more variety and a wider level of power variance.) Some Nuts & Bolts Spikes do focus on constructed but it is the minority of this subgroup.
The most important thing to understand about Spikes is this. To them Magic is a means to test themselves. As such, their enjoyment comes from marking their own progress. While that often means winning, there are Spikes who measure their success in other ways. For example, some Spikes measure themselves not against winning or losing but by how perfect their play was.
The last thing I want to stress before I move on is that Spikes are neither limited to organized play nor are necessarily good. There are Spikes who play casually. There are Spikes who are downright horrible. Being a Spike is measured against why you play not where or how well you play. (And the inverse is true for Timmy.)
Timmy/Johnny & Johnny/Timmy
Now it's time to talk about the hybrids. Timmy wants to experience something. Johnny wants to express something. Put them together and you get someone who wants to show others how much fun he can have. Timmy/Johnny wants to enjoy himself, but likes to be innovative in how he has his fun. Timmy/Johnny enjoys making up new formats or deck constraints. He likes to build decks specifically for offbeat and fun formats (which often includes multi-player).
Timmy/Spike & Spike/Timmy
Johnny/Spike & Spike/Johnny
Timmy/Spike is torn. He wants to win, yet he also wants to have fun. To solve this dilemma, he searches among the viable decks for the one that seems like it will be the most fun to play. Timmy/Spike is the guy who goes out of his way to play a dragon in his deck. Not one that shouldn't be played, mind you. But if there's a dragon that makes sense, Timmy/Spike is all over it.
Johnny/Spike wants to win. He just wants to win with style. Johnny/Spike is the rogue deck builder. He's the guy that comes up with the crazy decks that just might work. But Johnny/Spike takes the next step; he actually plays it. Johnny/Spike is out to prove that he can win while having the limitation of also being innovative while he does so.
Timmy/Johnny/Spike & Timmy/Spike/Johnny & Johnny/Timmy/Spike & Johnny/Spike/Timmy & Spike/Timmy/Johnny & Spike/Johnny/Timmy
Timmy/Johnny/Spike wants it all. He wants to prove that he can win while being innovative and having a rousing good time. This is a rare breed because it's hard to stay centered between all three desires. Most players that have a leaning towards all three profiles tend to lean more towards one or two than the other. But the triple-hybrid does exist and is the AB Negative of player profiles.
Vorthos
The last thing I feel obliged to touch upon is the “fourth” player type introduced by Matt Cavotta in his column on the creative side of Magic (“Taste the Magic”). In his column, Matt explained that he felt there was a missing fourth player type who he named Vorthos. Rather than paraphrasing, why don't I just quote Matt:
Vorthos (His name is actually John, but since there's already a “Johnny” in the mix, he opted to go with the name of his 16th level half-elven ranger/warmage.) is the guy who never puts more than one of any legend card in his deck because “it just wouldn't be right.” He's the guy who will only play with the Icy Manipulator from Ice Age because it's the one they call the “Bone Crank.” He won't play with the Fallen Empires cards with the stinky alternate art. Vorthos is the guy who started collecting cards because he liked the art, then read some Magic novels, then saw his favorite characters appear on some cards and decided to learn to play. There are a lot of Vorthoses out there. Some collect cards, but might not even play. Some have a hoot getting artists to sign their cards. Some don't read flavor text 'til after they finish the novel in case it might spoil the ending. Vorthos understands that Magic can be fun even when you're not playing the game.
So where does Vorthos fit into all of this? The answer is that he doesn't. Not because Vorthos isn't important, but because he's not actually a psychographic profile. Vorthos is defined by what he cares about, not why he plays (a subtle distinction, I know). In short, Vorthos is examining the players from a different axis. An interesting one, but not the topic of the day.
What this means is that there are Timmy Vorthos, Johnny Vorthos and Spike Vorthos. The first loves to recite the flavor text to Fodder Cannon whenever given the chance, the second has his Weatherlight Crew deck, and the third has read and remembers the characters from every Magic novel ever printed. Perhaps one day I'll explore Vorthos' companion profiles (Wait until you meet Melvin).
Playing to Type
And that (in a little over four thousand words) is what I have to say about Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. Check back in three or four years when I update the test yet again and write “Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited Revisited” As always, I'm happy to hear any thoughts all of you have on the player profiles.
Join me next week when I'll finally talk about a topic that's clearly black and white.
Until then, may you embrace what Magic means to you.
Mark RosewaterA Dakota Access pipeline activist was charged Monday with attempted murder for allegedly firing three shots at deputies as they tried to remove protesters last week occupying private property in Morton County, North Dakota.
Red Fawn Fallis, 37, was charged with attempted murder, preventing arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, marijuana possession, engaging in a riot and criminal conspiracy to endanger by fire during the Thursday protest along state Highway 1806.
The criminal complaint filed by the Morton County state’s attorney said deputies were attempting to handcuff her as she lay face-down on the ground when she pulled out a.38 revolver from underneath her and began firing.
Neither of the deputies was hit, but Ms. Fallis told them later “they are lucky she didn’t shoot all of you,” according to the complaint.
Her arrest came as the National Sheriffs’ Association joined North Dakota lawmakers in urging the Obama administration to send resources as violence escalates at the 11-week-old protest.
Jonathan Thompson, NSA executive director and CEO, said in a letter to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch that the occupation is “long past the point of peaceful and respectful protest.”
He said the federal government has aided the protesters, who number from 1,500 to 2,500, by allowing them to camp on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property.
“From our perspective, the federal government’s inaction is tantamount to supporting (and encouraging) dangerous behavior by the same individuals committed to creating economic and community chaos,” said Mr. Thompson in his Thursday letter.
Law enforcement arrested 142 activists in connection with Thursday’s faceoff, which saw protesters burn vehicles, set fires on Highway 1806 and a nearby bridge, and throw Molotov cocktails, rocks and debris at officers.
More than 100 officers were able to remove highway barricades and a camp set up on private property owned by the development company by protesters trying to stop the construction of the 1,172-mile, four-state pipeline.
Meanwhile, activists have called on the Obama administration to intervene by blocking the pipeline project while accusing local law enforcement of overly aggressive tactics in response to the protests at the construction site.
“The Department of Justice must send overseers immediately to ensure the protection of First Amendment rights and the safety of thousands here at Standing Rock. DOJ can no longer ignore our requests,” said Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman David Archambault II in a Thursday statement.
The Army Corps of Engineers released a statement Monday saying that it “takes the situation in North Dakota very seriously and does not condone any acts of lawlessness emanating from or on its project lands.”
“We are concerned for the health and safety of all individuals involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and continue to work with other agencies, law enforcement and tribal representatives to stress the importance of respecting the rule of law and the right to peaceful protests,” said the statement.
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has raised concerns about the project’s impact on water quality and sacred sites, prompting the Corps to place a hold on construction on its land and undertake a review of the tribal consultation process.
Ms. Fallis had been arrested twice before during protests and faces prior charges of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.
The attempted murder charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and/or a fine of $20,000.
The two deputies, who work for the Pennington County Sheriff’s Department in South Dakota, were among officers from six states that joined local law enforcement to help remove the protesters.
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Back in October, Sony announced Red Dead Redemption would be released through PlayStation Now. Today, Rockstar Games announced the release date.
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Red Dead Redemption was released as a Xbox One backwards compatible title back in July and included the majority of its multiplayer DLC for free.
Next week on December 6, PS4 users can get in on the action with both the Red Dead Redemption base game and the Undead Nightmare DLC.
In August, the ability to stream PlayStation games to PC via PlayStation Now was announced, which means subs will be able to stream the game to their desktop or laptop.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is slated for release next fall, and if you never played the game on PS3 or Xbox One, now’s your chance.
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Read article on VG247Former National Security Agency senior executive and whistleblower Thomas Drake revealed himself this week as the source for a lawsuit alleging the NSA conducted "blanket, indiscriminate surveillance" of Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
In a declaration filed in discovery in the case in U.S. district court in Utah, Drake asserted the NSA, in coordination with the FBI, scooped up and stored the content of emails and text messages sent and received by anyone in the city and Olympic venues - including American citizens.
"The mantra was 'just take it all,'" said Drake, 60, in a Thursday evening phone interview. Drake's assertions contradict declarations filed in the case in March by former NSA director Michael Hayden and current NSA operations manager Wayne Murphy.
"The NSA has never... at any time conducted'mass' or 'blanket' surveillance, interception, or analysis... of e-mail, text message, telephone, or other telecommunications in Salt Lake City or the vicinity of the 2002 Winter Olympic venues, whether during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games or otherwise," Murphy stated.
Drake accused Murphy and Hayden of making statements that are "if not literally false, substantially misleading." His declaration was first reported Friday by the Salt Lake Tribune.
The NSA and the Department of Justice declined to comment Friday on the case, which was filed in 2015 by former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson on behalf of six American citizens who alleged their private communications were monitored and likely stored by the NSA during the Winter Games, held in Salt Lake City in February 2002.
"It's incredibly important that the public be aware of what our government's doing, and all of us standing up against it," Anderson said in a telephone interview Thursday evening. "We need to let our elected officials know that we will resist in any way possible this rather sudden transformation of our country, not only to a surveillance state, but to a nation where the rule of law seems to mean very little."
Drake is a former Air Force and Navy veteran who worked at the NSA from 1989 until 2008, when his career ended amid a leak investigation. Drake had grown uncomfortable with the expansion of the NSA's surveillance operations, authorized by President George W |
inspection equipment to look at many layers of an internet packet – maybe including the content – to make their service better by giving priority to time-sensitive packets or stop internet attacks. even to attempt to stop the sharing of copyrighted material as AT&T has proposed.
From there it is an easy step to finding ways to profile customers.
The solution, according to Ohm: Apply the current wiretapping laws to what ISPs want to do on their networks – including ways to manage traffic flows – and add some exceptions designated by a neutral government body like NIST.
That's a fine notion – using privacy as the way to enforce a largely neutral internet, while still allowing ISP engineers to do their jobs.
Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the courts seem particularly interested in wiretapping laws, except to find ways to expand exceptions for the government. or excuse self-issued ones.
Will Congress as a whole prove itself to feel differently about ISPs spying on Americans, than the nation's spooks?
You can also read more from Ohm over at Concurring Opinions, where he's blogging about the topic and responding in the comment section.
Photo: Paul Ohm/Paulohm.com
See Also:Which countries around the world are most likely to see coup activity in 2012?
This question popped back into my mind this morning when I read a new post on Daniel Solomon’s Securing Rights blog about widening schisms in Sudan’s armed forces that could lead to a coup attempt. There’s also been a lot of talk in early 2012 about the likelihood of a coup in Syria, where the financial and social costs of repression, sanctions, and now civil war continue to mount. Meanwhile, Pakistan seems to have dodged a coup bullet early this year after a tense showdown between its elected civilian government and military leaders. I even saw one story–unsubstantiated, but from a reputable source–about a possible foiled coup plot in China around New Year’s Day. These are all countries where a coup d’etat would shake up regional politics, and coups in some of those countries could substantially alter the direction of armed conflicts in which government forces are committing mass atrocities, to name just two of the possible repercussions.
To give a statistical answer to the question of coup risk in 2012, I’ve decided to dust off a couple of coup-forecasting algorithms I developed in early 2011 and gin up some numbers. Both of these algorithms…
Take the values of numerous indicators identified by statistical modeling as useful predictors of coup activity (see the end of this post for details); Apply weights derived from that modeling to those indicators; and then Sum and transform the results to spit out a score we can interpret as an estimate of the probability that a coup event will occur some time in 2011.
Both algorithms are products of Bayesian model averaging (BMA) applied to logistic regression models of annual coup activity (any vs. none) in countries worldwide over the past few decades. One of the modeling exercises, done for a private-sector client, looked only at successful coups using data compiled by the Center for Systemic Peace. The other modeling exercise was done for a workshop at the Council on Foreign Relations on forecasting political instability; this one looked at all coup attempts, successful or failed, using data compiled by Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne. For the 2012 coup risk assessments, I’ve simply averaged the output from the two.
The dot plot below shows the estimated coup risk in 2012 for the 40 countries with the highest values (i.e., greatest risk). The horizontal axis is scaled for probabilities ranging from zero to 1; if you’re more comfortable thinking in percentages, just multiply the number by 100. As usual with all statistical forecasts of rare events, the estimates are mostly close to zero. (On average, only a handful of coup attempts occur worldwide each year, and they’ve become even rarer since the end of the Cold War; see this earlier post for details). For a variety of reasons, the estimates are also less precise than those dots might make them seem, so small differences should be taken with a grain of salt. Even so, these results of this exercise should offer plausible estimates of the chances that we’ll see coup activity in these countries some time in 2012.
Here are a few of things that stand out for me in those results.
My forecast supports Daniel’s analysis that the risk of a coup attempt in Sudan in 2012 is relatively high. It ranks 11th on the global list, making it one of the most likely candidates for coup activity this year.
in 2012 is relatively high. It ranks 11th on the global list, making it one of the most likely candidates for coup activity this year. Surprising to me, Pakistan barely cracks into the top 40, landing at 38th in the company of Iraq, Cambodia, and Senegal. Those countries all rank higher than 120 others, but the distance between their estimated risk and the risk in most other countries is within the realm of statistical noise. Off the top of my head, I would have identified Pakistan and Iraq as relatively vulnerable countries, and I would not have thought of Cambodia or Senegal as particularly coup-prone cases.
barely cracks into the top 40, landing at 38th in the company of,, and. Those countries all rank higher than 120 others, but the distance between their estimated risk and the risk in most other countries is within the realm of statistical noise. Off the top of my head, I would have identified Pakistan and Iraq as relatively vulnerable countries, and I would not have thought of Cambodia or Senegal as particularly coup-prone cases. Unsurprising to me, China doesn’t even make the top 40. Perhaps there has been some erosion in civilian control in recent years, as Gordon Chang discusses, but it still doesn’t much resemble the countries that have seen full-blown coup attempts in the past few decades.
doesn’t even make the top 40. Perhaps there has been some erosion in civilian control in recent years, as Gordon Chang discusses, but it still doesn’t much resemble the countries that have seen full-blown coup attempts in the past few decades. Interestingly, Syria doesn’t show up in the top 40, either. To make sense of this forecast, it’s important to note that assigning a low probability to the occurrence of a coup attempt in Syria in 2012 isn’t the same thing as a prediction that President Bashar al-Assad or his regime will survive the year. It might seem like semantic hair-splitting, but the definitions of coups used to construct the data on which these forecasts are based do not include cases where national leaders resign under pressure or are toppled by rebel groups. So the Syria forecast suggests only that Assad is unlikely to be overthrown by his own security forces. As it happens, my analysis of countries most likely to see democratic transitions in 2012 put Syria in the top 10 on that list.
doesn’t show up in the top 40, either. To make sense of this forecast, it’s important to note that assigning a low probability to the occurrence of a coup attempt in Syria in 2012 isn’t the same thing as a prediction that President Bashar al-Assad or his regime will survive the year. It might seem like semantic hair-splitting, but the definitions of coups used to construct the data on which these forecasts are based do not include cases where national leaders resign under pressure or are toppled by rebel groups. So the Syria forecast suggests only that Assad is unlikely to be overthrown by his own security forces. As it happens, my analysis of countries most likely to see democratic transitions in 2012 put Syria in the top 10 on that list. Two of the countries near the top of that list–Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo–are the ones where the Center for Systemic Peace’s Monty Marshall tells me he saw coup activity meeting his definition in 2011. Those recent coup attempts are influencing the 2012 forecasts, but both countries were also near the top of the 2011 risk list. This boosts my confidence in the reliability of these assessments.
I hope there’s a lot more on (or off) that list that interests readers, and I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on the results in the Comments section. For now, though, I’m going to wrap up this post by providing more information on what those forecasts take into account. The algorithm for successful coups uses just four risk factors, one of which is really just an adjustment to the intercept.
Infant mortality rate (relative to annual global median, logged): higher risk in countries with higher rates.
Degree of democracy (Polity score, quadratic): higher risk for countries in the mid-range of the 21-point scale.
Recent coup activity (yes or no): higher risk if any activity in the past five years.
Post-Cold War period: lower risk since 1989.
The algorithm for any coup attempts, successful or failed, uses the following ten risk factors, including all four of the ones used to forecast successful coups.
Infant mortality rate (relative to annual global median, logged): higher risk in countries with higher rates.
Recent coup activity (count of past five years with any, plus one and logged): higher risk with more activity.
Post-Cold War period: lower risk since 1989.
Popular uprisings in region (count of countries with any, plus one and logged): higher risk with more of them.
Insurgencies in region (count of countries with any, plus one and logged): higher risk with more of them.
Economic growth (year-to-year change in GDP per capita): higher risk with slower growth.
Regime durability (time since last abrupt change in Polity score, plus one and logged): lower risk with longer time.
Ongoing insurgency (yes or no): higher risk if yes.
Ongoing civil resistance campaign (yes or no): higher risk if yes.
Signatory to 1st Optional Protocol of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (yes or no): lower risk if yes.
AdvertisementsAustralian activist released on bail in Israel
Updated
Israel's Supreme Court has ordered the release of an Australian woman who was arrested during a pre-dawn military raid in the West Bank.
Bridgette Chappell, 22, from Canberra, was arrested with a Spanish woman after Israeli soldiers burst into the apartment they shared in Ramallah.
The Israeli government says Ms Chappell, who was studying Arabic and politics at Birzeit University in the West Bank, was arrested for overstaying her visa.
But she was also active in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) - a pro-Palestinian organisation committed to resisting Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
Israel alleged Ms Chappell had taken part in illegal protests against Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
But Ms Chappell's lawyer argued in court that Israel had no jurisdiction in Ramallah on matters unrelated to security.
Ms Chappell lashed out at Israel from the dock before being led away.
"It's completely illegal what they're doing. They're trying to crush the popular resistance in Palestine," she said.
The court has ordered the women's release on bail until it can consider their appeals against deportation.
They have been ordered not to return to the West Bank.
Ms Chapell says she is currently in Tel Aviv and has been in touch with the Australian consulate.
"It's still pretty up in the air. I was released but I also have to appear in court again," she said.
"I can stay as long as the trial continues but we'll see what happens. I'm really going to try and fight to stay as long as I can."
She said that on the night of the raid she woke up at 3am to heavy banging on her door at the headquarters of the ISM in Ramallah.
"I looked out the window and I could see a line of army jeeps outside in the street. The next thing I knew about 15 soldiers came bursting into the house pointing their guns at us," she told ABC radio.
"The soldiers barged in, pointed their guns at us and asked us for our passports, which is actually illegal.
"IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers don't have the jurisdiction to ask you for your passports.
"It was ridiculous. It was a complete military operation. The IDF can say it was to do with our visas all they like but we know that's not the real reason. It was a very convenient excuse for them to take us."
Topics: foreign-affairs, law-crime-and-justice, courts-and-trials, israel, act, canberra-2600, australia
First postedWhen eBay cuts PayPal loose this summer, users of the new digital money giant will find they’ve agreed to new terms of service that take effect July 1. Those terms include PayPal giving itself the right to robocall or robo-text members at any phone number the firm can find, for just about any reason — from debt collecting to advertisements to opinion polling.
The fine print also says PayPal can pass along the same rights to its affiliates. Here’s the language, in black and white, from the company’s website:
You consent to receive autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages from PayPal at any telephone number that you have provided us or that we have otherwise obtained.... (PayPal) may share your phone numbers with our Affiliates or with our service providers, such as billing or collections companies, who we have contracted with to assist us in pursuing our rights.
Given that both the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (which created the Do Not Call list) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ban most robocalling and texting, this seemed in direct opposition to consumer protections granted Americans by Congress. And the FCC has made clear that the “existing business relationship” exception that applies to the Do Not Call list doesn’t give companies the right to robocall consumers. They must acquire written or oral consent. Could a change in terms of service constitute such consent?
How Consumer Advocates See It
So I contacted the National Consumer Law Center to ask about it, and lawyer Margot Saunders reminded me that consumers can consent to all sorts of things — including consenting to getting robocalls from debt collectors and advertisers. Critically, however, this consent is not a waiver or rights, she said, and it can be withdrawn at any time.
At least, that’s her opinion. But it’s not what PayPal has told at least one customer. When PayPal consumer Robert Pascarella questioned PayPal about the terms of service on the company’s Facebook page recently, he requested an opt-out for the provision and was shot down.
“Regrettably, there isn’t an opt out option to certain items within our User Agreement,” PayPal responded. When he objected, PayPal posted directions for closing his account.
PayPal did not return a request for comment by deadline. UPDATE: PayPal sent a comment to Credit.com after the story was published. PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Miller said, “PayPal takes consumer protection very seriously and we have processes in place designed to ensure compliance with all collection laws.”
When I pointed out the Facebook conversation’s all-or-nothing response to Saunders, she decided it was important enough to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission and ask for a ruling. In a draft letter provided to Credit.com that will be signed by several consumer groups and delivered this week, the National Consumer Law Center will ask the FCC to “clarify that withdrawal of consent for auto-dialed calls cannot be grounds for terminating a contract.”
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That petition will also ask the FCC, which administers the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, to beat back a number of industry requests that consumer groups say could weaken the Do Not Call list. The FCC will vote on a declaratory ruling June 18 that looks to affirm consumer-friendly provisions; FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed, for example, that consumers be able to withdraw consent to receive robocalls at any time (industry groups have argued that consent should be permanent).
While the PayPal corporate structure is new — this summer, it will be permanently separated from eBay, which acquired the payments giant in 2002 — the robocalling language is not really new. It is derived from eBay’s terms of service, which back in 2012 added the right to contact consumers “at any telephone number … you provide to us or from which you place a call to us, or any telephone number at which we reasonably believe we may reach you,” according to Practical Nomad blogger Edward Hasbrouck.
EBay did not respond to a request for comment.
Hasbrouck had created a stir about the fine-print robocalling issue even earlier, in 2009, when he noticed it in his American Express terms of service.
For now, there’s not much consumers can do, other than the drastic step of closing their accounts. Given PayPal’s immense market reach — it has 160 million users worldwide — that’s not a practical option. We’ll keep an eye on the FCC vote and let you know what happens. You keep an eye on your cellphone bills. Why? The PayPal / eBay terms of agreement also includes this warning: “Standard telephone minute and text charges may apply if we contact you.”
More Money-Saving Reads:
Image: FuseUNTIL the American-led coalition started bombing Islamic State (IS), the group was focused on spilling the blood of fellow Muslims and minorities rather than Westerners—in contrast with al-Qaeda before it. But last August, when air strikes began in Iraq, IS started beheading American and British hostages. And when the bombing extended to Syria a month later, IS urged devotees to attack Westerners wherever they were found. A spokesman helpfully suggested several methods, including poisoning and car accidents.
Grimly, extremists have taken up the call, both in the West and, increasingly, in the Middle East. This week the British and Canadian embassies in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, closed their doors for two days, citing unspecified threats. In November, a Dane was shot in the shoulder when leaving work in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in an attack filmed by IS supporters. Separately, a Canadian was stabbed in a shopping centre in the eastern province.
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Most shocking of all was the attack on December 1st in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, when a local woman stabbed and killed an American schoolteacher, Ibolya Ryan, in the bathroom of a shopping centre. The attacker then planted a makeshift bomb at the door of an American doctor. Only a month earlier, jihadist web forums had suggested American teachers and schools in the region were desirable targets.
Anti-Western violence is thus returning to places that recently appeared safe. In Egypt visitors have been repeatedly targeted: in 1997 gunmen in Luxor killed 62 people, and bombers attacked tourist hotels in Sinai in 2004-05. But after the Arab spring protests of 2011 and the restoration of military rule last year, life for foreigners has settled down and tourists have started to return to the beaches and ancient sites. Similarly in Saudi Arabia, after a rash of al-Qaeda bombings ended in 2005, oil-workers and businessmen have got on with normal life. And the UAE long appeared to be a peaceful oasis; almost 90% of its 9.3m people are foreigners, including tens of thousands of Britons.
Attacks in the West, though infrequent, also appear to be rising. On October 23rd a radical Muslim wounded two policemen in New York with an axe. That came a day after a man in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, shot dead a ceremonial sentry at the war memorial and then ran into the parliament, where he was shot and killed.
Such attacks appear to be perpetrated by “lone wolves” rather than by organised groups. Governments can attempt to monitor IS affiliates—such as the Algerian group that beheaded a French tourist in September; and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the Egyptian group that renamed itself “Sinai Province” of IS’s self-declared caliphate. But individuals acting alone or in small cells are harder to identify. They can get ideas from the internet rather than having to make contact with any organisation.
For the most part, it is still the people of the region who suffer most. Jihadist violence has been predominantly directed at non-Muslim minorities, Shias, Sunni tribes that dare resist IS’s rule, as well as fighters from rival armies and militias. Hundreds have been executed by IS as it has extended its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Beyond, eight Shias were killed in Saudi Arabia last month by suspected IS sympathisers. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has killed scores of Egyptian soldiers in bombings this year.
It makes for a new trend in jihadist violence. Whereas al-Qaeda still seeks to organise spectacular attacks on the West, IS is discovering that undirected, smaller-scale attacks might be just as unnerving.Canada’s leaky municipal infrastructure faces an increasingly grim future unless the federal government sinks an estimated $171.8 billion into repairing or replacing aging roads and water systems, a new report says. With the Conservatives’ infrastructure funding plan set to expire in 2014, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ first-ever national infrastructure report card called for a commitment from Ottawa to support cash-strapped municipalities, many of which are home to decaying, “at-risk” infrastructure.
Chunks of concrete have fallen from the Gardiner Expressway over the last few months, just one of hundreds of highways and roadways needing repair in Canada. ( Keith Beaty / Toronto Star file photo )
The report, a sweeping examination of 123 municipalities that was released Tuesday, paints a bleak portrait of Canada’s roads and wastewater systems. More than half of municipal roads received a grade of “fair” to “very poor” for displaying general physical decline, significant signs of corrosion or “widespread signs of advanced deterioration.” “(The report) affirms that we know that there is infrastructure that is not meeting a certain standard across the country,” FCM president Karen Leibovici said in an interview. “We need to tackle that... to ensure that the infrastructure we have throughout this country is able to meet needs.” Shabby roads have made headlines in recent months after massive concrete blocks shattered on Montreal’s Ville-Marie Expressway and pieces of Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway rained down on bustling Lakeshore Blvd. Last Tuesday, an Ottawa motorist drove into a sinkhole caused by a collapsed culvert pipe on Highway 174.
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Leibovici stressed that it remains incumbent upon the federal government to narrow the so-called infrastructure deficit by providing top-down funding beyond 2014. Since it was hatched in 2007, the Conservatives’ “Building Canada” plan has provided about $2 billion annually in infrastructure funding to municipalities. Ottawa’s gas tax fund funnels $2 billion into cities for public works projects and this year’s budget promised future cash for public works projects. Still, NDP Transport and Infrastructure critic Olivia Chow called the current situation “simply unacceptable.” “Bridges dropping concrete and highway sinkholes swallowing cars are not freak accidents but symptomatic of the crumbling infrastructure across Canada,” she said in a statement. “The Harper Conservatives have neglected Canada’s roads, water and transit systems and Canadians are paying the price.” Government officials are in talks with local and provincial leaders and private sector interests about crafting a funding plan to kick in when the current one expires, said Geneviève Sicard, press secretary for Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel.
The report card, which does not contain recommendations, also highlighted widespread decrepitude in wastewater infrastructure, with roughly 40 per cent of pumping stations and storage tanks experiencing varying degrees of decline. New federal wastewater regulations will likely improve several hundred water systems across the country, but those come with a hefty $20 billion price tag that municipalities will have to cover over the next two decades.
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Guy Félio, a Carleton University civil engineer and lead author on the study, said the report card should send a clear message to the federal government “we’re in a position to control our destiny from an infrastructure perspective and for that we need to manage it properly.” Chunky numbers on roads • 52.6% of municipal roads are in “fair” to “very poor” condition • 25% of roads are operating above capacity • The estimated cost to replace “fair” to “very poor” roads is $91.1 billion • 70% of Toronto’s road network is over 30 years old Municipalities leave federal stimulus money on table Ninety-nine “shovel-ready” municipal projects that planned to take advantage of $4 billion in federal stimulus money were forced to forgo grants after missing a federal government-mandated completion deadline last year. In 2009, the Conservatives had offered 3,913 projects money from its Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, intending to steamroll a lagging economy. The deadline for those projects — including more than 500 projects, such as road and bridge revitalizations, in Toronto — was extended to Oct. 31, 2011, from March 31, 2011. While Ottawa said it would cover “its share of all eligible costs” up to the extended deadline, Infrastructure Canada remains tight-lipped on the amount of money municipalities left on the table. “Infrastructure Canada cannot provide the total amount of funding that these projects may have to forgo, given that all projects are not yet complete and the final financial reconciliation has not been completed,” a ministry spokesperson Caroline Grondin said. Calgary, for example, lost $8.7 million toward an LRT platform project, the Calgary Herald reported earlier this week.Assessment of pain thresholds with quantitative thermal testing (QTT) reflects the function of C‐ and Aδ fibres (Verdugo and Ochoa, 1992 ; Cohen et al., 1996 ; Arendt‐Nielsen and Chen, 2001 ; Truini et al., 2007 ; Casanova‐Molla et al., 2011 ). The study of contact heat‐evoked potentials (CHEPs) allows for a more objective method of evaluation of small fibre function. Nociceptive evoked potentials have been used for the study of various pain syndromes (Truini et al., 2007 ; Casanova‐Molla et al., 2011 ; Kumru et al., 2011 ). Evoked pain produced by thermal stimuli is a common characteristic of central pain syndrome (CPS; Vestergaard et al., 1995 ; Finnerup et al., 2003 ; Kumru et al., 2011 ). CPS is most commonly expressed with hyperalgesia below and at the level of the spinal lesion and only rarely in spinal segments above the lesion in animals (Masri et al., 2009 ) and in humans (Cohen et al., 1996 ; Kumru et al., 2011 ). The hypothesis of the study was that the abnormally enhanced CHEPs amplitude and threshold changes in QTT ratings at dermatomes rostral to the injury level could normalize in those subjects who report improvement with the combined tDCS and VI intervention. We also investigated whether these measures correlate with the subjective rating of alleviation of NP.
About 50% of subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI) suffer from neuropathic pain (NP) (Siddall et al., 2003 ; Soler et al., 2007 ). Although this represents a major burden for the subjects, the pathophysiological mechanisms mediating NP in SCI are poorly understood (Siddall et al., 2003 ; Yezierski, 2005 ; Soler et al., 2007 ; Wasner et al., 2008 ). A number of processes may be responsible for NP, possibly involving different mechanisms (Woolf et al., 1998 ; Woolf and Salter, 2000 ). Evidence exists suggesting involvement of primary somatosensory cortex (S1) reorganization, supported, e.g., by studies that reveal a correlation between S1 plasticity and pain intensity in SCI subjects (Wrigley et al., 2009 ). Theoretically, modulating cortical activity might result in reduction of pain. Supporting such a hypothesis, several proof‐of‐principle trials have reported significant improvement in the severity of NP in subjects with SCI after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) or experiencing movement with virtual illusion (VI; Fregni et al., 2006 ; Moseley, 2007 ). In a recent study, we found that tDCS combined with VI led to greater and more sustained analgesic effect than any one intervention separately or sham control (Soler et al., 2010 ).
2. Subjects and methods
We studied 18 SCI subjects with NP (SCI‐NP). To compare CHEPs and QTT of those subjects with NP at baseline and to study whether clinical improvement in NP with effective treatment can induce changes in CHEPs and QTT, 20 subjects with SCI without NP (SCI‐noNP) and 14 healthy subjects served as a control groups. The inclusion criteria for SCI subjects with NP were (1) age above 18 years; (2) cervical or thoracic complete or incomplete SCI (classified according to the American Spinal Injury Association ‘ASIA’ Impairment Scale; Marino et al., 2003); (3) preserved sensory perception at C4 level (most rostral lesion level at C5, according to ASIA; Marino et al., 2003); (4) NP of more than 3 months duration, with pain intensity higher than 4 on a numerical rating scale (NRS); and (5) stable medication for at least 3 weeks immediately prior to testing. Inclusion criteria for SCI subjects without NP were the same except that they experienced no pain (including spasm‐ and movement‐related pain) at or below the neurological level of the lesion since time of injury. Healthy control subjects were required to be free of any chronic or acute pain conditions, to have had normal medical and neurological history and examinations, and to be taking no medication.
Pain was considered to be neuropathic if it involved an area of sensory abnormality consistent with the expected consequences of the spinal cord lesion. At injury level, NP was defined as sensation of burning, stabbing or electrical quality, located in the dermatomes at or just above the level of injury. Below‐level NP was defined as burning, stabbing or shooting pain located diffusely at least two dermatomes below the SCI level (Siddall et al., 2003). Pain was considered only if onset occurred after the SCI and had no primary relation to spasms or other movement. Subjects with severe pain of other origin, e.g., musculoskeletal pain, were excluded.
Exclusion criteria were head trauma and other chronic medical conditions or which tDCS is relatively contraindicated, such as pregnancy or epilepsy (Rossi et al., 2009). We also excluded subjects with moderate or severe depression (Beck Depression Inventory with more than 14 points), which could have an effect on performance of the VI task (Soler et al., 2010). The study was reviewed and approved by our institution's review board, and all subjects or their representatives gave written informed consent.
2.1 Clinical evaluation of NP All subjects underwent an interview to assess clinical and phenomenological characteristics of the pain: localization, descriptive characteristics and intensity. To evaluate average pain intensity perception over the previous 24 h, NRS (ranging from 0 = no pain to 10 = unbearable pain; NRS ongoing pain) was used. Subjects were asked to rate pain indicating the number that best described their average pain over the previous 24 h from 0 (no pain) to 10 (unbearable pain). Ongoing pain score (overall pain intensity perception) was registered before intervention (baseline) and at day 14 (last day) of intervention. We noted the descriptors that subjects used for their NP (Bouhassira et al., 2004). All clinical evaluations and measurements of NP were performed by the same researcher (D.S.). All tDCS + VI interventions were carried out by a clinical psychologist.
2.2 CHEPs Thermal stimuli were delivered using Pathway (Medoc, Ramat Yishai, Israel), equipped with a fast‐heating/fast‐cooling probe of 5.7 cm2 surface area. Stimuli were delivered at the fastest available ramp rate of 70 °C/s from a baseline temperature of 32 °C. Cut‐off temperature was 51 °C. We set the peak temperature to deliver a stimulus experienced as pricking pain (thermodePS). A total of 10 stimuli were applied with an interstimulus time interval of 30 s and at a slightly different spot within a squared area of about 5 × 5 cm, in order to reduce receptor fatigue or sensitization by overheating of the skin. CHEPs were recorded through pairs of 9 mm Ag/AgCl surface disc electrodes filled with conductive adhesive gel. The active electrode was placed on Cz and referenced to linked ears (A1‐A2), where pain‐related evoked potentials are maximal, with a ground placed on the right arm. Analysis time was 1 s. Amplifier bandpass frequency filter was 0.1 Hz to 50 Hz. Gain was 50 μV/division. Impedance was kept less than 5 kOhm. CHEPs were recorded using routine electrodiagnostic equipment (Medelec Synergy, Oxford Instruments; Surrey, England). Data were collected with a sampling rate of 1000 Hz using the BrainAmp system (Brain Products GmbH, Munich, Germany) and analysed off‐line. For each SCI subject with NP, we recorded CHEPs stimulating at the C4 ASIA sensory point on the contralateral side to application of anodal tDCS (Soler et al., 2010), and in SCI subjects without NP and healthy subjects on the dominant hand side.
2.3 Evoked heat pain perception For each patient, we recorded the NRS for their subjective evoked pain perception using the NRS (ranging from 0 = no pain to 10 = unbearable pain; NRS evoked pain) following each of the 10 evoked potential recordings (see above).
2.4 QTT: warm and heat pain threshold Subjects were examined in the seated position in a quiet room. Stimuli were applied at two levels (above and at lesion level) on both sides of the body (total of four ASIA sensory points; Marino et al., 2009b). For the site above lesion, we selected a sensory area dependent on C4 around the acromioclavicular joint because all our SCI subjects had lesions caudal to C4 (Kumru et al., 2011), and we found other sites above level to be unsuitable (C2 has a small innervation zone that does not allow for convenient thermode placement, and some subjects had scars after surgical intervention in C3 innervated areas). We did not consider the face because of brainstem innervation. The level of the lesion varied among individuals, so that the sensory points evaluated at the level of lesion varied between C4‐T12. Warm perception and heat pain perception threshold were measured with a Medoc Thermal Sensory Analyser (Pathway; Medoc, Ramat Yishai, Israel) equipped with a 5.7 cm2 probe, using the method of limits. Subjects were required to stop the progressive stimulus intensity increase by pressing a button as soon as they perceived the specific thermal modality being tested (four stimuli for warm sensation and four stimuli for heat pain). In those subjects with cervical lesions who were unable to use their hands, the button was placed under the wrist (one SCI‐NP patient and one SCI subject without NP). The stimuli started at an adaptation temperature of 32 °C and increased at a rate of 1 °C/s. Cut‐off temperature was 51 °C. Thresholds of warm and heat pain perception were taken as the average of four successive readings in each session.
2.5 Experimental procedure All patients underwent the following tests: (1) clinical evaluation of NP; (2) psychophysical study of warm and heat pain threshold; (3) recording CHEPs to thermal stimulation,; and (4) evoked pain perception measured by NRS after each recording of CHEPs. Patients with NP then submitted to the tDSC + VI intervention for 2 weeks (10 sessions). All patients underwent a second clinical, psychophysical and neurophysiological re‐evaluation after the last session of tDSC + VI. Subjects without NP and healthy subjects were evaluated only once. Neurophysiological and psychophysical evaluations were carried out by an independent examiner (H.K.), who was unaware of the results of the clinical evaluation. The subjects studied were blinded to the aim of the study. All evaluations were carried out in the morning with subjects lying in a relaxed supine position in a warm and dimly lit room.
2.6 tDCS + VI intervention 2.6.1 tDCS Direct current was delivered with a battery‐driven constant current stimulator (NeuroConn‐GmbH, Ilmenau, Germany) by saline‐soaked surface sponge electrodes (35 cm2). SCI subjects received anodal stimulation over the primary motor cortex (M1). For stimulation, the anode was placed over C3 or C4 (EEG 10/20 system) and the cathode over the contralateral supraorbital area. For subjects with asymmetric pain, stimulation was applied to the contralateral M1 to the NP side, and for subjects with symmetric pain, the dominant hemisphere was stimulated. A constant current of 2 mA intensity (subthreshold intensity) was applied for 20 min (Fregni et al., 2006; Soler et al., 2010). The choice of stimulation sites and stimulation parameters was based on previous studies showing effective improvement of NP in SCI subjects (Fregni et al., 2006; Soler et al., 2010). 2.6.2 VI While receiving tDCS, subjects were seated either in a wheelchair or a normal chair (depending on their level of impairment) placed 2.5 m in front of a screen. After 5 min of tDCS, a video was played on a portable computer in front of the patient. The video showed the legs of a man or a woman, matching the gender of the patient, walking on a treadmill. The video was continuously played for the remaining 15 min of the tDCS session. In order to induce the experience of realistic gait perception, a vertical mirror (150 cm × 52 cm) was placed in front of the subjects on top of the screen, so that the mirror reflection of the upper part of the patient's own body and the walking legs displayed on the screen were aligned in the most realistic position possible (Moseley, 2007; Soler et al., 2010). The sound of walking shoes synchronized to the walking rhythm of the legs was also played via loudspeakers to enhance the realism of gait perception for the patient.Iran is using the billions in cash resources provided under the landmark nuclear deal to engage in an unprecedented military buildup meant to transform the Islamic Republic's fighting force into an "offensive" juggernaut, according to a largely unreported announcement by Iranian military leaders that has sparked concern among U.S |
s, so any faith would do. Hell, one enterprising Techdirt writer such as myself might take up the mantle of L. Ron Hubbard and simply whip up a religion out of whole cloth, calling it the Fairusenalists, replacing the prayer rug, the eucharist, or the kippah with loudly-blasted recordings of Justin Bieber. Were Huckabee's argument to be accepted,That said, I doubt it will be accepted, largely because Huckabee's claims that his campaign had nothing to do with the rally are blatant lies, given the attendance by his campaign staffers and the blatant promotion of the rally on the Huckabee campaign site. Still, the thought is tantalizing, to say the least...
Filed Under: copyright, eye of the tiger, fair use, frank sullivan, kim davis, mike huckabee, public performance, religious assembly, survivorIn the three-minute video below, METALLICA frontman James Hetfield talks about growing up with and overcoming his fear of responsibility and how that has played a part in his recovery from drug addiction. Hetfield also shares his views on what it means to be a role model and what he tells young people when they ask him for advice.
Hetfield says: "I've been afraid of responsibility my whole life… not wanting to take responsibility for myself.
"I remember as a kid in school… There was a summer school for gifted kids… which, for me, was weird already. Gifted… yeah! [Laughs] And then going to summer school 'cause you're gifted. Wait a minute! You're gifted. You shouldn't have to go to summer school. But going to a summer school for gifted kids. Okay. It was around film. This was elementary school, by the way. And getting into film. It was, like, 'You're gonna make a film. Okay, get into groups and then come together with an idea and what you wanna do.' So I was, like, 'Oh, okay.' We get into groups together and then I was, 'Hey, how about we do this?' and [I had] all these ideas. And then they said, 'Okay now, choose your leader who's gonna be leading this group and who's responsible for the stuff.' And I shrunk, man. I got scared. And the rest of the group was, like, 'Well, you're the leader, 'cause you had all the ideas and all this.' And I was, like, 'No no no.' And I totally… I bailed on it. I bailed, 'cause I was afraid of responsibility — afraid of failure, maybe, afraid that I didn't know what I was really doing.
He continued: "And that's kind of what it's like for me in recovery at times — afraid to take on responsibility of sponees or something, or allowing myself to stand up and shine in that way."
Hetfield added: "Another fear of me: my turning 50. I'm supposed to know everything. I'm supposed to sit down there and be a role model and teach everybody all the stuff. And when you think you're a role model, guess what?! You're not. If you're trying to be a role model, you're not. Being yourself and the best self you can be? Then maybe you'll be a role model to somebody."
The Hetfield video was produced by Road Recovery, an organization dedicated to helping young people battle addiction and other adversities, in partnership with Hooplaha.Transcript for Mitt Romney's Al Smith Dinner Speech: Comic Relief
Your evidence cardinal Dolan. Mr. President. Governor Cuomo. Mayor Bloomberg. Senator Schumer. Allen and Smith thank you for your invitation thank you for your extraordinarily. Warm welcome and I appreciate your friendship very very much. How well you are -- a campaign can require a lot of wardrobe changes. We. Blue jeans -- -- morning perhaps. -- for a lunch fundraiser sport coat for dinner but it's nice to finally relax and where what. I'm. -- the join in this venerable tradition. Of course I'm I'm pleased that the president's here. We were chatting pleasantly this evening is -- Tuesday night never happened. I -- that of course to the cardinal he has. It's taken New York's highest spiritual authority to get us back on our best behavior. -- I was actually hoping the president would bring Joseph Biden along this evening. First serious politics and it was especially nice to see President Obama colonel bill insuring that a diet despite their differences. I'm sure the -- Has no hard feelings and we might get an indication of that during dinner to see if the president's wind turns in the water. Water turns -- one. Pleased to once again have the chance to see Governor Cuomo who's already being talked about for a higher office. A very impressive fellow. -- himself I mean let me get this straight the -- has -- -- one term as the governor. He as a father. -- be a governor any -- that's enough to run for president I. Bush were down. Months of the president's term. As president and Obama surveys the Waldorf. With everyone and white tie and -- you have to wonder what he's thinking. So little time. So much to redistribute. -- be surprised if the president -- the -- in the monthly jobs report where there was a slight improvement of the numbers. He knows how to seize the moment this present. And already has a compelling new campaign slogan. You're better -- -- areas that are here the Al Smith dinner -- lives up to its billing. Usually when I get invited to gatherings like this. Is supposed to be the designated driver. Your kind hospitality. Here tonight gives me a chance to convey my deep and long held respect for the Catholic Church. Have special admiration for the apostle saint Peter. -- is set upon this rock -- will build my church. The stories all the more inspiring when you consider that he had so many skeptics stoppers at the time who. -- -- -- -- If you got a church. You didn't -- that. Days ago -- to the finish line campaign full of surprises the debates are very excited just of the night we had. Very fun debate Candy Crowley was there was happy to welcome -- but people seem to be very curious system. How we prepare for the debates -- I what I do. First refrain from alcohol for 65 years before them. Second -- the biggest available straw man and then just personally attacked. Big -- didn't see it coming. In the spirit of Sesame Street the president's remarks that are brought to you by the letter O in the number sixteen trillion. Campaigns can be. Grueling and exhausting. President Obama and I are each very lucky to have one person who's always in our corner someone -- we can lean on that. Someone who's a comforting presence without them we wouldn't be able -- -- one of the day I have. Beautiful white -- He has Bill Clinton. Dose of the -- charm last week helped I have that in his said -- -- of Colorado. I'm not sure that all that Kerry got had quite the affected Joseph intended. Because afterwards I heard from the Federal Election Commission. From now on whenever he appears on TV there's a recording in the afterwards that says I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message. Of course rules of fairness have to be enforced. Because. What are the safeguards that we have -- has the press. And and I had never. Suggest that the that the press is bias. I recognize they have their job to do and I have my job to do my job is to lay -- a positive vision for the future of the country. And their job is to make sure no one else finds out about. Let's just say that -- in. -- have a certain way of looking at things. Went suddenly I pulled ahead of some of the major polls what was ahead. Polls show Obama leading from behind. He has seen early reports from tonight. Obama embraced by Catholics. -- -- with rich people. Of course the president has put his own stamp on. Relations with the church. The -- awkward moments. Like when the president pulled Pope Benedict decide to share some advice on how to deal with his critics he says it look like father. Whatever the problem is just plain and -- -- Pope John Paul the second. Of course the president has found a way to take the sting out of the Obama care mandates for the church. For now on they get a -- and Latin. We have. Very fundamentally sound principles that guide both the president -- me. He. He of course feel the pressures and tensions that they have a close contest to be easy to let -- healthy competition. Give way to the person on the -- but fortunately we don't carry the burden of of dislike it when another. Our president has had some very fine and gracious moments don't tell it when I said so -- our 44 president has many gifts -- beautiful family. That would make any man proud. In our country you can oppose some of politics and make a confident. Case against their policies. Without a deal well. And that's how it is for me. There's more to life the politics. The Al Smith foundation of the Archdiocese of New York. You show this in the work you do -- causes that run deeper than allegiance to party or any -- of the moment. No matter which way the political winds are blowing. What work goes on day and now by this organization and you US was calm and willing hearts and service of the poor. Care for the sick. In defense and the rights of conscience. And it solidarity with the innocent child waiting to be born. You strive to bring God's love. I don't presume to have. All your support and a night like this -- certainly not -- Ask for it. But you can be certain. That in the great causes -- compassion that you. Come together to embrace. That I stand proudly with you as an ally and friend. God bless you --
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.Here is notes on how to cross compile linux kernel for Raspbian image of Raspberry Pi on Ubuntu 14.04.
An important note: Once you install your custom kernel, there is a chance of getting it overwritten when you update Firmware through rpi-update command. To avoid it you can always run this following way so that Firmware update will happen skipping the Kernel update.
RPi # SKIP_KERNEL=1 rpi-update
1. Install the git and build tools:
$ sudo apt-get install git-core gcc-4.7-arm-linux-gnueabi
$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev
2. Ensure that the above mentioned ARM build tool as default ARM build tool by making a symbolic link.
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc-4.7 /usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc
3. Get the source code for linux kernel and other tools to make image.
$ mkdir raspberrypi
$ cd raspberrypi
$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/tools.git
$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git
Note: To get a specific version (branch) of kernel, use “-b <branch>”
$ git clone -b rpi-3.19.y https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git
4. Get Firmware Hash Value
You need to get Firmware hash value to go to next step (it is referred as <your_git_hash_here> in next step). Many documents direct me to get this value through /usr/share/doc/raspberrypi-bootloader/changelog.Debian.gz file. But I did not find such file (in turn missing raspberrypi-bootloader package) in my RPi system. Eventually this file should help you to get right build firmware build hash and corresponding git hash value from http://raw.github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/<fw-hash>/extra/git_hash. Since it is missing, I found a shortcut. That is run “rpi-update” in RPi and then look for /root/.rpi-firmware/git_hash file for this value. For my case of version of kernel is 4.1.5+, the hash value is 592503752b6951972f161f04280683c5af38d173. So command for me was
“git checkout 592503752b6951972f161f04280683c5af38d173”.
$ cd linux
$ git checkout <your_git_hash_here>
$ make mrproper
5. Configure kernel
Option-1: Generate the.config file from the pre-packaged raspberry pi template:
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- bcmrpi_defconfig
Note: In case of Raspberry Pi 2, use "bcm2709_defconfig" in the above command.
Option-2: In case you want to use the existing Raspbian OS linux kernel configuration, get the.config file by using below command from your RPi shell (Note that this command is to be run from Raspberry Pi).
RPi # zcat /proc/config.gz >.config
In case you don’t find /proc/config.gz in your RPi (missing) load the configs module as shown below and try above command again.
RPi # modprobe configs
Copy this config file as.config file to linux source directory to be built on Ubuntu. Then run below command to prepare the old configuration file to be compatible with this kernel version you are building.
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- oldconfig
For all the prompts select default by just pressing Enter key.
You have created default.config file through one of the two options above. Now it is time to customize your kernel using below optional command.
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- menuconfig
6. Building kernel and modules
Build kernel using following command. “-j3” says that I have (3-1) CPUs in my Ubuntu build machine.
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- -k -j3
$ mkdir../modules
$ make modules_install ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- INSTALL_MOD_PATH=../modules/
Now create kernel image.
$ cd../tools/mkimage/
$./imagetool-uncompressed.py../../linux/arch/arm/boot/Image
Now you should see kernel.img file built in current directory.
7. Copying kernel and modules to Raspberry Pi SD Card
Plug your Raspberry Pi Card to Ubuntu machine and ensure that both boot and root partitions are mounted properly.
Take backup of existing kernel.img in boot parition of SD card and replace it with newly built kernel.
$ sudo cp kernel.img /<boot-parition-mount-point>/
Take backup of existing /lib/modules and /lib/firmware directories in root partition of SD card. Now copy all the firmware and kernel modules built to SD card in archive mode.
$ cd../../modules/
$ sudo cp -a lib/modules/ /<root-partition-mount-point>/lib/
$ sudo cp -a lib/firmware/ /<root-partition-mount-point>/lib/
$ sync
Now your SD card is updated with kernel you have built. Just plug this SD card in Raspberry Pi to boot!In July 2014, the United States declared that Russia had violated the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) by flight-testing a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
Despite years of intense diplomacy by the Obama administration, Russia has shown no readiness to return to compliance. When repeatedly confronted with U.S. intelligence evidence, the Russians have pretended that the illegal missile simply does not exist.
As the New York Times reported in February, Russia has now moved forward with deployment of the new GLCM in Western Russia, increasing the threat to U.S. Allies and forces in Europe.
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While we continue to favor diplomatic efforts to convince Russia to comply with the INF Treaty, the time has come for a strong — but proportional — response to Russia’s violation. This response should neutralize any strategic advantage Moscow might hope to gain, while maintaining the cohesion of our vital alliances.
The INF Treaty is not merely a bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia, but a cornerstone of security and stability for our allies in Europe and Asia. Therefore, our response should be developed in close coordination with our allies — especially our European allies — involved in collective nuclear planning through NATO. Indeed, we should ask our NATO allies to share the burden in implementing our response.
From a diplomatic perspective, we can best maintain allied cohesion by taking measures that are compliant with the INF Treaty, ensuring it is the Russians who continue to bear sole responsibility for undermining it.
Russia had the option to legally withdraw from the treaty, but chose not to exercise this option as the United States did when it legally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001. Instead, Russia chose to violate the treaty in secret, perhaps hoping to avoid the political fallout from withdrawing openly, but was caught. There is no reason to let them off the hook.
There are several effective measures we can take while holding the political high ground. First, the administration should move forward with modernization of U.S. strategic nuclear delivery systems, especially the new air-launched nuclear cruise missile, known as the Long-range Stand-off system (LRSO).
Russia is developing increasingly sophisticated air defense systems. The LRSO will provide us the ability to penetrate these defenses. It will improve our ability to hold critical Russian targets at risk several thousand kilometers inside Russia’s borders, offsetting the deep-strike capability Russia has gained through deploying the illegal intermediate-range GLCM.
Second, we and our allies should also improve our air- and sea-launched, conventional strike capabilities. The United States should develop a conventional variant of the LRSO, to deliver conventional payloads in heavily-contested air defense environments from stand-off range.
We should help allies improve their air- and sea-launched conventional strike capabilities by facilitating sales of the extended-range variant of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER) and sea-based Tomahawk cruise missile.
Third, we should remind Russia that NATO remains a nuclear alliance with the capabilities and the political resolve to counter the increased nuclear threat posed by Russia’s illegal cruise missile. At the Warsaw Summit last July, NATO leaders endorsed a number of actions to bolster allied nuclear planning and readiness.
NATO should implement these initiatives and make clear that Moscow should have no illusion it could succeed in employing limited nuclear strikes to “de-escalate” a conventional conflict.
Fourth, United States and NATO should deploy limited defenses against cruise missiles to protect key alliance assets in the event of conflict with Russia, degrading the effectiveness of Russia’s illegal GLCM. However, we should not reorient NATO’s ballistic missile defenses toward Russia (and away from countering Iran and other Middle Eastern threats); this would be extremely expensive and technologically challenging, and could undermine strategic stability.
All these steps are permissible under the INF and New Strategic Arms Reduction (New START) treaties and would build upon existing capabilities and programs. We do not recommend that the United States develop and deploy its own intermediate-range GLCM to counter Russia’s violation.
Beyond the high cost and long lead-time this would entail, a U.S. request to deploy an intermediate -range GLCM in Europe could generate strong political opposition, as we saw in the early 1980s, and provide an opening for Russian wedge-driving. U.S. and allied military requirements can be met with air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, with less risk of political controversy.
Nor do we support withdrawing from New START or other arms control agreements in response to the Russians’ INF Treaty violation. Russia remains in compliance with the ceilings and verification requirements of New START. Continued implementation of the treaty is in U.S. national security interests, and unilateral U.S. withdrawal would cause high anxiety among our allies.
If issues of non-compliance with New START arise, they can be addressed through the mechanisms established by the treaty.
Alexander Vershbow is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. He served as U.S. ambassador to NATO (1998-2001); to the Russian Federation (2001-05); and to the Republic of Korea (2005-08). He was the deputy secretary general of NATO from February 2012 to October 2016.
Frank A. Rose is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. Rose served as assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance from 2014-17. From 2009 to 2014, Rose served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.On January 21, 2005, George W. Bush looked out over the crowds gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol for his second inaugural and declared, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
He was lambasted from all sides. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a moderate Democrat, told CNN that the focus on democracy was not "practical." Patrick J. Buchanan said it was "a recipe for endless war." At a conference I attended in Rome just days later, a senior U.S. embassy official told a largely European audience during a question-and-answer period that his boss's speech was "stupid."
Such sentiments have become especially widespread on the Left. Faced with a choice between promoting real reform in Middle Eastern governance and supporting policies that might echo Bush's, progressives have sacrificed any pretense of embracing liberalization. Thus, instead of siding with the reformers in Syria who issued the 2005 Damascus Declaration calling for a "democratic national regime" through a process "peaceful, gradual, founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose to sit down with their tormentor, Bashar al-Assad.
There was a time when the Democrats were known to stand up fastidiously for human rights. Officials from the party roundly criticized the first President Bush for sending Brent Scowcroft to Beijing for diplomatic talks six months after the Tiananmen Square massacre. But in a troubling turnabout, there are today few if any autocrats to whom the Democrats would not extend diplomatic honors and legitimacy.
Opponents of Bush's emphasis on democratization in the Middle East adopted two strategies during his time in office. The first, employed by those within the administration who found his idealism imprudent, was to play down the extent of repression in a given autocracy. "There's one dramatic difference between Iran and the other two axes of evil, and that would be its democracy," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Los Angeles Times in 2003. "You approach a democracy differently." Thus, rather than promote civil society or unleash forces that might lead to a velvet revolution in the Islamic Republic, Armitage led a thinly veiled insurrection against democratization, hampering implementation of the administration's own Middle East Partnership Initiative and, in many cases, blocking discharge of its Iran Democracy Fund.
The second strategy, voiced more broadly in both the academic and foreign policy communities, based itself on cultural relativism. "Arab societies lack certain dispositional prerequisites for democracy," wrote Adam Garfinkle in a smart essay in the National Interest. "Perhaps in our desperation to achieve absolute security in a newly perilous world, we are distorting the social history of democracy and misreading the nature of the societies whose political virtue we mean to raise up." Juan Cole, president of the one-man Global Americana Institute, tarred democratization as "neocolonialism."
The fundamental debate about whether democratization is an American interest worth American investment predates the presidency of George W. Bush and will extend beyond that of Barack Obama. Can democratization get a second wind under Obama? After Obama's much heralded speech to "the Muslim world" in Cairo, his supporters rushed to defend him from accusations that he had abandoned democracy. But while the president had in fact spoken of democracy, he, like Armitage, diluted the term to the point of meaninglessness when he reassured Arab states that "each nation gives life to this principle [of popular will] in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone."
A related trend, but potentially more dangerous, is the assumption by certain proponents of democratization—including the National Endowment for Democracy—that if democracies accommodate political Islam, Islamists will abide by the norms of liberal democracy. Prominent foreign policy commentators and democratization supporters like Peter Beinart, Robert Kagan, Larry Diamond, and Tamara Cofman Wittes (recently tapped to oversee Arab democratization efforts in Hillary Clinton's State Department) recently endorsed a letter urging the White House to engage Islamist groups and the Muslim Brotherhood. But this is to be too casual in discounting the writings and past practices of Islamist groups. Assigning sovereignty to God and placing it in the hands of the people are mutually exclusive. These irreconcilables are one reason that Islamists throughout the region view liberalism as a greater threat than autocracy and target secular reformists with as much if not more vigor than do the dictators.
* * *
It is in the context of this debate that The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East, the new book by Johns Hopkins University scholar and longtime Commentary contributor Joshua Muravchik, is so important. Seventeen years after publishing Exporting Democracy, perhaps the most thoughtful case for making pursuit of democracy a core principle of U.S. foreign policy, Muravchik now revisits the theme with specific attention to the Middle East.
In the late 20th century, the world witnessed a democratic revolution. Since the 1970s, the percentage of countries with governments chosen by their people has doubled from 30 to 60 percent. Not only has Eastern Europe come in from the cold, but in West Africa, East Asia, and Latin America, states once dismissed by Western diplomats as impervious to democratic liberty now hold elections and regularly and peacefully transfer power from government to opposition.
The Middle East, however, remains a fitful holdout. Not a single Arab state is a democracy, nor is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Until 9/11, few people in Washington policy circles cared. Those of the "realist" school justified almost any partnership with autocrats; as Muravchik summarizes, "it was alright if they were bastards, if only they would be our bastards." But al-Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington heralded a paradigm shift: "perhaps the internal affairs of Middle Eastern states was a strategic consideration."
Eight years and two trying wars later, Obama told his audience in Cairo that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other." The value of The Next Founders is to show that a policy of democratization need not mean, as in the leftist caricature, a program of obnoxious American imposition. "The fact that there is precious little democracy in the Middle East does not mean, however, that there are no democrats," Muravchik observes. His book profiles seven dissidents and reformers among the many he encountered in his extensive travels in the Middle East.
Some of Muravchik's democrats choose to work within their systems. For example, rather than be cowed into silence or forced into exile, Iraqi parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi ratchetted up his battle against religious incitement, militias, and intolerance, even after extremists murdered his sons. Rola Dashti, a Kuwaiti economist leading the battle in her country for women's suffrage, broke through the glass ceiling and won a seat in parliament in May when The Next Founders was already at press. Dashti's triumph underlines Muravchik's prescience in telling her story.
This summer's unrest in Iran and the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in crushing it highlight the relevance of another profile, that of Mohsen Sazegara, who helped found the corps before undergoing a change of heart. If democrats are to triumph, they will have to win over groups like the corps that exist to secure the regime against the people. Muravchik's narrative fascinatingly traces Sazegara's path, from rise to power to disillusionment and ultimately to dissidence.
The stories of the other "founders" are as compelling: feminist Wajeha al-Huwaider's protests to win Saudi women the right to drive, publisher Hisham Kassem's struggles against Egypt's censors, Bassem Eid's struggle to document the Palestinian Authority's human rights abuses, and Syrian poet Ammar Abdulhamid's decision to leave his homeland and advocate for reform from abroad.
Muravchik is well aware of the criticism that his democrats are the exceptions rather than the rule, and he wisely refrains from making any promises of imminent redemption. But he notes that alongside the individuals are noticeable trends. "My seven subjects were born in the 1950s or 1960s," he writes. "In the generation behind them, the number of democrats is far larger. How do I know? Because the Internet is humming with their voices." Whereas once critics could dismiss Muravchik as a starry-eyed idealist, the events of this summer—the electoral defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Twitter uprising in Iran—suggest that George W. Bush was right to envision "the day when the people of the Middle East leave the desert of despotism for the fertile gardens of liberty." If only we do not help erect barriers in their path.The Mexican government has been preparing a financial contingency plan should Donald J. Trump win on November 8.
Mexico’s economy has seen some fluctuation connected to the U.S. elections as the possibility of a Trump victory escalates, said Agustin Carstens during a broadcasted conference as the Governor of Mexico’s National Bank.
Cartsens has been outspoken against Trump in the past, claiming that his victory would be akin to a hurricane with respect to the financial instability that it would presumably bring to Mexico.
According to Mexico’s El Economista, Carstens claimed that regardless of who wins the U.S. elections, Mexico could see a period of volatility.
“Without a doubt, the adverse scenario presents itself,” Carstens told El Economista.
Carstens has been in talks with Mexico’s Mexico’s Secretary of Finance in order to prepare a contingency plan, yet the details of the plan have not been disclosed.
“Regardless of the results there will be consequences, I hope they are positive but they could be negative and in such case we would have to adjust our policies if needed,” El Economista quoted Carstens.
Carstens took control of the Bank of Mexico in 2010, prior to that he was the Secretary of Finance. The Mexican economist has overseen the nosedive of the Mexican currency from roughly $10 Pesos per U.S. Dollar in 2006 when he assumed his role as Secretary to the current level of $19.55 Pesos per U.S. Dollar.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.ISLAMABAD/HEATHROW: A day after his party denied that Imran Khan owned a London flat through an offshore company, the Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaf (PTI) chairman himself admitted he formed an offshore company to buy the London flat in 1983 to evade British taxes.
Speaking to reporters at London Heathrow Airport, Imran said he formed the offshore firm on the advice of his accountant to evade taxes during his playing days to buy a flat in London.
"I was already paying 35 per cent tax on my income there, so to evade further taxes, I bought the flat through an offshore firm, which was my right as I was not a British citizen," Imran told the reporters.
Meanwhile, PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq also admitted that his party chief had formed a 'legal' offshore company through his earnings from cricket, which owned his London flat.
While speaking on Geo News talkshow 'Naya Pakistan', PTI spokesman Naeemul Haq took back his earlier denial.
"I was Imran Khan's bank manager in London at that time, his accountants formed this company to buy the London flat," said the PTI spokesman.
He added that when the flat was sold, Imran brought the money to Pakistan through Habib Bank.
Answering a question about Imran Khan's tax returns and this offshore firm, Haq said he will "reveal the details to the media on Saturday after talking to Imran Khan's accountant".
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, while speaking during Geo TV show 'Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath' criticised Imran Khan for repeatedly denying the possession of any offshore firm.
Moreover, prime minister's daughter Maryam Nawaz, through her official Twitter account, termed PTI chief the 'pioneer' of offshore companies.
PPP Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, on the other hand, said that Imran Khan cannot be compared to Hassan Nawaz as his source of income is declared and he is voluntarily presenting himself for accountability.
"We demand accountability for all but as our terms dictate, it should start with prime minister and his family," said the PPP Senator.
In an interview published in The News on Friday, PTI spokesman Naeemul Haq was quoted as saying that Imran Khan himself owned the flat and it was not bought by an offshore company.
The report published in the paper stated that a 'Benami' offshore firm ‘Niazi Services Limited’ owned Imran Khan's flat in South Kensington, London.
According to the paper, the offshore firm was established for'sporting consultancy' and was active till 2011. The London flat was however sold on March 17, 2003.
When asked why he denied the existence of the offshore company earlier, Haq simply said he forgot.
Imran Khan had severely criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family for owning and benefiting from offshore companies after the ICIJ investigation which led to the release of Panama papers revealing offshore accounts of the rich and mighty across the world.
He, along with other opposition leaders, demanded the prime minister to resign until the issue is investigated and the premier gets a clean chit.
Just two days ago, he told a public rally that the Panama Papers exposed how 'corrupt' our PM was.Photo
WINDHAM, N.H. — Senator Ted Cruz spoke of New England common sense. He reminded the “Live Free or Die” state that it had “shocked this country” by supporting Ronald Reagan. He invoked the local environs while discussing Russian energy resources.
“Y’all understand a New Hampshire winter,” he said, though the temperatures on Tuesday were kind.
Catapulting into the first primary state after his victory in the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Cruz arrived at his first event on Tuesday with a message tailored to the setting and unmistakably familiar.
“God bless the great state of New Hampshire!” he said, in an echo of each of his Iowa event-openers, save for the state.
He ticked off the main planks of his platform — overhauling the tax code, repealing the Affordable Care Act — and disparaged the “Washington cartel.”
He grinned while recalling pundits’ predictions that he had “no chance” of prevailing in Iowa just before the vote, when polls showed him trailing Donald J. Trump.
And most pointedly, he took direct aim at his chief rivals, Mr. Trump and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, denouncing each for shifting stances on immigration.
“We said virtually the identical things to the voters who elected us. But when we got to Washington, Marco and I took very, very different paths,” Mr. Cruz said in response to a question, noting Mr. Rubio’s work on a bipartisan effort that included a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants.
He also wondered why no one had heard a word of concern from Mr. Trump, whose focus on immigration has helped frame the race, during the 2013 fight over the bill. “He could have sauntered over to the ‘Today’ show,” Mr. Cruz said.
For now, Mr. Cruz finds himself fighting for votes in a state where headwinds and tailwinds will whip at his candidacy in succession.
His success in Iowa seems likely to fuel Mr. Cruz’s central argument that conservatives should coalesce around his presidential bid. But the electoral terrain, in a state with more moderate leanings and fewer evangelicals, is less of a natural fit.
And after weeks spent insisting that the primary had become a “two-man race” with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz must grapple with Mr. Rubio’s stronger-than-expected finish in Iowa.
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane late Tuesday en route to Greenville, S.C., Mr. Cruz declined an opportunity to repeat his “two-man race” assessment.
“That’s going to be a question for the voters to decide,” he said, standing beside his wife, Heidi, on the charter he has nicknamed “Constitution One.”
Mr. Cruz has set his sights well beyond New Hampshire. His team speaks daily of its expansive footprint in the Super Tuesday states that vote on March 1.
Mr. Cruz boasted of his campaign’s impressive war chest; he said he ended last year with nearly as much cash on hand as Mr. Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich combined.
“The conservative is supposed to be broke,” he said, alluding to Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, who left Iowa with little money despite winning the previous two caucuses.
Before Mr. Cruz’s town-hall-style event in Windham, his spokesman, Rick Tyler, demurred when asked if the campaign expected to win in New Hampshire.
“We’re running here to exceed expectations,” he said. “I don’t expect to win.”
His stated prediction: Mr. Trump. (Of course, the Cruz campaign probably hopes to place the burden of high expectations on its rival.)
Other allies were less restrained. “It’s time we win,” said Robert C. Smith, a former New Hampshire senator who supports Mr. Cruz, repeating himself for emphasis.
Mr. Smith reminded the crowd that Pat Buchanan carried the state in 1996 and that Mr. Smith had won six congressional primaries in the state himself.
Mr. Tyler noted that “there are still evangelical votes” in New Hampshire. (The candidate’s stump speech on Tuesday included a familiar closing: asking voters to pray.)
Mr. Tyler also argued that several more moderate candidates were likely to splinter the vote among Mr. Cruz’s competitors. But he added that several other constituencies, from gun rights advocates to opponents of abortion, were likely to be attracted to Mr. Cruz.
Mr. Cruz has taken pains to honor local custom. On past visits, he has defended Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback, amid a league inquiry. And since his Monday victory, he has name-dropped Dunkin’ Donuts, a New England-based fixture of local commerce, at least three times.
Among attendees, Mr. Cruz’s |
way of example let’s consider the beginning of his Symphony No 1, which we performed several times last year. It was written in the then rural calm of Chelsea when the composer was eight, and starts with a short fanfare. This bright, arresting opening immediately commands our attention but could have been written by any number of contemporaneous composers. Within five seconds, though, Mozart diverts us into a hushed series of suspended harmonies, each dissonance resolving to a consonance in a soundscape that, in its own very modest way, is quite different from any symphony that had previously been written. Mozart seems not to be interested in writing tunes, but instead – in keeping with his age – treats the orchestra like a new toy. He plays with it and tests how far he can push the ensemble without breaking either the rules or the piece itself.
There is a range of paradoxes at work here: the music feels derivative, like a faithful and accomplished copy of the work of his peers, yet it already has its own distinct voice and individuality. It is truly remarkable that an eight-year-old could have written such music, yet it is not altogether surprising, given the level of teaching and experience he had already received from his father and from his travels. This is music of its own time, but also music for all time, the burgeoning of a composer who by the end of his short life would have created some of the cornerstones of western civilisation.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Conductor Ian Page. Photograph: Benjamin Ealovega
And then there is Mozart’s Symphony No 3, dating from 1765, a rich, magisterial work that could be called the greatest of all Mozart’s early symphonies. Or so thought the Austrian musicologist Ludwig von Köchel when he came to compile his complete catalogue of Mozart’s compositions in 1862. Actually this work was written by the German composer Carl Friedrich Abel, but the young Mozart was so impressed when he heard it performed in London that he wrote out a fair copy of the score. It was this surviving manuscript that prompted the erroneous attribution – an embarrassment for academics, no doubt, but also a salutary reminder that great artists do not work in a vacuum.
So how much of Mozart’s greatness derived from hard work and an exemplary musical education, and how much from a God-given talent prophetically implied by the name Gottlieb, or Amadeus? The truth is that the two types of greatness are interdependent: he had to nurture his tremendous natural talent by, for example, copying out the work of others.
Mozart himself, though, might have disagreed. There is a story – possibly apocryphal – that towards the end of the composer’s life, a young student asked his advice on how to write a symphony. Mozart said: “It is a difficult and complex form. I would suggest that you first write a few keyboard sonatas, and maybe a string quartet or two, before you start thinking about writing a symphony.”
“But Herr Mozart,” the student insisted, “you were writing symphonies when you were far younger than I am.”
Mozart replied: “I never asked how.”
• Mozart 250: 1766 – a Retrospective is at the Wigmore Hall, London W1, on 19 January.When it Comes to the Economy, ‘We Are All Appalachians’ By Bill Bishop
Ron Eller has written a history of Appalachia since 1945, but it is really a story about the ways the country has tried — and failed — to make a poor place prosperous.
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I was sitting with a table of economists who specialized in rural economic development last fall and I finally got the nerve to ask a question that had bothered me for years.
“Tell me the truth, you all,” I said. “You don’t really know what works when it comes to development, do you? There is no plan for how poor places become rich. There’s no recipe for prosperity, is there? If there was a sure-fire, step-by-step approach, it wouldn’t be so hard to turn places around? Right?”
People looked this way and that and nobody really answered the question — which, of course, was an answer in itself. Nobody spoke because nobody knew how to make the secret sauce of prosperity. There isn’t a handy dandy list of “things to do to make your town prosperous.” If there were, the world would be much richer than it is.
There is always a new, new idea about what works to turn poor places into prosperous ones, however. They arrive with the regularity of an oil change. Only by looking back is it possible to see that we really don’t know what works, that there isn’t a formula around so that A + B + C = Prosperity.
Historian Ronald Eller has written a new book called Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 (University of Kentucky Press, 2008). It’s not a general history of the region, although any student of the eastern mountains should pick up a copy. Eller has produced a history of development in the United States since the end of World War II. By following the various (and ever-changing) theories of economic development tried in the still-poor regions of central Appalachia, the University of Kentucky historian has written a general history of development policy — and its failures.
Eller’s book is one of a kind, an invaluable description of Appalachia’s past and a guide to our common future.
Ron Eller
Appalachia has always spoiled the fun for those who have seen the American economy on an ever-upward trajectory. Eller explains that after World War II, most liberal economists and politicians saw poverty as an exception, “a minority condition within an otherwise prosperous nation.” In the early 1960s, however, press reports from the Southern Mountains told a story of poverty that was very un-American indeed. A Washington Post reporter quoted a community leader in Hazard, Kentucky, as saying people were staying away from church “because they didn’t have any clothes to wear or food to eat.”
Policy-makers began what has become a five-decade search for turning chronically poor communities into working, stable and middle class towns and counties. As Diane Sawyer found in her recent pilgrimage to Appalachia, those efforts have yet to work. (See Yonder stories here and here.)
The service Eller provides in Uneven Ground is to recount the many ways the federal government has tried to turn these poor communities into rich ones. Here’s a sample of development theories from the last half century:
• Development is like climbing a ladder. There are stages of development, with each step up setting off another wave of progress. Miss a step, however, and you can’t reach the next rung.
Appalachia’s problem was that the basic structures were missing — no roads, schools, factories or public services — so the natural stages of development could never get started. There were too many missing rungs in the ladder. The key to development was building basic infrastructure. Others believed that the construction of buildings and roads had to be matched by investments in human capacities, in education, health and job training. All were the necessary first steps up. The Appalachian Regional Commission covers counties in 13 states.
• The act creating the Appalachian Regional Commission concentrated federal spending in cities where “there is a significant potential for future growth, and where the expected return on public dollars invested will be the greatest.” The theory was that not every nook and cranny of Appalachia had the potential to develop, so the federal government should focus its attention on “growth centers,” which turned out to be the region’s major cities.
• The poor are poor because of how they act. To get rid of poverty, people only needed to change their behavior. Since, as Eller wrote, “the poor themselves were to blame” in this view of development, development required only “strategies for altering this destructive behavior without resorting to redistribution of wealth or to significant structural reform.”
• The poor needed “access to power as well as to resources,” according to the people leading the Office of Economic Opportunity, the epicenter of the federal government’s 1960s War on Poverty. OEO administrator Richard Boone required “maximum feasible participation” by poor people in local development activities. Development wasn’t an economic activity, according to this view, but a function of community organization and democracy. (Donald Rumsfeld, in the Nixon Administration, was charged with dismantling the OEO.)
• Universities in the region said poverty could be alleviated by application of knowledge and technology. Regional leaders needed to be trained and mountain communities had to be taught because, according to one university specialist, development depended on “the degree of mental, physical, and social development of the people involved.”
The list goes on (and on): Education was the key, according to some. To others, Appalachia was a colonial economy, stunted because corporations outside the region owned all the natural resources. The Appalachian Regional Commission promoted regional planning and the construction of roads and hospitals. Governors lowered taxes and offered incentives for factories to come to the mountains and jump-start the local economy.
(Governors liked incentives and spent billions persuading companies to locate branch plants in rural places. This was always a sterile kind of development, seldom leading to more jobs or new businesses. When manufacturing declines, the areas that specialized in this kind of development are particularly hard hit. Read about North Carolina’s rural jobs collapse here.)
Name a development scheme and it’s been tried in the mountains. And as Eller tells the story, the effort has had some success. Overall, poverty and unemployment rates have declined over the years.
But most of those figures describe the region as a whole. In central Appalachia, in the coalfields of southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, the improvements seen in the rest of the region melted away. By the turn of this century, Eller writes, “Appalachia was still one of the poorest places in the United States, and the deepest and most persistent poverty was still concentrated in the core of the region in amounts that far exceeded national averages.”
Good history isn’t about the past and, being good history, Uneven Ground’s true value is that it gives us a way to understand the present. The book has come in handy in the last few weeks.
President Barack Obama announced recently that he would open an office of urban affairs in the White House. The post “will bring long overdue attention to the urban areas where 80 percent of the American people live and work,” Obama said. We’ve seen this thinking before, in the early days of the Appalachian Regional Commission. The president is betting first on a “growth center” strategy.
Eller’s new book.
Diane Sawyer’s unflattering portrayal of rural life on ABC set off a new search for the reasons why the mountains remain poor. Problems demanded solutions and the solutions offered over the past few weeks revisited most of the strategies found in Eller’s book. Fox television news commentator Bill O’Reilly blamed a “culture of poverty,” echoing theorists from a half century earlier. Others said the region needed better schools, improved health care, more industry, local ownership of the land and coal.
Near the end of Sawyer’s program, the ABC newswoman asked Eller about what was to become of Appalachia. “There are ways to think about the future in the mountains in different ways than we’ve thought about it in the past,” Eller said. “We just need to be willing to dream.”
The current recession has widened the circle of dreamers, it appears. Every community is wondering what it will take to regain prosperity. In Uneven Ground, Eller anticipated this time. If development in Appalachia has been uneven, it’s “because Appalachia’s problems are not those of Appalachia alone,” Eller wrote. In this time of economic collapse, the problems of the mountains are twined with those of the larger society as we all struggle to define and find the good life.
“We are all Appalachians,” Eller writes. Now especially.Oldham won 1-0 against Gillingham in John Sheridan's first game back at the club
Oldham Athletic have offered free entry to all fans for their rearranged League One fixture against Peterborough United on Tuesday, 24 January.
The original game was postponed on 26 November because of a frozen pitch.
The offer from the Latics is for both home and away supporters visiting SportsDirect.com Park.
Oldham, who are next to bottom of the table, three points from safety, have just exited a transfer embargo and reappointed John Sheridan as manager.
"We want as many supporters to welcome back the manager to the football club as he takes his place on the sidelines for the first time," said a club statement.
Supporters are, however, being invited to make a donation to a local charity.
Brentford were the first team to offer free entry for a league game in England when they played Peterborough in 2001.Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Facing Copyright Fraud, Embezzlement & Money Laundering Charges
from the funny-how-that-works dept
The Belgian anti-piracy group, SABAM, has been one of the most aggressive anti-piracy groups out there. The group recently lost two huge court cases in which it tried to get courts to force ISPs and hosting firms to put in place filters to stop infringement. Perhaps more controversially, the organization has tried to require social networks to pay a flat fee for all the infringement happening on their networks. A year ago, there was a story of SABAM taking cash for a band they didn't represent after a TV show played a "joke" on the group.However, in what appearsto be a joke, it looks like SABAM and some of its execs are facing some pretty serious charges, including "falsifying accounts to cover up bribe payments, abuse of trust, copyright fraud and embezzlement," according to TorrentFreak. Apparently, according to the charges, SABAM wasn't very good at actually distributing the money it was supposed to distribute to artists. Things to keep in mind every time one of these groups insists it's looking out for the interests of artists...
Filed Under: belgium, copyright, embezzlement, fraud, money laundering
Companies: sabamAnother piece of Chicago’s rapidly-evolving North Branch Industrial Corridor puzzle is falling into place as Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to unload an 18-acre city-owned parcel near Goose Island to private developers. Currently serving as the maintenance garage and headquarters of the City of Chicago’s Department of Fleet and Facility Management, the massive riverfront complex at 1685 N. Throop—and its roughly 200 jobs—will be relocated to a new facility slated for the intersection of Wentworth and Marquette at the former Kennedy King College campus in Englewood on the city’s south side.
As part of the sale transaction, any potential private developer of the North Branch site will be required to finance the construction of the new south side facility, reports the Chicago Tribune. In this regard, the 2FM announcement is not dissimilar to the Mayor Emmanuel’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund which was adopted to leverage private real estate development in booming areas such as the West Loop and the Near North Side to help stimulate reinvestment in the Windy City’s underserved and struggling communities.
Considering that Goose Island has emerged as a hub of high-tech office space and manufacturing, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to see the 2FM parcel follow suit. That said, recent land-use scenarios presented by the city’s Department of Planning and Development could see the site — along with the sprawling former Finkl Steel land — reborn as a new mix-used development.More than 3,000 starving sea lion pups have washed up on California’s beaches since January—easily 15 times more than in a normal year.
“It’s unprecedented,” says Sarah Wilkin, national marine mammal stranding and emergency response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And those are the lucky pups. The situation on California’s Channel Islands, where more than 90 percent of the U.S. sea lion population congregates to breed and nurse young, is even worse than in other parts of the state.
The influx of weak, sickly pups—3,110 as of May 20—has overwhelmed rehabilitation centers for the third year in a row. From San Diego to north of San Francisco, rescuers are busy retrieving pups (sometimes from city streets and oceanside bars ), fattening up the ones that can be saved, and releasing them back into the sea [see video]. During the worst month, March, more than 1,000 pups rolled ashore, more than rescuers would normally see in an entire year.
Scientists blame this year’s stranding on a lack of food for the pups, courtesy of a warm water blob that has settled off the West Coast. But the reasons for the two previous mass stranding events, in 2013 and 2014, aren’t yet obvious. (See " Warming Pacific Makes for Increasingly Weird Ocean Life.")
“We’re thinking it’s kind of the same root cause that keeps playing out, in that the animals are unable to find prey,” Wilkin says. “But the mechanism behind what is limiting the prey or keeping the prey away may have changed slightly over the three-year period.”
Hunting for Food
Most of the pups washing ashore this year were born in June 2014. Typically, sea lions stay with their mothers for about a year, nursing and learning how to catch fish on their own. But starting in January, droves of pups began leaving their island nurseries. Scientists suspect that’s because the sea lions’ normal food fish, such as sardines and anchovies, aren’t there.
When fish are scarce, mother sea lions have a hard time feeding their pups. Normally, nursing moms stay close to the Channel Island nurseries and only go on short foraging trips. But when the fish move away, those trips get longer and longer—so long that some waiting pups become hungry enough to take their chances on their own.
“The few pups that have enough strength to leave the rookeries and make it to the mainland get recorded as strandings,” says NOAA’s Mark Lowry, who monitors sea lion population numbers and also keeps track of what they’re eating. “There’s a lot of death out there.”
View Images Rescuers and rehabilitation centers have been working hard to help more than 3,000 starving sea lion pups that washed ashore this year. But not all of them make it. These dead pups will be put into cold storage until they can be necropsied at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausolito, California. Photograph by Peter Dasilva, EPA/Corbis
When Lowry visited two of the main U.S. sea lion nurseries in April, he found a grim scene. In addition to beaches full of starving or dead pups, there were dead adult female sea lions and many aborted fetuses.
“Adult females are taking a hit now,” he says. “What I’m predicting is that pup production—when they start being born in June—is going to be really low.”
Empty Bellies
To figure out what sea lions are eating—or not eating—Lowry has to track the end result: their poop. Four times a year, he visits the islands of San Clemente and San Nicolas, off the coast near Los Angeles. There, he spoons fecal material into a bag, targeting samples from adult females.
Back at the lab, he sifts through the poop to find the fishy bits, which help him figure out the species and sizes of fish the sea lions are eating. In a normal year, he would find plenty of sardines, anchovies, and market squid. In years where food is scarce, he tends to see uncommon prey species, such as bottom-feeding flatfish.
Pull Quote There’s a lot of death out there. – Mark Lowry
Samples from the 2013 stranding and from earlier this year look like what he’d expect when normal prey are scarce: “a hodgepodge of stuff.” The 2014 samples will have to wait for more funding.
“I have about 2,000 samples in the freezer right now,” he says. “I’m way behind because I don’t have any help.”
Clues to Causes
It's clear that the pups' main problem is a lack of food, rather than disease, but it's less certain what's wiping out food supplies from year to year, and whether the problem will persist. This year, the most likely culprit is that warm water blob, which has disrupted food webs and might also be killing masses of seabirds. But that blob wasn’t there during the earlier strandings, when oceanographic conditions looked much more normal.
It’s also uncertain whether prey populations have died out or simply relocated. In either case, sardine populations are low enough this year to close sardine fisheries off the West Coast.
Sea lions are considered sentinel species, which means they’re used as indicators of ocean health—and the indications aren’t looking good.home > interesting topics > experiences > michael jackson
Michael Jackson's life as a Jehovah's Witness
The following information comes predominantly from Michael's biography "Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness"[1] and La Toyo's autobiography "La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family".[2]
Katherine Jackson (Michael's mother) was baptised in 1963 when Michael was 5 years old. Michael was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and was active in meeting attendance and preaching until his disassociation in 1987. La Toya was also active during her teenage years. As of the time of writing this article in 2009, the only active Witnesses in the Jackson family are Katherine and Rebbie, whose husband is an elder. Michael's father, Joseph never adopted the religion.
"Katherine Jackson, a strong force in the lives of her children, passed on to them a deep and abiding respect for certain religious convictions. She had been a Baptist and then a Lutheran but turned from both faiths for the same reason: she discovered that the ministers were having extramarital affairs. When Michael was five years old Katherine became a Jehovah's Witness, converted by a door-to-door worker. She was baptised in 1963 in the swimming pool at Roosevelt High in Gary. From then on, she asked that the rest of the family get dressed in their best clothes every Sunday and walk with her to the Kingdom Hall, their place of worship." Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness p.17
Michael regularly went preaching, donning disguises to avoid recognition.
"Michael and I were very active in the Jehovah's Witness faith.... Five days a week the two of us and Mother studied the Bible at home and attended the Kingdom Hall.... Every morning Michael and I witnessed, knocking on doors around Los Angeles, spreading the word of Jehovah.... As my brother's fame grew, he had to don convincing disguises, like a rubber fat suit he bought years later,.." La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family pp.53-4.
By 1984, despite his tremendous fame and great fortune, Michael Jackson still continued door-to-door proselytizing for the Jehovah's Witness faith, 'twice a week, maybe for an hour or two,' according to Katherine. He also attended meetings at Kingdom Hall with his mother four time a week, when he was in town.
An example of a typical day of spreading The Word: wearing a disguise - a moustache, hat and glasses - and a tie and sweater, and holding a copy of Watchtower, Michael sttod at the door of an apartment in suburban Thousand Oaks, California, one morning in early 1984. 'I'm here to talk to you about God's word,' he told the young girl who answered the bell.
She slammed the door in his face.
He went to the next apartment....
More than ever before, Michael considered himself a strict Jehovah's Witness. He didn't believe in blood transfusions, Easter and Christmas (which he viewed as 'pagan holidays'), of the celebration of his own birthday....
Despite the fact that Michael was devout - and no doubt had donated quite a bit of money to the religion - the church's elders were upset with him in 1984, mostly because of the 'Thriller' video." Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness pp.269,270
It is not difficult to understand the unusual enigma that Michael became when considering the extremes of his upbringing. On one hand he had a violent, materialistic, philandering father. On the other hand was a loving mother attempting to indoctrinate him into her equally unbalanced Watchtower belief system. [3] To top it all off, from childhood to death he experienced a level of wealth, fame and recognition unequalled by almost any person to have ever lived, including the greatest leaders of previous centuries.
The confliction of ideas experienced between the example of the mother and father must have caused great confusion.
"At an early age, Michael received mixed signals about sex. The message from Katherine was loud and clear; with her strong faith as a Jehovah's Witness, lust in thought or in deed was considered sinful. According to 1 Corinthians 6:9, none of the unrighteous - 'neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate men, nor abusers of themselves with mankind' - would inherit the Kingdom of God. Therefore, physical intimacy was reserved for marriage.
However, from Joseph, who shunned the religion Katherine had embraced, the boys received a message that came more from his actions than from his words. He [Michael] must have been conflicted: he had an overly rigid view of the world from his mother and an overly promiscuous view of the world from his father.
One of The Jackson Five's early performance numbers was their rendition of soul singer Joe Tex's raucous 'Skinny Legs and All'. As part of the act, Joseph encourage your Michael to go into the audience, crawl under tables, lift up women's skirts, and peek at their panties. After a show like this one, the boys would go home to their religious mother, who would then tuck them into bed and remind them of the virtues of being a good Jehovah's Witness. She truly never knew anything about the nightclub act until many years later.
Of course, when the Jackson boys were on the road, Katherine remained at home with the younger children. Her absence gave Joseph carte blanche to date other women - mostly groupies. 'He used to do the meanest things to us,' Michael once told me of his father. He said he was revolted by the thought of whatever was occurring in Joseph's room with his girlfriends." Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness pp.30-32
As a Witness, Michael was taught that much of what he himself personally stood for was wrong, even evil. Consider the following Watchtower concepts:
Ambition and the pursuit of fame is wrong
Awake 2005 6/8 p.13 Is It Wrong to Be Ambitious? - "The Bible indicates that haughty ambition is linked to human imperfection.... Christians today take to heart Jesus words and humble themselves, while following the example of the aged apostle John, who learned to shun ambitious tendencies. For true Christians the subject of ambition does not present an ethical dilemma. Their Bible-trained consciences help them to shun ambition.
2005 6/8 p.13 Is It Wrong to Be Ambitious? - "The Bible indicates that haughty ambition is linked to human imperfection.... Christians today take to heart Jesus words and humble themselves, while following the example of the aged apostle John, who learned to shun ambitious tendencies. For true Christians the subject of ambition does not present an ethical dilemma. Their Bible-trained consciences help them to shun ambition.
Watchtower 1978 4/1 p.3 How Rewarding Is the Pursuit of Fame and Fortune? - "Clearly, the pursuit of fame and fortune is not satisfying. Since this is also true of other material goals, what should a person make his primary aim in life?... So, instead of looking enviously at the few who have attained fame and fortune, we will be content in having something far more valuablean approved relationship with the Most High."
1978 4/1 p.3 How Rewarding Is the Pursuit of Fame and Fortune? - "Clearly, the pursuit of fame and fortune is not satisfying. Since this is also true of other material goals, what should a person make his primary aim in life?... So, instead of looking enviously at the few who have attained fame and fortune, we will be content in having something far more valuablean approved relationship with the Most High." Love of money is evil
Awake 1997 9/22 p.14 What Is Wrong With Making Money? - "True, having money may give one a sense of freedom. But as Paul explains, in the long run, pursuing money can actually make one a slave to many senseless and hurtful desires, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. Yes, once the love of money sinks its teeth into you, covetousness, murderous jealousy, and other hurtful desires can dominate."
1997 9/22 p.14 What Is Wrong With Making Money? - "True, having money may give one a sense of freedom. But as Paul explains, in the long run, pursuing money can actually make one a slave to many senseless and hurtful desires, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. Yes, once the love of money sinks its teeth into you, covetousness, murderous jealousy, and other hurtful desires can dominate."
Watchtower 1997 3/15 p.20 - "If a Christian developed a love of money, he would cause himself much spiritual harm. The Pharisees were money lovers, and this is a trait of many in these last days. (Luke 16:14; 2 Timothy 3:1, 2) In contrast, a Christians manner of life should be free of the love of money.
1997 3/15 p.20 - "If a Christian developed a love of money, he would cause himself much spiritual harm. The Pharisees were money lovers, and this is a trait of many in these last days. (Luke 16:14; 2 Timothy 3:1, 2) In contrast, a Christians manner of life should be free of the love of money. Idolatry of human stars is unchristian
Watchtower 1996 6/15 p.18 - "Antitypical EgyptSatans worldvirtually worships entertainment. (1 John 5:19; Revelation 11:8) It idolizes actors, singers, and sports stars, as well as their dancing, their music, their concepts of fun and good times. Yet, today most worldly music, dancing, movies, and videos cater to corrupt fleshly desires.
1996 6/15 p.18 - "Antitypical EgyptSatans worldvirtually worships entertainment. (1 John 5:19; Revelation 11:8) It idolizes actors, singers, and sports stars, as well as their dancing, their music, their concepts of fun and good times. Yet, today most worldly music, dancing, movies, and videos cater to corrupt fleshly desires.
Watchtower 1993 1/15 pp.28-29 Guard Against Idolatry of Every Sort - "Gods people also refrain from idolizing the worlds stars of entertainment and sports.... But some come to view the artist as their ideal, and by putting him on a pedestal, they make him into an idol. They may hang the stars picture on the wall and begin to dress and groom themselves as he does. Christians need to keep in mind that adoration belongs only to God.
1993 1/15 pp.28-29 Guard Against Idolatry of Every Sort - "Gods people also refrain from idolizing the worlds stars of entertainment and sports.... But some come to view the artist as their ideal, and by putting him on a pedestal, they make him into an idol. They may hang the stars picture on the wall and begin to dress and groom themselves as he does. Christians need to keep in mind that adoration belongs only to God. Most modern music is unchristian
Watchtower 1996 6/15 p.18 - " Yet, today most worldly music, dancing, movies, and videos cater to corrupt fleshly desires."
Michael was accused of being homosexual. This too was a cause of guilt and shame.
"The truth is Michael would never have allowed himself to have homosexual relationships, even if he did have feelings for other men. He was too puritanical as a result of his religious background. The Jehovah's Witnesses firmly believe that world destruction is imminent and that only a few of God's servants will survive the horrible holocaust. If he wanted to be saved - if he wanted to be with his mother through all eternity - he would have to live up to all of the church's rigid teachings, which sure meant he couldn't be gay. Indulgence is not part of the Jehovah's Witnesses' creed. Any congregant who does not adhere to the rules and dogma is shunned or 'disfellowshipped'. By the time Michael was a teenager, he had been trained to live his life a certain way. He would not be able to break that conformity." Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness p.158
Michael was still a Witness at the time of releasing the Thriller album, causing a stir amongst the congregations. Michael appears in bed with a woman during a scene in Billy Jean and Thriller contained occult overtones. Sources within Michael's congregation claim he was publicly reproved for the Billy Jean video, and it is interesting that the Watchtower went to the effort to include a public apology from Michael regarding the Thriller video clip in a 1984 edition of the Awake.
"In another popular video, Thriller, the performer is seen to transform first into a "cat person," then a dancing "monster." Evidently not wanting viewers to conclude that it promoted spiritism, the film begins with the disclaimer: "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.-Michael Jackson." Nevertheless, it was so realistic that some who saw it admitted that they were horrified at first. What was this short film intended to convey? And how does the performer, Michael Jackson, feel about it in looking back? "I would never do it again!" says Jackson. "I just intended to do a good, fun short film, not to purposely bring to the screen something to scare people or to do anything bad. I want to do what's right. I would never do anything like that again." Why not? "Because a lot of people were offended by it," explains Jackson. "That makes me feel bad. I don't want them to feel that way. I realize now that it wasn't a good idea. I'll never do a video like that again!" He continues: "In fact, I have blocked further distribution of the film over which I have control, including its release in some other countries. There's all kinds of promotional stuff being proposed on Thriller. But I tell them, 'No, no, no. I don't want to do anything on Thriller. No more Thriller.'"" Awake! 1984 May 22 pp.19-20
In 1987, Michael disassociated himself from the Watchtower Society.
"At this same time, the Jehovah's Witnesses' elders in Woodland Hills, California, began pressuring Michael again. They felt strongly that the recent publicity on the Witnesses was doing them great damage, and that it reflected poorly on the Witnesses, because Michael was so representative of the faith. Michael was becoming disenchanted with the church's elders by this time, mostly because he didn't wan to be told what to do. What's more he couldn't reconcile his lifestyle and career with the religion's strict tenets. In truth, it's almost impossible to be a Jehovah's Witness and be an entertainer. Therefore, in the spring of 1987, Michael withdrew from the Jehovah's Witnesses. A letter from the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, sent as a press release, stated that the organization 'no longer considers Michael Jackson to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses.' Gary Botting, author of The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses and a Witness himself, said that leaving the religion is 'worse than being disfellowshipped, or kicked out." He observed, 'if you wilfully reject God's holy organization on earth, that's the unforgivable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit.'
Michael's decision to leave the church puzzled his mother, Katherine, and caused her great despair. Katherine wasn't sure she knew her own son any longer. However, there was no discussing the spiritual matter with him - literally. As it is strictly prohibited for a Witness to discuss matters of faith with ex-members, even if they are family, Katherine says that she has never asked Michael what happened, and she says that she never intends to ask such questions. 'I was not required to "shun" my son,' she claimed, referring to rumours of that nature. 'But we can't talk about matters of faith any longer, which is a shame.'" Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness p.363
The publicity surrounding Michael's disassociation promoted the Watchtower headquarters to send the following letter to the Body of elder's and Circuit Overseers explaining how to reply to questions.
Even after Michael disassociated in 1987 he likely still suffered greatly from guilt, as he retained much of the Watchtower belief system. By disassociating, Michael now became part of the group that the Watchtower classifies as the AntiChrist and as such to be hated by Witnesses.
"Such ones willfully abandoning the Christian congregation thereby become part of the 'antichrist.'" Watchtower 1985 Jul 15 p.31
"Our attitude toward apostates should be that of David, who declared: "Do I not hate those who are intensely hating you" Watchtower 1992 Jul 15 pp.12-13
In 1993, Elizabeth Taylor organised Michael's first Christmas celebration. The following home video show's Michael's excitement but also discusses his guilt, feeling what he was doing was wrong.
Of the Jackson children, Rebbie, La Toya and Michael were the most devoted Witnesses. The disfellowshipping of La Toya contributed to Michael disassociating, as he could not accept the elders right to dictate that he could no longer associate with his sister. La Toya writes:
"... because we were supposed to associate exclusively with other members, Michael and I made few friends at the private high school... We did, however, become close with another [Jehovah's] Witness. Darles was my first and only friend outside the family, and I treasured the time we spent together.... Each day at lunch the three of us studied the Bible together. She also joined us at |
Eula Mae Williams, but other relatives descended from Robert Johnson's half-sister, Carrie Harris Thompson, contested Claud Johnson's claim. The effect of the judgment was to allow Claud Johnson to receive over $1 million in royalties.[98] Claud Johnson died, aged 83, on June 30, 2015, leaving six children.[99]
Other Robert Johnsons [ edit ]
The Radiolab podcast "Crossroads", broadcast initially April 16, 2012, on NPR, raises the possibility that more than one Robert Johnson was traveling around the region making music at the time of the subject's life — perhaps confusing related biographical information. Producers of the show spoke with Tom Graves, Elijah Wald, David Evans, and Robert "Mack" McCormick to support this theory. The death certificate attributed to Johnson, for example, indicates on the reverse side that (possibly another) Robert Johnson came to the area to play banjo (not guitar) and died of syphilis. This could help explain some of the confusion surrounding Johnson's cause of death.
Johnson was also reportedly seen twice after his supposed death, once in 1939 and another time in Memphis in 1941.[100] Tapes of a Ledell Johnson (no relation), indicate an intention to spin a devil-at-the-crossroads story — one that may have transferred somehow to Johnson.
Discography [ edit ]
Eleven 78-rpm records by Johnson were released by Vocalion Records during his lifetime. A twelfth was issued posthumously.[101] Johnson's estate holds the copyrights to his songs.
In 1961, Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers on vinyl, the album representing the first modern-era release of Johnson's performances, which started the "re-discovery" of Johnson as blues artist.
Columbia Records issued a second volume, King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II, in 1970.
The Complete Recordings, a two-disc set, released on August 28, 1990, contains almost everything Johnson recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes. (Another alternate take of "Traveling Riverside Blues" which was released by Sony on the CD King of the Delta Blues Singers and was included in early printings of the paperback edition of Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta.)[102]
To celebrate Johnson's 100th birthday, May 8, 2011, Sony Legacy released Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection, a re-mastered 2-CD set of all 42 of his recordings[103] and two brief fragments, one of Johnson practicing a guitar figure and the other of Johnson saying, presumably to engineer Don Law, "I wanna go on with our next one myself."[103] Reviewers commented that the sound quality of the 2011 release was a substantial improvement on the 1990 release.[104]
Awards and recognitions [ edit ]
Grammy Awards [ edit ]
Year Category Title Genre Label Results 1990 Best Historical Album The Complete Recordings Blues Sony/Columbia Legacy Winner
Grammy Hall of Fame [ edit ]
Year Recorded Title Genre Label Year Inducted 1936 Cross Road Blues Blues (Single) Vocalion 1998
National Recording Registry [ edit ]
The National Recording Preservation Board added The Complete Recordings to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2003.[105] The board annually selects songs that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" for inclusion in the Registry.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [ edit ]
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included four songs by Johnson in its list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".[106] A memorial to him reads, "Robert Johnson stands at the crossroads of American music, much as a popular folk legend has it he once stood at Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar-playing prowess.[3]
Blues Foundation awards [ edit ]
Robert Johnson: Blues Music Awards[107] Year Category Title Result 1991 Vintage or Reissue Album The Complete Recordings Winner
Honors and inductions [ edit ]
On September 17, 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Robert Johnson 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.[108]
Tribute albums [ edit ]
Tribute albums to Robert Johnson include the following:
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]Bernie Sanders did not have a good night on Tuesday, losing all five contests in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, and even Missouri. The major networks are writing his political obituary–they chose not to broadcast his speech, instead choosing to stand by for more Donald Trump. So how bad is it really?
As some of you might remember, 538 came out with a set of demographic projections to simulate a race between Sanders and Clinton under two different sets of conditions–one in which Sanders trails Clinton by 12 points, and another in which they are tied nationally. I have been checking the results against these projections. Positive numbers indicate a Sanders margin of victory, negative numbers indicate a Clinton margin. Green numbers indicate that Sanders is ahead of the tie projection, red numbers indicate that he is behind. Here’s where we are now:
When we last talked about these figures after Super Tuesday, (when Alabama was in but Kansas wasn’t in yet), I pointed out that Sanders tended to exceed the tie projection in the north, but to massively under-perform in the south. Large Clinton margins in Florida and North Carolina are consistent with that. The projections expected Sanders to lose Illinois even in a tied contest, and he lost it by a smaller margin than the tie projection indicated. Missouri was expected to be close, and while Sanders is surely disappointed to lose it narrowly rather than win it narrowly, this does not make much difference to the delegate count. But what about Ohio?
The tie projection called for Sanders to lose Ohio by single digits, and he lost it by double digits. It’s nearly in line with the 12 point gap projection, and those numbers are not consistent with winning. Outside the south, there is only one other state where Sanders performed like he was down by 12–Massachusetts. Each time he loses a northern state by figures in line with the down 12 projections, his margin of error gets markedly smaller.
But Bernie Sanders still thinks he can win. He says:
With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination.
How can Bernie Sanders think this? He’s noticed something about Ohio that explains why it wasn’t a close contest like Illinois or Michigan even though demographically it’s a similar kind of state–the turnout figures were completely different.
In Michigan, the democrats and the republicans both turned out nearly the same number of voters:
Sanders won Michigan, but by less than the demographic tie projection.
In Illinois, the democrats did much better than the republicans on turnout:
Sanders didn’t win Illinois, but he exceeded the demographic tie projection, which is from his point of view more important.
But in Ohio? The democrats got slammed on turnout:
Ohio is an open primary, which means that you can choose which party’s primary you prefer to participate in. Sanders is likely thinking that many people chose to vote for home state governor John Kasich in an attempt to stump the Trump. While Kasich did win Ohio, this effort is clearly failing nationwide–last night Trump won every state except Ohio, forcing Marco Rubio to drop out. Rejuvenated by his success in Ohio, Kasich now plans to stay in, and this will continue to prevent the republican establishment’s Trump ceiling theory from being tested (this theory claims that Trump has a “ceiling” of about 40% nationally, and that if the republicans field a single anti-Trump candidate, that candidate can defeat Trump). So the Kasich voters have not really accomplished anything–indeed, by keeping Kasich in the race, they have arguably aided and abetted Trump. In the meantime, they have made it harder for Sanders to look viable in future contests. Ohioans are just facilitating a Clinton/Trump race, which for most Americans is a lesser of two evils choice between the most unpopular democratic candidate in history (-12.0 favorability net score) and the most unpopular republican candidate in history (-29.1 favorability).
But if you’re Bernie Sanders, you don’t fall into the pit of despair. You look at Ohio and you think “Ohio is the exception, Illinois and Michigan are the rule–John Kasich isn’t the governor of the rest of the states on the calendar”. You look ahead at that calendar, and you see that even if you’re down 12 points nationally, you stand to win 7 of the next 8 states, and if you hit or exceed the tie projection going forward, you could win as many as 13 in a row:
There are no states that are unambiguously against Sanders until Maryland on April 26. Sanders needs big margins of victory in the western states followed by wins in New York, Pennsylvania, and California. Can he do it? It’s far from probable, but it might be possible.
For the record, I don’t think Bernie Sanders is going to beat Hillary Clinton. I don’t think enough democrats recognize how much this primary matters or how electable Sanders is. But there are so many people who are happy to tell you that Sanders is finished, that he has no chance at all. I don’t think he has no chance at all. At this point his chance is quite small, but when was he ever the favorite to win against Clinton? Sanders has always been a dark horse. The horse may be a shade darker now, but it still has legs and it continues to run. There’s certainly no cost to betting on a dark horse in the primaries.Earlier this year at Nokia’s event in Mobile World Congress, the company announced that Withings’ connected health devices would be transferred to the Nokia brand. Today, the rebranded line has completed the transition to Nokia, and it’s now available with some notable differences.
For starters, there are now two new products. The new Nokia Body scale is $59.95, while the original Withings Body has been renamed to "Body+." The Body Cardio scale is still available under the new Nokia branding. Nokia has also introduced BPM+, a premium version of Withings’ existing blood-pressure monitor priced at $129.95, featuring a new soft cuff.
Withings’ digital health products now live under the Nokia name
Other Withings devices to make the rebranding transition include Go, an activity and sleep tracker; Home, a video and air quality monitor; and Thermo, a connected temporal thermometer.
Nokia also overhauled Withings’ Health Mate app, which collects information from the devices to give insight on weight, activity, sleep, and blood pressure. The app now has an enhanced navigation, eight-week wellness programs with personalized content, and five new programs: Sleep Smarter, Better Body (available for pre-order), Pregnancy Tracker, Healthier Heart, and Leaderboard.
Some of the products from the Withings portfolio won't be available right away, while others will be discontinued. For instance, the Steel HR will be added to Nokia's lineup this fall.
Nokia’s digital health products can now be purchased at health.nokia.com, with select items also available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Bed, Bath & Beyond.Image caption Anti-government protesters have been shot at for a second day, witnesses say
Security forces in Yemen have fired on anti-government protesters for a second day, killing four people and wounding several, doctors say.
Troops opened fire on tens of thousands of people marching in the capital Sanaa to call for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's resignation, witnesses say.
At least 12 people were killed and 80 people wounded in a similar protest on Saturday.
President Saleh has been battling eight months of street protests.
He has so far resisted calls from many Western countries to end his 33-year rule, despite saying on several occasions he was prepared to do so.
Al-Qaeda death
The protesters, camped out in Sanaa's Change Square, were trying to march towards the presidential palace when they were targeted by security forces, witnesses said.
Yemen's protests 27 Jan: Thousands take to the streets in Sanaa and southern cities urging President Saleh to quit; weeks of mass protests follow
Thousands take to the streets in Sanaa and southern cities urging President Saleh to quit; weeks of mass protests follow 18 Mar: 52 protesters killed by snipers; Mr Saleh declares state of emergency
52 protesters killed by snipers; Mr Saleh declares state of emergency 21 Mar: Several senior army commanders defect to join the protesters
Several senior army commanders defect to join the protesters 23 Apr: Mr Saleh says he will stand down within weeks; he later appears to renege on the deal
Mr Saleh says he will stand down within weeks; he later appears to renege on the deal 24 May: Clashes erupt between Saleh loyalists and tribal groups; dozens die in days of fighting
Clashes erupt between Saleh loyalists and tribal groups; dozens die in days of fighting 3 Jun: Shells hit presidential compound, injuring Mr Saleh; he leaves the country for treatment
Shells hit presidential compound, injuring Mr Saleh; he leaves the country for treatment 18 Sep: Government forces launch crackdown on protester camps; more than 50 die in two days
Government forces launch crackdown on protester camps; more than 50 die in two days 23 Sep: President Saleh returns to Yemen Yemen Crisis: Who could take over
Mohammed al-Qubati, the director of a makeshift hospital set up at the protest site in Sanaa, confirmed to the Associated Press that the death toll had risen to four and at least 37 people were injured.
On Saturday, witnesses said protesters were marching to an area controlled by the elite Republican Guard force, which is loyal to the president, when they were attacked.
Mr Saleh returned to Yemen unexpectedly last month from Saudi Arabia, where he had been receiving treatment after his office was attacked in June.
As well as street protests, he faces an insurrection by renegade army units.
Mr Saleh has repeatedly refused to sign a transition deal brokered by Gulf states, first presented in March, whereby he would hand over power to his vice-president in return for immunity from prosecution.
Separately, the media chief of militant group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was reportedly killed in an air strike on Friday.
Yemen's defence ministry said on Saturday that Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian national, and at least six other militants, had been killed in Shabwa province.Family bibles are heirlooms that provide tangible connections to family roots and key clues in genealogy research, so it’s crucial to store them properly to preserve the past.
Most family Bibles contain careful handwritten records of important family events, including births, marriages and deaths. Many also hold an array of ephemera between their pages — from locks of hair tied with ribbons to old tintypes, news clippings and family lore.
When dancer-choreographer Noelle Andressen inherited an over 100-year-old family Bible, she consulted a museum curator to learn how to store it correctly. The Bible belonged to her great grandfather, a Lutheran minister who preached at a humble countryside church in upstate New York.
“What I like most about it: the surprises and symbolism behind the family stories that it represents,” said Andressen, who lives in New York and Los Angeles.
Precious Memories
Andressen found dried violets pressed in the book of Genesis, and she remembers her grandmother telling stories of how her own father — Andressen’s great-grandfather — plunked the Bible on the pulpit with a thud every Sunday.
“Family Bibles were central to many families, so if you have one, you’re pretty lucky,” said Melissa Barker, certified archives manager for Houston County, TN.
Over the years, Barker has seen many Bibles, including one that chronicled family adventures traveling out West for the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, with notes from the trip penned on the insides of the cover and in the margins of pages. Family Bibles are “wonderful treasures for a family to have,” she said.
So, if you just inherited a Bible that has been passed down through your family for generations, or you’ve been feeling guilty because you have one sitting around collecting dust, here’s what to do:
1. Scan Important Pages
Use a scanner to copy the pages where important family events were recorded in pen or pencil, recommends Pat Richley-Erickson — aka “Dear Myrtle” — who offers tips and advice on her genealogy blog. You can simply take the book to a local office supply store that has a large scanner, or use a handheld scanner if the book is very delicate. Another option is to use your smartphone or tablet to snap photos, then use a scanner app to create a neat-looking page. You can also scan objects, such as locks of hair or photos, that you found in the Bible. Scanning allows you to keep a digital record to share quickly with relatives without having to open the Bible, except for special occasions like family reunions.
2. Get an Archival Bible Box.
Don’t store your family Bible in a traditional wooden Bible box because off-gassing can damage the cover and pages, the American Library Association warns. Instead, order a true acid-free archival storage box from a reputable supplier, such as Gaylord, Hollinger Metal Edge or University Products. The Bible should fit snugly, but not too tightly, inside the box. If necessary, crumple up some archival tissue paper to pad the extra space so the Bible doesn’t move around and get damaged, Barker suggests.
If there are items stuffed in between the pages, take photos to document their original location within the book, then place them in archival sleeves or in smaller archival boxes that can be put inside the main box with the Bible. Finally, consider placing archival tissue paper between any pages with handwriting to avoid ink bleeding onto pages over time, Barker said.
3. Choose the Right Storage Spot.
House the box in cool, dry place away from humidity and direct sunlight.
“The interior of a closet works well, the darker the better,” Barker said.
However, make sure air circulates freely in the space. Avoid sticking the box in an attic, basement or stuffy room, where it can be damaged by fluctuating temperatures and humidity — and don’t set it on the floor.
“You never know when a dishwasher will overflow or pipes will burst,” Barker said.
And don’t place your family Bible in a self-storage unit, warns Richley-Erickson, who owns a self-storage business in Washington State. Even a climate-controlled unit might not provide the consistent temperatures needed to keep your Bible safe, she said.
4. Lay it Flat
Finally, don’t make common Bible storage mistakes like setting a family Bible upright on a bookshelf as if it were an ordinary book. Standing an old book on end puts pressure on the spine, causing it to deteriorate, Barker said.
5. Take it Out When the Time is Right
Andressen also said she avoids taking her treasured Bible out of its box in humid weather.
“The pages can warp,” she said.
Limit the number of occasions you remove the Bible from its storage place to avoid exposure. It is always a good idea to wear archival gloves to keep oily fingertips from damaging pages.
If you follow these simple steps, your family Bible should last to get passed down to continue telling your family story.За 5 місяців 2017 року 2300 росіян не пропустили в Україну українські прикордонники. Такі дані на запит "Знай.ua" надала прес-служба Держприкордонслужби.
У минулому році в Україну не змогли в'їхати 5800 росіян, в 2015 році - понад 10 тисяч, а ось пік випав на 2014-й: тоді у в'їзді в країну Держприкордонслужба відмовила 15 тис. росіян.
Найбільш часті причини відмови: перевищення термінів перебування, порушення правил перебування, непідтвердження мети поїздки.
Цікаво, що 90% росіян їдуть в Україну безпосередньо через кордон України і Росії і лише 10% - через Білорусь, Молдову та інші сусідні держави.
За даними відомства, за 5 місяців цього року україно-російський кордон перетнули понад 4,1 млн росіян і українців. У минулому році ця цифра була на рівні 11 млн, в 2015 році - 10,9 млн, в 2014-му - 13,9 млн громадян.
Українських громадян, які перетнули кордон в цьому році, вже підрахували - близько 3,1 млн. У минулому році понад 11 млн українців перетнули російсько-український кордон, в 2015-му ця цифра була на рівні 7,9 млн, а в 2014-му - 8,5 млн.
За даними Держприкордонслужби, в нинішньому році за 5 місяців усього 523 тисячі росіян приїхали в Україну, а в минулому ця цифра складала 1,3 млн.The New York Times ran a frontpage investigative report on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders‘ early political history on July 4th. But buried in the piece is the bizarre fact that Sanders once questioned whether or not cancer– and cervical cancer in particular– was caused by a lack of orgasms.
Sanders once wrote for a Vermont left-wing revolutionary paper called “The Freeman.” Many of his contributions were a bit kooky, such as one claiming the U.S. was on the brink of nuclear annihilation or “death by poison gas.” But perhaps the craziest was Sanders’ take on cancer:
Mr. Sanders contributed only sporadically… [H]e cited studies claiming that cancer could be caused by psychological factors such as unresolved hostility toward one’s mother, a tendency to bury aggression beneath a “facade of pleasantness” and having too few orgasms. “Sexual adjustment seemed to be very poor in those with cancer of the cervix,” he wrote, quoting a study in a journal called Psychosomatic Medicine.
This should go without saying, but there is no evidence that orgasms have anything to do with cancer or cervical cancer.
[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comState officials ask energy firms to disclose 'fracking' sites
The Brown administration is planning a statewide tour to hear residents complaints about the controversial oil extraction method.
Regulators have yet to develop rules or reporting requirements for the procedure in California, the fourth largest oil-producing state in the nation. Only 78 of the tens of thousands of oil field injection wells in California, where fracking might occur, are listed on a national fracking registry.
The administration plans to undertake a statewide "listening" tour for public comment on an extraction technique that until now has drawn the greatest attention in the Rocky Mountain West and Northeast, where the discovery of toxic chemicals in drinking water near fracking operations has sparked calls for moratoriums and more regulation.
State environmental officials last week requested that energy companies disclose where they conduct "fracking" operations and what chemicals they inject into the ground to tap oil deposits. They also were considering whether to launch an independent study to assess effects of the practice.
SACRAMENTO –The Brown administration is scrambling to convince an increasingly wary public that state regulators are getting a handle on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial oil extraction method that can pose a hazard to drinking water.
Though officials maintain that existing laws protect the state's drinking water, they acknowledge they have little information about the scale or practice of fracking, causing growing anxiety in communities from Culver City to Monterey. The energy industry is touting the potential of the procedure here to tap the largest oil shale formation in the continental United States.
Mark Nechodom, director of the Department of Conservation, sought to assure lawmakers last week that the state was taking the issue seriously.
"If there's been any impression that [the administration] has dismissed or ignored public concern about fracking, I apologize but it's simply not true," he said. "We share the concern."
Lawmakers were not convinced. At a hearing Wednesday, they blasted the administration's actions as little more than cosmetic tweaks, saying that regulations are long overdue for a state that is widely considered the birthplace of the modern environmental movement. Separately, they are pushing legislation that would require oil companies to disclose where they employ the procedure, what chemicals they use and how much water they pump. The bill stalled last year after objections by the energy industry.
"What the Legislature clearly has been saying we want is information and regulations," said Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael). "And we don't have either."
The lower house's subcommittee on resources tabled the administration's request for an additional 18 positions in the state's oil and gas agency, noting that 35 positions had already been approved in the last two years, in part to develop fracking regulations. The state's nonpartisan legislative analyst reported that 13 of those slots remain vacant.
"To kind of just go along and wait for a study…really isn't acceptable," said Assemblywoman Betsy Butler (D-Marina del Rey). "There are other states who have prevented fracking from taking place until they have put those regulations into place. So why would California allow this to be happening without regulations?"
Nechodom, a former senior adviser and scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told lawmakers he was "a bit surprised" that California had no regulations on fracking, a common procedure at wells statewide, when Brown appointed him conservation director in December.
Still, he said, crafting rules would be tricky.
Monitoring fracking in oil fields would require more staff in an agency that Nechodom described as short-handed and overworked. And though he said California's geology makes fracking safer here than in the Rocky Mountain West or Northeast, regulators are at the whims of energy companies when it comes to detecting damage.
"The industry outguns us in information by orders of magnitude, with their 3-D modeling," Nechodom said. "We simply have to take their word for it unless we develop some other technique for modeling."NBA analyst suspended after punching a colleague
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Last Monday, a controversial offensive interference call kept the Denver Nuggets' win streak alive in Chicago and handed the Chicago Bulls a 119-118 loss in overtime. Comcast SportsNet Chicago analyst and former Chicago Bull Kendall Gill — who played for seven NBA teams over a 15-year career — wasn't happy with the call and made his feelings known on air, saying the Bulls "had one taken from them."
The next day, Gill participated in a taping of Sports Talk Live, along with other area media members, including Big Ten Network analyst Tim Doyle. Gill and Doyle disagreed on whether the referees had cost the Bulls a win, and the disagreement turned physical after the taping of Sports Talk Live was over.
Via Chicago Business:
"Mr. Gill approached Mr. Doyle and called him out for his comments, which escalated to a shoving match and ultimately Mr. Gill throwing a punch at Mr. Doyle. The two bumped up against a sign on the wall and a small amount of blood was drawn (though it was unclear exactly how) before the two were separated."
Comcast SportsNet has decided to suspend Gill for the remainder of the season, according to the Chicago Tribune.
"We have made a decision to not have Kendall Gill appear on our air for the remainder of the Bulls season. We will re-evaluate our current position on this matter during the off-season."
(Thanks to the Chicago Tribune for bringing this to our attention.)
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/10y0CNQ“There is no way a man like Donald Trump has any business being president,” the man told me. “You can’t talk like he does and expect people to give you the authority to run the country. The problem is that there is nobody to vote for. Look at all the rest of them running. This is the first time in my life that I don’t feel confident voting for anybody for president.”
And later, with a look of pained resignation on his face: “I tell you, people who don’t think this country is in serious trouble don’t know what they’re talking about. You can see it all over. It’s unwinding.”
I talked to the man, a conservative, at one of the events I went to over the weekend. Mind you, I am in a foul mood. I am three and a half weeks into this sinus infection I picked up in Italy. Antibiotics were only partly successful, and this past weekend, it started showing signs of possibly becoming walking pneumonia. So that’s just thrilling. I tell you this in case my comments here come across as more gloomy than usual.
Over the weekend, I had to drag my cranky self to several events in Baton Rouge and around my town — made much less cranky, although only temporarily, by the magic of a steroid injection — and ended up having some good Trumpish conversations at all of them. “Good” in the sense of people clearly having thought hard about our political situation, and being pretty worried about it. My supposition is that most of these people are fairly conservative, though in one case I spoke with someone who is active in Democratic Party politics. The sense of foreboding I picked up was deep, and went way beyond politics. I’m going to convey to you details I gathered, though I’m going to obscure some of them to protect identities.
One conversation I had at a Baton Rouge event involved a middle-aged white woman who was a longtime public school teacher in a predominantly black school. She is a Christian, and said that if she had not been able to see the face of Jesus in every one of her students, she wouldn’t have been able to stay at it for as long as she did. The problems of her students were completely overwhelming.
“For a long time, we had grandmothers raising children, because the mothers of our kids were strung out on drugs,” she said. “We used to be able to talk to the grandmothers, to let them know what was going on with their kids, by going out to the churches. Over time, the grandmothers slowly dropped out of church. Nowadays, most of them don’t go. We kept seeing grandmothers encouraging their teenage grandchildren to have babies to get another check.”
“That sounds unreal,” I said.
“I know, but it’s happening,” she said, with a look of sorrow. “I had an 18-year-old senior who had three children. Now, we don’t even know who is raising some of these kids.”
A white college professor told me he’s blown away by how hard his working-class students, especially the black ones, work in the face of the desperate circumstances in which they were raised. He said that most of the students who make it into his classes are older, and are not there to play college. They want to learn something, and work. The lives so many of them come out of were badly broken by their parents, or parent.
The professor said that some of the writing assignments his students get involve personal essays. The things they tell you about the lives they have, and have had growing up, boggle the middle-class mind. He said that getting to know these students over the years has made him acutely aware of how devastating divorce is, or having parents who never married. He told a couple of stories that I don’t feel comfortable relating here, even in this vague way. Heartbreaking stuff.
I mentioned to this professor, and to one of his colleagues, a conversation I had had several years ago with professors at a conservative Christian college, in which they expressed deep concern that their students would ever be able to form stable families. This had shocked me because this school was, well, religious, and conservative. How could these kids be so unaware of what a family is, according to the traditional Christian model? The professors (at that Christian college) assured me that it’s not a matter of knowing in your head, but rather a matter of not ever having seen a stable, intact, functional family. The ideal family for them is an abstraction.
These are not the unchurched poor of the housing project or the trailer park. These are middle-class Christian kids. When I told that story to the professors this weekend, they nodded in recognition. They see it too. Every day.
Also over the weekend, I talked to someone who is an administrator at a Catholic school. She said that the teachers at her school say that they are having the worst time trying to get the kids to write logically coherent papers. They simply do not seem to grasp cause and effect. These are not the poor. These are middle class kids. The administrator is baffled and alarmed.
I mentioned to the administrator a conversation I had earlier had with a man whose job as a counselor brings him into daily contact with the public, and who had said to me — in a Trump-related conversation — how frustrated he was with the middle and upper-middle class people he works with. He said that their family life could be falling apart, but they will not accept responsibility for it. They will go to the mat defending indefensible behavior from their children, and defending their own parenting.
The cases, said the man, can be shocking in their obviousness, but these middle-class parents absolutely refuse to look critically at themselves and the way they live, and raise their children. He said that it’s very difficult to pierce the shield of self-protection and self-deception that these people have erected around themselves. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
“Their kids have no direction,” he said. “I’ll have in my office college-age young people with strong test scores and good grades, but no direction. They’re just drifting, and they’re getting no direction from their parents.”
The counselor is around my age. I suggested to him that our generation was not raised that way, but that’s how we seem to be raising our kids.
“This is new,” he said. “I don’t know where this comes from.”
Again: he’s not talking about the poor or the working class. He’s talking about middle class people. He’s talking about the kind of people who look at the dysfunctional black and white poor and working classes and think, thank God I’m not like them.
But they are like them. They just have money. For now.
Anyway, I brought up the counselor’s conversation to the Catholic school administrator, and she shook her head affirmatively.
“All the time,” she said. And she gave examples of the way middle-class parents treat her and her teachers. It’s always Somebody Else’s Fault. Everybody wants to blame Somebody Else for their troubles, the administrator said. I suggested that there is a connection between this and the kids in her school being unable to write papers demonstrating logical, cause-and-effect reasoning. People have become used to thinking of themselves passively, as objects acted upon, instead of acting subjects.
Another person, a Christian, said to me, later, “I’m sick of churches these days. Everything is geared towards ‘meeting your needs.’ They have so many ministries and programs for every possible group, and don’t get me wrong, a lot of them do real good. But the overall effect is to train us to expect to be catered to. If somebody isn’t meeting our needs, then somebody is failing us. That’s the mindset. But that’s not Christianity. It’s supposed to be hard! It’s the Cross!”
A reader sent in the other day this passage from FDR’s 1932 Inaugural (emphasis his):
“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose. Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations. Blame not Governments alone for this. Blame ourselves in equal share. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same, I reckon.
Honestly, I’ve had it with people. I’ve had it with Trump supporters who think their anger and their outrage gives them the right to punch people in the face. I’ve had it with Black Lives Matter and other Social Justice Warriors who think the so-called righteousness of their cause gives them the right to silence those who disagree with them. I’m sick and tired of people who think everything wrong in their lives is because somebody, somewhere, has wronged them. Guess what? You can’t screw whoever you like, have as many kids as you like, or as many partners as you like, walk away from your marriage (if you ever marry), and expect everything to be okay. You can’t drink, drug, party, “keep it real,” make excuses for your children, make excuses for yourself, allow our degraded popular culture to raise your kids, and expect a good outcomes. You can’t throw money at problems and expect them to go away (e.g., pay to send your kids to a Christian school, and assume that your tuition fee contractually entitles you to opt out of the moral and spiritual formation of your children), or assume that being a Nice Middle-Class Person is sufficient. It’s not. I’m tired of the rich and the middle class who expect everything to be handed to them, and fall to pieces when it isn’t. I’m tired of the working class and the poor who live as if their relative material deprivation gives them a pass from having to live by basic standards of conduct that most everybody understood and affirmed within living memory, but which are all but forgotten today.
Above all, I’m tired of a culture in which so many people have no idea how to tell themselves no, to anything, ever. A culture of entitlement. Believe me, I’m talking to myself as well. This is the beginning of Lent for us Orthodox Christians, and I am taking inventory of my own tendencies to sin, to disorder, and I don’t like what I see. You might try it too.
Consider too Canto XVI from Dante’s Purgatorio, in which the pilgrim Dante encounters Marco the Lombard on the terrace of Wrath, and discusses with him the cause of the anarchy and violence in Italy. I wrote about this in this space a couple of years ago. Excerpt:
In less poetic language, Marco concedes that we all have inclinations toward sin, |
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